Ross Douthat and David Frum wonder if the GOP is hopeless, and in the mean time, Republian Minority Whip Harry Ellis Eric Cantor releases the following celebratory youtube video (with a rock beat from those hip young guys at Aerosmith) announcing that the House GOP is Back!:
It might be worth rewatching that SNL skit I posted yesterday. At any rate, say it with me:
Permanent. Republican. Majority.
*** Update ***
I am reminded in the comments that I was begging for Cantor to get a leadership position in October because I knew the joy it would bring.
SpotWeld
This is like watching MC Hammer try to make a comback.
DougJ
You know, Ross really annoys me. And the fact that his whole “Sam’s Club Republican” thing was greeted as the greatest conservative political breakthrough in a hundred years is just sad.
Svensker
Um, huh?
Am I too old to understand this? Or something?
Zifnab
It’s like the talking points hit parade. I liked the $1 billion for ACORN bit that floated by. Did they forget the $30 million Pelosi mouse?
Sirkowski
Republicans: We’re paid to do nothing.
sgwhiteinfla
They took a stand and the bill passed. Doesn’t seem like they are a very effective group those House Republicans does it?
BTW the 1 billion for ACORN graphic just screams for wingnut approval. I mean did Cantor not learn from when Dick Durbin kicked David Vitter in the nuts over the non provision for ACORN? Jeebus.
MTmofo
Majority or Minority? Ize confuzed on how to consider that.
Napoleon
Aerosmith? That is way too cutting edge and could scare the base off. They should have gone with someone the base could appreciate, say Pat Boone singing his cover of Crazy Train.
Comrade javafascist
No.
Internets fixed and SAtSQ completed successfully.
DJShay
ZERO Republicans voted for the biggest middle class tax cut in history.
John Cole
@SpotWeld: Yeah, except at his peak, MC Hammer was only responsible for several minor irritating trends and a couple of over-rated songs and pissed away millions. At their peak, the GOP wrecked the country and spent trillions.
When you factor in that at least Hammer had a couple mansions, made some fun videos, and had a posse, I will take a hammer comeback every time.
Chris Johnson
OOO WAIT, I have a much better theme song for them, which I just posted in another thread in another, less relevant context… :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdE7x0W3j9g&feature=related
jibeaux
It’s not like polling changes my life or anything, but sometimes it just cheers me up a little bit. The "extend an olive branch even though you know you’re going to get back a gnawed twig" strategy seems to be politically savvy. (Who knew, right, Obama politically savvy?) Frum the link (sorry), 74% think O doing enough to work with R’s, 60% think R’s NOT doing enough to work with O.
Hee hee. You keep saying this word majority. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The Other Steve
I think it would be an awesome project to redo this video with different music.
Womanizer by Britney Spears
I kissed a Girl by Katy Perry
Just for fun. :-)
jibeaux
AND Hammer swallowed his pride and made an ad making fun of himself so he could pay the bills again. Republicans, in other words, lack the humor, humility, and fiscal responsibility of MC Hammer.
demkat620
Well, John you were right about this:
Eric Cantor = Comedy Gold!
They think tax cuts and infrastructure spending are going to be unpopular? Good luck with that.
Stuck
@DJShay:
Payroll taxes are not real taxes dont’cha know. They are the fee that poor people pay for taking up space and air that could be used for real Americans who vote GOP.
So ipso fatso, these alleged tax cuts are just more pinko payola to the collective.
** And wingnuts butter pray hard the economy doesn’t improve, or that ad will be be summarily shoved up their asses next election.
georgia pig
Nothing like a good ol’ "cowboy fucking a saloon girl" song to rally the troops. Eric Cantor really is as dumb as a post. That SNL skit wasn’t that funny, actually, because it’s hard to compete with the real thing. Darrell Hammond just can’t quite capture McConnell and the "jowls of death."
Chris Johnson
huh, the link broke? Once more with feeling-
Reel Big Fish, ‘Lying Ass Bitch’
John Cole
@demkat620: Every time I think of Eric Cantor I think of that Barney Frank video at the bottom of the link in the update, where he tells the press that he will speak uncharacteristically nicely to the GOP if they vote for TARP.
Zifnab
@demkat620:
That’s where it gets classically sleazy. GOoPers will be chest pounding their victories all the way back home.
It’s a freak’n joke. Zero accountability.
The Moar You Know
I’d like to point out that the song "Back in the Saddle" is 33 years old.
Way to stay hip, GOP. Eric Cantor is the gift that keeps on giving.
JGabriel
So how long before Aerosmith sues the GOP for copyright infringement? We know Republicans have a problem about getting permissions for their music selections.
.
DougJ
It’s hard to believe there was a time when Aerosmith didn’t suck. I guess it proves that coke is a hell of a drug.
Zifnab
@georgia pig:
Would have been better if they just used direct quotes. See: Tina Fey / Sarah Palin. You just can’t compete with the real thing. Also.
demkat620
@John Cole: @Zifnab:
I just wish the people in their districts could explain why they keep sending these asshats back to Washington. And what does it say about the state of the GOP that Sarah Palin is apparently the brightest of the bunch?
The Other Steve
Eric Cantor is hip to be square.
Oh wait, Huey Lewis was after his time. :-)
John PM
@The Other Steve: #14
I hope that Steven Colbert sees the video and has some fun with it. Unfortunately Cantor is not in the video himself or it would be time for a green screen challenge.
JGabriel
@Chris Johnson:
I think this one might be a little more fitting:
Soy un perdedor
Im a loser baby, so why dont you kill me?
(get crazy with the cheese whiz)
.
passerby
I just don’t get Cantor as a leader for the GOP. He strikes me as being more of a sycophant than a leader and has nowhere near the statesman "qualities" or intelligence of Gingrinch.
I see him as a person with delusions of grandeur. I think his cohorts have put him up to this cuz he’s the only one deluded enough to think himself powerful without realizing its a lost cause and none of them are willing to look like a loser.
It’s mind boggling. I’m almost embarrassed for these irrelevant schmucks.
Cantor, putz, the next Churchill. Uh huh.
Stuck
@demkat620:
It takes an Asshat to vote for an Asshat, mostly.
MikeJ
If they were going to use an old song, how about a little Bowie?
We bought a lot of things
to keep you warm and dry
And a funny old crib on which the paint won’t dry
I bought you a pair of shoes
A trumpet you can blow
And a book of rules
On what to say to people
when they pick on you
‘Cause if you stay with us you’re gonna be pretty Kookie too
demkat620
@passerby: That’s their proplem right now, they don’t have any leaders left. Anybody who thought differently was chased out of the party. If they didn’t have Rush telling them what to do they would be more lost than they are.
Cantor is no Gingrich or even a Delay. He’s just not that smart.
John PM
@The Other Steve: #27
You owe me a monitor!
On that note, should the Republicans become serious about governing, maybe they could use "I want a new drug."
One that won’t make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like a feel when I’m with Newt
When I’m alone with Newt
Comrade Dread
Bad things.
And credit where credit is due, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think her call of staying off of the national radar and staying quiet while these lunatics performed their antics was an incredibly politically savvy move.
NonyNony
@passerby:
I think it is very, very likely that Cantor is among the best that the House GOP can do for leadership these days. It’s not so much that his cohort in the House are using his delusions to distance themselves from the leadership position, but more that they’re so delusional that they think Eric Cantor and John Boehner are examples of good leaders. If they were letting him go out there and be delusional, they wouldn’t be backing him to the hilt and voting as a block when he says to – there would be a lot more fracturing of the caucus.
Also: "nowhere near the statesman qualities or intelligence of Gingrich" is now my new iconic example of "damning with faint praise". Sadly, it’s actually true, but when I left the GOP back in the 90s I never would have thought that they could have actually put someone into the leadership who was more thick-headed and less politically adept than the Newtster. Sigh.
El Tiburon
Other Aerosmith/Republican hook-ups:
1. "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" Mitch McConnell
2. "Adam’s Apple" Ann Coulter
3. "Jailbait" Mark Foley
4. "You See Me Crying" John Boehner
5. "Come Together" and "Get a Grip" Larry Craig
6. "Crazy" Take your pick, please.
Andy K
What, they couldn’t find an Aerosmith song from the band’s post-heroin days?
Calouste
@georgia pig:
Just like when they thought using AC/DC’s "Thunderstruck" was a good song to use at their convention (it has a thematic similarity to the Aerosmith song). I guess they never look at the lyrics beyond the title.
jrosen
Every time I see Cantor’s name I think of that AFSCME add that his office circulated. And I giggle.
Alan
That was one of my favorite songs back in the seventh grade. The album Rocks rocked. So it’s not surprising every time Cantor is behind some project I’m reminded of junior high school. Was he also the one who coined the term "porkulus"?
Napoleon
@El Tiburon:
Also "Love in an Elevator"
JGabriel
Alan:
I think that was Limbaugh. I’m not sure how it came to him, maybe something in the mirror…
.
Stooleo
Another winger that has lost his mind.
"Cummings’ wife, Amber B. Cummings, 31, told investigators that her husband spoke of “dirty bombs,” according to the report, and mixed chemicals in her kitchen sink. She allegedly told police that Cummings subjected her to years of mental, physical and sexual abuse. She also said that Cummings was “very upset” when Barack Obama was elected president."
Calouste
@Napoleon:
That’s Charlie Crist’s theme song.
Objective Scrutator
Face it, liberals. Eric Cantor, although a Jew, somehow manages to be more hip and in touch with American youth than the crusty old Democrats and their ‘stimulus for geezers’ will ever be. Social Security is a thing of the past; smart investment is now the way to gain street cred, and movies about paying off your loans are now the highest rated movies in Hollywood.
Of course, there are RINOs in the Senate. However, Republicans have a way around them: there, we must implement the solutions from… American Solutions. There, we can accept tri-partisan solutions from Newt Gingrich, and have a Red, White, and Blue country, rather than a Red vs. Blue country.
JGabriel
Objective Scrutator:
Yeah, the R’s really killed us on the youth last November.
.
The Grand Panjandrum
Do they need to get permission from Aerosmith to use the song or is this considered Fair Use?
Comrade Dread
Considering how fascist the RIAA normally is, I would assume that if the Reps want this video to stay up for any length of time they will need permission.
jcricket
Remember when Bush and McCain got into all that trouble for continually misappropriating some rock band or another’s famous songs? Did any of them ever apologize? Doubt it.
Napoleon
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Actually I thought as long as the using entity is a member of or paid the fee of ASCAP or BMI (whoever handles the specific artist copyrights) and then the standard fee to play the piece they were allowed to play it. It was my impression that is why some artist are having issues blocking the Republicans from using music, becuase they went out and did the same thing a TV station, radio station or bar owner with a juke box needs to do to play the music.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Objective Scrutator:
Riiiight. Since Jews are inherently uncool that really cuts to the bone. I am duly chastened.
joe from Lowell
Great Stuff, Objective Scrutinator. Pitch-perfect.
"Cantor, although a Jew, managed to be…" Lol @ that.
And then you hit us with a so-wrong-it’s-funny stuff, like the party that nominated John McCain and Sarah Palin being …more hip and in touch with American youth than… the party that just elected Barack Obama.
or movies about paying off your loans are now the highest rated movies in Hollywood. You wrote this just perfectly. My mind went, "What movie is he talking about?" I couldn’t think of one, and yet it’s supposed to be "the highest rated movie in Hollywood." Nicely done.
However, Republicans have a way around them: there, we must implement the solutions from… American Solutions. Again, Lol! Nice setup with the ellipsis.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how it’s done. Bravo.
joe from Lowell
With his shout out to 70s-ear Aerosmith.
Who, I believe, now qualify for Social Security.
Cris
@Chris Johnson:
Too bad Fishbone’s original (which RBF duplicates rather faithfully) isn’t on YouTube.
AnneLaurie
But the hair, dude! Doesn’t Cantor’s elegant coif just shriek "leadership" to you? As Dilbert’s boss once confided, "we think it will eventually silver!" Who are you gonna believe, some reality-based wonk with a skin yamulke, or a guy like Cantor with Serious Leadership Hair!?!
Srsly… I’m old enough to remember paleo-Rethugs back in the early 1990s confiding that Newt’s ideas might seem a little "over the top" but they were sure that his "impressive media appeal" would help cement the PRM. Twenty years of repeating that particular fallacy to each other has apparently convinced them that Excellent Hair is not only a way of making disgusting lies palatable, but a requirement for making any statement believable. Thus the lionization of Cantor, Boehner’s ridiculous spray-on orange tan, that thing Vitter wears on the top of his skull, etc.
JL
Is anyone watching Hardball? A real spokesman has taken over Harold Ford’s body. J. D. Hayworth is on defending the repubs and at one point accused Chris Matthews of asking him a question just to make Matthews look good in case he ran against Specter. The question Matthews asked Hayworth was whether he thought that it would be a good idea to continue the policies of the last eight years.
Stuck
If you want to watch some pure distilled wingnuttery, no better example than JD Hayworth just now on Hardball. Most of it, no all of it, sounded like it could have been your everyday conversation at the State Hospital. One nugget of crazy was his accusing Soros of causing our problems by standing in the shadows "Manipulating our currency" Even Matthews jaw dropped on that one and tried to get JD to explain with not luck.
Cris
For a spoof, Objective Scrutator sure does have an uninspired blog.
Alan
Cantor proves Jewish intelligence also plots on a bell curve. After all, even Israelis need garbage men. But also proving the House’s Republican leadership only requires a double digit IQ.
demkat620
@JL: Yeah and Hayworth basically responded, "Yes."
Thank god, that clown is no longer in congress.
JL
@Stuck: lol George Soros caused the meltdown. Hayworth’s comment on "I really should have been running for Senate against Specter, Chris"
Anton Sirius
To answer Ross and David’s question: Yes. The GOP is already dead, it’s just too stupid to realize it.
Fortunately, we’ll probably have a good six years of awesome comedy from the corpse before a new, sane right wing party emerges to replace them.
Stuck
@JL:
i’m presently scrubbing the stoopid out of my brain after watching that Haydude performance:)
JL
The repub base appears to be the bible belt of the south. Somehow, I just don’t see the youtube being that effective unless they were drinking cough syrup or something.
AnneLaurie
One of the feminist complaints I’ve heard about Confessions of Shopaholic is that the eponymous lead ends her career of pathologic credit-card fraud by finding a Sugar Daddy to pay off her cards, the card-company liens, the bounty hunters trying to collect on those liens, etc. Finding a rich patsy to bankroll one’s ten-year binge-spending spree is truly the Rethuglican wet dream, and dressing that dream up with High Fashion, a ginormous advertising budget, and a dearth of competition might actually have made Isla Fisher this past weekend’s top-grossing ‘star’.
TenguPhule
Unspoofable.
AhabTRuler
@Napoleon: Provided that the songs are published by those orgs, you are correct.
Tonal Crow
The GOP’s "ideas" are, approximately:
1. Climate-change denialism;
2. Evolution denialism;
3. General religious nuttery (incl. anti-gay-marriage jihadism, anti-choice jihadism, public funds to promote their nuttery jihadism, anti-drugs jihadism);
4. Privatizing gain and socializing losses, while calling the philosophy "free markets";
5. Lying us into war;
6. War profiteering;
7. Committing felonies by the hundreds of millions (e.g., FISA); and
8. Redefining the language so that up is down, black is white, and slavery is freedom.
Wow. That sounds like just what we need to tackle today’s problems.
JenJen
Nothing says "We Get It!" quite like an Aerosmith song.
jenniebee
$300 million for new cars for "government workers" in that video?
OK, little personal story, Daddy was a Park Ranger, law enforcement, did the patrol around the park schtick. Lot of driving, keeping the park a place you’d want a vacation to, not a vacation from. And it can be a dangerous job: psychos prey in parks.
So his old patrol car got old – really old – falling apart, way past retirement date, but is there ever money in the budget to replace those cars? No, because of dicks like Cantor who whip up outrage about "cars for government employees." So dad keeps driving this thing until it’s to the point that to get it going, he has to get out of it, fiddle with something under the hood (don’t ask me, I’m auto-illiterate) and then jump in, and he has to make sure that it’s not on a slope because the parking brake no longer exists. This is the point where I inform you that my people are a clumsy people, one time the slope’s a little too much, car starts moving, Dad tries to get in, Dad ends up getting dragged by the car, then lets go and gets run over by the car, Dad ends up in the hospital for a month with a flayed chest and a permanently collapsed shoulder. Fed has to pay out many cars worth of medical bills, but hey, Eric Cantor can’t get the same outrage value out of paying the medical bills for cops who are injured on the job, can he?
passerby
@NonyNony:
Rachel Maddow has a segment called "the GOP in Exile". Even tho idealogically they are no where, they continue to get a lot of play in the corporate media.
I can’t help but wonder if all of them are truly delusional or just holding on to the knot. Do they break out of character at home when they converse with spouses and friends?
There have been a good number of them dropping off this cycle who won’t be running in 2010. Kay Bailey Hutcheson is heading back to TX to run for Gov. and Judd Gregg won’t be running again, just to name 2. They can see the writing on the wall.
It’s perplexing to me why other Rs are willing to continue this charade of irrelevance. How the sam hill are they going to fund raise for their next campaign? Surely the money won’t be there.
We need a real conservative party, something there hasn’t been for decades now, and I don’t see any true conservatives emerging to lead. Just a pack of clowns foaming at the mouth. I think it’s hitting Lindsey Graham and John McCain the hardest.
Guess I’ll make some popcorn and enjoy the show.
JL
@TenguPhule: The entire post has to be a spoof. I liked the comment about smart investment.
The Moar You Know
Damn, reading you is like watching Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello – notes, timing and emotion all perfect. I bow before a true master.
The "although a Jew" line, in particular, is perfection itself.
Gus
How could you forget "tax cuts for the wealthy?"
Alan
@Tonal Crow:
They’re also hardcore fiscal conservatives when they have little power to wield. And that’s the true rub from that video–claiming to be fiscal conservatives again. This coming from the guy who whined about Pelosi being too partisan on the original TARP vote Then tacking on another $150 billion to get the GOP on board on the second vote. The GOP has no hope because it has no credibility.
jake 4 that 1
Was that Tyler panting at the beginning or a recording of a call Foley made to a page?
Jest askin’.
For the record:
Come easy, go easy
All right until the rising sun
I’m calling all the shots tonight
I’m like a loaded gun
Peelin’ off my boots and chaps
I’m saddle sore
Four bits gets you time in the racks
I scream for more
Fools gold out of their mines
The girls are soaking wet
Not tounge’s drier than mine
I’ll come when I get back
Maybe he meant to use Autry’s version.
burnspbesq
The fundamental problem with every analysis like the ones put forth by Douthat and Frum is that they buy into the fallacy that the Republican Party is a conservative party.
Untrue, at least since Goldwater.
It would not be a bad thing for us to have a principled conservative opposition party with some actual ideas. The Republican Party ain’t it, no matter how much they lie to the American people about it. Srsly, how is it "conservative" to try and turn back the calendar to 1931, or 1858 for that matter?
jcricket
In Israel, the garbage men are all like Dilbert’s garbage guy, or Frazz the janitor in that comic.
Don’t forget their complete opposition to Social Security (an incredibly helpful and beloved program) and any government intervention in the healthcare market.
Both views that make them incredibly out of sync, and in an increasing way, with most Americans.
To paraphrase that old quote about the market, in the short run polls are like weathervanes, in the long run, they’re scales. I think the GOP thinks they’re in the "public opinion can change" stage for all those issues (gay marriage, global warming, contraception, healthcare, market regulation, etc) when in fact the American people are diving headlong into "decided-ville" on those issues.
georgia pig
I can’t wait for Cantor’s take on "Lord of the Thighs."
burnspbesq
Andrew:
Name one Republican, in either house of Congress, for whom "the core political virtue is practical reason and common sense, not ideology, theology or absolutism." Just one. Take all the time you need.
joe from Lowell
burnspbesq,
Edward Brooke. Dwight Eisenhower.
Uhhhhhh….I got nuthin.
burnspbesq
@joe from Lowell:
Not bad, but somehow I don’t think dead guys are the solution.
ksmiami
I don’t need to remind this buffoon that a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama got 78% of the Jewish vote… As for the other 22%, well if they are assholes like Cantor, you can have them. Everytime that smug, SOB comes on, I just want to punch his face in and I am basically a pacifist;
kay
I’m completely fascinated with the generational theft talking point. How did they get there?
Children operate completely independently from their parents? This abstract group, "children", are debt-free and frolicking.. where? Outside the foreclosed family home?
The immediate well-being of the people who care for children, so, parents, has no bearing whatsoever on children?
I just have a different take on it completely. I start off assuming "the children" are connected to "the parents". I never imagined the two groups were at cross-purposes, and one was stealing from the other.
Krista
Wow, they really did warp it, then. In the book (SPOILER ALERT), she pays off her bills by auctioning off all the shit she bought.
Legalize
One of these guys is Eric Cantor.
Chuck Butcher
Regarding delusions of granduer in respect to power, if you consider that CDs run about 500K that puts the R House at about 90.3M people. That may qualify them for a real serious minority in the House, but it isn’t an inconsiderable number of people. If a half million people somehow have you in Congress as a Rep. there is a pretty good chance you have some right to feel important, Whip would tend to add to that sentiment.
I think E Cantor is petty much an asshat and I’m underimpressed by his political communications skills if the idea is to reach anyone outside the narrow base. But crips, look what he’s got to work with.
Now, I’ll actually ask once again:
If you are the GOP what do you do to re-make your Party? I’m not being snarky, WTF is there? Most things I can think of are Goldwater-ian and that would mean turning their back on virtually all of nearly 50 years of policy and in particular the Religious Reich. Sounds like 5-10 years of suicidal behavior, doesn’t it?
Svensker
Yes, because the Iraq War trillions was a GIFT to our grandchildren, don’t you think?
Napoleon
@kay:
I have been hearing that one for 30 years from wingnuts. Almost everything you hear the Republican elected officials spewing on the air today is exactly the same stuff you would hear from rank and file wingnuts over the years but for the most part elected Republicans would not publicly spew (the only thing you do not hear from them is much blatantly racist stuff).
Calouste
@kay:
The "generational theft" is not about the children, it’s about their children. It would be so unfair on the WAT baby’s babies if daddy had to pay income tax and capital gains tax and inheretance tax at more than single digits rates over all the graft he managed to get while "serving" his constituents or "informing" his former colleagues while working as a lobbyist.
AhabTRuler
Wait, this is a gang site? Shit.
With a name like Chuck Butcher I knew you were hardcore, but my mommy warned me about hanging out with gangs.
headpan
Ooooh, those repub-bub-bub-licans! They’re HOT!
Napoleon
Wow, is Hayworth a nut on Hardball
Jrod
Please Cantor, Don’t Hurt ‘Em!
NonWonderDog
@Alan:
Is that what happened, though? The media was useless on this, but I thought it was a procedural thing. Appropriations bills must originate in the House, but the House voted the bill down. In order to push the issue and get the Senate to vote on it anyway, they attached the entire TARP bill as an amendment to the conference report of a $150 billion bill that had already made it through both houses (and through the Senate with a 96-2 vote).
Something like that, anyway. It seemed a bit fishy at the time, but I didn’t look too deeply into the details.
Jrod
BTW, I like that the video only has 2 stars. On Youtube, almost everything has 5. Youtube poop gets 5 stars regularly. Yet this vid, targetted directly to the GOP faithful, featuring the music of a wildly popular band, can only manage 2.
It’s almost enough to inspire some hope for the future.
kay
@Svensker:
Yes, because the Iraq War trillions was a GIFT to our grandchildren, don’t you think?
I read a lot on the Right, so I get it. I get the ideology. I know that conservatives believe that the only acceptable use of gubmint funding is massive spending on wars, and war-related equipment.
That’s what they believe. Generational theft has little or nothing to do with that dogma, because they’ll borrow like crazy for a good war.
Why not just say that? How long do we have to wait before they just release the Big Right Wing Manifesto, and we can dispense with all these distractions?
Chuck Butcher
@AhabTRuler:
Oh I am pretty damn hardcore and just plain damn onry, nobody has ever mistaken me for a pacifist or the quiet type – but baggy droopy drawers ain’t quite my style. This isn’t really either, but fun.
Back to my question:
What would you do if you were the GOP?
Andrew
Ross Hitler Douthat is so singularly annoying that he makes me want to hang out with Jonah Goldberg.
demimondian
@Objective Scrutator:
Accurate, as ever, ObScrew:New entry Confessions of a Shopaholic made fourth place with $15.4m. Best fourth-place top rating ever!
Mike P.
Hmmm. I’m getting "video is not available anymore" from Youtube. Anyone else? If so, it looks like Aerosmith moves fast… They certainly are pretty hard core capitalists, if the last 20 years are any indication, and might not appreciate the unpaid theft of their work.
Mike P.
Never mind, it’s back.
Stuck
I first saw Aerosmith about the time they released their first album and were not famous yet . It was in a tiny High School gym in Huntington WV and I was so wasted, I don’t remember a lot. Just that I liked the noise and one song Dream On. There wasn’t a stage so we were close enough to shake hands, and destroy our hearing.
And BTW, Joe Perry is a Mccain wingnut, so I doubt they will care if the GOP uses their stuff.
OriGuy
Speaking of George Soros, there’s a position in the Cabinet that’s open now. Can you imagine the wingnut cranial explosions if he were nominated for Commerce?
dr. luba
Re: Use of music. As I understand it (and based on a Chrissie Hynde interview), if you use a clip less than 30 seconds long, and in a non-commercial manner (e.g. intro to a radio program or radio filler, as opposed to an advertisement), you can use pretty much anything out there .
Use a longer clip and you need to get permission.
That’s how Rush got away using Chrissie’s music for his show (which she absolutely detested).
Thoughtcrime
@Jrod:
I did my part and rated it as low as Youtube allows. I also tried to post a comment about how the GOP Reps should stand behind their no vote and refuse any funding for their districts. The comment went into some sort of review mode and was apparently censored. No cussing or insults in my comment. Maybe they didn’t like my user name: "RepublicanFascists".
GuyFromOhio
@Chuck Butcher:
There’s really very little to be done. Once you’ve ripped the roof off to let the vultures (Christianists) in, and after the thieves have ripped all the copper (Rove, Cheney), there is very little upon which to build. The moderates and centrists have fled or are poised to flee (Voinovich from OH is practically the last man standing from the Old Guard, and he’s done in 2010), and the ideologues can’t get or keep a toehold (DeWine, Santorum)
The GOP has a long, lonely walk in the political wilderness ahead. To hunker down and simply survive will be a challenge. There is no short-term fix, as the Reaganites spent years hollowing out the soul that the Cultural Ninjas finally stole, and even if they gave it back, there’s still no roof and no plumbing.
What would I do? Try to take over the Libertarian Party and hope for the best. The fiscal conservatives would find brotherhood, and even the most conservative Libertarian would reject the religious fringies. A purge of the old and an embrace of the new, as it were. Until the ideologues are banished, the voter has no reason to trust the brand.
Really, how do you fix a house that’s in such terrible shape the only real solution is to bulldoze it?
Mnemosyne
@NonWonderDog:
I think you were misled by the Republican-heavy slant of the news shows, because the bill passed the House easily. The situation is that spending bills originate in the House, then the Senate does their version, and then the two versions are reconciled. Extra spending was added to the Senate version to get a few Republicans on board so the 60-vote requirement for deficit spending could be met, and then House and Senate negotiators met to come up with the bill that’s being signed tomorrow.
I don’t blame you for being confused, because the media sure was making it sound like the bill had failed with all of their talk about how the House Republicans stuck together, but the bill passed the House by 246-183.
GuyFromOhio
@Chuck Butcher:
Sorry, not to belabor the point, but someone smarter than me spied it too:
Chuck Butcher
@GuyFromOhio:
not to belabor.
I guess that is my point, it’s really easy to mock this version of Republicanism and it is scarcely my business to help them be successful, but not having a real and serious opposition is bad bad bad. Any asswipe can say, no, no, no and stamp his feet but that doesn’t accomplish a damn thing in the way of additional thinking or fresh ideas. I’m a Democrat, but I’ll sure tell you that letting them fossilize in their behavior is real bad. Nobody comes up with fresh politics without being forced into it and that is usually from the opposition.
NonWonderDog
@Mnemosyne:
Not the stimulus package, the TARP from last September. It failed the first vote in the House. After it was voted down, it showed up again in the Senate with another hundred something billion attached. This was widely reported in the media as the Senate porking it up, but as far as I know appropriation bills can’t be introduced in the Senate without first being approved by the House, not just considered by the House. I had heard that the TARP bill was actually attached as an amendment to a bill that had passed the Senate by a vote of 96-2 (or something like that) to get around this, which doesn’t make any sense to me unless it was attached to the conference report of said bill. Which would be a gross perversion of the conference process, of course, and a blatant violation of the Constitution in spirit, if not letter. Before the bill was introduced in the House I saw debate in the House about whether or not to do this first (I think the Republicans wanted to attach the TARP to the Senate bill, Pelosi wanted to introduce it with regular order), but none of it made any sense at all to me at the time.
It all seemed very odd to me, but I’m not exactly a stickler for rules. I guess it was better than just accepting defeat in the House and watching all the banks implode.
A Mom Anon
Back in the Saddle is about a hooker named Suki,which makes this even more hilarious.
JGabriel
JGabriel:
Answer: One day.
Looking over the thread, I guess I’m the first to predict it, but even I didn’t think it would be that fast. (Yeah, yeah, I know they didnt’ actually sue yet, but a takedown demand is the first step)
.