So all hell has broken loose, huh?
This is the Obama administration that we’ve been warned about for years. The deep rooted, treacherous executive branch headed by the socialist lying Negro has finally been unearthed. Benghazi, AP phone record subpoenas, IRS attacks! Why doesn’t Barack H. Nixon just step down from his self-made throne and let America be free!
Or perhaps we could call shenanigans.
My stance is not that of an Obama-bot. I have covered politics these last few years and watched the constant search for the dark underbelly of our supposed illegitimate executive branch. As opposed to level-headed critiques of an administration that has had triumphs and missteps, we are subjected to conservative media’s “wondering aloud” style news coverage (© Lizz Winstead) from virtually all spaces. We are subjected to perpetual Republican fear mongering and exasperated Democratic waffling all due to a deficiency of actual dialogue or acknowledgement of situations at hand. It’s easier to yell scandal repeatedly with no sense of the responsibility that comes with being members of the public sphere. We find ourselves waist deep in shit while never acknowledging who’s been taking dumps in our proverbial pool.
I grow weary of all of this.
Today on #TWiBRadio it came to head. #TeamBlackness and I, all exhausted from the real and imagined shit storms discuss what all of this means, plus black-checking and Bill Maher, and the conservative radio host who blames sex education and liberals for a new (but not actually) strain of gonorrhea. Listen here:
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
And on #amTWiB, political strategist L. Joy Williams and the morning crew discuss the increase of babies born addicted to prescription drugs, activists want Living Social to ban gun and alcohol package deals, and eating insects to stop world hunger.
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download| RSS
Violet
Kerry Washington. So gorgeous.
LanceThruster
“Wondering aloud” has been permanently attached to a mega-bass subwoofer for some time. The Mighty Wurlitzer calls the tune that we dance too.
Baud
Sometimes I wish Obama weren’t a family man so he could spend his second term dating white woman from red states. Talk about a scandal!
Corner Stone
Shit.
Just because the ongoing scandal mongering is a farcical farce masquerading as a farce doesn’t mean for a second that you are anything but a hardcore Obama-bot.
Darkrose
Don’t know if you caught this, Elon, but Andrew Sullivan has managed to top his own stupid on race by not only defending Jason Richwhiner, but doing so using an analogy with dogs, as summarized by LG&M:
White People are Poodles and Black People are Beagles
MomSense
@Violet:
So gorgeous. Olivia is far too good for Fitz!
Just Some Fuckhead
The important thing to understand is that the Democrat is always illegitimate for one reason or another.
Joe Buck
Benghazi is a load of crap. The IRS issue pales compared to the Bush abuses of the IRS.
But spying on the press to stamp out leaks is Nixonian. We will hear the least about that one because the Republicans hate the press even more than Obama’s people hate the press, but Holder’s DoJ deserves unlimited amounts of shit for that one. This paranoid attempt to control what we know has to end.
lamh35
I love this just for mentioning Scandal. I sometimes wondered if it was just “Black Twitter” that blew up every Thursday thanks to Scandal, but I”ve discovered that Scandal is breaking down ALL of twitter.
I’ve already partially succumbed to it (I’ve seen the whole first season on DVD and I plan to watch the longer 2nd season this summer)
Another Halocene Human
Somebody call Shonda Rhimes–we need to work over the media, stat.
In other news, listened to Hannity today. I SWEAR one of his callers was one of those paid ones. The call was ridiculous and the guy was just tossing Sean’s salad like he’d been in the desert for 20 years without human company. Eww.
He had a liberal caller on asking him about the 70 people who died in embassy attacks under Bush and Mr. Tough Guy launched into this whiny rant (his voice actually rose) and even stated that “you and your liberal bubble I don’t want to hear any of it“. It’s always projection.
Without any irony, he started bitching about explosives stolen from the ATF and how the feds were being too cheap in their standard $5k reward. Hm, I thought patriotism was its own reward. Given this happened in Montana, I wouldn’t be surprised if
some tea or patriot group was involvednaturally these remarks are entirely inappropriate. Halocene Humans® do not profile.jl
I am not Obot either. I guess that is why I keep thinking his first name is ‘Dwight’. But I disagree with EJW. I see consistent bias and inaccuracy in the half second sound bites I hear and the corporate press stories.
TPM just put up a story that ABC basically says ‘eff off’ regarding passing off, or at least implying that, doctored notes with changed wording were the actual administration emails.
There may or may not be serious real scandal material in the IRS and AP leak investigation (not spying as AP self- servingly described it). But the press is being a biased jackass.
They, being big money and big GOP are going to try to drag us back to the Clinton years. the main differences are it will be with real racism as opposed to proxy racism and white trash classism, and less substance.
It will not be fun for awhile. Unless something totally unexpected and more serious by an order of magnitude, comes out, there will be blowback for the GOP either in midterms or next prez election.
Better Answer, Please
TPM
http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/better_answer_please.php
ranchandsyrup
@Darkrose: ZOMG it is chilling academic research! What a maroon.
He glosses over the difference between data and policy prescriptions. Even Richwine’s advisors are bailing on his policy suggestions.
ETA: Freddie has major sads about the LGM post on Sullivan by Erik Loomis.
SatanicPanic
@Darkrose: Oh jeezus. This and that story of the parents suing the state for gender reassingment surgery on their foster child are just bumming me out.
rikyrah
they are desperate for an Obama scandal..
they can’t handle that there hasn’t been one.
fuck ’em
aimai
I don’t have the patience to listen to podcasts or audiofiles, and thats why I seldom comment on these threads. But I have to say that I simply can’t imagine the bone deep weariness and disgust you must feel at the way the President has been treated. I mean, I’m horrified and enraged and disgusted but you must experience this with an even higher level of “what the fucking fucking fuck” than I do. The way I feel about shit that happens to women when I’m trying to explain to some guy “’twas ever thus and nothing more than I expected but still, can’t we ever catch a fucking break?”
rikyrah
total Scandal fan….love me some Olivia Pope and the Gladiators..
boo David for being a traitor.
and who is Senator Byron…how come everyone just mumbles ‘ yes, Sir’…when talking to him?
jl
What might make it fun would be GOP over reach makes them obnoxious and ridiculous to the public.
I think the “Benghazi!” show has reached that stage.
The fact that there is a group of House GOP loons ready to go public, drooling over an Obama impeachment is promising for similar devolution wrt IRS and AP ‘scandals’.
raven
Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.
Weaselone
@Joe Buck:
It’s fortunate that nobody spied on the press then.
SatanicPanic
@ranchandsyrup: That LGM thread is awesome. i don’t know what Loomis is trying to do there beyond annoy Freddie, but that’s something I can get behind
TooManyJens
@Darkrose: Oh, sweet mother of fuck. If Sullivan ever developed a sense of when to STFU, his posts would be so few and far between you’d see digital tumbleweeds rolling between them.
gocart mozart
This says it all
Violet
@SatanicPanic: The comments are awesome. “White poodles can’t jump!”
jl
@TooManyJens: I think a few butt ignorant posts about the ‘Hispanic race’ is just what Sully’s reputation needs.
Baud
@gocart mozart:
Yep. Only thing missing is that Holder was actually recused from that investigation, so he really had no control.
beltane
@gocart mozart: If Ryan Lizza is mocking this latest “scandal” that doesn’t look too good for the GOP. The only real scandal to the Republicans is that there is a black Democrat in the White House doing the work the majority of Americans hired him to do.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: I know this is a petty thing to gripe about, but could I be a cooler dog? I don’t like being half poodle. I don’t want to be any part poodle.
Baud
OT: I know we’re all over the Newsmax headlines ad, but this is funny and telling:
Violet
@SatanicPanic: Aww…I like poodles. They’re really smart dogs. The regular poodles (not toy) are amazing dogs.
beltane
@jl: If there is a “Hispanic race” that means there must also be an “Anglo race” made up of those who speak English regardless of where their ancestors were from. I know Sully doesn’t mind being called a racist, but he may not be so pleased to learn that he’s rather provincial, a Tory country bumpkin with a veneer of sophistication covering his ignorance of the world and the humans who inhabit it.
SatanicPanic
@Violet: be that as it may, it’s not a flattering comparison for humans. Nor is Beagle for that matter.
beltane
@SatanicPanic: I am white but of Mediterranean ancestry. The poodle designation is too white for my skin tone and lack of Palin-like intelligence. Maybe people like me are more like Maremma Sheepdogs or boxers or something of that nature. I’ll have to check my dog book.
jl
@beltane: These people are making fools of themselves, about data and about genetics. I would think a proponent of a genetics based racism would not want to make of fool of himself in not knowing intro HS or undergraduate genetics, but I might be wrong.
The coding IDing a person as Hispanic in the census and all the surveys I know of has nothing to with race.
And as far as who Hispanics are, ancestrally, and genetically, they are of WHITE and Native American.
So, the Whitey white smarty pants part of Hispanics gotta be A-OK, right. So, Native Americans are genetic dummies. Or what?
Here is, as my sarcastic grandma used to say, some high toned fancy white man, can stand up on his hinds legs and talk, and look at him make a fool of himself. My gawd, what is the world coming too?
Edit: BTW, my grandma was as white as they come, but she had a certain way with invective.
Edit2: Oops, I forgot, maybe the miscegenation has produced degraded ‘half-bloods’. I guess they’ll trot out that old chestnut next. No one’s had the scientific integrity to dig that old racist corpse in awhile. I wish Sully brave scientific investigations go well. Might do as well as Voltaire at this rate, if he’s lucky.
gocart mozart
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE !! Hillary has lesbian affair with noted Libyan transvestite, Ben “Bengazimina” Ghazi AKA Ben Ghazi. She is quoted as saying “He talked, I pointed but I had nothing to do with any talking points.”
Media says “Is this another ‘what the meaning of is, is thing?” Film at 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 . . . .”
SatanicPanic
@beltane: I’d like to be a Great Dane because they’re big and mellow. I’m not that big, but I am mellow.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: and now we’re left with democrats calling for the US attorney to be fired immediately while conducting an investigation. After complaining when the independence of those attorneys was compromised by Bush. And wouldn’t it actually be nixonian if Obama fired someone investigating his administration?
Patricia Kayden
@jl: Like when they impeached Clinton for sex and Gingrich had to resign and another dude was having affairs with about 4 women! I always laugh whenever Republicans refer to themselves as the “family values” party. What a joke!
Calouste
@beltane:
You’d think that anyone with even a little sense of British history would not call the Pict-Celt-Roman-Anglo-Saxon-Viking-Norman-French-Flemish melting pot that forms the majority of the occupants of those islands a race.
Violet
@SatanicPanic: No, of course not. But that’s not the fault of the dogs–beagles, poodles or any other kind of dog.
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
I was listening to my weekly fix of Johnny Dollar (America’s Favorite Fabulous Independent Insurance Investigator) and found out that Michael Smerconish is bringing “No Labels Radio” to XM.
JGabriel
Elon White @ Top:
I agree, but I think you’re missing another important aspect here.
The GOP is not interested only in fear-mongering.
The Republican party is actively and purposely engaged in a treasonous strategy to make American life worse on the assumption that the President and Democrats will get blamed for it. They will do anything to make life more difficult or deadly for our country’s citizens if they think it will help them regain the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress, or profit their donors.
They’re just fucking evil.
.
keestadoll
Given the level of “we had no idea”-ing going on, I think it’s reasonable to speculate that this is at least a very clueless second term for him.
Joe Buck
@Weaselone: of course the press was spied on, and in a massive way. The DoJ knows everyone who was spoken to and when over at least twenty phone lines, possibly affecting as many as a hundred reporters.
Yes, Bush did similar stuff, and why not, when Obama kept most of the Bush DoD and security people.
But if you think this is fine, then your handle is appropriately chosen.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: I’m totally addicted to Scandal, too. I was lukewarm about it when I first started watching it, but it sucked me in quite sneakily. (I am, however, still confused about who “The Mole” is. I’m old and slow) Also, I love that it depicts real scandals like vote tampering in Ohio and some of the more unsavory aspects of our military/intelligence/security plex. Stuff our “journalists” will not touch. Kerry Washington is incredible.
Suffern ACE
@Joe Buck: oddly, it appears that they aren’t spy on the AP, but are using the AP to spy on themselves. Not that it matters I suppose.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
If DOJ got the numbers of a drug kingpin in a narcotics investigation, would you call it spying or investigating?
This situation might raise issues, but I don’t see how it’s spying.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: I know. But just work with him a little. It took me awhile to realize what was going on here. I don’t favor what was done, but that said it also makes sense as well. They aren’t investigating the AP. they’re investigating senior administration officials. But the meme of spying is out there now. Also calls for whomever did this to be fired – when that is actually the worst outcome I can think of. Argh!
Roger Moore
@beltane:
Poodles are actually reputed to be among the smartest breeds of dogs. The Intelligence of Dogs ranked them second behind only border collies for smarts. They have the brains to be guide dogs for the blind, but lack the independent temperament.
Weaselone
@Joe Buck:
Generally spying doesn’t involve getting subpoenas to look at records of calls. One might consider spying to be what the AP did when they developed a source within the government, obtained privileged information which they then used to expose an MI6 agent.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Joe Buck:
They’re not interested in AP. They want to know who leaked to the AP.
Which would, you know, be illegal. Even if it had been Holder himself (which is presumably why he was interviewed early on, and had to recuse himself).
If you were outraged about the Valerie Plame affair, then you should be outraged when ANY political operative with a security clearance leaks to the press.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
Boo David for being a traitor–and yet they did rig an election which in real life would have me taking to the streets with my pitchfork.
ruemara
@Jockey Full of Malbec: I just sat through 15 minutes of Rachael Maddow going full bore on how this was the same as the Pentagon Papers and this is a First Amendment issue, with comment from the AP’s lawyer and nothing from anyone else. These details you speak of, they do not fit the narrative of outrage. She’s wrong, of course, but you’re not going to see anyone at her level actually pointing that out. Well, maybe Lawrence O’Donnell.
Elie
I like the site’s new layout/format — whatever — cool!
Y’all have me laughing — which I always need. Love the bitter bitter but true laughter
These folks are butt fuck nuts — but its the same feeling that I get looking at my two year old nephew freak the fuck out at the Safeway…At some level, its just boring. And after so much of this, its DAMNED boring
Thank god for the lovely Malbec I am sipping right now. Did you all know that the wonderful Cahor favored by Hemingway — deep, rich and dense — is the French Malbec?
So many more wonderful things to think about…
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
@ruemara: she is beyond a clown at this point.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@ruemara:
Gee. It’s almost as if someone wanted to open up the proverbial “left flank”.
As the lawyers say… cui bono?
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Elie:
I agree.
Bourbon gives me acid reflux, anyway. :)
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
@Jockey Full of Malbec: you know why this is just like Watergate? The left back then was decrying the over zealous nature of the independent investigator and were thrilled when Bork manned up and put a stop to it.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound:
If only Robert Novak were still alive, to help set us all straight.
Another Halocene Human
@lamh35: I watched it before it was cool.
mclaren
I’ve been as critical of the obots as anyone on this forum, and for years, but I cannot for the life of me understand what the hell the Benghazi thing is supposed to be about. Calling it a “scandal” seems so absurd that the usage twists the English language in pretzels.
The IRS flub should remind us just how squeaky-clean Barack Obama’s administration has been. 6 years in now, and no thieving lying con artists appointed by Obama, no grossly incompetent Louis Freeh overseeing some grotesque Ruby Ridge or Waco FBI fuck-up, no Teapot Dome, no Halliburton contractors making billions off insanely overpriced no-bid contracts and then screwing up their contracts so badly that bad wiring electrocutes U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Obama has appointed zero crooks who were indicted for fraud, zero hustlers who had to resign to avoid indictment for their corruption, zero lying scammers who looted and subverted the government bureaus they were appointed to run. No former horse judges appointed to run FEMA, who then screw it up so badly people drown. No reactionary thugs appointed as administrators in Iraq who mess up things so badly that the entire country disintegrates into chaos and civil war.
That’s a pretty damn good record.
Obama deserves criticism for some things, but any reasonable person has got to admit Obama has run one of the cleanest and most competent and most corruption free White Houses not just in recent times, but ever. Period. In all of U.S. history.