If the Teabaggers are so anti-gay-relationships, why does Christine O’Donnell look and sound like the illegitimate offspring of Sarah Palin and Kathryn Jean Lopez?
Speaking of unnatural bastards, the Rise of the Loontards is really bringing all the ancient Reptoids out from under their rocks. First thing Wednesday morning, I got a press-release email from Richard Viguerie, Mengele of the Repub Ratfvckers and Karl Rove’s spiritual godfather, who has slithered back into the public purview to disown his reality-infected spawn:
“GOP leaders — Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, John Boehner, Karl Rove and others — as well as establishment Republicans have no idea how livid Americans are with them. Republican leaders are in a panic because they have lost control of the Republican Party. Grassroots constitutional conservatives are inside the Citadel, and are poised to take over…
__
Christine O’Donnell’s inspiring upset in Delaware, Ovide Lamontagne’s populist and improbable surge in New Hampshire, Carl Paladino’s trouncing of Rick Lazio in New York — and previous primary wins by Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Joe Miller, etc. — all have been the result of the grassroots uprising against big government and the ‘ruling class,’ and in spite of the GOP establishment. Never before in American history has a movement made such momentous change in such a short period of time. As Reagan said in 1976, Americans want new leaders unfettered by old ties and old relationships.
__
The symbolically stupid decision last night by the National Republican Senatorial Committee not to fund Christine O’Donnell’s general election campaign, which it reversed this morning only after a massive grassroots uproar, and Karl Rove’s meltdown on Fox’s Hannity show will only fuel further primary challenges to GOP political leaders.
__
Current GOP leaders not ‘retired’ in 2010, will be in 2012 and 2014, and can join their former colleagues, such as Trent Lott, on the K Street lobbying circuit. And, they should get used to saying, ‘Majority Leader DeMint.'”
And Gawker awarded their “Comment of the Day” to ShaunTKennedy:
Lesson (one would hope) learned by the GOP: when you hand the car keys to the unmedicated bi-polar alcoholic with the messianic complex, don’t be surprised if you end up driving off a bridge as a trust exercise with Jesus.
Sideshow Bill
As I commented yesterday on a post, O’Donnell is the result of Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin having a child, and homeschooling it.
MattF
Certainly is a lot of smoke around here. I can hardly see my popcorn.
eemom
I thought Viguerie was dead.
No, that’s Lee Atwater. Whatever.
Once again, the sight of these loathsome goals feeding on each others’ rancid flesh is a joy to behold.
So much for St Ronnie’s “eleventh commandment.” THAT grinning corpse must be writhing in its grave.
Kryptik
God abhors trust exercises. That’s why he gave people brains and common sense. So why is it that his most ardent ‘followers’ seem to believe that faith requires they abandon both?
over_educated
Begun, the Clown Wars have.
Scott
I need to make a list of all these Teabag Triumphalists so I can e-mail ’em after the election and ask ’em how much they enjoyed getting skunked…
...now I try to be amused
@eemom:
Ah, but to the teabaggers, the “RINOs” are not Republicans. And vice versa, it seems.
eric
@Kryptik: um, the Biblical folk will point you to Abraham and Isaac.
jayboat
@MattF:
I am seriously thinking of investing in popcorn futures.
catclub
So far as I can remember, NO far right tea party type candidate has won election to the Senate or House – or Governor – since all the special elections so far have either been won by
non (anti) tea party GOP (Chris Christie, Brown in Mass)
or by democrats in almost all of the house special elections.
All the tea party wins have been in GOP primaries. Until this changes, they really are not popular with the general electorate.
The fact that the far right is turning its wrath on the ‘practical’ (Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are not moderate) right, is the big story. If DeMint becomes minority leader it will be an ever shrinking minority.
Bobby Thomson
@eric: I’ll raise you Luke 4:12.
Proving once again Updike’s aphorism.
Linda Featheringill
Oh, a civil war within the Republican Party! How delicious!
I am not sure if it will have any fallout on us. I do suspect that it is going to happen no matter what we DFHs do. So we might as well enjoy it. [lying back or in any other position]
Of course, if Carl Rove wins this fight, he will be in position to run for President.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I love it that Rove is doubling down on his insistence that O’Diddily is not fit to serve as a Senator (or really anything). Ol’ Turdblossom is getting ripped by the very fuckwits that he embraced to get ol’ Dumbya to the top. I am hoping that the crazies lose their asses this fall. Right now, the damage they are doing is largely confined to the Republican party and if the new big-names lose this fall then I think the infighting will only get worse.
I am hoping that enough sane people turn out to put a stop to some of these nuts that it ends up pitting the old guard against the new guard. If they win then it will only empower them but if they lose then things remain up in the air.
Go chaos!
Mark S.
I think Rove is overrated in the political genius department, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Tea Party has screwed up at least two seats (Delaware and Nevada) that should have been easy GOP wins.
lamh33
I’m sorry, this just makes me laugh. This woman is a joke!
Sarah Palin Calls Karl Rove a “Good Old Boy”
Eric U.
according to TPM, Rove has realized he was about to be drummed out of the republican party and now is a fan of O’Donnell. I guess he couldn’t stand getting the Limbaugh treatment and probably threatened by Fox
azlib
It will be ironic if the teabaggers end up destroying the Republican Party instead of liberalism.
Punchy
I’m not getting this. Is he trashing the GOP, or the teatards, or both?
Southern Beale
Wait a minute I thought Christine O’Donnell owed her success to the financial support of the Tea Party Express (or whatever the name of that group is) out in California? That California political machine? Not very grassrootsy, that.
Eric U.
@Punchy: the post had me confused for a moment. Vigure is trashing the establishment republicans that he helped put in office.
Cris
@over_educated: Like
cleek
@catclub:
exactly.
and some teabaggers will probably win House seats. but the fun will start when they march up the Capitol steps that first day, all full of self-righteous piss and vinegar, only to discover that playing single-digit numerator to the denominator “435” isn’t really a position of great power.
think you’re going to change DC, kids ? well, one thing at a time. first, here’s your basement office. and here are your office mates. coffee’s on the 2nd floor.
lamh33
Question: when a comment is awaiting “moderation”, does that mean that someone has to physically press a “send” or “ok” button before the comment can go through?
My last comment was awaiting moderation, and it’s often been something I’ve wondered about.
The Bearded Blogger
@eric: That episode shows that god is kind of bipolar
@azlib: or destroying the country…? Not so much ironic as tragic. These people are incompetent and insane, but they might actually win.
@Eric U.: It must be really uncomfortable to be a republican these days, what with the crazyness and the forced conformity and all… I sometimes the GOP puppetmasters have dirt on every single republican, and blackmail every repub into conformity
lamh31
I’m sorry, this just makes me laugh. This woman is a joke!
Sarah Palin Calls Karl Rove a “Good Old Boy”
The Bearded Blogger
@cleek: Well, there are already teabaggers in the senate, only they were elected before the TP thing existed as such… Michelle Bachmann doesn’t do much in congress, but she sure brings the crazy…
catclub
“My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them,” Rove explained this morning. “My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.”
I think there are many Fox viewers who thought it was his job.
And he just remembered it actually is his job, too.
It really is amazing how different this is from a real news network. Not sure if there are any now.
There I am being a conservative and longing for the idyllic past.
MoZeu
No. Offspring of Sarah Palin and Janine Turner. That’s more like it.
catclub
“Offspring of Sarah Palin and Janine Turner”
Northern Exposure! I liked that show.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mark S.:
What really makes me laugh is how consistently crazy the Teabagger candidates are. The best part is that there is no pattern to the crazy so there is no getting bored! Each teabag has it’s own unique flavor of crazy, there’s something for everyone out there. That there has not been one sane teabag candidate is something I would like to see the M$M talk about, maybe ask a few questions as to why this could be happening.
I do find it comforting that some repubs are getting sweaty palms over this mess that they created, fed and encouraged. That they are now worrying that this monster they built to destroy the left is instead turning on the right, devouring everything they can in their quest for power. The Republican party and pols wanted to regain power and raised an army of nuts to help them do it, or so they thought. Now the nuts want to take over and kick the old guard out.
Ha!
Brandon
This whole teatard thing gives new meaning to the question, “what’s the matter with Kansas”. What is interesting to me is how surprised, (or is it scared?), that the “establishment GOP” e.g. the rich, are that the rightwing nuts, religious freaks, rubes and the rest of the asylum are now in charge. They created this monster and (thanks largely to the Koch brothers) now they have lost control of their progeny. It’s fascinating that a generation ago Buckley and the elites supposedly demoted Papa Koch and his unwashed Birchers in the GOP hierarchy. But the GOP then spent the next 3 decades engaging policies and polititcs that only strengthened that group. They made the Koch’s richer and smarter and the unwashed poorer, while fascilitating their continued ignorance. And now they have bitten back like Roy’s white tiger. This is a classic parable.
Kryptik
@Bobby Thomson:
Thank you kindly, good sir. I forgot the exact chap. and verse.
colleeniem
Just another little tidbit of O’Donnell wisdom: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025692.php
I know it only effects a teeny-tiny portion of the population, but this make me so mad I could spit. This service grad is confused and bemused at how our second little spendid war (Iraq 1991) was conducted so successfully with the whiff of squiffy girls everywhere. Since 1976.
Mark S.
In the tradition of Saul on the road to Damascus and St. Augustine’s Confessions, Christine O’Donnell’s religious experience:
This is similar to my religious experience where Jesus said to me “Federalism.”
Zifnab
@catclub:
But that’s the trick. DeMint can only become Minority Leader if he can swing a majority of the minority Senate. If all his candidates lose in the general, it’s a total bust. He’s playing a dangerous game of scorched earth on this one. The Democrats prepped to win through holes in Alaska, Delaware, and New Hampshire aren’t looking like the conserva-Dems like Lincoln and Bayh that they’ll replace. No bought-and-paid-for Walmart Democrats here. They are nobodies running against nobodies for prime pick ups.
This could do a lot of good for the Democratic side of the aisle.
The Bearded Blogger
@Brandon: I’d actually love it if it turned out as neat as you paint it to be. They might actually gain power before they destroy the GOP, in which case they will also take the country down with them…
Better learn chinese
Brandon
@cleek: I think you are confused about what they think “power” is. To them power is having your nonsense discussed on the teevee and getting invited on the teevee to spout it. Look at who their heroes are: Palin, Beck, Bachman and now O’Donnell. There is not a single person, reasonoids included, who believes for a minute or has argued that these people actually care about governing. They don’t either. They just want to be President of the teevee.
Linda Featheringill
Cohen at WaPo called the Tea Party victories a putsch.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/the_gops_primary-night_putsch.html
Actually, you don’t have to read his article. The headline says it all.
But he may be right about what is happening in the Republican Party. Putsch, indeed.
fasteddie9318
@Kryptik:
I’m just saying, but He seems to have either run out of brains at some point or only handed them out to a certain number of His creatures.
Zandar
If the Democrats reclaim the working class mantle from the tea party populists then yes, we’ll do much better.
If we don’t, the massive wealth transfer to the top will continue unabated until we’re all in slums where we might be able to catch a glimpse of the estates when the smog level is minimal.
catclub
Odie Hugh Manatee @ 27
It is also interesting to note that the first teabagger of electoral note – Doug Hoffman – was much less crazy than his successors. He was a down the line crazy economics and taxes conservative in the model of Ron Paul, who knew nothing about his purported congressional district.
But as you say, the further generations are crazy in all kinds of ways.
But the big successes are heavily emphasizing their anti-abortion and Christian fundamentalism, and winning GOP primaries. Who knew?
I had earlier posted that Palin has no chance for the GOP nomination in 2012 because, unlike Bush, she was not a hereditary member of the GOP ruling class, as was GW Bush. I am starting to rethink that. The ruling class may be losing its control.
Lynnehs
Well maybe all the tea party wins will be a blessing in disguise, and they will all get trounced in the general election by Democrats.
ricky
Wow. That explains why all the disaffected Hillary supporters jumped on O’Donnell’s bandwagon. They were energized by the publicity over the recent wedding of Hillary and Janet Reno’s daughter.
Brandon
@catclub: You are forgetting that Bachman was reelected. The most prominent winger to win a statewide race, running as a winger and trying to govern as one is Cuccinelli the AG in VA. Bob McDonnell, VA Gov, was exposed as a secret winger during the election, but he ran away from that hard.
The Bearded Blogger
@Mark S.: “Tolle lege” take this and read… couldn’t really hurt the teabaggers if they picked up a book… the bible even, could open their minds a little…
NonyNony
@Zifnab:
Um, no. Not really. This is one of those cases where almost everything really IS good for Jim DeMint.
His candidates win the general he expands his majority in the Senate, he kicks McConnell in the nuts and takes the conch shell from him. That’s the obvious path to victory for DeMint.
But if he knocks seats that would have voted for McConnell in a leadership election out of play (by handing them to Democrats) then that’s still better for him than if a McConnell supporter took the seat. Every McConnell supporter lost increases DeMint’s ability to kick McConnell in the nuts and take the conch.
Look at Alaska (Delaware also works, as does Nevada, as does Kentucky, as does knocking out Crist in Florida, but let’s use Alaska because it’s easy and obvious). Here’s a seat that was comfortably McConnell’s in a leadership election. Now either they elect a Republican who will back Jim DeMint or they elect a Democrat. Either way, McConnell’s influence in the Senate drops and DeMint’s increases. Of course DeMint wants to win the seat, but he’s effectively increased his hold over the Senate leadership position just by knocking one of McConnell’s pieces out of play.
The only way that DeMint loses is if his faction in the Senate holds him accountable for losing Republican seats. Which is a long shot – because his faction in the Senate is all about the purity of conservatism. Better to lose the seat than to let a RINO have it, after all.
DeMint is playing a zero-sum game with McConnell. Winning a majority of seats in the Senate would be a cherry on top of his sundae, but even if he loses there’s a good chance he wins. Especially if he can convince a few idjits in McConnell’s faction that McConnell being unable to stop DeMint from screwing things up is an indictment of McConnell’s leadership (the ‘why don’t you stop hitting yourself’ maneuver).
Carol
@Mark S.: Don’t forget Alaska. Lisa Murkowski was a sure thing as well until Miller scored his upset. If the Republican Party has to spend a lot of money to make O’Donnell competitive, the easy seat to sacrifice would be Alaska. Alaska-out of sight, of mind, and may go back to Republican once a creditable one emerges. So Miller may find funding a bit hard for him.
stuckinred
@eric:
Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What ?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’
done ?”
God says. “Out on Highway 61”.
giltay
Wow. Said without irony, too.
Jay in Oregon
@over_educated:
Hell, if you’re going to bring the A-game this early in the day then I’m heading back to bed.
+1 internet for you, and I move that “The Clown Wars” become a category tag.
ricky
@NonyNony:
Very astute analysis.
catclub
Brandon @ 41
You got me on Cuccinelli. I was right that Bob McDonnell ran as ‘moderate’ conservative and against the tea-party.
Didn’t he make a point of asking Palin NOT to show up in VA for him?
ricky
@colleeniem:
Are you saying if we can win with the whiff of squiffy girls, our armies can march in triumph on the low spark of high heeled boys?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlbgqmxXNY
gex
@Kryptik: It’s right in the mythology. Investigating the tree of knowledge was a very, very bad thing. Following your natural curiosity and acquiring knowledge = bad. I’m not sure that the Bible actually makes the point you are making. It seems that might be your view, not something from the religion itself.
In fact, I think there are all kinds of tests of faith in the bible.
Uloborus
Reading the bio of Mister Vagaries, I resolved a little mystery that’s been plaguing me. These people are fierce in their struggle for ‘personal liberties’, and will announce this in the same breath as a list of personal liberties they’d like to restrict. Since ‘cognitive dissonance’ as it’s used on this blog is crap, I’m open to the possibility that they just don’t notice, but they’ve got to mean SOMETHING by ‘personal liberties’.
And then it hit me. ‘Personal liberties’ is absolutely, ferociously important. It’s the liberty to live life exactly the way they want, like ‘in a country where abortions are treated as murder’. No one else’s liberties are important. Liberties they don’t think they’ll need are not important. I Got Mine, Fuck You.
EDIT – Not just not important. Not *relevant*. It’s a movement of tribalistic narcissists. Individual liberties that do not obviously benefit themselves are not liberties at all, and may be infringements on their own liberty to dictate someone else’s behavior.
El Cid
A coworker of mine who is a staunch conservative Republican voter, hated Bush Jr., but voted for McCain instead of Obama even though he despised Palin because Obama was not only a Democrat but black (sorry, it’s true), just said that Obama so far has been pretty smart in office and if the Tea Party nuts take over the Republican Party he will start voting Democrat.
colleeniem
@ricky: I can’t watch you tubies at work, but if that is eddie izzard suggesting his tranvestite brigade, I heart you.
JR
We need to begin the campaign to have Sarah Palin named Speaker of the House.
There’s no rule that says a Speaker need be a Representative. And every true Conservative knows that John Boehner is too compromising and willing to give in to the White House. We need a resolute leader who will STAND UP FOR US.
Call your congressman and get him to commit to supporting SARAH PALIN for Speaker in 2011!
martha
@El Cid: Hmmm. Is this a signal we may be approaching peak wingnut? When people who wouldn’t vote for the black guy realize the other guys are crazy, which is probably worse than being black?
Catsy
@over_educated:
My nomination for comment of the week.
Midnight Marauder
@Zifnab:
@NonyNony:
I think this is an appropriate place to drop these choice selections from a recent interview with Jim DeMint:
catclub
gex @ 54
Yes, the bliss of Eden was the best, but given that we HAVE
knowledge of both good and evil, there are huge parts of the Old Testament that extol wisdom over ignorance.
Lots of paradoxes.
As someone smarter than I wrote, you can find anything you want in that book.
NonyNony
@martha:
There are different kinds of racists. El Cid’s co-worker sounds like an Archie Bunker-style bigot. Those folks typically look down on people who are non-white, and think that non-white people are generally inferior to white people, but don’t necessarily believe that all white people are superior to all non-white people.
That’s different from the white supremacist racist types who believe that any white person, no matter who they are, is (or should be) automatically superior to any non-white person regardless of any attributes beyond skin color.
You can win over the first type – I’ve seen it happen in mayoral elections, statewide elections and just recently with Obama. But you’ll never win over the second type. Their beliefs trump any objective reality.
Alwhite
GAd I wanted to throw up last night & this morning listening to NPR. The Nice Polite Republican radio network was giving the teabaggers the tongue bath of a lifetime. If you believe NPR teabaggers are NOT social conservatives at all, they just don’t care about abortion, gay marriage, drug laws. They are just concerned citizens worried about government spending
BAAAARRRRRRFFFF
The Bearded Blogger
@JR: Hey, that’s actually a great idea… How can it be credibly pushed? Anyway, I love it… right now TPers are fighting for a couple of seats in congress and senate, but this would mean the whole enchilada (sorry, freedom spicy meat)…
Technical question: ¿does the minority leader have to be a congressman?
NonyNony
@Midnight Marauder: Yes. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Thanks for the quote because I thought about citing it myself but didn’t. The difference here is that DeMint is casting it as an ideological struggle and I personally think it’s more of a power struggle. He knows he can’t win power by moderating, so he’s going to take power by attacking McConnell from the right.
I don’t think it’s delusional to think he could be successful either. He only needs to get 50%+1 of the Republican Senators to vote for him in a leadership election. The more so-called moderates he picks off the smaller the number of votes he needs to get to take over becomes.
FWIW – I think Dick Armey is basically doing the same thing, except with the national party instead of with the Senate.
dmsilev
“I am in your base
killingprimarying your dudes.”dms
Bubblegum Tate
Monty Python predicted all of this decades ago
catclub
alwhite @ 64
I heard that too, and came away with a different take.
1. Is it really a tongue bath to give them airtime to spout whatever they like? I say no, but do not like it.
A real interview would have asked them what they think about the expansion of the surveillance state under GWB.
2. The AFA guy was pretty clearly telling the Waco tea-partier
that ‘You may think you don’t care about abortion and gays, but when we crack the whip, you’ll get in line.’
He was right. Look at who is winning and who their core voters are – in both Alaska and Delaware.
JGabriel
Anyone else get the feeling that the Republic Party is being remade in Sarah Palin’s image?
If so, then the GOP is truly shifting from a proto-fascist to a fully fascist movement – which has always relied as deeply on the stupidity of their followers as much as their bigotry and gullibility.
.
tamied
Uloborus @55: That’s the god-awful truth and the scariest thing about it!
Admiral_Komack
@Mark S.:
“During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God,” she said. “He said, ‘Credibility.’ It wasn’t a thought in my head. I thought it meant I was going to win. But after the primary, I got credibility.”
-She has a hearing problem; what He said before “credibility”
was “You don’t have any”.
lacp
@Mark S.: That’s funny – Jesus’ only word to me was “Plastics.”
quaint irene
I love how these people see/express everything in ridiculous extremes.
“Voters are outraged! Obama’s destroying the constitution and the country!’
Rove simply stated the obvious. O’Donnell is pretty much unelectable. How exactly is that a ‘meltdown?’ The wingnut reaction to same you could pretty well call a hissy fit to the nth degree.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mark S.:
I’m always curious how they know it’s “God” on the phone and not someone else. Is there some kind of Prayer ID system?
And, FWIW, *anytime* someone says they hear the audible voice of God, run. away. quickly.
gex
@catclub: Is not the whole fall the biggest event in Christian theology? Aren’t we all tainted by that original sin? Is that really equivalent to the minor examples of wisdom in the Old Testament? Also, why is it okay for you to cite the Old Testament but not Christian homophobes?
The entire basis of the belief system is to believe, on faith, that the entire thing is true. Please don’t try to tell me that reason is held equivalent to, much less above, faith because there are a couple of examples of the Bible extolling “wisdom”.
The fact that anything can be found in that book tells me there’s nothing special in it. People bring to it and take from it what people bring to and take from anything. Why religion should get credit for any nascent reason in its membership eludes me.
JGabriel
quaint irene:
True. A more accurate description might be: Right Wing Extremists Meltdown Over Rare Moment Of Honesty From Karl Rove.
.
beltane
@JGabriel: Christofascism-We haz it.
RalfW
Wiki says
So then Viguerie opposes Paladino’s plan for wildly expanding NYC’s eminent domain to include all of lower Manhattan, right? Right?
And individual rights and responsibilities, that’s code for the freedom of two consenting adults to marry, yeah? Innit?
Hey, quit your sniggering, lefty socialists!
.
JGabriel
@arguingwithsignposts:
Because he says so! If you can’t trust the voices inside your own head, who can you trust?
.
Angry Black Lady
I’m becoming increasingly annoyed at the legitimization of the Tea Party. The NPR reach around last night was more than I could take. “Sure, they have questions about his birth certificate, but mostly they…”
NO NO NO. You can’t gloss over the birther shit.
“Sure they hate puppies, but really what they are upset about is bedbug infestation, just like we are.”
Fuck. That.
The big winner of this is Sarah Palin. Republicans don’t take her seriously, don’t think she’s smart, don’t think she can win. Well, looks like the TBs disagree.
It’s going to be Palin/Some Assclown 2012 and I’m going to tell all my progressive friends who have been saying “Don’t worry about her, she’s irrelevant” “I told you so.”
Ugh.
beltane
@arguingwithsignposts: What would the inaudible voice of God sound like? And as George Carlin once said, why doesn’t the voice of God ever compel these kooks to go take a dump on the salad bar?
eemom
hmmm……..according to “Glennzilla’s” daily screed, we may want to tone down the glee here.
It seems we may be ridiculing O’Donnell — not because she’s a batshit crazy Neanderthal who belongs in the Senate about as much as I belong in the Miss America pageant — but because we’ve all fallen prey to Elitist Villager Snob syndrome. Who coulda thunk it?
Along the way, GG amazingly manages to trot out yet again his tired old stupid bullshit and utterly WRONG trope from 2008 about the one great most excellent truly fantastical thing about Sarah Palin being that she was a “self-made” woman and a REAL Washington outsider. Evidently GG’s storied research skills kinda fell down on the 1st Grade level fact-checking on that one.
New Yorker
If your jaw hasn’t yet hit the floor over O’Donnell, this should do it:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/37203_ODonnell-_Evil_Scientists_Are_Creating_Mouse-Human_Hybrids
Mice with fully functioning human brains, huh? Maybe she’s afraid of them because they’re not dumb enough to vote Republican.
Also, Charles’ quip at the end made me laugh.
beltane
@eemom: He can go f**k himself. Really. Has he ever met a teabagger he didn’t admire?
Geeno
@gex: But, God tests us in the Bible. We don’t get to test him. That’s what Kryptik was getting at. You’re not supposed to walk off a cliff so God can catch you. You walk off the cliff if God tells you to, whether he says he’ll catch you or not.
NonyNony
@beltane: eemom is misrepresenting Glenn here. He says that the Village is heaping scorn on O’Donnell because she’s not from the right class. He’s not saying she is undeserving of scorn, he’s saying that if Karl Rove is heaping scorn on O’Donnell it isn’t because she’s a nutball – it’s because she’s a nutball who doesn’t come from the right social class.
He’s specifically attacking the Village press in that article, not the general populace who holds O’Donnell with contempt – most of us would hold Paul Ryan in equal contempt that we hold O’Donnell and for similar reasons, but Glenn is specifically calling out the Village because they don’t.
ETA: Tell me how this quote from Glenn’s article supports the thesis that this is anything but heaping scorn on the Village:
That’s the shit Glenn is talking about here, not bloggers mocking her anti-masturbation shit on Balloon Juice.
colleeniem
@beltane: Amen. I can make fun of her all I want, because she’s stuck in the damn dark ages.
jake the snake
Brown Jenkin.
She must have dreamed after falling asleep reading Lovecraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dreams_in_the_Witch_House#Brown_Jenkin
MattR
@eemom:
This is a big misreading of Glenn’s column. His point is that the views of the Tea Party are the same ones that the Republican Party has held for decades, but the only reason that Karl Rove and the Villagers (not us on the blogs) are attacking O’Donnell and others is that come from the wrong background. Glenn is very specific about the baseless criticisms he is talking about (and none of them are criticisms of her positions or statements)
MikeJ
@ricky: Been hanging out at rumproast?
Trinity
Ugh…the teatards gave O’Diddy over 1M online yesterday.
The only good thing is I bet they were all out of state donations. Remember all of the money that was tossed to Bachmann’s opponent in 2008 from the web?
However, just in case I did go toss some $$ that I don’t have to Coons.
Bobby Thomson
@gex:
lacp
@beltane: Don’t know if He’s ever done that, but from time to time He tells people to toss their kids in boiling water or take similar charming actions, usually to chase out demons (or teh gay, meme chose).
eemom
I agree that Glenn’s point is to heap scorn on the Villagers.
And I certainly don’t think he had this blog in mind.
Implicit in what he is saying, however, is that so-called regular folks who become Teatard stars, such as Palin and O’Donnell, have some claim to be taken seriously just because they ARE, supposedly, regular folks and not elitist Villagers.
He specifically says that the regular-folkdom of Palin and O’Donnell is a point in their favor.
That’s just bullshit.
ETA: And also it’s just wrong. Nobody could have more loathing for Karl Rove than I do, but the ONLY reason he’s trashing O’Donnell is because she’s unelectable. If she could win that Senate seat, he wouldn’t care if she grew up in a barn. Indeed, he’d be buying TV time to highlight the fact, just like they’re doing for No-Boner.
Bottom line: Whatever else he is, Glenn’s a fucking idiot about political reality.
catclub
gex @ 76 “Is not the whole fall the biggest event in Christian theology?”
I would say no, that the Resurrection is.
“The entire basis of the belief system is to believe, on faith, that the entire thing is true. Please don’t try to tell me that reason is held equivalent to, much less above, faith because there are a couple of examples of the Bible extolling “wisdom”.”
I thought I was comparing innocence and its loss with Wisdom. I certainly did not try to tell you that reason and faith are considered equivalent.
‘couple of examples’ includes a book called ‘Wisdom’.
The Holy Spirit of the New Testatment is often equated with Wisdom as described in the OT.
Some people may wish to return to Eden and ignorance.
My take is that the story of the fall says: ‘This is the hand you are dealt, now, so deal with it with the gifts you have been given, including your reason.’
I do not claim to be theologically orthodox.
eemom
@NonyNony:
Yes, but that particular species of shit has absolutely nothing the fuck to do with Christine O’Donnell.
The point being that Glenn sees the entire world and everything that happens in it in terms of Beltway Elitist vs. Not Beltway Elitist. Reality is a bit more complicated.
MattR
@eemom:
I have to disagree with this conclusion. I think Glenn is saying that regular folks who become Teatard stars have as much right to be taken seriously as elite Villagers and should not have their regularlessness held against them.
Of course this is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that the method that Rove is using to trash her is based on the idea that she is not worthy of belonging to the Senate (not that she is out of the mainstream or unelectable)
eemom
@MattR:
As noted above, I don’t think O’Donnell’s regularness is what’s being held against her by the mainstream republicans. It’s the fact that she’s going to cost them a Senate seat, pure and simple.
I guess my fundamental problem with what GG is saying here is that it’s just a red herring. Again, his beloved Beltway vs. Outsider meme is just is not what the O’Donnell phenomenon is about.
Midnight Marauder
@NonyNony:
Oh, it’s most assuredly a power struggle between “establishment Republicans” and “Tea Party Republicans” with Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint representing each side, respectively. I think the most telling moment came when McConnell’s preferred pick in Kentucky, Trey Grayson, got bounced in favor of Rand Paul, who was supported by people like DeMint and Jim Bunning (the other, retiring Senator from Kentucky who took a clear shot at McConnell by supporting Paul). You’re exactly right that DeMint is trying to undermine and diminish McConnell’s power by bringing in a crop of candidates who don’t have automatic allegiance to McConnell because they weren’t his chosen candidates.
I mean, just check out the kind of things Rand Paul has been saying about whether he would vote for McConnell as the Republican leader of the Senate:
And now let’s swing to Joe Miller in Alaska for his thoughts:
I really, really can’t wait until the Republicans come up well short of their ambitious goals this election, and then the Lord of the Flies-esque civil war breaks out in the party in the run up to the 2012 presidential primary.
Also, too. Yes.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR: If she were electable, she would be a salt of the earth candidate. The fact that she is as a crazy as a shit house rat is what sparked the attacks. If she were this crazy and unelectable, but had three Ivy League degrees and vacationed on Nantucket, she would be attacked as an out of touch ivory tower intellectual. They attack with what is at hand.
JGabriel
Geeno:
Yeah, that Job story really pisses me off. Satan makes a bet with God that he can turn one of the faithful. They decide on Job, who Satan gets to mercilessly torment for years and years, with nary a complaint from Job, who has been nothing but faithful to God despite that bastard leaving Job to Satan’s whims with no protection whatsoever.
Finally, after years of this bullshit, Job finally asks, “God, why have you forsaken me?”
Does God thank Job for his patience and explain that it was due to a petty bet Satan? NO.
Instead, God berates the poor fucker: CAN YOU BUILD A WHALE, HUH?
Job: Err (looks down, shamefacedly, scuffing dirt with shoefront), … no.
God: DIDN’T THINK SO! SO WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION ME, PUNY HUMAN?
Job: (timidly sullen) nobody
God: WHAT WAS THAT? I DIDN’T HEAR YOOOOOU.
Job: I said, “Nobody.” I’m sorry.
God: GOOD. NOW BOW DOWN AND PRAY TO ME!
God is a fucking Republican.
.
MattR
@eemom: You may be right that Glenn’s reading of the tea leaves is incorrect. I think there is something to what Glenn says, but you definitely have a good counter argument. But I still don’t think your original comment was a fair representation of what he was saying.
Brandon
@The Bearded Blogger: I think we are all so well trained to concern troll and believe that everything is bad news for Democrats when the fact of the matter is, the Republican party is imploding before our very eyes. All of this teatardism is just a decimated army bereft of leadership grabbing all their gear and making one wild last ditch charge up the hill up the hill and they are fragging anyone that tells them that they should try to improve their tactical position first. They may have superior weapons because they’ve got the media in their pocket, but they are seriously outnumbered and at a massive tactical disadvantage. However they mistakenly think they can win because theyve seen Rambo do it like a zillion times and of course…. Wolverines!
It’s no hyperbole that intelligently weighing options is anathema to these people. Also too, it’s what those dirty soshulist hippies do. And all of this is egged on by the media are some combination of sympathetic, gullible, stupid and captivated by id like a racoon to a shiny object and therefore always love a good hippie punch. The “smart ones” have either gone AWOL, been fragged or are keeping their mouths shut and slowly retreating to the back of the lines. Many others will likely quietly desert right after the battle, leaving an even smaller rump who’ll probably continue on like some band of Japanese WWII holdouts, even though everyone else has moved on.
I’m of the opinion that the delusion that teatards are bad for Democrats because of “voter intensity” is b.s. Intensity is not addititve. 5 teatards taking it to 11 does not equal 11 ordinary people feeling like a 5. Sure some crazed wingbats have won office recently and some teatards have won low turnout primaries. I have a hard time believing that people who wanted to vote for Castle will be motivated to stand in line to vote for O’Donnell. And even if they win, so what? They can do little damage because of the veto pen. R’s won’t force another gov’t shutdown because it disrupts the cash flow of all their contractor buddies who will get hurt without their goverent payments. Certainly not ideal, but it will provide some needed contrast for the American public come 2012.
I am not going to bother getting out my white board or pondering what the polling is in Cumberland, PA or Marion, OH. The teatards hurt the Rupublic because they degrade our discourse. However, their biggest threat is from blowing up the Republican party from within.
catclub
Karl Rove committed a gaffe – saying something that is true
but impolitic. She is unelectable.
You know it is a gaffe because he later apologized for it.
He doesn’t apologize for any of his lies.
BenJammin' Cisco
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Some people aren’t looking for anything logical.
Redshift
@Brandon:
They would be if they were an actual grassroots movement, but they’re not. They’re astroturf, and their leadership are DeMint, Armey, and the Koch brothers.
The only thing more unpopular than Congressional Democrats are Congressional Republicans. To avoid that drag, create a new “party” composed entirely of Republicans, and who agree with conservative Republicans on everything, but claim they’re not Republicans. Problem solved!
You may be right that voter intensity will be diluted because teahadists and open Republicans won’t be motivated to support each others’ candidates, but I wouldn’t count on it, based on the past several decades.
Svensker
@NonyNony:
Now there’s a news flash.
eemom
anyhoo, according to memeorandum Rove is now preparing to get down on his knees and suck Limbaugh’s dick, just like all the rest of them. (ain’t that pretty to imagine?)
Also too, No-Boner has already renounced that 11-D political chess that folks thought he was playing last weekend about the MC tax cuts.
St. Ronnie rules from the grave.
Scrawny Kayaker
@Southern Beale:
If the Democrats could use the replacement term “Billionaire Express” often enough to penetrate the conciousness of most undecided voters, our problems here would be over very quickly.
eemom
@Svensker:
I’m sure Glenn appreciates having you as Lady-In-Waiting.
Too bad he’s gay, or you could hope for better things.
General Stuck
Out of curiosity, just read Greenwald’s article of question, and the first half of it was quite good and rational, but, as usual, he then descended into some netherworld in his head of sweeping reads of motives and intent that paints everything is stark black and white, “ruling class” ethos, and an us and them mindset. Or, taking something that with nuance and specificity has some truth to it, but conflating instead his eternal and largely paranoid “our leaders are all out to get us” mentality that rightfully includes the Rove’s of the world, but not so much others, such as Obama. Which of course has been his focused of evil authority since inauguration day. And implies that O’donnell is getting slammed because she is, while wrong in her views to GG, is also a potential ally to his boogyman authority jihad, or at least a victim of the wicked ruling class. Not just insane, which is the only truth that floats to the surface with this candidate creature of the depths, but worthy of respect for not matching up socioeconomically with his enemies of state.
Rove is not an ideologue, other than to pose as one long enough on teevee, so as people don’t talk. He is a pure tactician for right wing avenues to power. And like many ordinary wingnut sewer trout, cares enough about the basic acceptability to voters, or enough of them to get into power the wingnut brand. His attacks on O’donnell are scattershot for anything that will stick, because he rightly, even for lying wingnut, recognizes there are limits to the wingnuttery that will be absorbed by a largely wingnut/or wingnut accepting public,.
I think Rove is mainly reacting to, among other ultra nuttiness about O’donnell, and lesser for Palin, something like the term “masturbation” that should never enter into a campaign platform of any candidate from either party, EVER. It is the type of term that gloms onto the frontal lobe of voters and sticks like crazy glue and tends to crowd out anything to do with the politics of power Rove only cares about. And that is just a sampling of the crazy overdrive brought by the O’donnell’s and the Palin’s of the world, and GOP ordinary wingnuts are worried about it, I suspect. And should be for costing them at the polls.
binzinerator
@Linda Featheringill:
You know who else had a Putsch.
arguingwithsignposts
It really chaps me when people like DeMint, who’s been in Congress over for over 12 years, get to play the “outsider,” not to mention Pen1s Militia.
cleek
O’DONNELL: … these groups admitted that the report that said, “Hey, yay, we cloned a monkey. Now we’re using this to start cloning humans.” We have to keep…
O’REILLY: Let them admit anything they want. But they won’t do that here in the United States unless all craziness is going on.
O’DONNELL: They are — they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they’re already into this experiment.
ht
(ahh… i see @New Yorker got there first)
WereBear
Bit of brilliance there.
Common Sense
@New Yorker:
binzinerator
@NonyNony: That makes sense to me. May help explain this push to burn the village to save it. Better to rule over ashes than nothing at all.
Roger Moore
@Geeno:
That’s because the promise to protect you is implicit in God’s request. Faith is about believing that God knows better than you do, so he wouldn’t ask you to walk off a cliff without a good reason. What people don’t consider is that sometimes God’s plan is to remove an evil person to make way for somebody He favors, or that maybe they’re suffering from delusions and they’re hearing their own pride, not the voice of God.
El Cid
I don’t understand the pushback against Greenwald having pointed out that the TeaTard freak’s views and policy desires are basically the same as longtime Republican ultra-right extremists who held enormous power, such as Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond or James Inhofe or Jim DeMint, and he hypothesizes why people are reacting with even more ridicule to the TeaTard candidates than the typical ultra-right.
My feeling is that candidates like Helms could publicly — as Greenwald says — modulate the nuttiness as it sounded even if their policies were hideously ultra-rightwing.
Fuck, Dick Cheney voted against a resolution to get South Africa to free Nelson Mandela from jail.
I’d much have preferred a Christine O’Donnell to a multi-generational asshole son of a bitch fascist like Jesse Helms.
For my part, I think it’s not just the TeaTard candidates but the very public displays of absolute freaktard looniness by their fake ‘grassroots’ protesters — yelling at town meetings, screaming about everything being “soshullism” and health care = fascism and Obama = Hitler etc.
A lot of the establishment media and pundit classes may not have liked and occasionally mocked the ultra-rightists, but I think the combination of the TeaTard public freakouts with candidates who embody what they want make them much weirder.
Jay in Oregon
@Common Sense:
Fear the arrival of our masturbating human-mouse hybrid overlords!
Also, too: http://www.motifake.com/what-are-we-going-to-do-tonight-brain-demotivational-poster-27923.html
eemom
@El Cid:
Oh, I agree that that first point is a valid one. In fact I was having a similar discussion this morning with eedad, who was asking what was inconsistent about what the Teatards want and what the mainstream republicans want.
I just think GG’s “hypothesis” for explaining the “even more ridicule” part is out in left field, and that the reason for that is that he insists on framing real world issues in terms of his personal worldview, whether they fit or not.
Common Sense
lolz I was wishing for minimal photoshop skills (and image links on this site) when I came up with that Pinky line.
catclub
The difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush
is that GWB is a hereditary member of the ruling class.
She is not.
I emphasize hereditary.
If Palin actually does take over the GOP it means that the old money is no longer in charge.
This is what Greenwald was getting at with the disdain that Christine O’Donnell was getting fom Karl Rove.
Same disdain that Clinton faced from the Village.
Karl said it because he thought she will lose.
cleek
@catclub:
maybe, but the old money didn’t get where it’s at by being unable to get power-hungry dingbats to do what it wants. not for long anyway.
Brandon
@Redshift: What I mean is that the Republican party has no leader. So there’s a bunch of colonels vying to be the new general. However none of them can admit that they need to reevaluate their tactics because that would be to admit defeat, which would demoralize the troops and they’d have to raise a new army. So they had to create a fiction that the last general and lt. general and field commander all failed because they were either incompetent or lacked conviction (“clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose”). The problem for Republicans is that there is no heir apparent that has the ability to unite the different factions. And their strict discipline is being used against them. Once DeMint and Armey made the charge, the rest of the army had to follow along whether they think it’s suicidal or not. And the media cheers them on sure defeat.
El Cid
@eemom: I would more or less agree with that GG point too. The question he addressed was not so much why you or I would see something different in the TeaTard candidates now over the other extraordinarily ultra-right politicians in the past, but why the establishment journalists and pundits and commentators seem to be more scornful of the TeaTards than the other ultras.
Now, the second part is an empirical question. I do know that there was, for example, a great degree of scorn and mockery of that racist fascist freak Jesse Helms, but I don’t know if it was more or less than what’s now being said about the TeaTards.
But I do conclude that during the Bush Jr. Presidency, the establishmentarian commentary on the radical right wing freaks around him came from a much smaller minority — until Katrina and the 2005-2006 height of the Baghdad Sunni-Shi’a civil war violence, when opinion seemed to turn.
GG is hypothesizing (or simply concluding) that it’s the TeaTard politicians’ much cruder and blunter approaches which seem to be inspiring more critical reactions than the earlier ultra-rightists, including those of the Bush Jr. administration in its early half or so.
I can see that, but I also note that they appear to be following the absolute worst and most ultra-right elements of the Bush Jr. Republican triumvirate, which the major media and punditariat turned against and are thus seen as a continuum; and what I suggested before about horror at the stirred up hordes spitting at black Congressman, vandalizing offices, carrying racist and Obama = Hitler signs about health care.
El Cid
@Brandon: This reminds me how in the right wing / survivalist / white supremacist militia movements, everyone’s some sort of officer; there aren’t low level enlisted grunts.
The Bearded Blogger
@Brandon: Thanks for the response. I see where you are coming from, but the weapons at their disposal are quite formidable (all media, almost unlimited money supply, corrupt officials), plus quite a bit of the democratic party is more of a mole for corporate interests than anything else.
Think of how what is considered “acceptable discourse” has changed… to really break the crazy threshold, repubs must be creative these days…
Bubblegum Tate
@Redshift:
They might bitch and moan and get snippy with each other, but at the end of the day, right wingers do the lockstep thing much better than left wingers could ever do it.
eemom
Not sure how you define the “establishment journalists,” etc., but I just don’t think that this is true. On the contrary, a lot of the momentum the Teatards are getting is because they’re being treating by the emmessemm as a real political grassroots movement, when in fact they’re just the opposite.
IOW, before the O’Donnell circus, I don’t think we WERE seeing scorn leveled at the TeaTards by the emmessemm, much less by the main stream republicans. There’s scorn, of course, but I think it’s mostly coming from our side. Until Rove’s short-lived rebellion this week, the republican mainstream has been scared as shit of pissing off the Teabaggers — and as Rove’s capitulation makes clear, they evidently still are.
And the emmessemm has been on the O’Donnell thing ONLY because it’s a great big shiny circus, IMO. I don’t think we’re gonna see much emmessemm scorn against her or any of the others when the Rove attacks subside.
eemom
also too, looking back at GG’s post, the ONLY example he gives of mainstream “scorn” of O’Donnell or any other TeaTard is Rove’s attack on her this week.
I can’t think of any others off the top of my head, either.
jinxtigr
@Jay in Oregon:
There ya go :)
FlipYrWhig
Regarding the reaction to O’Donnell, to what degree is it a factor that she has been a kind of bottom-tier conservative pundit for years, apparently?
As far as media contempt for people with hardline conservative views, I think we’ve gotten a lot of that around Sharron Angle; it seems to have dissipated from the usual portrayal of Rand Paul. You’d think Linda McMahon would get a lot more contempt than she has…
I actually think a lot of the O’Donnell stuff derives from her obvious resemblance to Palin.
Cain
@Catsy:
Even better, in Left 4 Dead 2, the clown characters in the game attracts zombies. You have to kill off the clowns otherwise the clowns will attract the zombie horde! :) I love L4D
cain
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: I have to think that the “mainstream ‘scorn'” aimed at O’Donnell, presuming it exists, reflects the symbiosis — or parasitic relationship — between big media players and moneyed big-business Republicans. I think the media has essentially a “Rockefeller Republican” ethos: they want big business to be treated kindly, low taxes for wealth and investment, _and_ they don’t care for open bigotry. They like Democrats like Evan Bayh and Republicans like Mike Castle. They’re hands-off towards conservative rabble-rousers because they don’t want to be caught expressing “liberal bias,” but this is a special case, because O’Donnell took down One Of The Good Ones, and their Republican friends and contacts are pissed accordingly.
Cain
@JGabriel:
All I could think of was the scene in Superman where General Zod explodes with:
SON OF JOR-EL! KNEEEEEEL before ZOD!
cain
cleek
where is this scorn ?
i haven’t seen it anywhere i’ve looked.
i see nothing but “ooohh… better watch out, Dems, the tea baggers are on the move!”
catclub
@eemom:
and cleek @ 135 :
The NRSC was doing automated phone calls against O’Donnell
before the primary in support of their annointed candidate. Given what I have heard about the content of those calls, I think that qualifies as scorn.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig:
“they want big business to be treated kindly, low taxes for wealth and investment, and they don’t care for open bigotry.”
I think that in this country open bigotry sounds fine to many people if it comes out of a rich white man’s mouth.
(Compare David Duke and Haley Barbour)
Jesse Helms owned a newspaper. Remember the advice not to get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the train tanker?
JR
@The Bearded Blogger: I’m not familiar enough with House Rules to know if it’s a requirement that the party leaders be chosen from within the caucuses, but since neither Majority Leader nor Minority Leader is a constitutional office, a rules change at the start of the 112th Congress could settle the issue in Sarah’s favor.
As to how to push it, I’m somewhat at a loss. All I can think of is peppering blog comments and hoping it works up the ladder, but if someone with more tactical prowess than me has an idea, I’m all ears.
Behold a pale moose.
El Cid
@catclub: Jesse Helms was a regular commentator on one of the largest Raleigh TV stations, and was known for his racist, anti-CR diatribes. Strangely, the entire archive of those broadcasts disappeared just before he ran for office.
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: I agree in many respects; I just mean to emphasize in a slightly different way that well-known saw about how the “liberal media” is much more socially liberal than fiscally so. I think that pegging them as “liberal Republicans” is useful: they hate the n-word and pollution; but they definitely support management over labor, and they _deplore_ any notion of increasing taxes on anyone.
Matthew
@JGabriel: Okay then, why do bad things happen to good people? And please make sure your answer is up to snuff with the sensibilities of people living three thousand years from now.