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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / Baby and it hurts

Baby and it hurts

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I thought we could all use a laugh at the expense of young Conor. I’m sorry to be vindictive but I think all the centrists who sucked up to right-wing talk radio for all those years are accomplices in a mass murder. Not saying that to be hyperbolic, it’s God’s honest truth. A twitter drama in five acts.

Baby and it hurts

Baby and it hurts 1

Baby and it hurts 2

Baby and it hurts 3

Baby and it hurts 4

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  1. 1.

    Cacti

    Gaslight shamelessly, and if that fails, shut down the conversation.

    Glibertarian debating 101.

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Mister McMegan has a sad. I prescribe 2x 2x4s to the pate, twice daily. And call me never.

  3. 3.

    Nicole

    As I follow you on Twitter and am on it obsessively these days, I saw this happen in real time yesterday and it was marvelous. Thank you for it.

  4. 4.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    How does Cornor not understand Prager is merely the latest Hard Right Christian apologist?

  6. 6.

    ronno2018

    It is a world where many of the people with a platform need to be deplatformed.  Or maybe just flattened with a steam roller.  (I am joking!)

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

    LOL, DougJ.

    I will say that occasionally I see something so outrageous it almost makes me choke, and then it turns out to be your NYT Pitchbot account and I can laugh. Lots of meat out there these days.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    that one sequence “The medium I have inveighed against… Staggeringly so.” reads like it was written for the character of Niles Crane as an undergraduate.

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Maher [I know, I know] had Prager on earlier this year and I was floored at his casual yet relentless proffering of a…not merely right-wing but radical world view that would embarrass an actual Nazi. While I suppose there’s “value” in shining a light on this misanthrope I feel it’s ultimately to our detriment to give him free camera time. Or if you do, end that time with a tuneup applied by bats. Winged or wood, your choice.

  11. 11.

    Chris Johnson

    welll you HEAARDD about the bostonnn…

    CRONCH

    honey. It’s not one of those

    SCRONCH

    (I recently did an evergreen-records podcast dedicated to this exact album. Classic :) )

  16. 16.

    Redshift

    Hah!

    The Praeger does highlight another reason the wingnuts are going all-in on the “wartime” metaphor, other than to try to provoke an undeserved rally-round-the-flag effect for Dear Leader (and say it’s unpatriotic to question him). In a war, lots of people can die and you can still be succeeding.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @noncarborundum:

    Prager is Jewish? A Jewish justifying hard right Christianity  is so stupid that would make far to much sense in this Post Truth Day and age.

    But apologizing is not apologetics in religion.  appologics is merely justifying a set a beliefs at all costs. I’ve seen Prager’s “Well spoken arguments” and there is nothing intellectually honest about him.

  19. 19.

    Ohio Mom

    Ah, Dennis Prager, the great Talmudist, somehow, inexplicably, has forgotten this from the Mishnah: “…and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.”

  22. 22.

    Gin & Tonic

    Is there one American in 10,000 who even knows who Conor is, let alone gives a shit what he has to say?

  25. 25.

    Rand Careaga

    And with that exchange, young Master Doug, you win the internets today.

    (You will understand that we are unable to conduct the usual ceremony of investiture.)

  26. 26.

    Ohio Mom

    [email protected]: Yeah, Prager is Jewish. Unfortunately, we Jews have no mechanism for excommunicating anyone, as evidenced by me having to use a Christian term, excommunicating.

  27. 27.

    Kent

    @Gin & Tonic:Is there one American in 10,000 who even knows who Conor is, let alone gives a shit what he has to say?

    Count me in the 10,000 side of that equation.

  29. 29.

    Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ

    Since we are talking about stupid Republicans…. I had a massive fight with one of my Trump loving siblings.  It was so bad I don’t think I will ever speak to her again.  I’ve bit my tongue for years and tolerated all her stupid posts on socialmedia but something just snapped yesterday and I can’t do it anymore.

  30. 30.

    Tim C.

    @Gin & Tonic: Probably not.    His target audience is a fairly narrow band of Urban conservatives who want to feel like they aren’t monsters.  Fuckem.

  32. 32.

    williamC

    @Nicole: I saw it yesterday in rt as well on the twits and literally lol’d as it developed.

    dougj I second Cheryl earlier here. Sometimes I read something on twitter too real to be real and it turns out it was too real, it was you. Some days you are literally the only positive thing that I see in a 24 hour period on twitter. Keep up the good work!

  33. 33.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tim C.: It’s always seemed to me that Friedersdorf’s target audience is educated liberals who want to feel that they’re open-minded toward ideas outside the liberal orthodoxy. It’s as if he’s the self-designated Speaker-to-Liberals for libertarianism, and often he writes as if he is a liberal giving helpful advice to other liberals about how they might be wrong about some things, or how they might be strategizing wrong to win the next election. I’ve seen liberals of the sort who read The Atlantic fall for the act over and over.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    Didn’t Connor used to write here?

    He got a lot of flak in the comments, IIRC or maybe I’m confusing him with someone else, but I don’t think so

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:

    Since we are talking about stupid Republicans…. I had a massive fight with one of my Trump loving siblings.  It was so bad I don’t think I will ever speak to her again.  I’ve bit my tongue for years and tolerated all her stupid posts on socialmedia but something just snapped yesterday and I can’t do it anymore.

     

    Good for you!  If they love trumpov, they’re just not people worth worrying about.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    NEW: Cruise industry not confident it could borrow from any of the existing loan programs bc of offshore registration.Sr. admin official says bipartisan Senate grp working to ensure they can access one of the facilities–or else will seek a legislative fix in the next package.— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) March 26, 2020

    Oh me. Oh my. Oh fuck ’em!

  40. 40.

    randy khan

    There is something kind of amazing about the last part – “Oh, when did I last write about it?” “It was a month ago.”  I mean, if he doesn’t remember himself, he could have looked it up before he asked the question.  It would have saved him the embarrassment.

    I honestly am fascinated by people like him who just have to respond to everyone on Twitter.  He would have been so much better off just ignoring the first tweet than he was once he responded.

  42. 42.

    randy khan

    @mrmoshpotato:

    My only question is what they will give us for any aid.  Promises to pay taxes? Registration in the U.S.? Job guarantees for Americans?  Since I assume the answer is “nothing,” I don’t feel particularly inclined to help them.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:

    Since we are talking about stupid Republicans…. I had a massive fight with one of my Trump loving siblings.  It was so bad I don’t think I will ever speak to her again.  I’ve bit my tongue for years and tolerated all her stupid posts on socialmedia but something just snapped yesterday and I can’t do it anymore.

     
    Because people are actually dying now directly because of his inaction.

  45. 45.

    laura

    Gee Doug, surely you’ve been boo’d off of better stages than that.

    On the other hand, you’re in damn fine company with Driftglass who’s been blocked by choads like Connor F and Greenwald and even thrown in twitter jail for making the kinds of statements that the cosseted right use on the regular

    Also, dont recall the website, but read that twitter is Belgian for “No, You Shut Up.”

  46. 46.

    trnc

    @germy:

    I used to think that putting all the information out there would serve to help people make decisions and highlight the stupidity of morons. I did not realize at the time how much influence stupid people would have on the viewpoints of otherwise smart people, but I guess that was before the morons got the oversized megaphones.

  48. 48.

    Josie

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:

    I can feel your frustration.  It is so hard to continually bite your tongue and say nothing offensive.  It seems to me that people like that count on our being polite about such things, and I am really sick of it, especially right now.

  49. 49.

    senyordave

    @Ohio Mom:and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world

    He probably thinks its just some liberal BS.  This is a guy who picks and chooses his values as if he were in a Chinese restaurant.  If he were a Christian I suspect he would be part of the “Jesus was a muscular he-man who didn’t take any shit from those wimpy liberals” school.

  50. 50.

    trollhattan

    We get mail.

    Anybody get a postcard from CDC? Appears official, and the front in…oh, 24 point type reads:

    PRESIDENT TRUMP’S
    CORONAVIRUS
    GUIDELINES FOR
    AMERICA

    It somehow manages to not say CHINAVIRUS.

  51. 51.

    Peale

    @randy khan: Their ships aren’t registered here. Their corps aren’t registered here. Their billionaire owners live here.

    There is no way this industry is coming back in the next few years. There are too many ships for too few customers. The only way this would make sense is to do something like they did after WWI and only allow a certain fleet size for the bailed out companies, sinking the rest.  Guarantee that any replacement ships will be built in US shipyards and we’ll talk.

  52. 52.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @noncarborundum: I though so, lol but these days, Jewish Hard Right Christian Evangelist isn’t that far fetched.  Heck, my Jewish brother-in-law mother is almost one herself.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    I don’t know who Conor is and don’t much care. Or maybe I don’t remember him.

    What Prager said is vile. He had a talk radio show years ago in Los Angeles. His stupid utterance is a sad repudiation of everything that he claimed to believe.

    I wonder what happened to him.

  54. 54.

    Eric U.

    I keep thinking there may be remnants of the buggy whip industry that we should bail out before we bail out the cruise lines

  55. 55.

    laura

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: I am not going to make light of your pain. You have experienced a death in your family and I am sorry that it was caused by something as awful as taking sides over a human skidmark of a president. Please be gentle with yourself. I hope your sister comes to see the foolishness of choosing a charismatic snake oil peddling sex pest serial bankruptcy con artist.

  56. 56.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @mrmoshpotato: I was watching a documentary on the inner workings of a cruise ships.    Every scene involved imported foreign workers.  So they don’t pay US taxes or have a tangible US work force and yet they want a US bailout.

  58. 58.

    Fair Economist

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: It’s a good thing I’m not visiting my family in Alabama because I don’t think I could hold back anymore either. The locals mostly avoid political issues around me and I don’t pursue them but now…

  66. 66.

    Brachiator

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:

    I’ve bit my tongue for years and tolerated all her stupid posts on socialmedia but something just snapped yesterday and I can’t do it anymore.

    I’ve become alienated from some friends and co-workers because of their professed admiration for Trump. But I can understand that it might be tougher if it involves a sibling. Hang in there.

  70. 70.

    Citizen Alan

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I have this deep-rooted fear that my sister voted for Shitgibbon but is (rightfully) afraid to admit it go me. I’m reliably informed her eldest boy voted for Shitgibbon “as a joke” but I’ve never raised the issue with him.

  71. 71.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Brachiator: Here I am thinking I have a personality disorder because of my plan to tell friends and family to stay out of my life if they vote Republican in the age of Trump.

    Baby snatching of refugee children, culling the olds … I don’t know how to forgive that.

  72. 72.

    trollhattan

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Cruise ships. Why?

    Go to exotic places? There are other ways, such as tubes with wings that go 600mph.

    Hang out with people who love to go on cruises? There’s your Achilles’s heel.

    Norovirus? No, no thank you. But I think we’re beginning to detect a theme.

    They also have very sneaky waste handling practices and doubtless introduce exotic species from bilgewater into pristine ports of call that would never see freighter traffic.

    I know a handful of folks who like the pampering and lack of need to plan their day or itinerary. Okay, if that’s what you love, go for it. The one friend who gets it right has traveled to London from NY on the QMII with her mother, who is coping with being widowed. Wonderful bonding opportunity for mother and daughter, plus it probably doesn’t include giant water slides and stopping mid-ocean for jetskiing. (NB Carnival has controlling stake in Cunard, so maybe they do have water slides for all I know.)

    Not a dime.

  77. 77.

    Kent

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:@mrmoshpotato: I was watching a documentary on the inner workings of a cruise ships.    Every scene involved imported foreign workers.  So they don’t pay US taxes or have a tangible US work force and yet they want a US bailout.

    Only bail out the ones that are US flagged vessels (only very few smaller vessels that work the Inside Passage and Great Lakes would qualify).    If they are Panamanian or Liberian flagged, have them go ask Panama for a bail-out.

  78. 78.

    ThresherK

    Sorry to be vindictive?

    Don’t be. And I don’t even know if that qualifies as “vindictive”.

    At some point we can’t make up stupid shit about them faster than they tell on themselves.

  79. 79.

    Kent

    @mrmoshpotato:NEW: Cruise industry not confident it could borrow from any of the existing loan programs bc of offshore registration.Sr. admin official says bipartisan Senate grp working to ensure they can access one of the facilities–or else will seek a legislative fix in the next package.— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) March 26, 2020

    Maybe let them have access to US credit if they PERMANENTLY agree to re-flag their vessels as US vessels.  And start paying US taxes.  If not, fuck them.

    Are we going to bail out every foreign company in the world that happens to have an office and lobby here?

  80. 80.

    Dan B

    @trollhattan:  I was putting out the recycle when the new athletic square jawed letter carrier arrived.  He said, “You got one card, from Trump.” (It was the CDC guidelines postcard.)  I held the recycle can out and he put it in without a word.  I smiked at him.  Love Seattle when the manly jocks despise Trump.

  81. 81.

    Peale

    @Kent: I guess they can say that the cruise disembarking points in the US are important to local economies like Miami, NY, Alaska, and IDK, Bayonne, NJ. But Its such a tiny segment of the economy. A few hundred jobs in the ports and a few million in local sales taxes. But Cruise Shippers are not big spenders when compared to other types of more land-lubbing vacationers.  They need to put together a global consortium of rescuers or sell themselves to PE firms.

  82. 82.

    Dan B

    @Peale:  Hear, hear!  So do they become Princess Dive Reefs?

    How about quarantine ships for people who have recovered but may still be infectious for another week or two?  They would have negative market value after a few months of that.

    I’m not vengeful.

  84. 84.

    Duane

    To be fair Conner’s tumbrel number is much, much lower than Praeger’s. Did the appropriations include money for tumbrel start-ups? Guillotines? Let’s provide Americans with jobs they’ll love.

  85. 85.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Sure, bail out the cruise industry.

    Just as soon as they load up their ships with MAGAts, sail into the Bermuda Triangle, and are never seen again.

  88. 88.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @mrmoshpotato: Let’s see, register ships in foreign countries to avoid U.S. taxes.  Check.  When Uncle Sugar gives away free money, be the first in line for a handout.  Check.

  89. 89.

    Plain Dave

    If you’ve never partaken read  “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” by David Foster Wallace.

  91. 91.

    geg6

    @Plain Dave:

    I think one of Tony Bourdain’s books has an essay on a cruise he took.  Or maybe a magazine article, can’t remember which.  Regardless, it was…not kind, let us say.

  94. 94.

    David Crisp

    I don’t get it. Friedersdorf really has written a lot about the evils of talk radio. And the quote of him praising Prager is hardly going on and on. It’s more like praising the fastest three-legged horse in the Kentucky Derby.

  96. 96.

    Tim C.

    Probably the reason some people think he posted here is because at some point Andrew Sullivan had some moments of lucidity and got read by people who were also Balloon-Juice readers.    Connor subbed in for Andrew for a while at one point.

  98. 98.

    JustRuss

    @Kent:Maybe let them have access to US credit if they PERMANENTLY agree to re-flag their vessels as US vessels.  And start paying US taxes.  If not, fuck them.

    Oh hell no.  They’ll take the money then declare bankruptcy and get swooped up by a shell corporation owned by the same gang of hooligans, and go back to biz as usual.  Oldest trick in the corporate playbook.

  100. 100.

    Another Scott

    @Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: :-(

    If it’s any consolation, you (and raven) are not alone.

    Honestly the only good thing about my dad passing away in October may be that he missed the pandemic. He was a complete science denier & if I'd had to fight him about conspiracy theories *during a pandemic* I think that would have completely ruined our remaining relationship. https://t.co/yab500RcBa

    — Dr. Tara C. Smith (@aetiology) March 26, 2020

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Procopius

    Not sure if this is on-topic, but it’s related to the [family blog] bailout:

    Boeing Co. doesn’t want the U.S. government to take a stake as the planemaker seeks assistance to grapple with effects from the new coronavirus, according to Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun.

    “I don’t have a need for an equity stake,” Calhoun said in an interview Tuesday with Fox Business. “I want them to support the credit markets, provide liquidity. Allow us to borrow against our future.”

    The [expletive deleted] Republicans made sure that proposal didn’t get into the Senate version anyway, but this makes it so obvious the bailout is just looting. They are already “allowed to borrow against their future,” and they don’t have any takers.

    The next iteration of the bailouts (probably coming next week /s) should include a cap on the “loans.” No more than the company has paid in taxes for the last ten years, minus any amounts spent on share buy backs and executive bonuses.

    ETA: Sorry, link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/boeing-doesn-t-want-government-to-take-a-stake-ceo-calhoun-says

  102. 102.

    jonas

    @Brachiator: What Prager said is vile. He had a talk radio show years ago in Los Angeles. His stupid utterance is a sad repudiation of everything that he claimed to believe.

    Indeed. I grew up in SoCal in the 80’s and 90’s and listened to Prager when he was a staple on the local AM talk radio. He was a non-ideological “non-liberal” I think is how you could best describe him, with a Jewish twist, offering reasoned commentary on a wide range of social and moral issues. Sure, he didn’t like liberal stances on a lot of things, but wasn’t all in the bag with every GOP position either. And he liked engaging with callers who disagreed with him, so it was interesting. “Dr.” Laura Schlesinger was the crazy, right-wing Jewish radio personality at the time, so he looked downright sane by comparison. 9/11 seemed to trip some wire in his brain, though, and he started really veering into deep right-wing paranoia territory shortly thereafter. Then he jumped ship to some Christian right wing radio network (Sinclair?) and that was pretty much it. He’s been fully assimilated to the Trumpist Borg at this point, so much so that he’s actually arguing that it’s no big deal to let a bunch of people die in order to boost the stock market so that Trump has a better chance at reeelection. Which is totally in the Talmud, or something.

    Narrator: “That’s not in the Talmud.”

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