I’d just like to say to all the nitwits and clowns out there (Booker, Rendell, etc.) that the Obama campaign, over the last two weeks, has dealt mortal blows to Romney’s candidacy with the Bain issue and the tax returns. It’s just breathtaking to watch, and my heart swells with pride as we watch Democrats actually press an advantage. Even more important, this isn’t cheap politics or “politics as usual.” This isn’t a bunch of Republican douchebags swiftboating John Kerry or insinuating he shot himself or calling him too French or showing up at the Republican National Convention looking like this:
The Romney campaign ran on his Bain experience, and the Obama campaign said “Sure. Let’s look at that experience.”
And it’s turning out to be toxic for Romney, and I love it.
El Cid
I hate that fucking bitch in the photo as much as I detest any fucking person in American politics in the last 20 years.
I don’t give a fuck who she really is. Who she loves or helped or whatever. Fuck her.
She represents the stupidest, meanest, lowest, cheapest bits of the Americans who would gleefully take us to some piss-ant broke version of 6th century Mad Max but with twice as much Proud Stupid.
I fucking hate her. And don’t hate on me, because I played several hours of videogames the other day, so I’m really part of an oppressed group.
John O
To me the Bain stuff is just…what rich people do. It gets back to my contention that the tax code is the root of all evil.
Now the tax returns are interesting. I say Romney isn’t coughing them up because there are many years he didn’t pay any taxes. While this will play well with the GOP base, the rest of us will consider it toxic.
So I think the Dems should now switch to the tax return issue. There’s some conservative support.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Al Sharpton had a guy from the Boston Phoenix on talking about how Romney used Bain to set up donations for ‘his’ Olympics, Charlie Pierce has links to a Sports Illustrated article about how he log rolled and effectively ear-marked the money he lobbied for rich friends, and somebody earlier (can’t remember who or in which thread) linked to a youtube of McCain bitching about the 1.8 billion bail out of those Olymics, intercut with Romney bragging about how much more he got from the feds than any other US Olympics, so his last claim to fame is now a minefield for Our Willard. I guess now he’s gonna have to run as Grandpa Osmond.
Elisabeth
No one knows what the coming months will bring but the last week or so has been delicious. For once it is the Dems on the attack and the GOP looking like idiots. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people.
the Conster
Me too. For the first time in my life, we’ve got a Democrat who understands the Art of War. If every opponent Obama has been up against in his life ends up self-destructing, is that just luck? Really?
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC8C_JH2eQc">Here's a clip of Obama from 2007 explaining his conciliatory nature, until they take advantage of him. Then, “I crush them” (see 2:08).
Money can’t buy you love, Mitt.
ETA: what El Cid said, too. I want to shit in that stupid pig face’s band-aided mouth.
sharl
@El Cid: Yep, me too. [Not so much on the video game stuff, though.]
Pavlov's Dog
If Obama wants to go for the jugular on Romney – Label him as a vulture capitalist (which is actually where he made most of his quick money). Romney wants to build on his venture capital investments (Staples, etc). Somewhat surprised that team Obama has not picked up on this distinction. Ignore his venture capital successes, and pound him from every direction as a vulture capitalist that comes in and fires everyone and sells of the assets.
Ohmmade
+100000000000000000000000000 etc
General Stuck
And republicans have no one to blame but themselves, for not vetting this clown before handing him the nomination. I always knew Romney’s past as a vulture capitalist was going to be a potent line of attack against him in this election. But am pleasantly surprised with the even more important political turn of events, that pretty much has destroyed any vestige of credibility he might have had. And that is the coin of the realm, credibility. Without it, you are an electoral dead duck.
As for Obama’s ferocity for going after the Mittster, never doubted it for a minute. And timing is everything in politics, and for every season there is a style to governing and electioneering. And our Dem senators, with a few exceptions, are doing their parts with lack of civility.
I’m not sure this is the best policy given the weak state of the economy, but it is a stark line drawn in the sand.
Scott S.
@El Cid: Same here. I want her name in the public record. I want an incredibly mean reporter to ask her why she hates the American military and why she laughs at injured combat veterans, and I want her whining, weasling answer broadcast as far as possible.
Nutella
It’s amazing to see Democrats attacking, of course, but it’s also amazing to see Romney running away from his Bain record (or at least the part of it from 1999-2002). If he thinks what he did at Bain is right and good why doesn’t he flaunt it? He’s making it look like he’s ashamed of what he did at Bain.
Decent people think most of it was shameful but if Romney thinks so why did he do it and why did he run for president on that experience?
Weird. Or maybe he’s just another very, very rich guy who got to be so rich not because of ability or effort but because of dumb luck.
clayton
@the Conster: fix your link i want to see that!
I got it to work, but edit that — it’s great!
the Conster
@the Conster:
link
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 1.8 bil that became 2.7 bil before it was all over.
Not much left in the old CV, to be sure. What did he do between January 2007 and when his campaign for 2008 really “heated up”? Maybe he could run on that year.
Linda Featheringill
John and El Cid:
Jesus, guys. What did this poor woman ever do to you?
She went to a political convention and she apparently had fun. It looks like she supported people you don’t.
What else? Are you pissed off at her for existing? Geez!
So for the crime and sin of exercising her rights of citizenship, and even worse having a good time while doing so, John sets her up for ridicule on an internationally read medium and El Cid vents his absolute hatred of her.
Is it a case of everybody who disagrees with you is awful and deserves to have bad things happen? Your actions in this case remind me very much of Stalin.
I’m sure your mothers are very proud.
ETA:
It looks like several people joined on the bandwagon with John and El Cid while I was being all huffy and composing my rant.
If the shoe fits, wear it. Whoever you are.
And yes, I may be a self righteous prig but you guys are disgusting and an embarrassment.
dead existentialist
This campaign is beginning to remind me of a night in Lewistown, ME many years ago where an innovator (who was a Muslim) knocked out a traditionalist with a right jab to the chin (and Mitt is all chin). And there was lotsa racial animosity too. Also.
Robert Goulet sang the anthem that night. And there was dancing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Scott S.: Pat Peale. I didn’t even have to look that up. Think I’ve got my head too far up the blogosphere?
Here’s a video of the Boston Phoenix guy talking about Romney using the Olympics to advance Bain business, and vice-versa. In a nutshell, he got the Staples CEO to sign on as a sponsor in return for the Olympics signing a supply contract with Staples, and Jon Huntsman Sr (the pappy of the ex-candidate) to agree to sponsor, and a few months later Bain arranged the financing for a huge merger.
Original Lee
After spending the weekend with wingnut relatives, I think the election will end up being Obama vs. Not-Obama. Romney just happens to be in the Not-Obama slot. This election will therefore largely be a nose count on racists.
Except for all of the voting machine and photo ID stuff.
BTW, my wingnut relatives think the states requiring photo ID have the right idea but didn’t give folks enough time to implement it properly. Until I started listing some of the problems in different states (such as N.C. seniors not having photos on their drivers’ licenses), then they said the deadline needed to be shoved back for the next election. So there is hope. Sort of.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@El Cid:
And when I worked the polls in South PA in 2010, she and her male counterparts were a good 2/3 of the people who showed up. I never saw so many angry old white people in my life.
geg6
@El Cid:
I couldn’t agree more. It infuriates me every time I see that photo. That ugly beyotch laughing at and slandering a truly courageous man in the name of a deserting fool. And they say we Dems don’t honor military service and are traitors to our country.
And to Cole’s point, O’s hardass attitude seems to have stiffened some congressional spines, too. Patty Murray was great today. And Harry Reid seems to have a fire lit recently. Even the usual congresscritter suspects seem to be keeping their mouths shut, even if they don’t plan to go along in the end. It’s stunning to see them seeming to act in concert, for what might be the first time since I was a child, just after the JFK assassination. Maybe our guys have finally realized that this is a life or death election year, literally. To millions of us, it truly is a choice of life or death. Maybe they finally remembered what being a Democrat means.
A girl can dream, any way.
Alison
THIS, WORD, and other terms of agreement the kids use these days. I fucking love the Dems being on such strong offense, and just hope they stick with it till poll-closing time on November 6th. DON’T BACK DOWN PEOPLE. Fuck the hand-wringers.
ChrisNYC
I think part of what’s going on here, part of what we’ve seen from the GOP since the GWB machine left is — they thought that the electoral success of GWB was THEM.
The party, conservatives, whatever. But it wasn’t. It was that machine, which was good at campaigns, tho not much else. I mean, watching this Romney campaign, which is no doubt awash in big dollar GOP consultants, you just shake your head.
You decided that you’d not explain the whole rationale of your candidacy? You thought that beating Obama would be roughly the same as beating the dufuses Gingrich and Perry and Santorum? I’m half expecting Romney to abstain from debating, just go with his bad ads from now till November and stay away from people and the press. Just holed up at the lake on the jetski till it’s over.
TheMightyTrowel
@Linda Featheringill: Forgive me if you knew this already, i didn’t notice it until i scrolled over the alt-text on the photo. I think they’re reacting to the bandaid with a purple heart drawn on – mocking Kerry’s purple heart for being wounded in action (and by default all the purple hearts given to wounded troups) in support of a draft-dodger who sent thousands of americans to Iraq and Afghanistan to be wounded or killed.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: I would imagine that their mothers are aware that the bandaid on this woman’s chin is specifically intended as a mockery of the Purple Heart John Kerry received, and by extension the wounds suffered by many, many others in service of our country.
You appear to have missed that part.
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: Are you serious?
The purple heart bandaid?
What the fuck? Why would you excuse in other the sort of shallow, mean, asshole, nation-harming behavior you would not excuse in yourself?
Really? You’d be able to look yourself in the mirror if you made up shit about John Kerry being a coward and faking his injuries from the Vietnam war?
Because if you could, I’d despise you too. It’d made you a stupid, immoral, shallow, lazy piece of shit. A person entranced with dumbass narratives created to make cowards into heroes and those who faced danger and death and threat into cowards.
If you could lie, and accept lies, and insults, and slander, and nationalistic fervor, and propaganda, and above all your own sheer, ox-headed laziness in order to promote the leadership of a war-mongering greedy fool, then to hell with you, too.
the Conster
@clayton:
He says he’s best at counterpunching. Ya think?
dead existentialist
@the Conster: Good grief! See the link at my comment #16 below, which was being dug up while you were posting yours.
Fluke bucket
That woman personifies an 8 year nightmare. But watching Obama mop the damn floor with The Great White Hope as the Mayan calendar slowly winds down and the asteroid approaches makes life worth living again.
El Cid
@geg6: And I also despise that fucking war — but that grasp of the cruel nature of the gleeful Western slaughter of teh browns doesn’t let me celebrate the uber-redneck ‘flip flop’ sing song bullshit of the Rushbots and Beckheads making up bullshit about how their Crusading warrior saviors Bush Jr. and Dick Cheney (who, of course, never allowed this nation to be attacked on their watch) was so superior to that French-looking faggot with the rich bitch wife, John Kerry, who only made up all that stuff about turning his boat into the river shore fire, whereas Hero W. bravely blew off his National Guard assignments.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
That’s what that is on her chin — a “Purple Heart” showing that it’s so easy to get a Purple Heart in wartime that they were giving them out for minor scratches.
Seriously, you’re wondering why people are going off on a woman who was actively mocking wounded war veterans in the middle of a war that her party started? Really?
Ben Cisco
Push the gas pedal right through to the fucking ground, then run like Fred fucking Flintstone and KEEP GOING.
They’ve earned this beatdown and then some.
Cole, ABL, Zandar, all you lot, keep bringing it.
Recall
@El Cid: In my mind, she trips and faceplants soon after that photo was taken.
With tears welling up in her eyes and a mixture of drool and blood dripping from her split lip, she wanders around looking for a bandaid.
AliceBlue
@Linda Featheringill:
My dad was awarded several Purple Hearts in WWII and Korea. I have a visceral reaction to that picture, too (maybe not as much as El Cid). Yeah, the woman had the right to wear that stupid band-aid, but as the saying goes, just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you should. I’d like to sit down with her, give her a good talking-to, and then slap her really, really hard. Several times.
Thoughtcrime
I’m MittLovin it!
Linda Featheringill
@TheMightyTrowel:
IIRC, that photo was taken in 2008 at the Republican Convention.
As far as I can see, we don’t anything else about her. I don’t know anything about the BandAid for sure but to me, it looks like she had a boo-boo, covered it with a BandAid, and then somebody drew a heart on the bandage with a blue ball point pen.
debit
@Linda Featheringill: You really want to defend that woman? The woman who mocked Kerry’s service and injuries? That’s what the bandaid stands for. He wasn’t really injured you see. It was a minor boo boo that he shamelessly traded on for political gain etc etc etc.
You go ahead and be disgusted by us. Me, if I ever saw that bitch on the street I’d knock down and piss on her face.
geg6
@Fluke bucket:
Thanks for my best laugh of the evening. I really LOLed.
El Cid
O, ye of little memory.
SFAW
John –
Much as I want to believe this, I have seen too many Dems snatch defeat from the jaws of victory to feel confident about the results in November. Long ago, I stopped believing that the electorate is sufficiently rational to do the right thing all the time. (Hell, I’d be more-or-less satisfied if they did it 80 percent of the time.) I realize Obama isn’t necessarily like that, but he can’t do it by strength of will alone.
Semi-related: It’s sorta funny: the Rethugs want to take the vote from the darkies, the students, and other Dem-leaning groups, ostensibly because they (Rethugs) think the “Others” are not smart enough to be allowed to vote. But, based on the myriad surveys showing that Fox News viewers are, in general, WRONG WRONG WRONG in their beliefs (e.g. Obama’s birth, Saddam and Osama working together, and so forth), it seems as if THEY are the ones who should not be allowed to vote. Yet another example of Rethug projection.
RSA
@ChrisNYC:
I think another part of it, based on Romney’s performance this past week, is that he might not actually be a very good manager. I mean, the decisions he’s made as a vulture capitalist have gotten him huge gobs of money, and we ordinarily think of CEOs as managing companies, but right now I’m finding it very hard to see any real competence in the way that Romney is managing his campaign. It’s not obvious that the skills needed to make a fortune translate to politics, and yet most of the news media seem to assume that they do.
jrg
@Mnemosyne: You left out the part where the redneck propaganda network spent all of ’03-’05 calling liberals traitors.
I really, really despise what that woman represents. To think that I’m paying for her Medicare (instead of keeping education affordable for my child’s generation), while she and people like her call me a “soc1alist” absolutely fucking infuriates me.
Liberty60
I worked for a Dem candidate in 2010, and remember having to make phone calls reciting the script, where we were supposed to reassure people that our candidate “wasn’t a politician, he was a businessman” like it was some magic incantation. I hated it then, and felt ashamed that we had to speak with the language of the enemy, internalizing the idea that somehow governance and public sector management was unworthy of study, unworthy of the need for experience and skill, but business mnagement was the apex of skill and value.
I hope and pray that maybe this election will finally kill that fucking zombie lie, and remind people that business skill is good for business, but public service is soemthing that deserves honor and selfless service and altruistic committment to the betterment of others.
I want candidates in the next election to be able to use “He’s a businessman and has never run a government!” as a killer attack ad.
debit
FYWP ate my comment, which is probably for the best.
hilts
David Gergen still isn’t buying the attacks on Romney’s tenure at Bain:
“Let me acknowledge upfront what I have said several times on CNN: I have a past relationship with the top partners at Bain that is both personal and financial. I have worked with them in support of nonprofit organizations such as City Year. I have given a couple of paid speeches for Bain dinners, as I have for many other groups. I was on the board of a for-profit child care company, Bright Horizons, that was purchased by Bain Capital. It was a transaction with financial benefits for all board members and shareholders, including me.
So, yes, I have a bias. But let me also add how that bias plays out: I have come to admire and like the leaders of Bain Capital because I have learned firsthand that in a private equity industry, where there are obviously some predatory companies, Bain stands out for the respect in which it is generally held and for the generous philanthropy of some of its partners. Nothing I have seen so far has shaken that view.
…
As long as fairness is the standard, it would be reassuring if some of the harshest critics of Romney and Bain would acknowledge their own biases. And for goodness sake, will the Obama campaign please withdraw its heavy suggestion that Mitt Romney could well have committed a felony? That was an injustice to both Romney and the president.”
h/t http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/opinion/gergen-bain-romney
John O
A true move for the jugular would be the Obama campaign coming right out and suggesting that Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns because he didn’t pay any.
The timing is perfect for it. The media is just about out of Bain enthusiasm anyway.
MikeBoyScout
You know, I like Ed, but he’s off base on this one.
fyi – Rude Pundit puts it all in perspective
7/16/2012
What Mitt Is Hiding: Rich Dicks Act Like Rich Dicks
Also too, McCain’s Opo research on Slick Willard has been leaked.
Haven’t seen anybody talk that here.
Enjoy:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78582788/McCain-2008-Oppo-File
eemom
I’m worse than the rest of y’all, because all it took today was the sight of the following bumper sticker:
SAVE AMERICA
DEFEAT OBAMA
to make me utterly loathe and despise another human being.
And verily I say unto you, I curseteth and verily would have smoteth that human being, even though I could tell by where the car was parked that they were probably just some elderly forgive-them-father-they-know-not-what-they-do suburban
lifelong conservative retiree picking up their heart meds and a supply of Depends from the drugstore.
Dave
Linda,
I would say that it’s the shallow mockery she made of the entire thing. Even more so because it mocks something that her politics claims to revere. Remember John was a soldier, I currently am, and that sort of thing tends to get severly under the military skin. For me it’s less problematic coming from someone who is at least in public opposition to warfare, militarism, and what not. It becomes especially galling from an individual that almost certainly claim to support it completely unless it’s time to take a cheap shot at someone from the opposition.
Now and this is the unfortunate part; the vehemance of the reaction to her, or at least the public willingness to be vehement, is probably driven by some percentage because she is not an attractive person. Which is something that we should be mindful of.
Brachiator
@the Conster:
Seems like only yesterday that some Balloon Juicers, and some professional pundits and party strategists (Carville, et al) were moaning and groaning that Obama was not willing to fight or focus his campaign.
But after Romney’s surrogates whined about a white man getting booed by the NAACP, Obama sent Biden, who was embraced and cheered by the crowd. He had Stephanie Cutter slice and dice a Romney spokeshole on Face the Nation. He is focusing like a laser beam on Bain and Romney’s tax returns, and when Romney has the gall to demand an apology, Obama emphatically rejects the call right back into Mitten’s face.
And he has quietly banked his Supreme Court victory over health care reform.
The coming weeks may be much tougher, but now, right now, Romney is on the ropes, and Obama has the Democrats energized and unified.
El Cid
@AliceBlue: It’s the cheap meanness and lazy stupidity that makes me hate her more.
For people like that, some people just think some sort of instinctive respectful reaction is wiser, more mature, more appropriate. Bullshit.
You’re a nice person? Good for you. God bless you.
But appear in public, for a venomously fraudulent, misbegotten, sneering, cowardly, duplicitous cause? Fuck you.
She’s not any more oppressed than I am. I wouldn’t have any excuse to pull this shit. And I’m supposed to let other people do what I’d know instantaneously was wrong if I were to consider doing it? Fuck that.
clayton
@the Conster: Indeed I do. Can’t wait to see what is to come. Local wingnuts got nothin’ so far as I can see. Who knows, could Obama take Texas?
Linda Featheringill
@AliceBlue:
My brother was awarded a purple heart, too. Posthumously.
Pen
@Linda Featheringill: We are an embarrassment, for holding a purple heart bandaid wearing loon in contempt? Really? I suppose next you’ll tell me that the next time I hear someone mocking wounded vets I should just develop a “live and let live” attitude and “be the better man”. Well… fuck that. Some things are beyond civility, and mocking wounded soldiers is one of them.
If you can do that, or look the other way when others do, then fuck you too. You want to know why democrats got steam rolled for so many years? Why the “teabagger” movement took off? It wasn’t the moneyed interests backing them. It was misdirected anger on their part and too much fucking “kumbaya and peace on earth” bullshit on the part of liberals like you. Sometimes your opponent deserves no respect. Sometimes they deserve righteous anger, and Grandma Bandaid earned everything we’re throwing at her today and then some when she turned herself into the Dubya postergirl at that convention. She’s a symbol for everything that’s gone wrong with the Republican party and deserves to be treated as such.
SFAW
All –
Apologies for the triple post. Kept trying to refresh, apparently it thought I meant “re-post” (as opposed to “riposte”, of course).
(Is this where I’m supposed to insert a “FYWP”?)
dead existentialist
@debit: Too bad FYWP wouldn’t eat a couple of SFAW’s multiple posties.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: On a graceful admission of error scale of 1-10, that gets about a minus 25. What’s so hard about just saying you weren’t aware of the organized Purple Heart mockery at the 2004 GOP convention, but now you are?
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: Sorry for the loss of your brother.
My dad had illnesses for the rest of his life after being dosed with that harmless Agent Orange, though on the plus side he avoided casualties from the bombings and attacks he faced. He also joined a sad tradition in his family of postwar hateful abusiveness.
Fortunately, my military service passed entirely without excitement.
Mike G
@hilts:
Gergen is an almost perfect parody of a smug Villager.
“Bain are good people because they attend the most prestigious Villager charity galas and pay me gobs of money for speeches.”
Credibility FAIL.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
You recall completely incorrectly. It is from the 2004 Republican convention, and she is wearing it specifically to mock John Kerry’s Purple Heart medals.
ETA: So weird that at least five different people at the 2004 Republican Convention just happened to injure themselves and just happened to use the exact same Purple Heart-decorated band-aid. Just a co-inkydink, I guess.
Tyro
@Linda Featheringill: IIRC, that photo was taken in 2008 at the Republican Convention.
That certainly explains her “Dubya” pin!
El Cid
@Pen: I just don’t think she knew or remembered who this was. And who would?
Those of us who saw her and saw this mean old bitter revanchist cowardice were unlikely to forget.
But this lady was just another mean ass snotty fuckwad from the Bush Jr. years.
Fuck. This is a nation which forgets what happened a year ago. What? The big deficits and debts happened under Bush Jr.? Uh, no, that can’t be true, I’d remember…
clayton
@shortstop: I’d just like to see her find another blog to post on. To type out what she did without knowing a damn thing about it makes me less than optimistic.
Linda, just leave.
Pen
@Linda Featheringill: Read. I’ve been pissed at this woman and Morton Blackwell for the last 8 years over this stunt. Are you really going to tell us you didn’t hear anything about these bandaids during the ’04 GOP convention?
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: What?
You had no fucking clue what you were talking about and were too fucking lazy to check it out, but, by God, you were sure enough of yourself to lecture me and Cole?
Are you fucking shitting me?
Did it occur to you to ask yourself, ‘Should I get off my lazy ass and pretend not to be a lazy right winger and maybe find out what the fuck I’m talking about?’
Or were you just so sure of your moral righteousness that you knew angels would fly through your fingertips as you laid them upon the keyboard?
Tyro
@El Cid: Whenever someone tries to explain to me that “Republicans have some good ideas”, I remember that rabid hate-fest of the 2004 Republican convention and the wild screaming endorsement of that disgusting, horrible woman and her idiotic purple bandaids all cheering on torture.
That’s when I had to accept that Republicans were almost to a man a bunch of deranged moral midgets. That is the kind of person Romney is, because he was there, at the convention, cheering like an animal, as well.
Felanius Kootea
@clayton: I’ve been watching the pile-on and I think you’re pretty much out of line. (But I have no doubt that Linda doesn’t make decisions about whether or not to post on Balloon Juice based on your opinions.)
SFAW
@dead existentialist:
No argument from me on that.
Hey John, can you delete two of my three? (Although I imagine, if put to a vote here, “all three” would soundly thrash “two of ’em”.)
Ash Can
@Linda Featheringill: I certainly don’t begrudge you your basic decency. And some of the rhetoric here has been jarring. But as it stands, with the purple heart band-aid on the chin, that woman basically personifies everything that’s wrong with this country. I don’t wish violence upon her, but I do hope she has since seen the error of her ways, and that this photograph is a cross she bears for the rest of her life, to remind her of just what she and people like her are capable of.
shortstop
@clayton: Can’t agree. Many of us here run our mouths with enthusiasm only to discover from time to time that we’ve blundered. All it takes to make it right is an acknowledgment of the mistake and, if that mistake was accompanied by a misbegotten huffy lecture like this, a little apology.
I think Linda has a good heart and I like her posts. But she went after Violet the other night for something Violet didn’t say, and she wouldn’t acknowledge that, either, when Violet pointed it out to her. Ouch.
clayton
@Felanius Kootea: Have you read her comments other than this one?
Tyro
@Felanius Kootea: What are you, Linda’s sockpuppet?
I want people to post that picture of that horrible, horrible person on their facebook feeds throughout the Republican convention just to remind people what a bunch of disgusting moral cripples the republican supporters are.
Mnemosyne
@clayton:
Oh, please, like none of us has said spectacularly stupid things here before.
An “OMFG I didn’t know/remember they did that!” would probably be sufficient.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Linda Featheringill: Oh for fuck’s sake – the only people on the planet that didn’t know that those assholes were pissing on Kerry (and by extension, every veteran to the left of the fucking Third Reich) were apparently you and the lead from “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”
Jesus take the mouse. (h/T ABL)
clayton
@shortstop: Same question to you, but I already know the answer.
El Cid
@Tyro: This is a country — like so many countries — with so many low, low, low political moments.
And it’s still hard for me to believe not so much the beastliness and angry drunken hornet-nest fighting caveman behavior of the Bush Jr. / post-Clinton / 9/11 cowardice and frightened arrogant vengefulness era, but that my fellow Americans cannot remember it.
It didn’t happen.
We weren’t ruled by hubristic yet lazy, prideful, greedy beasts who, for what it was worth, allowed (in the political sense of what happened on whose watch) the biggest domestic terror attack in our history.
No, no, no, there was Bill Clinton, and then some sort of period of live footage in which the camera went all wobbly and it was hard to tell what was filmed, and then there was Obama, and a bunch of Revolutionary War fetishists trying to stop him from all his gubmit spendin’ which was taking our jobs away.
clayton
@Mnemosyne: There is spectacular and then there is spectacular.
She needs to go comment on a play-doh blog. Or something. Seriously, have you read her comments?
Mnemosyne
@Pen:
Is it just me, or are the quotes by the Republicans in that story strangely similar to the claims they make about how the people they know personally who are on disability/welfare/Medicaid/food stamps deserve it, but they just know that all of those other people don’t?
danielx
It’s not just that a different set of skills are required. Mittens is obviously good at dealmaking; at least $250 million worth. (There goes my curiosity about those tax returns again.) But as a business manager of a relatively small firm, it wasn’t like he had to negotiate as part of his management style, or learn about the issues affecting individuals. More like “do this, and if you don’t like it hit the door”. He was dealing with people who were very impressed with him because, well, because he was Mitt Romney and had a shit ton of money, which clearly made him a superior form of life. He didn’t have to do a lot of convincing.
Now he’s in the political fight of his life and all of a sudden he’s dealing with a lot of people who are not nearly as impressed with him as he’s used to, and his money, or the way he made his money, is not nearly the asset he thought it was. (Fucking politics – how does it work?)
But above all else…the Marquis lacks the ability to even imitate a sense of empathy with anyone who has a net worth of less than seven figures.
Bill Clinton could evoke a sense of empathy with virtually anybody, with the possible exception of Tom DeLay. In some cases it may even have been genuine. Obama has the same capability, if to a lesser degree. So did Bush fils, although in his case it was wearing pretty thin by his second term. (“Some call you the rich – I call you my base!”) But that ability to at least fake empathy with the proles is essential for national level pols, and Mittens doesn’t have it. I mean, seriously – that boat picture? Here in my fair state where people are putting their boats in storage because of the fucking drought, that picture is not a major hit. it doesn’t make him look like a family guy, it makes him look like a rich asshole. Shocking, ain’t it? In point of fact, Mittens comes across as a more malevolent and out of touch version of Poppy Bush, but completely lacking Poppy’s sense of noblesse oblige.
El Cid
@Ash Can: None of the rhetoric here has been jarring.
If this were the Honorary Crockett’s Victory Garden blog, it would be jarring rhetoric.
But as “Balloon Juice”? I don’t think so.
Felanius Kootea
@Tyro: Wow. What an asshole you are. I’ve been posting on Balloon Juice since John Cole was a Bush-loving Republican and I wanted to throttle him for it. I’m watching a few people I know to be decent at heart show a side of themselves that’s just as ugly as any right-winger’s. I think I’ll get off my computer, interact with some real people and hope that folks get some fucking perspective before the evening runs out.
debit
When I see that woman at the top of the post, I think of this. Just as ugly, just as disgusting.
John Cole
@Linda Featheringill: She wore a purple heart bandaid in 2004 to mock Kerry’s military service, and you blew a fucking gasket on me?
WTF, over?
Mnemosyne
@clayton:
Yes, I have, and I haven’t noticed a proportion of smart/stupid comments much higher than every other commenter on this site. Hell, if Linda has to be banished from this website for her blunder, I’m probably due to have my internet connection permanently severed for the good of humanity.
Beauzeaux
@El Cid:
Lord I hate her smug ugly face and her cheap-ass dentures too also.
Pen
@Linda Featheringill: Look, I’m done derailing Romneyton’s Bain Stigma thread over this, but let me just say that you’re obviously a better person than me. Not as aware of GOP sleaze maybe, lacking in Google-fu certainly, but I’m not going to attack you beyond the oblique “fuck off” I already said. The 2004 GOP convention was a turning point in my political life, where I realized that our 2-party system consisted on business technocrats on one side and sociopathic facists on the other. Blackwell’s bandaid stunt distilled that nature into one picture, and we’re looking at it now. That woman deserves everything we can throw at her but I won’t wish physical harm on her in my worst daydreams.
That doesn’t mean I’m beyond hoping she’s financially, psychologically, and morally destroyed because of what she did. She’s earned it – they all have. We’re in the middle of a cultural cold war and I’m sick and tired of seeing people defend the sociopaths because to do otherwise would be ‘uncivil’.
They don’t need your defense. Hell they’d probably call you a s0cia1ist moocher for even offering it. Don’t waste your effort.
clayton
@Mnemosyne: OMG as if
I’ll toss you in there with her.
Calm down.
She was wrong.
Please play the wingnut and tell me that I am suppressing your FREEDOMS.
My god.
El Cid
@debit: At least that lady was genuinely angry and was showing herself in public in an environment in which some opprobrium was a possibility.
The purple-heart-bandaid crowd were the cowardly, mean freaks in the Republican bubble who manifested their collective ectoplasmic eructation in the privileged environment of a well-funded freakfeast, the 2004 Republican convention.
It’s pretty bad when you’re a protected chickenshit compared to a 1960s-era screaming segregationist.
shortstop
@Ash Can: A few years back, I was looking at a 1960s photo of white students screaming vitriol at a black girl who was attempting to attend school–remember that photo? The names of the principals escape me right now–and wondering if the white girl whose face was highlighted, contorted in fury, had ever felt shame afterward. Not a week later I happened on a report of said white girl apologizing most profusely to said black girl many years later. Her apology was accepted. Would be nice to think Miss Bandaid was capable of a similar transformation, but I’m not hopeful.
dogwood
@Linda Featheringill:
I’ll bet you ten grand that photo is from the 2004 RNC. I have the same reaction to it that many people here do. The convention was full of people sporting those purple heart band-aids and this photo became the iconic record of that. I had no problem with the RNC use of flip-flops as an image to disparage Kerry. It’s silly, but who really gives a shit. It doesn’t disparage anyone but the candidate. Using purple hearts, a powerful symbol, is beyond the pale however. But you are right; she sure was having a good time.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne:
I would sincerely hope no one takes this shit so seriously. Good lord.
joel hanes
@Linda Featheringill:
Linda:
You see that band-aid on the woman’s chin; the one with the little heart-shape, colored purple ?
The message that woman is attempting to communicate is “John Kerry’s three Purple Heart service awards for combat wounds were given for inconsequential scratches, such as one might treat with a band-aid, and thus he’s not really a hero”
Kerry still carries shrapnel in his leg from one of those wounds. More important, he holds the Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and intrepid courage in one action, and the Bronze Star for another. Intimating that Kerry is a fake hero is thus a despicable lie.
The person making these representations (as a “joke”) was supporting instead a man who carefully avoided combat and went permanently AWOL during his last year or so of his service comittment, then lied about it — a coward and a liar.
It’s her apparent delight in ridiculing a genuine military hero and scoffing at his service, his courage, and his wounds, while supporting the Shrub, that drives some of us into foaming outrage.
As a veteran, I find nothing in Kerry’s service record to ridicule, and much to praise.
dead existentialist
Yikes. I know this is the interwebz where a lot of us are accustomed to sitting around with our pants around our ankles viewing weird videos of things we would never imagine IRL, and so we tend to leave our inhibitions at the portal, as it were, when we enter here, but for us to engage in the spittle-fecked, knuckle-dragging vitriol of the likes of the Free RuPaulic and Redstate commentariot at the likes of Linda F for a blatantly ignorant comment about a stupid cow of a woman wearing a despicable band-aid mocking John Kerry (and as a consequence all Purple Heart recipients) seems most inappropriate and fruitless. I thought our side was better because we didn’t hate. I better get my pants pulled up. I hear footsteps.
The Thin Black Duke
Jesus.
What a waste of fucking energy.
Hey, guys?
Don’t hate the puppets.
Hate the puppet masters.
danielx
@El Cid:
Well, yeah. It’s kind of like the entire period 2000-2008 never happened. When you bring it up, you get a lot of “well, Bush wasn’t really a conservative”. When you mention the tax cuts, running two wars on the national credit card, etc etc, you get a lot of “shut up, that’s why.”
Well, my memory is still functional, and my blood still boils at the virtual cult of fucking personality built up around W after 9/11. There was a period when if you were not willing to fellate George Bush on the pitcher’s mound at Yankee Stadium at the top of the third during a game with the Red Sox…you were not a real American, you were a liberal terrorsymp and probably a commie faggot in the bargain*.
Nope, that period never happened, and if you mention it you hear “why are you opening old wounds, and why do you hate America?” It Still Pisses Me Off Something Fierce.
*Yeah, intellectual consistency was and is not a strong point with wingnuts.
the Conster
@The Thin Black Duke:
The puppets vote for the puppet masters. The puppets are the problem.
GxB
Oh sweet babby Jeezuz…Okay, lets not burn Linda at the stake here, she said something that wasn’t thought all the way through or misunderstood the context; we’d like to pride ourselves on being a bit better than that. Christ, looking like KOS around here, I spend little time there for this very reason, otherwise; RedState, Freeperville, and AryanNation is that-a-way->
“Let (s)he who is among us without sin cast the first stone…” (some dude, a hippie, and probably a fag to boot…[ell, oh, ell])
Anyhoo – to my original point:
@El Cid: Worked with several of them – and four times their number of male equivalents. Perfectly normal rosy cheeked grandma types that launch into a frothing rage at any mention of anything reasonable, kind, or compassionate to anyone lower to them on their perceived totem pole.
Even worse was the young, in almost all other respects sweet, fresh faced girl who was literally shaking while ranting about how the Haitians had “made their bed and didn’t deserve handouts!” This fate due to cutting down all the trees on their land thus they justly deserved the misery of the earthquake in 2010 that I’d just donated to for disaster relief. She was one of the boss’s (herself exponentially worse and surely destined to become very much like the pictured woman above given 20 or so years) pets – thus I didn’t dare to say a word of opposition…
Don’t miss that job a bit, and I now fucking hate an unfortunately alarmingly large portion of Americans…
Guess I fell for their schtick after all.
El Cid
@dogwood: The photo is from the 2004 RNC. The CNN article I posted describes it.
The shitbag from the post photo’s name is Pat Peale. She’s still a shitbag GOP operative from the Great Lone Star Fuckwad State of Texas (R-Perry-Seceding TBA).
Linda Featheringill
I’ve been absent from the conversation because I was trying to find the original picture, in order to get a date on it. I failed.
So you guys are telling me that those bandaids were popular at the 2004 convention? Hmmm. Where was I? I usually don’t miss things like that. [I know, you don’t know where I was.]
There was a woman at the 2008 convention that looked a lot like that. Same hat, same eyes, different paraphernalia. I looked for that picture too, but to no avail.
I could be wrong. That happens. But if this picture is 8 years old, why are we fighting about it now? And why is it okay to go after one individual as a scapegoat for all the things that make you unhappy?
Ash Can
@El Cid: Now you’re just being silly. Yes, I find it jarring. But it’s just a few sentences out of countless well crafted and entirely appropriate ones. Am I going to run away or think you and a few others here are awful people or scold you? Of course not. But your comment is along the lines of telling me what I think, which I know is not the sort of thing you routinely do here. The end.
PS: And thanks for researching that photo — good info.
shortstop
@debit: Exactly the photo I was thinking of–though earlier than I remembered.
Catsy
@Linda Featheringill: Not to pile on, but… oh hell, who am I kidding.
If you know so little about the origin of that photo to even ask that question, you’ve got no business lecturing anyone about their reactions to it.
Hee hee! Making fun of people who got shot serving their country is such good fun! What a knee-slapper!
FTFY.
Damn straight.
Save your sanctimony for defending someone who merits it.
And next time, try waiting for an answer to the question of what this woman did to anyone else before riding off on your high horse.
Linda Featheringill
@dead existentialist:
LOL!
Mnemosyne
@clayton:
Sorry, which one of us was telling people to “just leave”? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me, but I can scroll back and check if you don’t remember.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
I sorta, kinda have to agree with you. But only on the degree to which El Cid went. Someone on an earlier post said that not all conservatives are sociopaths. Maybe not. But the are endorsing and voting for them. They are enablers. People that serve as delegates to a convention? They are pretty deep into the party. That’s how they get to go. So this woman is a conservative operative, an enabler. And she looks happy about it. She may not but probably does hate the likes of you and me. She may not see it that way but she wants to put an end to the middle class. You may not think of her as a racist, but at the least she is an racist enabler. She is a bad caricature of a human being and that is a choice she has made. Fuck her.
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: It was just fucking awful. These cretins would don their purple heart bandaids — my god, even if a candidate had faked a war injury how could you put such a thing on? — and then sneered and held up their cheap dollar store flip-flops and wave them back and forth in call and response saying “Flip, flop, flip, flop” whenever some speaker paused long enough from saying “9/11” and “terrists” and “bin Laden” to mock John Kerry for having some less than clear statement.
The 2004 Republican convention really was like some intentional demonstration of public beastliness of American politics.
El Cid
@Ash Can: Given what I’ve so frequently read here on this blog, and this comments, how could any of this be “jarring”?
Here?
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
Multiple people in this very thread found it. Here’s El Cid’s link, which includes the exact date and the woman’s name. Do you need a Google class?
El Cid
@Catsy: There comes a point where you can discuss the difference between hating an actual person and hating this sort of public persona a person creates.
Ash Can
@shortstop: Yes, I do remember that photo. And that’s a great story. But I’m not hopeful about Pat Peale either, especially given what El Cid found out about her.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill:
For fuck’s sake, we’re “fighting about it” solely because of your wildly wrong (not “could be” wrong; completely wrong) lecture up above, for which you still haven’t apologized.
This is just like the other night when, rather than telling Violet you were sorry for misquoting her, you told her, “Peace,” as though it were some sort of both-sides-do-it tiff you were having.
I defended you on grounds of your original ignorance of the subject. Since you’re again doubling down on assholishness, forget that.
NotMax
Pretty hard to miss at the time.
CNN, Sept. 1, 2004: Delegates mock Kerry with ‘purple heart’ bandages
NPR, Sept. 2, 2004:
From an aggregation of coverage about this at National Review, Aug. 31, 2004:
dogwood
@Linda Featheringill:
Why are you digging in? Don’t you believe the people here who have assured you of the place, occasion and meaning of the photo? Do you really think people here would have such an immediate and visceral reaction to it if they hadn’t seen it many times before and knew what it represented?
El Cid
@shortstop: Can’t we just all get along and hate Pat Peale?
shortstop
@El Cid: Brother/sister, I’m with you on that. Even her name is annoying.
handy
So typical that you bitter liberals saying mean things about this patriotic American expressing her support for a courageous and honorable President, at a truly bi-partisan event. Even the liberal John Cole knew who was the right choice in ’04.
Instead you should follow the example of the Democrat patriot Zel Miller. He could see the Frenchy John Kerry was clearly a fraud and a yella belly.
GxB
[Currently post 94 is in… (sung a’ al’ Tony Bennett)]
Moderation hell –
Looks like moderation hell
for meeee,
Oh John pleeze
release me from this
Moderation hell…
Just a harmless link to
a youtube video
Oh please
release me from this
Moderation hell…
Or maybee
it’s a bad word
per thee
Eff Why Dub-a-you Pe-ee
filter of
Moderation Hell…
Ahem
El Cid
@shortstop: Yes, now that you mention it, it is.
But it does give you pause to appreciate the artfulness with which conservatives (and especially Southern-accented radio hosts) draw out and demonize the very syllables of Nan-see Pill-OH-seeee.
clayton
@Mnemosyne: Just leave is a request, banishment is not something I or you can do.
Idiot.
But Linda keeps digging.
Why don’t you too!
El Cid
@handy: I’m still pissed that Al Gore roams free, when he should be in locks & chains for letting 9/11 happen, and instead he’s making up all this stuff about globes and warmings.
shortstop
@El Cid: Plus his house is large, as is his stomach, so climate change is fake.
Linda Featheringill
I offer an apology to everyone for being mistaken about the vintage of the picture.
However, I don’t apologize for thinking it is wrong to set a human being up as a scapegoat and tear into that scapegoat because a very large and complex machine is screwing you over.
And I am embarrassed when you guys turn BJ into a hate machine.
chuck butcher
It seems that everytime Mittens decides to run on something it turns out to have holes big enough to swallow Everest. Bain had problems before coming out of the gate but Gov MA was a real problem Primaries on. It begins to look as though Salt Lake Olympics has about a bunch of problems. I think maybe Mitt’s only hope is to run on “not-Obama.”
As “not-Obama” he can make a point of being not un-white and raised not-poor (oh oops) well there is not-Democrat and not-liberal though the not-moderate may cause problems later than the Convention. Even though he doesn’t seem to be good at it he’s out of luck with the not-politician (oddly he tried it).
Oh hell, I’m out of ideas for the “not”
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: Right. You don’t believe people, especially those whose initials are PP or LF, are responsible for their own actions. We get that loud and clear.
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: When did B-J become some noble enterprise versus bitter snarkiness anyway? I always thought it was about the sarcastic bitching versus the neighborhood vote-turnout organizing.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
So, doubling down on your claim that she innocently wore the Purple Heart band-aid without realizing that she was mocking John Kerry’s war wounds?
She’s a Republican official in Texas. She is part of the Republican machine. But, what, we’re only allowed to attack the machine as a whole and not any of its component parts? Not allowed to bring up specific instances of Republican politicians behaving horribly like, say, when they mocked wounded veterans at their convention?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Linda Featheringill: The woman engaged in a disgusting mockery of a person who served this country valiantly, and you’re embarrassed for the people here? Uh, okay.
El Cid
@shortstop: Ha ha! He flies in a jet, like Nan-see Pill-OH-see, so this is why there ain’t no sunspots and the Urf ain’t warmin’.
the Conster
@Linda Featheringill:
Scapegoats are innocent. What’s so innocent about willfully and knowingly mocking a real hero, in service to a lying deserting coward?
shortstop
@El Cid: I was told there’d be no nobility. Or math.
clayton
@Linda Featheringill: That’s quite wingnut of you.
Join the other side. We don’t need you.
And in giving you that advice, I’m not usurping your freedom. I’m just questioning your politics.
You apologize like a wingnut.
Think about it, Linda.
clayton
@Mnemosyne: Now you get it?
NotMax
@Linda Featheringill
Never mentioned you nor the woman in the photo, just posted contemporaneous citations pointing out that any expressed doubts about the time it was taken and the intent of the bandage were misguided.
dead existentialist
@handy: Wow, that was good. I read what you said as an Orlando-transvestite-hustler voice coaxing some Republican delegate to a wildly good time that he or she wouldn’t be able to engage in back in Indiana.
We’re going to Disney World!
chuck butcher
@Linda Featheringill:
Do you know anything at all about how to go about being a delegate to a National Convention? Fucking one thing?
God damn, I was going to leave this alone until that last double down on idiocy.
This is an operative, this is one of the people who made things happen. This is not some random asshole picked off the street. If you want to work this hard at being righeously pissed while being incredibly stupid… I guess that’s your thing. I don’t want to do anything rude to this woman, I find it pretty hard not to hope she got it hard from the policies she worked for, but I save my real harsh feeling for the dumbasses who pretend to be on our side and fucking enable shits like her and her’s to win.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
one more dent in the “Man Who Saved The Olympics” story
Rafer Janders
@Linda Featheringill:
Scapegoat? Scapegoats are innocent. Scapegoats didn’t actually do anything. This woman is not a scapegoat, because we’re criticizing her for SOMETHING SHE ACTUALLY DID. She’s a Republican operative, and she herself chose to mock wounded veterans for doing their duty while cheering on a man who went AWOL in that same war. Are you not getting this?
Mnemosyne
@the Conster:
Apparently mocking a woman for actions that she presumably chose to do of her own free will is, like, totally unfair because shut up, that’s why.
I would say Linda needs to doublecheck the definition of scapegoat, but she’s already admitted to having trouble working The Google, so I’ll help out.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not to say that this woman ought to get a reserve seat on the tumbrel ride to the Hague like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Shrubby and the rest of those pukes, but there were a lot of enablers in those years. A lot of people played their own part, willingly, and those of us who were told to shut up and were told we hated freedom owe these people nothing. It’s pretty simple.
gwangung
@Linda Featheringill: I can sell you a shovel, dear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
without explaining how I wound up on Punkinhead Jr’s twitter page
handy
@dead existentialist:
I’m particularly proud of the “Even the liberal John Cole” part. God that made my night.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One wonders whether he decided retroactively to run for president, because the cavalcade of bad, bad, bad decisions he’s made since the early 1990s are in no way consonant with a successful political run here in the reality-based world. I mean, I know we say this all day long in many different ways, BUT THE STOOOPID! THE STOOOPID! HE’S SO STOOOOOPID!
chuck butcher
@gwangung:
Damn, don’t do that… a black hole of stupidity that size could swallow us all.
Mnemosyne
@chuck butcher:
I dunno, I’d feel pretty good about pulling the old “dog poo in a flaming paper bag” trick. Especially if I could somehow draw a Purple Heart on the bag.
Bonus points if she was wearing flip-flops.
Rafer Janders
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Burma? BURMA? What, they lowballed all the other bids from Sudan, Zimbabwe and North Korea?
And that would be, um, soshulist Burma, correct?
chuck butcher
@Mnemosyne:
Those Kerry flip-flops?
Nellcote
@MikeBoyScout:
It was leaked months ago with much discussion at the time.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: Because she deserves it, and because it’s just classic fun.
ETA: Sweet, retro, low-tech fun from my innocent ute…gazes off dreamily into middle distance…
eemom
man, what a loony bin this place is. Why am I getting sucked in again? I was doing so WELL on The Outside. : (
Roy G.
That picture struck a nerve with me because it really hammered home that there was no depth that the Repugs wouldn’t sink down to. Kerry was honestly a war hero, and he was gleefully trashed by imbeciles like this female ass, who worship chickenshit chickenhawks like Dubya, Cheney and Rmoney.
I’d hate to see her email box full of sick/lame Obama blackety black tirades, but would love to hear her opinion of Rmoney, since I have no doubt she hates him. She probably got her righteous fee fees hurt when the rest of the nation laughed at her beloved Governor Dipstick.
handy
I would say the media’s love affair with Mitt looks to be over, but I’m not sure they have much of a choice when this guy insists on showing the world what a putz he is.
pk
@Linda Featheringill:
Yes I’m pissed that I share the same planet as her and filth like her. She put a purple band-aid, mocked someone who went to war, and earned the purple heart. You are missing the point if you think people hate her for supporting Bush.
Linda Featheringill
@shortstop: Who is PP?
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: Would someone answer Linda’s question while I bang my head on my worktable? Thanks.
Pen
@shortstop: Nah. I’m busy watching the trainwreck from the sidelines because if I start commenting again it’ll probably be…. uncivil.
Left Coast Tom
@Linda Featheringill:
You’re not even reading this thread, are you?
She’s the person whose photo stains the blog post we’re all commenting on.
NotMax
@Rafer Janders
It gets better.
Fromm 2002:
The Salt Lake Olympics Committee thought Burma and Myanmar were two different countries.
Raincitygirl
Pat Peale (PP) is the name of the Republican Party operative in the picture.
chuck butcher
When I finally gave up on subsidizing my business I also gave up on being a part of supporting the plutocrats who wouldn’t piss on me or my crew if we were on fire. I’m done being a constructive member of the business class, I’ll wage slave and contribute as little as possible to the good of the economy as possible. Yes, I’m going as Galt as possible without actually starving.
I’ll try to vote this fall for Obama, but I’ll be moving out of OR to MI (oh crap) for family reasons and that may get complicated. He’ll surely (I hope) need my vote in MI more than here.
I’m not all that impressed by this campaign stuff – I am enjoying it as a matter of electioneering but regarding policy my vote is about protecting people from the GOP for awhile longer – until maybe some sort of sense is regained, and I’m less than hopeful about that. You could dig holes and fill them back up all day and be as useful as the US Congress…
Linda Featheringill
@Left Coast Tom:
Ah, that person!
Linda Featheringill
Okay. I’m gone. I wish all of you all the peace that you deserve.
GxB
@GxB: Okay fug-git – too late to make any difference now. Damn, wrote that little ditty up on the spot – actually I was thinking it would be more suited for Robert Goulet, but, you know, death and all…
FWIW Linda is not Satan folks, cut her some slack, yes the old bag in the OP is a hateful, vile, turd, but to get past this shithole we’ve found ourselves in we gotta stop throttling each other at the first opportunity – It’s like The Lord of the Flies around here FFS.
Might as well go back to the GOS, or worse, sign up for the non-TBogg portion (yes, I know they’re all connected) of FDL.
Now for my next tune (a’ al’ Kansas) “Pissin in the Wind”…
chuck butcher
@GxB:
No, she’s not – according to the mythology he’s supposed to be smart. (or at least clever)
@laughingzebra
My heart also swells with pride. I can’t stop grinning.
I would like to hear from those on the far left who have been bashing my President for 3 1/2 years. A little mea culpa and a great big wet apology.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@GxB: Hell, that wasn’t even a virtual water balloon fight compared to the twice daily flame wars when I used to read/post at Eschaton.
Rafer Janders
@NotMax:
Coincidence that Burma was ruled by SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) while Romney was head of SLOC (Salt Lake Olympic Committee)? I think not….
gwangung
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I mean, really…when someone puts their foot in their mouth so enthusiastically, it’s a shame to help her…
GxB
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Heh, agreed – just that we seem to have a lot of pent up energy which would be best thrown into the pugs direction.
Peace all.
Another Halocene Human
@General Stuck: Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the No. 4 Democrat and senior budget member, unequivocally promised her party will shoot down GOP efforts to prevent tax rates on incomes above $250,000 to rise by 3.6 percent to Clinton-era levels, even if it means letting rates go up on middle incomes.
I’m not sure this is the best policy given the weak state of the economy, but it is a stark line drawn in the sand.
Really? I mean, really, really, seriously? Do you understand where we are on the Laffer curve? We are at that wonderful spot where raising taxes raises revenues. Do you understand Keynesian stimulus? Tax revenue, spent wisely (education is one of the best) has a multiplier effect on the economy –> GDP grows, more revenue –> more spending (NIH! HSR!) –> more GPD –> more revenue –> more investment –> more GDP
etc, etc
Steeplejack
Deleted because I thought I was a few minutes behind the thread but am really an hour behind the thread. D’oh!
Jebediah
@El Cid:
I second everything you said except the video game part…the most recent game I played was Coloroid on my phone.
Citizen Alan
@Linda Featheringill:
You remember wrong. As I’m sure people have told you, it was the 2004 Convention. That evil bitch, along with hundreds of other GOPigs, wore a purple band-aid to mock John Kerry for his wartime service and to insinuate that he did not deserve his Purple Heart. I hate her and I don’t care who knows it. It’s after midnight here, and if I knew her name and phone number, I’d call her right now to tell her that I hate her.
Yutsano
@Another Halocene Human: The Laffer curve is a joke. And Patty is my Senator. And I couldn’t be prouder.
pattonbt
@Linda Featheringill: Hate to break it to you, some people, like the woman in this picture, deserve the hate. I can’t say it any better than El Cid or Cole did, but this woman is an enabler of evil. She publicly let herself be the face of all that was wrong with our country – and cheered it on. She loved every moment of her hatefulness.
Harsh? Sure. But true? Yes.
I stopped mincing words and worrying about the oppositions fee-fee’s a couple of days after 9/11 (though I was easily rileable beforehand) and the drumbeat for the Iraq war began. They are evil. They support evil. And the outcomes of their policies are evil. Yes, evil. Either evil by ommission, action or enabling. Take your pick.
People like this fat fuck, sack of shit cheered death and destruction. Fuck her. I hope hell has a nice warm spot waiting for her.
And maybe my intemperate attitude will secure me a place next to her there, but I’m willing to bet the morality of my life lived versus hers.
I mean, for Gods sake, she willingly, happily, joyously cheered an AWOL war criminal and mocked the service of someone who was wounded in battle. How much more despicable does it get?
I appreciate your ability to be more restrained and forgiving, but some things, for me, should not be forgiven. Malice for funs sake is inexcusable.
Cain
@Dave:
Actually, I thought she had a wonderful smile, and really nice teeth. Clearly, she takes good care of them and that’s great for someone that age.
Joel
@Linda Featheringill: If it’s any consolation, I don’t feel a damn thing when I see that photo.
(Yes, it was hateful and fucked up of the woman to wear the Purple Heart band-aid, but from Republicans of the last decade, I expect no less).
Catsy
@Linda Featheringill: Did you actually see the shark as you passed over it, or was it not visible from orbit?
Cain
@chuck butcher:
Holy shit.. no way! That’s some crazy stuff to make you move to Michigan. Which don’t get me wrong is a nice place, and I’ve been in various parts of Michigan, but that state is fucked up.
Best wishes on your move. I’m sure it’s not something you decided lightly.
Cain
BTW, I never took that as an insult to veterans.. they were trolling liberals like crazy. That’s a woman whose face is imagining how liberals are going to be pissed.
The entire convention was one big hate fest against liberals and progressives. Fuck them.
chuck butcher
@Cain:
It is major shit to get this to happen, it is Charlevoix north of Traverse City. That State is seriously fucked up and the area is as red or redder than where I am now – at least a more fucked up version of it.
MoZeu
@Linda Featheringill: Disagree about John setting her up for ridicule. The image is meant to call to mind the hackish, bloody politics of personal destruction waged against Kerry. The purple heart bandage is emblematic. Whatever else is or isn’t true about this woman, she gleefully wore a symbol specifically intended to denigrate and disrespect the service of a American soldier. That’s just flat out wrong. IMHO, that’s ’nuff said about her.
THe commenters saying violently angry things about her personally are misguided. She is not the cause of this, most likely. She is most likely one of the rubes who just doesn’t get it. Feel some pity. THen get out and work to counteract new voter ID laws. That might actually make a difference.
YOu can’t fix stupid, but you can defeat it at the polls if you work hard enough.
Rafer Janders
@MoZeu:
She’s a Republican Party operative from Texas. She was an elected delegate at their national political convention. She can’t hide behind the “I’m just an ignorant rube” defense.
El Cid
@MoZeu: If I did something that completely assholish in public, that completely, sneeringly, mockingly, meanly, pettily, pissily evil, I would totally endorse any if not all of you being so rude to me.
Why?
It would be the right thing to do.
Because I would have publicly been demonstrating completely inappropriate, duplicitous, snotty, lying, insulting behavior.
If I somehow ever act like that in public MOCK ME. Be COMPLETELY RUDE TO ME. Tell me to FUCK OFF. INSULT ME. Call me A COMPLETE PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT.
There is nothing wrong with doing so. If I am a complete, insensitive, lying douchebag happily and robotically making fun of an individual — and John Kerry is not just a generic politician but an actually existent human — THEN IT’S COMPLETELY OKAY TO TRY AND MAKE ME SHUT UP AND FEEL BAD AND HAVE IT BE DIFFICULT TO LOOK AT MYSELF IN THE MIRROR.
Because I would deserve it.
chopper
@Linda Featheringill:
if your current job doesn’t pan out, you talk like you could have a future in politics. pro-tip: it’s simpler to say ‘i apologize if anyone was offended by misconstruing my remarks’.
apocalipstick
@debit: And perhaps the same woman, 50 years later.
Catsy
@El Cid: This x1000.
taylormattd
@El Cid: A FUCKING MEN. Thank you.
Larkspur
@chuck butcher: You are in an unenviable position. Michigan really is beautiful – I grew up there – but it is one weird place and getting weirder by the minute. In terms of wage slavery, though, I hear that some guy is proposing that part of Detroit (the part the mayor plans on leaving unlit at night to save money) be made into a giant theme park of the Post-Zombie-Apocalypse variety. That’s going to require a lot of costumed performers. The costumes will be cheap, your character will be hard to kill, and yum, all the brains you can eat.
Stentor
@debit: “Me, if I ever saw that bitch on the street I’d knock down and piss on her face.”
You’d have to get in line behind me. I served 6 years in the Marine Corps & everytime I see that fucking bitch’s face in that picture from the 2004 convention I want to punch the wall. Tell you what, if we ever catch her on the street, I’ll hold her down while you piss on her if I can get first crack at wiping that fucking rube-smile off her face, then I get to piss on that band-aid while you hold her down.
Jebediah
@Stentor:
I have never been in the military at all, and I still have a physical reaction to that picture. In deference to your service, I’ll hold her down and you two do whatever you want.