Apparently Charlie Crist came out of the closet:
I know a lot of the purists will scream about him becoming a Democrat (much like they continue to scream at me, including the idiots who think I have a man crush on Christie and would actually fucking vote for him), but I’ll take him over Rick Scott, and I think that is what Crist really wants- to be Governor of Florida again. And with Christ as Governor of Florida, that means, at the very least, we don’t have to deal with the voter suppression efforts of the GOP.
So welcome aboard, Charlie.
Ian
Florida could do worse (and has) than Christ.
amk
So this pic finally proves that charlie is not teh ghey?
General Stuck
Fuckin’ A. Any hanky panky and everything gets turned to pillars of salt.
MikeJ
No! Unless he is in favour of impeaching ObamaworsethanBushhesoldusout right now we should declare him impure and tell him we’d rather fight against Republicans than work with Democrats.
Ash Can
Give ‘im hell, Charlie.
General Stuck
Somebody needs a big Obot hug.
lamh35
more from TPM on Charlie Crist switching to Dems.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/charlie_crist_goes_dem.php?ref=fpblg
Spaghetti Lee
Honestly, good for him. It’s always difficult for adults to convert like that after years, and I imagine even harder if you used to be a high-ranking official in one party.
pk
Did they really get rid of him because he was cordial towards Obama, or is there some other reason?
? Martin
Let’s all be clear about this, he didn’t leave the party – the party left him.
Not that I mind, but I don’t think Crist’s positions have moved terribly over the last decade. If the GOP can’t claw back their own party members in part of their reform toward the electorate, they’re hosed.
wasabi gasp
come on down
MikeJ
Pssst. Cole. You B0rk3d the html.
? Martin
Let’s all be clear about this, he didn’t leave the party – the party left him.
Not that I mind, but I don’t think Crist’s positions have moved terribly over the last decade. If the GOP can’t claw back their own party members in part of their reform toward the electorate, they’re hosed.
wasabi gasp
come on down
Jewish Steel
What’s up bizzaro BJ?
Formatting is looking kinda stoned. You know this blog cannot possess more than an ounce, right?
Ooparts
For some reason, this news makes me really optimistic. Moderate Democrats piss me off to no end, but more not-insane Republicans jumping ship will only hasten the end of the GOP.
Richard W. Crews
without knowing this, I posted at KDrum, in response to “if not Hillary, who?” : Emanuel Rahm/Crist
? Martin
@pk:
They got rid of him by primarying him against Rubio. And part of their objection to Crist was that he did actually did make voting better in Florida, which Scott rolled back. Being cordial to Obama didn’t help – and it’s not like he even said particularly good things about Obama, he merely hugged him when Obama visited the state. Same objection they have against Christie. Apparently Republican governors are supposed to punch the president in the neck when he comes to visit.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: John broke the blog. We’re waiting for him to get permission from Tunch to fix it.
Little Boots
well, ya know what, good for him.
now take that next step, buddy.
Suffern ACE
Ok. But how was he the last time he was governor? Sure, he was labeled a rino, but so was every republican who once said a nice word about Obama. I know kos endorsed him over meek, but I thought that was kind of lame. Since all I know about Florida politics has to do with dead teens, Medicare fraud, hanging chads, long voting lines, katherine harris and comatose women, what did he do to make it less nutty?
Little Boots
@Suffern ACE:
oh, hell, how was johnny when he was being republican.
he changed. it happens. people suck when they’re republican, then they get over it.
it’s how it goes.
Darkrose
@amk: He could be bi.
MikeJ
Oh Jesus, what the fuck has Apple screwed up now? iTunes 11.0? No fucking thank you. I haven’t let it upgrade since 10.4.10 because it just keeps getting worse. I can’t imagine that they didn’t fuck it up when changing a major number.
Jewish Steel
@Yutsano: I like it. It’s much cleaner and clearer this way. At least on my browser. Good job, Tunch!
Mike E
Welcome to the big tent. Mind the elephant dung and DINOs and you should do fine, but do me a favor…get the party to embrace its landmark platforms, and I will register ‘D’ too!
Thanks,
Mike E
Unaffiliated voter, former Democrat
Felonius Monk
Well, this is all I can say about Charlie.
Jewish Steel
@MikeJ: Yeah, I’m scared to update too.
Little Boots
nobody sane can be republican.
it’s the know nothing party, at this point.
and that’s a little sad, but true.
Anonypreacher
@Suffern ACE:
Meek was unelectable and deserved to lose.
RadioOne
can we not fuck this one up like we did with Arlen Specter? Reagan’s coalition was won winning southern Democrats who switched to the Republican party. Party-switchers should be a cause for celebration when they come to our side, not a case for paranoia.
Little Boots
@RadioOne:
they’re doomed.
they’re incredibly stupid at this point. Jim Demint is actually a loss. it’s all so sad and stupid.
Richard W. Crews
@? Martin: remember how the AZ witch/bitch Gov wagged her finger in his face while he stood there and smiled. At the airport, I believe, so she was probably quick on the draw.
Jade Jordan
You DO have a crush on Christie. Good thing you can gay marry now.
Little Boots
@Jade Jordan:
but not in new jersey
Jeff Spender
@Jewish Steel:
You should be. Mine updated and reduced me to tears.
I hate iTunes so much. Such shitty software.
? Martin
@MikeJ: iTunes 11 is a facelift change with a little bit of backend changes. Performance on Windows is reportedly much better.
Personally, I like the facelift. I stopped using iTunes for syncing when iCloud launched, so it’s just a music/video library now and the facelift reflects more of a focus on that. Among the nicer items is the party feature is gone and replaced with an editable ‘up next’ listing that works in any mode. You can drag songs over the icon for the listing and it’ll add the songs/albums/whatever. You can select and delete them. A submenu for each song in the listing will take you to the listing for the artist or the album.
The mini window is much better. Airplay support is more sensibly integrated. The biggest downside is that if you’re really accustomed to the old interface, this is definitely different. I think different better, not everyone does.
My understanding is iTunes 12 or 13 will only bring tweaks to the interface and overhaul the backend. They’re deliberately doing this in two phases.
A decent review is here.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Crist’s move would please me even if all it amounts to is one more Democratic vote in Florida.
Little Boots
unless you’re a boneheaded fundamentalist, what the hell is the point of that party any more?
really.
PeakVT
@MikeJ: 10.7.something is horrible on Windoze. It stutters at the beginning of almost every song, even when I set the priority to high. (Yes, I know, get some other software. But I liked iTunes when it worked. A lot.)
WaterGirl
@MikeJ: I think iTunes 11.0 is a big improvement.
Little Boots
weird how lively this place used to be.
Lojasmo
@MikeJ:
Lighten up, francis.
Villago Delenda Est
This only goes to show that Republicans with sufficient neurons working to form coherent thought see that they have no choice but to abandon the rump of their once viable party to the crazies.
Eventually, the Dems will split along small c conservative lines and more traditional progressive lines. But only after the crazy is quarantined in the husk of the GOP. Because right now, the more small c conservatives and the progressives have a common enemy. The crazy.
Narcissus
I’d have sex with his wife
Sawgrass Stan
@Suffern ACE: for a start, he lifted the ban on letting ex-cons vote. One fell swoop, no “may I, please?” to the Nutbag Chorus we call a State Senate, just grabbed that pen and signed. Jeb was SO PISSED– he’d fought it for years. Charlie’s no fiery progressive, but we all knew he was not a Republican, and it’s nice to have him where he should have been all along.
Little Boots
@Narcissus:
she’d probably appreciate it.
Ellyn
I like Crist. Even when he was a Republican, he refused to suppress the vote in Florida. I think he really cares about his state.
Yutsano
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: If I listen very carefully I can hear Betty’s cackling over this development coming from the southeast. Methinks she’ll have a few choice words about this development tomorrow.
SatanicPanic
Sure, why not? Welcome to the club Charlie
The Other Chuck
Nice snark on the alt tag.
Sawgrass Stan
@Villago Delenda Est:
“This only goes to show that Republicans with sufficient neurons working to form coherent thought see that they have no choice but to abandon the rump of their once viable party to the crazies.”
— yes, but this is Florida. The Republicans with a smattering of working neurons are all in the state legislature, and therefore totally dependent on the Crazy for their livelihood. I wouldn’t expect much for an alliance between tiny c’s and progressives down here.
David in NY
My loverly wife, who complains that I don’t tell her the latest news from the internets, paused when I said, “OK, here’s news, Charlie Christ became a Democrat.”
Her: “Charlie Christ, who’s he? Um, Florida?”
Me: “Right.”
Her. “Gay?”
Me: “Maybe. But look at this picture.”
Her: “Oh, gay. And that’s Bess Meyerson, right?”
Me: “Never mind.”
Omnes Omnibus
@David in NY: I used to have conversations like that when I was married.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Yutsano:
I’m looking forward to Betty’s insights as well.
Sawgrass Stan
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
She’s not a big Crist fan, I believe, so yeah, it could be fun..
taylormattd
I love his
hagwife, she looks fab!taylormattd
@David in NY: Your wife is 100% correct.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Sawgrass Stan:
I’m not very well informed about state politicians outside of my own state so the thoughts of people like Betty and Kay are very valuable to me. I would think that Crist’s change of party won’t accomplish much just because the Republicans will view him as a traitor and the Democrats won’t trust him.
mclaren
If the Republican party follows through on its threat to stonewall and crash this economy into a recession by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, there’s a real possibility that the voters will remember and hold Republicans accountable in 2014.
That could spell the beginning of the end of the Republican party as a viable force in American politics.
Too much to hope for?
Maybe. But we can still keep our fingers crossed…
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@MikeJ: I’ve had a bit of a conversion, myself, and am a former iTunes loyalist now squarely in Camp Spotify.
Spotify lets you access your iTunes library w/o actually opening iTunes. Granted, I think the layout of the resulting playlist needs some major addressing, but still, there it is, in easy-on-the-eyes dark grey, allowing access to your own library or Spotify’s (which streams at 320k, though not sure why so high – 256k kinda peaks at what the human ear can distinguish in bit rate quality) in one interface.
Plus, Spotify’s adding tracks at a mad crazy rate. I recently called up from them some alternative mixes for Love & Rockets’ psychedelic-techno “This Heaven” that I never even knew existed. Good times, indeed.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: So you are going for sane in this thread?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@mclaren:
I think that the demise of the Republican party is too much to hope for. They still have the House – despite their manifest shortcomings and they look likely to keep it by fair means or foul.
The enshrinement of a two party system seems to me to have not anticipated that one of the two might descend into lunatic nihilism.
Jewish Steel
@Omnes Omnibus: Good cop, bad cop.
PeakVT
@mclaren: Who are you and what have you done with the real mclaren?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: No.
SATSQ
Yutsano
@PeakVT: The meds kicked in. She does this bipolar thing all the time.
@BillinGlendaleCA: I cannot discount this possibility.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: Or, the “meds” wore off.
Mnemosyne
@wasabi gasp:
Funny, when you posted that I thought it would link to this for some reason.
Maybe I was just in the mood for the song.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: @BillinGlendaleCA: Yes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I’ll see that and raise you this.
Steeplejack
Forget Crist. Who’s that special lady in the photo with him?
Okay, back to Martin Beck, The Silent Scream, on the DVR. Just took a break from the bleak Scandinavian procedural to check in on Balloon Juice. Pervy photographer preying on high school girls. The movie, not Balloon Juice. That I know of.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
There was a 24-hour block of Barbara Stanwyck movies on TCM a few days ago, including some pre-Code gems, and I’m wondering if you caught The Miracle Woman (1931), directed by Capra. Not saying it’s the greatest movie ever, but really luminous photography and a nice riff on a sort of Aimée Semple McPherson character. I saw it a year or two ago, was glad I could snag it on the DVR this time.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I have seen it before, though I didn’t see this particular airing. I did like it, both as a Pre-Code and as an early Capra film. I think we were able to download it from our DVR.
I still haven’t been able to finish watching their other big Pre-Code collaboration, The Bitter Tea of General Yen. The racial politics are just too outdated.
ETA: So far, I think my favorite Pre-Code Stanwyck is Night Nurse, though Baby Face is a lot of fun.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, not to mention it would be years before science would discover that Asian actors could be hired to play Asian characters.
Agree on Night Nurse and Baby Face. Working backward from The Big Valley and her big ’50s movies, it was a revelation to me to discover what a hottie Stanwyck was in the early part of her career.
TCM showed a bunch of mediocre World War II movies today. The exception was They Were Expendable, which is surprisingly subtle and quite powerful. A good movie, and even a good John Wayne movie. Would have loved to see it paired with Battleground (1949), but no luck.
burnspbesq
@Jewish Steel:
Relax, ya weenies. Unless (a) you can’t bear to be without Cover Flow, or (b) you use Pure Music on top of iTunes, it’s all good.
burnspbesq
@? Martin:
Most of the old interface is there, it’s just turned off by defaul. Two minutes of rummaging around on the view menu will give you most of what you’re familiar with.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I think it was a guest on TCM who pointed out one of the peculiarities of Charlie Chan movies — Charlie was played by a European actor (Warner Oland was Swedish) but his sons were always played by Asian-American actors with “gee whiz, Pop!” Middle America accents. Apparently the Charlie Chan movies get a little bit of a pass from some Asian-American film historians for that (and because Oland played Charlie Chan more as an immigrant than as an Asian stereotype, but I’m kinda half-remembering a TCM interstital, so don’t quote me).
Dragon Seed is probably one of the worst offenders, with Katharine Hepburn and Walter Huston (among many others) playing Chinese peasants. Another movie I tried to watch and couldn’t get through because it was just too distracting to see European actors trying to play Asian.
G had a similar reaction after we watched Baby Face and Night Nurse — he never really “got” what her appeal was until he saw her in those unrestrained Pre-Codes.
I’ve been thinking lately about actors and actresses who were able to make the transition from Pre-Code to Code, and Stanwyck is one of the people I have in mind. If you watch her in the movies she made after the Code, you can see that she adopted a bit of chilliness to tone herself down and be more acceptable to the Breen office. It’s something that actresses like Ann Dvorak or Kay Francis weren’t able to do, so they ended up being relegated to supporting roles after the Code cracked down on having too many complicated women on screen.
I forgot to alert everyone that one of my holy grail movies turned up on TCM a couple of weeks ago — I was finally able to Tivo The Story of Temple Drake, starring Miriam Hopkins. Here’s the (in)famous poster for it.
jefft452
@Steeplejack: “Working backward from The Big Valley and her big ’50s movies, it was a revelation to me to discover what a hottie Stanwyck was in the early part of her career”
I thought she was still hot in “The Big Valley”, but then agian I was hitting puberty at the time so I may have been biased
“Night Nurse” is basically a 90 min underwear commercial staring Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondel in their mid 20’s, so yeah, it’s a great movie. I think it even had a plot, but for some reason I always get too distracted to follow it:)
But peak hotness was “Ball of Fire” through “Christmas in CT”
Joe Max
You know, this seems to be a problem on the Left that the Left has to get over. When a liberal drinks the kool-aid and converts to conservatism, he or she is usually welcomed with open arms by the inmates of the GOP asylum and even lauded for it. But a conservative converting to liberal thinking is treated suspiciously.
Is this an artifact of the evangelicalism that’s at the heart of the right-wing? The idea of conversion and being “born again” is part of their culture, and converts are often called upon to tell the tale of their conversion (“Testify!”) and cheered as they do so.
Maybe this is a trick worth stealing from them, eh?
Steeplejack
@jefft452:
She was still very attractive in the ’50s (and later), but just a little matronly. And the roles she got were more toned down and dignified. And not vulnerable. That was the flip side of her hotness in the ’30s and ’40s–an aspect of vulnerability beneath the surface.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
I think Charlie Chan gets a pass because the character was never made an object of ridicule. He looked weird and talked in that ridiculous fortune-cookie broken English, but it was always clear that the police chief of whatever city he was in was extremely glad to have his assistance on the case. And he was always treated with respect.
The whole thing with his sons was a riff on what was probably a common experience of the times: immigrant parents still drenched in the old-country vibe and kids who had rapidly and seamlessly assimilated into American pop culture. And, yeah, “Gee, Pop!” was about 30 percent of the dialogue. LOL.
And Chan was played by two white men, Warner Oland and Sidney Toler.
Re Stanwyck: I think another thing that allowed her to successfully adapt her career was that her style of physical beauty was a little muted and therefore more mutable. A lot of the actresses that weren’t able to adapt had a physical beauty that was really strong but also really of its particular time. Jean Harlow and Joan Blondell, for example, just scream “1930s,” and it’s hard to envision them in a picture not of that time. Harlow avoided the problem by dying, of course, but without recourse to IMDB I can’t think of a single Joan Blondell movie after the 1930s. But Stanwyck was able to plausibly adapt from the ’30s to the ’40s and ’50s precisely because her beauty wasn’t so striking.
Shalimar
@Joe Max: Welcomed with open arms? We are talking about the same inmates who don’t think Lindsay Graham is pure enough, right? I think you would find that their welcomeness has changed since the days of Strom Thurmond and Richard Shelby, and any former Democrat would be viewed with extreme suspicion if they switched parties now.
Howard Beale IV
And speaking of dinosoaurs, Sony will stop production of cassette players.
1badbaba3
Oh my. Welcome, Guv. And allow me to say “hubba, hubba”. Beard or not, that is quite impressive. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go add to my collection. And, yes, that is what they are calling it these days.
Wow.
Honus
@Shalimar: Zell Miller. Joe Lieberman.
Sargeant Pepper's Spray
The GOP is losing another demographic. If we can flip John Boehner we’ll have 100% of the orange vote!
hep kitty
Too lazy for the google this morning. Is he going to run against Scott, possibly?
hep kitty
@jefft452: Stanwyck fans! I’m watching Meet John Doe right now.
A wonderful Stanwyck moment from Baby Face:
“. . . yeah . . .”
Scoobydoo
Nice looking beard he has there!
pluege
figures; one republican hiding in the Democratic Party welcoming another republican to hide in the Democratic Party. And just when we finally got rid of those friggin’ “Blue Dogs”
A little more purity and a little smaller tent would be GREAT!
gvg
Christ is a mixed bag, but sane so he wasn’t allowed to stay republican. they drove him out with all sorts of rumors he was gay. I didn’t see much fact in the stories and of course I don’t care but feel it’s not anyones business if he was gay but didn’t want to say. It’s a privacy thing with me, I just feel that in general people want to know too much of what should be private business.
Politically I didn’t care for him but he had a lot of good points in comparison to the extreamists that have turned up lately. In fact Jeb does too in comparison. I don’t like their attitudes about Schools. they want to privatize charter too much and it’s just a give away to religious and business friends.
Both were very good about the interests of children in foster care though and each in turn improved funding and pushed through reforms that help get the kids placed in permanent homes if the families can’t get their act together in about a year and a half. It;s tricky to be fair to bio families but also know when to give up. I don’t like that they privatized state agencies involved in the care. think it’s a waste of money and it fragments responsibilities so it gets harder to get things done and it makes these private charities CEO’s get money at the exspense of lower employee’s former state benefits going away. On the other hand by actions both Jeb and Christ proved they actually cared about abused kids. Lex Luthor doesn’t and its causing problems.
Christ was much better on voting rights and in fact on felons, no question.
I thought he caved too easy and in the wrong way on the problems of state taxes and homestead exemptions. Basically we Floridians wrote the property tax so it can only go up a few % a year so people wouldn’t lose their homes when the as it turned out real estate bubble increased property values so much. I don’t think the principle was wrong but they made the % max increase too low and it became a revenue problem plus it made people stay put and feel they couldn’t move even for better jobs. Then local counties had to solve their revenue problems by making the tax rate increase so that the newer buyers were paying a lot more and made the situation worse. Christ came up with some complicated fix that let people keep part of their low tax benefit when they moved which only helped realtors but didn’t fix the underlying problem. I think the max rate of increase needs to go up just a couple of %. And sometimes people need to sell and move when property values go up. Not often, but sometimes. They should look at it as cashing out investment gains to their benefit not “losing’ their home. Their was no political courage though in the legislature so he probably couldn’t have got a better fix through.
I wish the state democratic party was in a better state. The republicans are having quite a few fights among themselves but the dems are in too much disaray to take advantage. We seem to have fallen apart when Chiles died. I don’t actually know if that is related to the falling apart. I didn’t used to pay attention to politics much until I noticed nobody but idiots were getting elected.
Egilsson
Institutionally the Democratic Party in Florida Is pathetic. I think they could do a lot worse than getting Crist, who i think would be an excellent choice for Democrats. I still remember the knucklehead who headed the Democratic Party telling Chris Matthews the night of the election that the voting was fine. Crist, on the other hand, was outraged and forceful.
He did a great job as an Obama surrogate / supporter.
Jamey
Christ Almighty.
Davis X. Machina
@Joe Max: It’s more of a hangover from the Old Left ‘it’s only when you’re losing, that you’re actually winning’ thing. And it’s not that old.
General Stuck
@Davis X. Machina:
It is said. The presence of hell on earth for liberals, is waking up one morn with nothing to protest.
jefft452
@Steeplejack: “Joan Blondell, for example, just scream “1930s,” and it’s hard to envision them in a picture not of that time”
Because both JB and BS circa 1935 were eye candy
But by 1970, BS in “Big Valley” could compete with a very young Linda Evans for prurient interest in my 13 yr old self, where JB in “support your local gunfighter” was just some old lady
Also too, BS might have started her career as eye candy, but it turned out she was very good as an actress, not just as a movie star
jefft452
@hep kitty: “I’m watching Meet John Doe right now”
That’s a great one, aint it?
When the teabaggers started up the first thing I thought of was the John Doe Clubs
kay
I think we should distinguish between nationally-known people or politicians switching Party and ordinary voters.
I can’t imagine making an ordinary voter feel unwelcome or insisting on some kind of purity test and I have never witnessed anyone doing that.
First because that would be sort of silly and second because I don’t make or enforce the rules regarding who is or isn’t a “real Democrat”. There are no rules, that I’m aware of :)
I like Crist on voting rights. He repealed the Florida rule that disenfranchises felons. Scott put it back in.
What’s interesting about the GOP and felon voting is, Crist was not alone.
Both Dewine in OH and Santorum in PA supported allowing felons to vote, when those two men were in the Senate.
They both had to drop it because Republicans were launching the voter fraud bullshit.
Romney actually attacked Santorum on Santorum’s past support of felon voting in the 2012 OH GOP primary, accused Santorum of coddling criminals or whatever.
As late as 2006, a Republican COULD support allowing felons who have served their sentences restoration of their right to vote. They all lurched Right on that, and just in the last 6 years.
PaulW
@Suffern ACE:
1) Crist was more proactive in defending the environment, opposing off-shore drilling, worked to set up protections for the Everglades, etc.
2) He stopped the voter purging efforts of the GOP against minorities, especially black voters, that had been going on under Jeb Bush’s reign of error and which noticeably re-started under Rick Scott.
3) While he did support most of the standard GOP platform he didn’t push it too much as his agenda, and when there was a massive outcry against an anti-teachers bill he vetoed it (which was the start of the rift between him and the local party).
4) While he promoted himself as pro-life while as governor the issue of abortion wasn’t a big one during his tenure, and when he ran as an independent for Senate in 2010 the whole issue disappeared from his platform.
5) He never defrauded Medicare to the tune of 2 Billion dollars. So, basically, he’s not Rick Scott.
Crist in 2014.
kay
I should add that the lurch Right on felon voting in the GOP coincided exactly with the rise of Obama. There was a credible AA Dem Presidential candidate so it became neccesary for the GOP to dogwhistle on felons voting.
Since the GOP supporters of allowing felons to vote were basing that on their supposed heart-felt belief in Christian forgiveness and redemption, it’s just more evidence of how cynical they are that they dropped this Bedrock Belief the moment they saw an AA as competitive in a presidential race.
Jesus went right under the campaign bus on felon voting, and it was a hit and run. They didn’t stop or look back.
Steve
@Mnemosyne: You’re not really suggesting that the studio should pass on Katharine Hepburn in order to cast unknown_asian01, right?
Frankensteinbeck
@PeakVT:
Bear in mind, mclaren is entirely liberal, supporting at least closely the same values as we do, and even makes rational conclusions based on he/she/it’s information. The problem is, mclaren accepts absolutely any negative rumor as the truth and never lets go of them. When you start with lunatic ‘facts’ like Obama conspired with BP to cover up the oil spill, you end up with lunatic conclusions. GIGO. Mclaren lives in a scary world, and I am thankful it bears no resemblance to reality.
Gregory
You can tell he isn’t a Republican any more because he said “Democratic.”
Nicole
As I thought when Arlen Specter did it, he’s an asshole, but now he’s our asshole.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@pluege: It has worked miracles for the Republican party.
The Other Bob
Is there a link to the post where John Cole made the switch?
Karl
Because it worked so well for Arlen Specter
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
No, I’m suggesting that the studio have more than one (1) Asian-American actor in the cast of a film that takes place entirely in China and is about a family of Chinese peasants. But apparently the obvious fakery of “yellowface” makeup on European actors was noticeable enough to audiences that studios decided it was better to have the entire cast be white actors than to mix casts:
Desert Rat
I was right where Charlie Crist was about 25 years ago.
Good on him. As I can well attest, sometimes the most vociferous of liberals can come out of Republicans who discover they have a conscience, and genuinely care about their fellow human beings.