This story made me laugh. It sucked for the cow, though.
Check out his audio clips, too. The coyote one is freaky (at least for this West Virginian).
BTW- This was also a great read:
Because Krugman et al. fail to grasp the fundamental difference between the Movement, the former Republican Party and the Democratic Party, talking heads refer to the Movement as the ‘Republican base’. As if somehow the Movement and its Manichean zero-sum nihilism is the same as the Democratic base. Say the the Sierra Club or unions. How one can be a professional political analyst and assume a base is a base is a base. Well, we live in truly decadent (technically defined) times.
It wasn’t always like this, of course. The Republican Party as an independent actor and entity was able to keep the Movement within bounds. But after Reagan, and especially the Bush debacle in ‘92, the Movement learned to seize power on its own within and without the Republican Party. As a sign of their increased power, the Movement’s rage, paranoia, and conspiracy fever in 1993 seemed novel. By 1994 and certainly 2000. the Movement had completed its subversion of the Republican Party.
Wonder why after Obama the ferocity is turned up to 11? The answer is intrinsic to the Movement as functional social, cultural and political creature. It governed for 6 years and hung on for 2 more. Its Counter-Enlightenment, racial, authoritarian /hierarchical impulse was the official American government. With Obama’s victory its rejection is not only personal but for the first time, in 2006 and 2008, it as dominant political force (not as a minor coalition partner within the Republican Party) was rejected.
Discuss.
Cat Lady
Obama: “I got the sucker”.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/obama-could-hurt-a-fly/?hp
CatStaff
Poor moo cow. Although I suppose if I were a cow, I’d prefer a quick bullet to the head rather than a trip to the rendering plant.
Laura W
13 posts you’ve put up, single-handedly, since I woke at 4:30am and ZuZu kept me company in last night’s “Confidence” thread until #1 went up.
I am exhausted. You appear to be manic. Or perhaps exhilarated by Puppy Love.
Comrade Stuck
Karma + Idjit with gun + cow = string of unfortunate incidents
John Cole
@Laura W: Just temporarily ahead on my work. Plus, I only sleep 5-6 hours a day anyway.
Death By Mosquito Truck
Finally, a thread where I can just be myself with no pressure to comply with the thread topic.
John Cole
@Death By Mosquito Truck: It’s hard out there for a pimp.
JL
@Laura W: Laura, I went to sleep about 11 and woke at 1 and found several puzzles on line to keep me busy until 4 and finally fell back asleep until 6:30. I would have joined the party earlier if I had known you guys were chatting it up.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
If already seen here, excuse me.
And this one.
I assume that Bob will be by to explain how these things wouldn’t happen if the president would just send each citizen a certified copy of his birth certificate.
Both via WaMo.
Laura W
@John Cole:
Braggart.
(I’d give my….um…dog…if I could exist on less than 9 hours/night. Envy does not become me.)
Johnny B. Guud
John Cornyn just admitted to having an affair with a campaign staffer—a friend of the Cornyn family.
The media will treat this as a non-scandal. Unless, of course, they were spotted at a restaraunt eating arugula salad or grabbing burgers with Dijon mustard.
Left Coast Tom
So are followers of The Movement called Movementarians?
Comrade Stuck
All this time, the southern wingnuts were eating their way throughout the GOP nervous system, to the core processor of the party. This was the real “Movement” going on behind the backs of RW intelligencia, and they are ultimately to blame for welcoming them into the party to begin with, after the Civil Rights bills of the 60’s.
All sorts of Axioms based in truth came into play. “what goes around comes around” “Lie down with pigs/get fleas” (will not bring mans best friend into this), until the final reaping of sowing with the devil comes due. They have earned it.
noncarborundum
@Johnny B. Guud:
Not Cornyn.
JL
@Johnny B. Guud: Gee, You mean Ensign. I thought that maybe Cornyn came out of the closet also, but the link is on Ensign. Just remember that our fighting men and women are allowing us to have the freedom to become hypocrites.
Comrade Stuck
@Johnny B. Guud:
That be John Ensign. I doubt any woman would get near Gumby Cornyn, not even his wife.
smiley
The republican post postmortems are starting to get a little tedious. I know a man in a very red area of a purple state who lamented that, even though his area would probably never go democratic, the republican party in the area was in disarray. How does that happen? The answer he gave was that they have no credible leaders, locally or otherwise, and the “others” (i.e., blacks and Hispanics) were getting uppity. No shit. Also, the war on Christmas and Obama in general. And they really wonder why
no oneso few take them seriously.Johnny B. Guud
Crikey—-one too many glasses of sangria. It was Ensign—my apologies.
I’ll go back to the cave…
Delia
I’d noticed that essay on The Movement the other day. I personally think that Krugman is perfectly well aware of how things really stand but has his reasons for not talking about it explicitly. He used to gripe about the Cult of Personality during the high points of the Bush Years.
And vis a vis John Ensign, I’m sure we’ll soon find that the rule still applies IOKIYAR.
MikeJ
You missed the aspirin “joke”.
Betsy
Now would be a good time for me (and all of us) to reread “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” by Hofstadter.
ETA: It’s a shame historians can’t really write like this anymore.
Betsy
@MikeJ:
Jesus. Linky?
Linkmeister
“Whither the Republican Party” fascinates our media a heckuva lot more than “What are the Democrats doing?” I think EJ Dionne was right in his column a week or so ago.
It’s annoying. If I go to a new job I throw out most of my old Rolodex cards; when a new party comes into office the media ought to do the same.
Linkmeister
@Betsy: Here.
Betsy
@Linkmeister:
Thanks. For heaven’s sake, what was in the water that made these people collectively unable to contain their racism publicly any longer? So much of this nastiness in the last couple of days.
Krista
Reading about Ensign, the thing that cracks me up is that righties are getting all pissy about it and are saying that it has nothing to do with his actual work. They STILL don’t understand that lefties are vastly entertained by this kind of stuff, because of the hypocrisy involved. I’m sorry, but if you and your party go around preaching morals, and saying that you’re the party of family values, and you rant about those degenerate homosexuals and single mothers, can you HONESTLY expect people to not point and laugh when you get caught with your dick where it shouldn’t be?
demkat620
@Johnny B. Guud: No Ensign. Ensign had an affair Cornyn married a box turtle.
I know, its hard to know the players w/o a scorecard.
Betsy
@Krista:
Isn’t he a Promise Keeper too? HAHAHAHAHAHA
I hadn’t realized that the “forsaking all others” promise isn’t one of the important ones.
Rosali
Looks like Rep. John Conyers’ wife, Monica, is facing indictment by the feds for allegedly taking bribes as a Detroit councilwoman.
geg6
Yes, Dr. Strauss has written extensively and presciently about the Movement. And it all rings true to me. But then, the good doctor only has a PhD, so what the hell does he know.
Laura W
@demkat620:
Speaking of box turtles,
I had never seen one in my life till I moved to NC. Now, one of my favorite things about this time of year is how many of them I pull from the bloody jaws of death on a weekly basis.
I probably move two out of the road on my walks every week, and at least twice a week I stop the car and back it up to get them out of the road when I’m tooling around town.
Why they have to be on the asphalt in the middle of traffic is beyond me, but I’m finally to the point where I can pick them up without wanting to immediately fling them off of my hands (that took two years) and relocate them to safe grass and shrubbery.
Two weeks ago I saw one in the road and backed way up, turned around, and did all sorts of dangerous maneuvers on a blind, two-lane road to rescue it but it’d already been hit and there was blood and fluid all over the road.
All right…Yes — I cried as I drove off!
Stoopid, slow and too trusting turtles.
Rosali
Rachel Maddow just announced that Obama will extend certain spousal benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
Left Coast Tom
@Betsy:
And Larry Craig was NOT GAY NOT GAY NOT GAY. And Vitter was…Vitter, I guess.
At this point I’d be surprised if even 1/10th of Republican politicians believe any of the crap they spew. It’s just words, and today’s just a news day that needs to be “won”. Tomorrow’s a new day.
I’m beginning to think that Palin’s congenital lying (just pick any topic under the sun and google) is simply her trying to follow the Newt Gingrich training she received but just not being very good at it.
Apparently his wedding day was just another one of those “news day”s that needed to be “won”.
Linkmeister
@Betsy: What was in the water? They can’t stand to see competence on the part of their opponent. It reminds them of how little their side showed during the previous eight years when they had the ball.
Plus, he’s one of The Other, and they’ve always been taught (or absorbed from birth) that The Other is dumb, shiftless, and worthy only of being spat upon.
demkat620
@Laura W: Aw Laura, what a good soul you are.
geg6
Not only is our Negro Overlord the awesome at foreign policy, a sign that the world is better than it was a scant 6 months ago, Spinal Tap has just cancelled its planned summer comeback tour. I don’t know yet what happened to the drummer to cause this disaster, but I sure hope that it wasn’t another spontaneous combustion or choking on someone else’s vomit.
Delia
@geg6:
Guess you just finished watching Rachel’s show, too, huh?
Betsy
@Linkmeister:
Well sure, but why all at once? He’s been simultaneously Other, Competent, and President for several months now.
mario
The link to STOSZ is interesting, because I had my own revelation regarding the use of the word “base” today.
The base is supposed to be the guys you can count on – people like me, who are unlikely to ever, ever vote for a Republican (especially going forward). I’m the base – a dependable vote, and I don’t need much in the way of outreach.
On the R side – the base (at least as it is invoked by the media and politicos) is not the dependable voters. They’re the fringe, the whackos that have to be convinced, through lying or fear, to vote for a Repub.
Consequently, when the media uses the same word, “base”, to describe to utterly different groups of people, realtive to their political party, it serves to paint the Dem base as whacko as the Repub “base” is.
I haven’t worked this all out yet, but I think I’m on to something, and the use of the word “base” by the Republicans is being used very specifically, probably as a ratfuck.
Rosali
Politico: Obama to extend some benefits to same-sex partners
Reacting to a rising tide of anger from gay and lesbian supporters at a series of slights and deferred promises, President Obama will tomorrow sign an executive order extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
smiley
@smiley: One of the things I meant to include in my last comment was that I saw something new today. It was a McCain/Palin bumper sticker with McCain cut off. So, in other words, it was an improvised Palin sticker. The car also had the commonly-seen square-foot sized decal of a mega church here in town. I think they really encourage their congregants to let their freak religion fly (I see the decal everywhere). Anyway, that’s what my red friend meant. If Sarah Palin is credible to those people, they are really in trouble. One can only hope.
@Laura W: I have to look behind my car in the driveway, after I open the garage door, to make sure one isn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. It only took once…
asiangrrlMN
Another day, another Republican holier-than-thou sex scandal. It’s the repression, I tell ya.
@John Cole:
It’s harder for a ho.
Linkmeister
@Betsy: Maybe the latest vintage of Boone’s Farm just got bottled and made it to the shelves?
Is that stuff still extant? Man, college was a lo-o-o-ng time ago.
Left Coast Tom
@mario:
“The Base” supposedly translates into Arabic as al Qaeda. Also.
Convincing people “through lying or fear” to vote Republican is a “dependable vote”. It’s just not a very laudable way of obtaining that vote.
geg6
Delia, I must admit you are right. And that the cancellation makes me very sad. I would have gone to the concert had they managed it, if only in the hope of seeing Stonehenge being trod upon by midgets. I am now watching “Rescue Me” and heard a great line directed at Tommy: “Now every time I look at your ass, I’ll have to think of Benjamin Franklin coming out of it.” I don’t care what anyone says, Denis Leary is a genius with a pen (or computer as the case may be).
asiangrrlMN
@Betsy: It’s summer. Teh heat boils teh brain cellz. Everyone knows that!
I dunno. I think they’ve been saying this shit all along, but they are just getting the hang of the new interwebs technology like Facebook and Twitter, much to their detriment. Oh, and the e-mails. Tricky thing, that. And the e-mail person did say she sent it to the wrong people, so who knows what else she has sent to the “right” people?
gbear
@Rosali:
Wonkette is totally all over that story. I mean really all over it.
freelancer
Muggy night here. I had to bike to and from work cause I was stupid and left my dome light on overnight. Got it jumped when I got home, and grilling polish sausage now.
The Texas vs. Arizona State CWS game on espn2 is a good one right now, if you’re into baseball. Texas’ relief pitcher is something else, he’s got a breaking fast ball that lies to your face.
slag
Personally, I find the conservative tendency to view every single interaction in life through the lens of some level of warfare to be utterly exhausting. I seriously don’t know where they get the energy. It’s as if they’re always, always under attack. Even when they had all three branches of government +media under their sway.
matoko_chan
Awesome read.
That totally explains the clone army of angry fingerpointing puffy middleaged white guys swarming talkradio and talktv.
Laura W
@demkat620: Not that good a soul. I am a selective and predjudicial soul. I can promise you if it were a snake in the middle of the road, I would not go near it. I would not run over it, but I would not get within 20 feet of it.
Notorious P.A.T.
I’m gonna have to add that Strauss guy to my to-read list. Not the least reason being his style reminds me of The New Frontiersman. I think I’ll send him my diary.
Indylib
The cow story was pretty indicative of living in a small town just about anywhere. I loved that the aunt decided that the constable and maintainence guy were too stupid to be allowed to decide how to fix her yard.
The pic the from FarrFeed made me homesick. I grew up where I could see those same mountains, just from a different angle.
JGabriel
Laura W:
And if it were a wingnut?
.
gex
@asiangrrlMN: They used to be able to say a lot of this crap, in private, to people without getting caught. Not only does the Internet allow it to spread in ways they can’t control, but it also makes it easy to document and distribute their crap.
I love the Internet.
asiangrrlMN
@gex: Then, the indescribable joy of pointing and laughing when they deny whatever it is they said/did. Like Liz Cheney. I just want to scream at her, “You DO know we have YouTube, right?????”
P.S. “Whenever I fucking say it is”, in response to your question in the other thread. I am not your mother’s social director.
Oh, and as social director of this cruise, I formally request a hook-up thread, Mr. Cole.
bago
Wonkette is bored with the story. What kind of a republican has an affair with a WOMAN his age when seperated from his wife? That’s downright respectable for a politician from Nevada.
Fern
@bago:
I’m must say I’m having a little trouble summoning up any outrage on this myself – they had separated after all.
Though sleeping with the wife of one of your aides is pretty crass.
MikeJ
I don’t care if they’d separated or not. Why do I give a shit where he puts his dick? On the plus side, he’s now given up the right to tell anybody else where they should put theirs.
AhabTRuler
What exactly is a hook-up thread anyway?
Oh, I see. Well here’s your opening. now take it! ;-)
Brick Oven Bill
For a separated man, John Ensign really fell on his sword. I have met this guy on a Southwest flight. He seems to be solid. He used to be a veterinarian in private practice. Just another lesson that you should never get two things that start with the letter ‘P’ at the same place.
The power of the flesh. I hope that John Ensign becomes a future President.
Andy K
@Brick Oven Bill:
New world’s record: six sharks, lined up nose-to-tailfin, jumped! Bravo!
burnspbesq
@bago:
OK, but a campaign staffer who is married to a member of his Senate staff? That may not fit the dictionary definition of i*c**t, but it’s the next best thing. And whatever happened to discretion, like shacking up with someone who lives 1,000 miles away in a city you visit once a quarter for a meeting?
burnspbesq
@asiangrrlMN:
And when your fake hubby catches you in fakegrante delicto with some guy you just met five minutes ago, then what?
asiangrrlMN
@burnspbesq: It never happened. Nuh uh, no way, no how. See, I can play the, “intertoobs, what intertoobs?” game, too.
Besides, he is one of teh gayz, so I have a hunch he won’t care.
@AhabTRuler: Have NO clue. I just like to give John shit.
Church Lady
Years ago, my husband and I came home for a visit and stayed at his parents farm in Mississippi. We went into town to meet some friends and came home pretty late. When he opened the driveway gate so I could drive in, a cow came bolting down the driveway and took off running down the highway.
My husband jumped back in the car and we took off after the cow. Cows can run faster than you think, especially when they’re being chased by a Ford Thunderbird. We finally passed the cow on the highway and my husband jumped out to try to head it off and get it turned around and headed back towards the farm. I got the car turned around and was following them slowly from pretty far back, using the headlights to illuminate the way back down the highway. Just as we started to top the hill at the start of the driveway to the farm, a car full of drunks came flying over the hill, driving on the wrong side of the road.
My husband jumped out of the way, into a ditch. Unfortunately, the cow just stood there. The upshot was one dead cow, the arrest of the driver of the car for DUI, the arrest of the passengers in the car for public drunkeness, a lawsuit filed against my father-in-law (the owner of the cow) by the drunk driver for the damages to his car ( later dismissed by the judge), and a lot of beef in the freezer of the town’s sheriff, who arranged for the cow carcass to be picked up off the highway that night and immediately taken to a processing plant.
Damn stupid cow.
AhabTRuler
Don’t we all?
gex
Sully at 15 Jun 2009 06:46 pm: Oh, and the president should wear a green tie from now on. Every day. He need say nothing more.
Then Eric Martin critiques:
[T]wo Iraq war champions that have supposedly found religion, George Packer and Andrew Sullivan, have been urging President Obama to do more – that is, to make hollow symbolic gestures and speak out in favor of the protesters.
Sully’s response at 16 Jun 2009 06:32 pm: I have specifically not argued for Obama’s speaking out for one side. What blog is this dude reading?
Sigh. Sully, he’s reading *your* blog. Maybe you should too.
Edit: In another thread the question of why Sully generates so much discussion. It’s because he’s widely read and completely maddening. There’s no comments section to call him on this, and I’m quite certain my email won’t get posted.
iluvsummr
@Church Lady: Damn stupid drunk drivers.
Enough with the dead cow stories – you’re making me feel guilty about the beef in my freezer!
Delia
BOB, BOB, BOB, read the sources before you go spoofing. Johnny’s back with his wife and their “marriage is stronger than ever” and he “fell on his sword” because his ex-lover’s ex-husband was trying to blackmail him. I guess the guy asked for too much money. Or maybe Johnny should go back to being a vet.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
No, you didn’t! I saw the hyperlink for “Puppy Love” and thought: No, Laura W. Darling, acolyte and connoisseur of the live performance clip, would never go for the straight audio-with-goofy-picture–but you did. And for “Puppy Love”?! Paul Anka?! Oh, the humanity!
P.S. Of course, you could have gone for this.
Going to take an insulin shot now.
burnspbesq
Am I the only one who is impatiently waiting for Apple to flip the damn switch and start allowing downloads of the new iPhone software? It’s June 17 in three quarters of the world, you bastards.
Brick Oven Bill
John Ensign rocks Delia. He has never practiced law. He took care of dogs.
Andy K
@Steeplejack:
Or this. Or maybe this.
Steeplejack
@Betsy:
As Ensign probably will be, I myself was demoted from the Promise Keepers to the Excuse Makers, but I found even that level of commitment hard to maintain. I have subsequently found my level in the Who-Gives-a-Fuck-ers.
jeffreyw
Ack! Jack the dog just tangled with a skunk. Mrs J has a magic potion, so we let him back in and doused him, all better now.
Steeplejack
@Andy K:
D’oh, jeez. I should’a known that when the clips start flyin’ . . . My retro-rock gland is refluxing. Thanks. Really. Preesh (= “appreciate”).
ninerdave
You my friend, need to spend more time around snakes. My friend had a couple of Boas. It’s not that they are all interactive like a cat or dog, it’s that they do what they do. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Granted a few have poison, but the vast majority are just there. There is no fundimental difference between a turtle and a snake.
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN:
Ooh! Ooh! I’m there if you are!
GregB
Adultery is a virtue when it is perpetrated by a Republican.
Gotta get me one of their rule books.
-G
P.S. Ensign has resigned from the Promise Keepers and has joined The Blow Job Getters.
ninerdave
@Steeplejack:
Maybe this might help.
Funny, when I first pulled that up the Donna Summers version came up (love to love ya baby). When I was a lowly intern/second engineer at a studio, we recorded Digital Underground’s first record.
For the “Freaks of the Industry” song, they got license for the bass line, but not for her vocals (“Love to Love you baby”). So they put it through a sampler and mangled the hell out of it. If you know what you’re listening for you can hear her.
Main thing I remember about that session, was trying to get the line “There’ll be no bargin’ in and there’ll be no diss’in”. I remember that phrase over and over and over. I still to this date thinks it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Great band to work with Shock and Money, were awesome.
Steeplejack
@ninerdave:
Ah, that was a bit of a palate-cleansing sorbet. Thanky!
Chuck Butcher
I wanted to go somewhere different with Strauss’ thinking.
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: Heh. I think there would be a lot of people there. Question is, are you really here? I thought you were a coastal person for some reason.
Chuck Butcher
@asiangrrlMN:
pah, I provide you with Harley porn and you jump at the first – here?
(not to mention Beauty Queen)????
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN: No, no. I’m in Nordeast. I can see the IDS Center out my window.
noncarborundum
@MikeJ:
Props to this guy (modulo, of course, the racist stupidity that first got our attention). This is what a real apology looks like, unlike the usual “I was just a joke, and I’m sorry if anybody took offense” nonsense.
Brendan
Ok, here’s the thing:
http://whosslammingwho.podomatic.com/entry/2009-06-01T13_46_57-07_00
Yes, this is a pro wrestling podcast; no, I’m not trying to convince you to watch that bullhonkey. The first 12 minutes of this is an interview with one Jim Cornette, who goes off on one of the all-time best political rants from a liberal perspective I’ve ever heard. It’s a towering achievement of invective and worth every second of your time- you’ll walk around with a smile on your face for the rest of the day.
Language is a bit rough, as it should be.
Andy K
@Brendan:
I heard that yesterday. Great stuff. Cornette should open for every Democratic candidate south of the Ohio River- and for a few north of it, too- in ’10.
Steeplejack
Don’t know if Laura W is still up and about, but this is dedicated to her: the O’Jays’ “Back Stabbers.” No symbolism, I just love the song.
A friend asked me in an e-mail a few days ago: “What is funk?” Have been putting together a 5,000-word think piece with appropriate YouTube song links. But I think it all comes down to the beat, the bass and the strong possibility of sweat being involved. “Back Stabbers” is at the silky smooth end of the funk spectrum, but that’s where I ended up tonight. For calibration purposes, at the other end of the spectrum would be something like this: “Please, Please, Please.”
Chuck Butcher
@Andy K:
He sure isn’t a conservative but that also makes me wonder if he isn’t completely missing his audience…
At least he said it.
Steeplejack
Okay, one more. Right down the middle: Johnny “Guitar” Watson, “Ain’t That a Bitch.”
Let me tell you about my qualifications:
I program computers
I know accounting and psychology
I took a course in business
And I can speak a little Japanese
You got to work two years
And get one week off with pay
And when I’m on my job
I gotta watch every word I say
Ain’t that a bitch . . .
Edit: God, WordPress formatting suckety sucks sucks sucks!
omen
re iran, here is something we can do:
http://www.iranhumanrights.org/
read accounts of people held as political prisoners on issues that predate the election. then with the forms provided, petition officials and call for their release, perhaps with a cc to your senator.
letting them know that there is an increased awareness of the regime’s previous sins might add to the pressure, in a tangential way, to spook them to be more conciliatory. nobody likes their dirty laundry aired.
JGabriel
bago:
It is difficult to work up the usual mirth over this one. Yes, the typical rank Republican hypocrisy is there. But outside of that, you’re left with a man who dated and had an affair with someone his own age and of the opposite gender, while he was separated. Really, it’s pretty generic, run of the mill stuff. For a GOPer sex scandal, it’s notably vanilla.
One can only hope the experience leaves Ensign with a healthier respect for the vagaries of human frailty.
.
WereBear
Yeah, that’ll happen.
When they do it, they have all these reasons and excuses. If anyone else does it, it’s because they’re eeeevil and are going straight to hell.
The stubborn refusal to see themselves as part of humanity is probably why they have none.
PaulW
There’s only one way to stop Andrew Sullivan from blogging about the Revolution:
Have Obama sign an executive order giving gay federal employees equal benefits for same-sex partners.
Napoleon
@Betsy:
I think it is a combination of two things.
First for years dog whistle racism has worked for them and all the sudden the nation elects a black guy, and like the person talking to a foreigner that doesn’t speak English they think if they just talk louder everyone will suddenly understand that the n****rs are now running everything. So they have gotten more and more explicit thinking that at some point the nation will “wake-up” and understand what is going on, just like it did when Poppy Bush ran the Willie Horton ad.
Second as someone basically mentioned up-thread a combination of things like twitter, which allows the unrestricted bowel movements of the right to occur in broad day light, whereas before you may have had to go to a Republican campaign event or something like that to hear that stuff, plus the use of the internet by the left to amplify the right’s racism and stupidity, has pushed this stuff more into view.
Rosali
@Brendan:
That’s a great rant by Cornette!
Punchy
Prince Fielder is RAKING right now for my fantasy team. Him and David Wright are just monsters at the plate this week. Markakis also.
Svensker
@ninerdave:
Turtles have four LEGS. Thus, they are not creepy.
truculentandunreliable
@Comrade Stuck: Yup. And the “intelligentsia” is waving its arms and screaming “We never could have foreseen this!!!!” like the Republicans they are.
Not to defend the racist, homophobic, and sexist reactionaries that now compose most of the Republican party, but I do have to say that it’s pretty shitty that the elites found it okay to use them to their advantage, but as soon as the reactionaries started demanding power, they shit their pants.
Punchy
I agree with ninerdave. Yes, cross-dressers are largely harmless.
Laura W
@Steeplejack: Now that was superb! You and Mosquito Truck are truly gifted in your choice of arcane links.
I sense I disappointed you with my cheesy choice. This is what I was really going for, but I was out of search steam and that one made me laugh.
You’ll like this one way better….
And it’s live, so definitely more me.
(Am I “still up” at 2:30am? That would be “back up” if I were.)
jibeaux
1) My dad has always been a Republican, and was the local chapter president of the Sierra Club once. He likes the outdoors and thinks we ought to not screw up the planet for future generations. I understand that Republicans typically hate science, like coal, and are really bad at not screwing things up, but still, it’s not a political organization.
2) I demand that “Manichean zero-sum nihilism” take its rightful place alongside “Burkean bells” as an official DougJ Tag Of Choice.
jibeaux
@Svensker:
You know what’s creepier than snakes slithering along the ground? That snake in Australia that can stand up. I can’t remember what it is, but Bill Bryson included it in his list of scary-ass Australian animals that can hurt you real bad.
Laura W
@ninerdave:
I’d rather spend more time shoe shopping and getting pedicures with Sarah Palin.
@jibeaux: Know what’s even creepier than a snake that can stand up? Snakes that can climb trees and then DROP DOWN ON YOU when you walk by. Saw that on Colbert. Still think of it when I walk my back property which is just full of tall trees.
Svensker
@Punchy:
Ha ha ha.
jibeaux
@Laura W:
Ooh. Yeah. I think they’re scary in two different ways, though. A snake that dropped down on you would definitely have the element of surprise working in its favor and would be truly freaky. But if I saw a snake a hundred yards away, and then it stood up and rushed at me, I would faint dead away long before it got there. It would be like seeing a lion, then having it threaten you by name in the Queen’s English. Or seeing a rat, then having it pull out a 9 mm.
p.a.
Question for Balloon-Juice nation. Does the fact that approx. 25% of politically active Americans are solid authoritarians (is crypto-fascist too strong?) sicken you? Am I cynical to think in terms of ‘ONLY 25%!… lower than I would’ve thought’. Or are most of you ‘25%! OMFG!’?
The Wobblies wanted to build the new society in the shell of the old. The Trotskyites wanted to bore from within. The Christianists have succeeded (in terms of a political party, and for 8 years in part in the nation as a whole) where the left failed. Too bad America seems to have a short memory; if not the Christianists would never recover from the record of the Bush admin. Time will tell.
Napoleon
@p.a.:
My personal opinion is that it is closer to 1/3 of the population.
Laura W
@jibeaux: I see your point. It’s like asking: “Would you rather die of sudden cardiac arrest or drowning?” I’d definitely choose the heart attack, so I guess that means I prefer the drop down snakes.
This morning is just not turning out the way I’d hoped so far.
p.a.
I’ll take snakes in the yard over field mice in the basement any day. My yard (backed by a lightly wooded field) has the healthiest grass snakes I’ve ever seen. At least as fat as my ring finger, as big as garter snakes. Showed one to my neighbor. I swear I didn’t know he was scared of snakes. Later he said it made him consider paving his yard over, but his wife nixed that idea.
Ed Drone
Well, the followers of one of my movements are called, “turds.” How’s that? Or maybe name “the movement” “Flush.”
Ed
ironranger
I wonder if Promise Seeker Ensign had a “I heart my wife” bumper sticker on his car.
Comrade Stuck
@jibeaux:
Taipan. It not only stands up but runs after you for as many bites as possible. Oh, and it’s the most venomous snake on earth to boot.
steve s
For quite a while I was perplexed. Since the Southern Strategy was implemented 40 years ago, why is it just lately that the nutbags have gotten control of the GOP? I think actually the answer lies in the media. The media tends to shift focus away from the outliers and toward more mainstream candidates. I think this actually kept the GOP artificially (more) sensible for years. Once the media started losing the power to control the discussion, with the rise of talk radio and the internet, the wingnuts got more ability to drive the process.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Damn it,
Rick-rolledDonny-rolled first thing in the morning. Well played, madam.I let the night-owl thing get way out of hand last night and was up until 5:30 a.m. Ngrr! I blame it on the sudden fall-like weather–mid-60s and breezy. WTF?!
Dan
It’s a lot harder for a turtle to sneak up on you. And also, the lack of fangs, venom, etc.
Political Pragmatist
“Question for Balloon-Juice nation. Does the fact that approx. 25% of politically active Americans are solid authoritarians (is crypto-fascist too strong?) sicken you? Am I cynical to think in terms of ‘ONLY 25%!… lower than I would’ve thought’. Or are most of you ‘25%! OMFG!’?”
But 21% call themselves Republicans, which means 4% are now Democrats! Yikes. :)
Seriously, the important part of the linked piece is the GOP does not have a way to rid itself of this cancer which has all but killed their party. Sooner, and not much later, this is going to be all that’s left, as they purify themselves out of existence. Don’t think Whigs. Think Klan.
It’s a matter of time.
DBrown
The adulterer Ensign’s own words –
This repub-a-thug is a total asswipe. If he was honest and had any morals at all, he’d resign since he so totally violated his own required beliefs. The woman he was f’ing was married and had children. This scum did this for nearly a year! Talk about lack of family values – asswipe is too nice a word for that shit bag and anyone who supports creeps like him.
BongCrosby
The cow story mooved me.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Left Coast Tom: It’s a fundamental movement. Yes, I can feel it… yes… a movement in my fundament.
asiangrrlMN
@Chuck Butcher: Well, duh. You’re married! And on the left coast! (Ok, ok, not exactly). Because no matter what the Republicans think, some of us DFHs DO give a damn about matrimonial fidelity and shit like that.
p.a., it boggles my mind that a quarter to a third of our nation is bat-shit crazy.
bjacques
@52 Notorious P.A.T.: *hrm*
@115 Comrade Stuck: AAAAhhhhhh!!! It’s almost as bad as being chomped by a queen snake! Or rolled after by a hoop snake.
@123 AsiangrrlMN: Nixon once said one-third of the voters are nuts. Which puts Europe a little bit ahead, since most of the screwheads are on the right and, spectacular wins to the contrary, are still pegged at about 15-17%. On the other hand, the Party For the Animals in the Netherlands, which got a few seats in the Europarliament, is headed by Seventh-Day Adventists who are against abortion and stem-cell research.
RememberNovember
Deep within the bowels of the Republican party, there is a Movement happening….