Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Second rate reporter says what?

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

People are weird.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

When I was faster i was always behind.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

So many bastards, so little time.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Shut Up, Dave

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Shut Up, Dave

by | 95 Comments

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Mark Thiessen, former speechwriter for George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, is very worried! From the NYTimes, this morning:

… Ebola has dominated the news this month.

But it’s still not the No. 1. concern among Americans, according to a Gallup survey released Tuesday, although viral fears have cracked the top 10. About 5 percent of respondents said Ebola was their top concern (tied with education and the Islamic State).

The findings raise questions of how effective Ebola and the threat from the Islamic State will be as campaign issues when voters head to the polls in two weeks.

Ebola ranks sixth on the list of concerns, with the old standbys — the economy (17 percent), government dissatisfaction (16 percent) and unemployment (10 percent) — as the top three, according to Gallup…

And here I was, wondering if Thiessen would like a chlorox chaser with his nice cool glass of STFU.
***********
Apart from marveling at the persistent malignity of certain primitive life forms, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike J

    Did you notice that Ari Fleischer replied to him, concerned that Weigel wasn’t as panicked as his betters thought he should be?

  2. 2.

    Trollhattan

    Know what else will “spread quietly”? Waistlines in winter.

    Bam!

    As a speechwriter, he does so perfectly fit his old boss.

  3. 3.

    kdaug

    I’m trying to avoid getting sunk into any more #gamergate crap or the latest with Paranautical Activity.

    Intertrons iz hard.

    (ETA: Is ebola still a thing?)

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    I’m thinking that CDC notice needs to be circulated among the right-wing, along with a blaring headline asking what it is that Obama’s “Health” organization is trying to hide from Americans.

  5. 5.

    the Conster

    Well, ABC World “News” Tonight just informed me that sleepy drivers and ATM attacks are the “new national threat”. Ebola, ISIS and undocument children from Central America are SO last week.

  6. 6.

    Suffern ACE

    I guess terrorists are suicidal maniacs anyway, but I would think it funny if they wiped themselves out by bringing live Ebola viruses back to their training camps.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    I fear Marc Thiessen is right. My sources tell me that terrorists have already put this devious plan into motion. They intend to spread the ebola virus by infecting voting stations in rural areas of swing states. For the love of God, country, and family, voters in the affected areas should quarantine themselves until all is clear. Probably sometime in 2018. We’ll give you signal when all is clear. Really.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:
    This. It’s finally a legitimate chance for Obama to warn people not to drink bleach.

    ETA: Maybe we should have big headlines telling people the CDC is sure that you can’t get Ebola by watching Fox News.

  9. 9.

    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

    @Mike J: Dear Ari Fleischer:

    ان شاء الله، ونحن لسنا أغبياء كما تظن نحن.
    الحب والقبلات

    أبو بكر البغدادي

  13. 13.

    Howard Beale IV

    Rats. Moderation.

    Ari Fleischer’s a flaming douche canoe.

    عزيزي مارك ثيسن:

    ان شاء الله، ونحن لسنا أغبياء كما تظن نحن.
    الحب والقبلات،
    أبو بكر البغدادي

  14. 14.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    I posted this earlier Weigel tweeted “how about ACORN operatives put Ebola on door knobs of GOP precincts” GREAT IDEA! Just don’t give the game away Dave!

  15. 15.

    Joel

    Given the need to transport a virus that is 1) highly infectious and 2) has a very short shelf life, this is not a practical avenue for terrorism, as I’m sure you are all aware.

  16. 16.

    scav

    Hey, how perfect! I’m still off playing with the pidgin so I can play with the oyinbo and just hit: Lwkmd

    Definition: a facebook abbreviation for \”laugh wan kill me die\”..used when something is very funny and you can barely stop laughing

    Example: omo dis show we dey watch go kill me oo..lwkmd!

  17. 17.

    Belafon

    I’m missing the reason for the hate on Weigel in this case. I’ve seen a number of tweets where he’s called out those who are panicking over ebola:

    Ebola not becoming a big election issue. Solution: Scarier Ebola we’re-gonna-die theories! http://t.co/r0AlIuALsv— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 21, 2014

  18. 18.

    Keith G

    Damn. I was hoping to begin marketing an anti Ebola cocktail. Chlorine and Chevis – called a Bleached Blonde.

  20. 20.

    Abo gato

    Waiting at a table outside of Garbo’s Lobster in Austin. My friends are going to be here soon. Tuesday is lobster special night where you can get a whole one for like $16.00. For the win!

  21. 21.

    Trollhattan

    @Joel:
    Did they learn nothing from Bush’s forgotten anthrax attacks on how it’s actually done? And also, too, the smallpox panics around that time?

    Didn’t think so.

  22. 22.

    The Other Chuck

    I dunno, if you drink a bottle of bleach, chances are you’ll never have to worry about Ebola again.

  25. 25.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Belafon: @Baud: Oh, the irony of it all – here the GOP has put the fear of ebola being used in all matter of political ways – now to deploy it to prevent people from voting and even being used as a potential terrorist weapon…

    Holy backfiring plan, Batman…

  26. 26.

    scav

    @Mike J: Or, maladroit / floating,she could just be upset he’s warned them about the nice healthy cocktail they were about to chug.

  27. 27.

    tsquared2001

    “But it’s still not the No. 1. concern among Americans,”

    Despite our best efforts, he neglected to add.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    Moving truck comes tomorrow morning to move the big stuff (couches, refrigerator, bookcases, etc.) and are we in any way ready? Fuck, no. I guess it’ll be a really late night tonight …

  29. 29.

    srv

    Unless Oscar is Jaco Pastorius’ kid or something, why should a meteor of blondes not be crashed into the Beeb?

    Damn Dan Rather, will no one give me the right frequency for truth? The least worst channel is going to be RT soon if the Beeb has jumped the shark.

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    The problem with Weigel is that he’s an asshole. Everything he writes just grates, when he isn’t deliberately trolling. Like his post linked above about how we don’t have a surgeon general because democrats made a bad bet on a guy who supports some mild gun control, so the NRA opposed him, so there was no vote, without even mentioning that maybe the problem isn’t with the nominee or the Dems but about, I don’t know, the goddamned NRA?

  33. 33.

    Keith G

    @Mike J: Hey guys, the “Shut up, Dave” is about him warning Thiessen about the dangers of drinking chlorine

    And here I was, wondering if Thiessen would like a chlorox chaser with his nice cool glass of STFU.

    The joke was a reach too far, but the bread crumbs were easy to follow.

  36. 36.

    Howard Beale IV

    @srv: Getting pretty hard these days to find a news organizations that doesn’t have an ox to gore of some kind or another. It’s almost like you have to compartmentalize each news organization and say I’ll watch A for this, B for that, etc. etc. etc. Pretty sad state of affairs.

  40. 40.

    scav

    can someone hit reply to ed at 31? I”m getting tossed to the below, which is fantastic — pure quantum tunneling fodder. And All I had to contribute was everyone catching the Hebola-Jeebies!

    Coconino County officials say fleas collected in the Doney Park area northeast of Flagstaff have tested positive for plague. The tests were recently conducted by the Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics at Northern Arizona University. The County Public Health Services District’s environmental health staff collects and tests flea samples from locations throughout Coconino County. The recent tests were conducted as part of the ongoing surveillance in the Doney Park area and were collected from burrows being monitored due to a die-off of prairie dogs. Officials say area residents were notified of the situation and the burrows have since been treated. The area will be closely monitored to determine if further action is required. The positive test is the first evidence of plague activity reported in the county this year.

  42. 42.

    Russ

    I am thinking that those of us that hang around the blogs and pay attention to what is happening and don’t believe for a second that the polling people know what areas to call to get the results they want that the actual outcome of the election is beyond anyones control. Ohio 2012 tells me that those that spend a lot of money believe that their money can buy elections but there is a huge amount of votrs that just show up and vote. all of the political masturbation in the world might fill airtime for radio and tv but most voters vote their conscience and someone conscience is not easily swayed.

  45. 45.

    Keith G

    @Major Major Major Major: If I understand your comment, your reason for dumping on DW is errant.

    The NRA will do what they do, just like public employee unions or trial lawyers. Their evilness is a known quality. Weigel is just pointing out that red state Dems were chicken shit (my term) and rolled over in order to feel less heat.

    You can see why the NRA wanted to prevent such a doctor from becoming surgeon general. And you can sort of see why red state Democrats begged Harry Reid to prevent a vote on him. Two Democrats who are up for re-election this year, Alaska’s Mark Begich and Arkansas’s Mark Pryor, voted against every single one of the post-Sandy Hook gun amendments proposed in the Senate. Five more Democrats who are up this year voted against the assault weapons ban, including purple-staters Mark Warner and Mark Udall. They’d opposed the president; surely, this was going to buy them some peace with the NRA.

    It didn’t. As Alec MacGillis pointed out two weeks ago, before Ebolamania, even the Democrats who went easy on gun safety are getting the pariah treatment from the NRA. In Arkansas, the NRA got behind Pryor’s challenger, Representative Tom Cotton

    .
    …And a bit lower

    So what did the Democrats get for punting on a surgeon general nominee? They sort of, kind of deflected attacks on one of their endangered senators, while broadcasting huge weakness to the NRA and validating Republican attacks on the administration for trying to sneak past “radical” nominees. There’s caution, and then there’s plain bad strategy. Guess which column this fits into.

    Yes the NRA is evil. And now there is a null where there could be a strong policy voice taking on that evil. That fact is purely because of the Senate Democrats.

  46. 46.

    kdaug

    @srv:

    Wells Branch is not Austin.

    Pfluck off, asshole. Pflugerville is pflabulous!

    (Sold my house there last year).

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    @tsquared2001:

    I thought that like scientists are wont to do, he simply called for some money in order to study the data.

    The NRA doesn’t even want people to study the issue, since they know what answers are going to turn up.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    [. . .] Ebola was their top concern (tied with education and the Islamic State).

    Glad to see my fellow conservative citizens are finally recognizing the threat this nation faces from education.

  51. 51.

    scav

    @Frankensteinbeck: Plague, yes. that’s usually ticking over at low levels. I just wasn’t expecting to find that as a “reply” off BJ. Truly a full-function blog.

    ETA: isn’t the “pan” just basically about being on multiple continents? Outbreak and Epidemic are the more scale-laden terms I thought.

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    You have to have your own refrigerator in a rental place? That seems weird. Although it did happen to me once. But that was an unfurnished house, and also I chalked it up to the landlord being a bit sketchy.

  54. 54.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Keith G: Examine the prose. He’s being a dick. He has a strong libertarian streak and it shows in his differing representations of liberal and conservative groups. Maybe I just don’t like his writing because he’s sarcastic and mean and disagrees with me. But blaming senate Dems for behaving like they want to get re-elected (which is really fucking important) is stupid. Take Udall–he’s a pretty good senator, a bit weird but you just don’t get elected in CO by making even the slightest pro-gun-control peep (it’s actually a good way to get recalled). Without that sort of context his piece is worse than pointless.

  55. 55.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Roger Moore:

    The NRA doesn’t even want people to study the issue, since they know what answers are going to turn up.

    That they all suffer from lead poisoning?

  60. 60.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Major Major Major Major: Dunno-the recent Seattle TImes article seems to be the most recent shit-stirrer on the whole issue of the fallout of those who have been suffering lead poisoning from working at shooting ranges and how little enforcement/penalties there have been at both state/federal levels. which seems to fit with typical Liberterian behaviors-appeal/work the system long enough so we don’t have to pay shit.

  61. 61.

    divF

    @scav:
    Back when the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Review (MMWR) used to come out in hard copy, we subscribed to it. Every so often, they would do a summary of the less-frequently seen diseases, like plague. There were so few plague cases (like 10), that they would list every one of them in a table. My favorite from one year went something like this.

    Location: Texas
    Gender: female
    Age: 96
    How disease was contracted: handling infected squirrels
    Outcome: patient recovered

  63. 63.

    kdaug

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Heard Chris Mathews (hold up) make a good point once – we don’t choose our elected officials. We choose from a self-selected group of people who choose to run. It takes a certain kind of asshole to think that they can rule the city/state/country/world.

    Reckon someone has to. But I sure as shit wouldn’t want the job.

  68. 68.

    Keith G

    @Howard Beale IV: The public health costs of gun violence. “Guns are a health care issue.”

    @Major Major Major Major: Maybe he is being a dick. He is being irreverent. Same thing?

    Those Dems quite actually made a deal with a devil…

    “I will let you scare me and I will give you yet another public policy victory. You will call off the dogs for the mid terms.”

    Well, the dogs came out attacking anyway. We will lose the Senate and not get the appointment.

    Maybe I am cutting Weigel a break since he is being a lot nicer than I would be.

  71. 71.

    divF

    @scav: I particularly liked the recipe for Kentucky Burgoo stew that was included for those who didn’t get the point of the rest of the entries.

    Kentucky Burgoo (Serves 25)
    Makes 1200 gallons of stew

    Squirrels – 1 doz.to each 100 gals.
    …

    They still make Burgoo, but the squirrel has been replaced with chicken.

  74. 74.

    Keith G

    @Major Major Major Major: Well if lame duck it is to be, it will be busy. There are 63 vacancies in the fed judiciary. About half of them have a pending nomination. Harry Reid will be losing sleep, or should be.

  75. 75.

    beth

    I just watched the South Carolina gubernatorial debate. Nikki Haley just couldn’t bring herself to say that perpertrators of domestic violence should have their guns taken away. She suggested that since women were afraid to go to the police, the churches needed to get involved to help shelter and support women in those situations. How any woman can vote for her is beyond comprehension.

    On the other hand, there’s some black man running. I don’t know who he is but he was a hoot. His only issue seemed to be legalizing marijuana and every time it was his turn he asked “what was the question again?”. If they post clips on YouTube it’s worth watching him for the entertainment value.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @Belafon:

    I’m missing the reason for the hate on Weigel in this case

    I like Weigel — just joking that Thiessen might’ve been dumb enough to drink bleach if his twitter-alert hadn’t explicitly warned him against it!

  77. 77.

    Roger Moore

    @Central Planning:

    But you know the right-wingers will do it

    Of course I do. People around here have been exhorting Obama to warn against the dangers of drinking bleach for years on the theory that spiteful wingnuts would do it and kill themselves. I always thought that was fanciful because those warnings only spur the crazies to do things if they already had some idea of doing so, and nobody was planning on guzzling bleach in the first place. Now that people are actually talking about it, there’s a real possibility that Obama will have cause to give the warning.

  80. 80.

    Bill

    I hear the most likely place to contract ebola is the voting booth. Only people who think ebola is not a threat should go there.

  82. 82.

    Roy G.

    I’d like to see ACORN make a comeback on Election Day, and hire some people of obvious African descent to stand outside the Red State polling precincts coughing and sneezing. Plus pay for some hidden cameras to watch the fun.

  84. 84.

    Abo gato

    @srv: What do I know? I live in SA, just here for work till Thursday. Feels like Austin to me. Besides, the food was great.

  85. 85.

    Abo gato

    @kdaug: Very nice. They have fried lemons that are the shiz. Slices with rind, battered and fried. I am so going to make some at home this weekend.

  86. 86.

    Another_Bob

    I almost get the sense that some wingnuts have a secret wish that something really terrible happens so they can blame it on Obama. Just like they spent so many years trying to get revenge for Nixon being driven from office over Watergate, now they’re getting their hopes up for the umpteenth time that ebola may finally hand Obama his Katrina-Waterloo. They were probably disappointed when those people in quarantine in Texas were given the all clear.

  89. 89.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:
    I believe the limitation is that conservatives aren’t against what Obama says he wants, they’re against what they think he wants. Extend this to liberals and Cleek’s Law in general. They take all kinds of crazy positions to fight a conspiracy theory image of us in their heads. In this case, it would be very hard to make them believe Obama doesn’t want them to drink bleach. It’s not part of their fantasy world.

  90. 90.

    g

    If the terrorist really want to kill us, they’ll send out a mass text to all of us, so that those of us stupid enough to read it while driving will have a horrible accident!!!

    Yeah, that’s it!!

  91. 91.

    opiejeanne

    Got a newsletter from my broker today detailing the reasons for the stock market drop last week, and the #1 reason listed was Ebola hysteria.

    Thanks, Republicans.

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