Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Let’s finish the job.

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

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

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

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s a doggy dog world.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: It’s Hard Out There for the Pimps

Open Thread: It’s Hard Out There for the Pimps

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Speaking of the rigors of health insurance reform, Mitt Romney, Mormon pseudocyborg, has been having himself one h-e-double-hockey-sticks of a time trying to explain why he now hates, hates, hates the Massachusetts insurance-mandate law he signed into law. The one with a favorability rating among us Massholes of approximately 83%, which you’d think would be something a presidential candidate might want to brag about — except that the dread “Obamacare” was supposedly based on the Commonwealth’s little experiment (for better or worse), and therefore, anathema to those committed Republican primary voters, a/k/a ‘the 27-Percenters’. Willard’s latest dodge is to assert that “If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states”. Jonathan Chait at the New Republic has “A Better Idea“:

…So [Romney’s] argument here is that health care policy, like real estate, comes down to three things: location, location, location. Some states will choose health care systems that promote freedom, and other states will choose health care systems that destroy it, like, um, Massachusetts.
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Hmm. I don’t think this argument is going to hold up. I think Romney needs to try another tack. He should say that he destroyed the freedom of the people of Massachusetts because the people of Massachusetts do not deserve to live in freedom. This would be in keeping with the long-standing Republican position that Massachusetts is not part of America. Indeed, he destroyed freedom in Massachusetts as a warning to the rest of America that it should cherish its freedom to show up the the emergency room without health insurance and pay for their life-saving treatment by handing over their entire net worth, as the Founders intended.

And speaking of shameless Republicant liars, Jim Newell at Gawker reports on James O’Keefe’s latest scam:

Conservative prankster James O’Keefe, the artless cad behind heavily edited video “stings” on NPR, ACORN, and other enemies of the state, has been paying for all of his work on his and his buddies’ credit cards. Apparently it costs a lot of money to carry a camera and act like a jackass — $50,000, as it happens! So won’t you be a peach and give him $50,000, or perhaps even $1 million? This is James O’Keefe’s plea in an email to supporters.
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O’Keefe explains that he and his friends have “hit a wall” after “running up major credit card debt” to finance their projects. He writes that it “cost us about $50,000 when all is said and done to produce the NPR video,” which is incredible, and “If you help us raise over $50,000, it will go toward our next video — after we pay off our credits cards, of course.” What other information could you possibly want from this notorious liar?
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And then he asks for a million dollars: “If you help us pass $100,000 — we can do two new videos… And if by some chance, we raise $1,000,000 — we could expose 20 disturbing cases of government abuse and corruption. But, all I’m worried about is $50,000 right now.”
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Checkbooks out, people. James O’Keefe needs to meet his 29% APR minimums on several credit card accounts.

I guess O’Keefe’s loudest promoter, Andrew Breitbart, wasn’t smart enough to demand his HuffPo earnings up front, or surely he’d be ‘networking’ for Jimmy the Weasel. Which leaves just one time-tested solution for a penniless cad. After all, Christine O’Donnell is still on the market, and she’s got all sorts of money-soliciting tricks to share with the right (Right) catch…

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    agrippa

    “A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do.”
    Just say and do whatever you need to do; true or false means nothing.

  2. 2.

    Southern Beale

    a/k/a ‘the 27-Percenters’.

    I like that. Ilike that a lot. I’m going to start using it. We all should start using it. Maybe the notion that the Republican Party has basically become a fringe ideology representing a minority with extremist views will sink in …

  3. 3.

    Jude

    Re: O’Keefe’s begging.

    Does anyone really believe this guy? He’s a goddamn two-bit grifter. And he’s not going to respect his audience as anything more than a bunch of marks. Christ, how many people gotta learn? You scratch a liar, you find a thief.

  7. 7.

    kindness

    I know it’s dumb but O’Keefe’s site allows you to feed in donations of $o.oo (w/o entering your debit/credit card). I read comments @TPM where people were writing in vulgar stuff and it was taking it.

    So please, fill O’Keefe’s inbox with wasted bandwidth.

  8. 8.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    rebecca black has now made a million dollars from a song everyone thinks sucks, the pipe leading to the blowout preventer is now to blame, not, i repeat, once more for emphasis, not bp….

    of course this means that all the simliarly constructed blow out preventers, with similar pipes probably ought to be shut down, but hey….then again, i may have been barely awake when i read this, and i can’t find it again, but that song is real, and it sucks, still.

    time for coffee.

  11. 11.

    agrippa

    A lot more people vote for the GOP in the general election than those who vote in their primary. The “Solid South” used to be conservative Democrat; it is now solid GOP conservative. A lot of those voters just vote automatically GOP. Just as they used to vote automatically Democrat. It is the same faction that FDR and JFK had to cater to in order to get anything done.

    Those 27% are extremists; but, I do not know if very many people actually care enough to take any notice.

  12. 12.

    Kirk Spencer

    @agrippa: Sort of. The conventional wisdom has long been primary to the edge, run to the middle. The broader truth is that you have to avoid going so far to the edge that your own middle trenders can’t ignore how far you’ve gone.

    Put it this way. Every successfully elected president of the last century and a half has had primary opponents much closer to their party’s edge. If your party is so dominated by the extremists that the one closest to the edge wins, what used to be your part of the middle is now voting for the other side.

  13. 13.

    soonergrunt

    Be on the lookout for another attempted stunt like his little sex on the boat thing. The more desperate this creepy stalker/con-man gets, the more likely he will do something stupid.

  14. 14.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    So on Day 1 Mr. Respect the People’s Freedumbs would over-ride the people’s will as expressed by their duly elected members of Congress.

    Of course.

    Unfortunately, none of the Marshmallow Media will ever ask what he thinks of Executive Orders in general, so we’ll miss out on a chance to see Gov. Dog Hoser tie himself into such a tight knot that he chokes.

  16. 16.

    Bruce S

    Two things –

    “Austerity trickles down” as state budget cuts hit cities hard, making this the worst year for local government since the recession began.

    http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/03/austerity-trickles-down.html

    And Christine Romer, the White House’ former Council of Economic Advisers chief, says what needs to be said about the jobs agenda – more needs to be done!

    http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/03/former-council-of-economic-advisors.html

  19. 19.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    Regarding O’Keefe, why don’t some folks dress up like Right-wing activists and arrange a meeting to discuss what type of videos O’Keefe may be willing fabricate for $500K? Record him and edit the tapes to make it sound bad and then refuse to release the original material.

    Come on folks, let’s get this set up. These rats aren’t going to fuck themselves.

  25. 25.

    gnomedad

    Fightin’ Bill Kristol rewrites history to promote Libyan War

    Dr. Kristol avers that Republicans have steadfastly “taken the lead in fighting for liberty.” He cites, as an example, how, “in opposition, they have sought to push Democratic presidents to act, (as) in the Balkans…”
    __
    Someone didn’t tell Republican stalwart Phyllis Schlafy, who in 1999 accused Clinton of using the Balkans war as a “wag the dog” scenario to divert attention from personal scandal. Or the 187 House Republicans who, on April 28, 1999, voted against giving Clinton the authorization to commence air strikes. Only 31 Republicans loved freedom as much as Dr. Kristol that day.

  28. 28.

    RosiesDad

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Considering how his planned “seduction” of Abbie Boudreau thing went, I’m not sure that it would be possible to punk this guy because he has no shame. And the people who support what he does care no more about his veracity than that of Breitbart.

  29. 29.

    Elvis Dingeldein

    a/k/a ‘the 27-Percenters’

    Was this a subtle wink-and-a-nod slam at Republicans being so stupid they can’t subtract 83 from 100? Because my Super-Liberal Science-Based Global Warming-Confirming Calculatron 9000 says that those who disapprove of Massachusetts health care should call themselves the “17-Percenters,” which is actually fewer people than 27% and so would make your case even stronger and more high-larious.

    Also: “Mormon pseudocyborg” FTW!

  31. 31.

    Rick Massimo

    Indeed, he destroyed freedom in Massachusetts as a warning to the rest of America that it should cherish its freedom to show up the the emergency room without health insurance and pay for their life-saving treatment by handing over their entire net worth, as the Founders intended.

    I always refer to it as “the freedom to CHOOSE whether to get your cancer treated or send your kid to college, as opposed to the tyranny of being forced to do both.”

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    I wonder why O’Keefe just doesn’t show a heavily edited video of himself talking with his credit card company and then edit it to show them that they have actually been paid and that he should in fact have a credit on his account. Since he’s in the business of making up look like down, shouldn’t be that hard to do and then he could write it all off as a business expense on his taxes as part of the job… double rainbow win, amirite?

  37. 37.

    Elvis Dingeldein

    @piratedan:

    Yeah, god forbid he ever train that scathing (and inexplicably expensive) Undercover StalkerCam on, I dunno, the credit card CEOs whose cloud-based HoverMansions run off the delicious suffering of peons paying 29% APRs for the privilege of owning a $60 tank of gas brought to us by the wonderful folks at Halliburton Wartime Profiteering, Inc., also a corporation ripe for StalkerCamming. But I suppose that $50,000 is best spent busting a fundraiser for a non-profit institution dedicated to actual reportage.

  38. 38.

    Joel

    Huh. O’Keefe’s budget is in serious deficit, and he’s seeking to resolve it through increasing the revenue stream?

    How very, very un-Republican of him.

  40. 40.

    Gravenstone

    So, what’s the IRS’ stance on people who loudly and publically seek donations to address their debts (especially since these would be “business” related and not due to emergency or unforseen circumstance)? Do they flag those individuals to ensure any potential donations are reported as income, or is the little fuck going to skate based on gifts below a certain dollar value being considered tax free?

    And the Mittster is doing everything in his not inconsiderable power to live down to the moniker “Flip-Flop Mitt”, ain’t he

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    @kdaug:

    I thought that too. Before. But the NPR “schting” should have never gone anywhere, because it was a fracking edited tape from James O’Keefe, end of story! But look what happened anyway. Then, after everybody took a small breath and reviewed the original footage that basically exonerated the NPR guy…nothing changed.

    He won, again. At this point I don’t know why he won’t win the next time, too. Neither logic nor decency seems to be at work here. Jimmy, we can’t quit you.

  45. 45.

    Yutsano

    @Paul in KY: Heh. As long as he claims it on his 2011 return he’s fine. But if he doesn’t, I get to have fun with the little weasel. So I sincerely hope he “forgets”. And yes we have ways of noticing when you deposit or cash large numbers of checks, especially if over a certain amount, because the banks are required to report those. And I bet he’s not smart enough to go through the hoops of incorporating.

  46. 46.

    Bob L

    What is O’Keefe the douch version of PBS? “This slander brought to you by viewers like you.”

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