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You are here: Home / Blood Lust

Blood Lust

by $8 blue check mistermix|  April 29, 201410:17 am| 68 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller:

So if you are a conservative talk radio host, for example, might you not look at Bundy through the prism of Ruby Ridge? In the beginning, it might have been easy to assume Bundy would also go out in a blaze of glory, becoming a sort of martyr. And in this scenario, it would have been important to have staked out a pro-Bundy position before the government turned him into a real folk hero.

In other words, if we didn’t call dibs on Bundy’s corpse, someone else would have claimed it.

I got this from Reading is for Snobs,  who points out that the Hannity interviews with Bundy were full of Sean asking Bundy if he was going to shoot back at the feds.

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Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    feebog

    April 29, 2014 at 10:24 am

    Hannity interviews with Bundy were full of Sean asking Bundy if he was going to shoot back at the feds.

    Of course he was. If it bleeds it leads, and Hannity was itching for a shootout at OK corral.

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    April 29, 2014 at 10:27 am

    It was just plain bad luck Bundy wasn’t killed before his dissertation on the Negro. Or a government plot to keep him alive to make him look bad.

  3. 3.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 29, 2014 at 10:28 am

    I’ll buy this argument. Hannity seems like the kind of guy who gets hard at the idea of someone dying to improve his ratings.

  4. 4.

    cleek

    April 29, 2014 at 10:32 am

    true indeed. and it was pretty obvious (to me anyway) that “conservatives” were hoping it would turn into another Ruby Ridge. a good martyr is worth his weight in flag decals.

  5. 5.

    Certified Mutant Enemy

    April 29, 2014 at 10:32 am

    It’s amazing how many people think Ruby Ridge happened during the Clinton administration…

  6. 6.

    Bill in Section 147

    April 29, 2014 at 10:33 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead: +1
    Hannity was hoping to turn lead into gold. Another failure in basic chemistry.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    April 29, 2014 at 10:34 am

    Better for the right wing to have Bundy’s bloody shirt to wave than to have the man himself; no bloody shirt ever opened its piehole and said embarrassing things. They don’t object to what Bundy says, as Lewis admits, or at least they don’t think it matters —

    In the grand scheme of things — with scandals like Benghazi and topics like Iran to cover — should it matter that some rancher in Nevada is a racist? Should it matter what some random guy thinks about race relations? Of course, not!

    — but they know it makes them look bad, whereas none would dare question a martyr to The Cause.

  8. 8.

    dubo

    April 29, 2014 at 10:40 am

    As you say, remember as all the apologists say “maybe Bundy was in the wrong, but the Feds handled it poorly” what they REALLY mean is “they didn’t light him up and give us what we wanted”

  9. 9.

    Bill in Section 147

    April 29, 2014 at 10:42 am

    @Certified Mutant Enemy: Funny how the stink was/is applied. Everybody forgets the actual incident happened during the reign of that horrible Democrat President Bush.

  10. 10.

    Scott S.

    April 29, 2014 at 10:42 am

    Bad enough that we don’t treat white terrorists like, you know, terrorists — but why shouldn’t Hannity, Fox, and talk radio be treated as terrorist supporters? In Dubya’s day, contributing to the wrong charity would get you thrown into Gitmo — why shouldn’t Hannity fry for encouraging and promoting terrorists?

  11. 11.

    David Hunt

    April 29, 2014 at 10:55 am

    @Scott S.:

    why shouldn’t Hannity fry for encouraging and promoting terrorists?

    IOKIYAR

  12. 12.

    Phantom 309

    April 29, 2014 at 10:55 am

    @Bill in Section 147: Yes, he truly wants his head made of gold!

  13. 13.

    Violet

    April 29, 2014 at 10:56 am

    @Scott S.: White people can’t be terrorists. They’re freedom fighters standing up for their rights.

  14. 14.

    boatboy_srq

    April 29, 2014 at 11:00 am

    @Certified Mutant Enemy: Big Gubmint Overreach™ trampling the rights of Righteous Xtian Hetero Caucasian Patriotic Real Ahmurrcans™ only occurs on Democrats’ watches, as it has been from the beginning: just look at what happened at Ft. Sumter- oh, wait…

    /snark

    They’re so convinced that unGawdly Librul IslamoFascoSoshulists are coming for their guns, their land, their ill-gotten gains rightfully earned compensation, and their marriages, that they’ll believe anything.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 29, 2014 at 11:00 am

    @Scott S.: Sean Hannity is not dusky or Muslim. Nor is Cliven Bundy.

    Therefore, Hannity cannot be encouraging or promoting terrorism.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 29, 2014 at 11:03 am

    @Phantom 309: I concur.

    Time to take the Khal Drogo approach to these assholes.

  17. 17.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 29, 2014 at 11:05 am

    From TPM: About the WashPost ABC poll

    Notably, the poll also found that 53 percent of voters said they’d prefer to see Republicans control Congress as a check on the President compared to 29 percent who said they’d rather have Democrats in charge to shore up the Obama administration’s policies.

    WTF is wrong with these people?

  18. 18.

    Gene108

    April 29, 2014 at 11:06 am

    Yeah Ruby Ridge was botched and could have been handled better, but the Weavers were not innocent angels.

    They were fucking selling sawed off shotguns to white supremacists.

    There’s a very under reported intersection between second Amendment expansionists and white supremacists / militias. The end result of stripping away gun laws would be to allow these groups to be armed more heavily. There’s no way the NRA, GOA and other gun-nut groups cannot be aware of this outcome.

  19. 19.

    cleek

    April 29, 2014 at 11:11 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    whatever’s wrong with them, it’s probably related to this:

    Traditional Republican constituencies also show more enthusiasm in turning out to vote, according to the poll. Forty four percent of Americans who voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election said they will definitely return to the polls, compared to 35 percent of Americans who voted for President Barack Obama that said the same.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/young-americans-midterms

  20. 20.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 29, 2014 at 11:15 am

    There’s a very under reported intersection between second Amendment expansionists and white supremacists / militias. The end result of stripping away gun laws would be to allow these groups to be armed more heavily. There’s no way the NRA, GOA and other gun-nut groups cannot be aware of this outcome.

    @Gene108: Aware? I think they’re thrilled. I think it’s deliberate.

    Because if all the crazies arm up, I’m arming up too. Moar moneys for the merchants of death.

  21. 21.

    Belafon

    April 29, 2014 at 11:18 am

    @schrodinger’s cat: Because most of them aren’t seeing what we see: Continued Republican obstruction of the president trying to do anything. They are thinking in terms of two sane parties that balance each other.

  22. 22.

    ? Martin

    April 29, 2014 at 11:18 am

    @cleek:

    true indeed. and it was pretty obvious (to me anyway) that “conservatives” were hoping it would turn into another Ruby Ridge. a good martyr is worth his weight in flag decals.

    The timing is very important. They need to first establish that the individual destined to die in a hail of Social Security hollow-points is a true Conservative Prophet™. Once their martyr is properly framed, then they need to die promptly, before the pressure comes off and they find themselves rambling about the negro.

  23. 23.

    Cassidy

    April 29, 2014 at 11:22 am

    Speaking of blood lust, another good guy with a gun: http://m.ajc.com/news/news/cobb-police-investigating-shooting-at-fedex-facili/nfkNR/

    Too bad other good guys with guns didn’t go all Chuck Norris in him.

  24. 24.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 29, 2014 at 11:24 am

    @Belafon: I am wondering whether this poll was conducted using landlines? Did they correct for cell phone users?

  25. 25.

    justawriter

    April 29, 2014 at 11:24 am

    Yeah, I’m old enough to remember when being a cop killer was a bad thing no matter the circumstance. The law enforcement officers who died at Ruby Ridges and Waco (and earlier at the hands of Gordon Kahl in North Dakota) will always get a raw deal from the right wing version of history.

  26. 26.

    Keith G

    April 29, 2014 at 11:34 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Question:

    WTF is wrong with these people?

    Answer:
    The leadership of the Democratic Party.
    For more than a generation. the leadership of the GOP has understood an unfortunately inconvenient truth that a significant number of the American voting public act no better than sheep. that is:

    With the right dogs, they can be scared, rounded up, and herded in ways that otherwise would be incomprehensible.

    During this same period of time, the dominant approach of the Democratic leadership has seemed to be:

    We are better people with smarter ideas. Just listen to the logic of our arguments and you will believe.

    I am not sure if that has ever happened across a whole society in human history; yet, it is a conceit inherent in many idealistic leaders, Mr Obama included.

    The GOP has continually worked the crowd. Time and time again, pushing all the right buttons to stoke the emotional reactions that are a part of the human experience. They operate where the people are, while Democrats operate where they wish the people to be.

    What are the results? Well, look at the Congress and look at the Supreme Court. Look at public opinion on issues such as gun control and access to abortion, then look at the laws that have been passed.

    Being “smarter” or being correct is not enough.

  27. 27.

    Chyron HR

    April 29, 2014 at 11:41 am

    @Keith G:

    The leadership of the Democratic Party.

    Hypothetically, is there anything a Republican could do that you wouldn’t tie yourself in pretzels to blame on Democrats?

  28. 28.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 29, 2014 at 11:52 am

    Hypothetically, is there anything a Republican could do that you wouldn’t tie yourself in pretzels to blame on Democrats?

    @Chyron HR: He’s right in this case. The GOP does populism masterfully. The Democratic party seems to have forgotten what populism is, much less how to work with it.

    Being “smarter” is getting the Democrats exactly what it used to get me back in school: a kicked ass and a bunch of nerdy, unpopular friends.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:52 am

    At what point does Hannity and Fox News cross over to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” territory?

    Yes, we have a First Amendment, and yes, Fox News probably has some very smart and well paid lawyers.

    However, some of the management and on-air talent are likely crazier than shithouse rats, even while they are lucratively milking the rubes AND watched carefully by network lawyers for compliance with the letter of the laws, if not their spirit.

    So: how far does Hannity get to go?

    People are lining up to denounce Bundy — once his “The Negro” comments hit the airwaves — and they’re denouncing that LA Clippers owner. It’s the new thing now that MH 370’s disappearance is not.

    Why can’t and don’t we denounce Hannity and others who throw matches on gasoline for ratings, money, and political means that don’t benefit the American public?

    (I always wonder if the piling on on Clippers Owner Sterling, et al. by CNN etc. is a production so viewers and readers can say — “See? We’re not like THOSE people. We aren’t [racists, sexists, adulterers …]”

    Meanwhile, the racism and other ugliness under the radar goes unaddressed and unreported on. Because we as a society have moved past that. Conservatives on our Supreme Court say so. Right.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:52 am

    At what point does Hannity and Fox News cross over to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” territory?

    Yes, we have a First Amendment, and yes, Fox News probably has some very smart and well paid lawyers.

    However, some of the management and on-air talent are likely crazier than shithouse rats, even while they are lucratively milking the rubes AND watched carefully by network lawyers for compliance with the letter of the laws, if not their spirit.

    So: how far does Hannity get to go?

    People are lining up to denounce Bundy — once his “The Negro” comments hit the airwaves — and they’re denouncing that LA Clippers owner. It’s the new thing now that MH 370’s disappearance is not.

    Why can’t and don’t we denounce Hannity and others who throw matches on gasoline for ratings, money, and political means that don’t benefit the American public?

    (I always wonder if the piling on on Clippers Owner Sterling, et al. by CNN etc. is a production so viewers and readers can say — “See? We’re not like THOSE people. We aren’t [racists, sexists, adulterers …]”

    Meanwhile, the racism and other ugliness under the radar goes unaddressed and unreported on. Because we as a society have moved past that. Conservatives on our Supreme Court say so. Right.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:52 am

    At what point does Hannity and Fox News cross over to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” territory?

    Yes, we have a First Amendment, and yes, Fox News probably has some very smart and well paid lawyers.

    However, some of the management and on-air talent are likely crazier than shithouse rats, even while they are lucratively milking the rubes AND watched carefully by network lawyers for compliance with the letter of the laws, if not their spirit.

    So: how far does Hannity get to go?

    People are lining up to denounce Bundy — once his “The Negro” comments hit the airwaves — and they’re denouncing that LA Clippers owner. It’s the new thing now that MH 370’s disappearance is not.

    Why can’t and don’t we denounce Hannity and others who throw matches on gasoline for ratings, money, and political means that don’t benefit the American public?

    (I always wonder if the piling on on Clippers Owner Sterling, et al. by CNN etc. is a production so viewers and readers can say — “See? We’re not like THOSE people. We aren’t [racists, sexists, adulterers …]”

    Meanwhile, the racism and other ugliness under the radar goes unaddressed and unreported on. Because we as a society have moved past that. Conservatives on our Supreme Court say so. Right.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:52 am

    At what point does Hannity and Fox News cross over to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” territory?

    Yes, we have a First Amendment, and yes, Fox News probably has some very smart and well paid lawyers.

    However, some of the management and on-air talent are likely crazier than shithouse rats, even while they are lucratively milking the rubes AND watched carefully by network lawyers for compliance with the letter of the laws, if not their spirit.

    So: how far does Hannity get to go?

    People are lining up to denounce Bundy — once his “The Negro” comments hit the airwaves — and they’re denouncing that LA Clippers owner. It’s the new thing now that MH 370’s disappearance is not.

    Why can’t and don’t we denounce Hannity and others who throw matches on gasoline for ratings, money, and political means that don’t benefit the American public?

    (I always wonder if the piling on on Clippers Owner Sterling, et al. by CNN etc. is a production so viewers and readers can say — “See? We’re not like THOSE people. We aren’t [racists, sexists, adulterers …]”

    Meanwhile, the racism and other ugliness under the radar goes unaddressed and unreported on. Because we as a society have moved past that. Conservatives on our Supreme Court say so. Right.

  33. 33.

    Gene108

    April 29, 2014 at 11:53 am

    @Belafon:

    I think it is more a “both sides do it” mind set that discourages Democratic voters.

    People do not grasp how Republicans have screwed the non-rich by favoring one sided policies.

    They just see that things are not good and Democrats may only be marginally better than Republicans, so why bother.

    Distrust of government, whether it is caused by Ed Snowden or the FCC not being able to save Net Neutrality in the courts, hurts Democrats far more than Republicans.

  34. 34.

    raven

    April 29, 2014 at 11:54 am

    Is there an echo in here?

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:54 am

    Very sorry for the duplicate post. Can moderators remove the extras?

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:55 am

    @raven:

    Hi Raven. Sorry about that. And such a wordy post too. Ugh.

  37. 37.

    raven

    April 29, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @Elizabelle: It’s been happening to me as well!

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @Gene108:

    Democrats may only be marginally better than Republicans,

    The logical flaw.

    The “margin” includes the Affordable Care Act, Equal pay (Lily Ledbetter), acceptance of climate change, support for voting rights, sane Supreme Court justices, not shooting first and diplomacy later.

    Marginally better my ass. Purposely misinformed general public.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 11:59 am

    @raven:

    Ah. Ah. Ah.

    My mom’s in the hospital for tests (she’s doing very well). Figured it might be a problem with the hospital’s wireless.

    Have missed you guys!

  40. 40.

    Keith G

    April 29, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    @Chyron HR: That is a senseless and I dare say foolish calculation.

    The GOP have been getting out-sized results ingeniously playing a weaker hand on many topics. They are wrong, yet they prevail.

  41. 41.

    Schlemizel

    April 29, 2014 at 12:00 pm

    @Bill in Section 147:

    But of course Bush was not a true conservative/Republican!

  42. 42.

    raven

    April 29, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    @Elizabelle: Glad she’s doing well.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 29, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    @Elizabelle: Forget it, Elizabelle. It’s FYWP.

    If Bill O’Reilly can cheerlead the murder by a forced birth terrorist of George Tiller and get away with it, obviously it is possible to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater and not be held accountable for it.

  44. 44.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    April 29, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: That worked so well for Drogo..

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 29, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Well, Viserys got his golden crown, didn’t he? Drogo fulfilled his part of the bargain!

  46. 46.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 29, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    @Cassidy: Chuck Norris doens’t need guns. Sylvester Stallone, on the other hand, needs a crew-served weapon in each hand.

  47. 47.

    Kirk Evans

    April 29, 2014 at 12:30 pm

    It should be noted that Lewis’s comment was in the context of criticizing conservatives for identifying with Bundy. The OP was ambiguous, and could be read as implying that Lewis was endorsing such a strategy.

  48. 48.

    Gene108

    April 29, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Look at from a non-engaged voter’s view point.

    I made $9/hr telemarketing in 1996 and I make $12/hr in 2014, in the service sector.

    Government sucks because my situation is not better off in nearly 20 years.

    The people, who are happy they are getting tax cuts and wages are stagnating are OK with the status quo.

    Convincing people Democrats can cause change for the better is hard. The last 20 years have wiped out people’s faith in government.

    Explaining how a cut in the capital tax rate or inheritance tax rate hurts a working stiff, by allowing the super wealthy to seek rents instead of investing in actual economic growth is really hard.

  49. 49.

    Chris

    April 29, 2014 at 12:39 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Americans will continue to be fucked until they understand what their forefathers in the 1930s did:

    If you want a working government, a healthy society and an honest day’s pay for your honest day’s work, vote Democrat.

    If that doesn’t do enough for you, vote for more Democrats.

    If that doesn’t do enough for you, vote for more liberal Democrats.

    Republicans are your enemies. Period. Understand that and vote aaccordingly, and you’ll have a healthy country.

  50. 50.

    Gene108

    April 29, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    @Keith G:

    Population distribution favors Republicans. Our Constitition gives disproportionate representation to Republicans.

    CA can give a Democratic Senator millions of votes, but the couple of hundred thousand people that vote in WY will put a Republican in the Senate.

    Same goes for the House, where rural areas get more than their share of representation versus urban areas.

    Rural Anerica tilts Republican, so a guy with a few thousand votes in WY has the same status as a Senstor as someone from CA or other blue states.

  51. 51.

    GregB

    April 29, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    He waved a bloody calf instead.

  52. 52.

    boatboy_srq

    April 29, 2014 at 1:15 pm

    Almost forgot:

    In the beginning, it might have been easy to assume Bundy would also go out in a blaze of glory, becoming a sort of martyr. And in this scenario, it would have been important to have staked out a pro-Bundy position before the government turned him into a real folk hero.

    Indeed. Better a dead Martyr to The Cause than a living, breathing, seditious bigoted grifter who can be hung around The Cause’s neck.

    Perhaps we could use this to our advantage: the suggestion that so long as they’re breathing they’re at least as likely to end their 15 minutes as a rank humiliation as they are a cause celebre, and that the only way to avoid that fate is Death By Federal Agents In Front of Fauxnooze Cameras, could dissuade at least a few.

  53. 53.

    Paul in KY

    April 29, 2014 at 1:18 pm

    @Chris: We need our Democratic leaders to be more forceful & to-the-point with those facts.

    Don’t worry about the screamers from the other side whining about your ‘class warfare’, they will scream anyway, so you might as well tell some hard truths.

    Also, when they scream, point out how much shreiking they are doing & note that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  54. 54.

    The Pile On

    April 29, 2014 at 1:31 pm

    @justawriter: You’re so dead on about the damage to the law enforcement personnel on site caused by these right wing Jihads . My family lives in Waco, and I know of one FBI agent who was suicidal after hearing the screams of the children burning alive in the compound, set by Vernon Howell (aka David Koresh. I will NEVER call him that…) And the Republican a$$hats make heroes out of these murderers.

  55. 55.

    Cacti

    April 29, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    The most illustrative part of all of this is how Bundy’s cult status has been fueled by nothing but hatred for the African American, Democratic POTUS.

    Bundy’s rights haven’t been violated in any way, shape, or form. He had due process of law and lost, so he decided to get violent instead of taking no for an answer. He and his followers wanted a bloodbath and did their best to provoke one.

    And for the cherry on top, he turns out to be a nasty racist.

    This loon needs to be tied like an anchor to the neck of every GOPer who propped him up.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    April 29, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    From Matt Lewis’s column:

    as I’ve long lamented, there is a pattern of conservatives embracing someone who is being bullied by the government or the mainstream media,

    Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/25/why-we-made-cliven-bundy-a-folk-hero/#ixzz30IHLZvbs

    What’s lamentable is that conservatives won’t look beyond government and the media for culprits.

    They aren’t looking for unfettered capitalists, war profiteers, oligarchs, the corrupted, the greedy, those who game the system. Those are the folks who have eviscerated the middle class.

    Government and the media — when properly applied — can counterbalance that threat.

    Conservatives can’t think or look as well as they can shout.

  57. 57.

    Soonergrunt

    April 29, 2014 at 1:48 pm

    @Gene108: Somebody needs to sue the congress and force them to abide by the Constitution. There’s nothing in there limiting the number of representatives to 435, and there is a requirement for something like a minimum of 1 representative per 30,000 persons. The current average is something like 1 per 700,000, which gives smaller states even more power than they should have in that body.

  58. 58.

    Soonergrunt

    April 29, 2014 at 1:49 pm

    @Elizabelle: “What’s lamentable is that conservatives won’t look beyond government and the media for culprits.

    They aren’t looking for unfettered capitalists, war profiteers, oligarchs, the corrupted, the greedy, those who game the system. Those are the folks who have eviscerated the middle class.”
    You do know that those people you’ve named are the primary conservative constituencies, no?

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    April 29, 2014 at 1:50 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    WTF is wrong with these people?

    They don’t pay much attention to politics except the time immediately around an election, and when they are paying attention they get their information from the MSM.

  60. 60.

    SatanicPanic

    April 29, 2014 at 2:00 pm

    @Keith G: Yeah, look what it’s got the Republican party- a group of uncontrollable morons that ignore party leadership. Thanks, but I’ll pass on that.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    April 29, 2014 at 2:06 pm

    @Keith G:

    The GOP have been getting out-sized results ingeniously playing a weaker hand on many topics.

    No. The GOP has been getting good results by playing a stronger hand on one single topic that a lot of voters care a lot about: group solidarity. People are willing to vote for candidates who are one of Us rather than scary Others, even though those candidates go on to vote for policies that disproportionately benefit a small fraction of “Us” at the expense of the majority.

    This is a drawback of representative government, especially in a two party, plurality winner system. It’s very difficult for voters to find a candidate who agrees with them on everything, so they are forced into some kind of compromise, picking candidates who agree with them on more issues or more important issues even when they might prefer a different candidate’s views on other issues. It makes it possible to get very unpopular results on issues that a majority of voters see as being of secondary importance.

  62. 62.

    Roger Moore

    April 29, 2014 at 2:17 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    There’s nothing in there limiting the number of representatives to 435, and there is a requirement for something like a minimum of 1 representative per 30,000 persons.

    That’s exactly backward. The actual language of Article I Section II says that there shall not be more than one representative for each 30,000 population*. There was never an upper limit on the size of Congressional districts. I would definitely approve of increasing the size of Congress, but shrinking the average Congressional district to 30,000 constituents would result in a House with more than 10,000 members, which would be unwieldy in the extreme.

    *Where population as originally defined excluded 2/5 of each slave and 5/5 of each “Indian not taxed”.

  63. 63.

    justawriter

    April 29, 2014 at 2:38 pm

    @Gene108: I’ve always thought that if a fraction of one percent of the Dems in the urban enclaves would move to (or back to) rural haunts we could wipe out the GOP in a generation. Right now the state of North Dakota is advertising something like 25,000 open jobs due to the oil boom. If 80 percent were filled by right thinking individuals, it would swing quite a few of the statewide races blue.

  64. 64.

    AxelFoley

    April 29, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    @Cassidy:

    Too bad other good guys with guns didn’t go all Chuck Norris in him.

    Considering Chuck Norris is a wingnut, I’m not sure that’s a good example.

  65. 65.

    AxelFoley

    April 29, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    Hypothetically, is there anything a Republican could do that you wouldn’t tie yourself in pretzels to blame on Democrats?

    Thank you. I was trying to wrap my mind around how Keith could blame the Dems for the GOP’s actions, but it’s become par for the course for him by now.

  66. 66.

    AxelFoley

    April 29, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    The logical flaw.

    The “margin” includes the Affordable Care Act, Equal pay (Lily Ledbetter), acceptance of climate change, support for voting rights, sane Supreme Court justices, not shooting first and diplomacy later.

    Marginally better my ass. Purposely misinformed general public.

    This.

  67. 67.

    Someguy

    April 29, 2014 at 4:31 pm

    It’s a shame he didn’t go down in a blaze of glory. Everybody could have capitalized politically on that. This particular denoument, if it is in fact over, is disappointing.

  68. 68.

    Phantom 309

    April 29, 2014 at 5:29 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, to be honest, I’d prefer a deuce and a half with a couple of M242 Bushmasters or M230s. Blammo!

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