Open thread!
Tuesday Afternoon Boxerama (Open Thread)Post + Comments (24)
Archives for August 2015
It ain’t coca-cola, it’s rice
A few years back, there was a local election where a candidate (a Democratic one, actually) would go on the radio and say “Godless Chinese communists” all the time. It was his go-to line and it seemed to help him in the polls, though he ultimately lost, fortunately.
Jeb’s latest, along with Scott Walker’s recent stupidity about the Chinese market crash and the tense situation on the Korean obrder, makes me wonder if Asia-bashing is going to be a big part of this presidential election (or at least the Republican primary):
When asked if he thought his repeated use of the term “anchor babies” – a derogatory term for children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrant parents – Bush said: “What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there’s organized efforts, and frankly, it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country and having children in that organized effort.”
Here’s Your Net Positive
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Drudge-ry
RNC Chairman: Trump is a "net positive" for the Republican party http://t.co/RNvjcnX7A8 pic.twitter.com/w48ESTZYUg
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) August 24, 2015
Is he willing to say that under oath? https://t.co/o7MfnCU8ZU
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 24, 2015
…. of course he is, and that’s why Politico is hot to report how “State GOP leaders plot to tie Donald Trump’s hands” (just in Virginia and North Carolina — so far).
And speaking of sad nasty jobs, here’s a summer sweetener from the Daily Beast — “Undercover Republican Goes Hillary-Hunting in Clinton Library“:
… The RNC staffer has a vague list of the materials contained in the boxes and, to the untrained eye, they look pretty mundane. Press clippings, photos, memos, and “stuff to be signed by the by the first lady”—but to the opposition researcher, something previously overlooked in the pages could become newly relevant under the right political circumstances.
There are roughly 751 Hillary Clinton-related boxes in the library. They represent a tiny sliver of the 78 million pages of documents, 20 million emails, 2 million photos, and 12,500 videotapes the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum houses, according to the library’s website.
Since just 1 percent of the total collection has been digitized, being on location is key. The RNC staffer has personally gone through about 200 boxes, averaging about two a day or 20 a week…
The idea for the deep research dive came from defeat. In 2012, American Bridge 21st Century, the Democratic-aligned super PAC, spent months assembling an oppo file on Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Long before he became the Republican standard bearer, the group had an arsenal at its disposal.
When the general election campaign began, American Bridge was able to hit hard, respond quickly, and try to wound Romney on every aspect of his record.
After the election, Shah and like-minded colleagues founded America Rising, an outside group focused on opposition research in support of Republican candidates…
Which says a lot about the Repub mindset — even today. When Rommey was their standard-bearer, his opponents found a metric ton of vile stuff he’d done and said that could be aired in contradiction to the new, improved Mitt Mk. 2. Ergo, now that HRClinton’s due (probably) to pick up the Democratic flag, there must be a ton of nastiness buried in the Clinton archives… if only some lowly drone were to peruse every page, one by one. The facts that Hillary (a) is not Willard Romney and (b) has pretty much lived under the hostile glare of Repub oppo-researchers for the last twenty years just don’t matter; they know there’s a pony in that manure pile somewhere!
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Apart from watching the RNC apply the Green Lantern principle to their own principals, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Late Night Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Open Thread
@KEdwardK @ebruenig @HeerJeet that's still a far cry from this pic.twitter.com/p7qHcPPD3d
— T. (@ricky_raw) August 19, 2015
I try to be tolerant but if you get your eugenics master race fantasies from My Little Pony, you are fucked up. https://t.co/83XSLT3p5v
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 19, 2015
.
And here I had imagined there were Bronies because MLP is a universe where it’s really difficult to get into a dick-measuring contest.
The Tube-verse is not only stranger than we know, it may be stranger than we can know.
Late Night Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Open ThreadPost + Comments (52)
This Is Going to Leave a Mark
America’s worst human being, Chuck Johnson, is probably going to be paying Gawker’s legal fees for a good long time.
Open Thread: Sorry, Dude, A Shill’s Gotta Eat
The Washington Post reports:
Rick Perry, whose presidential campaign is struggling to raise money and is no longer paying its staff, lost his Iowa campaign chairman on Monday.
Sam Clovis, one of Iowa’s most prominent conservatives who had been leading Perry’s campaign in the state, confirmed in an interview that he had left the Perry campaign in part because he was no longer being compensated. He said he is in conversations to sign up with another Republican candidate.
“I feel bad for the campaign and I feel bad for Governor Perry because I think he’s a marvelous human being, he’s a great man and it was my honor to be a part of this, but it was just time to move on,” said Clovis, who is a talk radio personality, professor and former U.S. Senate candidate…
Clovis said he has entertained entreaties from “several” rival campaigns in the two and a half weeks since Perry stopped paying his staff. He said he expects to sign on with a new candidate in the next few days. “I’m going to go where there’s the best fit,” he said.
When Clovis signed on with Perry, he said the “finalists” he considered were Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former technology executive Carly Fiorina and businessman Donald Trump. Cruz would be a natural candidate for Clovis to settle on, as would Trump, who has rocketed to the top of polls and is building a costly and aggressive ground campaign in Iowa…
I guess the thumbsucker takeaway is: Does Clovis jump for the easy Trump dollar, or bet on Teddy the Cross for the long-term grift?
(Not that I think Cruz is liable to win the GOP nomination, but his candidacy for God-King in the Republic of Gilead is a safe money bet at least through next year.)
Open Thread: Sorry, Dude, A Shill’s Gotta EatPost + Comments (67)