That high-pitched hum is Richard D’Oyly Carte spinning in his grave.
(h/t Wonkette)
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
You cannot shame the shameless.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.
Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.
I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.
It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.
Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.
No one could have predicted…
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
The lights are all blinking red.
They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”
Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.
freelancer
via TPM,
Rand Paul supporters literally curbstomping a member of Moveon.org (if it wasn’t staged. Don’t get me wrong, it’s probably real, but if Whale Wars isn’t above using stunts to play the victim, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the fringe left like Moveon is above something that stupid and craven.)
Yutsano
THAT. WAS. AWESOME. Someone needs to stick that on Jane’s iPod.
jl
Very nice. Maybe try it out as a campaign ad?
Moses2317
I was a bit surprised that the progressive blog-o-sphere did not have much in the way of coverage of the eight anniversary of the tragic death of Paul Wellstone, one of the most inspiring progressive elected officials of my lifetime. Here is my tribute
Winning Progressive
asiangrrlMN
Sigh. I should love this video because I love satire and I love musicals. Alas, I do not. However, I DO love the Michelle Obama impersonator. Rrrrowr.
@Moses2317: That’s a lovely tribute to Senator Wellstone. I was living in the East Bay when the crash happened, and I really wanted to be back in MN just to be with other MN when I heard the news.
asiangrrlMN
@Moses2317: P.S. He disappointed me with his support for DOMA, but no one is perfect. I miss him still.
Martin
@freelancer: MoveOn is the fringe left now? Hmm. That seems like a stretch to me.
BDeevDad
I wish more people had this husband/father’s strength.
freelancer
@Martin:
I’m sorry, but I’m not a huge fan of some of the activist left. If I were assaulted by right wing thugs, held down, and stepped on, I’d be more than a little pissed when the news crews interviewed me, and I wouldn’t just be smirking about a headache. I wouldn’t be able to just laugh it off, I’d be demanding the police press charges, and then it turns out I’m the only one interviewed? That’s why the scene seems a little “off” to me.
Moses2317
@asiangrrlMN: I agree that his DOMA vote was a real disappointment. It is no real solace to the people harmed by DOMA, but Wellstone did at least express great doubt about that vote in his autobiography that came out five years later.
asiangrrlMN
@BDeevDad: Thank you for the link. That was heartbreaking, and I didn’t even watch the video.
@Moses2317: I didn’t know that about the doubts. Thank you for telling me. I would like to think that he would have changed his mind by now had he lived, but that’s just speculation.
jl
@freelancer:
I didn’t see any smirk. Just effects of adrenalin from little wrestling match.
“then it turns out I’m the only one interviewed?”
Was the TV news station in on it too?
The interview was held just after the little ruckus, even before the police talked with her.
It was not as bad as I had feared, but unsettling. Talkingpointsmemo says this is a big deal in KY. Just seems like some ahole Paul supporters got carried away by some one doing a silly political stunt, especially the jackass brute who put his foot on her head. That was totally unnecessary.
If that lout was a Moveon actor, they have great casting.
Adam Lang
Yuch. That may be the worst-written Modern Major-General spoof I’ve ever heard.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Hey! You’re still up. How you doing? When you posited the Michelle/Todd scenario below, you WERE referring to Michelle Obama, yes? Or was it Michele Bachmann?
jl
I did not know that Modern Major General parody was a genre.
But looks like it is. Behold and wonder:
http://www.amiright.com/parody/performers/g/gilbertsullivan.shtml
Some of them seem pretty bad. Sure this one is the absolute worst?
note: link found via the Wikipedia Modern Major General entry, which has a nice linked glossary of all those old fashioned army terms.
BDeevDad
@asiangrrlMN: I actually found the video inspiring. Basically, he shamed them and they couldn’t deal with their own tactics being used against them.
freelancer
@jl:
For what it’s worth, right now, I’m believing it as it is reported. That said, I get a little skeptical, even of the good guys now and then. We aren’t all angels, we may have better policy, and a more compassionate and intelligent worldview, but we are all flawed. Again, I think the moveon activist was wronged, but aside from the local Fox video (which doesn’t automatically make the station biased), there’s not much context. We should be outraged, but also cautious until further reports come out.
Martin
@freelancer: Well, I think if you’re the person that volunteers to give out the fake award, you’re probably pretty experienced with confrontation and being outside of your comfort zone. Some people are wired like that.
asiangrrlMN
@BDeevDad: OK. I will give it a look. I’m just in a very bad mood, so I’m not sure I want to deal with the anti-abortion shit.
OK. I watched. He was awesome. The woman on the left wasn’t too bad. The woman on the right made me want to punch her in the mouth. Ugh.
jl
@asiangrrlMN:
Hi there, FIW
I am still getting over the flu, so am still groggy and have a strange schedule of miserable enforced awakatude.
I thought it was Michelle Obama.
But I guess it could be Michelle Bachmann. That might sell better on news talkies where they want Very Serious and Plausible Analysis.
You gonna steal my idea and beat me to pundithood on the political goon talk show circuit?
Uh oh. I’ve got some keen competition.
Lysana
I thought it was one of the better MMG spoofs I’ve heard. But I’ve heard some really foul ones. Scansion destruction is rampant when parodying G&S.
Martin
@asiangrrlMN: Glad it wasn’t me. My irish temper flares up. I would have beaten them with their signs.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Aw. Sorry you had the flu. I’m glad you’re getting better.
Well, you know, I AM Asian, so that would be the novelty value. And, I have an epic rack, so that would produce the starbursts. And, I am at least as smart as a gibbon. And, I can say bipartisan with the best of them, so, yeah, you better watch out in your quest for Sunday morning pundithood.
@Martin: The mood I’m in, I probably would have grabbed the one on the right by the neck and started throttling her. Her type really pisses me the fuck off. Superior and dismissive. “You’re just an angry father.” Uh, yeah, bitch. Tell me something I don’t know.
ETA: I did like his response to her threat to call the police, though.
BDeevDad
@asiangrrlMN: I couldn’t believe she had the gall to call him an angry father. Talk about not getting it.
jl
O My God! We have an elitist Hispanic population in California. Below is a quote from someone who wrote Josh Marshall on why CA will probably go Democratic in election for statewide offices. No wonder the GOP has tossed Hispanics like so much yesterday’s garbage, they worry about the environment and education, and probably from a very wrong ideological perspective, since I would think Hisapanics would be concerned about a clean environment and educational opportunities for, you know, ‘the lesser people’.
I first noticed about sixteen years ago that the most environmentally concerned group in CA was not white, suburban women but was the Latino community—and by a significant margin! This pattern continues to this day. The Latino concern is about air and water pollution. In recent years (last 10 or so) in the PPIC poll Latinos in the Central Valley were more concerned about air pollution than LA County or any of the subgroups in LA County. This is not a one year aberration. Another significant Latino issue is education.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/10/just_reverting_to_form.php#more?ref=fpblg
My emphasis.
I assume that the PPIC this person is talking about is the Public Policy Institute of California.
http://www.ppic.org/main/home.asp
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Let me know when you are on. If Joe leers at you, or is insufficiently respectful, I will fly in a pop him one good on the jaw.
(see how chivalrous I am?)
Good night. It is past my bedtime.
asiangrrlMN
@BDeevDad: I know. That alone would have made me see red in zero seconds flat. I can’t believe he was able to be so coherent. I get very flustered when I’m pissed or upset. I probably would have just started calling her many many names.
@jl: Ha! That is very chivalrous of you. Night. Feel better!
jl
@BDeevDad: Thanks for that link. And to AsiangrrlMN for getting me to notice.
Moving video. That kind of sincere and direct low key confrontation works better than stunts.
Luthe
@jl: The *best* Modern Major-General parody I’ve ever heard was written by the Bryn Mawr Classics Department for one of their May Day plays. It was entitled “I Am the Very Model of a Pan-Hellenic Deity” and it was about Dionysus.
::wishes she had a copy of the words::
curious
@jl: she seemed like she was still in a bit of shock. unsurprisingly, what with having been manhandled in a way one generally doesn’t expect of grown men confronting unknown women on the street.
hide ya kids, hide ya wife…. and hide ya moveon.org protesters.
JenJen
@freelancer: The video makes it look like straight-up assault. I mean, who is that asshole holding her down?? An actor? And then another guy appears and stomps on her neck/head? Another actor?
Like you, I couldn’t have been as collected as she was while recounting the incident to the media, but the best protesters and agitators have balls of steel.
I just don’t see any reason to doubt the events depicted in the video, but I’ll cop to thinking “that’s so horrifying, it can’t possibly be true” when I first heard of it.
fourmorewars
Have never heard ‘I Am the Very Model of a Pan-Hellenic Deity,’ but I’m sure you’re aware of Tom Lehrer’s ‘The Element Song.’ If somebody beat that, they’re going some.
freelancer
@JenJen:
Read my second reply. But, yes, I think I can chalk up my skepticism and misgivings to the fact that if this was on the level, it was so freaking awful that the political and legal response would be ear-splitting and felonious, respectively. That it isn’t, is what makes me vaguely suspect something stinks.
JenJen
@freelancer: Well, look at the KY Post’s own description of the event:
Tripped and fell? I mean, I realize the reporter is getting the information from the Lexington Police Department, and if that’s the way they’re describing it, she tripped and fell and then some man stepped on her, yeah, it looks as though the legal response isn’t going to approach deafening. Tripped and fell, that’s a pretty stunning description after watching the video that accompanies the story.
(As a “curious to locals only” aside, the news report video accompanying the article is from WCPO here in Cincinnati rather than a Lexington outlet; the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed Rand Paul in their Sunday morning edition, and not without controversy.)
This story broke pretty late. I think we’re going to learn a lot more about it tomorrow.
JenJen
Update to the Conway-Paul debate story:
It seems the usual suspects are furiously googling (countertop-inspecting) and passing around links which purport to show that the woman involved in the assault last night was once a Greenpeace volunteer who was arrested for civil disobedience (unauthorized entry) while protesting BP during the Gulf spill.
Which obviously means she deserved to be held down and curbed by freedom-loving citizen-patriots, I mean, never mind her, someone could have been hurt!! or at least that’s how the Breitbart-style defense is being shaped on the internets this late night. Some commenter on Digby’s site even implored liberals to imagine this woman as Sirhan Sirhan. I shit you not.
mai naem
I just watched Lizzie Cheney in a discussion with DeeDee Myers on CSPAN. As the discussion went on, you could see Myers’ body language becoming more and more negative. I don’t know how she stopped herself from rolling up a newspaper and hitting Cheney upside the head with a huge whack. Lizzie had the nerve to blame the debt/deficit on Obama. Guess all those wars under her daddy were free.
Michael
@asiangrrlMN:
The woman on the right needs to experience some genuine anti-christian, anti-conservative persecution, so that she can be right with her filthy, pathological bronze-age goatherd death cult deity.
snorfbat
For MMG spoofs, I like I’ve Built a Better Model Than the One at Data General. Its reference are only slightly less dated than the original’s.
Ab_Normal
I am the very model of the scientist Salarian…
Adam Lang
I am the very model of a modern folk music-i-an
I try at once to follow and to satirize tradish-i-an
I know six dozen verses of a ballad from the days of yore
And somewhere on a closet shelf I think I have a dulcimore.
I’ve been to Philadelphia and Augusta and the rest of all
The other very models of the modern folkie festival
I always come equippéd with a very large umbrell-i-a
And six or seven gallons of the finest bug repellia
And so on.