So I’m visiting one of my current favorite news aggregating sites and here is how they framed the news for December 1:
Washington continues to welcome members of Congress back to the capital. There have been many ad-hoc meetings and opinions exchanged about possible solutions to the present turmoil.
It is a fine description for the news of today, but the site I pulled it from is called The Long Recall. It is presented by the folks at The American Interest and it is a daily aggregation of all the news and events from 150 years ago in 1860. It is a fascinating way to track the build-up to the Civil War in real time and to see the daily overlap between the Confederates of seven score and ten years ago to the current Republican Party (AKA the 21st Century home of the Confederate Party).
Back then it was all about blocking action and making threats unless they got what they wanted and today it is more of the same. From calls by Eric Cantor to gut the US Constitution to celebrations of Treason by assholes in South Carolina, it looks like the TeaBaggers want to party like it’s 1860.
We live in interesting times with stupid that just burns.
Perhaps it will get better.
Cheers
The Dangerman
It will get better…
…but it will get much worse first.
Edit: Excellent link; will go back a month and catch up to the upcoming Civil War. As a student of History, it should be fascinating.
KG
Speaking of good news for conservatives… I was just reading a post over at Hot Air about the PPP poll about the GOP primary. The comments were much more interesting than the post where Allahpundit just asked questions about if not X, then who?
Some of the commenters seem to believe that Palin can win the general election. I do not know what they actually base that on. In fact, some have been saying that “liberals are scared of Palin.” I’m guessing this is a talk radio line because I’ve heard my dad mention it a few times and all I’ve ever been able to do when I hear that is laugh. Others are going RINO hunting because apparently Republicans who would vote for Romney in the general would be more likely to vote for Obama in the general if Romney doesn’t get the nomination. The part I really loved though was that Palin would some how be able to magically pick up conservodems and conservoindies enough to make up the difference of the lost Romney voters… though, I’m not sure how they make up the difference of the few hundred thousand that McCain lost by last time.
I don’t get it, but I’m sure it’s good news for conservatives, and Sarah Palin in particular.
asiangrrlMN
@The Dangerman: Ditto that. Much worse. Then, maybe better. And, over at TNC’s place, someone suggested a Miscegenation Ball to occur at the same time as the Secession Ball. My only question is, would I have been considered black or white?
Dennis G.
@KG:
This view of the Quitta from Wassila was pretty spot on and it was from Pravda, the real one over in dot RU land.
Cheers
BGinCHI
So, when the government handout states secede, how the fuck they gonna survive?
Industry? Tourism? Cracker techno-innovation?
Shit, I can already feel our lifestyles improving.
I’m willing to pay extra shipping for my Oxford American.
Joseph Nobles
Cantor also posted a link to the National Science Foundation’s grants at his whip website. He told his minions to go search for things they think they shouldn’t be wasting taxdollars on.
Eating the seed corn.
BGinCHI
@Dennis G.: Wow.
It took them a lot longer to figure out Reagan was an eejit. Sarah is so advanced for her age.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: Old-fashioned American exceptionalism, of course. Duh. Actually, I have the feeling that they don’t think that far ahead–they just envision how glorious it will be to cut the federal ties that bind.
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles
Strong and wrong beats weak and right.
Corner Stone
I interrupt this program to inform you all that the newly elected AG of CA Kamala Harris is freakin’ hot.
That is all.
robertdsc-PowerBook
@Corner Stone: Yessssssssss.
Ross Hershberger
In face to face discussions with other Dems people tell me that they’re fed up with being the mice in the walls of the rich people’s country and there’s going to be a revolution of some kind to restore the rightful place of the middle class.
I have no reason to believe this will happen. They’ve taken over the financial system and conned us into paying for their failures. They’ve got SCOTUS to declare their corporations on an equal footing with individuals in influencing elections with money. They’ve shipped out our jobs to increase short term profit at the expense of their employees and customers. Now they’ll get their taxes cut just as much as the suffering people who really need it. Oh, and UEC extensions? Too costly. Sorry. Deficit, you know.
They got away with all of this and practically nobody noticed. There’s every reason to believe that the rich, the GOP and the real money/power brokers can do pretty much what they please without risk. Revolution? What channel’s that on?
The Dangerman
@KG:
Joe Scarborough lit up Palin yesterday, Ed Rollins today; anyone thinking Palin will get through a Primary without having to explain a few things (including Alaska Secession and the birth of her last child) is in dreamland. She might take the nomination, but she has no (none, nada, zilch, forgettaboutit, Elvis has left the motherfucking building) chance in the General.
WyldPirate
@Corner Stone:
No doubt. She smokes Palin and seems to minus the stupid.
Ross Hershberger
@The Dangerman:
Man, you’re raining on my parade. I so want to see them make her run. Don’t I get to have any fun?
WyldPirate
Anyone see John Shadegg, R-Az make the most stupid statement from a politician ever today?
Link to article. The video link is in the quoted paragraph at the link.
That’s Industrial grade stupid that will burn through tank armor like a depleted uranium sabot round.
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
I’m beginning to think that the secession would have to come from the Left; the States with, ya know, people and, more importantly, well educated people are going to get tired of carrying the weight of those other States…
…and those other States would turn into something very sad indeed.
S. cerevisiae
@Joseph Nobles: If it ain’t in the Bible then it ain’t real. God told me so.
Eating the seed corn is right.
The Dangerman
@Ross Hershberger:
Oh, she’s running; no doubt there. She could even take the nomination…
…but she’s getting kneecapped from the Sane Right (ok, the less Crazy Right).
Now, if she gets nomination and the Sane Right runs someone as a 3rd Party, that would make me brush up on my Mayan prophesies.
The Dangerman
@WyldPirate:
That level of stupid should be outlawed.
Ross Hershberger
@The Dangerman:
My greatest hope. The TP-ers fracture the Right and play out a Nader scenario. It may be our only chance in ’12.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I don’t understand why President Obama lets punks like Eric Cantor bitch-slap him in the mouth so bad that he needs stitches – yet does not put up his dukes and retaliate.
In other news, President Obama has just come out in favor of his own impeachment.
.
.
S. cerevisiae
@WyldPirate: Ho. Lee. Fuck.
That ignorant bastard has obviously never been on unemployment. Yeah, shithead we’re putting it all into 401’s and oil stocks. Idiot.
Ross Hershberger
@WyldPirate:
Exactly 180 degrees wrong. The rich will sit on the small increase in take-home, while the unemployed would immediately recycle it back into the economy in useful ways. So guess which one is most likely to happen.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Interesting that Gist, then the guv of South Carolina, was so afraid of “Black Republican rule” and a “Black Republican President”.
I guess that they have made sure that will never happen!
This passage is quite the tell on how the issue of slavery was central to the secessionist movement:
Shorter South Carolina guv: Hey slaveholders in border states! Join us or get stuck with the humiliation of having to live among your newly-freed blacks and you will lose the money you had invested in them since we will refuse to buy them from you.
Secession wasn’t all about slavery? Bullshit. That was all it was about and Gist’s screed proves it.
You could say that I got the Gist of what he was saying.
The Dangerman
@Ross Hershberger:
Obama will be just fine in ’12; did you see what the market did today on growth news? Sure, there are problems ahead, big problems, but the Right has nobody electable (unless they split the vote with a 3rd party and … who knows how that plays out).
If you are on unemployment, save all that money and bet it all on Barack in 12.
WyldPirate
@The Dangerman:
It’s hilarious in the video. Too bad he’s retiring and Dan Quayle’s son is taking his place.
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: And he was fucking laughing when he said it.
So, rich people use their tax break money to create jobs, dumbass? Give me some examples. And if you could, how would those jobs exist in an economy with no demand?
Please, can we fucking get some people who know the faintest about what an “economy” is? I would really like to see reporters ask members of Congress for a straight answer on how they think the economy works.
WyldPirate
@Ross Hershberger:
LOL. Precisely. The self-satisfied smugness on Shadegg’s face as he says it and Barnicle’s puzzlement as he hears it is priceless.
Ross Hershberger
@WyldPirate:
If only the MSM could be convinced that it was good for ratings to call a fool a fool to his face, then we’d have a more level playing field.
BGinCHI
@The Dangerman: Oh noes! We can’t lose Houston and the Dakotas!
They’ll be begging for us back like Dash Riprock after Ellie May Clampitt, but in reverse, or something.
Or like zombies at the gates. But with superior fried chicken.
Note: we’re gonna need to kidnap some southern chefs.
Redshift
@KG:
This is a recurring trope with wingnuts. Their entire politics is based on fear with a heavy dose of lying about their actual intentions, so their automatic defense mechanism when we mock Palin (or whoever) for being a blithering idiot is to puff up their chests and declare “they’re just saying that because they’re afraid of her!”
Yutsano
@BGinCHI:
I’ll host Nathalie Dupree with great joy in my heart. Nothing against Paula, mind you, but Nathalie could whup my cooking skills into some kind of mean shape I tell you what.
Corner Stone
edited because I realized I don’t care
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI:
The sad thing is that the Rethugs can say this and get most people to believe it. Moreover, most people have no clue where they are in the quartiles or deciles of income distribution. They vastly overestimate their rank. Nor do the sheeple have any idea what an astounding percentage of income growth the top 1% has had over the last three decades.
There is a pandemic of industrial grade stupid in ‘Merikka.
Mnemosyne
There’s a reason that Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech keeps running through my mind. Especially stuff like this:
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Good point. Mike Judge and everyone is Austin who can play an instrument gets a free pass. Plus NOLA, Athens, GA, a bunch of folks in Asheville, Oxford, and the fine folks at Hunter Gather in Columbia, SC.
We might also have to take some of their women, but we been doing that for a long time.
Ross Hershberger
@Redshift:
Personally, I’m in awe. Such cluelesness happens only once in a generation. I’m privileged to have experienced Quayle as well. Like seeing Halley’s comet twice in a lifetime.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: We’re gonna need a bigger boat to fit it all in.
Go ahead and list some positives. Good CW program at U of H. That’s all I got. Maybe that new mayor.
No, Earl Campbell doesn’t count.
fasteddie9318
@WyldPirate:
Yes, John, those greedy, vile, unemployed cocksuckers will take the precious in their dirty, lazy, mongrel hands and never gives it up! Tricksy little maggotses! They’ll toss it into their secret swimming pools filled with ill-gotten government handout money, the money they never, ever spend!
Well, “swimming pool” may be going too far. Maybe a nice bucket, or a good sized highball glass, or possibly a thimble.
The solution is clear: every member of Congress who votes against UEC extensions should forgo his or her salary for a year and live off of unemployment benefits. Either that or they could just fuck off and die, which admittedly would be a better long-term solution.
BGinCHI
@Corner Stone: And there you have it.
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: We need a new tag line: Foam Fingers Over America.
The Dangerman
Found this animation off of Rude Pundit on the Palins; has a few LOL moments towards the end.
They might nominate Palin just because it pisses off those scared Liberals, but after she gets smoked in the General by about 60 to 40, they may come to their senses (or not).
Redshift
@WyldPirate: Another contender was Judd Gregg, who I had the misfortune to hear interviewed on NPR this evening. He was parroting the talking point that it was somehow wrong to do anything in a lame-duck session (except really important things like tax cuts for the rich), apparently oblivious to the fact that if that were true, since he’s a lame-duck senator, there would be absolutely no reason to talk to him.
I was impressed with one thing, though — the interviewer did ask about the McConnell ultimatum, and wasn’t it essentially the equivalent of holding a gun to the head? He waved it away with more nonsense, but it was nice to hear language approaching the “hostage situation” terminology that’s been going around the blogs get wider circulation.
BGinCHI
@fasteddie9318: And I’ll bet you the MSM is going to cover the “tragedy of UEC benefits running out” like in a cheetahs run down antelope way instead of spending any time looking into the root causes.
Rality tv isn’t half as bad as cable news.
BGinCHI
@Redshift: Every question should be: Is the GOP willing to kill the hostages?
If David Gregory said it over and over I’d get a tattoo of him on my forearm.
fasteddie9318
My proposal is this: Any state that wishes to secede must give one calendar year’s notice. That’s all. That gives us enough time to process the revocation of citizenship and passports for every resident of that state as well as to construct border fences or some otherwise impassible barrier to travel, then to prepare our business community for the total ban on trade and travel between the remaining United States and that state that will be implemented for a period of no less than 25 years. Oh, and it gives anybody who doesn’t care to secede a chance to get the hell out of that state and keep their citizenship. That’s fair, right?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Of course you would, you big lug, you.
And, I have to link to this post by TNC (if only because I really want to see a collaboration between TNC and dengre). It is one of my faves of his on the whole Secession Ball/CHM pride crap.
@fasteddie9318: ::reading over the fine print of the contract::
Looks good to me!
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI: Lol. Either that or “USA: Number 1 in Innumeracy”
Redshift
@Ross Hershberger:
Before the election, an aide to one of the Dems who wanted to extend all the tax cuts (but only temporarily, really!) actually told a group of us that the only people spending money are the rich, so it’s vital to the economy to give them money so they’ll keep spending.
I knew the guy before he was a congressional aide, and he wasn’t a complete idiot, so I tend to put it in the category of “difficult to get a man to believe something when his job depends on him not believing it, but it still had me sputtering.
BGinCHI
@fasteddie9318: Plus we keep them from getting cable or broadcast in any form.
They’d last a month, tops.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: On your forearm? That’s a rather tame proposition.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
I called the Dawg that once. He acted mock hurt. I told him to prove me wrong. He changed the subject. Yes, even on occasion, I win against him.
And I’ll host pretty much any decent Southern cook. And Aida Mollenkamp.
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: That could just be misspelled on the foam fingers. Twofer.
Ross Hershberger
How idiotic do the GOP-ers have to be, and for how long before enough ordinary people perk up and sense the idiocy? Maybe my point of view just isn’t widely shared or maybe people just aren’t paying attention to, like, fact and reality. Perhaps the Democrats need their own reality show just to get themselves noticed.
Redshift
@BGinCHI: I’d cheer that, and also if they continually asked about Rachel Maddow’s point from tonight: “How is that any different from what you’ve been doing nonstop for the past four years?”
The Dangerman
@fasteddie9318:
I would add that if they illegally immigrate to find a job in the better part of the Former U.S., they get thrown in the slammer.
S. cerevisiae
@fasteddie9318:
That still has me laughing, well done!
BGinCHI
@asiangrrlMN: It would be exactly as big as the head of a pin.
Life-size.
fasteddie9318
@BGinCHI:
Eh, I think you’d probably need to let them keep satellite, just not from any providers located in the US. Cable, electricity, land lines/DSL, anything running on wires they’d have to cobble together on their own since the only thing our wires might connect to is an electrified border fence.
BGinCHI
@Ross Hershberger: You missed it. It was called Arrested Development.
WyldPirate
@Redshift:
I’ve been noticing some of the same things. Some of the TV talking heads that do some of the standard interviews seem to be steeping up their game a little bit of late when they are talking to the Rethugs.
I’m a news junkie though and when things get nasty, I get more hopeful that the MSM will start doing their goddamned job. Unfortunately, I usually end up being disappointed. Sadly, I’m beginning to get the feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had about two weeks into the Swift-boating of Kerry when he didn’t respond.
Ross Hershberger
@BGinCHI:
I missed everything on TV after about 1976 and I’m not sorry.
fasteddie9318
@The Dangerman:
Yeah, I’d be down with that. I’m a big believer in punishing the employers when it comes to Mexican illegals, but secessionist illegals should be put in a labor camp or on a chain gang.
Yutsano
@fasteddie9318:
Fixteth. And yes I’m that hardcore.
BGinCHI
@Yutsano: Oh, I almost forgot.
We have to get John T. Edge up here before it all goes down. Best food writer on the planet.
Night all.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: Ha! That’s funny. Night.
@Yutsano: You got it. Someone at TNC’s called the Secession Ball the Sedition Ball. Damn right. And, the Dawg IS a big lug (if he looks at all like Peyton Hillis as you say he does).
Martin
The problem that Palin presents is that she totally skews the turnout, not unlike O’Donnell did.
Presidential primary turnout averages around 30%. So 30% of Republicans would be expected to turnout in 2012. If Palin’s base is as rabid as O’Donnells (and there’s every reason to believe that it is at a minimum, just based on DWTS) then it doesn’t matter if she’s trailing her rivals in the polls, her voters are going to turn out and she’s going to crush everyone.
Let’s say it’s a 2-way race with Palin and Romney and they’re polling even. If 30% of Romney’s half turnout and 60% of Palins, She’ll beat him 2-1. When the general rolls around, Palin won’t have any more votes than she earned in the primary because her unfavorables are sky-high outside of her base, and the race will be called for Obama before New Hampshire polls close.
The problem for the GOP is that there’s not a lot they can do about this dynamic. If the long knives come out for Palin, they better be lethal, because her base make the PUMAs look like fucking diplomats. If they get a sense that the GOP is out to get Palin, they’re going to dig in deep. If they GOP doesn’t do anything about Palin and she doesn’t self-destruct, they know they’ve lost 2012.
At this stage, the GOP looks totally fucked in 2012.
WyldPirate
@Ross Hershberger:
Boy, do I feel you on this. I thought I was going to go frigging insane from the moment of Bush v Gore. I accepted it, but hated it and calmed down a bit then 9/11 and the Iraq shit started. Thought I would go bonkers here in the South with all of the rah-rah USA #1 shit when I knew that it was a goddamned criminal con job and the beginning of a foolish boondoggle. You ran a risk in the South IMO at the time if you said something antiwar in real life to someone who’s political leaning you weren’t sure of. I had my truck vandalized for having an anti-Bush sticker on it.
I would have never survived the Bush years had I not found blogs to read.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
I’m in favor of burning traitors at the stake. How’s that for hardcore?
Ross Hershberger
@Martin:
Two years is a long time, and the career GOP operatives are some canny bastards. If they can co-opt the TP-ers and Palinistas and get them back into the fold they’re pretty safe. If not, the Right will be torn apart and unable to mount a coordinated effort in the general election. I’m down on my knees every day praying for option 2.
The Dangerman
@Martin:
Tea Party
HicksTicksI concur, the GOP looks well and truly fucked in 2012.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
Make Peyton Hillis 6’7″ with gray eyes. That’s the Dawg, more or less. Body shape and all. He just likes to act all wounded like that. It’s kinda cute. And no I haven’t heard from him lately, I’m hoping around Christmas when I’ll have three days off.
@Martin:
The GOP has two choices: keep moving towards the even more crazy to the point where all you have left is old white males, or try and tamper down the extremist elements and risk a split. Right now I see them trying for a twofer. And failing. There is no putting the Palin genie back in the bottle.
Yutsano
@freelancer:
Yes. This will do. This will do quite nicely.
The Republic of Stupidity
@KG:
Oh… I, for one, AM afraid of Palin… but not in a way that’s the least bit flattering to Sarah…
sashal
@Ross Hershberger:
forever.
Remember, the Russian people did not rise to throw Communists away, there were leaders who figured out a way.
And so happens everywhere, masses basically do nothing until some individuals with balls and brains challenge the routine
Ross Hershberger
Too late. Must sleep.
Cheers
Martin
@Ross Hershberger: I agree that 2 years is a long time. Hillary vs Rudy was inevitable less than a year out according to the media. Hillary made a damn good run of it, but they couldn’t have gotten Rudy more wrong.
But that was an assessment of the candidates, not of the electorate. Right now, Palin wins the nomination because of the electorate. She could have an abortion on live TV and I think she’d still win the nomination.
The electorate could easily shift in the next 2 years. Who knows what will result if the economy springs back to life and who knows what’s to come.
Martin
@The Republic of Stupidity: Well, there’s different kinds of fear. I have zero fear of her as a political candidate. I have tremendous fear of her should she actually assume a high office somehow.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Martin:
Uh… that’s pretty much exactly what I was getting at…
I haven’t the least bit of fear of her as a candidate but am terrified at the thought of such a clueless, crude, uninformed person wielding so much power… kinda like Sharon Angel, only w/ nukes…
Ever see ‘A Face In the Crowd’, Elia Kazan’s mid-50’s political flick?
Martin
@The Republic of Stupidity: Ah yes, Lonesome Rhodes…
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
These days, Lonesome Rhodes would do the Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh circuit after his outburst and all would be forgiven. He’d probably even get elected to the Senate afterwards.
J. Michael Neal
@freelancer:
Only if they’re tortured first.
freelancer
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Kind of the same way Johnny Smith is afraid of Greg Stillson?
S. cerevisiae
@freelancer: You beat me to it, she is Stillson.
freelancer
@S. cerevisiae:
We are all Johnny Smith now.
Except the Electoral College will kill her ambitions more than some fictional psychic ever would.
Martin
Oh, if this repeal amendment (28) gets passed, I’m going to push for my legislators to approve repealing the readmittance of all of the Confederate states to the union. Not only do I think that the state legislature of California and most other non-Confederate states would pass this, I think the legislatures of the Confederate states would probably pass it as well.
Then, with them gone, we could pass the 29th amendment, the repeal of the repeal amendment, or the ‘Mission Accomplished’ amendment.
Andy K
@fasteddie9318:
Full of win, my man!
Calouste
@freelancer:
Nah, burning at the stake is traditionally for heretics. I think you should go for the more traditional traitor treatment of hanging, drawing and quartering.
jl
@fasteddie9318: Sounds good to me. I would add provision that the seceding state has to compensate their residents who wish to remain in the US and move for their relocation expenses. I think that is fair.
Dennis G.
@Mnemosyne:
Yep, the Cooper Union speech describes behavior and tactics that the modern Confederates are still using. It is a great speech to listen to as well as one to read.
Davis X. Machina
If Caribou Barbie actually gets the nomination, it will be yet another case of ‘In history, everything happens twice, first as tragedy (George McGovern), and then as farce (Sarah Palin)’.
McGovern’s nomination split his own party, but he was approximately a billion times more redoubtable a politician and more worthwhile a human being.
I wish the GOP luck.
BruceFromOhio
I just hope we don’t have to burn down Atlanta again. I like that town.
Kirk Spencer
@Calouste: No need to be like the other side, here. No drama or petty addition of pain because killing isn’t enough. Just simple, professional execution.
I favor hanging because the rope is recyclable.
Barkley G
If you go back and read a lot of old timey documents, I bet many of you good folks would be surprised to learn that Confederate leaders tended to be Hard Core Strict Constructionists.
I wonder if there is any connection to today’s Strict Constructionists.
Thanks for the link to The Long Recall.
Jamie
I dunno, I was thinking more of the nullififcation risis of the 1830s myself.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: I just finished reading the book, and I couldn’t get ever how like Palin Stillson was. There’s even a speech in the book about people showing Washington blah blah blah and why not have the crazy people in to make a point? that fit in with what’s going on today. I had to skim the Stillson parts because he creeped me out so badly.
The Populist
@BGinCHI:
I ask this question all the time. Let them secede BUT they can’t keep any bases, equipment, nukes and they have to pay the rest of us for any federal properties in these states.
The Populist
@WyldPirate:
It’s simple: When the pain gets deeper that average Americans are getting hurt badly while the rich keep getting sweetheart deals from the GOP, THEN (big maybe though) people may wake up. Most americans are common sense folks. They are low information, but will research why something is a problem if they are affected in a negative way.
The way I see it, if things get really bad and it seems to average people that the GOP congress is too much on the side of big businesses that have no problem exporting jobs and giving generous, deficit crushing tax cuts and allowing them too much latitude to hurt the economy with lax regulations, I can see a mass awakening.
In America, it seems to take experiencing the worst to bring about change (see: The new deal, The Great Depression and Vietnam).
The generation coming up is not nearly as racist, spiteful and cliquish as their predecessors.
The Populist
@Corner Stone:
If she proves herself in that role, I can see a governors job waiting for her in the near future.