John Kyl (Wingnut-AZ) is very upset that Obama is talking about the middle class:
President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts for incomes above $250,000 to expire at the end of the year has revived the Republican talking point that he is waging “class warfare” against the wealthy, a point Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R) drove home in an entirely new fashion today.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Kyl claimed that the president’s usage of the phrase “middle class” is “misguided and wrong and even dangerous.” Calling for an end to rhetoric about classes, Kyl blasted Obama for “incessantly” talking about class, “particularly the middle class…”
***Kyl went on to explain that America doesn’t have “a true class-based society,” since we don’t have an “ingrained class system” or “noble bloodlines,” a point that seems to ignore every common usage of the “middle class” in our political system.
Sometimes I think it might be easier if this country did have a rigid caste system, so then Republicans could just be honest about their open contempt for the poor and the weak and could stop pretending and treat them like the untouchables they think they are.
The Moar You Know
Huh, he seems pretty upset by the notion of anyone talking about class in this country. I wonder why?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
We did at one time, yunno, that slavery period. Or to a less obvious, but no less oppressive extent, the Gilded Age.
Those worked out well for us as a nation.
redshirt
That OBAMER don’t understand what it means to be American. Boy.
pragmatism
not intended as a factual statement?
i have seen a lot of this concern trolling. yesterday my galtian friend who took over his dad’s company sent me ari fleischer’s opinion on taxes, noting that he can’t find anywhere that romney’s tax plan will burden the middle class and that unfortunately obammi the commie (his phrase) has to divisively institute class war because sadly he wouldn’t win without it.
slag
I hope someone eventually explains to him what we mean when we say “middle class” so that he can then respond about how he wasn’t actually intending to make a factual statement about class. That dance never gets old.
MattF
There’s something here that’s just odd. Who, exactly, is Kyl’s argument aimed at? Who is going to be persuaded by it? If you really think that every word that Obama says is dangerous soshalist anti-imperialist Sharia propaganda that’s aimed at taking away your Medicare scooter, you don’t need convincing at this point.
pseudonymous in nc
Uh, the United States preserved a system whereby one group of people could own another group of people until the 1860s, and for a century after, preserved a system whereby one “bloodline” had privileges not afforded to another “bloodline”.
In other news, class warfare is real, and the 0.1%ers are winning.
Kyl really is a dumbfuck.
Greed Is God
Why doesn’t the GOP just nominate this guy?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFyHTU8tg_0
Boots Day
It’s funny how Republicans hate when anyone talks about “class,” yet they love to talk about we need to cater to people who make more than $250,000 a year. I guess those people don’t belong to any class.
quannlace
Meanwhile, Romney gives a foreign policy speech without actually talking about foreign policy.
These people are like Humpty-Dumpty…
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more or less.”
Maude
We have the Reagan Class System. The rich are good, the others, no so much.
Kyl is whining and that’s good.
Talk about the middle class is working.
The 1% Romney has a problem.
Oh, and Kyl is saying that Obama is uppity.
Elizabelle
We have a huge caste problem in that the Senate and House are filled with millionaires.
Representatives, they are not.
redshirt
@pseudonymous in nc: That’s the point – nothing to see here! Ignore that man behind the curtain!
BGinCHI
Kyl bucking to be the new Judge Smales:
Linda Featheringill
During the period that European ruling classes were determined by “noble bloodlines,” the feudal period, they didn’t have a “middle class.” That came later, with the rise of the bourgeoisie.
Keith G
And so it would be easier to round the varmints up and…oh, I shouldn’t be crass. You get the picture.
chopper
that is some epic concern trolling.
Dennis SGMM
Senator Kyl is right. We don’t have a class system as such; it’s just that people who make $250K a year or more are just so much more worthy of our esteem and our solicitude.
pseudonymous in nc
And just for the record, Jon Kyl’s father was a five-term Congressman and served as a political appointee in the Ford administration. So, y’know, no such thing as a ruling class.
Roger Moore
@Boots Day:
Of course they don’t belong to any class, because America is a classless society. Those people may have deservedly high status because they’re MOTU Galtian Job Creators(TM), but they’re in the same classeless class as the rest of us. If you even talk about class, you’re trying to stir up class warfare, which shouldn’t actually exist because there is no class in America.
Excuse me, I need to lay down. My head hurts from trying to understand wingnut logic[sic].
Brachiator
@Boots Day:
FTFY
Easier for whom? And whenever anyone writes this sort of thing, do they assume that they would be in a more privileged class?
ETA: I have heard a couple of crazy comments that the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, is by the one percent, about the one percent, and for the one percent. In this feverish reverie, Bruce Wayne is a billionaire who tries to save other one percenters who are threatened by the villain Bane.
And here and there, there has been some stupid stuff about how Mitt Romney is a lot like Bruce Wayne.
It’s definitely the political silly season.
jl
” this country did have a rigid caste system ”
But it does have a rigid ca$te $y$tem. Just we are not supposed to talk about it.
Ruckus
@Boots Day:
I guess those people don’t belong to any class.
It’s not that they don’t belong, it’s that they don’t have any.
ETA Damn I’m slow.
Matthew Reid Krell
@Boots Day: I guess those people don’t
belong tohave any class.FTFY.
Elizabelle
OT: Frank Bruni has a great column up today.
The Divine Miss M (re Michelle Bachmann)
Tee hee.
Carol from CO
“Working men and women” would be more effective than middle class.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
David Broder’s last column was dedicated to the notion that it was incumbent on Obama to “reach out and find common ground” with Senator Notintendedasafactualstatement, which I think is relevant on the day Chuck Todd repeated the quickly setting CW that talking about Bain Capital is just like Swiftboating, and the day after Tom Edsall said that pointing out that Romney is an asshole is voter suppression, just like RW legislation designed to disenfranchise the poor, and Jon Stewart said the Tea Party is all about lower taxes.
lamh35
WTF DiFi, WTF!!!
Feinstein: Someone at White House is behind recent intel leaks
Seriously, shouldn’t you be smarter after all the years being in Congress?
mdblanche
@MattF: It is aimed at nobody. His argument is the squealing of a stuck pig. It means we’re winning. More, please.
jibeaux
@Brachiator: I admit, if he spent some of that fabulous wealth on a Batmobile instead of dressage, I would respect him a teensy bit more for it. But I think I can safely rule it out, as it would require something approaching charisma.
Oh, and if these are real quotes then I need to go watch more of the old series, ASAP. The original Batman was clearly not Mitt Romney:
Batman: “Better put 5 cents in the meter.”
Robin: “No policeman’s going to give the Batmobile a ticket.”
Batman: “This money goes to building better roads. We all must do our part.”
jl
There was a rich Senator Kyl,
Who looked out on the heights of his pile;
But to pay taxes fair
Filled his heart with despair,
And oppressed rich Senator Kyle.
Smiling Mortician
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This comment shared too much fucking nonsense all at once. Please dole it out more sparingly in the future. Thank you for your consideration.
Donut
Fuck Kyl. Now that it’s campaign season, the president gets to be partisan and he gets to call those fuckkers what they are – conduits that help their rich friends get richer.
These Republican assholes (and far too many of their “friends” across the aisle) have done nothing that benefits the middle class for a long fucking time. The whining from this simpleton is proof that the criticisms, mild as they are, coming from Obama are hitting their targets.
Go to hell, Kyl. Just…fuck you.
Chris T.
Anyone who thinks America doesn’t have a class system has not flown on an airplane…
cmorenc
I have a wingnut friend who’s in the habit of intermittently forwarding wingnut chain emails to me, one of which is a classic of deliberate misdirection about an alleged 3.8% home sales tax in the HCA aka ObamaCare legislation the email claims will broadly affect ordinary people, especially retirees selling their homes to downsize. Specific examples are given claiming that if you sell a 100k home starting in 2013, will incur a tax of $3800 under the HCA, and if you sell a 400k home, you’ll incur a tax of $15,200!
Turns out that the tax provision this wingnut email actually refers to is the 3.8% surcharge on unearned income for taxpayers making over 250K per year, and not a real estate tax at all. No mention or account is taken by this email of: 1) the 500k lifetime exclusion for married couples of any capital gain from sale of their primary residence (250k for a single person); 2) the exclusion of basis in the property from any tax liability; 3) the fact that the tax provision only applies to those making over 250k per year, i.e. it will definitely NOT affect middle-class taxpayers, but only 1 percenters.
The GOP has ceased to even try to make honest claims.
Mike E
Said Kyl, from his podium built on a pile of Middle Class skulls, after his party’s successful war on a whole generation of his fellow citizens.
jl
There is a class addicted to porking,
Enriched by endless corrupt forking;
Of which huge riches and size,
So bedazzled their eyes,
That they double their efforts at porking.
amk
The ruling class rats are panicking. Good for obama rattling their cage.
Kerry Reid
Well, the Republicans certainly have shown they have no class whatsoever.
dmsilev
@Brachiator:
And here I was thinking that George and Lenore Romney lived to a ripe old age. Apparently, that was mistaken and they were gunned down in front of a horrified pre-teen Mitt.
I will admit that at times it appears that The Joker is running the Romney campaign.
lamh35
Romney accuses Obama of classified material leaks
“RENO, Nev. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is accusing President Barack Obama of leaking for political gain classified details of the raid that killed al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
Romney was to make the accusation Tuesday afternoon during an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev.
In excerpts of the speech released by his campaign, Romney called the leak “contemptible.” He says such action betrays the national interest, compromises troops in the field and demands a full and prompt investigation.
Romney adds that an administration led by him would not reveal classified material for political purposes.”
Redshift
@Boots Day:
Of course not. They’re successful entrepreneurs who got their entirely on their own, because they’re just better and harder working than the rest of us. That’s why they must be worshiped.
Class, you know, is one of those hereditary things, and that has nothing to do with the success of the “job creators.” I’m still trying to figure out why, if that’s so, it’s so important to get rid of the estate tax…
Rosalita
Different wingut topic for your amusement-Issa wants to name the ocean after Reagan.
The Moar You Know
@lamh35: DINO Feinstein has been waiting for a chance to shiv Obama big time, and it looks like she thinks this is her opportunity.
I suspect the motivation is that she and her money machine bet on the wrong horse back in 2008 and much to her shock, Team Obama decided they could get along just fine without her and her pet Countess.
Nobody puts DiFi in a corner.
AkaDad
Some people are saying John Kyl believes middle-income earners have no class.
Richard
Class warfare in action…
Redshift
@dmsilev: Yeah, I thought it was hilarious when some wingnuts tried out that one after the whole Bain/Bane thing. I don’t disagree that Mitt Romney could be exactly the sort of self-important rich dilettante always surrounded by yes-men that Bruce Wayne might have grown up to be if his parents had lived to a ripe old age. (He might not have, since from what little we saw, the Waynes seemed to be fairly decent people, but then, so were Mitt’s parents.)
Calouste
@pseudonymous in nc:
I was just going to say, Senator Kyle, in the last four Presidential elections, the candidate for your party has been respectively, the son of a President and grandson of a Senator (twice), the son and grandson of Admirals and the son of a Governor. What do you mean with “no ingrained class system” or “no noble bloodlines”?
Dennis SGMM
@The Moar You Know:
Anyone else nauseated by the memory of a grinning Feinstein leading Condoleeza Rice into Condi’s Senate confirmation hearing as the Secretary of Failure?
jibeaux
@lamh35:
“Romney further added that, ‘actually, we won’t reveal anything, for any purpose.'”
danielx
Clearly the honorable Senator never heard that comment from a fellow one-percenter:
Or one could just go with the Jon Stewart thought that the poor have really shitty lobbyists. But with very rare exceptions, when the term “class warfare” is used by a politician or media pundit it means warfare from the bottom up. Amazing how little I read about mansions being looted and burned down in the Hamptons, or in Greenwich, Connecticut, or in Marin County, or…maybe I’ve just missed it. One would think that sort of thing would be a daily occurrence, given the way the poor and the middle class have been bending over and taking it for oh, the last thirty years or so.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3846
Redshift
@Richard: Odd how they think that will be an effective argument when they voted for the Bush tax cuts to be temporary, too. And the stimulus tax cuts were temporary because they were intended to address a temporary economic condition, and since that condition has continued longer than expected, it makes sense to extend them. The Bush tax cuts, on the other hand, were temporary in order to play games with the cost scoring rules, and their cost isn’t going down.
Triassic Sands
Even if we had a rigid class system in this country, Republicans would still lie — like the scorpion it’s in their nature.
TR
Remember: There is no “h” in “Jon Kyl.”
Also, there is no intelligence, character, or integrity in Jon Kyl.
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know:
As long as DiFi is spouting off on the subject of national security, somebody should ask if she knew about, and signed off on, all those waterboardy, torture-y things in the Bush administration that may yet someday, I fervently hope, lead to someone being held accountable for what amounts to torture. Did I mention torture?
trollhattan
John Kyl: one more piece of evidence too much heat makes you stupid. Along with those who keep voting you into office.
What a maroon.
Steeplejack
@Richard:
That’s just . . . unbelievable. Like the Bush tax cuts weren’t supposed to be temporary?
quannlace
Just like their reply to his whine for an apology, White House to Romney, ‘Nuts to you.”
j
OK, let’s try it for about a month. All those mouth breathers who consistently vote against their own self interest by pulling the GOP lever will get a big wake up call in the form of a hard slap in the face, and minor “elites” like Kyl will find out that he still isn’t the club with the Kock brothers and the Waltons.
When I was in college I got into an argument with some doofus who was insisting that America should have a class based society. Of course he insisted that he would be in the upper class. His reasoning was that 1) he’s been to Europe, and 2) he is college educated.
When I pointed out to him that he got his college education from a land grant public university, using Pell grants and low interest student loans, and the only way he ever got to Europe was because his boyfriend was rich (inherited) and took him on a trip (yes he was gay and yes, his boyfriend claimed him as a business partner for expense account purposes), so in fact he was a low class hanger on.
Not to mention (but I did) is the fact that he comes from a long line of farmers, and he is the first in his extended family to ever go to college. His brothers and sisters were still farming at that time, so he was from peasant stock, meaning in a class based society he would never be given the opportunity to attend ANY college.
He had no answer to any of that except “well I did go to college, so there.”
In other words, HE didn’t build himself, himself. He had a lot of help to acquire that snobbish sense of entitlement. I wonder if he was always a stuck up jerk or if that was acquired through osmosis feeding off some rich dude’s largess?
Canadian Shield
I think we’re nearing the end of America: Reloaded
Obama is re-elected. The Architect will explain to Obama that he is part of the design of Capitalism; there were multiple previous versions (five copies according to the Architect) of Capitalism and the One. Unless Obama returns to Washington to reboot Capitalism (while being allowed to gather a small mix of Republicans and Democrats to unplug from Capitalism in order to rebuild the middle class, essentially restarting the cycle of Capitalism), it will crash, killing everyone connected to it. This would mean the extinction of the middle class, and the rich would survive on some lesser energy source.
What happens in America: Revolutions?
Maude
@quannlace:
Coming from a guy wouldn’t know a troop in a field if he fell over one.
Rafer Janders
Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, John McCain, Meghan McCain, Luke Russert, Chelsea Clinton and the Kennedys can all agree on this point.
Chris T.
@j:
Could be a psychological defense mechanism: one part of his brain knows he’s deeply dependent, so the part of his brain that controls his mouth must deny it, vehemently.
Davis X. Machina
Valerie Plame.
I’m sorry, what were you saying again?
redshirt
@Canadian Shield: MECHA-OBAMA!
Thank you for this, by the way. As one of the 10 people in the world who enjoyed “Reloaded” and “Revolutions”, thank you.
eric
@Canadian Shield: more poor acting and a greater reliance on style over substance, ergo, more of the same.
The Other Chuck
@Canadian Shield:
BIG ROBOTS SHOOTING SQUIDS PEW PEW PEW! And a big fistfight.
Chris
Social mobility is lower here than in any other country in the industrialized, democratic world, but we totally don’t have a class system, oh no!
j
@Carol from CO: Or “the working class as opposed to the idle rich”.
Culture of Truth
GOP 2012 “Stop Making Sense”
Stooleo
No wonder the middle class is going down the crapper.
Roger Moore
@Rosalita:
I thought these people were Christians. Have they ever read the 10 Commandments? Idolatry and worshiping false Gods is very high up on God’s list of no-nos.
Ruckus
@lamh35:
It may be all those years in congress that have caused her to be dumber. It probably would not be that hard to fine causation.
Rafer Janders
@Calouste:
Compare that to the last four Democratic nominees: while Gore and Kerry both came from privileged backgrounds (Gore the son of a Senator, and Kerry with family ties to the Forbes family), both Clinton and Obama are the sons of poor single mothers.
jl
@The Other Chuck:
” BIG ROBOTS SHOOTING SQUIDS PEW PEW PEW! And a big fistfight.”
No car chases? There has to be car chases, and explosions therefrom.
Are you Canadian too? You’re no real Amercian.
karen marie
@MattF: He’s “retiring” this year (and taking all those sochalist health & retirement benefits on his way out the door), so he’s auditioning for some sweet, sweet wingnut welfare.
@Boots Day: They’re classless. Wait, what?
@Brachiator: Romney is played by a bad actor?
lamh35
Umm wow!
Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie)
7/24/12 1:41 PM
Romney: “if you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your President. You have that President today.” Word?
Scribe9
Idiotic statements like this should be manna from heaven for the Obama campaign. They need to hang this statement directly around Romney’s neck. Make him publicly disavow it or better yet, refuse to do so. It’s a ready-made campaign ad. “What does Mitt Romney wan to do about the middle class? He doesn’t even want to talk about it.”
bootsy
@John Cole: I’m really beginning to enjoy how often the Republican elites say “class warfare.” The phrase combines one thing they hate, awareness of class, with their never-ending love of war. They are all stirred up and desperate.
j
@lamh35: Someone at DKos put together a timeline of which info was leaked and when. Then compared the chart to who on the intelligence committee attended the briefings where the leaks came from.
The ONLY person who attended every leaked meeting was (drum roll, please) Michelle Bachamnn! We all know she will blurt out any nonsense she hears. She just doesn’t have any internal filter. Time for that goof to be kicked off the Committee.
Culture of Truth
Batman Vows to Carry On
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl)
@pseudonymous in nc: Indeed, isn’t it amusing when the privileged resent being called privileged because it rightly points out what a bunch of asswipes they are?
Nathan
Sigh.
My campaign is focused on middle-income Americans.” – Mitt Romney
jl
@j: Well, so what? The Obama thugs obviously knew that there would be public record that Bachmann was there at every meeting, even before she attended every one, and being nuts and having no mental filter, would be convenient scapegoat for their diabolical plan.
Not only did the traitorous Nobama thugs leak, but they took advantage of a crazy person.
Wake up sheeples!
lamh35
@dmsilev: The Mitt Romney=Bruce Wayne sentiment was expressed by the creator of the Bane character who identified as a conservative.
Roger Moore
@Nathan:
Sure. The richest Americans have incomes of around a billion dollars a year. The poorest Americans have an income of around zero. If you split the difference, you get an income of around half a billion dollars a year. Those are the middle income Americans Romney is fighting for.
jl
@jl:
” My campaign is focused on middle-income Americans.” Mitt Romney ”
True, in the same way Bain leveraged buyouts were, in a sense, focused on target company assets and worker pensions.
Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. And if they don’t, tough luck sucker, this is the land of the Amercian dream, where a sucker never gets a break, because let the winners win, by hook or crook, why do you not believe in opportunity?
Mnemosyne
@lamh35:
After reading the article, I’m sensing a bit of ass-covering by DiFi. As in, she knows the leaks came from Congress — probably even the Senate — and she’s trying some misdirection.
Plus she’s an asshole who needs to retire already, but everyone in California already knows that. The only reason she’s still in office is that there hasn’t been a credible Democratic challenger.
Ed Drone
@Nathan:
Target Acquired!
Random comments:
It’s time to revive the phrase, “Filthy Rich.”
John Kyl quote: “Americans have no class!”
(John Kyl, not intended to be factual)
I can’t wait till some Republicant utters the phrase, “undeserving poor.”
And lastly, scientist have announced that they have discovered the shape of the universe. It’s a “… series of closed curves, ‘vaguely reminiscent of a hand-basket,’ moving toward an unknown destination.”
Ed
Nathan
@Roger Moore:
Exactly.
Though I’m sure he’s concerned if with those poor folks who only make half of a half-billion dollars a year. It’s called compassionate conservatism.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
And the jungle primary makes a competent Democratic challenger less likely. Nobody wants to risk voting for somebody else, splitting the vote, and somehow winding up with no Democrat on the final ballot.
Tonal Crow
Please, Republicans, shout from the rooftops the idea that the term “middle class” is a soshulist communist Trotskyite conspiracy to impurify our precious bodily fluids.
The public still hasn’t seen your true colors, so let your freak flag fly high and proud.
Also too, a certain ex-governor from Alaska would keep that closet liberal Romney on the straight and narrow.
mdblanche
@Rafer Janders: Gore and Kerry lost. Clinton and Obama won. Make of that what you will.
Chris
@lamh35:
Yeah, and Nolan said otherwise in regard to TDKR.
SPOILER ALERT –
Really, any point the movie might have wanted to make about class warfare are pretty much negated by the fact that Bane’s revolution is entirely made up of hardened criminals he freed from prison, rather than a populace incited by demagogues. Unlike the Joker, Bane never gets the general public to come out and play. They’re just passive observers and victims.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
DiFi voted for Bush tax cuts (first round), his war, for Mukasey because he double-dog swore to look into torture. She lives off a hundred million dollar (and that estimate is old) family fortune based on defense contracts, and not long ago worried that extending unemployment benefits would make the proles shiftless. If Dianne Antoinette isn’t the best example of the cruel irony underlying “Conventional Wisdom” and “Very Serious Person” she certainly belongs in the top ten.
gene108
@lamh35:
There’s so little drama with Obama, they really, really have to work to manufacture something that may resonate a little bit.
cckids
@quannlace: I watched as much as I could bear of Romney’s VFW speech. Sadly, the vets were loudly applauding the outright lies the loudest; ie, Obama’s apologized for our country, he doesn’t believe in America, etc, etc.
This administration has done more in four years for vets & the actual people in the military than the past 2 Repub administrations combined. What the hell is wrong with them? Prejudice just trumps reality? Or is the VFW still the province of old white guys it was 30 + years ago?
karen marie
@j: She is certainly dumb enough. Look who she hangs out with.
Richard
Mitt’s campaign, and that of the entire GOP, is focused on turning middle-income Americans into low-income Americans.
You see, America would be so much better off if people here were payed less than they are in India.
jl
OK, I think this story below is weird. I admit it when I am stumped. Romney wants to try to play the Obama’s bogus out of context ‘you didn’t build that’ quote in context?
And, Romney still distorts (aka, lies) about what Obama said in context? This will help him? How?
Fine with me. If they want to open up the context box, and invite people to have a look see inside, and still lie about it, seems like bad news for Romney to me. What am I not getting?
My unified theory of Romney is that he is a slightly dim arrogant jackass (I know some technical lingo there, but you can look it up). That would explain it, but maybe I am missing something.
TPM2012
Romney, RNC: We Did Obama A Favor By Taking Him Out Of Context!
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO JULY 24, 2012
As Mitt Romney and the GOP forge onward with their “you didn’t build that” attack on President Obama, they’re also acknowledging pushback from Democrats outraged that the line has been taken out of context.
Obama, they insist, should be happy that Republicans selectively edited his speech, because the full context of the president’s remarks on business and government is actually worse.
Romney made this case himself on CNBC Monday night.
“The context is worse than the quote,” Romney said in an exchange with Larry Kudlow. “The context, he says, ‘you know, you think you’ve been successful because you’re smart, but he says a lot of people are smart. You think you’ve been successful because you work hard, a lot of people work hard.’”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/mitt-romney-out-of-context-obam.php
Southern Beale
Obama is at it again, talking about that middle class! I love this video clip. He is tired of being Breitbarted by Romney.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
Explain Mittens then. The guy is not good at anything.
Xenos
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937: Mittens is more like a noble gas. Inert.
jl
Here’s the thing, who the hell believes that Romney or the GOP does Obama any favors at all?
Why telegraph the lie? Why signal it?
Now if you are a leveraged buy out artist, you do this kind of thing. You got the money, you got the power, from borrowed capital. You are running the scam, and you need to crush all resistance.
One way is to sit in meetings and telegraph your effing BS, lies and sleazy double dealing. You just effing BS, and know that people have to swallow it, indeed, roll it around in their mouths and say how priviledged they are to have the opporunity to savor your BS and then swallow it.
Good way to break wills and humiliate, when you got the money and you got the power, and you got new underlings to squeeze dry. Ritual public humiliation works wonders on ‘lesser people’ who have themselves and families to feed and shelter.
I get the sense Romney just cannot sense he has to drop that approach in a general election. During the GOP primary, he was talking to the GOP takeover team. But not now.
It’s like Romney stands there and says: I am going to lie now. You will like this lie and swallow it and tell me how tasty it is? Right? I thought so? You may thank me now, but you are not particularly welcome unless you continue to behave.
Mitt, this ain’t the Ampad deal you running now, OK?
scav
no wonder John Kyl (Wingnut-AZ) and cohorts are so vehemently against public education — shoehorning people into classes and forcing all that insidious edjumacation and evil evil science into their tender little brains and exposing the wee little ones to ideas different than those held by the parents. Two birds with One Stone, or is it One Stone with Two Birds? No Matter! Classes iz Un’mercan!
Chris
@cckids:
According to what I’ve read here from veterans and relatives of same, the VFW is chock-full of REMFs. If true, that explains a shit ton.
PeakVT
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937: Romney is very good at what he did at Bain. But that doesn’t mean he is or will be good at anything else, including presidenting and decidering.
Roger Moore
@Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937:
Of course he’s good at something. He has lots and lots of money, which proves he’s better at everything than you and I. Get with the program!
j
@karen marie: Today she’s badmouthing President Obama to the religious nutcase Hagee.
http://crooksandliars.com/leah-nelson/bachmann-tells-hagee-s-flock-about-oba
She needs to be reigned in. I hope the people of MN6 grow some brain cells soon. That District is being over-run by fundamentalist mental cases.
cckids
@Chris: Yeah, I guess it would. It was just depressing to watch & hear. Willfully stupid & proud of it. The Republican battle cry.
Jay in Oregon
@Chris T.:
…or been to the Hamptons. “Is there a V.I.P entrance? We are V.I.P.”
lamh35
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I see a lot of CYA, but it is based on this from DiFi that Romnay is able to make ridiculous claims like this and the media calls it a “full-throated” and firece speech.???
suzanne
I’m really sorry about this Kyl douchebag. I didn’t vote for him. Ever. Promise.
Jeff Flake (Asshole) is expected to take Kyl’s place, as he’s retiring. I love his likely Democratic opponent, Richard Carmona. He’s tremendous. Definitely getting some of my time and money this year.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl)
@Nathan: Well to Mitt that’s what, half a mill a year? He’s so rich that he literally has no frame of reference. Mitt has said over and over again that his father was raised poor, which was true after they fled Mexico, but fails to acknowledge the fact that by the time Mitt went off to college, his father was so wealthy they could afford to send him off to France to avoid the Draft…ahem, excuse me, to do his required LDS Mission. Mitt said it was roughing it to live in a chateau. Hell, how many families will never even own a home in the U.S., much less multiple houses around the world. A fucking chateau….That’s some serious disconnect in my view.
bemused
Mike Papantonio was filling in for Ed Schultz and Sara Robinson was a guest talking about the Southern plantation elitism spilling over into the rest of the country. I think she’s written about this on Alternet. Pretty interesting.
Citizen_X
@dmsilev:
“Do I look like a guy with a plan?”
karen marie
@Xenos: Ha!
Patricia Kayden
Kyl is confusing me. Didn’t Romneybot 2.0 say that he didn’t care about the very poor? And that he cared about the middle class? Was he fomenting class warfare?
Spatula
@lamh35:
“Seriously, shouldn’t you be smarter after all the years being in Congress?”
What is your point exactly? Are you ok with WH intelligence leaking?
bemused
@karen marie:
I’m a Minnesotan and I thought I knew every creepy thing about Bachman but somehow I missed what she had said about Melissa Etheridge. That woman is an evil monster and I hope she gets her ass kicked in the election.
mai naem
First small correction – it’s Jon not John Kyl. He’
s my ashsole senator. He’s a spethal kind of ashsole. He’s the one who during the ACA deliberations piped about how he hadn’t needed maternity care and Debbie Stabenow shot back, “Maybe you didn’t but your mom probably did.” This twit who actually has a reputation of being a workhorse also thought when the loose nukes treaty was not renewed that the loose nukes were still being monitored. BTW, I have looked at his financials and he actually is not all that wealthy. Ofcourse, he could have his kids technically getting all the graft.
Spatula
@Steeplejack:
You must mean those torture-y things the Obama administration declines to be bothered to prosecute? Are those the ones?
28 Percent
@Brachiator: I’m going to have to agree with the Crazy People – DKR was on par with Red Dawn and Atlas Shrugged for over the top conservative social commentary.
Spoiler Alert!
As we open, a completely useless and clueless CIA jerkwad is completely duped by the villain Bane, for whom even the laws of physics bend. Bane escapes the CIA with a hostage, Dr. Pavel, who will figure in heavily later. Cut to Bruce Wayne, who has put his family’s company on the verge of bankruptcy by mothballing a fusion energy project just before it was going to go online – the moral of the story, Mr. Wayne (and this is spelled out clearly for the audience), is that even you with all your billions can’t afford to dilly dally with liberal notions like “cheap, clean energy” and “not weaponizing shit.” Bane pays Catwoman to get Bruce Wayne’s thumb print, then breaks into the NYSE during trading in order to commit securities fraud with Wayne’s checkbook, which goes to show you that securities fraud is hard to do and involves hostage situations and guns and shit so stop whining already about where did your 401K go, loser. Batman shows up; he’s too late to stop the bad guys, but just in time to get the attention of all the police away from the bad guys and onto him, because in terms of usefulness, the Gotham police are on par with the Sunnydale PD. Bane’s objective was to put in a lot of stock orders in Bruce Wayne’s name, and despite having done this in a distinctly exhibitionist fashion, there’s nothing that can be done about it.
Bruce is really ruined (but not really, no, really) but he gets to keep his house, which pisses Catwoman off to no end because she hates the rich and is a commie soshulist and also a hypocrite because she likes pearls. Alfred is unhappy that Bruce is keeping the house because he wants Bruce to give up this whole dedicating his life to a purpose thing and instead schlep around Europe indefinitely eating out every day, like normal people. Bruce is happy that he gets to keep his house because where else could he take the beautiful, socially conscious member of the Wayne Enterprises board, who charms him with her beauty and her social consciousness and her interest in fusion reactors and totally not ever weaponizing them (pinky swear!) so after a night of social consciousness and a whole lot of lovin’, Bruce takes his new BFF to the secret fusion reactor that has no security or government presence of any kind because who needs government interference when you have a super-secret bunker (the only thing missing is a Pepsi machine and an Ace Tomato Co. sign on the outside)? Bruce reveals that the fusion reactor does, in fact, work, but a Dr. Pavel (remember him?) wrote a paper about how a fusion reactor could be turned into a bomb, which apparently nobody had ever thought of before but despite that, Bruce still thinks that humanity is not Too Stupid to Live and has shut down the project.
Girlfriend becomes the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises and Bane moves on to step three million and twelve of his nefarious plot. Catwoman betrays Batman, who is captured and put in the world’s most obviously escapable prison, which nobody ever escapes. The Wayne board is taken prisoner and, led by the courageous and Beautiful Socially Conscious GF, activates the fusion reactor in an attempt to save lives, which is a whole new level of stupid because the reactor is then weaponized by the captive Dr. Pavel. Bane gets everybody’s attention by blowing up a football game, committing several technical fouls in the process. Doing this traps all of Gotham’s police underground, but don’t worry, he sends them donuts (no coffee though). Bane announces a revolution wherein everybody will be good and socially conscious or he’ll vaporize them with the fusion bomb. Nobody’s allowed to leave the Island, and Bane blows all the bridges except one, which he enlists the US Army to block by threatening to blow up the bomb if they don’t comply. They’re from the gov’mint and therefore hopeless dupes, so when the bomb actually does get triggered, the Army threatens to shoot orphans if they try to get across the bridge to escape it. Nobody but Bane’s crew knows that the bomb will go off in exactly, to the second, five months anyway, because of bad physics and five months being just long enough for the hero to experience Personal Growth. Bane explains that this delay is because suffering is more exquisite if it’s preceded by hope, but what kind of suffering he expects people to experience when they’re instantly vaporized without warning by a nuclear blast, nobody asks, and you shouldn’t either.
It’s a nefarious plot bad enough to have earned the Dr. Evil Stamp of Approval. Bruce learns to free himself from fear (winning his own personal War On Terror) and escapes his prison, which appears to have been located in a middle eastern backwater. Despite having no funds, no ID, no idea where he is, no familiarity with the local language or customs, and let’s not forget that Gotham has been cut off from the rest of the world, he returns home quickly, and without incident. At home, Catwoman is literally bummed out, she misses the glitterati so. She tours a now-vacant Trianon and haz a sad as she realizes that it “used to be somebody’s home.” The police who remain above ground have been uniquely ineffectual at finding either the detonator or the bomb, or in taking out the couple dozen bad guys holding the city hostage. They’re caught, of course, and sentenced to death by the Sandman’s kangaroo court, but that’s when Batman shows up and provides Leadership(tm). The civilian population continues to remain conspicuously absent, but the police and the baddies fight it out on the street and Batman goes after Bane, and totally would have had him except that Socially Conscious GF shows up once more and in one of the most easily seen plot twists basically ever, literally stabs Batman in the back. The awful truth dawns on Bruce Wayne, that by refusing to behave like a Job Creator he turned himself into a Useful Idiot. The GF is Ra’s Algul’s daughter and after monologuing about how conflicted she is in her feelings about Daddy, she confesses that what she really cares about is “decadence”, which she apparently understands to be synonymous with both “criminality” and “poverty”. Nevermind, there’s no ridiculousness that can’t be overcome with a good chase scene, and in a matter of moments, the previously invincible bad guys are thwarted, the bomb is flown out to sea, and Bruce Wayne dies in the blast. Except, in the second most easily seen plot twist ever, it turns out that the batcopter autopilot that Fox and Bruce have been talking about every time they see each other (“shame about that autopilot! yeah, the batcopter would be really great if we could get that to work”) was actually totally functional and instead of being in the batcopter when it blew up, Bruce skipped town with Catwoman and the pearls and a pile of hidden assets to become Eurotrash. Don’t fear for Gotham though: there’s a cop who caught Bruce’s eye when he (the cop) revealed that he has deep-seated anger issues, so Bruce leaves him (the cop) the Batcave because what the hell could ever go wrong with that? And in the third most easily seen plot twist in the history of time, the cop’s full name is Robin something.
Popcorn & Circuses. What a piece of dreck.
Roger Moore
@Spatula:
No, she’s worried about Feinstein’s intelligence leaking. Her IQ seems to be dropping precipitously.
Rafer Janders
@mdblanche:
True, but, Gore didn’t lose, in the sense that more Americans voted for Gore than voted for Bush. In a reputable democracy that generally would also have meant he won the election….
Rafer Janders
@Jay in Oregon:
This still kills me. The gall of asking for a VIP entrance at a VIP event, where prices ranged from $25,000 to $75,000 a ticket, is not to be believed. EVERYONE there was a VIP, if such things are to be measured by money, and yet she still felt the need to assert herself even more, to find that one special little VIP among the VIPs entrance….
jl
@Rafer Janders: In VIP land, everyone has to be better than someone else. Any well planned VIP event must be designed to distract attention from that inconsistency, or paradox, or small varmint of aristocratic ego, if you will. The Romney VIP event apparently was ill planned, and minor unpleasentness (which in VIP land is utter catastrophe) ensuded, sad to say.
Edit: one technique is to have specal ‘club’ entrances. So, one set of VIPs is eligible to enter in the Gilded Club entrance, another to the Treasure Chest of Wealth entrance. Where they stand in line again, but with different colored drinks and party favors. Amusement park people know how to arrange these things. Then the Gilded Club people can sneear at the Treasure Chest people and all are happily miserable, as God intended in VIP land.
trollhattan
As it turns out, per Charles Pierce Santorum said essentially the same thing in January.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz21ZsK8NOJ
Steeplejack
@Spatula:
Yeah, in fact, I do wish the Obama administration would investigate those instead of “looking forward, not back.” Do you have any point to make at all, or do you mistakenly believe you made one there?
Chris
@Steeplejack:
I’ve pretty much accepted at this point that the national security state is above the law, as much as the 1% if not more. Take a hell of a lot to change that.
Spatula
@Steeplejack:
Nope. Glad to have stumbled onto some consistency of values here at BJ. That is a rare commodity.
Brachiator
@28 Percent:
You recapitulate the plot, but still get it all wrong. As wrongheaded as the conservatives who, like religious morans who see the Virgin Mary on a cookie, are seeing Mitt Romney in Bruce Wayne’s shadow and mis-interpreting The Dark Knight Rises as some kind of validation of their free market delusions.
I do, however, salute your apparent keyboarding skills.
Weaselone
@Spatula:
I don’t think anyone is OK with the White House leaking intel, but I strongly suspect that the source of these leaks is actually the Senate.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@MattF:
There’s something here that’s just odd. Who, exactly, is Kyl’s argument aimed at? Who is going to be persuaded by it? If you really think that every word that Obama says is dangerous soshalist anti-imperialist Sharia propaganda that’s aimed at taking away your Medicare scooter, you don’t need convincing at this point.
It’s an attempt to preempt real concern by framing the terms of reference so as to make criticism literally unthinkable. It’s propaganda.
If it is unAmerican to talk about class, then any criticism of the current American system which is predicated on class is automatically rendered moot – and you can just scream “UNAMERICAN!!!” to drown out anyone trying to make it.
It’s a bit like trying to drown out discussions about sexism by calling any acknowledgment of gender distinctions “unhuman”. If you think there are “men” and “women” then you are UNHUMAN!!! And if the categories “men” and “women” don’t exist (or are never acknowledged to exist) then, why, sexism cannot be a problem!
And the reason why class criticisms cannot be allowed to be made is because they hear the faint squeaking of tumbrels in the distance…
JR in WV
@lamh35:
Yes, somehow ignoring the fact that President Obama, the Commander in Chief, is totally in charge of what information is secret and classified and what information is needed for American Citizens to make good decisions.
Not poor Mr. Rmoney, who isn’t in charge of anything, yet! thank FSM!
So that whole speech is inoperative and not intended to represent or appear to present facts.
JR in WV
@Rafer Janders:
Rafer,
You left out Geo. H. W, Bush, son of Senator and American Bund Supporter Prescott Bush. Prescott never met a German Nazi he didn’t respect and admire! I guess until 1942, just to be a little more fair.
Now there was a class system!
JR
@cckids:
YES! Most vets I know have ponytails and mustachios. Not appreciated at the VFW post, they have to g to the AM Leogion post if they want a drink.
The only two bars in the county!