Thought we could use one. Still working my way through all my cd’s, and ran across some Man or Astro Man. Again, long time since I have played that.
You know what really irritates me about the tea parties? The basic fact that if right now, it were President John McCain and not President Obama, and nothing else had changed, these tea parties wouldn’t exist. You know it, I know it, and even the teabaggers know it. It is just such transparent bullshit that it is offensive. The most these guys ever did during the last lost eight years was put a limp Porkbusters logo on their website, but now that we have President Malcom X George McGovern Shabazz, they are freaking out like there is no tomorrow. So absurd.
You know what else I think of every time I think of Dick Armey or Newt Gingrich or these Club for Growth clowns flogging this nonsense? The movie Bob Roberts
JenJen
I took my lunch at Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati today, and wrote it up in the other thread.
A friend and I were talking about the 2000 election, and had a discussion… what if, after that, the majority of people (Gore voters) threw these protests? With signs that promoted secession, or "Hang ‘Em High!" with photos of Tom Delay and Denny Hastert and Dick Armey? I mean, I can’t even imagine it.
Of course, if McCain had won in November, I imagine he’d be talking about the Iraq War every day, rather than the economy. It wasn’t his big thing. He really wasn’t interested in it.
My takeaway from watching today’s protest was that it was nothing more than a Sarah Palin rally, six months after the fact. It was a gathering of Sore Losermen, period.
AhabTRuler
BOC.
blogenfreude
Teabaggery update: check out the lower left photo in the first group.
The Tim Channel
Not even paying attention to the asshats anymore. They’ve so marginalized themselves as to be nothing more than a bad joke.
Enjoy.
SpotWeld
Got any They Might Be Giants?
Ugh
Ballad of the Tea Baggers
Bleating whiners dumb as pie
Witless men who pout and cry
Men who don’t know what they say
Kneeling Tea Baggers on parade
Cheeto dust upon their chest
These aren’t men, not America’s best
One hundred men will wank today
Here they cum, Tea Bag Brigade
Trained to live, off parent’s land
Masturbating, hand to hand
Men who fight with mouse and click
Cowards all, Tea Bageret
Cheeto dust upon their chest
These aren’t men, not America’s best
One hundred men will wank today
Here they cum, Tea Bag Brigade
Back at home mommy awaits
The Tea Bagger has met his fate
He has whined for bigger bequests
Leaving her this last request
Put Cheeto dust on my chest
Make me wank like America’s best
I will leave the house one day
After Tea Bagging, Big Al who’s Gay
Douche Baggins
Saw Man or Astro Man in San Jose a couple of years ago. Are they supposed to sound like Trent Reznor covering Devo?
On the other hand, RWA’s are demonstrably intellectually dishonest, so none of this teabuggery should be taken for anything other than the spectacle it is. In the meanwhile, between the fits of snark, we need to keep an eye on the policies that are being enacted by Barry X; I think he’s off to a great start but there’s still a metric fuckload of work to be done (FISA & privacy rights restoration, banking reform and health care come to mind).
MattF
Just the thought of President John McCain makes the mind reel. Note that Obama’s approval in the low 60’s means that about one out of four of McCain voters thinks Obama’s doing a good job. What’s left is the dregs.
TenguPhule
And just think, we haven’t even reached the six month anniversary of this admin yet.
What new absurdity will they come up with to top the current insanity?
DougJ
Isn’t Shabazz the name a young Bill Simmons gave himself when he decided he was black (this is when the Celtics fielded an entirely black team)? That was probabl the best sports column I have ever read, but I can no longer find a link.
JL
Grover Norquist will be reading questions about the protests today at the Washington Post. Does Grover actually answer questions?
Hopefully Doug has summitted his.
John PM
I just came from observing the Chicago Tea Party, and I could not agree more. Oddly enough, all of the signs at the rally had picture of Democrats and nary a one of any Republican. I would say there were about 2,500 people in the Federal Plaza, overwhelmingly white and over 50, with a few loser single guys thrown in for good measure. I watched from across the street, so I could not see any of the speakers or even hear what they were saying. My favorite sign was "220 years to create the country, 3 months to destroy it." All in all, not quite the level of crazy I was hoping for. No blantantly racist or homophobic signs, although one sign did appear to have Barney Frank dressed in drag and referred to him as a wh-re. One other sign asked "Do you know where you taxes are going," to which my response was "Yes, for upkeep for the federal plaza where you are exercising your first amendment rights, for the police who are exercising crowd control, and for the public transportation that most of you probably took to the protest."
I rounded up the two fellow liberals in my law office to accompany me. While we were talking about the tea parties this morning the two raging Republicans in the office heard about our plans. I found out later from my secretary that one of the Republicans called us all stupid. Now, the three of us liberals are all attorneys and have been for quite some time. The person that called us stupid is one of the secretaries. Now, nothing against secretaries (as my mom has been a secretary/administrative assistant for most of her adult life), but that really takes some nerve. One of my fellow attorneys said that had she heard that she would have had to put the secretary in her place. I said that I would have patted the secretary on the head and said "You’re so precious."
The Other Steve
Tea Bag them before they Tea Bag Us!
Shibby
Just got back from the local tea party. Had to check it out for myself. All in all I’d say there were maybe 500 or 600 people there. I really agree with the meme that these "protests" are simply cultural frustrations. Toledo might not be the most international of cities but there was literally not a single non-white to be found. Also, while the majority of signs were government/tax related, there was a whole smorgasbord of other right wing causes present including anti-gun control, anti-abortion, pro-christian and even a significant population of anarchists. There were so many "Don’t tread on me flags" I stopped counting. It was rainy here and people were in general pretty grumpy so I didn’t really try to engage anyone in conversation. Still, I thought the crowd was much larger than I expected. I suppose its important to remember that 28% (give or take a few percentage points) is still a significant portion of the population.
cleek
i think the crazy is in DC
Blogreeder
Not necessarily. McCain’s a maverick, remember. He’s wasn’t really endorsed by the conservative side until he was the last one standing as I recall. But then it was Obama that raised the issue of tax hikes during the campaign. I know, he only pledged that top 5 percent but anyone who believes that is delusional. Shared sacrifice and all.
zoe kentucky from pittsburgh
What is truly precious is that suddenly the right believes that organized street protests are a *super* way of getting America on your side, that hating the government and the president is truly patriotic, and that deficit spending and bloated federal budgets are socialism/communism/fascism.
I wish I could have gone downtown to the "tea party" in Pittsburgh today and handed out baby bottles and pacifiers.
Tsulagi
Given, but you’d have to admit there’d be a lot more comedy watching VP Palin explain their stimulus package expounding on its moving molecules. And since she could then see Treasury from her window, how could you counter that expertise?
BTW, if any want to see tea party action in real time, Fox News has wingnut cams on their site. Hope all the party goers wrapped up in their teabagging anticipation didn’t forget to properly place their flag pins.
smiley
@JenJen:
They are sore losers. I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with something clever that ties together tea bags, tea bagging, and sore losers. You know, like Sore Loserman. Any ideas? You’re a clever bunch.
The Populist
Amen John.
Hey rightie apologists, tell me something. If you are so concerned about ballooning budgets and deficits, why weren’t you teabagging GW Bush?
You say this is non-partisan YET I see this as another outlet for the idiots to whine about the black President.
Don’t deny it.
JL
According to Norquist’s : Today is tax day. I just returned from the tea party rally at Lafayette Park. Despite the rain there were about a thousand folks at the Washington rally.
Wow a thousand folks.
JenJen
@Shibby: The Gadsden Flags ("Don’t Tread On Me") were in abundance at the Cincinnati Tea Party this afternoon. Now, I found that to be a bit irritating, as the Gadsden Flag was mostly carried by Marines blockading the British war ships carrying supplies to the Colonies. But it was also a flag urging Unity, like its predecessor, the "Join Or Die" flag featuring a segmented snake.
Seems to me that the Gadsden Flag is contrary to the Secessionist sentiments of many in the crowd I witnessed today. One of the protesters was carrying the flag along with a sign that quoted Gov. Rick Perry’s statement from the other day, for example. I don’t get it.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Here’s teabagging in Huntsville, Alabama. A big crowd, which is not surprise. I politely asked two or three people why I didn’t see any references to the folks who controlled Congress for 14 of 16 years and the White House for the last 8 years. "Shut up, that’s why" was essentially the answer, and one of them hurried off to find an event organizer to deal with my "disruption".
Good times.
liberal
@Blogreeder:
The "shared sacrifice" is to make bondholders of major insolvent banks whole, unfortunately.
SpotWeld
@JenJen
The thing is, neither do they.
They just get a big kick out of being loud about it… whatever it is.
eric
the real issue behind these tea parties is frustration and anger. These folks are frustrated and angry that they have been told that they are "wrong." Some people can handle debate and can handle losing a vote. Not these folks. They cannot accept the fact that the American people said they were wrong (1) in preferring McCain / Palin and (2) in desiring Obama. It is not just that they are sore losers; they cannot stand being told that "hey, dude, you are wrong."
eric
Alan
Did you read Sullivan’s, The Evolution Of An Obamacon? I can relate to this:
JenJen
@smiley: Yep. Remember this?
It’s fun to turn it around. And it’s even more interesting to recall that those of us who were Gore voters were the ones who were truly disenfranchised, and yet we didn’t throw tea parties against tyranny. Can you begin to imagine the hissy fit from the shrieking howler monkeys if we had?
JL
Wow. Is anyone watching CNN? Susan Roesgen is reporting from Chicago and she asked a protestor why Obama was a fascist? His answer was because he was. Another person tried to say that Lincoln believed that government should not take their money. Susan Roesgen said that the promotion is anti-government, anti-CNN and it is promoted by the right wing FOX. She went back to Tara in the news room because she did not feel the protest was family viewing.
Nemo_N
Hey guys, what has been the "narrative" the MSM has taken when reporting about these Tea Parties? "Reasonable people making reasonable demands"? What do you think it will be like throughout the day?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
"Some people will work. Some never will. But they’ll complain and complain and complain and complain…"
Love the freaky early Jack Black in that movie. He plays the deranged teenage Gestapo kid who worships Bob.
bayville
Memorial Day four films on an endless loop – maybe on one of Ted Turner’s movie channels: Bob Roberts, Network, A Face in the Crowd and Bound for Glory.
All four prolific and accurate.
gbear
Just thinking about what ‘President John McCain’ would be doing makes EVERYTHING else much less irritating.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
One of the local talk radio yappers wow-ed the crowd with his solution to the economic crisis. It was one word: "Nothing". Do absolutely nothing. Let the banks fail, let AIG fail, let GM and Chrysler fail, no stimulus, no public works projects……. nada. Just let the Invisible Hand dip the Teabag of Liberty…. or something.
JenJen
@JL: Oh yeah, I saw that! Earlier on CNN, Kyra Phillips was having a lot of fun with the Tea Parties, saying "Nothing like promoting a Fox News Rally on this network!"
I got a hearty laugh out of that one. :-) Looking forward to the howls from the Malkinites about CNN being part of the LIEberal Media!
eric
that should read "NOT desiring Obama"
Lee from NC
@smiley:
You have to work in Dick Armey’s name somehow as well. I mean seriously. Dick Armey. Teabagging. Dick. Armey. Teabagging.
That’s comedy gold right there.
The Grand Panjandrum
All those teabaggers must be smoking crack. Don’t they know its a ghetto drug?
SpotWeld
I wonder if there is any risk of a TeaBag backwash.. er, backlash.
JenJen
@Lee from NC: You saw this, right? David Shuster was all over it. :-)
Keith
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
They *told* on you?! I can’t decide if that’s pathetic or infuriating.
Rick Taylor
Yep. Glenn Beck takes care now to say that fascism started under Bush, and he keeps saying the tea bag movement (I can’t believe I’m writing that phrase) includes the left as well as the right. It’s not the ridiculousness of the claim that’s disturbing, it’s the insult to one’s intelligence.
Tsulagi
According to a LA Times opinion “Anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Parties steeped in insanity,” it’s more likely glue…
someguy
@ John PM
Get her fired. That’s totally inappropriate and out of line. The stupidity of the "stupid" comment raises questions about her judgment and suitability for continued employment. I wouldn’t want somebody like that working for me.
@ JenJen
Yes, Gore voters were remarkably dignified and gave Bush every benefit of a doubt, despite the way he befouled the office he stole from the day he took it over, and remarkably restrained until the day Bush left office. I don’t know why you’d expect his people to be equally dignified and show a president who actually managed to get elected similar courtesy.
Lee from NC
@JenJen:
Oh, damn. No, I missed that. It did seem too obvious for no one else to have noticed it. :)
Hilarious!
Just Some Fuckhead
You keep mentioning music other than Lee Greenwood. How the hell can ya be a Republican all those years and have no Lee Greenwood, John?
JL
Grover Norquist is at Washington Post taking quesitons. This is why they did not have the proper permits for their tea bagging party
When people showed up Obama’s secret service overrode the DC promised permit and claimed jurisdiction over Treasury, but not evidently over Lafayette.WE have never had a problem like this with previous white Houses. It did smell coming at the time that the Dept. of Homeland Security sent out a memo suggesting police go after veterans, pro-lifers, and guys like Monroe who like state and local government better than the national central government.
This is a good question. Unfortunately, Grover can’t read because his answer doesn’t make sense.
Also, why no protest of the over $600,000,000,000 that has been spent in Iraq since 2001?
Grover Norquist: The nasty reaction by leading democrats and left of center writers to the tea party demonstrations suggests that they fear exactly that….that this energy will recreate 1994 and Nancy Pelosi will lost control of the House in November 2010 as a result.
r€nato
@Blogreeder:
Indeed, all sensible people should completely ignore the bill recently signed into law which gave the middle-class the largest tax cut ever. We all know that what Obama does and what he actually does are two completely different things.
Michael D.
The fact is, the media will be all over it. In Atlanta, I predict about 500-1000 people, most of whom wouldn’t bother. However, because their heroes, Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity will be there, it’s more about celebrity worship than anything.
And they might get on Fox”News”
Yep, 500-1000 people.
0.0002% of the population of Atlanta.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Keith: The whole thing was pathetic. It may be different in other places, but here in Bama it had nothing to do with socialism or taxation or….. whatever. At the bottom (heh) of it, it’s just racism.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Michael D.:
Maybe. There were easily 1000 here, maybe more. But we’re HQ for the military-industrial machine, and right now business is good.
JL
@Michael D.: One of the local networks is calling for 10,000. Do you think they will count the crowd going to the Braves game?
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
For some reason, I find the idea of someone dressing up as a dreaded "Obama Facist Law Enforcement Drone" and randomly ‘arresting’ teabaggers to further their paranoia very amusing . I guess I’m just feeling sadistic today.
Ash Can
@someguy: I disagree about getting the secretary fired. In my experience with downtown Chicago offices, smack gets talked, and as long as it isn’t accompanied by significant incompetence or fucking up, or isn’t constant/obvious enough to thoroughly distract everyone else from their work, people let it slide. And I doubt that this situation is peculiar to Chicago. If said secretary were to do something like stand in the doorway and insist s/he wasn’t going to let the lawyers pass on their way to the rally, berating them all the way, that’s a different story. But the occasional (non-illegal) bad word getting back to someone — well, that sort of thing’s going to happen.
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: I can’t stand Lee Greenwood. Absolutely hate it. I was in the Army on active duty when that God Bless the USA song came out, and so help me that song came on the Armed Forces network every damned fifteen minutes. Even today hearing that song makes me want to kick puppies, I am so sick of it.
I don’t have anything against country. I love Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. I was actually listening to Honky Tonk Heroes recently
But Lee Greenwood can DIAF.
The Populist
Here’s an installment of WHY RIGHTIES ARE WRONG:
When Ronald Reagan left office, the top 1% paid MORE income to taxes than when he came to office in 1980.
The 3% increase in the tax rate for the top 1% that these idiots are whining about is still lower than when Reagan and Bush I were President.
95% of Americans under the top 1% will be getting tax relief which started on 4/1.
What cracks me up is that this is all about the issues some have with a man named BARACK HUSSEIN being President of the United States. If these maroons are mad at TARP and other methods to keep us out of the great depression II why weren’t they teabagging Bush?
On top of that the tea bag movement was conceived by Ron Paul supporters. The same RON PAUL the right despises. Weird huh?
LD50
Now we know how many unemployed wingnuts live in the DC Metro area.
The Populist
Talk about making a mint off of one hit. This guy was never all that talented by country standards and it’s funny how he’s milked that song for every dime he could.
Anton Sirius
John, if you like Man or Astro Man? you should purchase (*cough*) a copy of Shots in the Dark. It’s an album of Henry Mancini covers by surf punk-y bands. Young Rose McGowan on the sleeve, too, so it’s goodness inside AND out.
Man Or Astro Man? rip through the Touch of Evil theme on it, but there’s a bunch of other good tracks too.
JenJen
@Michael D.: The 3,000 Cincinnati Teabaggers took their protest down to City Hall, where they presented the Mayor with a petition urging him to reject all federal stimulus money. The petition was signed by 1,700 people, according to the protesters.
1,700 people, in a city of 300,000, and a metro area of 2.1 million. Both the City of Cincinnati and its county, Hamilton, went for Obama in 2008 after going for Dubya twice. 1,700 people does not equal a Movement, ya know?
The Populist
I say let them have one crappy state and they can gladly secede. Let’s give them a land locked state that we can seal up. They would have to PAY for their own army and can’t keep any nukes or any other property paid for by REAL U.S. taxpayers.
Then they can pray to Jesus 24/7 and destroy the land. They can’t enter the USA without proving they have reason to visit.
I mean really…if they hate it here so much they can do what they tell liberals to do…leave.
JL
This headline is over at Media Matters, Country Fair. This is from the FOX NEWS repub reporter
Real men might not eat quiche but I guess they can drink tea.
r€nato
I watch Bob Roberts every four years, whenever prez election time rolls around. Brilliant fucking movie. I frequently recommend it to friends and I am amazed how many of them aren’t familiar with it.
Common Sense
@Anton Sirius:
You like surf rock?
How about Jewish surf rock?
Meshugga Beach Party FTW.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JL:
Real men use ’em as truck nutz.
Sasha
For the same reason that Tim Robbins never released a soundtrack with Bob’s songs — conservatives are more likely to approach it at face value as a role model rather than recognize it as satire. (Think Reagan and "Born in the USA".)
BenA
There are 300,000,000 people in this country. I mean you can get 1,000,000 of them to buy a John Tesh album…. and the best they can do is MAYBE 100,000 people nationwide? This isn’t a movement this a joke.
jake 4 that 1
Fxd.
I’m wondering what they’ll do for an encore. Independence Day is the next logical day o’ hissy fit.
eric
@John PM: i knew a legal secretary like that in Chicago once, but i am no longer at that firm so I did not get the pleasure of hearing her rant about the tea parties. She always assumed us Obamacons were stupid. And, said it very loudly.
(Note: to the pissy grammarians that abound at this site, you may start a sentence with ‘and.’ That is all.)
:)
eric
JK
Beckism = Fox Newsism
As Keith Olbermann ably demonstrated last night, it isn’t just rabble rousing blowhards like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity who are shilling this tea party nonsense.
All of Fox’s allegedly neutral news anchors are promoting this idiocy.
Fox News has proven once again that it is the most intellectually dishonest news organization in America.
Fox News programming is a putrid, super-sized, steaming pile of excrement.
From the day it was launched, Fox News has been waging a scorched Earth campaign against truth, facts, logic, reason, critical thinking, rationality, and decency.
Fox News programming has as much fairness and balance as China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have democracy
Fox News is an abomination, an obscenity, and an insult to real journalism.
Corner Stone
I’m sorely tempted to show up at the teabagging here with a sign that reads:
Let’s Face it
The Rich *ARE* better than us
JenJen
@BenA: Not so fast! John Gibson just told me on Fox News that today’s Tea Party drew millions across this great land of ours.
How do they get away with this stuff?
Skid
Man Or Astro-Man was awesome live…
Napoleon
@r€nato:
I have been a political/history junkie all my life and I can not recall ever hearing about that movie before.
John PM
@Ash Can: #54
Yeah, the thought never crossed my mind to get her fired or even report her to my boss. I have thicker skin than my Republican/conservative co-workers. The fact that the word stupid is one of the first things out of her mouth also says more about her (and the nature of Republican arguments) than it does about those she called stupid.
I also found out that she also referred to us as soci-lists, which came as a surprise to me, because everyone know that soci-lists love nothing better than to defend Fortune 500 companies from lawsuits. Clearly, I am a very clever plant who is taking money from large retailers and manufacturers and redistributing it to the masses (which in my case mean my mortgage, my law school loans and my utilities).
JL
@Just Some Fuckhead: My son mentioned that he’s all in favor of tea bagging. I guess it’s too late for that talk.
kay
@JenJen:
The article you linked to had the count at 5,000 at the event on March 15, and 3,000 at the event today.
It’s going down. I think burgeoning populist movements are supposed to grow, not shrink.
JL
@JenJen: They can’t count, what a surprise.
Country Fair at Media Matters has the video of Susan Rosegun from CNN at the Chicago tea bagging party.
Bob In Pacifica
From the rally in Philadelphia:
When you’ve got a sixteen year-old in a bowtie leading the crowd, you’ve got problems.
Tim in SF
Well, I know what infuriates me: the teabagger protests are one one-hundredth of the size of the anti-prop h8 rallies but get one hundred times the media coverage.
asiangrrlMN
I love Alan Rickman, which is the only reason I saw Bob Roberts. I also think Susan Sarandon is hot, and I like Tim Robbins. So, I popped in the movie, and I couldn’t watch it. Why? Because it was too true to life. I watched it a few years ago, and it was painful how close to reality it was.
In the end, I had to fast-forward through it and just watch the yummy Alan Rickman as the deliciously wicked Lukas Hart III. He was barely in the movie, though. I may have to watch it again now that we have emerged from the wilderness. Maybe I will find it funnier now that the GOP is so marginalized.
JK
Bob Roberts is an underrated masterpiece. I also recommend A Face in the Crowd starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, and Walter Matthau.
Violet
"Bob Roberts" is a fantastic movie. I should buy it since it isn’t shown on cable.
I consider "A Face in the Crowd" one of the greatest films of all time. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Andy Griffith’s performance is brilliant. The first time I saw the film I was slack-jawed by the end of it at how prescient it was, since it was made in the 1950’s. One of the best political films of all time, imho.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Napoleon: Definitely check it out. A faux-documentary about a Pennsylvania Senate race.
Very funny and with some great political satire. Some of the things in that movie seemed over the top at the time (you think, ahhh, that could never happen), but after the past 8 years…
Tim Robbins, Alan Rickman, Gore Vidal and a musical cameo by a very tasty Kelly Willis…
"Excuse me. I have to go pray."
BenA
@JenJen:
There were millions there, in spirit… they just couldn’t all be bothered to show up I guess. :-D
Andrew
That’s the kind of person that ends up date raping a sorority girl in college.
freelancer
"That song is straight, homosexual, country music, special olympic, gay."
eric
" I wish there was a way i could vote for you more than once."
"Actually, there is…"
dadanarchist
I’m not sure I’m 100% with you on this – more like 95%. I suspect some of the Paulites would have been out even if John McCain were elected president. That said, most of these people wouldn’t be there since their motivating influence is fear of a black president.
Still, I don’t begrudge them their tea parties – it just allows America to see how truly unhinged they really are.
GrandIllusion
Not only would they not being having tea parties had Mccain won, they also would not be championing secession or revolt against the government.
In the 90’s I actually accepted the right wing anti-gov’t talk as being sincere. I’ve always been a progressive but I read a bunch of the stuff about Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc and empathized a bit with the fight against the government.
Then Bush stole the election, passed the Patriot ACT and I noticed not a peep from all of the anti-government types. In fact, they shouted down anyone who criticized the heavy hand of gov’t surveillance and the targetting of progressive activists.
Now, 8 years later, the "anti-gov’t" hypocrites are back and I want to tell them all to shut the h*ll up with their double standards. Principles I can agree with, but not tantrums thrown because a Republican is not in control.
ChrisB
@Keith:
Pathetic and hilarious. And entirely predictable.
Jay
I went to watch the whole video of that lady on Britain Idol or whatever the fuck it’s called over there, and one of the recommended videos at the bottom was Screaming Trees, Nearly Lost You and wondered if it jumped up because John mentioned it.
I know I watched it after reading that post. Reminded me of a hippie chick I knew this one time and a winter spent in a little raggedy-ass cabin in downtown Bumfuck, WV.
J. Michael Neal
Most patriotic music sucks. Even our national anthem is crappy. We almost lost the Cold War to the Soviets’ kick ass anthem.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic", though, rocks. The Gophers should reclaim it from Georgia and make it our fight song instead of the lame Rouser.
Dennis-SGMM
@Violet:
Seconded. Griffith’s performance was a tour de force. That he portrayed a cynical, manipulative ego maniac with a public persona the was all "Boy howdy!" made it prescient.
Mike in NC
So nearly as many as showed up for the Inauguration, then?
Impressive.
cs
Have to disagree slightly about the tea parties under President McCain in an alternate timeline. There would be protests from some of this crowd, from the portion of the crowd made up of Paulites. They were pretty consistent about protesting Bush’s misdeeds and would be suitably pissed about the McCain bailout.
But it would be a true grassroots effort since Ron Paul is great at rallying the troops but terrible at actual organization. Fox would be giving them coverage but only to point out what unpatriotic losers they all were. MSNBC and liberal blogs would give them slightly positive coverage about how they may be loons but they’re loons kinda sorta on our side. Enemy of my enemy, etc.
Funny how changing a D to an R would make all the difference in the world.
AnneLaurie
Sorry, NO. As long as her opinions aren’t affecting the job you paid her to do, she’s free to believe that anti-tea-baggers are ‘stupid’ and that Faux News is ‘fair & balanced’ and that global warming is a myth made up by eee-leetist who hate Real Americans(tm). Let’s leave the endless task of thoughtcrime-enforcement to the numbwits who believed threatening people at Dixie Chick concerts or encouraging security forces to ‘use 2x4s’ on protestors at the 2004 GOP convention was "patriotic". You don’t have to agree with this woman, but trying to get her fired for being insufficiently progressive would be worse than her trying to get you fired for being insufficiently conservative, since she’s already in a subordinate position within your firm.
asiangrrlMN
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
"Excuse me, I have to go pray" is the absolute best line from the movie. The only time I actually laughed. Like I said, it was too close to the truth (the movie) to be funny at the time.
P.S. I have to agree with the not firing of the secretary. She has the right to say whatever she wants (within limits, of course) as long as she does her work properly.
P.P.S. As a lifelong Admin/Assistant, Office Manager, Personal Assistant, I can tell you that the uppers don’t always mind their manners, either. When I worked for the county, one of the muckety-mucks listened to Rush Limbaugh every day. This was in the mid-nineties. When Clinton got busted for getting tea-bagged, this Republican would needle me about ‘your boy, Willie’ (for whom I never voted). I would love to see his face now.
Joel
I’m of the mind that we need to start using the Roger Clemens iteration of the word douchebag:
"dushbag"
Just a thought.
Anton Sirius
The other must-watch movie for me at election time is Bulworth, which does to DLC Democrats what Bob Roberts does to Focus On the Family Republicans.
John
Teabaggers who? don’t mean squat to me. Most people know it’s Wall Street that got us into this economic mess.
KRK
I saw Bob Roberts in when it came out and really liked it, but even way back then it was so scarily real that it was very disturbing. I don’t think I could watch it again.
A Face in the Crowd is very good, but something about it just misses the mark for me. The Intruder, on the other hand, is just amazing.