Disgusted.
Off to ME 2. See you tomorrow.
by John Cole| 75 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
This post is in: Assholes
Really all I have to say:
This is why I laugh when I hear the term principled conservative or I listen to the folks at the Next Right or the Frum Forum talk about principled conservatism. Nice party you got there. I’m sure the Fonzi of Freedom Nick Gillespie will appear on Fox News or at Big Government to decry this bullshit.
Anyone with any associations with the GOP at this point has no excuse.
by DougJ| 167 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives
I can’t believe someone at the RNC leaked this to Ben Smith:
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes”.
This reminds me of my all-time favorite email exchange:
‘Did we win it?” Scanlon wrote back.
‘The [expletive] troglodytes didn’t vote on you today,” Abramoff responded.
”What’s a troglodyte?” Scanlon asked.
”What am I, a dictionary? :) It’s a lower form of existence, basically,”
Update. I guess some idiot left it in a hotel.
The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.
by John Cole| 53 Comments
This post is in: Music
I was in the car listening to WV Public Radio at 2:40 pm, and I heard a symphony I am dying to purchase. I’ve tried to make sense of the website but have no idea where to look. Did any of you catch it?
*** Update ***
Thanks. Beethoven’s Symphony #3, Eroica.
by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
The blogger who posted as the always hilarious Jon Swift has died.
He had so many funny posts that it is hard to choose one, but this take-down of Mark Noonan ranks near the top.
by John Cole| 64 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes
The first paragraph of Friedman today is epic:
I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport — LAX — last week. Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply can’t hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways, LAX is us. We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification. They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch.
From Taibbi’s classic take down of The World is Flat:
On an ideological level, Friedman’s new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we’re not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we’re not in Kansas anymore.) That’s the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that’s all there is.
I’d say Taibbi has him dead to rights.
by John Cole| 72 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity
So reconciliation is on, and this has the usual suspects all in a huff:
Putting aside the fact that they are not passing HCR through reconciliation, these guys don’t even understand how threats work. Usually, to have some effect, you have to issue the threat PRIOR to engaging in the behavior. What could the Republicans possibly do that they haven’t already?
We’ve already seen record numbers of filibusters and clotures. They’ve already used every parliamentary trick in the books to bog down the legislation. They’ve negotiated in bad faith, stalled, and then voted en masse against. They’ve lied and misrepresented everything the Democrats have tried to do. They even insisted that we wheel the near dead Byrd onto the Senate floor late night, and openly prayed for the death of another Senator. And now we are supposed to fear obstructionism?
Bring it on. Up until now, the Democrats have suffered because people don’t really understand the concept of 60 votes, and have just wondered why Democrats don’t just pass their bills. They’ve looked at Democrats as the parents of an unruly child who just don’t have the nerve to get their kid in line.
But now, after the Bunning stunt, in which he wasted millions and deprived millions of needed aid, slowed down road construction, and made a bureaucratic nightmare of unemployment benefits, the American people got a glimpse of what is going on. One man had a hissy fit and thwarted the will of both parties.
So I say to Erick and the teabagging Republican Senators- bring it on. The neighborhood is starting to realize this is not just bad parenting, and now that the problem child isn’t just a problem for the parents, but is running around slashing everyone’s tires and generally making a mess of every damned thing, they are starting to pay attention. Even the media is running out of excuses and are starting to realize this isn’t 1994, but 1996.
So, go for it. I double dog dare you.