Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Open Thread: Remembering What’s At Stake

Open Thread: Remembering What’s At Stake

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Sahil Kapur, at TPM, on the House GOP’s “new budget predicament“:

For most observers, the biggest question about the House Republicans’ forthcoming budget is how they’ll handle the issue of Medicare. Will they readopt the same phase-out and privatize policy that got them into political trouble last year? Or will they, at least to some extent, scale back their vision?
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But the bigger question has nothing to do with Medicare. The bigger question is whether House Republicans can pass a budget at all.
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The dilemma, first noted by Daniel Newhauser of Roll Call, is a straightforward outgrowth of the self-governance problem the GOP’s dealt with since it reclaimed the majority last year. A sizable faction of the party wants to make a big statement with the budget, and, perhaps, use it as a tool to cut further into domestic federal programs. But others in the party — including some in the leadership — want to avoid an election year clash that threatens a government shutdown. They want to hew to the spending levels they agreed upon with Democrats last year when they resolved the debt limit standoff…

Your modern Republican legislators in action: Do we stand by the promises we’ve made, and maybe even do the job we’ve campaigned so hard to get paid for? Or do we further beclown ourselves with “big statements” funneled straight from the corporations-are-people plutocrats who own our shriveled souls?

Look at the expression on Paul Ryan there — the sorrowful, abashed incomprehension of a dog getting yelled at for raiding the trashcan, again. But that happened in the dead past — minutes and minutes ago! pleads the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver* (h/t Charlie Pierce). And besides, rooting in stink for leftover garbage is in my nature!

Paul Ryan and his fellows are never going to stop trying. We can’t afford to stop fighting them.

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  1. 1.

    cathyx

    This is so easy to solve. Just blame the democrats for keeping them from doing what they want to do. Works every time.

  2. 2.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    Hey, Raven. You got your ears on? Some person with the handle “The Raven” was here the other night confusing the fuck out of people. S/he was a nihilistic dumbass. To your credit, you are seldom so, and people noticed. Just letting you know if nobody else has yet.

    How are things in the Classic City? Is the air crackling with Newtyness?

    I just got back in from there (ETA: “There” being Toccoa, not Athens, unfortunately.) I didn’t feel anything, but I’m not nearly as in tune with the redneck zeitgeist as I used to be. Living in the Triangle has made me soft, I guess.

  3. 3.

    geg6

    I can’t see a picture of this asshole without thinking “zombie-eyed granny starver.” That fucking Pierce really can turn a phrase.

  4. 4.

    quannlace

    That face is straight from the old ‘Davy and Goliath’ cartoons.

    “Ooohhh, Davy,”

  5. 5.

    General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)

    Yep, that’s the classic Paul Ryan look, true belief. It just screams out, THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND, THE PEASANTS WILL NEVER LOVE US UNTIL WE STARVE THEM A LITTLE.

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    an election year clash that threatens a government shutdown

    They couldn’t possibly be that stupid, could they?

  7. 7.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Just saw a tweet from Ben Smith, Obama in an uncontested primary in OH got more votes 100K than all of the republican candidates combined. Gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

  9. 9.

    Lolis

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Awesome news! I have a hard time thinking this will be a nailbiter come November. I still plan on volunteering and donating before you all get worked up about my lack of concern.

  12. 12.

    demimondian

    This November is going to be *very* close. Obama is still running with an unemployment rate of 8+%, remember.

    And, besides, he’s *beige*! Did you notice that he’s *not white*? That is *beige*!

  16. 16.

    The Dangerman

    Go ahead and shut the government down right before the election. Go for it. Sack up (those with the right equipment).

    Assholes.

  17. 17.

    lamh35

    Wait is it against Palin’s contract to appear on CNN? She was at a caucus in Alaska and CNN is actually covering it and Palin actually had an extended interview on CNN.

    BWHAHAHA.

    Even Greta Van Susteren tweeted “Gov Palin on CNN???”

  18. 18.

    Short Bus Bully

    Their backs are against the wall, they need to do something. Chances are good that stepping on their own collective dicks is high on the agenda.

    /popcorn

  20. 20.

    jgaugust

    Watching the Gingrich speech. Guy standing right behind him has the same burnt orange skin tone as his tie. I’m actually transfixed by it.

  21. 21.

    Soonergrunt

    Breaking–Constant Contact has ended their association with the Rush Limbaugh Show.

  22. 22.

    Gex

    @The Dangerman: This reminds me of a thread where a guy friend of mine defended my GF in a thread about rape jokes. He was gentle about it, and later told my GF he would have gone at the other guys harder, but he’s “too much of a pussy.” So very close to getting it.

  24. 24.

    jgaugust

    Also, I’m not crazy in thinking that Newt’s wife’s nose looks like a chicken’s beak, right? Her nose looks crazy pointy.

  25. 25.

    David Koch

    I don’t care if Romney ends Medicare.

    This election is about payback!

    This time we get even with Barry for stealing the nomination from Hillary.

  26. 26.

    MariedeGourany

    Something about the ‘nice clean cut young man’ look he has just unnerves me. Like if pulled his nose his face would rip off and there’d be a cockroach head staring back at you…hungry and dripping.

  27. 27.

    Calouste

    WOW: Limbaugh taken to the woodshed in the WaPo

    I was surprised yet delighted that he finally forthrightly addressed his past criminal charges stemming from his addiction to prescription painkillers, saying he used them to numb his conscience to the terrible knowledge that his soul had become “a spavined, corrupt, shriveled, pathetic, withered little thing, not unlike my manhood.” That final reference was to a 2006 contretemps in which he was detained at an airport for carrying 29 100-mg Viagra pills in a mislabeled bottle. Yesterday, Limbaugh admitted this was enough Viagra “to arouse a corpse” but noted that he needs the extra stimulation since “the only woman I ever found truly sexy was my mommy, circa 1978.”

    All of these frank disclosures, which I applaud, come just a few days after Limbaugh finished his bizarre attack on Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student. Lost in much of the deserved furor over his unprovoked, leering, sex-frothed tirade against a young woman Limbaugh clearly fantasizes about when alone in futile but increasingly desperate efforts at self arousal that sometimes involve industrial power tools – lost in all this was a rather astonishing fact: All of his criticisms stemmed from the constantly restated falsehood, a total invention by Limbaugh, that Ms. Fluke – and here I quote Limbaugh directly (and accurately, for the first time in this post) — “goes to a Congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi and testifies that she is having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills!”

    Turning Limbaugh’s own guns against him.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    @David Koch: Most Hillary supporters are quite proud of her role as Secretary of State. Normally I can laugh at your sarcasm but this one doesn’t cut it.
    BTW ..Wouldn’t it be lovely if she were appointed to the Supreme CT. That’s what I want to see.

  30. 30.

    David Koch

    @JPL: 3 weeks ago, I encounter a PUMA (in person) who told me she wasn’t voted for Obama because of the way he’s treated Hillary. I wish I was joking, but I’m not.

  32. 32.

    geg6

    @Calouste:

    Holy shit! Who wrote that? I might actually have to click on a WaPo link, something I haven’t done in about 2 years.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @David Koch:

    You mean the way he totally dissed and insulted her by appointing her Secretary of State, arguably the most powerful woman in the world right now? What a cad.

  34. 34.

    muddy

    @Calouste: This was my favorite part:

    Perhaps the most surprising, if creepy, revelation involved Limbaugh’s frank revulsion at his own body, which he said resembles “a gelatinous oblate spheroid, a weather balloon filled with tapioca pudding and snot”; creepier, still, was what he said next, which was: “I really wish I could carry myself as gracefully as President Obama, who has an effortless, Astaire-like, achingly beautiful way of moving.”

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Calouste:

    Holy crap, Gene Fucking WEINgarten?? I stopped reading him years ago, his schtick was so lame and predictable. I may need to reconsider. That was righteous.

    @muddy:

    “Weather balloon filled with tapioca pudding and snot.” LOL. If he keeps this up he could understudy for Charlie Pierce’s Esquire gig.

  40. 40.

    Mike G

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m amazed to see something that snarky in the pablum-establishment Washington Pest. Weingarten obviously put some pent-up personal animus into that column.

  43. 43.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    @Calouste: That fucker will be unemployed by this time tomorrow. And that’s a shame, because that post was a thing of beauty.

  44. 44.

    Scamp Dog

    @geg6: Gene Weingarten, who may be the only smart person working at the WaPo. Or at least the only smart person who writes for the Post: there’s a copy editor he works with who took over the Style Invitational (a humor contest) from him.

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