Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

This really is a full service blog.

Republicans in disarray!

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Come on, man.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / The GOP’s Deep Bench

The GOP’s Deep Bench

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The amazing thing to me about the Republicans is that as soon as one of them disgraces themselves, another bigoted douchebag gets upchucked into public view, and immediately does something like this:

Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famed Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, apologized Friday for his “choice of words” and use of examples in discussing gay marriage on Fox News earlier in the week.

During Sean Hannity’s show on Tuesday, when asked about the matter before the Supreme Court, Carson said, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.”

The comparison of gays to members of the North American Boy/Man Love Association and those who engage in bestiality set off a backlash of criticism in the media, online and on campus. There is now a petition circulating at Johns Hopkins Medical to have Carson removed as commencement speaker in May at the School of Medicine.

It’s an endless stream of assholes on that bench.

Reader Interactions

177Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    God I hate that I know this, but the writer messed up NAMBLA’s full name. I need a shower now.

  4. 4.

    Wag

    Civil rights are human rights. Except for teh geys. And wimminfolk. And the blahs. And the wetbacks. And you. And me.

    Unrestricted human rights for the GOP!

  6. 6.

    ranchandsyrup

    Being an asshole is the first step toward wingnut welfare and “fame”. It’s become a requirement up front rather than an expected end point.

  7. 7.

    Comrade Mary

    Cue The Corner (but only if you’ve taken your Gravol first):

    We’ll see if his apology is accepted. If it’s not, it will become clear that an authoritarian anti-free speech mindset has set in with many gay-marriage supporters. Free and open debate is vital to discussing public-policy issues. In fact, it was liberal Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor who brought up the issue of bestiality during this week’s oral arguments on a gay-rights case, openly asking if the extension of marriage law to gays would open the courts up to lawsuits demanding equal marriage rights by polygamists and those who engage in bestiality.

    Apparently, for many liberals, free-speech rights can be extended to people who agree with them or their allies, but those outside their circle had better be prepared for attempts to shut them up.

    Media Matters easily shows that The Corner (and Kelly on Fox, and all the usual suspects) are, of course, being as deceptive as fuck.

  8. 8.

    Hypatia's Momma

    “But the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions.”

    …said the black man.

  9. 9.

    GregB

    Dr. Carson will immediately be placed on the conservative cross of perpetual victim-hood.

    I am unimpressed with this creepy soft spoken bigot.

  10. 10.

    kindness

    They really don’t think their bigotry is wrong so they say that stuff. Only when they see it will cost them by all the other folk out there who don’t share their TeaHaddism, they backtrack & say ‘Gee I shouldn’t have said that’. They don’t mean this but they will say it because at heart they are whores.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    So the new love child of the republican party does not believe in evolution, does not believe in universal health care and thinks gays are icky. I’m shocked, just shocked. Next thing someone will tell me he wants his tax cuts.

  13. 13.

    agorabum

    Have to love the analytical thinking about the definition. It is “defined” as between a man and a woman. And who is it defined by? People. It relates to civil law. We the people have previously defined it that way. And now about 20% of the states define it as between two grown, consenting adults. We most certainly can change the definition.
    Just as we can and do change the definition on what exactly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment (typically, a good type of change), and even what the definition of the right to bear arms means (a change I consider for the worse, but we had the right to change it). What Carson is really saying is that no one can change anything that he personally doesn’t want to have changed. But that isn’t the standard. It’s not all about him.

  17. 17.

    cmorenc

    The trouble with trying to rebrand people who are assholes and create a new, better image for them is that after the rebranding program is executed, they’re still assholes unless the program sharply changes their underlying substance.

  20. 20.

    Randy P

    @agorabum: Exactly the point I was about to make. It’s not about the “traditional definition”. It’s about the LEGAL definition for purpose of GOVERNMENT application of relevant laws.

  21. 21.

    jl

    Aside from being very tired of reading about these jerks, I am also tired of them trotting out nonsense.

    Any evidence from anyplace that giving equal rights to everyone has interfered with public disapproval and prosecutions of weirdos raping donkeys, of coaches and teachers and priests and preachers diddling little kids, of abusive polygamous schismatic Mormon cults? I don’t see any at all.

    In fact, the traditionalists in general have been the most likely to excuse authority figures abusing kids and whatever else they feel like.

    So, hey, this crazy world is upside down, right? Seems so.

    I read in TPM that these hateful know-nothings are complaining their right to express their thoughts is violated when they have to stand down after other people exercise their right of free speech to condemn hate mongering and nonsense. Life is so unfair to them.

  24. 24.

    minutemaid

    of which you once associated yourself with Cole. By my math you were in your late 20’s early 30’s the second time you voted for G. Dubya the Texas sized dummy. So hardly something one can explain away as something one does during their carefree youth.

    More like something that is in your DNA still.

  25. 25.

    El Cid

    You don’t get on the bench unless you’re a primo asshole in the first place.

    Tea Party Nation don’t got time for no bums — you either bring your “A” game of hate, dickishness, ignorance, sexism, callousness, incomprehensibility in the best mix you got, or you go home.

    This team, they came to play.

  29. 29.

    Thoughtcrime

    More GOP outreach:

    Amid rising tensions with the state’s Latino community over McRory’s opposition to providing ordinary drivers licenses to young illegal immigrants granted protection from deportation, the governor’s office announced it was closing its Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs. The governor’s chief of staff told the Charlotte Observer that “we don’t segment our constituents by race or cultural background any more than we separate them by age or gender,” but Latino leaders are upset, saying it demonstrates a lack of interest in their concerns.

    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nc-governor-pat-mcrory-r-eliminates-latino-outreach

  32. 32.

    Kay

    He’s a horror. I heard him interviewed on the radio. Nothing gets in. He just kept saying he believed in “private contract” for legal protections.
    When he was asked how people are supposed to enter into a private contract with, for example, the social security admin. he simply repeated “private contract” , serenely and confidently, like he hadn’t heard the question.

    He doesn’t engage in “debate” at all.

  33. 33.

    gbear

    @Thoughtcrime:

    Amid rising tensions with the state’s Latino community…. the governor’s office announced it was closing its Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs.

    Problem solved! (republican style)

  34. 34.

    ? Martin

    Man, I always wondered why tax returns were so goddamn hard when the IRS already has almost all of your data:

    In 2005, California launched a pilot program called ReadyReturn. As it fought against the program over the next five years, Intuit spent more than $3 million on overall lobbying and political campaigns in the state, according to Dennis J. Ventry Jr., a professor at UC Davis School of Law who specializes in tax policy and legal ethics.
    …
    Former California Republican legislator Tom Campbell recalls being surprised at the opposition.

    “The government imposed the income tax burden in the first place,” he told ProPublica. “So if it wants to make it easier, for heaven’s sake, why not?”

    In a Los Angeles Times op-ed at the time, Campbell wrote he “never saw as clear a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit.”

    Tom Campbell is my POS representative. If I go visit him in DC, he’ll hand me a free copy of Atlas Shrugged. So, he’s one of those assholes, and even he’s in favor of this. I’ll bet anything there are as many Dems on board with this as Republicans, but seriously – this is complete bullshit. We’re dumping a few billion a year on tax prep because Intuit (and certainly the other tax preparers as well) spent a few million lining Congress’s pockets. It’s shit like this why my dad is turning into a communist.

  35. 35.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    They don’t get to change the definition.

    Says the man whose not-so-distant ancestors were defined as “agricultural equipment”. Dr. Carson’s remarks place him squarely in the I Got Mine Fuck You pantheon.

  36. 36.

    jl

    @Thoughtcrime:

    This GOP outreach is getting off to a great start. Conservative and GOP leaders who I suppose should be out leading their bigoted troops to enlightened thinking have taken high profile jabs at Hispanics, gays and poors looking to sign up for Obamacare and maybe to register to vote, in the first week. The omission of smears against women, Asians and youth speaks against their new PR commitment to equal opportunity. But I guess something on those groups will be rolled out soon.

  41. 41.

    ? Martin

    Actually, correction to the above. John Campbell is my POS rep. Tom Campbell is a different (former) GOP rep from out here – much less assholish, but still a Republican, so point still carries.

  44. 44.

    Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn

    Left this comment at the tail end of the now-dead flag thread, so I’mma gonna shamelessly repost it here:

    I’m not religious, so I don’t believe it’ll happen, but I’d so love to see Jesus come back and get all Joe Pesci on these cretins’ asses (because as the episode with the money changers tells us, JC didn’t suffer assholes gladly).

    “Mother fucker, when did I say to hate on your fellow because he’s darker than you, or dates other men, or votes for the political party that has the better record of providing for the poor, sick, and elderly? Where did you fucking see that, you fucking prick? Open your Daddamn motherfucking red letter New Fucking Testament and show me just where the fuck I said that, fucking chapter and fucking verse! Do it now, you miserable fuck! Show me where the fuck I said that, or me and my gun here are gonna make you fucking dance!”

  45. 45.

    Hal

    How common is bestiality anyway? Amazing how conservatives are so obsessed with animal fucking. Also Carson has really disappointed me. Great success story but in the end he’s a bigot and a douche. Oh and a young earth creationist.

  46. 46.

    Randy P

    @minutemaid: OK let me see if I understand the biological principles here. If you ever vote R, the regardless of how you vote otherwise, it’s “in your DNA”. And there’s no corresponding principle for ever voting D.

    Even if we grant that for the purposes of argument, what difference does it make politically what’s in your DNA if your vote is reliably Democratic? What point were you trying to make other than trollery?

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Hal:

    You see, Hal, the problem with gay marriage is that if it’s legal, all those closeted Rethug fucks will dump their beards and immediately hit gay bars looking for fresh meat to marry, then dispose of, then another to marry, and then dispose of.

    The only difference is that they’ll have double the chance of picking up a new spouse, which is why Newt’s only dumped two previous spouses and not four.

  48. 48.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Reince Priebus said Republicans just need to sound nicer when they compare gay people to pedophiles and animal fuckers.

  49. 49.

    Yutsano

    @? Martin: There are quite a few things the IRS doesn’t know by filing season. We are (just now) getting some income reported but not all plus we know zip about current filing status or deductions. Having said that, you’re right in that it shouldn’t be hard. Hell the mortgage interest deduction is a direct reduction in income.

  53. 53.

    MD Rackham

    @Hal:

    How common is bestiality anyway?

    Among the population in general? Or among Fox News viewers?

    Vastly different numbers I would suspect, given that about the only time I hear about bestiality it’s from some Fox host/guest.

  54. 54.

    Randy P

    @Just Some Fuckhead: They have to remember that and also keep straight “when the subject of rape comes up, be anti”? I think that’s too much for the average Tea Partier CPU

  55. 55.

    catclub

    @Thoughtcrime: I knew as soon as I read it that, they were lying and that they would have a Department of Senior Affairs.
    And I was right!

    http://www.ncdhhs.gov/aging/

    North Carolina Division of Aging and Adult Services … (HCCBG) more than 69,000 seniors were assisted in SFY2010-11, many of whom would.

  56. 56.

    jl

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yeah. I would say projection is the issue. I notice also that it is the traditionalists who offer excuses for priest and preachermen abusing kids. But when it comes to gay marriage, they shout about NAMBLA is next. Projection much, folks?

    Of course, there is an obvious difference, and pretty clear one. Informed and responsible mutual consent to a relationship. I think that covers polygamy and polyandry (Edit, since if you have those, it is impossible for one partner to know what they signing up for if the other partner decides they want more later on). I guess once we develop manimal horses who can talk and do basic logic, there will be a problem, though.

    But it does bring up a question, why is polyandry never mentioned? Some societies had polyandry, so it is something besides traditional man/woman marriage that has existed, along with polygamy and patriarchy (code for ‘the rich guy does what he wants when he wants to whomever he wants’).

    Why is polyandry left out in the parade of horribles?

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    It’s an endless stream of assholes on that bench.

    The Republican Party must have severe constipation. It’s the only way you can have this many assholes and still be so full of shit.

  59. 59.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Randy P:

    They have to remember that and also keep straight “when the subject of rape comes up, be anti”? I think that’s too much for the average Tea Partier CPU

    That’s a lot to remember all at one time. Then you wind up accidentally using the “wetbacks” slur. I think it’s just better to say whatever but say it really nice. If you write it, simply use emoticons.

  60. 60.

    Schlemizel

    My favorite part was when he talked about how it is wrong to topple the pillars on which this country was built.

    I kept wanting to ask him what plantation he thought he would be working if everyone was so intent on maintain the goddamn pillars

  62. 62.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @JPL:

    You should send your ideas on how to say it nice.

    You just smile a lot with a caring look in your eyes. But not too much smile or too much caring, because that looks condescending. Maybe a touch wistful on the smile, and someone passed away after a heroic battle on the look.

  63. 63.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @shortstop:

    Excellent idea. When speaking, you can also let your voice rise semi-interrogatively at the end of every sentence. It totally works for Southern women.

    Bless your heart.

  67. 67.

    jl

    I see O’Reilly and Brent Bozell Three (the knowledge of whom I owe infinite thanks to this very blog, though I may have gotten his name wrong) are yelling about the Nobama secularist War on Easter because they are disrespecting the Easter Bunny and Easter egg hunts.

    What the hell goes on in the minds of these people?

    For a little comic relief, I request some War on Easter posts.

    I mean if the Easter Bunny and her (or is it ‘his’? I never really figured out what that Easter Bunny thing was anyway) eggs are not safe, what will happen to our Judeo-Christian heritage?

    Sex with Easter eggs? Rabbit fricassee for Easter dinner? The mind reels at the horrors to come.

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    @Gex:

    Sadly, it turns out there is no such thing as peak wingnut…just the next step, before the next outrage…before the next step, before the next outrage…before the next step…

    The fact that one kind of intellectual brilliance can reside inside the same brain with moronic, young-Earth creationism and hateful, narrow-minded bigotry is one of the great wonders and mysteries of the human mind. Brilliance in one field confers nothing of the kind in others. Every Sunday morning, lefties given to masochism can turn on Fox or ABC and witness complete idiots who have high IQs.

    Today, much of what I used to consider mere right wing stupidity or bigotry appears more and more to be a kind of dangerous pathology that poses a very real threat to a free and just society. Dr. Carson is a prime example.

  70. 70.

    Suffern ACE

    @jl: Jesus called. I believe he’s saying that those Easter eggs have been at war with him for a hundred years and he’s siding with the secularists.

  71. 71.

    scav

    @Schlemizel: Speaking of pillars, allowing slaves to marry interfered with the owners’ property rights, and that’s one of them there holy not-to-be-meddled with foundational values. In law marriage was held to be a civil contract, and civil contracts required the consent of free persons. So what’s up with his public ring-based flaunting of changing values and civil contracts?

  72. 72.

    Mike in NC

    @Thoughtcrime:

    Amid rising tensions with the state’s Latino community over McRory’s opposition to providing ordinary drivers licenses to young illegal immigrants granted protection from deportation, the governor’s office announced it was closing its Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs. The governor’s chief of staff told the Charlotte Observer that “we don’t segment our constituents by race or cultural background any more than we separate them by age or gender,” but Latino leaders are upset, saying it demonstrates a lack of interest in their concerns.

    First off, it’s not McRory, it’s McCrory. He’s a fucking scumbag who’s filled his cabinet with Koch-owned parasites. They’ll replace the Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs with Office of Bankster Affairs.

    Odds are he’ll get reelected, also, too.

  73. 73.

    RSA

    Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famed Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon…

    Thanks, Dr. Carson, for driving down the value of my undergrad degree in the public mind. Go, Black-and-Blue Jays!

  74. 74.

    Redshirt

    Like the singularity of a black hole, once you’ve entered the Wingularity, you wouldn’t know it. Everything to you would seem normal, even as every atom of your sanity is ripped asunder.

  75. 75.

    MattR

    @RSA: Agreed on both fronts. And let’s go FGCU! It’s as close as we are gonna come to having a Division 1 basketball team.

  76. 76.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You see, Hal, the problem with gay marriage is that if it’s legal, all those closeted Rethug fucks will dump their beards and immediately hit gay bars looking for fresh meat to marry, then dispose of, then another to marry, and then dispose of.

    No way. They’ll have no reason to be gay if gaymarryin is legitimized. It’s the sinful abomination part that makes it so fucking hot.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jl:

    Why is polyandry left out in the parade of horribles?

    Probably for the same reason that British anti-homosexuality laws didn’t address women on women. Queen Victoria couldn’t picture it.

    White male fundie/Opus Dei Christians just can’t imagine such a situation.

  80. 80.

    Svensker

    @shortstop:

    When speaking, you can also let your voice rise semi-interrogatively at the end of every sentence. It totally works for Southern women.

    And Canadians, eh?

  82. 82.

    Chris

    @jl:

    I read in TPM that these hateful know-nothings are complaining their right to express their thoughts is violated when they have to stand down after other people exercise their right of free speech to condemn hate mongering and nonsense. Life is so unfair to them.

    Amazing how few people on their side of the aisle understand that the right to free speech does not include a right to be protected from the backlash against said free speech.

    Look, this is a free country. More or less. You have the absolute right to go on national television and say that Adolf Hitler was right in all particulars and that the only sad thing about his life is that he didn’t kill MORE people. But that doesn’t mean other people don’t have the right to call you a fucking Nazi (or whatever other obscenities they can come up with), and it doesn’t mean that people are obligated to listen to you or put your words on the air.

    As the self-proclaimed Party of Personal Responsibility, you fuckers shouldn’t need a godless Obammunist to explain it to you.

  84. 84.

    Jebediah

    @Randy P:

    What point were you trying to make other than trollery?

    Minutemaid/Derf etc. is a one-note troll. My theory is that years ago he asked Cole to the prom, Cole said no, and he’s never gotten over it.

  85. 85.

    the Conster

    These douchenuzzles are so fun to watch stepping all over their own dicks. They’re all just such shameless ignorant fucktards who have no idea how they sound to decent people. Pointing and laughing is the only way to beat them, because ridicule is the one thing they seem to understand. Logic sure isn’t working.

  86. 86.

    David Koch

    making things better he went on Andrea Mitchell today and compared gays to fruits.

    Hmmm, gays-fruits, gays-fruits, gays-fruits, I wonder what kind of connotation was he going for?

  87. 87.

    ChrisNYC

    Yay! They are going to keep talking about how much they despise this or that group of voters. Nuts behavior.

  88. 88.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Ken:

    We need a word for the opposite of outreach. Inreach? Overreach? Reach-around?

    How about “outgrope”?

  90. 90.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @ChrisNYC:

    Well, to be fair, they seem to think that the groups of voters they despise are too stupid to comprehend that they’re being despised.

    It’s like with Obama…they can’t believe that a ni*CLANG* is kicking their asses repeatedly, and pleasantly smiling while doing so. It just doesn’t register with them how badly their asses are being kicked.

  92. 92.

    ? Martin

    Hmm. North Korea has just entered into a ‘state of war’ with South Korea. That probably means nothing at all, but then it’s North Korea, so who the fuck knows? I’ve had mentally ill neighbors before – I can’t imagine that applying to an entire nation.

  94. 94.

    ? Martin

    Oh, and Jesus doesn’t love someone as much as he thought. Stephen Baldwin owes $300,000 in back taxes.

  95. 95.

    JPL

    @? Martin:

    “Unfortunately, I got some really bad suggestions and advice … from lawyers and accountants,” Baldwin said outside court. “I’m just grateful for the opportunity to rectify this situation.”

    personal responsibility is for the little guys..

  97. 97.

    Schlemizel

    @efgoldman:

    I had to leave last night so didn’t get to thank you for comments about hockey & band. I really do think you see the BC/BU women play, you will be impressed. Hating on the opponent just makes it more exciting B-{D

    I can just imagine that there are some great traditions around college hockey in the Boston area they have had some very good teams. (if you are Canadian & have skill you go to Boston, if you are a goon you go to North Dakota
    – back in the day they used to have fights break out in practice at UND)

    The Gopher men thought they could sleep walk through the first round again I guess. F’em.

  99. 99.

    Valdivia

    @? Martin:

    Oh boy. A twenty something crazed idiot with his own nuclear arsenal trying to prove he is more macho than his generals and his dead Dad.

  101. 101.

    minutemaid

    @Randy P: So you think Bush was awesome and not a mistake to vote for the second time…in the middle of a pointless war that anyone with half a brain knew was pointless at the time. In fact knew before it started.

    That’s a hell of a defence of people like Cole who claim they are suddenly more reasonable…and yet continue to get it WRONG almost EVERY…SINGLE…TIME. You sure got me there.

    Sigh…the stupid continues to burn. Talk about endless streams of assholes…lol

  105. 105.

    Booger

    Oh fer dawg sake…he’s Herman Cain with manual dexterity and an eight-minute long answering machine message.

  108. 108.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin:

    Technically, North (DPRK) and South (ROK) Korea have been at war for over 60 years. For the past 60 years (since 1953), there’s been a cease fire. There has been no formal peace treaty between DPRK and the ROK and the UN…which, again, technically, is not at peace with the DPRK. The only reason for this is that the USSR walked out of the Security Council and the the other four remaining veto powers committed the UN to protecting the ROK.

    The annual joint exercise held by the US and the ROK is going on right now, and happens every year about this time. It’s called Team Spirit, and the DPRK gets its panties in a bunch every single year about it.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    North Korea has just entered into a ‘state of war’ with South Korea.

    Technically, they’ve been in a state of war since the Truman administration. There’s been a long-running armistice, but no formal peace treaty, so they’re still legally at war.

  114. 114.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman:

    If KidKim is going to lob nukes, it will be at Japan, a enemy as hated if not more than the US of the DPRK.

  116. 116.

    Roger Moore

    @efgoldman:

    while North Korea does have nuclear warheads, it does not appear to have mastered the technology to miniaturize them enough to put on top of a missile.

    If you can’t put them on a missile, they’re not actually warheads. Technical terminology:

    Nuclear device: any nuclear explosive, no matter how crude and clunky

    Nuclear bomb: a nuclear device suitable for dropping from airplanes

    Nuclear warhead: a nuclear device suitable for delivery by rocket or missile

    North Korea has demonstrated that it can build nuclear devices, but not that it has the ability to convert them into militarily useful bombs or warheads.

  117. 117.

    JPL

    @Maude: He just seems crazier than his dad. I do think that he wants a dignitary to visit him and tell him nice things. I suggest Just some Fuckhead. …….

  119. 119.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    When I was there, no one shot at me when I visited the treaty village, and walked across the room and was in DPRK.

    There are of course always incidents, skirmishes, whatever going on at various places at or near the DMZ.

  121. 121.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    Yeah, I recall that particular episode quite well, I was in ROTC at the future home of the Fighting Fashion Nightmares at the time.

  122. 122.

    JPL

    Is it possible that Kim Jong Un is showing bellicosity in order to firm up his position. Is someone within the country threatening him?

  123. 123.

    Valdivia

    Maybe because I’m sitting sipping mojitos I’m reminded, apropos of crazy sons trying to outdo their political fathers, that the worst South American war, the War of the Triple Alliance figured the President Solano Lopez trying to outdo his dad’s legacy. He ended up sacrificing almost all of the male population. Towards the end he was recruiting young boys. It was horrid. This N Korean guy gives off that kind of vibe. Hope some sort of deterrence or wisdom stops him.

  125. 125.

    Maude

    @JPL:
    We don’t know. That’s the problem. With his father, we had some idea what was less serious or more serious.
    As raven said, we also don’t know who’s running the show.

  126. 126.

    raven

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yea, it chilled pretty quickly after 69. What really interests me is that it was almost universally thought that the NK’s were in cahoots with North Vietnam on both the Blue House Raid and the Pueblo. They occurred at the same time as the Tet offensive and it just made sense. The recent release of Bulgarian embassy documents suggest that it was totally independent and that all the commies were pissed at Kim for doing it.

  128. 128.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    The Great Leader (all rights reserved, House of Kim) had a long history of doing whatever the fuck he wanted to and dragging his allies in Beijing and Moscow into it…or at least trying to.

    Not surprised that he operated independently, but it was very much the mindset back then that anything remotely “communist” was controlled by some nebbish in a closet in the Kremlin. Monolithic World Communism was the giant bogey-man under the bed for us back then.

    Which explains all those clashes along the Sino-Soviet frontier in the late 60’s…

  129. 129.

    raven

    “Even if North Korea did have the capability and chose to use it, the likelihood of an overwhelming U.S. military counterattack would render any such attack self-defeating for Kim Jong Un’s regime. Indeed, as Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman tweeted a few weeks ago, any such move would amount to “North Korea basically telling the world it would like to be made into a parking lot.”

  130. 130.

    raven

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, it was a pretty heavy conincidink. All I know is that we had 6 rounds per tube for our howitzers and 20 rounds 7.62 for our 14’s and the fuckers were a mile and a half away. We’d have been toast.

  131. 131.

    JPL

    @raven:yup… that’s why I am concerned. I have no doubt that if little Kim tries to bomb our air base, he is gone as well as millions of his citizens. Our current President doesn’t blink.

  132. 132.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    It’s too bad that such a parking lot would not be convenient to every major league baseball venue…

  134. 134.

    raven

    I was talking to a Korean prof last week. He said the South Koreans are really worried about reunification because they have such high unemployment.

  136. 136.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I might add that when I visited the treaty village, it was in Class As (required for anyone military on the tour) with full shinies to let them know that a US Army officer was on the tour.

  147. 147.

    raven

    @Maude: Yea I mean we don’t want to do it but this won’t be some shock and awe hollywood shit. They have em and we know they have em and we won’t half-step.

  148. 148.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @raven: The Gopher women won the national title at the club level, too. Hockey. We does it around here.

  149. 149.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Just to get technical – are you sure they’ve ever actually been at war? I would have assumed that each side sees itself as the legitimate government of Korea and therefore sees the other not as a nation state but an illegal entity. Ergo, it’s not a war in the legal sense.

    I admit I know nothing about the Korean situation, but that’s how civil wars usually go. (Including ours, I believe).

  152. 152.

    raven

    @Chris: You’re kidding, right? I’ll spare the details: “Recent scholarship has put the full death toll on all sides at just over 1.2 million”

  156. 156.

    Keith G

    @raven:

    Spencer Ackerman tweeted a few weeks ago, any such move would amount to “North Korea basically telling the world it would like to be made into a parking lot.”

    Watching the latest Kim on TV, I saw a plumb little guy who who likes wearing the highest quality western clothes and apparently eating high cal (French?) meals.

    Something tells me that he would rather not do anything that causes the loss of either his threads or grub. He will push this act for a bit longer, declare a great victory and then settle down for some pate and caviar.

  158. 158.

    DPS

    I don’t envy the high wire act of the conservative darling. They only love you if you’re a dick, but some things are so dickish that you become radioactive when you say them.

  159. 159.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    Michigan wins. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but go Sparty.

    It’s been an awful day in the second best NCAA ice hockey tournament. Gophers lose. Badgers lose. The unnamed evil team in green wins. And I’m left trying to choose between New Hampshire and Denver, two teams I dislike.

  161. 161.

    ? Martin

    @JPL:

    Is it possible that Kim Jong Un is showing bellicosity in order to firm up his position. Is someone within the country threatening him?

    Always. So, that’s actually quite likely. But the other possibility is that tightening the sanctions and losing allies elsewhere around the world (including China stepping back) is putting them in an untenable situation. It’s effectively impossible to back down from totalitarianism without a revolution. There isn’t going to be a revolution in NK – they’ve been too effective. So, what path does he have out of this? That’s the real problem – there isn’t one.

  164. 164.

    ? Martin

    @Southern Beale:

    BTW this may be a dumb question but NAMBLA isn’t really a real thing, is it? Isn’t a joke thing?

    It used to be a real thing. I’m not sure it still is.

  166. 166.

    Roger Moore

    @Chris:

    (Including ours, I believe).

    Not exactly. The Union denied the legal existence of the Confederacy, but the Confederacy only claimed control over part of the country and recognized that the Union was still legally in control of the rest. In that sense, it was really an attempted regional rebellion rather than a civil war.

  168. 168.

    patroclus

    The homophobic bigot’s attempted “apology” today was about how gays and lesbians can enter into “private contracts” to define their legal rights. How can a “private contract” with a hospital gain me visitation rights? How can a “private contract” get the military to provide notification and present flags to spouses of deceased gay and lesbian partners? How can a “private contract” get Social Security benefits? How can a “private contract” get spousal exemptions from estate taxes? How can a “private contract” get unemployment compensation benefits? How can a “private contract” provide intestate awards to those who don’t have wills or who do but have them challenged in probate? One could, of course, go on and on. It seems clear that the homophobic bigot has not thought about any of this, so in addition to comparing me and my love to pedophiles, child molesters and those that have sex with animals, his “apology” is just another long homophobic bigoted rant. I don’t accept this “apology.” I hope that the Johns Hopkins students exercise their free speech rights when this homophobe speaks at their upcoming commencement.

    NAMBLA existed in the 1970’s – there was one guy who went on a talk show; several of their members were later prosecuted. Since then, it has been a conservative talking point in their never-ending promotion of blatant discrimination and outright bigotry against millions of law-abiding citizens that are not pedophiles.

  169. 169.

    Chris

    @Roger Moore:

    Right. In this case, since neither government advocates secession – they both want reunification in the long run, or so they say – I would have assumed that they both hold something akin to the Union position. I’m not sure though, hence the question, for anyone who follows northeast Asia more closely than I do.

  170. 170.

    Starlit

    @TooManyJens: You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.But remember. That Army you’re not moral enough to be in ran a place called Abu Ghraib.

  173. 173.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I would like to encourage all conservatives to speak up like Dr. Carson has. They all need to talk like this every day so they can get their message out to as many people as possible. I like to watch idiots hit themselves in the face with a hammer and complain afterward that it hurt.

    Then watch and laugh as they do it again. And again and again…

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I call the dick tater Kim Dotbomb. :)

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