These guys are going to mess around and make me enthusiastic to vote for Hillary, aren’t they:
An Arkansas Republican party official is using colorful language to warn Hillary Clinton about her future political prospects in her adopted home state.
Asked how Clinton would fare in Arkansas if she pursued the presidency in 2016, 2nd Congressional District chairman Johnny Rhoda told U.S. News, “She’d probably get shot at the state line.”
When a reporter noted that Clinton undoubtedly enjoys a measurable amount of support in a state where her husband served as governor, Rhoda replied, “Nobody has any affection for her. The majority don’t.”
If I remember correctly, one of those octogenarian retrograde Confederates, either Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond (or someone like them), once said President Clinton would get shot if he went somewhere.
Waynski
I hope that Neanderthal gets a visit from the Secret Service right quick.
Botsplainer
Both were reprehensible, but Strom was probably an interesting guy to socialize with as he aged.
Helms, on the other hand, seemed dull as shit.
Quinerly
It was Helms
NCSoder
It was NC and Jesse was wrong as usual. I never could figure out how we kept re-electing him. No one I talked to would ever admit voting for him.
schrodinger's cat
Aren’t Southerners supposed to polite or something?
catclub
It was Helms. NC.
cmorenc
What is it about hard-core wingers that they’re nearly all complete abrasive assholes?
Alexandra
There’s a slim chance that Mr Rhoda might possibly be wrong or even exaggerating. Improbably hard to imagine, I know.
dedc79
From same article:
Recent polling has shown the Clinton brand remains durable in Arkansas, even though it’s been more than two decades since former President Bill Clinton served as governor there. Hillary Clinton led every potential Republican challenger except Mike Huckabee – also a former Arkansas governor – in a late April Public Policy Polling survey.
catclub
OT: Will Saletan says ISIS is doing it wrong when compared to Osama Bin Laden’s advice.
Somehow I think that Osama is Avon Barksdale (dead) and ISIS is the new kid who has taken over on the Wire.
the Conster
@cmorenc:
Yes they’re assholes but it’s about guns – who needs consent when you can use force?
catclub
@Alexandra: Of course, that quote means that she is not the favorite, she is the second most favored, candidate.
JustRuss
WTF is wrong with these people? And the people who support them?
dan
She is the favorite in every match-up but one, in which she is the second most favored.
Does that satisfy whatever it is that you needed satisfying?
NotMax
It’s Arkansas.
Why anyone would voluntarily go there escapes me.
Hunter Gathers
Since some anonymous commenter at Daily Kos once compared Dubya to Hitler, this is just another example of how Both Sides It.
NonyNony
@Alexandra:
Ah but see you misunderstand Mr. Rhoda. When he says:
You have to understand what he means by “majority”.
He doesn’t mean the majority of the voters or even the majority of the citizens.
He means the “traditional” Arkansas population. You know – the people who “count” as people. Not the people who don’t count. Because they don’t count. So they can’t be in the majority. QED suckers!
kindness
Some folk really do want a shooting war here in the states.
It wouldn’t end the way they assume it’d end.
Iowa Old Lady
It’s a sign of how much I enjoy reading BJ that I’m logged on at the library. I spilled water on my modem yesterday and it turns out that’s bad for it. The repairman isn’t coming until Thursday. If they’d just tell me where they’re hiding the local office, I’d take the modem in and exchange it.
catclub
@NCSoder: Constituent relations office. Also, NC is not nearly as modern as it (used to) like(s) to paint itself.
NonyNony
@catclub:
Unless you take the very reasonable proposition that Mike Huckabee has a smaller chance of getting the GOP nomination than a snowball has of surviving Hell.
NonyNony
@NCSoder:
You very likely self-select to not hang around assholes.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s a veneer of politeness that drops away very quickly when something gets their dander up…like negros and wimmins thinking they should be President.
schrodinger's cat
@kindness: Didn’t they have one already?
Keith G
Hate is the new currency and the new modus operandi.** So, new pronouncements such as that one are not surprising to me, or even noteworthy.
**Even though hate has always been around as part of the social recipe, now it can be engineered and delivered right to anywhere a hate-needy person dwells. Given the addictive quality of the cathartic discharge of negative emotions coupled with highly penetrative communications….I am not sure, or hopeful, about what the new normal for our society will be.
Anoniminous
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes but the South would like a mulligan.
Keith G
@Cacti: @schrodinger’s cat: Being an intellectually diminished asshole is not geographically specific.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Hey, that’s great. A politician hoping for people to get shot at the Arkansas state line. Really makes me want to visit there.
Sorry for any of you guys still living in America’s Former Bestest Slave Pit, but I want a divorce.
aimai
@catclub: And specifically about Bill Clinton coming down to speak at a US Army base–the nerve of asserting that the CinC wasn’t welcome at a fucking Army Base didn’t strike anyone in NC as at all…uh…traitorous.
Roger Moore
@JustRuss:
They’re losing their privilege, and their shit along with it.
schrodinger's cat
@Keith G: Agreed. Unfortunately for the rest of the country they seem to elect many of those people to high office.
Missouri Buckeye
Jesse Helms said in 1994 (on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination no less) said President Clinton shouldn’t show up at Fort Bragg without a bodyguard.
I always thought Clinton should have specifically went to Fort Bragg, praising the military personnel there, but also reminding everyone that we still specifically have a civilian (the President) being ultimately in charge of the military, and that sedition really is frowned upon.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@kindness: It ends like these incidents do.
Gotta love the Onion, they are on it.
NCSteve
It was Jesse Helms and the location was Fort Bragg. Because Everyone Knows all Real Umerikins, like our special forces troops at Fort Bragg, hated Bill Clinton just as much as people like Jesse Helms did.
SatanicPanic
Beyond the crazy nature of these threats, why do these people say this stuff? He’s not going to do it. None of the people that would nod their head are going to do it. It’s so obviously BS, like some rich rapper claiming he’s gonna shoot his rival or Roger Clemens talking about how he could still pitch in the MLB. It’s 2014, you’re not going to. No one believes you’re going to. Shut up. Clowns.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
They’re polite as long as somebody is threatening them with a gun. An armed society is a polite society, and all that.
Zifnab25
@Keith G: Cuts both ways. The conservative crowd really loves to proclaim how America beat the Soviets by out-capitalist-ing them. All that revisionist history, and they’ve completely forgotten how close we were to a President Huey Long and a 100% income tax. They don’t remember how Democrats lost to Nixon when he tacted to LBJ’s *left*, or that Ronald Reagan had to pander to unions to beat Carter, or that a black muslim from Kenya was elected twice in this country despite it being so terribly right-of-center.
Plenty of those Occupy protesters were brimming with hate back in ’08. That hatred hasn’t gone away. If conservatives keep poking moderates and apoliticals with their right-wing bullshit, they could very well reap the whirlwind.
Missouri Buckeye
@aimai:
As I said above. That was a direct challenge from Helms, and I absolutely felt that Clinton should have gone to Fort Bragg to challenge that notion.
It was similar to when a general was forced to retire after publicly criticizing President Clinton. Clinton stayed out of the fray but I felt that was wrong, because the President is supposed to be the Commander-in-Chief of the military. I thought this guy should have been summoned to the White House and personally reminded by Clinton who the boss really was, what the precise definition of insubordination is, and how that general certainly wouldn’t have tolerated those type of comments from one of his underlings.
We have been letting the military tail wag the dog of this country for far too long.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: True. Michele Bachmann anyone? Also, I think the original “Second Amendment remedies” person was that bug-fuck crazy lady in Nevada.
Patrick
It’s such a dumb comment on so many levels. I have still to decide whether to sit out out 2016 or vote for Hillary. But idiotic and hateful comments such as this from Republicans makes me almost want to go out and fundraise for her.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
As far as I can tell, the big difference between red states and blue states is that blue states don’t have an internal power structure that promotes racists. There are probably equal numbers of racist and non-racist citizens in red states and blue states, but the power structure in red states is such that the racists keep getting elected over and over again. And it ain’t a surprise that, for the most part, those red states are the same states where black people were systematically prevented from voting or holding public office.
balconesfault
BTW – this echoes my point I make when people keep calling the violent antipathy towards Obama as race-based.
Sure, it helps that they get to hate on a black dude. But they’re perfectly capable of hating on any white who’s politically to the left of Lindsey Graham. Especially if he/she’s a Democrat.
Missouri Buckeye
@balconesfault:
Add on to that if they aren’t Christian or heterosexual.
Try being the guy who complains about “under God” in the Pledge of allegiance or “In God we trust” on out currency.
Betty Cracker
@Missouri Buckeye: Agreed. Another cohort that needs to be taken down a peg or five are these open carry gun nuts and militia people. I can respect that the feds were trying to save lives by refraining from riding onto the Bundy ranch guns-ablazing. But maybe the two cops the ranch rejects killed in Vegas would be alive today if these creeps were brought to heel with the force they deserve to meet.
And while we’re at it, it’s time to demilitarize the goddamned police.
Mnemosyne
@balconesfault:
Yes, but why did they hate Clinton (and now Hillary)? Because they were race traitors. N*gger-lovers. They used all the same accusations against the Clintons that they do against Obama, but the racial animus was slightly disguised because they were accusing the Clintons of selling out white people.
It’s racist hatred all the way down.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mnemosyne: You could not be more wrong. My family is from the South (since at least the early 1800s) and about half of them moved back there. Me and some others stayed in California. I’ve spent a lot of time in the South; a lot more than I ever wanted to, to be honest. (Alabama, North Carolina, Florida).
Most whites in Southern states are racist. Most of those not aggressively so, but they are. They vote based on it, to be sure. Most whites in California simply do not give a fuck about your skin color. The dividing factor here in CA is money, and that’s a whole different breed of problems and has its own political baggage, but as far as racism, the inhabitants of the South vs. the rest of the country, well, the difference is as stark as…black and white.
@Mnemosyne: Total agreement. Remember Bill Clinton, the “nation’s first black president”, yuk, yuk, yuk. The people making that “joke” back in 1992 weren’t liberals. And they sure as shit weren’t black.
Shakezula
Another shrimp-dick waving his Glock to make up for his inadequate cock.
@Botsplainer: Well naturally one would hate to socialize with a boring bigot.
Betty Cracker
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Most whites in Southern states are racist, as in 51%+? I think that’s probably an exaggeration. Also, I lived in Boston for a few years, and there were plenty of stone-cold racists up there.
As for Clinton being the first black president, Toni Morrison said it. I’m pretty sure she’s a liberal.
Trollhattan
Well, bless his heart….
In unrelated news, your Mormon church does not like your feminazi ways, formerly Mormon lady. So there!
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/24/6506625/experts-mormon-excommunication.html
Feel the love.
Villago Delenda Est
What he means by this is the majority of fuckheads in Arkansas, like him.
Frankensteinbeck
@cmorenc:
This is not a coincidence. The GOP uses domestic abuser logic to sell hate-based policy to racists and MBAs. It has been the party of assholes at least since Reagan.
StringOnAStick
@Trollhattan: Wow. I know a Mormon woman in a professional context, and I could tell something was up recently; I’ll bet it was this case coming to a head. Serious Mormons have such a closed society, right out there in the open and yet nearly impenetrable if you aren’t a member.
It’s the Mormon couple next door who have adopted my wingnut parents, probably due to fellow wingnuttitude. My dad told me he plans to give all his tools and firearms to the neighbor, and I watched him give his (now too large for him to handle) chainsaw to him when I was last there (before they threw me out). Actually, I am glad; I don’t want to deal with this stuff and the more he gives away, the better as far as I am concerned. I did warn the neighbor later on to not fire any of the guns unless they have a gunsmith look them over since they are old and haven’t been used in decades.
So I’ve decided I should forgive my parents for throwing me out after I slaved on their house and, I admit, got too pushy with him about his apparent decline in driving skills after watching him do $2,000 of damage to his nice new Toyota truck by nearly jack-knifing a trailer. However, I’ve also decided that I’m not willing to be their beaten dog and will be keeping my distance, while letting my other sisters keep a closer eye on them; they are closer physically and emotionally, and as a liberal Fox tells them they should hate me and that comes to the surface more often than I care for. He emailed that he was sorry how my visit ended, but the fault was of the mirrors on his truck, of course not his late evening drinking and declining driving skills. I acknowledged his email and stated that if his main goal is to keep living in their home, he needs to start hiring more of the maintenance work to others and to recognize that everyone has to delegate at some point in their lives. I think I’ll just let it all sit on the back of the stove for awhile and see what happens with their interactions with my other siblings. These are the parents who refused to speak with me for a few years after Obama first won office since that was apparently my fault, so it isn’t like I’m not familiar with being on the TP tablet.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Man, I am so sorry they’ve been such assholes to you. It’s not fair. If my child ever becomes a wingnut (FSM forbid!), I hope I’ll have the grace to recognize that it’s her life and she’s entitled to her own beliefs, however misguided I find them. Also, fuck Rupert Murdoch with a thousand rusty pitchforks for deliberately poisoning so many minds with lies and propaganda. There’s not a hell hot enough for that motherfucker.
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
Ugh. Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do to help your parents, especially if they’re resisting the help. Next time they ask, tell them you’ve already used up all of your vacation time from work and one of your other siblings will need to do it.
I don’t know if you saw my Dealing With Wingnut Relatives advice from around Thanksgiving, but if they try to spout any conspiracy theories, one thing that can help is to play dumb: No, I hadn’t heard anything about that. What’s it about? Nine times out of ten, they’ll start trying to explain Benghazi or Fast & Furious, get tangled up in all of the various conspiracies, and give up. Makes them more amenable to changing the subject to sports or the weather or pets. (Note: If they are religious wingnuts who think Obama is the antichrist or that you personally are going to hell for leaving the church, this may not work.)
My wingnut dad was never religious, so although he’d ride me about Obama, he also declared to anyone who asked that in 2014 he was planning to vote for Dr. Ron Paul over Mitt Romney, and I assume he stuck with that.
SFAW
@Cacti:
Because their dander is permanently up, ever since the War of Northern Aggression.
cmm
@schrodinger’s cat: We had a land war on Asia that was a costly ghastly failure, and the same people got to do it again 40 years later. The Civil was 150 years ago. Surely the odds have improved!
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Not disagreeing, but I’m a-thinking that it’s just a grift for him, and that Roger Ailes should burn in hell first. Yeah, I realize that he’s trying to run things back in Oz by buying off the “right” people, trashing those who would deny him, and so forth, but I think it’s more of a power/money thing than him being a follower of Cleek’s Law.
But – standard disclaimer – I been wrong before.
boatboy_srq
@JustRuss: Hyperbole drives Conservatist politics. One of the biggest complaints I used to hear about Gov. Voldemort was that he actually attempted to keep his campaign promises (like gutting law enforcement, shredding state benefits, and turning back all the federal cash FL was getting) – because somehow someone who actually believes all the wingnut rhetoric and acts on it was totally unexpected.
Trollhattan
@StringOnAStick:
So sorry that’s how things are working out. It likewise saddens me this is a too-common tale. Somebody should have forced me to take a college class on “being and coping with middle age.”
drkrick
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I’ll take your word about California, although I have my doubts. But I can tell you for sure that if you were in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts you’d be seeing a lot more shades of gray.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: I’m not sure that makes it any less odious. They should roast together on dual rotisseries in the hottest part of hell.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Ailes would render out so much grease it would make the fire even hotter–double-win.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: Thanks Betty, I appreciate that. And if your daughter isn’t showing signs of wingnuttitude by now, I doubt she will (and as I recall, she isn’t, thanks FSM). Murdock and Ailes? There isn’t a hell hot enough for the evil they have unleashed on the world, and I’m not being hyperbolic since the American serviceman and Iraqi citizen death toll is so high, and about to go higher thanks to what their lies supported and implemented, along with every other thing that can be laid at those 2 asshole’s feet. We’ll miss our chance to mitigate the impacts of global climate change thanks to that propaganda network, so add the world to their list of crimes.
Memnosyne, I tried the “oh? Explain that to me” approach, it doesn’t work so good on my mom because she’s growing senile and can’t recognize that her garbled Van Susterin-ese isn’t making any sense, and my dad knows I know more about this stuff than he does so he just got shouty with me, the usual “don’t act like you don’t know what’s going on, you smartass!” stuff he’s always used. He is an authoritarian through and through, and his solution to anyone or anything that bothers him is more volume, more yelling. I do agree that the “oh, explain that to me” gambit works on people who aren’t senile and have some level of self awareness; I’ve thanked you in my mind several times since you posted that!
ruemara
@StringOnAStick: I am sorry they are sucking at this time. I hope things improve soon.
cmm
So while on the topic of wingnut states, I am heartily sick of Georgia and trying to decide where to move to. Either a solidly blue state or a very purple one with a temperate climate, low enough land cost to buy a couple of acres to grow some food, access to WiFi for my work from home business, and not too horribly far from NJ, MD, and Ga/Fl based relatives. Right now thinking about middle to western MD, Reasearch Triangle area ofNC, possibly Ohio, or lower Delaware. Anyone got a state or area to pitch? I live in a blue area of a red state and am really tired of it.
Lawrence
Aren’t there any cops anywhere who can see a problem with the river of death threats coming from the right? These things are crimes. Is there anyone left who thinks there is a political upside to an appeasement policy with these assholes? The NSA hasn’t indexed all the death and rape threats against the Moms Demand Action ladies? Is it really in the interest of the power elite to keep teaching liberals that the law is for chumps and violence is how you get respect?
StringOnAStick
@Trollhattan: Yeah, “being and coping with middle age” would be a good class. I will say that I’m not that worked up over my parents; like I said, I’ve been here before. They’ve cut me off for long enough and enough times that the joke’s on them: I learned to not care much about their feelings towards me and mine for them as a coping mechanism and I’m much happier for it.
My husband started reading Stoic philosophy a year ago, I think it was something he hit upon to help him with his own father’s decline (his mom died when he was a teen). The funny thing is that you hear the world “Stoic” and you think “Oh, suck it up and stuff down your emotions”, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The word stoic as it is now used has very little to do with the philosophy. AA’s Serenity Prayer takes a lot from Stoicism; the whole knowing the difference between what you have control over and can change, and what you can’t (without the religious/higher power veneer AA puts on things). The point is to live in the now and accept that the now and how you are in it will change as you age, and that takes grace and thought. I’ve been reading it too and wasn’t sure I had internalized as much as my husband has, but after my folks threw me out I had a 5 hour drive to get home and I wasn’t angry or ruminating on it, just accepting and glad to be going home. It was then I realized how reading this stuff had helped me form a mature enough outlook to not get tossed back into angry kid brain as I used to with my folks; there aren’t many books, but Modern Stoicism is a good one. I think it’s a good “being and coping with middle age” philosophy, and it has helped me not fall into permanent depression over the aging of both our parents and most of all, not watching their decline with horror and fear over it happening to us with time. We don’t have any kids so there will be no concerned younger person watching over us, which means we have to do as much planning as we can while we can but not being morbid and avoiding living life because of fear of time’s passage. Live now, plan for what you can, and accept that you can’t plan for everything so enjoy life as it happens; tomorrow is promised to no one.
BD of MN
And the lulz continue….
Via TPM a bit ago…
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick:
That is wisdom right there.
muddy
@StringOnAStick: I have a paperback copy of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and I always bring it to medical appointments. Very helpful.
drkrick
I would love to hear the “context” that would make that remark acceptable. I can’t come up with one. I suspect he doesn’t know what context really means.
D58826
Since this seems to be the thread to discuss stupid Republicans and of course Faux news, have a go at this from over on KOS
The way these folks keep digging I expect them to show up in China before long.
lgerard
Get a laugh at this guy’s Rhoda’s credentials
http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/the-scholars-of-clinton/Content?oid=1325219
Mnemosyne
@drkrick:
I’m pretty sure “context” means “I didn’t know I was being recorded.”
Kay
@lgerard:
That’s great. Also! Tim Griffin. Remember him? He’s the hack that Karl Rove hired to be US Attorney after they fired the 9 prosecutors who wouldn’t bring fake voter fraud charges against black people.
I don’t think he was ever confirmed because by then the jig was up and they got caught.
So glad he’s returned to public service!
Patricia Kayden
@schrodinger’s cat: Good joke!
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I’m OK with that.
@Trollhattan:
Throw Limbaugh, Pantload, Jacoby, and Jim Hoft in, and we could grill the burgers topside. Of course, it would really screw us, vis-a-vis global warming. But it might be a worthwhile trade-off. (By the way, I have no idea whether Hoft is fat, but since – as the saying goes – “The Stupid, it burns!”, and since he’s The Stupidest Man on The Internet, no hellfire would be complete without him.)
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
Yikes! My dad had an authoritarian streak, but he would back down if I was stubborn enough. And, like I said, once he decided to leave the Catholic Church, he never really went back to religion (and my (step)mom is a lifelong atheist) so at least we didn’t get hit with that brand of wingnuttery.
Your description of Stoicism sounds like where I ended up after 8 years of psychotherapy, and it was probably a lot cheaper, too. :-)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@lgerard: The title character from Rhoda has better credentials.
Betsy
@Cacti: As the saying goes, a Southerner will be polite until he is ready to kill you.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
This is harsh. Just so you know.
You could just excommunicate yourself. I’ve had to do it for my sanity and blood pressure with my one remaining family member after both my parents passed. It isn’t fun but at some point I had to ask myself, why am I taking this abuse? Haven’t I learned anything in several decades?
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
Nice.
I’m glad you have developed a good coping mechanism, otherwise these kinds of issues tear you apart. I use the putting one foot in front of the other idea but the sentiment is the same. You are here and then you aren’t. Make the best of it, not the worst, for that’s all we really have.
Betsy
@BD of MN: in other words, White Privilege Boy is not used to having to account for his words or actions. Hurts when you have to be called to answer for your stuff, don’t it Tucker Braxton Huntingdon III?
Most privileged southern males have this Achilles’ heel. They are in exercised and lazy ’cause they have not had to work as hard for things as the rest of us. It’s nice when it can be turned around on them.
Betsy
@Betsy: ETA: apparently in Arkansas you don’t even have to be a Tucker Braxton Huntingdon III for that kind of privilege; just being a low-grade white male will do.
Paul in KY
@Iowa Old Lady: You’re addicted!