Did you watch the Piers Morgan interview with Willard and Ann(toinette) Romney that Anne Laurie linked below? OMFG!
Here’s a deal for you, British cousins: We won’t make any trouble when the Little Lord Fauntleromneys* try to return to America if you’ll keep that insufferable prat Morgan within your borders. An example of the hard-hitting journalism:
MORGAN: On the economy, clearly Barack Obama has decided your weakness, your vulnerability, is your record at Bain Capital. And it’s a very divisive issue. And quite a fascinating issue because when I look at some of these attack ads, it’s almost like he’s attacking you for being successful and rich which is not a traditional area of battleground to an American from an American because America was founded on working hard, achievement, success, and making money.
That’s Kristol-level wrongness there, in which falsehoods are nested within falsehoods like a Matryoshka doll. But I thought the most fascinating segment was when Morgan questioned Romney about the upcoming dressage competition. Romney was all, “Rafalca who?”
Look, I’m sure Rafalca is a perfectly lovely animal — one I’d like to have a beer with! — and it’s not her fault that she’s the plaything of useless rich people. The issue is that the Rafalca-owner class has rigged the tax code to such an extent that I can’t write off my child’s braces, whereas Rafalca’s owners can write off more than my entire annual wages for a nonexistent dancing horse “business.” But that’s not enough; they want MORE.
Clueless, entitled prick that he is, Romney dimly perceives that this looks kinda bad, so he’s hoping no one watches the dressage competition and that his wife’s horse fails to medal so the issue will go away. Me, I hope Rafalca takes the gold, and I’ve circled August 2 on my calendar.
*Spelling correction H/T to NotMax. Also too, apparently it was Earl Fauntleroy (rather than Little Lord) who was the entitled douchenozzle—H/T, Aimai.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
gnomedad
If Rmoney had an ounce of brains, he’d donate the $78K to charity, declare the deduction ridiculous, and promise to simplify the tax code. But I suppose this would hurt our equestrian job-creators.
the Conster
Shouldn’t Piers Morgan be indicted any day now for his role at NOTW? Maybe he’s got the goods on everyone here too, because there’s no other explanation for his continued presence on my teevee.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
The Aussies here just promised more more dressage coverage now that the road race is over. Oh, I can’t wait *rubs hands together* More Olympic sports should require top hats.
Maude
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
Are the riders wearing English riding outfits?
c u n d gulag
Well, I look on the plus side – when CNN replaced Larry King, at least it wasn’t with Erick Erickson.
JPL
I’m watching fed play tennis. Dressage is an option but Fed..Dancing Horse…hmm… Although I am on antenna..I have a nice son.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Holy God, even those boobs on the FoxMorning ZooCroo wouldn’t put it so bluntly. THey would’ve prefaced it with a “do you feel…” or “some are saying…”
MattR
Just finished listening to the brilliant Al Michaels tell me that Americans finished far outside the medal hunt in the men’s cycling road race despite American Tyler Phinney finishing in fourth place half a bike behind the guy in front of him as part of a massive sprint finish for the bronze.
NotMax
The original was Fauntleroy, not Fontleroy.
Valdivia
Isn’t Piers part of the Murdoch tent? With questions like this that would make sense?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Ok, well, I think I kind of understand this now. It’s like a dog show for horses. Put them through different types of strides and styles, show off some control and precision, and then, it’s over. Wow. You have to really be into horses to actually get into that, I’m afraid. Not a single jump, hardly a gallop. Just very shiny boots, very precise prancing, and a top hat. Mittens, you just make it so damned easy… If I was the Obama campaign I’d have plants at every blue collar stop Willard made from here to election day, peppering him with dressage questions, using the terminology. Hell if I lived in a Pennsylvania coal town I’d volunteer.
NancyDarling
@gnomedad: I read somewhere that the IRS disallowed the deduction and he only got to a $50 deduction. That is still $50 more than Betty can deduct for her kid’s orthodontia. And the entitled prick did TRY to take the deduction.
And I don’t really care how much he’s worth. I do care about how he made the money, how much taxes he’s paid and what the hell is going in with the Caymans and Switzerland.
aimai
Little Lord Fauntleroy doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the Romneys. It is a marvellous book and the entire point of it is that LLF was raised to be loving and generous to everyone, unlike his asshole grandfather the Earl of Fauntleroy. In fact, LLF’s original dream was either to be a boot black or a grocer because he so admired the morality and the competence of his clsoest friends who were a boot black and a grocer. When he gets unexpectedly bumped up to heir to the Earl he ends up assuming a massive burden of noblesse oblige and teaching the Earl to stop being such a useless aristocratic user.
aimai
NonyNony
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
If you honestly think that Romney is going to make any blue collar stops where they actually take questions from the audience, I don’t know what to think.
Romney’s appearances are going to be more restricted and stage-managed than W’s were. For similar reasons.
Yurpean
No, no , no, no, no, you’ve taken Mr Moron, you get to keep him.
Yurpean
No, no , no, no, no, you’ve taken Mr Moron, you get to keep him.
NancyDarling
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: I think it was Raven who pointed me to a site about mule dressage. I was thinking us Arkies could get in on some tax deductions that way, but alas, our median income is less than $25,000. Ya gotta have income before you can have deductions.
Seriously, there were some absolutely beautiful mules at that mule dressage site. Since I have 3 mules and a hinny living at my place, I have come to appreciate them a lot.
g
I love the way, in the video, when Piers characterizes the multi-billionaire Mitt Romney’s decision to walk away from Bain and take a 3 year break to do the Olympics as “risky,” and then Ann kind of laughs, like, “Oh, boy, yeah, we really had to tighten our belts.”
Ruviana
@NotMax: Keeping in mind Aimai’s point couldn’t we have the Flauntleromneys?
Linnaeus
Piers Morgan thinks Britain should be an empire again.
I suspect quite a few countries will pass on that sentiment.
Frankensteinbeck
Betty, did you ever get to read my comment on chicken dooly-bobs?
@NancyDarling:
I thought it was reduced to $50k, not $50.
@NonyNony:
Aren’t those stops considered crucial for voter enthusiasm? I understood that they’re an absolute must and the more the better.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@NonyNony: Point taken, I apologize for allowing the humor potential to completely eradicate my sense of reality. Chalk it up as fervent wishful thinking. THAT would have been my kind of political theater.
JPL
Please someone ask Romney what Dress Age involves.
NancyDarling
@Frankensteinbeck: You could be right. I’ll check it out.
Ben Cisco
@Yurpean: Damn you. Damn you to hell!
(digging the nick though)
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: No! I tried to find it in the back room, but I didn’t see it, damn it. Might have been because I was on a tablet. Will check again!
Firebert
I sometimes wonder what a real equine therapy operation could do with a budget like what the Romneys spend on Rafalca.
Anya
What can you say about Piers Morgan, he couldn’t even live up to Larry King’s standards.
chopper
jesus, that’s not even a softball question. that’s straight-up tee ball.
and romney still didn’t hit it very far.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@NancyDarling: I had a great uncle who was a huge fan of mules. Noble, hard working animals. Far more useful than the Romneys.
JGabriel
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gnomedad:
… he’d eat’em.
.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I’m digging this Aussie coverage. Just watched their ping pong champ, Miao Miao (that’s her name, I swear to God) kick some ass. Olympic ping pong is some quick, trippy stuff.
amk
Those brits sure do hate Michelle Obama.
NotMax
Freestyle dressage is a set of steps and poses, a performance demonstrating “from memory a series of predetermined movements” (citation) choreographed to music.
Kind of like Romney on the campaign trail.
Only without the music part.
aimai
I am hoping that something someone said right here on Balloon Juice gets twittered out during the rest of Romney’s good will tour. Someone (can’t remember who) suggested his next gaffe in Poland and Israel would be when he enthusiastically and sincerely blurts out “I posthumously baptized Hitler!”
I am dreaming that some aspiring Israeli journalist asks him to comment on the posthumous conversion and reconversion of Anne Frank and others.
aimai
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Just looked again — the dooly-bob comment is nowhere to be found. I just thought of it again yesterday as I was inspecting dooly-bobs…sorry.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
One more note on dressage: that this is an Olympic sport, but baseball and cricket are not, baffles me.
JGabriel
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chopper:
Huh. And here I thought America was founded on the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and that war where we kicked British troops the fuck out of our country.
And, uh, slavery, but we’re trying not to remind people about that.
.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@aimai: Well hey, if anyone deserved his own planet in the afterlife…
Betty Cracker
@aimai: That would be awesome, Aimai. He has admitted conducting posthumous baptisms, but nary a peep in the media here. Can you imagine the media frenzy if Obama had ever admitted to doing anything 1/666th as weird?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Betty Cracker: If Jindal is the veep, could the posthumously baptized Hitler end up possessing one of Bobby’s old college buddies, necessitating an exorcism?
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck, @NancyDarling, et al
As for the deduction, here’s a decent, short rundown.
MattMinus
Stop making fun of Rafalca. That horse is Ann’s chiropractor for sweet fucks sake!
geg6
@the Conster:
This is what I wonder. I was so hoping to watch his perp walk, right behind that vile bitch, Brooks.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
And now I get Men’s 10M Air Pistol… Suck it NBC
shoutingattherain
“Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?”
S. cerevisiae
@amk: Oh, that is perfect. Contrast the two, America.
Great picture too.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Well, obviously I will not be as clever as I was on a day when dooly-bobs were right in front of me and pertinent, but evolutionarily dooly-bobs count as sexual displays. The thing about those is that they’re actually visual representations of the animal’s health. They pretty much try to grow them is bloated or as shiny or as… well, in the case of chickens magnificently limp as possible. In particular, they’re great displays of what kind of parasite burden the animal is dealing with. So your hen with the flabbiest chin is most likely maturing faster and has more energy to spare on eggs than her sisters. Also, if you have a rooster, he thinks that fact is totally hot and is going ‘Would you look at the dooly-bobs on that one?’
Citizen_X
@aimai: At this point, in Poland I expect him to say something like, “Poland doesn’t make a lot of business sense. Too inefficient. Perhaps there’s a more successful–you know, bigger–country to the the east, or the west, maybe, that could take over and run this place more efficiently. Of course, a few people would have to be eliminated, but hey, that’s business.”
And Israel? I hope the Joint Chiefs are discussing plans if Israel declares war on us, just in case.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
England vs Canada in beach volleyball… These guys make me look tan.
NotMax
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Modern dressage derives from military exercises and parades (albeit in a gussied up, formalized style that is militarily untenable).
The connection between the military and the Olympics goes back to the ancient games.
This is not to pooh-pooh baseball or cricket as valid entries, just to give a little background.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ll be damned! During yesterday’s dooly-bob inspection, I did notice that the sister reds are catching up, so we’ll likely start getting more than an egg a day, which will obviously reduce household strife at breakfast time. The Australorps are a week and a half or so younger, so no impressive dooly-bobs yet. Thanks for the explanation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Linnaeus:
If Americans had any gumption at all anymore, Piers Morgan would long ago have been tarred and feathered and run out of the country on a rail.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@NotMax: I’m not saying it doesn’t have a place based on a variety of traditions, but I AM saying that if this counts as legit, and 10M Air Pistol is legit, then so are baseball and cricket.
By the way, curling is my favorite Olympic sport, by far. It’s like Arctic bocce ball, with brooms! How anyone calling themselves a sports fan can dislike that I have no idea.
NancyDarling
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: The only problem/drawback to mules that I have discovered is they absolutely hate dogs—probably cats as well. My 90 pound guy thinks it’s a game when they chase him. They have gotten used to him and don’t very often give chase unless he gets too close. I have a new rescue puppy that I will have to watch carefully as the vet thinks she will top out at around 25 pounds and she won’t be able to out run them. The hinny is quite tolerant of dogs. The old muleskinners around here tell me that hinnies have a more horse-like mentality while mules think more like donkeys.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
But not on a high-speed rail.
:)
MikeJ
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
In winter stress shoot is an actual event, except it’s called biathlon. I first tuned in expecting a much sexier competition.
fraught
I felt sorry for the horses the few times i watched dressage. Overtraining animals for your amusement seems cruel to me. It’s right up Mitten’s alley. That cruel smile he affects gives me chills.
Bruce S
Don’t you know that expensive dressage horses are an essential part of the best health care system in the entire galaxy? Haters!
El Cid
@fraught:
I’m not sure about those cookies. I don’t think you made them.
Bruce S
re #42 above – IMHO Mormonism is such a weird, made-in-America religion (not that there’s anything wrong with that…burp…lronhubbard!) they need to go back and posthumously baptize Jesus to claim him as one of their own.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@El Cid: Now all I can think of is him donning the gloves with that ‘Fudge’ sign behind him from ’08
Tehanu
@chopper:
Not only a softball, but … silly me; I was raised to believe that America was founded on the idea of being able to speak your mind and to participate in the government which made the rules you had to live under. Imagine my surprise to learn that “all about the Benjamins” has nothing at all to do with, you know, political rights.
GregB
I love and like much about the English, but if you want to wrap up all of the anti-British stereotypes in one nice bundle, Piers Morgan is that package.
The perfect mix of pompousness, obedience to power, prickly arrogance and insufferable snideness.
Nicole
As a few other people have already pointed out, the Romneys didn’t get a $77,000 deduction; they declared a $77,000 loss on the horse, netting a $50 deduction. I don’t understand why this falsehood keeps making the rounds. We’re liberals; we’re better than that.
Articles about this keep trying to make the case that they could someday make enough money on the horse to later offset the loss (just as future business profits can be reduced by applying previous years’ losses) but I’m skeptical. There just isn’t the money in dressage on the breeding side that there is for Thoroughbred racehorses. Yes, Rafalca’s foals might sell, but as dressage horses don’t start training until they are full grown, and the horse has to be cared for during all those years of growing up, I just don’t see the sale price on a foal of Rafalca’s ever equaling the cost of rearing and training it.
There’s plenty I despise the Romneys about, but getting mad because they spend money on dressage is, to me, like getting mad because John Kerry can afford a fancy boat. Rich people spend money on rich people things. I’m more interested in whether the policies they propose are going to affect my own barely clinging to the middle class life.
For what it’s worth, I like equestrian sports, because males and females (riders and horses) compete on equal footing. I believe it’s the only Olympic sport that is completely co-ed.
Bruce S
@Anya:
But doesn’t that make him the perfect guy to interview a GOP candidate who can’t even live up to George W Bush’s standards?
WaterGirl
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: The rich folks can afford Olympics lobbyists for their so-called sports.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Nicole: I was actually thinking about this earlier: imagine the shitstorm in ’04 if the Kerrys had been into equestrian. To be honest, I’m so tired of the ‘Democrats are pussies’ meme and the macho BS that I’m just tickled to see some of it going the other way for a change.
vtr
Mt wife has a horse she is teaching dressage. She bought it for $1.00. A rescue horse. It’s on the BJ animal calendar this year.
Dressage manouvers are derived from military horsemanship
As an old guy, I remember seeing pix of JFK at the helm of his yacht , or tossing a football to Bobby on the beach in front of the compound. Folks thought he was a rich, cool, smart guy, as opposed to the rich jerk we have before us now.
Also, I think the top marginal rate was about 90 per cent.
jayboat
Comrade Nimrod, sir…
you are, as the kids would say- ‘en fuego’ today.
Do carry on.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@jayboat: Time on my hands… too much of it… and didn’t Dan Patrick trademark that shit back in the ’90s?
jayboat
the snark-fu is strong.
Cute, sweaty babes playing basketball get me all warm.
And in a sporty sorta mood, what with all this olympic muletime talk… yeah, sportcenter back when.
Is he dead?
Betty Cracker
@Nicole:
“We’re better than that.”
Maybe YOU are. The Romneys submitted a $77K write off for dancing horse expenses and still have a shot at offsetting the whole amount, so I say it’s fair game.
The point isn’t that they’re rich fucks spending money on rich fuck hobbies; it’s that they’ve rigged the game in their own favor and plan to double down on that strategy.
Haydnseek
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Sorry mate, but all the top hats were used during the opening ceremony.
Chris T.
MORGAN: Any idea why that Godless Muslim Kenyan Socialist who hates America hates your success so much?
Chris T.
@vtr: Yes, it was, although that rich guy Kennedy lowered it to a mere 70%! Imagine if it were that low today! /snark
Yutsano
@Betty Cracker: heh. They really aren’t submitting anything, but their power of attorney is dealing with the examination unit rabbit hole. Willard doesn’t bother with contacting the IRS. He has staff to do that.
Josie
@Betty Cracker: This.
Haydnseek
@c u n d gulag: True enough, but Ericksons continued presence on CNN tells me everything I need to know about them. CNN would love to be Fux News, but don’t have the balls. Think back to all the photos you’ve seen of the National Socialist rise to power in Germany in the 20’s and 30’s, then look at Erickson. He’s the quintessential brownshirt, right down to his politics. Not smart enough for much but street fighting, but useful for a time.
Haydnseek
@NotMax: The Fontleroys were an entirely different family. They made their fortune during the typeface boom that accompanied the newspaper wars of the 1920’s.
Origuy
There are many legitimate sports that aren’t in the Olympics. Baseball and cricket have both been part of it in the past. The reasons for removing them are practical; they require a specialized arena with a lot of space. Dressage is just another event in the equestrian arena. The IOC has strict criteria for adding events and the Summer games are so big they have to take one out for every one they add. They require that a sport be played on at least three continents, for example. They’ve made exceptions for women’s events to make them more equal.
Since I’ve been active in orienteering, I’ve heard a lot about this. It’s one of the many sports recognized by the IOC that aren’t part of the Olympics. The winter games aren’t as crowded, and there is some hope that ski orienteering will be added.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Citizen_X: Best comment I’ve read all week.
LevelB
It’s a misnomer to say they want MORE. They want it ALL.
El Cid
@Haydnseek: I believe it was their palatial estate which set the standard for the Helveticallinistic revival.