If it weren’t for the ‘Sam Bacile’ crisis*, Willard Mitt Romney could’ve spent the day explaining why he’s giving support to Vladimir Putin, per Paul Constant:
Putin Thanks Romney for Reminding Him That America Is Almost 50% Dumbass
ABC News says Vladimir Putin has thanked Mitt Romney for calling Russia the United States’ #1 geopolitical foe, because it has “strengthened his resolve to oppose NATO’s plan for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.”…
*anybody got a good source on this guy? I’m seeing comments, but not — so far — ‘official’ news reports that Gary Cass might be, at the least, working with the ‘Innocence of Mohammed’ provocateurs…
Tom Levenson
You know, even the East German judge would have to give him a 5.8 for his generally fecklessness on this one.
arguingwithsignposts
Sort of like how y’all are bigfooting the posts here in the last hour.
Villago Delenda Est
And the hits just keep on coming.
We’ve still got what, six, seven weeks to go? What will OvenMItt do to top today’s royal fuckup? Will the judges have to retroactively change their present scores in two weeks to account for even greater disasters?
Just when you think Rmoney can’t possibly screw the pooch any more then he already has, he manages, somehow, to top himself.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I’m waiting for Romney to accuse Obama of being part of the great Communist water flouridation plot. I’m sure the Koch boys would approve from their thrones as Emperors of the World and The John Birch Society. I’d love the see the Priebus tweet: “The first instinct of this Socialist administration is to use big government to fight tooth decay.”
chopper
i’d say mittens stepped on his own dick, but that implies that his dick is long enough to step on.
maybe i could say he ‘walked up his own asshole’, since apparently his asshole is the size of a house.
EconWatcher
You know, I’m starting to get the idea that this Mitt Romney fellow may not be quite ready for prime time.
dmsilev
Check me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Romney campaign announce a week or so ago that their strategy until the debates was going to be to sit tight and wait for Obama to make a crippling mistake?
Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
arguingwithsignposts
@EconWatcher:
The sad part is, that was the best of the bunch that decided to run this year.
Villago Delenda Est
@EconWatcher:
He’s not ready for 3AM infomercials.
On the public access channel.
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev:
Which anyone with a brain would have known was unpossible. Challengers don’t get to sit back. That’s the incumbent’s advantage (usually).
Ben Franklin
The advantage for one behind in the polls is that risk is less averse. The bullshit is less odious, or tedious, or something.
Ben Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s not ready for 3AM infomercials.
ShamWow?
EconWatcher
I think I can confidently read Putin’s mind right about now: “I didn’t think they could get any dumber than W, but I guess they can.”
It reminds me of this awesome (true) story from the time when Russia was fighting Georgia. Putin told Sarkozy over the phone that he was going to seize Saakashvili (the Georgian President) and “hang him by his b@lls.”
Sarkozy told Putin that the international community would not accept it if he killed the Georgian leader. Putin said, “Well, Bush did it to Saddam.” Sarkozy replied, “Do you want to end up like Bush?”
Putin said, “Ah, you have scored a point.”
DougJ
I love the wingnut obsession with shirtless Putin.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s on the phone begging his best bud Bibi to unilaterally attack Iran (Netanyahu won’t or he wouldn’t be making such noise trying to get the US to go first).
beltane
Remember The Gong Show? Well, if Mitt were on that show this would be the point where all the has-been celebrities bang the gong on him.
raven
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula told The Associated Press that he was manager for the company that produced “Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked Muslims and the prophet Mohammed and was implicated in inflaming mobs that attacked U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya
Gex
@Villago Delenda Est: Frankly by now, the pooch would like a 3rd class ticket on the top of the car rather than be this available to Mitt.
@DougJ: I really don’t want to know how they’d behave if Putin goes all Captain “Look-at-My-Package” Jumpsuit. Yuck.
kindness
Romney doesn’t care. He knows with all the electronic voting machines out there he already has 59% of the vote locked up. Diebold told him so.
Brian R.
Dan Senor is on CNN apparently trying to speak for the Romney campaign.
If the campaign wanted the message to be “WE ARE ALL GAPING ASSHOLES,” then congratulations, Dan — Mission Accomplished.
dmsilev
@arguingwithsignposts:
Objection. Assumes bodily organ not in evidence.
Davis X. Machina
@kindness: This is the silliest thing I have read in months — and months that contain a RNC convention to boot.
Go back and look at elections decided by margins that large….Hoover didn’t lose by that much. Mondale didn’t lose by that much.
It doesn’t help to have a serious issue championed by patently silly people.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Brian R.: I can only pray that Senor goes down in flames as badly as his boss. If there was ever a chickenhawk douche that deserved it, it’s that assclown.
? Martin
@DougJ: Why does it matter that Vladimir Putin is a mountain man, at home with his shirt off in any outdoor setting? Because there is no better index of character. It tells of someone’s backbone under pressure, resourcefulness in facing adversity, and trustworthiness for power. Conservative or liberal isn’t the point. The shirtlessness simply tests your mettle. Declinists and defeatists need not apply. Excuses are for tie-wearers.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Brian R.:
Senor is a senior Romney campaign official.
HRA
@chopper:
“I’d say mittens stepped on his own dick, but that implies that his dick is long enough to step on.
maybe i could say he ‘walked up his own asshole’, since apparently his asshole is the size of a house.”
With the addition of a car elevator, please.
g
Hoo-boy! Mitt’s string of hits just keep coming!
Ben Franklin
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
or even national security adviser”.
Senor?
Spanish for Mr. Fuckwad.
Ann Rynd
Chuck Todd again, totally misses the story, plays tape of Laura Ingraham calling R “smart.”
I think he thinks we’re stupid.
karen marie
@raven:
I don’t know, smells like a germ to me.
Davis X. Machina
You know, I’m sort of encouraged. Here it is, practically 9/11, and we’ve lost four public servants in an attack overseas, in a predominately-Muslim country, yet a Google search on the phrase “radioactive glass” yields only seven hits that date from the last 24 hours.
Seven or eight years ago, how many would there have been?
We’re making progress, people.
? Martin
@Davis X. Machina: Now now. It’s not like Obama doesn’t have his Kenyan marxist votes to combat Diebold, or Biden his biker-chick ballot stuffers. And Ryan, of course, for his ability to bring Sasquatch votes down from above 12,000 feet.
Lojasmo
@EconWatcher:
Not ready for sesame street.
Davis X. Machina
@Martin: Sasquatch don’t have photo ID. They’re boned.
cintibud
Hey, did anybody else just see Tapper’s report on ABC news about how Obama used Romney’s statement to launch a political attack on Romeny? Unbelievable!
? Martin
@Davis X. Machina: That’s an excellent point. I was on another board back then and I recall it coming up half a dozen times in just one evening.
General Stuck
What is left of republican credibility is melting down currently, to what it has been all along. A quivering mass of reactionary electrons circling the nucleus of a malevolent jingo. The pungent smell is the odor of the rotting corpse of Ronald Reagan and his long shadow casted over American politics for 30 years. And we are witnessing it in dumbstruck awe. No tears.
And Putin is an odd duck or should I say Crane.
Tony J
@dmsilev:
They did, but with the Obama Administration stubbornly refusing to do any such thing Romney concluded that they just didn’t understand what he was asking of them and needed a real-world example to crib from.
You have to admit, he sure showed them.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
He can do that with less than three hours until the polls close, too!
NonyNony
@DougJ:
He tickles their brain in all the right dirty spots. He’s got the manly-man swagger that they wish their Presidential candidates have, but they can never forget that he’s a Commie, which makes it all so dirty.
If he were a fascist they’d be demanding “a leader like Putin” here openly, instead of keeping that wistful longing in their hearts. As it is they dream of someone who can go toe-to-toe with him and make them feel all tingly and wrong the way he does.
Brian R.
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
Seriously. He was badgering ex-Congressman Wexler about whether or not the Middle East was better off because of the Obama administration’s policies.
A guy who worked for the administration that ignored Bin Laden (both before and after 9/11), helped create the epic clusterfuck in Iraq, launched a half-assed war in Afghanistan, and coddled dictators across the region actually had the fucking balls to claim that Obama was the one who made things worse there.
Just unfuckingbelievable.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@? Martin: Dead people from Chicago vote in every community and every state, didn’t you know that? Everyone naively believes that the Republican crusade against the USPS is ideological or pseudo-economic in nature, but no: THE POST OFFICE IS THE VEHICLE FOR THE PANDEMIC OF VOTER FRAUD! Rahm and Daley have teams of illegal Messicans in underground sweatshops frantically filling in bubbles for absentee ballots in every state. ACORN was just the tip of the iceberg, fellow patriots.
Elizabelle
@cintibud:
Go you one better.
Watching CBS Evening News: end of Jan Crawford Greenburg’s segment on Mittflap:
direct quote: “Democrats, including some in his own party, {are complaining that Romney} ….”
Got that?
Critics = Democrats.
Scott Pelley did the same thing in intro: Democrats are complaining….
Liberty60
@DougJ: No kidding- what strikes me about their obsession with bare chested Putin isn’t its homoerotica, but their naked salivating over the Strongman who Makes The Rabble Obey.
Half the wingnut population dreams of being medieval nobility, riding by with the peasants doffing their caps and curtseying; the other half dreams of being the peasants receiving a smile and wave from His Lordship.
Linda Featheringill
Gary Cass:
Wow. I knew that the Bible had prophecies in it but to pass along this judgment on a religion that didn’t start until 610 or so is impressive!
ETA
[The New Testament was apparently finished by the last quarter of the first century CE.]
Villago Delenda Est
@Linda Featheringill:
Just goes to show you that atheists know more about their holy book than the biblidolaters.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s because a lot of them have actually read it critically, either as an examination of the text upon which their faith is supposed to be based (and bailing after the disillusionment) or as literature or historical document or simple curiosity. The fanatics don’t really engage with the Bible so much as they project themselves onto it.
drunken hausfrau
Annie — if you are looking for Gary Cass info — go to TPM, they have a pretty good run down on the whole weird “movie” thing. Including Cass.
Brian R.
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Yeah, I knew that. By “trying to speak for them” I meant “trying to communicate effectively,” at which he was failing, bad.
Wolf Blitzer didn’t even mention that Senor was married to Campbell Brown, one of his fellow CNN anchors.
JPL
Mitt Romney will be getting foreign policy briefings because he is the the Republican candidate. If you think the gaff is bad now, think about what he will do with actual information.
Applejinx
@dmsilev: I wasn’t following that part.
You’re telling me that the Romney campaign lampshaded exactly this? In essence, said, “You watch, Obama is going to make a HYOOOGE blunder!”
How SURE did they seem that this thing which would cause Obama to blunder, was going to happen? Were they smirking? Like Romney was smirking when he thought he was springing the trap and catching Obama in the blunder the Romney campaign helpfully predicted he was going to make?
I don’t think the traditional Republican political organization is in charge of the Romney campaign anymore- if they ever were. I’m getting really curious who is, since Romney is not very effective and since he is so severely beholden to Tea Party and AIPAC.
If it is some fringe element of Netanyahu loonies, they’re probably smacking around the Romney people and yelling “No! Shut up! You’re ruining everything! All you had to do was follow simple instructions and not ask stupid questions!” ;P
steve
@EconWatcher: Holy shit is this true?
shortstop
@? Martin: I never get tired of it. I think it’s going down with Kim DuToit’s “The Pussification of the American Male” in the all-time greats.
Amir Khalid
When I consider the fustercluck that Mitt’s made of his campaign so far (but especially this week), I can’t help but imagine how a nominee Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain would be doing…
Is that wicked of me?
NonyNony
@Applejinx:
I don’t think you need to go into the “Romney knew that this would happen” well on this one. Romney’s team were expecting an Obama blunder because, well, they’re a pack of racist morons. “Obama is black and therefore can’t be competent, so we’ll just wait until he screws up and then we’ve got him” was as far as I can tell the extent of their plan for getting Romney elected at all not just what they were expecting for this month.
Nevermind that if you’ve watched “No Drama Obama” for the last, oh, let’s say 4 years, you know that that kind of shit just doesn’t happen to him. He doesn’t make the kind of blunders that blow up like that. The worst kind of gaffe he makes is something minor – that gets blown out of proportion by his opponents, and causes people to think “well if THAT’S the best they can do, he must not be that bad.”
They’re so blinded by their racism and their hatred of liberals that they don’t understand that the rest of the country doesn’t think like they do. And they’re losing the ability to run campaigns because they want to speak in code and the rest of the country is going WTF?
Mike E
@dmsilev: Why wait when there are so many shiny, silk-sheeted beds to shit all over? Mitt seems obsessed with this activity.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: Don’t even consider denying yourself (or us) the simple pleasures of life.
lamh35
Obama Expands Lead Over Romney
NonyNony
@steve:
I can’t get to the Times of London because of paywall, but this link at ThinkProgress makes it at least sound like it happened.
It sounds like an urban legend to me – isn’t the Times of London a Murdoch rag?
xian
@dmsilev: I guess they thought an embassy tweet in a complex crisis counted
steve
Wow.
lamh35
Romney Picks a Big Fight
? Martin
@shortstop: It really does work in all situations. It’s the perfect wingnut mad-lib.
Anoniminous
Beginning to wonder if there’s going to be a GOP after this election. Mitt vultured everything else he touched, why not the GOP?
Anoniminous
@lamh35:
How the hell can Obama get a “five point bounce among women and a 12-point bounce among independents” and only be up five points with Likely Voters?
It makes no sense.
Mike G
Rmoney runs his campaign like he ran his companies — straight into the ground, yet coming out of the wreckage richer than before.
shortstop
@Anoniminous: Republican men are likely, likely , SUPER LIKELY voters. No, really.
Hill Dweller
I didn’t see it, but judging from the twitter machine and other sites, it sounds like the top political reporters on the big 3 networks did their best to mitigate the damage for Willard.
mechwarrior oline
http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/09/12/limbaughs-conspiracy-theory-al-qaeda-gave-up-os/189853
Enjoy! This is a doozy.
gbear
@Anoniminous: There are actually only three independent voters. Everyone else has chosen sides long ago.
Maude
Obama sent 50 Marines to Libya today to protect our embassy.
Thank the FSM he is president and not McCain.
aimai
@lamh35:
What is a “forearm shiver”?? Does he mean a “straight arm” a “clothesline” or a “shiv?”
aimai
raven
@aimai: A forearm shiver is an old football term where a lineman delivers a blow with his (or her) forearms.
FlipYrWhig
@Anoniminous: If your model builds in a disproportionate amount of Republicans, the numbers could still check out, I think. I’ve had the feeling all along that all the big polling organizations are modeling the election as though Republicans are much more likely to vote, and that’s why so many of the head-to-head numbers look like ties. But if Obama is pulling significantly ahead among likely voters, and if that likely-voter model still skews Republican, hoo Nelly is he ahead among the public at large.
Mike E
@Maude: Actually, I wonder what he’s gonna say about all this, if the press can catch him out on his lawn (preferably on his tire swing–but not yelling at clouds). This will be good for him.
dmsilev
@FlipYrWhig: Gallup’s tracker is still using registered voters (they’ll switch to likely at the end of the month), and they have Obama up by something like 7 points right now. And that’s a one-week rolling average, so it hasn’t even priced in the entire DNC yet.
FlipYrWhig
@raven: But I think the image works better as “clothesline” than “forearm shiver,” because of the part about walking unsuspectingly into it.
scav
@Anoniminous: probably some double counting between categories (e.g. women likely voters) plus what gbear says, some of the bounces are measured in small groups and the change will get swamped when thrown in the big puddle.
Anoniminous
@shortstop:
@gbear:
@FlipYrWhig:
ETA: @scav:
(My brain hurts.)
(+1, going +27,269)
raven
@FlipYrWhig: Nah, you are bustin someone in the chops with a shiver.
Anoniminous
Comment in moderation.
That’s what I get for linking to all those scags on Balloon Juice.
Humanities Grad
@Anoniminous:
Because white males constitute a higher % of “likely voters” than any other segment of the population, and that’s the one demographic group with which Obama really struggles?
That’d be my guess, anyway. Of course, I’m a white male Obama supporter, which evidently makes me a traitor to my demographic, so what do I know?
SatanicPanic
@Linda Featheringill: What’s your point? The Bible also says Obamacare is evil.
Humanities Grad
@SatanicPanic:
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s pre-existing condition.”
Maude
@Mike E:
He has also ordered a review of the security at all embassies.
It should be good for him. He has had an extremely difficult presidency and has handled things well.
He might just have another beer recipe instead of the tire swing.
I read the news of the Libyan embassy during the night when the report was that two souls had died. I started weeping.
quannlace
Re: This thread’s title.
I read that the wingnut-o-sphere is all a-twitter over supposed audio of reporters conspiring, before Romney’s presser, to ask him certain questions. Cause, just like Sarah Palin, I guess, Romney’s kryptonite is answering a direct question.
Course now, they can’t find this alleged audio. Even Rush is weeping for it’s recovery. Guess it’s just as real as the grainy Bigfoot video.
mechwarrior oline
@FlipYrWhig:
Old people vote like crazy, old people vote Republican.
On the other hand several Democratic groups aren’t all that reliable (hello young people and some minorities). A lot of heavily Democratic voting blocks simply aren’t reliable and a lot of Republican groups are.
2008 was really amazing in the amount of young people and African Americans that voted, normally those groups are ones you can kinda laugh off with “yeah but they don’t vote”. In 2010 with no Obama on the ticket they stayed home and all the old people voted like crazy.
With Obama back on the ticket they shouldn’t count those groups out, but Republicans do have two of the most reliable voter bases out there, and Democrats have some notoriously unreliable ones.
Mike E
@Maude: I dinna indicate McCain in my post…apologies. Snark FAIL
ETA a McCain statement at this time would really draw a nice circle around Mitt’s stupid, craven gaff-salad.
raven
@quannlace: Yea, Hannity and Ollie were going fucking crazy this afternoon for the three minutes I could stand it.
scav
@scav: The delta women one is odd though . . . I don’t get that one . . shouldn’t really suffer from any small number issues. Do they do fancy tweaks only taught in say, 400 level stat classes on projections? I just managed the standard 200 level general application stuff and have blissfully forgotten what I had to learn about MANOVAs, bleugh bleugh bleurg.
Southern Beale
This just broke my heart. Fucking media won’t cover THIS will they? Photos of Libyans apologizing to America for the deaths of embassy officials…
mechwarrior oline
@Southern Beale:
I’ve seen those photos, they are out there. But Libyans doing whatever is not the story, the horse race is the story. All coverage must be the horse races. Is this good for Mitt? Is this bad for Mitt?
HORSE RACE.
FlipYrWhig
@Anoniminous: Imagine an electorate with, to be totally skewed, 60% Republicans, 30% Democrats, and 10% independents. Let’s say all the Republicans vote for the R, all the Democrats vote for the D, and the independents split 50-50. Then the Republican would win 60+5 to 30+5.
But let’s say the independents start to like something the D promises to do. Instead of splitting 50-50, they go wild and now they prefer the D 90-10. The Democrat would have shot up 40 points among independents, but would still be getting trounced in the overall numbers, 60+1 to 30+9.
The 40-point surge in indie support translates into only a 4-point swing in the topline numbers. There aren’t enough indies for their new-found support to change the overall picture that much.
Hope that helps…
FlipYrWhig
@raven: Yeah, but you don’t “walk into” a forearm shiver. You do “walk into” a clothesline. It’s not a bad image, but it’s IMHO not quite on the mark.
daverave
I’d say Murika is probably 27% dumbass…
From today’s WaPo poll:
Did the Democratic national convention help Barack Obama’s chances in the presidential election?
Yes – 73%
No – 27%
That number!
Maude
@Southern Beale:
I was comforted by their support.
Mike E
McCain does the right thing.
? Martin
@Mike E: Even the liberal John McCain is apologizing for America now.
Dennis SGMM
@mechwarrior oline:
With all due respect, bite me. I’m an old people and I wouldn’t vote Republican if you offered me a pound of weed and a UCLA cheerleader in a long limousine to do so. We are not monolithic. Many of us are living on SS and Medicare and we know exactly who wants to undo both.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: What if I up the offer to two UCLA cheerleaders?
ETA: FWIW my parents who are 69 and 70 and my grandmother who will be 91 in November will not be voting for Republicans – of course, they never have done.
catclub
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: There is a Unix Fortune to the effect that after reading the Bible, the author concludes that God is an extremely uneven author, but when He is on, He is ON.
‘Do justice, Love Mercy, and wait humbly on your God.’
raven
@Dennis SGMM: Don’t bother with that douche.
Roger Moore
@quannlace:
FTFY.
JPL
@Southern Beale: Most of the time if the TV is on, it’s background noise but I looked up in time to see ABC news covering it. (think it was on abc but since I’m on antenna had to be one of the big three)
Linda Featheringill
@mechwarrior oline: #87
People 65 and older make up about 13% of the population.
They account for something like 22% of all voters who actually vote.
About 40% of older people vote Democratic come hell or high water.
60% [older Republican voters] x 22% [of all voters] equals 13.2% of all the Republican votes.
Who accounts for the other 86.8% of Republican votes?
Liquid
A 100+ post with some relevance towards Russia and no one has mentioned Stalin yet? Shameful!
hep kitty
Holy shit! Mitt has fucked the shark or jumped the chicken or something!
Omnes Omnibus
@Liquid: Too moustachy.
JPL
@Liquid: Stalin
Ben Franklin
@Dennis SGMM:
Yup, the Ageism here is palatable. The young turks seem to think, like my kids, they know so much more. But WE fucked up the politics, because we were the gauntlet that failed.
Tired of that shit.
catclub
@Hill Dweller: I did not listen to every minute of NPR ATC, but it struck me that Omerta was the word of the day as far as Romney and Libya were concerned.
raven
@Ben Franklin: Fuck em.
Baud
@Liquid:
I’m still shocked we’re in triple digits and we haven’t gone Godwin yet.
Ben Franklin
@Mike E:
McCain does the right thing
Gargles with razor blades, or just plain Bargles?.
raven
President Bush has apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an American sniper’s use of a copy of the Quran for target practice, Maliki’s office said Tuesday.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke to al-Maliki about the Quran shooting incident during a regularly scheduled videoconference on Monday. She said Bush expressed his “serious concern.”
MikeJ
@Linda Featheringill: Math error. Old people who vote republican are 60%(r’s) of 22%(old vote %)or 13.2% of the total vote, not 13.2% of the Republican vote. If Republicans get 50% of the vote, you need to ID the other 36.8% of the total vote that goes to them.
Anne Laurie
@quannlace: I think this is the Nontrovery in Question, as explained by Dave Weigel, who has been there. It would take a very, very slow news day indeed to raise this to the level of a nothingburger, in my opinion.
chopper
@Baud:
you know who else went into triple digits?
? Martin
@Dennis SGMM: Now now, he’s not wrong. >60 demographic is the only age group McCain won. It’s the only one that Romney will win. It’s also the whitest age group, it’s also the group most likely to vote.
That’s why GOTV efforts aren’t hugely beneficial to Romney. There’s just not as much upside for them. By comparison, that’s pretty much all Obama needs to do.
Gex
@gbear: And those three people suffer from dissociative identity disorder. All the personalities have decided, they just haven’t decided how the host body will mark the ballot.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Wilt Chamberlain?
Dennis SGMM
@Ben Franklin:
Some young people are given to Monday morning quarterbacking. It comes with the territory and understanding that makes it a bit less irritating.
What is delicious is that they are are also aging.
hep kitty
@Dennis SGMM: My parents are 82, white, and were born and raised in SC, and they vote Dem and voted for Obama and will do so again. We are all just ordinary, middle class people with some well-educated ancestors. That’s always been the rub.
That’s why this whole republican “my grandfather had to pull an iron cart filled with stones” bullshit like we are all going to fall for that shit pisses me off so much. They have been insulting our intelligence for decades. We are the shadow people, in the south, that’s what you have to be if you’re not republican.
Mike E
@Ben Franklin: Que?
maya
@Dennis SGMM:
I’m an old people too, but I ain’t dead. I’d take that weed, cheerleader and limo offer in a flash. Course, I live in Ca, about as blue as you can get, so it wouldn’t be going to Rmoney or the repubs anyway and that cheerleader wouldn’t even have to travel very far.
So where do I sign up for that exchange? Craig’s list?
Liquid
I used to frequent a gaming forum with Russian moderators. It was quite a lot of fun to debate what’s in the news and trade jabs with each other.
It was gratifying to hear them complain about the same type of crap we’re fed on a regular basis. Then coming together online to mock each other for it.
raven
Vile Rat!
dead existentialist
@raven: It’s a forearm “shiv.” Jesus.
Baud
@raven:
Coincidentally, that’s also Romney’s Secret Service code name.
MikeJ
I don’t understand the offence that people are taking. Old people vote republican, by a 20 point margin according to one of the offended. Black people vote for Democrats, by a 96 point margin according to polls. That doesn’t mean that no old people are sane or that no black people are crazy.
No wonder people think old people are cranky. Chill the fuck out.
Ruckus
@Dennis SGMM:
That’s at least 2 of the over 60 white bread/velveeta male variety who know how to vote.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig:
Correction: You walk into a forearm shiver only if you are an incompetent, clumsy oaf. Like Willard. The metaphor is perfectly apt.
raven
@dead existentialist: what the fuck are you talking about?
1. Forearm Shiver
A technique done by linemen in the sport of football to deliver devastating blows by using their forearms on the opposing team. Players wore big forearm pads that went out over their elbows and they would practice their craft by thrusting their forearms into blocking bags. Some guys would go so far as to ram their forearms into walls.
“Yo, that dude just clocked the QB with a forearm shiver.”
“The ref went ballistic after he was forearm shivered by the 300 pound lineman.”
Ruckus
@Liquid:
I can see Putin from my back yard
raven
“If you’re chasing a quarterback from behind, wrap him up with your arms and drive him to the turf. Punch at the ball while you’re doing so if you want to try to force a fumble. But when you throw a forearm shiver, especially at a quarterback, you’re inviting activist referees like Hochuli to make judgment calls against you.”
raven
@MikeJ: Listen at you.
Anya
Telemundo guys interviewing the President (on RMS) sounds like a dick. Does Telemundo subscribe to the Village’s “both sides” as well?
Gex
@Ben Franklin: Well, I’m GenX, so I know better than to try to play that game with the Boomers. Too many of my peers wanted to be Alex P. Keaton.
@Anne Laurie: Well, clearly this is the kind of gaffe that would only be bad if a D did it.
jayboat
@raven:
Vile Rat. cool.
Mnemosyne
@Southern Beale:
Teh Google told me some really interesting things about Chris Stevens, like that he helped the Libyan provisional government organize themselves during the revolution. He apparently was pretty popular in Libya and particularly in Benghazi, so the people of Libya probably do feel his murder as a loss for them personally, not just something that happened to the US.
Comrade Mary
@Southern Beale: When I saw those photos, I cried for the first time today.
ding dong
@beltane: nah,this is more like tyhe Apollo where the trap door opens and he goes down. Also more appropriate since his opponent sings so well.
Punchy
@dead existentialist: No, it’s a forearm shiver. A wrestling term from at least the 80’s. Akin to four-figure leglock, piledriver, headbutt, and shots to the “solar plexus”.
Ah, the 80s. Big John Stud, Junkyard Dog, Hulk in his infancy, George the Animal Steele, Andre the Gia….etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@NonyNony:
I’m just catching up so it’s entirely possible that someone down thread or on another thread has mentioned this, but the October issue of Vanity Fair has a long feature article By Michael Lewis called “Obama’s Way.” Lewis had six months of access to POTUS, unprecedented access, including going on the Truman Balcony (accessible only through the residence), Air Force One, and participating in a basketball game at the FBI gym. Terry Gross interviewed him for today’s “Fresh Air” on NPR (it was recorded yesterday). The interview was wonderful, and Lewis is as good a speaker as he is a writer. But what really came through was Obama’s focus on the essentials, his methodology of sifting information and making decisions, and his ruthless expunging of anything that might distract.*
I think you can find a podcast of the interview and a link to the VF article at the Fresh Air website.
* For instance: he has only grey and blue suits in his closet, and the shirts and ties that work with them, so he never has to agonize about what to wear. He told the kitchen about the food he likes and doesn’t like and they go with that info, but he never has to look at a menu and decide what he wants for lunch. It was really interesting, and clearly something where Obama was well aware of the toll such minor decision-making can take.
If you can find the podcast of the interview it would be worth listening to. I believe Terry said
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
The “For instance” paragraph should have an apostrophe.
And the last sentence shouldn’t be there. I thought I had deleted it, but evidently not. My bad, but that won’t stop me from saying FYWP.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Not an apostrophe, an ASTERIX.
I feel like a one-woman Monty Python routine.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Not ASTERIX. Asterisk.
SD +2, which seems to be more than enough
Gex
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve never seen anyone so ruthlessly grammar Nazi themselves. I’m impressed!
SiubhanDuinne
@Gex:
Every once in a while I fall into these strange linked talking-to-myself threads. Ruthless grammar Nazi, I iz it!
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, woe iz you. Glad it wasn’t me. Funny thread, though. Thanks for the chuckle.
priscianusjr
Gary Cass link at TPMMuckraker:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/sam_bacile_film_embassy_attacks.php
shortstop
@MikeJ: No kidding. When pointing out well-documented demographic voting patterns — without anyone remotely suggesting that they’re universal — is described as “ageism,” the defensiveness has gotten out of hand. Shall we move on to the “Lay off the South; the North has racists, too!” portion of the evening?
JustAnotherBob
@Linda Featheringill:
2% greedy bastards. 98% stupid people.
JustAnotherBob
This site’s software just sucks.
Isn’t there someone with programming skills that can give Cole a hand? I’ll chip in for pizza and a six-pack of something decent.
Ben Franklin
@Mike E:
Bargle? That’s gargling with your barf.