You know there’s not a whole lot going on when the biggest story you can find is that Newt Gingrich cried about his mother at an event in Iowa yesterday. But since nobody else has posted on this groundbreaking news, I bring it to you to chew over whether Newt’s tears would get in the way of a 3 AM call.
Slow News Day
by $8 blue check mistermix| 100 Comments
This post is in: Election 2012
Cat Lady
WTF is it with crying Republican men? What a bunch of fucking babies, all of them.
For a thought experiment, imagine the “Democrats are weak” shit storm if anyone ever saw Obama cry, or tear up.
JPL
@Cat Lady: As Benen pointed out iokiyar. The news media crucified Muskie and reported negatively about Hillary’s tears.
I did not realize that his mother was bipolar btw.
bmaccnm
I’ve seen reference to Newt’s mom having a Bipolar Disorder-that’s interesting. There’s a genetic component to bipolar disorder. That would explain an awful lot about Newt’s behavior through the years.
amk
How did drops was the corrupt-to-the-core fucker able to squeeze out ?
JPL
@bmaccnm: That was my thinking. It does explain his behavior after he sat on the back of the plane.
El Tiburon
@JPL:
Giving birth to the Antichrist with the head the size of a watermelon? I’m surprised his mom hasn’t gone all Charles Whitman from a tower somewhere.
Hope this poor woman gets some Hollywood money from that movie they made about her and Newt. Rosemary’s Baby.
dmsilev
Would it be unkind of me to suggest that he’s crying because he’s realized that he can’t replace his mother with a younger, prettier mother?
It’d be irresponsible not to speculate…
kay
He’s tired.
This is the longest consecutive stretch of work Newt Gingrich has done since he left the House in disgrace.
Time for a cruise, Newt. After 4 weeks, I think he deserves a vacation
amk
How that idjit perry’s campaign self-destructed.
SiubhanDuinne
Luntz? This feels phony and staged. Not taking away anything from the genuine pain of Newt or anyone else having a parent grappling with mental illness. But I just don’t think Frank Luntz ever puts a question without having a pretty good idea of the response.
El Tiburon
@dmsilev:
Golf clap. Well played.
amk
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, it’s phony and staged alright.
jeffreyw
OK, I considered all the breakfast requests from the last thread.
Amir Khalid
@Cat Lady:
In 2008 the Republicans had no problem attacking Hillary as weak the one time she teared up in public. I recall one occasion during that campaign when Obama shed tears: at his last rally, the night after his Toot passed away in Hawaii. The Republicans had attacked him for flying out to Hawaii on the campaign jet for one last visit, but they held off after her death. Maybe they knew by then that the campaign was lost.
cathyx
@JPL: A woman who cries is just being manipulative. A man who cries is sensitive.
burnspbesq
Manchester United loses at home to last-place Blackburn Rovers. Stunning.
Bill E Pilgrim
Since he was reanimated for this campaign the whole buzz on Gingrich was that he was nasty and mean and impatient, which worked for him to a point but the talk in recent weeks was all about how he was maybe too much so, and too “cerebral” (hey it wasn’t me saying it) especially with his numbers dropping, so there’s no way this was anything but a fully orchestrated and entirely planned occurrence designed to “humanize” him.
Plus Frank Luntz was the one setting the whole thing up, like an orchestral conductor, which was sort of a giveaway.
It’s going to take a lot more than that to make him seem human, by the way, you sort of need to think of that when you first build the monster, not assume you can just program it in later.
dmsilev
@amk: So the Perry campaign has entered its Lord of the Flies phase? Good times.
Zifnab25
Yes, but then they lightened the mood by talking about his cancer stricken ex-wife.
hildebrand
OT – My wife’s insurance company decided that they want to try to force everyone to get their prescriptions through their mail order system. She is in the process of telling them that she wants to keep her money in the local economy as much as possible, even in the very small ways.
Is this a new scheme by the insurance companies?
Bill E Pilgrim
@SiubhanDuinne: Over the years I’ve begun to understand that “real” emotions and manipulative purpose-serving emotions are not all that different. Evolutionary psychologists would say that this is really why we even have emotions, and that’s a long and boring discussion/argument. However there’s a simpler example in that this is something that actors have known and taken advantage of for ages, being able to turn it on and off almost at will — and not feeling as if it’s any less “real” as a result.
jeffreyw
Maybe something a little lighter?
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
Good for Blackburn. Things could be looking up for them and their beleaguered manager Steve Kean, who’s had a rough ride this season from disgruntled fans.
Elizabelle
@jeffreyw:
Mmmmm. Breakfast porn.
MikeBoyScout
I always suspected Frank Luntz gives people a sad.
Cheryl from Maryland
@hildebrand: We are facing it as well with a new Pharmacy Plan manager through our health care. The plan regulations call for higher prices through a retail pharmacy. We will be fighting it — my spouse worked for the FDA, and he is appalled at mail order pharmacies. Why — 1) Pharmaceuticals are sensitive to temperature and humidity. Do you want your medication sitting outside in the summer? 2) Our USPS in unreliable — we receive magazines a week late on a regular basis. If they don’t use USPS, the items are left on the front stoop. Real safe. 3) Mail order pharmacists are not as careful as retail pharmacists in checking for drug interactions. 4) What if there is an error? How do you fix it in a timely manner? — most deliveries would be “just in time,” so you would be facing the situation of several days without your meds.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@amk:
Perry’s political tombstone:
“Texans decided he was smart enough to govern them but the rest of the country thought he was too stupid to be President.”
Doesn’t say much for Texas…lol!
Tom Hilton
Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother — my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own.
Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint.
amk
@dmsilev: @Odie Hugh Manatee: Yup, the buffoon is toast. He and cain made us of a, a laughing stock in world’s eyes.
Culture of Truth
John Harwood said it’s good to see the real Newt Gingrich.
No, the real Newt is a mean lying bullying sociopath and we saw him plenty the last 25 years.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: well deserved, thought DeGea looked lost out there.
jeffreyw
@Elizabelle: Exactly!
doofus
@hildebrand: Cost containment. Pharmaceuticals are one of the 3 drivers of inflation in the health care sector. More insurers are moving to mandatory mail order and mandatory use of generics as a cost containment measure. Rules vary state by state. For example, New York just banned mandatory mail order for pharmaceuticals.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tom Hilton:
ZombieNixon!!
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
‘Scuse me? Waiter? Um, all those other folks have been served, and um . . . Could you just check with the kitchen about my French toast order?
amk
Here’s that saintly mom of newt. The interviewer probably decided to pan out the booze bottle.
The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.
TomG
Since others have brought up Rick Perry, his latest is that he likes the idea of “English as our official language”.
Perry endorses English
But if you look at what the voter was saying, he was complaining about BUSINESSES who cater to non-English speakers in their instructions. Trying to encourage or coerce companies to stop printing instructions in any language other than English…sounds a bit like over-regulation to me. Surely Perry doesn’t mean that!
amk
twitterdom
Under President Romney: USA is the car, the 1% is the Louis Vuitton luggage inside the car & you’re the dog on the roof.
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne: You sent your toast back, claiming Mrs Butterworth insulted you and you expect my prima donna chef to just let that go?
Edit to add: Expectin’ a big fuckin’ tip, lady.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill E Pilgrim:
No argument, but your excellent analysis doesn’t invalidate the point that Luntz (and Newt) totally set this up. Yes, like a director and actor.
Also, Kay’s point that Newt is tired is important. In fact, given the pressure all the candidates are under, short sleep, bad meals on the fly, having to be constantly “on,” under constant scrutiny and attack, I am amazed that we don’t see a lot more snapping and tears than we do. Not that I’m not enjoying the popcorniness of it all.
Linda Featheringill
@kay:
I think that several people in that race had forgotten how much physical exertion is required. Mitt knows, Ron Paul knows, and Michele knows. But others have used tiredness as an excuse for several things. [Or perhaps the reason.]
bemused
@Cat Lady:
They need extensive therapy and/or meds. Newt is a mess. His childhood and teen years sound extremely dysfunctional. I haven’t seen the same scrutiny of Boehner’s early life but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t just as screwed up. I think this is a feature, not a bug, with most current Republican legislators/operatives today.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
I sent the bacon back, and I asked for butter and powdered sugar on the toast. What kind of a dive is this, anyhow?
piratedan
@amk: dog on the roof my ass? more likely we’re the forgotten canine carcasses being dragged behind the car in a muddy stain of red on our way to Libertarian Paradise
DanielX
Mmmmm, Gingrich tears….chewy and crunchy at the same time. I want more, preferably after he gets beaten like a big bass drum in Iowa AND New hampshire.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw:
You’ll get the standard 8%, but I’m deducting for slow service and surly attitude.
Oh, and by the way, I could use a damn refill on the COFFEE!
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne: The bacon never made it back, we gonna have to check yer purse, no sneakin food out for the poodles this time. We got yer number, hah!
Baud
If Newt’s taking 3 AM calls, we’ll all be crying.
geg6
bemused @41:
Just a guess about Boehner, but I would think that his childhood certainly had “issues”. A huge family, growing up in dad’s bar? Gotta be some craziness there. He’ll, just the large family automatically brings problems, which I know about since I come from one (though my parents didn’t own a bar or even drink much). And there were only six kids in my family. Doesn’t Boehner have, like, nine siblings?
Schlemizel
@hildebrand:
I did a gig for one of these outfits a decade or so ago. Its pretty enlightening.
They have about 20 ‘order takers’ these people read the prescription and phone the doctor if necessary to ‘ensure quality’. They enter the Rx into the computer system & assign a case number.
The factory floor is a small conveyor belt that runs a basket with the the case number past hundreds of automated bins of drugs. When it gets to the selected bin the pills are dumped into the basket.
At the end of the line is the only pharmacist in the place. He picks up the basket, sees the order on a screen along with a visual image of the pills prescribed. If that looks OK to him he prints the label, dumps the pills into a bottle, labels it it sends it to shipping.
If this does not sound dangerous to you you probably never had someone prescribed multiple drugs or drugs that required care in some way. If they have not killed someone by now its only a miracle.
JGabriel
Every New Year I do the same damn thing: bid good riddance to the previous year and look forward to better times in the next, better times that never fucking come, and there I am on Dec. 31 bidding good riddance to another damned year.
I’m gettin’ real tired of this shit, FSM. It would be nice, just once, to look back and say, “That was a good year, I’m gonna miss it.”
Ah well. Goodbye 2011, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Good fuckin’ riddance.
.
Schlemizel
@JGabriel:
maybe not every year, I have had some good ones – 2011 ranks as one of my worst ever (and there have been some horrors before). Maybe 2012 will make it better.
My hope for all of us.
Villago Delenda Est
jeffreyw and SiubhanDuinne…I suggest you two get a kitchen!
Baud
Twitter is down. Have the end times already begun?
Amir Khalid
It’s striking midnight in Kuala Lumpur right now: 2012 is here. But this year, I just don’t feel like looking out the window at the fireworks over the Petronas Towers, which I can hear just fine.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Well, Happy New Year then!
mellowjohn
@TomG:
JGabriel
@Amir Khalid: Happy New Year, Amir!
.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
LOL. Well, he started it!
(Any minute now, John Cole is going to shut down comments and tell us to shut the fuck up, assholes! So I’m unilaterally disarming. In fact, for realz, I’m going to J. Christopher’s for some honest-to-FSM maple French toast.)
kdaug
Oddly, I just happen to be whipping up a potion that calls for Newt’s Tears.
Raven
@jeffreyw: Food question. I smoked my tasso in a watersmoker and. despite my vigilance, it got pretty charred (I guess it was the sugar in the spice mix). My bride claims it’s fine but I’m less certain. Whatchoo think?
WereBear (itouch)
Frank Luntz on the scene is all the proof of premeditation I need. Maybe he saw how well crying over the bipolar mother worked for Glenn Beck. Same crowd, too.
The book Republican Gomorrah describes how many prominent Republican figures have turned to the strictures of fundamentalist religion to cope with mental trauma. Not, it should be noted, to get over it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Just heard on NPR a soundbite of Aussies welcoming in the new year! Why can’t I have an International Date Line to play with?
Hope 2012 is a good one for you, Amir.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@bmaccnm: Indeed bipolar disorder has a very high heritability, among the highest of the brain disorders. Certainly Gnoot’s grandiosity should signal the potential for such a dx, especially coupled with this reported disorganized (and irritable) style of leadership, the combination of which is rather a hallmark of mania.
@jeffreyw: My only complaint is that you don’t deliver. Perhaps in 2012?
Hal
I feel somewhat bad because I laughed when I read the story. Newt is incredibly fake and just can’t imagine this wasn’t planned.
chrome agnomen
@Zifnab25:
damn. coffee meet nose!
JGabriel
Amir Khalid:
So how’s it looking on the other side of that divide? Is 2012 better than 2011, or does it feel just the same?
.
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne:
“Freedom Toast”.
Bill E Pilgrim
@WereBear (itouch): The response book “Democratic Begorra” describes how many prominent Democrats responded to the Republican fundamentalism by drinking a lot and swearing.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Amir Khalid: Happy New Year!
Nice report. Seven hours to go here.
Martin
@hildebrand:
By the drug companies, actually. They’re losing the patent rights on their top money making drugs, and don’t know how to lose all of those sales to generics. One plan is to cut out the pharmacies that will suggest generics, go back to the insurers, set up these clearinghouses that won’t buy or fill your prescription with generics in exchange for a bit of a discount on their drug line. Basically, local pharmacies are an uncontrollable variable for them, so they’re going to replace them with a controllable variable.
I understand that it does save the insurance company some money (good) and the upside to you is that it avoids any unexpected results from taking generics (good) but the downside (in addition to what Schlemizel said, and not having a pharmacist to consult for interaction issues, etc.) is that you don’t necessarily see the savings. If you’re on a drug without a generic, that should be cheaper, which you may benefit from. If you’re on a drug with a generic, that’s probably more expensive, and you may pay more.
Bottom line it’s all more ‘maximizing shareholder value’ bullshit, and they don’t fucking care if it’s better for you or not. So feel free to be pissed about it because they don’t care if you are or not.
The least they could have done was incorporated a smart bottle program in with the arrangement – the kinds with sensors and shit that will remind you if you forget to take one, remind you if you already had, stuff like that. Those things really help patients but they’re hard to implement – but a clearinghouse/mailorder system lends itself to doing it (you need to return the bottle to refill, so you have two that swap out) but the bottle holds your prescription electronically, so it also does quality control on the other end because it helps make sure the right pills in the right amount go back in. The bottles (at least the ones I’ve seen prototyped) are smart enough to warn about interactions as well – put two drugs in your cabinet that interact, and the bottles will detect each other and give you a warning. They’re really damn cool – particularly for older patients that often have trouble remembering what to take with food, etc. The bottles are expensive, but being reusable (and reprogrammable) they’re not that bad, particularly relative to the cost of the medication inside.
WereBear (itouch)
@Amir Khalid: Happy New Year to you, and to all BJers everywhere.
One of the good things about this past year was how our early-trauma-ed RJ made a full recovery.
Hope things get better for everyone!
Linda Featheringill
@JGabriel:
I hope 2012 is good for you.
2011 wasn’t as bad for me as 2010. I’m still licking my wounds from that year.
2012? Who knows? When is Doomsday? December 21 or so?
kdaug
@Raven: I smoked my tasso in something else, and it got me slapped and damn near arrested.
Yevgraf
@doofus:
Economies of scale and conglomeration of power are always good for rentnseekers who wish to act unaccountably. However, citizens who seek to have their governments act on their behalf in imposing safeguards are Hitlerian or something….
Citizen_X
@Amir Khalid: Oh, I completely didn’t realize that you were from…the future!
But since you are, this year, could you please give us a heads-up on anything vaguely apocalyptic-y that’s coming our way? Anything Cthulhu-ish f’rinstance? Just to give us twenty hours of warning or whatever. Thanks!
Mark S.
Thomas Donnelly, a Harvard law professor, writes approvingly of a “people’s veto” of controversial Supreme Court decisions in the Daily Fishwrap. Showing moderation, he advocates reserving such national referendums on cases where there’s a 5-4 split.
That, of course, would be a nightmare, since the Court will be deciding several issues, some of them highly technical (standing, federalism), and some issues will go 9-0, some 7-2, and some 5-4.
I wonder how this would work with some big cases in the past. How about a case like Bakke:
You would think a law professor would be aware that many Court decisions don’t fall neatly into 5 yeas and 4 nays.
(edited for clarity)
JGabriel
@Linda Featheringill: That’s very sweet and kind of you, Linda. Thank you. Best wishes to too, for a Better and Happy New Year.
.
bemused
@WereBear (itouch):
RJ is gorgeous.
jeffreyw
@Raven: You will have to overnight me a sample, packed in those good dry red beans.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mark S.:
You might think that. But you’d be wrong!
merrinc
Slow news day? The right wing noise machine, led by the geniuses at Fox & Friends, has exposed the liberal agenda that until now, was being stealthily promoted by the Girl Scouts of the USA. Even an analyst at the liberal CNN (snort) has called for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies.
Considering how many councils start annual cookie sales tomorrow, this might actually have some financial impact. Tens of thousands of impressionable young women might be saved from being indoctrinated with liberal values such as goal setting, financial literacy, and self-sufficiency.
Bill E Pilgrim
@kdaug:
Have you ever used a squonk’s tears?
Sounds about right.
WereBear (itouch)
@bemused: Thanks! He’s such a sweet boy, too.
hildebrand
@Martin: @Schlemizel: My thanks for the reply. Ye, gods this is frightening stuff. Thankfully, my wife (an excellent negotiator – though I have noticed that she starts to sound like an upper echelon mob boss when dealing with management types (she always asks to speak to a supervisor or manager when dealing with the insurance company – she doesn’t like been stern with the regular call takers, as they aren’t the true roadblocks in the process)) was able to ‘encourage’ the insurance company to allow her to keep her prescriptions at her favored pharmacy (outstanding service, very thoughtful and savvy pharmacist) without getting screwed on pricing.
Mike in NC
Oh, the humanity of the Newt. Might be time to update the old saying that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”.
Emma
@jeffreyw: Hungry now.
@jeffreyw: And you’re trying to kill me, right?
Emma
@burnspbesq: Howly Mither. I have friends who are banging their heads against the wall, alternating with tossing back major booze.
Emma
@Amir Khalid: Happy New Year!
Lurker
@merrinc:
I avoid Girl Scout Cookies every year because they taste too good and often use partially hydrogenated oil. I eat waaaaay too many in one sitting.
If the Girl Scouts are destined to take a 27% hit to their sales this year because of Fox News, though, I might have to buy a few boxes and dump them on my co-workers at work.
wasabi gasp
Kudos to Newt for sticking with his mom, instead of dumping her for a newer, younger and healthier mother.
merrinc
@Lurker:
Good on ya, Lurker. If you don’t want to treat your co-workers, ask if something like a Gift of Caring is offered in your area. Customers who don’t want cookies can still buy a box or several and have them donated to whatever organization the local council is supporting that year. My council does Cookies for the Troops and has sent a few hundred thousand boxes to US military troops serving in the Middle East.
Maude
@JGabriel:
You and me both. Let’s hope the FSM has a better year for us.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: 明けましておめでとうございます!
burnspbesq
@hildebrand:
“Is this a new scheme by the insurance companies”
Not new, but it saves them a fair amount of money, and it might save you some as well. Don’t dismiss it out of hand.
ruemara
@Tom Hilton: My mum was and is no saint. Your mum sounds wonderful and everyone has a book in them. Even if it is just for your family to read. Write about that time because it makes me want to know more about her. There’s your 2012.
carpeduum
Tears of a clown.
cckids
@amk:
Holy God. Its horrible to say, but watching that, Newt may just be kinda glad she’s gone. To say she doesn’t play well is a vast understatement.
WaterGirl
@merrinc: What makes it worse is that the girl scouts have already come out and said they will leave the offending reference out of their next version of the handbook. We are so screwed.
On the other hand, over a decade ago the girl scout slogan was “Where the Girl Comes First”, which my -ex thought was very, very funny. I am surprised they weren’t called out for being sluts, too.
Tom Hilton
@ruemara: Sorry…I was actually quoting Nixon’s farewell speech (SiubhanDuinne caught it). Another Republican politician getting sloppy sentimental about his mother.