@dandrezner all I could think of was the prison scene in "The Dark Knight Rises"
— Andrew Lebovich (@tweetsintheME) January 6, 2015
Jeb Bush's new campaign fundraising org is called the Right to Rise PAC. Which I guess is gonna lead the fight for Obamacare Viagra coverage
— Billmon (@billmon1) January 6, 2015
Doing his Grandpa Prescott proud, our Jeb — money first, principles to be determined later. As Robert Costa reports in the Washington Post, “Jeb Bush and his allies form leadership PAC and super PAC, both dubbed Right to Rise“:
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and his supporters launched two new political action committees on Tuesday as he moves closer to a 2016 presidential campaign, underscoring his desire to get a head start on his potential rivals on both fundraising and organizing.
The official formation of the new leadership PAC Right to Rise, the plans for which were announced by Bush in December, will serve as a holding area for staff and a policy shop until Bush formally decides on whether to run. It will also serve as the focal point of Bush’s political efforts, from commissioning polls and producing ads to making hires for his digital team…
He will visit Greenwich, Conn., on Wednesday to raise funds for it, one of many events he has held in recent weeks as he has ramped up his activity.
Greenwich was the hometown of the late Connecticut GOP senator Prescott Bush, Bush’s grandfather, and has long been a place where the Bush family has deep roots. More fundraising trips are in the works, including stops in Washington and New York…
The Grey Lady, whose most desirable advertising targets subscribers lives in Greenwich, is absolutely delighted by the news:
Jeb Bush on Tuesday delivered a powerful message about two of the most vital ingredients in a presidential campaign, money and ideas, transforming himself from a figure who once seemed paralyzed by ambivalence over a White House run into the most forceful presence within the emerging Republican field.
With the flip of a Facebook switch, Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, disclosed the formation of a full-time political apparatus that can begin raising money with an eye toward 2016 and laid out a campaign rationale that was striking for its emphasis on big, knotty, bipartisan concepts like immigration overhaul and income inequality.
Mr. Bush, 61, a figure indelibly linked to the Republican Party’s past, seems determined to offer himself as an intellectual midwife of its future — a break from the party’s struggle to win over minority voters and the kind of ideological infighting, on display Tuesday when conservatives tried to oust Speaker John A. Boehner, that Mr. Bush could face in primaries…
Not so much, the jumped-up hustlers from the Jersey sticks, per the Post:
… Christie in particular has been squeezed by Bush, who has cast himself as the same kind of pragmatic, reform-oriented center-right candidate. Bush aides are intensely courting the New Jersey governor’s financial backers, seeking to persuade them to change sides.
Startled by Bush’s early offensive, Christie allies acknowledge that he has upended the competition for major party contributors.
“The Bushes have been very effective at going at Republican donors,” said former New Jersey governor Tom Kean (R). “They know that to a lot of people in the party, Jeb is the favorite son.”…
DFH Ed Kilgore, at the Washington Monthly, casts a cold eye:
…[T]he first actual event in his name, a fundraiser in Connecticut, is getting an unwholesome amount of attention for a proto-candidate who is already compared unfavorably to Mitt Romney… [T]his event will remind everyone of the dynastic issues Jeb faces, and of his positioning as the candidate of the GOP Donor Class. You’d think some of the high-life political advisors in Team Bush would have figured out he needed to do a $20-a-plate sandwich fundraiser at some Baptist Church in the pineywoods before decamping to Greenwich to rub shoulders with his familial peers. But that’s apparently not how he rolls.
Not to mention, the GOP in-every-sense base:
Jeb Bush opens deposit window at #RightToRise website to skeptical customers http://t.co/bAmSv1NXmU
— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) January 7, 2015
And up pops Bill “Always Wrong” Kristol…
Great to see PNAC back in the news! I'd forgotten Jeb was an original PNAC signer. Maybe I've been too hard on him…
http://t.co/y6yVTtjBEb
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 6, 2015
Perhaps Mr. Kristol has yet to realize how thoroughly unpopular PNAC’s blueprint for Dubya’s Iraq fiasco has become, on both sides of the aisle. (And perhaps I am secretly Miley Cyrus.)
jcgrim
I heard from a DC relative that the Clintons prefer Bush as the opposition as it will minimize the R’s dynasty narrative against them.
dubo
It’s kind of amazing how everyone mentioned is openly acknowledging Jeb’s super PAC is an arm of his campaign apparatus without batting an eye
Elizabelle
Anne: Could we do a thread on the murders at Charlie Hebdo? I have no interest in Jeb Bush, and freedom of the press — as practiced by irreverent (and often aggravating) leftists who truly believe in freedom of the press AND freedom from a religious state — would be a fitting topic.
Ten of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and staff, at least, are lying dead and were targeted because of their work. Plus two police officers, perhaps assigned to protect them.
PLUS: I am thinking how — um — delicate a situation this might be for our homegrown rightwingers, in expressing solidarity with the victims.
On the one hand, you have (mostly) white people shot dead by Islamic terrorists in a major urban center.
However: they were leftists, skewered rightwingers and religious types — whether Islamic, Christian, or Jewish. And they were French. Ouch.
Jeb Bush may not be the object of fascination you expect. Just cuz it’s served up by our pseudojournalists doesn’t mean we have to bite.
debbie
I can NOT believe that New Century crap is back.
Rafer Janders
And perhaps more relevant, Greenwich is a hotbed of hedge fund and private equity firms whose members like to donate large sums to Republicans…..
satby
@dubo: They bought and paid for the decision that lets them do that: they earned the right to that corruption!
Elizabelle
Is there a reason we’re not discussing the attack on Charlie Hebdo (a publication I had never heard of until today)?
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Glenn Beck wasn’t particularly delicate, but he said while he might disagree with alot of what they published, killing them was wrong. I guess Terrorism will always be #1 for him.
low-tech cyclist
Did the Grey Lady bother to tell us what Jeb proposes to do about income inequality, or how he plans to overhaul immigration? I doubt he can come up with a proposal for either that is bipartisan in concept yet doesn’t alienate the GOP base. That’s been a bridge too far for years now, and Jeb can’t bridge it any more than anyone else can.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
They’re the paper who published the cartoon of a bomb in Mohammed’s turban. Surely you remember that?
beltane
@debbie: Terrorism will always be #1 for him unless it’s his team doing the terrorizing, in which case it’s not really terrorism.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Seconded.
kc
I don’t hate Hillary the way some do, but the idea of a Bush v Clinton campaign depresses the hell out of me.
Renie
What happens to the money he raises if he decides not to run? I guess this also means his Mommy gave him permission to run for president.
JPL
@Elizabelle: I’m streaming MSNBC and John Kerry is suppose to make a statement soon.
According to the Guardian
I imagine that the major papers are tightening security.
JPL
@beltane: I assume the bombing of the NAACP in CO. is not terrorism because a balding white guy was seen in the area.
beltane
The Guardian’s liveblog: theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/07/shooting-paris-satirical-magazine-charlie-hebdo
The gunmen claimed to be Al-Qaida.
catclub
@low-tech cyclist:
Bridge too far indeed. Ed Kilgore has said that Jeb is hopelessly out of touch with the new GOP, and they will reject his Common Core accepting, Soft on immigration ass. But if he ends up being the nominee, then maybe not so much. I have no idea how it ends. Clearly the big money GOP wants him to be the one. They seem much more organized to force this on the roots, than Romney in 2012.
beltane
@JPL: And he drove a pickup truck! He was just a patriot with a sad because all his freedoms had been taken away from him.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Oh, they’ll blame the hajjis. Though those of them who know it was a lefty paper might throw in some of the usual bullshit about how that’s what lefties get for being friends with terrorists.
My wingnut uncle just posted a link to one of the rags he reads about Islamic blasphemy. That’s it. Not a word of support or a pause for such trivialities as “I’m praying for the victims and survivors.” A plug in for his cause was the extent of the reaction.
What wonderful people.
beltane
@Chris: By the end of the day they’ll have worked in the anti-French angle as well.
Elizabelle
@debbie:
I read that one of their cartoons had Mohammed weeping, telling himself: it’s terrible to be loved by jerks (re ISIS etc.)
Will have to find the link. It was funny and understandable in French, too.
Bonus: “Cons” translates to jerks in French, apparently. Is that not news we can use?
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: A highschool friend on FB is all worked up about how The West isn’t able to deal with What’s Going On and won’t call it what it is, etc. He’s basically a Hitchens-esque Republican-leaning “all religion is stupid and makes people kill each other, especially Muslims, who are worst of all” type.
Jude
@debbie: I believe you’re talking about the Danish Jyllands-Posten.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Here’s the one lepoint.fr/images/2015/01/07/3044286-2057904089-jpg_2649349.jpg
Amir Khalid
@low-tech cyclist:
That’s the whole thing about calling any initiative “bipartisan”, isn’t it? In the current state of American politics, it’s just an advertising term for an insincere promise to come up, by and by, with policies that everyone will like. The point, on any given day, is to avoid offering specifics.
soonergrunt
America needs a third Bush president like I need a third nipple.
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
I object to your use of “hajjis” in that sense: it is a sectarian slur.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
They just love the Eurabia meme.
Being half-European, I’ve always been touched by the way the American right wing loathes us, considers us a fourth world failed state, a one-worlder (the EU) communist empire, the absolute epitome of all the things they never, ever, ever want to let happen in their beautiful clean republic (they waste far more ink on Europe than they do on Russia or China, FFS)…
… unless we’re talking about the dusky horde of immigrants, and the threat it poses to our continued whiteness.
THEN, they love us and want to save us.
(Also, they’renotracisthowdareyoucallthemracisttheyhaveblackfriendsyadayada).
sparrow
@Elizabelle:
AMEN!!!
Belafon
@JPL: As someone said on one of the blogs I read: I will never bash Twitter because, for all the crap that’s on there, it’s the only way we would know about Ferguson, or see the video of Garmon being strangled in New York. From Daily Kos: Frustrated by lack of mainstream media coverage, #NAACPBombing hashtag goes viral.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry. Was going for what they’d say, but apology for having used it.
dedc79
@JPL: He’s giving the press conference in French. Good thing we don’t need to worry about him running for president again….
JGabriel
NYTimes:
… someone whose common sense has been overcome by his rivalry with his brother and the knowledge that with another 4 years of Rick Scott, a Republican even more crooked than himself, in the Florida governor’s office, he already has one state in his pocket for the general election – no matter how much fraud it takes.
JGabriel
@Elizabelle:
No wonder conservatives hate everything about the French except the whine.
Elizabelle
A NY Times reader comment re Charlie Hebdo murders:
This is the issue we keyboard against on this blog: politically, we’re up against a ridiculous ideology (today’s GOP) that does not get enough free thought and criticism and won’t because doing so might upset sponsors, media owners, and readers.
And you’ve got Democrats who’ve swallowed some very stupid thinking too — the deficit reduction fetish, which makes complete sense while struggling out of a Great Recession (not!), turning public goods (education) into privatized income streams, as Kay points out frequently, cowtowing for Wall Street money and putting up tepid reforms.
Today people who might take social issues more seriously than our careerist corporate-owned press were gunned down for their ideas.
And our fresh thread is on Jeb Fucking Bush. Hello out there?
Belafon
@Belafon: Garner, not Garmon.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I don’t think it’s even internally contradictory: the narrative is that Europe is letting Them take over without firing a shot because it’s become weak and decadent, and America is not as far gone but the same fate threatens it thanks to liberals and political correctness, etc. etc.
What really had them in knots was the need to express pious reverence for NYC in the wake of 9/11. I remember reading a bunch of articles about how the Democratic-voting Northeast was basically a total loss except for New York City, which had always been populated with the salt of the earth. Lasted maybe a year.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: There is an alternative.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
At least Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell didn’t feel the need to pretend. They just went right for the gold. That very week.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: I hope so but as of yet, I don’t see how.
Goblue72
@Elizabelle: You’ve completely beaten your horse to death at this point.
JPL
@Chris: Pat Robertson was not shamed off the air, either.
satby
@Elizabelle: You do realize this isn’t actually a news blog right? Pretty confident everyone here agrees “terrorism bad”.
danielx
I’d forgotten that Jeb was an original PNAC signer myself. When you view the list of signatories and recall the unblemished record of PNAC strategic aims achievement (yup, 100% suck and fail), I would imagine Jeb is not overly pleased by Bloody Bill’s gratuitous plug. I mean, would you want to be in the same group as Darth – er, Dick, Dick! = Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, William Bennett, Donald Rumsfeld…? These people should all be required to wear lapel buttons that say things like “I am a complete dipshit”, or “my efforts contributed to the greatest foreign policy disaster in US history” or maybe “I helped increase the deficit by a trillion dollars”.
Goblue72
@Chris: God don’t work for free.
Sherparick
By the way, reference the event in Paris, I predict that the meme by this afternoon on right-wing media (Faux, Brietbart, Daily Rancid, Talk Radio, etc.), will be that this assault in Paris is all the Kenyan Usurper’s fault because either 1) he has fecklessly failed to bomb Assad in Syria, bomb Iran (even though both as are Shia and therefore are enemies of Al Qaida and ISIS), not done something unspecified regarding Putin, and not tortured enough people at Guantanamo; or ) 2 is facilitating it all because of his Secret Muslimness (as evidenced apparently by his dark skin); or 3) some incoherent combination of 1&2 (which is what think will be the most common response). Remember, IOKIYR to recklessly demagogue and take advantage of politically convenient tragedy that occurs anywhere in the world.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: I was talking about her not getting the thread she wanted.
Marc
The Paris attack is major news, and it would actually be appropriate to have at least an open thread on the subject.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: You went to high school with Bill Maher?
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I’ll be the controversial asshole to bring up this aspect: I know we’re all supposed to be all about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, but frankly the insistence by European newspapers on publishing cartoons that they know are offensive to Muslims always comes across as bullying to me. It’s like, Nyah-nyah, we can insult you any way we want and you can’t do a thing about it! What are you going to do, crybaby?
And when people can’t get a bully to leave them alone any other way, they will turn to violence. It’s not right and the response was way out of proportion, but you can only insult people for so long before they want to strike back at you.
Goblue72
@Matt McIrvin: they did at least stage their Triumph of the Will rally there in 2004.
Elizabelle
@Goblue72:
Because that’s something you never do.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. I could not figure out what your initial comment meant. A bit cryptic. Now I see.
Goblue72
@Elizabelle: just saying. You made your demand for your own special thread. Three times.
Bobby Thomson
It’s news to me that people in the comments care about what the ostensible theme is supposed to be.
ETA: Self help.
Gawker has a fairly comprehensive compilation of the most inflammatory cartoons and articles, along with an idiot commenter section still butthurt that Gawker occasionally prints articles suggesting that things like rape and police brutality are maybe not a good idea.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Mowing down an office filled with people, might not be the way to voice your displeasure. Political cartoonists tend to offend some and a religious caricature, should not cause anymore offense, than other drawings. I know it does for some, I’m just voicing my own opinion.
dedc79
@Mnemosyne: the phrase “way out of proportion” is carrying a hell of a lot of weight there.
And I don’t think bullying is a fair characterization of what the paper was doing. Bullying is telling a paper what they can and can’t do based on threat of or act of violence.
Mike J
Here’s the cover CH ran after they were attacked in 2011.
Love is stronger than hate.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: The fee-fees of god botherers get hurt very easily and once you start banning stuff there is no going back. India started by banning Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in the late 80s. Now anything mildly controversial gets banned to appease the god botherers of mostly the Hindu variety.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think that’s controversial at all. And I’m not saying I would have enjoyed reading Charlie Hebdo. Probably I would get irritated when they skewered my sacred cows. (What do you mean “both sides?”)
Have to say: with all the latest kerfuffle about “The Interview”, that great Freedom!-fighting film, I truly wondered who had decided it was a great idea to proceed using an actual political figure as its assassination target. It seemed you could make your point well hiding behind a caricature that anyone with a pulse could figure out.
But maybe the way you take out some of these disastrous rulers is by satirizing them. That the West was laughing at its leader would get back to the North Korean people and maybe hearten and eventually embolden some of them.
Elizabelle
@Mike J:
That’s funny!
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I saw the Interview. Was not as crappy as I expected it to be.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Damning with faint praise, you are doing it right.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: yeah, I don’t know. Making a joke about someone’s religion isn’t something I consider hate speech. That being said, Muslim=brown person in a lot of peoples’ minds, so that’s a problem. Then again, there are aspects of Islam that I’m not all that comfortable with (there are aspects of every religion that I’m not comfortable with, so it’s not like I’m picking on Islam alone) and I would like the right to not be threatened with death if I bring them up. (though I likely won’t, because I don’t really like talking about religion)
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
I don’t read her comment as suggesting that anything be legally banned.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Heard that from a few people.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
I wonder if my reaction would be different if I had seen it before the controversy.
Elizabelle
It’s easier to defend Charlie Hebdo than it is to defend that ridiculous film “Innocence of Muslims”. Protests over that one got people killed.
Proving that a free press and media is a terribly slippery slope, but its alternative is worse.
ETA: Maybe in honor of the dead cartoonists and staff, will have to view “The People vs. Larry Flynt” again. That was a good flick.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Fair point but once you cave in to the demands of godbotherers there is no going back. One of India’s most prominent artists, M. F. Hussain died in exile because his interpretation of some Hindu goddesses offended India’s self appointed guardians of Hindu culture.
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson: Haha. Not him, but same general line of work.
Violet
@Elizabelle:
This is an AL thread. As she tends to be a night owl, she may well be asleep and this thread was a pre-set timed post. The rest of the FPers have jobs and lives and lots of time can go by without any fresh posts because they can’t post. Balloon-Juice is not a news organization and no one gets paid to post here.
Goblue72
@dedc79: I agree but I also think Aamericans don’t quite grok to the quite dysfunctional relationship between native Europeans and their Muslim immigrant communities. We have a relatively functional culture of immigrant assimilation in the U.S. Right down to our fairly liberal system of naturalization.
Europe in contrast really struggles with that. Heck, just look at the generations of Turkish guest workers in Germany who will never get to be citizens just because they aren’t “German” by blood.
Combine that with their southern neighbors (Africa/Middle East) being way more messed up economically & governance wise than ours. And you have a more toxic brew as the baseline.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree. But we find speech offensive all the time. I don’t think we would say no one is above criticism for what they chose to say. We simply don’t believe in violence or legal restrictions as a response.
Elizabelle
@Violet: yeah, I realize that.
Even so, I am sick to death of hearing about Jeb!mentum or anything about him. Reading about how sick our political ecosystem has become demoralizes me. It’s shabby and small and there are bigger issues out there.
Amir Khalid
@Marc:
We are in a thread about it right now. Even if the post itself was about something else, we the Juicitariat have exercised our John-Cole given freedom to hijack it for our own purposes.
@Mnemosyne:
I’m glad you brought that up. I remember that the publishers of the cartoons reckoned they had every right to publish a red-rag provocation to violent people. Which they did, but intentionally provoking very violent people has consequences. Which we have seen at the Charlie Hebdo office. And the provocateur shares responsibility for the consequences with the ones they provoked.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: I agree, I really couldn’t care less about the Jeb and Hillary saga.
Ben Cisco
He’s planning on running on this?
For a GOP nomination?
Unless he’s gunning for 1) shutting down immigration altogether and walling off Fortress America and b) increasing income inequality, I don’t think this is going to work for him the way he thinks it will…
SatanicPanic
@Violet:
What? I want my money back!
schrodinger's cat
@SatanicPanic: Don’t worry Tunchcoins are being transferred to your account as we speak.
dedc79
@Goblue72: I agree completely. We have done a far better job here (how often do we get to say that?), even though we’ve got plenty we could improve on still.
It’d probably be a whole different story here if Mexicans were Muslim.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
The last sentence goes a step too far for me.
shelley
Do you HAVE to give your PAC a name? Comes across as silly as the Weather Channels insistence on naming every piddling weather system
Calouste
@Elizabelle:
IIRC, “con” in French translates to a four letter word for a part of the female anatomy, starting with cu. That word, certainly in British English, can in certain contexts, be watered down to “jerk”.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
How far would you go, then?
dedc79
@Amir Khalid:
Edited.
What do you mean by share? Are you talking 50/50? I’d give you 2/98, to the extent that they knew they were putting their own lives at risk, but not much more than that.
Hell, black people living in the inner city know that walking outside means they might “provoke” the police into stopping/arresting/harming them for no good reason, but we (or at least most sane people) don’t say they share responsibility for it when it happens.
SatanicPanic
@schrodinger’s cat: awesome, my plan to be a Tunchcoin mogul is proceeding nicely
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid:
Sounds a lot like she was wearing a short skirt and she asked for it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@schrodinger’s cat: FML – I’ve only got a Rosiecoin compatible account. So what about my money?
Southern Beale
Isn’t that where all the hedge fund bazillionaires live?
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s an important distinction, there, which is that Hinduism is the majority religion in India, with the current governing party being the Hindu nationalists, while Islam is a minority religion in France. Being offensive to Hindu goddesses in India is a form of punching up, while being insulting to Mohamed in France is a way of kicking down. You have to keep that basic point in mind when trying to interpret the situation.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
Truth.
Twitter and others inform that cartoonist Charb said in 2012: “I prefer to die standing than to live on my knees.”
Although that quote goes back at least to Emiliano Zapata (1910s Mexican revolutionary/land reformer), who apparently said “It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees”, and that sentiment is no doubt centuries old and universal.
Ironically, the Charlie Hebdo journalists may be remembered more in death and for what follows. As happened to Zapata.
Kay
There’s a paris thread up top for you.
MomSense
@Calouste:
I was going to say that con or conne (feminine) isn’t exactly jerk. I suppose it could be used for that meaning but I wouldn’t. Jerk is a sanitized translation.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
When it comes to violent reprisals to offensive speech, I would place 100 percent of the responsibility on the people who are violent.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Kay just put up a new thread for the paris attacks.
Calouste
@FlipYrWhig: There has always been terrorism in the West and there always will be. Europeans have been used to that for decades (IRA, ETA, Brigada Rossa, Bader-Meinhoff group, GIA, 17 November, etc., etc.). Right wing Americans have been freaking out about it since 9/11 because it was the first time that they as a group were the targets of a major terrorist attack rather than the perpetrators (lynching, KKK, Oklahoma City bombing, Olympics bombing, etc.)
Elizabelle
@dedc79: You put the issue of provocation and responsibility way better than I did.
Still, Charlie Hebdo was out there to provoke discussion and ridicule.
Kay
Right to Rise refers to the “opportunity agenda”. It’s the conservative response to liberals on income inequality and wage stagnation.
We have a Right to Rise. Climb Ladders of Opportunity.
Allegedly :)
I hope Democrats have a counter, because they use the same language now.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: BJP was not in power when the government banned the Satanic Verses, it was Congress government headed by Rajiv Gandhi.
as for M.F.Husain, he managed to provoke both Hindu and Muslim godbotherers, throughout his long and prolific career. The vandalism against his paintings happened in the late 90s and early aughts.
When one variety of godbotherers (Muslim, in the Rushdie case) get their way, it emboldens god botherers from other religions too. (Hindu nationalists in India’s case).
BTW since when has being in the majority stopped godbotherers from feeling victimized? War on Christmas, anyone? India’s homegrown right wingers are not that different.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks :)
dedc79
@Elizabelle: The other thing to consider is that the cartoons themselves weren’t the beginning of this. You could just as easily say the cartoonists were provoked into doing these cartoons by the fundamentalists who have long made clear they would not tolerate perceived mockery of their religion.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Amir Khalid: Abortion doctors share the responsibility for their murders.
My little brother was responsible for me punching him in the face when he wouldn’t share a toy.
Rape victims share the responsibility for their rapes.
Black people share the responsibility for their fourth-class treatment.
I could go on. I think this is a position you just cannot take. The responsibilities for ones actions lie with the actor alone.
Keith G
It seems to me that Jeb Bush has a stronger chance of being the Republican nominee than anyone else who seems to be considering entering the field.
Assuming he is selected as the Republican nominee, he will have a decent shot at being elected president. How good that chance is depends in part on how good a campainer the Democratic candidate is.
Elizabelle
@Kay: @SiubhanDuinne: Merci.
Calouste
“Right to Rise” reminds me of “The South will rise again”.
schrodinger's cat
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Two words, currency swap.
Elizabelle
And now we’ve got two Paris/Charlie Hebdo threads. Tom Levenson’s put up “Nous sommes tous Charlie.”
An embarrassment of riches.
cmorenc
@Ben Cisco:
When a Republican speaks of fixing income inequality, they have in mind eliminating legal/government-imposed legal and regulatory obstacles to income distribution being purely determined by the forces of the free market, where each individual’s income would supposedly be fairly equal to the economic value of what they produce. They do not refer to addressing any alleged artificial skewing of wealth and income due to various structural chokeholds in the private sector which suppress economic mobility, since in conservative ideology once the burden of government meddling is removed, the remaining barriers are entirely fair and due to market forces. In other words, you don’t like working at McDonalds for the current minimum wage, minimal to no benefits, and hours they make available to you, you either quit and find a better job, upgrade your skills, or become an entrepreneur yourself and start a new business – but it’s just fine that you live in a state with “right to work” laws and a company imposing hostile obstacles in the way of unionizing workers for collective bargaining – because that undermines the natural free market bargaining relationship between companies and individuals.
When a Republican speaks of “immigration reform” they mean laws designed to stringently restrict immigration to a limited number of chosen “deserving” immigrants, and effectively seal the border to entry by everyone else (particularly those undeserving Mexicans and Central Americans whose coming here for the purpose of sucking benefits off government teats and producing “anchor babies” has got to be stopped and they need to be forced to go back where they came from).
Elizabelle
@Chris: Thank you. Hadn’t seen it.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
Thank you. I’m glad someone got my point.
You can’t compare the way the cartoons provoked a certain kind of Muslim to the way a woman in a short skirt “provokes” a rapist, or a man walking while black “provokes” a racist cop. The former were created and published to offend. It doesn’t make the violent reactors one jot less guilty, but a right to say hurtful things is most definitely not the same thing as not having to be responsible for the consequences of your words.
The latter two aren’t provocations at all. They’re people being who they are in the presence of bullies who pick on them.
@Calouste:
Per my bilingual Langenscheidt Standard Dictionary, con is short for connard. Both words mean idiot, bloody fool, jerk, that kind of thing. The French for c*nt appears to be chatte, which literally translates as p*ssy.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Isn’t the point of a political cartoon, provocation? So is it ok to target cartoonists or anyone else who (Salman Rushdie also comes to mind) because what they drew or wrote provoked the ire of a certain segment of the Muslim population? That the cartoonists or Rushdie are responsible for whatever violence is visited on them, is something I don’t agree with. Sorry.
dedc79
@Amir Khalid: Was George Carlin’s “7 dirty words” bit created to offend? It offended people, sure. But it was created to make the point that the government shouldn’t be in the business of censoring speech.
The cartoons were intended to send a message that in France, people are (and should be) free to speak their mind.
Kay
@Calouste:
The Bush’s are good at politics. I think it will be really slick. They’ll “invest in opportunity”. The challenge for Democrats is that’s what they ran on in 2014. I think they made a conscious decision to do so because they were told they needed a “positive” message, so it was “ladders of opportunity”. I think it fell flat because it sounded (to me) like they were blaming the middle class for the decline of the middle class.
Kasich in Ohio is using the same “opportunity” language. It’s a problem for Democrats. Republicans have co-opted their whole platform, and I think the GOP base is better suited to respond to it. It sure didn’t resonate with Democrats in 2014.
Keith G
@Amir Khalid: I too am supportive of what you typed earlier. All actions have consequences. Maybe some shouldn’t, but invariably they do. The more significant the known risks of an action, the more serious one must be in a thorough examination of the possible consequences.
Tree With Water
“There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying — and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense. . . Anybody who believed Bush had lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. . . Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep’s fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore’s”.
Hunter Thompson
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Fairly sure Amir made it clear that it WASN’T okay to target them.
But, apart from that… yeah, what you said. They were intending to “provoke.” So what? The Colbert Report and Daily Show provoke Republicans all the time – whether through parody or ridicule or simply pointing out that the emperor is in fact naked. Should they be refraining from that simply because they know that this country is teeming with NRA-armed fuckwits and one of them might come by and shoot up their studios? Would they bear some responsibility for it if it ever happened (which it very well might some day)?
Violet
@Amir Khalid:
The short skirt was designed to sexually arouse others. The black man walking was designed to scare people, especially if he’s wearing saggy pants and a hoodie. Those provocations aren’t to offend; they are other types of provocations–sexual arousal, fear.
The concept of holding the person or entity responsible when someone else does something to them is wrong. The person or people committing the crime are completely responsible for their actions. In this case the people who murdered the people in the magazine’s office could have chosen any number of other reactions. Their choice to respond with violence was their choice and theirs alone.
Chris
@Kay:
I remember you saying that the “opportunity” message was a mistake, and wholeheartedly agreeing. Hope to God the Democrats have learned to send a better one by the time 2016 rolls around.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Ben Cisco: He’ll sell it as:
Close the borders
Repeal minimum wage
Tax cuts for deserving millionaires
Of course, he will do only the last two on the list.
fuckwit
Auugh, I’m trying not to bite on this, but I can’t help myself.
This is a horrible dark time for democracy.
Clinton KNOWS that a huge portion of Democrats will not vote for her unless she’s the nominee, then we’ll reluctanly trudge to the polls to vote for her, if only to keep the Rethugs out of the WH. So what’s her strategy? Clear the field so that she’s the presumptive nominee, and thus we all will do what we said we’ll do: trudge to the polls to vote for her with little enthusiasm or hope.
Bush KNOWS that a huge portion of Rethugs will not vote for him unless he’s the nominee, then they’ll reluctanly trudge to the polls to vote for him, if only to keep the Democrats out of the WH. So what’s his strategy? Clear the field so that he’s the presumptive nominee, and thus they all will do what they said they’ll do: trudge to the polls to vote for him with little enthusiasm or hope.
On top of that, BUSH vs. CLINTON is the most horrific sign of the failure of American democracy imaginable. It’s two dynasties versus each other. Talk about record low voter turnout! It’ll be the lowest voter turnout in history. Citizens United (ironically, a group that was formed to attack Clinton), will have taken over the country.
I’d predict a narrow squeaker of an election, can’t even predict who’d win. If Clinton can convince the media that this is the historic moment for a female president and thus she deserves it, and women voters buy it and vote in force, then we’ll be saved, just barely. If the Bushes can engineer some kind of foreign crisis or war just before the election, then we’ll end up with 8 more years of war, and the horro of rule by the Bushes instead. But that’s what it’ll come down to.
Kay
@Chris:
It bothered me that they didn’t seem to hear how it sounded. I was just cringing listening to them: “oh, God, NOT the ‘skills gap!’ It’s such a DC thing, the ‘skills gap’. It sounds like scolding.
There seems to be some idea that Republicans will stick with the buffoonish stuff they did in 2009-12 but they got it. They have that part figured out. Their primary field is packed with governors. It won’t be the 2012 primary. Not Newt Gingrich and The Grifters. It makes sense the top tier sat it out in 2012 because it’s harder to run against an incumbent. Scott Walker is moderating. He’s trying to dodge Right To Work and lunatic abortion laws in Wisconsin. They know they have to appear more moderate to win. That’s a sign! :)
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Whoever the Dem nominee is, needs to hire you as their principal strategist.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s weird, because whatever my personal feelings about Clinton, I do think she’s strong here. I think she’ll have a really reliable group of voters who won’t be loud but will be there.
I just don’t know how she differentiates sufficiently if Bush is the nominee to less committed voters. I genuinely don’t know. What does she say? I’m for MORE investment in “opportunity”. That’s not really a debate, is it? More like a roundtable or something. I just have this horrible picture of “we agree on goals and how to get there, we’re just negotiating details”. That’s not exactly a rallying cry.
I don’t envy her.
So maybe they should hire someone else :)
geg6
@FlipYrWhig:
Huh. I’m a fuck-all-religions-and-I hope-they-all-kill-each-other-so-the-rest-of-us-can-then-live-in-peace-for-the-rest-of-eternity wild-eyed liberal. Not sure what being an atheist has to do with being a bigot or neo-con, though.
geg6
@Bobby Thomson:
Say what you want about Bill Maher, he’s not and never was a neo-con, quite unlike the late Mr. Hitchens.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Your analysis is spot on! I think Hillary or any other Dem who becomes the nominee needs to bench the neoliberal DLC consultants or a debacle similar to the 2014 midterms will be the result.
Elizabelle
@Kay: @schrodinger’s cat:
Yup, yup and yup.
beejeez
Of course the Bushes are fair game, but can we lay off the concept of the “Clinton dynasty” as comparably irksome, please? Seems to me you need more than one generation to be a dynasty.
I have pols I prefer to Hillary Clinton, but whatever you think of her, her suitability and qualifications for the presidency should be beyond question. As half of her husband’s brain (arguably the better half), she was de facto the second-most powerful and influential American for eight pretty good years. And since then, she’s been a senator and secretary of state. What else exactly does she have to do to convince people she’s not a nonentity riding her husband’s coattails? Sure, she lacks Bill Clinton’s naturalness as a politician. Who doesn’t? She also lacks his level of self-discipline. Thank God.
BubbaDave
@Violet:
If I call a Black stranger a ni-CLANG, and he punches me right in my pasty white nose, legally he is solely responsible for his assault on me– but morally I think most of the people here would agree that I am an asshole and bear a significant part of the responsibility. Were the situations reversed– were he to call me a cracker, for instance– I think most people would expect me to demonstrate more restraint. I think that’s a reflection of the fact that in America anti-Black prejudice has had financial, social, legal, and far too often fatal effects on Black Americans, while anti-white prejudice has not.
Similarly, someone insulting my religion is not going to provoke a violent reaction from me: I’m a Christian; people professing my faith dominate the nation in every way; my people haven’t been persecuted in the West for generations. (Heck, I’m an Episcopalian; my church was the Established Church in Great Britain and a majority of the colonies that had established churches.) On the other hand, I am going to be significantly more understanding if a Jew or a Muslim or a member of another minority religion reacts more strongly against such a slur.
None of this is meant to defend the heinous murders in Paris. But if the murdered artists had instead been punched in the nose, my response would be complete indifference to what would in fact be a violent attack on free speech, because I recognize that when you have a group that is marginalized, oppressed, and feels threatened (and remember, France legally prohibits Sikhs from wearing turbans and Muslims from wearing headscarves in school, both of which are considered obligations of their faith by many, at the same time it prohibits the wearing of a cross, which is not considered a Christian obligation by any denomination. The majestic equality of the law…) taunting them and mocking their political weakness is going to provoke a reaction.
TL; DR version: Kicking down is different from punching up; kicking down is bad, though certainly not as bad as murder; and taunting the disempowered will often leave to disproportionate response because human beings have a breaking point and the default human failure mode is violence.
pattonbt
Bush will be the R nominee. After 8 tortuously long years of the heinously divisive Obama (sorry, I meant no DC Village bootlicking Obama), Jeb’s “real American, soft spoken bi-partisan bona fides” will be a wlecome change. Plus, did you know he was the “smart Bush”!? Also, too, did you know he is married to a Hispanic woman?! What a real, modern American statesman!
People are going to swallow the re-branded compassionate conservatism BS hook line and sinker. GWB will be forgotten and Jeb will be the name redeemer. Bush will perfectly walk the primary tight rope (just enough right wing red meat with smarty pants RINO white-wash BS). Sure, the wingnut faction will bray. But, in the end, they are impotent. Jeb is as close to “next in line” as there is. And the monied class love him most. For all the wingnuttery in the R party, they go safest always. Sadly, Jeb is as safe as it gets (I mean Christie? Seriously? Maybe as VP).
I honestly believe we will be looking at POTUS Bush III.
mclaren
@pattonbt:
I will force-feed you those words when Hillary wins the presidency.