Apparently this is another perk of being in Congress:
Jon Kyl’s statement that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities are related to abortion — which drew mockery when he explained it was “not intended to be a factual statement” — has been stricken from the Congressional Record.
I bet we all had the magic of Congressional do-overs. Personally, I would like to strike the statement “I think that blouse makes you look fat” from the record. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking in 1992 when I told my gf that. Quite clearly I was not calling her fat, but instead stating the blouse made her look fat, but something got lost in the translation and she was not interested in nuance. I’d also like to remove my peak wingnut theory from 2008, because that shit just didn’t turn out as expected.
Did you know that peak wingnut is in the urban dictionary?
The Dangerman
In a YouTube environment, this may qualify as a waste of time and effort. Nice try, though.
JGabriel
John Cole:
I’d like a new record. Can I go back to my conception and say, “Hey, let’s maybe wait another ten, fifteen, twenty-five years before being born? I mean, seriously, I don’t want to see the 70’s again.”
.
Served
Can’t someone else just go up there and say “Back when Senator Jon Kyl claimed that Planned Parenthood etc. etc. and had it removed from the record…” and it’s back in, essentially?
KG
Actually, I’d rather have the power to “amend and revise” to add things like “you stupid motherfucking asswipe” to the end of statements in polite company. That’d be much more useful.
Nope, see, I called him an asshole.
kerFuFFler
They should have to keep whatever has been edited out of the congressional record in parentheses the way so many bloggers do.
PurpleGirl
Back when I was doing my BA in political science, circa 1970, one professor told us NOT to use the Congressional Record as a primary source precisely because speeches and remarks on the floor could be changed. Material could also be added after the fact. If you wanted something to use as a primary source of congressional commentary, you used the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report.
Changing comments/speeches is an old congressional tradition.
Waratah
Some women understand nuance and have a sense of humor.
Keep trying John
jeffreyw
Revising and extending my sammich menu.
That Other Mike
Don’t knock it, JC. This may be your legacy.
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: If you start making banh mi I’m moving in.
PIGL
For you, John.
“Does this sweater make me look fat?”
“No, the fact that you’re fat makes you look fat. The sweater just makes you look purple.”
jeffreyw
@Yutsano: You get the couch.
If you want it.
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: Buddy is gonna have to make some room there methinks.
Allan
Ah, so that explains that little moment of deja vu I experienced the other day. /matrix
jeffreyw
@Yutsano: I’ll tie up the dogs.
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: You do realize if I did indeed do that wifey would have a mad jelus. At least I can work just about anywhere in the country. The IRS allows hardship transfers.
shortstop
@Served: I like the cut of your jib.
Were you pre-fat in those days? I’m thinking that the answer to this question may throw some light on her reaction. May not, though.
Stillwater
If that’s the standard, the Congressional Record would be about as long as a Harlequin Romance.
joeyess
I would like a re-do on a record deal I once turned down back in the early ’90s.
Jay S
While altering reality by changing the record is Orwellian, doesn’t it show some sense of error? At least he isn’t clinging to his statement. I’m not sure I’ve seen much of that lately by politicians.
Granted it would be better if he revised the statement by leaving the original intact and adding the correction, but do we really want people to stand by nonsense when it is pointed out to them?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
If they let him, President Obama would like a do-over to support The People’s Budget instead of the one they forced him to submit.
.
.
Phoenix
I’m quite enthusiastic about the counter to Peak Wingnut, that we are actually seeing the Wingularity. Someone else used the term in a comment before but can’t recall.
Instead of declining in power their ethos is now too advanced and it will be impossible to keep up with the Shibboleths and conspiracy theories as they develop until the Wingnut theories gain sentience themselves and advance to a different plane of existence, hopefully leaving us alone.
jeffreyw
@Yutsano: Damn, that’s right…yer a revenooer. My kin folk jus won’t allow that, sorry.
handy
You think? Can we also have these things similarly stricken from the record then, Senator? Death panels, taxcuts for the wealthy create jobs, Saddam has WMDs, John McCain is a bi-partisan Maverick?
OK, the last one was a reach I admit.
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: Sigh…I get that a lot these days. It ain’t easy being an ebil lazeee gubmit worker.
Mike E
Bill Maher had a good’ern during his show here in Mayberry the other day, about teh wingnuts:
JPL
@Served: I have no idea but it’s an amusing thought.
flounder
This isn’t even the worst case of Kyl doing this. He revised the Cong. Record in 2006 so he could try to lie to the Supreme Court during the Hamdan v. Rumseld case. He got busted and everyone yawned, ‘cuz lying to the Supreme Court is just regular and whatnot. I’d go into more details if I wasn’t typing on an iPod Touch.
But as I am a bg fan of context, I’d love it If someone besides myself remembered that Kyl is a repeat offender.
Dr. Psycho
I never even knew the Congressional Record had a memory hole.
trollhattan
Colbert will have Kyl for dinner, given that he already had him for lunch on the original
quiplie and staffer’s “clarification.”Monday should be fun.
rdalin
@Phoenix Fucking awesome. I laughed and then I cried.
jeffreyw
@flounder:
I recall the same thing, bonus is the GrahamCrackerMan.
Church Lady
That you don’t have a girlfriend is understandable, given your history with the fairer sex.
amorphous
Going back and reading about the Peak Wingnut theory makes me nostalgic for that time when we were more innocent and thought it may be true. It’s like watching “Ozze and Harriett”, except about people who turned out to be much more batshit insane than we ever expected possible.
aimai
@PurpleGirl:
Maybe someone remembers this better than I do but isn’t it the case that two repubican Senators had information read into the record after a law had been voted on–what they had read into the record implied that a whole host of issues had been publicly debated which had not, in fact, been debated. The intention was to create a fake legislative record for the Supreme Court when the constitutional issues were tried. I know this happened because it actually made it into the papers under Bush and people were really shocked at how transparently evil the practice was. Anyone remember?
aimai
aimai
@PIGL:
Go Buffy!
aimai
bemused
No matter how slim a woman is, telling her a blouse makes her look fat is a really, really bad idea. I thought everybody knew that by the time they were in high school.
gogol's wife
This seems like a semi-open thread, so:
Happy Shirley Temple’s Birthday, everyone!
Just Some Fuckhead
90% of what Republicans say gets stricken from the congressional record.
Davis X. Machina
For as long as there’s been C-SPAN, and I’ve been watching — 30 years? — everyone has begun their speeches with “Mr. Speaker (or Mr. President), I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.””Without objection, so ordered.”
nancydarling
@joeyess: Joey, I just clicked on your Youtube page. I love your songs. Are you still writing? Good luck to you. Tough business as my daughter can attest. It’s all about the music though, isn’t it.
WaterGirl
@bemused:
I fixed that for ya.
WaterGirl
@nancydarling: Somehow my brain has always seen “joeyess” as “joyess”, so all this time I have been assuming that joeyess was a woman. Imagine my moment of confusion when I clicked on “her” name (after reading your message) and heard a male voice singing.
@joeyess: Nice voice, by the way.
Tony J
@Church Lady:
But Tunch is blonde.
Oh…. I see.
Mark S.
What is the explanation? Rand Power.
Riiiiiight. It got $660 per theater yesterday. I’ll be surprised if it’s still showing anywhere by the end of the month.
Marty
I worked on Capitol Hill and one of the regular staff chores was to go down to the clerk’s office and clean up the boss’s remarks in the Congressional Record, so he/she wouldn’t be on record sounding like such a halfwit.
But it’s just for show because nobody – repeat nobody – actually reads the Congressional Record.
Tonal Crow
@Mark S.: The free market has spoken: Rand biiiiites!
jrg
Conservatives are such fucking clowns. If they insist on derailing budget discussions with socially conservative nonsense, is it too much to ask that they not knowingly lie when they do?
…And where are the holy rollers on this one? Is it cool to bear false witness as long as it’s for the baby Jeebus? Do these people think “the end justifies the means” is one of the 10 commandments or something?
MikeJ
@Mark S.:
The market has spoken. Rand is garbage. If it were good it would have made money.
Cassidy
Completely unrelated and OT…any good recipes for braised pork loin? I’m thinking something with limes and tomatillos.
PeakVT
@“Church” Lady: Do you really think your god wants to hang out for eternity with a mean-spirited sourpuss like yourself?
bemused
@WaterGirl:
Thanx, exactly and might as well include her hair and shoes also, too.
cay
OT: I think I can thank John Cole and Co. for prompting Sullivan to post this:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/the-perils-of-academic-blogging.html
“Woe is me! The academic who thinks Paul Ryan is courageous!”
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Wow. Vaguely OT, but speaking of mulligans:
The NY Times first buries the lede about only 3 in 10 GOP voters convinced Obama is really a valid American Citizen, but then they strip reference to the poll altogether. Almost like the NY Times was somehow afraid of offending or accidentally painting the GOP in a bad light….
map106
@PIGL: Very funny. Made me laugh out loud.
MobiusKlein
John, don’t fret about positing a theory, and having the evidence prove you wrong. That’s called science.
1) Create theory
2) test theory
3) change theory based on evidence.
Davis X. Machina
@Marty: When I coached HS debate — right around the time the dead-tree CR stopped coming out — we made heavy use of it in debate prep.
But — ironically — not for the actual speeches of Representatives and Senators (they were rubbish, when bad, boilerplate the rest of the time), for what they had read into the record.
That was invaluable, and I want to thank all those staffers who pointed their nominal bosses at what they should read into the record for doing such valuable research on our behalf.
moe99
I think there are two words missing from this sentence and it should read, “I bet we all wish we had the magic of Congressional do-overs.”
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@MikeJ: Rand can’t fail. Rand was failed. Duh.
J. Michael Neal
@bemused: Those of us with Aspergers naturally assume that, if you ask a question, it’s because you want the answer. If you ask me, “I’m afraid that this blouse makes me look fat, so would you please reassure me that I’m still attractive?” I’ll be more than happy to reply, “Honey, you’re gorgeous.”
It’s a lot simpler than trying to guess at what people actually mean.
J. Michael Neal
@handy @24: John McCain is bi?
gnomedad
@MobiusKlein:
1) Create theory: Human activity is a major contributor to greenhouse gases
2) test theory: If true, this would suggest regulations and international cooperation.
3) change theory based on evidence: Therefore, it cannot be true.
UmYeah
@aimai:
Here is a decent link
Just Some Fuckhead
@J. Michael Neal: It seems like if you folks with aspergers can give detailed explanations on the nuances of how you intend to answer a question, you could just as easily figure out how to answer the question correctly. Must be one of those theory/practice things.
bemused
@J. Michael Neal:
You are a wise man.
I’m still getting the giggles at the line “something got lost in translation and she was not interested in nuance”. John, you are a very funny guy.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
um, this one is easy.
i would look up every mega lottery winner who ended up miserable and broke,i would go back the before drawing before they won, amend the record, to have won the lottery myself. thus i do the social good of saving them the misery, and i get a limbaugh sized ass load of cash for myself.
good+good=done.
sure, i know, what if i happen to be like any of those assholes who lets a limbaugh sized assload of cash really fuck up my life? well, there is the genius, i can keep winning them until i fix the problems, because there is no problem caused by a limbaugh sized assload of cash, that can’t be solved by more limbaugh sized assloads of cash.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
The Wingularity is Near.
There is no peak wingnut.
Bill Murray
I’m surprised JC didn’t include something about naked mopping, arm breaking and Rosie in his congressional erasings
J. Michael Neal
@Just Some Fuckhead: It seems to me that if you folks without Aspergers can’t recognize hyperbole for effect, you would be better off in a world where people actually ask the questions they want answered.
Ruckus
@bemused:
I thought everybody knew that by the time they were in high school.
If you have older sisters you should have learned this well before that. Like around 5 or 6.
Ruckus
@J. Michael Neal:
Nice. LOL
Anne Laurie
Hey, Cole — since you don’t read any other FPer posts — did you know that the NYTimes has discovered WoW is a way to hook up IRL?
Maybe you could do a post about it!
Uloborus
I don’t understand why people don’t believe in Peak Wingnut. I’m not particularly seeing anything crazier than we saw in 2009. Now they just have a lot of the same fruit loops doing pretty much the same level of crazy-ass inane stunts in the House and some state governments. Only the source we’re hearing about has changed. I never thought that the crazy would die QUICKLY after Peak Wingnut was reached. Heck, it could conceivably take two or three electoral beatings. Those seem inevitable now, since moving the crazy to congress means baldfaced attacks on Medicare.
Svensker
@Cassidy:
Never tried it, but it sounds good.
MobiusKlein
@Uloborus: Speaking of Peak Wingnut, and the notion that it’s just part of our background –
Going to the Supermarket in San Francisco today, saw a black guy with a sign, running for Congress. Since we have some fine Democrats here already (Pelosi & Speers ) I wondered what was up. Came out because I forgot the shopping list, and noticed it was
1) a LaRouche democrat
2) with a Obama + Hitler Mustache poster.
3) I (being easily trolled) started arguing, saying that 6 million dead Jews beg to differ
4) including swearing
5) he attempts to reproach me for my language infront of children.
6) I leave before I get in a fight.
—
so is this part of the peak wingnut lie – things are getting worse – or that the crazy is always there, we just are more noticing it.
Blowriley
Jon Kyl goes to the Dominican Republic with a stash of someone else’s Viagra so that he can have sex with underage boys. That was not intended to be a factual statement. Rush Limbaugh goes to the Dominican Republic with a stash of someone else’s Viagra so that he can have sex with underage boys. That was intended to be a factual statement.
Triassic Sands
Getting peak wingnut wrong was understandable, I mean, if you’d never seen an epidemic before and then the Black Plague hit, you might be tempted to think it had reached its peak after a few hundred deaths — with millions still to go. The Republicans have proven to be remarkably insane, so insane, in fact, that the very idea of peak wingnut may be completely meaningless. They may just keep getting nuttier and nuttier until they bring the whole planet crashing down around them. And in response to that — they’ll just get nuttier.
Nutty is one thing, but damn do they suck.
DPirate
lol From the quote in your edit in the peak wingnut post:
Awfully prescient of him!
#Notintendedtobeafactualstatement rofl