The insanity continues:
Nullification is yet again picking up steam in Dixie.
Pursuing an archaic legal theory that punctuated pre-Civil War disputes between the federal government and states, South Carolina state Rep. Bill Chumley last week pre-filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session that would criminalize implementation of President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare reform law.
If his bill becomes law, any state official caught enforcing the healthcare law would be guilty of a misdemeanor and “must be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Federal officials caught enforcing the law, however, would be given stiffer punishment under the proposal.
Any federal employee or contractor enforcing the law “is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than five thousand dollars, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both,” the bill proposes.
“I think we’re within our rights to do this,” Chumley explained to U.S. News. “It’s an obligation, I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect the people.”
These lunatics are not going to be happy until the 82nd Airborne is deployed around the SC capitol.
El Tiburon
Hate to barge in on this thread, but get ready for it in 3,2,1…
Off-Duty Cop Prevents Mass shooting at Movie Theater
I assume this will be shoved down our throats for the next 13million years.
rikyrah
fuck these mofos
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@El Tiburon:
The important distinction there, one which the wingnuts won’t make or decidedly ignore, is that the guy was *trained*. Theoretically as a cop, he knows how to deal with that shit whether or not he’s in uniform.
To expect one of the Keyboard Kommandos, or your random 1st grader packing heat, to handle the situation is absurd.
Which is why, of course, the right will run this story into the ground.
Dave
@El Tiburon:
And they will ignore that this was a trained police officer specifically hired to work security on off-hours. Not just some Rambo wannabe
Just Some Fuckhead
@El Tiburon: Police security works? Imagine that. I guess that explains cops everywhere.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
One hopes they will notice the part where the attempted shooter wasn’t anything like the shooters in Aurora or Newtown, who were killing strangers at random — this guy was there to try and kill his ex-girlfriend:
But other than that, it was exactly the same!
/wingnut
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Just Some Fuckhead: But anyone can be trained to be a policeman if we give them a handgun and a copy of the constitution. We wouldn’t even have to pay actual cops.
RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
I’m passing through Texas at the moment. Got the full TSAtreatment at Bush/Houston airport, which is ironic. Amazes me that Righties who love their freedom and liberty so much put up with this Police State shit.
danah gaz
Okay.
Now about those federal dollars your state receives…
scav
Well du-uh, one example of things working according to their theory negates all instances where things didn’t work according to their theory, just as the one poll showing Romney ahead proves he won in a landslide. Funny that the gun not working again was another factor. Maybe we could buy up the manufacturers and sell everyone really crappy guns (in the name of shareholder profit).
there’s no right to have well-functioning guns.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: and he was a she, but otherwise, yeah. Will any of them wonder about the guy who came around stalking a woman a gun? odds that this is a case of either on-going domestic violence or stalking? and/or said stalker has a previous record that did not prevent him from buying his gun at WalMart? I’d place that bet.
Am I hopelessly sheltered that, this isolated incident notwithstanding, I find the idea of armed security at a multiplex kinda odd?
from health insurance?
Short Bus Bully
Could we please? I’m tired of these fucking fucksticks. They want to LARP their armed revolution fantasies of fighting off the gub’ment? Let’s do it assholes.
Where’s our modern day General Sherman?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mnemosyne: And his weapon jammed. Maybe we could argue that all weapons sold have to jam. If he’d fired one off it probably would be a different story.
jacksmom
“I think we’re within our rights to do this,” Chumley explained to U.S. News. “It’s an obligation, I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect the people.”
So somewhere in the Constitution there’s a portion outlawing afforable health care because…..protect the people.
Who knew?
schrodinger's cat
They want to go back to a time where they could own slaves and women had no rights either. BTW I am currently reading The Battle Cry of Freedom on the suggestion of many BJers and I just realized that the current crop of Republicans is worse than the Democrats of the Civil War era, who were at least pro-labor (of course with right skin color and gender, but still)
Schlemizel
I quit saying it here some time ago because I felt like I brought it up every time there was a parallel and people would get sick of me saying it.
If you study the history of the US in the 20 years before the Civil war you will find exact comparisons between the arguments the treasonous slave holding bastards used then and the mouth-breathing redneck wingnuts use today. The same endless outrage the same phoney persecution complex, everything. The only thing that has changed was then slavery was the root cause of their hysteria today it modernity and a sensible government.
Cris (without an H)
Those guys are a bunch of counterfeit cavalrymen anyways
LanceThruster
Mr. President, we must not allow a Fort Sumter gap!
Cacti
South Carolina has 8 military installations.
Start shutting off the spigot.
elmo
Well, at this rate, neither am I.
leinie (iPad)
@Cacti: this.
driftglass
Yep.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/03/still-not-over-it.html
The Tragically Flip
How can something that could put you in jail for 2 fucking years ever be called a “misdemeanor”?
This is why America is the prison capital of the known universe. Good thing it wasn’t a serious crime son, or we might have to give you some real time behind bars.
Bobby Thomson
Not just Dixie. In the Nucky Johnson era, members of the Coast Guard were arrested for assault with intent to kill for shooting at rumrunners.
Local officials get away with thumbing their noses at the feds until they don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
According to my legal history courses, this legal theory was discredited in 1865.
Bobby Thomson
@elmo: Good point.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not after Aurora, it’s not.
CW in LA
Can you tell me more about deploying the 82nd Airborne to the South Carolina state capitol, preferably in loving detail? I’ve been running low on fap material.
jl
OK, the ultimate political reversal of fortune: reactionary GOPers become Jacksonian Democrats
The info page below is from the Library of Congress, a demonic fed agency, so I guess I proclaim myself of the Devi’s party.
Primary Documents in American History
Nullification Proclamation
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Nullification.html
Looks like the entire text of Madison’s notes on Nullification are at the link.
Napoleon
I wonder if the Army will take me at 51? I would like nothing more then to be in on taking out SC.
Dork
If I remember correctly, the Aurora theater shooter’s gun jammed. So did the guy who opened fire in the Oregon mall. And did Jared Loughtner’s gun jam too?
Seems like this happens a lot. Kinda glad it does, but kinda worried that America puts out such shit products.
? Martin
@jacksmom:
I think he’s referring to the portion where he doesn’t need to hew to the authority of 3/5ths of a President.
MikeJ
@RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Make you you flip off the statue of George the smarter.
dmsilev
As the saying goes, South Carolina is too small to be a nation and too large to be a lunatic asylum.
Napoleon
@Schlemizel:
Exactly. Also another similar situation is the years prior to the Spanish Civil War.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Triumph of the McArdle
Triassic Sands
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
The important distinction is not only that the shooter in question was a trained police officer, but that he was the only one shooting back. Wingers envision the entire theater opening fire, and with multiple shooters the likelihood of friendly fire deaths and injuries is virtually inevitable.
If Wingers want to raise taxes enough to place an armed law enforcement officer in every theater in the US, it’s something we can discuss. Personally, I can think of lots of more cost effective uses for our tax revenues, but any Republican who wants to raise taxes (except for national defense) deserves a hearing.
David Hunt
These secessionist assholes are just priceless (read: “worthless”). They think that if they say the word “Constitution” in their b.s. rant, they can just de facto write the Supremacy Clause out of that same Constitution. On second thought, I’ve decided that “worthless” severely overestimates this jerks value to society.
I take heart in my firm belief that the Republicans have not sufficiently packed the judiciary with rightwing nutjobs for this thing to ever withstand scrutiny if it gets through the legislature and the governor. I wouldn’t even be worried that if would get that far, but it is South Carolina. What I’m really worried about is that some judge might not be wiling to make a ruling on such a blatantly unconstitutional law until someone is actually convicted under it with the excuse that you can’t sue to have it struck down until it has caused “actual harm” or some such b.s.
? Martin
@Dork:
That’s why a lot of these guys carry multiple weapons. They just drop the ones that jam.
My understanding is that it’s the large capacity clips that are the problem. We put out perfectly good weapons designed to mow down humans like so much wheat. Thankfully we only entrust them to the military.
Dracula
This is precisely where the playground monitor would have whipped out his Gat and dropped said terrorist-student with 2 rounds of hollow-point. Teachers pack heat for this very reason, yo.
? Martin
@Triassic Sands:
Uh, no. Any such revenues will come directly from gun owners as a tax on ammunition. Nobody should even think about taking off tax revenue designed for other purposes for that.
NCSteve
@Napoleon: Screw that. If the memory of General Sherman’s last visit has faded, nothing will renew it better than tanks and Bradleys. If we have to do it, I want to see the treads of the 1st Armored, the 1 ACR and the 3d ID grinding the smoking ruins of their state capitol into dust.
Gus
I’d say let ’em secede, but I worry that they’d reinstitute slavery.
jl
@jl: Here is a key paragraph from Madison’s Notes on Nullification, laying out very well the roots of current wingnut logic and where it leads: anarchy.
” It is painful to be obliged to notice such a sophism as that by which this inference is assailed. Because an unconstitutional law is no law, it is alledged that it may be constitutionally disobeyed by all who think it unconstitutional. The fallacy is so obvious, that it can impose on none but the most biassed or heedless observers. It makes no distinction where the distinction is obvious, and essential, between the case of a law confessedly unconstitutional, and a case turning on a doubt & a divided opinion as to the meaning of the Constitution; on a question, not whether the Constitution ought or ought not to be obeyed; but on the question, what is the Constitution. And can it be seriously & deliberately maintained, that every individual or every subordinate authy. or every party to a compact, has a right to take for granted, that its construction is the infallible one, and to act upon it agst. the construction of all others, having an equal right to expound the instrument, nay against the regular exposition of the constituted authorities, with the tacit sanction of the community. Such a doctrine must be seen at once to be subversive of all constitutions, all laws, and all compacts. The provision made by a Constn. for its own exposition, thro’ its own authorities & forms, must prevail whilst the Constitution is left to itself by those who made it; or until cases arise which justify a resort to ultra-constitutional interpositions. “
Schlemizel
@Napoleon:
Kindly point me in the direction of General Sherman. I think it is time we finished the job they started in Nov. 1864.
Yes, there I go again bad mouthing all those fine states simply because the majority of its residents are mouth breathing morans without giving so much as a by-your-leave to the handfuls of decent people who might live there.
The Other Chuck
Really, republicans? This is the hill you want to die on? Health care? The irony of that aside, and using language you can understand, there’s a few million Americans perfectly willing to kill you on that hill. So start hiking.
? Martin
@Dracula: That’s a good point – are we to start arming hall monitors now?
“Whaddya mean you don’t have a bathroom pass, punk?”
Napoleon
Well I know he was from somewhere here in Ohio.
MikeJ
@? Martin:
1st gen M-16s were notorious for jamming. Turns out they’re just super finicky about being properly cleaned all the time.
At least that’s what I remember reading somewhere, so if someone who actually knows what they’re talking about contradicts me, listen to them, not me.
Bulworth
I guess he forgot how the John Roberts Supreme Court upheld the ACA.
Bulworth
@Cacti: This
Calouste
@dmsilev:
Just cut it loose, let it drift in the Atlantic, and hope it doesn’t bump into the Bahamas.
jl
Madison arguing that there is no middle ground between a Constitutional right which provides protection under U.S. Constitution, and natural right of civil disobedience and revolution. Folks who want to pull stunts like this have a natural right to do so, and our society has to judge how to deal with it in an appropriate way. But, Thoreau and Gandhi and King were at least consistent, you violate what you consider unjust laws in protest, you need to be prepared to take your medicine.
These people want to have their cake and eat it too. Do what the hell they feel like and then run to the Constitution for protection. As Madison notes, if any society goes along with this reasoning, it ends up either as a tyranny of the minority over the majority, or anarchy.
So, let them do what they want to do, but I will sure as hell support any sanctions against a state that tries this garbage. How about cutting off federal funding. The red states, most of whom get more bucks from the satanic feds than they contribute will fall in line very quickly, won’t they?
” It remains however for the nullifying expositors to specify the right & mode of interposition which the resolution meant to assign to the States individually. They cannot say it was a natural right to resist intolerable oppression; for that was a right not less admitted by all than the collective right of the States as parties to the Const. the nondenial of which was urged as a proof that it could not be meant by the Resoln.
They cannot say that the right meant was a Constitl. right to resist the constitutional authy. for that is a construction in terms, as much as a legal right to resist a law.
They can find no middle ground, between a natural and a constitutional right, on which a right of nullifying interposition can be placed; and it is curious to observe the awkwardness of the attempt, by the most ingenious advocates… “
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.
@Schlemizel:
I don’t know; I bet some of these assholes are still kind of pissed off that there’s no slavery any more. Every few years, some brain-dead wingnut, or his brain-dead wingnut kid, gets caught with some pathetic “joke” about how “Slavery got shit done!” or some shit like that. Seems like there was some guy running for some office somewhere a few years ago, and his son had put that “joke” up on his Facebook page or something. So you know there are more of these fucks who are just barely smart enough to bring this up only when they know they’re among friends.
Full Metal Wingnut
The public integrity section of the DOJ should really expand to cover asshats like this. http://www.justice.gov/criminal/pin/
Calouste
@Schlemizel:
And this time finish it properly by redividing the land and creating a whole new set of states. There’s a reason that one of the first things the Allies did after they had taken control of Germany was to abolish Prussia.
Litlebritdifrnt
From Think Progress
Heliopause
For real? This guy got elected in South Carolina?
J. Michael Neal
@Calouste:
I’m not sure that handing South Carolina over to the Soviets is really the greatest idea in the world. It does have a certain sort of poetic justice to it, but the blowback potential seems pretty high.
Redshift
@jl:
I think I’m going to take a page from Madison, and from now on refer to these idiots as “biassed.” They’re such asses, they’re double asses.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Along with Battle Cry, you might want to check out McPherson’s Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War
Full Metal Wingnut
@Dracula: And I’m stressed, yo biggie let me get the vest. No need for that, just grab the fuckin gat the first pocket that’s fat the tec is to his back
gene108
@jacksmom:
Don’t mock nullification so fast. Could just be another way to bog Obamacare in more lawsuits. Making the implementation shitty will just get people pissed off, which helps Republicans.
redshirt
@? Martin: Simpsons did it! South Park, also too. Two hilarious episodes.
Redshift
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.: I’m reminded of the wife of Governor Appalachian Trail, saying that what she really missed about not living in the governor’s mansion was the prisoners who did all the work for them. There are ways to pine for slavery without ever using the word.
Omnes Omnibus
@J. Michael Neal: It would give them the warm water port they have always sought.
jl
@Redshift: I guess dragging in nullification and Madison on this is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer, since this particular protest will go nowhere, it is just a gimmick to satisfy deranged constituents.
But the logic Madison argues against runs through a lot of wingut hobby horses.
One very important one, that will probably lead to some violence, concerns of course, nutcase interpretations of the second amendment.
And there, things will get tricky, since we have some dishonest and incompetent hacks (Scalia) who have been trying to sabotage long standing interpretations of the Bill of Rights.
On other hand, one ray of light that has been neglected, is that reelection of Obama can help stop partisan subterfuge in the Supreme Court. And that is why a Democratic victory in 2016 is of vital importance.
nemesis
Heres the plan. Stall, refuse to enact Obamacare, which forces the government to come to the state in question and enact the law themselves. Then, the gop will scream “Big gummit takeover of healthcare” again. They are nothing if not masters of creating the need.
JCT
@Dork: Yes, Loughtner’s gun jammed as well — these very high capacity magazines are not made by the actual gun manufacturers. They are usually cheap off-shore builds so they are cheap and profoundly unreliable.
These high capacity magazines should be banned tomorrow, a no-brainer.
Rosie Outlook
I think both sides overall would be happier if the Union split amicably –but then what do you do about places like Austin , Texas? And do you send foreign aid to the 21st century Confederacy when children begin to starve en masse? What about refugees? Treaties? What if their lack of concern for the public health endangers U. S. citizens, do we then invade and force modern sanitation and health care on them, and if so, aren’t we right back where we started? You may say that even the reddest states have plumbing–but in a tea bagging paradise, who’s going to maintain it? The Sewage Fairy, in the form of public employees paid by evil taxes, won’t be there anymore, so eventually the water treatment won’t be either. I think it’s time someone (besides me) began considering how a divorce can be accomplished before the red states drag us all down.
ranchandsyrup
@Bulworth:
You forgot the part of the wingnut constitution that says, “Should the Chief Justice fall under the spell of a Kenyan Usurper, all holdings of that court shall be invalid.”
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Apparently only lawyers and legal historians believe that.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t like this idea. Can we sell South Carolina to Saudi Arabia instead? They’re allies of ours and would give SC instant energy independence.
Triassic Sands
@? Martin:
My statement was a generality — give a hearing. That doesn’t mean OK anything.
CW in LA
@J. Michael Neal: There’re no Soviets to hand South Carolina to. I guess we’ll just have to settle for handing them to North Korea.
? Martin
@burnspbesq: Real Americans™ know that all valid legal history ended with the 12th amendment. Everything after that is, in the words of the Framers “utter pigshit, and fuck you”
That’s a direct quote from Jefferson.
Full Metal Wingnut
@jacksmom: Well, that’s not really the best way to put it. The federal government is, theoretically, limited to its enumerated powers, so the absence of an explicit prohibition does not mean the federal government can do something, it’s under which enumerated power Obamacare would fall. Pretty clearly the commerce clause (although the chief justice seems to disagree. Whatever, John. ) Anyway, my quibble is just that the law is constitutional because it falls under an enumerated power, not because the Constitution doesn’t say you can’t. You can certainly validly object to the constitutionality of an act of Congress even if there isn’t an explicit prohibition on it. That said, I think the arguments that obamacare is unconstitutional are incredibly weak.
kc
My state exists to provide fodder for Jon Stewart.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
A large part of the early problems had to do with the Army insisting on a poor quality ammo. Even after that there is still a jamming problem with the M-16 but it was horrible during the early days of Viet Nam.
There is even a “Forward assist lever” on the stupid things to help with jamming.
Ted & Hellen
How long can Balloon Juice ignore the news that Obama is attempting to throw SS under the bus while we’re all looking the other way?
Just wondering.
Sargeant Pepper's Spray
“Mister we could use a man
Like William T Sherman again.”
burnspbesq
@Ted & Hellen:
Breathe, jackass. There is no deal that Obama is willing to make that Boehner can sell to the House Republicans. This is all kabuki.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: We’re already doing a pretty good job of turning all Russia’s ports into warm-water ports.
Schlemizel
@Calouste:
BINGO!
There should never have been a Virgina or Georgia after 1865. Grant & Sherman would have identified the territories closest to those old sites. The Carolinas would be added to those two sates (part of old Virginia would have been welded on toe W. Virginia and been renamed “New Virginia”. Parts of Alabama and Mississippi would have been “Freeman”
After the trials and hangings for treason any ex slave, or free white who was willing to sign a loyalty oath, would have been given 40 acres & a mule from land taken from slave owners as reparation for the war. Ex-slave holders who signed a loyalty pledge would have been given remedial training and 40 acres in whatever was left over. Those who found this intolerable would have been exiled to Nicaragua – they tried so hard to steal it before the war they should have pined for it.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Ted & Hellen: If you’re going to troll, at least have the decency to do so OT in a SS or “fiscal cliff” post
celticdragonchick
@MikeJ:
Pretty much. The gas port was designed to make the weapon “self cleaning”, but in practice…not so much.
Also, early M-16s had a different rifling twist rate then what they have now. The bullets were not very stable and they were prone to tumbling in flight. This lead to accounts of limbs actually being completely torn off of people who were hit. The current tighter twist results in a very stable and accurate bullet. However, combat in Somalia against khat addicted tribal fighters revealed that a single round was generally not enough to put a fighter out of commission, and sometimes 4 or 5 hits were needed.
graves007
LOL America truly is the best. And by that I mean the funniest fucking show on TV. Keep it comin!
celticdragonchick
@Ted & Hellen:
I see you have escaped from Firedoglake. Food wasn’t good enough over there?
Mike in NC
Didn’t realize he was no longer working at that pawn shop in Las Vegas. Nevada’s loss is South Carolina’s gain!
Forum Transmitted Disease
@MikeJ: Turns out that was a horseshit lie propagated by the Pentagon in a deliberate attempt to blame the troops for the problems with the gun.
The problems were numerous, but boiled down to four critical issues:
1. The decision to acquire the gun was motivated by a politically driven desire to get a gun that would be a match for the AK-47, without any regard as to why the AK was a good firearm;
2. The gun was tested and tests that showed that it didn’t work and frequently blew up (killing at least one tester we know of) were ignored;
3. Necessary parts of the gun that on any firearm should have been chrome-plated weren’t, leading the gun to literally rot in the humid environment of Vietnam;
4. The gun was deployed with ammunition that it was never designed to fire.
For a really good (heartbreaking) history of the M-16 and modern battle rifles in general, no book for the layperson is better than this one: The Gun, by C.J. Chivers.
dr. bloor
@Heliopause: that’s actually Bill’s smarter brother.
Pinkamena Panic
Hey Timmeh, how long until Cole bans your ass again?
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Buncha jumped-up, fancy pantsed know-it-alls, if you ask me.
@? Martin: Would they buy it?
Cassidy
@Full Metal Wingnut:
Dude, it’s kitchen implemement. That’s like saying to the sun “if you’re going to burn…”.
@celticdragonchick: That’s not the whole story. The hyped fighters were able to shrug off the wounds, but that wasn’t the issue. At the time, only the SOF troops were getting the armor piercing (green tip) rounds; they weren’t standard issue as they were today. They have a tungsten penetrator rod in them. The issue is that we were using very high velocity armor piercing rounds against people with no body armor, or mass for that matter. The rounds were just going right through them.
AA+ Bonds
Of course, outlaw the federal government, it’s so simple . . .
celticdragonchick
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yes. The upper receiver was liable to catastrophic failure. I actually fired a first gen M-16 a Norton AFB in California. I found out about an hour afterwards that the weapon I fired had actually exploded once before and been repaired. I saw the photo of that specific weapon actually displayed in the arms room.
Hoo-boy. Good times.
Schlemizel
@burnspbesq:
Ah, but Douche & Bag did get you to respond (and me now too in a way) so their day is made
Davis X. Machina
@Gus:
They’re already right-to-work.
No minimum wage, you’d get that in the first session of the free legislature. Wages-and-hours legislation is inimical to a free people.
From there, it’s just a matter of degree, and a matter of time.
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
Yeah, over-penetration was cited along with the khat issue. The SEALs have started carrying some heavily refurbished M-14’s in the hope that the .308 round would do more damage with one hit.
Ted & Hellen
OT my ass. Bots gotta bot.
Meanwhile our president capitulates, once again having left his spine in that hall closet basket next to his Wall Street campaign cash.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Saudi Arabia? Probably. They have the money. They’re looking to diversify away from oil because they know better than anyone how many years of pumping they have left. This would give them a foothold in North America, a presence on the world stage, a nice port. What’s not to like? I’d bet anyone with the money would buy it, actually. China would be all over it. Might even get a bidding war going.
Keith G
Chumley, eh…?
I thought he’d be from Tennessee.
Anyway, John, the guy’s a state rep. In even some of our most enlightened states, reps can be so dumb they are likely to think Kanye West is an African airline.
The point is, they are worried about Obama Care since they realize it is growing in popularity and seems like it is well on its way to take deep roots and be here to stay even as it (this is the worst part) eventually morphs into a more universal program.
They are blowing smoke and won’t get far.
celticdragonchick
@Ted & Hellen:
Don’t you have a running faucet that needs your head under it?
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen:
Emoprog gotta emoprog. There are so many other places you’d be more welcome, why don’t you go explore them? If you’re looking for a place to start might I suggest in front of a moving bus or at the bottom of a lake.
J. Michael Neal
@AA+ Bonds: If the federal government is outlawed, only outlaws will have a federal government.
Schlemizel
@Cassidy:
OH! I didn’t know that Douche & Bag were really the kitchen tool. Now it sorta makes sense as Douche & Bag are pretty much a tool also.
I gather they made some comment about the fiscal deal?
dmsilev
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Definitely a very good book, though it’s really primarily a history of the AK-47 and derivatives, and the M-16 is covered largely from the perspective of “how did the US Army respond to the AK-47?”
(Answer: “Badly”)
Omnes Omnibus
@Ted & Hellen: Didja notice the chained CPI thread this morning? It was about the issue you mentioned. So it appears that the issue has not, in fact, been ignored. Have a nice day.
Chyron HR
@Ted & Hellen:
I could have sworn we’ve had several posts here on that subject.
But you were probably too busy beating the shit out of “Hellen” to pay attention. Keep at it, though, eventually he’ll learn not to be a “botulist” (whatever that means).
jl
Was a post on the GOP proposal and Social Security angle last night by Finel, or whatever his name is.
News today says the latest GOP deal is dead, both from WH and Lion of the Senate, Fitin’ Harry Reid.
So, yeah, troubling that Obama would not immediately nix anything touching Social Security at all and do so explicitly, right up front, but issue is moot for the moment.
AxelFoley
@Gus:
They’re certainly welcome to try that shit. They’ll find it won’t be so easy this time.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Ted & Hellen: OT your ass? This thread is about moron state politicians, not the fiscal cliff shit. Posting in this thread when there are relevant threads for your pet doomsday trolling just makes you seem hot and heavy for an argument about nothing.
By the way, when you turn out to be wrong about us being sold down the river, what are you going to change your handle to? Surely you wouldn’t have the gall to come back here with that username after all your big bold predictions fail.
yopd1
Has anyone read the comments on that article. Seriously, it’s as if the election hadn’t happened and they still think the majority of the country agrees with them. People are freaking delusional.
Schlemizel
@celticdragonchick:
I have an uncle that was in Korea and he carried the M1 carbine. He hated it & ended up picking up the regular model. Apparently the short barrel of the carbine did not allow for the sort of velocity needed to knock down drugged up Chinese troops (this is as close as my memory of his description can get). He really spoke highly of the .45 Thompson even in single fire mode for the job.
Me? I can’t imagine how awful it would be to earn that knowledge first hand. Some days I am not unhappy I was born defective.
burnspbesq
@Schlemizel:
Yeah, I know, I should know better, but a guy’s gotta deal with stress somehow, and yapping at trolls is better for my blood sugar than eating brownies.
Cassidy
@Chyron HR: It comes here to get attention. We’re not talking in the thread about that topic as we’re still a little fixated on guns and the douchenozzles who horde them. It’s got tenderize that chicken somehow. It’s pretty pathetic in it’s need for attention, yet at the same time can’t just go buy a hooker.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: thanks, I missed the post this morning on the Chained CPI gimmmick. Even careful centrist and serial misunderstander of Social Security and its (non) roll in debt problem Drum sez no, eh? Well, good that supposed deal is nixed for now.
Paul in KY
@RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: See, you get that for commenting at Balloon Juice!
That’s why I don’t fly.
Full Metal Wingnut
Also, any up and coming democratic legislative geniuses in the Senate? I want the next LBJ (minus the Vietnam thing). A big, towering, assholish liberal who stares down the Congress and bends it to his will.
Paul in KY
@? Martin: If you have a 30 round mag, you are never supposed to put all 30 in there. 27 or so max. Same with other high capacity mags.
? Martin
@jl:
Obama appears to have something else in mind, but I’ll save that for a more relevant thread.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
There was one yesterday, too. Maybe Timmy’s scrollin’ finger is broken or something.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Schlemizel: Starving a troll of his attention is likely starving a fire of oxygen, I agree. Although sometimes they need to be put in their place.
Felinious Wench
Off-Duty Cop Prevents Mass shooting at Movie Theater
What this conveniently leaves out is this was a sheriff moonlighting as a security officer at a theater. Not some dumb-ass citizen running around with a gun. She was highly trained and performing her job.
This in no way diminishes her heroism. But this is not an armchair commando who shoots targets on weekends. She’s a fucking cop.
Omnes Omnibus
@Full Metal Wingnut: Tammy Baldwin? Okay, she’s nice and not particularly tall, but why not?
yopd1
Is this guy related to the Chumley from Pawn Stars because he sounds like an idiot as well.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Omnes Omnibus: Close, but I want a real dickhead like LBJ
Calouste
@J. Michael Neal:
Prussia actually included large parts of what would later become West Germany.
But we don’t have to hand over South Carolina to the Soviets, if they would even want it. Just do things like divide the Carolinas east-west instead of north-south and rename them Grant and Sherman. Getting rid of the historical connection is important. Do you think there would still be balls to commemorate the start of the Civil War and stuff like that, if they had redrawn the borders, renamed the states and moved the capital?
Ted & Hellen
Pathetic bots.
The front page topic we are missing is that Obama is now “negotiating” (ha ha snicker) as if he lost the election, not as if he won it.
He doesn’t have to do a damn thing to appease these evil bastards, yet he keeps trying. Kindly and coherently explain why, thank you.
Also, too, I love how Bots only complain about violations of the VERY STRICT on-topic thread rules here at BJ when it involves something that makes our Capitulator In Chief look bad.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@jl: The GOP is trying to force Obama into writing the legislation so they don’t have to take the hit for it.
Obama’s not doing it. And they’re getting a bit desperate and panicky about that. It always worked before!
The GOP can and should throw everything out there that they want, including ending Social Security. I think we’d all like to see them go on the record as endorsing that.
Obama should continue to do nothing at all, because in a few days he gets handed the world’s biggest club to pound the Republicans into doing anything he tells them to do, including to suck his giant black schlong if he feels the urge.
jl
@Calouste:
Time will take care of places like South Carolina. I was reading polls of 2012 election. Surprisingly South Carolina had one of the highest proportions of white vote for Obama in the South.
I guess a few South Carolina white bigot dead enders feel they have to carry on the tradition. As South Carolina goes the way of North Carolina and Virginia, the dead enders will get testy and I wish the sane people there luck.
MS, AL, TN and KY will be tougher nuts.
Sanity is slowly winning in most places, the white bigot dead enders are losing. They made their lunatic dead ender mental beds, so it would be nice if they reformed themselves, but they will lose everywhere if the sane people keep putting up a cool and steady fight.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ted & Hellen: Dude, start a blog. If people don’t cover what you want in the way you want it covered, that’s really the solution.
Raven
Want to learn about the Confederacy? We have a handy link right here at Balloon Juice. Just mash Pat Lang on the blogroll and your can hear all about honor.
jl
@Raven: I trust Pat Lang on military stuff and analysis of Middle East. He hates bigshots with a passion, which I find a healthy attitude. But on gun rights and the ‘honor’ of the traditional country folk or whatever genuine ur-folk he thinks he is talking about, I think his ‘quirks’ are totally wrong.
On his idea that gun ownership and second amendment is some kind of quasi constitutional mechanism to preserve American Freedom(TM), he should pay more attention to his fellow Virginian Madison.
redshirt
It always depresses me to see a Confederate flag in Maine. I mean, really dude? So near Brunswick? There’s no such Union bravado, sadly.
Of course, except for a Union Soldier statue in every single town. But who pays attention to statues?
jl
@Raven: AW crap. You made me click on Lang. Still wrong on Madison, chooses to look at Fed papers, and ignore Madison on nullification. Ignore the distinction between natural right of revolution and life under a democratic constitutional government. Well, hell, I still like to shoot guns myself (trap shooting is fun), but think I know very well the implications of a decision I might make to go use that gun against a government that I feel is intolerably oppressive, and any lawful or constitutional recourse I have to change things. I don’t think Lang understand it at all.
Visceral
@Rosie Outlook:
Focus on dealing with the inevitable refugee crisis; there’d be no other way. Make sure the people who want to live in the Union are fed, sheltered, and protected at some basic level as soon as they cross the border, then integrate them into society. Population transfer would be one of the biggest issues in any negotiation.
As for what happens to the conservatives when they turn their new country into a Fourth World shithole, why would you care? Let them lie in the bed they’re so eager to make. The starving children and their parents are all going to blame you and me for it, as well as thinking that they’re going to go to Heaven for being good Christians rather than going north to gorge on the librul debbil’s banquet.
Another Halocene Human
Clown shoes, indeed.
gypsy howell
@jl:
I used to read him, until it became unbearably clear that he is an authoritarian jackass Son of the Confederacy, with a very thinly veiled racist streak (but I repeat myself). His viewpoints on the issues I do know about greatly diminish the trust I have in him expounding on topics I know much less or very little about.
Another Halocene Human
@RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: I’m passing through Texas at the moment. Got the full TSAtreatment at Bush/Houston airport, which is ironic. Amazes me that Righties who love their freedom and liberty so much put up with this Police State shit.
I’ll never bend and spread ’em! I love my freedom!
Well, okay. If you insist. Am I bending over enough? I have trouble stretching my tendons but–oh–there we are.
Jerry Indiana
@Heliopause: You would have expected Tennessee, wouldn’t you?
SteveinSC
I just sent this to Bill “Dumb-dumb” Chumley: “You either do not read history or are a complete moron to propose redoing the hideous errors of the Palmetto State. It is a shame they are closing Bull Street* because you would be such a fine specimen in your bright, new straitjacket.”
*The former state mental hospital, being closed because we realized that we already have the nation’s largest Free-range insane asylum and don’t need it.
gnomedad
Nail them to their perches.
jl
@gypsy howell: Lang comes from a Union side family, and endorsed Obama for 2012, and he characterizes current racial bigotry of GOP and fellow travelers as bad habits that will die out.
Not sure he could be called a Son of the Confederacy. But he has a fixed idea that cultural traits are some kind of fixed unalterable thing, and struggles with some kind of cultural nativism that I do not understand.
I agree with Lang that the neocon idea that everyone in the world is a quasi libertarian GOP small businessperson from Main Street Ohio struggling to get out is nuts. But I think Lang has close to the opposite extreme attitude about fixed unalterable eternal nature of different cultures, and he doesn’t realize he is on the other end of the spectrum.
Rosie Outlook
@Visceral: When the inevitable cross-border traffic occurs and they bring drug-resistant TB with them, I’ll care quite a bit, and I bet you will too.
Another Halocene Human
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.: It’s not just a joke. You have young, Southern-school (private or public) educated people who seriously, seriously believe in the paternalistic slavery model and think that “then” was better.
Helloooooo primary sources. I’ve read plenty of slave narratives. Give me a fscking break.
Kids all over the US get told this bullshit as history and then they become adults and believe it and try to act this shit out and agitate for it because they innocently believe it’s true. It’s not harmless twaddle, it’s frigging dangerous.
LanceThruster
@Visceral:
You know what’s so goldurn crazy?
That these are sensible contingency approaches to the rift that the intractable are creating in this Republic.
I mean, we’re talking about secession because of people who are serious about it (because of whatever burr is currently under their saddle).
[sigh]
ruemara
@Ted & Hellen: Considering that you always bring up Obama in reference to nearly every topic, don’t you think you’re the Obot? There’s an empassioned yearning in your posts that really stands out. A love that dare not speak it’s name.
John
@Mike in NC: Thereby increasing the average intelligence of both states.
The Moar You Know
@gypsy howell: I did not realize the extent of his authoritarianism until I dared question something recently on his site. We had an email exchange, and the fucker didn’t even have the balls to tell me I was banned over email, just threw up a thing at the end of his post on his site telling me I was no longer welcome.
So he’s both an authoritarian and a chickenshit coward. I did not expect that, and I’ve been reading the guy for years. Very disappointed.
chopper
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
it’s all kabuki, as noted above. right now obama and boner are just trying to make sure the other guy gets the blame when we go ‘over the cliff’, seeing as how boner has no control over his caucus and any bill with tax increases is a non-starter with the GOP.
so far obama’s ahead, but the manic progressives are looking to make boner look like the big winner because, well, they’re professional foot-shooters.
Another Halocene Human
@Redshift: Wow, I thought you were exaggerating, but it’s twoo, it’s twoo!
That IL accent really threw me off. For some reason I had thought she was Southern royalty. Not at all. Wow. But privileged and in a hell of a bubble.
Another Halocene Human
@Schlemizel: After the trials and hangings for treason any ex slave, or free white who was willing to sign a loyalty oath, would have been given 40 acres & a mule from land taken from slave owners as reparation for the war. Ex-slave holders who signed a loyalty pledge would have been given remedial training and 40 acres in whatever was left over. Those who found this intolerable would have been exiled to Nicaragua – they tried so hard to steal it before the war they should have pined for it.
They should have used similar terms to the Homesteading law in the prairie to break up the big estates and institute land reform once and for all. Btw, you don’t have to hang ALL the traitors. Look to Nuremberg/de-nazification for a primer on how it’s done. The German Communist Party thought they didn’t go near far enough, but look which end of German is more racist now. Hoover was wrong. Hunger doesn’t feed communist. It feeds xenophobic, murderous, facism-loving nutjobs. However, we can be thankful for his naivete.
Also, too, Nicaragua deserves better than that. I would have sent them to a colony in East Tex-ass. Then we could use it as a laboratory for the soi-disant homo superior.
Raven
@The Moar You Know: And that’s why I keep asking to unlink his lifer ass from this blog.
Another Halocene Human
@celticdragonchick: Fuck that, DailyKos front page is covered in “He sold us out!” posts.
So fucking sad. It got readable, nay almost essential in the months leading to the general election, and now it’s crap again. Maybe because the sane people take a break after election season while the fraidy-cats turn dKos into a freeper-style echo chamber of paranoia and misdirected outrage.
chopper
@Another Halocene Human:
i know. TOS has been nigh-on unreadable today. sometimes i wish the true progressives(tm) would just go all jonestown and get it over with already.
Another Halocene Human
@Davis X. Machina: No minimum wage, you’d get that in the first session of the free legislature. Wages-and-hours legislation is inimical to a free people.
Welcome to Florida.
Our labor laws are worse than George, South Cackalacky, Tenn-uh-see, ‘Bama, Miss Sippy, Arkansas, and goshnabbit, even Lousy Anna.
Matched only by Tejas, and rumor has it we passed Right To Work (For Less) first, although they actually invented it.
sparrow
@Rosie Outlook: Without being tribalist about it, it’s possible that such an amicable split would lead them to actually taking care of government functions rather than fighting them. What I mean is that a lot of the “east coast liberal vs southern wingnut” type fights (to pick one) are really cultural in origin (I confess to having recently read “American Nations” which has dominated my viewpoints lately). Thus once there is a southern federal government, filled with wingnutty assholes like themselves, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made decisions more or less in step with the northern/eastern states, and with less fuss since they no longer have to deal with their seething hatred of all those “others”. Or not, who knows.
gypsy howell
@jl:
He may have Union roots, but he sure oozes “the old south/lost cause/for honor and glory” crap in a lot of his musings. The authoritarianism comes through loud and clear in the dismissive way he responds to (and bans) commenters who disagree with him. I used to enjoy reading him (thinking I could learn something from his experience and point of view) but the knee-jerk hippie-punching and unwillingness to tolerate, let alone consider, the merits of even the slightest pushback, just made reading him not worth the downside. Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.
Another Halocene Human
@Cassidy: It’s pretty pathetic in it’s need for attention, yet at the same time can’t just go buy a hooker.
Male hookers are cheap. Getting a cute one who will convincingly feign interest in his philosophical-political talk rather than exuding real irritation and boredom must be the issue here.
Especially because Boston male hookers wear their boredom, irritation, and anomie like a fucking cloak of body armor.
Maybe Spats should move to LA. Lots of ego-fellators there.
Another Halocene Human
@Calouste: Gerrymandering state boundaries? Oh, I like your style.
Another Halocene Human
@Visceral: As for what happens to the conservatives when they turn their new country into a Fourth World shithole, why would you care? Let them lie in the bed they’re so eager to make. The starving children and their parents are all going to blame you and me for it, as well as thinking that they’re going to go to Heaven for being good Christians rather than going north to gorge on the librul debbil’s banquet.
What’s the end game? North Korea? This scenario makes no sense. Why would you deliberately create a hostile, failed state with an enormous border along your own?
Ted & Hellen
@ruemara:
There’s an empassioned yearning in your posts that really stands out. A love that dare not speak it’s name.
Yes, indeed. I agree with that. I passionately yearn for a Democratic president who will not only work aggressively for progressive values, but LEAD a little bit once in a while too.
Obots are so…without standards. Their focus is PBO’s political career; the country and party be damned. “This is the best we can do” sucks as a rallying cry and you know it.
As illustrated once again by the sudden interest in gun control legislation. Where have our party and president been on that the last four years? It’s not as though we didn’t have enough evidence before Sandy Hook.
Paul
I say if South Carolina doesn’t want to implement ACA, that’s fine. But in return there will no longer be any type of FEMA assistance to SC if needed whatsoever. And any military facilities currently located in SC will be relocated to any state that will implement the ACA.
This is not a fricking game where you can have the cake and eat it too.
Another Halocene Human
@sparrow: But we had “small government” before, IDK, the 1930s, and those post-confederate gubmints showed out even worse than they do today.
So, no. There is no “sane tranche” to appeal to, if only we stopped offending them with our presence. Social inequality is much, much greater in those states, meaning that they will be run by the elite, for the elite, with a tiny middle class struggling to get by and succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome (and a large, seething underclass controlled by authoritarian suppression tactics).
The only way to fix this situation is land reform. We need the estate tax, and we need it now.
Another Halocene Human
@Ted & Hellen: You want Barack Obama to tie you down and dominate your naughty, naughty ass, then kiss the crown of your head afterwords and murmur that Daddy will always take care of you. Kinky.
Raven
@gypsy howell: He went to fucking VMI, whatcha expect? Have you read his recount of getting spit on by a hippie in the San Francisco Airport? I’ve pushed back on him on a number of issues including the over-representation of minorities and the undereducated in the military during Vietnam. He generally will admit I’m right on some technicality and then dismiss me.
Paul
@Ted & Hellen:
They didn’t have the votes.
You do realize that a big part of the problem is that most people in America, let alone the Democratic party don’t agree with you. You claim you want a Democratic President who can lead and who can appeal to progressives. Obviously, neither Carter or Clinton was to your liking since they accomplished less than Obama.
Furthermore, if Democratic voters weren’t so damn lazy in 2010, we could have had a majority in the House and Obama wouldn’t have to negotiate. It is funny, reading your postings you havethis hatred for Obama, yet not once do you put any blame on the Democratic voters or people like Bernie Sanders who opposed closing Gitmo.
Schlemizel
@Another Halocene Human:
No, I agree with you about the treatment of the leaders of the treason. A group including Davis and Stevens, Lee and Longstreet, a few of the political leaders from each state that fomented the treason probably not more than 200 in total.
Also like Germany post WWII They would be allowed to put up memorials to their war dead as long as they did not glorify the cause of the South but noted the sacrifice.
I picked Nicaragua as an example. Obviously the local government would have to approve. I wouldn’t care as long as they and their next seven generations were not allowed to enter the US
Schlemizel
@Paul:
You do know that Douche & Bag are not actual liberals, right? The tool is play acting in hopes of . . . well, I’m not exactly sure what their goal is. Perhaps they hope to exacerbate the irritation between Obot and Firebagger. Perhaps they think by pretending to be a lib they are less likely to be banned. But they are so bad at it it is obvious they are not really liberals.
Raven
@dmsilev: You want to read about the 16 in action read The Hill Fights about the first battle of Khe Sanh. My cousin was in the fight and the cost of forcing that weapon on the grunts before it was read to go was enormous.
Ted & Hellen
@Paul:
Always, always, the Obot rallying cry: WE DON’T HAVE THE VOTES.
We don’t have the votes, so might as well not try.
We don’t have the votes, so might as well give away the store before we start.
We don’t have the votes, so might as well not strong arm or try to convince anyone to come to our side.
We don’t have the votes, so might as well not use the bully pulpit because losers on BJ say it doesn’t exist.
Obama’s legislative battle cry for 2013-2016: WE DON’T HAVE THE VOTES!
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Says the center right Obot on a center right blog.
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Says the center right Obot on a center right blog.
SteveinSC
@Napoleon: I don’t think that would be wise. Like many Third World states like SC and Georgia, Alabama, etc. The major “industry” left standing after the mills left for China is the military and, for recreation, hunting the swamps and trackless mountains. So they are already well-trained and armed. It would be better to leave the military enforcement to, well, the military. You wouldn’t last long against these people.
Paul
@Ted & Hellen:
Your posting illustrates the difference between the far left and the tea baggers. The tea baggers organized and primaried RINO’s. People like you complain on blogs. Voting and organizing is apparently too hard.
Last time I checked Obama won the Democratic primary. Very few Democrats agree with you.
BTW – it is amusing to read your hatred for Obama. What about Clinton and Carter? You didn’t address those two. This is not race, is it?
Gopher2b
I honestly hope they secede at this point. It would solve a lot of our problems.
J. Michael Neal
@Schlemizel:
James Longstreet was just about the only senior member of the Confederate leadership that really went to bat for Reconstruction. The man’s post Civil War career was pretty impressive, including leading African-American troops against white rioters in New Orleans. He became a Republican, endorsed Grant in 1868, was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire for a few years and served as Commissioner of Railroads under McKinley and Roosevelt.
So, I’d prefer to give them a chance to repent before executing them.
LanceThruster
@Raven:
Are the stories of Vietnam vets being spat on apocryphal or not? It only has to be true once to be true but I’ve heard conflicting accounts.
From: Spitting on the Troops: Old Myth, New Rumors
The truth is that nobody spat on Vietnam veterans and nobody is spitting on the soldiers today. Attempts to silence opponents of the war with those figments of hostility are dishonest and should, themselves, be banished from our discourse.
pseudonymous in nc
@Redshift:
That happens in NC as well. There is some irony there: the prisoners who get assigned to mansion duties actually prefer it to, say, interstate garbage picking, because officers can’t be assholes if the governor is around. But that’s in the context of a prison work system that has a definite whiff of the 1850s.
Chris
@redshirt:
The Union doesn’t need to bluster for a century and a half after the fact. It won. And moved on.
“For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. For me, it was Tuesday.”
Raven
@LanceThruster: Spitting Image by Jerry Lembke and Homecoming by Bob Greene both address it. Here’s my take, there were some pretty intense demonstrations at Oakland Army Base where many of us came and went to and from Vietnam. To say it never happened would be nuts but on the scale they want you to believe, I don’t think so. I was insulted and hassled by right wingers who thought we were pussies for not kicking the VC’s ass. Here’s the thing, I was involved in the anti-war movement and the counter culture and if someone gave me shit about any of it I was ready to drop the gloves and jam right now. I cannot imagine some dude coming home and having someone spit at them and them just taking it.
weaselone
@SteveinSC:
Which of course explains the obesity throughout the deep south. All that hunting in the swamps and trackless mountains is the only thing worse for the waistline than endless hours parked in front of the TV spooning lard into one’s mouth.
Chris
@Rosie Outlook:
As with all these threads, I know it’s hypothetical, but…
… creating a hostile, pissed-off new country right on our border, ruled by authoritarian psychos and economic noobs, which would turn into a disaster area in less than a generation and start lashing out militarily to distract its people from their economic woes (if they hadn’t started lashing out already)? Not sure it’s the best outcome.
LanceThruster
@Raven:
Thanks. That makes a hell of a lot of sense. I remember how shocked I was when I learned that some despised the Vietnam vets because, as you pointed out, they blamed them for not being tough enough to win the “police action.”
Forget about how much sense the mission made, or if it was planned and/or executed properly, or any of the myriad of factors that come to bear in projecting military might halfway across the globe…
…just that the men and women that bled, died, and were maimed in this conflict somehow didn’t bleed, die, or get maimed quite enough to suit the armchair warriors (though I’ve heard it told some vets from previous conflicts felt they won their calls to action).
[sigh]
Raven
@LanceThruster: Shit, I had the parents of a close friend tell me that I had no business protesting the war AND that their sons we going nowhere near it! There was a little Italian Beef joint we hung around and, while we were gone, they had our pictures on the wall. When I came home and grew my hair long the told me to gettdafuckouttahere,
LanceThruster
@Chris:
Speaking of our beloved and homegrown God-fearin’ nutjobs…
…has “Rev.” Fred Phelps and the WBC “God Hates Fags” crowd vowed to show up to the funerals of the Sandy Hook dead to remind the nation that not being hateful enough to “teh gays” means Gawd lets horrible, terrible, awful things happen to “teach us a lesson?”
LanceThruster
@Raven:
Ouch, my friend. So very, very sad.
Be well.
Raven
@LanceThruster: Fuck em, my life has been fine. Don’t mean nuthin.
Chris
@Raven:
Seems to me that veterans, like everyone else, are acceptable when they’re obediently standing by and repeating the talking points of Republican politicians and Fox News pundits, and not much else.
Talking about the war in any other context once you come home is a no-no. Exercising the freedoms you signed up to defend once you come home is a no-no. Wrestling with demons may be acceptable, but only if done in private and with some embarrassment, like bowel movements.
(Not any kind of a veteran myself, but granddad was in Southeast Asia, three tours. Said it was a “dumb war.” I’ll bet).
Another Halocene Human
@SteveinSC: You wouldn’t last long against these people.
You mean civilization wouldn’t last long ag’in’ ’em. The might of the US military, not so much. Just sayin’.
Easier to smash apart than to build up, &so on, &so forth.
Also, too, hookworm.
Another Halocene Human
@Ted & Hellen: Let’s just swing our wangs around. This plan is flawless and has no chance of failure!
Unzip in 3…2…1…
Raven
@Chris: roger that
Gypsy howell
@Raven:
That’s when I was finally convinced that he was full of shit. BTW, Mr Howell, class of 1969-1970 Vietnam, says it was the VFW who were most vehement in their disdain for returniing Vietnam vets, and, metaphorically at least, “spitting” on him and his cohorts, not the anti-war hippies (of which i was one) He was not welcome at the local VFW.
Robert
Time and time again, the Supreme Court has ruled on why decisions of constitutionality by the Supreme Court cannot be nullified. These included the fugitive slave laws (in favor of returning slave to home states, Ableman v. Booth), states not being held to federal judicial review (Cohens v. Virginia), the ability to pass laws to prevent integrated schools (a shit ton of cases in the south, including Cooper v. Aaron), and the ability to violate federal treaties for state interests (Worcester v. Georgia).
The absolute only way around federal law trumping state law is if the president himself says his administration will not pursue action against a state. This is how Georgia booted all the Cherokee off their land (after the Supreme Court told them they couldn’t in Worcester v. Georgia) and why the recent legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado could be upheld.
So, no. Since the Supreme Court already ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, South Carolina cannot enact laws punishing people for following the ACA. Well, they can, but they’ll get their asses handed to them by the Supreme Court again and again and again.
Raven
@Gypsy howell: If I was religious I’d say bless my brother.
Gary K
Chumley, eh? If you know the play or movie “Harvey,” you’ll remember Chumley’s Rest.
CHUMLEY – Oh, I – Heh! I know where I’d go.
ELWOOD – Where?
CHUMLEY – I’d go to Akron!
ELWOOD – Akron? Oh, yes.
CHUMLEY – There’s a cottage camp just
outside Akron – in a grove of maple trees
— green – cool – beautiful.
ELWOOD – Uh – that’s my favorite tree.
CHUMLEY – I’d go there with a pretty woman.
ELWOOD – Oh.
CHUMLEY – A strange woman — a quiet woman.
ELWOOD – Ooh. Under a tree, huh?
CHUMLEY – I wouldn’t even want to know her
name — while I would be just – Mr. Smith.
Then I would send out for cold beer.
Rand Careaga
@Calouste:
There’s a certain irony here in that Prussia, which had maintained a distinct administrative identity even after serving as the seed crystal for the united Germany in the 19th century, was one of the last bastions of bureaucratic resistance to Hitler’s consolidation of power. Chris Clarke has written Iron Kingdom, a brilliant history of Prussia from its unprepossessing beginnings to its extinction by Allied fiat in 1947: well worth a look if the subject interests you.
Rosie Outlook
@Chris: But they’re already lashing out. A couple of years ago they were ready to destroy the U.S. economy in a fit of pique. At least one of their popular websites had the Secret Service taking a close look at a discussion of how best to assassinate the President. The infrastructure is crumbling because they refuse to let the government have the funds to fix it. They can’t be much more trouble than they already are, and perhaps, as someone mentioned earlier, they’d be less hostile to their very own government with not a Kenyan usurper to be seen.
I say we , on both sides, seriously consider whether it’s time for a divorce and, if so, the property agreement . I hope Blueland or Purpleland gets the national parks; I’d hate to see them become giant outlet malls.
lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Give an example of a democratic president who has EVER behaved the way that you say you want Obama to behave.
I’m talking in all of history.
Ecks
Lets see, State law contradicting Federal law, what does the constitution have to say about that?
Oh yeah.
Supremacy Clause bitches.
LanceThruster
@Raven:
x2
fidelio
One of the splendid ironies of the COnfederacy was that, in order to pursue the war, Jefferson Davis had to force at least as much centralization and regulation on the member states as Lincoln did, and often did so sooner and to a greater extreme. The legislature, which was full of all the olf fire-eaters who’d made debate in the US Congress so fraught in the 1850s, was notably incompetent at producing effective legislation. Alexander Stephens, the Vice President, was such a states-rights purist that he couldn’t get along with Davis’s pragmatic solutions, and went back to Georgia to sulk in peace.
The only really effective parts of the government were the post office, which is largely due to the determined efforts of the postmaster general, and the army, and the army was continually messed-up because of Davis’s personnel decisions and their supply issues.
I don’t see a modern confederacy doing much better. For one thing, those federal dollars wouldn’t be showing up to fill in the gaps in their revenues. For another, they haven’t exactly got a deep bench to work with, in terms of talent, and their inherent prejudices will limit, to some degree, their personnel choices. Finally, they don’t really have anything wonderful to offer other countries in return for support; in 1861, the thought that cotton would affect the foreign policy decisions of France and England was not as outrageous as it now seems. I don’t see China or Saudi Arabia loading up on neoconfederate debt, much.