(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.
Tom Edsall in the NYTimes on “The Republican Autopsy Report“:
… There is at least one crucial problem that the authors, all members of the establishment wing of the party, address only peripherally and with kid gloves: the extreme conservatism of the party’s primary and caucus voters — the people who actually pick nominees. For over three decades, these voters have episodically shown an inclination to go off the deep end and nominate general election losers in House and Senate races — or, in the case of very conservative states and districts, general election winners who push the party in the House and Senate to become an instrument of obstruction.
The highly visible presence of the candidates these voters prefer – recall the party’s Senate nominees in Missouri and Indiana, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, and their bizarre views on rape and abortion — suggests that the Republican Party has a severe, if not toxic, problem: a septic electorate that, in the words of the Mayo Clinic, “can trigger a cascade of changes that can damage multiple organ systems, causing them to fail.”
If that is the case, then the task of the Priebus commission should not have been to diagnose the party’s problems, but to conduct an autopsy…
More broadly, the alliance between Rove and the R.N.C. does substantiate the view that establishment forces are driving the reform movement within the Republican Party, an establishment that includes much of corporate America, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Bush family and its allies, and the more moderate, traditionalist donor community….
In January, I pointed out that “If the conservative movement continues on its downward trajectory, the American business community, which has the most to lose from Republican failure, will be the key force arguing for moderation.”
That moment has come. The Priebus report and Rove’s Conservative Victory Project together mark a significant escalation in the battle between the center and the right over the soul of the Republican Party. What has yet to be determined is whether they are fighting over a patient who can be quickly resuscitated or a patient with a chronic but not fatal illness — or a corpse.
If Dave Weigel’s reports from the ‘True Conservative” redoubts are correct, the Tea Party brigade don’t want to be Hep C, they want to be MRSA, or maybe C. difficile:
The Heritage Foundation gathers House conservatives once a month for an open-press, open-blogger panel called “Conversations with Conservatives.” Every month, the tone has grown both more militant and more optimistic. An example: Two members referred to the agreements made among all Republicans at their retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia as the “Williamsburg Accord.” That accord “keeps the sequester cuts” while sequencing a debt debate that Republicans can live with….
… The conservatives argued that they’d taken the worst the president and the press had to offer during the sequestration fight. They’d won. They would win again.
“In Vietnam, we took a hill and defeated the enemy, then we retreated and let the enemy take over,” said South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan. “In the sequester we’ve held that ground … the momentum is with us.”
There was a funny tension here: The party leadership was following their lead, but that leadership was discussed in the terms usually reserved for a rival military power. An accord! …
“We tried two moderate Republican candidates, McCain and Romney, and we lost both times,” said Duncan. Why not go back to the model of Ronald Reagan? No one was cruel enough to point out that Reagan’s electorate was 88 percent white, and Romney’s was only 72 percent white, but Duncan hinted at a solution for that. Get more whites to show up! “In Florida, 350,000 white Republicans did not show up on Election Day.”…
Hobbes
These guys keep talking about this mythical Ronald Reagan that never existed in reality.
PeakVT
“In Florida, 350,000 white Republicans did not show up on Election Day.”
Yeah, that kind of conversation will be great for the party’s long-term prospects.
Keep talking, you vile bastards. Your country depends on it.
Elizabelle
But what does Olympia Snowe (President – Retired) say?
Both sides, both sides, I tell you.
Soonergrunt
Here’s an autopsy of the Republican party that is short, sweet, and to the point:
The vast majority of them are assholes. Nobody likes assholes. They need to stop being assholes.
Davo
@Soonergrunt: Im with him^
For example, you oppose equal rights for homosexuals. Then you find out your kid is gay. Then you’re cool with it.
And thats how I know for sure you’re a bonafide asshole, senator.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Say what? There is no “center” in the Republican party. There’s the far right and the lunatic right. The soul of the Republican party has already been auctioned off.
scav
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
So two rights do make a wrong.
gussie
@Soonergrunt: 45% of the country are assholes, and will only vote for assholes. So if they stop being assholes, they lose. Their only hope is to cause so much damage that the relative non-assholes share the blame.
jrg
@Soonergrunt: They need to do more than stop being assholes. They need to vocally oppose the assholes in their party, unless they want to continue being defined by trolls like DougJ. I’m pretty sure, for example, that about 25% of the most outrageous “conservative” postings on CNN are sock puppets, but it’s so hard to tell the difference.
They’re screwed.
MattF
The Tea Partyers are unhappy, and not unreasonably. Karl Rove, now Dr. Rove MD, PhD, FoS, enters the room and says “I’m sorry to say that, to save you, we’re going to have to cut off your arm. And, just possibly.. a leg. And… possibly a little more, here and there. But don’t worry, we have your best interests at heart.” Would you believe him?
piratedan
@PeakVT: well part of the problem is that those 350,000 Republicans were already dead and they’re loathe to use those old Chicago style politics you know…. :-) they prefer to cheat by disenfranchisement.
DFH no.6
@Soonergrunt:
Well, fascists are assholes, because their worldview and general approach to public life is uber-tribal (i.e., at least bigoted when not outright racist), militaristic, and based on the bedrock conservative principles of “I got mine, fuck you” and “Devil take the hindmost”.
So they can’t stop being assholes.
Which is why the main “change” focus for the old-line Republican establishment since November has been messaging PR, sort of a “compassionate conservatism” do-over.
The extreme base keeps fucking that up, though, because unlike the Chamber of Commerce, et al, they’re wolves who don’t feel the need to even bother with sheep’s clothing.
mai naem
Ahh, but Rove et al were complicit in creating and culturing the bacteria that is leading to sepsis. They used to spread the blackbuckolocus and the welfarequeenecoli bacteria on their enemies. They used to keep themselves stocked up with antibiotics but the antibiotic resistance kicked in when they tried spreading the homosexualicile and vaginacocci bacteria and found out that their enemies were in fact immune to this bacteria but they themselves weren’t. Now, there’s the new superbug Hispanicaureus and they have it bad and their enemies, again, find that they have a natural immmunity to this superbug. This is why biological warfare is not a good thing. Especially when you don’t believe in science in the first place.
bemused
Great cartoon.
Valdivia
Speaking of sepsis: This little gem left me utterly speechless.
PeakVT
Speaking of assholes, Steve Stockman has found the twatter machine.
jl
Most of it is white bigotry. Mostly on race, but also on ethnicity and sex. Which leaks over into a bunch of other areas.
A substantial, though I think shrinking, proportion of whites are race/ethnicity/gender bigots, and that drives most everything else. I think any issue touching core white bigot values will be difficult to deal with for the corporate GOPers.
I don’t think the corporate GOPers are primarily bigots. I think their PR geniuses sent up a lot of trial balloon attacks against HRC and Obama, including ‘fancy Yurrpean baby lettuces eater’. But what stuck? What worked? What did they finally decided to go with as main themes? Sexism against HRC and racism against Obama. There is, and will continue to be, a very eager audience for that type of attack.
The proportion of whites who are bigots at their core is steadily shrinking. But will is shrink fast enough to avoid maiming the rest of the country?
The GOP has trained their base to think outward from white bigotry for a little over 40 years. I guess they think they can train their bigot base to have some kind of epiphany in just a couple of years?
If the corporate GOP gets its way there will be two wings in the GOP Big Tent: one for the open house, and one for basehead rehabilitation. Probably on opposite sides of the tent with a soundproof wall separating them, since mixing the two currently has very high potential for producing those notorious ‘unexpected results’ I read about in computer manuals.
Valdivia
@PeakVT:
saw that. epic.
bemused
@gussie:
Yup, the rabid voters love assholes and they are really pissed off the party they voted for are falling far short of the vicious, assholeness they crave.
Davo
is Steve Stockman…. peak asshole??
danielx
Yeah, and I’ll bet that nobody was cruel enough to point out that today, based on his policies and public statements, Ronald Reagan couldn’t be nominated as the Republican candidate for the presidency on a bet. He’d be laughed off the stage at a Republican primary debate no matter how much he twinkled. Their primary voters are assholes, yes, and the bigger an asshole a candidate is and the more rabid his or her policies and statements, the better they like it.
jl
@Valdivia: Since, IIRC, not one Japanese-American living in the U.S. was found to be working for the enemy in WWII, whose Japanese face is on that cover? If he is still alive, can he sue?
jl
@PeakVT: Best thing about GOP Congresscritters is that gas comes out of all of the holes that are already there.
Edit: how you capture the energy for useful work is another matter.
NonyNony
@DFH no.6:
To be fair, most of the extreme base are actually not wolves. At best they’re sheep dressed up like dogs pretending to be wolves wearing tricorn hats.
aimai
The problem is they don’t need an autopsy they need a biopsy and a good cancer doctor, but given the growth of hte cancer and their deep seated suspicion of science and medicine they are probably just going to pray themselves into hospice care.
Parmenides
Conservatives have spent years making liberal a dirty word and conservative a good one. The problem is that there is no end point to true conservatism because it has been denuded of meaning. It is conservative to spend money and conservative to not spend money. It is conservative to not tax but conservative to scream that some aren’t paying taxes. It is conservative to believe in “traditional” things but that serious change needs to happen.
So they’ve stripped the ego and the superego from the process and are now balls deep in the id. Anyone who steps away from pleasing the denizens of that fetid, choked swamp where limpid white lined eyes peer from behind wet barked trees is liable to find themselves stuck in a mud hole unprotected. Cast out bruised to the outer edges with money stuffed mattresses to still their fall.
Forum Transmitted Disease
All of whom were thrilled with the Teabagger monster and the damage it is inflicting on the nation, until it turned on them.
jl
@NonyNony:
” sheep dressed up like dogs pretending to be wolves wearing tricorn hats ”
From my experience that is an amiable if rather eccentric, group of cross-species furries. Had a convention here in SF Bay awhile back. You slander them.
MattF
@danielx: Reagan would be a RINO to the TP base, but his rise to national prominence would also be stymied by being too right-wing to be elected Governor of present-day California. The Republican party is squeezed from all sides- ideological, geographic, sexual, and racial– and the corner they’re getting squeezed into keeps narrowing compared to the rest of the country.
Suffern ACE
@mai naem: Yep. You know what. Rove wasn’t just complicit in setting this up. He was a true believer. I wish liberals would stop giving the Bushes a special pass for being “Moderate” when they are right wing douchbags and “national security” freaks. George Bush raised taxes so that we could build more bombs and pay for the the deregulation disaster that was the S&L scheme. The fact that he was in favor of people in wheelchairs having ramps in buildings is beside the point. He father was involved in plotting a military coup against FDR. How’s that make him a good ol’ northeast conservative?
Rove set this crap up because this is the world that Rove wants to live in. Just because he makes a lot of money doing it, does not somehow make him into a saavy moderate who would just as soon hug a queer if he didn’t think those ebil tea party folks would hang him for it. There is no secret adorable policy side to Karl Rove.
r€nato
I can’t believe a congressman from South Carolina would say something like this!
The GOP should totally listen to him.
Forum Transmitted Disease
This is how words lose all meaning. The “center” in American politics is slightly to the left of where today’s Democrats stand.
The last centrist candidate the GOP ran was Eisenhower.
bago
Modern problems of the 30-40 somethings. Uploading to your cloud pictures of the breast that will be claimed by cancer. Calling it sexting would be wrong. It’s legacy building. I’m going to miss that boob.
Hoodie
I can’t see any way the business repubs are going to be able to reassert control absent a total electoral debacle, and the Mitt and McCain losses didn’t provide that. A party that is in legislative control can live with very high levels of denial. Those losses were disasters for republican establishment types that have designs on national office, not the real wingnuts. The latter are running free and they like it, so they’re not going willingly back in the cage. As long as they hold several statehouses, hold sway in the House and are protected by gerrymandering, they feel empowered and will ignore most evidence to the contrary. In fact, the losses at the national level may be intensifying the fervor of the rest. They are absolutely going apeshit here in NC, even though they have sinking poll numbers statewide (less than 25% approval).
I guess one thing that might diminish the power of the wingnuts would be for those allegedly “moderate” republicans to start siding with democrats on issues, but that would mean career suicide for a lot of them. In other words, the business republicans need to sacrifice themselves to save their party. Fat chance of that happening.
Zifnab
Reince Priebus and Rove’s Bag of Money represent all the same interests as the moochers in the rank-and-file Tea Party Caucus. They all want government services given to them on the backs of poor and minority taxpayers. They all want a socialized capitalism where old rich white Christians have the deck stacked in their favor, so they can keep living out the Randian illusion of personal greatness.
The difference between the two camps is that Priebus and Rove are veteran liars, who know how to couch deeply conservative ideas in moderate-liberal rhetoric. Meanwhile, the Tea Party hates moderate-liberal rhetoric and wants the minority wing of the minority Party in the lower branch of the House to bully through everything it demands now, Now, NOW!
Napoleon
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
What about Ford?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Somebody call me when the GOP gets smacked around and abused by the electorate in a midterm election. AKA, if we’re going to talk about an autopsy report, is it too much to ask for a cold-dead corpse to go along with it? Or am I just being a bit too old-school about this?
Chris
@MattF:
Yep. Reagan was a product of his era.
I see the constant invoking of his name has now firmly become their version of us liberals’ constant yearning for an FDR or an LBJ, as if FDR or LBJ could somehow have worked the same miracle with the extremely hostile climate of the last thirty years.
Zifnab
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Nixon was more centrist than anyone today would like to admit.
Ben Franklin
Now, this is more like it.
Reagan, Rove, Priebus and fellow travelers can unite us all into one Hive.
Valdivia
@jl:
Given who wrote it I doubt she even thought about that. Maybe just a random interned person?
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Soonergrunt:
This is one of the biggest things these guys have to deal with: They’re all assholes. And people hate assholes.
Now, the best thing to do would be for the assholes to stop being assholes, but for assholes to become other than assholes, the asshole have to first see and understand that they are assholes, and therein lies the biggest hurdle, viz., that assholes never seem to know that they’re assholes. A few of the more socially adept of them might get the feeling that other people think they’re assholes, but that’s only because (so the assholes believe) other people are the real assholes and don’t see how wonderful and charming and better than everybody else they truly are. And until the assholes acknowledge their essential assholishness, they can’t change. I guess this would be called Mumphrey’s Paradox, or the Paradox of the Assholes.
Chris
@Hoodie:
Do they actually want to?
The article extrapolates “the alliance between Rove and the RNC” to mean the entire Republican establishment, including the big money that runs everything, but is that in fact the case? I’m sure that the big money would eventually turn on the teabaggers if they were convinced that they were a liability more than an asset – I’m just not convinced that they actually believe that. As you say, the Romney and McCain losses didn’t provide a complete enough debacle, and the big money people love their delusions too, maybe not as much as the base but close.
Valdivia
I know this is not an open thread but a quick question–any advice on what to do about the %$#@!%^* pain in my toe after surgery today? The nurse said just take tylenol. I am taking Naproxen and it’s doing nothing. I hope this passes because it is even worse than the pain I felt on the day my friend kicked my nail off.
raven
@Valdivia: Try to keep it above your heart.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@bago: Right in my demographic. God, we have no sense of appropriate public behavior. None at all. So fucking disgraceful.
Suffern ACE
@Zifnab: Exactly. Who funded those Super PACs to sponsor the campaigns of the “insurgent” not romneys. Is Adelson not a business conservative? Are the Koch’s and that aspirn guy some everyday schmoes? How about that Club for Growth outfit? Gee, those moderate businessmen? Who dey?
What part of Romney’s 96 point plan for prosperity was moderate? And that was issued before he needed to “turn to the right” to appease the donors of his own party.
roc
@Hobbes: Why not?
They don’t restrict themselves to reality on any other topic.
Valdivia
@raven:
thank you I am now with foot high above my heart.
A friend emailed and said I should forget the meds and just drink. I must admit that is tempting.
scav
@Valdivia: Ouch. I think there’s enough individual variation to painmeds to make advice tricky. Still, you might cycle through the alternatives (not all at once) to find one that hits that specific pathway. If nothing else, it will keep your brain occupied. Engrossing activity might help. Cold or heat packs anyone?
ETA: this topic on a post about “sepsis” is slighly worrying though
West of the Rockies
@Valdivia: Try to distract yourself as much as possible, too: conversation, a good book, Sodoku, this forum… Could you have a glass of wine maybe, or would that interact badly with the meds?
Suffern ACE
@jl: That’s probably the argument, too. ‘The Japanese-Americans weren’t actually dangerous and we interred them. Sharia! Sharia! The Muslim Americans lie about being peaceful. Round them up.”
schrodinger's cat
@Valdivia: Ice it. That’s what helped when I fractured my toe.
Chris
@Zifnab:
Yeah, the big difference has been where to draw the line. The rich Repubs want to just gut the entire welfare state, and why not? They can afford it. Whereas the middle class ones mostly want to preserve Social Security and Medicare. That’s not universal, as many of them have deluded themselves into believing that they, too, could survive just fine without them – but then, when the time comes and an actual privatization plan is on the table, with the attendant question “are you SURE you don’t need them? REALLY sure? Sure enough to bet your entire retirement on it?” many of them will blink.
schrodinger's cat
@jl: Did Malkin want to round up those of German and Italian descent as well?
Gex
This is the base they cultivated. They did not want voters who vote on issues. Why? If you take labels off of policy positions, liberal policies are quite popular in America. They opted for culture wars because that’s the only thing they can win on. It’s the only thing they developed. They did not moderate any of their policies or come up with anything new that voters want from them.
I am glad I am getting to see this bite them on the ass. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of asshole idiots.
DFH no.6
@NonyNony:
I get what you’re saying: it’s not like very many of the fat old Tea Party assholes in their Medicare-provided hoverounds – or even the younger yahoos driving around in their “Obummer” bumpersticker-festooned pickups, concealed carry or not – are all that frightening or particularly “wolfish” on a personal level.
Hell, most of these soft and pampered assholes would shit their pants if all they had to do was live for a month like most undocumented workers do every day of their lives.
They’re no more like the Minutemen they imagine themselves to be than they are like astronauts.
It’s the inhuman public policies they agitate for (often quite successfully) that make them dangerous.
I do at least give them credit for letting their asshole freak flags fly, and not trying to cover that up with some oxymoronic “compassionate conservatism” like the old-line Republican establishment phonies.
Valdivia
@scav: Thanks I will try something different in a few hours. I also tried cold packs which helped on the weekend but today it seemed to make it worse. I am going to try and watch a movie and see if the distraction helps. I was hoping I would be knocked out enough to sleep it off but obviously that’s not happening.
@schrodinger’s cat: thank you, see above I might try the ice a little later since right now it was making me feel worse probably because the other toes were blue! ;)
West of the Rockies
Oh, another thing the damn Repubs should do: quick electing major assholes to Congress (e.g., Bachmann). She got slapped around pretty good in a post last night here at BJ, but her stupid constituents (constitnitwits) keep allowing her back into the fold.
Julia Grey
@mai naem:
++++ Great bacterial names, very true “biological warfare” analogy.
raven
St Mary’s Memphis thriller.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Zifnab:
@Napoleon:
Ford and Nixon were both firmly in the traditional right-wing mold. “What’s good for business is good for the country” kind of guys. Nixon started the drug war, do not forget, and he’d have ripped a hole in his suit pants over how much power we’ve handed to the executive branch. Economically, by our standards they were both raging commies but they certainly weren’t considered as such back then, not at all. But a liberal economic stance does not a liberal make. They were as pro-war, pro-spying, and anti-civil rights as any teabagger today.
Of course, back then you could be too right wing. Goldwater was. He got the nom and got beaten so badly no Republican dared try that stunt again save for one washed-up movie actor who no one took seriously – I think he lost three primaries – until about a month before he became president.
bemused
It’s hard to tell but is Michele Bachmann even more batshit than usual? Nah, probably not but I just watched her railing against Obamacare…she really needs a nice long stay somewhere very, very quiet with a lot of meds.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
Maybe they should read the 1912 platform for Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, just to see how far behind they are.
Funny how they went from being the “Party of Lincoln” who wouldn’t be let in the door, to being almost entirely “The lunatic fringe” TR foresaw.
IowaOldLady
On a 10 minute drive today, I was behind two different pickups with anti-Obama messages plastered across the back. I’m not talking about a bumper sticker. I’m talking about big letters that take up the whole back.
I hated George W, but my hatred and anger never burned hot enough to make me splash it in the faces of people around me. You have to be over the top furious to do that. And you probably also have to believe that no one will ram you or shoot you, ie that most other people must surely think like you do.
These people scare me.
eemom
@Valdivia:
I would say call the doc who did the surgery and tell them you’re in bad pain. 2 reasons: (1) in case it’s not normal and something needs attention; and (2) s/he needs to give you better drugs.
I mean ordinary tylenol after surgery? Fuck that shit.
Linda Featheringill
@Valdivia:
Your foot: Sounds like pressure is building up.
Ice and elevation.
If that doesn’t work, call your doctor.
And if that doesn’t work, consider going to an ER.
Gex
@Zifnab: But with the same amount of treason!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Valdivia: They should have given you opiates. Oh well.
Tylenol does very little for me. It will knock down a fever but doesn’t do much for pain. Naproxen might as well be cardboard for all I respond to it. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.
Ibuprofen, on the other hand, my body likes. Vioxx was even better but they’ve pulled that. I find it more effective for pain than anything I’ve had save morphine. Everyone’s a bit different. Since the naproxen isn’t working, try something else.
Ben Franklin
And Manning, too……..
http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Free-Jonathan-Pollard-Poster.jpg
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Seriously? You are on a free Pollard kick?
The Moar You Know
@IowaOldLady: I’m seeing about one of those a week here in SoCal.
Sometimes I’ll see them on contractor’s vehicles. Not smart. The area has enough Dems that you could lose a lot of work that way. I know if somebody showed up at my home to do work with that shit plastered on their truck they wouldn’t even get a chance to place a bid.
Valdivia
@West of the Rockies:
I am telling you the drinking part is sounding more and more appealing by the minute… :)
@Linda Featheringill: @eemom: they were specific that unless it was bleeding through the bandage pain would be normal, specially the throbbing. There is no bleeding but if the pain gets too much I will call. The doc gave me his cell.
and @eemom when the nurse said tylenol I looked at her like she was from mars. I don’t even take tylenol for regular headaches!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chris:
A good question.
It is worth noting that “big money” today does not mean the same thing it did back in Reagan’s, much less Nixon’s or Ike’s day.
Back then, sure you could get suitcases of cash from Texas oil barons, but you still had to work the Chamber of Commerce types for it all to add up to what you needed. Today one single solitary billionaire can bankroll an entire national campaign, and some of them are loopier than a bowl of Fruit Loops eaten while riding an roller-coaster at a Florida theme park during hurricane season. So “big money” does not equal “at least not certifiably bugnuts insane”, not anymore. We’ve entered the James Bond villain era of campaign finance and the GOP is up to their eyeballs in white Persian cats that need to be stroked and fed.
Highway Rob
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I’m pretty sure I know your answer to this, and would probably agree to it, but didn’t they get smacked around pretty good 7 years ago in a mid-term?
Maude
@Valdivia:
Call the doctor. Tell him about the Naproxin and the Tylenol advice. Also tell him when you took it.
You have real pain. Don’t wait. I don’t care if blood isn’t coming through.
When I broke my little toe, I used a warm washcloth on it. Ice hurt like the devil.
gelfling545
@Valdivia: When I had surgery on my index finger (amazingly painful for such a small cut) the surgeon told me to alternate ibuprofin & tylenol making an every 2 instead of an every 4 hour dose of something. It helped some.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just trying to consistently support traitors, no matter how venal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: And this supports your pro-Manning cause in what way?
Valdivia
@Maude:
I will call. You guys have convinced me not to be my usual grin and bear it until you can’t take it anymore… :)
@gelfling545:
I know! I almost passed out when he put the anesthesia on, even if it was just one toe it hurt like he was taking all my foot off!
raven
(CNN) — Initial U.S. intelligence suggests Syria did not use chemical weapons in a strike earlier this week, CNN has been told by U.S. officials.”
Well shit, I was already for another walk in the park.
DFH no.6
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Yeah, I think any reports of the death of the Republican Party are, to put it mildly, greatly exaggerated.
Anyone paying attention to the state governments, for one thing? And the related (cuz gerrymandering) House Republican majority (very likely a majority for another decade or more)?
Not dead yet, I’m afraid (nor will it ever be, I don’t think).
It is possible (not likely, just possible) that at some point in the distant future we might find a way for all of humankind to be at least adequately provided-for, so that old Palestinian hippie’s line about “the poor you have with you always” may someday be obviated.
But fascists (conservatives, assholes, whatever label)? Those creatures we will definitely always have with us.
It’s not like the Highlander, you know.
West of the Rockies
@IowaOldLady: I think such people are a product of rightwing media (think Rush & co.). The wingnut pundits absolutely demonize — demonize — everyone who disagrees with them. They’ve made argutainment an art form and have raised scads and scads of little Rush’s over the last quarter century. Those ugly little birds have come home to roost.
Mnemosyne
@Valdivia:
Naproxen (and ibuprofen) can interfere with blood clotting, so that’s probably why they advised Tylenol instead. If you don’t have any in the house, send somebody out for some. Keep it elevated, and ice it for no more than 10-15 minutes at a time.
And, hey, if you have the doctor’s cell phone number, may as well use it. Try not to swear too much.
ETA: Also, too, foot injuries REALLY REALLY HURT because you have a lot of nerves down there, so you’re not being a wimp. It really is an unusually painful place to have an injury.
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
that’s useful. I will take the really strong tylenol then.
:D I will try to keep it pg-13
kuvasz
Frankly, they are in a heap of trouble because the lunatic fringe is the sine qua non of the modern Republican Party.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Highway Rob:
Unfortunately they still held the White House after being smacked around in 2006, which means: Lessons learned? I think not!.
When dealing with a raving madman who is doing his best to drive the car off of a cliff, you have to pry both hands off of the steering wheel at the same time and then keep ’em off, at least for a little while. We have yet to do that (hold the WH and win both houses of Congress) in a midterm election year since what, 1974?
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
So, you actually want to have a discussion, or just take refuge in one-liners?
Jay C
@eemom:
Yea, welcome to AD 2013: most hospitals nowadays are so risk-averse (and obsessed with “drug” issues) that a patient is lucky to get even the mildest variety of pain reliever:
@Valdivia:
If the acetominophen isn’t working (and from the sound of your problem, it’s not likely that it would) try talking to your doctor for a prescription (short-term) for something a little stronger. Even an ER doctor might be sympathetic enough to write a scrip for a few Vicodin or something..
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Eaagack! not 1974, 1978.
So it has been more than 34 years since the Dems last held the WH and won a midterm election. This goes a long way towards explaining why our news media is so right wing, in addition to the structural factors.
eemom
OT, but I am eggstatic: my daughter got into UVA!!!
kindness
While I can see that the ‘Establishment Republicans’ want to swing the party in a moderate direction (cough, cough)they still want the troglodyte vote. It seems they reward the cavecritters and smack down the ‘moderates’ (as if there are any real ones over there).
It’s dishonesty through and through. Who can grift whom better. And since much of the big donor money is now the Kochs, the Chamber of Commerce and the truly crazy pre-1929 Republican neonazis (there I did it), I can’t believe a word of Republicans self analysis.
Baud
@eemom:
Woo hoo! Congrats. Excellent school.
West of the Rockies
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Right-wing media? But… but… but… everybody says we’ve got a horrible liberal lamestream media! After all, the AM radio band is loaded with… Well, bad example. Okay, on TV you have the most-watched cable news source (FOX) that is clearly left– uh, nevermind.
elmo
@Valdivia:
Also pay attention to severe pain because it can be the first sign of infection – and yes, infection can set in ridiculously quick in some cases.
I was bitten by an abandoned, starving dog a few years ago, in the process of catching him. I told the story here at the time. No more than three hours after the bite, my bitten fingers were en fuego. I ended up going to the emergency room for a thorough cleaning-out and antibiotics, even though the cuts didn’t need stitches and I ordinarily wouldn’t consider such a thing, just because the pain was so incredible.
(We think the bites infected so quickly because the dog himself was so sick and weak, and had been eating roadkill. No immune system to speak of and a filthy mouth.)
Shortstop
@Jay C:
I know this is true, but it still made me smile ruefully. I don’t like to take narcotics. After a pretty major surgery a couple of years ago, I couldn’t get the nurses to give me ibuprofen. The doc had okayed Dilaudid and Vicodan but hadn’t specifically put non-narcotic pain relief in the orders. They couldn’t find him, so I couldn’t get a damn Advil. Finally my husband went out to the drugstore to get me some.
bemused
@IowaOldLady:
A friend has a coexist bumper sticker and she has gotten glares from people reading it in the parking lot!
Valdivia
@elmo: I was worried about gangrene already on Sunday, so I was very attentive to the pain. I am taking strong antibiotics so hopefully that is taking care of any infection possibility but I did call the doctor and he said that if the pain continued to be unbearable to come by his office again tomorrow am. it’s definitely better now than an hour ago.
Gex
All I can say is I had a Republican man arguing with me that the GOP is no worse on women’s issues than the Democrats. There are just those two guys…
Let’s grant that there is a subset of non-bigot voters who reliably vote GOP. There’s no way the party as a whole can get better on minority outreach if their non-bigot voters refuse to believe the party is particularly hostile to minority voters.
Mnemosyne
@Shortstop:
I’m sure people here are tired of hearing my story, but I turned out to be one of the small percentage of people who start vomiting uncontrollably after about 24 hours on Vicodin (or, apparently, just about any opiate).
That was not a fun thing to discover at 4:30 a.m. while I was on crutches. And the best the doctor could do was, “Uh, I’ll give you an anti-emetic suppository so you’ll only feel constantly nauseous without actually throwing up.”
Yes, I made them give me the super-strength ibuprofen as soon as humanly possible.
Chris
@kindness:
Always been that way. Even in the fifties, at the height of the “liberal consensus” years, they never completely cut their ties to the far right – it was too reliable a source of votes for them. Ike was happy to ride the Red Scare into power and various Repubs were happy to use the paranoia behind it to hit their rivals over the head. The more “reasonable,” like Buckley, went along with it because it was still better than being completely shut out of the process.
Mnemosyne
@elmo:
When I got bitten by my brother’s cat years ago, they gave me a four-antibiotic combo pill that included Cipro. Animal bites can get really nasty, really fast.
elmo
@Valdivia:
Oh good, okay. I didn’t mean to be unnecessarily alarmist. Glad you’re paying attention.
elmo
@Mnemosyne:
Cat bites are horrible, horrible, horrible. Genuinely dangerous. Dog bites usually aren’t nearly as bad; I’ve been bitten several times, and this was the only time there was any issue. Poor baby was just so foul.
(I still have him, three years later. He sleeps in my bed, under the covers.)
Valdivia
@elmo:
no thank you, you weren’t alarmist at all, it’s good to keep these things in mind because I tend to try and grin and bear it but sometimes that doesn’t work.
BAtFFP
@Valdivia:
The thread is probably dead by now, but I feel I should jump in and mention (you probably already knew this, of course) that if you are taking Tylenol and Vicodin (which contains Tylenol) PLEASE don’t supplement it with lots and lots of booze. That’s a popular to rid yourself of your liver in a hurry.
ETA: they recommend a max of 4 g acetaminophen per 24 hrs. But the people writing prescriptions for Vicodin don’t always catch that someone’s already taking Tylenol…
Fort Geek
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
This reminded me of Team America’s bar scene
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: You can answer the question or not as you choose.
Valdivia
@BAtFFP:
thank you. I took vicodin when I had my terrible sciatica attack last summer and swore I would take it only in extreme cases. I was contemplating it about an hour ago but the pain has lessened a bit and I think I am just going to crash early. Even the temptation of a little spiced rum is passing too. I will be a boring well behaved patient tonight.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, well I don’t cotton to answering broad questions with little substance.
Try again, or not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Dude, you have a history of pro-Manning comments. You are now suggesting the Pollard be freed. I am simply inquiring if there is a tie in or if you don’t accept the concept of classified information and think no one should be punished for releasing it or if you are trying to make some other point. As far as discussing it goes, since I am not sure what point you are trying to make, I can’t say whether I am going to discuss it or not.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can’t say whether I am going to discuss it or not.
Then just can your hangman questions.
IOW be fucking specific in your questions, dude.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Are hangman questions different than lawyer’s tricks?
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Just out of curiosity, are you bored?
mai naem
@Valdivia: Hey, I was busy monday. I didn’t get a chance to read any open threads. I was wondering what happened with the foot. What ended up happening on Mon when you went to the doc?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Guilty. How could you tell?
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well lawyers do say you need to know the answer to the question before you ask, and you are a lawyer, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: That is in a courtroom. This is not a courtroom. Right?
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Christ !. Just like cops are cops 24/7, lawyers………
Catsy
@Valdivia: It’s worth noting that Naproxen is a muscle relaxant, not a painkiller, though it can relieve some pains relevant to what it does.
Ben Franklin
BTW; it’s a little guilty pleasure taunting your lawyerliness….
KrisWV
Yeah dude you were born in 1966 and have never served in the military. Closest you’ve ever been to Viet Nam is a bowl of pho at a DC restaurant.
McCain (who he craps on in his next breath) should really kick this punks ass.
Anne Laurie
@elmo:
Yeah, that’s what I thought, until I ended up in the hospital for surgery under general anesthesia & 48 hours on a multiple-antibiotic drip, after getting punctured by my own personal well-fed clean-mouthed dog. (And not even the one who bites people — it was an accident on his part.) Hands & feet are far more prone to infection from bite wounds, general warning to all readers!
danielx
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
No, unfortunately. They’ve got enough congressional districts gerrymandered to go on controlling the House of Representatives for the next twenty years, and that’s all they really need to control the national agenda. Lack of action on pressing issues is as good as controlling the White House to them. Better, in fact, because they don’t have to take responsibility for anything, as witness the last four years*. They don’t do all that well when they do have to take responsibility for national policies, as voter reaction to the eight years ending in 2008 when that guy whose name shall not pass Republican lips was residing in the White House. (Good luck there, Jeb!, you ol’ RINO you.)
Plus which, they’re passing legislation at the state level that would have been considered a conservative wet dream twenty years ago and would have been considered impossible even ten years ago. And that’s where most of the laws that affect people’s lives on a day to day basis get passed.
*Note: they really don’t care if the popularity of Congress as an institution is lower than whale shit as long as they’re popular enough back home to get re-elected, and all they have to do for that is to bring Teh Crazy.
Valdivia
@mai naem: I am not sure you will read this but in case you do–I went to my regular doc on Monday who confirmed the nail had been kicked out of the nail bed. He gave me antibiotics and sent me to a podiatrist who did a surgery on my toe today after confirming the kick had not injured anything structurally in the toe. Even if it was minor it hurts like hell! I hoped that once they took the nail off it would hurt less but no such luck yet. Hopefully as it heals it will hurt less. In the meantime my toe is the size of a ball and I have a surgical shoe I get to wear for a few days. Yay me!
And thanks for asking. :)
bago
I call shenanigans. There’s no such thing as a good pho restaurant in DC.