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You are here: Home / The hurt and the anger, the joy of the pain

The hurt and the anger, the joy of the pain

by DougJ|  December 19, 201310:14 am| 258 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, The Decadent Left In Its Enclaves On The Coasts

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Your latest wingnut freak-out, even more like self-parody than usual.

Look at how they portray the American male: a hot chocolate drinking doofus in a onesie. Disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/Ov1wAaShk0

— Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros) December 17, 2013

@BarackObama The person is androgynous, ethnically neutral, yet still manages to elicit feelings of great loathing and repugnance. #fail

— Hugo Hackenbush (@MangyLover) December 17, 2013

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Previous Post: « Will you stay or will you go
Next Post: One more Obamacare update »

Reader Interactions

258Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Mary

    December 19, 2013 at 10:15 am

    I think the ad was designed to subconsciously evoke whatsisname (the short one) from the Big Bang Theory. It’s a media conspiracy, I tell ya.

  2. 2.

    sparrow

    December 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    I’m confused by the “yet” in the second quote. I thought conservatives made their bread and butter loathing those that appear androgynous or ethnically mixed.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    December 19, 2013 at 10:18 am

    Worse than Watergate

  4. 4.

    Baud

    December 19, 2013 at 10:20 am

    #GetTalking

    Win!

  5. 5.

    Hunter Gathers

    December 19, 2013 at 10:22 am

    I really hope that dude in the photo isn’t Shinto.

  6. 6.

    Bubblegum Tate

    December 19, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Oh, so THAT’S the “pajamaboy” I’ve been seeing them freak out about. To wit (and I use the term “wit” extremely loosely here):
    “Here’s an idea, AETV: Replace the Robertsons with PajamaBoy and his pals. Rename it Suck Dynasty.”

    Criminy, what a bunch of losers.

  7. 7.

    Hill Dweller

    December 19, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Irony officially died when Rick Lowery called him an “insufferable man-child”.

  8. 8.

    gussie

    December 19, 2013 at 10:29 am

    From Tinky Wink to PJs …

  9. 9.

    Baud

    December 19, 2013 at 10:30 am

    I sure wouldn’t want to be in the same risk pool as that guy.

  10. 10.

    El Caganer

    December 19, 2013 at 10:30 am

    Is there anything that wingnuts can’t use as an excuse for outrage?

  11. 11.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 10:33 am

    What is so offensive about the photo?

  12. 12.

    lgerard

    December 19, 2013 at 10:34 am

    So

    Pajamas and hot chocolate = gay doofus

    then

    Sweatpants + Big Gulp = real murican

  13. 13.

    Mr. Longform

    December 19, 2013 at 10:34 am

    Really. They should show one of the Duck Dynasty guys drinking moonshine if they really want to persuade people to talk about health insurance in an intelligent way. Or they should show that guy from Kentucky who accidentally shot himself while using the toilet. Who does the marketing for these people?

  14. 14.

    Brian R.

    December 19, 2013 at 10:35 am

    @Comrade Mary:

    Oh, that’s actually pretty good.

    Please keep talking about the ad, conservatives. Make sure everyone is talking about signing up for Obamacare. Thanks!

  15. 15.

    Bubblegum Tate

    December 19, 2013 at 10:35 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    It’s of a “beta male.” Who wears pajamas. Seriously, that’s about it.

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    December 19, 2013 at 10:36 am

    Maybe he’d be more acceptable if he were a hot-chocolate-drinking WWE wrestler in a onesie — but I kind of doubt that.

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2013 at 10:36 am

    @El Caganer:

    Is there anything that wingnuts can’t use as an excuse for outrage?

    No. These are the people who got all lathered up about a scarf worn by a celebrity in a Dunkin Donuts commercial.

  18. 18.

    chuck butcher

    December 19, 2013 at 10:37 am

    Really…??? I am going to have to learn how to keep up.

  19. 19.

    GregB

    December 19, 2013 at 10:38 am

    There is a really strange rage among a lot of white men about media portrayals of people that they can’t pigeonhole as black or white or Hispanic.

    I remember one wingnutty pal talking with disdain about how many commercials have ethnically ambiguous people.

    There is a cultural freakout going among a lot of white folks. They see themselves as under siege and losing the world they knew.

    Sad.

  20. 20.

    Marc

    December 19, 2013 at 10:41 am

    @sparrow: I think he’s pissed because he can’t tell which gender and ethnicity he’s supposed to loathe here.

    I actually agree with the first comment, right up until the part where she gives a damn.

  21. 21.

    Shrillhouse

    December 19, 2013 at 10:42 am

    Androgynous, ethnically neutral, yet still manages to elicit feelings of great loathing and repugnance

    This simply must become a rotating tag.

  22. 22.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @Bubblegum Tate: They should be so lucky as to be beta males. In my mind NRO writers like Rich Lowry are omega males.

  23. 23.

    aimai

    December 19, 2013 at 10:43 am

    @GregB: That guys only “ethnically ambiguous” if you think that Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, French people and Jews aren’t “white” which, of course, is still hotly debated I suppose in some circles. To me as an older white woman he looks adorably like the just post teenage son I didn’t have. These guys are terrified of any representation of their fellow citizens and the government which isn’t, itself, terrifying. The poor kid looks like an adorable elf, very christmassy.

  24. 24.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 10:43 am

    What does ethnically neutral even mean, can you be ethnically acidic or basic?

  25. 25.

    Gene108

    December 19, 2013 at 10:44 am

    Speaking of Christmas Jammie’s

  26. 26.

    amk

    December 19, 2013 at 10:44 am

    How exactly one must ‘portray’ the American male?

  27. 27.

    The Dangerman

    December 19, 2013 at 10:44 am

    I’d be far more impressed with the people that are advocating that the young/healthy skip Obamacare if they started a fund to pay for health care expenses if the young/healthy were to actually get really sick or have a nasty accident.

  28. 28.

    Violet

    December 19, 2013 at 10:45 am

    @Comrade Mary: Yeah, I thought it was a young Leonard from Big Bang Theory.

    @El Caganer: No. Wingnuts can manufacture outrage from thin air. Example: Thin air–thin is an outrage against our traditional ways of eating. Good food that fills you right up. Real Americans are skinny like Hollywood liberal elites. And air–that’s the Big Soshulist Government telling me what I can and can’t drive because of some made up concerns about healthy air. Keep your Soshulist Government out of my smog!

  29. 29.

    Bill in Section 147

    December 19, 2013 at 10:51 am

    Bullying worked when they were in high school. “Guys that looked like that knew to shut up when a real man was talking.”

    The schmucks just offended another sliver of the population. Pretty soon the conservatives will look like the cast in a old Civil War movie. A bunch of grizzled, angry white poors, a couple of rich, dandyfied gentleman, thin-lipped, frustrated ladies, a few pretty young belles in uncomfortable clothing and a couple of black people shaking their heads while they try to clean up the mess.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    December 19, 2013 at 10:54 am

    Hey, I like hot chocolate. Pajamas, not so much. Does that make me bisexual?

  31. 31.

    Roger That

    December 19, 2013 at 10:55 am

    For some reason they get upset if they don’t see pictures of buff, dominating men. Odd, that.

  32. 32.

    Feudalism Now!

    December 19, 2013 at 10:56 am

    I would prefer Jammie-gate to all the conservitas over the oldest redneck from Duck Dynasty being silenced for his religous beliefs.

  33. 33.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 10:56 am

    @sparrow: That jumped out at me also, but I think it’s pretty clear what “yet” means and is the real giveaway. Paraphrased: “He’s not even some sort of minority, e.g. black or latino, yet still we loathe him. ”

    “Ethnic” is shorthand for non-white.

  34. 34.

    Phil Perspective

    December 19, 2013 at 10:56 am

    I don’t get the big deal. To me the guy looks like a Yglesias-ian hipster.

  35. 35.

    The Other Bob

    December 19, 2013 at 10:57 am

    Yay, free advertising. Thanks wingnuts!

  36. 36.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 10:57 am

    @Comrade Mary: Leonard, the character I’m most like.

    //

    Actually, I’m more interested in the article on the right at the Wire: “Jennifer Lawrence Talks Butt Plugs as Universe Achieves Clickbait Singularity.”

  37. 37.

    Flukebucket

    December 19, 2013 at 10:58 am

    @Feudalism Now!: No shit. I guarantee you this Sunday a huge percentage of church goers will be wearing one of those goofy beards and eating a biscuit from Chick-Fil-A.

  38. 38.

    Capri

    December 19, 2013 at 10:59 am

    @The Dangerman:
    Better yet, how about saying no to health care and then get pregnant?

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    December 19, 2013 at 10:59 am

    The “ethnically neutral” bit sounds like a manifestation of the deep wingnut fear that they will accidentally treat a black or brown person as an equal and thereby cause Armageddon. (Or whatever. I’m still not sure what the terrifying thing is that will happen if a white dude treats a non-white person as an equal. All I know is that it’s TERRIFYING!1!)

  40. 40.

    RaflW

    December 19, 2013 at 11:00 am

    @GregB:

    I remember one wingnutty pal talking with disdain about how many commercials have ethnically ambiguous people.

    There is a cultural freakout going among a lot of white folks. They see themselves as under siege and losing the world they knew.

    Racially ambiguous people are evidence, one imagines, that miscegenation is happening. That’s one wingnut problem.

    More generally, ambiguity is very hard for conservatives. By their nature they want clear boundaries and rules.

    Oh, and I see the freakout as more about homophobia and gender roles than color, but that’s my lens. Foofy guys w/ hot chocolate are like the quiche-eaters of the 80s.

  41. 41.

    Culture of Truth

    December 19, 2013 at 11:04 am

    Indeed, it’s odd, since normally one must know a person’s ethnicity to decide whether or not to feel great loathing and repugnance for that person. Quite so.

  42. 42.

    Wag

    December 19, 2013 at 11:04 am

    I agree 100% that the RW freakout over this ad is crazy.

    That said, the guy in the ad DOES look like a dork. But in a nice way.

  43. 43.

    Gatchaman

    December 19, 2013 at 11:05 am

    I could care less about the dufus, but find the marketing copy trite and pointless. I don’t get what it means or is supposed to communicate. Why would I want to wear PJ’s and sip cocoa while discussing the ACA. And who should I be discussing it with? The people at the office? Wouldn’t they be confused that I was wearing PJ’s at noon on a Thursday?

  44. 44.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:05 am

    @Phil Perspective: Well yeah it’s aimed at young people, and in this case a sort of hipster-y urban demo. The right wing freaks out at even the recognition that anyone exists other than straight, Southern, white, huntin and fishin males.

    This is the crazy part with them, for all their focus on state’s rights and individualism, they seem to completely lose it if anyone even acknowledges that variations exist, e.g. that there are holidays other than Christmas that some people might celebrate.

  45. 45.

    Howlin Wolfe

    December 19, 2013 at 11:06 am

    @Comrade Mary: I actually thought it was Johnny Galecki at first. I think you’re on to a bigtime media conspiracy!!

  46. 46.

    Feudalism Now!

    December 19, 2013 at 11:07 am

    Wait… Are we sure it is Hot Chocolate it could beverage neutral, like a Cafe Mocha or aCaramel Macchiato, yet strangely disturbing and alluring. He should be drinking black coffee in a diner mug or whiskey from the bottle. Slowly… With a heavy bass beat … Sorry… Outrage!

  47. 47.

    Bubblegum Tate

    December 19, 2013 at 11:09 am

    @GregB:

    They would see Leslie’s compliment to Ann on Parks & Recreation–“your ambiguous ethnic blend perfectly represents the dream of the American melting pot”–as an existential threat.

  48. 48.

    The Dangerman

    December 19, 2013 at 11:10 am

    @Capri:

    Better yet, how about saying no to health care and then get pregnant?

    No, saying no to health care followed by advocating no dangerous activity. No to football. No to drinking….

    …and the biggee, no to shooting guns.

  49. 49.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:11 am

    What makes a man turn ethnically neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of ethnic neutrality?”

  50. 50.

    Mike in NC

    December 19, 2013 at 11:11 am

    @GregB: The local right wing rag just a few weeks ago printed a Letter to the Editor where some elderly nut job complained about seeing too many black people on his fucking TV.

  51. 51.

    IowaOldLady

    December 19, 2013 at 11:11 am

    The guy in the pic probably makes “conventional” people gag.

  52. 52.

    ruemara

    December 19, 2013 at 11:11 am

    @Gatchaman: Family. In fact, the entire ad campaign is about discussing the ACA with family.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2013 at 11:12 am

    I missed it: are any of the people complaining about this guy from Pajamas Media? Because that would be unusually ironic, even for wingnuts.

  54. 54.

    Poopyman

    December 19, 2013 at 11:12 am

    @Feudalism Now!: Still, real men don’t cradle their mug with their offhand, like some girly-girl.

    At least he has the Holiday-appropriate Christmas lights in the background to dispel any thought he’s non-Christian.

  55. 55.

    Brian R.

    December 19, 2013 at 11:13 am

    How come it’s got to be Hot Chocolate? Why can’t it be Hot Vanilla?

    BECAUSE OBUMMER IS A BIG DOODYHEAD RACIST AND MURICA IS DEAD AND GONE.

  56. 56.

    handsmile

    December 19, 2013 at 11:16 am

    @Belafon:

    I believe DougJ addressed your latter point in the title of this post.

    @RaflW:

    I think you have it precisely right: miscegenation and homophobia have been stoking wingnut “feelings of great loathing and repugnance” for generations.

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 11:17 am

    What on earth could possibly be “disgraceful” about the person in that photo? We are getting into dangerous territory with this critique.

  58. 58.

    Gatchaman

    December 19, 2013 at 11:18 am

    @ruemara: Talk to family??? I didn’t know that was part of the ACA. Repeal and replace!!!

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2013 at 11:18 am

    @amk:

    How exactly one must ‘portray’ the American male?

    As threatening as possible. Think of some combination of Sylvester Stalone as Rambo, Arnold as The Terminator, and Clint Eastwood as anything, maybe with a bit of John Wayne for extra swagger. Ignore that all of these men are actors and just portraying a role in a highly unrealistic movie, and you’ll have an approximation of the ideal American man according to the wingnuts.

  60. 60.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:18 am

    @IowaOldLady: And vice versa, quite possibly.

    So I guess young hipster metrosexuals should Tweet complaints every time some swaggering macho type appears in an ad for something, because it doesn’t look like them.

    “Everyone must be the same — exactly like us!” is something the Wingnuts both demand and complain about others demanding, depending on whether it’s the bottom or top of the hour.

    Lunatics.

  61. 61.

    Helmut Monotreme

    December 19, 2013 at 11:19 am

    The pajama person knows he isn’t winning any fashion prizes. He knows what he likes, and what feels good and he does it. If that means wearing pajamas and drinking hot chocolate, he’s cool with that. Think about the self confidence he must have to let all of America see him in his pajamas. If he doesn’t care about being seen in pajamas, what else doesn’t he care about? Laws? Morality? The sanctity of life itself? This my friends is a man who is capable of anything, because he doesn’t give one single fuck about what anyone else thinks. He is a dangerous, dangerous man.

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2013 at 11:19 am

    OT, but I read that Al Goldstein has died. Waiting for a FP RIP post. The man was sui generis.

  63. 63.

    Mike E

    December 19, 2013 at 11:20 am

    Where’s the elf hat?! Shoulda gone all in with the “Happy Holidays” theme…stylist FAIL.

  64. 64.

    danimal

    December 19, 2013 at 11:21 am

    @handsmile: DougJ’s confused. The ad = hot chocolate. The title = Black, black, black coffee in bed.

  65. 65.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 11:21 am

    @MomSense: This is the same as Santa Clause is white. American men are big, burly, carry a large automatic weapon at all times. If an American man wanted hot chocolate, he would crush the beans with his hands, put it on lava, and eat it with a knife and fork. That way it’ll put more hair on his chest.

  66. 66.

    aimai

    December 19, 2013 at 11:22 am

    @ruemara: Yes, exactly, its about talking about healthcare within the family circle, aligning health insurance with home, hearth, family feeling and mutual support. To me symbolically and aesthetically it tries to shave a few points off the Republican/libertarian model of the citizen in which each man is an island and no person has any long term relationships with, women, people younger or older than themselves, siblings etc…Its much more in line with the way people actually deal with health insurance when they are young. First they are covered (hopefully) under their parents plan, then they need to find a plan of their own and become responsible for their own insurance (car, home, health care). Christmas morning/holiday coziness is a time when family come back together and can have these conversations (at least in our national imagination).

  67. 67.

    libarbarian

    December 19, 2013 at 11:22 am

    He’s clearly a witch.

    Burn Him.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 11:24 am

    Serious question: why is he in that outfit?

    Because it’s the holidays? Because he’s captive at Grammy’s house, and she gave him the getup?

    So that we don’t mistake it for a stock photo cribbed from eHarmony or match.com?

    Is he a leftist blogger?

    PS: If they’d put a ZZ Topp/Duck Dynasty beard on him, it would have been the coolest form of parody. Us libtards might have assumed that that’s what those manly bird-shooters wear as longjohns.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2013 at 11:27 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    So I guess young hipster metrosexuals should Tweet complaints every time some swaggering macho type appears in an ad for something, because it doesn’t look like them.

    Except that a lot of them probably don’t think that way. I’m not quite in the young hipster metrosexual demographic, but I get a little bit weirded out when I leave my comfortable left-wing coastal enclave and visit whitebread flyover country. I miss the ethnic diversity and find it strange to be surrounded by nothing but other white people. I guess you get used to what you live with.

  70. 70.

    GregB

    December 19, 2013 at 11:28 am

    @RaflW:

    Real men don’t drink hot chocolate!

  71. 71.

    LAC

    December 19, 2013 at 11:29 am

    @MomSense: I think the disgrace is that a) Hugo and Andrea were born and b) are present during the time that technology has allowed for c) their stupid fucking thoughts about an ad campaign that they have to pick at because d) they failed to derail it. :)

  72. 72.

    Cervantes

    December 19, 2013 at 11:29 am

    @Wag:

    That said, the guy in the ad DOES look like a dork. But in a nice way.

    Apart from the eyebrows, he reminds me of young Groucho Marx.

  73. 73.

    amk

    December 19, 2013 at 11:29 am

    @Roger Moore: Wonder how these nutters reacted when Morgan Freeman played God. Twice to boot.

    pox news has perfected the art of trolling these insane wingers.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 11:30 am

    @Helmut Monotreme:

    Laughing out loud. Ouch.

  75. 75.

    ? Martin

    December 19, 2013 at 11:30 am

    Someone needs to do the GOP version, with a leathery guy in a cowboy hat, smoking, with a glass of Jim Beam and a disassembled AR-15 on the table beside him, Sarah Palin in a schoolgirl uniform with Bible in one hand and unzipping his pants with the other, while an Obama look-alike in an orange jumpsuit washes his pickup truck in the background.

  76. 76.

    El Caganer

    December 19, 2013 at 11:30 am

    @Roger Moore: Hell, just go for the money shot: Vladimir Putin with no shirt on.

  77. 77.

    oldster

    December 19, 2013 at 11:31 am

    @Shrillhouse:

    “Androgynous, ethnically neutral, yet still manages to elicit feelings of great loathing and repugnance

    This simply must become a rotating tag.”

    YES YES YES

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 11:33 am

    @Belafon:

    It is just really disturbing to me that appearance alone makes one worthy of being deemed dishonorable or disgraceful. The first comment linked in this post If he had blond curls and blue eyes would that make him acceptable?

  79. 79.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 11:33 am

    He reminds me of a student who used to come to my College Algebra class, dressed in jammies. My student’s jammies had yellow duckies on them and were navy blue. It was an 8am class but still…

  80. 80.

    JustRuss

    December 19, 2013 at 11:34 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    “Ethnic” is shorthand for non-white.

    Actually, in some cases it means “Not white enough.”

  81. 81.

    ruemara

    December 19, 2013 at 11:34 am

    All I know is, this morning I had hot chocolate.

  82. 82.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:35 am

    @Roger Moore: Well my point was that they don’t, I mean just to underline the fanatic intolerance that’s taken over the right and is accepted as perfectly normal somehow.

    Feeling out of ones element or not depending on where you go is a different issue, buy imagine hipsters routinely Tweeting things like “Look at this NHS ad showing a guy in a boat fishing, or this older couple, none of whom are the same type of person as I am, and that’s disgraceful!”

  83. 83.

    El Caganer

    December 19, 2013 at 11:35 am

    The hot chocolate sounds good, as long as I can have it in an Aztec Slugger.

  84. 84.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 11:36 am

    @ruemara: I have hot chocolate every night, but I draw the line at wearing jammies that look like that.

  85. 85.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 11:36 am

    @LAC:

    They have to be beyond desperate at this point to be so outraged by the appearance and beverage choice of a model appearing in an advertisement.

  86. 86.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    December 19, 2013 at 11:36 am

    @Mike in NC: Oh for the days when all we had to worry about was Arthur Duncan gettin’ too close to the white women on Lawrence Welk.

  87. 87.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 11:37 am

    @MomSense: I think we’re all mocking it specifically because we don’t quite get the mentality of someone who makes the tweets above. We can say we do, but I think our understanding is very superficial. We could never truly bend to that kind of thinking.

  88. 88.

    maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor

    December 19, 2013 at 11:39 am

    @Gin & Tonic: Alas, someone out there is chiseling “FUCK YOU!” into a headstone as we write.

  89. 89.

    Jebediah, RBG

    December 19, 2013 at 11:39 am

    @Comrade Mary:

    I think the ad was designed to subconsciously evoke whatsisname (the short one) from the Big Bang Theory.

    Yeah, I think he is a pretty deliberate Galeckalike.

  90. 90.

    aimai

    December 19, 2013 at 11:40 am

    @JustRuss: Yes. They need to be writing books all the time with titles like “White Like Me.” Whiteness is a quality that can only be diminished when it is aligned with things that are not white, or suspiciously not quite white enough (so: Swedish American, Nazi German American, Blonde American are all white enough) but “too Italian American” or too ethnic American is not going to be white enough. I once asked my SIL where her family “came from” as in which set of countries before they emmigrated to the US. She didnt understand that question because since they came early enough–not quite mayflower but they’d like to pretend–they didn’t think of themselves as having any ethnic identity at all. WASP was not an ethnic identity. Ethnic was something we had, because we were Jews from away somewhere elsey.

  91. 91.

    libarbarian

    December 19, 2013 at 11:40 am

    The truth hurts, doesn’t it LIEbrals? This INSUFFERABLE MAN-CHILD is your VISION of what you WANT ALL American Men to become: Goofy-looking pansies of questionable sexuality with WIMPY LITTLE ARMS and NO PECS who SIT on couches and drink CHOCOLATE.

    REAL MEN have big muscles: deliciously sculpted arms and pecs that glisten from the MUSKY SWEAT, generated from real MANLY activities like lifting weights or CUTTING down tall trees, that flows off their toned BODIES in sparkling RIVERS . Real MEN don’t sit on couches drinking hot coco and talking about health insurance. Real men STRADLE TREE TRUNKS and drink PROTEIN shakes while talking about POWER-SQUATS!

  92. 92.

    ruemara

    December 19, 2013 at 11:41 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: My current jammie pants look like that. Screw you, I’m fashionable.

  93. 93.

    MattF

    December 19, 2013 at 11:41 am

    And, worst of all, suppose the lad is… you-know-what, and even might be …you-know-what. Then you-know-what might be happening, and then, even worse, you-know-what, you-know-what, you-know-what!!!

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2013 at 11:42 am

    @Mr. Longform: They’re also losing their minds over that Duck Dynasty jacka$$ being suspended for his anti-gay comments. Every wing nut I know has taken to Facebook to “stand by” Uncle Phil’s (or whatever his name is) right to spout such crap under the umbrella of ‘support free speech’.

    I keep trying to point out to them that they should be supporting the suspension, in support of the network not wanting to lose advertising customers and therefore its bottom line…it’s not quite registering with them

  95. 95.

    dan

    December 19, 2013 at 11:43 am

    He can’t be a real American! He’s skinny!

  96. 96.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    December 19, 2013 at 11:44 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: And how exactly do I test my ethnic pH? I was once described in a pleading as “Ms. Q, who appears to be of white descent,” by an African American litigant who had seen me at trial.

    I have auburn hair and very fair skin in the winter. Go figure. I can see why he was loath to make a definitive statement.

  97. 97.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 11:46 am

    @Jeffro: “So, you’re against a company’s first amendment rights? Does that mean you don’t support Hobby Lobby’s ability to restrict birth control to women?”

  98. 98.

    El Caganer

    December 19, 2013 at 11:46 am

    These yoyos would be just as outraged if the ad featured Jennifer Lawrence and read: “Wear nothing. Use butt plug.” They’d express it differently, but they’d be just as outraged.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 19, 2013 at 11:47 am

    @Flukebucket:

    I guarantee you this Sunday a huge percentage of church goers will be wearing one of those goofy beards and eating a biscuit from Chick-Fil-A.

    Mmmm, day-old biscuits.

  100. 100.

    Cervantes

    December 19, 2013 at 11:47 am

    @libarbarian: Should I fetch the smelling salts?

  101. 101.

    Comrade Mary

    December 19, 2013 at 11:47 am

    Thank you all for reminding me of the character / actor’s name from BBT. A little Googling shows that I’m far from the first person to mention the resemblance. DEFINITELY a conspiracy to use a popular tv show to sway the weak-minded.

    I want to see Sheldon as a “helpful” navigator next. Do it! Do it! Do it!

  102. 102.

    mouse tolliver

    December 19, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @amk: Maybe like the Henry Cavill version of Superman. A muscle bound douche who can blow up a gas station full of people while fighting the bad guys and not even give a fuck.

  103. 103.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @libarbarian: This was actually the funniest correspondent segment I’ve ever seen on the Daily Show, it’s all good but skip to 03:17 at the end for the most applicable part.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    December 19, 2013 at 11:50 am

    @Belafon: I think I just enjoy seeing their two sacred idols, Profit Above Everything and Hatin’ On Others, in conflict like this. I know it’s the fact that they can have one or the other, but not both, that’s driving them (even more) insane.

  105. 105.

    GregB

    December 19, 2013 at 11:51 am

    I think that this projects weakness abroad and it may inspire Al Qaeda to come to America and kill us in bed while we are wearing onesies.

    Think about it.

  106. 106.

    cleek

    December 19, 2013 at 11:51 am

    @El Caganer:
    when a man’s job depends on there being outrage, he will try anything to generate outrage.

  107. 107.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    December 19, 2013 at 11:52 am

    The person is androgynous, ethnically neutral…

    It’s simple; they don’t know which ready-made hate to apply to him. If he was identifiably Black, or Latino, or Middle Eastern, or Oriental, they’d easily be able to spew some well rehearsed bile. As it is, they’re just confused and out of sorts.

  108. 108.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2013 at 11:53 am

    Target has confirmed a massive credit card and debit card data breach, affecting up to 40 million accounts.

    My first thought was, which friend of Glenn Greenwald is behind this one?

  109. 109.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    December 19, 2013 at 11:56 am

    @Cacti: WTF?

    I remember some guy here who used to post “I blame Rahm!” and “Wah, it’s RAHM’s Fault!” in every thread, up and down the thread, the more unrelated to anything about the topic at hand, the better. Never got old, that joke, no matter how many millions times he posted it.

    You really might want to see someone about this obsession.

  110. 110.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 11:57 am

    @Cacti: I think sometimes you try too hard, Cacti.

  111. 111.

    Mark S.

    December 19, 2013 at 11:57 am

    Is this one of those dudebros I’ve been reading about?

  112. 112.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 11:57 am

    Still don’t get the full pajamas set. Are they onesies or not?

    He’d look like the guys I know if he was wearing a dark short sleeved T shirt over the flannel jammie pants.

    Pants look like red and green plaid, and say (1) there is no war on Christmas in this house and/or (2) acceptable plaid — used by duck hunters and Robert the Bruce (well, maybe not this exact Tartan).

    However, as baud pointed out, it has got us talking.

    Although about the model. Not healthcare, per se.

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 11:59 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    That was hilarious!

  114. 114.

    sparrow

    December 19, 2013 at 11:59 am

    @Belafon: No no no, if a real man wanted hot chocolate, he’d make his wife make it for him. MANLY.

  115. 115.

    Anoniminous

    December 19, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    Conservatives. Theory of Mind:

    … the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one’s own.

    They don’t have it.

  116. 116.

    kindness

    December 19, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    See and this is why I refuse to pay any attention to or devote any time to Twitter.

    It seems all too often to be superficial and vapid.

  117. 117.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I remember some guy here who used to post “I blame Rahm!” and “Wah, it’s RAHM’s Fault!” in every thread, up and down the thread, the more unrelated to anything about the topic at hand, the better. Never got old, that joke, no matter how many millions times he posted it.

    You’re right.

    It’s not like he’s a supporter of convicted credit card thief Jeremy Hammond.

  118. 118.

    handsmile

    December 19, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    @El Caganer:

    To that point, the exorcism-performing governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal – and am I alone in imaginging our onesie-wearing, cocoa-swilling hero as an androgynous young Mr. Jindal? – had this to say in defense of “a great citizen of the State of Louisiana”:

    “It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bobby-jindal-calls-duck-dynasty-star-s-suspension-a-messed-up-situation

    Outrage. 24/7, it’s all wingnuts have. That, and the American corporate media.

  119. 119.

    WereBear

    December 19, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    Speaking as a professional, I would say the boxes ticked here are:

    Cozy! Obamacare is like Mom tucking you in on a frosty winter night.

    Relaxed! So easy, you can do it in your jammies.

    Simple! This unthreatening person is subtly encouraging.

    Smart! Glasses. Duh.

  120. 120.

    Hillary Rettig

    December 19, 2013 at 12:13 pm

    The people who are asking “is there anything the Right can’t hate?” are somewhat missing the point. The Right are professional haters. In Blinded by the Right, David Brock wrote about how, after the USSR fell, he and his rightwing friends – far from being ecstatic at having achieved a generational goal – were disoriented and confused:

    “Among the Cold Warriors, thtere was little triumphalism, only anomie. We…thought we had won the great struggle of the century with our militant anti-Communism, and yet there was an uneasy feeling that our vanquished enemy would be sorely missed.” (p. 54)

    Without an enemy they couldn’t define themselves (and, not incidentally, were out of a job). So they consciously looked around for the next enemy and settled on the culture wars.

    So hating is in the job description, so to speak. That raises the question of what kind of person takes a job that requires pretty much constant hating. Hating is exhausting, and makes you a miserable person in every sense. One explanation is psychological projection, where you project your own insecurities and neuroses onto another. Right wingers are notorious enemies of self-help, therapy, all the things healthy people use to heal themselves and improve their lives. Their main approved solution to life’s travails is coercion of self and others, cf. the noxious Tiger Mom (lauded on the WSJ oped page.) They’re afraid that, if they treat themselves well, they’ll devolve into motivationless mush. (Or, perhaps reveal themselves as gay or some other “unacceptable” persona.) So, constant vigilence, constant judgments, and all that…

    And the idea of just being kind to yourself – say, with flannels and cocoa — becomes deeply threatening.

    Oh, and let’s not forget sexism! Even the faintest whiff of relaxing the traditional sex roles and they are thrown into a confused and frightened tizzy.

    But the fact that all this gets a paycheck is the real problem. Absent that, they’d just be bitter, unhappy, marginalized ranters. (Like the hugely obese guy I saw ranting about “the Bitch Lobby” in a libertarian bookstore, thirty years ago.) That’s why it’s fantastic that the culture has turned enough that all the bigots – Paula Deen, the Duck guy, etc. – are paying a price in real $$.

  121. 121.

    Comrade Jake

    December 19, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    It took me a second to remember that Tantaros is one of the “Fox Five” all-star bimbos.

  122. 122.

    Citizen_X

    December 19, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    This is too gay. They should have a sweaty, buff cowboy in the ad instead. Then we’d all feel manly.

  123. 123.

    karen

    December 19, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    If President Obama sneezed, he’d be screamed at someone said “Bless you” instead of “G-d bless you.”

    If he ever got sick, he’d be screamed at for being lazy.

    If President Obama stopped a Second Amendment Patriot from shooting him, he’d be screamed at for not allowing the Freedom of a patriot just exercising his Freedom of Speech First Amendment right.

  124. 124.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Huh. I found the ad kind of dorky and embarassing; it certainly wouldn’t convince me to take any action. Not offensive though, jeebus.

  125. 125.

    Patrick

    December 19, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Look at how they portray the American male: a hot chocolate drinking doofus in a onesie. Disgraceful.

    Considering that the same people that are outraged about this ad, had literally NO outrage when people with pre-existing condition were refused insurance, I can just laugh at their sheer stupidity.

    Hell, they are outraged about this ad, when they said NOTHING about the idiotic Iraq war.

  126. 126.

    NCSteve

    December 19, 2013 at 12:19 pm

    My most sincere and heartfelt condolences to anyone who will have to share a holiday meal with a relative who thinks this is a thing next week.

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    December 19, 2013 at 12:19 pm

    @MomSense:

    They have to be beyond desperate at this point to be so outraged by the appearance and beverage choice of a model appearing in an advertisement.

    I don’t think it’s so much desperation as a lack of other possible responses. It’s basically the logical extension of Cleek’s Law. If their only policy is to oppose whatever the Democrats propose, their only response to whatever the Democrats do is outrage. They would be outraged if the Democrats proposed National Cute Puppies and Kittens Day.

  128. 128.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2013 at 12:20 pm

    @oldster: +1. It’d look awesome in the title bar.

  129. 129.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 12:21 pm

    I have figured out the reason for their hate, this guy looks like he could be Nate Silver’s younger brother!

  130. 130.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 12:26 pm

    @Patrick:

    Considering that the same people that are outraged about this ad, had literally NO outrage when people with pre-existing condition were refused insurance, I can just laugh at their sheer stupidity.

    Exactly! Where was the outrage when people hit their lifetime caps because of cancer treatments and lost their homes trying to pay for their care?

    And all of the reasons given for deeming this person disgraceful have to do with appearance, clothing, and beverage choice. It is all superficial. You can be a disgrace for not looking or dressing or drinking the right thing?

  131. 131.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    December 19, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    @Roger Moore: Can we get Obama to propose National Don’t Drink Bleach Day?

  132. 132.

    JPL

    December 19, 2013 at 12:32 pm

    @hedgehog the occasional commenter: The President would be on trial for attempted murder. What will the children think.

  133. 133.

    JustRuss

    December 19, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    In the interest of BOTH SIDES!!!!, how about an ad featuring a bull-riding ‘merican cowboy:

    Wear chaps
    Break your clavicle
    Now when you go the ER, you’ll have health insurance instead of being an uncovered free-riding moocher

  134. 134.

    mk3872

    December 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    @libarbarian: And REAL MEN don’t need no stinkin’ health insurance! They just go to the ER when on their deathbed.

  135. 135.

    TooManyJens

    December 19, 2013 at 12:35 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    “Everyone must be the same — exactly like us!” is something the Wingnuts both demand and complain about others demanding, depending on whether it’s the bottom or top of the hour.

    Not “exactly like us” in this case, so much as “exactly like the image we want to project ourselves into.” They want to see themselves (i.e., The American Male) as the burly tough guys that probably 95% of them aren’t. How dare Obama put forward this elfin hipster instead! Where are they going to get their reflected machismo now?

    For the hetero women, substitute “want to sleep with” for “want to project themselves into.”

  136. 136.

    gnomedad

    December 19, 2013 at 12:35 pm

    Loathing an ethnic is easy; extra points for loathing a non-ethnic. FTW!

  137. 137.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2013 at 12:36 pm

    @Citizen_X: Yeah! Like this macho man! http://sixmeatbuffet.com/images/algoresdream.jpg

  138. 138.

    rikyrah

    December 19, 2013 at 12:37 pm

    Nancy Pelosi Turns the Tables on Darrell Issa and He Could Be In Big Trouble
    By: Sarah Jones more from Sarah Jones
    Thursday, December, 19th, 2013, 9:54 am

    Nancy Pelosi has had enough of Darrell Collateral Damage Issa.

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is calling for a high level security briefing on the operations of Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in which he would have to be forthcoming about what information he has released and to whom after he got his hands on sensitive documents surrounding HealthCare.Gov. It would then be up to the Department of Justice to make a determination.

    Ed Schultz and his panel discussed Pelosi turning the tables on Issa last night. Watch MSNBC’s The Ed Show segment on “Rep. Darrell Issa could face serious consequences after releasing classified information to the public” here:

    ….

    Issa finally got his hands on sensitive information about HealthCare.Gov that were it to be leaked, panelist E.J. Dionne pointed out, would make the site vulnerable to a cyber attack and would endanger national security. The release of the information could jeopardize the security of websites across the government, according to cyber security experts from across the administration IT departments.

    It’s also the kind of information that someone who had it out for President Obama and the entire Democratic administration could really use, if they had no scruples and maybe had a penchant for criminal activity. Darrell Issa just so happens to qualify.

    The Democrats are concerned.

    The administration asked Issa for a personal briefing in order to explain the security risks, but he declined to meet with them. So they had little choice but to escalate the matter, pointing out that he had not followed protocol in the procuring of the documents and his refusal to even listen to the security concerns “reckless in the extreme”.

    Democrats have been calling for a classified meeting with administration cyber security officials to discuss the proper handling of documents, including writing a letter requesting an immediate classified briefing “about the extremely significant risks of disclosing sensitive contractor documents relating to the Healthcare.gov website.”

    Issa subpoenaed sensitive documents from the MITRE Corporation, the contractors who worked on the security of the ObamaCare federal exchange. He had already been given unredacted access to the information, but then he wanted a set of documents for himself. Pause for gravity, because when Darrell Issa gets his hands on sensitive information, lives have been put at risk due to his relentless alleged carelessness.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2013/12/19/nancy-pelosi-turns-tables-darrell-issa-trouble.html

  139. 139.

    Bubblegum Tate

    December 19, 2013 at 12:38 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    What makes a man turn ethnically neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of ethnic neutrality?”

    At least with enemies you know where you stand, but with neutrals? Who knows.

    (Zapp Brannigan is one of the most ridiculously quotable characters ever.)

  140. 140.

    Botsplainer

    December 19, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    I had a major epiphany over the past 20 hours or so. I got some bloodwork results yesterday, in advance of doing something drastic. Most numbers were basically OK or moveable, save for one – testosterone. Take the lowest range of acceptable, divide by two, and I’m lower than that product still.

    It explained a lot about what has been happening to me the last few years (I could kick a urologist that I saw in 2009, who took a lazy approach and didn’t bother with blood).

    The upshot of all this revelation is that when I look at the cohort of angry, gun toting 50-70 something wingnuts, I see a number of men who are suffering low testosterone, not experiencing much joy, and substituting guns and anger at “others” for their nonexistent libidos.

  141. 141.

    PopeRatzy

    December 19, 2013 at 12:42 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: First thing I saw was Nate, only with a little less of that Serial Murderer look that Nate has.

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 12:48 pm

    @NCSteve:

    My wingnut brother asked me at Thanksgiving if we were going to talk about Obamacare. I’ve found that the most effective defense against wingnut talking points like that is to stare at the person with a puzzled look, blink a couple of times, and say, “Well, I wasn’t planning to talk about Obamacare, but we can if you want to.”

    Pretending not to understand the talking points is very effective, because wingnuts use them as a kind of secret language, and it really bugs them when you act like they’re teenagers who just said “fo’ shizzle!” to their grandma.

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 12:49 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I have to admit, that was my reaction to the “ethnically ambiguous” complaint: too Jewish.

  144. 144.

    Joel

    December 19, 2013 at 12:49 pm

    He’s not a manly man, like Jonah Goldberg.

  145. 145.

    Bubblegum Tate

    December 19, 2013 at 12:49 pm

    @Jeffro:

    It’s actually a pretty smart move by A&E: Turn this guy into the Wingnut Martyr o’ the Month, and the show (and its related revenue streams) will get even bigger as wingnuts “stand with” him by buying useless crap/tuning in/whatever.

  146. 146.

    MomSense

    December 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    It’s simple; they don’t know which ready-made hate to apply to him. If he was identifiably Black, or Latino, or Middle Eastern, or Oriental, they’d easily be able to spew some well rehearsed bile. As it is, they’re just confused and out of sorts.

    Well said.

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @JustRuss:

    That’s kind of the tack California has been taking to promote their health insurance exchange (www.CoveredCA.com) — they show young people mountain biking, snowboarding, etc. and point out that said young people just might need health insurance. Wonder if something like that might work in the red states, like showing that time your buddy stepped in a gopher hole out in the woods and sprained his ankle.

  148. 148.

    Jebediah, RBG

    December 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @Cacti:

    It’s not like he’s a supporter of convicted credit card thief Jeremy Hammond.

    The little guy from “Top Gear”?

  149. 149.

    Citizen_X

    December 19, 2013 at 12:59 pm

    @fuckwit: See? Now, someone want to explain to me how the fuck that dick pic is “algoresdream?” WTF does Gore have to do with that, and how could it be his “dream,” any less than the guy who spent all the time it took to make that (whether it’s actually sculpted, or just pshopped)?

  150. 150.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 19, 2013 at 12:59 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Omega-3 males–oily & fishy.

  151. 151.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2013 at 1:00 pm

    Also, too, regarding the Ducks: http://i.imgur.com/YgH1RLU.png

  152. 152.

    fuckwit

    December 19, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    @Citizen_X: Pro. Jec. Tion.

  153. 153.

    Amir Khalid

    December 19, 2013 at 1:03 pm

    @Jebediah, RBG:
    You must be thinking of Richard Clarkson.

  154. 154.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 1:07 pm

    Do adult males drink hot chocolate and wear pj’s? I haven’t done either of those things since I was a kid. Hell I don’t know any guys who do either of those things either or even own pj’s. Every male I know either sleeps buck ass naked or in under wear? I’ve also never seen an adult male drink hot chocolate.

    Not that there is anything wrong with it… it’s just stuff you do in elementary school and then stop doing later.

  155. 155.

    Alex S.

    December 19, 2013 at 1:09 pm

    I see… Obama is trying to force healthcare into our lives through the backdoor.

  156. 156.

    TooManyJens

    December 19, 2013 at 1:10 pm

    @mike with a mic: My 45-year-old husband drinks hot chocolate. Because it’s awesome.

  157. 157.

    scav

    December 19, 2013 at 1:11 pm

    Real ‘merkan men don’t drink cocoa and discuss heath care with their families. Real ‘merkan men toss back a beer and a bump and unambiguously shoot them.

  158. 158.

    Citizen_X

    December 19, 2013 at 1:11 pm

    @mike with a mic: Shorter: MY EXPERIENCE IS UNIVERSAL.

  159. 159.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    @Jebediah, RBG: The short one is Richard Hammond. Jeremy Clarkson is the name of the big guy. And then you’re left with James May.

  160. 160.

    Jebediah, RBG

    December 19, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Thanks – I always get them confused.

  161. 161.

    Amir Khalid

    December 19, 2013 at 1:14 pm

    @mike with a mic:
    At any age of a man’s life, hot chocolate is tasty and pajamas are comfy. So why wouldn’t you?

  162. 162.

    Jebediah, RBG

    December 19, 2013 at 1:16 pm

    @Belafon:

    And then you’re left with James May.

    Who I hardly ever confuse for Brian May.

  163. 163.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 1:17 pm

    @Mnemosyne: The HHS has been running similar ads here in Texas.

  164. 164.

    McJulie

    December 19, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    @Hillary Rettig: I have sometimes described the right wing in this country as an auto-immune disorder: they geared up to fight a real threat, once upon a time, but with that threat long gone all they have left is attacking their host.

  165. 165.

    scav

    December 19, 2013 at 1:19 pm

    @Citizen_X: well, those hoe-toting darkies didn’t complain about whitey to duck dude’s face so all of them, everywhere were totally happy back then. rights? stands to logic, standard issue.

  166. 166.

    Lyrebird

    December 19, 2013 at 1:19 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: OH thank you. I’d ask where to get litmus paper, but I don’wanna touch the tweeters above. Certainly not “mangylover” — aptly named but ewww! Mange of the brain, for sure.

    Pajama Fellow, on the other hand… if were 10 years younger or he 10 yrs older…

  167. 167.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    December 19, 2013 at 1:20 pm

    @Citizen_X:
    “When you was slaves you sang like birds.”

  168. 168.

    Ahh says fywp

    December 19, 2013 at 1:20 pm

    Is not androgynous superior to mangy?

    I saw some 2KA old upper class Roman twits statue of the Androgyne in a museum in Italy and it was xxhotxx. It was carved on a couch smiling mysteriously.

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 1:22 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    So sorry. Hope you will be good as new soon.

    Interesting about the 50-70 year olds going untreated. You could be right. Wouldn’t it be lovely if access to better healthcare toned down some of the craziness?

    ACA will cure a lot of miseries, once it’s allowed to do its work.

  170. 170.

    Lyrebird

    December 19, 2013 at 1:24 pm

    @mike with a mic: Very simple — the ad appeals to people who
    a) have been given stoopid pajamas by well-intentioned relatives and have been kind enough to wear them, esp when staying in said relatives’ houses, or who
    b) would be delighted to help this fella out of his pajamas.

    The current political climate would not be favorable for an Obamacare rollout w/Jim-Palmer-wears-Jockey style photos. Although some of us would be happy to see _those_ ads!
    (okay yeah I’m too old for Pajama Fella, but I was a kid when those Jockey ads came out.)

    ETA: also to
    c) nice caring people like @aimai: !

  171. 171.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    No new thread in 4 hours? Where is our FPers gone? BTW I have a new recipe for a drink even more objectionable than hot chocolate. It is messican but it has beer. Michelada with rock salt

  172. 172.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    Speaking of the wailing of wingnuts, this was as inevitable as the sunrise:

    Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) on Wednesday defended “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson after he was suspended from the reality television show for anti-gay comments he made in a GQ interview.

    Palin on her Facebook page claimed that Robertson was exercising “free speech.”:
    “Free speech is an endangered species. Those “intolerants” hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us. ”

  173. 173.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    @dmsilev: WTF is Duck Dynasty? Or am I better off not knowing?

  174. 174.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    @TooManyJens:

    Oh I believe you. I wouldn’t have thought twice about that image normally. It just looks like your typical bog standard advertisement that in no way reflects what real people look like in their own homes but makes for a nice image. I only thought about it after people started screaming about it.

    Maybe it’s a regional thing though. Every male I know moved to coffee/tea/hot alcoholic drinks once they went through puberty. Pajamas went away and people sleep naked/gym clothes/underwear.

    Besides wasn’t manly man Ted Cruz the one who was prancing around in fancy ass bathrobes in college freaking everyone out? That has to be just as absurd as pj’s and hot chocolate.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    @fuckwit:

    And if anyone was in any doubt about how manufactured their image is, here they are in 2001.

  176. 176.

    Ahh says fywp

    December 19, 2013 at 1:31 pm

    @? Martin: It’s perfect! Call it American Baroque.

  177. 177.

    MattF

    December 19, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Cable TV reality show:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Dynasty

    And no, I’ve never watched it.

  178. 178.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    @mike with a mic:

    I think he’s supposed to be “hipster son home from college.”

  179. 179.

    scav

    December 19, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    @dmsilev: I suddenly want a tap-dancing line of ethnically ambiguous jammie-wearing elves to wish her a singing “Happy Holidays Retard!” to show up at her house. Protecting Free Speech ‘n’ all.

  180. 180.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 19, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    @mike with a mic: Hot chocolate is great – so are other beverages. Don’t be a beveragist. Also, pajamas aren’t sleeping in; they are for lounging around in on weekend mornings.

  181. 181.

    dmsilev

    December 19, 2013 at 1:36 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: It was yesterday’s Biggest Scandal Ever. Star of reality-TV show said some outright bigoted things in an interview and unsurprisingly gets suspended by network. Since he’s an ostentatiously Christian and conservative guy, this immediately became a FREE SPEECH thing among the wingnutteratti.

  182. 182.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:39 pm

    @dmsilev: No wonder I had not heard about it since I am an elitist (or country bumpkin) without any cable.

  183. 183.

    MattF

    December 19, 2013 at 1:40 pm

    @dmsilev: Wasn’t there, once upon a time, something or other about Jindal not being a complete idiot?:

    http://gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=newsroom&tmp=detail&catID=2&articleID=4374

    Oh, well. Via Yglesias.

  184. 184.

    max

    December 19, 2013 at 1:40 pm

    @libarbarian: REAL MEN have big muscles: deliciously sculpted arms and pecs that glisten from the MUSKY SWEAT, generated from real MANLY activities like lifting weights or CUTTING down tall trees, that flows off their toned BODIES in sparkling RIVERS . Real MEN don’t sit on couches drinking hot coco and talking about health insurance. Real men STRADLE TREE TRUNKS and drink PROTEIN shakes while talking about POWER-SQUATS!

    That was some quality trolling there.

    Meantime, guys with glasses wearing pajamas and drinking hot chocolate can now get gay-married in New Mexico!

    max
    [‘They did it the mellow way in Santa Fe.’]

  185. 185.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    @MattF: Thanks, why do they all look so unkempt. I thought conservatives were supposed to clean cut and DFHs were the long haired weirdos.

  186. 186.

    rb

    December 19, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    @amk: @amk:

    It did indeed freak them out. Morgan Freeman as God broke what little was left of Pat Robertson’s mind.

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/robertson_on_limbaugh/

  187. 187.

    Belafon

    December 19, 2013 at 1:43 pm

    @max: Are the glasses, pajamas, and hot chocolate mandatory?

  188. 188.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 19, 2013 at 1:43 pm

    @Jeffro: Did they rally behind Martin Bashir when he was axed from MSNBC (or forced to retire) when he made a truthful comment about Sarah Palin?

    Free speech is about government oppression — completely not applicable to Uncle Homophobia Phil. Wonder why wingnuts cannot figure that out.

  189. 189.

    Mike in NC

    December 19, 2013 at 1:43 pm

    @dmsilev: Oh, screw the War on Christmas. That was so yesterday. Now we have a War on Duck Dynasty!

  190. 190.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    December 19, 2013 at 1:44 pm

    @dmsilev: If you read the entire interview he also said some downright racist stuff as well. It was a bit subtle for wingnuts to pick up, with all his talk of ‘happy and singing’ black folks he used to work with out in the fields. They put a redneck on TV and they are shocked to hear him say homophobic and racist stuff. Shocked!

  191. 191.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 1:44 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I had to ask someone if the Duck Dynasty folks were the ones who catch catfish with their bare hands.

    They’re not. That was Hillbilly Handfishin.

    Animal Planet was the miscreant on that one. Per wiki:

    Hillbilly Handfishin’ is an American reality television show about noodling, the sport of fishing for catfish using only bare hands and feet. The series aired on Animal Planet from August 7, 2011 to August 5, 2012.

  192. 192.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I guess… maybe he has younger siblings?

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m not hating on hot chocolate I just don’t know of any guys who kept drinking it into adulthood. It was always the drink you gave the kids during the winter because they weren’t allowed the sort of hot drinks laced with stimulants or alcohol that the adults drank. Once you passed into adulthood and were allowed those drinks you drank those.

    As for pajamas, kids ran around in those. Once you turned into a teen and started sleeping naked or in gym shorts you simply stopped wearing pj’s. If you had the sort of company where it wasn’t appropriate to show up with boxers and a t-shirt in front of you simply got dressed before leaving the bedroom.

    I still find it a stupid thing to get upset about though. Shit the reaction is epic enough maybe they should put someone up dressed as a furry sipping a wine cooler and see what the reaction is.

  193. 193.

    Violet

    December 19, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Also, pajamas aren’t sleeping in; they are for lounging around in on weekend mornings.

    Or to wear when you’re sick, which is a nice tie-in to needing health insurance.

  194. 194.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 1:47 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    See my link at #175 — it’s all about marketing themselves, baby!

  195. 195.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 1:47 pm

    Link for GQ interview with Phil Robertson that set off this latest poutrage.

    What the Duck?

  196. 196.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 1:49 pm

    @mike with a mic:

    Shit the reaction is epic enough maybe they should put someone up dressed as a furry sipping a wine cooler and see what the reaction is.

    Yeah, I was wondering why they didn’t go with cosplay. Maybe that’s next week.

  197. 197.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Of course, most reality TV is fake and scripted. I am waiting for Sherlock to return.

  198. 198.

    piratedan

    December 19, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    best thing I’ve heard/seen yet on the Duck Dynasty “controversy” is that the same thing that the RWNJ’s are screaming about with the suspension of the clan leader post his remarks which were in violation of his contract per some is that it’s the same basis that the RWNJ over at Hobby Lobby are doing to wriggle out of paying for plans that include reproductive Health Care for women. I know it’s not an exact match but it just shows how much cognitive dissonance there is out there, especially after Palin led the march to get Bashir dismissed from MSNBC for his statements.

  199. 199.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 1:51 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I like Anthony Bordaine and Gordon Ramsey for my reality TV fix. But that mostly has to do with a fondness for interesting food stuffs.

  200. 200.

    Another Holocene Human

    December 19, 2013 at 1:52 pm

    @Anoniminous: I’d say it’s more that they demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect in their self-assessment of their theory of mind. If they knew what they didn’t know they wouldn’t yabber on about what they think they know about what others are thinking. If you follow.

  201. 201.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 19, 2013 at 1:52 pm

    @mike with a mic: Well, you have learned something today. Not everyone is like you.

  202. 202.

    Linda

    December 19, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    @mike with a mic: Naw, they’re not “upset,” just stamping their tiny feet. What else do they have left? The health care reform train left the station while they were waiting for the Roberts Supreme Court to kill it. They thought Cruz and his mighty sword would kill it. They thought the bad rollout would kill it.

    But ACA still lives, proof that conservatives have lost the power to kill everything they don’t like. And they are pouting. This period in history is a bizzaro version of the ’80s, with liberals gaining the power to make stuff happen, and conservatives reduced to outrage fits about petty bullshit like selfies and grownups drinking cocoa in their jammies.

  203. 203.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 19, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    @Patrick: Preach!! Who cares if they are outraged anyways, except to laugh and point in derision.

  204. 204.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 19, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    @mike with a mic: Is Bourdain making new shows of No Reservations or is it just the reruns? Ramsey’s British shows are far better and less hammy than the US versions.

  205. 205.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 19, 2013 at 1:58 pm

    @rikyrah: So who would be stupid enough to give Issa such confidential information? Don’t give it to him and let him whine and groan.

  206. 206.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m aware of that. Just pointing out why I can understand the confusion of portraying an adult male drinking hot chocolate in the sort of pajamas your batty grandmother gives you when she forgets you aren’t six years old. I wouldn’t have thought about it had they not screamed about it, and just written it off as advertising.

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    He has a new show, Parts Unknown, which is done through CNN. I haven’t seen it because I cut my cable TV and it isn’t on hulu/netflix.

  207. 207.

    ruemara

    December 19, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    @mike with a mic: *Sends you a pitying look* Really? Hot chocolate is for kids? Hot chocolate with chipotle is awesome. Hot chocolate toddies with rum are awesome. Hot chocolate is awesome. and I’ve never had a mate or a friend turn down a good hot chocolate, nor do most of them sleep in the buff or in draws. Particularly in winter. To each their own, which means more hot chocolate for us.

  208. 208.

    Suffern ACE

    December 19, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    Hot cocoa is for children. I hope he’s drinking hot chocolate.

    Anyway, he’s wearing what someone gave him for christmas and drinking a cup by a fire. Also, I’m not certain what “androgynous” means here. If someone can’t tell that there is a male in that picture, he really needs to get out more.

  209. 209.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 2:05 pm

    @ruemara:

    Just pointing out why I can understand the confusion of portraying an adult male drinking hot chocolate in the sort of pajamas your batty grandmother gives you when she forgets you aren’t six years old.

    Yes, it’s almost like families have certain Christmas traditions that they follow every year, like sitting around the tree drinking hot chocolate after opening gifts in their pajamas. Though I suppose that if your family tradition is to go out to the movies and have Chinese food on Christmas Day, I could see that the ad might be confusing.

  210. 210.

    Elizabelle

    December 19, 2013 at 2:05 pm

    Tim F has a new thread up.

    Wants to hear folks’ experience with signing up for Obamacare.

  211. 211.

    PaulW

    December 19, 2013 at 2:08 pm

    If they had a burly, bearded fat guy in a red suit posing for that pic, the Far Right would be complaining that Obamacare was mocking their War On Saturnalia, or else that Obama was mocking fat Santas.

    Anything Obama does is ripe for insult and defaming for the Far Right. Even if he personally came up with an instant cure for all cancer, the Far Right would find something to demean or lie about it.

  212. 212.

    Suffern ACE

    December 19, 2013 at 2:09 pm

    I’m confused about the Duck Dynasty. I thought last month liberals were supposed to love the Duck Dynsty people because one of them gave an endorsement of a less nutty candidate in a congressional primary and the less nutty person won. I thought Rachel was leading us in night of appreciation to bearded rednecks on her show. Was that a different show?

  213. 213.

    PaulW

    December 19, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    @max:

    Actually, real men fix sh-t around the house, pick up the kids from soccer practice, help with homework, then team up with their son and daughters on a round of Call of Duty defeating cyborg penguins from Beta Reticula.

  214. 214.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Okay, that’s weird, how did ruemara end up as the object of that quote from mike with a mic? Weird.

    Anyway, it was supposed to be followed with a ” ;-) “

  215. 215.

    mike with a mic

    December 19, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I don’t know anyone (and yes this extends to more than just my family) that sits around in pajamas. I’m not saying other people don’t, just that I can understand how people might never have seen this. Could be a cultural or regional thing, maybe that dude is from Portland.

    As for x-mas I sit around in the tree in jeans and a sweater and drink Irish coffee or hot punch.

  216. 216.

    PaulW

    December 19, 2013 at 2:15 pm

    Also, Han shot first.

  217. 217.

    Gretchen

    December 19, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    @dmsilev: @dmsilev: @dmsilev: funny @dmsilev: funny how she didn’t care about free speech when Martin Bashir got fired.

  218. 218.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 2:22 pm

    @mike with a mic:

    Maybe it’s a Midwest thing. I have many family pictures showing that very activity, but I doubt my family would forgive me for posting them online.

  219. 219.

    Hawes

    December 19, 2013 at 2:26 pm

    The reason they used the BBT guy-lookalike is so that when the kids come home to their 55 year old parents, they can help them sign-up for ACA. Since their parents – currently underemployed since the plant was shut down – have dial-up, they’ve had trouble signing up.

    So the idea is you take your luddite parents, who get their ACA news from CBS and Fox and take them to the Starbucks and sign them up.

    And then hot chocolate!

  220. 220.

    Suffern ACE

    December 19, 2013 at 2:28 pm

    That “look at how they portray the American male” reminds me of a facebook linked rant that now I can’t find where someone at national review or American Thinker was going on about how Feminists ruined People’s Sexiest Man Alive by awarding it to skinny sensitive boy Adam Levine.

  221. 221.

    Cacti

    December 19, 2013 at 2:31 pm

    @Jebediah, RBG:

    The little guy from “Top Gear”?

    I’m guessing no, unless the little guy from Top Gear was recently sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

  222. 222.

    LAC

    December 19, 2013 at 2:31 pm

    @MomSense: Girl, I know. Well, bless their hearts – it is that Duck Dynasty disaster. Got all them up in tizzy. Everything is upsetting them.

  223. 223.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    @Suffern ACE:

    Adam Levine is not sexy. He’s an annoying fake-“sensitive” type who should have his guitar smashed.

    Of course, I’m the kind of girl who finds this guy unbearably sexy, so I may not be in step with the rest of American womanhood on that front.

  224. 224.

    different-church-lady

    December 19, 2013 at 2:39 pm

    @Suffern ACE:

    Hot cocoa is for children.

    Not when you make it from scratch out of real coco powder it ain’t.

  225. 225.

    different-church-lady

    December 19, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    @mike with a mic: The rules are different for Christmas Morning.

    I mean, was the ad that subtle that nobody can figure out the obvious?

  226. 226.

    snetzky

    December 19, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    okay this gonna drive me nuts. what song is that lyric from?

  227. 227.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    @snetzky:

    “Black Coffee in Bed.”

  228. 228.

    snetzky

    December 19, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    I should have known that as I’m a huge Squeeze fan.

  229. 229.

    Mike G

    December 19, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    @PaulW:

    Even if he personally came up with an instant cure for all cancer, the Far Right would find something to demean or lie about it.

    Soshulist blah evildoer steals the livelihood from good Republican oncologists!

  230. 230.

    Suffern ACE

    December 19, 2013 at 2:53 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, I don’t think he’s sexy. I just don’t think his “sexiest man” award says anything about the country as a whole and how feminists have taken over and ruined that award that should go to mel gibson or mark harmon every year, get off my lawn.

    Our conservatives really are princesses and they are finding peas in too many places.

  231. 231.

    JaneE

    December 19, 2013 at 2:56 pm

    Doesn’t anyone realize it is the Christmas season when adults revisit their inner child? I took it as a schmaltzy Christmas thing. With an adult message. Something like “You’re not a kid living with mom and dad anymore, be a responsible adult and get health insurance” Even if you only get to have a string of lights for Christmas decoration.

  232. 232.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 19, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    @different-church-lady: Not when you make it from scratch out of real coco powder it ain’t.

    Oh, *that’s* what we were doing wrong, using coc*a* powder. No wonder it didn’t relax anyone.

  233. 233.

    catclub

    December 19, 2013 at 3:17 pm

    @Hawes: So it is Sara Silverman without the swearing.

  234. 234.

    catclub

    December 19, 2013 at 3:19 pm

    Somebody wrote that they will bet outraged about anything. Not true. Outraged that the oceans are dying? Nope. silence.

  235. 235.

    LAC

    December 19, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    @dmsilev: I wish Palin would focus more on figuring out her ass from her elbow. She is sooooooo close to getting the difference figured out.

  236. 236.

    Glidwrith

    December 19, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    @PaulW: “Even if he personally came up with an instant cure for all cancer, the Far Right would find something to demean or lie about it.”

    It wasn’t Obama per se, but there is now a vaccination against cervical cancer which is extremely effective and Michelle Bachmann came up with “It will make your daughters retarded.”

  237. 237.

    Cheap Jim

    December 19, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    @Lyrebird: I think the man fancies himself a Marxist. A Groucho Marxist, that is. Groucho played Hugo Hackenbush in “A Day at the Races” and wrote a book called “Memoirs of a Mangy Lover”. Of course, the actual Groucho leaned far enough left for some to call him a commie.

  238. 238.

    Desargues

    December 19, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: +5.

  239. 239.

    different-church-lady

    December 19, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Nothing is more insufferable than a typo Nazi. Good catch.

  240. 240.

    Visceral

    December 19, 2013 at 3:53 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    @amk:
    How exactly one must ‘portray’ the American male?

    As threatening as possible. Think of some combination of Sylvester Stalone as Rambo, Arnold as The Terminator, and Clint Eastwood as anything, maybe with a bit of John Wayne for extra swagger.

    I always figured that fat, old, white men were secretly jealous of their stereotype of young black men as hypermasculine predators.

  241. 241.

    JustRuss

    December 19, 2013 at 4:02 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Wonder if something like that might work in the red states, like showing that time your buddy stepped in a gopher hole out in the woods and sprained his ankle.

    Nah, Real Americans (TM) just walk it off. Change it to “that time your buddy stepped in a gopher hole out in the woods and his gun accidentally discharged a 30.06 round into your left thigh” and you’re talking.

  242. 242.

    WereBear

    December 19, 2013 at 4:16 pm

    We don’t know what’s in the cup. Could be a fine sippin’ scotch and he can’t afford rocks glasses.

    But he can afford Obamacare!

    BTW & FWIW, it was -26 here just a few days ago. And when that happens, we all Reach for the Fleece.

  243. 243.

    ranchandsyrup

    December 19, 2013 at 4:16 pm

    OT but I have a friend who is chummy with the Palins and Heaths. This leads to funny FB interactions with Chuck Heath and I sometimes. Short version, he’s praying for me. Today I offered to teach her about the constitution and he said,

    This is what she said, “Free speech is an endangered species. Those “intolerants” hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.” There is no mention of The First Amendment…

  244. 244.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Hey, the Duck Dynasty dude has all the free speech he wants. The problem seems to be that he doesn’t want anyone else to have free speech to respond to the things he says.

    Free speech is a two-way street. If you don’t want to be criticized for what you say, don’t say it.

  245. 245.

    boatboy_srq

    December 19, 2013 at 4:38 pm

    @lgerard: Actually “Sweatpants + Big Gulp = real murican with morbid obesity and type 2 diabetes” – but I suppose I repeat myself there.

  246. 246.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 19, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Free speech guarantees do not mean “say whatever you want free of consequences.” They mean that only that you can say what you want free of governmental interference. If some guy says all sorts of rapey stuff and no women want to date him as a result, there was no violation of the guy’s rights. People on the right just don’t get it.

  247. 247.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    December 19, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    @Violet: @Comrade Mary: Yeah, I thought it was a young Leonard from Big Bang Theory.

    Deliberately chosen, I would imagine.

    This was, of course, the award winning Big Bang Theory which is currently the most popular sitcom in America, and the Leonard who held down a good and respected job as a world-class scientist throughout the series while having sex with several women, including a on-again off-again relationship with the hot blonde lead female.

    Yeah, are they SURE they wanna go there with the “gay gay fag” stuff?

  248. 248.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 19, 2013 at 5:11 pm

    @Phoenician in a time of Romans:

    Yeah, are they SURE they wanna go there with the “gay gay fag” stuff?

    Yes, they are. Often wrong, but never in doubt.

  249. 249.

    Seanly

    December 19, 2013 at 5:24 pm

    @libarbarian:

    I wasn’t sure if this was parody until the last line about the protein shakes. Everyone knows that Real American Men constantly hunt & kill things but only eat 1) 32 oz steaks from Texas Roadhouse, 2) those scrawny, nasty wings from Hooters washed down with a fine American beer like Coors Light or 3) Chicken Fried Steak & eggs breakfast from Cracker Barrel. I’m not sure what they do with all the meat from things they kill…

  250. 250.

    Mnemosyne

    December 19, 2013 at 5:33 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yes, but that guy remembers the good old days when he was allowed to pinch his underlings’ asses and all they could do was smile wanly, because he had all the power.

    That’s what they resent — not the loss of “free speech,” but the fact that they can no longer demonstrate their power over others by saying things those others can’t reply to in kind for fear of losing their jobs or even their lives.

  251. 251.

    Seanly

    December 19, 2013 at 5:43 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Camo makes being unkempt okay! Pajamas & hot chocolate mean clean shaven & clean is DFH territory. It’s the clothing variation of Cleek’s Law.

  252. 252.

    Julie

    December 19, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: This was my first thought.

  253. 253.

    bago

    December 19, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    Try living in Seattle, or any part of the left coast where the technology comes from. If you can’t work at least three conditional clauses into your coffee order, you’re being intentionally butch. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  254. 254.

    Lyrebird

    December 19, 2013 at 7:06 pm

    @Cheap Jim: I left you a thank-you reply but I guess wordpress ate it.

    We Try Again:

    Thank you!

  255. 255.

    CONGRATUALATIONS!

    December 19, 2013 at 10:15 pm

    Hot chocolate? Drinking it now. Pajamas? No, I have problems with anything that confines my enormous testicles. I have to wear oversize pants.

  256. 256.

    johnny aquitard

    December 20, 2013 at 12:01 am

    I would like to have this man for my friend.

    I like secure men for my friends, secure enough to be self-depreciating (I doubt this man is unaware of the irony of a grown man in a onesie pj) honest men (and one must be honest to be self honest). Such secure, witty men I would welcome as my friend.

    So tired of buying manliness with what you wear or drink or how you look. Or your political party, which the republicans have tried to make in to a macho tribal-cultural identifier. Dem = Mommy = Woman.

    Fuck you gop. I’ve seen childbirth and no man has the balls for it without crying for drugs or deliverance. When you pass a watermellon through your anus without a whimper, then I’ll believe.

    The bravest man I ever met was gay. My son could learn much, more than I could teach him, about courage, about how to be brave as a man, from that man.

  257. 257.

    Matt McIrvin

    December 20, 2013 at 4:00 am

    Russia Today’s headline trumpeting that Obama’s job approval is “worst since Nixon”.

    That is, still 43%, which is worst of any two-term President since Nixon at this exact point in his second term. Sample size: four. I guess Bush was at like 44%, and Clinton and Reagan were sitting pretty. The headline, of course, makes you think he’s dipped below Carter, or Bush circa 2008. A for effort.

  258. 258.

    Original Lee

    December 20, 2013 at 9:54 am

    @Helmut Monotreme: I agree completely. My wingnutty FB friends, though, call it “the infantilization of young adults”. Because living at your parents’ home until you’re in your forties is an extended childhood, never mind that you’re doing it because you can’t get a job that pays better than minimum wage, or any job at all.

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