Christie will use six-state RGA swing this spring to flex political muscle http://t.co/3XallYPSTQ
— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 28, 2014
After a very rough, scandal-plagued month, Christie using Super Bowl to get back to lighter side of governing http://t.co/5PRW55CV47
— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 28, 2014
New poll shows Chris Christie tanking as a national figure
http://t.co/v7RE5Yl6nB
— Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) January 28, 2014
No matter how hard Christie’s spinners spin (and Costa is just reporting their desperate spin), Christie’s rep is in the shitter.
Just Some Fuckhead
Meh, he can still get a decent third or fourth place in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. He was never going to get higher than second anyway.
MattF
‘Giuliani without the charm’ was originally a joke.
NonyNony
He’s actually lucky this came out and exploded now – by 2016 it could potentially be all behind him if he doesn’t get indicted and convicted himself.
Hell he could rocket up the GOP primaries if he gets indicted by the Federales and then cleared. He could go out and ride the “I was a victim of the Fascist Obama Kristallnacht” pony right to the top. Especially if he punches a few unionized teachers along the way. He still has the chance to be a right-wing martyr hero.
Fuzzy
Just like the bully Ralphie beat up in the “Christmas Story” he and his minions will slink away to footnote land, his name forgotten.
Davis X. Machina
@NonyNony:
VO: “Chris Christie’s the fightin’ general America needs to take the war to its real enemies — its public employees.”
Robert Paehlke
He coulda been a contenda. The world can rest a bit easier for the loss of him.
Amir Khalid
@NonyNony:
If.
the Conster
@NonyNony:
The problem for him though is that the Villagers who stuck their necks out to support him after his unequivocal denial of all things related to GWB all said that if he lied in that press conference he’s dead to them. The bully shtick works until it doesn’t, and it’s the Villagers who have determined that surrounding yourself with bullies who bully on your behalf without you knowing about it is all fine and dandy, but lying about your own bullying while throwing your staff of bullies under the bus is a bridge too far.
Chyron HR
Y U FAT SHAME, COSTA?
estamm
The only people who like bullies are other bullies. Now it is easier to spot who the real bullies are. They are essentially tweeting “I’m a bully”. Eventually, all bullies get what is coming to them. Sometimes it takes a while, but they always get taken down. Once someone stands up to them, the other victims start to pile on to get their revenge. That is exactly what we are seeing now.
aimai
@Amir Khalid: I agree with Amir Khalid’s rather Laconic response. “If” is an enormous stumbling block. But even if he himself is not indicted the indictments are going to destroy his entire administration and all his personal friends. If anything can be discerned through the fog of war right now its that the entire of NJ is so corrupt that there is no one left outside that tarred circle. And the McDonnell story reveals that the wives/children are probably in the shit up to their necks as well.
You have to imagine trying to put together the gauzy, biopic, of Christie to sell to the big money boyz at this point. That biopic has always been like the two books strategy of restaurants and businesses–there’s the one you show to the tax man/rubes and the one you show to your business partners to get them to bankroll you. What does Christie’s hidden book look like now? What does his public book look like now?
I’m not saying the big money bankrollers mind his corruption–far from it, I’m sure that they wanted to do business with a guy who would do business with them. But they won’t want to throw money at him once they know that all of his secret deals are out in the open and that his entire staff are under indictment for public corruption. Its one thing to know that for yourself, qua funder and owner, its another to realize that the rubes know it too.
WaterGirl
The real beauty of all the Christie stuff that is coming out – and plenty that was out before but got ignored until now – is that there is something to offend everyone.
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster:
Nobody except the village gives a rat’s ass what the punditocracy thinks. Whether they turn against him or not, Christie’s political futures will be tried in a different court. No amount of village spin made Romney lead Obama, and they wanted that so bad it was embarrassing to watch.
NonyNony
@the Conster:
Yes. And as we all know, the Villagers are all Serious People who all Mean What They Say and never, ever, ever, Make Excuses To Take Back What They Said or Pretend What They Said Never Happened.
The Village loves right-wing authoritarian bully figures. Individually the journalists who make up The Village may all be well-adjusted individuals but the collective has some seriously weird Daddy Issues and they twist themselves into knots because of it. If Christie gets out of this without a conviction and decides to run, I have no doubt that the tongue-bathing from the very people who were saying that he had to tell the truth at his press conference will be a marathon that will put that press conference to shame. If anyone in the Village could show shame. Which I’ve never seen.
Thankfully I don’t see Americans electing Christie even if he somehow ends up with the GOP nomination. But I don’t think the GOPers will vote him even that far, despite what I said above.
eric
Ft. Lee will forever be Christie’s Lakehurst.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Daddy and gender issues. I always thought Tweety was the most embarrassing example of the latter– Mommy and Daddy party, Aqua Velva, Bush’s package, pinching Hillary’s cheek– But watching them all fawn all over Christie and the vicarious machismo he gives them makes me wonder, as I used to and still wonder about Tweety, that so many people, who spend so much time on TV, could have such a complete lack of self-awareness. Do none of them have a spouse, a sibling or an old friend to tell them how they look to people who aren’t on the set of Morning Joe?
divF
I think that “indictment and conviction” is still not the worst possibility Christie could be facing. “Cement overshoes and the Hudson river” or “witness protection program” are still in the running.
Although it is difficult to see how the feds could do the last one, unless the weight loss program really works and changes his appearance substantially.
Alex S.
Well, the argument that might have given him the nomination – that he’s the most electable candidate – is dead. That leaves Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul as likely nominees. But Ryan has the stench of losing, Bush has the stench of Bush and Paul has the stench of Paul. In fact, Scott Walker is probably now the guy with the least amount of weakness, especially if the Koch brothers still support him. But then the evangelicals still have to choose their guy, though Huckabee and Santorum are dead on arrival, nationally.
NonyNony
@estamm:
Life is not a 1970s After School Special. It is not the case that eventually all bullies get what is coming to them – some of them die in their sleep at a ripe old age.
Just as one example – Jesse Helms was an ugly bully. And he was never held accountable for the evil he did in his lifetime. As another example, Strom Thurmond. At this point I strongly doubt that Rush Limbaugh will ever get what’s coming to him either – unless you count “dying of a degenerative venereal disease contracted via sex tourism” as taking him down. Which may happen, but in my book that wouldn’t really count. You can also look to just about all of the most successful CEOs in this country – almost all of them are horrible bullies (the stories about Steve Jobs are just awful, and you can Google guys like Jamie Dimon, Larry Ellison, and others to read similar ones).
I really would like to believe that bullies eventually get what they deserve. Unfortunately in my experience what bullies tend to get is rewarded for their behavior. It’s the rare example of a bully who “goes to far” or sometimes who steps on a bigger, meaner bully where they get punished.
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead:
This.
Candidate Christie never caused me any fear, even before the scandals.
hitchhiker
Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.
That came out of his office, and somebody is going to figure out why. I don’t see how the money guys get around it, even if the rubes do. The flavor of nasty is just too strong.
Shakezula
Welp, he’s fucked.
Napoleon
@Alex S.:
I am not sure why no one ever mentions my governor Kasich, but I will guarantee you he runs as well.
aimai
@NonyNony: I think there’s a huge difference between Senators, as a class, and other kinds of political figures. The Senate is a weird thing and its quite hard for voters to get disgusted enough, or antagonistic enough, to throw Senators out. This has nothing to do with bullies/not bullies (though I agree with you on the “life is not an afterschool special” thing–but its true even for sex addicts in diapers, actually. Senators very seldom resign and they are very seldom thrown out of office. Because the people who really back them, the monied interests and the lazy voters, almost always prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know.
But governors are a really different kettle of fish. Governors resign, get forced out, or voted out all the time. People pay more attention to what they are doing (qua voters) and there are more people out there trying to take their jobs (qua political enemies).
A few different kinds of people wanted a Christie run, and then a Christie win–people who wanted to own the president by backing a winning candidate, people who wanted to work for the winner in his administration, people who wanted to be able to siphon money from a republican administration regardless of who was running it. Voters, like eyeballs and pundits, like mouths, were going to choose based on what they were told to do by larger, monied, forces. Those forces have simply lost out–Christie is just not a good risk at this point. The only question is: to which candidacy will they jump ship? My guess is that Walker or Kasich are the only Governors who have shown the most corporate pliability and corruptibility. That means they don’t naturally appeal to the god botherers like Santorum et al but on the other hand they’ve shown they can walk th ewalk when it comes to sucking up to their corporate masters and maybe they can buy a little public piety.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alex S.: Walker and his administration have been under almost constant criminal investigation since he took office. Several of his close associates have been convicted of crimes even though he himself has yet to be directly linked to anything. In addition, he is entirely without charisma. I do not think he has any shot at national office.
Geeno
@aimai: Especially because you don’t want the rubes seeing your name in the previously hidden books.
Phil Perspective
@aimai: Exactly, Remember, what was it that made Willard & Co. chose the Zombie-eyed Granny-starver over Christie? What was in Christie’s background that made them take a pass?
skyweaver
I still think that if he makes it through the primaries (a big if since the patients are still running the asylum) – then Christie has a viable national shot, especially against Hillary. Because the Republicans are really just wanting to have a fight about Stuff That Is Wrong With the Country – and nobody embodies that more than Hillary and her party. And at some weird, reptilian level, Christie DOES embody the pugnacious and fuck-you attitude that the R’s think is missing in this country because of the party in the White House.
feebog
@Omnes Omnibus:
And yet, he leads his opponent in a poll put out over the weekend, 47 to 41%. And he handily won re-election in the recall. The guy is a slimy crook, but so far he has the voters in Wisconsin fooled.
JGabriel
mister mix @ top:
Where it always belonged.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
This.
Splitting Image
I’ve often wondered why Brian Sandoval doesn’t get mentioned more often. Does he have a live boy/dead girl problem I don’t know about? Susanna Martinez is another who only gets mentioned as an afterthought.
To be honest, I’m kind of rooting for a Brian Schweitzer vs Brian Sandoval contest in 2016. Brian is one of the funny names, as John Cleese said.
Another thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough is how awful the 2010 crop of Republican governors has been. If they get mentioned at all, it’s usually in the context of how thin the Democratic bench is this cycle, since the states the GOP won that year would normally have been good for a couple of Democratic candidates. But people don’t often mention that the Republican primary would look a lot healthier if Walker, Kasich, Tom Corbett, Rick Scott, and Rick Snyder had done a better job of managing their states instead of trying to win them for Romney in 2012.
the Conster
@Frankensteinbeck:
That was true about Romney, but his political problems weren’t in the same universe as Christie’s. Of course the Villagers were unable to make up for Romney’s failings enough to get him over the finish line, but Christie’s problems will force the Villagers to run away from the stench, especially if everyone around him gets indicted. There’s no upside for them to pretend he doesn’t stink, and if he’s not indicted (a HUGE if) and wants to put this all behind him, he’ll need their help and he’ll need to drop the bullying shtick because there’s nothing lamer than a bully who has lost his ability to bully, and what else has he got? Since bullying is his appeal to the nutjobs, he’s toast.
Belafon
@divF: Someone might want to set up an angry Buddha statue in Oklahoma City.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Which makes it all the more urgent to figure out how he ever got elected state-wide in Wisconsin. And how he became the first governor in the country to win a recall election, and how he not only defeated the recall but increased his share of the vote.
And before all that, how he won 3 terms as County Executive in Milwaukee County — which polity voted for Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Obama — i.e., not one Republican presidential candidate since 1960.
What is Walker’s secret?
geg6
@feebog:
Nobody ever said that, outside of Madison, Wisconsinites are the brightest bulbs in the box.
I think Walker has as many, or more, problems as Christie does.
geg6
@Splitting Image:
Schweiker? Seriously? I mean, he was the best we could do in his state, but he’s about as rightwing on most things as my own piece of shit governor, Corbett.
AxelFoley
Hmm, Snowden leaks NSA agent’s identity:
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/01/the-name-of-an-nsa-agent-exposed-in-poorly-redacted-snowden-document/
Cervantes
@geg6:
That’s just the kind of attitude that’s going to win elections.
(Where by “elections” I mean “no elections.”)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: I wonder, if he does have national ambitions, if Schweitzer realizes how badly he shot himself in the ass with that anti-Obama screed.
Joey Maloney
@Alex S.: Scott Walker is probably now the guy with the least amount of weakness, especially if the Koch brothers still support him.
Nobody’s going to vote for Scott Walker no matter how much Koch-sucking he does, for an entirely superficial reason: he’s far too funny-looking to be president. It’s not right, it’s not fair, but it’s the way it is.
Waynski
@NonyNony:
Agreed. The elite in this country, especially in business, are generally kick down, suck up personalities. I think that’s the text book definition of a bully. There are always exceptions (Obama and Biden seem to fit), but in my experience you don’t climb the rungs of power in this country unless you’re stepping on the faces of underlings and “lessers.”
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster:
You might be right! The Village might turn against him. I just don’t think it matters either way.
Mnemosyne
@AxelFoley:
Don’t forget, Snowden didn’t give anything more to China and Russia than he gave to various newspapers. The fact that those newspapers are having to redact names and have been refusing to publish some of it at all because of national security concerns is … look over there! Squirrel!
Keith P
No one could have predicted a plummet in CC’s poll numbers after Pew reported unaffected numbers a few days after the first scandal hit.
Mike E
@WaterGirl: Hooray! Everybody is happy!
/Zoidberg
GregB
@Cervantes:
The most recent poll I saw out of Wisconsin had him leading by around 7 or 8 points.
sparrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Grifters tend to attract other grifters. So, no.
Mike E
@NonyNony: Yeah, but only Jesse can pull off that stunt, while his imitators can’t and they flame out as imposters. I’ll be watching Ted Cruz’s career with great interest…
Villago Delenda Est
Costa is a serious fucktard.
Omnes Omnibus
@feebog: Mary Burke is not yet the official candidate. Her name recognition is low; she was an executive for Trek bikes prior to this. The race will tighten a lot over the year.
@Cervantes: The current John Doe investigation is looking at campaign finance and corruption during the recall.
@geg6: How about a nice quick “Fuck you” to start the morning.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike E: I was surprised to see last week that Ted Cruz is at the back of the pack in polls for the GOP’s 2016 crew. I guess that could be because he’d been out of the spotlight for a while. A perverse part of me really wants/wanted to see Cruz and Christies on the same stage, the monstrous egos of Mr First Tier Ivies only up against the resentment of the Sopranos-wannabe from the U of Delaware and Seton Hall
As to bullies getting their due, I wish I could believe it. I wouldn’t want to know what George W Bush’s approval ratings are now– the godawful Condi Rice was in the mid-sixties last year– and Willard has apparently been rehabilitated by a soft-focus documentary about how much his kids like him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shakezula:
The kiss of death…an endorsement from the Marquis de Mittens.
Nice knowenya Outlaw Joisey Whale.
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
It’s not exactly a secret or the only thing that’s gotten him ahead, but Koch money helps a lot.
Napoleon
@Mnemosyne:
Hey dumbfuck, he said he didn’t give anything to them at all, but then again you can’t help but lie every time you bring that guy up, can you?
Villago Delenda Est
@Joey Maloney:
I don’t know. The deserting coward was pretty funny looking (think Alfred E. Neuman) and he actually won the popular vote in 2004.
Villago Delenda Est
@Napoleon:
You can’t know that. What he said means nothing, as he doesn’t have any credibility to speak of.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Do you see that going anywhere? (Serious question.)
How long before the recall election did that investigation begin? Was it an issue during the election? And if it hurt him in that election, it’s amazing that he actually increased his share of the vote.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
To know Mitt is to hate Mitt. That also works in reverse. As he disappears into the sinkhole of history, a nobody who no one has any reason to care about because he’s never going anywhere again, he’s going to look like an angel to all but the most politically hardcore.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Condi is a piece of work, but not nearly so loathsome as Bush and Cheney.
My guilty secret is that I still like Colin Powell. Gosh darn it, just can’t seem to hate the guy. Everyone around him was a horrible poisonous toad so I shouldn’t, I guess.
Gin & Tonic
@Joey Maloney: Nobody’s going to vote for Scott Walker
As funny-looking as he is, as ethically-challenged as he is, if he gets the nom (unlikely, I think) I’ll bet the house that he gets 60 million votes minimum just for the “R” after his name.
Another Holocene Human
@Napoleon: “Give” them, no. Give them every opportunity… c’mon now.
It is amazing how much the American RWNJs love them some Putin, now. Shirtless or otherwise.
Belafon
@Cervantes: I think it was after. And the reason his vote increased were the 14 or so percent of Democrats who voted for him and yet for Obama because they didn’t like the idea of a recall.
feebog
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I get that, and the fact that he is under 50% is also encouraging. But really, with a half dozen or so of his former staffers serving time, shouldn’t voters have wised up to Walker already? Maybe the current investigation will zing him this time, but so far he seems to be bullet proof. His anti-union push has neutered his most effective opponents, and the Koch brothers will throw as much money as he can spend to help him win re-election.
Regarding the Outlaw Jersey Whale (hat/tip TBogg), I think this latest story, the suppression of an indictment against a Sherriff and two Deputies in 2010, had more potential trouble for him then either the GWB or Hoboken. These investigations are going to go right through the summer and into the fall. If there are indictments, then it goes into 2015. He is toast.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: He’s a Pawlenty. He’ll never distinguish himself in the GOP pack and his inspiring story of how he led his state to have one of the worst recoveries in the Midwest is just going to play so well in Iowa.
Cervantes
@Belafon:
Actually, no. The investigation began two years before the recall election. Here’s a local article from right before the recall election to give you some sense of what was happening in the investigation at that time. And yet Walker won.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic:
This.
The fundigelicals desperately tried to find an un-Romney throughout 2012 because they didn’t want the cultist to be the GOP nominee, yet when push came to shove, they fell into line, did not stay home, and voted for him.
They imagine they’re principled, but in the final analysis, they do as they are told.
Ash Can
@Napoleon:
Why, bless your heart.
David in NY
@NonyNony: Roy Cohn. The worst.
Another Holocene Human
Re: Wisconsin, as with the rest of the country, a lot of Democratic voters have just died. The TP generation is the biggest voting demo in the country, but fortunately not all of them are white and of those that are white not all are TP. In Massachusetts they made a run at some national offices and lost but in Swissconsin they cobbled together a majority. In the Southeast there’s a time-clock–drip, drip, drip. Enough migrants from elsewhere settling down and voting and enough young people of color reaching age and registering and their longtime solid majority crumbles. (But they will wreak havoc until then.)
WI is teaching its youth never, ever to vote Republican but I doubt with the way things are going that too many of them are going to stick around long enough to punish the current crop. Ditto with OH, IN. GOP gets to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The “losers” go find some other state to “mooch” off of.
eta: what I mean is that WI and MA are both longtime blue states with large white majority populations but MA’s douchebag exurb spite voters never quite made it over the top… those little old ladies didn’t die off fast enough, I guess… and with the rising youth generation they’ve probably peaked, see Walsh, Boston, mayor. Whereas WI’s Birchers are in their hour of triumph.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, but that’s voting for the party, not for the candidate. This is a serious issue for the Republicans. The Democrats now have a significant advantage in the generic ballot, so the Republicans’ only serious chance of winning is either nominating a candidate who performs significantly better than the generic Republican or hoping the Democrats screw up and nominate somebody who polls substantially worse than the generic Democrat. Hoping that the other side screws up is not a great strategy, which doesn’t play well for Scott “Generic Republican” Walker.
Ash Can
@Another Holocene Human: I always liked Colin Powell, until I learned that he knowingly lied when he got up in front of the UN and made the case for invading Iraq. That made him complicit in the deaths of untold hundreds of thousands of people. My regard for him plummeted as a result.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ash Can: there’s a kind of halo around Powell in the media, as if he resigned in quiet disappointment, not quite protest, after the first term. He wanted to stay on. Bush used him to get re-elected– and given the closeness of the 2000 and ’04 elections, it’s not much of a stretch to say Powell’s support made a difference in both– and then tossed him to the side.
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
given the way things are dribbling out and the way christie’s office is stonewalling, there’s no way any investigation would be over by then. he’d walk into the primary still under indictment for something.
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: I certainly don’t have results of private polling in front of me, but I thought I heard at the time that quite a few of them did stay home.
As far as him being a ‘cultist’, I think from what I saw they were more worried about his little stay in Massachusetts and being an elitist RINO than his Brigham Young-worshippin’. Maybe they were all lying when they posted online? That’s what I saw. I don’t think Mormons were ever quite the trigger as Papists and the fundies have embraced them like good little sheep since the bishops went on a tear about abortion. Who else hates abortions and gays? 3 guesses and the first don’t count.
It’s not as if Mittlet was a j000000000.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Teabaggers have demonstrated the attention span of a goldfish. They get ecstatic about the latest shiny politician, but then a few weeks go by without that politician causing the rapture/Second Coming, they lose interest, and start looking around for the next shiny object.
Sarah Palin. Paul Ryan. Michelle Bachmann. Herman Cain. Rick Perry. Rick Santorum. And now, apparently, Ted Cruz. Whoever replaces him probably won’t last either.
JGabriel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Nah, what we really need – the ultimate kiss of death – is a prediction from Bill Kristol that Christie will survive the scandal.
Unfortunately, Kristol seems to be slightly distancing himself from The Outlaw Jersey Whale (TM TBogg), in favor of Huckabee. Which doesn’t bode well for Huck, of course.
Cervantes
@Ash Can:
Colin Powell was not only a war criminal himself in Vietnam; he was also instrumental in whitewashing My Lai and other US war crimes in Vietnam.
And then there was the illegal invasion of Panama while he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Really, anything admirable was gone long before February, 2003.
Another Holocene Human
@Ash Can: See, that’s the whole thing. I just can’t work up a rage about that. Maybe because the Bush admin would always flog their bullshit of the week in concert and it was always bullshit so I guess it struck me less as “knowing lie” than “knowing put-on”.
I figured if Saddam still even had WMDs they were unusable due to age/decrepitude/decay because the Iran-Iraq war was a long time ago. The nuke stuff sounded completely silly…. everyone who’s been paying attention knows its: US-France-Israel on one axis and China-India-Pakistan-Iran on the other, where the latter three have each developed a nuclear program for fear of the capabilities of the previous neighbor. Iraq? Don’t make me laugh.
It was kind of a shock later to find out that people seriously, trustingly fell for the bullshit.
Amir Khalid
@chopper:
And Christie’s defence up to now is not helping his political prospects, either. It’s basically him saying. “All this happened under my nose, and I didn’t know anything about it!” An indictment means he (and his lawyers) will have to repeat it all in detail, in court, and on the public record. It might yet keep him out of jail, should things come to that. But then what becomes of his credibility as a no-nonsense executive and leader?
Ash Can
@Another Holocene Human: I see your point, but I have to say that it would have made all the difference to me in the world if Powell, at the very least, had become publicly critical of the Iraq war after leaving office and publicly repentant about his role in enabling it. I could cut him slack over playing along with Bush’s Iraq policy while in office. I could even cut him slack over keeping quiet while the war was going on. But his mealy-mouthed “yeah, it probably wasn’t the best thing to do” over his UN performance just doesn’t cut it with me. Very disappointing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Splitting Image:
Ooh! We could have another of these
!
Paul in KY
@Alex S.: If we can’t whup Scott Walker’s ass with someone, then we’re a pretty sorry bunch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: I really don’t know if it will go anywhere. There was a recent setback when several subpoenas got quashed. So we need to see how it shakes out. IIRC the current investigation began in the spring of 2013 and it is looking at things done during the recall.
There is a lot smoke around Walker, the fire hasn’t touched him yet. At the same time, his lack of charisma is the thing that will prevent him from being competitive in any national race.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: The people doling out the BS certainly knew it was all BS.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks.
I certainly hope so.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Take this with appropriate salt, but recent polling has him ahead in WI by 6 points.
Shocking numbers of Wis-ites don’t care about the associate scandals, the union busting, etc. Wisconsin is a strange place. I live next door in MN, and my partner is from Milwaukee. He fled 20 years ago, but we go back to see his family. Half hate Walker so much they bussed and door knocked and fumed and voted for his ouster. The other half voted for him.
We just eat turkey and play Trivial Pursuit when we visit. Safer that way. But we won’t live there.
RaflW
@Cervantes:
Diebold voting machines? Irresponsible not to speculate.
Davis X. Machina
@RaflW: Crab buckets beat Diebold every time.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think he has any shot at achieving national office, precisely because the charisma meter is measuring him in negative integers. Beyond simply lacking charisma, he has a distinctly creepy affect.
I do think he’s likely to be the nominee, however. There just isn’t anyone else.
geg6
@Cervantes:
Hey, I didn’t vote for that asshole twice. They did.
shortstop
@RaflW:
We like to rent a really delightful farmhouse in the Spring Green area. Last summer I tried playing Wisconsinopoly (one of the board games on hand) and had to give up and take the dog for a run instead. Not that I have a thing against Sconnies; I’m related to/friends with a least a dozen.
Alex S.
@Paul in KY:
True. Only Christie might have been a threat to Hillary. And I think it’s now pretty obvious that she’s going to run. If she wouldn’t, then Andrew Cuomo would be the most likely nominee, in my opinion. And he would definitely beat every republican except Jeb and Walker, where he would just be a favorite.
geg6
@Napoleon:
Because we should totally believe every word out of his mouth. It’s not like he’s ever lied about anything, right? Well, except that one time when he failed to disclose his reasons for applying for a job as a security contractor. But that one doesn’t count, right?
Cervantes
@geg6:
Sure, but the question is why.
Responding that it’s because they are stupid is not going to get us very far. Look at what being dismissive of the electorate did for Romney, for example.
geg6
@Cervantes:
Yeah, but I’m not running for anything. Nor am I canvassing in WI.
And if Wisconsinites are that touchy that they can’t face the truth, then they deserve to be a division of Koch Industries. Here in PA, I’ve been saying for four years that anyone who voted for Corbett is too stupid to live. Funnily enough, after four years of the guy, some of those people who voted for him are agreeing with me.
rikyrah
The Five Worst Things About The New Republican Proposal To Replace Obamacare
By Sy Mukherjee on January 27, 2014 at 4:00 pm
On Monday, a trio Republican senators unveiled an alternative to Obamacare eerily similar to the one that former presidential candidate Mitt Romney proposed in 2012. The plan boils down to a rehash of boilerplate conservative ideas for “market-oriented” and “consumer-driven” health care reform — code words that really mean deregulating the insurance industry and forcing consumers to shoulder a larger burden of their health care costs.
Here are the five most troubling aspects about the new proposal from Sens. Tom Coburn (OK), Orrin Hatch (UT), and Richard Burr (NC), dubbed the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act:
1. It would kick millions of Americans off of their health plans.
Right off the bat, the Patient CARE Act would repeal Obamacare in its entirety, meaning that the three million Americans who have already enrolled in new plans through the law’s state and federal marketplaces and the millions more deemed newly eligible for Medicaid coverage in states that expanded the program would lose their health coverage.
But that’s not the only part of the bill that would take away Americans’ health plans. The CARE Act would also make big changes to the way that Medicaid is funded by imposing a so-called “per capita cap” on it. This cap resembles a block grant and it would push states to cover a highly selective group of people through Medicaid, namely pregnant women, women with children, and the disabled, forcing most of the working poor to pursue more expensive private insurance plans.
2. It dismantles many of Obamacare’s core consumer protections.
Chances are, you’ve benefited from at least one of Obamacare’s consumer protections, like a free checkup, preventive screening for HIV, a mammogram, or no-cost birth control. Millions more will benefit in the coming years, thanks to the law’s requirement that individual policies sold through the marketplaces cover a broad range of “essential health benefits” like maternity care, mental health care, and prescription drug coverage.
Say goodbye to all that under the Patient CARE Act. The bill places no such requirements on insurance companies; in fact, it dismantles Obamacare’s prohibition on gender rating, meaning that women will go back to an era where they are charged $1 billion more for their health care on a national level than men.
3. It does almost nothing for Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Some estimates have shown that as many as half of all Americans have some sort of pre-existing condition. If you’re one of them, good luck getting insurance under the Patient CARE Act.
Under the bill, insurers can still turn away people with pre-existing conditions. The only exception is if you have “continuous coverage,” meaning you’re either already insured or have been able to maintain some form of insurance despite losing the coverage you had through your employer. The thinking behind this idea — which was also proposed by Romney in 2012 — is that insurers will be able to offer cheaper policies at the expense of denying health care to sick people. And while the plan does preserve Obamacare’s ban on lifetime limits on medical benefits, it allows insurers to set annual caps on care.
Coburn et. al. also allude to federal funding for so-called “high-risk pools” for the sickest consumers. But these are plagued with inefficiencies, long waiting periods, and are often prohibitively expensive for both consumers and the government. There’s recent real-world evidence to support those notions — Obamacare’s own temporary high-risk pool program ran out of money despite enrolling far fewer people than originally expected
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/27/3210091/worst-gop-obamacare-alternative/
Mnemosyne
@Napoleon:
Psst. The South China Morning Post, to whom Snowden gave documents? They have close ties with the Chinese government. But I’m sure they didn’t share information, no sirree bob.
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus: “he is entirely without charisma” Just like Mitt Romney!
Although Romney is a Centimillionaire, while Walker is an employee of Billionaires.
rikyrah
When an apology isn’t an apology
01/28/14 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins caused quite a stir over the weekend when he argued, in a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor, that the “progressive war on the American one percent” is comparable to Nazi genocide. “Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930,” he wrote, “is its descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?”
Apparently hoping to quell the controversy, Perkins sat down with Bloomberg News’ Emily Chang yesterday to make his case. After the host asked if he regrets the comparison, Perkins’ response started off relatively well.
“Yes. I – I talked to the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman, this morning following up on a letter I’d sent over the weekend apologizing for the use of the world Kristallnacht. It was a terrible word to have chosen. I, like many, have tried to understand the 20th century and the incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust. It can’t be explained. Even to try to explain it is questionable. It’s wrong. It’s evil.”
He then read from a letter he wrote to the ADL in which he “deeply” apologized, before pointing to some liberals he considers “friends.”
As a rule, when someone reaches the “some of my best friends are _____” phase, it’s a bad sign.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-apology-isnt-apology
johnny aquitard
@Cervantes:
That polity is older and whiter now, and they are less fearful or contemptuous of a crooked carpetbagger like Walker than the drum circles of the younger and the darker.
The Obama thing is all well and good when it’s ‘out there’ in a far off place like DC but not nearly as desirable when it moves in down the street.
It’s also a state top-heavy with teaparty demographics.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Perkins’s problem is that he doesn’t want to use the much more apt analogy of the French Revolution because French aristocracy mostly deserved what they got. Of course that’s why it’s a better analogy for Perkins and his ilk, but he really doesn’t want to admit that.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s another huge prob with challenging Walker. Challengers are the devil they don’t know.
Also, there’s always a bunch of dem candidates and none have any name recognition. Barrett was the most well know but that was good and bad for some. Was there anyone else whose name was known outside of Milwaukee proper, or Madison? Or even inside, it seems.
The local dems here seem to have the same problem national goopers have. They have to appease their base to get to a wider exposure. And to appeal to a wider audience they can’t do that without having their fickle all-or-nothing base turn on them. And if the dems keep their base from turning on them, it scares the hell out of the folks outside of Madison and metro Mke.
When we see the goopers do this, we forget how the ‘progressive left’ had this down pat for decades.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: That’s a good point.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
Here’s our local news outlet’s take on the Perkins kerfuffle.
Shorter: He’s a tone deaf asshole.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: [Sigh] Here’s what you first wrote (sarcastically) (A):
And here’s what you now write:
Is there some connection between (A) and the South China Morning Post or are you just trying to change the subject?
Also, we know that, during a June, 2013 interview in Hong Kong, Snowden showed the SCMP something that they then described in an article open for everyone to see (it was evidence of illegal surveillance). What is it that you’re saying Snowden “gave” them to share with Beijing?
About which:
So again … if you know of documents Snowden actually gave the SCMP, what are they and how do you know they were handed over? (Not saying you’re wrong — perish the thought — but some specifics would be nice.)
Rhoda
@Cervantes: Say the docs Guardian and NYT etc have are the same as SCMP. These documents have agents named and other national security issues that many can’t be printed by western papers. Assuming the best case scenario is that’s what he gave the SCMP. They have info that compromised agents and operations that were likely given to China’s security services.
Fuck. On Nyquil, I followed that.
Cervantes
@Rhoda:
Of course, but everything you say depends on the bolded assumption, for which there is no evidence that I know of.
Yes, people can imagine whatever they want — but so what? Why is this interesting?
Botsplainer
Possibly the finest article I’ve seen in any publication, ever. NSFW
http://gawker.com/jury-reprimanded-for-laughing-at-alleged-sheep-fucker-r-1510835023?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Joey Giraud
@Cervantes:
Would you Snowden Botherers give it a rest? Everything you think you “know” about him comes direct from our ever-reliable corporate media, which has proven itself to be capable of bald-faced lying.
All these massive bicker sessions over trivial minutia might be fun for your outrage addiction, and it might be orgasmic to pronounce your judgment of “traitor!” but….
but… oh fuggedaboutit. It’s in your nature. Carry on.
Joey Giraud
@Botsplainer:
I shouldn’t have looked, I can’t unlook.
But “fellatio on a cow.” is an oxymoron.