I just can’t think of anything clever to say regarding the latest outburst from Bachmann:
I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.
This woman is clinical. And considering how bad our eduction system is right now, re-education shouldn’t scare Republicans that much. Then again, maybe some kids will go to a charter re-education school or get into a voucher re-education school. That could be cause for concern.
Comrade Dread
Starting the count down til some fucking lunatic with a dozen rifles starts thinking that the local cops who patrol his neighborhood are really getting ready to take him to a re-education camp in 5, 4, 3, 2…
schrodinger's cat
Time for a Tunch update, much more fun than the crazy Congresswoman.
TenguPhule
Oh Noes! Public Service, Honesty and Courtesy will be taught to impressionable kids! Those bastards!!
Jon
She’s the best example of the Arafat theory in US politics*
*the Arafat theory: that the person running their mouth/movement is so bad for their movement that they’re probably actually working for the other side.
aimai
Great line about the lack of education in the first place. But I think, as I posted over at stevem’s site "no more mr. nice blog" that we are all making a huge mistake when we more or less write off Bachmann’s rants as insane. She is not crazy and she is not merely stupid (though she may be quite a bit of both.) She is coming at her responsibility to be part of our governing structure from a very dangerous and crazed place–wingnutville. And so far she has found it rewarded, at least in the sense that she got re-elected and gets paid to say this stuff. She is a conduit for some of the most prevalent and nutty beliefs of the far right paranoid fringe and we have just seen what happens when those people are taken seriously by their own followers. Unfortunately there are no grown ups in the republican party to call Bachmann up and ask her to behave or, if there were, she would reject them as "no true republican." Yet she is out there giving John Birch style paranoid fantasies a more or less respectable platform.
aimai
grimc
Can anybody describe Bachmann’s district? I’m at a complete loss to imagine what kind of community would choose this box of hammers as their congressperson.
gex
@aimai: Agreed. It’s scarier than it is funny. She was saying this crazy shit before the election and still got elected. So I can’t find her funny 1) because I live in MN and 2) the problem is not her, but the legions who agree with her.
MikeJ
I insist that it be spelled with liberal, elitist diaeresis. Reëducation. Sadly it’s just me and the New Yorker these days.
SpotWeld
At best, this will drive the right-wing core into isolated home-schooling of thier kids.
At worst… and I really shudder to comtemplate this… someone who has lost thier grip on reality as much as the Pittsburgh shooter will jump to thi conclusion that his kids are better off… *sigh* better off not in a world where Obama is president.
I really want that senario to remain fictional.
sgwhiteinfla
David Shuster is guest hosting Hardball and he is about to take on the overheated rhetoric from the wingnuts and if it is dangerous. I have a feeling that he will actually call a spade a spade.
blogenfreude
I’m for home-school reeducation for the children of wingnuts – lefty bloggers get to deprogram them in the comfort of their own homes.
gex
@grimc: From what I understand it is a blue collar, religious portion of the north metro. Driving up there just before the election I saw lots of "GlobalWarmingScam.com" bumper stickers. If you look at the map you can see how this is gerrymandered to the max to make sure a Bachmann like candidate will win.
MikeJ
Following Bachman’s reasoning, the US doesn’t have an all volunteer military, does it? I mean we pay those people. Not as well as we should, but if you get paid, you couldn’t have volunteered.
Ricky Bobby
Who the fuck voted for this woman? We need some brave reporters to go up to Minnesota and find out who the hell lives up there. I am from a red part of a blue state and we have a lot of guns and a lot of rural idiots out here, but not even our local dummies would vote for this crazy.
Again, who the fuck voted for this section 8?
Leelee for Obama
Believe it or not, this kind of crap came up on DK during the primaries when Obama talked about public service in exchange for tax credits for college. I posted that I thought public service was a fine idea and maybe everyone should have to do it, even adults. Not military service, but some kind of community service. I got so many attacks about slave labor and the like that I didn’t post much after that.
As someone who was glad that the draft was ended, I still think public service time for all Americans should be considered; paid of course. It would let everybody know how other segments of our country live, and struggle.
The re-education epithet is deliberate, of course, but educating ourselves is something I think would be very effective in changing the way gifted or financially blessed people understand the wider world.
DonkeyKong
Wow, somebody at ALL the paste in kindergarden!
SpotWeld
At the moment I kind of mentally list "compulsary voluntary service" (in the US) as one of those ideas that looks really good on paper, but would be really rife with abuse and error if actually implimented.
Rather like the privitized prison system.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can we start with Bachmann or is she too old to
re-educateeducate?Bootlegger
Oh we’ll reeducate ’em a’ight, just as soon as the colleges are done indoctrinatin’ them.
As a chief indocrtinator I’m afraid I must report that I’m doing a lousy job. TOO many free-market, America-lovin’ supporters of the Constitution are escaping my clutches. Perhaps the highly paid professionals in the reeducation camps will have better luck.
joe from Lowell
The "reasonable" libertarians at Hit & Run, especially the esteemed Matt Welch, have been pushing this black helicopter, slave labor nonsense for months, along with the Fairness Doctrine and gun confiscation fantasies.
Oddly enough, they don’t have a word to say about what just went down in Pittsburgh.
What happened to those people? That blog used to win awards for being the best political site on the web. I know they’re not racists, but something about Barack Obama has driven them completely and utterly around the bend.
sgwhiteinfla
I don’t know if any of you just caught Shuster PWNING the NRA guy but I think I need a cigarette.
Dan robinson
I would vote for at least some education for the howler from Minn. After she gets some, then we’ll worry about the re-.
arguingwithsignposts
@gex:
Or to quarantine them.
Face
My latent inner Republicanism hears this and wants to scream. Seriously, she says some stupid shit on TV, somebody offs a bunch of people, and now we’re supposed to directly connect the two? That liberal viewpoint is just too much.
This is just another "video games cause violence", "rock music causes devil worship", and "drinking makes hot chicks hotter" false correlations, IMO.
Leelee for Obama
@sgwhiteinfla:
Yes, He Did! And just in time, as I was going to climb thru the screen and bitch-slap that 2nd Amendment yutz!
I wouldn’t mind them blathering, but at least blather the truth!
I like David today!
And yeah, I’d like a cigarette,also!
grimc
@arguingwithsignposts:
Or declare a re-education voting district.
And thanks for the detail, gex.
sgwhiteinfla
LeeLee
The best part was when he told the 2nd amendment dick that "you can’t just make up your own facts". I damn near jumped up out of my seat.
Notorious P.A.T.
"Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take my kids to Sunday School."
PS–God damn it, if I’d got home a half hour earlier I’d be going to the NCAA title game.
Tonal Crow
Fix’d.
John Cole
re: Reason
I think one of the things I never truly internalized until recently is that part of what makes a glibertarian tick and what weds them so easily to the Republicans is that they they hate Democrats for whatever reason. They just have a seething hatred if them that goes beyond logic and common sense. I think they think liberals and Democrats are pussies and it gets in the way of the self-perception of libertarians as rugged individualists who made their own way in the world so why can’t the rest of you faggots do it on your own?
Xel
A democrat with ambition to help people via government?
Stone and Parker get fawned over by glibertarians for making a South Park episode where hippie/urban elitist strawmen get eaten by wild lions after trying to outlaw free speech in 3… ?… Profit!
jrg
After we round up all the young people from Bachmann’s district, can we indoctrinate them with science, book learning, and language skills? We’ll leave the buttfucking, conversion to Islam, and submission to the one world order for later.
ksec
Minnesota must be proud.
Or maybe they like nutcases?
dslak
@John Cole: But libertarians also think that civil society is possible without the government relying upon force very often to maintain order. If you’re right about their psychology, it seems incompatible with their supposed faith in human nature.
passerby
"…there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward…"–Bachmann
Hasn’t this been what public schools have been doing since forever?
A standardized curriculum developed by god knows who, which ignores regional culture, with the aim of making a herd of "Children of Mao" who then obediently go out and pay their taxes without question and keep their lawns mowed and buy a new car every two years.
That’s a philosophy that our government (industry–same thing) puts forward. No?
J. Michael Neal
It’s a few of the far out northern exurbs like Elk River, a bunch of farmers, and St. Cloud. Any Gopher fan can tell you that St. Cloud is fucking nuts in all ways.
dslak
@passerby: My public school clearly failed. You must not have gone to one at all, because I can’t imagine there being so many counterexamples to your thesis in one place!
JK
Michelle Bachmann needs to be placed in a straitjacket and given extra strength anti-psychotic drugs.
Minnesotans should start a petition to demand that Bachmann submit herself to a competency hearing to determine if she is mentally fit to hold public office.
Comrade Dread
Liberals are also responsible for much of the government programs like education, welfare, social security, etc. which keep us all from living in a Randian paradise where we can work for pennies on the day and huddle by our fire at night clutching our guns listening for the sound of our neighbor trying to steal some of those pennies.
** Atanarjuat **
All your children are belong to us.
— The Obama Youth Corps
eric
@John Cole: i think you are partly correct, but i would cite to something else.
I think that libertarians and Young Republicans see themselves as entitled to unbridled success. I call these folks Robb Report-ers — they see the magazine as presenting the kinds of things that people with their skills and gifts should possess.
The fact that these folks do not possess as much of this stuff as they believe they should must be the fault of someone ad it cant be them. Or, they are afraid that someone is going to make it harder to get the shiny objects. The blame then falls on democrats who seek to level the playing field according to race, gender, and to a lesser extent class.
Thus, the Robb Report-ers visceral hate the perceived impediments to their ever continuing greatness because the alternative is unthinkable: that themselves are not worthy of succeeding as uber-capitalists.
eric
J. Michael Neal
That must be why I’m in the only district represented by an actual Islamofascist.
Besides, the Gophers beat St. Cloud State six times this year, so we got some payback.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole:
haha. I dunno. I got libertarian friends and they don’t necessarily perceive themselves that way. (One of ’em works for the DEA!) What they all have in common is they think there is someone out there who doesn’t look or act anything like they do getting something they don’t deserve.
dslak
@Comrade Dread: Speaking of which, I recently learned that Germany has no national minimum wage laws. Curiously, Germany still has a notorious problem with high unemployment rates. Oh, Ayn . . .
dslak
@Just Some Fuckhead: There are of course different kinds of libertarians, e.g., left-libertarians and right-libertarians. (That probably doesn’t encompass all possibilities.) I generally find left-libertarians to be more amiable and less paranoid, even though I have some fundamental disagreements with them, as well.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@ksec:
The irony is that Minnesota is also the first state to elect a black Muslim to Congress. I wonder how well Keith Elison and Bachmann get along. I’d love to be a fly on the wall whenever they meet.
Just Some Fuckhead
@dslak: I’m talking about the ones that vote Republican.
The Moar You Know
Bachmann is not insane, and these rants of hers are no accident.
The right wing obviously wants an "incident", a big one. To what end, I don’t know yet.
But don’t dismiss her as insane. Her words are very deliberately chosen.
Tsulagi
Now see, Bachmann is a real wingnut’s wingnut. Forced re-education camps this week. Last week Obama admin colluding with China to replace the US dollar with a new Commie dollar. Unmistakable quality, unlike that phony Glenn Beck with his fearful weeping for his country act.
dslak
@Just Some Fuckhead: I can see why libertarians would have preferred Republicans at the national level prior to 2000. Since then . . . well, there’s a reason the word ‘glibertarian’ was coined.
Just Some Fuckhead
Kudos to Michelle Bachman for bravely stepping up and filling the void left by the forced retirement of ManOnDog Santorum.
TenguPhule
I’m for mandatory sterilization before they get to breed.
The Other Steve
When Michelle Bachmann was a state senator, she was constantly pushing David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights.
If there’s anybody in Congress who I suspect is most likely to support the creation of re-education camps, it would be Michelle Bachmann. The thing is, she won’t call them re-education camps. She’ll just call them Happy Happy Joy Joy Camps, and when you oppose it she’ll call you a hater.
Ash
@The Moar You Know: Nah, I really think she’s just flat-out batshit insane. She was crouching behind bushes to spy on some homos long before ObaMao came along.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Face:
When a gunman, who listened to and read Hannity et al, bursts into a Unitarian church and starts shooting because he hates liberals, it is IMHO fairly easy to connect the dots. Video games and rock music are not issuing a call to action; wingnuts like Bachman and radio yappers like Hannity are constantly making the suggestion that "something must be done".
tomdurk
Some of my old professors @ U Chicago were conservative AND were strong advocates of national service. It isn’t that conservatives don’t like the idea- they just don’t like Obama in charge. And Bachmann had no problem w/ sending lots of 18 year olds to Iraq & Afghanistan to die.
anonevent
Fixed. Can’t have people believing that government works.
The Other Steve
One other thing.
The reason why Michelle Bachmann receives a lot of her support in her local district is because of her strong support for home schooling. Out in her district there is a lot of fringe people… And I don’t mean religious fringe. I mean living off the land DFH sorts. They’re attracted to Bachmann because of her home schooling stance, and don’t fully appreciate or understand her bizarre politics.
And if you listen to her, she uses the right words… she’s talking about the giant conspiracy of the Man to beat you down, etc. It’s just she’s using these words to further a Stalinist agenda. It’s weirdly bizarre.
passerby
@dslak:
What. The curriculum is not one-size-fits-all, standardized?
Do the reading programs use regional authors?
Funny, you didn’t bother to elaborate on even one.
dslak
@passerby: I notice you dropped the indoctrination part. Am I correct in taking that as acknowledgement that that part was mistaken?
ShortWoman
And this is different from DARE or Abstinence Only Sex Ed in what way, exactly?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@The Moar You Know:
Bachmann, Beck, et al. fomenting sedition in the hopes that the administration will have to invoke martial law, maybe?
That would be respectably evil.
Leelee for Obama
@John Cole:
That’s a lot of it John. I thought many times during the last 7.5 years that it was funny that the rugged individualists were scared crapless and the pussy libs were quoting Ben Franklin about liberty and security. I think they know we’re not pussies, and that makes them look in the mirror and hate what they see. Ghandi was a liberal, and he beat the British Empire. Churchill and Roosevelt were liberals, and they beat Fascism. America is really liberal and we beat the Soviets. They’re really afraid of us.
Brick Oven Bill
You guys should read Emanuel’s book before mocking Bachman. Emanuel calls for mandatory national service.
Leelee for Obama
Help, I’m in moderation and I can’t get out!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Brick Oven Bill:
What kind of service?
The Moar You Know
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I don’t think that it is as simple as that. Martial law requires a lot of people getting out of control, and the Chairborne can’t muster enough numbers for full civil insurrection.
Bondo
Judging by the partisan gap in 18-34 voters, the youth don’t really need re-education in order to buy into the big government propaganda. I also think we’d basically welcome mandatory service (or at least now with President Obama, we are taking advantage of all public service openings…the economy might be helping that along though).
Really what this is, is a hysterical older person trying to save the kids from what they want…by ensuring that we all die through bad health care and global warming and such.
Jim
Been there, done that. It was called "The Draft" in 1970….
dslak
@Leelee for Obama: I wouldn’t say that Churchill was a liberal. Maybe he just doesn’t map so well onto the current left/right divide.
Cris
I think we can mock her both before and after reading the book. During as well.
SLKRR
@J. Michael Neal:
The first, but not the only. There’s also Andre Carson in Indiana. Them Mooslimofascists is takin’ over.
Library Grape
Her constituents must be among the flaming fucktards who think that America’s relationship with the Muslim world is just peachy:
Yes, you read that correctly. 18% of our country’s citizenry believes that America’s relationship with Muslim nations doesn’t need any improvement.
Ash
"National service" is mandatory national service. It’s already a requirement at tons of high schools that students perform a certain number of hours to graduate. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Of course, usually community service requires helping poor, colored people. We can’t really have that, can we?
Library Grape
@Brick Oven Bill: BOB really is a tiresome bore.
passerby
@dslak:
No. You should not take that as acknowledgment that I was mistaken. I believe the schools system (in any country) is designed to indoctrinate the pupils with expected behaviors and desirable views.
Rewarding ( gold stars and A’s B’s C’s, etc. ) desirable behavior and punishing undesirable behavior (detention etc.) is an effective way to create conformity and obedience in a society.
Tonal Crow
@ShortWoman:
But those are patriotic programs, you libtard. Do I have to explain everything to you fifth-columnist America-hating global-warming-conspiracy-promoting Furminator-using latte-drinking Volvo-driving dirt-worshipping lesbos?
Library Grape
@Ash: the GOP and the Balko libertarians probably see mandatory high school community service as the forced enslavement of lily white suburban kids serving dirty inner-city nigras as some kind of insidious reparations for slavery
Cris
I just now went to the Minnesota Independent page that John linked. And as interesting as the quoted paragraph is, I like the sentence before it:
The government paying people! Compensating them for work! Will these despots stop at nothing?
dslak
@passerby: If you define indoctrination as simply expressing or promoting "expected behavior and desirable views," then nearly all communication would have to be classified as such. That would be absurd, of course.
Bruce
@Tonal Crow
@ShortWoman
Sex-ed?? that’s christianist lite edition…try creationism!
Polish the Guillotines
Looks like the local papers are on the case with the Poplawski fringe-right/Stormfront/gun confiscation connection.
Let’s see if the national press picks up on this. I reserve the right not to hold my breath.
I do suggest a phone barrage on Bachmann’s office asking if she supports Poplawski’s actions.
Leelee for Obama
@dslak: He was liberal in the classical sense, and he led a constitutional democracy. That was my context…and compared to Tories who followed him, he was more liberal. I’m thinking Thatcher.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Ash:
Is it anything like the mandatory ROTC classes that public universities in Arizona and other states had in effect off an on for quite a long time?
passerby
@dslak:
I am absurd. Pay me no mind.
dslak
@Leelee for Obama: You’ll find the Indians and Irish don’t regard him as very liberal, however.
Cpl. Cam
I, for one, have been in favor of a military draft since the begining of the second war on Iraq. While far from being a perfect institution (for exhibit "A" of it’s shortcommings see: Cheney, Dick military service record) it would have been worth it just to have some nice-looking, short-haired boys in ties turn up at all our protests once the college republicans started getting draft cards.
LV-426
She’s speaking truth to power. That’s all that matters. Same as with the currency issue. She’s leading. She’s strong. She’s vocal about issues people care about. The people she’s speaking to believe these issues are real. Even better, if you try to point out to them that she’s lying they’ll see that as you trying to re-educate them and now you are proving her point.
guest omen
argh! white slavery! run for your lives!
srv
It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black:
Y’all keep ranting about crazy people while Rome burns…
El Cid
Aha! Gotcha! Ain’t nobody gonna damn re-educate me! I wouldn’t damn let ’em educate me in the first damn place, and I’ll be god-damn sure ain’t nobody gonna re-educate me! South gonna rise again!
HyperIon
@grimc: Here’s a map
Anoka…isn’t that where Garrision Keillor grew up IRL?
Wile E. Quixote
@Batshit Insane Bachmann
Didn’t we have this about 40 years ago? I mean as I recall we had this thing called "the Draft". The way it worked was that the government decided that you should go to a place called basic training where you were trained in a philosophy that the government put forward and then had to go work in the Army for a few years. If you didn’t want to go get trained in the philosophy they put forward at basic training and be in the Army for a few years the government sent your ass to jail. As I recall there were people who resisted this forced government indoctrination and for doing so were condemned at the time by conservatives like Bachmann as being draft-dodgers, cowards and DFHs. Am I missing something here?
srv
@Cpl. Cam:
I, for one, was an attractive DFH.
My memory is beer bellied frat boys who waddled around like Jonah. They still got the blondes, but not like that was any loss.
asiangrrlMN
As a Minnesotan, I would like to pass along this link about Michele Bachmann’s district:
http://www.minnpost.com/bloisolson/2008/08/13/2931/bachmanns_district_a_bellwether_this_election
I would also like to remind you that she was ahead by twenty points in the last election before she went on Hardball and started foaming at the mouth. She dropped fifteen points (or so) within weeks. So, yes, that part of MN is batshit crazy, but even they are beginning to see that Bachmann is even crazier than they are.
I think she is stupid AND crazy, and her hubby is a therapist who does revulsion therapy for gays (yes, I know that’s not the correct term, but it’s how I think of it), but she is also dangerous because of the wingnuttery she represents. I can’t stand the thought that she is from MN, but I do take some comfort that so is Keith Ellison. I wish I could vote AGAINST her or FOR him, but I am not in either district.
Michele Bachmann disgusts me.
P.S. I personally don’t find her physically attractive, either. That’s just me.
Tonal Crow
@El Cid: That post is chock-full of win.
guest omen
@srv:
if the crazy people’s ideology had been discredited earlier, we wouldn’t be here.
JL
Michelle Bachmann heard that John was going to have a contest for the craziest right wing comment and she wants to win.
Laura W
@JL:
Ha!
asiangrrlMN
@JL:
She would definitely be in the top five if not the outright winner.
Cpl. Cam
@srv: I meant simply as a way of raising our profile, I look fucking ravashing in my beard. But the MSM couldn’t care less when the dfhs protest, they’re always protesting something. But when the clean cut "average joes" get two-hundred people together to dump powdered tea in a lake it’s suddenly a highly news-worthy event.
Dennis-SGMM
Bachmann is playing a crucial role for the Republicans. She’s making people like Jindal, Sanford, Palin, and Gingrich, seem like centrists.
Hob
@Brick Oven Bill: I don’t give a tin fuck what Rahm Emanuel wrote, unless Emanuel is planning to kill his boss and install himself as dictator of America. Rahm Emanuel is the White House Chief of Staff. He is not a legislator, and does not have the power to enact massive national service programs on his own say-so without anyone noticing. Oddly enough, neither does President Barack Obama. This would be true even if Obama favored the same sort of mandatory service that Emanuel was talking about, which Obama has made it pretty clear that he does not.
I really have to remember to install cleek’s pie filter on this machine. It’s actually less predictable than BOB.
gbear
In addition to being crazy, Bachman doesn’t give a shit about her constituents. She hasn’t had a single town hall meeting since being re-elected, and apparently she doesn’t respond to anyone who tries to contact her. Her district has the highest mortgage forclosure rate in MN, but she votes against every bill that would provide some relief to homeowners who are in trouble. She’s completely on her own and working for no one but the crazy voices in her head.
gbear
In her district, you’d want to start out with substance abuse councelling. Really.
guest omen
@asiangrrlMN:
what was wrong with her challenger that he couldn’t gain traction and benefit from her slip up on hardball? why couldn’t he complete the sale?
Comrade Dread
@93
Yes.
It is the exact same thing, only it’s currently voluntary, so I don’t know what she’s getting her dander up for, except that some people like to worry about hypothetical evils that might happen in the future.
If they make it involuntary, then we can talk, because then it would be more like forced servitude. But until then, do try to shut up, Congressman.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Library Grape:
Who cares about how the US deals with scary, brown people? Clearly, all they want to do is take over the world and reinstate a Caliphate to rule over us all.
Litlebritdifrnt
Put Bachman’s comments along with Dr. Oily Titz signing up "patriots" at some Kentucky gun show this weekend and you got yourselves a whole bunch of batshit crazy people gathering like moths to a flame. Eventually one of these idiots is gonna do something "patriotic" (a la Philly) and all of their fellow "patriots" will be lauding them for murdering innocent police officers because it is their "right" to do so to save their GUNS so help me God! USA! USA! USA!
As an old Police Officer friend of mine used to say, in his quaint, ex-marine corps, ex-police officer kind of way.
"Fuck a bunch of motherfuckers."
Comrade Darkness
We throw the words "batshit insane" around a lot, but the letter to news 10 from the Binghamton shooter puts a really high bar on the term.
Library Grape
I wonder if Brick Oven Bill was able to pick up any Obama-Hitler T-Shirts in Kentucky this weekend: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/06/obama-guns-ky/
J. Michael Neal
For starters, his name is Elwyn Tinklenberg.
Yes, he’s Jewish, with a gay name. Not gonna fly.
guest omen
@J. Michael Neal:
by that logic, barack hussein obama shouldn’t have won either.
J. Michael Neal
@guest omen: Barack Hussein Obama didn’t need to get votes in St. Cloud.
HyperIon
@Comrade Darkness: it appears that he was more pissed at cops than anyone else. so why’d he kill all those non-cops at the center? it makes no sense.
but i guess "making no sense" was kinda what he was about.
asiangrrlMN
@guest omen:
It’s considered a safe haven for Republicans. Any Dem would have been eaten alive. In addition, there was a third party candidate who got 10% of the vote. That didn’t help Tinklenberg (yes, his name) at all.
Comrade Darkness, if that letter is authentic, then, yes, he is the standard-bearer for batshit insane.
Leelee for Obama
@Comrade Darkness: And no one thought this guy’s dogs didn’t all bark at the same time? Sweet Mary Sunshine, that is some scary shit! If someone I knew was talking like that, I’d tie them up and call in the thorazine!
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Jesus. Classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.
guest omen
@Library Grape:
that was odd how b.o.bill didn’t want to cop to admitting that he, like beck, felt that obama = hitler was an apt comparison. could be seen as a sign of hope. he has self-awareness enough to feel shame and realize this isn’t logical and is outside the mainstream.
gex
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): Or when the Pittsburgh killer has been posting links to Glenn Beck, then it really isn’t a stretch to connect them, is it?
Where’s Church Lady to tut-tut us and tell us this has nothing to do with the right wing now? Yes he’s crazy. But he’s crazy and right wing. It’s the right wing that adds the gun fanaticism, Obama/government fearing, militia man tint to his crazy.
douglasfactors
@guest omen:
Well, he sure as hell didn’t win Bachmann’s district.
Comrade Darkness
@Leelee for Obama: I was just saying to the SO that in the old days we used to lock people up for being this far beyond the bend "for their’s and our own protection". Maybe we can find a better balance on this and get back to funding insanity lock-ups again. I don’t know. It’s so freakin’ tragic all around, I can’t believe there is no good fix that moves in the right direction without giving up too much of something else.
@HyperIon: yeah, the reality train was making so few stops on this route that it’s hard to say. He lays blame on the police for what he does. (The police are they to protect and he’s going to win by proving they can’t??) Mislaying blame like that is so clinical that I have a hard time imagining that the letter is concocted.
Xenos
@SpotWeld:
What was the name of the Clinton-era program for young people not ready to start college? I was working for the welfare department in a small southern town in the mid ’90s, and several young women came back pregnant after having a bit too much fun doing make-work and living with other young people. Not quite the edifying experience everybody had in mind, and a good example of unintended consequences.
Corner Stone
What kind of world do we live in when a man named Tinklenberg can’t get the votes?
simonee
No, no guys: Michele Bachmann knows all about re-education camps– she went to Oral Roberts University.
Svensker
@tomdurk:
That’s because being Sir! Yes, Sir! WARRIORS! paid by the state to kill is a good thing. But having 18 year olds act like wusses HELPING people without threatening to shoot them? Nah, horrible, like communism.
guest omen
@Corner Stone:
stranger things have happened. there’s a US senator from idaho whose last name is crapo.
Jamey
Re: Bachmann and her ilk: How, exactly, does one ‘re-educate’ someone who never was educated in the first place?
(Or as Swift put it, "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.")
TenguPhule
One where a falconer in Iran named Parrot who says OBL is in Iran is taken seriously by the very serious people on the right.
Corner Stone
@guest omen
Hmmm. Seems to fit.
What is up with these Dickensian names in the Senate?
Ed Marshall
In fits of liberal mushiness I try and empathize with them. I remember the 2002 elections where whatever the Democrats fault of that vintage, they controled nothing, no one I identified with politically at all had any sort of political power all and those were some dark ass days and I was scared shitless.
Then I remember, that what they used their power to do was wiretap all the phones in the country, claim absolute power to disappear whoever they decided were enemies of the state into secret prisons, and start some crazy war in Iraq. I think they need to suck it up a little, and think about what they did.
Tonal Crow
@Ed Marshall:
And get on their knees and thank their "god" that Obama hasn’t yet declared them "enemy combatants", wrapped them in pink burkas inscribed with 76 different insults to Allah, and airdropped them into South Waziristan.
Corner Stone
There’s a "South" Waziristan??
Fuck. I thought that was a mythical place like a Land called Honalee.
AnneLaurie
As for the ‘indoctrinating our children’ insanity, didn’t Bachman make a living as a professional baby-farmer — I mean, stay-at-home foster parent — before she jumped on the Rethuglican gravy train?
Mark
She is not just clinical, she is bat sh*t crazy. She drove through right wingnuttia on her way out, but she has left all hints of sane thought behind.