And maybe Ted Cruz is cleverly disguised man sized weasel. pic.twitter.com/JDef59eNvZ
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) November 30, 2015
It’s not a cure, but at least it’s a palliative. Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
… Fabulism has become something of a conspicuous feature in this campaign. From Donald Trump’s dancing Muslims on a rooftop in Jersey City to Ben Carson’s buckle-foiled attempt to cut a motherfcker in his wayward youth, we seem to have crossed over an invisible border from the ordinary narrative bullshit that is customary to presidential campaigns into a strange shadowland in which bizarre (and easily—and, occasionally, previously—debunked) tales have come to define candidates, and to define them, if not positively, then not entirely in a negative way, either. To stick with your story about Muslims on the rooftops in the face of all the available evidence is a way to demonstrate that you “won’t back down” or that you’re not “politically correct.” The logic seems to be that, if you stand firmly behind your hogwash, and the wilder the hogwash the better, then you will face down Vladimir Putin before breakfast and frighten Daesh to death just after lunch. Apparently, if you’re bold enough to tell obvious lies in public, and then stick to those lies when you get called on them, you are brave enough to be president.
As with so many things, this all began with Ronald Reagan. Those people who claim that Donald Trump is sui generis in this regard are very much the same as those people who find him a unique political phenomenon, instead of the logical end product of almost 40 years of conservative politics. Reagan was as full of crap as the Christmas goose, and in the same way that Trump and Carson are. Trump has dancing Muslims. Reagan had the fictitious welfare queen in Chicago. Carson had his attempt to stab a classmate. Reagan had his march into Auschwitz to liberate the death camp there. The difference is that Reagan slung his hooey with a smile and a wink. Trump has weaponized Reagan’s fabulism and that seems to make a difference to some people. But nothing that has happened in this campaign, up to and including the latest spasm of outright bigotry and fear-mongering, is new in the recent history of Republican politics. It always is the person who tells the best ghost stories who wins…
***********
Apart from Lying Liars Who Lie: Apocalypse Now Edition, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Major Major Major Major
On the agenda is reading the new chapter of my story!
And Pierce is as usual hilarious and cutting and on-point, gosh bless him.
Eric NNY
An insult to all weaseldom.
Hal
Millions of voters love this kind of thing. Truth has only a tenuous grasp in right wing-o-sphere. You see it in the stories that propagate in social media and via email. Your technologically illiterate Aunt who still insists that Michelle Obama took a 350 million dollar vacation to Spain in never going to be swayed by something as trivial as reality.
Chris
Well, Reagan was bought and paid for by rich people, and if not precisely “establishment” (that was H. W), also by no means an outsider. I imagine that helped the punditariat see him as a somewhat mischievous but overall delightful old geezer, instead of the dangerous rabble rousing outsider, Trump.
Then again, if Trump wins the primary, or God forbid the election, expect the media to do some prompt redefining of what is and isn’t Very Serious.
Hoodie
No, I’d say that today’s GOP laying is more a corollary of Cleek’s Law, i.e., bald-faced lying pisses off liberals, so it’s intrinsically good irrespective of the content of the lie. Reagan was more of a simple fabulist.
Major Major Major Major
Anywho, I enjoyed the last ten days in Tel Aviv not being bombarded by American media, but it’s time to go back after a little shut-eye. You’ll get a greetings from San Francisco some time around Wednesday I imagine. Cheers all, have a great analog-watch-resetting-the-date-day, und so weiter.
debbie
Cruz needs to be mocked loudly, roundly, and widely.
srv
The party of Hillary joining the Marines and being under sniper fire wants to lecture others about fabulism?
Fabulous. More!
Mike in NC
For those with a high pain threshold, tonight the History channel offers a 2 hour documentary: “The Making of Trump”
WereBear
It would explain so much!
Patricia Kayden
Cruz is a not so cleverly disguised man-sized possum. No disrespect to possums intended.
How low have Republicans gone that one of their presidential candidates is actually pedaling the straight-from-the-fringe nonsense that Dear is transgender? It’s almost as if there is no bottom to how far they can dig.
There is no peak wingnut!!
srv
There you go:
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in NC: ugh, really?
barf.
well i guess it could have some historical significance. everybody thought marine lepen was a joke until she wasn’t.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: YouGov is one of the most discredited pollsters of the last ten years, nice try.
ETA: Nobody else feed the troll, sorry!
Felonius Monk
@Mike in NC:
This will undoubtedly further tarnish the History Channel’s reputation and cement it’s name firmly in the Chronicle of Bullshit.
Felonius Monk
@srv: I think it would be more socially beneficial if we had a National Registry of Trolls and Other Idiots.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike in NC: Why is the media giving Trump so much extra attention? First it was NBC with SNL and now it’s the History Channel? What have we done to deserve this?
What about the making of Bernie Sanders or Hilary Clinton for some balance?
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: Not even tempted to read anything srv writes so won’t be feeding it.
Chyron HR
Are they aware that the “alleged clinic shooter” was taken alive? How do they plan to get him to go along with the official story? Maybe send a gift basket with a note saying, “Thanks for your hard work. P.S. If anyone asks you’re a transgendered leftist and you attacked Planned Parenthood because they wouldn’t give you enough dead baby parts.”
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: my pie filter is malfunctioning :(
Peale
@srv: Yep. Cause even when you bring that up (and lord knows, I’ve heard more about the “sniper fire” now than I did even in 2008, you can’t help embellishing. Exaggerating. Spinning tall tales.
Major Major Major Major
@Chyron HR: no see they gave him too many dead baby parts and his fridge was full so he was like “NO MORE DEAD BABY PARTS!”
he got really mad that he couldn’t afford a deep-freeze in his garage
D58826
While not trying to stray to far into tinfoil land but the cops and prosecutors in Colorado Springs have been remarkable tight lipped about what happened last Friday and the motive of t he shooter. The court sealed all the pre-trial documents today. Wonder why? Maybe something embarrassing to the local Christians above and beyond the obvious?
balconesfault
@Major Major Major Major: Yougov … a site dedicated to the proposition that anyone with web access should be able to ratfuck, and not only people with 7 figures worth of disposable wealth.
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden:
Romney was already peddling straight-from-the-fringe nonsense in 2012 about Benghazi and how the US navy had the fewest number of ships since before WWI.
gus
@Patricia Kayden: Where did that idea come from? I was reading in a comment thread at The Atlantic (trust me, don’t get out of the boat, Atlantic threads are troll magnets), and some troll is repeating time and again that Dear is transgendered (or it this moron’s words lgbt).
sherparick
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and all their plutocratic and media enablers created the Ur-Republican Model to win elections on fear, resentment, and bullshit in the 1950 and 1952 elections. I also sadly created a model for a certain wing of the Democratic Party to constantly try to out-hawk or out anti-communist the Right-wingers in their policy decisions out of political fear, and not what was right or best for the country. The result was first Vietnam and then endless “wars” of the last 3rd of the 20th century and first two decades of 21st with drugs and now with “terrorism” (except the incidents committed by white, male, Christians, who love their guns are by definition “not” terrorism, but “criminal” acts of disturbed individuals totally unaffected by our language of hate and propaganda against the pro-choice movement and the LBGT movement.)
Major Major Major Major
@gus: Dear was mislabeled in the Colorado voter registry as ‘female’. I used to do election work there, it’s shoddy as fuck, as is every other election registry. Typos like that aren’t uncommon.
One more reason voter ID doesn’t work, incidentally.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: Chuck’s troll be gone not only blocks the trolls, but also responses to them.
Ruckus
@Patricia Kayden:
The media only likes right bullshit. They never have to check it for accuracy. It never is. So no actual journalists necessary. Reduce costs, increase profits.
We are all looking for the rational of why the media is the way it is, that’s it, lower costs, increase profits. Of course they forgot the important part of sales volume to cover the sunk costs but they see the word profit and all other thoughts cease. It’s like Pavlov’s dog.
mai naem mobile
I pulled into a Trader Joes the other day and saw a black lady(late 20s or so) pull up in her car with two young kids. The car had a Ben Carson sticker. I really really wanted to walk up to her and ask her if she truly honestly thought he was qualified. I’ve seen Carson stickers twice before but they’ve been old white farts. I’m seriously worried about this country because I’m not sure it can survive until these 27% die off.
debbie
@debbie:
As maddening as Cruz is, why hasn’t anyone asked him about the logic of a previously woman liberal shooting up Planned Parenthood? Don’t all liberals support Planned Parenthood?
bemused
@Mike in NC:
Too bad History Channel isn’t following that with the “You’ve Been Trumped” documentary. If Trump couldn’t get his Scotland golf course done and vanquish the Scottish neighborhood in his way at warp speed, how can he deport 12 million immigrants and build a fence in two years?
debbie
I’m listening to this interview of a Washington DC abortion provider on NPR now. It must be horrifying to find yourself on the hate “hit” Websites.
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/30/457907185/abortion-providers-raise-security-concerns-after-planned-parenthood-shooting
Ruckus
@debbie:
That’s easy.
All the changes fucked her up. That’s as good a reason as any to not allow anything transgender at all.
You are welcome for that bit of wingnut “thought.” I’m not glad I could provide it for you.
OzarkHillbilly
Who’s press secretary, when confronted with the fact his boss was lying said:
“If you tell the same story five times, it’s true,” he said.
Betty Cracker
@gus: The Stupidest Man on the Internet (aka Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit) appears to be Moron Zero.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: I’ll have to try it around, it’s not installing quite well automatically. I also have a gazillion plugins so who knows what variable collision is happening :/
Major Major Major Major
@OzarkHillbilly: I wanna say W.?
ETA: ‘whose’ press secretary
/pedant
Betty Cracker
@mai naem mobile: Probably a religious nut. All the Carsonites I know are (all three of them).
liberal
@mai naem mobile:
I saw an old-ish white fart in a minivan while driving to work today. He had a few Trump bumper stickers, including something to the effect of “Trump the Bitch [Hillary]”. I flipped him off.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: It was White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, Ronnie Reagan’s.
Anne Laurie
@Chyron HR:
“Now that THEY have the poor guy in custody, of course THEY can force him to say anything. You can’t trust THEM, you know!” (/wish it were only snark)
You can’t “reason” someone out of a fantasy that wasn’t “reasoned” to begin with.
liberal
@mai naem mobile:
They never will. AFAICT there’s a proto-fascistic fraction of people in every country under the sun.
MattF
Um, Cruz is ‘disguised’? In what way?
brent
It really should be noted that, while Reagan was certainly full of crap, his welfare queen was not a fabrication. She was very real.
Slate Link
Now she was a sociopath and nothing she did really has much to do with any rational question about social policy but he didn’t make her up.
catclub
@gus:
so given the pictures that are of a bearded man, but transgendered, so previously a woman?
really?
Germy
What must be going through Dear’s mind as he sits in jail! He’s the ultimate conservative, shoots up a Planned Parenthood, all he wants is the approval of all the conservatives he sees on TV and hears on the radio… and Cruz calls him a liberal transvestite?
His sense of betrayal must be profound…
Germy
My comment is awaiting moderation.
catclub
@bemused: I read an article on Trump’s battles with the planning department/zoning commission the of the town in Florida with Palm Beach in its name.
Trump has lots of lawyers and deploys them liberally. Also is devious and persistent.
Assumes rules do not apply to him.
Germy
What must be going through Dear’s mind as he sits in jail! He’s the ultimate conservative, shoots up a Planned Parenthood, all he wants is the approval of all the conservatives he sees on TV and hears on the radio… and instead of patting him on the back Cruz calls him a liberal transvestite?
His sense of betrayal must be profound…
Major Major Major Major
@catclub:
So far they haven’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@brent:Ronald Reagan’s wartime lies: The president had quite a Brian Williams problem
So she existed in the same way Saddam’s WMD did.
Pogonip
@Chris: I am sure voting machines will be fine-tuned to avoid a President Trump. I expect Hillary to be the beneficiary since even Limbaugh’s audience isn’t dumb enough to believe Bush could actually win.
Peale
@gus: Like every good shooting rampage story, the first inclination of everyone is to look for voting registration and political donations. That way, they can decide which narrative to use. The long standing NRA narrative is that mass shooters aren’t their members. That white right wing nuts don’t abuse their guns (only black people, cop killers, Muslims, liberals and the children of liberals do that. If all else fails, talk about false flags) This time, for some reason, the shooter’s voter registration listed him as a woman – ergo, he must have been a transgendered liberal activist. Even though he said why he was targeting a clinic in one of the major evangelical centers in America. Even though there have been interviews with his ex wife and I think other people who didn’t seem to mention anything about transgendered issues. Maybe he drove down from Trinidad? That would at least acknowledge that the nuts know something about transgendered history. But no. It looks like a clerical or user error filling out a voter registration card has inoculated the gun nuts again.
Germy
Honest John
Bill Arnold
@srv:
Are you completely sure that her security detail, at any foreign airport she ever flew into, never told her to keep moving/move randomly to reduce the risk of getting hit by a sniper or assassin bullet?
Major Major Major Major
@Bill Arnold: DFTT
ranchandsyrup
Going to go and heckle the HOA enforcement officer at the HOA meeting again. He loves it when I show up.
brent
@OzarkHillbilly: Honestly, you should read the article. Its actually a fascinating read.
She was convicted of the $8000 but she clearly stole quite a bit more – into the hundreds of thousands. If anything, Reagan undersold her fraud and welfare fraud was absolutely the least of her crimes. Not that I think its especially relevant to the argument he was trying to make with her. What does an astonishingly sociopathic criminal have to do with how we administer the social safety net in any rational discussion? But really, Linda Taylor was a very real, very scary human being.
ET
In Dubya’s world every problem was someone else’s fault and all good thing flowed toward him and all relationships were to his benefit. Trump is that on steroids with heaping extra doses of egotism, arrogance, etc.
Take the black preacher thing. These guys were invited by a colleague to meet him. Just meet with him – nothing more and nothing less. He took this as endorsement. They were like “um not quite” and because he looks bad he tries to turn this around and make them look bad instead of just going with a “this was a misunderstanding” he has to go out of his way to shit on other because he is Trump and this was all someone else’s fault and they have to look bad as 1. punishment and 2. distraction.
That situation with the reporter he was mocking is another case. He clearly had interactions with the reporter but then says they never met even though they had. He likes to tout how he never forgets people – even though the only one he remembers are those that can get something from him or do something for him – clearly the reporter may not be in either category. So he has to make more of a point on this and somehow spin this to put him to best advantage.
Brand Trump can’t look bad. Ever. It is always some else’s fault.
Surreal American
In which Ted Cruz employs the Moops stratagem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia02fGpUQfU
gelfling545
Not so clever, really. The weasel-hood shows clearly.
schrodinger's cat
I may be internetting wrong but the block quote formatting is hideous.
Felonius Monk
@schrodinger’s cat:
That may be the result of doing it in the classical, non-Hamiltonian manner rather than using the Dirac formalism. :)
BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodinger’s cat: You might want to share that with Cole and the developers in the persistent “Site Maintenance” thread under “About Balloon Juice” in the header.
jl
I’d be interested in a list of how the GOPer candidates reacted to what looks like terrorist motivated shooting in Colorado Springs. Anyone know of one?
I heard a radio clip of Huckabee uneqivocabally denouncing it, and apparently characterizing it for what it very probably is. OK, one fifth cheer for ol’ Huck (that is all he gets since the other four fifths are cancelled by his irresponsible behavior before hand).
I’ve also been impressed by Carson’s insightful comments on refugee situation in Jordan and Lebanon and help those countries need. Cannot believe I am saying this, but I wish it were HRC and Sanders saying what Carson did. One-quarter cheer for Carson. No more than that, since he still thinks that the US admitting any refugees at all is too much help. Wonder if this unexpected spate of competence will help him or hurt him with the GOP primary base. He’s got the required cowardice covered by opposing admitting even one refugee, so if his numbers go down I suppose it will be because his concern for the refugee situation there hits the wrong buttons.
Maybe Carson will have an awakening, like the young anti-Obama youtube sensation.
So, was favorably surprised by two GOPers over last 24 hours. I’m going out to watch the pigs fly now. Maybe it will happen again before the GOP mud show is over.
Anyway, any list on how the the GOPer presidential contestants are disgracing themselves over the terrorist PP shooting?
NotMax
@schrodinger’s cat
trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup: Mmmm, did you recently leave the garage door open that forbidden sixteenth minute?
Still, sounds like fun. “I saw someone with a sample paint test that was definitely autumn putty, not tawny beige! Does the board have any knowledge of this?”
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Four bars: you win the 4G LTE sweepstakes!
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Carson got raked over the coals for his comments about the refugee camps on Morning Joe gabfest, particularly his comments about the camps being nice. While the gabfest is normally wrong, they were right on this one.
ranchandsyrup
@trollhattan: he tried to make me power wash my garage and i used the garden hose instead (while he watched and complained that it would be inadequate). The association board said it looked great!
I emailed the HOA board all of the online reviews of the HOA (95% negative) and suggested that the enforcement madness was affecting my property values.
D58826
@brent: Funny how all the fraud committed by defense contractors and medicare/medicaid providers (like Rick Scott) just seem to fade into the background. Of course they have the built in whitness advantage.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks for the reminder that Carson is nuts, or cynical grifter. I forgot about all the garbage he said about how the refugees are better off there where they are, even if it is in refugee camps. To the extent that Carson is sane, I think his take on it is mainly in an attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion that other richer countries accepting a good chunk of the refugees has to be part of the solution.
I was just astonished Carson said some of the things he did about the scope of help that is needed, and how the refugee crisis is a real crisis that has serious implications for resolution of Daesh and Syrian mess. Any GOPer presidential contestant approach any reality whatever is such a shock, I probably got overenthusiastic about Carson’s latest statements on refugees.
trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
I don’t live in one (something about not joining any club that would have me for a member) but my BP jumps any time I hear the HOA harassment horror stories. That they can fine you to the point of placing a lien strikes me as having a faint whiff of the Cultural Revolution.
Do like the quip about affecting property values. Maybe you can invite Onion Joe over to wash the Trans Am on the front lawn. “Hi citizen, we’re saving water!”
ranchandsyrup
@trollhattan: yassssssss onion joe.
hope you and yr family are well Trollhattan. take care.
WereBear
@gelfling545: His is the House of Pain!
Patricia Kayden
@Germy: No, I think Dear did what he wanted to do — put fear in the hearts of abortion providers and women who need reproductive services. How many women will look over their shoulders when they go to Planned Parenthood or not go to Planned Parenthood at all to avoid the Dears of this country? He’s played his role in terrorizing women.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@brent:
It’s a very interesting story — among other things, she was white but passed for black to commit her crimes, which is fairly unusual. And Reagan’s rhetorical use of her probably allowed her to get away with murder, quite literally. Once the prosecutors decided she was a mere “welfare queen,” they never bothered to look into her other frauds, at least two of which ended in mysterious deaths of people she was supposedly nursing.
Patricia Kayden
@gus: I cannot link to anything (or I go into moderation) but if you google either We Hunted the Mammoth or Little Green Footballs, you’ll see a chronology of the ridiculous homophobic claim that Dear is a leftist transgender woman. Apparently there was an error in one of his voter registration forms where his sex was noted as “female”. The stupid Rightwingers took it from there to where Cruz is now. Idiots.
NeenerNeener
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, my old pie filter stopped working during the site redesign, and none of the new troll filters work either.
MomSense
Pointing and mocking while the world burns.
Fucking Rep. McCarthy (Rdumbfuck) announced that Congress will not spend even a penny on a climate deal.
McCarthy, tu es con.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Cleek no longer comments here. There was a bit of a scene back in the summer.
bemused
@catclub:
It’s worked for him so far.
Seanly
The implication of the welfare queen story was that it was happening all over the place and we all know who is that likes to drive those expensive Cadillacs (wink, wink). So while this woman may have defrauded the government out of lots of money, she was a dedicated grifter who may have been genuinely psychotic. The common usage of the term isn’t “Oh, this welfare queen in Chicago”, but rather plural welfare queens who pumped out kid after kid just to get big checks from the government and drive around in Caddies.
Now the story is one of the foundations for the myth that all (non-defense) government spending is evil and wasteful and there’s so much fraud. And we should drop so many people from the government dole and make able bodied people work. In reality, fraud is a very small percent of most government spending. Most of the disabled are actually disabled. Many government agencies are understaffed and overworked.
debbie
A small moment, perhaps, but still, karma’s a bitch:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/alabama-legal-fees-planned-parenthood
p.a.
@MomSense:
He’s having horrible financial issues: unfinished new house, bankrupt/embezzling GC.
gene108
You guys get so worked up about real versus unreal, truth versus fiction.
What matters is explaining to people what is good and righteous versus what is bad and rotten.
Reagan did this very succinctly, for example “government is the problem.”
None of us really care about facts, because there are so many facts that it gets confusing pretty fast. We just a clear guide to what is good and what is bad.
HFCS is bad. Read product label. If loaf of bread has HFCS, do not buy. We do not need to know about all the metabolic effects of HFCS. We know it is bad, so we avoid it.
Republicans and the right-wing media get this. Obamacare bad, vote against Obamacare good. Deficits bad, reducing deficits good, especially when Democrat is President. America is the greatest best nation God has ever given man on the face of the Earth*, non-American things bad by default and the less like us a country is, whether by religion, language, social customs, the worse they are as they are further away from the state of perfection that is America.
Liberals and Democrats get sucked into this vortex of flooding everyone with all sorts of facts. O.K. Obamacare has some plus points, but the actuarial value of some of its plans are not optimal for having consumers use the healthcare system to its best effect. Also the cost controls would be better under managed under a single payer system, as our fragmented system has no central player to but the brakes on increased medical spending.
We need keep things simpler: Obamacare good, you get health insurance and cannot be denied coverage. Vote Democrats. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Trump gets this. He stakes out clear positions on what is good and what is bad. Illigeal immigration bad. Deporting 10 million illegal immigrants good.
Facts are confusing at best and maddening at their worst**. People want their decision making to be more intuitive, faster and as simple as possible.
* I paraphrased an actual Sean Hannity quote.
** Every test people took in school was basically getting down a bunch of facts. Most people hated that part of being in school.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Seanly:
Yep. I suspect that’s one of the reasons why the real story never got out — her crimes were so obviously exceptional that she only made a good “example” if you didn’t know the whole story. Sort of like how the “McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit” sounds outrageous until you find out that they had settled multiple previous lawsuits over the same issue AND the woman who sued had third-degree burns to her genitals that required skin grafts AND that McDonald’s could have settled for the amount of her medical bills and refused to do so.
Origuy
@trollhattan: I live in a townhouse complex and was once the president of the HOA. In our complex, the HOA dues go toward maintaining the roofs, streets, exterior walls, pool, common area lighting, perimeter fences, and landscaping. They also pay for the trash collection, management company and the insurance. Those things cost money. Without the ability to file a lien, the HOA would have no way to collect the money to do all those things. We only filed liens a few times; that doesn’t ensure that the money gets paid until the homeowner tries to sell. We did foreclose once, on a woman who got it in her head that she didn’t need to pay dues because the HOA didn’t send out the budget in time. Long story, she was crazy. I know that there are a lot of HOA directors who abuse their power, but a condo or townhouse HOA has rules just like a city does.
I make a distinction between our type of association and a neighborhood association of single-family houses. Those people don’t have a shared financial interest in your home, why should they control your property?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I seem to recall Reagan also had a “welfare queen” anecdote about a woman who lived at the St Regis hotel (Central Park South, next to the Plaza, IIRC), and maybe drove a Cadillac, all on YOUR TAX DOLLARS. But a quick google doesn’t bring up anything
MomSense
@p.a.:
Woah! Sounds bad.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gene108:
Ahem. HFCS actually *is* bad for me, but that’s because fructose is a FODMAP and can cause me tummy troubles in high doses. Plus it tastes like malted battery acid.
I will spare you the rest of my FODMAPs lecture, but I’ll say that I think gluten hysteria and HFCS hysteria both stem from FODMAPs not being well-known in the US.
p.a.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
His ‘facts’ were fungible. The overarching theme wasn’t. Red meat for the masses.
Gimlet
“beloved former governor”
Barf!1!!
Buzzfeed
On the night of the 2010 midterm elections, a portly, silver-haired Jeb Bush stood on a stage in the courtyard of Miami’s luxe Biltmore Hotel, appearing to choke back tears. The beloved former governor of Florida was there to introduce the young conservative insurgent who had just pulled off a remarkable underdog victory in the U.S. Senate race.
“Bushes get emotional, so I’m gonna try my hardest,” Jeb told the ecstatic crowd of Republicans. “My wife told me, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ But Marco Rubio makes me cry for joy!”
WereBear
@p.a.: I am so sorry to hear.
p.a.
@MomSense: Yes. It’s on his blog. I have no knowledge of the issues why he no longer comments here. Someone call him a DLCer?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I suspect all his stories stemmed from the same “welfare queen,” updated and embroidered as he pleased.
MomSense
@p.a.:
No, it was about a comment he made. I hope he will be ok. What is his blog name?
p.a.
@MomSense:
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/
Satby
@MomSense: some of the story here:
Pogonip
@p.a.: What does GC stand for?
Woodrowfan
@mai naem mobile: she might also be a 7th Day Adventist.
p.a.
@Pogonip: General Contractor. Subs are subcontractors.
Matt McIrvin
Just arguing with a guy on Facebook who argues that liberals accuse mass shooters of being right-wingers when “nine times out of ten” they’re “leftist anarchists”. His evidence is that Jared Loughner seems to have started out as some kind of leftist before spinning into a more bizarre fairlyland, and that James Holmes was a registered Democrat.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108:
Obama tried that tactic and got roasted with a million pants on fire by Politifact.
Republicans can get away with this and Democrats can’t, because people expect Democrats to be factual and one “gotcha” can explode a blanket statement.
Ruckus
@NeenerNeener:
Had the same problem with Cleek’s pie filter. Loaded the latest version and it works fine once again.
Chris
@sherparick:
Studebaker, television…
Villago Delenda Est
@Peale: One of the reasons it took the NRA a week to comment on Sandy Hook is they had to scrub the Lanza family from the rolls.
Chris
@jl:
I heard that too. And I thought, huh. If the reaction to the Paris attacks (and Charlie Hebdo, and Benghazi, and 9/11) are any indication, I’m supposed to pretend that he didn’t do it and scream louder “WHY AREN’T THEY DENOUNCING THE EXTREMISTS?” Or I’m supposed to go “BUT HE DIDN’T CALL IT RADICAL CHRISTIANITY! IT ONLY COUNTS IF HE CALLS IT RADICAL CHRISTIANITY!” Or blow it off by saying he doesn’t really mean it or that denunciations aren’t enough and he has to personally execute every Christian terrorist ever on live television to prove that Christianity isn’t bad.
I won’t hold my breath for Fox News, the GOP candidate field, or any of my dickbag Republican relatives to apply the same standard to him, though.
Ruckus
@Origuy:
Lived in a single family home with an HOA for the common areas, like the stables. Yes I said stables. Not nearly so glamorous as it sounds, the entire property had been owned by the Stetson family and was deeded to the city for building homes on with the proviso that there were stables built. Anyone could rent a stable. In the first ten yrs most stayed empty. 30 yrs later they are full. Along with that we had quite a bit of common area, hillsides and such. Not a lot of problems with the committee for the ten yrs I lived there.
Paul in KY
@Eric NNY: Agree. Hate to defame any non-human species by comparing them to Cruz.
Paul in KY
@mai naem mobile: I have a co-worker who is a big Carson fan. He knows my politics. We have not chatted about Brave Sir Ben.
Paul in KY
@brent: I’m not sure Ronnie had any ‘real’ person in mind when he made those comments.
Paul in KY
@gene108: You make some good points. Or, to put it another way: Points good!!!
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: He made it too wordy. Should have just been: Obamacare good!!!