A group of unnamed businessmen bring this message to us:
At the very least, the cowards could put their name to it.
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter
A group of unnamed businessmen bring this message to us:
At the very least, the cowards could put their name to it.
Comments are closed.
[…] Via Balloon Juice. […]
SP
I missed the act that classified failure to lower the top marginal rate as a high crime.
ellaesther
Begins?
I thought this, or some version of this, had been going on since Nov 5, 2008.
John Quixote
Fixed
thomas Levenson
Can’t we just declare Dick Cheney king and get this done? That way when his ticker finally blows, we’ll have Liz all lined up in the legitimate (sic!) sequence of succession.
slag
I’m with ellaesther on this. Nothing new here.
But I’m wondering what kind of crappy businessperson is spending money on this worthless billboard instead of on their business. I smell a rat.
atlliberal
So it’s Obama’s fault that these guys are failing at their business?
What ever happened to personal responsibility and keeping the government out of it?
Specifically what has Obama done that caused their business to fail?
What have they done to try to make it succeed?
Wouldn’t their advertising dollars be better spent getting customers to come into their business?
Do they really think they will succeed by pissing off at least half of their cuistomers?
I’m beginning to see why they are failing and it has nothing to do with the President.
Ed in NJ
I’m sure there were Bush-bashing billboards during the ’00s. Yet every time some fringe group puts up a “Where’s The Birth Certificate” or “Do You Miss Me” or this one, the liberal media reports it as some nationwide movement.
Sentient Puddle
@SP: Lying about a blowjob is a high crime. Not lowering taxes is INFINITELY WORSE!
Elisabeth
Heh. A dude has been riding his bicycle around Burlington, VT for months with a giant sign saying, “IMPEACH OBAMA” on it. I think he’s a Naderite, though.
He is also serious.
El Cid
EXACTLY! If only Obama would stop all the gubmit spending and cut the taxes this would magically give people their jobs back and then customers could go out and shop at all these small businesses!
bemused
Rent is $1,000 per month for 6 months. $6,000 would have been a nice donation to a local food shelf or homeless shelter.
Brian J
As I suggested the other day, why don’t we take out billboards calling out the people who are touting the jobs the stimulus created but voted against it? Unlike these cowards, as J.C. so aptly described them, we can attach our names to our billboards.
GReynoldsCT00
At least this group or morans can spell
atlliberal
Silly, those people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The real help is tax cuts. if we all had tax cuts everything would be Ok.
geg6
I seem to remember a lot of rhetoric about “personal responsibility” from one particular end of the political spectrum that the person who paid for this billboard undoubtedly belongs to. Like all the time, pounding the message that anyone that fails economically in these here United States can place the blame squarely where it belongs–on themselves and on nobody else whatsoever.
Funny how that’s all gone out the window and disappeared into the ether.
ajr22
I just file this under the, wingers don’t know what the words they use mean category. See socialism also, too.
WereBear
If I were a small business owner, I’d smell a scam. Who has that kind of money to throw away… if they really were a small business owner?
ellaesther
@slag: Yes, in fact, a rat! I hadn’t even gotten that far. I smell a rat with a lot more money than the average over-worked small business owner.
Ash Can
That’s putting it mildly, as it turns out. People are dodging and hiding from responsibility for this bullshit like they were running from the plague.
It’s as if they actually thought they were doing something wrong. Imagine that.
Madeline
The area that billboard is in is one of the most wingnutty areas of my fair state. The crazy is strong with my relatives up there.
slag
@WereBear: Seriously. Even if it’s a group of 600 businesses all contributing $10 each. No small businessperson in their right mind would do it. That’s not how you spend your cash when you’re strapped. Plain and simple.
eemom
I know I’m gonna be sorry I asked this, but exactly what impeachable offense do these morons have in mind?
Better yet, do they have any fucking clue what an impeachable offense even is?
Zifnab
@atlliberal: Indeed, we have taken a poll of all trolls, and they are collectively concerned.
:-p
When I have too much money, I vow to run around town randomly buying up billboard space and throwing out obnoxious slogans.
bemused
@atlliberal:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that personal responsibility thing which doesn’t seem to apply to business owners. I’m curious how small those business owners who rented the sign really are. We won’t know unless they have the courage of their convictions & sign the damn billboard. You’d think they’d be proud of it…..
Zifnab
@Ash Can:
Or they’re looking to avoid the inevitable backlash.
bemused
@Ash Can:
Oh, it’s just one limited liability company that seems to have misrepresented itself as speaking for all small business owners.
The Moar You Know
@eemom:
Prezniting While Black.
TuiMel
@bemused:
$6k should be a lot of money to a truly small business – failing or otherwise.
bemused
@bemused:
I’d like to know who rented the “Miss Me Yet?” billboard in Minn.
General Idiots
We did it!!
bemused
@TuiMel:
No kidding. $1,000 could be about 1/8 of a monthly health insurance cost for one employee. No small business owner has that kind of money to toss at a billboard.
matoko_chan
Here is a real piece of Prime Nasty that proves “conservatives” understand completely that Brown won Because He Wasn’t Female, w/e else they might say.
Teabaggers for D’Ippolito.
Ash Can
@Zifnab: Same thing, as far as I’m concerned. If they had any courage at all, they’d stand up to the criticism and say, “Yeah, that is what I think, and this is why I think it. And after I finish explaining, you might feel the same way.” Instead, they do something like say, “Help us spread the word,” without supplying any such pesky details as who “us” is, or precisely how “us” can be helped. Sheer genius.
Shalimar
I don’t want Republicans back in power, but there is some small consolation that when it finally happens these idiots can find out what real failure feels like. Again. Have they forgotten the Bush years already, or are they just blaming them on Clinton/Obama?
forked tongue
MattF
It’s a very simple cost/benefit computation– is the reputational cost of putting up a crazy billboard less than the possible benefit? If the people who are paying for this stimulate some latent wingnuts to contribute a couple of thousand dollars, then it’s worth it. Period.
Comrade javafascist
@Elisabeth: Is that the guy with all the spinning paraphernalia on his bike? I love that guy. He spends most of his time yelling at the cop walking patrols. A better “Don’t do drugs, kids (at least not the hard ones)” campaign was never created.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Look on the bright side. At least they aren’t plastering the city with “Wanted: For Treason” posters like the right wing nuts did in Dallas for JFK just before he visited their fine city in Nov 1963. Not yet anyway.
When we decided to travel backwards through time to the early 60s, who voted to fast rewind through the cheap drugs and consequence free sex part of the movie? Cause it wasn’t me.
Scott
@eemom: Not being a Republican.
panicbean
Do you think the same small business group that rented the Miss Me Yet? billboards have paid for this one, as well? That group was anonymous, too. Also.
bemused
@bemused:
Oops, didn’t mean for one employee. I was thinking about a small group of employees that cost the business about $8K a month.
Warren Terra
I thought the Fitizens United (Fitizens, because it’s abbreviated FU) ruling said companies can “speak” but have to identify themselves – though they can hide behind The Committee To Protect Puppies.
Citizen_X
Taking it at face value (which it apparently shouldn’t be), it’s still a faily-fail message. So your small business is going down, and you blame Obama? LOSER.
cleek
if they really wanted to help America’s small businesses, shouldn’t the top line read “BOYCOTT WALMART” ?
Mike G
Better yet, do they have any fucking clue what an impeachable offense even is?
For a Dem: Anything down to jaywalking.
For a Repig: Nothing, not even lying the country into war, torture and massive warrantless wiretapping.
Molly
@Ash Can: An anonymous source, apparently…
bemused
@Citizen_X:
Right, limited liability company, pull your business up by it’s bootstraps like you probably lecture everyone else to do.
Alan
@El Cid: Yes, and if you listen to assholes like Glen Beck, the deficit was bad under Bush…but under Obama ZOMG he’s tripled it.
frankdawg81
Sorry Ed in NJ, were you being sarcastic? I don’t recall any anti-Bush billboards, despite how he was elected on a 5-4 vote. None when he ignored “UBL determined to attack in the US” nor the lies that lead to the Iraq Quagmire, not torture nor shredding the Constitution drew them either.
It’s not that the media ignored them its that there weren’t any. Had there been the liberal media, in the guise of O’Rieley, Hannity, Wallace et. al. would have provided ample coverage.
When I saw the “Miss me yet?” board driving down from Duluth a couple weeks ago my first thought was it had to be a joke designed to embarrass Republicans. Then I realized they are too stupid to be embarrassed.
Pennsylvanian
Hmmm, what ever happened to bootstraps? Maybe all small business needs is to attend their own bootstraps, eh republicans?
What a giant, steaming pile of hypocrisy. Same old.
Zifnab
@bemused: The Senate Bill currently causing the House so much apoplexy raises taxes by capping the health insurance deduction per employee at $8500 / year. I imagine this is where the math is coming from.
That said, a $6k expense really isn’t back breaking for any but the smallest business. I’m in a company with around 30 employees, and we’ve got about $3 million in revenue. We shell out several grand a month in software licenses. Billboards like that would be chump change.
Martin
@slag: Dems need to put up a competing billboard nearby: “Protip: The free market favors companies that innovate and deliver value to customers over those that waste their money complaining about politics.”
chicago dyke
i guess i fail to appreciate the logic here, as a struggling small business owner myself. so he’s impeached. my business will get better… why, again? this is underpants gnome logic at its finest.
Ash Can
@Shalimar: We had plenty of real failure during the Bush misadministration, and it was never the fault of the Republicans, as far as these yahoos were concerned. It was all Clinton’s fault, the congressional Dems’ fault, the anti-war protestors’ fault, the climate scientists’ fault, anyone but the Republicans. Seriously, Obama could leave office with another budget surplus, a booming economy, world peace, total global nuclear disarmament, energy independence, a cure for cancer, and a Cubs World Series win, and it would all actually be thanks to the Republicans according to the Mighty Wurlitzer. Likewise, the Republicans could take over again, loot the nation and hand over what’s left to China, making us a Chinese territory and erasing the USA from the map, and the Democrats would be to blame. Reality does not exist for these people; their minds simply do not accept it.
slag
@Citizen_X: The general state of the economy has a direct and measurable effect on small businesses, for sure. Small businesses would be better off if more average people had cash in their pockets.
I think the way to make that happen is through government stimulus spending to decrease unemployment and, as a byproduct, increase wages. Republicans seem to think the way to make that happen is to offer more human sacrifices to the God of the Free Market.
I’ve never met a Republican who can cohesively match up their bootstrap rhetoric with their blaming the government for all their troubles rhetoric. Ever.
bemused
@Zifnab:
Not chump change for those businesses who have been hit hard in this economy & are trying to keep their heads above water.
Shalimar
@Ash Can: Yeah, I agree. It’s just sad that this mentality is dominating the country thanks to talk radio even though the percentage who are delusional isn’t that large. I don’t see an endpoint other than the entire country collapsing into a depression-era heap of fail. You can’t argue with people who don’t believe in logic. Or science. Or anything Rush doesn’t tell them to believe.
Litlebritdifrnt
So what are everyone’s thoughts on how the Republicans are going to react to Obama’s call for nuclear power plants? (Sorry if this has already been discussed)
Midnight Marauder
Mazel Tov, Cole. Mazel Tov.
Ella in NM
I have come to realize that the Right/Teabags/Palinites have the exact same message as my blow-hard Uncle Joe, drunk on Thanksgiving, bitching, bitching, bitching to everyone about everything.
It’s just that now he gets to put it on billboards and attend rallies instead of making everyone avoid him for 6 hours.
clonecone
FDL and dkos will soon be quoting that sign as an unnamed source.
Shalimar
@bemused: If a company has over a million in revenue per year and the owner really believes Obama is destroying his business, then it isn’t that much money. Does anyone here really believe that small businesses are behind this though? It sounds like a typical Republican dirty tricks operation to me, funded by whichever wingnutty billionaire wants to get the impeachment message out.
cat48
@eemom:
They are not saying he has committed an impeachable offense ………they just don’t like the tax and spend in Washington.
Personally, if I felt that way, I would have put that on the sign if I were the sort of person who would want a billboard. But what do I know as a left winger?
valdivia
OT–Can someone explain to me what hamsher is going on about now with the DCCC? And she is ordering surveys proving all the dems are doomed or what?
Shalimar
@Litlebritdifrnt: Anything that doesn’t fit the narrative is ignored by the Wurlitzer.
jayjaybear
I’ve found that when you find someone yelling about the plight of small businesses, it’s usually some giant conglomerate front group, like the US Chamber of Commerce. None of these groups actually care about small businesses, and usually they’re not made up of small-business owners, either. They just know that the American psyche sympathizes more with Mama McCready’s Cakes than it does with Faceless Conglomocorp, LLC.
slag
@Zifnab:
You shell out that money because it directly contributes to your business. Any businessperson who says, “I could use this money for software licenses for my company, or I could use this money for an arcane billboard in Wisconsin,” and concludes that the latter use of funds is better is no businessperson that anyone should be listening to.
Morbo
Prescott Bush weeps that he had to plot a secret insurrection when he could have just astroturfed and built a popular movement to impeach FDR.
Ash Can
@Litlebritdifrnt: My guess: “Obama is being unrealistic because the tax and regulatory burdens placed upon the utilities by the Democrats prevent them from building more nuclear power plants.”
jeffreyw
I still remember impeach Earl Warren signs. I asked mom what that was all about, didn’t get a good answer, least ways none that I can remember. Same thing one day on a drive in the country so she could sneak a smoke. Saw churches every half mile or so, all different names. Asked about that, why the church names were different, and she mumbled something about how they all believed different things. I think this was about the time that the evil atheist stirrings were born in my mind. And maybe the notion that smokin was cool but naughty, sorta. Ah, Youth!
joes527
@slag: I’ve worked in the private sector all my life. This idea that businesses aren’t routinely stupid and wasteful is a fairy tale made up by the Republicans.
Businesses large and small are _way_ stupider than this all the time.
L Boom
Jeebus, I had no idea there were so many Burlingtonians/Vermonters here.
And yeah, the “IMPEACH OBAMA” guy is a Naderite. He’s also a Larouchie, a 9/11 Truther, and is now pushing something called the Zeitgeist Movement that I don’t even want to dignify by googling. He was a regular at a former place of employment years ago so I ended up talking to him a bit. Really, he’s a good, all-purpose looney: UFO conspiracies, precious bodily fluids, he’s into it all.
On, and for the non-Burlingtonians: the guy rides around on a bike painted and fully decked out in all sorts of flourescent colors with a huge clown rainbow wig. The “Impeach Obama” sign is probably 6 feet long, 3 feet tall, and is suspended a few feet above his bike by two PVC pipes.
The Populist
Do they mean the small businesses that the GOP could give two shits about?
As a small business owner I KNOW who hates small business and it ain’t the Dems. Any party that kisses multi-national ass the way the right does HATES small business.
FUCK them.
Zifnab
@slag:
If the small businessperson happens to have strong ties to the Republican Party and wants to score some cheap political points at the country club, he might have his own reasons. If he’s a loony toon that honestly believes his own rhetoric, he wouldn’t be the first partisan loudmouth business owner.
That said, I don’t think I ever suggested the billboard, or it’s author, should be listened to.
kay
@Brian J:
I read that, and I thought it was a great idea. I wanted to spend 800 dollars on it, but the local group voted it down.
We don’t have a legit challenger for the House, so they feel as if we’re telling them what’s wrong with our House member, he’s a lying hypocrite, but not offering an alternative. It’s a good point, and I didn’t have a response. I still don’t.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Ash Can:
I think it is going to be fun. I am making popcorn. It is almost as if he is now goading them into completely reversing their position on some of their pet issues. I honestly feel that he has painted them into a corner.
bemused
Ironically, today someone sent me an email with youtube of a motivational speaker, Kimberly Alyn, “It’s Up Time America”. A few lines from that:
If you want to buy something, SAVE UP…
It’s not an entitlement, so SHUT UP!
If people fall down, HELP THEM UP…
Not the government, YOU STEP UP.
If you can’t afford stuff, PASS IT UP…
No “bailouts” folks, PONY UP.
It’s called personal responsibility, so TAKE IT UP
This country was founded on it, you can LOOK IT UP
It’s the American way people, so TURN IT UP
I hate getting this kind of simplistic crap.
Zifnab
@Litlebritdifrnt:
The only way to cheaply and efficiently run a nuclear power plant for profit is to cut corners, cut corners, cut corners.
And while I’ll happily acknowledge that 3-mile island was not a disaster, but a disaster averted, and that since then nuclear power has come leaps and bounds forward, for some crazy reason I’m still not feeling too safe letting the guys that ran Enron, Exxon, Goldman Sachs, and Standford Financial take the reigns on the nuclear energy industry.
I really don’t want to see what “Too Big to Fail” looks like with a mushroom cloud at the end of it.
morzer
Clearly this isn’t a teabagger billboard. I mean, they managed to spell “impeach” correctly. Also too, they used the apostrophe correctly. Definitive proof!
slag
@joes527:
I generally agree with this. But if you’re in a down economic situation–truly uncertain about the viability of your company–you’re not going to spend money on a sign like this unless you’re either a really crappy or crazy businessperson. Not that those don’t exist. But I don’t think those exist and have the wherewithal to hire lawyers to put up signs for them anonymously.
Bubblegum Tate
@eemom:
Obama interrupted them while they were watching Ow, My Balls!
Elisabeth
@Comrade javafascist:
Yeah that’s him. His streamer-bedecked tire spokes make me dizzy.
joes527
@Zifnab: So I’m a theoretical nuclear power supporter, but have yet to see an actual plan to build, operate, dispose of the waste, decommission, and clean up the site of a nuclear plant where at least 1 step of the plan can’t be paraphrased as “We’re hoping that a miracle happens before we get there.”
Solve that problem and I’m 100% on board. ‘Till then I’m not enthusiastic.
mclaren
In one of the other threads I wrote a satirical wingnut attack blaming the current economic downtown on Obama. Sadly, satire is dead…
Pangloss
If Obama was really qualified to be president, why isn’t he white? QED.
mantis
Obama interrupted them while they were watching Ow, My Balls!
Mmmf…go away! Batin’!
Michael D.
@bemused:
You DO know these are Tea Baggers, right? They think people have to go to food banks because they have not worked to take advantage of the opportunities that each of them has as Americans.
And they see nothing wrong/ironic/hypocritical about putting up a billboard that puts them, as business people, in the same figurative position they accuse the food banker of being in.
I see small businesses all over the US working quite well and employing a lot of people. I wonder why people who feel a need to put up billboards like these aren’t taking advantage of the same opportunities that the successful small busines owners are?
Martin
@Litlebritdifrnt: Oh, they’ll come up with some retarded argument against it. “That’s great, but how do I run my car on nuclear power?” Or they’ll play the big government card – accusing the administration of only rolling it out in order to regulate it to death.
I’m pleased Obama is doing this, though. It’s a necessary move since a certain amount of nuclear is, at the end of the day, going to be required to truly move us off of oil/gas/coal. It’ll be equally interesting to see how the Dems react to it. We still need Yucca Mountain or an equivalent. We still need to address the regulation and permit issues as well, but it’s long past time appeasing the environmental bomb-throwers on the issue and dig in and actually do the hard work here. There are plenty of safe designs out there, and plenty of options for disposal, but nobody wants to engage in an honest discussion of them and nobody wants to put their name on the final product.
anna missed
This like burning your neighbors house down because someone stole your car. Or, invading Iraq because some people from Saudi Arabia crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center. How do these people manage to feed themselves everyday?
slag
@Zifnab:
This is true.
Michael D.
@Martin:
Chuck
@L Boom:
I’ll save you the bother on the Zeitgeist movement: out of all of them, it has simultaneously the nicest face but it’s about as froot-loopy as any of them. It’s your basic “all we have to do is eliminate all the world’s problems by ohming our chakras and rubbing our crystals and we’ll all live in harmony” movement. A bit less overt chakra-ohming and crystal-rubbing and more blathergunk about “natural law” which would make it dovetail nicely with the paleocons but for the fact that they seem very much a bunch of one-worldists.
The sound of the cognitive dissonance in this guy’s head would do John Cage proud.
John PM
I put some of my lawyerly skills to work and I believe I found the name of the entity that is responsible for the billboard. On the Wisconsin Secretary of State webite you can search for corporations and LLCs by the name of the registered agent. I inserted the name of the attorney who is the registered agent, Thomas Wroblewski, and received a list of about 8 companies for which he is a registered agent. A company named FVB, LLC, was formed on January 20, 2010. Unfortunately, the website does not list any of the members of the LLC, and according to the website the members are not required to be listed with the Wisconsin Secretary of State. I searched for more information on FVB, LLC, but was unable to come up with anything further. Given the date of formation and the placement of the billboard, this seems the most likely culprit. If I can find anything more I will let you know.
Bill Arnold
I don’t remember any either, but for whatever it’s worth, there is one obvious impeach bush billboard image (from 2006 it looks like) in google images, search on: “impeach bush” billboard.
(Only in the wingnutoverse is the U.S. media liberal.)
slag
@Michael D.: France exports a lot of its nuclear waste to Russia and other countries. How it’s dealt with there is a matter of some discord. Nobody really knows for sure. Even this generally positive discussion of it on Frontline ends with this caveat:
Is nuclear energy scalable if even a country as small as France can’t resolve its waste issue?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I think we need to understand the mindset.
These are people who aren’t quite tuned in to the fact that business was doing pretty well under Clinton, because their favorite part of the Clinton years was the impeachment.
He gave us a budget surplus? Oh yeah, well he got himself impeached!
Who cares what billboards these morons put up? The more ridiculous they act and look, the better for our side.
bemused
@Michael D.:
I was being satirical. I had a hunch they were in the trickle down camp.
Comrade Dread
For being a soci*list. Ignoring the fact, of course, that if he were that, this country wouldn’t have small business owners to put up billboards.
GregB
I like the new theme among the rightwingers these days.
Stop blaming Bush!
They spent the 8 Bush years shrieking about what Bill Clinton did, yet now one year away from the Bush years and they have now declared that looking backwards is verboten.
Of course they can still trot out Clinton, Carter, Johnson and Roosevelt.
Impeach my tea-bag you effers.
Nellcote
@Zifnab:
The new one’s being built in Georgia. Maybe the plan is to build shitty cut cornered plants all over the south.
john b
A group of unnamed businessmena billboard owner who can’t sell his sign space in podunk, nowhere, usaDonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Zifnab:
You mean, Too Big To F { signal lost }
demo woman
@John PM: Who would have thought that it could be a front company. Great work.
Nellcote
@Martin:
Such as?
Michael D.
@Nellcote: Wait!! in Georgia? They’re building it here?
***channelling my inner Republican***
Nuclear is good, but not in my backyard.
Comrade javafascist
@L Boom: Really need to order my Tunch wear asap so I can be recognized by random people from the internet next time I’m out at VT Pub and Brewery. For now, I’m usually the one playing chess with my 11 year old and drinking whatever is on tap from the cask.
Michael
The articles of incorporation should include the share subscription data, including the name of the initial directors. I note that those can be ordered online.
JenJen
And it would appear the Birthers’ next target is Hillary Clinton.
Barack Obama’s not the only Democrat whose eligibility for office is being challenged in court by conservative activists
Pennsylvanian
@anna missed:
Simple. They use their local food stamp office and food bank, so they keep the goverment hands off of their food provisions. Just like their Medicare.
The Populist
@bemused:
Sounds like these idiots who tell me that if I just stay positive and buy their “programs” I too can be as rich as them.
Argh…
JK
h/t http://www.thenorthwestern.com/article/20100215/OSH0101/100215145/1987/OSHopinion/%3Cb%3EUpdate-%3C-b%3EBillboard-on-U.S.-Highway-41-in-Oshkosh-calls-for-impeachment-of-President-Barack-Obama
bemused
@The Populist:
From googling a bit, Alyn writes self help/motivational books with a Christian bent. I was not surprised.
The Populist
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Yep, these people made a killing in the Clinton years but according to the ones I know, it wasn’t enough.
They felt constrained, they felt like the markets weren’t “free”, they felt over taxed. See, for these buffoons to be happy they must conquer and cheat. Rules are unfair and create undue burdens in their mindset.
This AND they hate what liberals stand for. Period. It was ingrained into their psyches at a young age.
L Boom
@Chuck: Haha, interesting. Sounds about right, although I was expecting a little more Illuminati and a little less chakra-ohming. And maybe some crop circles.
And Comrade Javafascist: Excellent, I’ll keep an eye out. I’ve been known to grab a Dogbite every now and again. May have to pick up some Tunch or Lily gear myself.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Where did these failing small businesspersons get money for a political billboard?
gopher2b
You really should change “BALLOON JUICE: Consistently Wrong Since 2002” to “BALLOON JUICE: Looking for Dumb Reasons to Be Pissed Off Since 2006.”
Seriously, who cares. It’s a country of 300 million people and unfortunately some of them have $1000 a month to blow on billboards.
Rich
I can’t believe I’m giving helpful criticism, but wouldn’t it make sense to include a URL on the billboard to, you know, help spread the word?
Martin
@Nellcote: Honestly, Yucca Mountain is a perfectly serviceable solution.
The problem is that people want to compare nuclear waste to non-nuclear waste, rather than compare it to the equivalent byproduct cost generated from other continuous energy sources such as oil/gas/coal. Yes, nuclear waste is expensive to deal with, but it’s also significantly smaller in scale which makes it a reasonable consideration. There’s also an actual cost to human lives in coal mining and runoff, oil drilling and transport (I’ll leave the war issue aside) and so on. There’s even an ongoing health cost to emissions, water contamination, and so on that is routinely ignored for fossil fuels but is the primary objection to nuclear. All of these things put together make the nuclear discussion, frankly, stupid to engage in so long as there are so many dishonest arguments being levied against nuclear.
As to the cost issue with nuclear, it’s going to be very difficult to get for-profit players to embrace nuclear. The problem is the high up-front costs and the fact that recurring costs are almost entirely labor dominated. That means that there’s almost no place to increase profits, aside from refinancing that original debt. California PUC might be able to justify it due to the very specialized way that CA has set up their energy regulation, but until there are changes at the federal level, there’s no market incentive to adopt it.
HRA
@atlliberal:
@#6
As a daughter of a once successful businessman, I could not have said it better. He never looked for the government to support his business and he would never use credit.
fraught
Don’t recall any billboards with “Impeach Bush” on them but in Williamsburg, Brooklyn there was a huge sign saying “Worst President Ever” which was pretty satisfying. This “impeach_________” is such a tired right wing thing (almost wrote meme, but can’t remember ever having seen that word on this site, so I suspect it’s in the book of forbidden words).
I recall a road trip I took from NY to Fla.in the early 60’s where every single car from Virginia south had an “Impeach Earl Warren” bumper sticker and there were billboards too. I suspect that the businessmen who put up this sign were kids who grew up down there at about that time and think it’s either, 1. Clever, 2. funny, but I don’t think any of them think it’s 3. effective, since Warren never came close to actually being impeached.
asiangrrlMN
@JK: So. Words do not mean what they think we mean any longer. Duly noted. So, when I say that these two jackasses are idiots who most likely do not have half a brain between the two of them, what I really mean is…exactly that.
@bemused: I saw that billboard. Or rather, the news about that billboard. My first impulse was to go to the town and burn than sucker down. Miss him? Oh, hell no. I wouldn’t miss him.
@fraught: Oh, we use meme around here. It’s even in the Balloon Juice Lexicon!
Ruckus
As a small business owner whose income is directly proportional to the health of the economy (IOW a retail consumer business), I’ve talked to quite a few other business owners and without exception no one around here is doing well enough to blow money on a idiotic billboard that is guaranteed not to bring me customers or make me money. So I call bullshit.
The Populist
@fraught:
Not only these but those stupid WND billboards “Where’s The Birth Certificate?” billboards. Where’s the cert they ask? Online for all to see…get over yourselves.
b-psycho
Well no duh they’re failing, they’re wasting their money on shit like this stupid sign…
slippy
@valdivia:
I’m sorry. Who? I remember a person with a name like that but I’m pretty sure she isn’t with us anymore. At least, as far as I’m concerned.
Rebecca
JESUS EFFING CHRIST, THAT SIGN IS OUTSIDE MY HOMETOWN.
Yeah. Not happy here. Makes me glad for once that I’ve gone west, because if I saw that sign on 41 there would probably be a traffic accident.
Remember November
I bet dollars to Timbits Freedomworks is somehow involved.
morzer
@Remember November:
Give it a few more years of GOP rule, and the Timbit might well be worth more than the dollar.
MercuryChaos
There’s an “Impeach Obama” website as well. The text on the front page says something that basically translates to”Why do we want to impeach him, you ask?! Well… we’ve got lots of reasons, but we’re not going to name them because fuck you!!” And as I read this I thought “lol, you couldn’t think of anything could you?”
atlliberal
@HRA:
Yeah common sense seems to have been lost with the advent of talk radio.
I grew up in Massachussetts as a moderate independent. I didn’t find out I was a far left liberal Democrat till I moved to Atlanta. It just cracks me up when supposed conservatives who value independence and personal responsiblity blame everyone else for their own shortcomings.
daniel thomas macinnes
That’s funny. I expect Obama to be impeached over the birth certificate. Doesn’t matter, really. If the GOP takes the House, they’ll nail him for something. Heck, if the Republicans take over again, this species is screwed. We’ll be headed on the bullet train to extinction. Might as well have the bread and circuses on the way.
deadrody
Maybe you douchebags that shrieked IMPEACH BUSH for some 4+ years should STFU and take your medicine.
Cris
@deadrody: Maybe you should compare the reasons people wanted to impeach Bush to the reasons people want to impeach Obama.
General Winfield Stuck
@deadrody: We should impeach you for torturing logic,.
Nick
@deadrody: LMFAO, of course Bush actually deserved to be impeached…being a criminal and all.
morzer
@deadrody:
Ah wingnut subtlety and teabagger logic. Slightly less tempting than an anthrax and cyanide party.
Remember November
I love it , where’s the Waaambulance! It’s Obama’s fault the economy is in the long upward climb to recovery. It’s Obama’s fault he doesn’t help small business, it’s Obama’s fault he taxes them. Hey maybe if you didnt spend money on a fucking billboard you could put it towards your bottom line!
AJ
Looking again at another image of this billboard, one that does not clip out the American flag, there appears in the background what appears to be a prison guard tower.
Be neat if the next renter would put up a sign: “Future home of Bush 43 and his pal, Dick “The Penguin” Cheney”