You might not know it from the lack of news coverage, but this week is the annual CPAC freak show. What I find amusing about it is that in the past, CPAC was really a spectacle. It was the political equivalent of watching circus geeks bite the heads off chickens while the bearded lady swallowed swords. This is where Coulter called Edwards a faggot, they’ve had tier one wingnuts like Beck and Limbaugh speak, this is the go to convention for birthers and the WND crowd, and who can forget this freakshow:
But that was then, this is now. I’m scanning the google news headlines for anything interesting, and all I’m finding is a little gay bashing by Mitt and the crowd warming up to Santorum. That’s it. The freak show of the belly of the conservative beast has gone so mainstream that CPAC is now a yawner, because there just isn’t anything anyone can do short of shooting an abortion provider on stage that will be more horrifying than the candidates the GOP fielded this year. How do you get nuttier than Perry, Bachmann, Cain, and company? You just can’t.
A proud day for Republicans.
Martin
Nobody likes cold Santorum.
General Stuck
Has the VDARE guy spoke yet. I don’t think they’ve ever had a full throated white supremacist speak before. Lots of code shit, and the like, but this guy is the real deal.
khead
The day ain’t over yet.
pragmatism
i want to see all of the big tough button down collar conservatives in the ready position anticipating the physical confrontation with the Occupy people.
Samara Morgan
and yet.
you still give Kain frontpage privs.
Origuy
Check this out:
The Navy’s newest littoral combat ship, the USS Gabrielle Giffords. Photo.
Samara Morgan
kumbayah, Cole, kumbayah.
MattF
I do think the contraception craziness of the past 24 hours was due to various Republican politicians showing off to the CPAC crowd. And I expect that once the CPACers leave, the whole business will go down the memory hole, if we let it.
jl
Newt can still make the top of Yahoo News.
Not sure that is a good thing for anyone, or maybe it is good for us:
‘ Before Gingrich took the stage, a black and white, action-flickesque picture flashed on the screen, showing the candidate flanked by his surrogates, including Chuck Norris, Herman Cain and Rick Perry. Gingrich later referred to the assembled conservatives–who looked a bit like the cast of Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables”–as a “conservative Dream Team.”
Gingrich also said that if Obama wins in November, “He will wage war on the Catholic church the morning after he is re-elected.” ‘
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/live-stream-newt-gingrich-cpac-speech-191410440.html
Emphasis added.
Cat Lady
These are Mitt’s people now. He went from Big Swinging Dick from upscale Belmont, Mass. to grovelling for the acceptance of toothless fundie carnival geeks, and even they don’t want him. Karma’s a cold cold bitch.
Benjamin Franklin
@Martin:
Nothing like a hot cupa froth with your latte….
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
CPAC today is like the empty nuthouse in The King of Hearts after the door were left open and all the nuts wandered out to roam the streets.
I’m afraid that Alan Bates won’t be crowned GOP nominee this year, though.
BGinCHI
To get your own Moore Award nomination, you’re gonna have to be more shrill than that. The truth just won’t cut it, John.
harlana
@pragmatism: i don’t know about the Occupy DC crowd, but they would shit their pants if they got in the way of those Oakland hippies
srv
I wish that kid who was at the WND years ago and went off the reservation and turned into a librul would come back and write a book.
gogol's wife
Whatever happened to that kid in the video? (Maybe I don’t want to know.)
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Origuy: Dammit. Now crying at the office, which is just so uncool.
jl
@harlana: i don’t know about the Occupy DC crowd, but they would shit their pants if they got in the way of those Oakland
hippiesanarchistsNo peaceful protesters wanted at recent night marches, so they said.
Don’t insult them to their face like that with the ‘hippies’ stuff.
Southern Beale
Well, John, you aren’t looking hard enough. They had white nationalists hosting an anti-diversity panel at CPAC. If Netroots Nation did anything remotely comparable — say, had the New Black Panthers or La Raza or ACORN or whatever group gives Fox News the vapors, it would be headline news everywhere. There would be thoughtful Sunday panels and op-eds musing, “Have Liberals Gone Too Far?” etc.
But CPAC? Nah.
BGinCHI
@gogol’s wife: He grew up and became an even bigger dick than he was.
harlana
you missed Breitbart, didn’t you
pragmatism
@harlana: there would be a rush to hide behind chuck norris or the NRA table.
piratedan
maybe they can have live feeds from the street of Damascus to get their red meat quota….
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
They’re still movement conservatives, and as such they have a close relationship to “white nationalism.”
ETA: Southern Beale is already on the case.
Raven
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Ah but Geneviève. . .
khead
Also, I had forgotten about that kid. First thought I had when I saw him?
“$100 says this kid is home schooled.”
jl
@harlana: Did Newt include Bachmann in his conservative superhero tableau? I hope so.
dmsilev
Remember, Peak Wingnut is a lie.
NR
Because the Democrats keep compromising with them and trying to placate them.
Linkmeister
Here’s a link to all the posts Charlie Pierce has done about CPAC. They’re well worth reading.
Libby
Only thing I’m finding even mildly amusing are the Craig’s List, Grindr ads where the attendees are looking for some discreet man on man action.
harlana
@jl: not meant to be an insult
Benjamin Franklin
@harlana:
Any highlights you can recall?
Citizen_X
Good. I’m fucking volunteering, now.
jl
@harlana:
Not taken as insult. Just wanted to let people know that some of the Oakland Occupy crowd are following their own path to… where, I am not sure.
Not a joke about ‘no peaceful protesters wanted’. They put out announcements that if you are not ready to rumble, you should stay away from their recent spate of night marches.
WereBear
Hey, New York Animal Lovers: the CARA Bill is under attack.
Save the Shelter Access Bill
There are easy actions to take at the bottom of the article. Short version: Rescue Groups, like our beloved Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue (beneficiaries of the sales in the Balloon Juice store) go around to shelters and rescue the animals, giving them fostering and finding homes. Great, right? Who in their right mind would stop them from doing that?
I know, I can’t figure it out, either. But that’s what the ASPCA is doing; because this is a “whistle blower bill” designed to also stop them from getting reported when they are cruel to the animals in their care.
Please ACT. Thank you.
Odie Hugh Manatee
“… and the crowd warming up to Santorum.”
There’s nothing like a bunch of conservatives happily warming themselves up some Santorum, I hear it goes down smoother that way.
I just hope that they remember not to smile and show their teeth after swallowing the Big Gulp full of warm Santorum.
FuriousPhil
@Southern Beale:
I just don’t know why this gets a pass. Something implicit in conservatism that
wethe MSM all know and don’t want to talk about?A black man in the White House, and CPAC has white supremacists/nationalists/shitbag racist assholes as panelists as speakers? How is this not a bigger story? It certainly fits the sensationalist angle.
Spaghetti Lee
CPAC is a good place for conservative men-like them, it comes but once a year.
TenguPhule
We’ll file this under “Reaching Peak Wingnut Wrong”.
They will. Because Stupid has no practical limit.
slag
@Libby: Yeah. But even Wonkette admitted in the title that their story on that felt warmed over:
It’s almost hard to tell where the ennui begins…with the Republican base or with those unlucky enough to be reporting on it.
pragmatism
@Spaghetti Lee: rim
jobshotharlana
@jl: they are not fucking around
Trentrunner
This year Ann Coulter went on about how Monica’s cum-stained dress was good for the Constitution. Or something.
I understand the 4 remaining Presidential candidates are going to later form a human centipede. Santorum will ingest santorum!
Frankensteinbeck
@FuriousPhil:
Because it makes it much harder to pretend that the GOP is serious.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
All snark, as some point the fact that they can’t be parodied, that like Newt standing next to Norris and Romney next to Trump isn’t presidential, it makes them look like the villains out of a Golan Globus movie is going to start occurring to these people.
jl
@harlana: True. It’s alleged that a small group of the anarchists vandalized a children’s art exhibit at City Hall, and a historical diorama of the city. If true, a small subset of the anarchists are out of control and not helping.
However the Oakland PD is no picnic either, and many of them have a bad attitude. So not sure what allegations are true at this point.
pragmatism
@Trentrunner: she said that all “real” females are right wingers and followed up with “And I can tell you that based on experience—and my bodyguard will back me up on this—all pretty girls are right-wingers.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Citizen_X:
…and then Newt went on to announce to the crowd that there is nothing to fear, there will be plenty of transports available to airlift the Army of Africa back to the homeland in time for it to play a decisive role in the subsequent conflict.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
IIRC, the complaint by most ASPCAs is that rescue groups cherry-pick the most adoptable animals and leave the shelters to euthanize the ones who aren’t as easily placed. But you’d think the problem would be more easily solved through partnerships and not legislation.
JoyfulA
@Origuy: Thanks! I like it!
harlana
@jl: i’m just trying to be an objective observer in all this. i think what is happening in Oakland might be somewhat of a unique situation, but who really knows how this will turn out in the end. the one common thread in most of the movements in the country, from what i can see, is the militarized police response.
Morbo
Well, I mean, they had a “professional” PUA yesterday, so there’s that.
Michael Demmons
I run into this kid, Jonathan Krohn, on occasion at Iowa State University meetups in Atlanta. I always want to fucking punch him. God, I hate that kid!
khead
@Michael Demmons:
That’s kinda why I figured he had to be home schooled.
No way that kid makes it through public school without the other kids going Nelson on him.
pragmatism
@Morbo: this must have been odd for them to hear from the PUA:
At the seemingly interminable conservative dating panel yesterday, a young man asked the speaker, a professional dating coach named Wayne Elise, why right-wingers had such a difficult time with humor: “How can we find a legitimately funny conservative person?” he wondered.
“Conservatives get defensive about their beliefs, and it’s hard to be funny when you’re feeling defensive,” Elise told him. “They’re very wrapped up in their own ego.”
Chris
@Southern Beale:
The difference between them and us is that they’ve never cut themselves off completely from their extremist fringe, no matter how extreme and even if they downplay them in public.
Democrats do: in the early 1950s we purged the far left from unions, machines, the Democratic Party and pretty much all other institutions, in the early 1960s we led the charge against the Dixiecrats on civil rights, and from the late 1960s until today, of course, etc etc etc.
Republicans just never did anything comparable, even in their moderate, 1950s, I-Like-Ike incarnation, to the Birchers and other far right fringe groups… which is one reason why they managed to come back into politics with a vengeance. And you’re seeing the same thing here with the white nationalists. Even if they’re a little embarrassing, the extremists are just too good a source of enthusiastic, partisan support to pass up.
Michael Demmons
@khead: His dad is actually a nice guy and I like hanging out with him at these events, but he enables this for sure.
It’s like the guy you like who comes to your party with his really fucking annoying dog. You just want to kick the dog. And you LIKE dogs.
jl
@harlana:
” Oakland might be somewhat of a unique situation ”
I think that is true. Oakland PD still recovering from major police scandal almost 10 years ago. Courts say the OPD still not complying with settlement, and may be taken over by feds.
Bad blood between OPD and large segments of community. And some very radical people around Oakland.
Still, from what I’ve heard in news, I think the anarchists, and the subset of those who might have trashed stuff, are a small minority of the Oakland occupy, though they might be creating most of the news.
Southern Beale
@FuriousPhil:
IOKIYAR. Always, always IOKIYAR.
Everything is always OK if you’re a Republican.
beltane
Here is an absolutely horrid rap video from this year’s CPAC: http://wonkette.com/463372/cpac-gangsta-rap-number-more-or-less-satans-cue-to-destroy-earth
Talk about an overdose of fail.
eemom
It really pisses me off that CSpan has full time live coverage of this freak show. Do they do that for Netroots? NO. Fucktards.
harlana
@jl: from what i have seen/read thus far, that appears to be true. after all, it was over a thousand people. and yes, there does appear to be bad blood in the mix.
Kyle
@Citizen_X:
But then who will fight the War on Christmas this year?
Bowel Movement Conservatives in action.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: I can kinda see that as a complaint, except when the animals the shelter groups want to take wind up euthanized. They can’t be both the most adoptable AND the hopeless ones that get euthed.
We’ve had many local news stories (New York State) lately where the shelter refused to release the animal and then killed it.
Does not compute.
Maus
How do you top the Mainstreaming of the Birchers? Where do they go from here?
harlana
have i expressed the degree of my loathing for these enabling conservative women? but i think i get it now, they actually like having the privileged white men crawling into their va jay jays.
harlana
Santorum says the President wants to chop off our heads
JR
Challenge accepted!
Meet Georgia State Rep. Mark Hatfield, co-counsel in Orly Taitz’s latest courthouse clusterfuck.
Your move, sir.
Chet
@harlana: Conservative Woman is the House Negro of the World.
Villago Delenda Est
@harlana:
Where do I sign up to assist Obama in this worthy endeavor? Is Santorum in the running for the first head on a pike?
Hal
@gogol’s wife:
He switched gears and channeled his Asperger’s into acting and now stars in the Big Bang Theory as Sheldon Cooper.
SuperHrefna
@WereBear: Thanks so much for this, I just sent all four action emails. I hope they help tip the pols in the right direction (I’ve got a good feeling about Steve Englebright, who was on one of the email lists, I’ve met him a few times and his heart is in the right place. Nice guy.) I don’t know what we’d do in my neck of NY without our no kill shelters. The town shelters around here are pretty corrupt (one of them is rather fabulously corrupt in a front-page-of-the-local-paper kind of way) and with the cost of living out of control there are more and more abandoned pets to take care of each week. This bill sounds like a disaster, especially for cats, even the sweetest cat can take while to settle in to the chaos of shelter life. If they could be legally euthanized for psychological distress in the first 24 hours after intake, there wouldn’t be many cats in our shelters at all.
BTW, I think this is my first ever post to BJ even though I’ve been reading most of the posts and comments here for years. Hi guys!
Bubblegum Tate
@srv:
What, which kid was that?
28 Percent
That kid’s second opus appears to have been his own Wikipedia entry. Is it really legit to have a separate section for “Early Life” regarding a subject who still isn’t old enough to shave?
What tossers for giving him a podium. In the spirit of “both sides do it,” I’m sure that somewhere, someone can dig up a clip of a group of liberals basking in the wisdom of some prepubescent airhead, but Jeebus, at least they have a good shot at having the excuse of being high as a kite at the time. What were these idiots thinking?
pseudonymous in nc
Yeah, there’s still lots of nutty in the shit-with-nuts that is CPAC. Professional misogynists (as opposed to part-time misogynists); Cal Thomas yucking about Rachel Maddow, and I’m sure that Coulter will be doing her usual schtick. Like I said: trolling convention. (And, I suppose, a way for closeted Republicans to get their rocks off.)
The Other Chuck
@Hal:
And now you know … the rest of the story!
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@eemom: But CPAC is ratings gold!