With an ice pick. MT @politicalwire: Cantor: "Winning elections is about convincing voters that we have their back."
http://t.co/6ylCkRW97o
— billmon (@billmon1) December 8, 2013
.
…. once you learn to fake sincerity, you’ve got it made!
The Political Wire quote is taken from a WaPo article by horserace tout Chris Cillizza:
Virginia Republicans are in the midst of a three-day gathering to sort through what happened in their across-the-board losses at the ballot box in 2013…
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke Saturday — a speech in which he tried to offer a vision for how the party can start winning again. Here’s the crux of the Cantor argument:
Winning elections is about convincing the voters that the we have their back, that we’re on their side. If we want to win, we must offer solutions to problems that people face every day. We have not done this recently and it has allowed Democrats to take power, it has allowed them to push their partisan politics, and even worse to enact their leftist agenda.
Cantor is right. Republicans have lost recent elections — both in Virginia and nationally — because they have been unable to a) prove to voters they have a positive vision for the country and b) effectively push back on the picture that Democrats have painted of them as cold, unfeeling plutocrats…
***********
Apart from keeping an eye on the usual suspects, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?
Zifnab25
One problem. If Republicans start offering positive, reasonable, popular legislative ideas, Democrats might agree and support them. And if a democrat supports you, then you’ll be eaten alive in your primary.
Elmo
HGTV, wine, and a fire. Haven’t showered since Friday. Haven’t worn anything but pajamas. If I were male, I’d have a three-day beard going.
Do I have to go to work tomorrow?
SiubhanDuinne
Wonder why my comment (on the last thread) just up and disappeared into the ether?
It was a nice, long (but not too long), well-thought-out statement.
Okay, WordPress, fuck you very much. I’m NOT typing that whole thing again. I guess that’ll show you, huh?
Aji
Oh, yeah, right, the problem is that “Democrats have painted . . . them as cold, unfeeling plutocrats.”
It has nothing to do with the fact that they ARE cold, unfeeling plutocrats.
Mike in NC
Dear GOP: Please keep listening to Eric Cantor, that smarmy little shit.
ranchandsyrup
Done with decorating. In laws are here hanging with the little ones. Have some steaks and chicken marinating in a soy/ginger/garlic/beer marinade that we are going to grill. Got the first bake on the twice baked taters going too.
Elmo
@ranchandsyrup:
Oooo!! I have a giant russet in the oven now. What’s stage 2?
Yatsuno
Seachickens are one quarter from driving me insane. That and two more doctor’s appointments before the Big Cut.
Oh and staying warm. It’s butt ass cold out there.
linda
Cizzilla may be a horserace reporter but the column is spot on. And the guy ( Cantor) who most reminds me of Uriah Heep (the Dickens character, not the group) is not the type to sell empathy effectively.
NotMax
Mentioned this beforehand, but no reason not to do so again.
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s holiday wish list.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Maybe if the GOP used a bigger dildo during their ass rapes the electorate would like them?
MikeJ
@Yatsuno:
And that’s why you’re getting the replacement? That seems excessive.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar puppeh!
Ash Can
Dear GOP,
Other than the fact that you’re all insufferable assholes and every one of your policies sucks the farts out of dead pigeons, you’re doing just fine.
Signed,
America
Baud
I’d be interested in hearing his explanation of what they think they’ve been doing recently.
WereBear
I read an article recently that said his wife is a “liberal Democrat.” And I just can’t wrap my mind around it.
It’s hard enough to think of any self-respecting woman who can kiss that sneeringly ridiculous excuse for a face, but a “liberal Democrat”?
My gob, it is smacked.
ranchandsyrup
@ranchandsyrup: Scoop em out and put some green onions and cream cheese and bacon and other to be determined cheeses in there and brown em up.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
Maybe she doesn’t, which would explain a lot.
SiubhanDuinne
This is brilliant, awesome, and funny.
And completely off-topic.
gene108
I wonder, if Eric Cantor prefers Happy Holidays to Merry Christmas?
I mean does he even celebrate Christmas or does he just go out and eat Chinese food and catch a movie, like a lot of Jews do?
Chris
@Aji:
What’s crazy is that it’s not as if they’re hiding the fact that they’re cold unfeeling plutocrats. They shout it from the rooftops every chance they get. Herman Cain told the unemployed to blame themselves for what had been done to them, Ron Paul said that the uninsured, if they got sick, should just die already, Mitt Romney said he wasn’t worried about the working class and that he’d never get the 47% to take responsibility for their own lives already. Apart from that last one, all those quotes were said in public.
The Democrats don’t need to paint them as cold unfeeling plutocrats. They’re doing that to themselves just by opening their mouths and talking. Which makes the level of self-awareness in their “why are you calling us that!” just that much more ludicrous.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: My butt froze off. I need a new one.
Well okay that’s an exaggeration. But it’s in the general area.
Chris
@WereBear:
I wonder what exactly that means in a world where, according to the powers that be, Richard Cohen is a liberal.
Ruckus
@Ash Can:
LOL
Be a lot funnier if it wasn’t true.
lamh36
Ok, speaking of sincerity, I posted a little about this in the last thread, but I had to post it again…I really just can’t wrap my mind around this one…
Steeplejack
I’m iced in here in NoVa, or at least that’s the excuse I used for not going to my brother’s house for dinner. It snowed this morning and into the afternoon, and there has been rain or a “wintry mix” off and on since then. Temp is 29° now, with a winter storm warning still in effect until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, and the roads are icy. No need to get out in that. So I’m cocooning with the housecat and trying to decide on what comfort food for dinner.
The other question is whether DayQuil decongestant goes better with gin or rum. I’ve been trying to shake a cold for a couple of weeks, and I’ve got it down to a nagging cough and extreme tiredness. Tedious.
On the plus side, I’ve been binge-reading Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole novels. Those are pretty good.
lamh36
Something else I posted late in the last thread:
COUGHS…BULLSHHHH…COUGHS!!!!
Baker: Reagan Regretted Veto Of Sanctions Against South Africa
Pogonip
@jeffreyw: What a cutie.
demz taters
Here’s a video I’m sure the crowd here will appreciate:
You Shall Not Pass, Dog
lamh36
Aww shhhh, I’m watching Breakin’ on one of the Encore channels…I’m poppin and lockin’ ya’ll!
Just amazing to see that the whole “white girl learns about life and soul” from the streets dance movie was alive and well back then…
Cervantes
@WereBear:
Diana Cantor used to be a Democrat. She’s a card-carrying Republican now. (They’ve been married more than 20 years, as I recall.)
She’s a lawyer and works in finance and accounting. In the 80s she was a VP at Goldman, Sachs.
geg6
The season finale of the The Amazing Race. I dearly love that show and travel the world vicariously through it.
I finished up Season 2 of Downton Abbey today after the fail parade of a football game that I’m sure had Cole apoplectic at the end. Why didn’t I start watching this show from the start? I’m such an asshole about following a trend that I get stubborn and refuse to participate just so I can not be a part of the crowd. I’m fifty-five fucking years old and I’m still rebelling and cutting my nose off to spite my face. Humans are slow learners.
Hungry Joe
That “picture that Democrats have painted of them as cold, unfeeling plutocrats”? It’s called photorealism.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
A favorite Russian proverb:
It’s a long walk to the church, and the roads are icy.
It’s a longer walk to the tavern, but I’ll be careful.
Cervantes
@Cervantes: I should probably have added that, when asked, she still occasionally speaks out against her husband’s views on choice and same-sex marriage.
Cervantes
@Baud: I’d be interested in hearing his explanation of what they think they’ve been doing recently.
Let’s see how long it takes for some reporter to ask.
danielx
@Ash Can:
This.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And this.
Shorter: If you really want to win elections at the national level, stop acting like assholes. Oh wait…
Chyron HR
It’s weird that the GOP won one of the two gubernatorial elections held this year, but apparently they can’t admit that because UNCLEAN UNCLEAN SKREEEEEE!
Does this mean we know who Virginia’s AG is going to be now?
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Um…maybe you could start by actually being on their side, instead of trying to steal their health insurance so you ca sell their organs to buy more guns? Just a thought.
As for me, homemade clam chowder in the crock pot, with little sourdough loaves to be hollowed out for bowls.
Also, made rum balls. they’re usually the wildest thing at my office parties, and the tamest thing at my (school bus driver) wife’s office parties. Get a bunch of school bus drivers together with their spouses for designated drivers, and they really cut loose.
WereBear
@Cervantes: Thank you, this explains it!
Nice that the wives of Republicans sometimes speak out about cruel R policies… haven’t’ seen any of them change because of it.
Mammon worshippers, both of them.
Cervantes
@lamh36: That wasn’t Face the Nation so much as it was Moon the Nation.
If anyone still trusts James Addison Baker III at this point, they deserve what’s coming to them.
Smiling Mortician
@Elmo:
Nope. Tell ’em I said so.
kindness
Niners dude.
MomSense
@jeffreyw:
Awww.
@demz taters:
That was very cute.
Black beans and rice tonight with a green salad and lots of hot tea. My son informed me that if it is just going to be cold with no snow he would rather just have summer.
maya
Give Pluto a break. Not even a planet anymore.
How about;”Democrats have painted of them as cold, unfeeling uranuscrats”…
Cervantes
@WereBear: Nice that the wives of Republicans sometimes speak out about cruel R policies… haven’t’ seen any of them change because of it.
Worse still, the way the Cantors play it, we are told what an open-minded and soul-searching kind of guy Eric is — which fools, I estimate, approximately 0.00 people.
Mike in NC
@geg6:
We do love that show, too, especially when the Ugly Americans on it think they can communicate with the local population simply by speaking English very loudly and very slowly.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Argh. I’m having bad luck with this stew. First I managed to knock over the bottle of beer and lost half of it on the kitchen floor. (Did I mention that the cleaning people just mopped it yesterday?) now I went to check on it and discovered that the gas burner had gone out, because our stove sucks.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can:
Stealing.
dmsilev
@Cervantes:
I’m assuming that you don’t count “Beltway reporter” under “people”?
GregB
@efgoldman:
It took very little paint to accomplish that.
Baud
@kindness:
Seahawks used all their football mojo on my Saints last week. :-(
piratedan
since the GOP has already claimed MLK, how long before they do the same with Mandela. Keeps them feeling good about themselves for all of the wrong reasons.
Litlebritdiftrnt
This is a great idea. Solves two problems at once, food waste and poverty.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/09/goldthorpe-social-supermarket-community-shop-food-poverty?CMP=twt_fd
UK opens first social supermarket.
geg6
@Mike in NC:
I love when the cab drivers fuck with the Ugly Americans. I like to think that is what really happens to Tom Friedman.
polyorchnid octopunch
@dmsilev: I think it’s probably reasonable to assume they’re not fooled, but instead are aiding in the propaganda.
Baud
Booman on this topic:
Mandalay
@lamh36: OT, but from your link:
Wow. I doubt if any of us will live long enough to see anyone match that guest list.
[ETA maybe the Queen, unfortunately?….]
Yatsuno
@Litlebritdiftrnt: The best thing you can do in a desert is dig a well or look for an oasis.
catclub
Political Animal notes that they are going with the oh so successful method of picking candidates by state convention, which worked so well the last cycle. Rather than involve even their own voters in primaries.
These are the people who want to repeal popular election of senators. Too much democracy.
Mike E
Finishing up a 36 hour 4 day weekend of work by doing backstage security for my local symphony. I shook hands with Yo Yo Ma! I’ll take it as an early Xmas gift.
Baud
@Mandalay:
The Queen’s will be HUGE.
NotMax
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Yum. Rum balls are always a festive addition.
I keep a bottle of coconut-flavored rum in the larder solely for making them.
Cacti
@piratedan:
In a year or so, Glenn Beck will be talking about how Mandela agreed with Reagan’s veto of anti-apartheid sanctions.
Mike E
@Baud: Heh, the We Will Rock You Queen retro is just ending their run right next door.
Mandalay
@geg6:
I have long suspected that almost everything Friedman claims came from taxi drivers is just stuff he made up in some hotel. Of course it’s a good gig for him. After all, who can actually prove he’s a lying sack of shit when he spews all that garbage?
I think he’s just another Lance Armstrong, but with a notepad instead of pedals. He’s not just an asshole on a personal level, but his whole life is a complete fraud.
Xantar
The Executive Director of the Maryland Health Connection has resigned. I don’t know enough about the situation to say how much of what happened was her fault, but I will say that heads needed to roll. Other states have demonstrated that it’s possible to have a functioning system. But even beyond the website, the bureaucracy over there has proven inept in many ways. Changing deadlines, little communication about requirements, seminars being scheduled at the last second and then cancelled at the last second after everybody has scrambled to make it, publishing materials with blatantly incorrect information…I understand government agencies often aren’t good at IT, but I’m sorry to say the Maryland Health Connection has done a terrible job at a lot of the non-technical stuff too.
aimai
Making an egg nog poundcake for my younger daughter to take to school to share with her friends for her birthday tomorrow. I used to have a great, easy, recipe for this but couldn’t find it and this one isn’t it. Here’s hoping it works.
Aji
@Chris: ‘Zackly.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Yeah, I SO don’t want to hear about how your stove sucks. In fact, I’ll trade you.
Thoughtful David
@Baud: I saw this too–great news. I hope the Virginia GOP keeps up these tactics, so we Democrats can finish out takeover of the state in a couple of years.
Just hopin’
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Aji:
ORLY? Did I mention that we have one (1) burner that works consistently, one that works if you light it manually, and two totally non-functional ones?
And don’t get me started on the stove. The best I can say about it is that it’s bigger than yours, so in theory I could cook multiple things in it … if it didn’t have constantly variable temperatures.
And, of course, we’re renting an apartment, so it’s not even like we could save up our pennies and get a new one if we wanted to. So I say to you, Feh. ;-)
(Your food looked delish, BTW.)
Aji
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m inordinately proud of how it turned out, under the circumstances. There have been holiday dinners that have come out of the crock pot. Which I may do for Christmas with a little ham, since it works so well . . . .
Can still top you, though. Have to light every single burner by hand for every individual use, and only the back two (of four) work. Cannot use stovetop and oven simultaneously. oh, and then there’s the water heater . . . . [Yeah, I know, I’ve whined at you about that one before, so I’ll spare you this time. :-D] Like you, I’m hanging onto the idea of someday . . . .
Villago Delenda Est
Which has the virtue of being unquestionably true.
danielx
@Aji:
You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing. ;) Seriously, I’ve served chicken and sausage gumbo for Christmas dinner and it worked just fine, thankyewverymuch.
Aji
@danielx: Oh, not bad at all. I LOVE slow cooking and do it all the time. Some folks, though (not us, fortunately) think that holiday dinners have to be the bird and certain other trimmings, all done a certain way, or it doesn’t qualify.
JustRuss
When the biggest plank in your platform for three decades running is that government is the problem, well, good luck with that.
Lurking Canadian
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
That sounds delicious. Are you willing to share the recipe for your chowder?
PurpleGirl
@demz taters: Of course the dog doesn’t want to pass the cat — cats have claws and will swipe the dog or jump on the dog and then use the claws, and all sorts of combinations of those moves. And cats KNOW they can terrorize dogs. I’ve seen it and the cat delighted in terrorizing the dogs.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: My aunt had a cat who used whack my dog across the face with his claws. My aunt eventually had the critter declawed, I took my dog over to visit shortly thereafter. I didn’t left him hurt the cat, but I wanted him to have the fun of knowing that the paw swipe was totally harmless.
Matt
Funny how ten years of non-stop obstructionism and sabotage (with the occasional break when the banks want a handie) will convince people you might not have a positive agenda…
VOR
@Baud: Barbara Tuchman’s classic “The Guns of August” opens with a list of all the royalty who attended the funeral of King Edward VII of the UK in 1910. The book calls it “the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last”. Wikipedia has the list
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Lurking Canadian:
3-4 potatoes, peeled & cubed
2 carrots, peeled & cubed
6 slices bacon, cut up & sauteeed until crisp
3 green onions, chopped
1 tsp Worsterchire sauce
4 drops tobasco
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper (skip if using pepper bacon)
enough water to cover
NO CELERY. CELERY IS EVIL.
Cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 4 hours.
Add:
2 cans minced or chopped clams, drained
1 – 1/2 cups cream or half-and-half
1 can cream of celery soup (ok, not completely evil)
Serve in hollowed-out sourdough bowls (it’s a San Francisco thing)
Lurking Canadian
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: thanks!