A good summary from Steve M.:
For those who are still in denial about the extremism of modern-day Republicans, the past week — hell, the past 24 hours — should have been a cold slap in the face, a big jolt of reality. Rush Limbaugh, praised for years by Republicans, declared an honorary member of the House freshman class in the Contract with America year of 1994, pal to Dick Cheney all through his time as vice president, attacks an advocate of contraceptive coverage as a slut and a prostitute and, after being criticized, doubles down, demanding that the woman “post [sex] videos online” in return for contraceptive coverage. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, honorary Arizona co-chair of Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign, backer of Rick Perry last fall until he dropped out of the race, object of the entreaties of Rick Santorum, holds a press conference today to reassert that the long-form Obama birth certificate is a fake. (Santorum, when he met with Arpaio last week, was briefed on Arpaio’s birther “investigation” and didn’t immediately distance himself from the sheriff.) Oh, and what else? Nearly every Republican senator voted for the Blunt amendment? Andrew Breitbart died and much of the right concluded that President Obama murdered him? And, five days ago, Rick Santorum declared that anyone who wants more Americans to have access to college is a “snob”?
And only a few months til we’re told that we’re a right-center nation who should respect Mitt Romney’s Hayekian modesty.
Ben Franklin
I say it’s like when trained troops panic in the midst of an ambush.
Friendly fire does most of the killing.
We wring our hands with anxiety
TooManyJens
Well. That about sums it up.
Excuse me, I need to go get + something…
Ben Franklin
Look at me, I’m running with scissors…….
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/az-sheriff-joe-arpaio-releases-results-of-obama-birth-certificate-probe-forgery/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Olympia Snowe’s retirement simply proves that both parties are hostage to their extreme wings, as the liberal MSNBC has told me several times today.
Also, when reviewing the CV of the of the four-times married childless sex-tourist and opponent of birth control, he was also a panelist on the Brinkley Show back when it was the Brinkley show, sitting between GWill and Sam Donaldson, respectfully addressed by Brinkley. I think he was quietly removed from the guest list after his 475th (this was a good fifteen years ago) public manifestation of racism.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
We’re entering the propeller head era.
CarolDuhart2
It has been 24 hours of crazy, between Breitbart, actually voting on birth control coverage, Obama Mother Jokes, and Rush Limbaugh. It’s been so crazy we barely noticed a cross-country stream of tornados, the fact that the Egyptian hostages are coming home. Even Davy Jones has barely gotten his due like he should.
At this point I probably should be looking for a firey pillar of some kind or a hovering spaceship.
Rick Massimo
Yeah, they REALLY don’t want people remembering that, do they?
Not that it ever prompts any of Our Media Stars to ask any Republicans what they think about anything their buddy says.
Although to be fair, it’s not like any of them are currently politically active or running for President or anything …
Tonal Crow
So Mitt…do you agree with Rush Limbaugh that women who want contraceptive coverage in their health insurance are “prostitute[s]”? Explain at length.
Ruckus
One thing I’ve wondered, other than power, other than making rich fuckers richer, what is this for the vast numbers of conservatives? Isn’t there a least some point when large numbers of conservative folks do a collective what the fuck?
Either that or there are lots of people who really are just sheep without the wool coat.
Billy Beane
BAHAHAHAHA…that new Obama conspiracy theory that he had Brietbart killed….BAHAHAHAH….some people will believe just about anything when they are blinded by hate.
victory
I thought it was going to be a bit longer before the Breibart = Vince Foster comparison started rolling….
Billy Beane
@CarolDuhart2: and….we haven’t heard Not Republican Cole babble on incoherently about how war is bad because of the Drones for….gosh….seems like days now.
MattF
My theory is that even wingers now are starting to realize that Obama is likely to win in November. This is actually liberating– doubling down is a winning strategy if there’s no penalty for losing.
JPL
Why is it the extreme whackos who want to pass state laws preventing sharia laws, want to pray in school and hang the ten amendments?
dan
Don’t forget the Daily Caller guy that wants the government to set up an agency whose sole purpose is to humiliate poor people.
The Dangerman
They do realize that the Hospital where Breitbart died is called Ronald Reagan Medical Center (and one of the best in the world), right?
Cargo
@Ruckus: Isn’t there a least some point when large numbers of conservative folks do a collective what the fuck?
Peak wingnut is a myth. Based on my conversations with wingnutty relatives, they don’t necessarily agree with everything every republican says, but the Democrats are just as bad/worse, the country is full of welfare cheats, “illegals” and overfed college kids are the real problem, and when we round up the immigrants, stop the “gravy train” of welfare, and tell the college kids to sit down, shut up and get a haircut, then we can go back to the fifties where things were pretty good. They certainly believe any girls getting abortions or using birth control are sluts, while if they do it themselves “that’s different”, and that the likes of Joe Arpaio are the kind of sheriff we need more than ever, and “well, we don’t know” about Obama’s birth certificate.
But even those folks are cool with me and my gay partner, at least to my face.
Martin
@victory: It’ll take a few weeks until it really gels. ‘Obama killed Breitbart’ doesn’t work. I think they need to go down the Vince Foster route again and make Michelle Obama the villain here. Then we’d be getting somewhere.
greenergood
@Tonal Crow: The Limbaugh doctrine: Any woman who is not white and is single is a prostitute. Any woman of whatever race who is a lesbian is a prostitute. In fact, any woman who has sex, who is not white – no matter if she’s straight, married, etc. – is a prostitute. And, actually, most other women are too. so sayeth Limbaugh and the scions of the Catholic Church. OTOH, Limbaugh’s and the priests’ boys are – angels.
Martin
@Cargo: We need a giant Truman Show set to put the GOP into.
Cargo
So basically, the rhetoric gap between conservative pundits, spokespeople and elected representatives and my wingnutty ass relatives in bumfuck nebraska is narrowing to zero. Which appeals greatly to the aforesaid wingnutty ass relatives, they hear it as “finally, someone’s talking to ME!” and non-wingnutty people go “what the fuck”.
lamh35
Wait it gets better:
Appeals Court Will Review Conduct Of Judge Who Sent Racist Obama Email
Excuse me while I laugh my ass off.
I posted this yesterday, but this is what I posted on my FB yesterday about that judge’s email.
“Ok, people let me tell you now, if you receive a forwarded email and you would feel uncomfortable sending the email to your minority friends but you forward it on to your friends and family who are not “ethnic” or minority, then guess what, I’m sorry but I’m gonna consider you a racist….TRUST!”
forked tongue
Who will be the first elected official to give some credence to the Breitbart-was-assassinated theory? (Louie Gohmert, maybe?) First media figure not associated with American Thinker or World Net Daily? (I’m thinking Tucker Carlson here.)
MattF
@Martin: You think? I don’t know… Hillary-hatred was pretty much taken for granted, back in the day.
Berial
@Ruckus: What do they want? I often wonder that too. The best I can come up with is that they want ‘an orderly society’.
Of course, to them, that means:
And they could have it too, if it weren’t for all those damn pesky kids and liberals and their commie ways.
BGinCHI
As I said in that thread yesterday or the day before, after Obama is reelected, the Village will help the GOP restore their brand because they need the status quo and the horse race shit to continue.
You can’t run a 24-hour network or lousy newspaper on good governance.
Billy Beane
@forked tongue: looking at history and for what it’s worth, my guess is it will morph into how it was all masterminded by Soros using gubmit (taxpayer funded) resources approved by Obama. That will seem even more plausible to the nut jobs and look like there is more details being found or whatever. They will basically say whatever they see as getting the knuckle draggers into more of a frenzy.
Not hard, just talk about big gubmit, how you are paying for it with your taxes, throw in some illegal brown people, stir with Jesus on a stick and let simmer with a topping of the end the fed or whatever (never did understand that one but whatev’s)
Davis X. Machina
@Cargo:
Funny thing, most people who tell you that about the 50’s weren’t born yet, or were in their infancy. To really remember Eisenhower, you have to be over 60….
The ‘Truman Show’ mention was apt. They want to return to a largely symbolic re-creation of the 50’s as presented by the media and entertainment industries of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.
Calouste
@greenergood:
Back to 18th century Britain, where every women who had children and wasn’t married in the Church of England was counted as a prostitute.
gbear
But both sides do it.
/TV news
Jay C
@CarolDuhart2:
Whisky Tango Foxtrot?? The Egyptian NGO “defendants” are out?
I guess while we were all ventilating about Andrew Breitbart (olav ha-shalom) the grownups running the government have actually DONE something useful?!
Since US media seem to have ignored this (though admitedly, it’s “new” news) – here’s the BBC link.
Meat of the piece: the 17 foreign “defendants” are being flown out of Egypt for the bargain price of just $300,000 bail apiece: the Egyptians are, of course, free to
make a foolish circus of themselvestry them in absentia; but at least no one (except, sadly, some of the Egyptian victims) is going to go to jail.So another victory for intelligent diplomacy by Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration: which is probably why we won’t hear much about it…..
gbear
Has Obama fled the country yet?
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
There’s no such thing as peak wingnut. There is never going to be a peak wingnut, or a wingnutularity. I’m starting to become convinced that there’s only Peak Liberal, because of the kind of phenomenon @Cargo notes. GOP might occasionally go off the reservation for these folks, but the Dems still remain the GREATEST SUPEREVIL IN THE HISTORY OF FUCKING EVERRRRRR!!!!! And there’s still a good chunk of so-called Independents and Moderates who will swallow the bullshit for the exact same reason: The GOP seem crazy at times, but damned if they’ll follow all those crazy super-commies!
Martin
@Davis X. Machina:
And are definitely white. Life in the 50s for black people? It was shit. Why the nostalgia for how awesome Leave it to Beaver was? No black people.
You have to point that out to them. every. time. There’s an implied racism in their desire to return to the 50s that they are often unaware of, simply because they built this awesome life at the expensive of minorities who they have since edited out of the narrative.
Rita R.
@Ruckus:
They get validation of venting their insecurities and fears through hatred and dehumanization of everyone not like themselves.
Merp
Look, we’re not perfect. We don’t know everything. That’s why a government that thinks it knows better than the people is doomed to fail.
George Washington knew that. That’s why he trusted the reg’lar folk which made up the minutemen army to win a war against the greatest military machine of its time. And also why he didn’t think they should vote afterwards unless they had property.
– R. Santorum
Cassidy
“Well, you see Greta, we used state of the art investigative techniques. We got a bunch of paper and scanned them and the marks on them didn’t add up to the same ones.”
Tonal Crow
@Cargo:
Bobo did that. He is the most dangerous propagandist in America. And that’s saying something.
Billy Beane
@Martin: As someone else around here put it, in the leave it to beaver world everyone knew their place. I think that gets to the heart of why it appeals to old white male republicans.
BGinCHI
@Tonal Crow: If Fox News gets burned down, maybe with the Murdochs going to jail or Roger Ailes found floating in a pool somewhere, then things might get better. Bobo (AKA fat possum) by himself could never come close to doing all the damage that network does.
Berial
@Martin: Can’t be said enough. Everything is tribal with them, and black folks ain’t in the tribe.
But the thing that always surprises me is just how small that tribe seems to be continually getting yet they still get 40+ of the national vote.
Tonal Crow
@Berial:
They want the Ring of Power on their fat fingers, so that everyone will call them “massssster” and submit to their every caprice.
BGinCHI
@Billy Beane: They couldn’t leave beavers alone then and they can’t now. There was never a golden age.
piratedan
@Berial: sounds like an old Twilight Zone episode that had Shelley Berman in it…..
khead
I suspect this thread wouldn’t be quite so amusing to me if it had come before the “Gosh, let’s not piss on Breitbart’s grave” thread.
Others may disagree.
Comrade Dread
If by Hayekian modesty, you mean the breathtaking cynicism it takes to both agree and disagree with any given policy position a constituent holds often within the span of nanoseconds, then yes, I hold a tremendous amount of respect for Mitt.
Tonal Crow
@BGinCHI: I think Bobo is worse than Fox. By legitimizing Teh Crazy, he convinces millions of people to accept Republican bullshit who would never be convinced by the raving nutters at Fox.
4tehlulz
@Cassidy: “THIS LOOKS SHOPPED / I CAN TELL FROM SOME OF THE PIXELS AND FROM SEEING QUITE A FEW SHOPS IN MY TIME”
kindness
@Tonal Crow: Actually Bobo doesn’t hold a candle to Roger Ailes. He is certainly the most dangerous propagandaist in America.
jlow
@Cargo: Let’s definitely go back to 1950’s tax rates.
Davis X. Machina
@Berial: There’s not much in physics that isn’t explained by F=MA. It’s equivalent in politics is P=NI. Power equals numbers times intensity.
Enraged, engaged minorities roll detached, or well-intentioned majorities all the time. Hate trumps a vague and well-intentioned desire to see things improved.
AnotherBruce
Is Breitbart still dead?
lamh35
As much as the FPer’s like Charles Pierce, I’m shocked no one’s posted this lovely bit by Mr Pierce:
Obama Is the President of the United States Again
Chris
@Berial:
I suspect they themselves don’t know what they want. The “bitch-at-the-world, everything-is-someone-else’s-fault” reflex has become so Pavlovian that if you actually did give them their utopia, they’d probably die of shock on the spot.
(They’d CERTAINLY die of shock if you gave them everything they THINK they want – like no more Mexicans, no more regulations, no more unions, no more federal handouts – and they had to actually live with the results).
Davis X. Machina
@lamh35: Obama don’t need friends like Pierce.
g
@Merp: Yep, Ricky. And because he trusted the little guy, George Washington sent the federal army to western Pennsylvania to enforce payment of the whisky tax.
Ben Franklin
@Davis X. Machina:
Hate is Fear, and Fear is the mind-killer.
Suffern ACE
Meh. I think the right wing is losing their flair. Obama killing his enemies. What kind of conspiracy is that? Of course someone would kill his or her enemies. You get credit for that in some places. They are, after all, enemies. Now friends is another story. That’s how we knew the Clintons were not only ruthless, but also vile…they killed their friends. Gennifer Flowers told me so. We used to have a better right wing than this.
Cargo
@jlow: 1950s tax rates
I try to tell the wingnutty relatives that but they don’t believe me, or don’t believe anyone actually paid those rates, or that they had to because communists. Of course the whole thing falls apart at the slightest touch, but then it springs back into being as soon as I leave, and I’m just “that big-city liberal”.
Waldo
The party of the rich and the ignorant can never cut too many taxes or make too many inane pronouncements. They will march us all the way back in time to the big bang if they get the chance. Can’t help it. That’s just how they roll.
Cargo
@Davis X. Machina: fifties
Oh, absolutely. The fifties aren’t the REAL fifties of nuclear panic and racial segregation, it’s the “before time”, the long long ago before there were those mexicans and ragheads and courteous gas-station attendants pumped your gas and school kids saluted the flag and there were soda jerks and churches and gee our old LaSalle ran great and wars were clearly defined against obviously evil enemies and on and on. That’s what they want, deep down. And I can see that appeal, if you ignore reality, and denying reality is what conservatives do best.
Kane
By all means criticize Limbaugh and Cheney and Romney and Santorum and Arpaio and all the usual suspects now. When they die it will be considered out of bounds to say anything negative about them.
Sammi
You forgot the probes.
Patricia Kayden
Thank goodness that the Rethugs are acting crazy now. Hopefully this will kill their chances of taking back the White House and Congress in November.
CarolDuhart2
@Jay C: Maybe it’ll be tomorrow’s news. I’m happy they’re out. I think it’s as much because the Egyptian sort-of-government is divided as much as anything, and whoever is really in charge feels they could ill afford any more. Right now unity is hard to find: the Islamists who are torn between their ideals and the reality of governing, the military types who want to keep their control of the economy as if nothing has changed, the democrats who want more intellectual and social people, and the poor who badly need improvements in everything.
The “Leave It To Beaver” world was highly segregated. Blacks, ethnics, and anyone not 100% white, Protestant, and Anglo-Saxon had to live in their own neighborhoods. It was unearned privilege, like aristocrats living on a manor for a certain group of whites. It didn’t matter if you were educated-your color guaranteed jobs, housing and the benefits of a middle class existence. It was a world built on the fact that America was the only industrial nation that was up to speed and able to export to a still-recovering world. Russia was still recovering and refusing to update itself, China was prostrate, Europe was still clearing the rubble. In such a world, America could be proligate, even arrogant.
I think the anger is a much a resentment that the lifetime jobs are gone-but the price of those lifetime jobs was shutting out a large amount of America from work that was even slightly lucrative in the private sector.
Midnight Marauder
@Ruckus:
“No.” — General William Tecumseh Sherman, probably
Mnemosyne
@Cargo:
I once saw someone refer to the 1970s as “a more innocent time.” People conflate their own childhood innocence with that of the period they grew up in.
Bago
@4tehlulz: Yellow pixels. Seriously.
WeeBey
@Davis X. Machina:
Sure he does.
Pierce gets frustrated, like we all do.
He’s got POTUS’s back. Trust.
PurpleGirl
@jlow: That’s the ONE thing they don’t want to go back to. Social mores, yes; tax rates, NO.
ETA: Although I agree we need to go back to higher rates; even the Clinton era rates are okay with me.
Cain
@lamh35:
Gosh, I kind of shed a tear there. I love that man. It’s why I work so hard to get him re-elected.
Berial
@Chris: I completely agree about what would happen if we gave conservatives everything they think they want.
I mean letting corporations dump toxic waste strait into water supplies or the air would be okay if not for those damn ‘regulations’ that they seem to hate so much.
Funny how they hardly ever consider that.