As much as I hate election year bullshit, I’m loving this election year, because the Republican primaries have been so clarifying. I feel like everyone in the Democratic party is more cohesive than at any time since I joined you clowns in 2006 or 2007 or whenever it was. The choices are just so clear.
*** Update ***
You ask, I deliver. Here is Tunch mid-saunter:
One of my favorite things about spring (now that I have a fence) is I can just leave the screen door open on the back porch, and the girls and Tunch can come and go as they please. The best part is when I sit out there relaxing, like I just was, and Tunch comes in from the wilds and reliably chirps every time he gets to me before going inside. Kind of the cat way of saying “what up?”
Lojasmo
LOL
schrodinger's cat
On that cheerful note, can we has kitteh? Tunch kitteh. How is the big ball of floof?
lamh35
so did anyone actually watch the “big reaveal” on Hannity?
I haven’t watched FoxNews since 2008 and I aint’ gonna start now
Baud
We were pretty cohesive between the 2008 Democratic convention and election day. Good times.
gbear
It’s been veritastic!
Trentrunner
I just watched the video of Obama making the 3-pointer in front of the troops from 2008 campaign.
Above all, what we need to recognize about Obama is that he is a winner. He just is.
And we Democrats don’t get many of those.
Jeffro
They have, all on their own, helped clarify that this is a “choice” election, not a referendum on Obama/the economy, and for that, I cannot thank them nearly enough…
muddy
Buddy Roemer is talking to Jennifer Grandholm. How does he think he could be prez with that voice and best of all name! President Buddy. Godsdamnit that’s not right.
Ira-NY
Clarifying. Exactly so.
The winner of the Republican nominating process has been Obama.
cyntax
Ahh hell… now you’ve jinxed it.
John O
LOL, John.
You’re right. You look on the right side of the aisle and shake your head a lot if you’re remotely sane. And Obama sets a good tone. I believe it’s called “leadership.”
schrodinger's cat
@gbear: Was he here last night? Boasting about *victory*?
David Koch
WRONG!
We should have listened to our progressive betters and primaryed Barry with Ron Paul!
danielx
Well, yes. It does tend to clarify the decision making process when the choice is between sanity and insanity (of the political variety).
I blame it on the drugs – Little Ricky and Newticles have gone off their antipsychotics, while Mittens appears to be overdoing the Xanax. Better living through chemistry, I always say.
Oh yes, it’s also Obama’s fault.
Keith
@lamh35: I watched the first 10 minutes (up until Fox News started interviewing Gary and Wyatt from Weird Science). The gist of it was that Obama was praising this Harvard professor and also *hugged* him (the big “scandal” was that the guy who had the video held on to it for the ’08 election). Apparently, the prof is like Saul Alinksy in that I’m supposed to know who he is but don’t.
cathyx
The republican lineup is such a joke, it does make it fun to watch.
Cacti
I hear Dennis Kucinich is about to have some free time on his hands.
Maybe we can finally get that all-Keebler Paul/Kucinich purity ticket.
Paula
Really, now?
Wasn’t there yet another 300-comment post on Holder and Al-Awlaki the other day?
Ignore me, I’m grumpy as fuck.
BruceFromOhio
Clown 1: Funny how people pick up on one thing you say and then ignore pretty much everything else.
Clown 2: What did you say? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.
dmbeaster
I am really looking forward to the September/October time frame when peak wingnut goes full metal crazy as a favored Obama nears re-election.
It will be a tough and hard fought campaign, and I intend to volunteer primarily for phone banking as I also did in 2008. By the way, that was an amazing experience due to the organization and smarts of that operation, and I hope it is run as well this time around. I live in California, and we were phone banking North Carolina, Nevada and somewhere else (cant remember). The effort would shift depending on the perceived need based on polling and other data. The orders would go out to locations like ours spread everywhere, and thousands of volunteers would direct their efforts into some fruitful locale using our cells phones to reach out.
WeeBey
Hell yes.
If this woman-hating bullshit is good for one thing, it’s solidarity from the sane.
gbear
@schrodinger’s cat: Yep, he did.
BruceFromOhio
@WeeBey:
Or from the women, at least.
(rimshot)
Amy
The cohesiveness in part stems from Obama being so incredibly consistent. I mean, you look at the #fail Obama-is-scary tape and he’s exactly who he is now: same sort of praise and sense of humor and commitment to conversation and discourse.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Yup. Most true. Some days the ugliness of the GOP underbelly is a bit much to absorb, but overall when I wake up in the morning it’s with some anticipation of how the wingnuts will self immolate today. Even the fact that they will still get 45 percent of the vote doesn’t spoil it. It is such a relief we don’t have to puzzyfoot around with these morons as much, and can put away the wingnut enigma device that explains what they really mean.
It must be frustrati hell for the firebaggers, and I feel the little turdwackers.
jl
And, from yesterday’s Super Tuesday results, it looks like the GOP race is not over, which is good news too. We need more Newt and Santorum acting crazy and offensive in public, and Mitt doing contortions cravenly trying to match them in crazy, but also not match them, at the same time.
Edit: In reality I think it is over, and that Mitt will have enough delegates for desultory nomination at the convention, but the contest will continue wheezing at it crawls towards death for awhile, The clownshow needs to continue closer to the election so it is still clear and fresh in the voters’ minds as the campaign begins.
RossInDetroit
@muddy:
My wife tried to talk me into voting for Buddy in the MI primary because he was the least insane one. I argued that we had to vote for Santorum, who had a chance to humble the hated Mitt. He dropped out before the primary. But it says a lot about the GOP that Buddy & Huntsman, who could have appealed to independents and even many Dems, never had a ghost of a chance and are forgotten.
Laertes
@dmbeaster:
Indiana, maybe? I live in California, and they had me calling Indiana. I was shocked. Having grown up in Indiana, I couldn’t believe it was winnable. Turns out the place has changed a lot since the ’70s.
Schlemizel
John, don’t get too excited yet. I have nearly a 60 year history with us clowns & if there is a way to fuck this up we’ll find it 8-{D
Actually I find this all so depressing – unless there are sane Republicans to run against any assclown can call themselves a Dem & would be a better choice. The window is so far right there are Dems today that would have been on the right fringe of the GOP 30 years ago.
Soonergrunt
Right now, the twitter hashtag #VetThePrez is the source of pretty good stuff. That was the tag the Breitbartlets started out with, but it’s been pretty quickly subsumed by their critics.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dmbeaster: It would be nice if the rest of the Democratic party would recognize this and do it for midterms as well.
Soonergrunt
@Schlemizel: But the window is shifting back.
cbear
Cohesive Democrats? Really?
Hell, just about any normal human being will stop arguing momentarily to watch four monkeys trying to fuck a football.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel: Since you mentioned sanity I’ll share the results of a little playing with photoshop. Starting from the original AP photo, here’s my first attempt at Faireyizing. Yes, I could have just lopped off the hope and replaced it, but I was just killing time.
lamh35
@Keith: I thought I read somewhere that this professor is no longer alive. If so they are maligning a dead guy which is maybe worse than a live one since the live one at least can bite back and defend himself.
So ok…
Schlemizel
@Soonergrunt:
From your lips to His noodley appendage. But I’m an old, I’m a union lovin commie so I just don’t see it moving far enough fast enough. The damage these bastards have done in the last 40 years is dangerous and we don’t have 40 years to undo it.
jl
Thanks to Cole for Tunchpic.
This Tunchpic is remarkable in that he seems to be moving at, for him, a relatively rapid clip, and with some purpose.
Anything up that we should know about? Which way is he headed?
BruceFromOhio
@jl:
Which makes me wonder: how much of this is due to The Grifter Effect? There’s some teh mad SuperPAC money in the mix from Citizens United, and the grifters gotta be smelling it. Sure, sure, the Drug-Addled Gas Bag is losing his throne due to the fleeing of advert dinero, so the Clear Channel gig may be up. OTOH, small groups of moneychangers thinking that the game is afoot seem happy to keep writing the checks to the haters to keep hatin’.
Honestly: if you knew you could make several million dollars to essentially get on a stage and spout that bullshit for an election cycle …. *why the fuck not?* If I was Newt or Ron or Rick, it’s a damn sight better than schlepping my turgid ass down the Silver Walk of Speechifying at $20k/pop.
In an alternate universe where Citizens United never happened, how would GOP Kavalkade of the Klown Kar look today? I hypothesize that one candidate would be vetting his VP running mate on the stump, taking endless potshots at the Teh Black Man in Teh White House while the acolytes sat rapt.
Instead, it’s Universe of Grift, and “fuck America, y’all, it’s PAYDAY.”
kwAwk
The republican race is hypnotizing really.
burnspbesq
@lamh35:
Died last October at age 80. Fought long and hard to increase diversity in law teaching. A good man.
RossInDetroit
@MikeJ:
I like that. It’s really the only argument it’s necessary to make this year. It’s good when things are simple.
The Moar You Know
@jl: By the looks of him food is involved.
Soonergrunt
O/T–ppl on Twitter reporting magnitude 4.7 earthquake in Haiti. I don’t have anything else at this time.
lamh35
Wow, here’s the real Breibart video. Here’s Obama indoctrinating our children again!
http://youtu.be/k3vFlQCE2bk
schrodinger's cat
We has Tunch! Yay! Dare I say, I think Tunch looks a bit slim.
Thanks John, and now I can go to sleep.
P.S. Does Tunch have family in Japan, may be a cousin??
geg6
I just typed a similar musing in the last thread. I won’t repeat it here, but suffice it to say that I feel it, too, John. I’m a natural pessimist, but not feeling that way lately. Clarifying is a very good word for what the GOP nomination process has been. I can only hope that the clarification continues.
And OT, but just another reason I’m suddenly being an optimist. I just got a call from the club (the local VFW). I hit on the weekly book. $430, losers! This is the third time in two months that either my John or I have hit something at the club. I hit a football pool for $200 in January. John hit the weekly book in February for $850. And now this. I never win anything and suddenly I’m winning everything.
freelancer
@Soonergrunt:
I can’t tell what’s real and what’s liberal Poe anymore:
Chris
@Amy:
I gotta admit: I may disagree with him or be disappointed in him from time to time, but I’m absolutely stunned at Obama’s ability to control himself in the face of three years straight of absolute batshit insanity. The guy’s skin must be thicker than elephant hide.
Mike in NC
Will Rogers once had a few things to say about that, or so I’ve read.
Linda Featheringill
@lamh35:
According to wiki, Derrick Bell died on October 5, 2011.
Calouste
@muddy:
Roemer is going to introduce regnal names to the presidency. He will henceforth be known as President Ronald II.
Garbo
Agreed on the animal “Hey.” When my ferrets wake up from any of their numerous naps, they always come find me and press a wet, cold nose against my ankle. I appreciate the check in before they go off to get into whatever mischief they’ve just dreamed up.
lamh35
@lamh35:
Oh yeah and his wife too, turning our kids into sochulust!
http://youtu.be/z9FTflf0F04
lamh35
Oh yeah and his wife too, turning our kids into sochulust!
http://youtu.be/z9FTflf0F04
jl
@BruceFromOhio:
” Which makes me wonder: how much of this is due to The Grifter Effect? ”
I don’t think we are at that stage yet. There have been a couple of early cullings of grifters, so Palin, Perry and Cain are out. The remaining Grifters in Chief (Newt and Rih) still have enough hopes of either winning, or having enough delegates at the convention to be movers and shakers to drop out now.
I think Newt and Santorum both still hope the other will drop out, after which the remaining wingnutter can reap combined wingnut support and give Romney a real run.
So, considering the decision to stay in the race as a purely business proposition is still in the future.
My hunch is that Newt will have to be dragged from the race by a team of draft horses, who will end up with strained muscles, bad backs, and hernias from the Herculean effort, and will never be able to pull even a kids toy wagon again.
Soonergrunt
Charles Johnson just tweeted that most of the links on the Breitbart sites have been broken all day. The site, under the front page, is a confusing mess of 404s.
Not an auspicious beginning for the Breitbartlets.
Veritas
Wow, I’ve been mentioned a hell of a lot here since I was banned a week ago. I guess I should have attended Balloon Juice High.
Miss me yet?
Citizen_X
Oh, this cannot be allowed. LEFTY CIRCULAR FIRING-SQUAD VOLTRON, ASSEMBLE!
jl
@The Moar You Know:
” By the looks of him food is involved. ”
Felt a little shake here, but probably a passing truck or very small earthquake. I guess he was heading for dinner and Tunch is not headed out west.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Nope, that’s echolocation. He’s just making sure where you are in case he needs to take you out.
Killer whales are like that. ;)
I talk to my cats all of the time and they respond using a variety of sounds. My wife once wondered why our cats are so conversant (cats she had as a kid weren’t that talky) and I told her one reason was because I talk to them using a variety of short words in different pitches and if they are really happy they will respond in kind.
I just get along with cats…lol. Our newest kitten thinks of me as his best bud. If I go out to the garage he sits at the back door and meows for a bit, then he picks a step to curl up on until I come back in. He’s almost always there to greet me, which is pretty cool. I play with him all of the time, especially play fighting. He really loves doing that.
I hope he still loves me after his visit to the vet this Friday for his shots and neutering.
RossInDetroit
@Chris:
During the 2008 campaign I was watching a debate with a friend who is AA. There was some insane lying from McCain and I expected Obama to slap him down but he played it low key. I asked “Doesn’t that guy have a boiling point? That BS sure would have blown my top”. He said “He’s a black man with a white mother. He can’t afford to lose his shit”. That’s certainly not all of it but it’s gotta be a factor.
BruceFromOhio
@jl:
(laughter) Perhaps, ah, a corollary of the Callista Effect?
Soonergrunt
From tbogg:
AA+ Bonds
I haven’t been paying attention, has it become big news yet that Rush Limbaugh was suckin Kony off six months ago
BruceFromOhio
@AA+ Bonds: Ewww, you made me click. Ick. (wipes hands on shirt)
jnfr
I wore my Tunch FEED t-shirt to the grocery store this week and got several definite head snaps to re-check it out, like WTF is that on your chest? I was amused. Please let Queen Tunch know.
TooManyJens
@jnfr:
Is there something you know that the rest of us don’t?
trollhattan
@Veritas:
I checked. No.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@AA+ Bonds: I remember that when Obama sent advisers to help the African troops fight the LRA. They are about as Christian as Rush is. Rush had no clue what he was talking about. The LRA kills or maims the men, rapes the women, and kidnaps the children in a village to make them part of the army.
John O
Romney can’t get the working class or the evangelicals; Santorum can’t get women or most people living sometime later than the 19th Century; forget both Paul playing a modified Kucinich role and Gingrich out for the dough.
It’s going to be a problem for them. Their frontrunners have GLARING holes.
Chris
@AA+ Bonds:
Yeah. I facebook-vented about it at the time. But Limbaugh still isn’t their worst offender in that regard – if memory serves, Pat Robertson actually went into business with Charles Taylor and Mobutu Sese Seko.
Chief Brodie
Hey John,
Really long-time lurker here. Thanks for coming over. Enjoy your insights.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@trollhattan: Actually, if someone would just hit him and get it over with, it would all work out better.
AA+ Bonds
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well with this Kony2012 biz apparently the entire world knows that now (thank God) so I was wondering if this and the “Rush loses sponsors” thing had converged yet
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Soonergrunt:
Wow, that Hannity clip shows lady MM coming rather unglued. Of course, this is the person who wrote a book about Obama ‘Culture of Corruption’ during his first three months in office as POTUS. I think even Hannity was taken aback at her ravings.
Hill Dweller
Judicial Watch is suing the Air Force in the DC District Court for access to all the records pertaining to the First Lady’s trip to Spain in 2010.
jl
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
” I talk to my cats ”
I talk to my parents’ cat, who does not seem to remember me from one visit to the next. I chirp and meow to it, and it will at least consider dealing with me after a couple of hours, rather than running behind the nearest piece of furniture whenever I move in its general direction.
My relatives’ dogs are different from that cat. After I did them some service, like dish out their food, or walk them a few times, they remember me no matter how long I have been gone.
My brother’s cat considers all visitors to be like new furniture that moves once in awhile, doesn’t seem to notice much, or care, and doesn’t mind the new moving furniture wants to pet it a little.
AA+ Bonds
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
She only exists because racist white guys jack off to her
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Oh yea, and Malkin’s “supernatural force” that is the late Mr. Breitbart is a keeper.
Chris
@John O:
To put it as simply as possible, Romney can’t get the base, and Gingrich/Santorum can’t get anyone but the base (passing on Ron Paul, who can’t get either). I suspect we’re going to be seeing more of that in future elections, as their base and the rest of the country drift further and further apart.
amk
It was prolly more like “harrumph, fuck you, john”. Think about it.
AA+ Bonds
Kony2012 just proves what we all know: everyone should read the Buffalo Beast
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ:
Niiiiice. May I have your permission to put it on my FB page?
Soonergrunt
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): All true. However, the people who put together that Kony 2012 thing are pretty useless. I don’t have the time to put it all out there, and somebody smarter than me (a HUGE group) has already done that:
Wil Wheaton’s tumblr
freelancer
It really doesn’t get more exemplifying than this:
AA+ Bonds
Its a fat kitty ! ! ! ! !
I cant make a kitty face because WordPress wont let me
RossInDetroit
Maybe auroras tonight. Less likely: Carrington event and end of the world.
I’ll be asleep but night owls with clear skies might get a show.
AA+ Bonds
So let’s just assume for a second I’m made of EM, is this going to kill me
Because, like, we’re all made of waves of energy, man
Spaghetti Lee
@freelancer:
Has there ever been a twitter message that’s entirely hashtags?
RossInDetroit
@AA+ Bonds:
Tinfoil hat and no worries. Grounded, of course.
AA+ Bonds
@Soonergrunt:
I think it is cool that he is properly linking Invisible Children to PLA and interventionism but then he goes off on some grad student business about the relative World of Warcraft level of Kony’s evil and the complex blah blah blah and I mean, come on, I clearly don’t think we should be in Uganda but come ON, the guy is an inhuman monster
Steeplejack
@Soonergrunt:
Jeez, I watched that clip, and Malkin is really getting snarly. Usually I can just laugh her off, but this was unsettling.
Also watched the clip of Obama nailing a three-pointer in TBogg’s previous post. One thing I have noticed is that in any video of his interaction with the troops it is obvious that they love the CINC.
freelancer
@Spaghetti Lee:
Of course.
Also, No one tell Big Breitbart about this skeery photo with OBAMA hugging Malcolm X!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Soonergrunt: Thanks. I didn’t know about the Kony2012 think. Sounds an awful lot like Komen for the Cure.
Scrolling down the tumblr, I did like the gay porn picture made from pictures of Santorum.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
testing testin
Steeplejack
@RossInDetroit:
Ruh-roh! I’m getting on a plane at 0600 EST.
ETA: Plus it’s like a full moon, man! Whoa. Trippy.
AA+ Bonds
@Steeplejack:
LANGOLIERS, SON, LOOK OUT FOR BALKI HE *WILL* BETRAY YOU
beltane
I was looking over my state’s town-by-town results from last night, and I’ve got to say I’ve never seen anything so silly. First of all, turnout in the GOP primary was almost twice what it was in 2008, all of which appears to have been due to Operation Hilarity. Romney won with only 39% of the vote (probably the percentage of actual Republicans who voted in their own primary). If the hippies had been better coordinated, they could very easily have handed Ron Paul a victory, which would have been hilarious. But no, they had to split the Hilarity vote between Paul and Santorum which is really no fun at all.
Cassidy
If I remember right it sounded like an SF Company.
Steeplejack
@AA+ Bonds:
Word.
I was just about to go to bed and try to get a little sleep, but now I might have to have just one more drink.
Cacti
Veritas has a lot less time for trolling since the death of Dimbart forced him to seek gainful employment.
Anne Laurie
@lamh35:
If Professor Bell were still alive, I doubt they’d have the guts to pull this stunt. Or maybe (I suggested this on the last thread) the NYTimes obituary “alerted” them to President Obama’s praise, and it’s taken them five months to track down the video evidence. (Yeah, despite my weak google-fu even I could’ve scoured the PBS archives in rather less than 24 hours, but then my dental work, tho extensive, does not bring in radio waves from Planet Paranois to distract me.)
AA+ Bonds
@Cassidy:
Yeah slowly ratcheting up to 100 dudes does not mean 100 nerdlinger analysts
Scuttlebutt is that we have tried to kill Kony constantly for years, Grayston Orston Thurston the Grad Student at least got that right
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Knock yourself out. Since I ripped off Shepard Fairey ripping of AP, feel free to do what you wish.
gnomedad
Eppur si muove!
beltane
@Cacti: Really? I just assumed that Veritas was Megan McArdle’s trolling name and that he/she/it was on sabbatical. It’s not like her kitchen is going to remodel itself.
Gravenstone
@jl: To the food, of course.
windpond
I just love Balloon Juice – wonderful posts, excellent comments – makes my day, every day.
Anoniminous
@AA+ Bonds:
This a plot by the AI to force our bodies – being wet cell batteries, after all – to store EVEN MOAR electrical power!
(Jeez. Didn’t you see The Matrix?)
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ:
Terrif, i’ll blithely rip off you in that case. Thanks.
Soonergrunt
@AA+ Bonds: He is, but there are better ways of dealing with him than what those film makers propose. That’s his (and my) point.
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: About that size, give or take a few strap hangers.
hhex65
Where is the consensus at regarding the redesign? Might I assume there will be a like button and nested comments in the new Juice?
Cassidy
So we have a new kitten. He’s very cute and a lap cat and all the things kitten is. I found him a couple of days ago hanging around outside and I fed him a couple of times. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring him in (we have 2 dogs and 2 cats), but I didn’t want to call anyone as I didn’t want him put down. So, my wife came outside to smoke with me and found the little guy and made faces at me while I proceeded to give my very logical explanation why bringing him in is a bad idea. Afterward I went to Walmart and got another litterbox. I think I lost the argument.
On the plus side he spent most of the morning curled up in my lap.
muddy
I don’t know if it gets buggy there, but those screens with the magnetic closure that hang in the door are good for dogs. One of my cats goes over the fence, the dog is against this, he knows the rules. After many puppy months of escapeeism. The other cat, similar in size and shape as Tunch, is severely agoraphobic. He has gone off the covered porch a couple of times, hugging the wall real tight, looking up at the sky over his shoulder with a real look of horror. He slinks along so low his pendulous belly drags. After the first time he couldn’t even go on the porch afterwards for a week. I’ve never seen the like in a cat.
trollhattan
Steampunk corkscrew, anybody?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31cl8Obftdg&feature=player_embedded
kooks
What I find hilariously ironic is that this is exactly the primary that the republican establishment wanted, the drawn out Obama vs. Hillary battle – and it’s killing the establishment’s preferred candidate in the process!
When everyone says “why can’t Romney wrap this up?”, they forget that he was never supposed to. They scheduled a gazillion debates and switched to awarding delegates by proportionate share in a bunch of states – this was always supposed to drag out until the convention to fire up the base. But it’s like the republican elites never stopped to think who was going to be Romney’s Hillary.
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: That’s what I thought. When I heard the number, I immediately thought that was 3 ODA’s and a B team.
danielx
@Chris:
And none of the three can win in a general election for the reasons you mentioned. Which is fine, short term, but long term? If or when Obama is re-elected, the base is going to go absolutely stark raving batshit; much worse than they have been, though I admit that’s difficult to believe. The 27% have a shit ton of firearms and a lot of them have fantasies about using them when they’re on top of the world, like from 2001 to 2006 or so. Hell, they’ve been stockpiling ammunition since January of 2009, and Obama’s election was the greatest boost for firearms sales in decades. A lot of them believe that Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and nothing – repeat, nothing – is going to convince them differently. Example: these folks will tell you that the fact that Obama has done nothing to increase regulations on firearms only proves the conspiracy to confiscate their guns is so deep-seated and sinister that only they can discern it. To them, Obama’s re-election will mean either that the election was stolen, or most of their fellow citizens are fools or traitors, or all the above. Their worldview is the 27% Crazification Factor.
That’s a major difference between true wingnuts and the rest of the populace. Somebody on here or on the Great Orange Satan’s site might say something like “good riddance” about Andrew Breitbart, but commentors on Red State and a lot of other winger sites talk about how Democrats and liberals should be shot, hanged, etc and they’re perfectly serious about it. What others regard as irresponsible and crazy they regard as normal and even praiseworthy.
suzanne
Ahhh, Tunchie makes it allllllll better. (Been in work hell for the last couple of weeks.)
Heard this badass song today. Soooo good.
kathy
@Trentrunner: well put. and how.
Steeplejack
@hhex65:
Go to hell, you fascist bastard.
beltane
DKos has a Siena poll of New York up which shows Obama beating Newt Gingrich in a hypothetical matchup by a margin of 66-27%. 27 truly is the magic number.
Steeplejack
@Cassidy:
Good on you. At least you’re not where my friends are yet.
Anonymous At Work
John,
That “chirping” is the cat-way of demanding that you go and pay attention to Tunch as he leaves the building…or there’ll be consequences later. Cats are evil, adorable but evil…
amk
@Steeplejack: +1. Let’s hope cole/tunch let the sleeping dogs lie.
amk
hannity exclusive: Previously unseen photo of Pres Obama hugging a jihadist.
Chris
@danielx:
Historically, movements that are on their way out and feel like they can’t win in the legitimate political arena anymore often spawn terrorist campaigns. In the fifties and sixties, the age of decolonization and desegregation, you had the OAS in France and a KKK revival in America. In the seventies and eighties, with the failure of the 1968 movements and the rightward shift of the West, you had the rise of the Red Brigade/Baader Meinhoff types. And after 1992 and 2008 both, you had an upswing in militia movement activities in the U.S.
I don’t buy the stories of a second Civil War, but I do think that, if we really do get our wish, finally turn things around, and consign the current conservative movement to minority status, you’re going to see an increase in militia terrorism that dwarfs anything they’ve done so far.
Anoniminous
@danielx:
The GOP base suffers from functional Paranoid Personality Disorder:
“Functional” meaning they can engage Reality, but only on a limited basis. Which, in turn, leads to a social coping strategy of Right Wing Authoritarianism.
AA+ Bonds
Does your fat kitty make those strangled i cant quite meow noises like that fat kitty in the video who is on an underwater treadmill to lose weight b/c that is my favorite part of fat kitties
Anoniminous
sob
I’ve been moderatedized!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Chris: “I don’t buy the stories of a second Civil War…”
Nor do I. The Hoveround doesn’t have that kind of range.
freelancer
#VetThePrez follower doesn’t know wtf “Vetting” is:
ETA:
AA+ Bonds
that strangled fat cat noise where its like Myeh and gives up and has to breathe in and half the time its totally silent
its funny how things that make humans terrible are neat in house pets
AA+ Bonds
The Wetting of Obama
Water balloon
I disagree. 2004 was really the high point of Democratic unity. Even Noam Chomsky was hinting that people should vote for Kerry.
Soonergrunt
@Anoniminous: cleared
hhex65
@Steeplejack: so no one wants to hear my ‘paywall’ ideas? –ok…
Martin
Rachel’s analysis of Romney’s situation was just brutal. The takeaways:
Even though the primary turnout has been low for the GOP compared to 2008, the >$100K income turnout has rise by about 50%, and Romney has won that demographic in every race, even the states where he got killed, like Georgia and SC.
This presents two HUGE problems for the GOP in the general:
1) The primary turnout is effectively even worse than we previously thought – particularly among what would normally be considered the GOP base.
2) That $100K demographic in the primary doesn’t materially help the GOP, because Obama is probably going to win that demographic – there’s more upper-middle income lawyers and doctors and whatnot than venture capitalists out there. They aren’t representative of who is going to turn out for the GOP, who is going to work for them. This isn’t the religious right. This isn’t the blue-collar white voters that McCain carried. This is, frankly, a disaster for them. Their base hates this guy. They’re going to stay home.
This is going to look like 1964 if something doesn’t change in a big way and Obama hasn’t even gotten in the ring yet.
jl
@hhex65:
At least Cole did not rule out a holodeck and dioramas for the new blog format. There is hope yet.
Also too, Tunchbucks, which we can use for smokes, booze, Pr0n and other survival necessities in the dystopian wasteland that remains after peak wingularity.
Edit: On other hand, Cole might decide to have a paywall to get out of comments. You can check in but never check out until you pay. Won’t last long but will rake in a few bucks to stave off the pets from eating him for a few weeks.
Citizen_X
@muddy:
Wow! Your cat was kidnapped by aliens?
ETA: Then again, this
sounds kind of Lovecraftian. So it was the Elder Gods/Cthulhu type of aliens?
scav
@Chris: NY Times today: Number of U.S. Hate Groups Is Rising, Report Says (SPLC report), so yes, been rising.
dogwood
@Anne Laurie:
Same thing with Bill Ayers. He’s been fairly high profile in Chicago for a long time, but Republicans didn’t have the guts to use him as a political tool until after both his parents had passed away. They Ayers were big-time wealthy, prominent Republicans.
AA+ Bonds
@Soonergrunt:
Ooh the eXile reposted the 2002 War Nerd piece on LRA
cxs
@lamh35: Died in October last year> Pretty sure same day as Jobs.
scav
@freelancer: I am somehow struck by the thought that I may very well be watching Humpty Dumpty after he’s dropped acid. @Words Mean Exactly #What I Want Them to @Mean #VetTheKingsHorses
Spaghetti Lee
@freelancer:
Is this whole ‘vetting’ thing another wingnut code word? Honestly, whenever I hear it, all that comes to mind is some fat KKK apparatchik sitting at a voting booth and telling a black guy to take a poll test.
cxs
@lamh35: Died in October last year. Pretty sure same day as Jobs.
AA+ Bonds
FP of FoxNews.com right now:
ICE guidelines call for taxpayer-funded transgender hormone treatments for some detainees
Looks like Dead Breitbart really SEALED THE DEAL
TooManyJens
@Spaghetti Lee: What it means is that since the media haven’t yet discovered that Obama is a Muslim commie who hates America, Christians, and white people (but I repeat myself), they’ve been protecting him from scrutiny. I’d like to be exaggerating.
Anoniminous
@Soonergrunt:
One of these days I’ll remember: two links max. Thanks.
O/T, but relevant:
There’s a REALLY good interview with Yanis Varoufakis here.
As long as Dems stick with Neo-Classical Economic theory we’re never, ever, going to start climbing our way out of the mire.
Soonergrunt
@Spaghetti Lee: Well, you and I and other Not-crazy people think that “vetting” refers to a process whereby information about a candidate’s past, views, positions, abilities, and proclivities will be discovered and aired for general consumption by first the party and then, if the candidate makes it that far, the public as a whole, who, properly informed about these properties, will cast their votes accordingly.
Michelle Malkin, the Breitbartlets, Sean Hannity and the conservatwitterers think it means a process by which a hated and despised darkie non-citizen-type will be completely politically destroyed through innuendo, lies, and the procurement or manufacture of false evidence.
This has been an unnecessarily long answer to a short question. You’re welcome.
amk
“Mitt Romney is quick to point to his laundry list of powerful supporters on Capitol Hill who see him as the best candidate to take on President Barack Obama this fall.
But in many cases, those endorsements have fallen flat.
Romney has been trounced in several states where he has received key congressional endorsements, the latest sign of the waning influence of the Washington establishment on GOP primary voters. On Super Tuesday, Romney had the support of Sens. Tom Coburn, the conservative stalwart from Oklahoma, John Hoeven, a popular former governor from North Dakota, and Lamar Alexander, a longtime figure in Tennessee politics.
He lost all three states handsomely to Rick Santorum.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73762.html#ixzz1oV2emukM
Karma.
freelancer
@Soonergrunt:
My earlier tweet from the evening:
AA+ Bonds
Its still so cool that Andrew Breitbart is dead
Food tastes . . .foodier, my foreskin cyst is gone… it’s almost like there’s a God, and he rode up Andrew Breitbart’s snort on a rail
muddy
@Citizen_X:
He came at 2 months old from the house across the street, a home that features roving packs of both teenagers and toddlers, he may have been over-handled. You’d think think the scuttling about fearfully would burn some calories, but no.
He’s a real bastard too, if I don’t put the food out at night he will slip his arm under the cover and slit me under the toes.
muddy
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I dunno, I know lots of these guys in VT, I can only imagine Idaho.
John O
@freelancer:
You sir, are a racist, and also probably an anti-Semite.
danielx
@AA+ Bonds:
Y’know, I’m pleased that you’re getting warm fuzzies, but I could happily have spent the rest of my life without that second piece of information.
@muddy:
There are a lot of them in Indiana, for certain, and they generally believe Obama is the fucking devil. Really. They’re sort of torn between “support the troops” and “OMG the black helicopters!”. Lotta cognitive dissonance going on, you’d think they would be incapacitated by headaches.
Martin
@danielx:
Bit of a misnomer. Specifically its your brain that hurts, which you understand is why they don’t suffer from that particular affliction.
Vodkamuppet
Really? 2006-2007? It took you that long? Gah.
Jeffraham Prestonian
I have never seen a white cat with yellow tabby tail and ears, before. Tunch is unique, in my experience.
.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Soonergrunt: #VetThePrez is a good source of grade-A, wingnut morons, indeed.
piratedan
@scav: how nice of the NYT to check up on that. Hell, I believe Olbermann was noting this six months post the 2008 election, but for some reason, all the focus on this went away post the Tucson shootings, go figure (cue lone crazy guy and unrelated incident spiel with a side of “they’re taking away our guns” paranoia).
Mnemosyne
@Jeffraham Prestonian:
Speculation around these here parts is that Tunch has a big chunk of Turkish Van in his ancestry. Or that he’s sitting on an orange tabby that John never told us about.
I’ve seen your pictures of Larry and Curly, but I’m a little afraid to ask where Moe is. We get sad animal stories here sometimes.
freelancer
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Check the source of the source. Dana Loesch is whining that Buzzfeed did selective editing in paying to show just Obama’s speech from Harvard instead of the entire Frontline segment that was aired. She’s whining that after it was pointed out by Buzzfeed that excerpting the entire segment would have cost them thousands:
Dana Loesch is so dumb that she works in media yet considers having to pay to re-broadcast copyright material as “bias”.
TBogg is right.
scav
It’s getting weirder: Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal, also apparently old news but a bit too much for me to take in suddenly. Mr Pray Away Tornadoes is doing this to me on a night already filled with hashtags. help.
ETA
that boy’s been at the chalice and the new formula wafers again, o! boy.
Calouste
@Chris:
On the other hand, there were real concerns of a civil war instigated by the Afrikaner Weerstands Beweging in South Africa in the early 90s, but although there were some incidents, in the end nothing really major happened. Turns out that if you shoot a few of the racists fucks, the others lose their enthousiasm pretty quickly.
Hill Dweller
@freelancer: I saw Loesch on Maher’s show last year, and she really is slow. The budget deficit and national debt being two different things seemed to allude her.
Mnemosyne
@freelancer:
It’s so weird, Dana went into Macys the other day and they refused to give her a sweater for free, but they let somebody else buy that same sweater! Isn’t that preferential?
(Edited to hone the metaphor)
pseudonymous in nc
@Martin:
Outside Mormonia, Romney’s winning in the places, down to the county level, where Obama is likely to win in November. The maps overlay eerily well.
Like I said last night, that’s some shit sandwich for the 27%ers to eat.
asiangrrlMN
TUNCHIEEEEEEEEE! Lurv lurv lurv that kitteh. Thanks, Cole!
Martin
@pseudonymous in nc: I cannot wait to see what is unleashed in Texas. Last poll I saw, Romney was at 16% there. I really, really, really want to see Obama win Texas. That would be apocalyptic.
ET
Tunch action shot!!!!!
kdaug
@suzanne: Damnit Suzanne. This will be going through my head all day.
I’ll be doing the fucking conga down the hallways.
jpeg
My cat doesn’t chirp so I have no idea what it sounds like. Looking at the ASPCA website, though, I think John better be afraid:
Also, I humbly request a video of Tunch chirping.
Jeffraham Prestonian
@Mnemosyne: Moe was a planned addition, but honestly, two cats is all I can handle at once.
.
Darkrose
TUNCH!
That’s a fantastic shot of him in motion. He has places to go and a lot of stuff to eat.