Steve Benen had a post up today where he stated:
I get the sense the right is lacking in a sense of limits.
That is obvious to anybody paying attention, but what caused Steve to pen those lines was the news that the wingnuts are threatening to rape and/or attack the young high school student who challenged Michell Bachmann to a debate about the US Constitution.
Perhaps it is only 27% of these fucks who respond to any moment of cognitive dissonance with threats of violence. I think it may be most of of them, but lets go with 27% of TeaBaggers who make up 27% of Republicans, who are 27% of American voters. Sure it is a small and loud group, but it is still way too many folks dedicated to violence as their first option in any political discussion.
And yet, no outrage. IOKIYAR is a fact and not an acronym of the internets. I would think that threatening to rape a child might generate a little blow back, but it seems that threats of violence–including threats to rape children–really are OK if you are a Republican. As the kids say: WTF!!
I will stand by this statement of Republican condemnation until until a Republican of some note decides to condemn Backmann’s defenders. It would be nice if it was the Congresswomen, but I do not think she has the sand to do so.
Violence First was always the guiding star of the Confederacy. And so it is not really surprising that a high schooler challenging a Tea Bagger Icon would get threats of violence. And while it is not a surprise, it is still sick behaviour.
This is what we are up against. Challenge the magical thinking of these folks and violence is always their first, second and last idea. Asshole is really way too generous a term to describe these fucktards.
And now with that rant in the can, let’s go to the Open Thread.
Cheers
Cat Lady
I Am Amy Myers. (Spartacus)
Come get me too, fucktards!
Daddy-O
I keep thinking they will hit a wall, and not be able to mortify or disgust me any further…and then they do it again.
These fucktards are going to bring back animal AND human sacrifice, sooner or later.
Zyla
I can’t wait to see what miss Myers’ countertops look like.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Spaghetti Lee
Just disgusting filth. All of them. I can’t imagine how anyone with a modicum of human decency, let alone intelligence, can support the Tea Party.
Did Bachmann ever respond, by the way?
Baud
Hate to make this “political,” but the only way to shut these guys down is to win election after election at every level of government possible. The only thing evil understands is power (or the loss of it).
Spaghetti Lee
But lest we forget, a union worker from Wisconsin yelled at a Fox News reporter 3 months ago, so both sides are equally guilty of everything .
Spaghetti Lee
@Baud:
It already is political. The scumbaggers are making threats of rape and violence because someone dared to insult a favored politician of theirs. If you can’t criticize politicians without the threat of violence (however impotent, thank goodness) it’s a political issue.
TooManyPaulWs
Solution is simple.
Get everyone to stop voting Republican.
Mr Stagger Lee
Went to the Free(Morans)Republic website, to see the response. Only one called for the maker of the threats to be investigated, the rest? They say she made this up, the young girl is a publicity seeker. The left are the ones who makes threats, another weak attempt to discredit the Tea Baggers. Now if you excuse me I will shower and delouse.
Baud
@Spaghetti Lee: It’s only “political” in my view if people act politically to oppose their behavior. Otherwise, it just becomes part of the background noise to everyone but the direct victims of the hate.
@TooManyPaulWs:
Implementation, however, is another story.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Ever notice how for anyone who takes a stand against right-wing lunacy, a large part of the response is that they’re just trying to draw attention to themselves? I don’t know, maybe Teabaggers in general are so completely self-obsessed, they can’t imagine how anyone else couldn’t be?
If you’re 16 and you want to be famous, there’s plenty of easier ways to do it than challening a congresswoman from a different state to a debate. She did this because she thinks it’s right, I’m certain.
Brian R.
I’m sure they’ll justify this with the standard lie: The Left Is Just As Bad!
Barb (formerly Gex)
I need to get the fuck out of Minnesota. I cannot stand having gender and home state in common with that sorry excuse for a human being.
Xof
@Brian R.: Within the first few comments.
General Stuck
They are losing it, as I stated in a comment in the previous thread, on many fronts, and the fact that it is only 27 percent of their base is promoting this kind of violent laced politics, is meaningless in it’s minority status if the rest don’t readily and thoroughly condemn it.
It may be kind of comically pathetic in and of itself, that so many wingnuts are falling over themselves to sign up to destroy medicare with the Ryan plan. But these people are not completely stupid politically, or haven’t been in the past. Wingnuts are cold and calculating, or have been on conducting class warfare. But always in a fairly intelligent and disciplined manner with situational awareness of political limits regarding self survival. All that is fading away, to a congealing of totally irrational policy prescriptions with little or no apprehension to normal pol consequences to themselves.
This is not comical or funny in the least. It is the mark of a large chunk of the country that has in spirit, at least, foregone politics practiced within the confines of what is possible without violence to get their way.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
I’m still surprised they didn’t call for this little guy to be hung, drawn & quartered.
Fred
Threatening to Rape teenagers who disagree with you is in the constitution. It’s what all real American patriots should do.
kdaug
@Baud:
Isn’t this the basis of all of humanity? How to rid the world of evil? Everything from psychology to religion seems to revolve around this central question.
Lyrebird
For this, they call a student “a whore”??? (from Dennis G’s link)
…I would instead call her, “more qualified-sounding than Rep. Bachmann, civil, and right on ! ! !”
Baud
@kdaug:
I do my best metaphysics in the morning, but I would say the basis of all of humanity is the desire to contribute to betterment of the group (a desire driven in large part by the goal of finding an ideal mate), while the objective of ridding the world of evil is a derivative social construct that focuses of one aspect of group preservation and advancement (i.e., dangers to group existence and well-being, whether real or perceived).
Or not.
James E. Powell
And, of course, no Democrat will go on the Sunday shows and raise hell about this, point out the basic hate-filled nature of the tea party, or anything like that. If circumstances were reversed, every single Republican would talk about nothing else for a week.
Mike in NC
Remember it was just a few short years ago that Dubya’s excellent adventure in Mesopotamia meant that anybody who offered even the mildest word of criticism was automatically labeled a traitor who needed to be waterboarded. Same difference.
Buggy Ding Dong
Actually, threats of violence are their first idea. Most of them are absolute pussies who never have the stones to actually back up their words.
I’m smack dab in the middle of them deep in the heart of Texas. Most of these people are completely full of shit and deflate the minute you fight back. They’re just not used to anyone standing up to them and they splutter and stutter when confronted, particularly when you use humor and sarcasm, which they actually do not understand.
jl
On the bright side, the 73 percent who do have limits may will have something to say on the next election. And there is hope that there are few potentially sane but currently upset and misinformed TeaPeople who may be retrievable from the 27 percent nutters. As in:
“Democrat Kathy Hochul taking a lead over Republican Jane Corwin by 4 points among likely voters…. Hochul has jumped 11 points since the last poll, pretty much all from Davis. So the Tea Party candidate is faltering and his support is swinging overwhelmingly to Hochul.”
Final Lap (NY-26)
Josh Marshall | May 21, 2011
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/05/final_lap.php?ref=fpblg
The apparent movement of voters from Davis to Hochul is interesting if that is what the poll numbers indicate. Some, (probably a relatively small minority but who knows?) of the Tea Peoples have raised legitimate issues, like for instance, unfairness of bailouts and social dysfunction of crony big corporate capitalism.
Would be interesting if that part of the TeaGOPper movement swung towards Democratic candidates after they tire of GOP flimflam and fraud. Hochul seems to be advertising herself almost exclusively as a friend of small local business, which might appeal to that segment of the Tea Peoples. But I don’t know much about her positions, other than from Wikipedia, where she seems like a centrist small business friendly Democrat who may not be a total sellout.
The policy positions I can find on her campaign web site are 100% about local jobs and local small business.
jprfrog
I looked through the comments on the original story —because it is remotely possible that the threats are bogus — and from the tone there I’m now convinced that they are real. The majority of the 116 comments I read are clearly in sympathy with the anonymous hate-mongers. Whether or not the scum who hide behind a screen name might actually try to carry out some sort of abomination is of course not certain — but who would want to take the chance that it is all merely bluster?
I’m about to violate Godwin’s Law here, but the historical record screams out at me: the threat or actuality of violence as a political tool in a democracy was pioneered by Mussolini’s Fascists and perfected by the Nazis. It is part and parcel of a two-pronged attack: propaganda and violence. We have seen floods of the former, and some of the latter (Dr. Tiller and Rep. Gifford the latest). Supposedly these last were the work of lone madmen, but I believe the from the SPLC that there are organized groups with similar intentions proliferating, and who knows when they might actually start to carry out those intentions?
At the very least, the lowlifes that are making threats should be called what they are: Nazis. And for the first time in my 71 years, I’m considering getting a gun and learning how to use it.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Buggy Ding Dong: They like the lone wolf model where they talk about the violence enough that someone acts on it.
So all those old conservative Christians that blew all their money due to the rapture, I wonder how they feel about social security and medicare now.
Baud
First of all, Democrats are for the most part not invited on the Sunday talk shows. Second, the Republicans are effective at this because they have developed a whole network of people who are willing to be mouthpieces for the GOP talking point of the day; I don’t see anyone on the left volunteering to be Dem apologists. Finally, invoking this outrage by the right to launch an attack on Democrats is just as bad, IMHO, as the whole “both sides do it” meme we hear from the right wing and the media.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Baud:
Really?
Then what do you do when they’re coming to town hall meetings angry, loud and armed, intimidating as much as possible? Move the elections up 14 months?
Baud
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): How about starting with remembering the incident in 14 months when it’s time to vote?
kdaug
@Baud:
Civilization was the word I was looking for, not humanity.
They really are aiming for the Hobbesian view, aren’t they?
What the fuck is the point of engagement?
But should I ever wear a pro-sports jersey, or drive a racecar, or run in a marathon, I will make certain that my number is 27. That’s who I’m competing against.
jl
@jprfrog: Thanks. I agree. Another technique is the attitude that ‘everything is political’. Any deviation from the current accepted doctrine, any criticism of current accepted leaders is a sign of political depravity that must be labeled and smeared as evil.
Another characteristic is double standards for behavior at political meetings and public discussion. So you have Teabaggers bringing guns to rallies and engaging in nonstop scream fests to shut meetings down, and it is not only tolerated but encouraged and celebrated as patriotic. Then you have people who ask persistent questions being arrested at GOPer townhalls.
Probably shouldn’t limit the sources to just the Italian fascists and the Nazis. Threat of violence, immediate attempts to intimidate, actual violence, double standards for acceptable political behavior, immediate and vicious smears of anyone who deviates are a cluster of characteristics. They were present in murderous reactionary authoritarian regimes all around the world after World War II.
Back then the neocons justified it as showing necessary strength and unity in the face of the communist menace. But they are gone now, so what is the new rationale? The only answer I can think of is that the reactionaries think that anything is permissible in the pursuit of power.
Linda Featheringill
Well that whole story just sucks.
Maybe Amy should try to not be truly alone anywhere for a few months. She needs a good cell phone, something that is really reliable. If she and her dad can’t afford one, maybe others can help. The family cars should have LoJack capabilities. Any car that she drives needs to have the same equipment. If she has never taken a self-defense course, she should take one. It would be good to have some sort of an alarm attached to her person.
And probably several other things. Perhaps someone who is experienced in security should talk with that family. It couldn’t hurt.
James E. Powell
@Baud:
It’s not even remotely related to the ‘both sides do it’ dodge. It’s an opportunity, one among many, for the Democrats to put the Republicans’ core argument under pressure, to tear off the ‘Real Americans’ masks they wear, to throw some shame on them for their rhetoric. And the Democrats will not exploit the opportunity. It’s why they can do most things right on policy and still get waxed at the polls.
Baud
@kdaug:
I would say you should wear number 73 because that is who you are competing for. ;)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Baud:
Because whenever the vote happens, you’re going to have people who figure that rather than risk the violence, they can just cave to their demands. James Fucking Buchanan.
Violence is- and always has been- a tool in the political box, going back to the first feud between two clans of the earliest homo sapiens fought over the carcass of a gazelle. It would be nice to think that we’ve become, after hundreds of thousands of years, more civil, but we’re still animals, the same old political tricks still work.
So you can wait until the next election if you wish, but at some point the violent assholes will get their majority in the government through attrition, and they’ll cancel that next election. Count on it.
Baud
@James E. Powell: I guess I see it as less as an opportunity for Dems at the national level to exploit than you do.
rob!
Threatening violence to achieve a political end is TERRORISM, pure and simple. The Republicans are supposedly obsessed with fighting it, but they’re okay with committing it when its aimed at people they don’t like.
If Michelle Bachmann had an ounce of humanity in that shriveled husk she calls a soul, she’d come out and tell her “fans” to knock it the f*ck off. But I won’t hold my breath waiting for that press conference.
I grew up in Cherry Hill, and am proud someone from my home town–and a kid yet–shows more moxie and guts than most of the MSM.
jl
Since it is an open thread, I will mention that all you Hell bound Rapture scoffers should not breath easy yet.
Iceland’s Grimsvotn volcano erupted, and Cain announced he is running for Presnint. The day is not done, and maybe it will NEVER be!
Ha!
Yutsano
@jl: Hey if it stayed Saturday forever and my bank balance never went down I’d be okay with that. :)
Roger Moore
@rob!:
Rob! is shrill.
jl
@Yutsano: Good point. Is that what happens to the Raptured people? Sounds OK to me. Now if I could only believe in it.
Baud
@jl:
It just occurred to me that every Republican running for President clearly did not believe in the Rapture. The campaign ads just write themselves.
P.S. This is how Huckabee should have explained his decision not to run. His base would have eaten it up.
fasteddie9318
Bachmann had ample opportunity to handle this whole thing with class and decency. Invite the girl and her folks to DC, give them some kind of grand tour of the place, do a meeting in her office for the kid to express her concerns to Bachmann and have a dialogue about them. All class, makes her look good, and doesn’t risk demonstrating to the world that a 16-year-old knows more about the Constitution than she does. But Bachmann, being a fucking circus clown, with no class, who is probably incapable of spelling the word “decency,” was too embarrassed and thin-skinned to say anything, and let her rabid hound supporters take the initiative. That’s leadership, Republican-style.
fasteddie9318
@Baud:
Yeah, but then he would have looked like a twit to everyone else…well, OK, that ship already sailed, you got me there. But he would have had to find a new excuse for not running.
jl
@fasteddie9318: That ridiculous idea sounds like something those Communists Ikenheffer or Beryl Ferd would have done. It would show weakness! That kind of dhimmitudism would not stand in today’s GOP, nosirree.
Caz
You’re such an idiot, I actually feel sorry for you.
rob!
@Roger Moore
@rob!:
Rob! is shrill.
…coming from a former James Bond, I take that as a compliment!
kdaug
@Baud:
You take the 73, I’ll take the 27.
Ain’t got no kids, but if that was my little girl… damn. Vengeance comes on dark wings.
General Stuck
@jl:
The RAPTURE is a Liberal Hoax!!
All godly peoples are scheduled to be whisked away buck naked by Sekrit Soros rays to soshulist all ghey planet.
Spread the Word!! Spread the Word!!
cathyx
How does anyone really know that we haven’t all been raptured and this is what heaven is like? Maybe life in heaven is just like life on planet earth. Oh dear.
mr. whipple
A sense? WTF?
jl
@cathyx: You sound like an old school Republican Universalist: Everyone gets to go to heaven, which consists of endless golf rounds with no bogies.
@General Stuck: Which reminds me, when is Cole gonna throw us all a big bash with his Soros money? I think he is feeding it all to Tunch, and the scandal will destroy this blog. Attn: John Cole! Be careful if strangely dressed white dofusoids stop by and want to chat about how to launder Soros liberal slush funds. It might be tarp!
Edit: @mr. whipple: I think that was Brit understatement, a form of dry humor.
kdaug
@fasteddie9318: I actually don’t have a “DING!” loud enough to express my wholehearted agreement. The parry was obvious. To not take it is rank incompetence.
Again, why the fuck engage with lunatics? Empirical, historical evidence shows that their ideas don’t work. Never have. Faith-based economics/policy/geostrategy is a proven failure.
Why should anyone give a fuck about what they have to “contribute” to the conversation?
They’re like the drooling guy in the corner who keeps shouting “Seaweed!” every five minutes. Interesting, I suppose, but not really relevant to the conversation at hand.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
If the rapture were scheduled after the first primary that might have worked. But the scheduled date has now come and gone, so it’s no longer a valid excuse for staying out of the race, and there’s still plenty of time to get in it.
piratedan
hey, until someone puts a surveyors symbol over her location, I’m sure that she’ll be perfectly safe…..
fasteddie9318
@Caz: Was that a generic “you,” or did you actually mean to refer to someone in particular?
jl
@Caz:
“You’re such an idiot, I actually feel sorry for you.”
Who are you complimenting? Me or the poster? I was going to thank you for your kind words, but I might misunderstand and appear presumptuous.
@fasteddie9318: Good point. Let us all thank Caz for the compliment.
Phil65
Violence First was always the guiding star of the Confederacy.
Oh, ain’t this the truth. I am in the midst of the brilliant Battle Cry of Freedom, maybe the best Civil War history yet written.
I’ll give it to you in capsule form: the South wanted its way on everything, with no compromises. And when they didn’t get their way, they got violent. The end.
Arclite
Here’s one for all you dog lovers out there:
http://videosift.com/video/Time-Lapse-Puppy-to-Adult-in-40-seconds
El Cid
Michael Moore said rude things about Republicans and that a lot of them were racist, I’m pretty sure, and he might have pushed down and stomped on some crippled Tea Party protester, so ‘both sides do it.’ In fact, libruls are much more violent and threatening. Because shut up.
kdaug
@Caz: I do hope you’re being paid well, but if your commission is based on “opinions changed”, I’m afraid you’ve got a bit more work to do.
Roger Moore
@kdaug:
I doubt he’s getting paid. He’s just the kind of jerk who would have been posting ASCII goatse and talking about Natalie Portman naked, petrified, and covered in hot grits if he had been old enough to post on Slashdot 10 years ago.
Spaghetti Lee
@kdaug:
I think they actually are paid by conversations derailed, aren’t they? Which is why it’s a relief to see people not taking the bait for the most part.
Church Lady
Shame on anyone that makes threats to anybody. There is no place in a civil society for things like that.
I clicked on all the links (Dennis’ and Steven Bennan’s) to read all about it. I thought they would have links to the threats against this little girl. They didn’t. I wonder what websites such disgusting threats of violence appeared in? The newspaper didn’t say. What I did find odd, though, given the story was about all these horrible threats to this girl, was that they would actually publish her photograph in the paper. That doesn’t seem very wise.
The strange part of the story was the Dad’s reason for cancelling a video interview that the paper had scheduled. Not that he was worried about her safety by appearing in a video, but that he was afraid to reveal their “debate strategy”. WTF? Does he really think that a sitting member of Congress, from another state, is really going to debate his daughter?
kdaug
Missed the hot grits thing, likely don’t wanna know – got my quota of ASCII pron in the CompuServe days. But this pushback, it is weak.
If Caz (and the other jackass who just started showing up) is the best they can do, though, I can think of only two causes: 1) really young kids who don’t know better, or 2) really stupid right-wing organizations who don’t know better.
My bet’s on (2).
Y’all keep spending that money.
Roger Moore
@kdaug:
I don’t know where all the Slashdot troll memes came from, but those were two of the dumber ones. The smart trolls were the ones who figured out bugs in Slashdot’s software and made posts that would wreck the post for everyone else until somebody came in and cleaned it up.
Yutsano
@kdaug:
Fixteth for accuracy.
Yutsano
@Arclite: ME. WANT. ONE. NAOW!!
(It’ll have to wait until I’m at least renting a house though.)
jl
I found an informative ‘compare and contrast’ moment between reactionary and informed economists:
‘ Economist Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute said the federal government should consider the sale of interstate highways. Motorists would have to pay tolls to the private owners, he said, but the roads would likely be in better shape. Federal, state and local governments could raise hundreds of billions of dollars through highway privatization, he said.
“Many of the world’s roads were originally built as toll roads, so it would hardly be revolutionary to return to that model,” Hassett said. “If it can work for the River Styx, why not the Beltway?” ‘
[my emphasis]
(snip)
‘ One prominent economist, the Urban Institute’s Eugene Steuerle, said that selling assets doesn’t really help the government’s balance sheet in a strict sense.
“In a normal accounting system, if you sell an asset, it doesn’t add to your income,” Steuerle said.
…
“The biggest asset we have by far is our human capital – our abilities,” Steuerle said. ‘
From:
U.S. should sell assets like gold to get out of debt, conservative economists say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/economy/us-should-sell-assets-like-gold-to-get-out-of-debt-economists-say/2011/05/12/AFIvmI4G_story.html
And that toll you paid at the River Styx got you a trip to such a swell place, too.
Found at
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/21/977881/-Midday-open-thread?via=blog_1
pjcamp
“but I do not think she has the sand to do so.”
Doesn’t matter anyway, because her attention is fixed somewhere up and to the left of it.
breitbartfan77
@Church Lady:
This story is a smear of Bachmann- nothing more.
Look at how citypages in Minnesota is framing the story now
Amy’s dad is Studmoose on Huffpo and if you investigate, he’s been pimping this story since before the letter was written.
We only have his word that there are threats- none have been screenshot, linked or produced.
kdaug
@Yutsano:
@Roger Moore:
Yessirs. Seein’ as how me and the misses didn’t make the cut on the rapture, I reckon it’s time to poke the evangelicals in the eye – cause they didn’t make it either, did they?
Remember – the fact that they’re still here is proof-positive that God hates them and they’re going to burn in hell for all eternity. Pro-tip.
Let’s dance.
swr
Being something of an American chauvinist, I’ve always had a hard time have believing the USA could ever be like Nazi Germany.
Then I read the comments under the Yahoo news articles. It’s not only the people fantasizing about killing gays or Muslims or “illegals.”
It’s the dreary predictibility of their responses.
kdaug
@breitbartfan77: I’ll give you a +1 for the honesty in your handle.
Bring your A game, chief. Or run away. Don’t much care.
Southern Beale
A former Premiere Magazine writer details the blowback from a story he did on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I found this little snippet very insightful:
Isn’t this true with everything these days? People just get so attached to their myths and heroes, don’t they?
Yutsano
@kdaug: They have quite a case to lay out here. First they have to show total lack of evidence, then show the father is lying, then determine the reason why the father would be lying, and then after all that show the underlying conspiracy. I don’t think they have the brain cells to pull it off. And all we have to ask is if the father is lying why?
scav
@Southern Beale:
They also get so attached to their self-image as “good people” that they don’t notice they’ve become advocates of rape and torture as legitimate means of dealing with people who disagree with them. Patriotism and righteousness as a given instead of a goal to strive for.
GregB
@breitbartfan77:
As a Breitbart fan, at least you can speak about smears from deep understanding.
That race-baiting clown is rewriting the book on smears.
As a matter of fact that balloon headed sot’s name is in the Urban Dictionary.
He makes Giraldo Rivera look like Edward R. Murrow.
El Cid
@jl:
Yeah, “normal” meaning “liberal”. We don’t need your damn ivory-tower sccounting with your ‘double entry book-keeping’ neither.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@breitbartfan77:
Really? Because other than the challenge to debate, I don’t see Bachmann’s name linked to any threats. Nothing says that Bachmann called for threats or even inspired them, nothing about
SEIUBachmann campaign thugs.But if you’d like to talk about the history of this sort of politically motivated stalking and harassment, we can start with a primer on counter-tops.
CaseyL
I was about to say something along the lines of “these assholes are walking, talking garbage tricked out to look like humans” but that would be a grotesque insult to garbage.
I can’t actually think of any words that adequately convey what loathsome wastes of protoplasm they are.
Off topic (if anything can be off topic in an open thread): I’ve been volunteering at the Seattle International Film Festival. One of the perks of volunteering is being able to see free movies. Tonight I saw “Another Earth,” which is a small indie about very big ideas, almost flawlessly written and acted. It’s about coming to terms with unbearable guilt and tragedy against the backdrop of an alternate Earth suddenly appearing in the sky. It’s the sort of movie that should get a general release but probably won’t.
“Another Earth” will only be screened one more time at SIFF: this coming Monday, at 4:30, at the Neptune in the U District. I very very strongly recommend seeing it – in the theater, or rent it if you can.
Comrade Kevin
I’m waiting for our blog host to complain about this being nutpicking. I won’t hold my breath.
Benny
Rape threats on a 16 years old girl because she asked for a debate with a politician?..A debate that Bachmann is gonna refuse anyway?
Wtf is wrong with these people.
Hill Dweller
A Brietbart fan demanding evidence? It has to be parody.
In other news, a Republican state legislator in Maine pulled a gun on a reporter today.
Benny
@Hill Dweller:
Really?
Hill Dweller
@CaseyL: I remember the actress, Brit Marling, getting all sorts of hype during Sundance for a couple of movies(one being “Another Earth”).
Hill Dweller
@Benny:
scav
@Benny: well, cite for Maine incident, if that’s what you’re looking for. Looks odd on multiple fronts, actually.
BethanyAnne
and in other, other news, it looks like a copy of Prop H8 is going before the voters in MN in 2012. Link to story
Hill Dweller
@BethanyAnne: I suspect we’ll see more of this type thing in other states. Republicans loves to put this type of shit on the ballot during a Presidential election in hopes of turning Evangelicals out. They did it successfully in ’04, with the help of Ken Mehlman, who, at the time, was a closeted gay man.
Although, I think attitudes toward gay marriage have change pretty significantly since ’04, making this type of thing less effective, in terms of turnout.
fasteddie9318
@Church Lady: Fuck off.
@breitbartfan77: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Thanks for that. Now you fuck off too.
opie_jeanne
@cathyx: I think there would be more sunshine. (currently living outside of Seattle)
Carl Nyberg
The sourcing of the rape threat allegation is that the Cherry Hill paper reported it based on the word of Myers or her father. They did not print it the threat.
It seems possible the threat was posted on a website and deleted.
But it would be a sounder story and allegation if there were some details, like which website and a quote.
That said, the Right has a long history of using violence and threatening to use violence.
BethanyAnne
@Hill Dweller: Yea. Time to put some popular Dem-voter props up on ballots. Maybe minimum wage? Maddow claims that those tend to win big, and bring lots of folk out. I don’t even know where to look up that, myself. A prop I’d love to see is some voting-right proposition. Something to guarantee college ID’s as voter identification or some such – might be good to counter the “voter fraud” laws these R legislatures have been all passing.
Jon H
NY Times reports that Daniels is out!
Oh, the wailing and rending of garments in the Village.
Yutsano
@Jon H: Link please and thank you?
EDIT: there we go, thanks. What if they gave a Republican primary and nobody came?
opie_jeanne
@Jon H: He’s out?
Oh, you meant out of the running.
Mark S.
@Church Lady:
I have to admit, that part of the story was bizarre.
gpleigh
Mitch Daniels just dropped out of the race. And the right-wing is melting down, saying the President just lost a serious contender. HAW. These people are totally LOST.
Yutsano
@gpleigh: “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody!”
/Brando
@Mark S.: Maybe it’s the way I’m reading it but the father doesn’t want to give Bachmann material to use later from campaigning. Of course that’s me reading the full quote of the article as opposed to Church Lady’s selective excerpting. As always, YMMV.
Jewish Steel
Another sun-chapped, Midwestern daddy bites the dust.
Roof-dog Romney is breathing easier.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: Heh. Willard hasn’t even officially taken the plunge yet as far as I know. The two who are in so far (unless I’m missing someone) are the libertarian nutbag and the CEO of a bad pizza chain that exists almost nowhere anymore.
jl
@gpleigh: I thought the right wing thought Daniels was a communist devil. Didn’t they make a fuss about his invite to speak at CPAC?
Anyway, too bad. I think Daniels had a good chance due to his VSP cred, and he also has not polled well against Obama.
Huntsman is the only possible GOP candidate who does not make me worry that, even if by a miraculous fluke, a nutcake or con artist (hi Mitt) might be elected. But I don’t see how anyone like Huntsman stands a chance in the GOP primaries.
Maybe the dynamic GOPerhero Pawlenty will get a boost from Daniels dropping out.
gpleigh
Love how he did it in the middle of the night. Heh.
Mittens is saying a silent prayer and doubling up on duplicity.
jl
Part of me is rooting for TPaw, because of the commercials he will do. I want to experience the pageant of elaborate epochs of TPaw commercials as it unfolds through the primary and general campaigns.
So far we have had action TPaw commercials, some dipped into Noire TPaw, and even Hitchcockian suspense TPaw. I suppose there will be the shakey camera fake documentary TPaw, sarcastic mockumentary TPaw, maybe a Dogme 95 TPaw phase of campaign commercials.
And Pawlenty’s preferred brand of social sabotage seems to be elimination of the superfluous population of lesser persons through failing infrastructure, which I think is less likely to cause lasting damage to our democratic republic.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
You’re going to have the GOP establishment pushing for Huntsman as hard as it can, and the GOP base/AM radio fucktards pushing for Bachmann or Cain as hard as they can. It’s a tug of war between the money and the voter apparatus. And then there’s Sarah, waiting in the wings to step into the room, dressing up in yellow with black stripes with her own sword thinking the game is up and it’s all hers to gain. That may be true, with the caveat that she could stand alone as the winner amongst the 27% batshit GOP primary crowd. Obama will win his re-election, but C&L floats a hypothetical that I found worth hearing out. GOP has gone to ground. All their activism, all their strength, all their focus has gone to the state level. It’s governors enacting the conservative, Randian wishlist at the moment. It’s state legislatures fighting the culture wars to the bitter bitter end. Nationally, the right wing agenda is over. So they’re digging trenches on the state level again. Welcome back to regional sectarianism again, America. Only this time, it’s not just that both sides have machine guns as Harry Turtledove might have imagined it, but we all have nukes and waterboards. Here’s where the fun starts.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: Hmm. Y’know, why can’t the government be run like marginal a pizza chain? All we need is the right CEO.
I regret that we won’t get to necklace Daniels with his greatest hits as Bush II’s budget director. Ah well.
jl
@Mark S.: Well, yeah. Maybe the dad is sketchy, and is promoting his kid for some reason or other.
So what? How does that excuse the threats?
90 percent of the reactionary ‘grass roots’ personalities have had more sketchy self interested self promotion than we have seen in the HS Bachmann debate challenge so far (Joe The Plumber (TM), the 14 year old conservative genius kid who was doing the rounds of conservative meetings, the TeaGOPper entrepreneurs trying to hit the big bucks by patenting, or copyrighting or trademarking, or whatever, there little corner of the fake movement).
Threats are not an acceptable response to reactionary GOP self promotion, and they are not an acceptable response to the HS Bachmann debate challenge, whatever the dad is up to.
freelancer
@gpleigh:
If Romney reversed directions into anymore physical dimensions he’d reveal that his house is actually built from real life tesseracts.
Jewish Steel
@freelancer:
From your link:
Hadn’t seen that one before. Awesome.
The flaw I see in the C&L article is that if Palin runs as TP candidate she is likely to inspire others on the local level to do the same and split the vote similarly.
fasteddie9318
Is Daniels the last of the Very Serious Moderate White Knights? Since Huntsman threatens to break the space-time continuum by polling in negative numbers, doesn’t this just leave Romney as the least loony of the band of loons? I’m looking forward to the other loons using him as a pinata for the next 6 or 8 months.
And don’t say Pawlenty. Nobody who was in that five clown circus of a first debate can ever again hope to pretend that they’re moderate.
Yutsano
@freelancer:
So they’re just throwing in the towel? I won’t even bother with the Mormonism and the next to zero name recognition. HE DARED TO COOPERATE TO THE POINT OF VOLUNTARILY WORKING FOR THAT ONE !! Do they honestly think that ANY candidate with that sin on their resume will EVER be palatable to any primary voters? Do they think their money can move things that much?
fasteddie9318
@freelancer:
I would hope, with 150 years of time to reflect on the nature of that war and its long-term consequences, we’d be prepared this time to just tell the fucking morons to go form their own goddamn country. Call it Idiotistan or whatever you want, then just leave the rest of us the fuck alone. The problem I envision is that, while I don’t support a border fence with Mexico, you can goddamn well believe I want a big-ass motherfucking wall separating me from the new Confederates States of Moron America. Lined with razor-wire. And mines. And a moat, with sharks with fricking laser beams attached to their heads.
Spaghetti Lee
@freelancer:
Don’t they think that could backfire on them? Presidential elections are what sway other elections, and if they think they can just throw two palookas up against Obama and win everywhere else, they’ll find some very long coattails getting in their way.
I mean, it’s not like the experiment has been a raging success so far. Scott Walker will likely get recalled in January. Kasich, Scott, and Christie have all seen their approval ratings fall to, what 35% or so? If at least 3 of those 4 don’t lose election next time they’re up for it, I’ll be surprised.
I know it’s early, but I get the sense that the GOP knows the clock is ticking on them and they’re just thrashing wildly and killing whoever they can. They’ll do some damage, but when was the last time a reckless kamikaze mission beat careful strategy?
Yutsano
@fasteddie9318:
Well…we only have sea bass. But really angry sea bass.
Xenos
@fasteddie9318: No way. After subsidizing them for the last 150 years you would let them walk out? Not until we get our stuff back!
freelancer
@Yutsano:
And yet they’ll say we need aligators.
Yutsano
@freelancer: Well gators gotta eat too you know. What better to make bloodthirsty gators than angry sea bass? You are what you eat and all.
Jon H
@fasteddie9318: ” And a moat, with sharks with fricking laser beams attached to their heads.”
To fill that moat…
Well.
I understand Japan has a bunch of radioactive water they’re looking to get rid of.
fasteddie9318
@Xenos:
I’d consider it ransom payment, and worth every penny.
TenguPhule
Nov 2, 2000.
kdaug
@fasteddie9318:
Stoled. FYI.
Pat
If I were the girl’s parent, I would be keeping my local police department very busy notifying them of each and every threat she receives because WE ALL KNOW once you are targeted by the tea party bad things happen.
Ron
I have to admit that the whole thing of “there have been threats!” without any evidence of said threats is a little weird. Not that I would be surprised if there were threats, but I’m not comfortable with the evidence of “I tell you there were threats”
Ron
@jl: The problem seems to be that as far as I can tell, the evidence that the threats exist at all is the dad saying they exist.
debbie
This always resorting to violence just exposes how idealess these people are.
@ Spaghetti Lee:
Similar to their ability to string “demonization of the white man” and “Democrats equal class warfare” in the same sentence.
bob h
Throughout the Birther controversy, I waited for some Republican of stature like Bush 41 or 43, to call bullshit on it. But you wait in vain for Republicans of stature to say such things; they are afraid to do so.
Mark S.
@jl:
It doesn’t. I should have put that disclaimer in there.
Observer
I didn’t see any rape threats at the links supplied but then again I don’t have 20 hours to waste looking for that.
I wasted time looking through a dozen pages on a Hannity website link supplied by the father and saw….nothing.
The story from the home town paper said this:
It’s more than a little bit weird that for all the blog posts about this not a single one offers a specific link or screen shot to these alleged very specific threats.
Just saying’.
MattMinus
Nutpicking is the lowest form of blogging.
tofubo
no sense of limits and no sense of shame
no sense of history, no sense of proportion, no sense of decency, no sense of results, no sense of facts
no sense
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@Observer:
Well, actually on that one, no, it’s not. Among other things the police frowns quite strongly on releasing specific quotes of threats because of the copy cat phenomenon. You rarely get specifics on threats unless they’re made very publicly. Whether or not you think these threats are likely to exist, that the specifics have not been provided is not relevant evidence simply because it’s not ‘standard’ to do so.
PanurgeATL
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Well, at least they don’t work as well, so yes, technically we have become more civil.
What is an animal, anyway?
Frank W.
#132: Include an apostrophe in “saying” only if you are dropping the final letter (the ‘g’). That is what the apostrohe indicates: a missing letter.
Just sayin’….
Yes, the lack of evidence of threats is curious, but since the threats involved rape, perhaps the reporter and editor of the story decided to not include them. If you read the discussion comments at the end of the linked article, however, you will see a lot of doubt from clearly conservative readers who cannot conceive that one of their own might threaten violence to a teenaged girl.
I self-identify as a progressive, but logically I can understand why you evidently doubt that threats took place (since no evidence has been provided). However, you seem unwilling to even suppose threats may have taken place, which in light of the extraordinarily heated and coarse nature of political rhetoric today seems naive.
PanurgeATL
@freelancer:
Maybe. But what would things look like now if the Dems had taken Ronald Reagan at his word and done the same thing in the ’80s?
Dr. Psycho
@Baud: Agreed. They decided to turn democracy into war by other means (with some actual violence thrown in), so we must win that war and crush them completely before we can go back to engaging in normal democracy.
The alternative is to let them win, or to let them escalate until it really is just open warfare.