As if it was not enough that President Gingrich raised millions of dollars to be shuttled around the country spouting nonsense, and Dick Armey, of UBS fame and calling all Americans whiners while denying the existence of the recession and most recently (my bad, confusing wingnuts again- there are just so many prominent ones with microphones it is hard to keep up, but Phil Graham was of UBS and whiner fame)) astroturfing via FreedmWorks, is on any news show he wants spreading his lies, we also get this:
Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, will be a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” when the popular ABC show premieres Sept. 21. And, before you laugh or think this is going to be a joke, I know first-hand that DeLay, 62, can cut a rug.
And Chris Matthews will have him on Hardball tomorrow spewing his bile.
I honestly don’t know why Republicans even bother winning the election. They control the media and the national dialogue even when out of power.
Comrade Vida Loca
What, he takes the toupee off for a haircut?
General Winfield Stuck
I think that was Phil Graham, the dude who deregulated Wall Street that caused the meltdown, though ARmey could have said the same.
joe from Lowell
Dick Armey, of UBS fame and calling all Americans whiners while denying the existence of the recession
I thought that was Phil Gramm. Texas sure has showered us with some terrific leaders in the past decade, eh?
*glares at Texas*
malraux
Mostly off topic, but as an idle though, are these guys carrying guns at protests part of an attempt to make the NRA relevant again? If they can get some police unit do something rash, like ask the person to leave their weapon somewhere other than at a heated protest, suddenly we’ll get to have a debate about the second amendment again.
b-psycho
OT: The GOP thinks even co-ops are a road to hippieleftycommieland.
General Winfield Stuck
Lies sell on the teevee and bring the morbid to watch the latest flamethrower. With the second act awaiting on how dems reply. Hamster Wheel from hell. Every day I get closer to following John Prine’s advice.
PeakVT
Yeah, it was Phil Gramm. But one Republican asshole produces basically the same bullshit as any other, so it’s not such an important detail.
General Winfield Stuck
They all sound alike to me.
Zifnab
@joe from Lowell: Don’t even. This is so not my fault.
Keith G
Cool, a twofer.
My earlier decision to never watch this show gets reinforced. And the
HammerBugman is further marginalized.Sweet.
b-psycho
Oh yeah, apologies if that was already mentioned. I just found it amusing for how it contradicts their entire argument on other plans. The co-op idea was something I thought actually had promise, as long as it was to get health CARE instead of pools to merely buy insurance. There’s precedent for similar without government involvement. I saw it as a possible transitionary thing, eventually to cut out both corporate AND government influence in the long run.
Comrade Jake
Wasn’t this guy supposed to be in jail at some point?
Tsulagi
You do have to give the Brawndo drinkers some credit. They got the Dems and a lot of the media well trained. Often just the threat of their pulling another temper tantrum and/or name calling gets the other adults to cave.
Dems need a Super Nanny or someone to teach them some common sense.
Tsulagi
On the other note, Tom DeLay dancing? Bugman? Ewwww.
Of course, though, I’ll watch a segment if only for the comedy value. Probably be like watching a smiling train wreck.
Rosali
I’m sure Tucker Carlson would be happy to give him private dance lessons.
Demo Woman
John, I hope you enjoyed your weekend and welcome back.
Doug had a few post on Bruce Bartlett’s communication with Steve Benen at Washington Monthly. I thought that this paragraph from Bartlett was interesting.
amorphous
@joe from Lowell:
Don’t blame me, I live in the Austin city limits.
/cowers in a corner
Demo Woman
@PeakVT: I lived in Dallas at the time Phil was a democrat and I did not vote for him. When he switched parties and became a Republican during the Reagan years, I did not vote for him.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@joe from Lowell:
Hey, we also gave you LBJ, Ann RIchards, and Molly Ivins; I think we come out about even.
Woody
The Other Steve
I was just pondering.
A black man showed up on the streets carrying a gun in Phoenix and wasn’t shot down by the police.
We are making racial progress!
Mike G
It’s hard to keep straight all these Texas Repig assholes.
From Angry Bear:
Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest prices for mobile phone calls among OECD countries, according to the latest OECD Communications Outlook. The highest were found in Canada, Spain and the United States.
So, applying right wing arguments on healthcare, it must necessarily be true that —
1. The US (together with Canada and Spain) has the best cell phone service in the world.
2. The US (together with Canada and Spain) produces the most innovation in cell phone service anywhere in the world. Americans have access to the most advanced cell phones and cell phone service in the world. Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden no doubt produce the least amount of cell phone innovation.
3. There are an awful lot of Finns and Swedes coming to the US in order to make calls and buy cell phones with features that just aren’t available in their home countries.
4. It is vital that customers in the US (plus Canada and Spain) continue to pay the highest rates for cell phone usage. Otherwise, the innovation will cease everywhere in the world and we’ll all be forced to start yelling at each other across the rooftops instead of using cell phones.
5. The few problems there are with cell phone service in the US would disappear if the government stopped interfering. Let the cell phone companies decide for themselves what frequencies to use.
6. If for some reason the government decided to offer cell phone service, nobody would ever be allowed to make a call on the network owned by a private company or buy a cell phone manufactured or sold by a private provider.
7. If for some reason the government decided to offer cell phone service, even if it did not make it illegal to make calls on someone else’s network, it would immediately drive out all the private providers. This proves that private providers are more efficient than the government.
8. Should the government decide to enter the cell phone market, it will start rationing the amount of phone calls people are allowed to make. And the elderly will get mandatory counseling that will force them to stop making phone calls permanently.
9. In the current system, nobody is denied access to phone calls in an emergency simply because they can’t afford cell phone service. Why, say some poor person (or God forbid, an illegal immigrant!!) needs to call the police because someone is breaking into their hovel. All they have to do is sneak past the criminals and wander around until they stumble on a phone.
10. Since we’re on the subject of poor people and illegal immigrants – the reason cell phone service is so expensive in the US is because those folks insist on using pay phones.
11. Michale Moore is fat, and Al Gore uses electricity.
MBSS
@amorphous:
austin city limits? you’re absolved of any wrongdoing.
Calouste
@Mike G:
Funny that, cell phone adaption in the US lagged way behind other parts of the world due to the way it was financed (having to pay for receiving calls on a cell phone rather than having the caller pay more for making a call to a cell phone). And hanging onto outdated technology. And Motorola bringing out designs so out-dated they wouldn’t even make it out of the concept phase at Nokia and Ericsson a decade earlier.
2th&nayle
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Can’t believe you left out Jim Hightower. Sheesh, how soon they forget!
slag
Indeed. The interests of Republicans have always aligned nicely with the interests of media: Concern for people and detailed knowledge about actual policy? BO-RING! Blowing shit up? FUN!
PeakVT
@Demo Woman: Gramm’s a real piece of work, isn’t he? He spent nearly his whole life on the public teat … trying to destroy the public teat. His wife is no better.
slag
You left the “Glad you’re not my wife” (paraphrased comment to Joan Walsh) off of Dick Armey’s credit list.
Demo Woman
@PeakVT: When I lived in Dallas, the reason I voted against a democrat at the time was because of his wife. I had read an article about her and her influence over Phil in the local paper.
I noticed that Dating in the Dark is on tonight. Can you imagine being a contestant and finding out that Tom Delay was also a contestant. Full disclosure, I never watched American Idol never mind Dating in the Dark.
arguingwithsignposts
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
As a fellow native, I gotta say we’ve got to go deeper in the cool bench to make up for:
GWBush
Karl Rove
Dick Armey
Tom DeLay
Phil Gramm
Alberto Gonzalez
Rick Perry
Ron Paul
John Tower
Pete Sessions
Joe Barton …
Hell, just go down the list. There are some real winners there.
I don’t think that’s necessarily more nutcases than, say, a south carolina or illinois, but they sure have given the state a black eye.
Ash Can
Who gives a fuck about him cutting a rug? I’m laughing at thought of him being introduced:
“You know him as the House majority leader who resigned in disgrace after being indicted for violating campaign finance laws. Tonight, folks, Mr. DeLay shows us that he can dance around a ballroom as easily as he dances around political ethics!”
Mike in NC
He should re-release the classic “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” and update it with “Flag Lapel Pin”.
Elie
While I agree that the Republicans are getting plenty of media exposure, I do not think that it will do them good. They are still seen as the party of suck, even if they have had a measure of PR success being crazy nay sayers. No one wants them, however, in charge of ANYTHING.
The Republicans are doing all that they know how to do which is to stop and disrupt. They have proven over and over that this is all they know how to do in terms of governance. It is not enough, although flinging monkey poop does bring you attention..
I think that the dust will settle in Sept/October and health care/insurance reform is going to become a real bill that will not be stopped. The Republicans are shooting their wad now — what else they got?
All the loonies are running around packing heat at town halls and babbling in tongues and whatnot. How much bogey man can you make of health care for all? I just don’t think after people have accomodated the weird folks that anything else that they do in addition will stand out much. What — more screaming and tantrums?, more Hitler signs with Obama’s pictures?, more angry white people saying they want their country back and calling Obama nigger? Its already passe and tired.
What next? Anything weirder just puts them on the moon and so obvious even our bought and paid for media couldnt suck that egg…
August was team O’s “rope a dope” IMHO — and Lord knows the dopes were plenty dopey…
Anne Laurie
@Woody:
Give the Obama supporters, aka MUPpets (Magical Unity Pony people), the credit they deserve. Stealing elections at the electronic margins is a heckuvalot easier when people aren’t paying attention (as in Bush I vs. Dukakis) or incorrectly assume that ‘both sides are just as bad’ (Bush II vs. Gore). Obama’s teams, professional and otherwise, not only made it clear that the usual Rethuglican penny-ante grift (vote caging, failure to supply ballots, switching precinct sites) wouldn’t be tolerated — they very very publicly laid out their anti-theft tactics in advance, getting the legal paperwork in order and the cameraphone witnesses lined up.
Whether or not the Rethugs, as you argue, intended to “sacrifice” an election cycle perceived as unwinnable, the MUPpets’ hard work was the equivalent of putting in a state-of-the-art alarm system and a big sign advertising the fact. The Republican party’s ‘permanent professionals’, their version of mid-level civil service bureaucrats, would prefer to search out easier targets, just as professional burglars will avoid households with alarm stickers when possible.
Elie
Let me add this.. Maybe not right away, but this gun thing at Town Halls is going to hurt the right — hurt it badly…
I am waiting for some good ads. I am praying nothing bad happens but when you get the intensity and the opportunity for notoriety, you have a dangerous mix.
Just two weeks ago we saw an undiagnosed, mentally ill person shoot unknown women in a gym for not giving him what he wanted.
We have a LOT of untreated mental illness in this country (thanks to poor benefits from the insurance companies among other things). These folks are attracted to this shit like moths to the light — they see these folks prancing around with their little do-dad holsters and such, and they are going to want to do one better — ya know?
So all these Republican assholes talking about the right of these people to do that…take their names and what they said..note it down real carefully…class action lawsuits for abetting any weird or bad outcome that comes out of fomenting and encouraging this behavior…and someone should tell them that too… Mr or Senator/Congressman so and so — we are taping your comments and you had better pray nothing happens because we will be back to you with what taking responsibility for what you say REALLY means. In a country with poor mental health care and uneven monitoring of antipsychotic medication adherance — this is a bad bad recipe
Proper Gander
CNBC: ‘Anyone Who Owns A Suit Can Come On Television’
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, NJ—Citing a need to provide quality programming 24 hours a day, CNBC has extended an invitation to anyone who owns a suit to drop by the financial news network and be a guest expert, cohost a show with Larry Kudlow, or do whatever.
PhoenixRising
Texas: Delivering more loudmouth ignoramuses per square mile than any other state since…well, since it was in Spain, really.
That Porfirio Diaz, he was right up in there. Also.
Phil Gramm is a smug, dopey, uptight Harris County version of Dick Armey, so it’s understandable you got confused.
Basharov
Phil Gramm is a smug, dopey, uptight Harris County version of Dick Armey
Don’t insult Harris County. Gramm represented the 6th Congressional District, which runs from northwest of Houston up towards Dallas. The little twerp’s home town is College Station in Brazos County, home of Texas A&M University, which, to its everlasting shame, once awarded the mendacious dweeb a Ph.D. in Economics.
drumwolf
I honestly don’t know why Republicans even bother winning the election. They control the media and the national dialogue even when out of power.They’re learning to do on a nationwide level what the GOP already figured out in California. They don’t have to hold office, they just need to disrupt any efforts by officeholders to enact any kind of non-RW legislation.
Ken
Tsulagi #14, there’s another reason to watch. Dancing is harder than it looks, and a fairly large number of those contestants break something…
barney
freedom works are rallying the brown shirts