So Demint has now admitted that his demand that the Omnibus bill reading is simply obstructionism.
That’s all well and good, because most of us already knew that, but even though I should probably know better by now, I suppose I am still a little shocked that over the past couple of years one of the enduring and re-occurring criticisms from wingnuts is basically that bills have “too many words.” When I was in grade school, we looked at people who made statements like that when assigned to read Huck Finn or something else and just thought they were idiots, but the Republicans have been saying essentially that for several years, and their base has responded favorably, and the media says nothing and pretends like it is a valid criticism. It’s really crazy when you think about it.
Kryptik
Well, duh, that was school. What are you, some kind of nerd? We live in the real world, where all you school-learned geeks stick to IT and cell phone hawking, where the real manly men like John Boehner and Jim Demint run the damn country you pencil-necked twerps could never do!! Real men don’t need to read, they read with their GUT.
atlliberal
How come nobody is pointing out the fact that is Republicans hadn’t filibustered the individual bills when they first came up, then they wouldn’t have to vote on all of them now?
I may have to turn into a Republican. You get to obstruct then criticize the other side for not getting anything done, your arguments don’t have to make sense and even when you lose, you win. It seems much easier. The only problem is, I have a conscience. They’d never let me in.
Benjamin Cisco
@Kryptik: I was thinking a little lower, actually.
Culture of Truth
To paraphrase Bill Cosby talking about how his parents were so doting on their grandchildren:
“Don’t be fooled! The Joe Lieberman you see now is an old person trying to get into heaven!*
* and win reelection
General Stuck
It will take the senate clerks approximately 50 hours to read it all, in shifts, and around the clock. So the only thing they will obstruct, in the end, are the circadian Rhythms of the senate staff.
And maybe cut into their own xmas joy time. Just so the teatards will get to spank their all important political monkeys
The Dangerman
Welcome to the next two plus years; ain’t shit getting done prior to 2012. Even shit that HAS to pass (read: raising debt limit, defense authorizations, budgets, et al) won’t get through without an ugly fight.
Joseph Nobles
Reid should hire special speed-reading clerks to be on call for just such an emergency.
ETA: I’m just waiting for Rush or Beck to start screaming about how the GOP is being raped by Obama and his Big Black Veto Pen. Limbaugh’s already talking up rape on his program today.
Culture of Truth
In Amadeus the Emperor complains that Mozart’s music has “too many notes.”
Hunter Gathers
There you go using your brain again. Don’t you know that Real Amurikans use their gut instead of that lump of gray matter that’s 3 feet above your ass? Come on, get with it. Thinking only causes problems. Your brain may tell you that logic and reason are required in making decisions, but your gut is the one that is calling your brain a faggy vulcan, and you should always do what your gut tells you to do, like real amurikans like George W. Bush did.
Zifnab
Just out of curiosity, what’s the chance of this bill even passing? Do we actually think there are 60 votes, or is this going to go down like the last Omnibus Bill, where one Senator blinks at $50 for an undeserving black kid in the Bronks or excessive funding of bear DNA, and the whole thing goes down the drain?
bleh
Yeah, well, a basic tenet of the Republican strategy of harnessing resentment is to appeal to the people who never got over their resentment of the smartest kids in the class. Obama, of course, in addition to his unforgivable blackness, plays straight into that.
Stupid White People Drool! I mean, Rule!
The Dangerman
@Joseph Nobles:
What’s that guy who did the Fedex commercials doing?
Also, points for anyone that can insert appropriate language in the bill to be read on the Senate Floor (“this bill will spend revenue for Red State X, represented so ably by that sick motherfucker over there”).
walt
I was listening to Diane Rehm this morning talking to the No Labels honcho (along with EJ Dionne, Ross Douthat, and MIckey Edwards). As hard as he pushed the false equivalency between hard left and hard right, there is no outer limit for rightwingers. It’s an ever-receding horizon before which we must humbly acquiesce. I think even they’re suprised by how easy it is. Simply assert something as true no matter how crazy and watch the stenographers scribble away. And when a rightwingers freely admits obstruction, choke back the tears because it is so tempting to actually report the truth.
lol
@Joseph Nobles:
Waxman hired one for the Cap & Trade bill last year but ultimately didn’t need to use him.
Zifnab
@Joseph Nobles:
With all those Oxycotin fueled trips to the Dominican Republican, I’m sure he knows all about it.
Jewish Steel
Yes. I’ve had this argument w/wingnuts myself. Legal language must do something that no other language is asked to do; remedy future events taking into account all possible contingencies. These asshole legislators are all lawyers anyway, right? Idiots.
Suck It Up!
I believe DeMint changed his “mind” on the reading of the bill.
Jim C.
The Republican base is made up of nothing but idiots. Why is anyone surprised when they react favorably to the “there’s too many words” argument? It means that they get to keep issues nice and simple.
Godless, Black, Gay Liberals = Bad
Christian, White, Straight Conservatives = Good
penpen
John, haven’t you seen Brazil? Each wordy bill passed by is just another stepping stone to a vast, centrally planned Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and then De Niro is getting eaten by paper and despite him not doing anything worthwhile in like 15+ years that’s just a bummer.
Really though, since conservatives reject complex realities, it’s no surprise they reject any bill which attempts to grapple with such a reality (see: American healthcare system).
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
And the corporate media lets them get away with it. I saw Pony Exce$$ last night for the first time. For those that don’t remember, it’s about the SMU Mustangs in the days of Eric Dickerson and Craig James(yes, the idiot on ESPN). Basically, Dallas had two newspapers back then vying for readers and SMU was the only college football team of significance in the Dallas metro area. And once rumors of pay-to-play started going around, well the newspapers jumped on that like gangbusters. So newspapers were competing for stories. They did real investigative journalism. Now? Not a chance.
ppcli
Why not respond to this kind of thing with “Ah, you want to press technicalities? Well, I can do that too. It doesn’t explicitly say that the reading has to be consecutive. So I’m going to call every senate staffer in here and have them each read five or six pages, all at the same time. The cacophony will be a thing of beauty. That’ll get it read, and you’ll look like a fool, and everybody’s happy.” And if it does say that the reading has to be consecutive, then find some other way to get it done in a half an hour, while sticking to the letter of the rule.
(Or even better, get rid of idiotic rules that haven’t had any point since the days when congresspeople were sometimes illiterate. But I gather that the Senate will never do that. Otherwise they would have to eliminate the patronage cuspidor emptier jobs that they’ve been giving to constituents’s kids for centuries.)
Pangloss
Somebody really should invent a toilet/recliner.
lol
The funny part is when you strip all that extra language out from legislation, you end up with those evil activist judges deciding what the law should do in every case.
Bulworth
That kind of accounts for a lot.
licensed to kill time
@Pangloss: The LazyDump(tm)
General Stuck
@Zifnab:
I doubt the repubs would be willing to shut down the government during the holidays. But who knows these days.
parsimon
Hey, John Cole,
The post title gave me a great laugh. I smiled. I understand that this is no laughing matter, but still.
Thanks.
The Dangerman
@licensed to kill time:
Just for, um, shits and giggles, I checked GoDaddy and that domain is available (I’m actually kinda surprised).
That Other Mike
Republicans are no longer the Party of No. Now they’ve become the Party of Derp.
Calouste
@ppcli:
__
I think we still need those rules.
Just Some Fuckhead
Words are stupid.
Upper West
@Culture of Truth:
My thoughts exactly. Or maybe theBourgeois Gentilhomme’s delight that he had been speaking in “prose” all this time
what a nation of idiots and a corrupt media.
Kryptik
This pic possibly encapsulates the infuriating stupidity of both the ‘No Labels’ thing and chronic centrism.
dmsilev
I don’t believe that there’s any requirement that Senate clerks be human. Get a laptop, swear it in as a clerk, and run the bill through a text to speech program. At 50 kHz.
dms
freelancer
@Pangloss:
Go away, ‘batin’!
NonyNony
@General Stuck:
Two questions to be answered:
Would shutting down the government over the holidays stop the cutting of Medicare and Medicaid checks to TeaPartiers?
Would shutting down the government over the holidays shut down the TSA and prevent them from performing security at airports?
If either of those two things are possibilities, then I doubt that the GOP will shut down government over the holidays – too much blowback.
If neither of those two things will happen, then I don’t see what it has to lose them by doing it. If it isn’t going to directly impact the Republican voting base or the corporate base that is giving them cash, then shutting down the government during the Christmas holiday doesn’t hurt them. And if it pisses off people who are likely to vote Democratic then they might see it as a net win. Making Democrats look weak to their own voters is always good for Republicans.
Culture of Truth
Get that speed-reading guy from those old FedEx ads. Was that it?
Pangloss
Let’s just hope China stays out of the meth and country music industries so we can still use those foam fingers.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Discussing his plans for the holiday?
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
O.T.
massive law suit on BP oil spill filed yesterday, with Holder disclosing criminal charges are proceeding, and yet the suit didn’t make lefty blogosphere’s radar.
For shame, reality based community, for shame.
Paul in KY
@bleh: That is Nixon’s ‘Orthogonian Strategy’ as exhaustively laid out in ‘Nixonland’.
Marmot
@bleh: Yep, resentment of smarty-pants liberals and other enemies is pretty much what their guts command.
I once worked for a doctors’ association where the resident wingnut put together a committee to critique one of the earlier 2009 health reform bills. I was flabbergasted that they too complained about the number of pages. Doctors, mind you.
I’m also amazed that wingers bring up the “too long” criticism of the health care bill without once comparing bills from previous Congresses. It’s like the insult that Obama has to use a teleprompter, and the one about him appointing scary “czars” to head up federal departments. What modern president hasn’t done these things? How can base Republicans not acknowledge this?
Loyalty is first, accuracy is last.
Shalimar
Far be it from me to try to interpret the bible for a hypocrite like DeMint, but wasn’t the whole “Christmas sacrilege” crap basically bearing false witness against Reid? Which is a sin? Not that many evangelicals actually live up to their religious beliefs that often, but it would be nice if they made the effort occasionally not to be selfish, evil assholes.
Silver Owl
Republicans are still at the Dr. Seuss and “see dick run.” level of reading skills. This after a college education.
This bill is a pill. A pill is this bill. Kill this bill, yes we will.
Mike in NC
Gotta stick with what ya know, right?
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Is this gonna be on the test?
Calouste
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
We can discuss it when it hits the Supreme Court in 2030 or so.
Calouste
@Shalimar:
Strict interpretation of the 9th Commandment:
__
Harry Reid, with most of the continent between them, obviously is not DeMint’s neighbor.
Dennis SGMM
Look around you. Unless you’re in an unusual environment the incurious, marginally literate people far outnumber those who are the opposite. I’d guess that part of the Republicans’ ability to resurrect themselves rests in the fact that there are legions who vote for them because “They’re just like me and they’re big shots. That means I’m a big shot too!”
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
The “too many words” strategy started in 1994 with the Clinton HCR attempt.
it’s symbolic to their base, basically, if it’s a big book, then whatever is in it must be big government.
O.T. I have CNN on in the background, and to my amazement, they’re calling out Jim Demint as a hypocrite.
scav
well, to continue the OT BP thread, there’s this bit on a similar blowout from the wikileaks (an entire leaky theme blowout as well).
burnspbesq
@Joseph Nobles:
If only that were true …
kommrade reproductive vigor
You know what else has a lot of words? The Bible. Better get rid of it.
Linda Featheringill
It is not possible for DeMint to be as dumb as he sounds sometimes. When he makes some of these statements, I just wonder what he’s covering up.
Shalimar
@Calouste: So we are allowed to lie all we want about everyone who doesn’t live next to us? No wonder our society is so confused. God loves liars, for they do his work in shaming the “other”.
burnspbesq
@Silver Owl:
I doubt that Dr. Geisel intended “Put Me in the Zoo” as a civics textbook.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Calouste: that’s true. at the same time, the left screamed on top of their lungs for the suit, and now that it’s here, they’ve moved on to some new shiny toy.
Dennis SGMM
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
The difference is that the Bible has plenty of people to break down its words of wisdom into the bite-size pieces demanded by the moronicate:
1. No fags
2. You’re forgiven
3. Gimme money
4. Everyone but us is going to hell
5. Gimme money
6. No fags
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Linda Featheringill: he’s running for president in 2016, so he’s pulling all these stunts (which by definition are dumb) to gain notice and support with the wingnut base.
FormerSwingVoter
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
I’ve noticed this too, in a couple places. The media is suddenly, just today, calling out Republican hypocrisy on earmarks:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/15/spending.bill.earmarks/index.html
FormerSwingVoter
@Dennis SGMM:
It also says that eating shellfish is an abomination, but that doesn’t keep these fuckers out of Red Lobster.
AAA Bonds
Couple days ago, the co-star on Fox News’s shows was a split screen that showed some intern’s printout of the spending bill, indicating that it was Really Thick.
I’m serious: 50% of the screen, at any time, was an unmoving pile of paper sitting on the newsdesk.
How simple, exactly, do people expect a budget for the most complex organization in the world to be?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Guess so. And since DeMint isn’t my neighbor, I can now tell tell the world what he likes to do with garter snakes.
@Dennis SGMM: I have stolen “moronicate.” Hope you weren’t too attached to it.
change
Man, only a few comments in and the race card has already been played! That has to be a record, even for liberals.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@AAA Bonds: it’s a gimmick that mobilizes the anti-intellectual base.
bemused
@Dennis SGMM:
Not only are they big shots but they also will be wealthy some day if they just keep voting republican.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suck It Up!:
Oh, nice use of skeptiquotes!
El Cid
If letters to the editor of newspapers can be limited to 150 words, there’s no reason why major national legislation can’t do the same.
The sum total of laws passed in any year should not have more words than there are in the Constushun.
Jules
I think Joe Scarborough called DeMint a dick today…..
a1
From the scientifically prescient “Idiocracy“:
“Unaware of what year it was, Joe wandered the streets desperate for help. But the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts. Joe was able to understand them, but when he spoke in an ordinary voice he sounded pompous and faggy to them. “
Calouste
@Dennis SGMM:
There’s no rule 6.
Dennis SGMM
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
The word just popped into my head while I was writing the comment so we haven’t had enough time to become attached.
TR
This reminds me of a classic Bill Hicks routine, about touring through small southern towns.
“After the show I went to a Waffle House. I’m not proud of it, I was hungry. And I’m alone, I’m eating and I’m reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: ‘Hey, whatcha readin’ for?’ Isn’t that the weirdest fuckin’ question you’ve ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, god dammit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well . . . hmmm . . . I dunno . . . I guess I read for a lot of reasons, but the main one is so I don’t end up being a fuckin’ waffle waitress.”
Calouste
@change:
BINGO!
ed drone
@Silver Owl:
Fixed.
Ed
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@El Cid:
150 words! elitist! if it cayn fyt on a bomper stickher den it two long.
General Stuck
Van Morrison – Sometimes We Cry
seems apropos for the times
change
So, what CAN we criticize Obambi for without being “racist”?
Or is the idea to make all criticism of Obambi “racist”?
Southern Beale
Speaking of needing an editor, looks like the Daily Beast got tired of trying to turn Meghan McCain’s word salad into something readable.
Citizen_X
@change: Pie? Oh, pecan’s my favorite, for sure! Hey everybody, I think change wants to talk about pie!
Anya
@Marmot: The army birther doctor proved without a doubt that you don’t have to be smart or possess any common sense to be a doctor. But in the case of health care opposition, I think they were being disingenuous. The only thing that was motivating their opposition was greed.
licensed to kill time
One of the denizens of the Moronicate has shown up.
El Cid
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): all law 5 word
Dennis SGMM
@change:
Who’s this “we”? Do you have a carp in your sock?
Gravenstone
Last time they played this game, Reid brought in a speed reader and the Republican behind the stunt caved after about 30 seconds. For this occasion, I’d love to see Reid line up about 100 Senate pages, hand each a binder containing 1% of the final bill (ca. 19 pages each) and have them all read their portions – simultaneously. Fuck the fucking obstructionist cock suckers. You want to play games, we’ll play fucking games.
lacp
@change: No, I’m pretty sure he said the sheriff is nearer.
twiffer
@Culture of Truth: that was salieri, not the emperor.
i love that movie.
Chyron HR
@change:
I’m sorry; you seem to be having trouble understanding what people are writing on this blog. Do you need a clerk to read our posts to you aloud?
Don’t feel ashamed to ask for help, I hear that even the GOP Congressional leadership is illiterate these days.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Dennis SGMM: Not exactly. But it is in an undergarment.
Jewish Steel
@Southern Beale: English. She can be an illusive art.
Gravenstone
@ppcli: Ah, I see ppcli got there first. That’ll teach me to read the thread before venting my spleen inappropriately.
Citizen_X
@El Cid: “What is the law?”
“Not to eat meat!”
“What is the law?”
“Not to spill blood!”
“What happens to those who break the law?”
“House of Paaaiiiin!“
Maody
OT, my stoopid senator Burr was on the floor of the senate speaking about how the START treaty was all terrible dangerous scary. Dood, what will all your Putin lovin’ teabaggers say about that, eh?
freelancer
@Dennis SGMM:
Snort.
4tehlulz
@Dennis SGMM: He seems to misuse that “we” word a lot, doesn’t he?
Stillwater
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: the SMU Mustangs in the days of Eric Dickerson and Craig James
I went to SMU in those days. One night, very late, I was walking by a dorm parking lot and saw a commotion outside a car. I could see that the doors were open and that the driver was trying to pull someone out of the car. I walked closer, noticed that the car was a brand new Porsche 944, and asked if everything was alright. Eric Dickerson looked up at me, slurry drunk, gold bling reflecting in the lamp-light, and said “I can’t get him up. I can’t get him up.”
For a college athlete, he sure owned a lot of really expensive stuff. But it was SMU – so he fit right in.
freelancer
@4tehlulz:
Do you remember the time we got thrown out of the windshield of the truck and we used our whip to slip under the truck and slide to the back, get into the back of the truck and throw the Nazi’s off the cliff?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Citizen_X: Thanks. If I MUST have a song stuck in my head for a couple of hours, Oingo Boingo isn’t a bad choice.
Walk on 2 legs not on 4…
scav
@4tehlulz: well, it is “me” upside down and, possibly, backwards (depending on how you invert) so it’s the usual projection blah blah blah that pie-eaters and small change can manage.
Skepticat
@ppcli: I actually suggested this to my congressmen, senators, and Harry Reid day before yesterday.
And is it the number of words or the number of pages about which they’re whining? As one who has read many such bills (which apparently these bozos haven’t even though it’s their job), I notice that with the wide margins and quadruple spacing, there aren’t a helluva lotta words per pages. But then again, I can read.
But lawd, why let facts get in the way of theater?
Matt
I think one rule change the Senate should adopt for next session is this: any Senator that objects to waving the reading of a bill is required to perform the reading. Guarantee you that’s the last you’d see of bullshit stunts like this.
burnspbesq
@Gravenstone:
In three-part harmony. With eight-by-ten color glossy pictures.
Maody
@freelancer: so good. we. raging change.
scav
@burnspbesq: and a picture on the back of each one, explaining what each one was. . .
GregB
The Daily Beast has started editing Meghan McCain’s posts again. They decided to toss her word salad.
cat48
You should call your Senators if you want anything passed. Newt Gingrich is going for a govt shutdown because of START treaty & Omnibus Spending Bill in Senate. Bizarro world
His PAC is calling in
bemused
@Dennis SGMM:
Moronicate has a nice ring to it. Sounds dirty too.
Dennis SGMM
@GregB:
I saw what you did there.
jrg
Can’t we carry around photoshopped pics of Obama with a bone through his nose without being called racist? No? Can’t we call him a Kenyan or a Nigerian or something without being called racist? How about if we claim he “hates white people”? Can we at least call him a Muslim?
Dennis SGMM
@bemused:
Consider it an early Christmas present to Balloon Juice. Bless us, one and all.
chopper
@Calouste:
no poufters!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Looky there. Mike Kay still trying to stir up shit on the left.
Digby
bemused
@Dennis SGMM:
It’s a major reason to visit here. This is a place that just keeps on giving.
FormerSwingVoter
@Skepticat:
This. Everyone needs to at least look at a bill sometime, even if they don’t actually read it. They can barely get sixty words on a page, between the massive spacing and huge font size, not to mention the fact that every single term gets a 1-3 paragraph definition (really? you need to explain what “net income” is, and somehow managed to take up a page and a half to do it?).
It’s almost as if they were printed in such a way that they would be easy to read for old people. Like Senators. And they describe everything in such anal-retentive detail, you’d think they were going to be interpreted by lawyers or something.
replicnt6
@twiffer: When the google comes to your area, you’ll be able to quickly find things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU
Tax Analyst
@Kryptik:
And then they cry, cry, cry, until their reptilian crocodile tears become mixed with their sprayed on or spackle pasted halloween-pumpkin orange tan, the nasty, unnatural mixture running down their grotesque piety-mask faces, unleashing the vile odor of their dead-assed souls.
But hey, ask me what I really think of them.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
I am still a little shocked that over the past couple of years one of the enduring and re-occurring criticisms from wingnuts is basically that bills have “too many words.”
Perhaps the Democrats might try putting pictures in the bills?
debbie
@ Twiffer:
No, it was definitely the emperor (I believe played by Jeffrey Jones) who said there were “too many notes” in Mozart’s opera.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Definitely the emperor and definitely Jeffrey Jones.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Reid just pulled the bill. Looks like DeMented will have to take it home to read it.
Church Lady
@Stillwater: ESPN just ran a documentary on the SMU pay to play scandals of the 80’s. It has been said that Eric Dickerson took a pay cut when he signed with the NFL.
Eric Lindholm
Love the “Idiocracy” ref.