(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
Harold Meyerson enjoys a little hard-earned schadenfreude:
… As the August recess unfolded, Republicans — including a number of prospective presidential candidates — contemplated whether to shut down the government as a protest of Obamacare and whether to refuse to honor the nation’s debt as a cri de coeur against Obamacare or the deficit or Obama himself or perhaps modernity in general. These issues were debated at length, if never quite in depth, on right-wing talk radio and Web sites. That nobody but the hard-core Republican right seemed stirred by shuttering the government and defaulting on the debt mattered not at all.
If the American right increasingly seems to occupy an alternative planet, that’s largely because its media outlets — we can throw Fox News into the mix — dwell on stories so exquisitely calibrated to excite the right that they may not be stories at all. The New Black Panther Party? The Epidemic of Voter Fraud? The calculated perfidy of Benghazi? The impeachable crime of Obamacare (a socialist scam actually modeled on a proposal from a conservative think tank 20 years ago)? It’s not the editorials and opinionating of right-wing broadcasters and journalists that are driving the right into fantasyland. It’s the tales they spin into stories and the time and space they devote to events that never actually happened or that they surreally misconstrue.
By throwing the Syrian conundrum to Congress, Obama has at least confronted Republicans with a real-world choice. Since Saturday, the drumbeat for closing down the government has been muted in its usual haunts.
That’s why the coming collision of libertarian fantasies with reality will be instructive. Can a congressman vote to defund the government and approve a military action in the same month? Or vote to authorize cruise missile attacks while insisting the government default on its debts? All these issues will soon come before Congress in rapid succession…
Tercali
Sad day in the news for Talkeetna Alaska’s kitty Mayor
lamh36
Just read this at TPM. I applaude the Progressive caucus, but “teaming up” with Tea Party folks just makes me want to quote the O’Jays classic in regards to the tea party folks, “smilling in your face, all the time wanting to take your place…
House Progressives Look To Team Up With Tea Party On Syria Vote
Please just vote your conscious, teaming up…phhshaw…enjoy the knife in your back later.
Chuck Butcher
It seems the question is if the GOP can commit mutually exclusive stupidities – um, Yes.
Roger Moore
Of course he can, and plenty of them probably will. It’s much easier to understand this when you realize that the Republicans lack any kind of cause and effect concept of policies and spending. They simply refuse to acknowledge that programs they like cost money and are part of the spending they’re so vigorous in criticizing. For the same reason, they don’t make a connection between massive increases in state prison populations and increases in state spending.
catclub
“Can a congressman vote to defund the government and approve a military action in the same month?”
Yes. SATSQ
Hunter Gathers
Of course they can. The first question asked on the ‘So You Want To Be A Conservative’ questionnaire is ‘do you believe six impossible things before breakfast?’
Regnad Kcin
@Roger Moore:
That would smack of science and the hated fact-based reality
IowaOldLady
You underestimate them. As I’ve said before, they’ll vote for war if it’s paid for by defunding Obamacare.
Omnes Omnibus
They are not interested in governance.
catclub
@Hunter Gathers: “Of course they can. The first question asked on the ‘So You Want To Be A Conservative’ questionnaire is ‘do you believe six impossible things before breakfast?’ ”
I have always felt that Douglas Adams expressed a wonderfully human ability in that statement.
One of those impossible things is: “I am here and alive today.”
And I believe that anyone who cannot believe six impossible things before breakfast, should be among the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
ericblair
@Roger Moore:
As far as I can tell, it’s because the words “spending” and “taxes” don’t have the meanings that normal sane people give them. “Spending” means “giving money to Those People”, and “taxes” means “taking money from Us People.” “Unemployment” means “lazy Those People sitting around instead of getting jobs”, and “jobs” are “favors from happy rich people”. So, obviously, we need to cut taxes and spending and unemployed people need to spend their time making rich people happy. QE fuckin D.
cleek
these people aren’t libertarian, they’re cranks and reactionaries. they don’t want small, lightweight government, they just want the government to be stronger and more intrusive in different places.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
He didn’t originate the “six impossible things before breakfast” line. It’s originally from the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass.
Socoolsofresh
@lamh36: Why does voting no mean that you are now on the same no team? People can have their own reasons and motives for voting no. Doesn’t mean that all of the sudden, they are now good buddies with all of the other no voters.
Suffern ACE
@Socoolsofresh: Well it beats “Republicans Stop Unpopular War Push”. Or “Two Republicans are Against Domestic Spying so Lets Interview Them and Pretend that Being in Against Drones is the Hip New Republican Majority Position.”
James E. Powell
The Republicans don’t have to put up or shut up. They can be completely irresponsible and their voters will still support them. There will be plenty of complaining about them, but it won’t matter. The American public may hold “congress” in contempt, but they do not hold individual Republican congress-creatures or senators in contempt. Or at least not enough of them to change anything.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Child’s play for the right. Even I can play how to justify this game;
“Clearly Syria is a massive false flag by Obama and his Al Quida allies to lure the US in military action just punish Putin for defying the Islamo-Gay Fascists and proved cover to get Obamacare funded”
ruemara
I’ve been asked if it would be ok if my duties in my current position could be expanded to include my duties in my prior position, since my former boss is going on vacay and no one seems to want the contract to be solo broadcaster. All senior staff have been trained in how to connect the cables but it might be nice if someone who understands the whole thing was around. IOW, the same scenario I warned the electeds as possible, will happen. Of course they’re capable of voting on one thing and undermining it with the next vote. They’re politicians. Reality is for little people.
I, of course, said no. But I did offer them my contract rate for broadcasting services.
Mike in NC
@ericblair:
That would be our current governor, if he were just thinking out loud.
catclub
@James E. Powell: “They can be completely irresponsible and their voters will still support them.”
Notable exception: 2006
Hunter Gathers
@catclub:
Do I get a cigarette when I face the firing line? I prefer Camels, but will grudgingly accept anything with a filter. Non-filtered tobacco makes my lungs burn a bit. And nobody should have to face the indignity of burning lungs before they get shot. Makes the shooter’s job harder as well. If I’m bent over hacking up my left lung he might miss and wing me in the ear and have to reload. And by the time he’s finished loading the second round, I’ll be utterly bored.
Can I request death by guillotine? With a nice magazine to read in the head-collecting basket while waiting for my brain to die?
lamh36
Wow, um, I guess this Rep doesn’t quite understand the idea behind a “silent protest”, but she obviously understands passive aggressiveness.
GOP Legislator Brings Fried Chicken To Capitol As Protest For Race Free Speech
Xantar
I thought we can’t do anything in Syria because of food stamps or something?
danimal
I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Obama has given this issue to Congress so that the RWNJs can vote No and get their anti-Obama cookies before the inevitable cave on the debt ceiling vote.
Of course the GOP can find a rationalization for voting against the Syrian adventure and then voting to defund the government. But it takes time and persuasion to get the rhetorical ducks in a row. The vast right-wing conspiracy needs to crank up the Wurlitzer to 11 in order to generate support for closing national parks and denying aid to veterans. The Syrian debate deprives them of the oxygen needed to set the federal government ablaze. They’ll still try, but I doubt they can hold the line for long.
Schlemizel
Went to bed last night & was sleeping quite nicely when I was awakened by the woman dumb enough to marry me screaming hysterically – something she has not done to my knowledge in 40 years. There was a bat in the house! Long story short I trapped the bat in a box, took it outside & let it go. The little guys was doing very well, flying straight & level. Today people around work are saying I made a horrible mistake that by letting the bat go we have to now get rabies shots because we might have been bitten & not know it. I tried calling the state health dept number for rabies info & got put on hold until they went home at which time they hung up on me.
So now I have the evening to contemplate death by virus. Anyone have any advice?
greenergood
Some interesting background on Syria http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/your-labor-day-syria-reader-part-2-william-polk/279255/
Socoolsofresh
@Suffern ACE: Those are bad too. But I feel like there is an active push to lump progressives and libertarians together as one new ‘fringes on both sides now close the circle’ team when they are coming from two totally different viewpoints. I know people here attribute that to one time when Jane Hamsher wrote a letter with Grover Norquist, which proves that they must have secret regular meetings every day. That is when they conspire to start a new party of progressotarians. However, in reality, these two groups don’t have too much in common.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemizel: For a second I thought you were talking about a baseball bat.
ETA: I really think you’d know if the bat bit you, but I guess you could consult a doctor.
Ash Can
@Schlemizel:
That makes no fucking sense. Bats have highly developed sonar and can be confidently relied upon to be able to tell a human in a bed from a mosquito on the wing. Furthermore, how can a critter chomp on you without waking you up, assuming it can’t swallow you whole? Methinks those folks have watched a few too many Dracula movies.
lamh36
Louisiana Nat’l Guard Won’t Process Benefits For Same-Sex Couples
Alien-Radio
Yes. SASQ
scav
@Schlemizel: Are “people at the office” necessarily any more informed on medical matters than “people on the internet”? Well, all I can contribute is having been in houses with bats chased out of them and never contemplated rabies shots. But then I’ve also survived backs of station wagons with no seat belts and playing on jungle gyms on asphalt playgrounds so have a history either of A) being of a certain age or B) living on the edge apparently.
Keith P.
Seeing as how several Congressman have gone from criticizing the President for not attacking Syria to criticizing the President for wanting to attack Syria, I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume they will attempt other seemingly mutually-exclusive actions.
FlipYrWhig
@danimal:
I think the whole thing has a lot more to do with realigning US politics with the US Constitution: take the whole question of what to do with the military and lay it before the legislature to debate, and whatever they work out, that becomes policy. We should have a lot _more_ debates like this about military force. To do what’s possibly to try to put some teeth, or at least the weight of precedent, back into the War Powers Act.
I’ll reassess if Obama decides to use military force beyond anything the Congress authorizes.
catclub
@Ash Can: Nope, vampire bats, which that almost certainly was not, have incredibly sharp teeth so that the cattle they feed on do not wake up when bitten/incised. So if A) it was a vampire bat, then B) it is possible to be bitten and not notice
but C) she woke up, so therefore not a vampire bat and no bite.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: Do you have bite marks? If not, I wouldn’t worry.
Emma
@lamh36: That is why I don’t pay attention to them. They will team up with scorpions and then whine when they’re stung.
judyinsd
@Schlemizel:
My cousin and his wife had this very same experience. They are both health care professionals and received the same advice, to have the rabies shots, as he also released the bat. They went ahead and had the shots.
shelly
Put up or shut up? Or play poker on your Smart Phone.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, the ones Christopher Lee leaves are always quite obvious.
Comrade Dread
@Socoolsofresh:
It doesn’t. I like ice cream. If Hitler liked the same, that would be as much common ground as I would share with him.
shelly
Yeah, to be on the safe side, give your GP a call. Treatment for possible rabies exposure is nowhere near what it was when we were kids. From the CDC:
In the United States, postexposure prophylaxis consists of a regimen of one dose of immune globulin and four doses of rabies vaccine over a 14-day period. Rabies immune globulin and the first dose of rabies vaccine should be given by your health care provider as soon as possible after exposure. Additional doses or rabies vaccine should be given on days 3, 7, and 14 after the first vaccination. Current vaccines are relatively painless and are given in your arm, like a flu or tetanus vaccine.
scav
@catclub: Unless vampire bats administer knockout drugs, I doubt C) proves it wasn’t a vampire bat (let alone an actual vampire or blood-sucking flying shortstop armed for offense). Still, lack of obvious bite marks is a good clue as the odds of a rabies-infected asymptomatic obsessively-tidy vampire bat are rather low. As much as I want to imagine one of same armed with defective rohypnal . . .
SiubhanDuinne
@Tercali: Poor Mayor Stubbs. I hope he recovers soon, and fully.
mclaren
Of course! We can deploy the Men Who Stare At Goats to destroy the Assad’s forces by ESP death rays. And then we can use the hafnium grenade against Assad’s tattered remnants as a mop-up operation.
And you people thought that 1.2 trillion dollars a year we plow into the American military-surveillance-industrial-security complex per year was wasted?
Ha!
Baud
@Schlemizel:
You have to go find that bat!
Anne Laurie
@Schlemizel:
Call your public health dept / animal control office.
This happened to a friend a few years back. The MI state public health decreee, at that time: The rabies virus can be transmitted by (bat) saliva entering (your) mucus membranes — if you touched your face after releasing the bat, for instance. Given that rabies has a near-total fatality rate, it’s better for a thousand people to get (multiple, painful) preventative shots they don’t actually need than to risk one person getting rabies (and dying, horribly). But Michigan bats had a real rabies problem at that point, which was the deciding factor.
Your personal doctor may not know what percentage of your local bats are liable to be rabies carriers. Your public health office should. There may be other personal health contra-indications for getting those shots ‘just in case’ — but Public Health would probably be the first place your doctor called, once you talked to him.
Mike in NC
@lamh36: CINC of the LANG is “Bobby” Jindal. That’s scary.
Hunter Gathers
@mclaren: A hafnium grenade is for pikers. It’s Holy Hand Grenade or nothing.
kindness
One of my big problems lately is I’ll click over to a link for a peek at an article that typically is making Republican claims and I will read the comments under the article after perusing the article. It’s reading those comments that have left me feeling that I have no faith in humanity right now. None. Seriously, even the liberal NPR has howling at the moon loonies out there baying what ever bat shit lunacy they read at WND. And it’s starting to affect me.
Yea I can not read the comments. That probably would be better but at what cost? I really do want to know if these delusional fanatics are going to start the next civil war based on Rove or Koch lies and I’ll be their target. More and more I feel that is what some on the right are going for. To push their unhinged into a war.
I don’t like that feeling.
gogol's wife
@kindness:
A professional listserv I read recently had an infestation of Tea Party stuff about Obama (completely off topic) that was unbelievable.
mclaren
@kindness:
You do realize that you’re bemoaning your loss of faith in humanity due to comments on the internet, in a…comment on the internet?
Capri
@Schlemizel: The virus can’t penetrate through intact skin. If the bat had bitten you bad enough to do that, you’d feel it. The virus can also be inhaled and in extremely rabies intense environments people have caught it that way.
So if you 1) went caving in a place where thousands of bats had crapped for decades and you couldn’t move without stirring up clouds of dessicated bat shit which you inhaled or 2) performed a spinal cord and brain extraction on an animal with rabies using a band saw and/or chain saw so that their CSF and brain tissue was aerosolized and inhaled there would be a big risk even though you didn’t appreciate an injury.
If your health department ever picks up the phone you can find out for sure.
My daughter was bitten by a monkey in Sri Lanka (A Major cause of rabies in that country) and went through the post- exposure series. No trouble getting it started in Sri Lanka, rabies is a common problem. She was supposed to get her last shot in Indiana, and the local health department could only hunt down 1 dose in the state, and they didn’t want to give it to her. That was 3 years ago and she’s not afraid of water yet, so I think she’s OK.
I was exposed to a rabid bull when I was an intern, and the University health department didn’t want to treat me (or anyone else who was exposed). We ended up paying out of pocket for just the booster vaccine because they wouldn’t order order the immunoglobulin.
Mike in NC
George Zimmerman’s wife is filing for divorce, per 6:00 news. No word if he’ll go gunning for her.
shelly
I wish there was some simple test to see definitely see if someone had been exposed to rabies, instead of having to go ahead with shots ‘just in case.’
Baud
I’m beginning to think that Rick Santorum was right to warn us about man-on-bat sexual activity.
kindness
@Schlemizel: You’d know it if you had been bitten by a bat.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Schlemizel:
True story as told to me by my bosses daughter. They came home one day to find a bat flying around in the living room. While wife and kids darted around avoiding it, and trying to whack it with a broom to remove it, my boss was flipping through the yellow pages looking for “Bat Removal” companies. I kid you not. The man is totally useless (other than being a lawyer that is)
Schlemizel
For those asking – apparently bat teeth are so small that people are bitten by them and don’t realize it. The reason it made such a splash in the office is one of the local weather wieners on the TV had this happen to him. I tried the state web site & they confirm that it is entirely possible to be bitten without knowing it. When I called the office they put me on hold but at 1600 hrs I was automatically bumped to a recording that they were done for the day.
I doubt this is a problem but with rabies once you have the symptoms it is supposed to be too late & you are either going to die or wish you had. Given my luck in life I assume the worst thing that could happen will always happen to me, that is my history.
IowaOldLady
Mr IOL’s employer is having its annual patent dinner tonight, and Mr IOL has a new patent, so we’re going. The food is good, and I like the part where the engineers describe their inventions. But there’s always a management/motivational speech too. That sucks. Not like vampire bats or anything, since that seems to be the topic. Just boring.
Redshift
@kindness:
The people who comment are self-selected, and there’s no reason to believe that they’re representative of a larger population. Also, talk is cheap. If any significant portion of humanity behaved the way commenters in any such forum talk, the world would already be a post-apocalyptic hellscape.
You’re not learning anything real there. Unless you enjoy pointing and mocking, don’t subject yourself to it.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
On the bright side, if you do go mad, we won’t notice.
@kindness:
99% of commenters on media sites represent 27% of the population.
eemom
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Just wanna be the first to get on record with my LMAO at that “other than”.
hoodie
@FlipYrWhig: Not that they’ve worried about consistency in the past, it does get the wingers on record as opposing a relatively limited intervention in a case in which there is pretty conclusive evidence that a bad guy has recently used weapons of mass destruction, which is quite a change from them a few years back supporting an invasion of an entire fucking country based on unreliable rumors that a guy might want to use chemical weapons. Not sure what a vote against use of force means if, for example, there is another chemical attack. Can Obama then declare an emergency and act, or does he need to go back to Congress for authorization? What, exactly, is the policy?
replicnt6
@Schlemizel:
Funny you should mention it. Just earlier today, my sister called me from the ER where she was getting her first in a series of rabies shots because they had two bats in the house last night (and have had a couple of others in the last couple of months). Her husband is going to take his chances.
Tough call. If it were me, I might check to see if there are any statistics about rabid bats. Seems relatively unlikely that a given bat is rabid. And it seems relatively unlikely that you got bit and didn’t know it. On the other hand, rabies is extremely nasty.
My sister said the no-insurance price of the vaccination series is $18K. That seems criminal to me.
MikeJ
@kindness:
A Møøse once bit my sister.
replicnt6
@replicnt6: Having read Anne’s comment, I should mention that we are in Michigan, so perhaps that plays into her decision to go ahead with the vaccination.
piratedan
@replicnt6: true, the bat could have been a Republican, putting all of your governmental entitlements at risk
joes527
@Schlemizel: You didn’t make a mistake. If you had kept the bat, they would have taken it from you. They might even have run some tests on it. And then they would have told you that you had better have the vaccine (just in case)
I had a bat in the house once. Got rid of it and didn’t get vaccinated. Lived to tell the tale.
YMMV.
LanceThruster
@Hunter Gathers:
I’d send wave after wave of killer rabbits (since they had only one Holy Hand Grenade).
Litlebritdifrnt
Yesterday I was listening to Sean Hannity and he came up with this gem, “new figures have been released that show that more people are on food stamps than are employed by the private sector. After repeating the figures he then conveniently left out the “private sector” bit and kept repeating that “more people are on food stamps than are employed” over and over again. I am sure by the end of the show his listeners were convinced that his logic was the gospel truth. This is what they do, repeat lies until they become truths.
joes527
@Litlebritdifrnt: the most insidious part of that is it paints a picture: employed or on food stamps.
The whole “I have a job, but am also on food stamps because WalMart isn’t paying a living wage” thing is just glossed over.
IowaOldLady
Also I believe that stat refers to full-time workers.
Litlebritdifrnt
@joes527: @IowaOldLady:
Yes, he never mentioned that the biggest Welfare Queen in this country is the Walton family. I still cannot understand how the tea party types think that it is okay for Wal Mart to benefit from the equivalent of $900,000 per year per store in taxpayer money going to their employees while banking record profits for themselves. You would think that they would have a problem with that.
LanceThruster
@Mike in NC:
Too bad he’s not in TX were it’d be legal to shoot the missus (and paramour) if she was caught in flagrante delicto (or is that still on the books?).
Davis X. Machina
This is the golden opportunity. The non-partisan moment. The Tea Party and the Progressive Caucus working together.
Syria is just the start. The next step is to work together to blow up the ACA.
When the issue is as important as war and peace, or the failure to bring forward single payer, or even just incorporate into the half-assed legislation we did get the sop called the public option, you can’t be picky about where you find your allies.
Kill The bill, not random Syrians.
chopper
@Davis X. Machina:
And the lamb will lie down with the lion; and the lion will eat the lamb because, well, it’s a fucking lion.
Anoniminous
From Huff-en-Puff-Po:
With 9 to 1 against it’s darn hard to see how the House is going to vote for it.
Davis X. Machina
@chopper: Radical righto-leftism has its hour! Weaving from side to side is the new way forward! Be realistic, demand the impossible! If you can’t get that, settle for the unintelligible.
Schlemizel
Thanks all. I’ll let you know how it goes.
scav
@LanceThruster: He’s still in Florida, can’t he participate in the effort to apply the SYG Bush Premptive Strike Doctrine of sneaking out and shooting first even sooner than ever attempted before? She no doubt has said some mean things and divorce cases have gotten messy before . . . He could very well feel threatened. . .
mai naem
It’s 110 degrees here. Its supposed to be 106 tomorrow. This is ridiculous.
Also too, I watched a bit of Ron Paul on Alex Wagner today. His fake eyebrow had come loose from it’s place and was hanging on. They panned out so that it wasn’t as obvious. Why doesn’t this guy get some hair transplants or permanent make up done if the size of his eyebrows bug him so much.? This fake eyebrow is as bad as James Traficant’s toupee. Maybe I’ll tweet this suggestion to Rand.
LanceThruster
@scav:
Has she ever been seen wearing a hoodie? Might be able to drop her on the spot.
Eric U.
it’s not that they have to believe impossible things, it’s that they have to believe mutally exclusive things. I learned this from Rush Limbaugh. First time I listened to him, he expressed outrage about two mutually contradictory things in the span of two sentences separated by a commercial break.
James E. Powell
@Anoniminous:
With 9 to 1 against it’s darn hard to see how the House is going to vote for it.
Is there a list anywhere of the measures that the president wanted or asked for that the house passed?
There is no way that Republicans are going to allow the president to look like he knows what he is doing. Not this close to the 2014 election cycle. They are going to want to run on the “Democrats are traitors/weak” foreign policy argument because it doesn’t require them to do anything but blame the president for any that happens anywhere in the world. They will argue that it would not have happened if only he had shown sufficient resolve, like the Bush/Cheney Junta, and Saint Ronald Reagan before that.
lamh36
Le sigh, I haven’t really watched any political shows since around the time the NSA/Snowden/Greenwald bidness began.
I def haven’t watched any of them lately with the Syria business and honestly, I’ve decided I’m done commenting on the whole business, here and elsewhere, I’ve said my piece and I’m done.
I wasn’t around when all the liberal blogs and stuff started up (like you guys and DKOS and such) during the Bush years, so the constant daily, post after on the same subject is a brow-beating.
So anyway, I haven’t watched much of any politics based programming.
Anne Laurie
@Schlemizel: If you have (or know) a veterinarian, you might ask them. Vets around here have enough cases of pets mixing it up with skunks/racoons/coyotes that they’re aware of the local risk, and who to call about getting the shots if you need them.
tybee
@Schlemizel:
i see an opportunity in a week or so to scare the crap outta other folks by foaming at the mouth and homing in on their necks….
The Other Bob
I hope all those who are opposed to military action in Syria don’t rush out to support HRC in the primaries considering back in the day she voted in support of an even greater military action in Iraq.
scav
@LanceThruster: don’t forget the known history of sidewalk use and public consumption of candies. Open and Shut.
Steeplejack
TV music programming note:
John Prine is scheduled to be on The Colbert Report tonight.
piratedan
@The Other Bob: who knows Bob, maybe her position on things have changed, serving as SOS and the time gone by may have allowed her some perspective, I hate it that we can hold people to their statements made half a decade ago when time and events pass to give us context without allowing the person who made the statement to reflect and change their opinion.
LanceThruster
@scav:
What brand of beverage has she been known to quaff? I’m thinking she’d better watch her six.
lojasmo
@Schlemizel:
Get a rabies shot.
Linnaeus
Libertarianism. What a sham.
JustRuss
@Schlemizel: That happened to an acquaintance of mine. He and his family got the shots, but because they got rid of the bat and couldn’t prove it was rabid his insurance company refused to pay, cost him several thousand out of pocket. He’s a bit of a wingnut, I enjoyed listening to him kvetch about how crappy his insurance company was. Does that make me a bad person?
Alsotoo, my wife and I came home from vacation once to find a bat in the house. Scared the bejeezus out of us.
dww44
@joes527: Yep, the GOP and the right wing in general, particularly their media outlets, propagandize everything. Even racism doesn’t explain all the simply insane and/or absurd things they believe about this President. Or Obamacare. Like that idiot yesterday in the Congressional hearing who asked Kerry about Benghazi.
Bob In Portland
@lamh36: That’s it. Violate federal law.
cathyx
@Schlemizel: From what I understand, bats will not transmit rabies. They are too small to have it for long enough to inflict another with it before they die from it. Even squirrels are too small to transmit rabies. So don’t worry.
raven
@Bob In Portland: Put General Honore on their asses!
Bobby Thomson
@Litlebritdifrnt: So not flipping out in a panic = “totally useless”? Interesting. And his family shouldn’t have been trying to hit the bat with a broom. They are pretty fragile and easy to kill that way.
Anoniminous
@James E. Powell:
here is the House Resolution.
Both Boehner and Cantor have endorsed passage. Interestingly enough, that means they “own” the Syria resolution as much as Obama.
Here is the Senate’s.
Steeplejack
Why are all you people letting bats into your houses?
Bobby Thomson
@replicnt6: Sounds like an urban legend to me. When I lived overseas I had bats in my house all the time. Chill out. Bats are cool.
raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Tennis racket.
Bobby Thomson
@replicnt6: Oops – meant that as a reply to the OP.
The Other Bob
@piratedan:
Or not.
Bobby Thomson
@lamh36: So the president will have to send the National Guard to Louisiana to integrate the National Guard.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Agreed. Does anyone doubt that T’Baggers would have supported a strike against Syria under a President McCain or Romney? The Progressive Caucus is being consistent while the T’Baggers are just straight up hypocrites.
Davis X. Machina
@Bobby Thomson: Me, I’d just send nine African-American high school students…
Davis X. Machina
@Patricia Kayden: They’re not ‘hypocrites’. They’re ‘situational heroes’.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: Then Repubs are shocked that 93% plus of the Black vote goes to Dems.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@lamh36:
This, it’s bit hard to stomach all the emo progressives suddenly having a crush for Rand Pual because they don’t understand Paul wants wars to be fought by mercs.
Suffern ACE
@hoodie: he will need to go back to Congress. He may lose, but if he went this time, he’s going to have to go back again.
lamh36
@Patricia Kayden: and it’s just stupid the whole adherence to sterotypes like both reps exhibited.
It’s obvious that those people were never born or raised anywhere in the South, cause I”m sorry, but there are as many white Southern who LOVE fried chicken as much if not more so than Black folk.
Shoot, I have a good friend, who white (and gay, not really part of stroy, but it amazes me how out he is seeing as he was born and raised in Mississippi) from Kosciusko, Mississippi, who can tear through a 2 piece box of chicken from Popeyes, faster than I could.
TAPX486
Chris Hayes has Sec. of State dean Rusk on explaining why we have to intervene in Vietnam. It ids to protect freedom, prevent the dominos from falling and the bad guys attacking Hawaii. We will not send American boys to do the job that Asian boys should ……. oh wait its John Kerry making the same arguments about Syria. Amazing how they haven’t changed the script from 1964. You would think they would update the material every so often.
I was undecided about supporting the original Senate bill that had a 90 day limit on a strictly defined set of actions. John McCain has ‘enhanced’ the resolution to include tilting the tide of battle in the favor of the rebels and securing chemical and other weapons stores. That enhancement is a loophole that you could drive regime change through. The only possible vote at this point is NO!!
Litlebritdifrnt
@Bobby Thomson:
No. Not trying to remove the bat from the house “totally useless”. Looking in the Yellow Pages for “Bat Removal” “totally useless” my boss seems to think that there is a company or service out there for every single contingency. Ever. It never occurs to him that perhaps he should try to do something himself, you know, like catching the bat and letting it outside.
One day I came home and there was a wren flying about in my living room, I got ladders and nets and all sorts of stuff and eventually caught the wren and let her outside. It never once occurred to me to get out the yellow pages and look for “wren removal services”. Never. Once.
Bobby Thomson
@Litlebritdifrnt: There actually are animal removal services. Many people with phobias or low acceptance for risk contract with them. I respectfully suggest that boss’ daughter is troubled more by boss’ failure to conform to gender stereotypes than by his problem-solving skills.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Bobby Thomson:
When I visited Egypt I was given a guide who was seriously afraid of bats, which makes no fucking sense when you are visiting tombs that are a bats playground. Every time she freaked out when entering a tomb full of bats I kept saying to her “they are just mice with wings for gawds sake, chill out. By the end of the cruise she sort of chilled out.
Mike E
Bat World! Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah Bat World!
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Next thing, they’ll be calling themselves the “Party of Clearhead O’Keefe,” thinking that it means they’re clearheaded.
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
The Mets decided they didn’t need theirs anymore.
Steeplejack
@SFAW:
We could have completely New York-free baseball playoffs this year, Allah willing.
ETA: Actually, I don’t hate the Mets. But they’re in the same division as my beloved Braves, and after them I have to root for the (currently) home-town Nationals, also in the same division. (Phillies can DIAF.)
Bruce S
Folks need to check out Lawrence O’Donnell’s rewrite this evening on Ronald Reagan and chemical weapons.
St. Reagan was Saddam’s supplier! And Twice Alleged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sealed the deal.
The collection of garbage known as “The Republican Party” needs it’s face rubbed in this shit.
Bruce S
@Patricia Kayden:
Patricia – again, as I noted in another thread, you are being very kind. Good for you – I’m not nearly as nice a person. Hypocrisy is the least of their sins. I like to use the term “cultural resentments” to describe the deep-seated racism of these cranks and crazies who oppose anything that Obama does because…gee, I wonder! I’m not big on tossing a few grenades in Assad’s direction, although I think there’s a good argument that “something” needs to be done in the face of gassing civilians to death, but the fraudulent “questions” being raised by Republicans is an exercise that disgusts me. None of this deliberation by GOPers would be happening, with a possible one or two exceptions, if a Romney or Bush was pushing it.
Barbara Lee is an honest critic who has always held to her positions about dubious use of military force and she’s been more right than wrong (although I disagreed with her initial – and undoubtedly courageous – vote against the Afghanistan intervention post-9/11.) The GOPers are motivated by partisan opportunism. I’m proud that Democrats can disagree on these issues with at least some degree of honesty, honor and integrity. All of which are totally absent from the GOP.
Bruce S
@lamh36:
That article was a great example of headline writer overselling a story. The headline doesn’t align with the facts reported. TPM sometimes has that Huffington Post Disease…
Bruce S
@dww44:
“Even racism doesn’t explain all the simply insane…”
Can we agree to fall back on “simply insane” as the explanation?
Jebediah
@Bobby Thomson:
We used to get bats all teh time in the summer. We would just put on all teh lights,as bright as possible, and wait for it to settle down. Put on a pair of gloves, gently carry it outside, and off he goes…
AA+ Bonds
As John pointed out, the calculated perfidy of Benghazi was when we bombed Libya.
Joey Maloney
@Regnad Kcin: You are wrong, sir.
Cause: “The near is for it.”
Effect: “I’m against it.”
Simple, really.
evodevo
@Schlemizel: Highly unlikely you would get bitten and “not know it”. Those guys have sharp little teeth, and blood would have been drawn. That said, bats ARE often rabid, so when handling them, use gloves. You also should check to see if they are roosting in your attic/whatever. Unless the doors/windows were open, they are not likely to just fly in.
I had a rabies series when younger, and it’s basically a nothing-burger, unless you turn out to be allergic to the serum. The shots are subcutaneous, not IM, which means they are a LOT less painful. It’s just an inconvenience, not a life threat.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
If there’s a chance you got bit, you need to go get vaccinated NOW, because if you were infected with rabies by a bite, then after 48 hours you’re basically hydrophobic toast. If you weren’t bit, you’re OK, but I’d go to see an ER if there’s a chance you were. Rabies vaccine costs major $$$, so the ER won’t vaccinate you if there’s no chance of infection.
As for bats – there are fucktons of different species: something like a third of mammalian species are some variety of bat, and that’s why when you hear of some killer virus it’s usually originated in some species of bat.