Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Bark louder, little dog.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: After the Pigpile

Open Thread: After the Pigpile

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My personal takeaway, after reviewing the reports on yesterday’s Iowa Freedumb Freedom Summit, is that Palin — wittingly or not — has officially reached the Distracting Shiny Object stage of her political career. You can say many bad things about Citizens United, the group that paid for this dog & pony show, but they’re experts in the dark arts of political showmanship; Caribou Barbie stood in the spotlight flapping her arms to attract all the potentially dangerous lamestream media mockery, while the actual candidates field-tested their spiels and ran their patter past a discerning portion of the Repub in-every-sense base. Pay no attention to the (money) man behind the curtain!

Mr. Pierce, in Esquire, on “King for A Day“:

… The event itself was a measure of how politics in the country have changed over the past 25 years. It was organized by Congressman Steve King, defender of conventional light-bulbs, flush toilets, and the southern border, and it was run by Citizens United, the brainchild of David Bossie who, in 1991, was nothing more than a low-rent ratfcker chasing Bill Clinton’s penis all over Arkansas but who now is the overlord of a large and lucrative propaganda operation, an independent base of considerable power beyond the reach and influence of the Republican party, which is why Bossie could provide a platform for presidential wannabes on which they were free to rail against the “Republican establishment.”…

That was forty-five years ago. This crowd can cherish a grudge like it was their sickly first-born, as my Irish granny used to say.

The NYTimes‘ prim take:

… The daylong forum, billed as an informal kickoff to the 2016 campaign, was attended by about 1,200 people, many of whom ardently oppose the centrist views that tend to prevail in a general election.

The speakers, some of them experienced presidential campaigners, came to test and tweak their messages, to seek second chances and to introduce themselves to voters whose passion for conservative causes makes them more likely to attend a caucus and launch a candidate out of a field of contenders…

Dave Weigel, at Bloomberg Politics:

… Now that it’s in the books, the “unofficial kickoff of 2016” will shape how the overcrowded Republican field campaigns. Some commentators bracketed the event with stories about the absent candidates, like Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Yahoo News’s Jon Ward contrasted the most frenzied applause lines from Des Moines with the speech Bush had just given to the National Automobile Dealers Association, calling for a “hopeful, optimistic message” in 2016. Politico’s Roger Simon, who reported from the event, fretted about the GOP’s “seriousness deficit” and a “clown van” that would allow fringe candidates to shape the Republican conversation.

Over the long day, conversations with voters and conservative taste-makers suggested that they could tell the difference between kitsch and candidacies…

Local report, from the Des Moines Register:

… While the 1,500-member audience, made up predominantly of constitutional and religious conservative activists, seemed plenty happy with the speeches by Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina, it was Scott Walker and Ted Cruz who were best received.

Even Chris Christie, who argued against the conventional wisdom in some quarters that he isn’t conservative enough for Iowa, got an enthusiastic standing ovation for a speech audience members later described as heartfelt and genuine…

The audience made it clear how they felt about Bush when New Hampshire state Rep. William O’Brien asked them why they would vote for a guy who backs Common Core and has an overly familiar last name. “Are we going to do that again?” O’Brien asked.

The audience responded with a loud: “Noooooo!”

And Trump, a Manhattan-based real estate developer and reality TV star, lobbed radioactive bombs at both Bush and Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee. “Mitt ran and failed. He failed. So you can’t have Romney,” he said, as the audience cheered robustly…

NB: James Hohmann is Politico‘s reporter on scene, so you should read his tweets with that in mind.

Big winner for the day, per Jason Noble at the Desmoines Register: “Scott Walker is legit”

… For a guy who’s only recently entered the 2016 conversation and hasn’t spent a lot of time in Iowa, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker impressed on Saturday.

Walker described his governance of traditionally Democratic Wisconsin as a model for Republicans nationally, and said he was proof that conservatism can be a general election winner. He was subtle but effective in outlining his Iowa ties – he lived in Plainfield for a few years as a child – and promised to return “many more times.”

The crowd ate it up. When he took the stage, someone shouted “Run, Scott, Run!” and he left to a standing ovation….

My personal bet for the “last traditional-conservative standing” candidate, not so much. Jason Noble, again:

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum may have had an unlucky draw on Saturday, speaking in the early afternoon shortly after box lunches were distributed.

The conservative crowd seemed disengaged, not quite welcoming Santorum as the 2012 Iowa caucus winner that he is and following his remarks as if in a tryptophan daze from the free turkey sandwiches…

In Deacon Sanctorum’s defense, his stand-up-for-the-workers pitch seems like it will sell better outside of the GOP’s hardcore 27%ers…

Speaking of niche voting blocs, the DREAMERs showed up, but they didn’t get the kind of publicity they were hoping for:



.

And it looks like Carly Fiorina is hoping to be the new, improved Sarah Palin — the VP nominee to act as immunization against the fact charge that the GOP hates women:

The wise Mr. Pierce, again:

… “We are wrangling cats, but the common cause is that we all have to unite behind one candidate or we’ll all be saying ‘Madam President,’” said Ken Crow. In his fine Stetson and his leather vest, he’d been arguing this very point with some young suit on the steps of the old theater in which the event was being held. The suit argued, with some authority, that what Crow was trying to do was impossible. There were too many groups with too many agendas driven by too many fears and grievances for anyone to unify them all in any meaningful way. There were the anti-immigration people, the goldbugs, the pro-lifers, and the ever-expanding universe of free-range activists driven by the ever-expanding odd-lot of causes and issues…

A lot of Republican politics is going to be fought out between the people who came to Iowa and the people who didn’t, but the fight also is going to be the people who line up with Ken Crow and people who think what he’s trying to do is doomed and futile. In 2012, the primary process became a circus, not simply because of the stunning array of lightweight loons who made up the field, but also because the people who opposed the very idea of Mitt Romney couldn’t get their act together in time to do anything about his massive advantages in fundraising. As long as there isn’t really a Republican Party but, rather, a collection of independent conservative centers of power orbiting warily around each other, and I doubt if obvious anagram Reince Priebus, the emptiest suit in American politics, can do much of anything about it, then Ken Crow’s going to lose that argument…

Reid Epstein works for the Wall Street Journal, house organ of Republican money folk who are not enamored of Tha Grassroots:

In the end, one must always remember that politics and logic are a very loosely linked Venn diagram…

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    Tree With Water

    Deadspin.com reports today:

    “The NFL fined Marshawn Lynch $20,000 for grabbing his dick and now says they may penalize the team yardage if the Seahawks running back pulls an M.J. during the Super Bowl. But the league’s distaste for “hold my dick” stopped once they realized they could make money on Lynch’s johnson, as evidenced by this item for sale in the NFL Shop.

    Yes, for just $149.95 you can own a collage of photos from this year’s NFC Championship game, including a frame of Lynch grabbing his crotch. Actually, you can’t own it—they’ve all sold out (it was a limited edition of 100). NFL hypocrisy isn’t even surprising anymore, and we’d love to hear them explain away this officially licensed product”.

    (“There’s gold in that thar goose!”. Motto of the NFL Ownership Group LTD)

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than you will at the Freedumb Summit, or the Koch Brothers Kotillion, or the assembly of billionaires at Davos.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  5. 5.

    me

    Steve King slips, says Americans come “from every possible planet.”

    Anyone in Des Moines have a pair of Roddy Piper’s sunglasses?

  6. 6.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I’m contemplating the fact that Sarah Palin called the President a “boy.” I’m not sure that’s even subtle enough to be a dog whistle rather than just out and out racism.

  7. 7.

    BruceFromOhio

    “We are wrangling cats, but the common cause is that we all have to unite behind one candidate or we’ll all be saying ‘Madam President,’” said Ken Crow.

    Yep. If this is all they have to offer, better get used to it, Herr Crow.

    I can see the Koch’s getting *completely* fed up with the snake oil, and just hiring Blackwater or Xe or whatever the fuck its called now to machine-gun down every living being in DC and calling it done.

  8. 8.

    Comrade Jake

    This snippet from Pierce’s piece on Palin had me going:

    She also had a brilliant idea to move all the Cabinet departments out of Washington. Why not move the Department of Agriculture to Iowa, she suggested, where somebody who knows something about agriculture could run it. The Secretary of Agriculture is Tom Vilsack. Once, he was a governor. Of Iowa. Oh, dear. Maybe we should move the Department Of State to an actual state!

  10. 10.

    JPL

    @Comrade Jake: The folks speaking today scared me. Walker doesn’t even have a college degree and I understand that Gates quit also. Maybe that’s what King was referring to when he mentioned planets because Walker and Gates are from different realms.

  12. 12.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    Sarah Palin: A noun, a grammatically incorrect verb, and a racist slur
    -Steve Dowdy on twitter, via Tbogg

    Also, from comments there (Adm Ackbar):
    I understand now. When this snowbilly grifter goes on and on about “Freedom”, she means freedom from the tyranny of….
    – English grammar
    – Logic
    – Sane political discourse
    – Ethics

  13. 13.

    JPL

    @efgoldman: We lived in CT in 78 and since we had septic, filled the tub with water and such. On my little block of twenty or so houses, there were four babies born nine months later. I had a son who was fifteen months and noticed when he was at the storm door the plows didn’t leave a mountain at the driveway. I taught him to wave and stand at the storm door. Mock me if you will, but it worked.

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    Awesome how 1500 right-wing shitbags in Iowa can set the stage for what 325 million people across the country get to vote for.

  15. 15.

    Jay C

    @BruceFromOhio:

    and just hiring Blackwater or Xe or whatever the fuck its called now to machine-gun down every living being in DC and calling it done.

    And that would be a proposal that I’m sure would definitely have bipartisan support – nation-wide!

  17. 17.

    schrodinger's cat

    Who cares about this sorry parade of wingnut clowns? We can start paying attention when one of them is the nominee. I am more interested in what Michelle is going to wear to the Republic Day celebrations in India.

  18. 18.

    GregB

    Christ, I am listening to Palin speak and it is just a horror.

    She’s the most bitter and childish and petty person Ito ave ever been foisted on the American body politic.

    I am reaching for salted ice-picks to jab into my ears.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @catclub: Scott Walker, on whom one should not sleep.

    They say he got the crowd hooting and cheering. I can’t bring myself to watch any video. I still think it’s a long way from this forum to the national stage, but I also think the R’s will eventually settle on the grayest, flannelest and emptiest suit. Willard, Jebbie and Scottie are pretty similar on that score.

    I think what most surprises/intrigues me is the lukewarm reaction Santorum apparently got. I guess if you got a real Baptist, you don’t need to settle for a Papist.

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    @catclub:

    Scott Walker, on whom one should not sleep.

    Yep. I’m still thinking Santorum will be the 2016 nominee (if only because HRC is too skeery for the ‘young’ GOP hopefuls, who can afford to wait). But Walker is the guy I’d pray to be hit with a meteorite were I granted one candidate for that honor. Walker is a comer, for all the wrong (Reicht) reasons.

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    Nope. I’m ignoring this shit today.

    I’m in a very good mood after (1) Coach K became the first men’s division 1 basketball coach to achieve 1,000 wins and (2) the Duke women’s team went down the road to arch-rival North Carolina and came home with a hard-fought overtime win.

    You no harsh my buzz. Nut-uh.

  24. 24.

    Botsplainer

    @GregB:

    She’s the most bitter and childish and petty person Ito ave ever been foisted on the American body politic.

    While I fault McCain for initially bringing her on the scene, I am grateful that he kept her embittered, nasty, race-baiting bullshit off the stage election night in 2008. She’d have fomented a bloody fucking racist civil war.

  27. 27.

    Splitting Image

    Caribou Barbie stood in the spotlight flapping her arms to attract all the potentially dangerous lamestream media mockery, while the actual candidates field-tested their spiels and ran their patter past a discerning portion of the Repub in-every-sense base. Pay no attention to the (money) man behind the curtain!

    Probably true as far as the motives of the candidates who appeared is concerned, but I think you could make a strong argument that the presidential candidates themselves are there to take attention away from the real agenda, which is going on at the state level. Scott Walker in the White House would be a bonus, but the real goal is to put someone like him in every governor’s mansion.

  29. 29.

    Keith G

    Wretched news from my area in which a dog was shot and mortally wounded (executed) at a local dog park for being too rough with a dog belonging to the shooter. The facts of the incident leading up to the shots fired are in dispute it seems.

  30. 30.

    Violet

    I accidentally heard a bit of Walker’s speech on the radio yesterday. I didn’t know who was talking but the voice made my skin crawl. Then the reporter said it was Walker. Ugh. He’s got an awful voice, content of his speech aside. I can’t believe people could stand listening to him.

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    Walker does not scare me. In fact none of the Klown Kar does. Willard ran a Southern Strategy campaign, and it succeeded. He won 60% of the White vote. And, it didn’t even matter. I doubt that the next Democratic Party nominee will be Black, but the GOP will still be putting forth policies to repulse the non-White population of this country.

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    @Botsplainer: But people here will defend this piece of filth (hi, Tommy in Illinois) because she represents the elderly, neo-Confederates like Cruz, Perry, Christie, & Jindal.

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    @Mike in NC:

    No, they take offense at certain names that she is called.
    Me?
    You can call that stupid grifting racist piece of White Trash anything you want…..
    But, that is just me.
    I know why she bothers me.
    It is one thing to know that you live in a country where White mediocrity is valued, over Black excellence.
    It’s another thing to see a living, breathing example of it put forth in the persona of Sarah Palin.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mike in NC: No. Tommy didn’t defend Palin; Tommy objected to the use of the term
    “whore” in general. God knows he annoys me and pushes multiple buttons for me, but in all fairness he was not defending Palin.

  36. 36.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m feeling a bit left out. I guess I don’t stay up late enough for you to get getting obsessively belligerent with me.

  37. 37.

    Tenar Darell

    Juicers keep making me tear up and go aww today. Between Thurston Howl, @Litlebritdifrnt: Ms. Cadbury and then I stopped by Whatever and read about Ghlaghghee I’m tuckered out. An evening emotional roller-coaster, plus a long day I guess. I did my prepping for the storm, then I was chopping away ice on my driveway, then prepping my father for the storm….

  39. 39.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, That’s not what I meant. He sets me off too, see, e.g., my response to comments yesterday about the Jewish family in DC.

    I mocking that comment made to you, and was trying to be humorous. I failed.

  40. 40.

    Mandalay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    the R’s will eventually settle on the grayest, flannelest and emptiest suit. Willard, Jebbie and Scottie are pretty similar on that score.

    And more precisely, they will settle on the grayest, flannelest and emptiest suit with the ability to raise the most money. And when you couple their ability to raise money with their polling numbers, it’s already a done deal: no matter how many enter the race, the Republican running against the future President Hillary Clinton will either be Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney.

    All the other alleged “contenders” (Walker, Christie, Rand, Cruz, Santorum et al) are already doomed, long before they have even announced that they are candidates in 2016. They may still run because they are delusional enough to think they have a shot, or to boost their credentials in some future campaign, or so that they have something to tell their grandkids, but their chances of running for president (never mind winning) are very close to zero.

  47. 47.

    Keith G

    @Mike in NC:

    Awesome how 1500 right-wing shitbags in Iowa can set the stage for what 325 million people across the country get to vote for.

    Nah. Not going to work that way.

    @Anne Laurie:

    Santorum will be the 2016 nominee…. Walker is a comer….

    Why are you leaving out Perry from that illustrious crew?

    A recent poll in Wisconsin showed only 25% of voters would like to see Governor Walker run for president

    WITI FOX6 Milwaukee WI

    I guess Walker and Sanatorium have some per cent chance that is calculable, but it is not enough.

  49. 49.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Duh. I’m kind of impaired. A good friend attempted suicide, and I’m still dealing with it. The good news is he did not succeed.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Horrible. All I can offer are the good thoughts that I have to you and your friend. My grandmother’s younger sister died today. She was 94. It was her time. I can’t pretend that I am not sad that she is gone, but it was her time. She was the last of her generation on that side of my family.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Violet: @Suzanne: Thank you. She was a great person and a staunch Democrat. Her children went insanely religious and right wing, so she gave her Donkey glassware to my mom. Mom still uses it.

  58. 58.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Violet: @Suzanne: @ Omnes:
    Thanks very much. He’s got lots of siblings, which helps. His wife is holding together, because she doesn’t have a choice to do anything else. I think he’ll be okay, but I’m still worried.

    ETA @ Omnes: Condolences. We’re sad even when they’ve had a good long run.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Violet: My parents were war protesters*. Her husband swore me in as an Army officer. The world is complicated…

    *As well they should have been.

  63. 63.

    Tree With Water

    Posted today at FireDoglake.com:

    “Unless Warren Lee Hill’s Application (14A785) for a stay of execution of sentence of death that was submitted to Supreme Court Justice Thomas on Thursday is granted, he will be executed on Tuesday at 7 PM in Georgia. Mr. Hill has an IQ of 70..”.

    What a fine and proud thing it would be were Obama to reach out with his pardon power, and save the life of this one human being.

  67. 67.

    Tree With Water

    @lamh36: [Blow] took to Twitter late Saturday to express outrage that his son, a third year biology major, was stopped because he “fit the description” of a suspect they were looking for, the site notes..”.

    If the cops were on the lookout for an elderly Adonis and I was consequently detained and released, I wouldn’t like it either- but I think I’d understand why. And I think I’d let it slide.

  68. 68.

    lamh36

    @Tree With Water: that’s mighty white of you…but if the police had as much of a habit of shooting or detaining white Adonis’, then I’d probably be more inclined to “let it slide”, but in this case, I understand Blows anger..

  71. 71.

    SRW1

    Steve King slips, says Americans come “from every possible planet.”

    He just wanted to take the sting out of the question the folks attending the summit are frequently asked back home: “Which planet are you living on?”

  72. 72.

    fuckwit

    That’s Hypnosis. That word-salad quote you are reading from Quitter Palin, is pure hypnosis. Bush The First used to use it, as did Bush The Second. The father probably learned it in his CIA days. The Word Salad is meant to confuse, and the only things that stick are the buzzwords and emotional anchors, which get processed unconsciously beneath the cover of all that glittering gibberish, which she rattles off expertly. It’s rather like all the dazzling lights and blaring sounds of Las Vegas (and in the background of cable news) are designed to disorient, distract, and mezmerize you– while taking your money. That woman may be evil, but she is not stupid. She studied with experts in hypnosis, or maybe some mentor of hers did.

    If you pick her Finnegan’s Wake monologue apart, you will find it loaded with dogwhistles and slogans and it would be perceived as meaningful and emotionally powerful by her target market.

  74. 74.

    mclaren

    It has been decided that you will be dressed as a priest, to help you get away in the pandemonium afterwards. Chunjin will give you a two-piece Soviet Army sniper’s rifle that fits nicely into a special bag. There’s a spotlight booth that won’t be in use. It’s up under the roof on the Eighth Avenue side of the Garden. You will have absolutely clear, protected shooting. You are to shoot the presidential nominee through the head. And Johnny will rise gallantly to his feet and lift Ben Arthur’s body in his arms, stand in front of the microphones and begin to speak. The speech is short. But it’s the most rousing speech I’ve ever read. It’s been worked on, here and in Russia, on and off, for over eight years. I shall force someone to take the body away from him and Johnny will really hit those microphones and those cameras with blood all over him, fighting off anyone who tries to help him, defending America even if it means his own death, rallying a nation of television viewers to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy! Now, this is very important. I want the nominee to be dead two minutes after he begins his acceptance speech – depending on his reading time under pressure. You are to hit him right at the point that he finishes the phrase, “Nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself – my life before my liberty.” Is that absolutely clear? [Mrs. Iselin, The Manchurian Candidate, 1962]

  76. 76.

    Origuy

    @Morzer: Was Warren Lee Hill convicted of a state or federal offense? IANAL, but I think the President can only pardon or commute the sentence of a federal prisoner.

  77. 77.

    PurpleGirl

    @Amir Khalid: Palin can only be Sen. Johnny Iselin… they both speak in word salad and are dumb as a sack of hair. Remember Sen. Iselin asks Mrs. Iselin for a set number of communists because it was getting too hard for him to keep changing the number. (But your comment is quite good and thought provoking.)

  78. 78.

    TriassicSands

    MoveOn has a petition calling on the Democrats in the House to boycott the Netanyahu address? I encourage people to sign the petition. (just search for MoveOn petition + boycott Netanyahu).

    I don’t see why House Democrats should give Netanyahu’s little fascist circus act the time of day. Better still would be an active effort to disrupt the address.

    One concern I have is that there are so many House Democrats in the pocket of AIPAC that they actually support Boehner’s attempt to undermine Obama’s foreign policy.

    Does anyone have an (gu)estimate for how many House Democrats would be willing to boycott or somehow disrupt Netanyahu’s appearance? I’d think a boycott would be much more likely. Though I’d love to hear the Dems hoot and holler like they do in the British House of Commons when the PM appears. In this case, Netanyahu deserves exactly no respect or consideration. He’s interfering with our foreign policy at a time when Israel is having an election.

  79. 79.

    Tommy

    Isn’t Netanyahu speaking in the well of the House barely a step above treason on behalf of the House Republicans. I don’t think I am a bomb thrower nor do I use the word treason lightly. But we know what he is going to do. He is going to attacked an elected President in a branch of our government. How is that remotely acceptable? As much as I disliked Bush I never would have wanted to do something like this to him. It just isn’t acceptable.

  80. 80.

    seaboogie

    I am watching sister Sarah’s speech (in fits and starts, because digesting that mush delusional mania at one bite is a challenge) and I would have loved to have been able to be in attendance to sit there and shout/murmur “Boo, stupid, Boo, crazy relentlessly just to see what would have happened. Not that I am cruel at all, but just wanting to prick that particular ballon that the media chooses to still follow for no apparent reason. I kind of think that sort of distraction would have proven her ultimate undoing. Definitely a narcissist who is decompensating.

  81. 81.

    Tommy

    @seaboogie: I just don’t know why the media still covers her. Let’s face it she isn’t that smart. Say what you will about Ted Cruz but I don’t doubt he is smart. Maybe crazy like a fox. I don’t even think Cruz believes what he says half the time. He just knows it wins him elections and keeps money coming in.

    I fear Palin believes what she says, which is a scary, scary thing to ponder.

  82. 82.

    seaboogie

    @Tommy: True, dat. I don’t think Cruz believes what he says most of the time, if ever at all. I think he sees himself as a master manipulator, and is pretty much a psychopath.

  83. 83.

    AxelFoley

    @rikyrah:

    Walker does not scare me. In fact none of the Klown Kar does. Willard ran a Southern Strategy campaign, and it succeeded. He won 60% of the White vote. And, it didn’t even matter. I doubt that the next Democratic Party nominee will be Black, but the GOP will still be putting forth policies to repulse the non-White population of this country

    Co-sign.

  84. 84.

    Tommy

    @seaboogie: I’ve always thought that if I didn’t have any morals I could easily grift the far right out of millions. The hot buttons for them are so easy to push. I don’t think Palin and Bachmann are that smart. But somebody like Cruz, he knows exactly what he is doing. He pushes those button and he gets power and influence.

  85. 85.

    seaboogie

    @seaboogie: @seaboogie: Actually, I think that an overlarge percentage of politicians have serious personality disorders, and this is what gains the attention of the party machines and persuades them to take it up a notch.

    There are exceptions to this rule, and some of my faves that I believe have risen while eluding this beguilement include Barney Frank (when he was still involved), Sherrod Brown, Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. I loves me some Nancy Smash for her abilities, but she is a whole nother animal. Not someone I’d like to get stuck in an elevator with, but I admire the hell out of her focus.

  86. 86.

    seaboogie

    @Tommy: And he manages to do it while looking so oily and weasely….that’s your performance art/grifting right there. So obvious you can’t believe it’s true.

  87. 87.

    Tommy

    @seaboogie: Yes I think they do. My father is asked by the local Republican AND Democratic party to run for office. He refuses. He says you have to be crazy to run for office in today’s climate. I mean mentally not all there. He won’t call people and beg for money. He won’t yell and jump up and down. He wouldn’t attack other people. So basically he can’t run for office in 2015.

  88. 88.

    Morzer

    @Tommy:

    Mutter mutter.. something about sufficient requirement for the triumph of evil..mutter mutter good men to do nothing.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    Ron Paul is causing problems for his ambitious son:

    Rand Paul wants to lead the United States. On Saturday in Texas, his father was speaking at a conference about how to leave it.
    “A lot of times people think secession, they paint it as an absolute negative,” said former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul. After all, Paul said, the American Revolution was a kind of secession. “You mean we should have been obedient to the king forever? So it’s all in the way you look at it.”
    This weekend was a crucial one for Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky and un­declared candidate for the presidency. He was in California, trying to line up donors at an opulent retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers.
    At the same time, his father — retired after 12 terms in Congress and three presidential runs — was in the ballroom of an airport hotel here, the final speaker at “a one-day seminar in breaking away from the central state.”

    Ron Paul doesn’t want to be part of the country anymore after 12 terms in the federal government. He’s had it with you people.

  90. 90.

    Sherparick

    We underestimate Scott Walker at our peril. First, no current American politician is more Nixon like then Scottie, a true “Orthogonian,” as Rick Perlstein called the strivers “Orthogonians” after a club Nixon started at Whittier College (in contrast to the “Franklins,” who are the beautiful people, the popular crowd). Nixon realized early on that there were more strivers (and resenters – RFK) than well-born in this world, and he courted their votes avidly his entire career.” This is what Scottie has done, extracting the majority of the white working class in Wisconsin to blaming their downward drift on the economic scale on Blacks, Browns, and “liberal elites.” And he pretty much destroyed the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, whose careerists have been completely flummoxed by his “to the wall, take no prisoners” tactics. And unlike many Republicans, he delivers the money to the plutocrats but at the same time delivers the culture war achievements to the base.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    I think it’ll be Bush. The GOP donors are comfortable with the Bush family in power. The eventual nominee for the Republicans is always a known quantity and I think that reflects their donors’ dislike for uncertainty. Why would they back one of the governors at the national level when they can get what they want at the state level and have someone they’re familiar with and who is of the same social class at the federal level?

    They can have the Scott Walkers and Chris Christies and Rick Perrys AND Jeb Bush in DC.

  92. 92.

    bemused

    Morning Joe panel not impressed with Palin’s speech. Mika, I think, saw a pan of the audience saying they looked visibly uncomfortable listening to Palin. If true, is it possible that Palin can no longer wow even this crowd of the looniest of the loons?

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @Sherparick: Seconded. He’s much more of a concern than any of these clowns – none of the baggage, all of the (Koch) backing, and able to tell each element of the GOP exactly what it wants to hear.

  95. 95.

    Jado

    “That was forty-five years ago. This crowd can cherish a grudge like it was their sickly first-born, as my Irish granny used to say.”

    THERE IS NO TIME LINE WITH THESE PEOPLE, THERE IS ONLY A CHECKLIST OF GRIEVANCES.

    “A long time ago” is only appropriate if you are talking about the malfeasance of the W administration. The Vietnam war is still relevant for any Left “transgressions”.

    It’s all about fair and balanced. RWNJ history stops way back at Jan 20th, 2009. Commie Pinko Lefty history stops way back at the Big Bang they don’t believe in.There is nothing you can’t reference against the Left that they will discount. It’s part and parcel with the dichotomous “Lone Wolf” white guy shooter and the “That’s how THOSE people are” brown or black shooter.

    They are Rage-aholics, and they need their fix

  97. 97.

    rea

    What a fine and proud thing it would be were Obama to reach out with his pardon power, and save the life of this one human being.

    The president only has the power to pardon for federal crimes–this guy was convicted by the state of Oklahoma.

  98. 98.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    a “clown van” that would allow fringe candidates to shape the Republican conversation.

    Because a clown car won’t be big enough to hold all of the clowns?

  100. 100.

    JR in WV

    @rea:

    The Constitution says “The President … shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

    When did Oklahoma become not a united state?

    I think it would throw the issue back into the court system, at least. There could be time to legislate a ban on executions of people without mental capacity to understand their crimes. There could be a federalist court that turns down that interpretation of the pardon clause.

    There could be a court that says, well, he is the president of the United States… so…

    Are there Federal court decisions on this?

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