Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The revolution will be supervised.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

You are here: Home / What the world needs now is a new Adolf Hitler

What the world needs now is a new Adolf Hitler

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Atrios once wrote:

I think the great failure of the Right since their awesome adventure in Iraq has been to create a new Hitler for us to fear and fight. They tried with Iran, but didn’t quite manage. Their hero Bush looked in Putin’s soul and declared it pure, so that one won’t work. The business side of the coalition won’t let them go after China. We need an enemy damnit!

They’ve found it now: national debt is the new Adolf Hitler. All serious people believe that it’s an existential threat, only unserious hippies believe otherwise.

Remember, you heard at here first: national debt is the new Adolf Hitler.

Reader Interactions

193Comments

  2. 2.

    Bruce s

    Of, course reality reminds us that we couldn’t have killed Hitler without creating national debt equivalent to more than100% GDP. And came out fine…

  3. 3.

    Bruce s

    Of, course reality reminds us that we couldn’t have killed Hitler without creating national debt equivalent to more than100% GDP. And came out fine…

  5. 5.

    Violet

    Osama bin Laden was the new Hitler, until President Obama had him killed. Then he was never very scary to begin with and besides it was Bush who should really get the credit.

  6. 6.

    Soonergrunt

    But I thought Zomg Drones were the new Hitler. We’re going to have to slow down. I can’t keep up with whoever today’s new Hitler is.

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    How many of the Villagers who talk about Debt and Deficit and sincerely believe D&D are coming to eat their children also sincerely believe in climate change, but it snowed this week and it’s so great to wear shorts in Washington in February. Also, too, GOLF!

  11. 11.

    ranchandsyrup

    I’ve been having fun lately with the Helen Lovejoy “PLEAAAASE, someone think of the children” argument. Because if that’s the policy driver, we should put some effort into climate change, education, etc.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    When I was in undergrad, I remember the professor explaining the roots of neoconservatism to us. The basic CliffNotes: it’s a generation of people who grew up during World War Two and see the entire world through that prism. Ergo, they see every new possible antagonist as The New Hitler, and the only possible reaction to it as repeating World War Two. Which explains their clashes with liberals, realists and other People With Two Neurons To Rub Together, who actually understand that not EVERY situation calls for the same reaction.

    Anyway. New Hitler? Dude, I don’t think you can beat Obama for that role, not for that crowd.

  13. 13.

    Waynski

    What the world needs now is a new Adolf Hitler…

    …like we need a hole in our heads. Nice Cracker reference Doug. And I’m afraid you’re right. Unfortunately, it’s an enemy that will never go away. We’ve almost always had a national debt.

  15. 15.

    Patricia Kayden

    Was the national debt the new Hitler when it was being upped during the Bush adminstration with 2 wars and tax breaks for the uber rich?

  16. 16.

    Petorado

    Oh yes they have. The Right has gone full-metal Pogo and declared we have met the new Hitler … and he is US! Why do we need to cut government services? Because fellow Americans benefit from these services. Why do we need lots of high-capacity weapons, because when Graham-maggedon comes we’ll need them to shoot each other. Who is the biggest threat in the world? Your frickin’ neighbors who want their children to go to school, adequate healthcare, and a world without incessant economic crises.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    The national debt can’t be the new Hitler because if the Republicans were in charge, the debt wouldn’t matter or be a topic for discussion.

  18. 18.

    jibeaux

    Except for the fact that they’re committed to doing whatever it takes to fight the debt except raise taxes on millionaires kind of makes it like they’re willing to do whatever’s necessary to stop Hitler except for, say, trade sanctions. They say debt=Hitler, I say they=Chamberlain.

  19. 19.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    There is no one more evil than culli, calligrif, califrigg, carligre, calligraf, chefs.

  20. 20.

    trex

    Well, I didn’t REALLY hear it here first because there’s actually a billboard on I-44 in Missouri that says this (”The greatest threat to the country is the national debt“) and that billboard is paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson. The billboard doesn’t specifically cite Hitler but since the people behind it went to the trouble of erecting a billboard over their message, I believe the meaning is implied.

  24. 24.

    PeakVT

    Meh. The national debt fear-mongering has always been with us, even in 1999 and 2000. The elites and their media tools have hyped the dangers of the deficit since 2009, and the media bought into it because they like kicking the poors, too. The right-wing ground troops echo the talking points because they’ve become another tribal identifier. But I’m not sure the average swing voter really cares. I think they would forget about it immediately if the Pete Peterson surrogates were to stop appearing in the news.

  26. 26.

    raven

    McCaine and Lindsay are hammering Republicans. “Where were all you people when Bush did this”?

  27. 27.

    handsmile

    Does that make Paul Krugman the new Goebbels?

    Also too, Ahmadinejad has the “new Hitler” franchise for the foreseeable future. Wasn’t Chuck Hagel just anointed as the new Neville Chamberlain?

  29. 29.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Chris:

    Apparently, they’re promising to nuke us.

    They’d never take a chance on accidentally killing Dennis Rodman.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Dread

    Chavez was the wicked Hitler of the South, Ahmadinijad was the wicked Hitler of the East, Obama is the wicked Hitler of the West, and I’m guessing someone in Canada would be the good Hitler of the North because they’re evil socialists, but they’re very polite and won’t invade anything.

  32. 32.

    SatanicPanic

    The problem for them is, I think it’s quite possible we may never see anyone on the level of Hitler ever again. He’s a pretty singular figure. It would be really hard to copycat that.

  34. 34.

    different-church-lady

    And for the left, national debt is the new Hugo Chavez.

    But really, this is futile. Conservative memes are like games of Mad Libs: “(________) is the new Hitler!” There is no one right answer.

  37. 37.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @SatanicPanic:

    The problem for them is, I think it’s quite possible we may never see anyone on the level of Hitler ever again. He’s a pretty singular figure. It would be really hard to copycat that.

    ORLY?

  41. 41.

    Chris

    @raven:

    I KNOW RIGHT?

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Yeah, LOL. I guess Dennis Rodman’s diplomacy wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, huh?

    @ruemara:

    Ironically, in the Jonah Goldberg groupie discussions about how “fascism is left wing and the same as liberalism,” I’ve often heard some variation of “fascism is the same as communism just less extreme” or “Stalin and Mao were worse than Hitler and it’s just liberal bias that Hitler’s still considered the greatest monster ever.”

    I suppose, insofar as Obama is a communist (and YOU’RE a communist if you think otherwise) and communism is more extreme and worse than fascism, that makes Obama worse than Hitler. QED.

  42. 42.

    Eric U.

    dronze is only interesting to republicans because it causes a rift in the Democratic base. And I suppose the “libertarians” numbskulls that support him probably don’t like drones either. I say they are numbskulls because Paul doesn’t give a damn about drones as long as they aren’t flying within hellfire range of him

  44. 44.

    Chris

    @Eric U.:

    That and if I understand his “philosophy” correctly, he has no problem with drones being in the hands of the state and local authorities, it’s only a crime because the feds are involved.

    (“The difference between liberals and libertarians is that liberals are pro-individual rights and libertarians are anti-[federal] government” – Me).

  49. 49.

    Todd

    @Violet:

    Osama bin Laden was the new Hitler, until President Obama had him killed. Then he was never very scary to begin with and besides it was Bush who should really get the credit.

    And don’t forget, sadly, OBL was extrajudicially assassinated without the benefit of a trial, which GITMO detainees shouldn’t get. What was supposed to happen was that he was to be humanely waterboarded.

    This is all because History’s Greatest Monster© incompetent peacenik evil mastermind President for Life lame duck Barack Shabazz X Peaceflower Binladen Obama in in the hizzle, bustin caps and singin Kumbaya, just like Jimmy Carter…

  52. 52.

    Short Bus Bully

    @Violet:
    Respectfully disagree. If the repubs were in charge they would go after all social programs with a meat axe in the name of slaying the vile debt monster. Then tax cuts for all the rich!

    That’s the playbook.

  53. 53.

    Suffern ACE

    @raven: Honestly. I don’t know what to say. Vietnam ended almost 40 years ago. Rand Paul has been carrying this grudge since he was 7!

  54. 54.

    Joel

    Phone conversation with my dad – who is mostly liberal – told me that we need to get entitlements under control.

  57. 57.

    Mike in NC

    Come on now! Jimmy Carter is still “History’s Greatest Monster” among the wingers I know.

  59. 59.

    Cassidy

    Nope. Obama is the new Hitler because he’s going to use an Army of drones to start targeting pure liberals for speaking truth to power on drunken cat lady’s political blog.

  60. 60.

    SatanicPanic

    @Bruce s: I ask people why it is that no one ever complains about all the debt from WWII and the Great Depression that I assume they were paying off in the 50s and 60s, but I never get an answer. I mean, I’m those peoples’ grandchild, shouldn’t I have been sold off to a creditor nation at some point? It’s almost like all that debt wasn’t a big deal.

  62. 62.

    Tractarian

    @ruemara:

    Stop calling Obama, Hitler. Everyone knows he’s worse than Hitler.

    You kid, but Hitler never had the power to order flying killer robots to murder his own citizens on home soil, now did he? Huh?

  63. 63.

    Todd

    @Mike in NC:

    Come on now! Jimmy Carter is still “History’s Greatest Monster” among the wingers I know.

    Typical America-hating actions by Jimmy Carter – refusing to credit the CIA with the exfiltration dramatized in “ARGO”. Sure, it might have created huge problems for the hostages that Reagan would later save, but we could have all pounded our chests and shouted “Murka, Fuck Yeah!”, and it would have been totally worth it.

    Besides, Reagan would have saved them some other way. You know that the terrorists were afraid of his steely resolve by the way they unloaded them on the day after inauguration.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    Ross Perot’s whole moment in the sun was based on fear of the national debt. It goes back a long way.

    It has the advantage of at least being an actual problem in the long term. People who say it would be bad to let it get too big in relation to GDP are not wrong.

    Of course, that doesn’t justify the innumerate approach where you just cite the big number and make people scared of how big it is. And it’s even more ridiculous to only care about it when a Democrat is President, while continuing to advocate cutting taxes forever.

  66. 66.

    bemused

    @SatanicPanic:

    It’s not like there was any government stimulus after WW2 like a GI Bill or Eisenhower’s highway system or anything….oh wait.

  67. 67.

    Ben Franklin

    All this hubub about selecting a new Pope….just grab some schlub off the street and give him that funny hat.

    Better still, one of those molested youngsters should be chosen.

  68. 68.

    SatanicPanic

    @bemused: Sounds like the Greatest Generation should be known as the Greatest Moocher Generation

    ETA- but wait- who paid for all THAT stimulus? Are we grandkids paying for that? I am confused

  69. 69.

    Suffern ACE

    @raven: I know, I know. But why on earth would the government target Jane Fonda? She came back from Hanoi 40 years ago. Made some workout videos. Starred with Dolly Parton in a Movie. O.K. then, she should be on the top of the list of people who we might want to drone.

    The reason she comes to the top of the list is that THEY still can’t sleep at night knowing that she isn’t still rotting in jail with Fraces Fox Piven and Bill Ayers.

  75. 75.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @WereBear:
    THISTHISTHISTHISTHIS. God, I hate ‘think of the children!’ It usually becomes ‘I want the government to help me with my unhealthy draconian control of my children.’ Children are not possessions.

  76. 76.

    McJulie

    @Petorado: The political right in this country is like an auto-immune disorder. They got all fired up to fight the commies, but after succeeding at that, they didn’t go away. Instead, they hung around, always looking for something new to attack. Now they’re attacking the host.

  77. 77.

    different-church-lady

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hartford is cold and dreary
    Out of town were the people I knew
    I had that feeling of self-pity
    What to do? What to do? What to do?
    The outlook was decidedly blue
    But as I walked through the toxic streets alone
    It turned out to be the luckiest day I’ve known…

  78. 78.

    bemused

    @SatanicPanic:

    Ha. A lot of the Greatest Oldtimers pine for the 50’s but have managed to forget how government spurred growth. They don’t like to remember how FDR’s government stimulus programs saved a lot of their asses either. Their kids benefited from all that too up until the dozen years, (cost of two wars, Bush tax cuts, Medicare Part D, home mortgage meltdown, cough, cough) so why do they want to punish their grandkids denying them a leg up by the government?

  80. 80.

    different-church-lady

    @Eric U.:

    dronze is only interesting to republicans because it causes a rift in the Democratic base.

    I’m begining to think drones are only interesting to Democrats because it causes a rift in the Democratic base.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    Conservatives need an external threat.

    They can’t spill that they’re for big business, rich people, and the defense industry. None of those groups are mutually exclusive.

  82. 82.

    Raven

    @McJulie: ” succeeding at that” how? Communism fell of it’s own dead weight. All we did was give it’s leaders a rationale for their police state.

  83. 83.

    Soonergrunt

    @Comrade Dread: Gravy fries are OK. It’s that weird shit they do with cheese curds on top that’s deserving of a Predator strike or at least a stern frown in their general direction.

  86. 86.

    SatanicPanic

    @bemused: My grandpa (who is not, to my knowledge, a conservative) talks about joining the CCC and making trails and buildings in what’s now Pinnacles NP before he went into the army as an airplane mechanic in the south pacific. I hear this and I think- man if only we could put people to work setting up national parks now. Sadly mostly the same people who benefitted from those things are the same people who would call those socialism.

  87. 87.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @McJulie: and @Raven:
    Isn’t that a nitpick? The point is the same. The Cold War ended, and a whole lot of people couldn’t let go. They’ve been looking for a new Soviet Menace ever since. You can spot them because they yell ‘Communist!’ at Obama and young people don’t understand the problem.

    EDIT – I had ‘since’ as ‘sense’. Man, my typo rate is UNREAL today.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I haz discovered honest to FSM waste-fraud-and-abuse in the Federal budget!

    U.S. Rep. Mike Conway (R-TX) has secured $25,000 for a “reconnaissance survey” of the Bush family home in Midland, Texas, the first step toward turning the 1,400-square-foot property into a unit of the National Park Service, the Abilene Reporter News reported Monday.

  91. 91.

    Cassidy

    @Soonergrunt: Oh that’s it. You’re the new Hitler now. You’ll get my poutine when you pry it’s delicious gravy and cheese and french fries…..mmmmmmmmmmm.

    Where was I going witht hat?

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    @Soonergrunt: You can have my poutine when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.

    Actually it’s death on a plate. I know, I know, it’s my ancestral homeland’s favourite dish. But it’s a shit ton of calories even if you use duck fat to fry the potatoes.

    @Cassidy: The waistline! Think of the waistline dammit!!

    Anyone else think RedKitteh is gonna chuckle over us discussing poutine?

  94. 94.

    TenguPhule

    national debt is the new Adolf Hitler. All serious people believe that it’s an existential threat, only unserious hippies believe otherwise.

    And just like Hitler, it only became a problem because it was ignored by Conservative appeasers (Bush, Cheney) when there was still time to address it before things got out of control.

  98. 98.

    bemused

    @SatanicPanic:

    My inlaws talk about that too, 93 and 89, both firm Dems. CC’s camps here that helped created national forests. My mil got a job in high school typing stuff for the principal, some kind of FDR program, I forget what it was called. She said it really helped put food on the table for her widowed mom and siblings. This is a rural, small town area, much more rural in the 30’s and my fil says thank goodness for the government getting electricity and phone service to these remote places. He likes to tell people that if it had been up to private companies daunted by the cost, who knows how long it would have been for power and phones to get here. People have thanked him for telling them that, even people who are in their 70’s who should remember a little history.

  99. 99.

    DPS

    Facial hair is a serious obstacle. Hitlers have facial hair, ideally a mustache.

    If Serious People ever develop the technology to put a neatly trimmed mustache on the debt, God help us all.

  100. 100.

    Hill Dweller

    Rand Paul has apparently changed his mind, and now tells anyone with a microphone that he supports drone strikes on American citizens in this country if they pose an imminent threat.

  101. 101.

    SatanicPanic

    @ranchandsyrup: I haven’t read that one in years, I should re-read it. I did read Monkey Wrench Gang last year- that was a funny, but kinda dated read. I’m surprised it hasn’t been made into a movie starring Matt Damon as George Hayduke.

  103. 103.

    DougJ, Friend of Hamas

    @Comrade Dread:

    I don’t think Chavez ever reached Hitler proportions. Outside the Washington Post editorial page and right-wing media, nobody gave a fuck about him.

  104. 104.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @DougJ, Friend of Hamas: A few years back, I guess when Chavez was running for a second term, Tweety had Frank Lutz on just after it had been revealed that Lutz was part of a merry band heading to Caracas to work for Chavez’s opponents. Tweety found it pretty funny and was just mockingly asking Lutz “Whose side are you on?” With all the seriousness of a massive coronary, the person under Frank Lutz’s hairpiece intoned, “I’m on the side of Freedom, Chris.”

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @Morbo:

    I admit, I don’t really get that “FEMA coffins” ad. If (god forbid) there was another pandemic like the Spanish Flu, or a natural disaster that killed thousands, what’s the paranoids’ alternate plan for safe and sanitary disposal of the bodies? I’m pretty sure coffin manufacturers are not going to offer up their $3,000 cherry wood coffins for free.

  108. 108.

    Todd

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m pretty sure coffin manufacturers are not going to offer up their $3,000 cherry wood coffins for free.

    Not for blahs and browns. But for saintly white grannies? They deserve nothing but the best.

    WHY DO YOU HATE OLD WHITE PEOPLE!!!!?!?

  110. 110.

    JC

    You know what is most annoying, is that now, everyone is talking about ‘what the President is offering’, and then, how it is not enough, for the national debt, because of the skewed bipartisan ‘both sides do it’ fetish.

    But all people HEAR then, is ‘President Obama is offering Social Security cuts”. “President Obama is offering Medicare cuts (though they are to doctors and hospitals, that doesn’t get through).

    It seems to me, that the Rethugs will turn around and go from criticizing the President for ‘not offering anything’, to then criticizing the President, and all democrats as ‘they are cutting Social Security! They are cutting Medicare!’

    If the democrats and the President play this game, politically, I think it is a loser.

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Was the national debt the new Hitler when it was being upped during the Bush adminstration with 2 wars and tax breaks for the uber rich?

    Absolutely. Remember that American conservatives loved them some Hitler until about 1939 or (in some cases) 1941. You’ll even hear a few conservatives today talking about how Hitler was OK until he went too far. Similarly, they loved the deficit and debt until just about November 2008 or January 2009, when it became the most terrible thing ever.

  112. 112.

    Todd

    @SatanicPanic:

    rural people might find out how much private companies will charge to bring them their mail. I don’t think they’re gonna like it.

    Its the fault of blacks. And ACORN. And libruls. And unions.

  113. 113.

    Rock

    So is it ironic that the truly existential threat of global warming or even the semi-related existential threat of running out of cheap fossil-fuel energy are dismissed out of hand?

  114. 114.

    bemused

    @SatanicPanic:

    Oh yeah. Hell hath no fury like senior citizens who don’t get their mail/checks when they expect them! They watch for the mail carrier to come and go religiously. I know, because my inlaws tell us when the mail carrier is 15 minutes late!

  116. 116.

    Hill Dweller

    @different-church-lady: Anyone who fell for that charlatan’s tantrum deserves to be embarrassed.

    Paul has made McGramps and Graham look reasonable, which I thought was near impossible.

  117. 117.

    Soonergrunt

    @SatanicPanic: Well, they’ll get to experience that famous curse “may you get your wish.”
    They voted for the guys who are trying to destroy the Postal Service. So fuck them. Seriously.

  119. 119.

    Petorado

    @McJulie:

    I agree. The Right doesn’t want to do anything constructive, so it binds itself together by opposing or destroying existential threats to its (under the guise of “our”) existence. With their incessant talk about fearing everything, no wonder their followers are so paranoid.

  121. 121.

    socraticsilence

    So we start carpet bombing DC now or is a drone strike on Bernake more in order.

  122. 122.

    lamh35

    @Soonergrunt: speaking of that, apparently this happened:

    Judd Legum‏@JuddLegum
    Rand Paul on CNN right now saying that he supports drone strikes against American citizens if they pose an “imminent threat”

    So basically Paul agrees with Holder. So the filibuster was because????

  123. 123.

    handsmile

    @Rock:

    Well, if he wasn’t so damned fat, Al Gore could be the “new Hitler”. (The Koch boys already think so.) And aren’t his “earth tones” just a euphemism for “brown shirt”?

  125. 125.

    Michele C

    @Joel: Does anyone remember when they started calling them “entitlements?” That’s been getting under my skin lately.

  126. 126.

    Hill Dweller

    @Chris: It’s all over the twitter machine. Paul said on CNN he supported drone strikes on American citizens, on US soil, if they are an “imminent threat”. When asked for an example of “imminent threat, he said “assembling a weapon”.

    Give me a sec to find a link.

  127. 127.

    srv

    Can we all agree that Rand Paul is pretty close to Hitler, but at the same time the finest example the Senate has to offer in proper use of the filibuster?

  129. 129.

    Comrade Dread

    They’ve found it now: national debt is the new Adolf Hitler. All serious people believe that it’s an existential threat, only unserious hippies believe otherwise.

    In a way, all of us has a Hitler to face. For some, shyness might be their Hitler. For others, a lack of education might be their Hitler. For us, Hitler is a small, mustachioed man who wants to kill us…

  130. 130.

    taylormattd

    Is this post somehow related to the advertisement just below it titled “FEMA Coffins Revealed”?

  131. 131.

    Michele C

    @Mnemosyne: They don’t think. At all.

    Actually, if this can be considered a defense of people who don’t think, yesterday I had a conversation with a person who does pay attention, just not obsessively, and it had never dawned on her that sanitation is the most important thing in refugee camps, e.g., especially because of Cholera. If she’s not thinking about that, do you really think the wingnutters are thinking about coffins?

    Sigh.

  134. 134.

    different-church-lady

    @Hill Dweller:

    Anyone who fell for that charlatan’s tantrum deserves to be embarrassed.

    I’m pretty sure the stars of the DK rec list long ago lost the capacity for embarrassment.

  135. 135.

    handsmile

    @Schlemizel:

    Brilliant retrieval that! Other than India, the “Leading Candidates” haven’t changed much since 1998. Strange to think that it rather than Iran was once a contender, though do note its first “Advantage” in “The Search for an Enemy”: brown skin.

    Plus ca change, as the cheese-eating surrender monkeys say.

  136. 136.

    Joel

    @lamh35: Paul wins points for libertarian credentials while also feeding some meat to the wolves in his base. Pure politics.

  137. 137.

    scav

    @Hill Dweller: If he really said “assembling a weapon”, wouldn’t the NRA be all over him for signing off on drone strikes against true-born red-blooded defenders of the sacred second amendment?

  138. 138.

    General Stuck

    @srv:

    we can argue that Rand Paul is pretty close to you , firebagger. It is a solid argument as recent threads lend evidence to.

  139. 139.

    Poopyman

    All I have up top is “Access Public Arrest Records Online”. I want my FEMA coffin, dammit!

    And Rand Paul’s fillibuster was because Rand Paul loves the soothing sounds of Rand Paul’s reasonable voice. Why shouldn’t he share it?

    Narcissistic personality Disorder.

  143. 143.

    Shortstop

    @Poopyman: I’ve been busy, so sorry if this has been addressed: are those coffins supposed to have three layers of bodies in them? Or just Al Gore or Michael Moore (choose one)?

  144. 144.

    danielx

    Remember, you heard at here first: national debt is the new Adolf Hitler.

    That won’t do for the neocons because you can’t bomb the national debt. Besides, it’s not brown – pity it can’t be bombed, it is red, after all.

    Hysteria from wingnutteria – and all Very Serious People, leave us not forget – began about thirty seconds after the 2009 inauguration. Before that, as I recall, it was all tax cuts GOOD, deficits don’t matter, we loves us some supplement appropriations to pay for wars, and unfunded Medicare expansion will get some votes, you betcha.

  146. 146.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m pretty sure the stars of the DK rec list long ago lost the capacity for embarrassment.

    @different-church-lady: Walked away from that disaster back in 06 and never looked back.

    Fucking freakshow, and that’s on a good day.

  148. 148.

    liberal

    @Roger Moore:

    Remember that American conservatives loved them some Hitler until about 1939 or (in some cases) 1941.

    One time while bored during my PhD program I picked out a random dead-tree issue of The Nation from sometime in the 1930s.

    The letters section had a ton of responses to some opinion piece (written by the mags own editors, IIRC) criticizing Hitler.

    Many/most of them were of the form “leave poor Hitler ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!”

    Not sure if the writers were conservatives or not.

  149. 149.

    ericblair

    @Poopyman:

    I want my FEMA coffin, dammit!

    It’s a big Tupperware container, apparently. I believe that in a traditional funeral mass, the pallbearers wait until between the Lord’s Prayer and the Final Commendation to perform the Final Burp.

  150. 150.

    liberal

    @Short Bus Bully:
    Nah. “Fixing” the debt is at best a second priority for the Republicans. Eliminating taxes on the rich is first priority and always will be.

  151. 151.

    Chris

    @Hill Dweller:

    Ah, thanks. That explains it – Facebook is my preferred social media drug, not Twitter.

    @liberal:

    What was the format? Were they saying “leave poor Hitler alone because he’s crushing the fucking communists, and even the leftists who aren’t communists, and they all fucking deserve it?” If so, I’m inclined to say that they were, in fact, conservatives.

  153. 153.

    different-church-lady

    @The Moar You Know: The real question is why I just can’t look away from the train wreck?

    In the meantime:

    The U.S. government cannot target an American citizen who is not engaged in combat on American soil, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday during his daily press briefing.

    HOLDER: It
    has come to my attention that you [Sen. Paul] have now asked an additional question: “Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged incombat on American soil?” The answer to that question is no.

    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/carney-affirms-limits-to-governments-authority-to-use?ref=fpblg

    I’m utterly sure DK will immediately have three rec listed diaries explaining how yesterday’s three rec listed diaries were just overreactions and we’re kinda embarrassed about it. Sheepish mea culpas for the house. [eyeroll]

  156. 156.

    FlipYrWhig

    @different-church-lady: is that true, that the president doesn’t have the authority to do that? What about a James Bond villain kind of situation, where the army of henchmen is involved in combat but the mastermind is in a hollow volcano petting a cat?

  157. 157.

    Soonergrunt

    @different-church-lady:

    I’m utterly sure DK will immediately have three rec listed diaries explaining how yesterday’s three rec listed diaries were just overreactions and we’re kinda embarrassed about it. Sheepish mea culpas for the house. [eyeroll]

    Waiting on that from the usual suspects here…

  158. 158.

    srv

    @different-church-lady:

    Attorney General Eric Holder told senators Wednesday that Obama will soon discuss the issues behind the use of armed drones, especially as they apply to American citizens.

    “You will hear the president speak about this,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    This is clearly a WIN for John McCain Obama!

  160. 160.

    FlipYrWhig

    @srv: do you want someone to address the issue, or do you just want to be more right than the president and his defenders about something?

  162. 162.

    different-church-lady

    @FlipYrWhig:

    What about a James Bond villain kind of situation, where the army of henchmen is involved in combat but the mastermind is in a hollow volcano petting a cat?

    Daily Kos rec list interpretation: “OBAMA CLAIMS AUTHORITY TO ASSASSINATE CATS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS!”

  163. 163.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @FlipYrWhig: I’m trying to figure out if Obama is worse than Bush because he hasn’t talked enough about this, or if he’s worse than Buchanan because he’s going to talk about this, or if we’d just be better off with President Palin because then the Great Kucinichite Revolution would come, instantly and bloodlessly by the common psychic wish of the American people, as the Pentagon floats off into space.

  164. 164.

    srv

    @FlipYrWhig: I’ve never really cared about drones, other than preferring that white people be equal opportunity targets as brown folk and acknowledging what John does – y’all ultimately like killing things too and drones make it more palatable, except when the next Bush does it.

    DoD and the CIA understand marketing, shape of things to come, OLC will provide whatever is needed – no John Yoo needed.

    What’s interesting is that it takes fucking Aqua Buddha to get Holder and Obama to, you know, actually start addressing the issue, and the MUPpet Brigade can do nothing but be butt-hurt, punch hippies*, hate GG, and gaze forlornly at their navel hair.

    *other than that, this handle has always been for punching.

  165. 165.

    different-church-lady

    @srv:

    I’ve never really cared about drones, other than preferring that white people be equal opportunity targets as brown folk…

    If you’d stop being so obstinately against their domestic use on civilians you’d get your wish. Jeez…

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @srv: actually it was Dianne Feinstein (whom I despise for other reasons) and Ron Wyden, who could charitably be called an imperfect vessel. It was aquabuddha who provided the irrelevant and incoherent political theatre some people need in order to pay attention.

  168. 168.

    FlipYrWhig

    @srv: from my perspective, the aggravating thing is when people try to insist that Obama is doing something novel, and/or when they never move on to the part where they suggest what else ought to be done to constrain these (IMHO not-novel) executive powers. And “drones” is a total red herring, or should be considered one, if the big issue is presidential authority to target people in an ill-reviewed way. Putin-style poisonings and mysterious car crashes would be equally intolerable. So, as usual, I want to say, enough with the venting about what’s wrong (especially when what’s wrong might be something other than what’s being vented about), and let’s get to the point where we decide what ought to be done to change it.

  169. 169.

    srv

    @different-church-lady: I’m not! Remember, purity can only be found if the sheeple are made to suffer the same fate. Then there would be a glorious uprising and… liberty!

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think the more likely explanation is that Overseer Chair of Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne actually believed the shit she was being fed on civilian casualties, regurgitated it, called for ‘openness’ on the “Less than 10 innocents killed per year” docs.

    After these OLC/DoD materials are debunked, Dianne will rush to the microphone and shriek: WHOCUDDHAKNOWN!?

  170. 170.

    pluege

    you heard at here first: national debt is the new Adolf Hitler.

    unfortunately, that seems to be right on the money.

    What we really need is two things that are really part of the same problem:

    1) a hell of a lot smarter (and honest) ruling class.
    2) a hell of a lot smarter (and honest) corporate media.

  171. 171.

    different-church-lady

    @srv:

    I’m not! Remember, purity can only be found if the sheeple are made to suffer the same fate. Then there would be a glorious uprising and… liberty!

    That’s good, because you just know Obama’s gonna drone the shit out of OWS the moment they get back on the street. And a whole lot of those cats are white.

  172. 172.

    Quicksand

    @Mnemosyne:

    I admit, I don’t really get that “FEMA coffins” ad. If (god forbid) there was another pandemic like the Spanish Flu, or a natural disaster that killed thousands, what’s the paranoids’ alternate plan for safe and sanitary disposal of the bodies? I’m pretty sure coffin manufacturers are not going to offer up their $3,000 cherry wood coffins for free.

    OMG FEMA OVENS! HITLER!!!

  173. 173.

    Mnemosyne

    @srv:

    What’s interesting is that it takes fucking Aqua Buddha to get Holder and Obama to, you know, actually start addressing the issue …

    Huh? Aqua Buddha agrees with Holder.

    Also, you must not follow this issue much if you think this is the first time Holder and Obama have addressed it. You may want to read emptywheel every once in a while to keep up on current events.

  176. 176.

    srv

    @FlipYrWhig: John is at his most insightful when he is blotto:

    it really doesn’t matter, because the security apparatus will live on. I can bitch about it all I want, and nothing will fucking change, because the profit at General Dynamics and Raytheon are more important. Even in a Democratic administration. Even when the President is “our” guy. Even during sequester.

    The best we can hope for is weird little victories by whiny outsiders like Aqua Buddha. I used to think that someone would uncover something so outrageous that we’d have another Church Committee, but after seeing both sides mostly yawn about the last decade, hard to see that happening.

  177. 177.

    eemom

    In case the firebagger freakshow over Paul fizzles out, there’s a new one in the pipeline….Holder said yesterday in response to questioning by another republican assclown (Cornyn I think) that the Aaron Swartz investigation was an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

    Dayum, the republicans are really on a roll against executive overreach here….ya gotta RESPECT that.

  179. 179.

    srv

    @Mnemosyne: Where “address” means:

    I’d have to say that Paul has only managed to move the pea under a different shell in this shell game.

    -emptywheel

  181. 181.

    David Koch

    Aqua Buddha just caved after McCain mocked him and voted to invoke cloture.

    Well done, sir, well done.

    Now on to searching for the weapons being shipped to Turkey.

  182. 182.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David Koch: Now on to searching for the weapons being shipped to Turkey.

    Hillary’s reaction to that pretty much locked up my support if she decides she wants it. I thought she had a “I can barely suffer you fools” look on her face before that.

  183. 183.

    McJulie

    @Raven: “succeeding” because I am not presently equipped to argue whether they did, or did not, ultimately help get rid of the USSR. The point was that even IF they once served a purpose, that purpose is now done.

    Plus, I’m being an optimist. I hope if we pat them on the head and say “good conservatives! you got rid of the commie menace! now, can we move on and deal with the current century?” that patting them on the head first might be the path to getting the answer to the final question to be “yes.”

  184. 184.

    Another Halocene Human

    @bemused: Too bad SBC ATT is succeeding in convincing both state and federal governments to roll away mandate for rural wireline service. See, that shit has to be maintained, too, and they don’t wanna do it.

  186. 186.

    Another Halocene Human

    @JC: The fact that nobody cares is proof that there are no true fiscal conservatives. Just Republican masturbators on blogs.

  187. 187.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Rock: So is it ironic that the truly existential threat of global warming or even the semi-related existential threat of running out of cheap fossil-fuel energy are dismissed out of hand?

    Then the person self-interrogating might have, personally, done something terrible without realizing it, and that thought is too awful to bear.

    Two solutions:

    We’re using up the oil so China doesn’t get it. It’s patriotic! (No awareness as to what happens to the sprawlscape once that oil is gone.)

    Oil is unlimited! The biogenesis theory is a lie! There’s a really big pool in bumfuckicoldistan, if only the dad-blamed gubmint would get out of the way!

  188. 188.

    Chris

    @David Koch:

    Aqua Buddha just caved after McCain mocked him and voted to invoke cloture.

    McCain is an angry and vindictive son of a bitch.

    If he poured that anger and vindictiveness over somebody who deserves it as richly as that fucking snake Rand Paul, then good work, John. So clap we all.

  189. 189.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Todd: Wow, the pantswetting in that thread is epic.

    Now I know why snarktists love them some freep.

    E. Gads.

  190. 190.

    Another Halocene Human

    @MikeJ: I like DK Labor and even DK Elections.

    Richard Trumka tried to lure me on his afl-cio blog, but the mind control rays aren’t working.

  191. 191.

    Ted & Hellen

    All serious people believe that it’s an existential threat, only unserious hippies believe otherwise.

    Your president believes this too. Unfortunately.

  192. 192.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Another Halocene Human: Oil is unlimited! The biogenesis theory is a lie! There’s a really big pool in bumfuckicoldistan, if only the dad-blamed gubmint would get out of the way!

    Is bumfuckicoldistan near Fort Mcmurray?

  193. 193.

    StringOnAStick

    @Lurking Canadian: Further north, in the soon-to-be-opened year-round Arctic shipping lanes. Because nothing says “man rules over nature as Gawd intended” like deep water drilling in the world’s most inhospitable climate.

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