Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The National Guard is not Batman.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The lights are all blinking red.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

You are here: Home / Tire Rims and Anthrax

Tire Rims and Anthrax

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I gotta say it is kind of awesome that everyone in the media is figuring out what I said a few years ago. Chuckie T. (via the always awesome Greg Sargent):

Here’s a thought exercise on this summer morning: Imagine that after the controversial Medicare prescription-drug legislation was passed into law in 2003, Democrats did everything they could to thwart one of George W. Bush’s top domestic achievements. They launched Senate filibusters to block essential HHS appointees from administering the law; they warned the sports and entertainment industries from participating in any public service announcements to help seniors understand how the law works; and, after taking control of the House of Representatives in 2007, they used the power of the purse to prohibit any more federal funds from being used to implement the law. As it turns out, none of that happened. And despite Democratic warnings that the law would be a bust — we remember the 2004 Dem presidential candidates campaigning against it — the Medicare prescription-drug law has been, for the most part, a pretty big success.

But that thought exercise has become a reality 10 years later as Republicans have worked to thwart/stymie/sabotage — pick your word — the implementation of President Obama’s health-care and financial-reform laws.

Recently, the top-two Senate Republicans — Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn — wrote a letter to the NFL and other major sports leagues warning them not to participate in any campaign to promote implementation of Obamacare. The Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity is in unchartered waters running TV ads to help prevent the law from being implemented, while the Obama political arm is also on the air promoting implementation. And Senate Republicans have vowed to filibuster any nominee (no matter how qualified) to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the financial-reform law. […]

And this all raises the question: What’s the line between fighting for your ideology and ensuring that the government that pays your salaries actually works — or even attempts to work? At some point, governing has to take place, but when does that begin? We know what opponents will say in response to this: These are bad laws, and we have to do whatever it takes to stop them. But at what point does an election have a governing consequence?

And Jon Chait:

One of the novel developments in conservative thought during the Obama years is a burgeoning hatred not merely for government but for lawmaking. Before the Obama era, the ends of crafting laws divided the parties, but the means did not. The process of corralling votes, placating hold-outs, and hammering out compromises was not something either side especially loved — you’ve heard the classic line about watching the sausage get made — but also not something that one side disliked more than the other. But a hatred for lawmaking has emerged in the Obama years, first as a Republican tactic, and then as an apparently genuine belief system.

The distrust for lawmaking is the main argument — wait, “argument” is too strong; maybe premise? — of a rare joint op-ed by Rich Lowry and William Kristol, editors of the National Review and the Weekly Standard. Lowry and Kristol urge House Republicans to kill immigration reform, because passing it would involve legislating, and legislating is bad.

No shit. Me, in 2009:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

I will fully admit to being an idiot on most things, but sometimes shit is so obvious even I can figure it out. Fer fuck’s sake, Sarah Palin was the Veep nominee. What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    How’s the power, John? I hope you didn’t have to type that whole thing on your phone.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    I don’t know why, but I am totes pumped for this new FX series The Bridge.
    I think they just did a marketing job on my ass but I am hoping it rocks as hard as their promos have been saying it will.

  3. 3.

    A Ghost To Most

    I hate these fucking people, and the courtiers who ball-wash them.

    Tractor tire rims and weaponized anthrax is closer to it.

  5. 5.

    kdaug

    “Tire rims and anthrax”? Self-references are a downward spiral, son, even when it’s the boss.

    (BTW, I’m having a tasty chicken soup for dinner, TYVM. Too much garlic/ginger/jalapenos for mortals, but that’s how I roll).

  6. 6.

    Hunter Gathers

    What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

    He thought that he, along with every other white man in the country, would receive a hand-written letter from Obama apologizing for having larger genitalia than the recipient. In order to ‘make things right’, Todd would also have been given one night with Michelle (or Handsome Joe Biden, if he swang that way), in order to have the dream of a post-racial America a reality. Then Chuck Todd and every other fucking cracker ass cracker would have magically forgotten that Obama is black and we would have gotten our bipartisan promised land littered with tax cuts, piles of dead Muslims, and privatized Medicare.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

    He was waaay too busy photoshopping the clothing off Palin for fap material to even bother to worry about expectations of what would happen.

    Or was that Rich Lowery? Is there a difference between them, anyways?

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    Rut-roh. If this hot blonde is going to be the equivalent of a border agent JMN then this isn’t going to go very far.
    Nobody likes “that” guy.

  13. 13.

    Redshift

    Now if they would just say out loud that the “Hastert Rule” is the polar opposite of their cherished “bipartisanship,” we might be getting somewhere. Considering that it’s a codification of “everyone comes together and does exactly what we want” (aka the Republican definition of bipartisanship), it doesn’t seem that hard to figure out, but then our pundits aren’t too bright.

  15. 15.

    gene108

    I fully expect. if Republicans win in 2016 that Chuck Todd, et. al. will remark how the Republican President has bridged the bitterness and rancor of the Obama years because no one is running around protesting with signs that say “Kenyan lion, lyin’ Kenyan” or photoshop pictures of this President as a witch doctor or Hitler, etc.

    And the media would also chide Democrats for obstruction, if the filibuster any appointment this Republican nominee nominates for Senate confirmation.

  16. 16.

    ArchPundit

    These are bad laws, and we have to do whatever it takes to stop them. But at what point does an election have a governing consequence?

    Preferably after the election. Fucking crazy I know.

  18. 18.

    James E. Powell

    While it is clear to anyone paying attention that only Republican policy right now is to oppose every attempt by the Obama administration to do anything about anything, the great mass of Americans who are not committed right-wingers do not perceive this to be the case because, as we are assured every day by the corporate press/media, both sides do it!

  24. 24.

    Yatsuno

    @Redshirt: I believe the term you’re looking for is, “How has Obummer failed you today?” We should all lament this until this horrific Presidency has ended. Unless he seizes power after his term is up.

  25. 25.

    Bob In Portland

    I’ve despised Chuck Todd since his inane ass first made an appearance on TV. Then my mother told me he’s something like a third cousin to me. Now I hate myself. Maybe if he finds he’s related to me he’ll hate himself too.

  26. 26.

    amk

    Unless it’s a boondoggle for walltstreet, corporates, big oil, big agri, private contractors and mic’s, rethugs ain’t interested in any legislatin’.

  27. 27.

    Laur

    Chait’s article has the headline “Conservatives Hate All Legislation Now.”

    Except for anti-aborition, anti-Muslim, anti taxes, and anti-voter rights laws.

  28. 28.

    Redshirt

    @Bob In Portland: I actually liked Chucky T when I first met him: Dem Primaries 2008. He had an internet meme and everything. Then the primaries ended (if you can recall/believe, even Drudge was pro-Obama during the primaries), and of course he quickly morphed into Villager.

    Of course the reality is, the Republican spin machine was aimed against Clinton back then, and thus Obama was awesome. As soon as it was apparent he’d get the nomination, he turned into a “celebrity” and the attacks haven’t abated since.

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @Yatsuno:

    I thought it was “Obozo” or – for that not-very-subtle tinge of him bein’ a darkie – “Obongo.”

    If only there were a neutron bomb for stupid/evil/insane. Would solve a lot of this country’s problems. World’s, too, probably.

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    No such of a thing.

    Depends. Might not hold true for key lime pie. (Although, I have to confess, I’ve never tried it that way, so I could be wrong.)

  33. 33.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Halfway between Italian food and tire rims & anthrax?

    I believe that would be Domino’s pizza.

  34. 34.

    Tripod

    Remember in 2008 when Todd was pissing and moaning about Nate Silver?

    History has proven Chuck Todd to be… ah… a complete idiot.

  35. 35.

    Poopyman

    Jeezus Christ. I cannot believe that it’s actually been four frickin’ years since that post.

    That’s about all I got, except some mild shock that some in the media ever came to that conclusion.

  37. 37.

    cbear

    What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

    You first mistake was expecting some semblance of prescience from Chuckie. That would require an unnatural ability on his part to see past the rethuglican testes in his eyes to anything but the media buffet table.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    @Tripod:

    Remember in 2008 when Todd was pissing and moaning about Nate Silver?

    As well he should have. After all, Dean Chambers showed how completely skewed and wrong Wrong WRONG Nate has been, and always will be.

    Dean Chambers: successor to that august tradition started by Roy Riegels, lo these many years ago.

  41. 41.

    ? Martin

    Actually, you understated it. In response to Italian, your date would poison the towns water supply, blame it on you, and then start blowing the first random guy that walked by.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Mary

    @? Martin: I am now imagining Mitch McConnell as John’s girlfriend.

    I will NEVER get that image out of my mind.

    I hate you.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Pedant Alert:

    unchartered waters

    Aargh aargh yow ow ick ugh make it stop!!

    Uncharted, Chuckie. Not unchartered.

    /pedant rant

  47. 47.

    Trakker

    In Cleveland the Indians played the Toronto Blue Jays tonight. The Cleveland fans started chanting “USA! USA!” The Toronto fans responded by chanting “We have health care! We have health care!”

    Ouch.

  48. 48.

    Mike E

    The NYT op ed titled The Decline of North Carolina is getting play on our local news at 11. Good. Governor McCrory’s office put out some weak statement about it being riddled with errors, and, that if the writers came to NC, they would know ol’ Pat was focused on education, the economy, and govt efficiency.

    In other words… ouch.

  50. 50.

    ? Martin

    So, I don’t think anyone has commented on the Navy drone thing. It deserves to be commented on – it’s a very big deal.

    This isn’t like the existing drone programs, which are remotely piloted craft. This is fully autonomous. No remote pilot. It’s all software. Plane takes off from carrier, flies to target (2000 mile range) drops ordinance (GPS targeting) and returns and lands on the carrier. The plane is also planned to do mid-air refueling automatically. If it can do that, intercepting hostile planes should be straightforward. Technologically, this is a bigger leap than the previous drones were over manned planes.

    Now, if we already had these, would we have gone for a no-fly zone over Syria knowing that no pilots might be killed? This is where my worry comes from – the marginal cost of doing this stuff just keeps dropping, so it gets easier to justify doing things that previously you never would have considered.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Mike E:

    Yeah, he’s focused on “education” all right.
    Selling it off.
    He seems…uncomfortable with the social issues. I love when the plutocrat cons are embarrassed and annoyed by the social cons. They need them, but they hate needing them.
    NC is a real dilemma for them, because Moral Mondays has religious LEFTIES.
    His head may explode. Where to place the wedge? Who knows! Ministers palling around with public school teachers, and they’re ALL supporting SS marriage!

  53. 53.

    patroclus

    Frickin Justin Bieber just walked all over the sacred Black Hawk and posed with the Cup – I’m so furious I can’t imagine talking about anything else!

  54. 54.

    Mike E

    I work at the Capital (or right next to it) and I’ve come face to face with Art Pope, Bev Perdue…it’s only a matter of time until I run into the governor. Hell, I’ve driven down Jones St, right when he was freshly inaugurated, and seen him ducking into the Admin Bldg.

    At this point, the only thing I can think to say to him, when we meet, is, “Gov, how do you keep from getting shit hammered ever freaking day?” Because anybody can see the hard rain that’s gonna fall.

  55. 55.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    He seems…uncomfortable with the social issues. I love when the plutocrat cons are embarrassed and annoyed by the social cons. They need them, but they hate needing them.

    This works both ways. The SoCons sense that the resentment and contempt that the plutocrats have for them, but chalk it up to their being “RINOs” and such, which feeds the teabagger paranoia that the elites of the GOP are somehow colluding with liberals and that’s why things keep going wrong.

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    patroclus says: I’m so furious

    “Sing, Muse, of the wrath of Patroclus …”

    Sounds like the start of a good story. I wonder if anyone’s done it yet …

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Aaaaaand….I’m seeing an ad for, you guessed it, tires, on the right side of the page.

  62. 62.

    Calming Influence

    For the Balloon Juice Lexicon:

    Tire rims and anthrax – shorthand for a date with a crazy person. e.g. “How was my date with Bristol Palin last night? She ordered tire rims and anthrax.”

  66. 66.

    max

    @Hunter Gathers: He thought that he, along with every other white man in the country, would receive a hand-written letter from Obama apologizing for having larger genitalia than the recipient. In order to ‘make things right’, Todd would also have been given one night with Michelle (or Handsome Joe Biden, if he swang that way), in order to have the dream of a post-racial America a reality. Then Chuck Todd and every other fucking cracker ass cracker would have magically forgotten that Obama is black and we would have gotten our bipartisan promised land littered with tax cuts, piles of dead Muslims, and privatized Medicare.

    I wish to associate myself with these remarks.

    John: she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax

    Ah, but anthrax can be prevented/cured with the right antibiotic and tire rims are useful even without tires. They can be used as doorstops, for example. The Republican party, on the other hand, is 1) so useless that replacing it with a political party populated entirely with department store manikins would be an improvement, and 2a) has no cure plus 2b) worse effects.

    max
    [‘But that suggests a rebranding slogan! ‘Almost as useful as a tire rim’ should really get the elderly Floridians out to their polling places!’]

  67. 67.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    Nice to know that the Guantanamo prison is going to respect the prisoners’ religious beliefs during Ramadan by only force-feeding them at certain times.

    Congress, get off your asses and close that fucking place. It’s a disgrace.

  68. 68.

    Felonius Monk

    What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

    Given that you’re talking about Chuck Todd, probably that he could click his balls together and lightning would shoot out of his ass.

  69. 69.

    John O

    Enjoying a cigarette after reading that one, John. No shit, indeed.

    The Dems would be stupid not to play the same games when a Republican wins back the WH.

    The Dems, though, would also be stupid, full stop.

  71. 71.

    SIA

    I think this is General Stuck. I feel sad. I hope Charlie got a good home.

    legacy.com/obituaries/oxfordpress/obituary.aspx?pid=165470892

    MARTIN, Steve Arnold age 60, of Silver City, New Mexico, passed away Monday, June 3, 2013 at the Kindred Health Care in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Steve graduated from Morehead High School in Morehead, Kentucky and then served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

    If this is you Stuck, happy travels. I always liked you. God bless Charlie.

  73. 73.

    SIA

    John or Anne Laurie, pls delete my 2:23 post if it’s not apropos…re privacy issues. I’m not clear about that. Probably should have just emailed you first.

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: If it is him. I think it is, but no way to be sure. The picture shows a nice, sensitive face. Damn.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @SIA: Oh… sadness. As you say, no way to be sure, but the details seem to fit. May he find a peace, wherever he is, that seemed to elude him in this world…

  81. 81.

    Walker

    the Medicare prescription-drug law has been, for the most part, a pretty big success

    Inability to negotiate prices is not a success. The program has all the problems everyone predicted it would have. It is just that Democrats actually want to fix it, not shut it down, and are not in a position to do so.

  82. 82.

    the Conster

    @SIA:

    I’m sure that this is him – I thought about him just yesterday, oddly, with a feeling of certainty that he was gone. Thanks for posting this SIA. I miss his wittiness, and his unabashed Obotness. RIP Stuck, you were a good soul and gone way too soon.

  83. 83.

    Trinity

    I have never forgot that post from 2009 Cole. You were spot on. The fact that it has taken this long and this much destruction for The Village to take notice is frankly frightening.

  84. 84.

    Davo

    Fer fuck’s sake, Sarah Palin was the Veep nominee. What the fuck did Chuck Todd expect would happen?

    This was the precise moment for me when I fully understood the GOP was 100% batshit fucking crazy and would never again receive the slightest benefit of the doubt. It was the worst economic climate of my lifetime and they tried to put up a pretty little thing who didn’t even know what the FUCKING FED WAS! She was asked point blank what is was and what it did and she didn’t have a goddamn clue. I watched in utter horror as my parents cheerlead her “sticking it to the liberals!” whilst Rome literally burned.

    Im still disgusted and shocked. I was very young and very stupid until that campaign. Part of the “both sides do it!” camp that we all know and love so well.. smh..

    Now when I see a “Dont Tread on Me” bumper sticker I just think, “Oh, another entitled, hypocritical asshole who loves this country so much, he doesn’t wanna pay a dime for it and hates about 73% of the American population. Great.” (Flips bird)

  85. 85.

    Davo

    @Trinity: I remember it too very clearly. This was when I first found this website. John expressed my frustration better than I ever could and he hit it dead on. I haven’t alwasy agreed with everything he’s said. But I’ve been a fan ever since approximately that exact post.

    Cheers, John. I was raised in a bright red house in a bright red state too. I was stupid and I saw the light too. You were a part of that, sir.

  87. 87.

    jayackroyd

    @kdaug:

    It’s fine, but it’s more fun when you trust your readership. Better, IMO, to just go with the headline, and then the two quotes.

    One of the funniest, and most on point, comments ever.

  88. 88.

    A.J.

    the Medicare prescription-drug law has been, for the most part, a pretty big success.

    The problem was not that Bush got his prescription-drug law, it was that the Rethuglicans, like the two wars they have lost, refused to PAY FOR IT! In fact, they LIED about its impact on the nation’s debt. It is one of the huge contributing factors to our debt. “Tax and spend” works!

    Thanks, guys! Heckofajob!

  89. 89.

    Tokyokie

    @Biscuits: Remember that post? Hell, I’ve been quoting it for four years! Jeez, I can’t believe it’s been that long. And, as my handle indicates, I’m also from a deep (big) red state (Boomer Sooner!), but I saw the light long ago. But then, I’m probably older than you, so we probably did so at about the same point in cognitive development.

  94. 94.

    steve s

    They’re all still on their honeymoon
    Just read the dialogue balloon
    Everyone loves you–
    Why should they not?
    And I’m the only one who knows
    That disneyland’s about to close
    I don’t suppose you’d give it a shot
    Knowing all that you’ve got

    Are tire rims and anthrax
    Just close your eyes, ’cause, baby–
    You never do know
    And I’ll be on the sidelines,
    With my hands tied,
    Watching the show

  95. 95.

    brantl

    the Medicare prescription-drug law has been, for the most part, a pretty big success.

    THe doughnut hole was a pretty major F-you / F*ck up to seniors, no matter how you look at it. I wonder how many people it made choose between drugs and eating dog food.

  97. 97.

    AlfredAsom

    A better analogy to trying to compromise with Repubs would be: You suggest Italian food to you dinner date and she demands you cut out your liver so she can eat it.

  98. 98.

    nonstoprocka

    The dinner metaphor becomes much more apt when you consider the fact that your date is part owner of a tire shop, and that their family’s fortune came from anthrax manufacturing facilities.

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