.
Speaking of the “art” of making threats, Dana Milbank looks at the latest Tea Party tantrums and says that “Obama has already won the immigration fight“:
Among the many ways Republican members of Congress are contemplating to punish President Obama for his executive actions on immigration is a proposal of elegant simplicity: They would refuse to invite him to the Capitol to give his State of the Union address.
Yes, that should do the job. And if this doesn’t force Obama to back down from his executive orders, Republican lawmakers can escalate by unfriending him on Facebook and unfollowing him on Twitter. If even this fails, they can take the extreme step of having their Christmas cards from the Obamas returned to sender. Surely, the president then would have no choice but to relent…
My Post colleague Robert Costa has heard Republican lawmakers floating no fewer than nine possible responses, from the frivolous (the State of the Union snub) to the outrageous (impeachment). But all signs indicate Republicans have abandoned attempts to defund Obama’s executive actions under the threat of a shutdown — at least for now. Instead, they plan to keep the government running through Sept. 30, probably allowing immigration-related spending to lapse earlier next year. This would be paired with a symbolic vote blocking Obama’s executive actions…
From the Balloon Juice Lexicon:
Kabuki – Japanese Kabuki is a form of classical theatre known for highly stylized drama and elaborately made-up actors performing pieces codified over hundreds of years. It’s completely opaque to people who don’t already understand it. In political terms, actions or statements said to rely upon posturing, exaggeration, and loud noises to disguise their empty theatricality. Modern conservative Republicans prefer the Theatre of Noh (h/t commentor Donald G)
**********
Apart from a little histrionics for the holidays (the Speaker can play Rudolph!), what’s on the agenda for the day?
raven
I’m going to repost this from the last thread:
@Betty Cracker: Isn’t it a crime that this woman has had to leave the country to be with the person she loves? She also recently went to Tanzania to teach kids and is part of this fundraiser for The World Youth Education Trust in case anyone is interested in dropping a few beans.
Baud
If roles were reversed, the blogs would be howling at how weak and spineless the Democrats were for backing down from a fight.
Baud
@raven:
Why is there still a hold-up in getting residency?
Mustang Bobby
I just had my first encounter with editing a website using wix.com. Too cute by half and really, really dumb when it comes to editing choices. Say what you will about FYWP, wix sucks dry green donkey hooters.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
FYWC?
raven
@Baud: I’m not sure, Kate is back stateside for the holidays so I’ll ask her. Here’s her article from May about getting a reply from the president out their situation.
Baud
@raven:
Good luck to her. I hope 2015 is the year it all sorts itself out.
Mustang Bobby
It reminds me of the most odious duty I have when I was teaching: proctoring a Grade 8 study hall.
OzarkHillbilly
I sold my old truck last week. Could’ve held out for more money, but I was already tired of dealing with that mess and I made one old black man absolutely giddy with the deal so there was that too. Anyway, I now have the money to put new tires ($225 a pop) on the “new” truck and brakes too (gonna pay down credit card with the balance), so that is the main job lined up. I have plenty to do to fill in the edges of the day so I surely won’t be bored.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie@ Top:
Rudolph the Orange-Nosed Reindeer?
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: I thought 8th graders were more mature than that.
OzarkHillbilly
100 brains go missing from University of Texas I’m surprised they even noticed, They’ve been missing at least twice that number from the Texas State House for years.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I conned my wife into a new 350 rather than buy something new.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Good engines, tuff and strong. I’ve put in a couple of rebuilts over the years and was never sorry.
I didn’t want to get a new truck but the old one did not have 4wd and in the winter, these crooked and steep roads can require it. I actually prefer not going anywhere when it is icy and knee deep with snow, but Dog forbid I have a chain saw accident and NOT be able to get to a hospital.
Botsplainer
@Raven:
You use it for a fifth wheel, or do you drag a big ass boat?
Iowa Old Lady
Anyone remember Dragon magazine? My son subscribed for years but he’s ready to part with them now, so we have a big, very heavy box of them that Mr IOL volunteered to “sell.” Is it possible to do that? Would ebay be good? The shipping would be expensive, I think.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: It was funny, he was so country he oozed possum entrails and grits, and his son was so city he had asphalt for skin. Listening to the 2 of them go at it was like having a private viewing to a new episode of Sanford and Son..
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s a mr goodwrench 4 bolt main 350 in my 66.
raven
@Botsplainer: Mostly haulin garden stuff an rappin the steel packs on rides with the dogs.
MattF
Seems to me that the outrage addicts are sinking into a sort of confusion. It’s gotten too complicated and too self-involved. Doesn’t even make sense when you spell all the words correctly and put back the capital letters.
kdaug
Let’s try not to be rude. Stipulated, Bohner can’t play the reindeer games. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find something else for him to wipe his orange off on. A lightpost, maybe? Or maybe a small fish.
Josie
@Iowa Old Lady: Media mail (for books and magazines) is cheaper than regular shipping, but it would still be high for the whole box. Maybe you could offer them a year or a few months at a time with the buyer paying the shipping.
Elizabelle
Valdivia: putting out the bat signal, to you and any other Juicers:
I would like to go see Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman (w Hillary Swank and Meryl Streep): bleak drama about the 19th century West.
Is at AMC Shirlington, 7:30, 4:45 and 2:00 p. They are keeping it at least through the weekend, and likely next week.
You up for it? Multiple drinkeries nearby for discussing the movie and political craziness after.
geg6
I’m amazed that there was another long comment thread last night all about the ethics in gaming journalism. Fuck. Sometimes I hate men. White men, specifically.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly:
One of the sales conditions should have been getting to see them from time to time after.
Would love to hear their take on current or cultural events. Podcast worthy.
raven
@geg6: Thank you, thank you very much indeed.
satby
@Josie: @Iowa Old Lady: Yes, ebay might be good, and the buyers pay shipping anyway. I would break them up into packs of each year, and absolutely ship media rate, it’s tons cheaper, which can make a difference to buyers because they pay shipping.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So basically – next year is off the current news cycle so it would be to late for the GOP write their own immigration law.
MattF
@geg6: Hmm. Ethics in journalism is an empty set, ethics in gaming is an empty set. The intersection of two empty sets is empty. What’s the controversy?
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: Yes, I hate me too. ;-)
MattF
@MattF: Technical note: I should have said ‘the intersection of the empty set with itself is empty’.
lamh36
Speaking of assholes. Why exactly do you guys like Dave Weigel again? Dudes been playing “captain save a …” for that GOP staget since she resigned. I mean he claims not to know her yet he’s still butt hurt enough over it that he first compared the response to her as a twitter “mob” now this morning he tweets thus bullshit…
What the hell does MB stepfather have to do with the GOP staffer?
gratuitous
The very fine writer Anne Lamott posted a mini-rant on Facebook about the Tea Baggers and their hatefulness. It was a bit longer than the space allows, so I clicked on “Read More” to finish the last paragraph or two, which had the salutary effect of revealing the responses to her post.
Most of them were of the “You go girl” variety, but one was from some butt-hurt Tea Bagger, who claimed that she ordinarily greatly enjoyed and admired Lamott’s writing (Lamott writes about practically everything under the sun from a Christian perspective – be warned – with a deft touch treading a delicate line while using words like “shit” and “fuck” if you can believe it). But this post was just too much for Miss Butt-Hurt. The “reply” button noted that there were several responses, including one from Lamott. I clicked on the replies to see what she answered: “Bye-bye.”
Another terrific object lesson from Anne Lamott. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, I urge you to pick up a book or two of hers.
NonyNony
?
So they’re going to get back at Obama for his dastardly efforts to prioritize who gets deported with the money Congress has given him by … giving him less money to deport people?
MattF
@NonyNony: They’re going to de-fund the Office of Turkey Amnesty.
OzarkHillbilly
9 mins of John Stewart and Larry Wilmore on the latest conservative commentary about Ferguson. I can hardly wait for Wilmore’s new show to start.
lamh36
lamh36
OzarkHillbilly
@lamh36: Well they had to blame somebody, and he is black so he is tailor made to take the blame.
beth
Can someone tell me who died and made Charles Barkley spokesperson for all black people and why should I or any news outlet act like he’s Moses bringing the commandments down from the mountain?
beth
@OzarkHillbilly: I loved that – “what would you say to those people?” “How about fvck you?”. I almost wish they’d put Stewart on Meet the Press if only for a week or two.
HelpThe99ers
@NonyNony: Exactly. Or, as Andy Borowitz put it, “We Must Make America Somewhere No One Wants to Live”
But seriously, if the GOP were to try a defunding stunt like this, it would probably take all of five minutes to point out what you did: no funding = no deportations. Let’s see how well that plays out among the GOPers base.
Goblue72
I wonder what Thatcher fanboi Andrew Sullivan has to say about these allegations of underage rent boy parties – mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-i-3848987
Gin & Tonic
@beth: Now that Bill Cosby is semi-retired, somebody has to pick up the slack.
NonyNony
@HelpThe99ers:
I can tell you exactly how it plays out to the base. In the scene below I will take the part of myself, and the base will be represented by my uncle Harold – a die hard tea partier and, since around 2001 or so, an overtly racist asshole. (I mean I always knew the old guy was a bit racist – he grew up in an earlier era – but holy shit the guy has turned into a nutjob):
Harold: They’re going to punish that tyrant Obama by cutting off immigration funding – maybe he’ll understand that he’s not a dictator and he has to enforce all of the laws
Me: You realize of course that if they cut the funding then there’s no money for deportations. The more they cut the fewer people who are going to get deported, not more.
Harold: He’d better start deporting those [EXPLECTIVE DELETED] illegal [RACIST EPITHET DELETED] or his ass is going to get impeached
Me: How can they impeach him for not doing something when they won’t budget the money to do it?
Harold: They need to impeach him then! If he won’t do what he’s told then the uppity [EXPLETIVE DELETED] [RACIST EPITHET] needs to be impeached and deported back to Kenya where he belongs!
And that’s pretty much how it will go. Facts don’t matter – it isn’t like guys like my uncle got argued into the position they have so you aren’t going to argue him out of it. Obama could probably rescue him single-handedly from a burning building and my uncle would still spit in his face and tell him to go back to Kenya.
Mnemosyne
@gratuitous:
Lamott said one of my all-time favorite quotes about religion:
Elizabelle
@gratuitous:
Haven’t followed her Christian-themed stuff, but loved “Bird by Bird” on how to start writing.
Now following her on Facebook.
And here’s a cool essay on Bird by Bird.
brainpickings.org/2013/11/22/bird-by-bird-anne-lamott/
Bob In Portland
Just what I’ve been saying.
And how does this affect Americans? More fracking. More intense military interventions to get at that large pool of oil and gas in Central Asia. How crazy to think that the death of a President in Dallas fifty years ago would change our country!
Telling the truth is never a great way to become a member of a group. The opposite is true. Accepting agreed-upon lies is how to become accepted. So continue to deny America’s historical relationship with fascists around the world.
So continue to think that Ukraine is the new crucible of democracy in the world. Continue to believe that America is right and Russia is wrong. Believe the weekly missives from Ann Applebaum.
I read a comment in a foreign source that said American liberals were the most seduced by American propaganda and the group that is always late to the party. I don’t think that’s true, but only because the right-wingers are more easily convinced by the racist doggerel than the pure-of-heart liberals.
But liberals stand by and wring their hands over something while ignoring the big picture. Always. To look at the big picture is to be a conspiracy theorist.
This has been a most illuminating experience for me.