I like Obot/Firebagger flame wars as much as the next navel-gazing blogger — and for the record, I’m mostly with ABL on this one, because I agree with Sam Spade’s “she was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it” — but, with all due respect to both ABL and Johnny Drama, you’re never going to top my Accountability Now showdown with Greenwald. Nah guh happen. I wish I could show you all the crazy emails from that episode.
So I’d rather talk about all the craziness in Iowa, even though I already have wing nuts fatigue. Paultards, the Hayekian modest of Mitt Romney, when God gives you Santorum….and there might even be some crazy new dark horse candidate that Halperin falls in love with.
Is there any real way that Santorum can be resuscitated as a serious, Burkean, heartland himbo (not just by Bobo but more broadly)? Any chance we could be in for some school marm tutt-tutting about Dan Savage’s potty-mouthed anti-Saturoum site? And what’s up with that vest he’s always wearing?
Linda Featheringill
That vest probably holds his barbed-wire-self-torture thingy in place.
eemom
Rape analogies there too, huh?
Villago Delenda Est
Atrios linked to this: Santorum: States should have the right to outlaw birth control.
The point being, it’s never really been about abortion.
It’s always been about fucking.
Always.
Santorum has earned his google rep.
patroclus
If Santorum wins Iowa, I suspect Dear Leader Greenwald and the GBots will find some position of Santorum that seems remarkably pro-civil liberties and start pimping it without respite. And they’ll probably name-call and hound some African-American females while doing it.
Kola Noscopy
So Cole is supposed to nail himself and his integrity to the righteous cross of ABL’s neuroses (and lousy writing), for the sake of tribalism?
Not gonna happen. He’s already twisted himself in pretzels to accommodate her bullshit.
JPL
Why are the repubs preaching european economies as a model we should follow?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
its all about the santormentum.
in keeping the beat, if you know going in, that every choice is a shitty choice, the caucus has to be its own layer of hell, you don’t just get to walk in, spray somewhere close, and leave like with other primary voting. youhave to put up with speechifying and persuasion on behalf of other candidates shitty options.
Redshift
A month ago, I would have said it’s impossible, but now I’m really really hoping it’ll happen. “Everybody knows” that Ron Paul will never get the nomination, but if Santorum wins Iowa, they’ll convince themselves that he could, especially if Romney underperforms.
As a bonus, if they continue to spend boatloads of money attacking each other, it will be good for the economy and bad for the GOP.
marcopolo
Um, didn’t Brooks use his column today to start polishing Santorum’s frothy nob? The workers of the world crap is just something to throw folks off.
dmbeaster
Please, no more pointless GG or ABL flame wars. Even though I am sympathetic to her point of view on this, there is a reason why she seems to get tangled in these stupid outbursts. Learn to walk away from trolls.
Of all the unlikely 15 min of fame Repubs, its gotta be Santorum. Funny how he has timed himself as flavor of the week right as of the Iowa caucus, but that probably has more to do with the fact that the Repubs have already flamed out on all of the slightly less improbable candidates, and are truly scraping the bottom with Santorum. No pun intended.
Amir Khalid
So let’s see if I have this right: the Iowa caucuses tonight will elect delegates to the national party convention in August, but these delegates are not committed to any particular candidate at this stage. So how will we know who, if anyone, came out ahead after tonight?
DougJ
@eemom:
I can’t you show you the emails, but as a lawyer I’m sure you would get a laugh out of them.
Punchy
I think the vest facilitates the man-on-dog action.
jibeaux
Oh, that would be awesome.
I wonder if Sully has the slightest idea that Dan Savage won his Moore award by his own request.
JPL
@DougJ: tease
Culture of Truth
I miss all the fun.
jl
@JPL: Huh? Who? What? Where? How?
Do you have links?
If any Repub is saying that, I think it would be on the basis of their failed austerity policies.
In an effort to make the ‘all pain and no gain for the lesser people’ medicine to go down.
That will be quite a trick, now that a no F ing policy is out in the open.
Paula
Well, the iffy thing about Accountability Now was not the fact that they did business the way they did (if their investors accept paying that much to Hamsher and Greenwald, it ain’t my business to pass judgment) but the fact that they raised a comparatively small amount of money and had no viable candidates running for office after that investment.
There’s nothing illegal about it, just … pathetic. And laughable considering those two talk so much shit about other people/organizations who have to stay involved in the mainstream political process.
Schlemizel
I’m gonna vote ‘no’ for two reasons:
He has no organization outside IA, is not liked in NH so his ‘heat’ will dissipate rapidly.
He has not gotten the media scrutiny of the front runner yet. Once he does he will wilt like the delicate flower he is.
Any chance we can get some GG/ABL free posts soon? Its tedious, repetitive as well as being repetitive and tedious – repetitive too
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Should the Frothy Mixture win, it’ll be no different than 08 when the Huckster used Iowa to essentially pull in 30% of the subsequent primary votes, all comprising of the American Taliban. The lack of serious big money and organization really will hurt all the Not Romneys of the clown car paradesters once they get out of IA and NH. Huckster didn’t have shit leaving IA but hung on with that 30% until close to the end. It’s amazing what the American Taliban will fund these days.
Should Paul win, his primary votes might not reach Huckster/Frothy Mixture levels of the party’s moral rightitude but he’ll perhaps make up for it, a bit, with some level or organization.
Like David Brooks (just typing that makes me ill), Mittens will still win this running away…and get hammered much the way the grumpy old man did in 08.
jl
@jibeaux:
We can put in requests for Sullivan awards? I want one. Do obscure anonymous commenters qualify? I probably need my own blog. If so, too bad, I won’t have one, they are the work of the devil.
I have seen how they, along with the tweeter machine, destroy people.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@JPL:
One of the primary qualifications for being a Republican is the ability to hold two diametrically opposed ideas simultaneously.
Linda Featheringill
@Amir Khalid:
It is my understanding that the GOP caucus in Iowa is a glorified opinion poll, nothing more.
I think that the Dem caucuses in Iowa bind delegates to particular candidates.
In the convention, however, dedicated delegates are obligated to vote for whomever only once [first ballot]. Then they are free to support anybody. I think.
bemused
Little Ricky didn’t say anything racist. Someone was just trying to make trouble.
It’s always astonishing to hear them flat out lie that they didn’t say what they actually said. Of course, plenty of people believe them or don’t care.
Redshift
Speaking of the Romneybot, apparently his new bald-faced lie is to claim that he created 100,000 jobs at Bain, and to claim that Obama is responsible for job losses before any of his policies took effect.
I don’t have much optimism about fact-checking by our press corpse, but I have more confidence about their motivation to tell more of a story than just repeating the candidate soundbite, and I don’t think this tack will work our well for Romney once we’re past the clown car stage.
martha
Johnny Drama is so right. Ugh.
Yevgraf
@Villago Delenda Est:
Little Dick Santorum could become the vehicle by which my greatest fantasy is realized – complete public disdain for the term “conservative”, together with mocking laughter directed at anyone who identifies themselves as being “a conservative”.
Martin
I would note that Iowa chose Huckabee 4 years ago, who is Santorums clone on social issues. And see where that went.
So my prediction is that yes, Iowa could go for any one of Mitt, Paul, Santorum, but at the end of the day, it’s Santorum that’s going to win this thing and get the Fox News slot.
JPL
@jl: Santorum said he wanted to follow the Austrian model…I’m sure he meant Hayek but I was just taking it one step further.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Punchy:
I think Santorum is wearing the same vest that Bucky Larson wears in his movie.
Yevgraf
This picture will always make me laugh.
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/santorum_family.jpg
hildebrand
Gah – it is all utterly pointless, the whole bit. Why? Because a much greater tragedy has befallen this great land – Charlie Trotter is closing his restaurant in Chicago. Aauugghh! While it was horrifically expensive (we saved for quite some time to afford it), it was easily the best meal I have ever eaten (of course, I was in the afterglow of my dissertation defense, so just about anything likely would have done the trick)- but the food, the wine, watching the skill of the chefs (we sat at the ‘Kitchen Table’ – a table smack in the midst of the kitchen so we could watch everything), sigh, we even had a chance to speak with Mr. Trotter for an extended period (he wasn’t cooking that night, and we were the last people to leave) – all of it added up to a spectacular evening.
Satanicpanic
@Paula: I’m waiting for the results on their Occupy Supply campaign. Actually, waiting to laugh at their lame attempt at branding the movement.
El Tiburon
That was a fun one.
Martin
@Redshift:
If tax cuts can create jobs, then certainly so can layoffs. Someone needs to process all of those unemployment checks, foreclose on mortgages, sell ammunition, and process the murder-suicide crime scenes. You pessimists really need to learn to look at the other side of the equation.
Donut
@Schlemizel:
I’ve found it redundant, as well as tedious and repetitive. It’s also getting banal. And redundant.
Mike Goetz
Guys, relax, Matt Taibbi says this election doesn’t even matter, because both parties are corrupt.
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Santorum bedroom must be just barrels of fun.
gogol's wife
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
From your lips to God’s ear. The spectacle of Mitt Romney selling his soul to the Devil is getting more nauseating every day. I really don’t think I can stand it until November (and certainly not beyond!).
fmbjo
Santorum and his sweater vests remind me of Jimmy Carter and I don’t know why. Also too, the Jimmy connection makes me want to call him Ricky. He’s still a youngster. He is certainly not presidential material.
Steve
I enjoyed ABL’s voice on the front page. She brought an interesting point of view, which I assume is the reason John invited her in the first place. But I think he would be less open to handing out invitations if you told him that part of the deal requires him to take the side of his front-pagers in any Twitter wars they might get involved in. John calls ’em as he sees ’em which is presumably the source of many people’s perverse attraction to his blogging.
jibeaux
@jl:
I mean that once he was nominated, he pointed that out to his readers and requested that they vote for him. From that point on, he got many times more votes than the other candidates. Just a small flex of the internet muscle, not like the “Google problem”, but still amusing to me.
One of the funniest parts of that whole Santorum thing was when he was complaining that he had complained to Google and they said they couldn’t help him, that he should take up the issue with the site administrator of the website he was referring to…so Dan Savage titled his post with something like “Rick, I’m waiting for your calllllll…”
BGinCHI
Question.
How much media time is being spent on the GOP primaries?
How much media time spent on analysis of the economy and of how jobs could be created or saved?
Answer:
The difference between these is the still shot of our American culture. And it ain’t pretty.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid:
Reading the entrails of a chicken.
Or listening to spin as filtered through various professional pundits.
It amounts to more or less the same thing.
Hill Dweller
@Yevgraf: Those poor children look just like him.
I’m not sure what is worse, that picture or the Huckabee family portrait, replete with matching shirts.
Satanicpanic
I would be a lot more interested in the results of the Iowa Caucus if I thought any of the losers would take the hint and drop out. But since they’re all running for Fox News gigs they’re probably all going to stick around until the convention. Damn our elections are long.
Martin
Oh, and my mom is super-thrilled about today, because that means she won’t be getting 20+ robocalls per day any longer. Seriously, about every 30 minutes for two weeks some SuperPAC was robocalling them.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic billionaire overlords.
slag
@Donut: I don’t know. It’s starting to grow on me. It’s like Festivus came really, really early this year. I’m already in the process of tallying my grievances, and it’s not even Valentine’s Day!
trollhattan
Chait on the sweater vest:
Brachiator
Nope. Not even with extra Twitter posts from Rupert Murdoch
The question of the day is, if Romney wins, can he rise above the 25 percent threshold that has kept him from a wide embrace by GOP voters?
JPL
For those unable to read the NYTimes, I going to copy and paste a few paragraphs on an aricle
link
Yevgraf
@Gin & Tonic:
Feminine orgasms are immoral. He’s a “get ‘r done and roll over” sort.
schrodinger's cat
Bobo in NYT, this morning:
Is this assertion true? I start with the premise that everything that comes out of Bobo’s mouth is a lie. Does anybody know?
dmsilev
I think there’s a real difference between Santorum ’12 and Huckabee ’08. When Huckabee won, the big GOP money stayed away from him and treated him as anathema because there was a distinct whiff of economic populism to him, and apparently some people actually believed it was genuine. Santorum, on the other hand, was a bag man for Abramoff. A mover and shaker in the K Street Project. Does anyone really think that he’ll be regarded as Unclean by various rich people who’d love to buy a President?
Mayur
@hildebrand: Dude, you guys have Alinea, Next, Frontera, and L20, among a host of others. Even my NYC self is jealous of those options (we have no equivalents here).
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
It’s all a big media show, really, as the actual delegates aren’t even selected.
It’s just a damn beauty pageant. One that involves all the machinations of an actual delegate selection process to succeed in. Which is why the only two candidates with multistate ground games, Romney and Paul, will survive it and move on. Santorum has nothing, nothing besides Iowa. This is basically his audition, as it was Huckabee’s, for a nice Faux Nooze sinecure.
Tom Q
@Martin: Two reasons why Santorum — if he has a breakthrough tonight — might be able to do what Huckabee could not (i.e., win on a grander scale):
1) There might be quicker pressure on lesser-scoring righties (Bachman, Perry) to drop out, to avoid the split-opposition factor that helped McCain last time. (Even if candidates won’t officially drop out, voters might effectively eliminate them and concentrate their votes strategically)
2) There are fewer winner take all contests upfront, so Romney won’t be able to establish the commanding delegate lead against split opposition that was the real reason McCain won it so early last time. And if Romney doesn’t put it away early, I think his chances lessen substantially, as his essential weakness as candidate will be highlighted.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
… make Santorumade?
Eww, I think I just grossed out myself.
.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BGinCHI:
Hey BGinCHI, we have to get around to coordinating that ChiTown Balloon Juice meet-up in Chicago (the Fountainhead at Damen and Irving?). Do Republicans have a Super Tuesday primary night?
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s true in the same sense that the National Socia1ist German Worker’s Party was a party advocating socia1ism for German workers.
The Other Chuck
@Yevgraf:
Unless they’re his. You know he’s a screamer.
Judas Escargot
@Redshift:
Who knew that Bain had so many janitors, coffee-fetchers and shoeshiners?
The Moar You Know
Santorum got a lifeline this round. He will not be so lucky next time. Like Huckabee, the money boys have taken a good look at Ricky and have decided that crazy Jesus talk might lead him to do something for the poor folk, and we can’t have that.
Still calling it for Romney. The money caucus is backing him and they’re the only ones who count.
Mayur
Btw, every liberal should be loving this moment. It’s the GOP as carnival freak. Worry when the press starts making Romney seem statesmanlike in the general.
JGabriel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes it’s a media show, but that’s not why. It’s for two reasons:
1) Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire represent the GOP base.
2) Nothing really counts until South Carolina — it’s all just pageant walking until SC.
.
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: From the policies they advocate, I would think that GOP is the party of the 1%. Also don’t a majority of voters making less than 50,000 vote for Democrats? So I am wondering where is the data that supports Bobo’s assertion?
slag
@dmsilev: You make a good point. Besides which, it’s hard for me to remember if 08’s field was as lousy with crazy as this one. Santorum doesn’t seem that out there relative to the rest of them.
pragmatism
civil liberties and alleged noninterventionism as so fracking important that this country has consistenly embraced a libertarian to lead it. wait, that hasn’t happened? well it damn well should this time!!! economy/schmeconomy.
jibeaux
@Yevgraf: Unnecessary for reproduction, so there’s no point, of course.
eemom
@Steve:
Steve, she did not ask him to take her side.
He chose to chime in and yell at everyone for picking on poor little Greenwald.
I’m not going to drag any more of this into this thread but I just want to set the record straight, because there are an awful lot of false assumptions being made about what actually happened there.
taylormattd
@DougJ: Really? Why? Did you tell him you’d keep them private before the discussion?
stevestory
“david brooks giving a seminar at the aspen institute”?
The tags here are worthless and should be junked. Start over with a small number of categories with useful names.
JPL
@Mike Goetz: If Gore were elected he would have governed just like Bush, also, too…
pshaw…
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Some German workers drank the kool aid.
Some American workers drink it, too.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
The part that really chafes my hide about his comment is the bit about comparing what Bain did to what the US government did in bailing out GM. Yes, they both had to make cuts in order to bring their companies back to profitability. But the government actually wanted GM to continue to be a successful business after they were done with it, to the point of being willing to leave lots of money on the table to entice investors into taking the company off their hands. Bain, OTOH, was mostly interested in extracting as much money as possible from the companies they bought, even if it destroyed their long-term prospects. The government was a caretaker for GM, while Bain were pillagers.
wrb
God fucked Iowa
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom:
Just what eemom said.
The correct course of action for Cole would have been to never get involved, at least publically. He chose to jump in and get involved, and it’s reasonable from reading the raw tweets to say he took Greenwald’s side.
burnspbesq
@JPL:
Two possibilities: (1) they are total nincompoops where macroeconomics is concerned Ii.e., they actually believe in the Confidence Fairy, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary); (2) they are smart enough to figure out who the likely winners are in austerity, and are whoring themselves to those likely winners.
Ringdinger
“Nah guh happen”
Are you Jamaican??
JPL
@Mayur: A reporter on CBS this morning already said that flipflop Romney was the only consistent one on the trail…
DougJ
@stevestory:
That is my favorite tag and the only one that people have emailed me to praise.
Pray Tell
Consensus seems to be that Ron Paul has the least chance of getting the nomination, let alone winning the election.
Many say it will destroy the right and possibly push Obama left.
Therefore, shouldn’t we promote him during the nomination process?
What’s the harm?
My friends in Iowa say he is going to win big.
Good?
taylormattd
@eemom: Well, he is also just flat out wrong. Utterly wrong. John wrote “I don’t think anyone actually thinks she would defend President Obama raping a nun.”
All this shows is that he didn’t bother reading the actual tweets, where GG, said, you know, the opposite of what John wrote:
Professor
@JPL: Nah, he said Australian model not Austrian model. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
Loviatar
Instead of commenting on a post from a wannabe, why don’t you fools go read something from an actual writer.
.
The Messenger
.
.
.
Best post of the year and the year just started.
Veritas
only a few hours left until Romney takes Iowa and begins his inevitable, unstoppable march to Tampa and the Republican nomination.
BTW, notice what Romney did to Gingrich with his Super PAC negative ad blitz. It’s just a taste of what he will do to Obambi.
Ben Cisco
@JPL: He is consistent at being inconsistent, so there’s that.
JPL
@Professor: That’s actually pretty funny. Thanks.
Ben Cisco
@slag:
The problem with this isn’t what you think it is.
burnspbesq
@Steve:
I understand the decision to bring ABL on board as a commercial matter. She certainly brought page-views, and that’s what advertisers pay for.
Whether she added anything to the discourse here is something about which reasonable people can disagree.
Judas Escargot
@Pray Tell:
One explosion, stock market crash or scandal in late October could make the GOP nominee the next President, no matter who that may be.
Consequences. How the fuck do they work?
Jewish Steel
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Seconded! There was talk of a Chicago meet-up last summer but then I had to have some surgery and was down for a while. Did that ever happen?
The Moar You Know
@schrodinger’s cat: That was correct for the 2010 elections; over $50k/year broke for the GOP.
That was not the case in 2008, where everyone under $100k/year went for the Democrat.
I’m quite surprised to see that those figures aren’t consistent between elections.
Amir Khalid
@JPL:
It’s arguably true, in that Willard Mitt Romney has a particular way of being consistent: he never fails to change his story.
stevestory
@DougJ: It’s slightly less worthless than “Green Balloons” but it’s still retarded, like 75% of the tags here.
taylormattd
@Loviatar: Amazing post. Love the closing line:
daize
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s always been about women fucking.
And to hell with Santorum, the fucking terrorist.
Pray Tell
@Judas Escargot: So you’d presumably prefer a President Romney to a President Paul?
Interesting. Thanks.
Judas Escargot
@Veritas:
Yay! Pain and suffering will ensue!
I can’t wait to live in dystopia! Then I’ll finally get my flying car!
Redshift
@Loviatar:
Gosh, if you hadn’t set us straight, we never would have found that post that was linked from BJ just two posts back.
Mike in NC
@Yevgraf:
Is that the new cast for Season 2 of “American Horror Story”?
kindness
@eemom: Let it go will you? Either that or go post to the pertinent threads.
Jewish Steel
@stevestory: Thanks, tagcop!
BGinCHI
@Mayur: Wolfy’s is still open on Peterson.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Jewish Steel:
Sadly, no. But we’re gonna make a resolution to change it this year. BGinCHI suggested the spitefully poetic Fountainhead, which is just west of the Irving Park stop on the Brown Line.
“Super Tuesday” is March 6th this year, that gives us plenty of time to see if there is any interest.
Pangloss
Santorum always wears a vest in case he needs to strap dynamite.
wrb
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes. Republicans carried the white working class by 30 points in 2010.
Why do you think the Republicans are going so hard on the immigrant issue? With much of the WWC it trumps all the other matters in which the Democrats’ policies are more in their self-interests. It is the ket to the plutocrats” ability to control a democracy.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-future-of-the-obama-coalition/
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BGinCHI:
I’ve always been a SuperDawg guy myself.
Redshift
@Pray Tell:
They’re idiots. A candidate with the least chance of getting the nomination winning Iowa just guarantees that Iowa will be ignored and helps Romney wrap up the nomination more quickly.
A candidate that everyone knows won’t win doesn’t “push” anyone in any direction, because they know if they just ignore him, the problem will go away. And “destroy the right”? I want some of what they’re smoking.
Dave
Not for nothing, but so far I have not seen an argument from anyone–with claims and evidence, those quaint things–that even pretends to address GG’s point, i.e., that the state has perpetrated enormities through Obama’s (and may others’) agency. He has basically persuaded me that liberals have no answer to such things. Libertarians obviously don’t, either, but it would be better for our side to be able to answer to people like Greenwald.
BGinCHI
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Agreed.
Come up with a time and I’ll alert the staff and management to our impending arrival.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
If she failed to add to the discourse here, it had a lot more to do with a bunch of people who refused to let a single one of her posts go by without derailing it. I get that this place is a troll’s nest at the best of times, and that she probably didn’t help herself by constantly feeding the trolls, but she wasn’t responsible for the ugliness of those people.
Schlemizel
@Judas Escargot:
No those 100,000 jobs were all good ones he created . . . in India.
The Moar You Know
@Loviatar: That TNC post can and ought to be read in its entirety, particularly by the invective-hurling Paul supporters on this blog who refuse to even try and understand why so many Obama supporters are willing to stay the course, rather than go with a man who is right on a few issues but wrong on everything else.
BGinCHI
@Jewish Steel: I think I dropped the ball on that one.
We need to make it happen.
Maybe during a Packers playoff game.
Jewish Steel
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: @BGinCHI: That sounds rad. Keep me looped!
Mayur
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Me three, although I like Hot Doug’s as well.
BGinCHI
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Actually I like Huey’s on Balmoral.
BGinCHI
@Mayur: Dude, everyone likes Hot Doug’s, hence the lines…..
Have you guys tried Rub, on Lunt just west of Western? Pretty damn good.
schrodinger's cat
@wrb: I know that is the MSM narrative but how is it possible, if a majority of people making less $50,000 vote for Democrats (or $100,000 in 2008 as some one pointed out earlier). How is working class defined?
Roger Moore
@daize:
They don’t seem too happy with any of the configurations that don’t involve women (a solo man, two men, a man and an animal, etc.), either.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BGinCHI:
Holy Shit! I just moved from my apartment on Balmoral last July – I absolutely love Huey’s!
I live down near Foster and Clark now. Still go to Huey’s.
Pray Tell
@Redshift: Well, I should have been more clear. Paul winning the nomination would “destroy the right” was what I perceived others to be saying, in that it would make it clear that Romney’s appeal (along with the other R’s) is primarily to old Republicans who may or may not be alive in 2016, while Paul’s appeal is to the youth and his marginalization might drive many of them away from the GOP for good.
But really, who wouldn’t want to watch an Obama/Paul debate? Orville Redenbacher would pop out of his grave to run the concessions stand.
And if, as Judas suggested, some unforeseen consequence would catapult Paul to the Presidency, you’d possibly get a chance to sample that sativa!
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
True, but some contenders may be eliminated before you get to South Carolina, where there is more on the table in terms of delgates, etc.
Bachmann and Perry may not make it past Iowa.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Oh noes, no more Ms Crazy eyes? I has a sad.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BGinCHI:
Here’s a (sexist) Chicago joke for you folks – there are 3 streets in Chicago that rhyme with “vagina”, what are they?
Paulina, Melvina and Lunt.
Gust Avrakotos
You trying to create your own language now DougJ? I can’t understand half the shit you say anymore.
navel-gazing blogger
Sam Spade’s “she was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it”
Johnny Drama
Nah guh happen
wing nuts fatigue
Paultards
Hayekian modest of Mitt Romney
Burkean, heartland himbo (not just by Bobo but more broadly)
school marm tutting-tutting
Speak fucking english for christs sakes! I know you are trying to be all witty and snarky and all up on the latest political junkie lingo but dude….sometimes less is more. Mkay!
Bex
@JPL: @29. Actually, he said he wanted to follow the Australian model, so he must’ve meant Crocodile Dundee.
patroclus
@Dave:
Dave, Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq and has now ended it. Perhaps you might remember, we were spending 2 and 1/2 billion per week on it, we were rounding up non-combatants daily and shipping them to worldwide torture sites, we has a special prison called Abu Ghraib where we engaged in torture and sexual humiliation, we caused a huge refugee crises, precipitated a sectarian war and killed hordes of Muslim children. That is now over, no thanks to Dear Leader Greeenwald and the GBots, who supported the Iraq war initially and several years thereafter.
These are actual facts and actual evidence. So far, I have seen ZERO GBots even address the Iraq war and its ending under Obama. Not to mention the rape-jokester, Ron Paul-pimping African-American-woman-baiting Greenwald himself.
Jewish Steel
@BGinCHI:
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I like anything that’s not a two star chain restaurant.
/downstater
*sadface
BGinCHI
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: You only moved four blocks. Now you’re closer to the middle eastern bakery and Taste of Lebanon, which has the very best lentil soup on this planet.
If shortstop was around she would confirm. She is now addicted to that stuff, along with my wife.
We live at Winthrop and Foster. How great is it that we can walk to the Hopleaf. How does anyone else in this country stand not having access to these places?
BGinCHI
@Gust Avrakotos: Maybe the Parade Magazine would be better for you now that Andy Rooney is dead.
Judas Escargot
@Pray Tell:
Held at gunpoint and forced to choose between the two? Hell yes. He was my governor for four years, and I wasn’t killed by a drone or forced to work for less than minimum wage even once.
BTW, Ron Paul is just a cleverly-rebranded Bircher, and I still find it stupefying that anyone buys his ‘libertarian’ schtick.
But yeah, he’ll single-handedly legalize pot in his first 100 days! Awesome bro! Once he dismantles the government that is still our last line of defense against creeping neo-feudalism, we’ll all be too baked to notice anyway!
John Casey
@JPL:
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
7th stanza of America the Beautiful. The last two lines are particularly tasty.
Bex
@Yevgraf: @52. Seven kids=no contraceptives or Vatican roulette.
gocart mozart
@JPL:
What’s so wrong with an Austrian Model?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisar_Ailabouni
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@BGinCHI:
That four blocks is nothing. This is my fourth apt in 60640 since 1995. I first lived at Winchester and Winona. Then Winona and Broadway. Then Balmoral and Clark and now Foster. I love Taste of Lebanon and my girlfriend loves the Middle Eastern Bakery.
Hopleaf is great, along with Reza’s and Andie’s. I just love the neighborhood.
Jay
In a recent post about race, John wrote something along the lines of: “When someone I respect, like TNC or ABL, writes something about this, I just try to shut up for awhile…”
On the Cole/Greenwald/ABL matter, I tried to do the same, and maybe some will blast me for some kind of false equivalence, but I don’t think I’d be going there if I wrote that Cole, Greenwald, and ABL have all dirtied themselves up in the past few days.
Briefly, let me start with Cole and Greenwald. You two need to be better men. John, show the same thoughtfulness here that you try to show on race. I’ve read blogs like Feministe and TNC’s for awhile, and those writers have taught me about “triggers,” single words and images that can put people in difficult emotional spots. For women (and men) familiar with sexual assault, tossed-off comments about people raping nuns can do that. So Cole and Greenwald ought to acknowledge that triggers do exist, and perhaps put general “trigger warnings” on posts that, they think, might wound readers deeply. TNC and the Feministe folks do this. I even remember TNC putting a graphic, but necessary article on Mike McQueary’s recent testimony about Jerry Sandusky “after the jump” on his website and warning readers: “Do not read this article if you know you can’t.”
Finally, ABL. I think she lost alot of ground with these choice remarks from a recent post:
“And while I agree that a national conversation about our foreign policy and global imperialism is desperately warranted, ultimately, I’m not willing to give up, for example, my reproductive freedom to have such a conversation…So, am I monster for caring more about my uterus and the rights of minorities and the underclass than I am about the victims of drone strikes in a foreign land? Maybe. But I’m ok with it.”
Straight. Effing. Garbage. Notice the first part: she tries to firm up her progressive “street cred” by agreeing that a “conversation about our foreign policy and global imperialism is desperately warranted” before going straight to hell with “I’m not willing to give up…my reproductive freedom to have such a conversation.” Got that? “Having a conversation” means giving up one’s reproductive freedom. She acts as though Ron Paul could become PRESIDENT or grab enough votes from POTUS to bring in President Romney. There is no evidence for either take. I’m sorry, but if you’re going to implicitly mock the view that one can have equal concern for reproductive rights and violence in foreign policy (a violence, by the way, that stretches to women being raped in America’s military, sometimes while they are in combat zones), you’re not going to convince me you’re really concerned about rape survivors.
wrb
@schrodinger’s cat:
The study linked within the linked article provides detail.
The proportions of non-whites voting for Democrats is high enough to have allowed the Democrats to have maintained, at least so far, an overall majority of the below $50,000 vote.
The president’s race has probably helped.
28 Percent
Are we really going to start playing the Objectively Pro-Rape game, and worse, playing it with our political allies?
Please, let’s save our poo-flinging for the general election. If we come out of the primaries preemptively shit-smeared, how on earth will outsiders be able to tell us from Santorum (the frothiness factor? the sweater vest?)
I honestly can’t see the percentage in figuring out whether ABL or GG is more capable of bringing on the crazy, or in even figuring out what the appropriate metric for that is (let’s call it Gimlet’s Law, then let’s say it’s two Gimlets to a Godwin, so if you Godwin you automatically lose the thread, but if you Gimlet you don’t EPIC PHAIL until you double down on the lunacy…)
So here’s the deal: in six months, some Republican is going to have a job of backpedalling on everything he spent the last 2+ years spewing into every microphone he could find in order to try to sound reasonable to the general public. It might be Mittens, who is, if not skilled at reversing himself, is at least practiced enough at it not to look embarrassed while doing it. He will be running against an incumbent President who, like all incumbent Presidents, has a mixed record. GG wants to talk incessantly about all the clothes the Emporer isn’t wearing (and takes the ones that are there for granted), ABL wants to tell everybody they’re wrong if they don’t see all the clothes she does, whatever. Neither is particularly helpful, but both argue as though the fate of the world lies in the balance of whether or not a tweet is out of line. Trying to end the argument, as John did, isn’t siding with one or the other, it’s siding with getting some fucking perspective.
In the meantime, there are ways to get involved that matter a hell of a lot more. Like, sign up to volunteer, for Obama or in your community – find a food bank, throw on an apron, make a contribution in something other than pixels.
BGinCHI
@gocart mozart: Santorum wouldn’t have a clue what to do with that model.
BGinCHI
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Anteprime, Acre, and especially Pizzeria Antica. Plus Simon’s.
Best ‘hood in the city.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i am not going to believe sweater vests are a sincere sartorial santorumism until his kids start trading santorum swag for free tattoos.
schrodinger's cat
@wrb: Thanks! I thought Bobo was making up stuff as usual.
Pray Tell
@Judas Escargot: So on the drone issue, Romney is to the left of Obama? Kidding, of course.
I often wonder why staunch Constitutionalists are pressed harder on the fact that the Founders wanted to restrict voting to land-owning white males, though I suppose there’s the fear that such inquiry might push them toward regression on such matters.
I’d like to see Paul (or Johnson) implement mass amnesty for PODW’s and see how the restoration of voting rights would affect elections at all levels, but I acknowledge the unacceptability of the inability of Paul to concede that — just as the gov’t is given the power of life & death over others with regard to war — women should be given the power to decide what inside their bodies is to be considered a parasite and what is to be considered a person.
In other words, that the legal status of a fetus ought to be approached as dynamic rather than static matter dependent solely on the decision of each individual woman.
I think that ultimately that view will enter into a ‘civil union’ with the issue of self-medication and recreational euphoria. One can hope.
Dave
@patroclus: It’s great that the Iraq war is over (except for the lingering mercenary army occupation). But that doesn’t at all address Greenwald’s point that atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. are ongoing.
28 Percent
@stevestory: The tags here are an internet tradition. Familiarize yourself.
Gin & Tonic
@Gust Avrakotos:
From “The Maltese Falcon.” Jeez, everybody knows that.
hamletta
What is it with the fucking schoolmarm trolls, anyway? Are they Paultards, or what?
Pray Tell
@Pray Tell: I often wonder why staunch Constitutionalists aren’t pressed harder…
Emma
@Loviatar: That was AMAZING. Just bloody AMAZING.
BGinCHI
@Pray Tell: I read it as: why starched constitutions aren’t pressed harder.
It had kind of a laundry room feel, that comment.
wrb
@schrodinger’s cat:
even a stopped clock…
But it’s always disorienting
tomvox1
@Veritas:
Wait for the debates with “Obambi”, dumb fuck. Romney is a Z-list Mondale and your party, such as it is, is doomed. Enjoy.
patroclus
@Dave:
Dave, thanks for acknowledging actual facts and evidence. Dear Leader Greenwald certainly doesn’t – which isn’t surprising given that he supported it initially and for several years thereafter. So, the U.S. isn’t perpetrating anything in Iraq anymore – which, of course, was the gravemen of the complaint against Bush. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of troops there rounding up non-combatant innocents and violating their rights like we did just a few short years ago.
Further, waterboarding is once again defined as torture which it wasn’t during the Abu Ghraib years and, presumably, the U.S. military nor any of its agencies are engaging in torture any more.
The NDAA does not read the way Dear Leader Greenwald reads it. The actual text and signing statements have been posted here – you should actually read them because they constitute facts and evidence.
GITMO remains open but that is because Congress overruled Obama and refused to appropriate funds for any alternative. Once again, facts and evidence.
Why don’t you try to summarize what arguments Dear Leader makes that are actually accurate? With facts and evidence please…
tomvox1
@Gust Avrakotos:
You’re not from ’round these parts, are ya?
Ripley
Arnold Schwarzenegger?
shortstop
@BGinCHI: (Races into room, sliding on sock feet) DID SOMEBODY SAY TASTE OF LEBANON LENTIL SOUP?! AND MIDDLE EASTERN BAKERY?!
BG, for cryin’ out loud. I’m not only not addicted to your wife, I’ve never even tasted her. I don’t mind seeming more interesting than I am, but this kind of talk can’t end well.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: Syntax, how does it work, BG?
I LOLed at you sliding into the thread. I have to admit that at the end though I had you hitting a table and knocking a bunch of shit over.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Wait, are you secretly watching me? How many fingers am I holding up?
shortstop
BTW, I shall be happy to babysit the newborn later in the month, as the trip to SA must be postponed. My dear husband is in excruciating back pain, and clomping around glaciers and driving down bumpy unpaved roads and hiking small mountains and climbing in and out of Zodiacs…well, nope, not right now. Leave a falafel sandwich on the counter and your iTunes library open on the screen and we’ll call it a deal.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: 13. Wait. Yeah, 13, but some are on a foam hand.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: NO! Sorry to hear that on the back pain and trip postponement. That sucks.
May take you up on the sitting. We’ll pay you in soup, of course.
nastybrutishntall
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: some more shitty than others.
heh-heh.
normal liberal
@Jewish Steel: Such ingratitude directed to the fine establishments that line our Downstate commercial boulevards with indistinguishable stodge. Do you think it’s easy to run all those microwaves? And the giant walk-in freezers are quite expensive to run…
shortstop
@BGinCHI: It’s not terrible. We’ll go in November when the southern right whales are nursing offshore and the penguins are nesting onshore. We were using air miles, so we’ll just shift them over. D thinks we should still go this month, but I think that’s a poor idea — this is not an inactive trip. Just want to concentrate on him feeling better.
Anya
That episode, as you call it, is one of the reasons I despise Greenwald. I hate Republicans because they are mean and they relish being despicably mean. In that particular episode, Greenwald’s nastiness and the mean spirited way he enjoys humiliating people were on display.
Cole’s actions were disgusting, juvenile and down right tone deaf. He was insensitive, specially when long time BJer like, asiangrrlMN disclosed that she was a rape survivor and that the trivialization of rape was offensive and hurtful to her and other survivors.
I am not a huge fan of ABL, but the way she handled the unhinged haters here, earned my undying respect. She’ll do fine, but I am not sure about the fate of this blog.
Spectre
That’s borderline sexist. /ABL
I-R-O-N-Y
Jewish Steel
@normal liberal: Funny you should say that, I was just chatting with the guy who cooks over at the Italian place behind Hooters and Culvers (yes, observers, I’m not kidding). He said his second week there he walked in and ripped the microwave out of the wall and threw it in the dumpster. Good for him!
normal liberal
@Jewish Steel: There’s an Italian place over there? I’ll be damned.
Edited to add: I just looked it up, and now I know where tomorrow’s lunch is coming from. It looks like the place way down on Ireland Grove.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: You’re right. Put it off till he can move around. Otherwise he’s gonna miss out on stuff.
Morbo
Agreed.
nancydarling
@Linda Featheringill: Just through the first comment so far, but this, Linda, is why I keep coming here—to laugh out loud.
Jewish Steel
@normal liberal: Yes, I think it’s the same folks. I had no idea it was there either. The cook is a defector from the organic farm collective that supplies the new Station 220.
Peregrinus
@Linda Featheringill:
Or a hairshirt – if he were wearing a spiked cilice it’d be on his thigh.
That said, I wholeheartedly agree with #173.
Djur
@Gust Avrakotos: If you don’t understand “navel-gazing”, references to Sam Spade, or “tutting” and “schoolmarm”, you must have just emerged from the barrel you were raised in from birth. These are not esoteric or recent references.
normal liberal
@Jewish Steel: Contra my earlier snark about stodge, I have to admit that the revamped Station 220 is a significant improvement. (And close to my office-pity I never have time.) Not everything is a swamp of frozen quasi-food and decor manufactured by the container-load in Chins. Or, China.
Just most of it.
ruemara
@daize: It’s always been about women fucking of their own free will, with whomever they will. FTFY
JC
This is a judgment call, but I still don’t get the sense that GG would actually endorse Paul over Obama – he may, but he hasn’t said so one way or the other. IMHO, this is a rhetorical shift and trick you are using, which you softened of course, but still is there, to not actually grapple with GG’s main point.
And this is, as it always is with GG – why aren’t people as up in arms about impingements to civil liberties, as GG is?
That’s all it ever is about with him.
kideni
I’m late to the thread, and someone’s probably already posted it, but this is a pretty funny defense of Iowa.
Gust Avrakotos
@Djur: The point is you use one of them as your zinger and move the fuck on. Not stringing them all together like your posts are written by automated sofware.
Maybe DougJ is nothing more than automated blog posting software and this is the new improved BJ2012version of phone it in BJ blog poster software. Now with an Android app.
les
@schrodinger’s cat:
I know it’s late, but I really had to thank Mr/Ms cat–that’s the funniest thing I’ve read since I don’t know when.
Brachiator
@Dave:
Is this phony battle still going on?
The bottom line is that the election of any Republican, especially Ron Paul, would see atrocities perpetrated both in the US and abroad.
It’s just not an Either/Or.
The additional problem of the Great and Good Greenwald world view remains that he, and many Balloon Juicers absolutely, conclusively, definitively don’t give a rat’s ass about the commission of atrocities. They just don’t want the US committing atrocities. Apart from this, they don’t care. And somehow this is supposed to count as an ethical, progressive position.
It’s not. Not at all.
Under the Aurora Freeway
Here’s to hoping a third, possibly fourth place finish for Shitt Romney.
Gust Avrakotos
@Under the Aurora Freeway:
Romney will be the candidate. What I’d love to see is an independent “not Romney” Candidate or 2 to bleed off votes from him. Donald Head Rat Chump or Ron Civil Rights Suck Paul.
Ronbo
ABL – seriously, that lady’s parachute ain’t never gonna open. It’s signed, sealed and pre-delivered (regardless of the policy, position and lies).
If Obama signed legislation imprisoning Americans for life, she’d be the first in line to celebrate. Oh, she already did that, didn’t she?
My great-grandfather sent a letter from the Netherlands to my grand-mother in Missouri saying, “the Nazi party isn’t taking action, only occupying.” She never heard from that jew again. He also had faith in humanity.
Maus
@Gust Avrakotos:
Or, perhaps, just google references you don’t understand. It’s not hard.
None of what you mentioned is really that outlandish, certainly not in the contexts it’s being used in.