If you’re snowbound and desperate for entertainment, Jezebel will be liveblogging Palin’s speech at 9pm.
Princess Sparkle Pony has a Sarah Palin Tea Party Convention Bingo card, which you could probably use for a drinking game, but only if you’re not planning on driving or possibly walking for at least 12 hours afterwards.
I’ll probably be out for dinner when the big event takes place, but with an estimated “almost a hundred” media (and only 600 paying guests), the odds are that we’ll find out pretty soon if anything significant happens.
SiubhanDuinne
Damn the timing! Just a little too late to mock on tonight’s SNL.
mcc
I’m very close to getting all the Star Coins in Super Mario Bros. Wii
I think tonight at 9 PM EST would be a good time to put some serious attention into that
demkat620
I think I may give myself a pedicure instead.
robertdsc
PSP is a great blog. I missed it when the author shut down for a while.
Martin
@demkat620: Elitist.
Dennis G.
I noticed that she is being hyped in the top three slots over at neo-PRAVDA by the keeper of the never-ending narrative of the Gang of 500.
I wonder if she’ll say anything bone-numbingly stupid? I’m guessing yes.
Cheers
JGabriel
You’re all so condescending!
.
JGabriel
So, at $100k for the speech, Sarah is taking home about $167 per attendee.
Damn, sounds like she’s making more out of this than the organizers.
.
mcc
Incidentally I bring news by way of TPM diaryist “dickday”:
Cat Lady
600 paying attendees for a “national” event. There are more than that for the hockey game between the rival high schools here, and that’s covered by the intern for the local paper.
Our media sucks.
Martin
@Cat Lady: Ah, but this one has the pulse of the nation – real Americans. Not the Washington liberal elite that attend your high school hockey games.
scav
ahh, thank aegis bearing Zeus for The Doctor. hey ho!
ajr22
I wonder if she will say anything retarded.
Morbo
@mcc: Yeah, and I just started on Dragon Age after clearing up my backlog; looks like I can make some good progress on it tonight.
El Cid
Saint Say-ruh already showed her independence in being willing to move beyond elitist sentences with their ‘careful’ grammatical construction.
Will she finally give her followers what they need and move beyond all these elitist liberal “words” and communicate to Real America in the pure grunts and screams and belches we need in these tough times?
valdivia
I don’t think I will make it to the happy event. Probably will stick with watching Band of Brothers which I have always wanted to see and is on HBO OnDemand. Instead I will read the witty comments here afterwards.
dr. bloor
Likely the first time an arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner will include firing off live rounds.
Notorious P.A.T.
Jesus f**king Christ.
Martin
@dr. bloor: At some mentally disabled convicts, no doubt.
General Winfield Stuck
I will look forward to hearing Professor Palin offer snow as proof Global Warming is a hoax.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mcc:
That’s kinda funny. IIRC, Dumbya and Laura endorsed K. Bailey Hutch? I’m sure the Kaplan Daily and the Sunday shows will be chock full of “Republicans in disarray!” stories, ’cause we all know now that every state is an important bellwether for national politics (just googled to check the spelling of bellwether, and learned that a wether was a castrated ram that wore a bell and led the herd a-grazing. There’s a joke in there somewheres).
A six-to-one paid:media ratio? I’m sure that compares to the antiwar rallies of ’02 and ’03, as does the earnest coverage underlining the ‘baggers “valid concerns about the state of the country”.
demo woman
@mcc: The Ted Nugent that uses the word retard.. I’m shocked, just shocked that Sarah would associate with such an evil person. Is Perry’s manager going to be there?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@demo woman: Didn’t Der Nuge also fantasize out loud about assassinating Hillary Clinton?
Steeplejack
@valdivia:
Band of Brothers is really good. Same amazing production values as Saving Private Ryan but with a non-lame script and less shmaltz. There is one episode that drags a bit, but overall it’s definitely worth the big chunk of time.
LuciaMia
Uggghh. why are we giving her so much credence and attention?
Annie
Apparently Lady Sarah wants to become the “head” of the teabagger movement. Great. She and Todd can finally get their wish and lead a secessionist movement. I will be first in line to wave goodbye.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, but she was trying to kill America one Deputy White House Council at a time, so that’d be self defense and all.
JGabriel
@General Winfield Stuck:
Oh, Palin will definitely do that. I’m looking forward to her call for a government run by Real Americans, and not people who befriend terrorists!
.
valdivia
@Steeplejack:
I am loving it so far. That Sobel character is a total incompetent bully.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LuciaMia: credence? Who’s we?
As for attention, I want to hang her around the neck of the Republican Party like a burning tire. I want every Republican candidate (Mike Castle, the gov and senate candidate in Illinois, Jane Norton in Colorado) to spend the next ten months being asked if they agree with Governor Palin’s statement on ______
El Cid
The main problems with Sarah Palin is that she’s too intellectual and obsessed with finding ‘moderate’ solutions for our times.
We need someone who’s ready to move beyond all her complex ‘theorizin’ and move directly to government by bowel.
Annie
@JGabriel:
Yes, and of course, common sense solutions for common Americans….
Not ones born in Kenya, Indonesia, and other countries I can see from my million dollar homes, while flying in my private planes, and cashing large checks for speeches I never wrote from suckers such you all of you here today.
ajr22
She just loves the idea of teabagging so much, that she must insert her leadership into the movement that has opened it’s doors for her.
Brick Oven Bill
Jim, Foolish Literalist, all Ted did was invite Hillary to ride his machine gun into the sunset.
Let us take care to be accurate. Ted is not a guy we want to piss off.
As an aside, go Teabaggers.
Comrade Jake
This lady peaked as a pig with lipstick.
Steeplejack
@valdivia:
Yeah. It’s really awful to contemplate being in a job where your incompetent boss can not only “affect your career” but get you killed. This theme comes up again later in the series.
Delia
I’d watch La Palin, really I would, but, see, my son gave me the complete Stargate SG-1 dvd set for Christmas, and I’m not even halfway through them yet. And frankly, I find the Stargate with the Goa’uld, the Replicators, the Jaffa, etc., much more plausible than the Universe According to the Teabaggers.
So I’ll be busy.
valdivia
@Steeplejack:
I was glad to see Sobel go train people and not lead them on the ground into battle. And yes, the terrible thing is how he could have gotten them all killed. But isn’t that what is terrible about bullies in situations of power that have life and death consequences (some chickenhawks come to mind, btw)? As for the performances, I particularly like Winters. I think Damian Lewis is a great actor.
Zuzu's Petals
I plan to watch Temple Grandin tonight.
Why spend my time being insulted when I could be inspired?
Steeplejack
That’s good, because he’s really the linchpin of the whole series.
There was a lot of good acting in that series. I also liked Michael Cudlitz, who played Randleman. He showed up recently in Cole’s beloved series Southland.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Will this be on CSPAN1?
mr. whipple
“Uggghh. why are we giving her so much credence and attention?”
10 pm, EST, Cspan replays Obama speech today to the DNC.
Also.
maus
@Notorious P.A.T.:
The media were probably 100 of the 600 paying guests on top of that, I’m sure.
mr. whipple
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Yes.
Tax Analyst
@Martin:
fixt.
HRA
I am reading a really good book – The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson. It’s about the Chicago Worlds Fair in the late 1800s.
It has real sentences, proper words, etc. and I cannot bear the thought of listening to the opposite.
The Dangerman
Fuck John McCain for foisting this crazy bitch on us.
mr. whipple
@The Dangerman:
McCain saw starbursts in his pants.
Wile E. Quixote
@El Cid:
That’s not enough. We need to move beyond all of that complex ‘going with your gut’ nonsense and move directly to government by sphincter.
Ruckus
Almost 100 media. Hah! Given Teabagger math skills almost is probably 10 or 20.
Mike in NC
Well, it’s a great book about a serial killer, set against the backdrop of the Chicago Fair. That event in itself is worth spending a couple of hours Googling. It was an amazingly high tech presentation for the time.
El Cid
@Wile E. Quixote: I hear ya! The problem with goin’ with yer gut is that it still involves the brain choosing to listen to the gut.
On the other hand, government by sphincter is pure, it’s autonomic, it’s involuntary, it’s Real America.
Michael Bersin
@mcc:
Yes, but will it be the original version?
dr. bloor
@HRA:
Finished that one a few weeks back, right on the heels of Caleb Carr’s The Alienest. Can’t imagine what’s got me fascinated with being a serial killer in the Gilded Age…
dmsilev
@Morbo:
Have fun.
I’m about halfway-ish through the game, and am having a blast. Often literally; I really like Fireball as a good opening gambit for any multi-enemy battle…
-dms
Wile E. Quixote
@Brick Oven Bill:
Ted Nugent is a cowardly punk and weakling and anyone who thinks that he’s tough because he goes out and kills his own food is a fucking idiot. Ted Nugent was too chickenshit to serve his country when they called and showed up at the induction station wearing feces and urine stained clothing so he could get out of being drafted. Oooooh, Ted is so tough, he can kill dumb animals and eat them. Big fucking deal. Animals are stupid and don’t have opposable thumbs, killing them is easy.
Captain Goto
I am very happy to have electricity and heat again.
When the water company tells us that we are allowed to do laundry again, my wife will be thrilled.
Brick Oven Bill
Music is surely the most mysterious Liberal Art and Science as it exists on a number of levels. First, it is pleasing to our ears and we like to listen to it in elevators. Then, as we delve deeper into the Art-Science, we compare and contrast the concord and discord.
Then we wonder why in the West, the octave was adopted where in the East, it was the pentatonic scale.
Consider the Arithmetic and Geometric aspects of the Art-Science. Why are combinations of 3/5ths and 4/5ths of sinusoidal frequencies pleasing fractions to our ear, while 16/17ths makes us wince?
Then we look to the military applications of the drum and bugle corps (pronounced ‘corpse’ by some these days).
In any case, most should be able to agree that The Enlightenment was a good thing. So tonight, in honor of a few hundred Citizens getting together of their own accord, on their own few hundred dollars, let us dedicate a song.
In any case we should probably offer this as a burnt tribute to Ted, given the previous commentary.
Wile E. Quixote
@Michael Bersin:
There’s an idea. I wonder if we can get the baggers and birthers to start singing the original version of the National Anthem (do you capitalize that?) at their events. For those not in the know the original version of the National Anthem (if you’re not supposed to capitalize this would someone let me know. Thanks) has four stanzas. What we hear played at sporting events is only the first stanza. The full version (or should it be the “long form” version) is as follows:
How much do you want to bet that we could spread a meme amongst the baggers and birthers that the other three stanzas were deleted by peace-loving secular humanists who claimed to be offended by the militaristic tone of the song and the reference to God in the fourth stanza?
dr. bloor
@Wile E. Quixote:
Fish, barrel, etc.
Wile E. Quixote
@dr. bloor:
Have you seen the new Sherlock Holmes yet? It has that vibe to it. I saw it yesterday and really liked it, and was impressed that the theatre I saw it in was almost full, six weeks after the initial release, which is rare these days.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Listening to Breitbart introduce Palin is like listening to folks who live in another dimension.
Man, do they like blowing air up each other’s asses or what?
Wile E. Quixote
@dr. bloor:
Well I’ve never shot fish in a barrel but look, have you ever come home from a long and stressful day at work, fired up a shooter like Doom or Unreal, cranked the cheat codes in so you have all the weapons with unlimited ammo and then used the cheat codes to drop a bunch of bad guys into a small enclosed space so you can blow their asses away? It’s not particularly sporting, but it is therapeutic.
dr. bloor
@Wile E. Quixote:
Eh, maybe on DVD. Jeremy Brett will always be Holmes to me.
Wile E. Quixote
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, I mean they are into teabagging after all.
jenniebee
What was that on CSPAN that they just cut away from to go to Breitbart introducing Palin?
Also, too, it turns my stomach when men who are Palinites talk about how she’s a fantasy of theirs. Breitbart’s first comment about her uses that exact word.
Now Breitbart is lauding her for being unafraid to be politically incorrect.
Loudest applause is for his comment that Palin “irks the right people the right way.” Next is that she’s so independent that “not even the Republican party can control” her. Again, she refuses to be politically correct. I can only concluded that Breitbart is retarded.
She asks everybody who has served in uniform to show themselves to be thanked, no cutaway to see how many people do so. She makes a crack about C-Span not being welcome at health care negotiations but they are welcome at the Tea Party. As if Max Baucus wasn’t on TV enough last year.
gnomedad
Can the Secret Service arrest Nugent if he pulls out a machine gun and yells “Obama suck on this!”?
General Winfield Stuck
I lasted one minute and twelve seconds. The sound of her voice makes me want to shoot my gun.
Something Fabulous
@mcc: The fact that “R-between-parens” turns into (R) behind any noted republicans just never gets old for me. Esp now in light of the recent Supremes decision.
Honus
@Brick Oven Bill:
And why should we not want to piss off Ted? Like most right-wing chicken-hawk tin cans, he’d last about ten seconds in a real fight.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
What does this bee-yotch know about national security?
Martin
@General Winfield Stuck: Yeah, we don’t need those kinds of details about your starbursting, pal.
Kobie
I’m following her speech on Roger Ebert’s twitter feed. She sounds like a real fucking harpy.
gnomedad
This is like lauding Tunch for being unafraid to cough up hairballs.
Jon
I made it a minute before I had to change the channel. Do I win anything?
It’s like seeing how long you can hold one of those electric shock gag lighters.
General Winfield Stuck
@Martin: Not that gun. The other one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t really know much about Breitbart. Is his courageous political incorrectness mean he says Obama’s a Muslim terr’rist? Or the Messicans caused the economy to collapse?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t really know much about Breitbart. Is his courageous political incorrectness mean he says Obama’s a Muslim terr’rist? Or the Messicans caused the economy to collapse?
El Cid
Ha ha! N***er! I’m so politically incorrect! Spic! I’m so politically incorrect! Welfare mom! I’m so politically incorrect! Ha ha!
What? HOW DARE YOU INSULT TRIG PALIN I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY SUPER UNGRAMMATALITY!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Palin’s account of what has followed since the failed underpants bomber is completely at odds with the facts.
Kobie
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: There’s a real fucking surprise.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Why am I doing this to myself on a Saturday night?
Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: She’s just speaking the plain truth. The kind you won’t get from the Washington liberal media with their facts.
Kobie
Ebert’s latest tweet:
“Sarah, stop screeching. Lower your voice and slow down.”
I am SO glad I am not watching this right now.
Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: You’re just hoping to shoot your gun like Stuck.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
TARP has turned into a slush fund?
jenniebee
Palin is now hitting Obama for losing elections. No talk about policy, just about winning elections. She says there’s more competition at the primaries and that’s good because competition makes us more efficient. Don’t exactly know how efficient campaigning exactly builds a better country, but it’s stupid, so she’s going for it.
How many cans of hairspray did she use? Geishas have more flexible hair.
She’s accusing the White House of referring to “war” as an “Overseas Contingent Operation.” Lots of criticism of the Christmas bomber. She says that there are questions they would have liked him asked before he “invoked our consititutional rights” but what she goes on about for an age is the rights and they are pissed about anybody being given rights. Eventually she gets to the questions, which are “who do you work for” and “when are they going to attack.”
She’s upset about the European missle defense system being scrapped. Also, apparently the world looks to Alaska as a beacon of hope for the world. She wants a stronger national defense. A lot of general talk, apparently she wants us to stop cozying up to Russia and build a coalition to get tough on Iran. And she’s delivering the dumbed down version of the Democratic Peace Theory.
They are pissed about anybody mentioning that Bush fucked up. And she’s quoting Barry Goldwater.
This gets even weirder, she doesn’t like the bank bailout or the gov’t takeover of the auto co’s. Oh what a crock, she’s taking credit for rejecting stimulus money.
Ash
As someone with two X chromosones, I have no problem saying…I hate this freaking bitch.
Nellcote
cspan1=LaPalin speechifying
cspan2=conservative jerk talking about his book bashing Prez. Obama
cspan needs programming diversity.
Peter J
A couple of years ago I would have never thought I’d say this, but I recommend the LGF thread .
Nellcote
A lot of the 100 journalists are foreign reporters. Even someone from Al Jazeera. Now that takes balls!
El Cid
If only John McCain might have nominated this rebellious superstar as his VP we’d never have descended into Obamahitlerstalin tyranny.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh God, Ebert is brilliant. Thanks for the heads up, Kobie. A few years back, Ebert wrote a few political op-eds. I guess he preferred the movies, but it’s a real loss that he didn’t follow the Frank Rich route, I think he’d be better than Rich.
General Winfield Stuck
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: It is possible to skull fuck ones self.
me
I gave up after 20min. God, she has no depth.
Kobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The man is a treasure.
Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: No, it was a slush fund until Obama showed up. Facts. Pesky facts…
jenniebee
She says that stimulus money went to “districts that didn’t exist.” She says that a million went to updating the stimulus website and that “didn’t create a single job.” IT development jobs are not Real America jobs (but lucky for me they do come with Real America paychecks).
Vague accusation White House gave a $25 million no-bid contract to a Democratic donor. Doesn’t say what it was.
She starts by saying that those DC people don’t think she’s smart enough to understand economics and then she displays a fundamental lack of understanding of Keynesian economics. Or economics at all.
Now she’s saying that if the Feds would cut taxes and regulation the economy would “roar back to life.” Also, too, all we really need for health care reform is to destroy those state powers to set requirements for insurance companies and do “tort reform.” She then questions Obama’s motives for “refusing to consider” tort reform.
Washington should stay out of the way and not spend and cut taxes but it should also now “jump start energy projects.”
No applause when she mentions McCain.
El Cid
@jenniebee: She’s just right wing e-mail spam incarnate.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I really hope Palin is the Republican candidate in 2012. It’s going to be so fun to watch how badly she will lose.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jenniebee:
Heh. John McCain has brought the left and the right together, in despising John McCain. But he’ll always have Broder. And Lieberman. And Brokaw, and….
JenJen
Would it be elitist to say that her vocabulary is very JuCo speech class? I mean, this is just gawdawful to listen to.
kay
@jenniebee:
Expect to hear a lot of ill-informed hysterical blather on tort reform from the Right. State courts are pushing back. This was last week. Note the state:
“The Illinois Supreme Court says limiting damage amounts in medical malpractice cases violates the state’s Constitution.
In an opinion filed Thursday, the court says such caps violate the principle of separation of powers. The court says the limits the Illinois General Assembly adopted in 2005 would infringe on the judicial branch’s power.”
You’d think this would set conservatives on a collision course with their oft-repeated love of state’s rights, but we know it won’t.
Because they’re completely full of shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
via Ebert, Joan Walsh tweets:
jenniebee
Platitudes – “the constitution provides a roadmap to a more perfect union.” It’s at least 3/5 of a more perfect union.
Big applause on “America is nothing to apologize for.”
“Enduring truths handed down from Washington to Lincoln to Reagan and now to you.”
Judging by the applause, Trig was the best thing that ever happened to Palin politically.
Tea Parties are pro-democracy. Well that’s a relief, I thought they were an autonomous collective.
The audience is chanting something, can’t tell what.
I need a beer.
Peter J
Prescreened questions….
Davis X. Machina
I fear that, like W, how she speaks is basically how she thinks. (I went back and forth on the air-quotes for ‘thinks’…..)
Sentient Puddle
I know it’s a given that the speech would be terrible, but really, when you get the chance, you should find any random two minute clip and watch it. It is terrible. In every way possible. You might think that you know how bad it is, but this is seriously a new low.
Kobie
@jenniebee: You are a far stronger person than I, jenniebee.
Martin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: She won’t care if she loses. She’ll get a lot of nice clothes and to fly around in a plane for a year. That’s all she’s after.
Davis X. Machina
Never bet against someone who can make Nixon look both suave and magnanimous — the power to do the impossible is in them…..
Martin
@kay: Texas passed tort reform under Bush as Gov. They still have some of the most expensive health care in the country. I think sensible tort reform is a fine idea, but it’s not going to do any of the things the right thinks it’ll do.
Wile E. Quixote
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I want to see her run in 2012 because I want to see her get her ass kicked by the other Republican candidates. Despite what she might think she got kid-gloves treatment in 2008, and there is no way in Hell that she’s going to get that in 2012, especially if Romney makes a run. With a Romney candidacy there’s also the delicious possibility of an evangelical v. Mormon holy war in the GOP. Evangelicals hate Mormons and don’t regard them as real Christians, which really pisses the Mormons (who feel that other Christian denominations will get into heaven, just not into the really good part of heaven that the Mormons get into) off.
kay
@Sentient Puddle:
I didn’t watch it, but I hope Joan Walsh is right, and she came off mean.
I thought she came off mean at the convention, and I think people generally don’t like “mean” politicians.
The best example is probably John McCain. Once his true horrible nastiness surfaced, he couldn’t put it back.
Quackosaur
Palin plan for mythical 2010 “conservative” Congress:
1. cut spending
2. something about energy plans
3. “allowing America’s spirit to rise again”; “go back to our roots as a God-fearing nation”; “it would be wise for us to seek divine-intervention (again)”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Wile E. Quixote:
Yup. Ol’ Mitt’s got a mean streak too, I think, and the people he’ll be hiring are meaner, especially ex-McCainers who think she tanked his run…. could be fun to watch.
jenniebee
OMG a question and answer something
First question: Is this your first time in Nashville?
How do you see the future of the Tea Party Movement? Republican Party or Third Party?
A: Republicans would be smart to absorb the tea partiers (where the hell does she think the tea partiers were before?) Also she thinks that Dems are also running scared about what happens if they don’t have tea party support.
Q If you could ask Congress… didn’t get all of it
A Ask congressmen if they think we’re “taxed enough already.” Wants more non-career pols running. Wonder how she thinks people who work for a living can take off to run.
Q End game for TEA 2010 is a takeover of both houses by tea partiers. When that’s successful, what are the three things that need to be done.
A Rein in spending, jump start energy projects (apparently she thinks we don’t have domestic energy exploration) and “allow America’s spirit to rise again” and “seek Divine Intervention in our country” without “being afraid of being attacked in the media for it”
Q If a conservative were ever harrassed in the media, what’s your advice to them
A “Press on,” “who cares what the media says?”
Q Reagan’s 99th birthday, Reagan created a great majority that wasn’t Republican it was a “conservative majority” What can we do to get a conservative majority
A Blue Dog dems are peeking in the tent “afraid” of what happens to them if they aren’t part of the Tea Party movement. Independents are going to flock to TP.
kay
@Martin:
I actually have a problem with taking it away from a jury.
I don’t know Martin, if you hired someone, and you had damages, say, a contractor, would you be okay with the legislature limiting your damage award?
I’m not completely comfortable with giving juries such short shrift. I know the results aren’t predictable, but it’s right there in the constitution, and it worries me a little how quickly people dismiss that.
Ohio has made the bar to file more of a hurdle, as has Michigan, and I’m more comfortable with that approach.
demkat620
This woman is the silliest thing I have ever seen.
Dear god help us all and there isn’t a pit in hell deep enough fro John McCain to rot in.
DIAF for unleashing this creature on the world. Fuck you Mr. Maverick.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I’m done with this crap. I’m gonna play some Watchmen and kick some criminal heads in.
Quackosaur
Palin’s going to “assist” in contested primaries! Will Republicans (or those Blue Dogs “peeking under the tent”?) embrace her or fear her?
mcc
I CAN’T REACH THE RED PIPE AT THE END OF WORLD 2-4
morzer
Listening to Sarah Palin talk about America is like listening to Gollum’s views on the Shire. Once you get past the ritual denunciations and the calls to rage, it really comes down to one long whine of “Precioussssss.. we hates them, we hates them.. we hates them forever! My Preciousssss!”
jcricket
The only thing that gives me hope Republicans won’t take over and ruin our country is their insistence on running bat-shit crazy people in most places, and embracing kooks like Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.
Enough (more than a majority) of the public sees through this crap that it doesn’t work.
Again, if Republicans kept up the “charade” of compassionate conservatism and did more stuff like Medicare Part D (huge government expansion, not paid for) they could easily sweep to power and keep it until they quite possibly ruin our country beyond repair.
See California for what can happen with that “live for today” kind of strategy, combined with public desire for government that fixes all the problems, but doesn’t “bother” (i.e. tax) them to do so.
Hell, as California shows, even in the minority, when combined with the silly initiative movement and “populist” sentiment, Republicans can seriously fuck up a large economy.
Again. Democrats don’t give me hope. But Republicans are taking their minor victories as a sign that people like Palin are the future – and 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the public (as evidenced by the polls about people like Palin) doesn’t like it.
FlipYrWhig
@El Cid:
Right wing email spam crossed with pen1s extender email spam.
jenniebee
Q We hear about the Obama Plan, what is the Palin Plan?
A Elites call her simple-minded for having such a smart common sense plan, support those who understand the foundation principles, blahblah Free Market National Security terrorism: “bottom line: we win, they lose. We do all that we can to win”
Q How is son in the army doing?
A Awesome, so proud, chosen something greater than self, so proud something greater than self thank those he serves with and those gone before
Q 2010 is an election year, will P be endorsing?
A She will, not naming anybody, encouraging contested primaries
Q Two words that scare liberals “President Palin” – big applause – chant of “Run Sarah Run” – if you’re president tomorrow, first three problems you tackle?
A Jump start energy projects, cut spending, cut out efforts on bipartisanship. States that WH lied about being interested in working with Republicans on HCR
She “will live, will die for the people of America” and says she will be happy to take “whatever the speaker’s fee is” and “put it right back into ‘the cause'”
I’m from Richmond. I live six blocks from a statue of Robert E. Lee. People talking about ‘the cause’ make me nervous.
kay
@demkat620:
Henry Paulson wrote a truly devastating account of the McCain Meeting in DC when McCain suspended his campaign, in today’s WSJ.
Paulson was in the room. he was flabbergasted that McCain had called this meeting, and then wouldn’t speak. Bush actually asked McCain to speak, and McCain demurred.
Finally, OBAMA called McCain’s bluff, and said “I’d like to hear from Senator McCain” and McCain read off a card he was holding.
Paulson makes a joke about how Obama’s comments were really informed “without a teleprompter, or even notes”.
John McCain must be steaming.
Martin
@kay: Oh, I don’t think it should be taken away from a jury. But I think there needs to be some balance to filing claims – particularly class action. On the latter, a cap not on damages but on lawyer fees would probably go pretty far.
Overall, I think the most important goal should be on speeding up court cases. I’m not sure how to do that without penalizing the little guy, but I’d like to see some real effort put towards it.
El Cid
@jenniebee: Sarah’s Lost Cause?
General Winfield Stuck
@kay: I think ending or restricting venue shopping would be okay. When I lived in Mississippi there were several counties that were meccas for that, especially with product liability class action suits.
Other than that, I agree with you Kay on limiting damages for legitimate cases. In some areas like with medical malpractice, which is the white whale for wingers to clamp down on, lawsuits are the only means of real penalties and holding to account bad doctors. There is no decent self policing by state medical boards for weeding out or sufficiently punishing the relative small numbers of people practicing medicine that shouldn’t be. And they account for the lions share of negligent deaths from medical mistakes.
demkat620
They really do live in an alternate reality don’t they?
These people are fuck all insane.
demkat620
WTF is Neal Boortz sitting in front of?
Peter J
@kay:
Wow.
jenniebee
@kay: Link?
Not surprised though – that’s just about exactly what was reported at the time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
but she wouldn’t punch a clock for the people of Alaska
Tonal Crow
@Annie: I’ll pay for their one-way tickets to South Waziristan, where they can set up their cult and fight with the Taliban about how many angels can dance upon the heads of the devils that dance upon a pinhead’s head. Too. Also.
kay
@Martin:
Michigan and Ohio settled on this “expert bar” where an MD has to examine the merits of the claim before it goes further.
I agree with you to a certain extent on class actions, except I think they do have value as sort of an ad hoc consumer protection.
I know this is verboten, but I don’t think doctors are a special class of service provider. When the contractor put my new energy efficient dining room windows in backward, I wanted him to make me whole. I wasn’t making some moral statement. He screwed up, it happens, now make me whole. I wasn’t worried about his insurance rates either, and he wasn’t silly enough to deny the error. We pay doctors really well to do a difficult job. They make errors. They’re insured for that.
I’d like to see them police their own a little better. if that malpractice stat is true, and 5% of doctors are the cause of most of the claims, well, that’s why we have licensing boards. Kick ’em out. If they don’t, they’re going to pay a lot for insurance.
Tonal Crow
I’d watch it, but I’ve neglected rearranging my sock drawer, and, oh, the dog needs waxing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Peter J:
Wow. That is something. And on topic as we discuss Moosalina. He’s impulsive, hot-headed at takes arrogance to near-pathological levels. He thought his mere presence would magically bring some resolution to the ecomonic crisis from the heads of others. And this is pretty much what Lindsey Graham said too. Obama and Cheney both laughing at McCain. I’m surprised he didn’t stroke out.
Kobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: +1 internets to you, good sir.
Sentient Puddle
@kay: Oh believe me, she did. You name it, she probably came across that way.
jenniebee
@General Winfield Stuck: Especially since the AMA has done such a truly horrid job of self-policing. Those 5% of doctors that are the source of more than 50% of the malpractice need to go.
Ailuridae
@jenniebee:
I see what you did here. Awesome sauce
Martin
@kay: Wow, that’s even worse than what was leaked at the time. What a huge bullet we dodged. Between McCain and Palin, who the fuck would have been in charge?
Peter J
@jenniebee:
Here’s a link to the WSJ article.
Tonal Crow
@Martin:
Palin, hands down. I shudder to think how bad things would now be.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Martin:
The first stories would’ve been Graham/Lieberman/COS vs the Palin camp, then would come Graham vs Lieberman.
PK
There isn’t a pit in hell deep enough for all the people who worship this women and think that she is anything other than a worthless retard.
Martian Buddy
I miss the days when conservatives understood the concept of “inalienable rights.”
kay
@Sentient Puddle:
I’m so glad. I sat back in my chair during the speech at the RNC convention. I thought “who is this horrible person screaming at me?”
I thought it was an insane way to make a debut. Just spitting derision and vitriol.
They keep comparing her to Reagan, but Reagan had that veneer of cheerfulness. She’s just flat-out mean.
jenniebee
@Ailuridae: The liveblog of that was a job for 28 Percent. Actually, string her quotes together minus the filler that separates the contradicting statements (reduce taxes, eliminate debt, stronger ($$) national defense, war until “we win, they lose” and “jump start” (read: subsidize) domestic energy exploration) and throw in some JESUS CAPS and you have a 28% post.
BigBennie
Agreed that you should watch 60 seconds just to see how bad she is. Criticized Obama for using a tele prompter by reading off an index card.
“Going back in time,” she says. We should again be “god fearing.” Those are not going to win a lot of independents.
Honestly, she’s great for democrats. The tea party is a joke–the costumes? Are f—ing kidding?
The republican primaries will be a bloodbath. Hell, if McCain took Tom Ridge over her he might have won.
Martin
@kay: Self-regulation is a very important part of any professional discipline. I agree that medicine doesn’t do a good enough job of it, but the whole routine of program accreditation down to passing medical board exams comes from the profession.
What they are bad at – and all professions are as well – law, engineering, and so on – is removing people that have already run the gauntlet. They’re tough on letting people in the club and not nearly as tough when it comes to removing them. That needs to get cleaned up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
those of you who stomached it, is this tweet true?
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hey, what do you expect for $100K – memorized talking points? Gotta pay a lot more for that kind of service.
kay
@Martin:
It’s really, really bad for McCain.
Paulson’s a lively writer. He’s trying to come off as unfamiliar with the ways of Washington (which he actually was, I’m reading “Too Big To Fail”) and he recounts McCain’s stunt with something like…wonder. He just can’t believe someone would call a meeting and then arrive completely unprepared.
Bush speaks first, then hands it off to Pelosi, according to protocol, and Pelosi passes and hands it off to Obama.
Obama does his thing, and then Bush says to McCain that he feels McCain deserves a chance to respond to Obama, and McCain says “I’ll wait my turn”. Paulson is completely confused by this, because McCain called the meeting.
Obama starts smiling, calls McCain’s bluff, and the whole room goes quiet while McCain reads off a little card.
suzanne
@Annie:
Fabulous. Give them Texas. Or Utah. Then all the anti-vaccine shitheads and Rethuglican fuckwits can move there and get the fuck out of my country. With, of course, a strict embargo. And I mean like North-Korea-levels of security along the border to keep them out.
These people are anal fissures on the asshole of America.
jenniebee
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t notice her doing it (granted, I was typing and listening more than watching), and her answers were so general there was really no reason she would have.
Ailuridae
@Martin:
The right doesn’t think it’ll do any of the things its telling the base that tort reform will do. Its just an attack on a Democratic constituency wrapped up into a bow.
When I hear conservatives talk about tort reform as it relates to healthcare costs I always mention that expanding the VHA to anyone that wants to buy in would greatly reduce this problem as VHA doctors have sovereign immunity from medical malpractice lawsuits. It has very little to do with why the VHA is so effective and cheap but if conservatives understood that correlation doesn’t imply causation well, they likely wouldn’t be conservative.
mcd410x
@jenniebee: You should be scared.
She’s going to die for all of us.
God, what happens if she and Tim Tebow team up? Would that be peak wingnut?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just saw her picture on HuffPo. Looks like John Boehner gave her the name of his tanning consultant.
kay
@Martin:
Absolutely. It’s true for lawyers too. Except I don’t bitch about buying malpractice insurance, or lobby to limit damages, or align with my malpractice insurer against my clients, on a policy level. Part of what doctors are buying is a defense to claims. Are insurance claim defense lawyers really at this huge disadvantage when it comes to defending against individual patients? Tort lawyers don’t get paid unless they win, or settle. They have actual skin in the game.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hoo! Ebert has a pic of Palin reading her crib notes!
Svensker
@suzanne:
Yes, but how do you really feel?
Martin
@kay: Well, credit to Paulson in one sense – having spent time as a CEO he’s going to be pretty intolerant of being dragged into a bullshit meeting. And the Senate is king at bullshit meetings.
But the key to that particular meeting was that it was the place for the two candidates to be presidential. That was McCain’s entire point for doing it, and when his moment came, he backed away, and not only did Obama not back away, his other leaders showed a stronger hand then McCain while still handing authority to Obama.
Geez, I still can’t get over the image of that McCain and lady Starbursts in the Oval Office trying to deal with a crisis.
KCinDC
@jenniebee, don’t worry, in her case “the cause” just means her own money-making celebrity machine.
Ailuridae
@Martin:
Self-regulation is a very important part of any professional discipline. I agree that medicine doesn’t do a good enough job of it, but the whole routine of program accreditation down to passing medical board exams comes from the profession.
What they are bad at – and all professions are as well – law, engineering, and so on – is removing people that have already run the gauntlet. They’re tough on letting people in the club and not nearly as tough when it comes to removing them. That needs to get cleaned up.
Medicine’s self- regulation isn’t really to provide better medicine but to provide better salaries and job security to doctors. I know this is not a popularly recognized fact but its nonetheless true and a huge, undeniable source of the outrageous cost of medical care in the US. American doctors are essentially formed into a cabal against the interests of other American citizens.
You mentioned one of the prime reasons this is the case. American medical schools are set to a size that will guarantee there will be fewer graduates each year than there are jobs to fill. That’s why students that miss the cut for US medical school know they can goto medical school in Costa Rica or Israel as two of my friends did and know you can return to the US to earn a lot of money.
freelancer (itouch)
So awful that you hear the urine whizzing down Sully’s pants:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/one-last-word.html
Mark S.
A month or two ago Digby asked if Palin was really more divisive than other politicians, and I would have to say yes. To Sarah, the only real Americans are white fundamentalist Christians who live in towns smaller than 10,000 people. Other politicians use this same tact, but with Sarah, that’s the only tool in her toolbox, so listening to her is an endless torrent of white resentment and grievance. If you are at all different from Sarah, an hour of her will make you feel very unwelcome.
Mark S.
I didn’t watch the speech; she actually said that? Jesus Christ that’s blasphemous!
I disagree with Sully: that’s not political gold. That is dogshit to anyone who hasn’t yet drank the kool-aid.
Montysano
@Peter J:
A definite must-read.
Kobie
I found it humorous that an organization that has devoted itself (on the surface) to decrying waste and overspending forked over 100 large for a 20-minute speech.
shortstop
You must be mistaken. The head teabagger for this event solemnly assured us that the joint was sold out with a waiting list. A waiting list!
New Yorker
Sully’s losing his marbles again. I really don’t grasp how, on one hand, he can have such an immigrant’s optimistic view of this country, and yet on the other hand, be so frightened that the republic will collapse under the onslaught of….what? Charles Coughlin with bigger tits? Does this woman have half the brains (or audience) that Father Coughlin had?
I sent him an e-mail telling him to calm the fuck down.
Midnight Marauder
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wow, this woman is an absolute joke. I am so fucking giddy for the Republican primaries. They are going to be an unholy bloodbath and Sarahgeddon is going to be featured very prominently in that. Her implosion is going to be even more spectacular than I thought it could be. This performance tonight, the unpaid property taxes, the e-mails that are finally coming out proving that the First Dude was substantially more involved in government affairs than he ever should be; all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.
She’s going to go down in flames and she’s going to bring a whole lot of miserable people with her.
And fuck John McCain straight to hell. Also.
+3
Texas Dem
Don’t waste your time on Sarah Palin. She’s a joke, and will never run for president. And if she did, Obama would win a landslide that would make LBJ or Reagan envious. Why play her game? Ignore her and she’ll go away.
shortstop
David Plouffe’s (admittedly gleeful) version of events from “people who were there” is that McCain was not only abominably unprepared; he was in a snit that Obama had the nerve to speak first, and with some assurance, at McCain’s Very Special Campaign-Suspending Meeting. The “I’ll wait my turn” was just trademark McCain junior-high snottiness. God, he can’t even do petulant competently.
Mark S.
@New Yorker:
Exactly.
Also, Sarah Palin is NOT going to run for President. This woman is too lazy to work the four hours a day necessary to be governor of Alaska. She is not going to work the eighteen hour days needed to run for president.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mark S.:
She’s in it for the money. If she can boost her income by taking a run at it, she might try it. I just wonder if she or her advisors are smart enough to recognize the risk to her brand.
dr. bloor
@Ailuridae:
For a start, you should probably brush up on the distinction between the AMA and state licensing boards before you start screeding.
Texas Dem
No, thank God. And that’s why she’s a joke, and will remain one. But there’s definitely an opportunity out there for a demagogue who has some brains, charm and charisma. Let’s describe the formula as part Sarah Palin, part Romney, part Gingrich, and a dose of John Thune. If anyone comes along who has those qualities, and perhaps some military experience as well, then we’re in a lot of trouble. Until then, try to relax. Go out and get laid or something. Quit worrying about Sarah Palin. She’s not Hitler, and this isn’t Weimar Germany. RELAX.
Martin
@Ailuridae: Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The professions have matured, and so yes, it would appear that way, but the entire history of how medicine rose from being practiced by dentists with crappy equipment to what we have today is a function of that self-regulation. Same goes for the other disciplines.
The problem they have now is that progress is incrementally more difficult to accomplish, so it doesn’t seem as though all of this infrastructure is really accomplishing that much. That’s true of the other disciplines as well.
American medical schools are the size they are because the cost of educating a student has increased faster than the rate of funding, so they have no funds to expand. A teaching hospital runs upward of $500M to build these days. That’s a function of the growth of technology in the field. Many, many medical schools would like to expand but most of them are also the only public hospitals in their area and are required to service the community, even at a loss. It’s a big problem.
Anne Laurie
@Martian Buddy:
Of course to most of that class of conservatives (like WFBuckley), those rights were only ever “inalienable” for white male propertyholders. Who also got extra rights (up to three-fifths apiece) for every not-rightholder (wives, dependents, serfs) they could accumulate in the free-as-they-needed-it-to-be marketplace.
Martin
@New Yorker: He’s not worried about her as much as he’s worried about the 86% of self identified Republicans who think she’s more qualified or aren’t sure if she’s more qualified than Obama. That’s who he’s relying on to make wise conservative decisions, and frankly I’m a bit worried about that as well.
General Winfield Stuck
@Mark S.: You are right. She is not going to run for anything. She is a political cult figure that has a gift for saying clownish things that get the attention of our dufous media. She therefore has some power to further poison our national dialogue more than what it is.
The wingers CC’ers are afraid of her in a similar way they are of Limbaugh. She and a handful of other RW charlatan personas hold in their hands the crazy wing of the GOP that nearly every wingnut needs to get elected. Sarah is our skunk in the punchbowl, the bussell in our hedgrow. And I think she is tickled pink to be that, and all she has to do is tweet some insanity like “Death Panels”, and now and again show up for teevee appearances and the odd Tea Bag convention, collect her check and scurry back to Alaska with the brown bags stuffed with cash.
She makes the GOP just that much more dangerous ever having power again, with her little voting block of wingnut wraiths that hold hostage any breakout of sanity amongst those goopers who might venture forth to offer some.
Ailuridae
@dr. bloor:
I’m acutely aware of all of the differences. You’ll notice that I never mentioned the AMA or state regulatory boards in my comment.
The numbers are what they are and are undeniable – the biggest share of costs in the health care system, by far is provider compensation and provider compensation in the US absolutely dwarfs provider compensation in the rest of the industrialized world. Unlike something like, say, medical malpractice claims which are a small portion of medical costs and are declining in real dollars and as a percentage of health care costs provider compensation is an actual if not the actual driver of medical inflation. The reason that the health care bill had to go about starting to curb the growth of these costs is because its a politically inconvenient fact – doctors are immensely popular, they are a great example of a hard work American success story in a lot of instances, most educated people have a friend who’s a highly paid specialist but only after living under horrible conditions for a decade after college so their claims of “deserving” exorbinant wages seem reasonable etc.
Are you disputing that at every turn in the licensing and regulatory framework that currently exists for doctors in America there isn’t a huge push against competition and to maintain high wages?
morzer
Palin won’t run for president because her real power lies in being able to endorse and boost preferred candidates without being accountable. If she went for the nomination, she’d be shredded by other Republicans, not to mention the media, and see her earning potential sharply diminished.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Amusing to see the dingbat wanking on about Obama losing in NJ, VA and MA. McCain says the same thing, “he (Obama) lost those races.” In NJ and VA, her absence was specifically requested by the candidates. I can’t remember if Brown did the same, but Frank Rich says Brown specifically avoided using the word Republican in his print and TV ads. None of the reporters telling me the MA race was a referendum on Obama and national politics ever saw fit to mention that.
Igor Marxomarxovich
Difference between USSR Communist media and USA “mainstream media”
In Russia government make media say what they want – even if lie.
In USA “mainstream media” try make government what they want – even if lie..
…..eventually they become same thing?!
Old Russian saying You can tell same lie 1000 time but not change truth!
I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at http://www.igormarxo.org
Compare Obama Care vs Igor Care at Obama Care vs Igor Care
Salute Ms Sarah!!!
Only someone trying to sodomize America would call these people “teabaggers”
Kobie
@Igor Marxomarxovich: This?
Ailuridae
@Martin:
American medical schools are the size they are because the cost of educating a student has increased faster than the rate of funding, so they have no funds to expand. A teaching hospital runs upward of $500M to build these days. That’s a function of the growth of technology in the field. Many, many medical schools would like to expand but most of them are also the only public hospitals in their area and are required to service the community, even at a loss. It’s a big problem.
I live less than a mile from UIC medical school, the nations largest and one that has educated no fewer than a dozen of my friends and their significant others. Until last month when the expansion plan was scrapped because of state budgeting issues (quick aside: necessary hospital expansions are being shelved because of state budgeting crises across America; this is a good place to stress spending in a bill that would essentially be stimulative policy and smart politics) the UIC medical campus was planning a $650M dollar expansion of their campus to remain competitive with expansions at U of C, Rush, and Northwestern hospitals that have all taken place in the last 15 years. All total there has been nearly 2.4M spent on hospital expansion in Chicago proper (Northwestern Med is just NE of downtown and not in Evanston) and if your thesis were correct one of these schools would have had a massive expansion of their medical school. None of them did and UIC wasn’t planning too. This all despite of a known doctor shortage in Illinois and thats before the large expansion in care that will be required over the next ten years.
jenniebee
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can vouch for that in the VA race, at least in the (very conservative) greater Richmond market. McDonnell ran as a generic Virginia Republican. His campaign was very intensively about job creation. I don’t remember anything out of his campaign where he was running against the stimulus or Obama.
Something Fabulous
@Tonal Crow: Yikes! As in Turtle, or Bikini?
Tenzil Kem
It seems like the only Republicans who HAVE won lately have been the ones who specifically avoided Palin. Contra Doug Hoffman.
Tonal Crow
@General Winfield Stuck:
Now *that* is a scary thought. Gollum really did take the Ring with him when he fell into the Crack of Doom…didn’t he?
JGabriel
Gollum was a ringnut.
.
Chuck Butcher
@JGabriel:
That’s a win in anybody’s book
Comrade Luke
This woman scares the shit out of me. She’s utterly incompetent, is never prepared, is a proven quitter…and is on the front page of the NY Times.
jenniebee
@Mark S.: I actually don’t believe she’s in it for the money. I think she’s in it for the applause, and for the unadulterated approval she’s showered with by her following. I think she will run, because she sincerely loves campaigning. And I think that she sincerely believes that she could have a successful presidency by cutting all the smarty-pants insider elitist “experts” out and instead installing Monica Goodling and the guys from Powerline in office.
She won’t win because one of the messages she drills into all of her speeches is that the “so called experts keep calling [her] simple-minded” which works for building appeal with other people who don’t like the way the rest of the world keeps making them feel stupid. It is not, however, a confidence builder for most of the electorate, who would rather have a President about whom you could at least rationalize that he must be smart because he was a legacy admission to the Harvard MBA program.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m obviously late to this thread, having just arrived back in the snowbound (although less so than southeast) north, but it occurred to me on my flight back home that the average high school student journalism convention has around 6,000 attendees, and they don’t have three cable networks hovering around their every breath.
600 people in a convention hall is nothing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s three times the attendance of the national PUMA convention, bucko.
Three times.
arguingwithsignposts
That’s not a function necessarily of the growth of technology in the field. Anything costs more to build these days, especially when it’s situated in the middle of a major metroplex. Add in the cost of staffing that expansion, and there’s a lot of money going in besides “technology.”
(aside, who’s going to build a teaching hospital from scratch? Maybe that’s where you’re getting $500 million from, but building an additional wing, or an expansion? that’s crazy money)
(second aside, “the only public hospitals in their area and are required to service the community, even at a loss. It’s a big problem.” I don’t see that as a problem, I see that as fulfilling their f**king mission)
arguingwithsignposts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, when you put it like that … let’s crank up the wurlitzer!
arguingwithsignposts
@Ailuridae:
This. Also, my doctor is from India, and so is her M.D.
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As someone who couldn’t avoid Brown’s ads, I can assure you he used the words Democrats and Independents a lot but NEVER the R-word. (Yes, there was an actual ‘Independent’ running, a capital-letter Libertarian whose entire campaign was ‘My legal name is Joe Kennedy, and maybe I can confuse some low-information voters’.) In fact, when Coakley’s people finally got off the dime and started running opposition ads, they relied heavily on the R-word, and Scotty found these ‘harsh words and lies’ very, very wounding to his sensitive spirit, especially since he’d just made a big media noise with an ad featuring John F. Kennedy and implying that he was a Democrat without quite saying that word.
Chuck Butcher
@arguingwithsignposts:
Try to remember that Martin is the guy who whined about health ins industry’s 2% profits while ignoring how corps work and now brings up malpractice as an issue while ignoring the % offenders and % cost increase. Might be instructive for him to take a look at construction contractor’s ins rates. Makes you wonder who writes his checks…
Anne Laurie
@shortstop:
Hmmm. From the WSJ link:
Sound like Johnny Walnuts wasn’t the only one whose sensitive feelings were hurt. C’mon down, Sen. “Shakedown” Shelby! What’s that Faulkner saying? “The past is never dead — here in the South, it isn’t even past?”
Chuck Butcher
It not only ain’t past, it’s subject to revision from day one to one minute ago.
Allan
@Tenzil Kem: No! You mustn’t speak that name. NY-23 never happened! NY-23 has always been a Democrat district!
—
But seriously, no one who talks for money on the TeeVee will bring this up because it is an actual example of how wingnuts can screw the pooch for Republicans on a nationwide basis, if we only encourage them enough.
xian
@Wile E. Quixote: I’m so in.
jenniebee
Just to add, after taking a whole four and a half hours to think about Palin’s speech I think the biggest takeaway for me was actually what she had to say about bipartisanship, as an insight into what these folks are thinking and what the next decade of dealing with them and the pols who depend on placating them is going to be like. She was adamant that there is no room for bipartisanship – the subject came up in the speech and then again in her Q&A session. Summing up her position:
1. If bipartisanship doesn’t mean that everybody agrees with Tea Partiers then TP’s shouldn’t do it because they’re right. About everything. All the time. This is because they’re humble which means that God agrees with them. So compromise = apostasy.
2. At the same time, they are pissed off that Obama is making noises about bipartisanship, presumably because they recognize that non-teabaggers react positively to it and they sense that their recalcitrant response makes them look bad. They don’t think this is fair, because if Obama was really interested in bipartisanship, he’d adopt their “common sense solutions.” The fact that he won’t, when they are so common sense and would so obviously work, is proof to them that his patriotism is suspect.
As a note, the teabagger questioning of their opponent’s patriotism is largely equivalent to us questioning their intelligence. Since their enemy is a ubiquitous cadre of smartypants egghead elitist eggheaded eggheads, it’s easier to question their motives than to question their intelligence.
Allan
By the way, I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but Sarah Palin just put Scott Brown in an awkward spot.
Remember how the other day he “forgot” that he received a congratulatory call from The Grifter? Seeming to distance himself from her?
She devoted a nice chunk of time early in her, um, performance to lauding Mr. Brown for being a guy with a truck, though she neglected to mention any other assets possessed by Mr. Brown relevant to his victory, such as several terms in the state legislature, a treasure trail to die for, a TV newscaster wife, an American Idol contestant daughter and the worst Democratic opponent since… well, OK, Coakley was about average as awful Democratic candidates go.
So Scott Brown, the question goes to you now. Which kind of Republican are you, Senator Brown? Are you a True Conservative like Sarah Palin? Will you sign a Tea Party pledge, or take an oath, or slit your wrists, or whatever we’re doing this week to show solidarity with the Tea Party Patriots?
JMY
God help us all…
Morbo
@arguingwithsignposts: Hey now, in addition to the 600 convention attendees, Palin brought in another 500
chumpsindividual event attendees for a grand total of 1,100. Woo.valdivia
@jenniebee:
just wanted to say thank you for your great work doing the live blogging. I read Sulli after the fact and almost had a heart attack. This guy really really is afraid of her. Your take was more like good reporting with critical analysis. Thanks for that.
Lesley
Video of Palin reading notes from the palm of her hand. Not even subtle about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtcVMTZkTZQ
Republicans might want to order a teleprompter for Palin so she can stop using her telepalmer.
BDeevDad
@Lesley: It’s the telepalmer!
— stole from twitter
BDeevDad
Damn, need to read better. You said it all.
Sly
@jenniebee:
She wouldn’t like it for long. All the ex-staffers of the McCain campaign who have an axe to grind, and they are probably legion, will fan out amongst her primary opponents’ campaigns with the sole purpose of destroying her life. Unless she enters the primary late, this will be unavoidable. And late entrances have the nasty habit of destroying a campaign’s ground game in early voting states. Given that the GOP primaries are winner-take-all, the early states matter much more there than with the Democrats.
In other words, we will not be seeing Sarah Palin, Republican Nominee for President, in 2012.
Sly
@Lesley:
Notes on your hand
Notes on your hand
Lookin’ like a fool with your notes on your hand
JGabriel
The Prince of Darkness laughing as chaos descends amidst the wreck and wrack of impending financial doom?
Who woulda thunk, huh?
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JGabriel
Wow, the McCain campaign is looking more inept than ever. All those complaints from Schmidt, and others, about Sarah not being prepared for interviews, and apparently all they really needed to do was write the answers on the palm of her hand.
If they’d only known to treat Sarah like a nine-year-old with Attention Deficit Disorder, John McCain might be president today!
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zoe kentucky in pittsburgh
What was truly bizarre to me is that both CNN and MSNBC ran Palin’s spech LIVE AND IN ITS ENTIRETY. (I’m assuming Fox did too but I didn’t check.) Sarah Palin is the Paris Hilton of politics.
The telegenic power of Palin and the teabaggers is greatly assisted by the MSM who are always seeking to support/create an “us v. them” controversy. I can’t think of another time when they’d all run a private citizen’s speech from a private, very expensive event of dubious importance. You truly can’t buy that kind of free promotion. However, for Palin there is a real down side– CNN had instant polling going on and apparently her snarling nastiness is not going over too well among anyone who doesn’t already worship her, most notably among independents. It’s one thing to be ugly during a campaign, but now she’s viciously attacking a sitting president in very scary economic times. It really doesn’t go over so well.
I don’t think the GOP realizes that they are in danger of looking like they’re truly excited about anything that might make dems look bad– they’re Doomsday Cheerleaders– including high unemployment, attempted terrorism, etc. I think it might really catch up with them by November, especially if the economy keeps showing signs of stabilizing and improving somewhat.
arguingwithsignposts
Hey, now. Sarahcuda is an advanced user of the Palm Pilot ™ you stop making fun of her!
Zuzu's Petals
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
FTW
JGabriel
@zoe kentucky in pittsburgh:
Do you have a link, perchance? I’d like to see that, and I couldn’t find video of it at CNN.com. I’m guessing they didn’t excerpt it, but hoping I’m wrong.
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kay
@Martin:
If you get a chance, read “Too Big To Fail”. It’s far too sympathetic to finance and banking, I’ll just tell you that upfront. It makes you wonder if business reporters are completely captured by their near-worship of high-fliers in finance and business.
But. There’s interesting anecdotes, and I feel as if they reveal a lot.
Paulson is panicking, and he starts to call his friends on Wall Street to get some idea of what is going on. The Wall Streeters dismiss the wisdom of the people Paulson’s working with (career Treasury employees). Paulson pushes back against this arrogance: he tells the Masters of Finance that Treasury employees are working 16 hour days for “165,000 a year” and that they’re “really smart”.
This was a revelation to Paulson. That smart and hard working people might work for a measly 165k a year.
So, they really believe their own bullshit. They believe they are worth 50 million a year, and only dumb chumps would work for less.
chopper
@zoe kentucky in pittsburgh:
i love how netroots nation has been running for years with big name speakers from the democratic party like bill clinton and al gore, and has had almost all of the contenders for the presidential primary there in the past years. the first year (2006) it had more attendees than the tea party convention and has been growing every year. these days it’s frickin huge.
of course, people wouldn’t know that because it gets no main stream media coverage at all. but 600 teabaggers show up to listen to grifty mcgrift toss a word salad and it gets full coverage on CNN and MSNBC.
El Cid
@JGabriel: When he laughed, was there an echo? Were there lightning strikes and thunderclaps outside the windows?
matoko_chan
Like the elephants child, I just have one question and I have been axing it everywhere…….
I don’t think the “no follow-on questions” rule she got for the VP debate will apply to a presidential debate.
Do the teabaggers think they can install her in a putsch?
JGabriel
@El Cid: If there weren’t, there should have been.
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Pasquinade
http://twitter.com/pourmecoffee
Another one, although not about Palin, still funny.
dmsilev
@chopper:
To be fair, I was at the 2007 version, the one where all the Presidential candidates showed up, and the debate/forum with the candidates was positively packed with television cameras. At one point, I was also approached by a reporter and asked “are you blogging right now?”. Me: “No, I’m chatting with this person who is standing right in front of me.”
-dms
matoko_chan
This is hilarious.
via Charles.
rawr
mebbe Rasmussen will poll the median age of the Teabag Con attendees?
Betcha they are all christian non-hispanic caucs within one std of the mean of IQ or less.
:)
El Cid
Can I just mention that I hate these people?
I mean, god, the notion that there are noticeable numbers of living, breathing people in this country who think Palin is some sort of leader — no matter how historically typical, it’s still mind-boggling.
matoko_chan
Audra Shay is not “young”…..she is pushin forty hard.
How old is Jordan Marks?
matoko_chan
Palin wrote hand notes for a speech where she had the questions in advance.
How does anyone think she can debate Obama?
She couldn’t handle Katie Couric.
patrick
It’s not just that she had a cheat sheet, but a close-up of her hand showed that she had written:
Energy
BudgetTax cutsLift American Spirit
I am especially impressed that she had to write down “tax cuts” to remember it, and didn’t even it right the first time.
chopper
@dmsilev:
i didn’t see full coverage on CNN, that’s for sure. and NN 2007 was waaaay bigger than this pile o crap.
chopper
@matoko_chan:
yeah, that’s the way to get kids these days into the conservative movement. use bowling as a metaphor against some dictators who made history decades before these kids were even born.
what’s next, anti-socialism taffy pulls?
Zuzu's Petals
In case you thought that other pic was photoshopped, she really did have writing on her hand.
Can you imagine she sat all through dinner like that?
matoko_chan
@Zuzu’s Petals: wow her hands look awfully post-menopausal. she’s going to need some Fruit Chan Dumplings before 2012 thass for sure.
lawl.
collin
The We Party
A liberal progressive response to the tea party.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=339608504744