Scott Walker: U.S.-Canada wall a 'legitimate' idea http://t.co/WBDrw6tTpq pic.twitter.com/oegFOyjus6
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 30, 2015
Just got a sneak peek at Scott Walker's proposed design for a Canadian immigration fence. Looks impressive. pic.twitter.com/F6fiUDfYBB
— Kieran Healy (@kjhealy) August 30, 2015
How much bourbon do you need after you file something like this? pic.twitter.com/p12KSdBYeP
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 30, 2015
Could his strong & substantive foreign policy speech mark the beginning of a @ScottWalker comeback? https://t.co/rbwWFbRC4m
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 29, 2015
Spoiler Alert: No. https://t.co/A76sqxdrqT
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 29, 2015
.
He keeps this up, the Kochs are gonna start asking for their money back.
Keith P.
And this was the candidate I was most worried about. I guess now I’ll have to settle for worrying about Rubio, who is slightly less not-ready-for-primetime.
Another Holocene Human
Now that’s what I call good twitter-twatter.
Germy Shoemangler
Matt Taibbi describes his appearance as “an overdressed traffic cop”
I have a feeling if he loses this one he’ll run again, and again… and again. There’s something about him that tells me he wants to be president real bad.
It’s like a Nixon thing; some personal score to settle that can only be satisfied by winning the White House.
MattF
The tweet from Kristol reminds me of Betteridge’s Law: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” Ergo, the Kristol corollary to Betteridge’s law: Any tweet from Bill Kristol that ends in a question mark…
Baud
He didn’t propose snipers on that wall?
Amateur.
Gimlet
Think of the poor Canadians that sneak over the border to get the quality health care they can’t get at home. Bummer!
Another Holocene Human
@Keith P.: No worries, Rubio is dumb as a box of rocks and phony as a three dollar bill. He utterly lacks political instincts and relies on Florida state GOPers to tell him what to do, which has not endeared him to anybody, not even GOP-heads in Florida.
Everyone in Florida, including Marco himself, knows he was only “put up in there” in the Senate as a giant Fuck You to Charlie Crist over some shit he vetoed to attempt to put a certain faction of the Lege in their place. The Dems had nominated a sacrifice candidate thinking Crist was the guy, and he flailed around with no money, less name recognition, and a damaging primary against some carpet-bagging Republican from California who was somehow running in the D primary.
Frankensteinbeck
Until Bill Kristol said it, I would have thought, yeah. Republican voters love dumbassery as long as you’re confident and an asshole about it. Alas, I grow more profoundly impressed by Bill Kristol’s wrongness every day.
It looks like he was even wrong about Democrats passing healthcare destroying the Republican Party by showing people government works and Democrats are the ones who will provide it. Instead, the Republican Party may kill itself with its insane opposition.
Another Holocene Human
@Gimlet: The Wall wasn’t built to keep Canadians out. It’s to keep you and me inside.
Baud
@Gimlet:
Maybe the Canadians would appreciate the ability to keep Wisconsinites like Walker out?
(Apologies to Omnes)
Gimlet
@Another Holocene Human:
Ohhh?… nevermind!
gene108
I have long been in favor of a giant huge mountain range sized wall on our northern border, so we can block off the flow of cold Arctic air Canada exports to us every winter and so we can be warm and toasty year round.
When a country’s number export to you is brutally cold air, it is time to take action.
debbie
Has he ever actually faced opponents and talked tough like he does to a roomful of syncopants?
Peale
Yeah. They can hope Hillary is disqualified. It reminds me of all that “advice” conservative moderates always gave to Obama that was basically 100 different iterations on “do what we want and don’t run again for the good of the country” which was short hand for “we don’t think we can beat you.” Why is Hillary still running? Doesn’t she know republicans don’t like her?
Germy Shoemangler
I didn’t see the repub debates. How did Walker do? Was he quick on his feet?
Hungry Joe
@Germy Shoemangler: … except Nixon’s personal scores WEREN’T satisfied by his winning the White House.
He and Walker do share a certain dweeb/I-got-noogied-in-middle-school look and mindset, but Nixon was one (fairly) sharp cookie. Walker, however, is full-on derp.
(Why is “derp” such a funny word? I keep waiting to get tired of it, but it’s hanging in there.)
Peale
@gene108: I agree. Canada is not sending its best.
MattF
@Peale: They’re going to try to impeach her before she gets elected. No point in wasting all that time before November ’16.
Villago Delenda Est
Kristol is nothing but self-parody now.
Germy Shoemangler
@Hungry Joe:
But surely the Kochs see something behind those dead eyes of his?
Another Holocene Human
@Peale: Actors and singers included.
Peale
Duh. This is a Wisconsin politician talking about Canada. Shouldn’t the drink required for the task be a brandy old-fashioned, sweet, or a 7 and 7? No bourbon needed.
MattF
@gene108: The next Canadian air mass will be tagged and deported.
MattF
@Germy Shoemangler: Au contraire. I’d think that the lack of affect would be a plus for the Kochs.
Gimlet
Has Rick Scott solemnly submitted his bill to DC for gazillions of dollars of damage done to Florida by Erika?
Germy Shoemangler
@Frankensteinbeck: After seeing Reagan take the oath of office, and Dubya, and seeing Palin win the VP nom, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Walker won the whole darn thing.
The only thing that eases my mind is Kristol’s enthusiasm over him.
Frankensteinbeck
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m guessing they like the dead eyes. A soulless candidate without compassion or guilt is pretty much what the doctor ordered. It’s not just because they can bribe him. They are some seriously hateful people who want to detonate the government and remove all protections for everybody. A politician who can be just as uncaring about the people might seem admirable to them.
Peale
@MattF: If I’m elected president, Christie said, the first thing I’ll do is meet with the president of Accuweather to see if he has a solution for tracking Canadian immigrants.
gene108
@MattF:
I would be in favor of a stiff tariff. For every degree a cold air mass from Canada drops our temperatures, Canada has to pay us $1 billion USD.
Edit: Per day till temps rise.
Gimlet
@Peale:
They’ll sneak over in wetsuits using that pipeline the Republicans are eager to build.
Peale
@gene108: How about 50 cents off Labatts per degree?
Hal
Somehow I missed Chris Rock’s December 2014 essay on hollywood, but it’s definitely worth a read.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-five-filmmaker-chris-rock-753223?mobile_redirect=false
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
“Scott Walker catches fire?”
Probably a bad plan, since firefighters are union.
trollhattan
@Germy Shoemangler:
He and Santorum are peas in a rotting pod–they want it so BAD they can taste it but are as personable as a soapdish, just lacking the soapdish’s utility as a thing that can hold soap. Nixon was leagues smarter than either.
Keith P.
@gene108: I would build a heater – a giant heater, a beautiful heater – and make Canada pay for it.
Suzanne
OT, but whatever.
Last night, in fucking Phoenix, Arizona, in August, on a day with a high of 112, we had a fucking hail and ice storm. I can literally see climate change happening. The storms the last five years have been far more severe than they were when I was a kid. We now have haboobs multiple times a year that look like they eat the entire city, and last year, we had a storm that was more than a 100-year-storm. There literally had never been in recorded history a storm with more rain and flooding in this area. Every major storm now, our area loses trees, not to mention power. And yet it just keeps getting hotter. I am just so unbelievably pissed that we still have so many deniers when this crazy shit just keeps happening, and it never used to happen.
Bex
@Another Holocene Human: Beat me to it.
gene108
@Peale:
Always partial to Moosehead, when I used to drink.
JGabriel
Scott Walker must remember and worship that time when Reagan, re: East Germany, told the Soviet Union, “Mr. Gorbachev, Build Up That Wall!”
Another Holocene Human
@Keith P.: *gigglesnort* that was win.
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: Sometimes I wonder if we’ll find out some day that wingnuts have a gene variant that makes it impossible for them to remember things.
Baud
@Suzanne:
An ice storm is what you get for longing for Maine weather.
Oh, and liberals were right again.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
They remember Jane Fonda quite well. So no.
gnomedad
It’s too late; Ted Cruz is already here.
Chris
The Kochs are as crazy as he is. They’re probably cheering him on.
BBA
@Another Holocene Human: Like the House of Bourbon, they learn nothing and forget nothing.
Stillwater
He keeps this up, the Kochs are gonna start asking for their money back.
I dunno. Trump (and the past two GOP Pres. cycles) have shown that anything is possible. And Hillary’s recent dive in the polls sorta confirms that.
Fred
“Scott Walker catches fire in Virginia”
Is there anybody here who will piss on him? I didn’t think so.
Suzanne
@Hal: Truth. I didn’t go see that movie because I didn’t think the dude was hot. Jamie Dornan has been hot in other things, when he didn’t look like a constipated Young Republican pledging SAE. But he looked totally unsexy in that movie, ergo, no dice.
Now if Mahershala Ali would have played Fifty Shades of Gray…… SPLASH.
Suzanne
@Baud: I like the monsoon storms (the ice storm brought it down to 77 degrees yesterday), but an ice storm happening here in August, when they used to never happen, is a sign of a larger problem. I happily welcome the rain, but when I see this kind of weirdness happening with more and more frequency, I know shit is up.
bystander
@Peale: Bieber is certainly proof of that.
I don’t get why Rubio’s not being dinged for his parentage. Marco’s parents didn’t come here because it’s the land of the free. They came here to escape Castro. Their entire story is one of exiles waiting for the chance to return to their ancestral homeland and reclaim the spoils of their heritage. Same goes for Cruz, except how can you claim American citizenship of the purity contemplated by the Constitution when you spent almost your entire life as a citizen of Canada. That seems to me exactly what the Constitution intended to disqualify.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
Isn’t it funny that the people who seemed to hate communism the most want to be as authoritarian as the communist governments were and have the same solutions, including, but certainly not limited to, the currently wealthy to be the only ones with any money.
Germy Shoemangler
@bystander:
They were so anxious to escape Castro they fled almost three years before he took power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marco-rubios-compelling-family-story-embellishes-facts-documents-show/2011/10/20/gIQAaVHD1L_story.html
Honus
OT, but I need to say it. I guess coulter us right about only the good die young. Reagan was 93.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Isn’t it Obama’s fault? I mean isn’t the president powerful enough to make hail, sleet and snow in AZ in the middle of summer?
Goblue72
@Germy Shoemangler: And then losing it in utter disgrace. Nixon was a weasely worm his entire career – with the kind of giant chip on his shoulder that only the kind of guy who kept trying to get on the front lines but kept failing achieves – whether as a middling bureaucrat in FDR’s administration in the price control office overseeing rubber tires, or a behind the lines logistics officer during WW2, or as VP to an actual war hero President.
Goblue72
@bystander: they’re only anchor babies if they vote Democrat
Kay
Iowa was Walker’s “firewall” :)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/29/iowa-poll-finds-trump-and-carson-surging-as-walker-collapses/
Germy Shoemangler
@Goblue72: Popeye’s “Swee’ Pea” was an anchor baby.
In the comics, Swee’Pea is a baby found on Popeye’s doorstep (actually delivered to him in a box) in a 1933 strip. Popeye adopts and raises him as his son, or, as he puts it “boy-kid”. Initially, Swee’Pea’s speech consisted entirely of the sound “glop”. As the years went on, Swee’Pea apparently aged enough to speak normally, and could throw punches if necessary; however, his appearance remained that of a crawling baby. In the strip for August 17, 1933, Popeye christens Swee’Pea as ‘Scooner Seawell Georgia Washenting Christiffer Columbia Daniel Boom’. Although Swee’Pea remains his most common sobriquet, he is occasionally referred to as Scooner by Popeye and others in later strips.
Baud
@Kay:
Shouldn’t the firewall not be on the front line?
Bill E Pilgrim
Walker’s “Plan eh” for dealing with immigration.
kindness
It’s clear to all that Walker is a top 0.1% whore. That is the Party but it isn’t the base and the base is hungry for red meat different from top 0.1 % whoredom right now.
Germy Shoemangler
@kindness:
They’ll be fed pink slime. They’ll be told it’s red meat, and they’ll like it.
Chris
@Ruckus:
They don’t hate communism for the authoritarianism.
RSA
Are professionals allowed to write like that?
JPL
Gov Kasich now has something to be upset about. The President has announced that Mt. McKinley will be no more. It is now Mt. Denali which was its original name.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy Shoemangler: Fuckin’ Dondi was nothing but an illegal.
I love it! I just can’t tell if pink slime better refers to the opportunistic demagoguery of Trump, or the half-hearted and confused efforts of Jeb! to serve up red meat.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ve said for quite a while that Walker did not have the chops to move onto the national stage. Wisconsin is a mid-sized state with some current issues. He was able to leverage those here, but, in the end, he just isn’t very bright or knowledgeable.
Mike in NC
@Kay: Under the article’s comments, somebody noted that Walker is proof that scum always rises to the top.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t know but I thought it was funny he’s “catching fire” in Virginia the day after the Iowa “firewall” was breached.
His handlers thought Iowa was his best shot because of…Wisconsin. The answer to every substantive question on Scott Walker is “Wisconsin”. I don’t believe Walker has any particular constituency. His whole thing is how he hates labor unions and loves Ronald Reagan. It’s just not enough to make anything. It’s enough to be elected governor of a medium sized state in a GOP wave year.
Stillwater
@JPL: JPL, you got a link for that? I’d like to read about it.
Mandalay
@bystander:
To correct a couple of your points:
– Marco Rubio’s parents did not come here to escape Castro. They came two and a half years before Castro took power.
– Cruz’s father actually fought for Castro. Like Rubio’s parents, he left during the Batista dictatorship, long before Castro took control.
These are inconvenient truths that Cruz and Rubio don’t like to talk about, so it’s understandable that you are misinformed, but them’s the facts.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
You have. Just think though. We get to watch him lose, in a slow and agonizing manner!
SiubhanDuinne
If it’s been a while since the last time you opened your Anthology of American Poetry, the whole poem is well worth another read in light of the current discussions on walls and immigrants.
p.a.
If Walker’s elected I am so going to corner the Tauntaun market for Northwall support services. Fuck you Hothiburton.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: I believe that’s the poll in which Mr IOL participated, claiming he would go to the R caucus and vote for Trump.
Gravenstone
@Germy Shoemangler: Witless pliability.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, yay. The first “what happened to Scott Walker?” piece:
Turning himself into a less charismatic version of himself. If that were possible. Which it’s not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-happened-to-scott-walker/2015/08/30/95a870c6-4d06-11e5-84df-923b3ef1a64b_story.html
Just One More Canuck
@Stillwater: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/us/mount-mckinley-will-be-renamed-denali.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
JPL
@Stillwater: front page of the NYTimes.
The original headline said renamed, it now is more accurate
Mount McKinley Will Again Be Called Denali
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
My husband used to do the same thing. I loved how firmly he would fake-answer the questions- “I believe the Constitution Party and that Mr. Miller is my choice”. You probably only get serious candidate choices because Iowa but Ohio has a lot of ballot lines in the general.
dmsilev
@Baud:
How about a moat? With alligators?
(note: The annual spring restocking of the alligator population will be given to Gov. Scott of Florida. Surely his offspring will be sufficient in number to repopulate the moat)
schrodinger's cat
So, is tracking immigrants like Fedex tracks their packages, a joke too? What about anchor babies? Sorry not seeing any humor in all this immigrant hate.
Mandalay
@JPL:
I hope he also renames Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport back to plain old Washington National Airport. That would make a few heads explode.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: Jamie, who?
JPL
@Mandalay: One of the comments on the NyTimes was he wouldn’t have done this if it were named after a democratic President.
Another Holocene Human
@Bill E Pilgrim: so wrong for that
Chris
@dmsilev:
Well, we do have… sea bass?
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay:
Rubio went so far as to write a book about himself and lie about that.
Iowa Old Lady
@JPL: I admit didn’t know which party McKinley belonged to, but before I made a statement like that, I’d consult Wikipedia.
Kay
Here’s another over-rated GOP governor flailing about on the national stage:
They have to say FedEx because Republicans are contractually bound to never say “UPS” aloud, because UPS has labor union cooties.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: They are, after all Birchite offal. Fit only to be used as fertilizer for a field of potatoes.
Iowa Old Lady
@Iowa Old Lady: So Wikipedia tells me that McKinley was a republican. Which is why I look things up!
dmsilev
@Chris: I insist on using well-tempered[*} sea bass
[*] in the musical sense, of course
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: This is great news.
Twitchy sent out the batshit signal and conservatives online are frothing.
Interesting to see if Sarah Palin has shed her Alaskan shtick for a national audience. Back when she was the Quitternor, she said Denali, just like every conservative Alaskan pol since statehood.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s not funny, but this is- they’re saying these things because they’re desperately trying to beat…Donald Trump. They’re failing at it too. As Peggy Noonan might say, savor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Yes, that is a pleasant thought.
Another Holocene Human
Finally, a conservative tells the truth. “I don’t care what about a mountain in AK.” I just want to derp about Obama some more. He hurts me. In my thinky place.
Jeffro
@schrodinger’s cat: Agreed, no real humor here other than the very grim kind, but let’s go to the tape for a sec:
– Walker: “Let’s build a wall on the Canadian border, too”
– Christie: “Let’s track ’em like packages”
– Jindal: “Let’s make ’em learn English and adopt our values”
– Cruz: [“I’m on board with whatever Trump wants”]
– Bush: “Nothing wrong with saying ‘anchor babies’ and by the way it’s mostly those pesky Asians who are the problem”
– Trump: [“Don’t even try, guys: whatever you propose, I will say that’s lame…we need to go big, no, go YOOOUUUUGGGEEE…”]
They are off the cliff…they are, individually and collectively, Wile E. Coyote just before he realizes gravity is about to kick in…
dmsilev
@Another Holocene Human: Does our Fearless Hero there cite which Article of the Constitution determines who has mountain-naming authority?
Mandalay
@JPL:
Maybe so, though I doubt it. The request for the name reversion came from the state of Alaska, and opposing it would have made him look small.
The state government here in Florida reverted Cape Kennedy back to Cape Canaveral because (allegedly) Floridians didn’t like the change that had been imposed on them by President Johnson. I don’t know how true that was, but in general politicians should stay the hell away from both naming and renaming stuff after people.
Ruckus
@Chris:
I know, they hate it because it puts them in the undesirable column.
Another Holocene Human
@dmsilev: Forget it, he’s rolling.
Told my wife he’s referring to the super secrit Articles that cover Presidenting while Black.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Koch’s should have backed Snyder in Michigan. He’s the smarter Scott Walker.
JPL
@Another Holocene Human: My son visited friends in Alaska years ago and on chat I asked him, what is the biggest mountain in the US, and said it’s a trick question. He said Mt Denali. I said so you heard; he said heard what.. It will be difficult for Sarah to say anything.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
Yet another example of the unbelievable stupidity of Rubio that he thought he could tell such a massive lie and not get caught.
Gravenstone
@dmsilev: Particularly for a mountain whose existence was largely unknown outside the Pacific NW native peoples at the time the Constitution was written and ratified.
JPL
@Mandalay: McKinley had never been to Alaska and most people called it Denali, so I don’t think it’s political but practical.
MaryRC
That US-Canada wall idea makes me think of this quote from Dodsworth. Sam Dodsworth and his wife Fran are travelling through Europe in the 1930s and his wife is ragging Sam about not being as civilized as the Europeans they meet. Sam says “Maybe clean hospitals, concrete highways, and no soldiers along the Canadian border come near my idea of civilization.” I guess that idea of civilization is as outworn as Fran Dodsworth’s.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s a racist streak in this country, but it is not everywhere (thankfully). But the places, like mostly white rural towns, where anyone of color would stick out are not always the most welcoming.
As I have little interest in living in rural western North Carolina, for example, it is manageable.
Even worth mocking a bit, because you are not going to be angrier than them. They are rage monsters.
On the other hand, the fact the Very Serious People of the Republican Party are clambering to openly play to the racist crowd is scary. I do not see Republicans getting clobbered for these ideas like they should be.
I just hope that somehow, somewhere and somewhen the Republicans will overreach one time too many and get punished to the point of never going there again.
I know several Indians, in NJ, who might’ve voted Republican in the past, but are probably going all in with the Democrats because of all the talk of deportation. They do not like the idea of their kids, who are born here, to no longer have citizenship* status because they can see the “first they came for the illegals, and I said nothing…now they come for me…” writing on the wall.
* If birthright citizenship is lost, there is no guarantee the parents’ country of origin will automatically extend citizenship to the kids.
gogol's wife
@RSA:
I’m now seeing this everywhere, the New York Times, everywhere.
shell
Bill Kristol rivals Dick Morris for being the Pundit Almost 100% Percent Wrong.
Remind me why anybody should give a shit what he tippy-taps out.
Mike J
They Might Be Giants @tmbg 8h8 hours ago
JF: Scott Walker wants to build a wall across the Canadian border too. But what about ATTACKS FROM THE MOON!?
Carl Newman @ACNewman 3h3 hours ago
I’m concerned about these border walls being so high that they offend God, like the Tower of Babel. Has this been addressed?
Kay
We hardly ever celebrate liberal wins and liberal strategies, but this was and is a very successful effort:
They did a great job, all of them, most importantly all those people who walked off although they are not in a union.
Here’s a very happy photo with Tom Perez, America’s next -next President. after the 2016 President :)
https://twitter.com/LaborSec
PaulW
I just came up with a drinking game for the September debate and already I need to add more rules to it thanks to this weekend. /headdesk.
THE NORTH REMEMBERS.
Cervantes
@JPL:
Just “Denali.”
@JPL:
Except that Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been asking for this change for years. To wit:
@Mandalay:
To really see heads explode, and I don’t mean literally only, tear down “Mt. Rushmore.”
JPL
@Cervantes: Google led me to Fox news…. the comments are amazing. It’s not quite the giving away the Panama Canal Zone comments but close.
PaulW
Sigh. I might even write a third blog entry tonight: I’ve only ever written two in one day before.
http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/08/update-gop-debate-drinking-game-for.html
http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2015/08/gop-crazy-august-30-2015-edition-now.html
PaulW
In other news, President Obama renamed the state of “Texas” to “P-ssytown”.
“I just really want to get the Far Right pissed off to no end,” Obama said grinning as he proceeded to change the location names of every county and geographic locale named after John C. Calhoun over to Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens.
gian
Will the Canada wall make the keystone pipeline tougher?
shell
What newspaper was that headline from?
NotMax
@Mandalay
Malcolm X National Airport.
And connive with Rahm in Chicago to rename O’Hare to Saul Alinsky Field.
:)
dmsilev
@Another Holocene Human: So Obama is 3/5s of a President then? Makes sense.
JPL
@gian: Let’s hope so. The Koch’s are now being treated after fainting at Walker’s comments.
Right to Rise
Looking more and more like Jeb will be the last man standing next to Trump, huh?
All of Jeb’s opponents keep shooting off their own feet, ,while Jeb his sites aimed squarely at Trump.
Mandalay
@gene108:
Right. I have yet to see any opponent of birthright citizenship explain the murky details of how to handle the scenario you describe. As a practical matter, how could you deport (“repatriate”) someone who is not a citizen of any country, was born in the United States, and has no passport?
Our media should ask all the presidential candidates advocating denial of birthright citizenship about the practical details and potential problems with that policy, but they only care about the horse race.
JDM
@Peale: to whit: Peter Jennings vs. Peter Mansbridge.
dmsilev
@Right to Rise: You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. I assume you bill by the hour?
Tripod
Walker is the branch manager who had a couple of good quarters and got promoted way over his head to the home office.
The Kochs don’t give a fuck about his career, only what he can do for them. When he fails he’ll be just another sunk cost.
JDM
@Mike J: there is no God. Problem solved.
john fremont
@Kay: Kay I also recall that about 8 years ago or so that right wingers circulated stories about Iran and how they forced all of the Jews to wear gold Star of David’s to track them. Therefore Bomb them! The story was all bunk though. Now, without batting an eye Christie can propose this Fed Ex thing out in the open. Wow!
shell
Practical details are for chumps!
Kay
@Tripod:
I think that’s a perfect description.
Feathers
@gene108: What’s not being talked about is the ugly cycle they are perpetuating. Republicans do something to please the base. Surprise, surprise, the people they railed against turn against the Republicans. So now, they are seen as Democrats and the Republicans feel that they have to attack them double hard, to the point of cutting them off from the vote. Where does this end? Bring back only property owners can vote?
Howard Beale IV
@JDM: When I was growing up, it was Walter Cronkite vs. Knowlton Nash.
Kay
@john fremont:
I know it doesn’t matter and there’s no way to hold them accountable and even I get tired of whining about them, but why are political media making it okay for Christie to say he wants to track people like parcels?
I just think it’s crazy that Trump’s polling makes it “anything goes on immigrants!” I mean, for God’s sake. Lot’s of mean-spirited horrible things poll well among the GOP base. Is that now the only measure?
It’s so nuts, too, because I watched the Trump Iowa speech and he tells his fans this! This is Trump’s own media criticism. He points at the cameras and he says “they don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, all they care about is ratings”
They are proving him right.
Uncle Cosmo
@Cervantes: Denali–it’s not just a river in Egpty anymore…
And that bunch of runways on the Potomac? Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Airport. And change the 3-letter code to FDR. Piss ’em all off right nice.
Mike J
@JDM: If you let your religious beliefs get in the way of beating up Republicans, there’s something wrong with you.
Just One More Canuck
@Peale: And we kept Barbara Frum while sending you David Frum
(and JDM at 126)
Patrick
@dmsilev:
Either that or he is outright desperate. This is from Politico:
Patrick
@shell:
I remember watching Bill Kristol on FoxNews 5 days after the 2003 Iraq war started. He claimed that the results after the first five days was proof that the critics had been wrong, proof that there was no Shia vs Sunni conflict etc. Ever since then I laugh at everything he says. Kind of like how you always add “between the sheets” when reading a fortune cookie. I now add “between the sheets” to everything that clown utters.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: I can’t put my finger on why, exactly, but I really think this might be the unlimited corporate cash VICTORY!!!! guy. It just has the same feel, somehow.
Mandalay
@Kay:
Well I certainly don’t want the political media determining whether it is OK or not for Chris Christie to be advocating a FedEx system for immigrants – Christie’s proposal can stand or fall on its merits. But I have a real beef with the media rarely asking politicians to explain how their ideas could actually work in the real world.
Chris Wallace interviewing Christie today about his FedEx plan is a golden example of our failed media. Wallace didn’t suck up to Christie, but he didn’t directly ask him the glaringly obvious question: as a practical matter, how would actually track people using your FedEx approach?
Christie just asserted “We can do it…and we can bring in the people from FedEx to do it”. All Wallace had to do was reply “Tell us how”. How could you get through a whole interview with a politician with a patently absurd plan and not ask him how he was going to implement it?
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: I think it is. Or perhaps a spoof troll doing a very good imitation. The writing styles are very very similar.
burnspbesq
Dear Mr. Schooley,
The answer to your question is “all of it.”
Very truly yours,
A Concerned Citizen
Peale
@Mandalayonce the immigrants get picked up by our immigration driver, they are put in our immigrant warehouses until we transfer them to our immigrant planes, then back to our warehouses and trucks until they reach their final destination.
How boring. Never letting the immigrants leave custody of a closed system to make sure they aren’t lost. It’s so 1980s.
If he wanted to be hip and disruptive, he would have said that he would ask the President of Grindr or Tinder how to develop a system.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Gosh, if he had just used the old nym we could have thrown a welcome back party. Of course, I don’t recall the old nym, or even the new one for that matter, but I do recall the fun of mocking VICTORY!!!
sralloway
7 & 7.
Haven’t though of that since I lived in Dover Foxcroft, Maine, in the mid 70s.
craigie
I’m having trouble making sense of this.
chopper
Scott Walker catches fire in Virginia
I assume it started with his pants.
Doug R
The Great Canadian Conspiracy is here already. It all started with Old Ben Cartwright-Lorne Greene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEaFLdK_e64
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: The old variant went through a few different names, but like you I can’t remember them; clearly, all of that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH was well-spent. My favorite prediction from last cycle was that the UCC! was going to manifest itself in a flood of ads on every NFL broadcast. Never happened.
Anne Laurie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Oh, c’mon — Teddy was his VP, and the Repubs always talk about TR as one of the Mt. Rushmore presidents.
And Rove yattered endlessly about turning Dubya’s regime into a McKinley ‘revival’ — plutocracy, protectionism, empire-building & ‘muscular’ wars.
gelfling545
@schrodinger’s cat: Even if the whole idea weren’t appallingly racist, it’s also really stupid. How many Fed-Ex parcels move about on their own?
Uncle Cosmo
@craigie: Um, how would you “tear down Mt Rushmore” without serious amounts of stuff that goes BOOM? And what would you be “taking down” in the process?
You’re welcome.
gelfling545
@chopper: ?
Kay
@Mandalay:
I disagree. I think they can start with “Governor Christie, why would you compare human beings to parcels?”
I don’t really want to know how Chris Christie plans on tracking immigrants with a routing number, and he’s a huge bullshitter anyway. He’d just bloviate on efficiency and name-drop a CEO who is a Right wing hero to cover his bullshit, which is exactly what he did. I think they should ask him whether pandering to the base is worth demonizing ordinary people who don’t have nearly the power or podium he does. You know, right wingers get away with this constantly. They ran a demonization campaign against gay people in my state in ’04 and no one would call them on it, because we all have to pretend they’re doing something other than punching down.
Kay
@Mandalay:
I kind of hope Chris Christie keeps dragging FedEx into his fading political career, because then we’ll have the delightful spectacle of FedEx running as fast as they can away from him. There isn’t a for-profit in this country who want to be associated with anything that alienates a potential group of customers. Hopefully the magic of markets will shut Chris Christie up :)
schrodinger's cat
To be fair I have heard this Fedex idea for tracking immigrants before. Christie is not the first Republican who has said this. Was it Newt Gingrich, someone on KLo’s corner of crazy. I don’t remember. This stuff has been making rounds in wingnutosphere for years, just like the anchor baby business.
Cervantes
Quite.
schrodinger's cat
@gelfling545: To really do this, they will to have to barcode every single person entering the United States who is not a citizen and expand the ICE budget 100 fold to be able to track all those people.
Cervantes
@Kay:
The founder is a supporter of Christie’s and his daughter works for the campaign.
angelfoot
Walker’s on to something, here. I’ve long been worried about French Canadians sneaking over the border to steal our Freedom Fries, for use in their stinky poutine. Throw in a few anchor babies, and Idaho is lost.
NotMax
@angelfoot
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
:)
Mr Stagger Lee
I must congratulate President Obama on the timing of naming Mt McKinley to Denali, the Ohio politicians may scream about it but the Ohio people?
C’MON IT’S FOOTBALL SEASON, AND THE BUCKEYES ARE NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!!! Not too mention Bengals, Browns and High school, Well Played Mr.President!
Zinsky
Yeah, those Canucks are going to slip a neutron bomb across the border on a dogsled – fer sure. What an imbecile! I also love the Hillary Clinton “disqualification” comment too, since I haven’t heard a single conservative commentator explain cogently what laws Hillary broke by having her own e-mail server. I guess they think if they repeat something enough times it becomes real, even if it is made up. They are like little fucking kids.
schrodinger's cat
@angelfoot: Anchor babies with poutine and freedom fries? That’s a dangerous combination!
Iowa Old Lady
@Anne Laurie: One would think I would know that. But I didn’t. I hang my head in shame.
Wally Ballou
Once again, another MLB pitcher has a no-hitter going into the late innings. This time it’s the Cubs’ Arietta dominating the Dodgers thru 7.
Since it’s an ESPN Sunday night game, no Vin Scully in the LA booth, which sucks. On the other hand, Jessica Mendoza already has a chance to be the first female analyst to broadcast a no-no.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady: Until a few weeks ago when the controversy hit the TV, I thought the name had already been changed to Denali. I’ve never heard anyone who lives up there call it Mount McKinley, but always Denali.
redshirt
NOT MY DENALI!!!!!
Howard Beale IV
@Mandalay: Chris Wallace is a poor shadow of what has father once was.
Origuy
@Peale:
Where they will push the immigrants out onto the tarmac and take off again without waiting for someone to sign for them, just like FedEx does with my packages.
brendancalling
My 11 year old son lives in Quebec. 10 hous away. Scott Walker wants to make it harder for us to see each other. Effective immediately, I personally HATE Scott Walker. I have a VENDETTA against him. I was indifferent to him before. Now I want to destroy him. If that cross-eyed balding pile of shit comes to philly again, I will confront him in the most personal of terms, and when he eventually loses the nomination I will wait until he is a private citizen, travel to Wisconsin, and beat him down. It may take years, but I am good at holding grudges.