Further evidence that Elvis impersonators are dangerous. (Previous evidence here). Open thread.
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by @heymistermix.com| 50 Comments
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.
Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.
I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.
Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!
The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.
The words do not have to be perfect.
This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.
“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
rikyrah
……………
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/203852021.html?refer=y
Ben Franklin
“It doesn’t get much better than a veto threat,” says Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
She’s talking about the announcement from the White House regarding the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Earlier this week, a statement from the administration said that President Barack Obama’s office threatened to veto it if it passed. Well, it was passed by the House of Representatives late on Thursday.
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/cispa-veto-could-protect-privacy-say-experts-congress-presses-ahead-737188
Harumph.
Yutsano
@rikyrah: I hope Mr. Greene is not holding his breath. And I hope Bob Davis is getting a well-deserved reaming for this. I fear, however, that he isn’t.
beltane
Another violent/crazy Elvis impersonator? These people need their own law-enforcement profiling category.
The risin letter guy must be pissed. After years of his pet conspiracy theory being ignored by everyone, he sends a poisoned letter to the president in an attempt to get some attention, only to be eclipsed by the Boston bombers. I bet you anything he thinks this was part of the conspiracy.
? Martin
@beltane:
No. What we’ve simply never realized before is that 27% of the US population are Elvis impersonators.
c u n d gulag
So, the aliens finally beam him back, and first thing, he gets arrested?
The Ancient Randonneur
So if the logic is that we should arm MORE people after a shooting like the one at Sandy Hook, shouldn’t the argument then be to give EVERYONE a backpack with a homemade bomb in it after the Boston Marathon Bombing? They could get LL Bean and REI to sponsor it. Anyone know if backpack manufacturers have a lobby in DC?
ETA: Still the greatest movie ever made about an Elvis Impersonator.
The Moar You Know
@rikyrah: Jesus. Some fucking people need to get the stick out of their ass. That’s some primo premium distilled ODS right there.
Ben Franklin
Happening right now.
A week after a raid that put Guantanamo Bay’s largest and most communal prison camp under lockdown, the number of detainees the U.S. military says are participating in a 10-week-long hunger strike has grown to 63 of the 166 men held at the camp — more than one-third of the men incarcerated there, according to the Defense Department.
Just a week ago, the Pentagon’s official tally was 42 men on hunger strike at the prison camp.
Fifteen of the hunger strikers are currently being force-fed liquid nutrients, “to preserve life or prevent serious self-harm,” said Guantanamo spokesman Capt. Robert Durand. The process involves a detainee being strapped to a chair and having Ensure poured into a plastic tube that runs down his nose and throat.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57580586/more-than-a-third-of-guantanamo-detainees-now-on-hunger-strike-pentagon-says/
Violet
@rikyrah: Didn’t the same kind of thing happen to the 9/11 widows? Lots of ridicule and claiming they were greedy or whatever.
MattR
@rikyrah: @Yutsano:
This may not be too popular, but I kinda agree with
Greene’sDavis’s point (though not his tone or his belief that any gun control is an assault on his liberties). The simplest way to explain that is to reverse the circumstances and imagine a bunch of 9/11 widows pushing for the Patriot Act. I would never tell victims’ families not to advocate for what the believe, but it would also be nice if policy decisions were made based on facts and not the emotions of the moment. (a nice pipe dream I know)(EDIT: I obviously also don’t agree with Davis’s point that losing some liberty is worse than losing life)
gbear
@The Moar You Know: If you follow that link, don’t read the comments. The mouth breathers are rallying to support Mr. Go To Hell. Gun control shouldn’t be an emotional issue, they say. Dinks.
SatanicPanic
@rikyrah: I hope he gets lots of calls reminding him of this. What a tool
beltane
@Violet: Ann Coulter was especially viscous towards the 9/11 widows.
Comrade Jake
This is a pretty inspiring story of a local friend here in Durham who has overcome brain cancer and is currently training for the Iron Man triathalon. If you have a chance, check it out and vote for Greg.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MattR: I would also be inclined to agree with him if he was losing any liberty, or that if any liberty he was losing weighed more than the cost to society. Neither of those apply here.
Keith
Anyone remember the 80s show “Sledge Hammer”? They did an episode a while back where an Elvis impersonator was killing all the other Elvis impersonators in town. I still remember the line, “I play Elvis more efficiently than the others!”
gbear
@MattR:
…because we all know how over the top congress went in establishing gun background checks because of the emotions following events at Newtown.
I do agree that it would be nice if this debate was based on facts, but the NRA has been a lying, frothing sack of dung in this debate, and telling parents of dead children to go to hell isn’t exactly a non-emotional argument.
beltane
@gbear: The NRA has also made it nearly impossible to collect the kind of data necessary to create a fact-based approach, much in the same way the tobacco and lead-paint industries did with regards to the dangers of their products.
piratedan
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): these guys are great at abstracts until they hear about sex education for the kiddos or a welfare T-Bone being given out in a Cadillac, then we must eradicate all possibility of anyone getting a free ride anywhere on the corporate welfare (unless it’s big Pharma, Big Farma, Big Oil or the Defense Industry… ‘natch).
Amir Khalid
@Keith:
A friend of mine once reminded me about the episode where Sledge Hammer visits the circus he ran away from to join the police force, and everyone remembers his family: “Oh, you’re Jack’s boy!” I also recall the Robocop parody episode, “Hammeroid”.
The Dangerman
@rikyrah:
I want to exercise my liberty by using a baseball bat against this asshole’s face (clearly, no great loss).
MattR
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): @gbear: Agree with both of you. I think he should be mocked for thinking that universal background checks or maintaining a gun registry are taking away his liberties and for being a dick in the way he is making his argument, but not so much for the underlying idea behind it (that we should not let the desires of victims of tragedies be the primary drive behind our response to those tragedies)
SatanicPanic
@MattR: Why? It seems to be accepted fact that emotion-based decision making is bad, but I’m not convinced. Sure, some people are going to make emotional appeals to doing something stupid, then again, glibertarians make rational appeals to do stupid things too.
Hungry Joe
Man, am I sick of this: Just back from an early-morning trip to the grocery store. At checkout, yet again, the cashier asks in a booming voice, “Care add a dollar so disabled kids can get wheelchairs?” I can either say “Sure” and feel bullied out of a dollar that I would have donated gladly had the request simply appeared on the credit-card screen, or shake my head and, in effect, declare in public (or at least, to the three people in line behind me) that I’m an asshole and I don’t think disabled kids should have wheelchairs.
So I say “Sure,” and drive home feeling like a wuss instead of like a nice guy who just ponied up a dollar for wheelchairs. Thanks, Vons.
Keith
@Amir Khalid: It was a great show. Another line I remember now had a DA or something who insisted on being called “Ms.” instead of “Miss” (“That’s ‘MIZZZZ’!”). When she referred to Sledge as “MISTER Hammer”, he responded with “That’s ‘MURRRRR’!”)
gbear
@MattR: And my argument is that there will never be a ‘good time’ to talk about this stuff because the NRA will always turn it into a hyper-emotional issue. Should we let the desires of the NRA always be the primary drive behind our response to tragedies? The victims have as much right as the NRA.
askew
Here’s a great article about how the backlog at the VA came to be. It’s too bad that Rachel and others at MSNBC didn’t spend more time understanding the issue instead of vilifying people for not being able to snap their fingers and solve the backlog.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gbear: We’ll have to wait until someone is killed with a gun that is no one’s child. That way there’s no emotional attachment to the victim.
? Martin
@askew: I watch Rachel pretty faithfully, and never got the sense that she was ever vilifying people or asking to snap fingers. She was raising the profile of the issue, noted that there were promises to improve the backlog, and it’s gotten worse, and invited the VA on to explain the situation (which they did).
Cassidy
@askew: I’m going to hazard a guess that they were underfunded, then a bunch of us got blown the fuck up?
MattR
@SatanicPanic:
I guess I believe that if there is an emotional appeal for something smart, then there should also be a fact based reason why that decision was smart. It is a bit of a double standard, but I would like the decision makers to use facts and logic rather than emotion to reach a decision, but I don’t have much of a problem with politicians using emotional arguments in conjunction with fact based arguments to try and convince the country (this is largely because I have such a pessimistic view of the intelligence of our country)
@gbear: I don’t really get what you mean. I don’t want anyone to be silent. And I think the NRA should be called out for using emotion rather than facts. I just think it is sad that emotional appeals are so much more effective than logical, factual suggestions and they really shouldn’t be the basis of policy decisions.
askew
@? Martin:
She never fully explained why there was a backlog, didn’t fully explain the steps the VA had taken and then acted like in her usual dismissive way towards anyone in the Obama admin when someone from the VA showed up to explain the issue. After watching her pieces I was pissed off about the VA backlog, then I did some actual research and realized how bad her reporting was on this issue. Makes me not trust her on anything related to the Obama admin, now that I see how bad her reporting was on this issue.
Cheryl from Maryland
@The Ancient Randonneur: One of the greatest films EVAH!
WereBear
I wonder if the man has children. If so, do they know that their lives are worth less than Daddy’s guns?
Since when it is laudable to be a psychopath?
SatanicPanic
@MattR: I think the importance of considering emotions comes more in the implementation of a decision. People need to be emotionally invested. That said, not all emotions are created equal.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
Like it or not, that’s the way most human beings work — emotion appeals to them far more than logic. That’s why it’s important to work emotion into your logical/rational appeal.
What bugs me about the gun nuts is the same thing that seems to bug a lot of other people here: they are appealing to irrational emotionalism just as much as the gun control side, but they pretend that their irrational emotionalism is somehow “logical” or “rational.” Screeching about how your “freedom” is going to be taken away if you have to register your guns is not “rational,” it’s childish emotionalism. Saying that gun registration is going to lead to the government taking your guns isn’t “logical,” it’s fear-based emotional blackmail.
I realize that, to a certain extent, we’re running into a bit of sexism where women’s logical arguments are automatically treated as “emotional” and men’s irrationally emotional arguments are automatically treated as “logical,” but it’s a pretty annoying thing to run into in the 21st century.
ricky
Wait a friggin minute. A guy opens fire at police on a call to a house, and they wait 30 hours to take him alive with non-lethal weapons?
No wonder farmers in Iowa drive miles to see dead ball players in a corn field.
PurpleGirl
@The Ancient Randonneur: From the description, it scares me.
Mnemosyne
@PurpleGirl:
It’s a fun movie, but you’ve gotta like Bruce Campbell. I find him hilarious, so I enjoyed the movie.
And, technically, he’s not an Elvis impersonator — he’s the real thing who was secretly replaced by an impersonator but can’t convince anyone of the truth. It plays very nicely to Campbell’s strengths as an actor (he’s better at being exasperated than almost anyone).
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah. I foolishly expect a little more from our legislators, but then again they may be making perfectly rational decisions only they are based on what will get them the most cash and not what is best for the country.
Given the probabilities involved, I would also add “needing high capacity magazines to be able to defend your house from a group of armed intruders” to your list of emotional responses that they pretend are really rational.
@Mnemosyne: You could just as easily have been talking about Army of Darkness as Bubba Ho-Tep. I hear that Sam Raimi is making a fourth movie in that trilogy with Campbell (who is the reason I started watching Burn Notice when it first came out)
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
I love me some Bruce Campbell. He was also in (IMO) one of the best two-part episodes of “Homicide” — he can be a really good actor if given the chance and the material.
(Season 4 was probably the best season of “Homicide” — it also included the duel of wits between Det. Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and a white supremacist played by JK Simmons.)
Morzer
A bit of good news. Dzohkhar Tsarnaev is going to be tried in the regular criminal justice system, not as an enemy combatant.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/22/boston-bombings-one-week-suspect-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-live
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
It looks like they’re going to use the two-tiered strategy we’ve seen in high-profile cases before — the feds are going to charge him on the bombing charges (which are federal charges) while, presumably, Massachusetts holds back on the murder charges until they see how the federal trial goes.
And I’m still convinced that any halfway smart lawyer is going to try and convince Tsarnaev to plea bargain to avoid the federal death penalty rather than take his chances with a jury. There is a very credible, very sympathetic eyewitness who says he made eye contact with Tsarnaev when he dropped the bomb in place, and it’s going to be really hard for a defense lawyer to shake that story since it was that eyewitness’s ID of Tsarnaev’s photo that led to the police chase and capture.
(Edited so I don’t inadvertently sound like a lawyer who knows what they’re talking about, because IANAL.)
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
If Tsarnaev is halfway to rational, he’ll take a plea bargain as soon as he can. What I wonder is whether he has much to bargain with.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
He can probably talk about his brother’s trip to Russia, even if that turns out to be a bust. Even clearing up whether or not they had help with a “not” would be worth finding out as far as the FBI and feds are concerned — the same question could get seriously muddied by the defense at trial.
Maude
@Morzer:
The charges carry the possibility of the death penalty.
I don’t know if he will be offered a plea bargain.
Some on the left are going to say that Obama wanted enemy combatant status. It never ends.
Morzer
@Maude:
My instinct is that any hint of a plea bargain will produce howls from the teabaggers and claims of conspiracies and show trials etc etc. Doubtless our own resident tinfoilhatter Ben Franklin will emerge to babble nonsensically ad nauseam on such themes.
? Martin
@askew:
I don’t think she knew why there was a backlog. I don’t think anyone knew. And I don’t fully accept the answer given in your linked article. It’s not that I doubt anything stated – I accept every bit of it, but it shouldn’t be a shock that such challenges require a temporary increase in spending to cover the transition, plus an expansion of services added on top.
But the fact remains is that veterans don’t understand the reasons, whether they are temporary, whether anyone is addressing them, and the VA isn’t doing a terribly good job of explaining that. Rachel at least provided a forum for them to do that (and they didn’t really give the explanation that your linked piece does). My dad had relied on VA for his medical until his Medicare kicked in, my uncle has done the same and is dealing with a number of serious medical issues. They’re going to be supportive if the system is changing for the better, and will tolerate a temporary backlog if that’s needed – but the nature of the problem hasn’t been communicated to them. That really needs to change.
ricky
@? Martin:
As a member of the faithful viewership of Sister Rachel,
can you offer an explanation as to why a well paid, well staffed member of the MSM commentariat would devote a substantial portion of her valuable cable air time to disucssing a probem without knowing why it existed?