Stay classy, wingnuts:
Jay Townsend, a campaign spokesman for Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth (NY-19), weighed in on a local Facebook discussion with a violent comment about Democratic women in Congress, and his suggestion is now earning the congresswoman condemnation from one of her Democratic challengers.
The Facebook page, called NY19 U.S. House of Representatives Discussion Center, encourages “civil multi-partisan discussion about issues impacting citizens of New York’s U.S. House District represented by Republican Congresswoman Nan Hayworth.” On it, a question about gas prices was also critical of Hayworth. Townsend responded to one commenter, Tom, by bringing up the “war on women” and suggested they “hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators.”
The comment:
Listen to Tom. What a little bee he has in his bonnet. Buzz Buzz. My question today … when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women? Let’s hurl some acid at those female democratic Senators who won’t abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector.
Charming people.
David Koch
———-> Jail Bait
redshirt
Libtards made them say it!
The Golux
John Hall’s old district. * Sigh *
Yutsano
@redshirt: The press is busy digging for a similar remark by a Democrat or a Democratic spokesman so they can proudly declare, “BOTH SIDES DO IT!!”.
David Hunt
I think I’d have interpreted that as a suggesting the hurling of comments that were verbally acidic, but I can be generous in interpreting people motivations sometimes. I don’t get how moving from gas prices to the War on Women and Lily Ledbetter is anything but deflection, but that’s probably because it isn’t anything but defection.
Chris
Odds on this guy calling it a joke and blaming everyone else for not having a sense of humor?
owlbear1
John, really?
She certainly should have used the word “vitriol” but it is a real stretch to think she meant literally throw acid at them.
Bret
Chicks, man.
David Koch
@Yutsano:
/fixed
geg6
OT, but I’m not in the least surprised by this:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/john_edwards_not_guilty_on_one_count_deadlocked_on_5_counts.php?ref=fpa
I really don’t think you can criminally prosecute a man for being a horrible husband and boyfriend. If that were true, my ex would be in prison for life.
jl
@David Hunt:
I would like to give it a favorable, but I think strained interpretation of ‘acidic’ language. Maybe she meant ‘acerbic’, but not sure it would be sensible to say ‘Let’s throw some acerb in their faces’.
At some point, common sense and common decency says to stop trying to explain the violent ideations away.
Also, some more evidecne they are delusional:
North Carolina Bill Would Have State Ignore Faster Rising Seas
TPM
‘ Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are circulating a bill which would limit their state agencies’ ability to calculate sea-rise levels, a proposal that one member of the state’s Coastal Resources Commission science panel has termed “bad science.” ‘
[Edit: forgot to add how they will measure sea rise: the leg will dictate that predictons of sea levels must be linear extrapolations of historical trend]
These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/north_carolina_sea_level_global_warming.php?ref=fpblg
Stuck in the Funhouse
A long time ago, I ceded, to a significant degree, the baton of sensibility to the female population. In general, though I reserved the right to quibble over the details of their superior assessment to most things social, and greater loyalty to the gawds of common fairness. They, for the most part, don’t have to struggle with wasted energy, through the Labyrinth of the male ego apparatus for such matters and the resistance to good sense by oodles of testosterone interference, that usually begin with an interior inspection of our own asses. And then goes downhill from there.
But when I read statements like the quote above, I got to shake my head in bewilderment, at why a member of the fairer sex, in most ways, can say something seemingly so stupid, regressive, and an all around surrender to her own best interests. And I am at best, a recovering sexist pig. I just don’t get it. Unless it has something to do with money, or some cockeyed version of gaining power, by cutting your own throat as an opening act. Wingnuts? an eternal mystery. male/or female.
David Koch
Just another example of the politically correct left, unleashing the thought police to ban the first amendment.
FREEEEDOOOOOOOM!
Linda Featheringill
Would this fall under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service?
trex
Charming fellow. I wonder if he’s available for childrens’ parties?
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Those odds are high. No bookie in Vegas will touch them.
longtime lurk
I know nothing about this guy or the congressperson he works for, but if they are Republicans then, sure, it is safe to assume they are both dicks.
But lets be fair: in context this phrase looks quite clearly to be metaphoric. (As in “acid-tongued”, for example.) Is this really the kind of thing we’re going to spend our time getting upset about?
Yutsano
@Linda Featheringill: They don’t protect the Senate. However the Capitol police might be rather interested here.
Randy P
@owlbear1: Yes, obviously, because that’s such a common turn of phrase when people mean “yell insults”.
Amir Khalid
@owlbear1:
Vitriol is acid — sulfuric acid was historically called “oil of vitriol”.
japa21
In regard to some comments, it was not the congresswoman making this comments, but it sound like they came form a male staffer.
And in regards to Chris’ comments about the odds he will say it was just a joke and people don’t have a sense of humor, he will then go on to add, I am sorry if anybody was offended by it. The typical Republican non-apology apology.
replicnt6
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Easy: it wasn’t a member of the “fairer” sex. It was a spokesman, Jay Townsend.
Linda Featheringill
Wait a minute. These comments were made by Jay Townsend. According to google, Jay is a guy. She [the representative] wasn’t directly involved in this exchange. Right? So what’s with the “I can’t believe she said blah, blah, blah”?
That doesn’t mean that she’s goody two shoes but only that she might be innocent of this particular set-to.
She does have the responsibility, though, of publicly reacting to these comments made by Jay as he works for her campaign.
owlbear1
Read past the first definition to the second one.
That is the word I was referencing.
===
NOUN (2)
1. (H2SO4) a highly corrosive acid made from sulfur dioxide; widely used in the chemical industry;
[syn: vitriol, oil of vitriol, sulfuric acid, sulphuric acid]
2. abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will;
[syn: vituperation, invective, vitriol]
VERB (2)
1. expose to the effects of vitriol or injure with vitriol;
2. subject to bitter verbal abuse;
NCSteve
@David Hunt: Given that he’s saying “I got your ‘War on Women’ right here, libtards!” and that having acid thrown in your face is a well-known punishment administered by ignorant Islamic fundie sociopaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan to uppity women and girls who engage in sluttish inappropriate behavior such as trying to acquire an education, I’d call that going well beyond “benefit of the doubt” and into “well-intentioned blindness to evil” territory.
Yutsano
@japa21: It’s the congresswoman who is looking worse here. Her spokesman made this comment with no context about whether it was just his opinion or an official declaration of the congresswoman. And her lack of any action so far is rather telling, because not acting is tacitly accepting that statement as her official position. Which should immediately disqualify her from office.
I know, I know, IOKIYAR and stuff.
taylormattd
John, you are missing the important story of the afternoon:
John Edwards is like super innocent and shit, ok?
JRE 2012 FOREVAR!!!
Stuck in the Funhouse
@replicnt6:
Jeebus, I read that as jill, or something. So, nevermind, and thanks for not calling me an idiot with my comment, that would have been a deserved result.
Linda Featheringill
@Yutsano:
I think that some law enforcement attention is called for. The guy [Jay Townsend] was advocating bodily harm to those senators.
And to everyone who thinks he meant for folks to say harmful things about the female Democratic senators: You obviously don’t live in Cleveland. Around here, “throw acid on” means to throw acid on.
Randy P
@owlbear1: Let me ask you honestly. If you read “Man arrested for throwing acid at wife”, do you read that metaphorically?
Let’s take out the arrest part so you don’t claim that’s a clue to the violent interpretation. How about “demonstrators throw acid at FBI building”. What’s your first impression of what they were doing?
Yes, we have expressions like “acid-tongued” in English. But I have never, ever heard the expression “throw acid at…” used in a metaphoric sense.
JGabriel
__
__
Slightly OT, but the Indiana Senate race may have just become winnable:
__
Wow.
Seems like Mourdock has pissed off a fair number of people he’s worked with over the years.
Good times.
.
beltane
But Hilary Rosen said something mean about Ann Romney. Both sides do it!
Cato
@JGabriel:
Doesn’t matter. Just like with Walker, the Super PACs are going to be bringing in MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of dollars to elect Mourdock.
Look at what is happening in Wisconsin. The Super PACs backing walker have a ONE BILLION DOLLAR warchest!
MattF
So, what’s going on here with these wingers saying what they’re thinking? Some Republican with a brain needs to sit them down and say ‘Don’t do that‘….
Ahh… I see the problem…
David Koch
I blame DWS!
owlbear1
I didn’t read “man throws acid in wife’s face”
I read “when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on all the Lilly Ledbetter hypocrites who claim to be fighting the War on Women?
Then I read the sentence:
Let’s hurl some
acidvitriol at those female democratic Senators who won’t abide the mandates they want to impose on the private sector.It was a stupid choice of words but becoming hyperbolic about it and dragging out fainting couches is a tool the Republicans have tuned to a fine art.
beltane
@Randy P: In English we say “spewing venom” but never “throwing acid” unless one is referring to the literal throwing of acid. There is also “dropping acid” but I am pretty sure this is not what the staffer meant.
Thoughtcrime
OT, but Jed Lewison @ the GOS nails Romney’s campign BS events today:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/31/1096275/-Next-thing-you-know-Mitt-Romney-will-accuse-President-Obama-of-running-Bain-Capital
________________________
…With one visit to the failed solar energy firm Solyndra, Mitt Romney hit a perfect trifecta today—a perfect trifecta in that he leveled three separate accusations against President Obama … each of which were not only false, but the mirror image of valid criticisms against Mitt Romney.
First, Romney’s campaign cloaked his visit to Solyndra in secrecy, refusing to tell reporters where they were going when they set out to stage the event. Their explanation for the secrecy?
“We knew, if word got out, that Solyndra would do everything in their power, and the Obama administration would do everything in their power, to stop us from having this news conference,” the adviser said.
Asked how the Obama administration could prevent an event staged on public property, the adviser said there might be a way.
“Well, he’s only the president of the United States,” the adviser said. “I mean, they could work with town officials to deny us access.”
Not only is that Glenn Beck-style black helicopter nonsense, Romney’s own campaign earlier today disrupted an Obama campaign press conference, hoping to shut down a discussion of Mitt Romney’s record…
qwerty42
@jl:
I suspect this is really an effort to help their developer buddies along the NC coast. They carry on as though this is all “bad science” (let’s assume they actually do have some understanding of the term and not “put a piece of litmus paper in a petrie dish”), but this gets the rubes all excited. Of course, the actual insurance companies don’t believe the NC legislature can any more control the rising oceans than it can resist the $$$ from developer buddies, so the really interesting thing to watch is what will happen when they deny flood insurance coverage.
Ash Can
I fail to see anything remotely referring to invective in what Townsend said. Since when is “hurling acid” a metaphor for anything? That’s nonsense. Townsend is a schmuck, his language is inflammatory at best, and Hayworth needs to fire him from her campaign. Period.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@owlbear1: Go look at John’s post again: The outer block quote means he’s copied someone else. Second, the point of the post is to point out that rather than arguing over the merits of the discussion, Jay decided that it was OK to attack the female Democratic members.
honus
@NCSteve:It’s not a Muslim thing. The old acid in the woman’s face has also long been used as punishment by Americans. See Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame in “The Big Heat”
David Koch
@taylormattd: JRE is the only True Progressive™
jibeaux
If a paid professional campaign spokesman for a United States Congresswoman can’t do better than troll, insult, and threaten violence, he needs to be fired and head on back to his Cheeto-eating career. What he said isn’t on the Congresswoman, unless she keeps him.
jl
@owlbear1:
Using either is ‘uncivil’.
Quit making excuses for the wingnuts.
The spokesman was out of line, and candidate has responsibility for what he says, or at least to respond if he says something out of line, and this was out of line.
Edit: and if the spokesman does not apologize or does it again, to fire him.
American Taliban is just the right word for the wingnuts: they are irrational, use images of violence to attack their opponents, and have habitually used harassment and intimidation to shut down their opponents (think Congressional townhall meetings during the Year of Nobama Care).
I criticize the Code Pink tactics that go over the line, I sure will criticize these wingnut thugs.
JGabriel
@owlbear1: Do you throw with your tongue?
If you do, can you teach me? I’d imagine that kind of tongue strength can be pretty handy.
You can speak acidly with your tongue, or you can “hurl acid” with your hands. “Hurling acid” is not a metaphor for scathing or uncivil language.
.
slag
@beltane: All true. But then again…
Who the fuck talks like this? If nothing else, these people are just incredibly weird.
Raven
@honus:
“No surprise that Marvin plays the lead villain. Grahame almost steals the show as Marvin’s girl who gets scalded when the latter throws hot coffee in her face – one of the more shocking scenes in film noir history. She then, understandably, switches allegiances.”
Just the facts please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDGQCXa2kxs
David Koch
Throwing acid in a woman’s face is dumb. Just use polonium.
ruemara
That ain’t no metaphor. I just don’t understand the mindset of these people, but at least I take it seriously.
owlbear1
So what did Townsend mean when he asked, “when is Tommy boy going to weigh in on…”
Was he making fun of people on diets?
Fainting couches and intentionally misunderstanding is a tool of Republicans.
The Other Bob
to the Taliban.
Raven
John Edwards is now taking the full responsibility for all his shit.
David Koch
John Edwards trial proves Escorts are the way to go. They’re relatively inexpensive and discreet. And if you accidentally kill one, nobody will notice.
danimal
To be fair, the Afghan Taliban have moved on from throwing acid on schoolgirls.
Now they poison them.
Perhaps I shouldn’t give their American Taliban cousins any new ideas.
jl
@qwerty42:
And if the seas do not obey, will they whip it, whip it good, a la Xerxes the Great?
Xerxes the Great’s audience at his servants lashing of the Hellespont
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xerxes_lash_sea.JPG
Every GOP candidate has to answer for the crazies in the party, who talk about throwing acid (and the word was ‘acid’ not ‘vitriol’) in peoples’ faces over policy differences. ‘Cause that is what he said, not something else.
They need to answer for the crazies in the party that are going to get people killed and financially ruined when they pass idiot laws that tell scientists how to measure the sea level.
I have watched these goons tell lies, accusing the Democrats of committing treason, of being communists, of hating free enterprize, of telling lies about what Democrats said (like the Gore said he invented the internet garbage) for decades.
And some people try to make excuses for the GOP lies, hate and violence machine. Unbelievable.
Edit: though I would not accuse the wingnuts of being Achaemenids, that would be an insult to the ancient Persians.
honus
@Raven: You’re right, I went back and looked, and it was hot coffee. I just remembered that Marvin threw some liquid in her face and she was disfigured and bandaged for the rest of the movie.
So I guess the muslims are worse than Lee Marvin, who was, after all, a Marine, and is buried in Arlington. If he were alive, it’s just possible he would be lurking here to correct me himself:
“Marvin was a liberal Democrat who opposed the Vietnam War and declared his support for the gay rights movement in a January 1969 interview with Playboy magazine. He publicly endorsed John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election.”
And of course, he was also the biggest badass of the Magnificent Seven.
Jay in Oregon
Maybe when he said “hurl acid in [their] faces” he was speaking metaphorically about surveyors’ acid.
Or something?
jl
@Jay in Oregon: Blotter?
Ash Can
@owlbear1: Bullshit. It’s violent rhetoric, and it has no place in a political campaign, no matter who’s using it. Why are you tying yourself in knots trying to excuse it? I can only assume you have no problem with violent and inappropriate rhetoric yourself — in which case, don’t be surprised if people who prefer that politicians and their spokespeople not use violent and threatening speech tell you that you’re no better than any of the other Ted Nugent wannabes in the GOP.
David Koch
John Edwards has been VINDICATED!
With the convention being held in North Carolina, I expect the delegates to dump Black Metrosexual Abe Lincoln and nominate favorite son and True Progressive™ John Edwards as the Democratic nominee.
Valdivia
@Thoughtcrime:
I have no words at the sheer idiocy of all of this. First the heckling then the Obama is going to shut me down event at Solyndra? WTF?
honus
@Thoughtcrime: Projection, projection, projection.
owlbear1
@Ash Can:
First, Fuck you.
Second, I’ve said it was a STUPID choice of words.
Third, the original complaint was he literally wanted people to start throwing acid which is fainting couch hyperbole.
Finally, I am NOT apologizing for Republican bullshit I’m asking people stop using Hyperbole and fainting couches when complaining about Republican bullshit.
qwerty42
@jl: I had overlooked the Persians. I was thinking about Canute and the rising tide. On the plus side, the corrupt NC legislators will probably be out of office before the rising sea level becomes an issue. And they get to keep all the “campaign contributions” the coastal developers give them. So, for them, this is win-win. For the folks who buy, build or anything in the increasingly flood-prone areas, not so much. But, hey, corrupt legislators are people too, my friend. Might also be an issue because of all the pig farms in the area (a big hurricane a few years back flooded the cesspools those places have). But that only make it win-win-win for the lege. Again, not so much for the folks who live there.
I don’t think, though, that insurance companies will fall for it. I suspect plenty of folks in coastal NC will be without flood insurance no matter what the official NC maps say. And the legislature knows that. They just don’t care. But, hey, FREE MARKET!!!
sharl
Somewhat OT – but not entirely so – the battle against sexism and sexual harassment is also raging among the non-believers. This post and its comments* leads to other posts and other comments, and if you are relatively new this particular set of controversies, as I am – e.g., if the term “Elevatorgate” is a new one on you – the effort to deconvolute the events and issues will consume large amounts of time. I’m STILL going through trying to make sense of the various components involved. Being “gender-privileged” likely makes the challenge more daunting for me; YMMV.
Just the same, an interesting discussion, with long-overlooked issues involved.
*largely a STEM crowd, AFAICT
middlewest
No, throwing acid in their faces is NOT a metaphor; the only way you could think that is if you were completely ignorant about the modern right. It is an obvious reference to the practices of some Middle-Eastern religious extremists that Fox viewers are obsessed with. It has been axiom in their dogma for decades now that liberals are the REAL MISOGYNISTS because they are insufficiently bellicose towards Muslims, who are of course all responsible for all the honor killings and female mutilation that happen in Not-America. That’s what he means by “hypocrites”.
Of course, wishing such violent practices on liberal American women to “teach them what a REAL war on women is”, is so common among the right, it has become cliche.
NCSteve
@honus: Not just a Muslim thing. But it is an ignorant religious fundie thing, just lately.
NCSteve
@qwerty42: If you can bribe the Coastal Commission into letting you throw up beach houses that will eventually be swallowed by the ocean, I’d be willing to say, “hey, go for it,” as long as they agreed to assume and accept the risk. Well, that and stick to the places already zoned for it and don’t lobby away the height and setback requirements or turn the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks into condos. If they did all that, and if they believe they can turn a profit on rentals before the sea turns their million dollar beach house into an artificial reef, I’d say fine and dandy.
The real problem is the same one we’ve always had with beach developers: when you let them build on land that you know and they know is going to be under water before too long, it’s not like they say “oh well, we always knew it would happen, made a buck in the meantime, easy come, easy go” when the water rises. Nope. It’s always “OMFG!!!! Who could have foreseen? We demand that you spend zillions on beach replenishment and set aside the ban on seawalls and jetties because we don’t believe all your stoop’d sciunce blibbiby blab about how the reason South Carolina beaches are all six inch strips is because of that kind of stuff anyway!”
Chet
@middlewest: This, this, this, and this.
nitpicker
Just a coincidence, I guess:
qwerty42
@NCSteve: I agree with both parts of your comment. I really don’t see how flood insurance can be issued, but that is a huge matter that no one wants to touch.. Construction on the coastal islands seems to create a new group of folks who demand protection. I believe after Hugo, a new inlet opened on one island near Charleston. I believe the owner was demanding the Corps of Engineers fill in the newly-opened inlet. Not sure how that came out. On Tybee Island, in Georgia, a hurricane in the 30’s wiped out a few blocks of the island and the houses that were on it. Some of the owners paid property taxes for a couple of decades after in the hope the sea would return what it had taken (it happens). But the area behind where the houses had been was protected by a seawall (even at low tide, no beach there; at high tide, waves would splash onto US80). In Georgia, however, most of the coastal islands are undeveloped. Not so farther north.
Bill Arnold
@The Golux:
The district has grown to the west and now covers at least part of what used to be Maurice Hinchy’s district (Progressive Democrat, retiring). I think N. Hayworth has a fight this time and may lose. (Presidential election year for starters) Haven’t seen any analysis of it though.
Chris Pawelski
For those interested, here are the two threads where Townsend posted his very strange, somewhat creepy and offensive musings (I’m one of the two persons he directed his fire at). He never answered the questions as to what degree they were sanctioned by Hayworth and the Hayworth campaign:
http://www.facebook.com/NY19CDC/posts/419354794763507
and
http://www.facebook.com/NY19CDC/posts/419085698123750
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@middlewest:
Now, now…you misunderstand them. Their objection to honor killings and female mutilation is like Don Johnson’s in A Boy and His Dog—”What a shame…there was a lot of use left in her!”
J R in WV
In my book the guy, Jay Townsend, is guilty of terroristic threatening, and should be in custody, until and unless he can show that he did not utter the threat.
These right wing monsters are setting fires, murdering doctors, exploding bombs, and killing women, all over this country. Most murders now are by men killing women who have separated or divorced their abusive husbands. Others above in the thread have posted the details on actual throwing of acid into women’s faces – this is one of the most terrible crimes commonly not prosecuted. Victims are usually blind and helpless and in pain for the rest of their short and unhappy lives.
Most, if not all, actual terrorism in the United States since the airborne attack on the World Trade Center has been committed by right-wing religious extremists fanned into white hot hate by those preaching hate and violence, like Mr. Townsend. It is far past the time to declare that we recognize the problem, recognize that it is a systemic and organized problem, and devise a strategy that has some hope of ending the problem.
Obviously Mr. Townsend is part of the problem, not part of the solution. I think anyone preaching violence against women, or those who advocate for women, is guilty of a hate crime, and well past the freedom of speech territory into yelling “fire in a crowded theater” country.
Epicurus
“Throwing acid” worked out great for THIS guy, didn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Pugach
The modern-day GOP is no better than the Taliban; why on Earth would ANY woman vote for a Republican today??