Two weeks after Election Day, Rep. Allen West, R-Florida, conceded Tuesday to Democrat Patrick Murphy following a bitter campaign that resulted in a recount and legal action in Florida’s 18th Congressional District.
The first-term congressman made his announcement the same day the unofficial results are to be certified by Florida’s secretary of state. West had vowed he would not give up until the results, which consistently showed Murphy with a narrow lead, had become certified.
Next election let’s take out Bachmann.
GregB
Allen West, former Congressman and future Fox News political analyst.
I smell a Rubio/West ticket waiting in the wings.
Maude
How long before West starts working at Fox?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
“take out” might not be the best choice of words given how we DFHs get all hot and bothered when the wingnuts use violent rhetoric then say “oh but that’s not what I really meant”.
Joshua Norton
How much you want to bet he’ll run for Governor next? Florida doesn’t seem to be too picky about who gets that job.
Ash Can
Nah, Bachmann provides comic relief. I’d rather see Cantor or Ryan get tossed.
Waldo
He will be missed. Hell, I miss him already and he ain’t even gone.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ash Can: And I’d much rather see her crazy eyes than Boehner’s crying.
Haydnseek
I owe Mr. West a debt of gratitude. My congresscritter is Judy Chu in CA 32. She is a member of the progressive caucus. I had no idea that she was a Communist until I was informed by Mr. West that every member of the progressive caucus was a member of the Communist party!
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! Up until that point, I was under the impression that she was doing the job that we elected her to do, but now her heinous ulterior motives have been revealed. Mr. West, I salute you.
joel hanes
Let’s take out Paul Ryan and Buck McKeon next time — people who do real damage, and can be toppled.
bd of mn
Bachmann underperformed Mitt by six points and still won, to give you an idea of how deeply red her district is…
kindness
I’m all for any Teahaddists getting the boot and if John can further that cause more power to him.
The fact that they don’t see that they are just the Christian version of the Taliban is the only reason I need to support their ouster. Let’s all keep in mind there are many, many reasons to seek their ouster but no need to pile it on here.
blingee
I think Bachmann will be gone next election. She only won by about 500 votes. That’s definitely going to happen unless she dials down the crazy which is highly unlikely.
I hope people learned from 2008 that you can’t just vote and then go home and sit on the couch and wait for the change. I hope this time OFA can carry more momentum into the 2014 midterms with their GOTV operation and take back the house this time.
schrodinger's cat
We still have a lot of garbage to haul but this is a good first step.
quannlace
Nah, the Tea Party wet dream is West/Palin. The only question seems to be, who gets top billing?
Violet
@GregB: Sarah Palin suggested Romney should pick West as his running mate. I think a Palin/West ticket in 2016 would be a big winner.
Culture of Truth
Communists!!!!!!!
Patricia Kayden
He will not be missed. Such a buffoon.
Ben Grimm
They can go with an all-loser ticket: Santorum/West 2016!
Mnemosyne
Kittens are up. Mom’s tail is the best toy EVER!
rlrr
@Violet:
I think a Palin/West ticket in 2016 would be a big winner.
For the Democrats…
dmsilev
@Violet: No no no. You’re supposed to emphasize how angry both Palin and West make you, and how frightened you would be if the GOP deployed such a fantastic team in the next Presidential race.
JenJen
It would be fun to get rid of Bachmann, but next election I hope we’ll really focus on getting rid of these GOP Governors that got elected under the teabagger wave. Their vote suppression antics and anti-ACA moves are hurting people, for real, and they need to be gone.
Cassidy
@Ben Grimm: Nah. Santorum is definitely the bottom.
jibeaux
@dmsilev: Many years ago I saw George Will take that tack re: Hillary Clinton; “boy, she sure would be a great candidate for the Democrats and I’d hate to have to run against her!” I rather doubt we’ll see that column again in 2016.
lonesomerobot
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: no, he means we should all take her out for dinner, maybe the Applebee’s salad bar.
dr. luba
It’s all fraud, you know! The unskewed polls guy has determined that Obama stole the election,and has a new website to prove it. The “stolen” states are black on his map. Subtle he’s not.
On the plus side, his comments sections have been hijacked. By lemon party. You DO NOT want to click on that link!
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Except for their own tails, and each other’s tails, yeah!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@lonesomerobot:
Food poisoning! Great idea = Plausible Deniability.
feebog
@ joel hanes:
Not going to happen in McKeon’s case. We had a great candidate in Lee Rogers and he still fell short. McKeon is in a solid Red district that didn’t change much in the redistricting. As much as I would like to see his corrupt ass out, it’s not likely.
blingee
Can you people (in the condescending sense) STFU with your Palin bullshit. Jesus titty fucking christ you people are as obsessed with her as the right wingers.
It is not going to happen. There was zero chance of it happening in 2012 and there is less than zero chance it will happen in 2016. So just STFU already.
dmsilev
@dr. luba: His “argument” seems to be ‘there are some precincts in which Romney got very few to no votes. Therefore FRAUD.’ This is truly Jonah-Goldbergian-level logic.
Violet
@dmsilev: Oh, well, that’s what I meant. I meant, of course, that a Palin/West ticket would be the strongest Republican ticket they could offer. That Democrats would probably decide to sit this election out because who wold stand a chance against a ticket like that? A Palin/West ticket is no doubt the Republican’s best chance to take back the White House. I’m terrified they’ll figure it out.
Pooh
Omg, John Cole’s of the left advocating assassination of Our Lady of Crazypants!
lonesomerobot
@JenJen: actually, their anti-ACA moves are ensuring that people in their states get to participate in exchanges run by the federal government as opposed to the state in which they live… thus making them part of a larger pool of insured, which will make the costs for residents in these states who take advantage even less than those in other states.
The irony will be delicious, but it’s probably better this way since red state governments are otherwise doing everything they can to avoid providing a social safety net.
Palli
@Ash Can:
Yes, Bachman is hilarious but she takes the time away from real dialogue and that just reduces the energy, patience to examine and contradict the lies of the Cantors, Ryans and Boehners.
I would like to restate the intention of the last sentence, John.
Next time let’s make sure 6th Congressional District of Minnesota citizens vote out Michelle Bachman because they want an effective representative not an embarrassing fool.
rlrr
@dr. luba:
From this clown’s website:
“How many votes could have stolen the 1980 election for Jimmy Carter? Less than 3 percent ”
That’s pretty much the same as conceding it was possible Reagan stole the 1980 election…
Violet
@Mnemosyne: I love that orange fish with the big mouth. Makes me laugh every time I see it.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Whoa, cwazy kitty family there. Mom kitty must be a younger cat, She’s just as playful as her babies.
lonesomerobot
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: now you’re thinking like a socialist Kenyan Muslim!
Lurking Canadian
@dmsilev: I’ve seen this one. Somebody the other day was ranting, “Look! Here’s a Black district where Romney got 0%! It must be fraud.”
Dude was polling at, what 5% among Black voters nationwide, in polls with a margin of error of 4%? It is not outlandish to expect a few zeroes here and there.
Palli
@lonesomerobot:
thus moving one step closer to national healthcare.
rlrr
@Lurking Canadian:
There was one Ohio pole in which 0 African American respondents supported Romney….
dr. luba
@dmsilev: Exactly. No historical comparisons, no comparisons to deep red states to see if this has ever happened before or elsewhere. Just an assumption….and we know how well that worked for him when he assumed the polls were skewed.
Stephen Colbert is right–the other side operates on truthiness, from the gut. Facts and the truth are mere inconveniences to be ignored when they do not serve to advance the narrative.
Ash Can
@blingee: Oh piss off, party pooper. We’re having fun.
Lev
@quannlace: Rubio-West would literally be an illegal ticket, since the Constitution specifies the ticketmates have to be from different states. Last time it came up, though, Cheney just reregistered in Wyoming, so who knows.
@feebog: is right about Buck McKeon, though Republicans have a lot more bleeding to do in the Golden State. They dropped a handful of seats this time and will probably drop three more next time. Most people don’t appreciate just how awful 2012 was for California Republicans–they became irrelevant in the legislature, lost a bunch of House seats, all the propositions they wanted (except for keeping around the death penalty), and the mayoralty of the state’s 2nd largest city (San Diego) flipped from a libertarianish conservative Republican to a hard-core liberal. They have nothing left to build on here. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group–I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see old Gingrich stooge Dan Lungren lose his seat in my old district.
Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
And yet I’m guessing that any deep red precincts where Obama got no or very few votes are just proof that Real Americans rejected Obummer.
burnspbesq
@blingee:
Can you please explain your opposition to harmless fun?
lonesomerobot
@blingee: you appear to be obsessed with our obsession. Glass houses…
danimal
@dr. luba: BREAKING: Mitt Romeny enormously unpopular in urban areas!
This must be fraud, because we all know how well loved Mitt Romney is in inner-city Philedelphia. Barack O’Frauda, indeed!
They have some nuclear-level stupid over in the conservasphere.
burnspbesq
@ John Cole:
Your Elmer Fudd impression needs serious work, dude. Where are your w’s?
blingee
@Ash Can: Define “we” because if you are trying to tell me that none of you are taking that talk seriously…then thanks for the laugh.
I knew the day caribou barbie decided to be a half term governor that her political career was over and I hoped that would be the end of it. Unfortunately I continue to underestimate just how stupid people are, right and left, helping her successfully grift her pseudo politician status.
JenJen
@lonesomerobot: Yeah, but I thought the GOP Governors believe there is some kind of loophole in the law that they can exploit, which says if the federal government offers the health insurance exchange in lieu of the state government, they cannot at the same time offer the subsidy (federal tax credit) for those who cannot afford the insurance. Or something to that effect? There is a method to their madness, I just hope the courts don’t see it their way.
Ash Can
@dr. luba: The idea of a goofy RW conspiracy site getting overrun by porn bots brightens my day. :)
dr. luba
@rlrr: And, when you take into consideration the margin of error, that could translate potentially into NEGATIVE support for Romney:)
Napoleon
@Lurking Canadian:
I guess it wasn’t enough for that guy to make a complete fool out of himself once in front of the nation so now he is back for an encore.
Sure there were some districts in Cleveland in very heavely AA areas that went 100% of Obama, but there is a reason that no Republican has won office in Cleveland since George Voinovich left office as Mayor (when George was on council he was the only Rep of the 25 councilpeople, and the only reason he managed to become mayor is because Dennis Kucinich was the incumbant)
Ash Can
@blingee: I’d explain that “we” in this case means “anyone and everyone here with a sense of humor” but that tricky “humor” terminology would just go right over your head.
Spaghetti Lee
Keep an eye out for Jackie Walorski: I’d be willing to bet she’s the new Bachmann. Just got elected in Indiana to Joe Donnelly’s old seat, and is absolutely bugfuck crazy. We won’t lack for lunatics just because West and Walsh are gone.
lonesomerobot
@blingee: aww, how cute… nothing more adorable than an “independent” with a superiority complex.
Spaghetti Lee
@Napoleon:
And these are precinct-level numbers, right? Like, maybe a couple thousand people? Why is it so hard for wingers to believe that 3,000 random people in Cleveland or Philly could have all gone for Obama? It’s not like we’re claiming he won the whole city 100-0.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: He hates seeing anyone else having a good time. People with pinecones wedged in their anuses tend to be like that.
khead
@Mnemosyne:
Cute KITTEHS!
1badbaba3
@bd of mn: I think they prefer she should stay a safe distance away inside the Beltway. Otherwise, she’s always coming over for “coffee” (hiding from Marcus – a girl can only do so much “shop ’til you drop”, sheesh), and going on about the Goddamn Rapture.
But do keep her around. She’s a larf, and those crazy eyes give me idears. Heh.
Violet
@blingee: Is there anyone left who takes Palin seriously? I guess there are some hardcore Palin supporters left on her fansites and her SuperPAC does still manage to take in money, so someone’s funding her. But seriously, she’s a has been. It’s just good fun to imagine the Tea Party deciding she’s their candidate, her ego propelling her to a run, and watching the whole thing go down in flames. There would not be enough popcorn in the world.
Svensker
@Mnemosyne:
I’m driving the hubster and the (large) sprout crazy watching those kittehs. But they are sooooo cute, I just can’t stand it.
catclub
@lonesomerobot: The real question will be how tempting the new medicaid money will be, and how pursuasive the medical industry will be in convincing red state governors to take the money – and help provide healthcare to their citizens! I hope that most do, quietly, I don’t care.
The hateful part is that they only measure the cost. “we will have to pay 10% of the increase in the 7-8-9 out years! Wah!”
which is only about 2% of the total cost, but no consideration of the benefit.
Soonergrunt
@blingee: I don’t know what’s sillier. People saying Palin should run for President in 2016, or you seemingly thinking that Palin is taken remotely seriously by anybody whose not paste-eating stupid.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Are those kittens on meth? Is it like the zoo, where they trade wide awake animals for sleepy ones, to interest the public? Or did I just get lucky.
Yutsano
@Ash Can: Durfs are gonna Durf. Love how critical he is of our politics when he can’t even vote in the US.
PS: watch his hysterical overreaction to my comment. And make popcorn. Though I’m at work so don’t have the time to dedicate to this affair.
catclub
@JenJen: me too. I think their case is very thin. Rational judges will strike down such a reading. but occasionally you can get an irrational judge, which will take it to next level.
Napoleon
@Spaghetti Lee:
Yes exactly – there were something like 9 precents in Cleveland that went 100% for BO (and a few in Cincy I think). The worse was 542-0
http://media.cleveland.com/datacentral/photo/cuyahoga-precincts-2012jpg-8107831f12c11856.jpg
gogol's wife
@catclub:
You got lucky. Sometimes it’s like an Andy Warhol movie.
Svensker
@Yutsano:
Is that Durf? How’d I miss that? Spending too much time watching kittehs must rot el braino.
1badbaba3
@blingee: Okay, Karnak, so you sussed out Granny Ice Grifter. Bully.
How’s about something tougher, like the sixth race at Belmont?
gogol's wife
@Svensker:
He’s the same guy but has been more reasonable and much less troll-like lately, in my opinion. Plus he never bothered me that much in the first place.
MikeJ
@dr. luba: I’m surprised he didn’t have Maine black. Wasn’t that the state where the gov claimed hordes of rampaging negroes were going from town to town voting?
lonesomerobot
@catclub: in the meantime, I just find it entertaining that the possibility exists that national healthcare coverage will likely be spurred into existence by recalcitrant red state govs.
The downside of this is that, as an uninsured person, I would rather move to a state like Oregon (currently in red red Tennessee), but there’s a chance my rates could ultimately be cheaper in a red state like TN.
Keith
So that brings the count of Running Man bad-guy-doppelgangers (Fireball) in Congress down to…zero?
bemused
@catclub:
Wild things they are. My cat has enjoyed quietly watching the kitten cam several times now. Today, however, kittens and mama crazy times plus some yelping meows freaked her out and she made an exit.
Those kittens are getting big enough for new homes. Maybe mama is ready for them to go too.
Morbo
Speaking of rubbish, Linda McMahon’s campaign had some interesting parting gifts along with bouncing checks for her campaign staff.
GregB
It’s hard to believe an all black precinct would give a big fat fucking zero to the man who spent most of the year calling them lazy welfare moochers.
I’m shocked.
? Martin
“The America-hating liberal John Cole calls for the assassination of Michele Bachmann over at his blog…”
Just thought I’d save someone the effort of typing that up, since I think we all expect its coming.
MikeJ
@? Martin: I thought he meant dinner and a movie.
Schlemizel
@blingee:
Yes, how awful of us to make fun of her when nobody has floated her name in public as THE candidate for 2016 . . . well, except for that one large piece in the LAT and then there was that one influential blog on the right followed by a bunch of others. Yeah other than that its just us moonbats bringing her up as a potential nominee
We should totally stop that
Woodrowfan
love the kitties!
http://xkcd.com/231/
hueyplong
Every day Palin continues her grift, some rightwinger’s money is wasted on her instead of someone who might actually beat a Democrat.
We don’t want her ever to go away, ’til death do us part.
Schlemizel
@dr. luba:
Actually there was a thing I saw (I’ll look for the link) of several precincts in various shitholes like South Dakota and Wyoming where BHO got no votes. Yeah, I guess its sort of surprising but not really
Capri
@JenJen:
Well, Pence in Indiana says he’s going the national route because it’s cheaper for the state. They’ll use the federal infrastructure rather that building their own.
The hole “nationalized socialist health-care” stuff has gone down the black hole.
Schlemizel
@blingee:
Well than, thats different.
Please to be telling us now who will be the GOP & Dem nominees in 2016. Bonus points if you can get the margin of victory close enough to embarrass Silver.
Maybe you should send your email address to each of us here so we can check with you about approved comment topics before posting.
Or an even better idea, start your own blog & ban people who post things you find at least as irritating as laughing at Sister Sarah. Seems all you ever do here is whine about posts and comments s you’ll be happier there & if you disappear from here we’ll be happier too so win-win
hueyplong
Nice to see the Republican governors unanimously choosing the “unconstitutional” route to health care reform.
You’ll know the game is up when they start to insist that it not be called Obamacare. After all, you liberal media proagandists, that’s not the Act’s real name.
? Martin
@Capri: That’s bullshit. WellPoint has 60% of the Indiana market. Toss M*Plan in there and it’s almost 80%. It’d be far easier to build a state exchange around the structure those two insurers have created. Pence is just trying to avoid pissing them off so he can blame everything on the feds.
catclub
@lonesomerobot: I doubt that the insurance exchanges will make a bit of difference in the trek to national healthcare.
The companies that bid on Alabama do so because they already have clout in Alabama with medical providers. Different insurance companies will have clout (lots of present customers) in different states.
The Federal employees insurance exchange does not produce one national winner.
Tonybrown74
@blingee:
Someone needs an enema …
Woodrowfan
Pence’s IQ is roughly the same as Palin’s. he probably doesn’t understand how the system works…
catclub
Further thought suggests that if a single insurance company _did_ become dominant, it would be a huge obstacle to national healthcare, since it and its customer list would have to be taken over by the federal insurance company.
JPL
@lonesomerobot: One of the standards that insurance companies can use in setting rates is location. Obesity is a problem in the south so I would not assume that your rates would be lower.
CW in LA
@Schlemizel: Y’see? SEE?1!!?? It’s true! BOTH SIDES really DO do IT!!1!!!!111!1!
Cacti
Goodbye to the war criminal.
Cassidy
@Tonybrown74: I’d go with a ball gag.
? Martin
@catclub:
The funny thing is that I believe Indiana going with the federal exchange means that the law they passed banning abortion coverage gets bypassed – because the policy isn’t being sold at the state level, but at the national level, where the state law wouldn’t apply.
JustAnotherBob
@catclub: The exchanges make it easy to comparison shop.
If you can quickly compare prices (and quickly look up customer satisfaction on another site) then business is going to flow to those who provide the best value (combination of price and service).
It won’t take long before we start seeing articles about “What’s wrong with State X?” when the value of their offerings is less than other states. That will provide impetus for better companies to move in.
Nethead Jay
Krugthulu rises from the depths to ridicule Rubio’s ridiculous prevarication re age of the earth: Views Differ on Age of Planet and for extra effect How We Know The Earth Is Old. Delicious…
Yutsano
@Svensker: Kittehs are never bad for the brain. But I spotted his little contrarian schtick awsile back.
Liberty60
Just saw a thing on Facebook, a photoshopped picture of Mt. Rushmore with Obama’s face on it.
Would love to see this go viral if only to hear heads explode.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Joshua Norton: I dunno, nobody seems to like Scott. He’s definitely not a shoo-in for reelection.
catclub
@JustAnotherBob: “That will provide impetus for better companies to move in.”
Important if true!
However, my understanding is: Whoever has the most customers can beat down the prices demanded by medical providers, Medicare is the biggest, but after Medicare, the largest insurance provider has incumbency advantage that any new company moving in will have to overcome. It looks to me like lots of fiefdoms, that will not tend to improve quality in small states.
blingee
@Violet: Yea, mistermix was spewing on and on just a few months ago about how he was pretty sure Palin was going to run in 2012.
I laughed pretty hard every time I read that. You can’t fix stupid it’s not like he won’t jump on that bandwagon again in a heartbeat since he seems to have some creepy obsession about it. That is if he is not too busy with high school exams or running for class president or whatever.
A lot of people around here and on the orange satan (same diff) have a creepy obsession about it. They love to hate her I guess and can’t get enough. Who the fuck knows. She is just another aging 2nd rate former beauty queen to me.
lonesomerobot
@blingee: You understand English, right? The whole concept of how much we would enjoy watching the slow-motion train wreck of a Palin candidacy (regardless of the chances of it actually happening) seems to not be registering with you. You’ve obviously appointed yourself as smarter than everyone at Balloon Juice AND Daily Kos, and yet you can’t grasp that simple idea.
Let’s pretend, instead, that we’re talking about Ted Nugent and Chuck Norris deciding they hate each other and getting into a fist fight on the set of Hannity, with an errant blow taking Hannity out and making him cry like a little girl; this probably won’t happen either, but it sure is fun to talk about. But just as you don’t understand what mistermix had to say about Palin (which was certainly more goading and wishful thinking out loud than any real prognostication), you probably don’t get this either.
I definitely can tell that you are different than the majority of the rest of us here, and by that I mean that you’re an idiot. But way to rise above that ‘left’ or ‘right’ nonsense.
TenguPhule
Why wait for the election?
Bulworth
So not only did we re-elect PBO, and give marriage to teh gay, we ALSO got rid of Joe Deadbeat Walsh AND Allen West. Just too good to be true.
“This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”