Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

T R E 4 5 O N

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

We still have time to mess this up!

The willow is too close to the house.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / Open Thread: GOP Grave Robbers

Open Thread: GOP Grave Robbers

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For what it’s worth, the Washington Post (company paper to the town where politics is the local monopoly industry) is running a “Live Updates: the Shutdown” page.

The tweet at the top via Dave Weigel:

Any future student of epistemic closure—of groupthink sealed off from the wider world by partisan media and consensus—will inevitably end up studying the great World War II Memorial conflict of 2013…

…[T]here were two shutdown “narratives.” In the mainstream media and on the left, the shutdown had been driven by conservative Republicans who refused to fund Obamacare in the CR, as they had been promising for months. On the right, the shutdown was Obama’s fault—why wouldn’t he compromise?—and the most visible pain of the shutdown, the closure of parks and memorials, was engineered spitefully by the president. There are terms in conservative media and on Twitter—”Spite House,” “barrycades”—that I don’t think have made the jump beyond…

Conservative bloggers and tweeters treated this like a uniquely inspiring protest of government folly. “The press will try to keep today’s events secret, but I doubt whether they can succeed,” wrote Power Line’s John Hinderaker. “Time will tell, but this seems like the sort of revelatory moment that will reverberate and gain force with time.” But did the MSM cover it that way? No. Many reports focused on the fringe nature of some of the speakers who’d glommed on to the rally. Photographers snapped great shots of Cruz and Lee flanked by flags for “Oath Keepers,” the group that asked soldiers, police officers, et al. to “keep their oaths” to the people and resist tyranny if it comes to that. Larry Klayman, a legal gadfly from the Clinton era who’s still in D.C. for some reason, used his time at the mic to call the president a Muslim….

Roy Edroso, at the Village Voice:

…Ben Shapiro at Breitbart.com expressed outrage that the media was spinning this patriotic display as a mere collection of “TEA PARTY CRAZIES.” For example, said Shapiro, CNN reported that “one speaker went as far as saying the president was a Muslim and separately urged the crowd of hundreds to initiate a peaceful uprising.” It was unfair, Shapiro said, for CNN to focus on “one speaker, Larry Klayman” and to have “tried to lump in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in with Klayman.” Klayman, by the way, happens to be a frequent contributor to Breitbart.com….

And (saving the best for last) Mr. Charles P. Pierce:

… How dare these idiots? Tailgunner Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee, the constitooshunal skolar from Utah, and Ms. Palin. How dare they traffick in this manner of grave-robbing? They would all throw these veterans off Medicare, close the VA hospitals, bury the brave old men and women in substandard nursing homes rather than give an inch away of their indomitable ideology of entitled selfishness. Ted Cruz doesn’t think the government has a role in making the lives of these veterans easier. Mike Lee thinks the Founders wanted vets to starve. Sarah Palin doesn’t think, period, and is proud of it.

The American Right has never looked as fundamentally reckless and inhumane as it did when it attempted to burglarize heroism over the weekend. All the chickenhawks came home to roost, for sure. To see Princess Dumbass there, one hand on her heart while the other one very likely was picking pockets, attempting to wrap herself in the sacrifice of so many people, living and dead, when the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life is quit her job halfway through doing it, is to see a kind of ghastly kind of historical vampirism. It takes a special lack of conscience to grift the graves of the honored dead. It’s enough to make you root very hard for the Curse Of The Pharaohs. My father doesn’t need the intercession of these delusional creatures. On his behalf, I say, in god’s name, walk away from decent people in shame.

Reader Interactions

151Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    So it’s down to Palin, Cruz, and Lee?

    And the right wing media think this is a populist groundswell?

    I honestly think these people are insane. They need to get tested.

  2. 2.

    PhoenixRising

    Anybody got a line in to Harry Reid’s office?

    It seems obvious to me, as a business owner who once had a child on SCHIP, that adding ‘income verification’ rules to the tax credits for health exchange buyers is a poison pill.

    But that’s because I’ve shopped for things that were means-tested by AGI (like an FHA mortgage, which has a lower limit, and SCHIP which has an upper limit) and know that the devil is the the details of how the HHS administers the ‘verification’.

    This could be no big deal. It could also allow a future executive branch to destroy the ACA with the wave of a pen. To the extent that today’s GOP has any long-term planning capacity, one suspects that they’ve thought of that.

  3. 3.

    Mr. Longform

    Charlie Pierce is the best. Those assholes wheeling half-dead WWII vets around so the TV cameras would point toward them and accidentally pollute the airwaves with whiffs of Cruz and Bachman deserve every bit of CP’s vitriol, which is always first-class stuff. His book Idiot America is in a state of constant supplementation at his blog.

  6. 6.

    Patricia Kayden

    Were the racist idiots with the confederate flags denounced at the rally by any of their T’Bagger compatriots? Or are they just upset that the media snapped photos of the confederate flags?

  7. 7.

    MattF

    And let’s not forget that Klayman was playing to the crowd. Cruz and Palin know very well that you’ve got to throw the fans some red meat, and Klayman will do just that without actually competing with the ones who brung him.

  8. 8.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mr. Longform: Actually the vets I’m seeing on Ed Schultz’ show are not half dead. They’re screaming at police officers, tearing down barricades and supporting racists like Larry Klayman. I wouldn’t assume that there aren’t plenty of vets who support T’Baggers and hate the President because he’s Black.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I keep hearing that Ted Cruz, whatever his blinkered ideology, is very smart. What the fuck is the end goal when the means are slumming around with Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Larry Klayman? Even Rand Paul doesn’t think that crew will get him to the white house. I all this really just about becoming the next Grover Norquist or Jim Demint style godfather?

    I’m less confused about Mike Lee, who strikes me just one more dumbass, but looking at Wiki to confirm that neither he nor Cruz ever saw fit to become veterans during the Iraq War, I see he’s the son of Reagan’s Solicitor General and founder of the BYU law school. Are the Lee’s part of the “Mormon aristocracy” people talked about with the Romneys?

  10. 10.

    piratedan

    @Patricia Kayden: nah, just the usual dismissal that he had to be a “liberal plant” there to discredit the Tea Party, you can see just how shunned he was at the event……

  12. 12.

    gbear

    @BGinCHI:

    So it’s down to Palin, Cruz, and Lee?

    And the right wing media think this is a populist groundswell?

    Aren’t you forgetting about the 300 other people who were there at the Million Veteran March?

  13. 13.

    scav

    @Patricia Kayden: There are a lot of vets who “Fought for Free Speech and Liberty!” so “Shut Up Shut Up Shut Up and Do As I Say!” Old guy in a Mexican restaurant during the Bush years probably still doesn’t know how close he was to a chili verde shampoo.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Patricia Kayden: I wouldn’t assume that there aren’t plenty of vets who support T’Baggers and hate the President because he’s Black.

    The VFW, from what I’ve heard, basically gelled in to a right wing organization in the late 60s. I think Longform means the actual WWII vets. My eighty-four year old father was too young for the Big One

  15. 15.

    srv

    Oh, the insanity over at JeffG’s:

    The truth is, Obama and Reid are in checkmate. Any GOP surrender should be seen for what it truly is: a conscious effort to extricate the Democrats from their mistakes and maintain the higher revenue flow that both entrenched parties — the single party ruling elite — enjoy.

    Using default — as both Boehner and Obama (and a number of “conservative” journalists have done) — to make the case for surrender is the work either of the ignorant or the neo-statists who make up so much of the GOP party’s ruling oligarchy.

  17. 17.

    kindness

    We have one group of friends that are militia folk. Now they’re TeaParty numb skulls but we’ve all known each other and been friends since the 80’s. Well we had the mr in the couple over for dinner on Saturday and he tried to convince me that Nazi’s were the original socialists with the intent on implying that all liberals are evil because Nazis!

    Well we all know each other’s politics really well and while I don’t mind them repeating mindless bullshit usually they have to good grace to not expect me to take what they say as having any validity at all. He forgot that Saturday and was so exasperated that I would not admit Nazi’s were socialists (and by extension that liberals were nazis and bad, cause that is where this was going). I love the guy but don’t piss on my leg and try to convince me it’s raining. Save that crap for your moron TeaHaddist friends. We in our house read (an apparently a little more widely than he does).

    So even with people who you might care for, some of them have just chosen to be brainless idiots. Such is life.

  18. 18.

    SFAW

    @gbear:

    300? Some wag suggested that if all the Rethugs in Congress came out and joined them, the number might increase to over 400. So, unless they’re counting in hex, there might have been less than 300 to start.

    Of course, if they changed the name to “Million Clown” – well, there was enough clowniosity there to surpass that number easily. I mean, Cruz and Lee alone peg the Clown-O-Meter at about a quarter-mil each, and Princess Dumbass (thanks Charlie!) – well, she breaks the Clown-O-Meter without even opening her mouth.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    Reports from an alternate reality…

    Current lead story at RedState:

    As Mitch McConnell puts the finishing touches on his terms of surrender, here are some thoughts to ponder.
    […]
    Let’s lay some facts out on the table:

    1) There is nothing that will destroy more jobs, lower wages, raise the cost of living, and disrupt personal liberty than Obamacare. Not to mention the fact that it’s costly to the federal budget.

    It’s basically a religious crusade at this point. I’m pretty sure that the next step will be for RedState to announce “Primary them all. God will know his own”.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    On his behalf, I say, in god’s name, walk away from decent people in shame.

    Good luck with that hope. These vile creatures do not feel shame. They are shameless.

  21. 21.

    Bobby Thomson

    Hypothesis: the people saying that Cruz is “smart” aren’t, or at least are poor judges of that quality. Discuss.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    And another, this from Erick Erickovich this morning:

    Mitch McConnell is the single obstacle we have this week to taking our country back from the death spiral instigated by Obama and his merry band of community organizers.

    Let Mitch McConnell know that if he cuts a deal that doesn’t defund or delay Obamacare, he will not be coming back to the Senate.

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @dmsilev:

    There is nothing that will destroy more jobs, lower wages, raise the cost of living, and disrupt personal liberty than Obamacare. Not to mention the fact that it’s costly to the federal budget.

    There are, at a minimum, five outright lies in these two sentences. If you don’t go the Mary McCarthy route, which in the case of Eric bin Eric is of course perfectly reasonable to go.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @kindness: So even with people who you might care for, some of them have just chosen to be brainless idiots. Such is life.

    I have aunts and uncles I love (and even a few cousins), but between the Catholic Church, Ronald Reagan and tribalism, they have some pretty twisted ideas about politics. And with two exceptions they’d all be destitute without SS and Medicare

  25. 25.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    1) There is nothing that will destroy more jobs, lower wages, raise the cost of living, and disrupt personal liberty than Obamacare. Not to mention the fact that it’s costly to the federal budget.

    And causes cancer, give you a bad case of the skeevies, and will make Erick Ericksgelding fat. Oops! Too late, it must have already begun!

  26. 26.

    Berial

    @dmsilev: From Lairson just today:

    Erick Erickson exemplifies the self-deluding movement conservative with this response to the failure of his preferred strategy

    The other side may slowly be learning that THEY weren’t in on the grift, they ARE the griftee.

  27. 27.

    GregB

    In light of recent events where the chickenhawk caucus have begun to literally wrap themselves in the flags of dead veterans. The words of wisdom from the past.

    Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

    -Samuel Johnson

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @GregB:

    Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

    “Dumbfuckedness is the baseline position of the Conservative.”

    – SFAW

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The VFW and the American Legion have always been crypto-fascist outfits, made up mostly of REMF types who hang around in bars and tell war stories along the lines of Ronald Reagan’s account of personally liberating concentration camps in Germany, when in fact he spent the war in Hollywood.

  32. 32.

    dmsilev

    @gbear: If we thread the needle and get something through the Senate and the House, Erick’s temper tantrum will be one for the ages. He’ll probably be threatening to start cutting himself or maybe dousing himself in gasoline and striking a match.

    It’ll be fun to watch.

  34. 34.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Surely there’s some significance to the mutilation of the standard Confederate “battle flag” at the top. Does anyone here know? Is it supposed to be different enough to say “we’re not them” while getting the point across to anyone with eyes, ala Golden Dawn or something?

    TIA.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    @GregB:

    Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

    -Samuel Johnson

    In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

    Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

    For a book written in 1906, it’s remarkably accurate at describing today.

  37. 37.

    SFAW

    @dmsilev:

    Although I normally eschew the whole “buying popcorn” thing, I would buy about 10 cases it that (gasoline/matches) were to happen.

  38. 38.

    Patrick

    1) There is nothing that will destroy more jobs, lower wages, raise the cost of living, and disrupt personal liberty than Obamacare. Not to mention the fact that it’s costly to the federal budget.

    No hyperbole there!

    With that logic, they obviously also want to get rid of Medicare. It is a fact that needs to be highlighted much more, especially since most of the baggers are on Medicare.

    BTW – I find it amusing that they are concerned about federal budget. It was the Republicans who took a budget surplus and turned it into record deficits with idiotic tax cuts and an even more idiotic war against Iraq. The Republicans have shown that they LOVE to spend other people’s money and then have our grand-kids pay it back with interest.

  40. 40.

    catclub

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:” I[s] all this really just about becoming the next Grover Norquist or Jim Demint style godfather? ”

    I am thinking more and more, yes. Being in opposition, it is much easier to raise money ( ask Fox News) and there are no responsibilities to govern. Isn’t Sarah Palin a tell on that.

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    Surely there’s some significance to the mutilation of the standard Confederate “battle flag” at the top.

    I don’t think it’s mutilated, I think it’s folded over, and you’re seeing the reverse side of the upper-right corner covering the obverse.

  44. 44.

    Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)

    @dmsilev:

    So they want to primary Mitch McConnell? They are clearly not aware that if a loon is elected to McConnell’s seat that loon will not be Minority Leader and will not be able to supply them with mass quantities of delicious pork.

    It’s become clear that one of the reasons they want to destroy the government is because they don’t understand it.

  46. 46.

    Botsplainer

    @dmsilev:

    He’ll probably be threatening to start cutting himself

    After which, he’ll slam his bedroom door and blow out his speakers by playing Metallica at full volume.

  47. 47.

    bjacques

    If you can find it, Bill Mauldin’s “Back Home,” his sequel to “Up Front” has the American Legion’s number. He wrote it after being sent on a sort of domestic goodwill tour between V-E Day and V-J Day. Great stuff.

  48. 48.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Patrick:

    All true, Patrick. The amazing thing about the teatard movement is that these people had no problems at all, it seems, with the deserting coward not only racking up record deficits after he was handed a surplus, but putting his misadventure in Mesopotamia “off budget” to make his wild spending not seem so bad. Suddenly, right around 8PM PST on 4 November 2008, the budget deficit became a compelling issue, where before it was in the “meh” category of wingnut concerns.

    When Obama terminated the “off budget” lie of his war criminal predecessor, the wingtards jumped up and down like Homer Simpson missing a chili cookoff about how Obama had “exploded” the deficit, because, yeah, the numbers looked a lot worse.

    It is indeed fortunate that such stupidity is not a capital crime in this country, because the wingtards would be in front of death panels faster than you can say Captain Jack Sparrow.

  50. 50.

    fuckwit

    Said earlier, but repeating here: I do not believe that the shutdown or the debt limit are tactics that the Teabaggers are using to accomplish some goal. I believe that the shutdown and default are the goals! They have already accomplished their strategic objective. They have captured the capitol. Now they are going to try to hold it, and there’s nothing we can do to dislodge them lawfully until the next swearing in of a Congress.

    They will try to keep the shutdown going indefinitely, forever, or until we can remove them in January 2015 at the earliest. Same with default, they simply do not care, to them it’s ripping up a credit card. They CANNOT be touched, harmed, or stopped, until they leave office in January 2015– and then only if we succeed in removing them in November 2014. Until then, they are going to try to keep this going as long as they can. We are looking at more than 1 year of absolute hell on earth. If we survive it (and many of us, of course, the poorer ones, will not). This hasn’t ended. It hasn’t even begun yet.

  51. 51.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @SFAW: Ah. I think you and Berial are right. A “Trick of the Light” to these oldish eyes, I guess.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Shakezula

    Has anyone figured out who that twerp is and whether he’s ever had anything to do with the USMC besides being rejected the minute he entered a recruiting center?

  53. 53.

    Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)

    @bjacques:

    I thought that I might want the company of other vets when I returned from my tour in The War to Save Southeast Asia from Self-Determination.

    The American Legion and the VFW were composed of drunken REMFs who told me that I’d lost the war because the troops were all on drugs. I wouldn’t piss on either organization if it was on fire.

  54. 54.

    raven

    @Patricia Kayden: Two different things. The WWII vets were used by those fuckers the first day at the WWII Memorial. Most of he assholes yesterday were “Gathering of Eagles/Promise keeper creeps. Most of them are Nam Vets or later.

  56. 56.

    mark

    When I joined the US Army, I took an oath to protect the constitution, no matter if the POTUS was a Republican or a Democrat. Took it to heart and always thought it was a magnificent idea and was proud to serve such. It has served pretty well for over 200 years. The people at this protest are violating their oath, pure and simple. They hate democrats/liberals and thus hate half (or more) of America. I once waved a huge naval officer over while he was driving his convertible with his girlfriend and a “No Liberals!” bumper sticker. Even though my 2 young sons were in the car, I reemed him out, embarassing him. Called him unAmerican and told him he wasn’t worthy to be in the military if he believed crap like that. He had jumped out his car all badass like and when he saw how righteously pissed off I was and wouldn’t back down (plus I’m 6’2″ 200 and used to compete in the decathalon) he wussed out and drove away. We HAVE to start doing this! This wimpy silence is one of the main reasons we are here today. Hell, somebody want to organize a march on DC, lets turn out in the millions, even if it means your job. We have to start publicly and courageously stand up for Democracy. These RWers hate democracy and are …to their core…unAmerican. They need to be called out (ans I’m not talking about using words like “thug” or “bully”…they are proud to be called this) before its too late. To paraphase an earlier BJ commentor Paul (who was quoting Lincolns Cooper Union speech) : “They want to rule or ruin”. We cannot let them do either, even if it means pain.

    My quick take on all this was…..Rightwing conservatives opposed our entry into WWII. RW conservatives shut down the parks and memorials last week. Yesterday, we had 300-400 American fascists screaming that the memorial to the people who died fighting fascism in WWII was closed. These fascists blamed the closing on a moderate Democrat who, of course, had nothing to do with that closing. This was broadcast lovingly on the Fox/Goebbels Network as “The Million Vet March”.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    @Patrick: Homeland Security was not fully funded as well as Medicare part D and leave no child left behind. Those are adding to the deficit every year. Paying bills is something the repubs don’t understand.

  59. 59.

    catclub

    @Villago Delenda Est: “how Obama had “exploded” the deficit, because, yeah, the numbers looked a lot worse.”

    And the point of putting those costs ON the budget that was to make the budget look MUCH better when those expenses came off the budget.

    Patient man, that President.

  61. 61.

    raven

    @Shakezula: From his Facebook page he appears to have been in the crotch. Don’t go getting the idea that just because someone is a twerp they can’t be a vet too.

  62. 62.

    catclub

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): “The American Legion and the VFW were composed of drunken REMFs who told me that I’d lost the war because the troops were all on drugs.”

    And if you want to know who DID spit on returning vets – it wasn’t the hippies.

  64. 64.

    JPL

    @mark: After WWI, it is my understanding that most nations tried to cut defense, anyway Those Angry Days paints a picture of the Roosevelt trying to convince his own party and the Repubs the importance of saving Europe from Hitler. Most who have read history, know Lindbergh was anti-semitic but there is a lot more to it.

    also, too.. i did not sleep in a holiday inn and I’m not a historian, but I do like books..

  67. 67.

    Berial

    So opinions: Will all the technical glitches the ACA website is having be a major blow against Democrats(and the ACA) next election, or will the glitches be blamed on the shutdown, or will the glitches be fixed before it becomes too big a problem?

  70. 70.

    Linda Featheringill

    Wall Street seems remarkably optimistic. I find that strange.

    I’ve just read articles in WaPo, NYT, and WSJ proclaiming that the Pres can [and probably will?] pay bondholders even if SS, VA disability, and medical care aren’t paid. And the authors seem all right with that idea.

  71. 71.

    Chris

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I keep hearing that Ted Cruz, whatever his blinkered ideology, is very smart. What the fuck is the end goal when the means are slumming around with Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Larry Klayman? Even Rand Paul doesn’t think that crew will get him to the white house. I all this really just about becoming the next Grover Norquist or Jim Demint style godfather?

    None of them are smart in any meaningful sense, because at this point they’ve been immersed in kool aid for so long that they have no idea which way up or down is anymore.

    Those of them who’re “smart” are “smart” in the sense that a Kremlin economist who’d spent his entire life reading falsified economic reports and theorizing about what they meant for the nation’s economy might be “smart” – within that framework it might be impressive, but since the framework is all bullshit, none of their brilliant theorizing is applicable to the real world. (And I don’t exactly see Cruz or Palin as the kind who’re capable of doing their homework even within a bullshit framework).

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @billgerat: Question: If Ted Cruz and John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved?
    Answer: America.

    Wow. That’s positively shrill!

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Berial:

    will the glitches be fixed before it becomes too big a problem?

    They’ll be the same degree of problem that they were for IOS and World of Warcraft expansions.

    Once the glitches (and there are ALWAYS glitches on software projects the magnitude of ACA) are fixed, they will be forgotten, except by people who hate the ACA because it extends health care to the Untermenschen

  77. 77.

    Cacti

    The teabaggers might have a fig leaf of plausible deniability if Palin, Cruz, or Lee had told the fellow with the Confederate flag that his symbol was not welcome.

  78. 78.

    Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)

    @raven:
    Got nothing against the folks who served there, we couldn’t have lived without them. I do have a hardon for the ones who try to pass themselves off as Rambo because they once heard outgoing from a nearby arty fan.

  80. 80.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Cacti:

    Like that would ever happen!

    Display of the Confederate battle flag in the United States should be treated exactly like display of the Hackenkreuz is in Germany.

    Heritage, my ass.

  81. 81.

    MikeJ

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Display of the Confederate battle flag should be treated exactly like display of the Hackenkreuz is in Germany.

    No, it should not be illegal. It’s makes it easy to ID the idiots. It should cause the person who displays it to be shunned.

  84. 84.

    dmsilev

    Hah hah hah hah:

    Robert Costa ✔ @robertcostaNRO
    brewing debate in House GOP as Tues conf nears: Is Sen deal a “cave” or is it a brief, bad step on path to broader reforms?

    I think we’re getting close to the ‘acceptance’ stage of grief here. Depression and bargaining are well represented.

  85. 85.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MikeJ:

    It causes the idiots who display it to identify each other and think they’ve got enough of a pack to try to restore the Confederacy.

  87. 87.

    raven

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): Everybody has some shit about how they had it worse than someone else. We had a guy break his neck diving in a swimming pool. The other casualties in my unit took place when a stupid fucking officer insisted on making a jeep run off a FB before the road was swept for mines. 90% of the people that served in any conflict could be termed REMF’s. Hell, EB Sledge talked about how dudes 50 yards behind them on Pelilu had no idea what it was really like.

  88. 88.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman:

    If you’re talking about metaphorical spitting, there are legions of Vietnam era vets who were treated like spittoons by WWII era vets in the American Legion and VFW.

  94. 94.

    geg6

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yeah, that was pretty harsh, especially considering the source. Roger sounds more than a little pissed off at these assholes. The Village worm has not only turned but it’s doing backflips.

  95. 95.

    feebog

    @mark:

    We have to start publicly and courageously stand up for Democracy.

    Amen brother. I have a friend who posted an article on facebook about how great it was that Jan Brewer was using state funds to reopen the Grand Canyon. Told her that was nice, maybe she could do the same for the NIH so that cancer patients could get back on clinical trials that could save their lives. This whole thing about the monuments is such a transparent stunt, they need to be called out on it.

  98. 98.

    ira-NY

    The southern based Republican party is reenacting Pickett’s charge. The results will be the same.

  99. 99.

    piratedan

    @ira-NY we can hope because I really don’t believe that Longstreet will be able to get his troops into a position to support in time…..

  100. 100.

    Bokonon

    Perhaps this is what happens when you have Newt Gingrich going around and grifting for 15 years, doing seminars and speaking gigs at which he told the party faithful that the LAST government shutdown was really a BigSUCCESS, and that it has been MISINTERPRETED by the biased LIBERAL MEDIA … and what the GOP really needs to do is DO THE SAME THING, MUCH HARDER, WITH MORE RESOLVE, UNTIL VICTORY.

    And they believed him, too!

    Gingrich and some of the GOP’s other strategists are right about one thing, though. Whatever the polls say at the time, the GOP always pays a smaller price with the general public over the long term for bad, unpopular stuff – like the 1990’s shutdowns, or for the impeachment clown show – then people expect at the time. They are focusing on the short attention span of the American public, and the importance of achieving long term goals.

  103. 103.

    jl

    Menzie Chinn post at Econbrowser showing steep rise in short term Treasury rates end of last week.

    Chinn says market prices now indicate a 3 percent chance of default. I hope today’s doings in Washington doesn’t send that higher.

    I extract the part of the post that addresses the prioritizing idea. I vaguely remember that there was not a default but a delay in payments during a problem extending the debt limit in Truman or Ike admins. They managed to pay most of the bills with some funky gold bullion tricks between the US Treasury and the Fed. Chinn mentions prioritization occurring in 1957, so I guess it was Eisenhower administration.

    Treasury makes 4 million payments a day? Shows the idiocy of the GOPer Rep who was shocked and chewed out Lew for not having a workable plan to prioritize (like planning for default should have high priority? I guess Lew should have said “I apologize that we didn’t develop accurate forecasts that morons would take over the House ”

    Movements in Short Term Treasurys

    ” Much of the belief that there is not much issue with breaching the debt ceiling seems to stem from the belief that interest payments can be prioritized so as to be only in technical default. As many have noted (including the GAO), it’s not clear that either legally or technically such prioritization could be implemented (think about all those government computers still running COBOL [1]…and Treasury makes about 4 million payments per day, many more than undertaken in 1957 when prioritization last occurred). ”

    http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2013/10/movements_in_sh.html

  106. 106.

    West of the Rockies

    Okay, so the conventional wisdom holds that the Republican party has largely surrendered to the Tea Party element. A lot of grifting rightwing pundits weigh in on the side of the TPers (Limbaugh, e.g.). The TP favorability ratings are plunging, but everyone (on the right) is fearful of piling on for fear of being primaried (if they’re politicians) or being labeled a RINO.

    So what do you all think IS the logical sequence of outcomes? We hear that the GOP voting block is getting ever older and dying off. I don’t think much will ultimately come from “Big Businesses” discontent with the GOP, but I could be wrong. (Mainstream Repubs do seem to grant Big Business many boons, yes?)

    I keep hoping we’re seeing peak wingnut, but I am feeling like Charlie Brown trying to kick that damn football on this point.

  109. 109.

    Chris

    @feebog:

    Well said.

    The things we choose to care about have come out pretty well in this crisis, as Republican congressmen and the media both obsess on WW2 veterans’ inability to visit a monument rather than… the many far more serious consequences of a shutdown.

  111. 111.

    Howard Beale IV

    How in the flying fsck could Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro graduate from Harvard?

    Then again, they were insane enough to give Niall Ferguson and his second wife jobs…..

  117. 117.

    Howard Beale IV

    @jl: Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but COBOL is perhaps the most CPU-resource efficient language on the planet, short of assembler. Couple that with the extreme cost and risk of converting off of COBOL-based platforms,
    perhaps you can appreciate one of the reasons why the roll-out of the PPACA has been such a clusterfuck, namely because the presentation and application tiers were so badly designed to begin with.

  118. 118.

    geg6

    @ranchandsyrup:

    OMG, that is a huge bundle of cuteness! So, loving that whole dad thing, aren’t you? She’s stolen your heart and you’ll never get it back!

  119. 119.

    jl

    @Howard Beale IV: That was Chinn’s text, not mine. Sorry for confusion. I got nothing against COBOL. Actually, for obscure reasons long ago I had to work on a version of COBOL that was modified to be more efficient than regular version. Forget the name now (NEAT3?). Anyway, I thought COBOL was ancient and awful when I did that, but that was not me snarking on COBOL in my comment.

    Edit: well, obviously I DO have something against COBOL, but I wouldn’t snark about it in a blog post like Chinn did.. But I think Chinn was making a joke, son, a joke, I say.

  120. 120.

    PsiFighter37

    Why are people ‘optimistic’ about this whole situation? We are giving concessions to Mitch McConnell in the Senate when we should be giving them the sharp end of the knife in the back.

    Seriously, I do not care how menial the ‘concessions’ included are – we should be shivving them hard by now. Take pre-sequestration budget levels, or you are responsible for default. Now open wide, eat this shit sandwich, and here’s some mule’s hair to floss out the fecal matter that gets stuck in between the braces.

    Goddammit – this was our chance at total fucking victory and to break these nutjobs in half for good.

  121. 121.

    Howard Beale IV

    @jl: NP. I learned to program COBOL before I learned how to drive a car.

    In 1975.

    NEAT/3 was a COBOL variant developed by NCR.

    I remember some asshole’s in the computer press that the last mainframe would be unplugged in the mid-1990s. Not only did they survive, but IBM just released a new COBOL compiler that exploits the latest z-Series architecture, with CPU’s that mop the floor of Intel Core/Xeon/Opteron/Itanium CPU’s.

    As the late Idreis Shah once said: “He who tastes, knows”-which is one of the reasons I loathe a lot of the tech press.

  122. 122.

    dogwood

    @PsiFighter37:
    We are never going to break these people for good. They are crazy white people with a chip on their shoulders and they have always been with us. They are the neo-confederate dead-eners that the media and pundits see as the real Americans.

  124. 124.

    jl

    @PsiFighter37:

    The proposed deal establishes some stupid budget commission before the proposed subsequent budget limit in early Feb 2012, and..

    ‘ delay of Obamacare’s medical device tax, which has repeatedly come up during the debate. But according to sources, it may require Obamacare enrollees to verify their income eligibility prior to receiving subsidies, which Republicans have pushed. And it may delay for one year a little-known reinsurance tax under the Affordable Care Act aimed at stabilizing premiums. It’s a bipartisan carrot: Democrats support the idea because labor unions dislike the fee, and Republicans can claim they lopped off a damaging tax under Obamacare. Agreement on these two Obamacare-related items isn’t final but they remain under discussion in the late stages of the negotiation.

    “The Republicans would get income verification, we would get a delay in the reinsurance tax,” said a Democratic source familiar with the talks. ‘

    The Senate May Have A Debt Deal — But Will The House Play Ball?
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/breakthrough-senate-reaches-deal-to-avert-default-but-will-house-follow

    My comment: I think coming with away with such small fry BS will be humiliating to House GOP who wanted to destroy ACA and take another hack at social insurance. So they make not even a nick on ACA, except income verification, which will be GOP’s baby and cause a fuss now that you don’t have to register to shop for policies.

    And if House doesn’t pass, will be due to the usual GOP gang of idiots over there and its pathetic leaders.

    Any deal could have been a lot worse. If this Senate thing flies, will be interesting to see what House GOP does.

    Edit: I figure the budget commission will just a give the GOP a chance to babble about what they really want to do with social security, medicare and medicaid, in public, right before the election, when the public will be paying close attention for several reasons.

    So, is yet another BS budget commission a concession, or another trick the evil Dr. Genius Obama (edit EleventyD chess grand master) pulled on the poor hapless GOP, which will fuel their resentment at the unfairness of life?

  126. 126.

    joel hanes

    @JPL:

    Lindbergh was anti-semitic

    Many wealthy Americans were outright fascists between WW I and WW II

    William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy (JFK’s father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush, J.P. Morgan, the DuPonts, E.F. Hutton, and Joseph Pew of Sunoco. The DuPonts in particular were rabid enough to have backed the “generals plot” against FDR that was foiled by Smedley Butler and Hanford MacNider.

    And many American corporations helped the fascists tool up, particularly
    DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Ford, ITT, National City Bank, and General Electric.

    In 1940 Graeme K. Howard, Vice President of General Motors, published America and a New World Order, in which he advised that America give full cooperation to the Nazi regime. In his book he blames FDR for causing the war in Europe and goes on to say that the fascists should be supported

    Koch-ism has a long pedigree in America.

  128. 128.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SFAW:

    I don’t think it’s mutilated, I think it’s folded over, and you’re seeing the reverse side of the upper-right corner covering the obverse.

    That’s what I figured when I looked at it trying to figure out why one arm of the saltire was missing.

  130. 130.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Berial:

    Will all the technical glitches the ACA website is having be a major blow against Democrats(and the ACA) next election, or will the glitches be blamed on the shutdown, or will the glitches be fixed before it becomes too big a problem?

    I reject Choice A, I wish Choice B, I believe Choice C.

  132. 132.

    srv

    @Howard Beale IV:

    but COBOL is perhaps the most CPU-resource efficient language on the planet,

    Not if you don’t have the source code, 10 year old libraries, and instructions are being executed in software emulation layers because the chips don’t do that native anymore.

  133. 133.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Linda Featheringill:

    pitchforks on sale here:

    If Jeff Bezos were really smart, he’d put together a package:

    1 Pitchfork
    3 Torches
    1 Tumbrel

    Buy all three for $98.73 (new, used from $58.64)

    Amazon Prime customers eligible for free knitting needles.

    Customers who viewed this also viewed:

    Guillotine ($1,787.99)

  135. 135.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @ranchandsyrup: What a GREAT photo!! That one should be framed in silver and placed on the grand piano in the living room for the next 25 years.

    And if I failed to say it earlier, huge congratulations to you and Mrs. R&S.

  136. 136.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @hildebrand: Without knowing a thing about him, i’ll send a little coin to his campaign. That’s how much of a yellow dog I am these days.

  137. 137.

    karen

    Am I the only person who thinks that part of why there are “glitches” is that the Tea Partiers are hacking into the Obamacare website and wreaking havoc with Denial of Service attacks? After all, those libertarians have a lot of their ilk in Silicon Valley.

  139. 139.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    As long as he and Rob Zerban don’t kill each other off. (Zerban ran against Ryan in 2012.) Anything that gets the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver out of the government is probably a good thing.

  140. 140.

    Hungry Joe

    @Villago Delenda Est: Re the five outright lies in that sentence: There’s a Dashiell Hammett short story in which his protagonist, the Continental Op, is in Tijuana, killing time in a bar:

    “I was reading a sign high on the wall behind the bar:

    ONLY GENUINE PRE-WAR AMERICAN AND BRITISH WHISKEYS SERVED HERE

    “I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more … “

  142. 142.

    The Sailor

    Um, this is an open thread, right?

    So I’m wondering why “Monday Night Football” even exists these days.
    It’s on cable, it starts at 8:40 pm EST.

    Maybe the NFL should just go to the HSN.
    FFS, NFL is supposed to be played on Sundays! Like god intended it.

  144. 144.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SFAW:

    Agreed, I’d be happy to see the ZEGS gone, no matter how. And I haven’t taken the time yet to check out their respective positions. I’m sure I’d be happy with Zerban, but I can’t help thinking that Amardeep Kaleka would cause all sorts of splody-headedness, and that just has to be a plus.

  145. 145.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    but I can’t help thinking that Amardeep Kaleka would cause all sorts of splody-headedness, and that just has to be a plus.

    Good point. I like the way you think.

  146. 146.

    catclub

    @The Sailor: “NFL is supposed to be played on Sundays! Like god intended it. ”
    The primary reason NFL Football has an antitrust exemption is they promised not to have games on Friday Nights
    and Saturdays – which might collide with High school and College.

  148. 148.

    daverave

    @BGinCHI:

    My quick read of your comment had me seeing “tasted” instead of “tested.”

    Yes, Palin, Cruz and Lee need to be tasted.
    Eat the Rich!

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