Via Crooks and Liars, you just have to watch this segment on MSNBC regarding Obama’s speech:
I wonder when Buckley was working to forge the future of conservatism all those years ago if he had any idea it would one day degenerate into a bizarre patchwork of birthers, young-earthers, gun nuts, shithouse lawyers, and conspiracy theorists, with meth mouth and confederate flags serving as the defining characteristics of the new conservatism.
Midnight Marauder
Teabagger: When the teachers ask in a questionnaires or they encourage the students to reveal information about their goals that delves into the psyche of the children and under code 34 of the federal regulations that’s illegal.
Nancy: You must be kidding me. Do you not want kids to be talking about what they want to be when they grow up?
The mind continues to reel.
Trinity
This guy is an intern for The Daily Show. Gotta be.
I mean….is he serious???
freelancer
We the People
ARE COMING…
This dude couldn’t get laid with a stolen dick.
Kathy
I hate to say this but MSNBC has been in pretty good form on this school teabagger issue. The woman from Texas who wanted her kids to hear Obama was the perfect illustration of sanity, especially compared to this idiot. She was so great they kept her on as the perfect contrast to the additional wing-nuts they mocked.
Dylan Rattigan rocked this morning. Also.
eric
Even if we win the health care debate with a robust public option, I am forlorn for the fate of our democracy. Truly. It is almost enough to make me and “I got mine” sort of fellow, but for the fact that so many needy people would suffer if we retreated. But still, I have now gotten to the point where I cannot even read my favorite blogs because the stories of the rabid right are depressing and scaring me.
I used to be amused by signature “wolverines” at the end of posts, but now it is becoming emblematic of what I fear to be a growing body of discontents that believe that that their faith in God and America will cleanse their hands of the blood of godless liberals. (We have already seen this a number of times, but the MSM is afraid to call it what it is — terrorism.)
I am sadly waiting for the inevitable and the deaths of many innocents.
eric
Quaker in a Basement
Attention, media:
“You must be kidding me.”
Apply as needed.
Sloth
Nancy is just so lost. It’s about the lesson plans. Any lesson plans. You have lesson plans, you have learning. Learning is subversive – maybe even your kids end up at Harvard using words like trenchent.
All about the lesson plans.
Napoleon
Since it is informally The Beatles are Back day here is an example of how these wingnuts are eternal in this country:
http://www.examiner.com/x-8947-LA-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m9d8-Communism-Hypnotism–the-Beatles-The-Communist-Music-Master-Plan
ellaesther
you just have to watch this segment on MSNBC
I beg to differ. Because: No, no I do not.
I’ve watched the Republican Congresswoman from Ohio tell a lunatic that she agrees re: Obama’s birth certificate, and I’ve watched a Republican Assemblyman and champion of family values (certified!) talk in the most graphic way possible about his extramarital sex with not one but two different lobbyists.
I do not have to watch this, too. Je refuse!
JenJen
What does this asshat mean, “We never really had a problem with the content of the speech, it was always about the lesson plans”?
They never knew the content of the speech. The whole point is that they knee-jerked and immediately decided, based on their whole-hatred of the President, what the content would be. It would include all that they knew the President to be about… Sockalism (filter-proof edit)! Marxism! Indoctrination! Dictatorial! Why, he’s Chairman Mao! He’s Hitler! He’s Kim Jong-il!
All of this without having the first earthly clue of what the content of the speech would be. And now that they’re cold-stone busted, as was predicted, they’re singing a different tune. “Oh no, it’s about the lesson plans. It’s about the subtext.” (see Malkin’s FantasyLand).
JHF
John, you might have to explain “meth mouth” to your more genteel readers. I’ve never actually heard the term before, but as someone with a brother who was a long-time user (and probably still is), I know exactly what it means.
Then again, this may be a term in common usage in the popular culture. For better or worse, I wouldn’t know. :-)
MikeJ
WTF is “code 34”? Title 34 is about the Navy, and was repealed in 1956.
Keith
When did the right-wing decide that students in school suddenly have rights?
MikeJ
Because when you yell “Help!” you dial 999?
eric
@MikeJ: dude, the kids use that phrase to mean “nailing two lobbyists.” get with the program
Zifnab
That last line is just killer. They have successfully sued the San Antonio School district for having kids talk about what they want to be when they grow up.
Congratulations. You win. Frivolous lawsuit champion of the week. I can’t believe my tax dollars have to go to dealing with yahoos like this. I can’t believe the Texas courts would even entertain this wack-job’s lunacy. I can’t believe this drooling idiot got TV exposure.
JK
Interesting video of a knuckle dragging teabagger repeating stupid talking points.
It’s more depressing hearing this stupidity coming from a think tank fellow who’s probably better educated and better read
Yesterday, Neil McCluskey from the Cato Institute was on C-SPAN spouting the most off the wall nonsense of the dangers of Obama giving a speech to students.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/09/08/WJE/A/22897/Neil+McCluskey+Cato+InstituteCenter+For+Education+Freedom+Associate+Director.aspx
It’s time to call it already. Game, set, match. This country is finished. We’re drowing in an avalanche of stupidity.
gex
@JHF: Let’s just say that long term meth use leads to a mouth like an old school hockey player.
General Winfield Stuck
If Texas ever managed to secede, one can only imagine the horrors that would shock the world. Something like a Caligula on the Pecos meets the Permanent Scopes Monkey Trial.
Rob C.
You think this guy is pathetic? What’s truly pathetic (and frightening) is that it is brain dead morons like this loser that are currently framing the discussion on every issue we face today, thanks to a feckless media and a spineless Democratic party “leadership”.
tim
“meth mouth” hahahaha…that is awesome.
My god, this guy is a little retarded, I think, or drugged out or something. Check those droopy eyes.
Sloth
You want to remember that these dipshits are all in favor of tort reform, yes?
littlesky
The guy obviously hasn’t listened to his “Talk Like Newt” tapes in quite some time.
Bubblegum Tate
Seriously. The remarkable thing about that segment wasn’t the utter stupidity of the teabagger so much as the fact that somebody in the media refused to treat the utter stupidity of the teabagger as a serious point.
SiubhanDuinne
Ha! This is the exact clip I mentioned yesterday in whatever thread it was where we were talking about the education speech (or possibly I pulled a different thread O/T). I had watched the speech itself on C-SPAN and then flipped over to MSNBC and came across this guy, but I didn’t know who Nancy was (who is Nancy, BTW?), but I like the way she basically rolled her eyes at the guy and said “You’ve got to be kidding me!” (In my post yesterday I ascribed a strong adverb to her. Although she didn’t actually say it, she surely thought it!
Ash
So what’s up with this guy? The droopy eyes and weird speech.
Is it just an affliction that comes from being a Texan?
SiubhanDuinne
Ha! This is the exact clip I mentioned yesterday in whatever thread it was where we were talking about the education speech (or possibly I pulled a different thread O/T). I had watched the speech itself on C-SPAN and then flipped over to MSNBC and came across this guy, but I didn’t know who Nancy was (who is Nancy, BTW?), but I like the way she basically rolled her eyes at the guy and said “You’ve got to be kidding me!” (In my post yesterday I ascribed a strong adverb to her. Although she didn’t actually say it, she surely thought it!)
anonevent
@JenJen: I’ve been having a facebook debate about the speech, and the new talking point became some of the questions in the lesson plan, which included things like “How can you help the president achieve these goals?” in regards to the students staying in school. They’re now so happy that they got Obama to change these questions and this means that the speech was changed as well. Now, the new meme is that the talk to 9th graders that he gave before the speech where he talks about health care in response to questions from students is pushing his soci alist agenda.
blahblahblah
Come come come John. Meth Mouth is just cultural, like pink plastic flamingos stuck in your front lawn and plastic balls hanging off the back of your pickup truck. I mean, it’s like you denigrate all the wonderful things that come from Southern culture.
Hey, at least they gave us BBQ. You have to admit, that was a good one.
geg6
@MikeJ:
“WTF is “code 34”? Title 34 is about the Navy, and was repealed in 1956.”
Perhaps he means it’s written in a code that only teabaggers and wingnuts can decipher. In fact, I’m sure that’s what it is.
Jody
MikeJ: Maybe it’s a reference to Internet Rule #34: “There is porn of it. No exceptions”?
Cuz lord knows these birther nutjobs spank it to this crap.
BombIranForChrist
If there is a phrase in the English language better than “shithouse lawyer”, I haven’t heard it.
Bubblegum Tate
@Zifnab:
Remember: Trial lawyers are pure evil until you want one to use your hatred of liberals as the basis of a lawsuit.
Richard Bottoms
When we start getting that as the reaction from the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, CBS, ABC, and NBC showing the debate isn’t between two equally valid points of view but a debate between reality and batshit crazy maybe we’ll start getting somewhere.
EvolutionaryDesign
Yet another reason why we are flying down the tubes. Religion, greed, and ingnorance is more appealing (read: easier) than self-improvement, selflessness, and discourse for your average cheeto-dusted plebe. Plus, when the inevitable Civil War: Part II comes, they have all the guns and cement theirs, and the worlds doom. We are fucked.
Dungheap
@MikeJ:
I believe the fellow was referring to Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations which pertain to the Department of Education. And this is where this fellow got that claptrap:
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=108915
Yeah, WorldNutDaily.
Comrade Jake
I remember a time when folks were suggesting that with Obama in the WH, Jon Stewart wasn’t going to have much to talk about on TDS. Turns out, not so much really.
Paul L.
I wonder when Buckley
I suspect you would lump him in with the crazy right.
“Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered.”
As for crazy, John C just praised Tom Friedman’s article where he considers China’s dissident-stomping rulers “reasonably enlightened.”
ArchPundit
Code 34 is Protection of Human Subjects.
http://www.ed.gov/policy/fund/reg/humansub/part97.html
It, of course, has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with a lesson plan, but nothing he said had anything to do with reality.
cleek
oh how i wish this could stay in the news for another week or two. it’s rally illustrates just how fucking stupid the GOP base is. the fuckin guy looked and sounded like Butthead! sadly, Obama’s speech tonight will probably distract the networks away from this.
ppcli
@Zifnab:
Yep – and I bet the same guy can be counted on to say that all you need to reduce health care costs is “tort reform”.
protected static
@EvolutionaryDesign:
I think they’ll be surprised to discover that’s not quite the case…
Midnight Marauder
@Ash:
So what’s up with this guy? The droopy eyes and weird speech.
Is it just an affliction that comes from being a Texan?
If it is, looks like I got out just in time. But something tells me that it’s just the heavy burden of moran settling in for a looooooooong time.
ArchPundit
Wait, I only use that section, apparently there’s a lot more to it, but, again, lesson plans aren’t against Dept. of Ed Regs.
Zifnab
@Sloth: I guess the trick is to lead by example.
eric
@Paul L.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8
or perhaps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEIrZO069Kg&feature=related
:)
chopper
@MikeJ:
i think he’s referring to 34 CFR.
kay
They love declaring that everything is illegal.
It’s not enough to hate the President, or liberals, everything has to be “illegal”.
It’s sort of a debate-killer. They’re not real confident in the strength of their ideas, ultimately. They’re always trying to buttress the bullshit with one or another rule or regulation violation.
More an annoying band of roving half-ass attorney’s general, than revolutionaries.
ArchPundit
From the WND
Of course, this would only be relevant if the Department of Education was forcing districts to do something which it is not.
EvolutionaryDesign
@blahblahblah: I think the cavemen gave us that one. Oh wait…
JenJen
@anonevent: Oh, spare me. These people are now delightfully claiming that they got the President to change his speech, with absolutely no evidence that they got the President to change his speech.
You tell me, Juicers… knowing all you know about the President, did it sound to you like he changed his speech? Hasn’t he sounded exactly like that for a rather long time now, to those who pay attention to, you know, reality?
Oh anonvent, isn’t it frustrating? I’ve stayed away from the Facebook Wars but they have certainly illuminated me to which of my friends are full-on off the reservation. Wow.
Stunning.
@Rob C.: I lay it far more at the feet of a feckless media than a feckless Democratic Party. The entire point of this exercise was to throw the Democratic Party off their game, and off their health care goals, and force them into talking about something else. They didn’t take the bait. But the media sure did, and it’s pretty much their job to fact-check, and decide what merits coverage and what does not. The job of the Democratic Party is legislation, not shooting down conspiracy theories.
Surreal American
We are talking about the same Buckley that gave space in his magazine at times to Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran, correct?
WFB didn’t prettify American conservatism all that much!
MikeJ
Dude, I wish someone would conduct some psychological testing on the wingnuts, illegal or not. They claim that asking kids what they think about staying in school and working hard will reveal their political affiliations?
Jesus fuck, these people are deranged.
“Ok Billy, do you think you’ll do better or worse if you stay in school? ”
“Fuck you bitch, I’m going to work for either Cato or Heritage! I don’t need no stinkin’ edumacation!”
freelancer
@MikeJ:
Hey, WINGNUT! Leave them kids alone!
JenJen
@JHF: “Meth-mouth” to me kind of means the same thing as “cocaine-mouth” to Axl Rose back in the day:
“With your bitch-slap rappin’
And your cocaine tongue
You get nothing done”
leaningtowardundecided
The guy is indeed referring to the Protection of Pupil’s Rights, which does not allow DOE funded questions about:
1. Political affiliations;
2. Mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student and his/her family;
3. Sex behavior and attitudes;
4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior;
5. Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships;
6. Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers; or
7. Income (other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program).
I fear his children may qualify under #1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
EvolutionaryDesign
@protected static: I sure hope you’re right. But remember, a lot of them occupy the military and Blackwater as well.
Violet
Jeez, they’re stupid.
To cleanse my mind from teh stupid I just watched on that clip, I went and voted for Little Bitsy. You know you want to, too.
Brachiator
@JenJen:
Courtesy or humorist April Winchell, here is the actual, real, unedited First Draft of Obama’s speech to our children.
http://www.aprilwinchell.com/2009/09/07/exclusive-obamas-first-draft/#comments
Wingnuts away!
Ambergris
Hmmm…. this guy probably sleeps with The Fountainhead under his pillow. His favorite website is reason.com.
Gus
To be fair, I think Friedman means that they’re “reasonably enlightened” compared to asshats like you.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne: Well dayum. Only a couple of words of that were supposed to be in italics, not the whole last part. Also too, I didn’t mean to post it twice. Apologies.
MikeJ
That’s not really true either. It says you can’t force a student to participate in psychological experiments that will reveal those things, if the program is administered by the Department of Education.
Not that I’m in favour of experimenting on children, but this wouldn’t hold up even if the lesson plan point blank said, “Will you worship Obama?”
ppcli
@ArchPundit:
Hard though it may be to believe, Mr. Wingnut messed up his reference. The WND article refers to “20 3403”:
“20 U.S.C. § 3403, which regards the Department of Education and states, “No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system.”
.
An aside: this brilliant piece of analysis was provided by the *dean* of Liberty University law school, which provided untold numbers of Bush Justice department employees. And presumably still has many alumni burrowed into career appointments at Justice. Here are some words of this distinguished legal scholar accompanying his profound analysis of 20 3403:
.
“Obama has pushed his political agenda to the extreme by forcing himself on America’s children,” Staver said in a statement today. “Obama’s political agenda on healthcare and his expansive vision for government is being rejected by the American people. Now Obama is after our children, who, like some socialist members of Congress, have not read the healthcare bill. Americans do not appreciate the president’s attempt to use our children as political pawns in his game of chess. Mr. President, you must abide by the rule of law and stop this illegal activity. Our children do not belong to you.”
.
I repeat: this man was in charge of educating much of the Bush Justice department. Reflect on this for a moment.
Polish the Guillotines
@General Winfield Stuck:
I hereby nominate this as a new (or replacement) tag for wingnut posts.
ppcli
@ArchPundit:
(Damn. Sorry for the double post. Boner-medicine moderation limbo caught the last one.)
Hard though it may be to believe, Mr. Wingnut messed up his reference. The WND article refers to “20 3403”:
“20 U.S.C. § 3403, which regards the Department of Education and states, “No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system.”
.
An aside: this brilliant piece of analysis was provided by the dean of Liberty University law school, which provided untold numbers of Bush Justice department employees. And presumably still has many alumni burrowed into career appointments at Justice. Here are some words of this distinguished legal scholar accompanying his profound analysis of 20 3403:
.
“Obama has pushed his political agenda to the extreme by forcing himself on America’s children,” Staver said in a statement today. “Obama’s political agenda on healthcare and his expansive vision for government is being rejected by the American people. Now Obama is after our children, who, like some social!ist members of Congress, have not read the healthcare bill. Americans do not appreciate the president’s attempt to use our children as political pawns in his game of chess. Mr. President, you must abide by the rule of law and stop this illegal activity. Our children do not belong to you.”
.
I repeat: this man was in charge of educating much of the Bush Justice department. Reflect on this for a moment.
Woody
Eric et al:
Have you heard about/discussed the next “market derivative product,” securitized life-insurance policies?
Swear ot dog!
kay
@leaningtowardundecided:
Or. He’s just babbling because they made asses of themselves about the speech, and were exposed. Or that.
They didn’t want this President in their schools. They still haven’t explained why that is, and relying on this code after the fact is just dishonest.
The media still haven’t explained why they created a controversy out of thin air, and insisted the President release his speech prior to delivery, something no other President has been asked to do.
They owe us an explanation. This behavior by both media and conservative parents was completely bizarre, and insulting, and brutally unfair.
I’m not letting them off the hook when they pull out some random statute, and drape this shameful episode in “law”. It wasn’t about law-breaking.
What was it about?
Tsulagi
Holy shit. I’m guessing it’s a safe bet this guy wouldn’t get one answer correct on the IQ test in Idiocracy. Outdoors they must turn him toward the sun.
anonevent
@JenJen: I told the guy that: This speech is exactly the kind of speech I expect from Obama, “I overcame my obstacles and you can, too.” Not sure why I keep debating the guy, it’s obvious from the tone of his statements that nothing could actually be said to change his mind.
ppcli
Ah, perhaps I was wrong – the WND also discusses a different rule 34. Also from the article, a preview of what is sure to be coming soon:
.
“We are a nation of laws,” said Barber, “not a federal cult of personality. Obama and the DOE had better pull the plug on this or outraged parents across the country may just insist that members of Congress dust off their ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ cheat sheets from the 1990s.”
Fwiffo
See, the problem is that with the cutbacks in the journalism business, news organizations can’t afford to hire security guards. So when homeless schizophrenics wander in off the street, instead of getting kicked out of the building, the wander into the studio and sit down for an interview. The bobbleheads aren’t clever enough to distinguish between a “political analyst” and a wino hopped up on antifreeze (well, who can these days), so they end up on the TV.
How do you think Orly Taitz got on the tube?
Dreggas
Wingnut themesong to the tune of “Another brick in the wall”
We don’t need no education….
We don’t need no thought control….
Hey N***er leave them kids alone.
freelancer
I can’t help it, I’m in an area where CNN is on the TV in the background, and Blitzer interviewing two Senators (Thune and somebody else, I didn’t catch it).
Jesus, I want horserace “balanced” serious journalism to die immediately.
“Interesting Point.”
“Some people are saying”
“You have a good point there Senator Thune. What do you want the President to say tonight?” [proceeds to crap all over HCR] “Yes, interesting. Senator Whitehouse, what do you think of that?”
Kill me now.
MK
@kay:
They love declaring that everything is illegal. It’s not enough to hate the President, or liberals, everything has to be “illegal”. It’s sort of a debate-killer. They’re not real confident in the strength of their ideas, ultimately. They’re always trying to buttress the bullshit with one or another rule or regulation violation.
Ironically enough, legality never seems to be much of an issue when it comes to topics like warrantless surveillance programs or torture.
freelancer
Cut to commercial break where every other ad is Insurance Co. agitprop freaking the audience out about “GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!”
General Winfield Stuck
Translated for the audience at home/
We don’t want your Fancy Nigger President
a Link ppcli
eric
@Woody: thanks for the pick-me-up. I am waiting for them to securitize pro atheletes’ insurance on the same principle…the longer they play the better your return. Thus, if Cassell goes down for a career ending injury, you lose in your fantasy league and your net worth crumbles.
eric
kay
@Fwiffo:
We’ve got a bigger problem than teabaggers. We’ve got editors and producers in media who saw this insanity as a legit “controversy” and demanded that the President refute the baseless charge and defuse a controversy they sold.
So he did.
But, you have to ask, WTF?
First graders knew this was mean-spirited bullshit.
Editors and producers did not? What does that say about them?
To me, it says that to a certain extent they believe it, and I want to know why that is.
Jim Pharo
Buckley knew perfectly well what his “movement” was when he got into it. That’s likely WHY he got into it — they were willing to let him be some sort of intellectual heavy-weight, when the liberals were concerned that he didn’t make any g-d sense.
Buckley’s only true belief was that people like himself were special and deserved special consideration. Not much of an intellectual…
Dreggas
@ppcli:
notice the charged language in this quite:
Intentional….you betcha.
demkat620
That guy made my hair hurt.
So, it is illegal for the teachers to know anything about the kids who are sitting in their classroom? Riiiight.
Dreggas
ok let’s try this again:
Zifnab
@Jim Pharo:
Well, if the movement has morphed into anything over the last eight years, it’s been a party of “Special People”. So he’s got that to his credit.
JenJen
@Brachiator: Oh, now, that is just awesome. Thank you!
Zifnab
@Dreggas:
Why would an evil socia-ma-list Congressman not memorize the evil socia-ma-list bill his Party is passing? You’d think he would have the bill dedicated to memory. How socia-ma-list could it even be if no one knows what’s in it?
Also, $10 gets you $20 that this guy hasn’t read a piece of legislation cover to cover in his entire life.
Zifnab
Read. Not read the evil soci-ma-list bill. God dammit all, I want my edit button back.
General Winfield Stuck
@demkat620:
Only the beginning of pop faux legalese for everything Obama does. And if the wingers by some chance take back the House in 2010, it will be a freak show beyond our current comprehension. The gloves are off for these fools, and should be for us as well/
HumboldtBlue
Our local health department did a short study on the “meth mouth” meme. The findings won’t surprise you, it’s not the meth that damages mouth, it’s a lack of hygiene on the part of users. They found no direct link between meth and bad oral hygiene, just the fact that the majority of users practiced poor if any hygiene at all.
crazyland
Dare I say this guy is a mouth breather? Normally I hate the term, but it sure seems applicable to this poor fellow.
And interesting that this was Nancy Snyderman interviewing him – she’s an MD and used to do all the fluff medical pieces on NBC.
Perhaps interviewing the deranged teabaggers qualifies as a medical fluff piece these days.
Dreggas
@Zifnab:
It’s simple. Just like these asshats didn’t read the speech the pres was going to give to kids, they haven’t read the healthcare bill (nor have the congresscritters opposed to it). In the end when it passes and everyone realizes there were no death panels, their health insurance coverage improves and their premiums go down the idiots will once again have egg all over their faces. At which point the tune of Carlos Mencias “Dee-Dee-Dee” will be very appropo.
General Winfield Stuck
And when the SCOTUS gives the green light for truckloads of Republican cash to churn out a hellish blizzard of political ads attacking Obama and dems, America will seem like Salem of the 21st century. Or the Inquisition Redoux.
LoveMonkey
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice …. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
That was from 1964, Barry Goldwater. What did people think that meant?
He was serious, and here we are with the idea carried to its logical and absurd conclusion. It was pretty predictable, eh?
burnspbesq
@Zifnab:
Also, $10 gets you $20 that this guy hasn’t read a piece of legislation cover to cover in his entire life.
I’ll take that bet. I’m sure he has read the one-line bill that some idiot introduces at the beginning of every session of Congress, that repeals the Internal Revenue Code.
JK
Palin Generation = The End Of The World As We Know It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyFiClAzq8
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh sure they’re up in arms about wanting rules and regulations about what you can talk to kids about, unless it’s telling them about how it’s a “Christian nation”, and then they’re screaming about lack of free speech and how over-regulated everything is and you can’t tell kids in RussioLamicstan about how Jeebus rode on dinosaurs and that’s exactly where we’re headed in this country.
And now I’m going to bed because it’s late here and that’s exactly where we’re headed in this country. And in the morning I want to hear that Obama gave a good speech and everyone can tell me how it was.
The Other Steve
Buckley started his “movement” to counter the nuts that were out there. The John Birch society and what not.
This crazy has been there a long time. It’s just that for years it was hidden behind the curtains of respectable conservatism.
ironranger
I would say inferiority complexes play a role in this rightwing hysteria. There is resentment among some people in rural, small town areas toward people they consciously or unconsciously think are better educated, more well spoken, more informed about things they have never heard of, etc. They feel out of their element with people who don’t live just the same lives they do. They feel uncomfortable, sometimes threatened. I’ve seen it often. That’s why Sarah Palin makes them feel better, that they are not alone in being dismissed or ridiculed.
Zifnab
@Dreggas:
Man, I wish that were true. But some lady in Bumblefuck, Utah is going to have to wait eight extra minutes in line picking up her prescription of hemorrhoid cream and it’ll be all over the news with the GOoPer of the month screaming about wait lists and European-style care killing Americans.
It’s endless. Even when they’re flat wrong (see: Iraq, the Stimulus, Let’s Privatize Social Security) they’ll scream to their dying breath that they are right. And in the media vacuum, that’s all anyone will hear.
gex
@The Other Steve: It feels like the respectable conservatism never was big enough to win with its ideas, though. They’ve relied on code speak to get the Birchers on board to win elections. He didn’t so much counter for them as give them a different marketing approach.
IndyLib
@ppcli:
Fuck, that is just LOL funny.
“Nation of laws”, unless it’s the Shrub/Vader administration breaking them, amirite?
ironranger
@Zifnab:
So true. The bitchers & whiners will always be with us.
Dreggas
@Zifnab:
Let em. The more they marginalize themselves the better. If they become dangerous and start going all stupid then lock em up.
tofubo
palindrone_ the neverending ramblings of incoherent troglodytes that you see on the teevee or hear on the radio in the place of real news and information
Kyle
He has a southern accent. How shocking!
Alex
I wonder when Buckley was working to forge the future of conservatism all those years ago if he had any idea it would one day degenerate into a bizarre patchwork of birthers, young-earthers, gun nuts, shithouse lawyers, and conspiracy theorists, with meth mouth and confederate flags serving as the defining characteristics of the new conservatism.
John,
That’s just perfect. I wish I’d written that.
Alex
r€nato
I’ve come to find witnessing or hearing about wingnut stupidity to be physically painful.
SGEW
I think that John Cole, James Wolcott, and Matt Taibbi are all in some sort of secret competition for the pithiest possible aphorism about the right wing.
We should start placing bets on our contenders. I think my money’s still on “tire rims and anthrax.”
Sloth
Anyone who hasn’t seen this (from Sully), should read it:
http://alaskadispatch.com/blogs/palin-watch/1850-palins-death-panel-wish-
In 2007, Palin said that providing adequate health care “is one of the most pressing domestic issues facing the United States as a nation.” But as governor of Alaska, she did virtually nothing to ensure “real” or any other kind of health care reform. While she and her family had access to some of the very best health insurance available (which was tax payer funded) nearly 33 percent of her constituents– about 200,000 residents — were uninsured at some point in 2008, one of the highest rates in the country.
Nice, Sarah.
Alaska, which has one of the least restrictive insurance markets, is dominated by two insurance companies that control over 96 percent of the market. Premera Blue Cross insures about 60 percent of the market, while Aetna insures more than 30 percent. And what they offer is some of the most expensive coverage in the U.S. Between 2000 and 2007, insurance premiums in Alaska rose more than 74 percent, while wages grew 13 percent.
But this is unpossible! Megan McArdle says that only areas with restrictive markets (guaranteed issue and community rating) have seen their costs skyrocket!
Sarah Palin, the very same one who declared April 16, 2008 “Health Decisions Day” in Alaska to encourage more citizens to talk to their health care providers about “advanced directives,”
I don’t know why the sheer hypocrisy of this woman should surprise me…but she always seems to find a way.
gocart mozart
Rule 34 is the infield fly rule which when invoked holds that the batter is automatically out. In this case the batter is Obama. Consequently, Biden becomes President per se, ipso facto, Q.E.D and also.
Also penis and poop.
Chad N Freude
Pertinent to the discussion of William F Buckley is this summary of his first (I believe) book and his subsequent work. The theme of the book will be familiar to anyone who reads contemporary conservative pronouncements about academia. The title of the book is “God and Man at Yale”, and someone once referred to it as the book about Buckley and his college roommate.
I never liked Buckley very much, especially in his unseemly public dispute with Gore Vidal, and his eschewing of common language in place of intellectual words like “eschew”. But I believe if he were still around, he would be horrified at what has become of the conservative movement and the National Review.
And don’t forget his son, Christopher Buckley, who was drummed out of the National Review for being somewhat measured and rational in his political writings.
gocart mozart
moderation? You can’t say penis or poop? I want my country back.
Chad N Freude
@tofubo: That is GOOD! a real win.
nitpicker
Look, I’m sick of the Buckley-humping. He may have been well-spoken, but he made a living wrapping pretty words around mouth-breathing bullshit. To whit:
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
Come on John, I know that you’ve read Before the Storm and Nixonland so you have to know that back in the late 50s when WFB was getting his start conservatism consisted of a bizarre patchwork of BIrchers, flat-earthers, shithouse lawyers, jew-haters and conspiracy theorists with red-baiting, racism and Confederate flags serving as the movement’s defining characteristics.
Conservatives back then were a rabid bunch of batshit insane retards who thought that Dwight David Eisenhower, a 5 star general who probably did more to win World War II than any other Allied general was a communist. Conservatives today are a rabid bunch of batshit insane retards who believe that Barack Obama is a soⅽⅰaⅠⅰst crypto-Muslim who was born in Kenya and smuggled into the United States by a conspiratorial group that includes everyone at the Hawaii Department of Vital Statistics, the Honolulu Advertiser and a cast of thousands. Plus ça Change and all that other jazz, if you know what I mean.
Wile E. Quixote
@William F. Buckley
Anyone who thinks that white southerners are an advanced race either has extremely low standards, has never been to the American South or both.