(via Paul Constant)
Explication, from Dave Weigel:
The emerging theme on day two of the (deep breath) Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference is the womb. Conservatives use it. Conservatives respect what’s in it. Liberals don’t—they have fewer babies, and they keep abortion legal.
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won a majority of the vote,” said movie critic-turned-right wing radio host Michael Medved. “They won voters who were married by 16 points.” The Democrats had bested them with landslides among the poor and the single, and could conservatives allow that trend to continue? “Who wants to be poor, and single, and childless?”
Jeb Bush, who gives political speeches like he’d rather be anywhere else, put it in blunt terms that reporters weren’t used to hearing. “We’re going to have fewer workers taking care of a larger number of people than the country has a social contract with, to be able to allow them to retire with dignity and purpose,” he said. “We cannot do that with the fertility rates that we have in our country.” The low fertility rates could be partly explained by “social mores” (he didn’t mention abortion), and they could be rejiggered by immigration. “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families and they have more intact families and they bring a younger population.”…
….[I]t’s fascinating that Bush would up and tell conservatives that they should embrace immigrants because their higher birth rates will keep the welfare state humming. That’s not a good reason for them! They see a future in which single liberals have one or zero children while conservatives produce armies of Duggars who will outvote the enemy.
Okay, this is a free country (if you can afford the carrying charges), and the FFCRM members have every right to dream of an America where only straight white Christian men of certified good character are allowed to make decisions for the rest of us. But John Ellis Bush is not such a dreamer — he’s a well-educated rich man from a prominent political family who is married to an immigrant and the father of “little brown” offspring. No matter how bad he wants to prove that he’s really “the smart Bush”, pandering like this is just embarrassing for all parties.
I say we need to gather the entire Bush clan for a big ol’ Fourth of July reunion up in Kennebunkport, and then seal the compound under Stephen King’s dome.
Suffern ACE
Aren’t you supposed to end your OT posts with a question?
srv
We must return to womb because it is the only place we were safe from all these liberals and new ideas.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
He’s just a putz.
pokeyblow
If in fact we can “look forward, not backward” to more Bush years, you know whom I’ll assign some blame to.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In other news, I assume this has been discussed, but just in case someone missed it
Shocking, truly, considering IIRC his brother ran to Sean Hannity to say Obama was picking on poor George.
srv
Wait a second. For those of you who imbibed, did Dagny Taggart have any kids?
Isn’t it properly objectivist and selfish to not spawn?
pokeyblow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That is too much.
Those dumbshits can’t quite understand that black people don’t like to have their kids gunned down in cold blood.
Also, isn’t Zimmerman’s father a judge? What an impressively impartial set of beliefs he espouses.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Fucking math, how does it work?
Chyron HR
@pokeyblow:
Oooh, oooh, I know. You’ll blame yourself for not calling Obama some variation of “cocksucker” enough times?
Politically Lost
Could someone explain to me why Annie Laurie’s posts always end up a black blob on my iPhone whenever she posts a video? No other poster causes that problem. When I’m in mobile mode on the site and on the front page I can see her post and the first couple lines of text, just like every other post, but when I tap on that to see the whole post the video becomes one gigantic black rectangle and I can’t read her post.
I can still see comments, and I can tap and play the video, but her post is just one big black box. If I go out of mobile mode, I can then see her post.
It’s just weird that it only occurs with her posts.
Ruckus
I’m glad we have a royal family. Wrong country?
We need another bush like we need to have open heart surgery performed with a rusty chainsaw. Of course the results would be the same in either case.
Can I turn in my old white geezer card? I really don’t want to have anything in common with these assholes.
pokeyblow
@Chyron HR: There must be more to life than staking out territory in this particularly impotent version of junior high-school society.
Don’t you think?
Chris
@srv:
They’ve always been willing to tolerate un-Christian behavior and even overt rejection of Christianity when it comes in a context that supports the social structure they want.
Chris
@Ruckus:
FTFY.
? Martin
Looks like the scope of PRISM is slowly starting to come out.
Now, about ~20,000 a year is hardly a small number. It’ll be interesting to see what the breakdown between state/local/fed is, but I’d bet the state/local number isn’t itself small.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Thank you.
I wasn’t trying to exclude other assholes, just sort of staying on topic.
Ash Can
I can’t imagine his wife not beating the holy fucking shit out of him, stuffing it all back into him, and then beating it out of him again. This is beyond inexcusable.
pokeyblow
@Ash Can: She’s already cool with grampa Bush calling their children the “little brown ones.”
While no doubt extremely influential and malevolent, I don’t think the Bush women are the openly determined outspoken types. *
* except when Jenna is drunk and trying to get some boyfriend out of jail at 4:22 AM.
AxelFoley
@pokeyblow:
Your own dumb ass?
Higgs Boson's Mate
Have any of you self published on Amazon? I have written many short stories and a couple of novels but the chase to get anything published is just way too tedious. My mentor in novel writing told me that I have the disease of writing and I believe that she was right .
Anyway, Amazon seems like a good, easy way (With reformatting in MS Word) to put my stuff out there for better or for worse. I’d appreciate hearing from the esteemed commentariat.
pokeyblow
@AxelFoley: Please be more interesting.
DCLaw1
Anyone watch Bill Maher? That Niall Ferguson is every bit the world-class, insufferable asshole in the flesh as he is in print! Huzzah!
Suffern ACE
@pokeyblow: yeah. I think you can change that.
Since France, Brittain and the US aren’t even bothering to convince anyone at the UN or even us peons that Syria used Sarin, I’m fine with you bitching about lying us into another war until those humanitarians show what’s in their hands.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Black people just aren’t human to these “conservatives.” Modern conservatism is nothing more than neo-Confederate white supremacy.
fuckwit
Keep fucking that chicken.
maya
And here I thought his real name was Jebediah:
John Ellis is so, so plain, crustless, whitebread.
DCLaw1
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I have a manuscript (science fiction) written and intend to e-publish on all available platforms. I agree with you that trying to go the traditional route is tedious, frustrating, and increasingly pointless. Hiring an editor and a cover designer and never intend to send another hat-in-hand query to some sleep-deprived, underpaid and overworked 24-year-old agent in New York City ever again.
MattR
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): One of the first rules of conservative math is to subtract out various groups who “don’t really count”, usually minorities but in this case single people.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Former Detroit Lions’ cornerback Lem Barney:
“The game is becoming more deadly today,” the Pro Football Hall of Famer said Friday. “It’s a great game. I think it’s the greatest game if you like gladiators. It’s the greatest game for yesteryear’s gladiators. But I can see in the next 10 to maybe 20 years, society will alleviate football altogether.”
Forum Transmitted Disease
Jeb has no chance. Zero. I don’t even know why he’s going through this charade; he’s obviously not a psycho religious zealot like his brother and the lunatics who comprise the Republican party won’t vote for someone who isn’t.
And, to be honest, it really seems to me like he doesn’t even want it.
Cacti
@? Martin:
Well, if you believe Facebook’s reports that they have about 1.1 billion unique users, 20,000 profiles would be about 0.0018% of that.
Surreal American
Well good for you, Michael Meth-head. Your side has the better class of voters. Huzzah!
Did anyone ever tell you that election wins are based on having more voters than your opponents?
Dipshit.
DCLaw1
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: You can also pay various services to format and upload your work to the various platforms for you, if you don’t want to bother with any of that.
Bobbo
He phrased it awkwardly (they’re more fertile – kinda racist) in an attempt to pander, and the base will reject his argument entirely, but he’s not wrong. We do need immigrants to grow the economy, and we do have an important obligation to retirees, and growing the economy would help us honor that commitment. After all, as liberals, don’t we believe America should be a welcoming place where anyone can make a better life?
Redshift
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I haven’t, but Scott Meyer (who does the Basic Instructions webcomic that is frequently featured on these pages) has recently published a novel at Amazon and elsewhere, and might be willing to offer some advice. I know one sticky point he ran into was that he published with DRM on Amazon, and after some readers had a problem with that, he couldn’t change it without republishing and losing all the reviews and ratings.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@DCLaw1:
Thank you. I jumped through those hoops until I became nauseous. Doesn’t fit into a marketable genre, your last name is confusing, no follow on potential… Gaaah.
I write because I love/hate to write. I’d hoped to share what I’ve written, not to have my work made into a blockbuster movie starring Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Godzilla.
I’ll give Amazon a shot.
PsiFighter37
It’s a Friday night and I’m drank.
My honeymoon is not for another 15 months, but I’m thinking Bora Bora. The over-the-water bungalows look like complete paradise.
I’m also drunk and just want to go to sleep.
Heyooo
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Redshift:
@DCLaw1:
Thank you. I need all the help I can get.
Redshift
If only voting behavior was entirely genetic, they’d have it made!
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Daddy issues (like his brother)? By the standards of his family, it might be that he’d never feel truly successful until he’d made it all the way to the White House.
Ash Can
@pokeyblow: Good fucking grief. If I were a Hispanic immigrant and my Anglo husband said that, he’d have “Louisville Slugger” permanently imprinted, backwards, across his forehead.
handy
Jeb is testing the waters I guess. If so, he will find soon enough they are shark-infested.
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Just checked Amazon for the book. No joy. Robert Zimmerman Sr. may have come to his senses and withdrawn it.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: There are a couple of frequent commenters who have published e-books recently. I can’t recall their nyms at the moment, but you might try making a plea in some other open threads over the weekend.
pokeyblow
@Ash Can: I think the Bushes go out of their way to meet particularly cooperative, compliant women.
Especially Neil.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Thank you. I trust that everyone here will forgive the spam.
Redshift
@Bobbo: This bit is in fact completely wrong:
We did just fine for a long time with fewer workers supporting the retirement (Social Security) of a larger number of people, because productivity steadily increased. That worked great until sometime in the seventies, when the increased revenue from productivity stopped going to increased wages, and started going solely into profits. This worries me.
So JEB!’s statement basically amounts to saying “we need immigrants to bolster the retirement system, because God forbid we should do anything that would help workers or cramp business owners in any way.” So he is actually being a proper conservative dickweed, but in a way that’s probably too abstract for the yahoos to recognize.
? Martin
@Redshift:
Uh…
Old and prudish is no way to get a population boom going.
Gravenstone
@pokeyblow: Self awareness. You should attempt it some day.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: I’ve never been to Bora Bora, but I’ve been to Tahiti and Moorea. The wife and I love it there. You’ll enjoy the Hinano, the local beer. We didn’t do the over water accommodations since we like A/C, but I hear they’re nice. The kid’s sister honeymooned at Bora Bora and it sounds like they had a good time.
pokeyblow
@Gravenstone: Sort of funny… potentially, but how? Please elaborate.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The Shorter JEB:
We’re gonna need more serfs.
dww44
Can anyone enlighten me on the NewsMax headline up on the right that references “Obama’s African trip story quietly revised by the Post”? Is this a trip to occur or has it already occurred? And maybe cost/costs a 100 million dollars? I refuse to click on that link;not even to help the owner of this blog.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Also his brother’s wars and increasing the DoD and spy budgets and a lot of people working for the retail and service industries for which he and his friends can’t be bothered to pay reasonable wages. Which if they did SS and MC would not be in trouble. Which it really isn’t anyway.
The stat that I heard in a prior post on BJ was that if min wage had kept up with inflation from 1960 it would be $22/hr instead of $7.25/hr. Maybe assholes like the 6 walton family members who have more that the bottom 40% of us might, just might not be able to have their own private jets but really who gives a fuck other than them?
Chris
@Redshift:
Pretty much. Any self-respecting conservative voter’s eyes would’ve glazed over long before he got to that point in your explanation. They don’t want ideology, they want tribalism. My tribe good, your tribe bad. This my tribe’s country, not your tribe’s. If bad things happen to my tribe, your tribe’s fault. Etc. They don’t want to hear about the intricacies of social safety nets, corporate allocation of profits, or the role of immigration in a modern economy. They want to hear how these people suck, everything wrong with the world is their fault, and what you’re doing to punish them for it.
? Martin
@dww44: Yet to occur.
Yeah, $100M is toward the high end, but not out of the question. The reason is that when you go to Africa, there’s basically no in-place assets to use. No police or specially trained military for this kind of work that we trust to secure areas, no hospitals we trust to treat the President, not even the level of transportation infrastructure that we need. So the military basically has to lift everything. They need to bring an army of secret service, vehicles, food, water, medical facilities, a full floating hospital because there are no adequate trauma centers there. Hotels aren’t equipped for this, so they’re retrofitting the hotel with bulletproof windows and such. There’s no adequate air traffic control system for us to take over, so we’re putting up a temporary one, with 24/7 fighter overflights. And he’s visiting three different countries, and the whole operation in each location is so massive, they can’t tear it down and rebuild it at the next stop, so they’re building 3 full setups.
And if it sounds outrageously expensive, it’s not. Bush’s two visits to Africa cost almost as much, as did Clinton’s. But black money spent is worse than white money spent, or something. I don’t recall any complaints over the cost of Clinton’s trip.
Amir Khalid
In other news, Henry Cavill is returning to his native Isle of Jersey to promote Man of Steel. The island’s tourism board is dressing up Jersey cows (of the famous breed of dairy cattle) in blue and red suits for the occasion, and they do look fetching.
Corner Stone
@johngcole’s twitter feed:
Word.
dww44
@? Martin: Thanks, not only do I now understand without having to click on their site, I have ready answers for the Facebook posts and emails from conservative relatives and acquaintances which will inevitably come and accompanied by appropriate feigned “horrors”.
pokeyblow
@dww44: I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but telling people “Martin with the alien face emoticon says so” isn’t exactly sufficient citing.
And I’m not trying to pick a fight with Martin.
Corner Stone
@pokeyblow:
What about, “Martin, the consistent ass kisser to authority” ?
Better?
Kay
@Bobbo:
Well, it is true, Bush doesn’t mention it but immigrants are, right now, subsidizing Medicare for example, but it’s more than awkward phrasing.
What’s jarring about it to me is how divisive it is, as in “divide”.
Bush’s belief that “we” have an obligation that “they” can help us meet
isn’t at all welcoming.
I know what Republicans are doing. They’re selling immigration to their base
by focusing on a transaction: immigrants “bring” whatever- a younger demographic, start small businesses, etc. but the way that they talk about it is SO focused on ( and from the perspective of ) “white GOP voters” it’s comical.
It’s almost to the point where they travel to GOP audiences to tell the assembled activists about the people in the rest of the country, whether it’s “the 47%” with Romney or “immigrants” with Bush.
The people in that room aren’t the standard we use to measure everyone else in the country. They’re just a segment of the GOP base.
pokeyblow
@Corner Stone: I’m not here all the time and try not to have opinions about each poster. You may be right, I just don’t know.
wenchacha
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Vessels and Vassals
? Martin
@pokeyblow: Corner Stone is a full service commenter and has carefully curated opinions on each poster for your benefit and convenience.
Gravenstone
@? Martin:
FTFY
pokeyblow
@? Martin: Well, OK. That doesn’t sound like a good way to spend time.
For what it’s worth, I’m an independent operator, and do my best to limit my vituperation to people who pick on me first.
scav
@Kay: Think someone can convince them that, based on that magic 16 point lead among the married they supposedly enjoy, it would be a cunning sneaky plot to support marriage among the gheys and steal all those votes? Logic’s wacked enough that it might just fly on that side of the event horizon.
Kay
@Bobbo:
And they do it ALL THE TIME.
“Let me tell you about African American families, let me tell you about women and birth control, or rape, did you know immigrants are very FAMILY ORIENTED? They are! Also, those people who get foodstamps? Horrible people!”
I mean, Jesus Christ. Are they briefing the GOP base on the local cultures and norms?
pokeyblow
@Gravenstone: Well, you insulted me, and I asked you for some explication… which never appeared.
Best thing is, you answer my question, and we don’t go on fighting. Right?
jacy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: @DCLaw1:
I’ve published three novels and a short fiction collection on Amazon. If you need to be pointed in a particular direction or need any advice, please feel free to get a hold of me. (I also run a cover design business that caters to small press and independent authors, so I have a lot of contacts in the indy publishing world.) I’ve formatted for both print and ebook, so I can tell you what to do and what not to do and where to go for more information. I helped another frequent commentor, Frankensteinbeck, get into epublishing and he has since been picked up for a three-book deal with a publisher and is getting some very positive reviews. I don’t mind answering questions or helping out, because I feel like it’s good for my writer karma.
I have an email form on my website where you can get in touch with me — alchemybookcovers.com
Corner Stone
@pokeyblow: Either agree with me 100% or I will destroy you!!
No, wait. I’ll spare you tonight as I think I’m just going to go to bed.
**shakes fist**
But next time!! Oooooo!!
? Martin
@Gravenstone: Now, now, that was one of the nicest things Corner Stone has ever said about me. And be nice to him, it’s not easy being the site’s mean girl, but he’s giving it his best.
Kay
@scav:
It’s a horrible way to talk. “We will now discuss OUR PROBLEMS with THE POOR”
It’s not even “divisive”. There’s no greater whole to divide. There’s IN and OUT.
I get to the point where I’m like, “oh, stop looking at us, completely. Leave us alone. Fix yourselves”
Narcissus
@jacy: If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of money does this bring in?
? Martin
@Kay:
That’s what authoritarians do – they blame those out of power for all of the problems, rather than those in power. They can’t help it – they’re just wired that way.
Todd
What does Marsellus Wallace look like?
Amir Khalid
As a Les Misérables fan, I liked this story.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshift:
If we didn’t have parasite scum like the Bush crime family sucking the blood out of the economy, we wouldn’t be having this problem.
Wipe them out. All of them.
jacy
@Narcissus:
That depends on a ton of factors, including what genre you write in, how many books you have out, how professionally you present yourself, how savvy you are at marketing, and, not least, how good your books are. For some people it’s taking the significant other out to a nice dinner once a month, for others it means quitting the day job and working full time. I personally know many people who make in the 1K to 3K a month range, and a few others who do significantly better than that. For me personally, last year I made enough to pay private school tuition for two kids and buy the groceries. This year is slower because I’m spending more time writing and designing and less time marketing myself. But I plan to publish another four books (two in continuing series, one stand-alone, and another short story collection) by this time next year. New releases are one of the keys to doing really well.
And then sometimes, it’s just luck. :)
ETA: self-publishing also no longer precludes traditional publishing. Every day indy authors get offered traditional publishing deals — whether they take them or not is a different story. Sometimes the money is just much better in indy publishing.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Todd: Ving Rhames?
CONGRATULATIONS!
This is nice and all, but somebody, anybody, please explain to me how Jeb! survives a primary. I know there’s a lot of money there, but he’s not a brown basher and that isn’t going to fly with the Republican flying monkeys…erm, primary voters who will want to wash the horrid taint of melanin from the national fabric in 2016.
scav
@Kay: It’s ferociously weird, and, being a bear of very little brain but with aspirations of logic, I can’t see how they think it’s going to be persuasive to anyone, in either direction. It’s also got a bit of this “Let’s outsource fertility and children!” vibe that twangs, both on the acquisition of (presumably cheap) labor frequency but also somehow on the surrogate-mother hyper-nanny wavelength. Mind-warping. They really seem to have spent far too long wandering among cardboard stereo-type dolls and thinking them real and mechanistically manipulable.
? Martin
She spent half a million dollars for parking for her guests. It’s rough being a job creator. A tax cut would probably soothe her wounds.
michelle
@Politically Lost: Lack of competence.
Yatsuno
I am +5. My response is simple. Fuck the entire Bush clan with a very rusty pitchfork. Except Jenna, though I’m watching her.
Petorado
The difference between “hard working” and “lazy” in the conservative lexicon is that “hard working” people, in this case as Jeb is refers to immigrants, take it as a matter of faith that they have an equal opportunity to succeed from their labor, while the “lazy” are those who feel like the deck is stacked against them no matter how hard they toil. In other words, the “hard working” don’t yet comprehend Republican policies, while the “lazy” do. This is why Jeb is reduced to loudly framing immigration like its the essential part of a grand Ponzi scheme in the hopes that the elderly, white, and religious listeners will finally get it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
You can self-publish and be successful. You need to not just be able to write, but have a wide variety of skills, particularly salesman type skills. I completely lack those, but by self-publishing and getting involved with other self-published authors (thank you again, Werebear and Jacy) I got the attention of a small press. One step at a time, things are moving.
Shalimar
I’m guessing the vast majority of attendees don’t even have wombs. How very conservative, using what belongs to someone else.
JoyceH
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Amazon is pretty easy. But if I were you, I won’t go just with them. I have two cozy mysteries up at Amazon, and also at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and all the platforms that Smashwords feeds into. I’ve had pretty mediocre sales on Amazon – can’t seem to make escape velocity there. But I’ve sold a few thousand books on Barnes and Noble. So you don’t want to limit your options.
What I did was publish on Smashwords first. There’s a ‘style guide’ that leads you through formatting your ms. step by step. It’s fairly tedious, but not really complex. If your document can be accepted by the Smashwords uploader, it will also probably work just fine with Amazon. I haven’t had trouble with either of them. (You have to upload separately to Amazon, since they’ve never reached a bulk upload agreement with Smashwords.)
With my next book, I intend to upload separately to Barnes and Noble as well, rather than go through Smashwords. My gripe is that B&N has a significant lag time reporting sales to Smashwords, so you can’t see how sales are going in real time.
Here’s my Author Page on Amazon Joyce’s author page
rda909
@Frankensteinbeck: Further advice: Simply create some screeching diatribe for white “liberals” about how President Obama has sold you out (topic of your choosing) –> Make it go “viral” on DailyKos, Firedoglake, here, and other “liberal” blogs, which it guaranteed will and you don’t even need any credentials…just Obama-hate all the time, and for god’s sake, do NOT mention a single positive thing (except Lilly Ledbetter Act..that’s the ONLY one approved) –> start getting slots as a pundit on cable TV shows, and the more your prove your Obama-hate, the more you’ll get on –> wingnut welfare “think” tanks will begin to take note, and you’ll start getting offers of surprisingly good pay to give speeches at events and write columns in their publications (doesn’t matter if no one reads those…just take the check) –> book deal advances are soon to follow and if you really do it right, a “documentary” is sure to be in your future, fully funded (don’t ask questions, just take the money) –> “opinion journalist” job offers at New York Times, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, etc., and you must take this offer no matter what, since the steady paycheck to cover the mortgage, and huge marketing/megaphone for your future books and speeches is crucial as you prepare your future works of art (i.e. Obama-hate) –> Next will be job as John McCain’s fluffer on Meet the Press and then the sky is the limit!
The trick is to never, ever say anything about the massively positive work and accomplishments of the Obama Administration, and you’ll be set financially for life. If that sounds up your alley, best of luck!
raven
WTF-K?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Just in case, are you familiar with Absolute Write? You might find some good info there, especially on marketing your e-pub. (My friend who is a regular there isn’t awake yet for me to pick her brain about it, and I’m not awake enough yet to go forum diving. Also, too, cats must be fed.)
Snarla
Nobody wants to be poor, single, and childless, so have kids and you magically get rich? Get rich and you get kids? I’m confused about how this works. I’m well-off, single, and childless, and I like it very much. One out of three, it turns out, is quite nice.
Robert Sneddon
@Forum Transmitted Disease: One of the next-gen Bushes, Jeb’s son George Prescott is starting his attack run on public office by putting together an election committee in Texas to run for something like Land Commissioner. Mutterings are he’ll go for the brass ring is ten or fifteen years time with some in his circle calling him “47”. He needs people like his father to start paving the way for him — his uncle is still persona non grata and his gramps is staying well out of it.
NotMax
@Robert Sneddon
His actual name is George Prescott Garnica Bush.
Have been watching that second middle name being assiduously scrubbed from references online over the past 6 months or so.
Purely coincidence, huh?
Older_Wiser
@Bobbo: No, it was a racist assumption. When immigrants settle in and become accustomed to the US, their “fertility rate” is about the average. It’s the “quiverful” fundie idiots who are having all the kids as a response to a myth, starting with whites. Unfortunately, they are dragging some immigrants into this mindset, if the Hispanic immigrant street front churches I’ve seen here in NC are any indication. There have been years of these fundies doing this kind of “missionary” work in largely Catholic countries in Central America, and Mexico, as well. Even Catholics use birth control and the church overlooks it, except in their dogma. The fundies don’t.
Mino
@? Martin: I loved the explication by mysterious leaker of the need for high velocity bullets–to shoot any cheetah or lions that got too close. As you might image, the FB commrnts have been sardonic.
BrianM
@Ruckus:
Incorrect. The minimum wage was $1.00 in 1960. Using the BLS’s inflation calculator, that comes out to $7.86 in today’s dollars.
Lurking Canadian
@BrianM: The $22 figure I saw was “what if minimum wage reflected productivity gains”.
Gex
It’s fun watching Jeb Bush try to explain to fat middle-aged (or older) white Republicans that immigration might be necessary to support the boomer generation in their retirement. The Social Security and Medicare handouts that somehow don’t count as handouts or government spending when white people get them don’t generate themselves.
It will be fun watching the GOP try to retain the homophobe and racist vote while trying to act as though they are moderate on LGBT and immigration issues.
Note here that the use of the word ‘fun’ encompasses the original meaning of the word but has a hint of rage infused in it.
RaflW
Here’s a newsflash for Jebby and all the cons:
My dad was a very conservative Republican. I’m a liberal and an activist. Many of my friends have conservative parents.
Just because cons have more kids (if that’s even true at all) does not mean that their progeny will be cons too.
Autonomous humans, how do they work?
Frankensteinbeck
@Snarla:
The reasoning is that virtuous people get married (heterosexually, obviously) and have at least 2.3 children, go to church and recite the name of Jeebus as their greeting, and pretend they never had sex with anyone before marriage. Because they are morally superior, they are rewarded by god with an upper middle class livelihood. If you are a fundie, this reasoning is obvious, and extends to any number of issues, like abstinence-only education. The reasoning also works backwards, and if you are well off you know you must be morally superior to the poor, and only need to find out how.
@RaflW:
A problem that plagues every aspect of conservative policy.
kc
How many kids does Jeb have?
quannlace
““Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won a majority of the vote,” said movie critic-turned-right wing radio host Michael Medved. “”
*************
I love how the petulant, “Yeah, but…but…” from the Right since the election is still going strong. The desperate search to find ANYTHING to somehow delegitimize Obama. ANYTHING other than the majority of the American public did not want/vote for Romney.
1. Hurricane Sandy
2. Moochers wanting to keep their handouts
3. Voter fraud
4. ‘They’ somehow stole the election (specifics not forthcoming)
5. Obama campaign was too good at getting out their vote and…
6. Suppressed the Romney vote by saying mean things about them.(This one is also from Medved, and is the most hilarious)
Which ones did I forget?
Frankensteinbeck
@quannlace:
This one, the one you quoted.
7. Romney actually won the election. The majority of Americans voted for him. The votes of minorities and liberals are not supposed to count, because they’re not Americans. Therefor, Obama’s presidency is a violation of the constitution and the rights of Americans have been trampled.
jayjaybear
@Snarla: Exactly. Medved’s got his causation and correlation mixed up, as is usual with conservatives. He seems to think that voting for Democrats is causative in making you poor, single and childless, rather than the fact that being poor, single and childless is correlative with voting Democratic, (actually, in many cases, causative in the opposite direction than he thinks, as Democratic policies tend to be more attractive to those three categories than Republican policies).
As a political pundit, Medved makes a great movie reviewer…
Ruckus
@quannlace:
They know all about #4 as they used it themselves last time they were in power.
Projection, how does it work.
Ruckus
@jayjaybear:
As a political pundit, Medved makes a great movie reviewer…
Really? IMHO not so much. But then that may have been your point.
WereBear
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Yes, I have and it is both easy and awesome.
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin
p
dear,dear anne laurie–
i would like you you to write an article on arrianna huffington’s recent creation of what she refers to as a “b team” of, what appears to me to be, the “spiritual awakening” of a bunch of rich folk who now want to convince the rest of us “they really do care”. people like union busting richard branson, anti-obamacare john mackey of “whole foods”, a bunch of wealthy “journalists”(like tom brokaw admitting he used to dress up “like a hippie” on weekends)…to me it just seems like the “status quo” trying to absorb a good idea in order to neutralize it. the hypocrisy is making me nauseous, and the moderators on huff post are censoring me.
(do you remember arrianna & al franken in “strange bedfellows” on” politically incorrect” before she learned she’d been married to a homosexual for years?)
and here, where it says “contact by author” there’s no button to push TO CONTACT YOU.
i hope this doesn’t vanish down some drain
KmCO
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Homicidal racist nut comes from a racist family. Color me shocked.
Steeplejack
@p:
At the top right of this page there is a drop-down box to “Contact [Select an Author].” Anne Laurie’s e-mail address is in that list. Easy as pie. (That address is annelaurie [at] verizon [dot] net.)
Mike G
to be able to allow them to retire with dignity and purpose
Yes, this is obviously such a great concern of the party that nominated for the Presidency the corporate asset-stripper and pension-looter Mitt Romney.
ottercliff
My brother had the last name of Bush and was really, really dumb and he was an Evangelical – he drove the country into a ditch. I have the last name of Bush and an Evangelical, so it makes sense to elect me President.