Valued commenter Rikyrah draws our attention to a post at No More Mr. Nice Blog in which Steve M argues that the Beltway press is setting Paul Ryan up to be the reedy voice of reason if the GOP goes down in flames in the coming election. An excerpt:
There’s a widespread belief that Democrats are likely to win this year’s presidential election no matter what, and that the GOP is utterly doomed if Donald Trump is the nominee. I don’t share that belief — but even if it’s accurate, even if a Trump-Clinton or Trump-Sanders race ends in a Democratic landslide, I can guarantee you that the GOP will recover from the Trump campaign almost instantly.
How? The press will do what it always does when Republicans stumble: It will give the GOP a do-over. Don’t believe me? Go to Politico today and read about Paul Ryan, who’s positioning himself to be the face of that do-over…
I think Steve is correct on both counts: 1) the upcoming election won’t be a gimme for the Dems no matter which hairball the GOP horks up, and 2) even if the GOP loses in a Goldwater-class epic fail, the political press will rehabilitate the party in time to regain any lost ground in 2018.
Recent history shows this to be true: The rebranding of the GOP in the wake of the Shrub’s utterly disastrous presidency is one of the most unheralded brand management feats of all time, and it couldn’t have happened without the enthusiastic participation of the Beltway media.
Think about the magnitude of that accomplishment: In just two short years, the DC press helped rehabilitate a party that had ignored warning signs and presided over the most deadly terrorist attack in US history, lied the country into a pointless war that cost upwards of a trillion dollars and needlessly killed tens of thousands and oversaw the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
Of course they lost the subsequent election, but all it took to flush the GOP’s catastrophic failure down the memory hole was a handful of Koch-funded operatives in powdered wigs and moth-eaten Colonial togs and a scrum of shouty folks disrupting town hall meetings to shriek about socialized medicine, and voila! — a midterm landslide in the other direction.
Overcoming a Trumpism hangover will be child’s play in comparison.
BGinCHI
Let’s see if the Beltway shills can protect Ryan from the right wing of his own party.
Betty Cracker
@BGinCHI: Great point. But even if the troglodytes chew him up and spit him out, another savior will be found to carry on.
Thoughtful Today
!!!
Never underestimate the right wing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hell, look at what the Village did for McCain. I think most Republicans would have been happy to let him go sit on the porch in Sedona and harangue the gardeners about Something Larger Than Themselves. Nothing can shake the Villagers’ faith in the magical war-hero surrogate daddy.
They adore Paulie Bue-Eyes in the same way. He’s green-eye-shade policy wonk! Never mind his abandonment of his own budget program and total inability to produce the Obamacare replacement he’s been promising for five years.
Mustang Bobby
It bothers me to no end that the Republicans can do a pratfall that would make Buster Keaton get out of the business and nominate a candidate straight out of Nuremberg and still have a chance to win the general (Joe Biden said today that “it’s possible” Trump could win), yet the Democrats have to walk the tightrope without a net and squeak out a win with a “whew!”
The difference is that the Republicans actually vote whereas the Dems curl up in a ball and whimper. I’m with Bruno Gianelli on this one.
Matt McIrvin
Considering it rationally, I think a presidential landslide on the level of 1964, 1972 or the 1980s is next to impossible at this point, for either party, unless there is a major third-party candidate mucking up the process. (Which is part of what happened in 1980, though it’s not the whole story.) Though people like to imagine Trump losing the nomination and going independent in spite, we certainly can’t count on that this year.
Oatler.
“The Sot-Weed Factor” by John Barth has a story related by a 17th-Century character of a relative who turned his house into a fortress out of fear of marauding Indians.His mounting anxiety led him to continually seal up his house into a stuffy tomb. and the end of the tale ends with fire and choking death. Does it occur to Barth that he predicted the 2016 election in 1966?
rdldot
The press covered up for Bush because they were complicit in most of the scandals themselves. To look to close into Bushworld meant they would have to look in the mirror – and who wants to do that?
Tim C.
Gonna throw what I think is an important footnote on to this, because while everything said about the beltway media is true, I think there’s more to the GOP rehabilitation than just friendly press.
1) There is a whole ecosystem of right wing media from fox on down that your average GOP base voter pays far more attention to than anything else. That venn diagram overlaps a fair amount with the beltway, but not completely. David Gregory, Chuck Todd and all that crew is part of the problem, but they really don’t have nearly as much pull on the GOP base as anyone on FOX or the other lesser conservomedia outlets.
2) The number of true “swing” voters is miniscule. John Cole is a sterling example of someone who paid attention to reality, he’s rare on that side. That means even after a grand-mal screwup like W, there’s a lot of voters who will *NEVER* give up on the certainty of their political/economic beliefs.
3) Gerrymandering has produced both huge gains of seats for Republicans and an incredible rightward pressure on round-Earth Republicans to toe the line or get primaried. It also feeds back into point A, where in years the Democrats actually won (2012) or lost by smallish margins in the overall vote numbers in the house look like they have lost by historic margins.
Thoughtful Today
Speaking of the right wing:
Jane Mayer is a word class investigative journalist.
It’s a timely expose.
MattF
I’ve noticed that Ryan’s been posed as the heir of Jack Kemp… which is, of course, as good and pure and wonderful as one can be. I’d provide a link to one of Krugman’s debunking posts, but I don’t want to get into FYWP territory.
Amir Khalid
@BGinCHI:
I understand he’s not getting much protection now as Speaker. Paul Ryan was handed a hot potato that he hadn’t sought, because who except Böhner would want to be in charge of those crazies in the House? If he accepts the presidential nomination and certain defeat against a Democratic nominee, he’s going to wind with loser stink all over his political reputation and even less control over the crazies.
MattF
@Thoughtful Today: Not a bit surprising. Right-wing sympathy for the Fascists and the Nazis was just a fact in the 30s.
Thoughtful Today
lol
Jane Mayer is a
WORLD class investigative journalist.
And a distinguished word smith.
Unlike some unnamed commenters.
SiubhanDuinne
@Thoughtful Today:
IIRC, it was she who first wrote about the Koch Brothers, in a blistering New Yorker longform piece a few years ago. I look forward to reading her book.
SiubhanDuinne
@Thoughtful Today:
I knew what you meant :-)
Archon
If Republicans nominate Trump and he loses it’s an easy makeover for the GOP. They will argue that voters fell for the cult of personality and didn’t nominate a “true conservative”, the voters and press will gladly eat that up too. If they nominate Cruz however and he loses big it will be much more complicated to form a narrative that exonerates conservatives from any electoral disaster. Cruz is as right-wing as they come and doesn’t have a single policy that deviates from that. A Ted Cruz nomination and defeat definitely implicates the GOP and conservative movement more than a Trump nomination.
Thoughtful Today
re: Paul Ryan:
(Paul Krugman Paul Ryan) via DuckDuckGo
Krugman does the heavy lifting dissecting Paul Ryan’s fraudulence.
schrodinger's cat
Broken toe/foot update: Its not the foot, its just the toe, so I have an appointment for next week and until then I have to buddy bandage it with my other toe. So not as bad as I had thought yesterday.
schrodinger's cat
All through his presidency Obama’s had to fight two opposition parties, the Republicans and the media.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
But still Ouch. Hope it mends quickly.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
So there’s no need to wear a cast?
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Yes or the boot, that they were talking about. I am much relieved.
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s the standard treatment for a broken toe. I broke a toe once… and thereby learned, for once and for all, why you should always wear shoes when you’re on crutches. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
amk
Spot on. Heck, they didn’t even call out the jerk, who is currently leading in IA, for his utterly pointless temper tantrum of shutting down the US govt and the resulting credit downgrade.
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: Yesterday, they were thinking that I might have broken my foot as well, the part near the toe. I too know the buddy bandage drill, this is the third time I have broken a toe.
Do tell us your story about the crutches.
Amir Khalid
And now for my own medical report:
I am 1/4 way through a six-week course of antibiotics, and the swollen left pinky is slowly but steadily (I think) receding in size. The bacterial infection that had spread to the knuckle and the soft tissue at the back of my hand is also receding. Fingers crossed for the follow-up appointment on the 21st.
Origuy
Here’s why the power is on at Malheur.
Executive summary: It’s a small power co-op that doesn’t have the technical capability. They’d have to send a lineman with a target on his back out to physically shut it off.
bemused
@Thoughtful Today:
Dammit. I’ve reached my 10 article limit at NYT for the month and can’t find a backdoor access to read this.
JPL
@bemused: Have you tried a private browser? I reset my Washington Post counter daily, that way.
Hillary Rettig
I would be very careful about attributing branding genius to the Republicans. Every other day you read a piece about the GOP’s terror of becoming marginalized.
This recent New York Times piece says Republicans win not because of their brilliant branding but because the Dem’s natural constituency, working class people, don’t vote.
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Not much to tell, actually. Some years ago, I had too many mimosas with brunch, and then decided to go out for a nice little walk. Slipped and fell, and fractured my tibial plateau– the orthopedist complimented me on getting an injury that is usually restricted to more athletic types. But I was on crutches and wearing a knee brace for six weeks. Fortunately, the fracture wasn’t displaced.
Then, I got a little too skillful and a little too careless with getting around the house with crutches… But the experience means I don’t have to search for an answer when a pre-op nurse asks ‘What’s the greatest physical pain you’ve ever experienced?’
JPL
Koch also worked with Stalin.
bemused
@JPL:
No.
Brachiator
@Tim C.:
Yep.
Good summary. The impact of the Beltway press on anything over than the Beltway is over-emphasized.
Also, we have not even had the first primary vote, and pundits are … well … pundicating about the future. This says more about the desperation of people still reeling from the Trumpmentum than any serious journalism.
Face
All an election of HRC does is stave off insanity and perhaps get the Dems a few SCOTUS judges; a breakeven if the ones she choses replace the liberal ones. Probably not even breakeven, as the GOP Senate wont anyone left of a moderate RINO onto the bench.
Otherwise, it’s gridlock and 503 vetoes per month for the next 4 years.
JPL
@bemused: It’s control shift N on chrome It’s worth a try. I still have Sunday delivery of the NYTimes, so I have full access.
also.. someone on this blog, taught be that trick.
Betty Cracker
@Origuy: Wouldn’t a Hellfire missile do the trick?
@Hillary Rettig: Brand management doesn’t take genius, just simple messaging and media manipulation. I believe the GOP has proven it is adept at both. There’s a reason the Dems’ natural constituency doesn’t vote or else votes for Republicans much of the time.
blueskies
@Mustang Bobby: Oh for fuckety-fucks sake. That is NOT THE REASON.
MONEY is the reason. Never underestimate the effect of one side fundamentally being rich and the other side fundamentally being poor. It affects everything at every level. Hell, even and especially “the reason” you focus on — voting (or rather, voting “apathy”). Do you think that happens by accident?
smintheus
When the Democratic president enters office determined to resurrect bipartisanship despite the atrocious record of the GOP, it’s hardly surprising that Republicans were given a pass to rebrand themselves again.
Iowa Old Lady
The MSM talks about Ds and Rs as if they were equal portions of the population. It’s hard to know if this is true though voting records say each side will get at least 40% of the presidential vote. Since Reagan, the percentage of Rs has gone down while the percentage of Ds has held more or less steady. The big increase is in self-identified Independents. I mistrust that number. I think of lot of them always vote R but are too embarrassed to call themselves by that label.
Here’s the breakdown of party identification.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Sounds like you would have trouble crossing that pinky, so I shall do so for you, and wish you well.
Cacti
Case in point:
Matt Lauer asks the POTUS if he’s responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
Yep, racism was solved in 1964. Then President Blackman had to come and make white people bigots again.
Can’t he just make a national tour of the red states, in the name of bipartisan comity, and apologize for existing?
Satby
@Amir Khalid: I was wondering how that was healing. Best wishes Amir.
Cacti
@Face:
You say that as if either one of those were small things.
blueskies
@Hillary Rettig: And WHY is it so hard to vote? Who benefits from voting on a workday, in person? Who benefits from Tuesday voting rather than weekend voting? Who benefits from in-person voting versus mail-in voting?
amk
@Tim C.: Doesn’t pox news viewership max around 2 mil while the big three net around 30 mil? Most people get their daily dose from msm than from cable noise, which is mainly for partisan viewers.
amk
@amk: found the linky for msm viewership.
JPL
@blueskies: Hourly workers are doubly penalized, because waiting in line takes money out of their paycheck. Early voting should be expanded, not eliminated, like many governors of republican states want to do.
JPL
@srv: If I win, I’ll let you know what the point is..
PaulW
The rebrand helped the Republicans reclaim congressional control in 2010 (at least the House) and full congressional control this 2014. Meanwhile the beltway media kept re-inviting the same liars and losers from the Bush the Lesser administration as “experts” on every topic to the near-exclusion of Democrats and left-leaning commentators. Has anyone done an analysis of guest speaker affiliations on the talk shows both national and cable from 2009 onward? I guarantee the GOP-to-Dem ratio is going to be 5-to-1.
Brachiator
@Iowa Old Lady:
Almost every analysis of independent voters refutes the notion that they are just Republicans. To this has to be added those who have given up voting because they don’t see either party as tending to their needs. And the reasons voters may choose to be independent also varies by region and state.
And in California, for example, a plurality of Independents vote for Democrats, according to one study.
And given the anger and “take back our country” excess of Tea Party and Trump types, I don’t see why supposedly faux independents would be too embarrassed to call themselves Republicans.
Pogonip
@schrodinger’s cat: You can cancel the appointment because all they’ll do is unwrap it, x-ray it, say “Yep, you broke it” and tape it to the toe beside it just as you did. Save your time and money and stay home.
PaulW
@srv: the actual lump sump is like 3/5ths of the announced jackpot, and then the federal government can only take about 2 to 5 percent of that for income tax purposes. if there’s a state income tax then that’s applied. You still end up with about 650-700 million dollars I think.
Iowa Old Lady
@PaulW: Rachel Maddow showed a chart last night (I think) put together by Steve Benen. It analyzed party ID of Sunday show guests and it was overwhelmingly R.
@Brachiator: That’s useful to know. Thank you.
Brachiator
@Face:
This suggests that if the Democrats win the White House, they need to follow-up with a hell of a mid-term strategy.
Woodrowfan
@JPL: Good advice. I clean out the appropriate cookies when I hit the limit on the Cincinnati Enquirer sports page. That works too.
PaulW
@blueskies:
it used to be holding elections on a workday made sense back when you needed to travel by horse to the county seat/courthouse to cast your ballots. today there’s no reason to hold it on a workday except for the fact that BOTH parties – yes, they do – benefit from lower turnout: the more people who vote, the more chaos there is with the results. Even Democrats want to control outcomes with a smaller population sample.
A sane government would either declare Election Day a national holiday akin to the 4th of July, or else move it to a weekend like Friday or Saturday (and STILL declare it a national holiday).
catclub
I do not know how to overcome this level of focussed stupidity.
There was also an article that showed parties do not suffer from really bad candidates, unless those candidates
get elected. A bad president does bad things for party rep.
Woodrowfan
@PaulW: which, if divided between the 300 million Americans comes to like 50 million dollars each! *
* for those that saw the dumb Facebook meme.
Keith G
I can’t speak to those events that are in the future, but as to the recent past, the Democratic establishment has been helpful to the narrative that you unwind. Just like Laurie Strode, they never move in for the kill once the monster in down.
First, a thumbs up goes to Tim C. as his comments are key, especially #3.
Another advantage owned by the worst of the GOP is that they have not been afraid to lose in order to strengthen the importance of their ideas. If a politician crossed them, there will be a price. If a Democratic office holder takes a crap on orthodoxy, they will hear grumbling and experience fierce blog posts, but that is about it. As a result relatively fewer conservatives have had a tighter hold on their politicians. This results in a much more focused messaging that is easier to transmit. Even if it is false.
A wild card in 2016, is whether of not the splintering of the GOP actually manifests itself from fever dream to reality.
But the real key to keeping the GOP stumbling backwards will be if the Democratic Confederation (AKA Democratic Party) can continue to reach out and convince younger voters (30 and below) in the bottom two-fifths of our economy that any of this actually makes a difference.
edited
SFAW
@srv:
Reminds me of the libertardians who say that if they make enough to get into the next tax bracket, they’ll actually lose money.
Woodrowfan
@srv: You mean I get, what, 800+ million dollars after taxes? This is a problem??
Tim C.
@amk: Granted, and mentally I was lumping Fox in with either other 24 hour news channels or with explicitly political shows like Meet the Press and it’s siblings. MSM coverage is terrible I agree, but most of the 30 minute evening newscasts on the networks don’t go beyond the most basic surface details. I’m not sure comparing the nightly news numbers to Fox is an apples to apples comparison.
Final point to add, is that most GOP base voters are inoculated against any negative news about Republicans as being MSM bias anyway. That plus gerrymandering in the house and small state advantage in the senate means again, the structural advantages the GOP enjoys right now matter a lot more.
PaulW
@srv:
Hmm. According to Forbes the federal rate on the lottery winning is 25 percent now (so yeah that had gone up). As long as you’re in a state without income tax or provides exemption for the lotto win (California exempts, New York will not), you won’t see a bigger bite.
Thing is, even $500 million isn’t something to sneeze at. Just as long as you put that money into trusts and investments RIGHT AWAY to avoid getting hit with greedy relatives and con artists knocking at the door.
Brachiator
@PaulW:
If the prize is $1.5 billion, then the lump sum cut will be about $930 million. The feds will withhold 25 percent, or about $232.5 million.
However, the winnings will put you in the 39.6 percent tax bracket, so you would end up owing around an additional $135 million in taxes when it came time for filing a tax return.
So you end up with a half billion dollars to play with.
I would also add that if you won big and are under age 50, take the annual payments instead of the lump sum.
ETA: no state income tax in California, but other states may vary.
catclub
@PaulW:
The WaMonthly is ahead of you in calling for VOTE BY MAIL, which is even better.
A sane government would not be made up of the people who now make up the government.
I would claim that the Mississippi government was fully sane when they decided to elect governors in odd numbered
years (also Virginia). I would not claim they were sanely looking for the way to get the most voters in their elections.
SFAW
@Woodrowfan:
YES!! And to help solve that problem, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands.
rikyrah
He couldn’t even make it to the big kid’s debate….
but, the duly elected PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
should resign..
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
………………………….
Rand Paul: Obama Should Say He’s A Failure, Then Resign In State Of The Union
“Well, I think from President Obama’s perspective, the best thing he could do would be to leave office early.”
posted on Jan. 12, 2016, at 10:51 a.m.
Rand Paul says he’d like to see President Obama announce in the State of the Union that he’s a failure and then resign.
“Well, I think from President Obama’s perspective, the best thing he could do would be to leave office early,” the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate said on Good Morning with Dan Mitchell. “I wish that tonight he would announce, ‘hey guys, I’ve really been a failure as a president over the last seven years and I’m gonna take off early so cause I want to go play golf.’
“I really think Obama has got it all wrong about economy,” Paul added, more substantively, saying Obama likes deficits and market intervention.
“It would be nice if he could own up to that, but his world view is that government is the answer,” said Paul.
Paul, who was recently knocked out of the main Republican presidential debate due to low poll numbers, also addressed his boycott of participation in any so-called undercard debate.
Chris
As much of my political education came from growing up in the Bush years, the final crowning glory of it was the rise of the teabaggers. Wasn’t even the MSM where I noticed it; the “we have always been at war with Eastasia” doublethink was in full force among conservative at all levels from bloggers to politicians to just the ones I knew. All of them suddenly assuring us that they had always had many deep disagreements with the Bush administration and that the man really wasn’t a real conservative and that what was really needed was a return to the true roots of the GOP… which, of course, consisted of exactly the same stuff they’d been preaching at us all through the Bush years, in the name of George Bush and with the message “and that’s why you should vote for George Bush and be grateful for George Bush.” It was the most breathtaking, grotesque display of bad faith I’ve ever seen, and nobody outside of places like this one seemed to bat an eyelid.
Calouste
@srv: So you’re saying 39.6% equals ‘all’? We know that you and reality are only distant acquaintances, but I didn’t think you were that remote.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: You read more than ten Washington Post articles a day? That can’t be healthy!
Betty Cracker
@Keith G:
Good point. Joe Lieberman springs to mind.
MattF
@rikyrah: But… that leaves out the announcement that Hillary Clinton has been arrested, and will be tried for high treason.
PaulW
back to the original topic, the only way the entire Republican brand collapses is utter demolition: they lose not only the Presidential campaign but also lose the Senate decisively and then also lose the House despite their massive gerrymander advantages. Not to mention losing state-level elections for governorships and state houses.
And even then the Far Right faction of the beltway media – Fox Not News – won’t accept the defeat, and the remaining “serious” media types – ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN – will give the wingnut apologists air-time out of a sense of “fairness” without regard for facts. Because it will be likely that Hillary will be in the White House in that scenario, and that means they will want “controversy” of the Far Right attacks to keep ratings up.
schrodinger's cat
@Pogonip: I already got the X-ray yesterday after I went to see my PCP. I injured it about 2 weeks and ago and it is still painful. So I will go to the ortho guys, better safe than sorry. But ya you are right, that’s what they will do anyway.
gene108
@Chris:
I remember, briefly, for maybe 2-3 weeks after Obama got sworn in and the Democrats started talking about economic stimulus and the Republicans rebuttal was it would blow up the deficit, maybe 50% of the talking heads I saw actually asked Republicans, why they should be taken as credible deficit hawks because they blew up the deficit 8 years earlier.
Republicans made some mealy-mouthed contrition about returning to true conservative principles and it was left at that and the interview went on.
It wasn’t the rise of the Taxed Enough Already Party’s April 15, 2009, Fox News sponsored, “protests’ that restarted Republican rebranding.
They were given a pass by February 2009, when the ARRA was up for debate and they kept on talking about how the deficit was all of a sudden super important.
And the media just decided to go along with them and not call them on their “new found religion” and blatant hypocrisy.
bemused
@PaulW:
Can winners choose to be anonymous?
PaulW
@bemused:
they can ask for privacy I think, but they need to be real careful anyway. news like this can leak out.
Cermet
@Amir Khalid: Remember to take anti-inflammatory like aspirin. Also, warm compresses will further speed healing by increase blood flow (bring more of the immune system where it is needed as well as more antibiotic.
PaulW
@Brachiator:
Thank you Brachiator for doing all the math there.
And yeah, 500 million is nothing to sneeze at.
Amir Khalid
TPM reports that The Donald has begun playing Born in The U.S.A. at his rallies to taunt Ted Cruz. I wonder how he will react to the cease-and-desist notice from Bruce’s lawyers.
Chris
@Archon:
The press would eat it up, so would all of Official Washington. I’m not so sure about the voters.
I think a Trump candidacy would have a lasting effect on the party in a way that we haven’t seen in decades, simply because of how divisive he’s become within the party. The right wing base sees him as their guy. “He’s not a real conservative” was an easy sell with McCain and Romney – the right wing base never liked them in the first place, so they were primed to believe that. It would be a harder sell with Trump, especially if the party establishment – the people the right wing base is convinced are all liberal sellouts – fails to rally around him, or is even perceived as failing to rally. I can totally see a post-election narrative where the voter base is convinced that Trump lost not because he wasn’t a real conservative, but because he was stabbed in the back by the phony liberal RINO establishment.
Heck, that’s basically the narrative I was reading all over right wing blogs in 2008 to explain that Sarah Palin didn’t cost them the election, she’s the only reason they were even close! I even remember some of them insisting that her zillion-dollar shopping spree was something the party establishment must have forced her to do against her will, because those out-of-touch Washingtonians are just too elitist to realize that a gal like her would be more at home in her rugged outdoorsy clothes anyway. These people will believe anything about their idols. If the base’s attachment to Trump is deep enough, I could totally see the party establishment trying to blame him for an electoral loss, only to have it backfire on them.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Not really. It just resets each day, rather than monthly. I like to read Greg Sargent.
bemused
@PaulW:
Considering that amount of money, it would be wise to get your ducks in a row before claiming it…security and financial planning. At least that’s what I’d do.
PaulW
@Amir Khalid:
I think Bruce should call the cops on him and have Trump arrested for defamation.
catclub
@bemused:
Asking for a friend?
MattF
Speaking of media memes, Mr. Brooks doesn’t like Ted Cruz and lumps him with Der Trump.
bemused
@catclub:
I wish I WAS asking for a friend, myself but impossible when I don’t buy any lottery tickets.
japa21
@bemused: Depends on the state.
Some allow anonymity, but when I win it tomorrow, Illinois requires that the whole world knows it, including having my picture plastered all over the place. Plastic surgery will be scheduled. Plus moving. My name is common enough that that won’t be a problem.
Chris
@Thoughtful Today:
I knew the Kochs were tight with Mussolini and Stalin; didn’t know about Hitler, but I’m utterly unsurprised.
(Funny story, the fact that Stalin didn’t grant Papa Koch the kind of long-term concessions in the Soviet Union that he was hoping for is supposed to have been the big reason for that family’s enduring anticommunist butthurt).
You know that “if you could go back in time and kill one person, who would it be?” argument? It might be a cheat to kill more than one person, but I think if you could time-travel back to the forties or fifties, invite that “handful of rich donors” and their immediate circles onto a Caribbean cruise (heck, tell them you’re meeting to discuss how to create a modern conservative infrastructure!) and then have the ship mysteriously sink with no survivors, you could be doing a huge service to mankind.
schrodinger's cat
Democrats are too timid and cowed down, I am speaking of the politicians and elected officials here. We don’t have someone like Lalu Prasad Yadav, who took the right wing, son of the soil rhetoric and threw it right back at Mr. Modi and company. He called Mr. Modi Dhristarashtra (the blind king in Mahabharata, and the father of the antagonists, Kauravas)
Mr. Yadav, is much hated by India’s equivalent of the Beltway media because he lacks polish.
catclub
@bemused: Good on ya. Wasting mental energy on planning for ‘what I’d do if I won’, is something worth dropping.
Betty Cracker
@bemused: Good for you for not falling for that sucker’s bet.
catclub
@MattF:
My prediction, Brooks has converted to Catholicism ( he was raised Jewish) and is quietly letting the world know..
max
think Steve is correct on both counts: 1) the upcoming election won’t be a gimme for the Dems no matter which hairball the GOP horks up
And Hillary isn’t a particularly great a candidate. (Neither is Bernie.) That may or may not matter.
2) even if the GOP loses in a Goldwater-class epic fail, the political press will rehabilitate the party in time to regain any lost ground in 2018.
The courtier crowd is interested in getting clicks for horse race coverage. Issues don’t matter too much to them except inasmuch as their bosses are happy. They have to rehabilitate the R party because otherwise there’s no opposition. (They have to rehabilitate the D party also.) We have a two-party (well, one-and-a-half) system and there has to be some kind of contest otherwise there’s no news, but there is no relegation or demotion of failed political parties.
If a party is in such bad shape that it can’t get anywhere then the courtier press will get out and push, just to make it a contest. (Blowouts don’t make for good football games.) The interesting thing is how much the press supposedly detests Trump’s policies and how much they love him for it. They need a good villain.
Recent history shows this to be true: The rebranding of the GOP in the wake of the Shrub’s utterly disastrous presidency is one of the most unheralded brand management feats of all time, and it couldn’t have happened without the enthusiastic participation of the Beltway media.
At the end of the day, the Beltway press is all about appearances and cash, so tax cuts sell and respect sells, but political campaigns are all about the blood and the car crashes.
max
[‘The press is a major supporter of the ‘bipartisan consensus’ that we’ve been living under since Reagan. No matter how badly it doesn’t work they’ll do their best to keep it going.’]
Peale
@Betty Cracker: actually at 1.5 billion, the Powerball isn’t a sucker’s bet. It actually pays out better than taking odds in craps, which is about the fairest bet one can make in the casino.
bemused
@japa21:
Good plan. One can’t be too careful.
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: Yeah I read it, in Brooks’ telling evangelicals are cuddly wuddly and he is surprised that they have fallen for a fire breathing gorgon like Cruz. I don’t know what Brooks is smoking, in which world do religious fundies (take almost any religion) satisfy that description.
catclub
I am predicting Ryan is the GOP candidate from a brokered convention.
Shell
@bemused:
Don’t the lottery officials love that photo-op with the big novelty check?
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Wow, there really is a Royal Court of Versailles in every country.
(There’s a French film called “Ridicule” from a couple decades ago, set in the actual Versailles, where a minor noble who’s actually not an asshole shows up at the court in the hopes of securing something for his province, and spends the movie trying to navigate a court that he discovers doesn’t even run on money or power but basic high school rules, the Mean Girls variety. Been meaning to rewatch it for a while, because from what I recall about it, the description of life among the elites is basically spot on for modern day Washington. Or, I imagine, New Delhi).
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Rarely have been to Vegas and a couple of days was all I could stand. Gambling bores me. I had a lot more fun 8 years ago when a kid got married there, the wedding and then marveling how Vegas had changed since the last time we were there. Previously the strip had no trees and was wide enough to land a plane on which did happen once, iirc. Now it looks a lot more attractive, landscaping etc.
bemused
@Shell:
All about the PR.
I’m thinking of the person who wins this something billion. Life is going to be a nightmare.
Betty Cracker
@catclub: Nothing is impossible, but I would bet a tidy sum that a brokered convention with Ryan emerging as the nominee won’t happen. It would be great if it did because the chaos that would ensue would be epic. But I think it’s almost certainly going to be Trump or one of the current Not-Trumps.
bobbo
about that midterm landslide:
(1) the party that doesn’t hold the presidency almost always picks up seats in the midterm election;
(2) after their own landslides of 2006 and 2008 the Dems had way too many purple and red seats to hold;
(3) the economy still sucked, because the stimulus wasn’t big enough.
The idiots in their tricorn hats weren’t nearly as important as 1-3, above
scav
srv’s and his band of real ‘mercans are a joy forever at birthday parties. Sulk in the corner refusing all slices of cake and dishes of ice cream. “What’s the point?! Unless I get it all!!“
Mike in NC
About a year from now expect Chuck Todd to announce that his new co-host will be Speaker Paul Ryan, just because the latter has so much time on his hands.
Calouste
@Chris: I’m reading a book about the Congress of Vienna at the moment, and that also ran on high-school rules, but with better parties and more sex. Spoiler: the British were the uncool kids.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Fortunately, for India they are pretty marginal since in India every state is like country unto itself with a different language and culture. Of course, every state thinks that they are the best. Also, the regional media has always been less in thrall of the powers that be.
sukabi
@Origuy: not really, all you need is a backhoe, and large insulated cutters. Can do it from waaasy down the road. Costs more to repair, but that can be added on to the bundy bill.
Denali
Look how the Roman Catholics have recovered from all the molestation scandals and the disasterous Pope Benedict – just find a charismatic new Pope and all is well with the true believers.
gelfling545
@bemused: I delete all NY Times cookies. That always works for me.
Patricia Kayden
The problem with the midterms for Democrats is simply that we don’t go out to vote like we do in Presidential election years. Doesn’t matter what the political press does (as far as rehabilitating Republicans) when it comes down to that problem.
Betty Cracker
@bobbo: All true, but a party that had fucked up as catastrophically as the GOP had should have paid a more lasting price for their incompetence. Instead, they achieved a historic butt-whipping in the very next election. The SoCons in patriot drag gave embarrassed Republicans cover to reassert themselves; they Febrezed the loser stink away to an astonishing degree.
Cain
I don’t know what the grousing is all about. OK, yeah, the media will back em up give em a new pig face to put lipstick on. But the demographics is still against them, they won’t be any more reasonable than they were the last round. You can paper with new faces all you want, but he soul has not changed, and they will continue to go down the bitter road with their ever dwindling support by old white people.
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: true!
rikyrah
Obama gives military largest raise in 5 years, GOP refuses to give credit
President Obama’s pay raise for the military is set to go into effect at the end of the week. Despite being the largest increase in five years, Republicans have refused to give credit where credit is due.
As the summer came to a close, Obama ordered an “across the board” pay increase for federal workers, with special attention being paid to those in the military. All federal civilian workers will receive an increase of one percent, while members of the military will get an increase of 1.3 percent. Over the last two years, the military increase was at one percent, while a pay freeze was in effect during 2011-2013. In addition to the raise, the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act has improved the way members of the military can access retirement benefits, as reported by the Chicago Tribune on Dec. 28.
As the Federal Times pointed out, Democrats in the House and Senate had originally proposed a 3.8 percent increase for federal workers, but the proposal died in the Republican controlled House. While pay for members of the military increases depending on length of service and rank, PayScale.com notes that the average salary for a solider is just over $40,000 a year, a number that most people agree is too low…\\\
Thoughtful Today
via Washington Post:
Koch daddy reportedly sold Stalin useful tech as well.
Money matters.
lowercase steve
Here is another example: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/the_republican_party_may_not_be_big_enough_for_donald_trump_and_paul_ryan.html
Dickerson positioning Paul Ryan as the serious Republican (vs. the Trump wing of the party) who cares about the poor….no really.
Geeno
@Chris: Great film – I loved it
catclub
@sukabi: No go if cutting way down the road also cuts off other users.
sukabi
@catclub: from what I understand the reserve office is pretty isolated, and shouldn’t be too hard to cut off.
rk
@srv:
No point whatsoever. Don’t play. Also don’t work either since the govt will take all your money. Better to be on welfare. That way the govt gives you something.
Chris
@Calouste:
Poor Brits. Stiff upper lip and all that.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Interesting. In U.S. history, strong state governments (“states’ rights!”) have been a bane to progress for longer than I care to think of (putting the fate of the Medicaid expansion into their hands is only the latest disaster), so I’m inclined to look on them even less favorably than I do the gallery of rich and powerful in New York and Washington. By the sound of it that’s not how it worked out in India?
terraformer
Josh Marshall’s observation from years ago is so very true: “Washington is wired for Republican control.”
It helps that said wiring involves lots of cash and cocktail weenies.
catclub
@Chris: putting the fate of the Medicaid expansion into their hands [by the Roberts court decision] is only the latest disaster
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Actually the state governments here have a lot more power than the ones in India or in other words the central government (federal govt for us) in India is much stronger constitutionally. What is different, is that the states themselves are culturally far more diverse, than here. After independence, the states were formed based on already existing linguistic lines. So if you go from one state to the other the language spoken, changes. In Gujarat, majority of people speak Gujarati, in Maharashtra, Marathi and so on.
India is like what Europe would be if it were one country.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
Don’t forget Daddy Koch building refineries and pipelines in the USSR. He was perfectly happy to take the devil’s money. Just like the Bush crime family was.
Gvg
The GOP has nominal voters that are mad at it and lots of exceptionally egotistical politicians right now. Trump is just the one with the poll numbers. The others are pretty full of themselves and aren’t dropping out when past cycles rational judgement says they should. Last cycle with Gingrinch and Sanatorum plus other should never have tried was a precursor to this cycle where we have all pretty much quit predicting based on how they did it in past cycles. I don’t think the process is going to finish this cycle either. If the GOP doesn’t blow up this time I think they are going to do this one more cycle and next time ther will be at least one 3rd party independent like Perot splitting the GOP. I still think they are going to lose. I wish I could see them losing congress too. What I really want is them not to have much control for the next census.