Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans in disarray!

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it’s a trap.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

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

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You are here: Home / What have we got? Magnificence

What have we got? Magnificence

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I’m disappointed there were only seven people in the main debate last night. Capturing the full craziness of today’s GOP with just seven people is like trying to play Beethoven’s 9th with a string quartet.

I didn’t get a chance to see it, so I’d like to ask: what was the single craziest thing that was said in your opinion?

I also have developed what I think is a pretty good rule for judging who is winning: if you can imagine the Nuge soloing over the candidates’ answers then the candidate is winning, if you can’t then he’s losing.

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    Maybe it’s because Iz Malaysian, but I can’t even imagine the Donald or Jeb or Ted or Lil’ Marco, or any of that lot, standing next to the Nuge and managing to look comfortable.

  4. 4.

    Gabagool

    “Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size. And that’s how you get a foreign policy where we cut deals with our enemies like Iran and we betray our allies like Israel and we gut our military and we go around the world like he has done on 10 separate occasions and apologized for America.” ~ Marco

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    I don’t know about the craziest part as the whole spectacle was not tethered to reality, but I was most offended by the President being called a “petulant child”.

  8. 8.

    Betty Cracker

    Maybe when Trump pointed to his own melon and suggested that “whatever is up here” can fix America since he was able to parlay an inherited fortune into a pile of cash comparable to what investment in an index fund would have produced (without the bankruptcies).

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    @MomSense:

    Their use of “petulant child” has been around for awhile. It’s a stand-in for “boy,” as in “Boy, you better drag yo’ sorry black ass ovah hyar when I’m a talkin’ to ya!”

    But, yeah, it’s pretty offensive, even without considering his maturity level is off the charts compared to any of them.

    ETA: The Intertoobz must be faster in maya’s neck of the woods.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    Craziest moment? When Trump (or was it The Canadian Infiltrator?) acknowledged that the Economy had improved since Obama was inaugurated. I NEVER expected that.

  14. 14.

    shortstop

    I can’t pick a best moment, partly because I backed away in horror after the first 45 minutes or so, but I was seriously annoyed by the rank demagoguing going on over the sailor incident. To characterize our seamen being held for 24 hours, treated with apparent respect, made comfortable and fed better than they eat on their own ship — after we went into Iranian waters — as Obama “capitulating,” “apologizing,” “showing weakness,” etc. is really disgusting. I especially loved Cruz’s trembling indignation at the sight of Americans “with their hands on their heads,” as if that isn’t the freaking worldwide standard in cases of border transgression. These GOP assholes won’t rest until they get tons of other people’s children killed for no reason whatsoever.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Roger Moore:

    OT: Walmart has announced it’s closing 269 stores worldwide, and 154 in the US. Does this represent some kind of turning point in the dominance of cut-price retailers, or does it just mean others are managing to undercut even Walmart?

    in the article

    The Bentonville, Ark., company said more than 95% of the affected stores in the U.S. are within 10 miles of another of its stores, and it hopes employees can transfer.

    Wallmart can’t successfully compete with itself.

  18. 18.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    into a pile of cash comparable to what investment in an index fund would have produced (without the bankruptcies).

    Meaning that if he hadn’t filed for bankruptcy 43 times (or whatever), he’d have as much money as if he invested in an index fund (but he doesn’t because of said bankruptcies)? Or that, even after all the bankruptcies, he currently has the index-fund equivalent?

    Just trying to make sure I parsed your comment correctly. I’m guessing the second meaning, but wanted to have it clear in my own “brain.”

  19. 19.

    SFAW

    @Bobby Thomson:

    I don’t recall W being referred to that way – was that common? I thought the “petulant child” thing was something they started using in the Fall, once campaigning started ramping up.

  20. 20.

    beth

    Mine was Christie promising to kick Obama’s rear end out of the White House this fall. I guess there really are people who don’t realize his term will be up and he’s leaving anyway and will credit the Republicans for getting rid of him. The level of stupidity and pandering was amazing.

  21. 21.

    Kropadope

    @Betty Cracker:

    Trump pointed to his own melon and suggested that “whatever is up here” can fix America

    So, what Trump is really saying is that NOTHING can save American? No wonder he has the support of the doom cult.

  22. 22.

    dr. luba

    @SFAW: I hadn’t heard the term used before. As to Shrub, I believe the term of choice was “village idiot” or “miserable failure,” the latter being one magnificent Google bomb.

  23. 23.

    oldster

    “if you can imagine the Nuge soloing over the candidates’ answers then the candidate is winning, if you can’t then he’s losing.”

    Made me laugh out loud.

  24. 24.

    NonyNony

    @Roger Moore:

    Keep reading:

    The retailer said it will focus more on e-commerce and expanding pick-up services for customers. Wal-Mart also said it would open 50 to 60 new Supercenters, 85 to 95 new Neighborhood Markets and seven to 10 new Sam’s Clubs across the U.S. in fiscal 2017.

    They’re closing 154 stores in the US and opening between 142 and 165 new stores in the US. That’s basically the sound of a company making a few strategic choices – closing some stores with old buildings, opening new stores like the Neighborhood Markets in places where they’ve never been able to build a store before – and not a dying business. (Although by Wall Street standards it’s likely going to be seen as dying because they might not be hitting the growth targets that Wall Street wants).

    All of that is probably a direct result of this:

    The Bentonville, Ark., company said more than 95% of the affected stores in the U.S. are within 10 miles of another of its stores, and it hopes employees can transfer.

    That strongly suggests that at least 148 of these stores are so close to another store that Wal*Mart was essentially stealing business from itself in those cases.

  25. 25.

    NonyNony

    @beth:

    Mine was Christie promising to kick Obama’s rear end out of the White House this fall.

    Are you sure that Christie didn’t really mean this fall? Even if he won the election, Obama wouldn’t leave until January 2017. Maybe Christie is suggesting that he’ll show up at the White House on November 9th and have Obama forcibly removed once the election results have been declared.

  27. 27.

    glory b

    @Roger Moore: I understand that, just like Wal Mart took the stagnating-waged customer base from Macy’s and JC Penney and Sears, dollar stores are now undercutting Wal Mart and K Mart.

  28. 28.

    oldster

    I also just want to say that Nugent’s opening solo on “Journey to the Center of Your Mind” is not only really good, but actually musically tasteful and subtle.

    He was probably already a moron, but it did not come out in his music so directly.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @NonyNony:

    Maybe Christie is suggesting that he’ll show up at the White House on November 9th and have Obama forcibly removed once the election results have been declared.

    With any luck, he’d bring Mammon “Ted” Bundy and his merry band of sovereign-citizen Inferior Cortex Judges. Hilarity would ensue.

  31. 31.

    Jay C

    @shortstop:

    Dude: it’s a Republican debate – “rank demagoguing” over the Iranian boat incident is about the absolute least one would expect. After all, the candidates probably know what their audience expects in the way of “policy” prescriptions when it comes to military affairs (envision outtakes from the climactic shootout in a particularly bloody Rambo flick), and pander according.

    PS: probably more in Adam’s wheelhouse, but is there any connection with the territorial-waters/shipping-lane issues in the Persian Gulf (I know they are quite complex), and the US’s persistent (as far as I know) refusal to ratify the UN Law Of The Sea convention? I know that despite right-wing opposition to the entire concept, , we observe the UNCLOS rules as a guideline for maritime-security issues, but I saw the Convention mentioned as an aside in one news report, and wondered if we wouldn;t be better served by finally ratifying the UNCLOS, and using it to clarify “territorial” issues to everyone’s satisfaction…

  32. 32.

    shortstop

    @Jay C:

    Dude: it’s a Republican debate – “rank demagoguing” over the Iranian boat incident is about the absolute least one would expect.

    Ma’am: I get that. Perhaps I should have stated (for new readers, persons who might believe I’m new to national politics, and/or the most literal among us) that even by GOP standards that was some low-down bullshit.

  34. 34.

    ThresherK

    Anything from Maria Baritomo’s head-bobbing, fluffing and slurping performance, and how it’s not out of place for FBN.

    Sick of waiting for any Republican to have to appear in front of something that’s not a fcking pep rally.

  35. 35.

    Sibelius

    @NonyNony: Actually, I think that’s always been WM strategy. Open stores, drive competition out, open better/cheaper location (for WM), close old store. It’s their MO from way back.

  36. 36.

    Shell

    Dude: it’s a Republican debate – “rank demagoguing” over the Iranian boat incident is about the absolute least one would expect.

    And don’t you love the whole blustering persona these clowns try to project (Adhere to international laws? Not the USA!) while accusing Obama being a lawless tyrant.

  37. 37.

    Germy

    @Sibelius: Last time I wandered into a WM I noticed their prices were much different from other stores. They start cheap, but then the prices creep up.

  38. 38.

    Germy

    @ThresherK:

    Sick of waiting for any Republican to have to appear in front of something that’s not a fcking pep rally.

    Rush Limbaugh tried it once early in his career and got shouted off the stage.

  39. 39.

    Cermet

    @beth: Kick him out in the Fall!? The official transfer isn’t in fall but late January! What a fucking moron! Seriously, have any of these so-called lawyers ever really read the Constitution!? Un-fucking believable!

  42. 42.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NonyNony: IIRC the little matter of when terms actually end didn’t keep a mob of Thuglican fuckheads from showing up at the VP’s residence in November 2000 demanding that Al Gore vacate immediately so Darth Cheney could move in.

    The GOP: Not only assholes, but impatient assholes to boot.

  43. 43.

    Bitter Scribe

    @Roger Moore: What it means is that Walmart is reversing course on its so-called Walmart Express little stores, which not too long ago were going to be their salvation. Evidently they found they couldn’t compete with small-footprint retailers like Aldi and Dollar General on price.

  44. 44.

    Bobby Thomson

    @SFAW: according to the Google, it wasn’t as common as I remembered, though things could have gone down the memory hole. That was the description that always resonated with me. There are things on the Economist and at the GOS and elsewhere.

  45. 45.

    Bitter Scribe

    @shortstop: And you just know that if Iranian sailors ever blundered into American territorial waters, these assholes would scream for them to be whisked off to Guantanamo indefinitely.

  48. 48.

    D58826

    @maya: I saw a tweet from James Fallows in which he said both Christie and Rubio called Obama a child. I haven’t found the phrase in the longer articles that I have read but Fallows isn’t a bomb thrower. They aren’t even using dog whistles anymore. Why not just grant the debaters an exemption and let them use the N words. It is so much more efficient and no one has to even remotely try and figure out the meaning

  50. 50.

    J

    @shortstop: Agreed. The implication of the Republican candidates’ statements is that they would have prepared that the US make a giant stink instantly, so guaranteeing that the sailors not be released, at least not until after months of saber-rattling, grandstanding and the like.

  51. 51.

    D58826

    @dr. luba:

    As to Shrub, I believe the term of choice was “village idiot”

    I think the biggest difference between that phrase and all of the invective directed at Obama is who is saying it. ‘Village idiot’ appeared regularly on blogs, letters to the editor, protest signs. It wasn’t used by the democratic political leaders or liberal opinion writers in their professional lives. The left leaning pundits and pols may have questioned the wisdom of invading Iraq but they did not question Bush’s patriotism or religious beliefs. Laura Bush was treated with respect unlike much of what the right has to say about Michelle. Much of the invective uses terms to infantisize (sp?) Obama or are veiled references to his race. Jim Crow would have been quite at home on the debate stage last night..

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay C: not that I’m aware. My understanding is that it is simply that when if finally came time to ratify it during the Obama Administration, even though most of it was negotiated by the Bush 43 Administration following on earlier Clinton and Bush 41 efforts, the GOP minority in the Senate put a hold on it. It seems to have become an article of faith among the GOP in the Senate that the US should not ratify and therefore enter fully into treaties. Some of this seems to be the usual we won’t do/support anything President Obama proposes because we don’t trust him.

    Some of it seems to be that they’ve internalized some theory or argument that ratifying treaties are bad for the US – even when the US initiates them to bring everyone else into compliance with how the US does things or wants things done. This was the case with the treaty dealing with disabilities. It would have brought every other country on board with the Americans with Disabilities Act rules, but the Senate GOP refused to support its ratification and killed it when it came up for a cloture vote, because they seemed to think this would make the US have to comply with some other country’s rules.

    Without going into the weeds I’ve heard one Service chief make it very clear that the failure to ratify it makes his job, and that of his fellow Service chiefs when they have overlap into Naval/nautical issues and concerns, much more difficult. And this was in terms of working with allies and partners. I am honestly not sure if we will ever see another treaty ratified by the Senate again. Trade agreements? Sure. But I think the US’s ability to fully enter into treaties is dead for the foreseeable future.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Germy: he also used to have a very different persona when going on broadcast and early cable TV news shows than his radio persona. That didn’t last too long once the radio persona made him very influential and rich.

  59. 59.

    Gravenstone

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques:

    Wallmart can’t successfully compete with itself.

    We had a WalMart in town, in a roughly central location – and another in a small town about 10 miles to the west. The company browbeat the city council to let them build two new supercenters (one on the north end of town with the other on the south). They then closed the original central store (always the plan) but then tried to legally prevent another similar business from using the site for 10 years! (hello blight). They actually lost that battle and a nice regional grocery chain is now in the old location. Amazingly, neither of the newer stores (nor the older one a few towns west) is in the current list of closures, but give them time. I’m actually looking forward to the local cretins getting some needed competition from the somewhat less evil version of their own business model, Meijer moving in in a couple of years.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    One of my coworkers tried to watch the Trump campaign song video, but his eyeballs started to bleed and he had to lay down. I think he got about 20 seconds in.

  61. 61.

    mkro

    “… Cold water in the face, brings you back to this awful place … What do we got? Magnificence!” – Joe Stummer, The Clash

  62. 62.

    rikyrah

    the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released late yesterday, just a few hours before the latest Republican debate.

    1. Donald Trump: 33% (up from 27% in an NBC poll from early December)
    2. Ted Cruz: 20% (down from 22%)
    3. Marco Rubio: 13% (down from 15%)
    4. Ben Carson: 12% (up from 11%)
    5. Jeb Bush: 5% (down from 7%)
    5. Chris Christie: 5% (up from 3%)

  63. 63.

    Bruce Webb

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques: “The Bentonville, Ark., company said more than 95% of the affected stores in the U.S. are within 10 miles of another of its stores, and it hopes employees can transfer.”

    I live in the second largest city in New Mexico. Which would make a medium sized town anywhere else (100,000 inhabitants). And we are surrounded by desert. So even though Las Cruces New Mexico sprawls out like any place where dirt is actually ‘dirt cheap’ you can easily get from anyplace in town to anyplace at almost any time of day in 15 minutes or less. So why the eff do we have two Walmarts? AND a Sam’s Club?

    If you want to go to Walmart you get in your car and go to Walmart. You don’t need one down the block just because. Walmarts original business model was “Let’s suck up every single retail dollar in every market” as opposed to their real strength “Shoot, its Crest and Campbells, we know we need toothpaste and tomato soup so why not save a couple pennies an item and stop by Walmart”. And five minute drive time isn’t going to change that decision one way or the other.

  66. 66.

    mclaren

    @Gabagool:

    America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size. And that’s how you get a foreign policy where we cut deals with our enemies like Iran and we betray our allies like Israel and we gut our military and we go around the world like he has done on 10 separate occasions and apologized for America. — Marco Rubio

    Sounds like a plan! I’m all for gutting our bloated useless military and cutting deals with our enemy and going around the world and apologizing for America. More of this, please!

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