.
I think Paul Waldman, at the Washington Post, may be a little too sanguine as “The Koch brothers try to rein in the GOP presidential clown show“…
If you’re a Republican primary voter, you’re probably feeling pretty good about the presidential primaries. Even if you haven’t yet found the candidate who will make you swoon, one thing you’ve got is choices… But while the voters might find this an embarrassment of riches, for the party’s leaders and financiers, it looks like a recipe for trouble. Which is how I interpret this news:
In a Saturday interview on the Larry Kudlow Show, a nationally syndicated radio broadcast, David Koch let it slip that the roughly $900 million that he and his brother, Charles, plan to lavish on the 2016 presidential race could find its way into the hands of more than one GOP contender.
“We are thinking of supporting several Republicans,” David Koch said, adding, “If we’re happy with the policies that these individuals are supporting, we’ll finance their campaigns.”…
Up until now, the Koch brothers hadn’t indicated that they’d be taking a side in the primaries. It almost seemed that they viewed that as the kind of thing amateurs like Sheldon Adelson do, throwing money at some candidate based on overly irrational personal feelings, while they keep focused on the real goal of getting a Republican — any Republican — into the White House. By saying they’re going to support several candidates in the primaries, the Kochs are pledging to accelerate the winnowing process, by which the race’s chaff can be sloughed off and the focus can stay on the serious contenders…
And the Kochs aren’t the only ones trying to do this winnowing. Fox News, which always keeps the long-term interests of the Republican Party in mind, recently announced that in the first debate of the season, it will be refusing admittance to all but 10 candidates… Ten is still a large number of candidates, but that first debate will be a key moment in the winnowing process.
If the Kochs are ready to put some of their ample resources into the primary campaign, it’s a sign that the enormous size of the primary field is generating some serious concern at the top of the GOP. The question is whether, even with their money, there’s much they can do about it.
Talk is cheap; to my (admittedly amateur) ears, it sounds like the Kochs are just advertising that they’ll bankroll any grifter who climbs to the top of the Repub pig pile, no matter his previous loyalties, because Business is Business. (Also, frankly, their pre-selected sockpuppet Walker may not be dazzling the rubes, but he sure is getting all the wrong kind of attention from various legal agencies.) And Fox sees more campaign-ads-bought-in-advance profit from setting a higher bar to entry than it does in encouraging every wannabe celebrity from showing up on the big night.
Valdivia
To me it also sounds like they will just give money to whoever wins. They just want to buy the White House, that is all.
Frankensteinbeck
There is no ‘the top of the GOP.’ There are several tops. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking the Kochs agree with Karl Rove or the Bushes or Adelson. The money boys are as splintered as the candidates. Billionaires willing to spend hundreds of million of dollars to get their way, shockingly, want things their way and do not want to cater to anyone else’s opinions on anything.
Germy Shoemangler
@Valdivia: will they be successful? that is the question.
srv
Always with the Koch bashing. Here’s some freedom fries to go with it:
Germy Shoemangler
@Frankensteinbeck:
But what do they disagree about? I always see them pretty much in agreement about deregulation, tax reduction, safety net slashing, etc. The only thing I think they disagree on is which one of them should be president.
Maybe there are subtle variations in their views I’m missing. Rand made some noise about disentanglement, but his opinions are always subject to change.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
I think they have been wildly successful flooding the field in little races at the local level. There was so much money in 2012 from the GOP side and made no difference. I am hopeful that they won’t.
ira-NY
$900 million is a lot of SPEECH? I wonder if any of the sitting Supreme Court Justices, I am looking at you Justice Kennedy, would like to reconsider their Citizen’s United vote.
Germy Shoemangler
@Valdivia:
So many times I’ve seen little local races for judgeships, etc,. and when I’m voting I see them running unopposed. Usually they’re listed on multiple parties: repub, conservative, meat-eaters club, wimmen-haters club.
SatanicPanic
Maybe if they had worked for their money these Kochs wouldn’t be so quick to blow it on stupid things. Lazy moochers.
NotMax
“Here’s a cashier’s check for $100 million if you drop out.”
jl
Cartoon at the top of the post reminded me of the one by Nast:
A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to “Blow Over”-“Let Us Prey.”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/1871_0923_vultures_200.jpg
I wish the Koch brothers some happy financial and political storms.
Karen in GA
Open thread? Iggy figured out that there was something a little off about the new poodle. (The new girl has a bit to say about it too.)
@Valdivia: That’s been the right-wing strategy since at least the 70s. Depressingly effective, isn’t it?
Timurid
I saw this in a movie once…
The Joker: [to Gambol’s thugs, being held helpless by his own] Now, our operation is small, but there’s a lot of potential for “aggressive” expansion. So, which one of you fine gentlemen would like to join our team? Oh, there’s only one spot open right now, so we’re gonna have…
[breaks pool cue over knee]
The Joker: Tryouts.
[throws broken pool cue at the thugs]
The Joker: Make it fast.
SatanicPanic
@Germy Shoemangler: I don’t think the presidential race can be bought anymore, if it ever could. There’s too much coverage from too many sources to buy more than a small slice of it.
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
Whose business is going to get the lion’s share of the graft. Haliburton did very well when Dick Cheney held the reins of power in Washington, and all the billionaires want the same thing for their businesses.
Valdivia
@Karen in GA:
Utterly so. And thanks to the SC it will keep happening.
@Germy Shoemangler:
they crowd any other candidates out. It becomes prohibitively expensive to run.
srv
Tyranny comes in many forms:
Chris
What it sounds like to me is that the Kochs are telling every candidate in the field “please don’t forget that if you don’t do exactly as we please, there’s always the other guy. Now’s the time to convince us that you’re the one who’ll do the utmost to serve us.”
Amir Khalid
So the Republican leadership is okay with letting two billionaires handicap the contest for the presidential nomination, and pick someone to their liking? This is no way to run a political party.
Germy Shoemangler
Maybe this question has been asked and answered before here: Will the Koch’s sons and daughters continue this after they’re pushing up daisies?
They’re old. I don’t know if they have offspring eager to continue the fun.
Tree With Water
“If you’re a Republican primary voter, you’re probably feeling pretty good about the presidential primaries”.
Just like California republicans love their primaries. In fact, they love their primary purification system so much that Barbara Boxer has now served in the U.S. senate for a quarter century, being elected even before blue was truly cool in the Golden State.
gene108
@Chris:
I get the feeling to, especially with groups like ALEC.
The rich and powerful tell politicians how to keep the proles in line and the politicians – the good middle-managers that they are – execute their bosses orders.
This is not, I believe, how anyone envisioned this country running.
Tone in DC
Yep, old as dirt. Thing about people like this is, they hang around forever. These fuckers may get to ninety or even a hundred. If the good die young, these bastards will outlive Methuselah.
As for the race, bad candidates are still bad candidates. And after a few televised debates, just enough voters may notice how foul the clown car candidates are. Enough to get the Dem (Hillary or whomever) to 270.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
The Republican Party has, since back well into the nineteenth century, been the interface between the richest of the rich and the government. The rich are just trying to exert control more directly.
@gene108:
Well, I wouldn’t go that far.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Amir Khalid: This is the way the GOP has been run since I was born. You may recall one of their candidates recently said something about missing the days where issues got settled in nice, quiet rooms. This was a rare truth.
The only thing that has changed is that, for whatever reason, this cycle the Kochs want their names out there. Probably to get credit (worth nothing) for saving America from the Negro Menace.
They’re both about to die so they might as well go out with a bang.
@gene108: Joe Kennedy Sr. would probably have a thing or three to say about that.
Hoodie
I’d agree with Waldman, sounds like they’re bidding up prices for anyone who has a chance of winning the nomination (e.g., Walker, Bush, Rubio, maybe one or two others) in an attempt to deter money going to more niche candidates (Santorum, Huckabee, Carson, Fiorina, etc.). Adelson kept Gingrich in the race for quite a while, even though he had no chance of winning and, IIRC, Friess did the same for Santorum. Kind of makes sense, since the aim of a lot of the GOP candidates is just self-promotion, a possible Fox gig, etc., and the only way to get rid of them is to discourage their funders. At what spending level does a lesser billionaire decide that a personal vanity presidential candidate is not worth the price?
Tree With Water
@Tone in DC: What makes the Koch brothers tick? [cut to audio clip, J. Huston, Chinatown]: “The future, Mr. Giddes, the future”.
opiejeanne
@CONGRATULATIONS!: they called them “smoke-filled rooms” back the and the term only referred to the political back-rooms where everything was decided for us.
Chris
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I think a contributing thing might be that their name’s already out there. Ten years ago I couldn’t have told you who they were, I don’t think most people could either – nowadays they’re a name a lot more people recognize, that’s increasingly come under fire from non-right-wingers. They may have just decided that as long as their name’s out there, they might as well take a more active role, there’s no more point to staying in the shadows.
Betty Cracker
Koch Industries employee Scott Walker has been running around Israel trying to attract notice from homegrown wingnuts. Just read a stupid post he barfed up on some site — it’s the same thing every Republican who visits “the Holy Land” always says. Sounds like he’s trying to dial in his evangelical bonafides, having already demonstrated his willingness to bust unions and attach his lamprey-like lips to Koch ass.
Also too, his wife is named “Tonette.” I don’t know why I find that screamingly funny, but I do.
Germy Shoemangler
@Hoodie:
Lesser billionaire! [Yakov Smirnoff voice]: “What a country!”
EDIT: In 1988, Smirnoff was the featured entertainer at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
ranchandsyrup
Throw back Tuesday: UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!
Valdivia
@ranchandsyrup:
had so totally forgotten about that.
KG
@Germy Shoemangler: he was the featured entertainer because he was thrown in with the bulk vodka sale
NCSteve
Are we past the part where we still bother to express dismay and despair that at least one of our parties has moved out of the shadows of covert plutocracy and into the realm of overt proxy oligarchy? Did I miss the day that stopped being a thing?
Iowa Old Lady
Basically, I think this election is HRC’s to lose. But this weekend, I was with a friend who voted for Obama twice and yet says she hates HRC and thinks she’s evil. That scared me.
Sherparick
Danzinger I think gave a shout out to Orson Welles playing Harry Lamb in the “The Third Man.” Harry and Holly are at the top of the Giant Ferris wheel, Vienna’s Reiserwand, and Harry is defending his scam to Holly, and asks him to look down and asks “if one of those ants stop moving and you get $50,000 tax free ol’ fellow, you tell me that would bother you? Tax free, the only way to make money nowadays.” All these guys have the values of sociopath (but without Orson Welles charm).
Tone in DC
@Tree With Water:
I was mediated by Fucked Up Word Press.
Hope that James Carter IV and some other folks are up for playing JJ Gittes next year. To me, the Kochsuckers make Noah Cross look sympathetic in comparison.
sparrow
@Iowa Old Lady: I am pretty pessimistic overall. I don’t know, I just have a terrible feeling we could end up with someone like Walker, and the rest of us standing around with our mouths open. I remember election night in 2004, which felt like getting kicked in the balls I don’t have. I just couldn’t believe people would do something so stupid.
The worst part is, if Hillary manages to pull down a victory (and I think this would require the republican candidate to totally implode), I think she’d actually make a pretty bad president. Would she be a hell of a lot better than Walker? God yes, of course. But someone posted a “prediction” that she would start a war to prove her testicular fortitude, it would go to shit, and then, not being a Bush, the left would get completely shitcanned for a very long time afterward. This scenario keeps me up at night too.
So, I’m praying for an Obama 2, basically. Please god.
JPL
@sparrow: The 2004 election results caused me to question mankind. I’ll vote for Hillary.
Chris
@sparrow:
I’m pessimistic in the sense that I’m resigned to the fact that no matter how terrible the GOP candidate is, he can still count on 45% of the vote at the very absolute minimum; and that just a few little things like voter fatigue, a sub-par campaign, and an insufficiently inspiring Democratic candidate are pretty much all it takes to put them over the top.
The current Republican Party may be the most extreme that any political party’s been since the pre-1861 Southern Democrats, but neither the Republicans nor the milquetoast centrists seem to care.
Pogonip
Would you like some good news? The trapper has caught 9 cats so far, and the landlord informs me that he doesn’t put them down. He has a list of farmers who’ll take the adults, and the young kittens go to cat-rescue groups who will try to socialize them and find them homes. Isn’t that nice?
askew
@Iowa Old Lady:
All my extended family members who regularly vote Dem won’t vote for Hillary. They are all women too which is worrying because she is supposed to have a unique appeal to women voters.
Goblue72
@askew: Totebaggers or Naderites?
Pogonip
P. S. in regard to the previous topic of modern Americans being afraid of everything, I mentioned that the orange tom was one of the cats caught, and the landlord was happy to hear it. The orange tom was scruffy and beat up, as feral toms usually are, and the landlord has been fielding calls from people who were terrified of him. This is an animal who will run if you so much as glance at him. And we are not a helicopter, SWPL, yuppie, whatever you want to call it neighborhood. Most of the gentlemen around here go to work wearing work boots and carrying lunchboxes.
askew
@Goblue72:
Neither. Mainstream Dems who have voted for every Dem candidate for president since they were 18. They liked Kerry, Gore, etc. They just don’t trust Hillary and won’t vote for her period.
Valdivia
@Pogonip:
I am glad they are getting homes and rescued.
askew
Bernie Sanders has a huge crowd of people waiting for his announcement. I think this type of announcement is going to play better than Hillary’s silly commercial she launched for her announcement. But, damn the crowd at Bernie’s make Mitt Romney events look diverse. There is a sea of white people there.
Valdivia
@askew:
Maybe the lack of diversity is because it’s Vermont?
Pogonip
@askew: She has a unique appeal to feminist voters. Once again, Americans, “female” is not synonymous with “feminist.” I suspect there will be a lot of baffled reporters come Election Day.
The men I know mostly think she’s the best of a bad lot, better than any of the Repubs, which is also what I think, but most of the women don’t like her at all. The black women, in general, dislike her more than do the whites. Most of them will hold their noses and vote for her, but they won’t like it!
Germy Shoemangler
Bill Nye is perfect in this latest one from Amy Shumer, The Universe.
(uncensored)
RaflW
Since this is an O.T.:
Ted Cruz is on the TeeVee saying that he and the TX delegation will be supporting a federal disaster declaration/aid coming in. Interesting how quickly those independent, D.C.-hating Texans reach for a handout.
Pogonip
@askew: That sounds like the anti-Hilary black ladies around here. She lost most of them with her ” What difference does it make?” in the Benghazi hearing. (That didn’t particularly bother me.)
Pogonip
@Valdivia: Me too! Even the tom. :)
Frankensteinbeck
@Germy Shoemangler:
Quite a lot. Any time where Boehner can’t pass a bill through his own party, right there is the disagreement in action. They disagree about Medicaid expansion (that’s a lot of money on the table, remember), and about how much to go to war, and about how much it’s safe to damage the safety net. They disagree about whether they should blow up the US to save it from black people. They disagree about things like the debt limit and whether shutting the government down is a good thing. They disagree about whether regulations should be cut enough to let the rich do whatever they want, or whether most of the government should be completely removed. They disagree a great deal on how openly they should admit to being racist and misogynist. The same battle is waging along all levels of the GOP, between the merely assholes and the lunatics. The Kochs are in the latter group.
Germy Shoemangler
@Frankensteinbeck: Good point.
askew
@Pogonip:
We’ll see if that is true. The group of women that won’t support Hillary are all feminists as well as Dems. And they range from 72-30 in age. I think people underestimate Hillary’s baggage and trust issues with general public.
But, at least Hillary’s rallies won’t be as white as this one of Sanders. She can attract minority voters. Not sure if Sanders can or not.
askew
@Valdivia:
I am sure it is, but it leads me to question how he is going to do with the base of the party which is incredibly diverse. Dean had issues with that when running in Iowa of all places.
gene108
@sparrow:
Half the conservatives I met, in 2003, felt Bush, Jr. was the “Greatest President Ever!!!” and a bunch of them still thought the same of him, even after Abu Grahib came out and we were getting bogged down in Iraq.
There was a huge collective emotional wound, in this country, after 9/11/01 and Bush & Co played on that for all it was worth, to help them win re-election, along with exploiting gay marriage.
The question that disturbs me is after six years of disastrous Republican rule, how the hell did they win big in 2010?
I am still perplexed by how so many people got ginned up to vote Republican, after watching the mess they made a few short years earlier.
Germy Shoemangler
@gene108:
What percentage are they of the general population?
I don’t have numbers here, but I suspect most republican landslides are a mighty wind.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108:
They invented the Tea Party and fired up the rubes, add to that the fact that many of Obama’s core constituencies don’t vote in midterms, season with a dash of racism and poor Dem strategery, and you’ve got yourself a GOP Landslide Pie (CAUTION: May cause abdominal distention)
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Great summary, thanks.
Betty Cracker
@Pogonip: There are plenty of reasons to dislike Hillary, but I don’t get that one at all. Unless they’re swallowing the swill Fox News dishes out.
Cacti
@Amir Khalid:
If you think of the modern Republican party as a proto-fascist movement, it makes perfect sense.
I’m pretty sure if Reince Priebus could get away with it, he’d make the GOP primary into a silent auction among the Koch/Adelson wing of the party.
Valdivia
my favorite moment on twitter today: Neko Case asking Ta-Nehisi Coates what book to read about reconstruction.
SiubhanDuinne
Until Al Sharpton showed up and took over MSNBC, I was really enjoying Bernie Sanders’ announcement speech. When it’s done, I’ll try to find a vid link or transcript. In my view, he hit all the right notes.
Germy Shoemangler
@Betty Cracker: I really thought that video was creatively edited by Fox. When I saw the full testimony, she was exasperated with their questioning, not saying “who cares” about the deaths.
mai naem mobile
I.believe when Dean was running.they said.Vermont was the whitest state in the union. I believe they said there were only 300 some blacks in the state.
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
I would disagree that it wasn’t a dash of racism. Racism was the major element. The GOP base would crawl over broken glass to vote against the negro president, even when he wasn’t on the ballot. They were particularly desperate to destroy Obamacare, the most potent and undeniable of Obama’s victories.
ruemara
@sparrow: I’m pessimistic because liberals like IOL’s friend are that fucking stupid, short sighted and bigoted. I may not like Hillary, but voting against the GOP is life and death for people like me, scraping the bottom, no future and with chronic illness. They can base their votes on whether or not Hillary is sufficiently liberal. People with things to lose, aren’t.
Cacti
@askew:
Bernie’s constituency is the same audience that listens to the Thom Hartmann show. Upper middle class whites.
You have to start somewhere, but I’m deeply skeptical that a Senator from Vermont has much reach outside of that group.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Um, it’s a regularly scheduled program. He didn’t just “show up”.
Cacti
@mai naem mobile:
Vermont is #2 these days. Maine is the most caucasian state in the union at 96.9%. Vermont comes next at 96.7%. Third is New Hampshire at an even 96%.
askew
@mai naem mobile:
Yeah, that came up during one of the debates where Sharpton criticized Dean for not having any minorities in his administration. And Dean’s defense was basically Vermont is 98% white and we couldn’t find a minority to work for our administration.
I think Iowa is more diverse than Vermont. They have a growing Hispanic population but not enough to cause Sanders problems. I think he is going to struggle in South Carolina and Nevada though.
askew
@Cacti:
That is kind of my thought as well. We’ll see I guess. The debate between Hillary, Bernie and Martin should be interesting though.
Goblue72
@sparrow: Obama II: The Electoral Boogaloo?
ruemara
@Pogonip: no, she lost us with “hard working white people”. A shit about Benghazi? Naw. But we will, once again, be pragmatic at the ballot box.
Baud
@raven:
I now have an image of Sharpton photobombing Bernie’s speech.
srv
@SiubhanDuinne: Sanders doesn’t rate a post.
Chris Wallace, though, he has been hitting it out of the park:
Elizabelle
OT: I am loving the Sally Ride google doodles today.
Is there a way we can tell google to keep them up on our personal page? Would love to keep them for a few days. Feel that way about several doodles. They’re fun.
Cacti
@srv:
They can do it.
They already did it.
Germy Shoemangler
@Elizabelle: Do they show up on the wayback machine?
http://archive.org/web/
goblue72
@ruemara: And ironically – or more accurately, infuriatingly – those voters profess to care about things like income inequality and a social welfare safety net. Yet the party that is clearly better on those issues by a mile and a day gets punished by those purity voters because a particular candidate isn’t sufficiently “liberal” enough.
I’m not worried about African-American voters (or Latinos) and Hillary. 89% of black voters and 70% of Latinos supported Mike Dukakis, while only 40% of whites did.
We know who the problem children are and its not POC. Its whites, and especially middle class whites.
SiubhanDuinne
@srv:
For some reason, I thought McCain had said (in 2010) that he wouldn’t run again. Did he ever say this and then at some point change his mind? Am I completely misremembering? Or is it just wishful thinking on my part?
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
You got that right!!
I’m thinking, though, that if all they manage to manipulate is the Republican party, that isn’t so bad, as long as they don’t win the trifecta – President, Congress, Supreme Court.
And maybe they will discover that just because they pay for someone to win the presidency, that doesn’t mean they won the presidency. A newly elected president can tell the Koch boys to go to jail, if he wants to. and then puts them there, in American Cuba.
Wouldn’t that be interesting to see?
Baud
@ruemara:
I got your back. I’ll be voting for our nominee.
Cacti
@goblue72:
While I do wonder what sort of President HRC might be, and have continued concerns about her hawkishness, I’m not especially concerned about her electability for one big reason…
She has a +24% favorable rating with women voters.
Germy Shoemangler
@J R in WV: If any of the GOP candidates tried that, the Kochs would email them a youtube link of the Zapruder film.
ruemara
@goblue72: Damn straight. I need to meet these anti-Hillary black women who won’t consider her because she’s evil. Then I need to introduce them to the Koch’s et al.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
The obligatory classroom musical instrument in second and third grade:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonette
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: It may have been, because what we all saw did sound like that. I took it as commendable honesty on the part of a .001 per center airing her true views about the help, but the anti-Hilary ladies were outraged at such callousness. They’re loyal Democrats, and will vote for her, but won’t like it!
goblue72
@ruemara: @ruemara: Whomever they are, they are teeny tiny fraction. As opposed to married white women who are more than happy to abandon the Democratic Party at the drop of a hat – see 2010. see 2012. Ditto even young whites, esp young white males.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Will this do?
Pogonip
@ruemara: They don’t like them either.
Chris
@ruemara:
Holy old-school-Democrat, Batman.
She actually said something singling out hardworking *white* Democrats? I don’t know how I missed it, but jeepers.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Tonette Marie.
Pogonip
@ruemara: Now that I think of it, nobody, except 10 or so guys who want to be president, likes the Kochs!
Hal
I think many people are vastly underestimating Hillary Clinton’s appeal and ability to GOTV. The official start of campaign season is still months away, and from this distance, it’s easy to imagine another candidate or to be on the fence about HRC. I think once election season is on and the primaries total up people will be swayed.
J R in WV
@askew:
I don’t understand this at all. She stood with her man even when he embarrassed her totally. On the other hand, he did go to the wall to protect her, lied under oath and all, suffered impeachment, to try to protect his wife from the Republican attack.
So they hung on to one another, supported each other, while under attack by the entire Republican party, and all the lawyers they could buy. The mass media, everyone. And the country felt their pain, and Bill Clinton had 60% support the day he left office.
So why exactly would women, Democratic women, distrust Hillary? Don’t understand. But I’m a guy.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
I know that, but generally when there’s a news conference or something of the sort that runs over into the next hour, MSNBC usually lets the live event run. Bernie was wrapping up; it wouldn’t have killed Sharpton to wait a few more minutes.
Pogonip
My father’s about 75 miles away. Something comes on the news here about a tornado in a town 5 miles from him. I call to see if he’s got power. “Why wouldn’t we?”. Because the tornado in Nearbytown. “Ain’t been nothing on about it here.”
????
If anyone can explain this, please do.
Cacti
@J R in WV:
A large majority of women voters like HRC just fine.
She does have some fences to mend for her clumsy dogwhistling when her 2008 campaign started to go south.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: OK.
From here on out, Mrs. Walker is Kazoo.
(Tonette sounds like an offbrand hair coloring product to me.)
And Mrs. Walker is 12 years older than Scott. I find that kind of appealing. Um, except the being married to a homunculus part.
Germy Shoemangler
@Pogonip:
Here is what I meant by Fox News misrepresenting her testimony:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/12/10/fox-resurrects-distorted-version-of-hillary-cli/201835
During her congressional testimony, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Clinton about the State Department’s role in editing Obama administration talking points to remove a reference to the Benghazi attackers’ motive. In response, she dismissed the relevance of debating who edited a government memo, saying, “[T]he fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest? Or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?” She emphasized, “It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”
Fox figures have tirelessly attempted to scandalize Clinton’s innocuous response, even jumping off the remarks to imagine her hypothetical assassination. The distortion has proved too egregious even for other members of the right-wing media — Weekly Standard writer (and Fox contributor) Stephen Hayes called out his fellow conservatives for misrepresenting her remarks, saying Clinton’s critics have “badly mischaracterized the now infamous question.”
srv
@SiubhanDuinne: A proud man who has so much left to offer his country:
evodevo
@Betty Cracker: If I recall from my elementary school days in the Fifties, the little plastic flute thingy we played in music class in third grade was called a Tonette. Hmmmm ….
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Or “Flute-o-Phone” for short.
http://www.qandf.com/fluteophone/
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: Yes, I agree, what actually happened is way different than what got aired. If it comes up again I’ll mention it. Even a politician doesn’t deserve to be slandered. Legally I don’t know if it’s slanderous, but morally it certainly is.
SatanicPanic
@srv: I’m not totally in disagreement with Huckabee. I think the SCOTUS has too much influence. SCOTUS is behind only the South and the US Senate on my list of entities that are a drag on our progress as a nation.
Though I’m sure Huckabee would disagree on what rulings he thinks the SCOTUS should ignore. I can only speculate on the types of rulings that would upset him, but it would probably something in favor of gay rights or prosecuting child molesters.
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
how was your concert and holiday weekend?
SiubhanDuinne
@evodevo:
See my link at #90. I would give a lot to get my hands on, not the Tonette itself, but the music book that came with it. There were several songs in there that haunt me in fragments to this day.
Edited because FYWP.
KG
@Pogonip: i’m guessing their heirs probably like them… or at least put on enough of a show of liking them.
SatanicPanic
@Goblue72:
I was going to say “Imaginary or imaginary?” but that’s just me
Germy Shoemangler
@SiubhanDuinne: Was it called “It’s tonette time”?
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/It-s-Tonette-Time-sheet-music/3524844?d=sem_ggl_Feed2&popup=false&pcrid=56629579462&pdv=c&mkwid=o1A125KX&pcrid=56629579462&gclid=CPaw6ZjA4MUCFcQXHwodgmwA2Q
sparrow
@ruemara: I totally agree. I don’t mean to downplay the huge difference for real lives that a Walker presidency would have vs. Clinton. But I do worry about the damage Hillary might do to the long-term state of the democratic party. I will definitely vote for Clinton if she is the nominee, no question.
Hillary Rettig
Saw this headline; for some reason thought of this blog:
Waffle-maker dispute results in 30 people kicked out of Mason County hotel, police say
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2015/05/waffle-maker_dispute_results_i.html#comments
You see: it ISN”T always Florida. :-)
MomSense
@RaflW:
What a missed opportunity for them. If ever there were a time for Texas to prove the Federal Government is evil and incompetent and that a solid state like Texas doesn’t need them–this is it.
jl
@ruemara:
” Damn straight. I need to meet these anti-Hillary black women who won’t consider her because she’s evil. Then I need to introduce them to the Koch’s et al. ”
If that doesn’t work, remind anyone remaining recalcitrant that if the elections go GOP, the Koch’s will be introducing themselves, asap, to everyone who cannot afford keep such company.
Bill Arnold
@Germy Shoemangler:
Also, a google search for “tonette music book” comes up with promising hits.
satby
@SatanicPanic: ok, based on that and some of your comments in the parenting thread, I now assume you’re from Brigadoon.
Germy Shoemangler
@Bill Arnold: Gotta love that cover art.
And the tonette looks like an ocarina on a paleo diet.
Pogonip
@KG: I read an interview with them once, a nice friendly NPR-type interview. Even there they came off as just plain mean.
SatanicPanic
@satby: I don’t know what that is supposed to mean
jl
@Hillary Rettig: A link in your link says that they are still recovering the ice cream sprinkles riots. Mason County, MI must be quite a place.
Mason County, Michigan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_County,_Michigan
My bet is too many Germans.
SiubhanDuinne
@Germy Shoemangler:
I don’t think so. I don’t recognize the cover, but it might be worth six bucks to find out.
Mike J
@jl: For you, the complementary breakfast is over!
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill Arnold:
Will check, thanks.
Elizabelle
@Valdivia: Thank you for remembering.
The Psych Furs were terrific. Richard Butler’s voice is still clear and expressive; surprised at how good it is. The National in Richmond is a great venue. Mixing was a little off for first 3 songs (although vocals always clear); then they found their sweet spot. Audience was (sigh) old enough to have caught them before they were famous. Did see one 20-something couple. Not sure why some bands collect younger fans and others don’t ….
Furs come to the Tally Ho in Leesburg on Tuesday, June 2nd, and am thinking of catching that show too.
Any BJ Furs fans out there?
J R in WV
@srv:
But they did do it, they elected George W Bush President 5-4. And Sandra Day O’Connor voted to elect that piss-ant, so she could feel good about retiring, the lazy treasonous bitch!
They stopped a recount that would have elected Al Gore in its tracks, those bastards. They should mostly have recused themselves. But then who would have made the decision? They were all beholden to one party of the other. Maybe they should have said “We can’t take this case, just let it play out in Florida.” With JEB in charge, right! And that Republican Secretary of State bitch. We were so screwed, because the Republican party is willing to cheat and steal out in public, in front of everyone.
I was taught that if you cheat, winning doesn’t matter. But Republicans today aren’t taught that, or won’t learn that, or don’t fuckin’ care.
Pogonip
@satby: Does that mean his next comment will be in a hundred years?
Mike J
@Elizabelle: I saw them at Solomon Alfred’s in Memphis in 82? 83?
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
oh I have a memory of listening to Pretty in Pink. So glad you enjoyed it. I love summer concerts.
Aleta
@Karen in GA: Pretty sure she’s a Schnauzeewok.
Renie
I would like to know who these ant-Hillary democrats plan on voting for in the general election.
Betty Cracker
@goblue72: The Republican Party is almost 90% white. But is there evidence of white Democrats abandoning the party and voting GOP in droves? The polling I’ve seen seems to indicate people voted party affiliation pretty consistently.
satby
So has anyone seen the new FB meme going around where “if the Republicans nominated Hitler and the Democrats nominated Stalin, either Hitler or Stalin would become President?”
One of the brain trust that spread it announced she didn’t want a Republican, but she was undecided between “Sanders and Paul”.
I’m expecting FB may banhammer me based on my response to that.
Patrick
If it is another idiotic war like the Iraq war, it would more than stupid. Most, if not almost all Dems will support her in 2016. But if she starts an Iraq like war to show she is a hawk, she is going to lose most of that support come 2020. Hopefully she realizes that…
Baud
@Renie:
I assume they just won’t vote.
SatanicPanic
@Patrick: Why would she do that? I’m pretty sure she remembers how Bill Clinton got elected over the first guy to go to war in Iraq, how BC maintained his popularity despite not having a major war, and how GWB looked after Iraq War II.
Tree With Water
@Cacti: I challenge Hillary to denounce Bush-Cheny (et.al) as having plotted the 2003 war, and say let the chips fall where they may.* Were she to give voice to that simple truth, Hillary Clinton has it in her power to effect momentous change for the good. Perhaps beyond any accomplishment she might effect for the good as a POTUS trapped by ambition into perpetuating the lies of the Bush-Cheney administration.
*(I predict the chips would avalanche her into the White House).
Patrick
@SatanicPanic:
Let’s hope so…
Elizabelle
Settling in to watch John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) on El Rey. Never saw it; hear it’s scary.
Weather clear so far. But dark.
raven
@Elizabelle:
Adrienne Barbeau is da bomb!
rikyrah
Pimps gotta have more than one HO.
Pimps always got a stable of HOs.
Elizabelle
@raven: Some of you might have to watch it with me.
I don’t want to spill my drink into my laptop. So far the apprehension is all sound driven. Creak. Creak.
Elizabelle
The ghosts died in 1880. But they know about gas pumps?
Davis X. Machina
Various manifestations of purely state power, such as its elections, or the individuals who win them, don’t matter.
They exist to serve the needs of the Party, and not the other way round because it is the Party, and not the state, which is the Vanguard of the Revolution. In fact, with the success of the Revolution, the state is fated to wither away.
All correctly oriented cadres — and the Kochs are the very picture of correctly oriented cadres — know this.
All power to the soviets of preachers and hedge-fund managers!
David Koch
@Tree With Water: lemme ask ya, why doesn’t Sanders run on that? Why hasn’t he ever broached the subject simply as a senator?
srv
@Renie:
Well, clearly not this Sanders person, whose entry as a Democractic Presidential candidate does not rate a front-page post at this liberal site.
Democrats, already suppressing the vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Saw them in London in ’84 and Milwaukee in 87ish. I can say that I hate the movie version of “Pretty in Pink.”
sparrow
@efgoldman: I’ve come around to seeing Walker as a threat — don’t laugh. I don’t in any way see “not having a college degree” as the kind of dealbreaker that so many think it is. Yes, it would have been unthinkable in previous eras, but that’s not the era we’re in.
Tree With Water
@efgoldman: Get right down to it, and none can possibly be any worse that the man who plotted to wage unrighteous, unholy war; a war moreover fought by our own brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers, at the additional cost of unknown trillions of our treasury. An unjust war that he has thus escaped censure for plotting, for reasons I will never understand or forgive.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had that they used the song as a centerpiece of it.
Davis X. Machina
@Germy Shoemangler:
In 1989, the Warsaw Pact disappears. When they say comedy is 90% timing, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the timing they were talking about.
Major Major Major Major
That’s it, srv is pie’d. No-talent hack. It takes some skill to have a Backpfeifengesicht when I’ve never even seen you…
Davis X. Machina
@Roger Moore:
The stakes are so high, and the economy’s so huge, that there’s no reason besides egos to treat this as zero-sum.
There are generic advantages — getting rid of the estate tax, removing taxes on non-wage income generally, looser regulation of the FIRE section — that all the billionaires share.
Some of the specific advantages and subsidies that they seek may actually work at cross purposes.
Elizabelle
OK. Only sporadically watching “The Fog.” It looks way scary, and well made, and saving a close viewing for with company.
@raven: Adrienne Barbeau was Mrs. John Carpenter when the film was made and released.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
I detect a bit of a contradiction….
gene108
@SatanicPanic:
Look at it from Huckabee’s point of view, when he was governor the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled the state government had a responsibility to have more equal education funding throughout the state.
Huckabee complied. He raised taxes to fund the increased education spending. Education results improved in Arkansas, in fact you might say Huckabee was the “education governor”.
Then in 2008, when he was running for President, the Club for Growth savaged him brutally for raising taxes (never mind he did it to comply with a state supreme court ruling) and basically killed his campaign dead.
I bet old Huckabee had a great talking point about improving education standards in Arkansas and the mean old Club for Growth killed his chance to use it, because it involved raising taxes.
If old Huckabee had just told the Arkansas Supreme Court to pound sand, he may have become our 44th President.
Valdivia (tablet)
Ugh now I’m swallowing whole words. Must read before pressing send.
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Some people just can’t handle the truth.
Epistemic Closure Unlocked.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I got stung by a bee before I could edit that with a “I must say, though…”
True story.
ETA: Besides, making me want to smack you while you somehow add nothing to the conversation and aren’t even clever isn’t a skill I desire in trolls.
Tree With Water
@Davis X. Machina: The once high flying Vaughn Meader could have explained what bad-timing-politically-speaking can do to a show biz career. Had JFK not been murdered, the one time high flying Meader might have parlayed his one trick pony act into enough cash to have retired to a villa on the shores of Lake Como.
goblue72
@Betty Cracker:
The shift in the white vote between 2008 and 2010 – http://www.people-press.org/2011/07/22/gop-makes-big-gains-among-white-voters/
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Pogonip:
Apparently what some rescue groups/vets have started doing is giving the active toms a kitty vasectomy (sp?) instead of neutering them. That way, the toms still chase other males away from “their” females but can’t make any new kittens.
Davis X. Machina
@Tree With Water: In Soviet Russia, history dustbins you!
Valdivia (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus: that German word is so idiomatically pefect
raven
@Elizabelle: I know that.
raven
@Major Major Major Major: Was it a dead bee?
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
sorry that was meant for @Major Major Major Major:
I’m a fail in this tablet thingy.
@Major Major Major Major: as I said, dug that word
Omnes Omnibus
Oooh! The Robert Donat version of “The Count of Monte Cristo” is on TCM.
Major Major Major Major
@raven:
It is now.
Fortunately I was near a dive bar, so I was able to get ice and tobacco pretty fast.
ThresherK
@MomSense: Well, well, well. Look who’s come crawling back: The non-secessionists-for-now.
My rule still holds: If Ted Cruz wants that sweet, sweet Federal money, he has to come to the Rose Garden and be photographed holding a giant cardboard check.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s Tonette Time.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Elizabelle:
I believe Omnes is.
dww44
@askew: Is their opposition so strong that if she wins the Dem nomination they will cross over and vote for the GOP candidate? I’ve not built up any enthusiasm for Hillary, but it will be a darned cold day in July in these parts before I vote for any GOP candidate. Make sure they understand that if the GOP’er gets in, they need to be prepared to say goodby to every program that benefits the common people and the land they inhabit that our government has done over the last 100 years or so. We will be fast tracking back to the gilded age.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That’s a great idea!
Tree With Water
@ThresherK: Not quite good enough. While holding the giant cardboard check for all to see, Cruz must also be photographed in the act of kissing Obama’s ass. Even then, the president should take the occasion to announce the relocation of NASA out of Texas…
ThresherK
@Steeplejack (phone): It’s eerily appropriate Tony Toni Tone time.
Someone has to make this video of the Kochs and the Clown Car happen.
ThresherK
@Tree With Water: My bad–just using the block text from last time after changing “Rick Perry” to “Ted Cruz”.
I’ll change it to include this ass-kissing. While we’re at it, we can take back our military bases too.
dww44
@gene108: As one almost entirely surrounded by Republican voting friends and relatives, I’ve come to realize how deep their commitment is to the GOP and to conservatism. In 2003 I made the mistake of thinking that everyone could see how wrong our incursion into Iraq was and that they wouldn’t support Bush’s unilateral incursion into a country that had not attacked us. I believed and hoped that GHWB would talk sense into his son and that our shared history of doing basically what is right and ethical would prevail.
Didn’t happen and from that point on, I ‘ve never doubted their ability to find justification to vote for the GOP candidate no matter who he or she is nor what their policies are or aren’t. It’s not only that they hate all things re the Democratic party, they cannot/will not admit to themselves that they won’t support a party and a leader which embraces Blacks. My one other cousin, who lives in Florida, has long said, about our close relatives and many of our friends, that their opposition is rooted in racism, but not a racism that they will even own up to, not even to themselves. They would deny it vociferously if confronted;and they do. Doesn’t change how they will vote;they will always vote for the Republican as long as it is the party of white folks.
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Do you recognize any of these covers?
Anne Laurie
@jl:
When I was living in Michigan 30 years ago, the Muskegan locals blamed it on the muscular Calvinists of the Reformed Church of America — although the (mostly fallen-away) members of that congregation still referred to themselves, at least among us heathens, as “Dutch Reformed.”
Sorta like Southern Baptists (the sort of people who, proverbally, wouldn’t fornicate standing up because people might think they were dancing) but with less latent HSThompson-style craziness & more thickheaded “Well, it works for me, so if you don’t like my way then you must be wrong. Also stupid. And possibly criminal.”
David Koch
@efgoldman: the flood is obviously God’s way of stopping Jade Helm 15. Obamma is worst than Pharaoh. Ramesses’s 3rd term.
eta: I got my dvr set for tomorrow night. I’ll be looking for her.
Howard Beale IV
@efgoldman: Nooooo kidding. Here, have some nuts.
Betty Cracker
@goblue72: That partially illustrates how the GOP became nearly 90% white. What I wondered was whether there’s evidence that white DEMOCRATS are voting for Republicans. I don’t think so.
raven
@Anne Laurie: MuskegOn.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: re Democrats voting for Republicans:
maybe just a few of the elderly who have turned to Fox News in their dotage? Some sad stories from BJers about losing their elderly relatives, or knowing a Selma marcher who’s now a rager.
Very small subset, don’t you think?
dww44
@Germy Shoemangler: I actually liked HRC’s comment at that hearing. She was legitimately frustrated by their continued questioning and responded in kind. At that point, it really didn’t make any difference.
@ruemara: I’m with you there. IT does make a big difference whether its a Dem or a Rep in the White House, particularly given who’s in control of the Congress. It greatly concerns me if HRC’s team is not able to gin up some base enthusiasm, although it is early days yet.
Another problem with our electoral process, it’s designed to kill a candidacy,
if for no other reason than regular Americans are just slap worn out from non-stop campaigns. We should be taking a break from all this, not wallowing in this endless process. Give me the Brit system and I’d be a happy voter.
BruceFromOhio
@Hillary Rettig: You see: it ISN”T always Florida.
Hollering at each other until the cops kick everyone out, with no shots fired.
Definitely not Florida. Or Texas.
Goblue72
@Betty Cracker: we have this group of voters called Independent voters who do swing back & forth – and are critical to whether or not a Democrat gets elected.
So yes, the behavior of white voters who sometimes vote Dem, sometimes vote GOP, is extremely relevant.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Very small, I agree.
@Goblue72: Thanks, Captain Obvious.
askew
@dww44:
I think they’ll just vote down ticket and skip presidential ticket. For the women in Minnesota, it won’t matter because MN will stay blue. For the ones in Iowa and Wisconsin, it is more worrying. I don’t think there will be any persuading that could be done. None of them are terribly political but they read/watch news daily and they loathe Hillary. Love Obama though and are impressed with Kerry.
askew
@J R in WV:
The older ones hate that she stood by Bill. They thought he humiliated her and she should have left him. They are old school feminists. Those are the ones I am surprised by. I thought they’d be so excited to see the first woman president. They all keep saying they want to live to see a woman president just not her. They were hoping Amy Klobuchar would run instead. Younger ones just think she is old news and their first impressions of her came from her disastrous 2008 campaign. Not much to cheer for there. I was surprised because I am always being told online that I am the exception and Hillary is wildly popular with women. I am starting to wonder if her support is as soft as it was in 2008. Obama beat her on young women in many states. It could feasibly happen again.
Betty Cracker
@askew:
No, it really couldn’t.