Jim DeMint on the freedom of losing Arlen Specter:
Derek Smalls and David St. Hubbins on the freedom of the break-up of “Spinal Tap”:
David: It’s a freein’ up, innit?
Derek: Yeah.
David: It’s all this free time it’s suddenly time is so elastic..
Derek: It’s a gift, it’s a gift of freedom. You know.
David: I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to do a collection of my
acoustic numbers with the London Philharmonic as you know.
Derek: We’re lucky.
David: Yeah.
Derek: I mean people…people should be envying us. You know.
David: I envy us.
Derek: Yeah.
David: I do.
Derek: Me too.
I ask you, honestly, who makes more sense here, Spinal Tap or Jim DeMint?
Montysano
Someone please assure me that the Big Tent O’ Freedom is not in DeMint’s pants.
myrtle parker
Suck my love pump.
Polish the Guillotines
Much as I love the Tap, this is all so much more like “Baghdad Bob” than it is Derek & David.
cleek
DeMint sounds like a preacher preaching the gospel of “freedom”. Republicanism is a religion and “freedom” is the mantra, the catechism. what does it mean? who cares. have faith in “freedom”.
and they’re hanging their hopes on the teabaggers??
fucking lunatics.
remember when the Dems put their trust in the giant puppet and Free Mumia crowd? me neither.
TenguPhule
Is this a trick question?
Will it be on the final exam?
Colonel Danite
The Tent of Freedom? That could be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.
J.D. Rhoades
Sanchez: “What the hell does that mean?”
Priceless. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask a Republican that for eight damn years.
jon
@Montysano: I’m from SC, I could tell you some DeMint stories that involves the tent in his pants.
jrg
Biggest tent is freedom? That’s rich. Unless you’re not a fundamentalist Christian (America is a “Christian Nation”, after all), or if you’ve been detained (If you have, you’re probably guilty enough), or if you value your privacy (why don’t you want the government tapping your phone if you have nothing to hide), or, or, or…
The only tent I see is full of loons who seem to believe that magical pixie dust pays for every moronic endeavor that the GOP takes part in, and that it’s “socialist” to pay taxes for all the free shit that we should be buying with said magical pixie dust.
JK
Kudos to Rick Sanchez
Mr. Stuck
Let’s see, they are both self parody’s and funny in the Ha Ha and the other way too. I’d say it’s a draw but I haven’t heard Demint play rock and roll. Oh wait///
Cat Lady
The cable talkers have given up on the Repubs today. Even they know that there’s a limit to what sane viewers will go along with, and the talking heads like Sanchez are asking these whackadoodles to make sense. They can’t. You’re going to see some uncomfortable moments for the punditry in the coming days as they try to look away from the train wreck.
gbear
You’re a naughty one, Saucy Jack.
My version of this post has exactly ‘none’ videos posted below the opening line. Is this a problem with my computer or with the posting?
Left Coast Tom
You misspelled “DeMinted”.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Well, since I sincerely doubt that any of the wingnuts have seen Spinal Tap, they must have been puzzled about all our references the last few months about the Republicans “turning the crazy up to 11.” Having looked up where the reference came from, it stands to reason they’d find more good ideas in the movie. Flame on, says I.
Krista
Yep…methinks the tables are starting to turn, as the media realizes who in Washington now has the power. It’s really a shame that they couldn’t have been pointing out this crap for the last 8 years, instead of gently lobbing velvet-coated Nerf balls at Bush.
flounder
How much more black can the GOP get?
JK
OK, Specter defects from the Republicans to the Democrats.
When does the second shoe drop?
When does Shep Smith defect from Fox News to MSNBC or CNN?
Comrade Jake
Has Hannity’s head exploded yet? What about Beck? Is he setting himself on fire this evening?
Ash
Rich Sanchez always looks like he’s on the verge of going apeshit on someone.
David
Cartoon:
Silhouettes of people under a collapsed circus tent.
Caption:
Hey, did Specter take the pole when he left?
jcricket
Sorry if someone already said this in the other thread, but you know what would be really freeing? If all the moderates left the GOP. Let’s see Snowe, Collins, etc. change parties, or get primaried out by the Club for Growth and then the GOP can do away with pesky things like pretending not to be bat-shit insane.
Kind of like how Vitter would be free to pursue his diaper fetish if his wife left him.
Lots of things would be “freeing”.
Llelldorin
@David:
Nah, just leave it visual. Collapsed tent, with Specter adding another pole to the porch of a huge Democratic pavillion. No caption at all.
El Cid
Okay, the crazies are getting ready to turn now on Rush Limbaugh. The complaint? He might be publicly against cruelty to animals.
Via HuffPo:
Did anyone else laugh when they referred to “reasonable people”, you know, the ones who don’t suspect the Humane Society to be plotting a secret hunting ban?
PURGE!!! PUUUUUUUUUUURGE!!!!
[PS: No, the Washington Times writer couldn’t avoid “pet project”. Ha ha.]
Cols714
Whenever I hear something like this, I think about the 1994 elections. I’m pretty sure that was the year Newt Gingrich recruited a bunch of people and told them what words or phrases they should use when talking about Democrats and Republicans to get them elected.
Now they are still using that same playbook and they end up sounding really stupid.
jrg
It’s a Reverse Perpetual Bitch-Slap Machine (“RPBSM” if you’re technically inclined. “ATM” if you’re Larry Craig.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
“In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people … the Republicans. No one knows who they were or what they were doing…”
GregB
Cols,
You are talking about Newt’s Newspeak Prime Directive.
Ask and the web shall produce.
-G
El Cid
@GregB:
I thought it mainly consisted of talking like the pompous cousin of Kermit the Frog and saying “Frankly” every few seconds.
kay
@Comrade Jake:
Well, they’re getting there, on FOX.
They’re saying ‘the problem is that the Democrats are going to have 60 votes.” Hmmm. I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s ‘the problem”.
This may take a little while to sort out.
Santorum just arrived. He’ll clear things up.
amorphous
DeMint fails to realize that the Market voted today, and it dislikes Specters actions by about negative 0.1%. Glad to have settled that for you, Jim-may.
who knew a hypen makes a strikethrough?
test test julia louis-dreyfuss
Cols714
Thanks
Yes, that’s what I was thinking about. What’s funny is, Newt is trying to act like he’s a new thinker on the scene, but he’s been around forever.
DanF
@Cat Lady: Yeah … I think trying to push the line that Arlen leaving the GOP is a good thing is a bit much for the MSM to swallow. After all, Arlen is very much part of the village; he’s one of their own.
Ben
Well, I’m sure he’d feel much worse if he weren’t under such heavy sedation.
(Am I really the first to post that one?)
omen
freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose
ooh, ooh, i know this one. what is the worst advice joe trippi ever gave to howard dean?
plus C
I see your tent of freedom and raise you one tent of America.
If you don’t fold, I’ve still got a tent of je ne se quoi up my sleeve.
UnkyT
Come on in to the Big Tent o’ Freedom! Step right up, step right up! Just mind the rules. That’s right folks, rule breakers not welcome here.
Rules:
No Mexicans, no blacks (that position has been filled), no gays, ha ha ha, jesus christ no gays, no environmentalists, no hippies, no Arabs, no lazy fucking kids on SCHIP, no union members, no teachers, no scientists, no dissenting, no questioning, no elitists, no San Franciscans, no North-Easteners, no Ivy leaguers, no advanced degrees, no evolution, no community organizers, no Kenyans, no Hawaiians(?), no abortions, no birth control, no sex**, no affairs**, no man on man action***, no criticizing Rush, no criticizing Palin, no affirmative action, no equal pay, no public education, no public healthcare, no non-Christians (Jews OK on a case by case basis), no independent women, no human rights, no reproductive rights, no right to habeas Corpus, no private phone calls, no activist judges, no un-American terrorist sympathizers, no commercial regulation, no prosecutions, no taxes, no taxes, no taxes, no moderates, and oh, no fucking gays.
-Tuesdays are get in free night when you show up in a wetsuit.
**Until membership granted****
***Teabagging OK
****Rules are for the little people
bayville
Is that a U.S. Senator or this guy?
mr. whipple
i’m loving this republican pup tent of freedom.
Third Eye Open
@plus C:
I see your tent of America, and raise you one tent of Vaterland
on another note, je ne parle pas le fromage
Chuck Butcher
There are times that I’m really glad I don’t have to decode Republispeak for anyone with any sense…
wasabi gasp
The word freedom has been completely worn thin by these fuckwits. They have got to switch it up, and switch it up soon. Little chocolate donuts. People like ’em and if you got a whole tent full of little chocolate donuts they might like you too. So give it a whirl, “The Republican party is a big tent of little chocolate donuts.” I think it sounds delicious. I would totally pretend to listen to your hardcore conservative principles while gettin’ my nom nom on all over your little chocolate donuts. And, before you completely fuck this shit up, it’s milk, little chocolate donuts go with milk. Ain’t no fucking tea with donuts.
Martin
Don’t blame DeMint for being stupid. He is, of course, but the real problem are southern voters. They approve of all this stuff – of the pro-life, anti-immigrant, nationalistic, torture shit. They’re demanding the purity party, and the GOP is stupid enough to give it to them.
I don’t know why the south is so fucked up right now, but they are, and there is NO move being made to change the relationship between those voters and the GOP. Rush and Fox News know where their ratings come from, and they play into it. This shit will just keep getting worse until the cycle breaks.
Mike G
“In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people … the Republicans. No one knows who they were or what they were doing…”
Republicans
Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live
And they do it well…
“I said eighteen feet!”
Dr. Loveless
@Martin:
I’m thinking the fact that the President is a black man has something to do with it.
LD50
Jim’s just trying to convince us that he really does like the taste of shit sandwiches.
LD50
This comes after the Birchers completely rendered the word ‘liberty’ unusable.
omen
well, new mexico, florida and north carolina turned blue. doesn’t that count as progress?
Martin
Part of it, but things weren’t that different in 2006. I agree that Obama is certainly amplifying the crazy, but the crazy was there before. Rove is a product of the south and tailored their strategy to southern voters, so maybe this was their promised awakening that blew up before it really got traction. I don’t know, I’ve never lived in the south, but the polling is undeniable.
omen
2005, missouri legislature under governor blunt voted to cut people eligible for medicaid. initially this had support because people thought this would only apply to urban blacks. turned out rural whites also got hit by the cuts. people were pissed. now they have a democratic governor.
baby steps.
Martin
New Mexico isn’t the south, and Florida is only half the south. NC is progress, but my sense is that states like NC and FL are only becoming as strongly polarized as the north/south are. It’s not encouraging progress when the opposition decides to start stockpiling guns as a result. I’d rather have a less crazy NC than a crazy but blue NC.
John PM
Honestly, I do not think the South suffered enough after the Civil War. I am serious. I think the South owes the rest of the Union approximately 90 more years of groveling (to cover the period from the end of Reconstruction to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965). Somebody needs to go to South Carolina, rip down every Confederate flag, and shove them all up DeMint’s -ss.
Dennis-SGMM
The Tent of Freedom; across the street from the Motel of Torture and down the block from the Phonebooth of Fiscal Responsibility. Sounds uncannily like “The Silent Majority.” You know: where millions of Americans actually agreed with Nixon and thought that he was really cool and stuff only they weren’t saying it.
Look for the Republicans to all start appearing everywhere in full Uncle Sam drag, including the whiskers. Michele Bachman will look soooooo cute!
Liberaltarian
So, a dear friend of mine mentioned that his camping buddy pitched a tent, but he never, ever mentioned the tent of freedom.
Should I be concerned???
Mr. Stuck
I did grow up in the South, and could never figure out the mindset. I did come to believe that it’s not so much the people are for things, but more a kind of kneejerk contrarian stance against what Northerners are for. Maybe the seeds of the Old South resentment about the War of Northern Aggression, and it’s defeated lifestyle, though it seems like a really long time to hold a grudge.
Something will have to give however. Over time they will become more and more restless with no power, and that reality can push them in several directions. They can moderate their belligerence against all things Yankee and work to win back midwestern and northern fiscal conservatives to be again electable as a party, or continue to stew in their juices with more talk of rebellion until they convince themselves they need to go their own way once again. That may sound silly to some people, but there is a lot of latent antipathy that in reality stems from persistent poverty, and we are starting to see some of it with the deranged analysis of what dems and Obama are doing.
One thing for sure, I think, there is no going back to the old ways of living by the wedge vote and stirring up peoples social fears to win favor from northern moderates. Unless of course, things get so bad economically anything can happen. And I can’t see any way a third party can win without southern conservatives.
Right now there seems zero indulgence for moderation, and that is worrisome.
LD50
Not really. He was born in Denver, & grew up in Nevada and Utah, tho some of his college was in Virginia.
New Mexico isn’t the South. You mean Florida, NC, and Virginia went blue.
And yes, that *was* miraculous.
Mr. Stuck
No, and it has never been really a Red State, except when choosing Presidents, and a few quirky Goopers for congress. If not for the SE quadrant bordering Texas, it would be possibly the most liberal state in the union, though a liberalism with a wacky streak of libertarian. Right now, every statewide and federal office is held by dems, with only small to medium size number of GOP state reps.
LD50
This is not unusual. I know an English Catholic who still gets pissed off about stuff Henry the 8th did. And the Serbs still go berserk over shit that happened in the 14th century.
People obsessed with the distant past are usually people who don’t have much of a present.
Joshua Norton
Still have to deal with the wingnut self-inflicted delusion of innocence. They still have a long way to go before any of them learns that the truth is not relative, and that because the human mind seeks balance, social justice is not only inescapable in the long run, but inevitable.
Martin
But most of his successful politics were in the south – specifically Texas and Alabama. That’s the experience he brought to the GOP – winning southern voters.
poopsybythebay
@Dr. Loveless:
It has everything to do with it. My husband was in Montgomery, AL today and he has an Obama sticker on his car. He stopped to have someone look at his air conditioner and the guy looked at him and poked his finger at his sticker and said, “You gotta fuckin be kiddin me man” well, that really sent my husband through the roof. He proceeded in telling the little redneck why he was NOT kidding and turned it around on him while naming all of the many deficiencies of the Republican party, Bush and all the rest of the nitwits. The redneck of course threw around the N-word about Obama and then hubby went completely nuts. Needless to say hubby cussed him for everything he was worth and he left and went somewhere else. So you are right–it is all about him being black in the south.
Indylib
@Mr. Stuck:
There are a lot of long held regional or religious grudges out there. Sunni vs Shia, every ethnic group vs every other ethnic group in the Balkans, etc.
A lot of Southerners pass on the grudge attitude from generation to generation, huge numbers of them are much more fundie in their religious attitude than most of the rest of the country, they have a very distinct culture from the rest of the country, even a different dialect.
They see themselves as a separate country that was forced to become part of the US instead of a part of a whole that was brought back to the fold. They haven’t given up on this attitude since they lost the damned war, I’m not sure they ever will. They are proud of what they thought they were fighting for, they buy their own propaganda that the civil war was about “states rights”, not the right to keep another group of humans as slaves.
I just don’t see them ever giving up on thinking of themselves as a separate people unless they manage someday to get beyond feeling pride in what they fought for in the Civil War and what they’ve stood for in all the years since, white supremacy.
To their way of thinking the South was wronged by Lincoln and the North in the Civil War and it’s still being wronged because they were not allowed to leave and do what they wanted to do. This attitude is the source of the Republicans current bout of victimization disorder.
Ash Can
HAHAHAHA! I watched that Sanchez-DeMint video with the sound off, and just focused on their facial expressions.
Sanchez’s expression: “LOLWUT”
DeMint’s expression: “Well, Rick, we’re fucked…”
mclaren
The Republican Party is clearly disintegrating and disappearing, like the Whig Party that it replaced back in 1860. The more interesting question, however, remains: What will replace it?
Right now we have a severe power vacuum in Washington. The Democrats offer the only serious policy positions — but, as we can see, a lot of those policy positions are seriously problematic. For example, continuing (and expanding) the war in Afghanistan. And giving the big banks a whole bunch of taxpayer trillions without any meaningful transparency (sorry, taxpayers, you don’t get to know what those banks spent your trillions on) or accountability. And not prosecuting or investigating torture. And…
Well, you get the idea.
One big problem right now is that both parties have gerrymandered themselves into positions of total lock-in. The 2 parties have rigged the national electoral system to the point where a third party isn’t viable…but right now, with one of the former 2 major parties disappearing, this bodes ill. Because we need something to replace the former Republican Party. Where will it come from if not from a third party?
Martin
That’s my sense as well. It’s as though the North seceded and then came back and won the war and imposed a government that was unamerican. In a way, that’s a rational view from the south, unless you propose that they seceded as a rejection of American values rather than a rejection of northern values, or northern influence over national politics. The war killed the political and economic strength of the south (industrialization was killing it anyway) and it seems that rather than honestly come to terms with that, a southern culture developed which valued stubborn opposition to any national push that didn’t originate in the south. I’d put the last 10 years as the careful nurturing and ramping up of that opposition by the GOP and their boosters such as Fox News.
The whole liberal / San Francisco / gay agenda crap seems designed to inflame that opposition. The problem is, it only works with the south, and building a party around 1/4 of the nation is, well, retarded.
Indylib
@mclaren:
Blue Dog Dems and the left-over DLCers. They are just basically small c conservatives who are mostly secular, hawkish, but don’t advocate torture, don’t boot anyone who even thinks about being pro-choice, but still kiss the ass of big business every chance they get. They want change to be incremental and as soon as Franken gets seated they become the defacto opposition party. If the wingnuts keep purifying themselves into oblivion, the Blue Dogs will break from the Dems and there you go, instant opposition party.
Jess
@Martin:
The present attitude of the South made a lot more sense to me when I learned that it was settled by would-be aristocrats, second sons of English landed gentry who wanted to get rich off the work of indentured servants and slaves. They were never about freedom and democracy and all that Enlightenment stuff. It wasn’t just the Civil War that made them pissy–they always were committed to a different path.
Cain
@El Cid:
How the FUCK can you suspect the Humane Society of plotting a ban on hunting? Are they out of their minds? Man, these people are totally mental.
cain
monkeyboy
I wish one of these “freedom” guys would explain how free markets prevent corruption and organized crime.
John H. Farr
New Mexico rocks: Taos County went for Obama like a starving man on a pot of posole, and in November, 2003 I found a steer skull upside-down six feet up in a piñon tree. We also have 10 months of winter here, but things could be worse.
(Brrr)
JGabriel
cleek:
I’m talking to my mother, who lives in PA, earlier tonight about Specter’s party switch and and how the Republicans are defending torture and she mentions something about how it seems like politics has become so partisan…
Which, of course, set me off:
I mean, seriously, do people not remember how anyone who opposed invading Iraq 6 years ago was call a “traitor who hated America”? How the Republicans impeached a Democratic president just 12 years ago over a fucking blowjob? How 16 years ago “Poppy” Bush pardoned the architects and executioners of the Iran-Contra scandal?
How the Reagan administration ignored (the Democratically controlled) Congress and the laws they passed to prevent funding the Contras, or selling weapons to Iran – who had just held American citizens hostage for over year only a few years earlier?
Do they not remember Ford’s pardoning of Nixon? Watergate? Nixon’s enemies list? Nixon’s use of IRS audits to punish those who opposed, or even just criticized, him?
Buckley’s National Review and the way it stood for segregationism and against civil rights? Ditto Strom Thurmond?
Jesus H. Christ, when, in the past 60 years, have the Republicans NOT been shrill, over the top, fucking partisans?
I’m glad so much of the country has suddenly decided to go sane. But I am utterly perplexed by their failure to either realize or admit that it has been this partisan for at least half a century, probably a full century.
Of course the R’s are hanging their hopes on tea-baggers, or at least the right wing fanatics who become radicalized at such events, and turn into domestic terrorists like McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. They’ve been “fucking lunatics” since William Howard Taft, since the business class revolted against Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust laws.
The idea that the kind of partisanship we’re seeing from the Republicans is new is just astounding.
One of the qualities I love best in John Cole’s blog entries here is the acknowledgement that it’s been this crazy all along:
I sure hope the rest of the country starts paying attention and realizes that soon.
Because over the past 40 years we’ve had Watergate, then Iran-Contra, and now the torture scandal, and notice how the abuses against the Constitution keep getting worse? And how they keep being perpetrated by the same people and the people they train? And how, maybe if we’d prosecuted those assholes and sent them to jail last time around, we wouldn’t be dealing with this pro-torture bullshit now?
Rant just about over. I have one more observation to make: a couple of days ago, I read the results from a recent ABC/WaPo poll which showed that approximately 48% of those polled supported the use and defense of torture. Two months earlier 58% had been against it. There was a shift of about 10% in the last two months in favor of torture.
That means the Republicans have been successful with their proganda in defense of torture. Obama and some other Democrats need to get out in front of this issue and start arguing – and I can’t believe this fucking needs to be said in America – against torture. Otherwise the next round of Constitutional abuses from the Republican party will be even worse – and I say that knowing full well that I can’t even imagine how they can top authorizing, and committing, and then defending torture.
.
Blue Raven
They can take the GOP’s filibuster, but they can never take its freedom!
JGabriel
jcricket:
Etc.? I’m not sure there are any other moderates to fill out that “etc.”.
.
MikeJ
It’s hard to argue against torture when you won’t prosecute people who do it.
JGabriel
@MikeJ:
Agreed. They need to fucking do that too.
.
cosanostradamus
.
Spinal Tap. Totally. Esp. the bass player.
What does De Mint play? Anybody wanna swap mp3’s?
OK, fine.
So, we start organizing the “DINO’s OUT” campaign today, I guess. Lieberman, Reid, Bayh, Lincoln, Carper, Nelson, and now a real ringer, Specter.
The battle’s only half over.
Otherwise, more of this pig sh*t.
.
harlana pepper
DeMint on wingnuts: But these go to eeleven . . .
Michael D.
Been traveling – just heard about Specter this morning. I’m not surprised.
Look for Lieberman to jump ship next?
Tom G
Okay, I’m somewhere between an anarchist and a libertarian and THAT false “message of freedom” is what always irks me about the Republican idiots. It’s never BEEN about freedom.
“Free markets”???? Someone help me up off the floor, I’m laughing so hard.
Let’s see…freedom to marry the person of YOUR choice? NOPE.
Freedom to use/abuse drugs in your own home? NOPE
Freedom to buy, grow, or sell pretty much anything to a willing adult? NOPE.
Republicans are no better at this “freedom” thing than Democrats are.
DougJ
No, he votes with Dems on nearly everything.
Reggie N.
As a charter member of Conservatives Loving Freedom, I hope I can shed some light on Senator DeMint’s rationale for his statements. You see, Conservatives like ole Jim DeMint and myself truly believe in freedom. Such as economic freedom for multinational corporations to act freely within the open confines of the free market. We oppose all labor, safety, and environmental laws, which don’t actually benefit anyone and instead burden those that create jobs and prosperity.
Sure, you can have a party, like the Democrat party, who is always voting for civil rights and equal pay and international aid and civil liberties, but who does that really benefit. Sure, the women, blacks, immigrants, gays, average citizens, and Asian-Pacific Islanders may get some minor short term benefit, but not in the long term. True freedom involves allowing multinational meat companies to dump their waste from animal breeding farms into open lagoons which may seep into the ground water, infecting the locals, and spreading a virus that may cause the next pandemic. A good analogy would be a cow farm resulting in something like bovine flu spreading through a Latin American village. I know, its all far fetched, but consider what would happen after the flu spreads. Then, the good folks at Smithfield and Tamiflu may make a sizeable profit from skirting environmental laws or selling anti-virals, respectively. This benefits the shareholders, permitting them to hire more employees, so everyone prospers.
I hope this clears it all out for you.
djork
It’s not that the GOP is becoming less popular, it’s that their appeal is becoming more selective.
omen
@John H. Farr:
what?
Mr. Stuck
@omen:
It was an omen omen.
JGabriel
@djork:
Yep, that’ll happen when you turn your party into a restrictive country club.