Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

How stupid are these people?

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

In after Baud. Damn.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Art Appreciation 101

Art Appreciation 101

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Who know that Darrell Issa is a big art fan?

An article in Pravda on the Potomac reported with giddy excitement Issa’s coming investigations of anything and everything (hot on the list is the allegation that Michelle Obama fed her family dead chickens and then used the bones for soup!). And while Issa’s efforts to use investigations as a tool of obstruction deserve some discussion, it is Issa’s choice of art that concerns us this evening.

Over his shoulder is a painting of six former Republican Presidents playing poker with GWB looking at Reagan’s cards and Ike laughing at the lot of them. Now in Issa’s Republican Party most of these former Presidents would be drummed out as Rinos–and anybody with the policy views of any of them (with the exception of Bush Jr.) would face a TeaBagger rebellion, but that is not the focus of this post.

Rather, I seek to look to the linkage between Issa’s painting and the long tradition of paintings with dogs playing poker. It seems to me that this tradition is the source of the composition of Issa’s poker playing exPresidents. To help you appreciate the artistic influences I am including two samples of dogs playing poker paintings along with Darrell’s art. Which do you think is the strongest influence, A or B:

Issa likes his art

Me, I think sample A is the stronger influence, while I admit that some of the classic black velvet dogs playing poker paintings are also strong contenders.

Issa’s painting is a fine example of the way that the dogs playing poker painting tradition is being used in new ways. Who knew he was an art buff?

Perhaps we can look forward to an investigations of the art that Sasha and Malia Obama hang on the refrigerator on the second floor of the White House. I’m pretty sure that somebody colored outside of the lines at some point.

Cheers

dengre

Reader Interactions

146Comments

  5. 5.

    robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles

    As much as I like imagery of Presidents together, I find this painting grotesque in the extreme.

  6. 6.

    me

    I wanna see Lincoln tell Reagan what he thinks of the Southern Strategy while Ike brands Military-Industrial Complex on his ass. Also, Teddy beats the crap out of GWB.

  8. 8.

    asiangrrlMN

    Somehow, I got on some Republican mailing list and got an email from Issa openly gloating about the elections from last Tuesday. He is such an asshat. It really frustrates the hell out of me that this is the face of the opposition party (and Michele Bachmann, apparently). Oh, and orange man Boehner, who also sent me an email (prior to the elections). I want to know on whose shitlist I got that I am now receiving emails from the GOP.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    Dennis G., Mike Kay: Thanks, guys.

    By the way, there’s a similar painting featuring Democratic presidents. I see both of those in local print/framing shops here in NYC.

    Kind of appalling that any elected federal official would voluntary choose to inflict such egregious kitsch on every taxpayer who comes to visit him.

    Appalling, but, from Issa, not surprising.

    .

  16. 16.

    Dennis G.

    @Boudica:
    Lincoln, TR and Ike seem to be slumming with grifters here. A better fit would be Harding and Hoover. Or maybe Hayes or Taft or Chester A. Arthur.

    More funny is that only GWB would pass the current TeaBagger litmus tests as a true conservative.

    And yet here they are playing poker in a painting fashioned after dogs doing the same.

    So it goes…

  17. 17.

    PM

    Eh, they have one of those with Democratic Presidents too showing that tastelessness transcends party politics.

    That being said, I can’t imagine any Dems being dumb enough to stand in front of one for a picture after they’d just won an election based on being political outsiders and not smoke room poker players

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Somehow, I got on some Republican mailing list and got an email from Issa openly gloating about the elections from last Tuesday.

    Forward it to a front-pager who can share the mockity goodness with all of us.

    Or, alternately, post it on your site and give us link.

    .

  19. 19.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    ya know, compared to reagoon and shrub, I kinda like tricky dick.

    its kinda like how mussolini doesn’t look so bad standing next to adolph and stalin

  20. 20.

    sven

    Has Eisenhower been thrown out of the Republican Party yet?

    Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

    what a hippy…

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    arguingwithsignposts:

    Clarence Thomas has a similar Thomas Kinkade-esque velvety painting in his chambers of St. Ronnie and Mother Maggie on some balcony. Ugh.

    Knowing Clarence Thomas, I’m guessing it’s an upskirt view with pubic hair?

    .

  22. 22.

    Dennis G.

    @lol:
    That is not a surprise. The dogs playing poker motif is a strong one. I wouldn’t be surprised to see paintings of rock stars, movie actors, generals and saints all in similar compositions.

    Now if we could get a painting of the Pets of BJ playing poker then perhaps we could raise some more funds for Charlie’s Angels. Maybe even Darrell would pick one up… or at least investigate it.

    Cheers

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I find it interesting that Lincoln’s back is to the viewer. It is either so that one cannot see the expression on his faces as he sits with the other guys (he might have found some common cause with TR, but that’s about it) or else it is so that the viewer can imagine himself to be John Wilkes Booth.

  25. 25.

    jwalden91lx

    For a split second I thought that option A was from the liner notes on Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle.

  27. 27.

    Ash Can

    @me: This. I’ve seen this silly piece of crap before, and the first thing I thought of was the fact that if all these guys got together in the same room, the result would be a hell of a fistfight. Lincoln and Roosevelt would be tag-teaming Reagan, Ike would be kicking Nixon from one side of the room to the other, and W would be trying to hide under the table with his father until Ford reached down and dragged him out to face the music.

  29. 29.

    josefina

    Note that in Sample A, the only black dog is the Pullman porter. Which seems incidental only if you don’t know the history of Pullman porters and civil rights. Which casts a rather salacious light on the only female dog, also black and sporting a tidy ‘fro, in Sample B.

    As far as the Issa painting:

    1. Is that supposed to be Nixon on the right? Due to injuries suffered at the poker table during WWII, Nixon’s two expressions of geniality were the dead-eyed rictus and the shifty-eyed lip-stretch. Bob Dole can’t unclench his right hand; McCain can’t lift his arms up to his shoulders; Nixon couldn’t smile without looking like a grifter working a pigeon drop.

    2. Ike deserves better than pleated Dockers hoisted halfway to his armpits.

    3. They’re all laughing because W has just told a fart joke. You can tell because he’s lifted up one cheek as a visual aid.

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    Rather, I seek to look to the linkage between Issa’s painting and the long tradition of paintings with dogs playing poker.

    Yep, that was the first thing I thought of when you described it, before I even scrolled down to see the images.

    I agree that A seems like more of an influence, particularly because of the standing figures.

    Is that actually Nixon on the right? Usually they try to pretend he didn’t exist.

    Wise decision to show Lincoln from the back — it’s hard to imagine him in this scene at all, and certainly not with any expression other than disgust.

  32. 32.

    arguingwithsignposts

    And, fwiw, there is an obvious mistake in the paints, because fair-haired, lilly-white Jeebus isn’t anywhere to be found.

    ETA: My theory on the lIncoln back-shot: they forgot him and had to add him at the last minute. There’s never a back-of-the-head shot in the other dog p0ker paintings.

  33. 33.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    Michelle Obama fed her family dead chickens and then used the bones for soup!

    Wait – the chicken bones or her family’s bones?

  34. 34.

    Dennis G.

    @KG:
    This one by the same artist is the same Republican Presidents playing pool. The painting of them playing cards hangs on the wall. This is also modeled on the tradition of dogs playing games in paintings. There is a tradition of dogs playing pool paintings. And golf.

    I guess the artist have Democratic versions of the same, but I doubt that Henry Waxman has one on his wall.

    Cheers

  37. 37.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Dammit, moderation!
    The part of the comment that got me into purgatory:
    ETA: My theory on the lIncoln back-shot: they forgot him and had to add him at the last minute. There’s never a back-of-the-head shot in the other dog p0ker paintings.

  39. 39.

    asiangrrlMN

    @JGabriel: No can do. I trashed it as soon as I got it. However, I am sure I will get another one from one Republican or another sooner rather than later. I will forward any particular batshitcrazy ones to a front-pager.

  40. 40.

    Redshift

    @Omnes Omnibus: That reminds me of a pipe I saw once in a tobacconist’s. It was carved with the face of John F. Kennedy, with the unfortunate result that if you actually used it, he would have a smoking hole in the back of his head.

  41. 41.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    @BR: fuck obama and his intellect, people want a fighter for president! that’s why I say we primary Obama with Chuck Norris.

  42. 42.

    RalfW

    I say bring it (the investigations). I’m sure they will impress out of work formerly-middle class people who voted for these assclowns.
    I just has a sad because it looks like Michele Bachmann is being shoved aside for the #4 job in the House. I wanted all-circus all-the-time.

    Oh, and I love the idea that the GOP ex-presidents are jowly, back-room dogs. It’s just so, y’know, not a leap what so ever. And it’s good that they can lick themselves, avoids “zipper problems.”

  45. 45.

    jacy

    I take comfort in the fact that neither Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln would piss on the modern Republican party if it was on fire.

    Hell, any of the people featured in that painting would be drummed out of the modern Republican part as commies, soshulists, and sissy appeasers, among other things.

    ‘Cept maybe Bush the younger. He was a douchebag of the first order and spineless enough to pay lip service to any crazy idea if he thought he could fool the rubes. If it was an accurate picture representing the modern Republican party, it would just be Bush Junior playing with himself. (And maybe a fetus in a jar.)

  48. 48.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    As to the investigations witchhunt, bloggers should start to weave a narrative that weakens and makes a mockery outta Issa. For example, when Hans Blix was conducting weapons inspections in Iraq back in early 2003, the wingers would refer to him as “Inspector Clouseau” and “Mr Magoo”

    This is the currency of politics, not policy and rationality, but rather, mud-fighting.

  49. 49.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Mike Kay (Team America):

    its kinda like how mussolini doesn’t look so bad standing next to adolph and stalin

    At least you knew Nixon was intelligent… paranoid as all get out and spiteful to the nth degree… but intelligent.

    And he did inherit that spectacular shit sandwich called “Viet Nam” from LBJ… but bombing Cambodia was his idea…

    Started the EPA… reached out to China…

    But there will always be “Watergate” attached to his name…

  50. 50.

    BR

    @Mike Kay (Team America):

    fuck obama and his intellect, people want a fighter for president! that’s why I say we primary Obama with Chuck Norris.

    You know, I just realized – drudge and fox and biggoverment will probably be running “breaking news” tomorrow taking something Obama says in Hindi in that speech and turn it into “Obama speaks in Muslin language to people in funny clothes”

  51. 51.

    Davis X. Machina

    @BR:

    At least they’ll have learned something. The typical Fox viewer’s first response: “India has a language? I just thought they had a funny accent, like Apu.”

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    Nixon was in fact a legendary poker player when he was in the Pacific.

    When Agnew died I was happy those two bastards would be united to play poker in Hell until the end of time.

  55. 55.

    Ross Hershberger

    They’re playing for the souls of union members.
    “I’ll bet 5 Teamsters”
    “Call”

  56. 56.

    Nellcote

    @BR:

    You know, I just realized – drudge and fox and biggoverment will probably be running “breaking news” tomorrow taking something Obama says in Hindi

    Just you wait til the Prez gets to Indonesia!

  57. 57.

    Andy K

    @Dennis G.:

    A better fit would be Harding and Hoover.

    Definitely Harding. He and his cronies had a weekly poker game where they divvied up and doled out the nation’s assets to the highest bidder. Teapot Dome, anyone?

  58. 58.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @BR:

    Obama speaks in Muslin?

    Uh oh… it appears things just took a turn for the worsted…

  59. 59.

    Mike Kay (Team America)

    As to the investigations witchhunt, bloggers should start to weave a narrative that weakens and makes a mockery outta Issa. For example, when Hans Blix was conducting weapons inspections in Iraq back in early 2003, the wingers would refer to him as “Inspector Clouseau” and “Mr Magoo”

    This is the currency of politics, not policy and rationality, but rather, mud-fighting.

  62. 62.

    Nellcote

    @asiangrrlMN:

    I don’t ever want to see Michele Bachmann again. Or, more to the point, hear her speak.

    I’m looking foreward to her “Constitution Classes” for the incoming teatards. I do hope there’s video.

  63. 63.

    Joseph Nobles

    So the oldest president in the Democratic “Big Dawgs Playin Poker” picture is Andrew Jackson? Whassa matta Thomas Jefferson?

  64. 64.

    Andy K

    Seems I’ve got a comment awaiting moderation…Could it be because a certain POTUS shares a name with a vacuum cleaner manufacturer?

  67. 67.

    ricky

    I think Ike is telling them about that crazy lady who claimed she could identify Clinton’s tally wacker if she saw it in a line up. P-p-penis is so personal.

  70. 70.

    Jim K.

    Republican Presidents having a laugh, So I said to him “Barack, I know Abe Lincoln, and you ain’t him!” Painting by Andy Thomas. Has been on a local Conservative Radio sight for a couple years. Mike Rosen-850KOA.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @Dennis G.:

    Or maybe Hayes or Taft or Chester A. Arthur.

    Don’t be harshing on my man Chester Alan. The man who pushed through the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act deserves some serious props. Can you imagine trying to run a vaguely modern government on the Spoils System?

  75. 75.

    JAHILL10

    This has probably already been stated by someone above, but no way in hell does Teddy Roosevelt sit down with those pansies. C’mon!

  76. 76.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Andy K: Um. No. I looked it up on IMDB, and I hesitate to think how it’s related to my comment (and did you see my follow-up to your follow-up?). You are actually going to Godwin a sex comment, aren’t you?

  78. 78.

    PanAmerican

    @Dennis G.:

    His works are beyond terrible.

    There’s a Where’s Waldo thing going on in the Obama painting, and is central to the theme of the dead rock ‘n rollers as pirates. The problem I think is, even for celebrity goof art, the caricatures are so horribly bad…

  79. 79.

    Sly

    I actually like the painting for the simple reason that it looks like all the other Presidents are playing against Lincoln.

    The historical accuracy would be further enhanced if it depicted Ike stabbing Nixon in the face with a combat knife, and TR standing on the table, guns waving in the air, and doing his best Yosemite Sam impression.

  80. 80.

    Andy K

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You are actually going to Godwin a sex comment, aren’t you?

    Heehee….No.

    There’s a scene in there when 10-year old Boorman is adventuring through the bomb site in his neighborhood and runs into a ‘gang’ of kids his age. To join the gang he has to repeat the swears he knows. When he says “Fuck” the reaction from the other boys is just awesome, as if he’d uttered the single most powerful word in the world.

    It’s a great film. See it if you get a chance.

    And, yes, saw and replied to it. Your husband isn’t going to kill me, is he?

  81. 81.

    ricky

    @Andy K:
    Even a true cynic averts his eyes when he sees a grown up REAL progressive cry when he thinks Rachel Maddow has crossed over to the Dark Side.

  84. 84.

    hamletta

    I guess I’m a cheeseball, because now I want the one with all the Dem presidents.

    You’ve probably all seen the print of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” with Marilyn, Elvis, and James Dean at the counter, but this diner in Tucson had a faded print of “Luncheon of The Boating Party” where all the people were pop-cult icons.

    My mom and I had just gone to see the Phillips Collection here in Nashville, and we were squeeing. Mom went to American University and used to study at the Phillips. I think my love for that painting is genetic.

  86. 86.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Andy K: Ha! OK. Got it. Whew. I thought you were going to ruin one of my favorite activities for me.

    Ooooh! The movie is streamable from Netflix. I will make a note of it.

    @J. Michael Neal: I knew that. Hm. Maybe I should have told you? They played Phoenix, I believe.

  87. 87.

    Andy K

    @ricky:

    Okay, I missed something somewhere along the line, and I don’t think I want to go through the archives there to view the car wreck.

    I seem to remember a time before that site was overrun by REAL progressives. I tend to shy away from linking this site over there for fear they’ll make me pull my hair out here, too.

  88. 88.

    PanurgeATL

    @josefina:

    That was the style back then. Dockers are a slightly updated throwback–that’s the entire point.
    —
    I notice that in the Dem painting, Andrew Jackson (I suppose) also is painted with his back turned to the viewer. Is this some sort of reverential gesture? Does seating them that way make the paintings more esthetically consistent?

  93. 93.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I still r all about our childrens learning and stuff. Turns out there’s a few Animaniacs sequences still used by instructors. The kids enjoy them and the info sticks, so I say go with it.

    Monday is over, only working four days this week because of a wonderful quirk of being a Fed: I haz Thursday off. Don’t bother, you’re already overthinking it.

  94. 94.

    MattR

    @Andy K: I had my “Thank you Adolph” moment in 8th grade when I arrived at school one morning to find out that a fire had ravaged a good portion of the building.

    For some reason, the fishing scene is always the first thing that pops into my head when I think of this movie.

    @Yutsano: So it’s not for Veteran’s day?

  95. 95.

    wasabi gasp

    Lincoln just said something about white people soon becoming a minority. Everybody laughed and laughed and laughed. Lincoln’s so funny.

  97. 97.

    Anne Laurie

    @Roger Moore:

    Can you imagine trying to run a vaguely modern government on the Spoils System?

    No, but Dubya (and Nixon, Reagan, Poppy… ) sure the heck could. Along with, unfortunately, Chief Justice Roberts.

    As others have said, Nixon had a reputation as a poker shark, and so did Mr. Lincoln. I’m sure TR thought he was a fine player, but keeping his thoughts to himself was not among the gifts of Mr. “Hasten quickly over her, fellows!” Ditto Jerry, Ronny and Daddy Bush… the biggest marks are the guys who think they’re too crafty for the table, yes?

    But the real problem with this portrait is that Ike would no more sit down for a “friendly game” with the Veep he despised than I would parade nekkid down Commonwealth Avenue in midwinter. Nor can I see the Bushes I and II sharing a table for more than one hand without a fistfight breaking out.

  99. 99.

    Yutsano

    @MattR: Coulda been. I’m not entirely certain of the exact air date, though it’s hard to imagine them being reverent about, well, anything.

    @J. Michael Neal: The Somme was in 1915 I think, so no. It’s more just the idea of World War I. Wilson didn’t take us into it in 1913 either, so there is some poetic license there.

  101. 101.

    Andy K

    @MattR:

    There are so many scenes that come to mind when i think of that film: The German pilot, the runaway barrage balloon, drawing the stocking lines, the Googly, the jam….Everything in it is just so understated that I can understand why it isn’t as popular as it should be, but it’s truly a classic film. In that it’s it’s not as popular as it should be, it reminds me of Performance and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

  102. 102.

    Redshift

    @Anne Laurie: Now that reminds me of the old adage about the game whose name moderation prevents me from speaking: “There’s a sucker at every table. If you can’t tell who it is, it’s you.”

    In this group, I have no doubt it would be W.

  104. 104.

    Roger Moore

    @Anne Laurie: __

    Can you imagine trying to run a vaguely modern government on the Spoils System?

    __
    No, but Dubya (and Nixon, Reagan, Poppy… ) sure the heck could. Along with, unfortunately, Chief Justice Roberts.

    I don’t think so; they weren’t interested in running a vaguely modern government. The whole Conservative Movement is about dismantling modern government.

  108. 108.

    fasteddie9318

    Reagan was a serial tax raiser, despite what the hagiographies say. Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive. Lincoln might have been gay, plus he ended slavery um, trampled on states rights, so he’d be out. The teatards never liked Daddy Bush or Ford, and they probably have good thoughts about Nixon but that’s because none of them know he created the EPA and expanded funding for the NEA. Yeah, whoever said the teahadi version of this painting would be GW playing with himself was right.

  109. 109.

    KG

    @Anne Laurie:

    the biggest marks are the guys who think they’re too crafty for the table, yes?

    In my experience (having played full time for a while), not really. The biggest marks tend to be the guys who like to gamble and ignore the odds. They are the ones who love the action.

    As for what would happen if these people were all actually in the room together… I’d guess the lot of them would spend most of their time picking on GWB, particularly Nixon for getting him off the hook as worst president ever.

  111. 111.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @fasteddie9318:

    I was under the impression Nixon also dallied w/ the idea of a national healthcare system…

    And as for Lincoln… he was a RAILROAD lawyer in the 1850’s and very much for the transcontinental railroad… and Abe apparently didn’t have much trouble w/ the fact that the US was gonna clip the Indians of everything they had once that railroad went coast to coast…

  112. 112.

    Andy K

    @The Republic of Stupidity:

    And as for Lincoln… he was a RAILROAD lawyer in the 1850’s and very much for the transcontinental railroad…

    Which made him Wall Street, not Main Street, so no teahadi he.

    Unless, of course, he claimed to be Main Street. Then he would be. Because he said so.

  113. 113.

    Church Lady

    Now that the election is over, all that is left is to argue about trash collection and discuss tacky art? This blog is going to hell.

  115. 115.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @Andy K:

    I’ve been reading “Nothing Like It In the World”, by S Ambrose… and it would seem that next to no one back then had any qualms whatsoever about the way the natives were being treated as the US reached out to grasp its manifest destiny… I guess you could say the endlessly rapacious behavior we see on Wall Street these days is just in the nation’s genes…

  116. 116.

    Mnemosyne

    I only wrote about half of today’s NaNo quota, but I kept nodding off at the keyboard. Stupid time change. I hate it very muchly.

  118. 118.

    Andy K

    @The Republic of Stupidity:

    Well of course they didn’t…Seriously.

    That’s the way every non-agricultural, tribal society has been treated by agriculturists since the late neolithic age. Up until the 20th Century, that is. Agricultural society is like the Borg: Resistance is futile.

  122. 122.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Hey. You still have more than when you started, amirite?

    Methinks my spousalhood is rubbing off on you more than I thought. Since when have you been such a bloody optimist?

  123. 123.

    KG

    Watching the Daily Show… Rick Perry has been on the show for thirty seconds, I already can’t fucking stand him.

  125. 125.

    El Cid

    Why does the painting not have the ghostly form of the World Trade Center towers in the background out the window, with an eagle circling over it, preferably crying?

  126. 126.

    El Cid

    Also, Fuck off & die, Arizona!

    …Arizona state senator Russell Pearce (R), who has just been elected the president of the state senate, has launched a push to reject federal funding for the state’s Medicaid program, known as the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). Pearce wants the state to turn down $7 billion in federal funding that would help keep AHCCCS afloat. When asked what the more than one million Arizonans who rely on AHCCCS for care would do, Pearce told a reporter that “church, community, families got to provide.”…
    __
    PEARCE: “Things need to be put in context. Hang on. It’s like going to Dillard’s, you don’t have any money, but it’s a great sale. So I’m gonna buy it, but I have no money. The federal money comes with strings. One of the great challenges we have this session will be to work around some of the stimulus money we took to tie our hands.”

    Better dead than red, though in the red is okay. And I guess you sick and old shits best save up whatever money in the couch you can scrounge so that you can make it until your care provider has a sale, ’cause ain’t no hand-tying government gonna help you out.

    One in five Arizonans is now utilizing AHCCCS. Due to the recession, the program has already been drastically scaled back, with as many as 18,000 Arizonan children cut from KidsCare– the division set up to care for juveniles — this past year alone.
    __
    Without the federal funding, there is little hope that AHCCCS will be able to continue to serve Arizonans. Pearce is putting the health of more than a million people on the line with his ideological crusade against the federal government, and denying people health care is not the same as denying them designer goods from fashion retail stores.

    Vote the wind, get the fucking whirlwind, mother fuckers. Making it so the AHCCCS is his intention, not some unintended consequence.*

    *”Unintended consequence” is one of phrases used to described the logical outcomes of some powerful figure’s decisions in such a way as to prevent any thought that that powerful person could, in any way, have had any ill on his or her mind. No, whatever harm occurred had to be unintentional, because there’s no videotape yet of him swearing on a Satanic bible into a videocamera that yes, indeed, conscious evil was intended.

  129. 129.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    O/T, but I just saw this over at HuffPo…

    Joe Manchin Party Switch? GOP Reportedly Enticing Democratic Senator-Elect

    WTF?

    Republicans are reportedly in the midst of drawing up an incentive package that could potentially convince West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin, currently the state’s conservative Democratic governor, to jump ship and place an “R” next to his name.

    ‘Drawing up an incentive package?’

    What is this… free agency?

    If the GOOPers throw in a couple of hot call girls, some cowhide luggage, and a new Cadillac, will they have a deal?

    Sweet Hay-zuz… ANYTHING for control… absolutely NO frickin’ idea how to straighten out the horrific mess they created, but foamin’-at-the-mouth rabid to be back in control…

  132. 132.

    El Cid

    @Andy K: Angry whites would commence immediate organizing to kill Mexicans and scream at Democratic politicians to stop all the soshullized Obamacare which they were told was at fault.

    Remember, the real killer of our children is the deficit, which is why it’s never a good time to let taxes on the super-rich go back up to normal.

  133. 133.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @El Cid:

    Since we’re talking about the super-rich here, let’s put some numbers w/ that, for clarity’s sake…

    Top 400 Taxpayers

    • The top 400 U.S. individual taxpayers got 1.59% of the nation’s household income in 2007 — 3X the p% they got in the 1990s.

    • The top 400 paid 2.05% of all individual income taxes in 2007.

    • Only 220 of the top 400 were in the top marginal tax bracket.

    • Average tax rate of the 400 = 16.6% — the lowest since the IRS began tracking the 400 in 1992.

    • Minimum annual income to make the top 400 = $138.8 million.

    • Top 400 reported $137.9 billion in income; they paid $22.9 billion in federal income taxes.

    • 81.3% of income was from capital gains, dividends or interest. Salaries and wages? Just 6.5%.

    • The top 400 list changes from year to year: 1992-2007, it contained 3,472 different taxpayers (out of a maximum 6400).

    One thing not mentioned in that list… the top 400 AVERAGED $345MM in 2007…

    It’s always good to make sure folks really know what you’re getting at…

  134. 134.

    Anne Laurie

    @Church Lady:
    __

    Now that the election is over, all that is left is to argue about trash collection and discuss tacky art? This blog is going to hell.

    What, you’re afraid of being reassigned to some dreary interweb hellhold like FreeRepublikaaner if there’s no potentially subversive material being front-paged here? Don’t they teach you guys anything about provocateuring anymore ? Be proactive! Find some ridiculous bit of security theatre or globalist paranoia for us to mock, if you want to be secure in your current sinecure!

  135. 135.

    El Cid

    @The Republic of Stupidity: Those points do help us understand the suffering of the extremely rich by a predacious government intent on punishing them for their success. How can a billionaire survive if it’s occasionally necessary to pay several tens of thousands of dollars in taxes? Especially when your own President criticizes you just for using your financial know-how to gamble your way into a multi-trillion dollar collapse of the American economy? Life is truly unfair.

  136. 136.

    asiangrrlMN

    @El Cid: This is why I fake-married you! (That and the unlimited supply of Ommunis(TM) ).

    @Yutsano: When I am rooting on others to succeed. Then I can be an optimist with the best of them.

    @Anne Laurie: AL, I think I love you. This comment of yours is awesome sauce–especially the inclusion of the word ‘sinecure’.

  140. 140.

    Dennis G.

    @The Republic of Stupidity:
    One should treat headlines from HufPo with caution and not buy into any story there until it is verified by credible sources.

    Of course the folks in the Republican Party are trying to find some Dems to flip. It has always been so since Strom Thurmond led the Dixiecrats out of one party and into the other.

  142. 142.

    debbie

    Ah, more Republican overreach. If I knew how to set up a Web site, I’d start a counting meter of instances of Republican overreach, like the St. Petersburg Times did with Obama’s campaign promises. In just one week, they’re off to a flying start.

    However, this may, at long last, prove to be the end of Issa. (Am I correct in remembering his public tearing up, in the tradition of Boehner?)

  143. 143.

    Bob L

    I know Teddy Roosevelt was a politician but I have a hard time believing he would sit down at a table with Ronald Reagen and GW Bush and not ending up beating them up.

  144. 144.

    debbie

    @Michael:

    Looks like a cross between Bob Ross and Thomas Kinkade.

    Ha! Instead of happy little trees, it’s happy little Republicans.

  145. 145.

    Pongo

    My great aunt had pictures of Reagan and GWB prominently featured on her living room walls, along with a picture of Jesus. She was an uber-Baptist, so my dad asked her one time if she was concerned that elevating mere men to the same status as Jesus might be considered idolatry, a ‘sin’ for sure. She got a little flustered, but then decided it was okay because she only prayed to one of them (we didn’t ask which one).

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