And then there were fifteen (via):
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has concluded he no longer has a path to the Republican presidential nomination and plans to drop out of the 2016 campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
mai naem mobile
Those boots were not made for Walkering into the WH apparently.
redshirt
Current status is pouring one out for my homeboy Scotty W.
DH
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…lol.
Right to Rise
That beeping sound you hear is a Brinks truck full of cold hard cash backing up into Jeb Bush’s garage.
The Koch Kash will come our way as the establishment donors are forced to go to “ALL-IN!” on Jeb.
lowercase steve
The most terrifying of the 3 candidates I thought would theoretically be able to get the nomination given their appeal to both the rabid base and the party donors/elite (the others being Jeb? and Rubio).
I think “Not Bush!” is still a strong enough feeling for the base that Rubio will get the nomination but we’ll see.
redshirt
@Right to Rise:
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!1!
ruemara
There’s only one appropriate response. Bye, Bitch.
kindness
Sweet. Must be 4-20 somewhere…
lowercase steve
@Right to Rise:
I think you still have to contend with Rubio who is: “not bush,” more conservative/better liked by the base, acceptable to the party elite, can win you Florida just as well, and “Hispanic” (damage control after the awful primary).
piratedan
this is a good news, bad news scenario… on the good news side, it’s nice to know that this virtual meat puppet of the Koch Brothers will not be under the impression that he has any great message or following among the unwashed that are the American electorate. The bad news is that he gets to go back and fuck the people of Wisconsin full time once again, then again, they elected the fucker, so perhaps they’re simply getting what they voted for.
beltane
My elderly father is even more delusional than the troll. He is usually all over the place politically, but has somehow decided that Trump is a modern day Voltaire. I hope this is not a genetic disorder I will eventually succumb to.
Keith P.
But at least he got to be a 1%’er! Maybe not like he fantasized about, but he still made it!
mb
Praise Loki.
scav
Following the Slither Inn, we immediately get a Slither Out.
dedc79
@Right to Rise: I hear Jeb is also primed to inherit the 0.5% of Republican primary voters who were leaning Walker. Quite a haul.
Elizabelle
@scav: Genius comment.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Now is the time to Stand With Governor Walker.
Hopefully the next Republican to go down is Marco “Vote for Pedro” Rubio. I don’t like that smarmy little fucker with the pre-comb-over.
Germy Shoemangler
– Frank Rich
goblue72
@Right to Rise: I didn’t realize JEB! did gay gangbang porn. But it kind of makes sense.
Bobby Thomson
Cameron’s dining experiences publicized and Scotty drops out within 48 hours. Coincidence?
And Gilmore’s non-candidacy rolls along.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Right to Rise: You poor, disillusioned dipshit. Jeb! doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Miami of getting the nomination.
delk
Party at Mars Cheese Castle tonight!
Right to Rise
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Only Reagan ever beat a Bush in a republican primary.
Jeb is inevitable.
agorabum
I know Scottie is a loser and no one likes him…but am still surprised. All the other bozos are still here except Perry. And 2012 showed anyone can be a frontrunner once the voting starts.
mai naem mobile
I wonder how this works(no snark.) Do the Kochs call you out of courtesy and tell you in a nice way that this is regretfully working, we’ll give you some money to clean up your debts and try and get you on somewhere in one of our orgs if you can’t get another gig. Or do they pull the rug from you without telling you and basically lock you out of the house and cancel your credit cards.
bystander
Kate Snow on MSNBC responded to a comment that Walker is out because style appears to be the most important element in the current repub race, “But it must be said that both sides do it.”
Yes, it’s pretty clear that Bernie Sanders’ followers are purely enamored by his fashion-forward hairstyling and take-no-enemies trashtalking.
bystander
@Right to Rise: Reagan didn’t just beat Poppy. He pithed him, had him stuffed and mounted and put him on display down the hall from his office.
Right to Rise
You Rubio people are delusional.
Rubio looks like he just graduated college and is playing dress-up in Daddy’s clothes. No gravitas at all. And he made the biggest mistake of his life by not knowing his place and leapfrogging Jeb despite also being from Florida.
That little snot will get demolished when crunch time comes. He is so bad with money that he has $100,000 in student loans, maxed out credit cards and even had to take out a second mortgage for a down payment on his house. He Even lived with his parents well into his 20s.
Diana
@Right to Rise: yeah, what else can they do?
Mike J
Where are the stories about Republicans in disarray? Who is the savior that should jump into the race at the last moment and save the party à la Biden?
sharl
For hard core political wonks, the GOP media/campaign consultant Walker fired back in March is multiple-tweeting out a brutal analysis, which started about 25 minutes ago. This was her second tweet:
Scroll down in that first link to about the 30min point (or closest to that), then work upward.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mike J:
Sarah Palin, of course.
yam
The Koch brothers seem to be cutting their losses and pulling out before spending good money after bad. Off to the next pit in which to dump dollars…
Germy Shoemangler
@sharl: She says he’ll be back in four years, better than ever.
Mike J
@delk:
How on earth do you build such a place on Frontage road and not petition the city council to change the name to Fromage road?
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Projection, projection, projection.
It’s like being at the octoplex over Memorial Day weekend.
Bill
As a resident of Walkerstan I’m thrilled that the rest of the nation doesn’t get to experience his “governing.”
On the other hand I;m terrified that he’s headed back home to “govern.”
jl
@bystander: ‘Both sides do it’ has become a meaningless interjection, sort of like ‘um’.
I guess this pundit thinks that Sanders is known for taking brave unconventional and uncompromising stands on issues, and then denying he said anything one way or the other,or confusingly back tracking and re tracking, or insisting he never said anything at all?
David Koch
¡Jeb! can consolidate the zero vote.
Zero X Zero = Zero
Splitting Image
I’m shocked but happily surprised. I thought he at least had enough money to outlast some of the others and make it as far as Iowa. Evidently not.
Riddance good to rubbish bad, as Yoda would say. I’ll raise a cold one to the folks who predicted his demise earlier this month.
Chyron HR
@Right to Rise:
If you’re looking for “Rubio people” (or “Trump people”, “Carson people”, and “Fiorina people”) you should probably go to a Republican website.
Oh, wait, that would require JEB! to actually fight for the nomination, and he didn’t get where he is today (5th place) by getting his hands dirty. That’s why he has to pay people to dance like monkeys on a liberal website in the hopes that SOMEHOW it will make Republicans vote for him.
Lowercase steve
@Right to Rise: that’s a lot of vitriol directed at someone who is on your “team” hmm.
Right to Rise
@Lowercase steve:
He fucked up by jumping rank. He was supposed to wait until 2024 and serve until 2032 when George P would run. The Jeb campaign has it out for him. We will destroy the twerp and he can forget about a cabinet post.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@yam: Why fail to buy the Presidency when you can get the same bang for buying every State legislative race at pennies on the dollar? That’s where they’re doing the real damage.
Mike J
@sharl:
Liz Mair @LizMair 3m3 minutes ago
One last thought: Walker’s timing is good. Word is he just avoided getting tied to a very bad story that could well have been coming.
scav
@Germy Shoemangler: Cut out the middle man, just elect the largest SuperPac directly? They’re certainly not having much luck with the hired faces for the branding efforts: maybe they’ll just go with a snazzy typeface instead. Jeb’s already placed all his hopes in a punctuation mark — maybe he really is in front of this curve after all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: So much for the shitty-grade-Z-movie-star’s “11th Commandment”.
feebog
TRMS is going to be a laff riot tonight. I usually think Rachel overdoes it a tad with her 15 minute intros, but I can’t wait for it tonight. I’m thinking Christie will be the next to crash. Gwad, this is fun.
jl
The heir apparent: Jeb? ‘trust me on national security, I’m a Bush’ Bush:
Jeb Calls Liberal Group’s 9/11 Ad Criticizing His Brother ‘Disgraceful’
‘ The ad titled “Safe?” highlights Jeb Bush’s comment during the CNN Republican presidential debate that his brother, George W. Bush, “kept us safe.” ‘
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-safe-ad
I guess better Jeb? gets Unlimited Corporate Cash than Rubio or Kasich.
You can watch the ad at the link. I don’t see the problem with it, I mean, the 9-11 attacks, the Iraq invssion disaster and Katrina urbacide did actually happen, right? Or am I misremembering?
GregB
@Right to Rise:
The Republican Red Wedding continues apace.
Continue with the savaging of each other.
Hopefully the lying, bitter, failed corporate hatchet CEO and the brother of the man who stank so severely that the US elected Obama will rise to the top like curdle on milk.
sharl
@Mike J: Yeah, she was quite the tease with that one. If she thought her IN box was filling uncontrollably before, THAT tweet must have really jacked up the incoming messages.
Calouste
@bystander: And Pa Bush was so popular with the GOP voters that he lost 3 out of the first 4 primaries when he ran after having been Veep for 8 years.
Problem for the Bushes is that they have to thin out the herd a lot before the voting starts. Attack ads work in a small field, but the problem is that they make both candidates look bad, so in a larger field there is always someone else who profits.
David Koch
@Mike J:
Live boy or dead girl?
RaflW
I worry for Wisconsin (I have friends and family there – and yes, they worked to oust Walker and do voter turnout, etc. My MIL had never clipboarded in her life till 3 years ago. She told war stories from her county the other night as we celebrated her 70th b-day.).
Anyway, I am concerned that the dead-eyed moron will feel he has to inflict even more damage in WI to burnish his ‘cred’ so he can get some wingnut welfare after this utterly embarrassing run for the oval office.
shell
Next up in the domino lineup, Bobby ‘I’m the Christianeist!’ Jindal
‘Inevitable’ is not the same as ‘good’.
Death and taxes are also inevitable.
delk
@Mike J: Ha!
At least they kept the sign.
David Koch
TG Chicago
Deep thought: When Rubio goes on a “we have to kill all the brown people” rant, to me it comes off more fearful than strong. (To be clear, I’m totally talking style-wise here.) Some of the others, Trump included, can say the same shit and I can see how it comes off tough. Rubio gives off a sense of panic.
He now seems to me to be the most likely Republican nominee, but even purely on style points, I think Clinton (of whom I’m not a big fan) will have little trouble coming off as more steady and serious than Rubio.
BGinCHI
Dollars to donuts Scotty has his eye on Rinse Priebus’s job.
It’s easy, it pays well, you get lots of publicity, and you don’t have to deal with messy elections.
Best of all, being a giant douche is an advantage.
jl
@shell:
Little known English vocab fact: ‘inevitable’ can also mean ‘won’t EVer happen’.
Kind of like the flammable/inflammable problem. Context, gotta watch the context.
Edit: or could mean that it is inevitable (in the more common sense of the word) that Jeb? will drive himself into a ditch just like Perry and Walker. Sort of like an out-of-it pre-old childish and petulant self-entitled proto-geezer driving his golf cart into a particularly stinky water hazard.
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: I think he loses interest in “governing.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: They could have put the anthrax attacks in there as well.
scav
@sharl: I thought the whole thing was vague. Beyond the innuendo and the sucking up, there wasn’t a lot of cogent meat. A few things that could seemingly be skimmed from a lot of airport-available executive how-tos.
David Koch
@Germy Shoemangler: No. Mittens.
Renie
@Right to Rise: I have a serious question for you. Why are you here? No one agrees with anything you say. Do you have a personality disorder that makes you go on blogs knowing no one respects who you are or what you say? Everything you post is an exaggeration or twisted facts of the truth. Do you not have a real offline life? So what exactly is your story here.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Right to Rise: JEB? sucks as a candidate. I’m guessing the plutocrats will sit on the sidelines rather than pour more bad money into his campaign. They like money, why waste it on a loser?
Patricia Kayden
Bye Bye Walker. Wonder who will tumble next. There are so many dominoes to fall. What do Wisconsinites see in him? He’s so dull and not too bright.
Davis X. Machina
Wrong messenger — right message.
Crab-bucket America will get its President, just later instead of sooner.
yam
Also, the Kochs remembered that Wisconsin is “Right to Work” state and treated Scotty accordingly.
yellowdog
@sharl: A recent tweet from Liz Mair says this:
Interesting. Very interesting
yam
So this year’s Mitt is Jeb;? The money guys and the crazies fight it out in a “Anyone but Jeb;” arena? (I love the idea of Jeb;’s bang becoming a semicolon).
Patricia Kayden
@Renie: He’s here because people are feeding him. Rightwingers love to call into progressive programs to raise blood pressure and push silly theories. Right 2 Rise is no different. With his racism and stupidity, he’s just straight up trolling. He was around in 2008 pushing the same nonsense about McCain and unlimited cash and we all know how that election worked out. LOL!!
Tom Levenson
@Mike J: Mitt. to channel my inner Charlie Pierce, “I’m still all you’ve got, bitches!”
RaflW
@BGinCHI: Reince is a chinless blob, but he graduate from law school and made partner in a law firm. Walker is visibly a moron and now a laughingstock.
Sorry, but I can’t see any way Walker runs that shop after Prebus.
sharl
@scav: Everything you say is true, but have you seen the political “reporting” media in action? I collectively dub them The Pathetic Piranhas, and Mair is playing them skillfully, with thin, watery rumor chum and promises of meatier chunks to come: who did/didn’t do what, and when…who stabbed who in the back…etc.
Her praise was limited and faint, her criticisms not too detailed, but enough to sting, and it’s clear that no matter what Walker does, she has no hopes, plans, or intentions of working for HIM again. And I wonder if it’s an open declaration that she won’t apply to work with anyone who doesn’t have his/her sh*t together to some minimal degree before entering an election campaign.
goblue72
@yam: What else can the Koch Klux Klan do? Actual exposure to sunlight causes them to burst into flames.
Mandalay
@Mike J:
Heh – a weasly sentence that did a lot of smearing without actually saying anything.
I feel dirty for defending him, but bear in mind that the source is an ambitious attention seeking wannabe who was fired by Walker.
As with the Cameron story, I will assume that this is revenge bullshit unless there’s substantiation.
AxelFoley
@ruemara:
My exact reaction
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Hard to say which is the more pathetic, that you cast the Kochs as establishment Republicans or your presumption that elections ought be bought.
What a maroon.
Mike J
@Mandalay: The Cameron story falls in the category of “too good to check.”
Surreal American
From Unintimidated to Un-nominated.
gf120581
Quite the shock. I thought he’d at least last until IA.
How long until he pulls a Palin and quits? The only reason he ran for reelection was to set up his WH bid.
redshirt
Dust to dust, really.
Right to Rise
@Renie:
I work for the Jeb campaign. I come here because I know nothing gets liberals wound up like the thought of another President Bush. It’s hilarious how naive you were to think we heard the last of the Bush Family in January, 2009 and will be the ultimate troll of Obama’s legacy when he hands the White House keys back to the Bush family I. January, 2017. All you will be able to do is shout “racist!” Or whine about how the election was “stolen”. It will be the 2000s all over again for you, lol.
Also by raising Jeb’s online/social media by demonstrating how much Bushes enrage liberals, it makes conservatives overlook some things they disagree with Jeb on and vote for him because leftists can’t stand him.
NotMax
@Mike J
Lotta porker farms in Wisconsin.
Just sayin’.
Baud
Haha. Walker’s out of it and I’m not.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: The proof that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH wins elections every time is the Marquis de Mittens administration, now in its fourth year.
mdblanche
@mai naem mobile: Here’s how it works (snark). The Kochs take you to the vet and they tell her “our poor lapdog’s suffered enough.”
@GregB: Hopefully it will be like the last scene of Hamlet with the Democratic nominee pulling a Fortinbras and winning by default after stepping over all the corpses.
ETA: Perhaps I should say Fortinbaud?
Renie
@jl: Its right on point! JEB likes to think his brother’s presidency started 9/12/01. His thin skin is starting to show through again. I guess Momma Bush told him to speak up in his brother’s defense.
Skippy-san
Fuck Walker. I was really worried, what with the current embrace of evil by the GOP, that Walker might have a real shot based on his union busting and bankrupting the state. Guess trump being the bigger loon, along with Walker’s inability to do any thing when not hiding behind his state troopers and pet legislature showed what a loser he really is.
Now if he would just get run over by a bus on the way back to Wisconsin.
danielx
Excellent. Now if he can just be indicted for something…..
OT but too good to pass up: Bernie Sanders on the cover of the 9/28 edition of Time, with the following legend on the cover:
Bernie.
Socialize this, America
Baud
This is now a race between Trump and Rubio. There ain’t no one else.
GregB
I was getting tired of Walker traipsing around New Hampshire leaving shit heel marks all over the state.
RaflW
@Right to Rise:
If this claim is true — I suspect volunteer is the accurate verb — but if true, that’s some damning evidence of the idiotic waste of money that we see propped up as a campaign.
jeb. paying for trolling at Balloon Juice is a precious and hilarious idea. Kinda perfect as another klown falls out of the kar.
Baud
@mdblanche:
I give you my word, I have never slept with barnyard animals.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Ah, so you outright lied not long ago when challenged with that very supposition, insisting that “we” did not refer to campaign staff.
Your credibility, such as it may have been, now lower than Walker’s poll numbers.
Time to go play in another sandbox.
What a maroon².
JPL
@RaflW: Are you paid to feed the troll?
RaflW
@Skippy-san: Well, he f*cked over his own legislative team out on the campaign trail, and now he’s got a full pile of loser stink on him, so the knives may be out for him back in Madison. We’ll see.
Arm The Homeless
So begins the weeding out of the grifters and the true believers. Of the AAA candidates (relatively) I would say that Rubio is the next to drop. But not before Graham, Gilmore, Jindal, Christie and Pataki.
Santorum and The Huckster will run for their base, Cruz will fade, but not until SC.
The rest is a mystery. Rubio is going to be the VP no matter what. He is a suck up by nature. Ultimately whomever is picked, it will be liked by no one, and will result in quite a few schisms being re-awoken.
The only constant will be Erick son of Erick’s ever increasing blood pressure. As a humorous aside, watching the churn at a place like Hotair has been amazing. The Gung-ho trolling is over the top. It’s hard to tell the fakers from the True Believers.
mdblanche
@Baud: You’re giving Unlimited Corporate Cash! a sad.
NotMax
@Baud
Punchline of an old, but eternally funny joke:
“The sheep lies!”
Mandalay
@TG Chicago:
I’m with you. If Rubio’s love for killing brown people in the Middle East does not drive away the voters, his positions on womens’ rights and repealing legislation for pre-existing conditions surely will.
Rubio is a fraud, and dumb as a box of rocks. He just memorizes chunks of text and parrots them in front of the camera. That may look impressive when you only have thirty seconds to speak, but in a lengthy debate Clinton would eviscerate him.
hitchhiker
Liz Mair:
Go be somewhere else and think about what you’ve done.
sharl
@sharl: It only occurred to me now (D’Oh!) that Liz Mair might well be looking for another GOP campaign staff position. This is a pretty good (opportunistic) way to get favorable attention, I think, especially if she wants a more powerful role than what she has played in the past. ‘Tough-talking, battle-scarred campaign veteran offers blunt analysis…’ …’hey, let’s call her up and see if she’ll join the campaign,’ sez one of the surviving candidates.
They’d better have money to pay her, though.
RaflW
@JPL: ???
pseudonymous in nc
The fact is, Right to Shite is a less amusing Gary Ruppert.
buckyblue
Oh shit, now he’s going to be back in state looking for someone to blame. And I know where he’ll go; after the teachers. Sigh…..
scav
@Baud: But did you ever attend frat parties with any?
Bill
@RaflW: The arena deal he pushed through has actually managed to unite liberals and conservatives against him here. It will be interesting to see how it plays out when he gets back to Wisconsin’s business.
Kay
Oh, good. On to Kasich!
Jeb is the one we want as the nominee :)
sharl
@hitchhiker: Naah, she’s done all the thinking she’s gonna do. She’s pretty much a libertarian, with all that implies. I’ve followed her off-and-on for awhile. The thing is, as nasty as that tweet you cited is (and there are others out there as bad or worse), she ain’t even close to the worst the GOP has to offer among campaign staffers and operatives.
Baud
@mdblanche: He’s still getting paid. He’ll get over it.
@NotMax: The sheep would do well in a GOP debate then.
@scav: I don’t see how that’s relevant.
Mike in NC
@yam: JEB! is quickly becoming JEBzzzz. He’s on an iron-rich diet and getting testosterone shots in an attempt to fix his slouching posture/low energy problem, which has caused several of the traditional Bush Bundlers to put away their checkbooks.
Surreal American
@Right to Rise:
Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word ‘work’ that I wasn’t previously aware of.
NotMax
@Baud
Too specific. Opens the question of animal type(s) other than barnyard.
Free range fancier?
/couldn’t resist
Kay
@buckyblue:
Bashing teachers doesn’t work as well as it used to- Walker, Christie. It takes them a while to figure these things out.
Baud
@Kay: It would be great if Jeb! could pull it off. I think and hope Rubio can beat out Kasich. Rubio is the lesser general election candidate of the two.
Renie
@Patricia Kayden: Was his name back then Unlimited Corporate Cash? Is that why people write that? He really must lead a pathetic life if this is what he does.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: That sounds like a lawyer’s way of saying “yeah, I fucked them, but then I went home.)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You forgot the Baud!2016 sig.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks! That’s why you’re my outreach guy!
Baud! 2016! — Barnyard virgin!
trollhattan
O/T When searching for an example of the banality of evil, I have a new go-to prototype.
Gin & Tonic
@Renie: There was a persistent troll here four years ago by that moniker. I think the jury may be out as to whether this is the same troll, but definitely a similar MO.
RaflW
@Bill: My partner graduated from UW Madison (a while ago…) still gets the alumni magazine, which has published this column quoting their Chancellor outlining the ongoing cuts to WI higher ed.
I know a lot of GOPers don’t seem to care, but I think this relentless cutting along with WI’s crappy economic numbers compared to MN have got to be sinking in for so-called moderate voters. And the numbers line up pretty much with Walker’s spending on the arena, which looks really bad for him.
edit: fixed the reference to the chancellor, she’s heavily quoted, not the author.
Chris
@Germy Shoemangler:
Palin is past her sell-by date.
SFAW
@Mike J:
SHAFT!
(Right on)
Renie
@Right to Rise: Well whoever pays you is not getting their money’s worth cuz there are no conservatives here to get all riled up about what liberals say. And no one else here believes any of the b.s. you write.
If the JEB team was a little more intelligent, they would have people like you on conservative sites trying to show the base what a great job JEB can do for them. You can annoy us but no conservatives will know how annoying you are here because they don’t come here.
I guess your being here shows how disorganized and desperate JEB’s team is.
JPL
@RaflW: I was teasing. I prefer to ignore RTR.
Gian
@Arm The Homeless:
I think iCarly is the VP candidate in waiting. Her job will to be the woman who can attack Hillary.
Baud
@trollhattan:
That’s what the entire country would be like if Trump were president.
Arm The Homeless
@Kay: @Baud:
With enough genuflecting, Kasich would be heralded as the only sane man at the table.
He is running in the Bobo/Will primary.
Baud
@Gian:
Not Stieg Larsson’s best work.
JPL
What time is the Walker announcement? I really wanted to see his fence along Canada.
catclub
@Mike J: Mitt Romney!
johnnybuck
So is Christie next? He’s basically not going anywhere either.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
ALL Rethugs lose interest in governing. If they ever had any interest in the first place, that is.
Ruling, on the other hand, is what they salivate over.
Baud
@JPL: They are popping champagne at the NLRB.
Mandalay
@Mike J: Apparently the untold Walker story was that his campaign manager was caught doing the same thing as David Cameron. Of course there is no reason to assume that the recipient was also a pig, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
I’m surprised Walker didn’t opt to deliberately leak the story, just to spice up his campaign.
Mike in NC
@Right to Rise: So, the fucking job doesn’t even pay minimum wage. A genius is you.
RaflW
@JPL: A wise strategy, and I’ve done much better on that front the past few weeks.
I guess some lures are just too shiny for me, however.
scav
R2R is Jeb¿’s idea of Trumpian swagger and in-your-face-liberals muscular masculinity? I die of giggling.
RaflW
@Arm The Homeless: Perhaps. But Huntsman tried before and fared very, very poorly. There’s plenty of time if Kasich can manage his cashflow.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I thought it was the Roger Corman knockoff of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.”
Suzanne
I have to admit, Scott Walker FAILING is turning me on more than it should.
If he cries at the press conference, I will probably have to jump on my husband right then and there.
#blesshisheart
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: You might be right. As long as someone is attacking Hillary, what do i care?
catclub
@mai naem mobile:
Not that way. They block your phone calls, I presume.
SFAW
@Baud:
Which is why Hitlery had him killed.
MazeDancer
Erick Son of Erick has posted his deep, insider knowledge from many, many personal conversations with “some of Walker’s more prominent supporters” (yes, that’s a quote, I went over to RS to see how they were reacting) that Walker donors and supporters are likely to go with Rubio.
@Mandalay: Erick Son of Erick did mention there were rumors about an unnamed campaign manager being caught on debate night in an undescribed compromising position.
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: seems legit.
Baud
@catclub:
It’s the Kochs. They cut off his supply of toilet paper.
catclub
@johnnybuck:
Watch out, Pataki and Gilmore are still going strong.
How about Jindal?
Omnes Omnibus
One of the things Walker will be doing is appointing a new state supreme court justice. N. Patrick Crooks was found dead in his chambers today. He had announced that he was not going to stand for reelection in 2016. Now a conservative will be the sitting justice but will still have to run for election. Unfortunately, incumbency has advantages.
JPL
Walker is leaving because the republicans are not optimistic enough
BillinGlendaleCA
@MazeDancer: All 3 of them.
RaflW
Presser live now. “Reagan!” “Reagan was an optimist” “I’m sad” Republicans “drifted into personal attacks.” …
And a smorgasboard of pointless GOP platitudes/pablum.
Good riddance.
Baud
@catclub:
They haven’t fallen in the polls at all.
Suzanne
HAHAHAAHAAAAA irony.
My banner ad at the bottom of the page informs me that “Scott Walker has a winning record of results”.
Elizabelle
Missed it. C-Span 1 just broadcast Walker’s exit. Suspending his campaign. Last sentences were that he was thanking God.
Aren’t we all.
JPL
Did he just throw his support to Trump? Stop Trump…
SFAW
@Surreal American:
Well, in Rethug or Reichtard, “work” is defined as “something productive that someone else does, but that I take credit for”
RaflW
Now on CNN, a former Romney advisor is telling us that more GOP candidates have to drop out to make it possible to defeat Trump. Which isn’t exactly wrong, but shows how pathetic the republican ‘deep bench’ is if it takes losers losing before anyone can deal with Trump.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Elizaburn!
JPL
Without Walker, the party will rise and become pure. Hard work and less government is what the repubs want to achieve. I must say for a guy that only worked for the government, that’s hard to swallow.
Mike in NC
@JPL: Per local news station, Walker already held a mini-press conference and made it a point to shit on his fellow candidates on the way out the door. Stay classy Scotty.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
Are you sure it didn’t say “Scott Walker – now there’s a winner” ?
Schlemazel
The 11worst moments in little Scotties campaign
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/09/21/3704007/the-11-worst-moments-in-scott-walkers-short-presidential-campaign/
When they do this for JEB? They are going to have trouble keeping it to 11
JPL
@Baud: Elizabelle might be a viable VP candidate.
jl
@trollhattan:
Sad and disgusting story about that drug. Looks like this hedge fund manager may be the fool. I don’t see where anything about this drug is under patent, so he is counting on his company having market power in the US because the market for the drug in the US is small. He is betting no other manufacturer will jump in. Not sure that is true. He needs to be very careful about the outrageous price he charges, to keep other generic competitors out of the market.
It is also a worldwide drug, I think on World Health Organization essential medicines lists for many countries. So, barriers to international trade common in pharmaceutical industry, especially in US, will also help keep prices high in this country, by delaying entrance of supply of pills manufactured in other countries.
But even if this ex hedge fund manager is a fool, his decision will harm many people.
Generic drug price increases 5,000 percent overnight
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/generic-drug-price-increases-5000-percent-overnight/
catclub
“…It’s hard to run against the economy these days…. Despite nearly seven years of stewardship by a supposedly crypto-socialist president, the U.S. economy is looking — dare I say it? — pretty good. For all the alarmist predictions about job-killing Obamacare; job-killing Environmental Protection Agency regulations; job-killing tax hikes; the unaffordable gas prices that would arise from blocking the Keystone XL pipeline; and the runaway hyperinflation crisis that would follow zero interest rates and quantitative easing, the metrics on all these issues are better than almost anyone expected…. The United States looks healthier than just about every other major economy”
http://equitablegrowth.org/uncategorized/must-read-catherine-rampell-economy-no-show-gop-debate/
JPL
@Mike in NC: He wanted to be the anti-immigrant guy and Trump stole his thunder.
Skippy-san
@Right to Rise: 6000+ Americans killed in his brother’s worthless wars could not be reached for comment. That’s all you need to know about the Bush brothers.
Davis X. Machina
@Baud:
You can’t fall off the floor.
I learned this in college — saved my life.
JPL
For a guy that only worked in Government, it was shameful for him to talk about less government.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: Won’t work. They are both from the same blog.
@Davis X. Machina: Some floors have holes.
Kay
@Baud:
I remain with the Jebster. The Money Party always wins the GOP primary, and Rubio is too risky for them. I think you have to remember they never risk their own money :)
Baud
@JPL: True. Female and classy, but capable of cutting the opposition to the bone.
Baud
@Kay: I would normally be right there with you, but Jeb! is really that bad.
Arm The Homeless
@Gian:
I don’t think her ‘persona’ survives the fisking from her primary competitors. I don’t think a few months of ads with her ex employees and board members sticking shivs in at will, and another CEO pointing and laughing will keep her around. It’s still a bad time to be somone with a “golden parachute” who also makes a large minority of the base, very uncomfortable.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe Elizabelle can move over to another blog for a few days, a la Cheney.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Dunno if it’s been mentioned yet, but MY says JEB? should drop out, for the good of the party you see, and endorse Marco.
I doubt that is going to happen the way he lays it out, at least not anytime soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
GregB
The Republicans bench may be deep but it sure is shallow.
mdblanche
@MazeDancer: Well I hear from an internet troll who claims to work for one of the campaigns that all of Walker’s donors and his supporter are going over to Jeb;.
Roger Moore
@yam:
No. This is not 2012. If there’s anyone who’s at all like Mitt, it’s Trump. It’s just that this time, instead of there being a bunch of minor candidates who take turns being the wingnut’s latest, greatest not-Mitt hope, there will be a bunch of minor candidates who take turns being the establishment’s latest, greatest not-Trump hope.
MomSense
Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick, can we please stop feeding the troll?
ETA Feel free to ignore. I’m going to drink wine and listen to my kid play Robert Johnson.
Cacti
Never thought I’d see Walker drop out before Santorum or Graham.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense:
All signs point to no.
mdblanche
@JPL: Did he really say that? Because do you know who else said that recently?
HinTN
@Right to Rise: Ah, I just love the smell of legacy in the mourning.
JPL
@mdblanche: He was talking about St. Ronny who didn’t have that event in Mississippi. Okay he didn’t mention the event but he did mention Reagan.
Roger Moore
@Arm The Homeless:
He’s never going to win the nomination that way.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
That’s a serious threat when you’re as full of shit as the Republican candidates are.
NotMax
Posted this in the wrong thread, so here it is again.
Not at all versed in this area of the law, but surmise that suspending a campaign rather than shuttering it is a legal ploy to delay or prevent unpaid vendors from immediately suing the candidate’s and relevant staff’s butts off, possibly related to terms of contracts which remain in effect if the campaign is still technically extant.
Any comments from lawyers on this are welcome.
Baud
@NotMax: Not my area of expertise, but I think the suspension allows Walker to continue fundraising to pay off debts.
mdblanche
@Omnes Omnibus: Is that what you want? Because that’s how you get
antstrolls.NotMax
@MomSense
(Best snot-nosed whiny voice)
Aw, Mom, you never let us have any fun.
:)
Roger Moore
@jl:
It’s not as bad a bet as you’d think. Drug manufacturing is a tough business with very challenging regulations. Getting into manufacturing any drug takes a bunch of time and money. Even if somebody else tries to start making it, they won’t be into the market for a fair while. The best hope is that somebody is manufacturing it in another country and it can be imported.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
SMDH
Heard any new music you like? I’ve been going back in time and listening to some classics. I swore I’d never lose touch with new releases but I’m afraid the last year I have really failed.
PaulW
whoever liked Walker will likely lean towards Jeb? or Kasich as “traditional” candidates, with Rubio the favored guy among the pundits. But Walker didn’t have a lot of support going in, so whatever bump can come from getting his people’s vote won’t affect the Trumpmentum for the anti-candidates.
MomSense
@NotMax:
:D
RK
The moneyed establishment candidate? That’s been the conventional wisdom from the beginning. Will depend on how he does against the other establishment candidates.
Ridnik Chrome
HA HA HA! So long, you son of a bitch! And good riddance…
Baud
@MomSense:
All music has been replaced by Taylor Swift.
Timurid
@Baud:
Can I be a Republican Presidential candidate too?
I’m even half white!
Mike J
@Baud:
The FEC doesn’t recognize the category “suspended” for a campaign. You’re in or you’re out, and even after you’ve dropped out, you can continue to fund raise, as long as you file all the right paperwork.
NotMax
@Baud
Thanks for donning the lawyer hat.
If wearing the candidate hat, proper response would be “Well yes, but then again no.”
:)
Baud
@Timurid:
If you want to be a GOP candidate, go ahead. But I’m 100% Vitamin D, baby!
Baud
@Mike J: Thank you for the
clarificationcorrection.JPL
Why would Walker supporters lean towards Jeb. Walker was running an anti-immigrant candidacy. He wanted a wall not only on the south but on the north.
Eric U.
@beltane: thank the deity my father totally lost it before he could succumb to the lure of right wing nuts. I think he died as a liberal Democrat, but it’s hard to know. My one political memory was when I was 8 and supporting Nixon because all my friends were. He sat me and my sister down and straightened us out.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Roger Moore: The NY Times says they gave the drug back to the non-profit and the price increase has been rescinded.
Cheers,
Scott.
SFAW
@Timurid:
As long as it’s the top half, no problem.
goblue72
Bush is going to be their candidate. I personally have felt so from Day One and stated such here many times. Not out of any Awesome Sauce that is Bush the Lesser, but out of the sheer weakness of the GOP bench. The fact that they let a nutbar like Carson up on stage, and can’t do anything to get Trump out of the way is evidence of that. But just like in 2008 and 2012, the GOP primary will be a season of reality TV contestants masquerading as candidates on their way to the wingnut welfare trough, while the actual candidate (and there is only one, just like in 2008 and 2012) attempts to make it through the hazing ritual without saying anything so insanely insane (or fornicate with any pigs) as to kill himself in the general election (and its always a him, and a white him, in the Koch Klux Klan party)
And then, after all the bread & circus is over, and the GOP has its Nuremberg Rally in Ohio, Hillary will strap on her strap-on and spend four months pegging Bush on national TV. (I’m voting for Bernie in the primary, but I have no illusions that he will actually be the nominee – Obama had an actual roadmap to victory through the primaries, where Bernie really doesn’t.)
RK
What supporters?
Beat you to it, goblue72!
goblue72
@JPL: What Walker supporters?
SFAW
@GregB:
Wow, it’s like you’re channeling Casey Stengel!
NotMax
@Mike J
Harbor a sneaking suspicion that at least some contracts specify that if the campaign is declared shut that all debts become due immediately.
Baud
@goblue72:
I won’t be satisfied until I actually feel sorry for Bush or whoever the GOP nominee in.
bemused
@RaflW:
What a legacy Scotty has made for himself. A potentially huge university brain drain plus all the other devastation he has done to WI and he still won’t get to the oval office.
sharl
OT, in case it wasn’t mentioned at this place lately, Shirley Sherrod’s long-expected (since late July IIRC) settlement with the estate of Andrew Breitbart was apparently accepted by the court last week:
Here’s a more piquant (and also accurate) account:
It’s a shame this victory by Sherrod is getting such scant attention in comparison to the attention received by the original video editing & dissemination directed by Andrew “Worm-Food” Breitbart. Dirtbag…
MomSense
@Baud:
She is single-handedly keeping the recording industry alive. I just can’t listen to it. If you like repetitive, auto tuned crap–she is it.
Mike J
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: “Price-gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,’’ Hillary Rodham Clinton, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a tweet on Monday. She said she would announce a plan on Tuesday to deal with rising drug prices.
jl
@SFAW: Or Yogi Bera.
The GOP primary is so crowded, no one goes there any more.
Walker came to a fork in the road, and he took it.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I agree they’ll eventually settle on Jeb, and I’m all for it since Clinton will most likely be our nominee. Having a third separate Bush from an actual political dynasty running for president will defang the “Clinton restoration” talking point. Jeb is also too close in age to Clinton to try to make hay of a “generational change.” So I think Jeb matches up best for our purposes. I bet Clinton even kicks his ass in Florida.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Four years ago, I told the kid that Romney was the worst Presidential candidate I’d seen in my lifetime. She visited this weekend, I told her that I’d revised what I’d said 4 years ago. Jeb? is much worse.
D58826
@dedc79: Bush will be the last man standing. For better or WORSE!
Baud
@MomSense:
It’s why I hang out here. Oh, you meant music…
@Mike J:
She is scheduled to lay out her health care plan Tuesday. Basically, improving Obamacare.
jl
@Betty Cracker: What generation is Jeb??
goblue72
@Baud: Fine fine – “Hillary will strap on her chrome plated, fisting strap-on and spend the next four months lube-less pegging Bush on national TV inside a steel cage.”
Better?
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: He really is. Romney could present his lies pretty well. Jeb! can’t even do that.
JPL
@BillinGlendaleCA: Jeb is crying about this ad being unfair, but he’s the one who said his brother kept us safe…
Best ad evah!
I think the Koch’s throw their money behind Kasich.. He’s proven and he had delivered
Baud
@goblue72: Getting warmer.
Schlemazel
@Cacti:
They suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations.
NotMax
@jl
Generation Yecch.
Gin & Tonic
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Different drug. Hedge fund douchebag is still a douchebag.
Schlemazel
@NotMax:
It also allows the twit to come back in later without a lot of extra work. The poor deluded shitheel thinks he still has a shot when the other detrious drops out
Betty Cracker
@jl: Jeb is the same generation as Clinton. Therefore he, unlike Rubio, can’t claim to represent a generational change.
I still think Rubio is too dumb to actually become the nominee, but one advantage he’d have if he did prevail is the ability to paint a vote for Clinton as a return to the past. Whereas the future is dumbasses like him. Or something. Anyway, Jeb can’t do that, is my point.
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72: Ewwww!
Schlemazel
@JPL:
Well, to be fair, that was only one of three mutually exclusive positions he took on the issue that one week.
Morzer
@Right to Rise:
You should change your handle to “Asleep at the Switch”. Truth in advertising!
Seanly
@sharl:
Ugh, never get out of the boat. She seems like an idiot. Further downstream she’s defending Carly’s destruction of $60 billion of HP’s value.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I didn’t think I could think Rick Santorum was even dumber than I thought he was
goblue72
@Baud: I guess she could add hooks to it or something – but that’s getting into some seriously deranged “Seven” type level shite. Or force him to peg himself.
22over7
Guys? You keep talking as if Trump is certain to drop out, or lose. That’d be great, but I don’t see any evidence of Bush or anyone else getting within ten points of him right now. Any scenarios for Trump dropping out?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s why I say the only way to cure cancer is fire all the doctors.
Eric U.
@Renie: personally, I love to have RtR here. I was on the DougJ bandwagon, but apparently not. RtR does actually seem to be a Bush partisan. If it is a case of Poe’s law, that’s ok, still makes me happy
Full disclosure: I am paid by the Trump campaign to make Bush look like a yuuuuge loser.
retiredeng
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Rubio is that special blend of arrogance and stupidity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, that reminds me of somebody…
Schlemazel
@bemused:
But he will get some highly overpaid seat on some bullshit lobby group and make more money than you and I and any two others here put together every year. Like that cum rag Pawlenty he does not care and will not suffer the consequences of the damage he has done. I wish there really were a hell for people like them
goblue72
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, since they want to go back to the era of the Articles of Confederation, I guess dismantling the first Federal agency ever created is where they’d start….
JPL
@retiredeng: Rubio/Carly…
Bumper sticker.. Only one of us know we’re lying.
SFAW
@jl:
Yogi certainly has uttered some great ones, but I remember watching Casey being interviewed before a Mets playoff or World Series game in 1969 (Yay!), and hearing him say about the Mets “They’re coming along slow, but fast.”
And, of course, his testimony before Congress was a thing of wonder and beauty.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jesus wept.
goblue72
@22over7: He gets bored and finds something else to spend his money on. Which is a near certainty to happen. Dude is just winging it on a lark because so far its fun. When it stops being fun, he will quit.
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: Take the stupid and the points. The stupid doesn’t always win, but it does always cover the spread.
F
I haven’t smiled like this in a while.
trollhattan
@JPL:
Agree. Kasich is more presentable than Walker and IIUC has a similar CV in undercutting gummint employees. He can also form sentences and things.
redshirt
I must now confess I’m still being paid by the Dole campaign. BOB DOLE!
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: He is also a smarmy prick.
trollhattan
@sharl:
It makes me wish Breitbart were alive so he could be forced to sign off on the (hopefully YUUUGE) settlement, throw an embolism and drop dead. With cameras rolling.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus: Two-fer!
Gravenstone
Now the little bastard can continue fucking over the people of Wisconsin without having to divide his attentions. Oh joy …
trollhattan
@redshirt:
I still like your pineapple, Bob.
SFAW
I’m slightly disappointed that the thread has made it this far, and no one has noted that this is good news for John McCain.
Maybe I need to restart my 56K modem, see if it’s working properly.
Baud
@Gravenstone:
Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
All we are saying is give war a chance.
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
Something, something, something “and I’m all out of bubblegum!” Yeah, poor Wisconsin (although…elected the bastard three times).
D58826
@Betty Cracker:
. We are talking the GOP here. Being dumb as a bag of pushpins is a feature not a bug!!!!
22over7
@goblue72: Certainly possible. But his need for attention is pretty obviously his crack, so what could make him give this up? The other R candidates fear him. The red-meat base can’t get enough. The villagers snort and sneer, which just helps him. He doesn’t (so far) have to please his donor base.
So what happens to take the fun away?
SFAW
@trollhattan:
When I saw this part, I was going to chastise you.
But then I read the rest, and decided it’s all good. Thanks!
Morzer
@SFAW:
Has anyone blamed Obama yet? If he hadn’t traded away the Scott Walker nomination before the negotiations started, we would totes have had single payer.
Chris
@JPL:
Much as I love it, I honestly would’ve trimmed out everything but 9/11. Simple works best (especially since it’s his national security and anti-terrorist credentials that Jeb was bragging about).
Jeb: “He kept us safe.”
TV: switches to an image of the Twin Towers crumbling.
Fade to black.
NotMax
@Gravenstone
Changing the name of the state capital from that godless shortstuff Madison to Reagan?
Tim C.
@22over7: This is where we need a map.
Seriously I want a map or chart with a breakdown of how many GOP delegates come from each state, when that state votes and how those delegates are allocated. I really mean it. I don’t think the current status quo will last until January, but seriously, if Trump keeps himself at a 30% plurality, what happens? Are there enough Winner take all states? Will my extra special dream of a chaos-filled brokered GOP convention take place? Will plutocrat and fundamentalist and racist all turn on each other like angry badgers?
I know it’s really to early for much in the way of predictions, but I’m serious about finding that map or chart thingy…
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well said, Santorum.
Now follow that thought as applied to the Defense Department.
Morzer
@NotMax:
Reagan-Reagan would sound better.
sharl
@trollhattan: I’m with you on that. But I was REALLY hoping that Breitbart’s financial backers were going to be exposed, and I’m sorry that didn’t happen. I remember feeling considerable glee at just how scared shitless ol’ Dead Andy’s legal team seemed to be regarding that possibility, and all the BS court filings* they made in the early days of the trial. [*IANAL, but people who are seemed to think those filings were BS at the time.]
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic: Clearly a craven and disgusting human. Tons of social media attention, with his face going quite viral. He may have a hard time getting dinner reservations in NYC for a while (oh, for some old-school Act UP street activism to help enhance his day to day activities…).
But he is also an object lesson to everyone of what GOP ‘market based reforms’ of health care could look like.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
“I had many years that I was not so successful as a ballplayer, as it is a game of skill.”
Gravenstone
@RaflW:
Oh, that’s already on the agenda. He and his Republican cronies in the state leg have their sights set on neutering the Government Accountability Board, wich gave the green light for the various John Doe investigations Walker has managed to barely skirt.
Robert Sneddon
@goblue72: The betting site Paddy Power still has Que? as the leader of the GOP pack at 7/4 with Trump at 3/1. Interestingly Dead Man Walkering is still on the chart at 12/1 but I expect his odds will lengthen after today’s announcement. If someone wants a long shot Arnie S. is anchorman at 100/1 trailing David Petraeus, Newt! and John Sydney McCain III.
It’s not the money, it’s Babs. She wants her personal Access All Areas at the White House again SOOOO bad and she can’t wait until John P. has racked up some legislative and governatoring experience as viceroy in the family’s Texas fiefdom before he is duly elevated to his rightful place as the 47th President of the United States. And what Babs wants Babs gets.
Heh, I just looked at some of the other bets on the site. Expected winner of the election with the shortest odds is Hill! not surprisingly but Kim Kardashian is an outside bet at 1000/1.
NotMax
@Tim C.
Unless the party initiates a change, R primaries up through March 14 are proportionate. From March 15 on, they’re winner take all.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s why we have to get rid of Kasich, He’s Bush for the Common Man. I’m counting on Bush to get rid of Bush For the Common Man, actually, but he may be too low energy. We actually need George W to take out Kasich, thus clearing the way for the low energy lump.
Morzer
@Tim C.:
I don’t know about a chart, but I believe that the “rules” are as follows:
States that hold their primaries between March 1 and March 14, 2016, will award their delegates on a proportional basis.
States voting on March 15, 2016, or later will award their delegates on a proportional basis or a winner-take-all basis as they see fit.
You can find the list of which states vote when here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016
JPL
@Chris: What was interesting was Jeb’s reaction to it. OMG, Hillary is politicizing 9/11. It never even showed the towers.
troops dying, people drowning, economy tanking.. no problem
RaflW
@Schlemazel: I deeply dislike Pawlenty, but he is just not even on the same level of stupid as Walker. I think that’s what amazes, as he has stumbled his way well beyond his Peter-principle level: Scotty is a bumbling doofus. How the hell did the slavering press miss that? (Don’t bother, I know…)
RaflW
@trollhattan: Kacich kinda sorta has made moderate utterances about the possibility of climate change. So he’s probably toast in the GOP.
trollhattan
@Robert Sneddon:
Did somebody literally threaten them with harm if they didn’t take his money on the Kim Kardashian wager? Then I want some action for Charlie Manson on the Republican side.
bemused
@Schlemazel:
Right, It’s the Republican value system. Norm Coleman lobbies for a Saudi group. You probably have read that his son is planning to run for MN Senate and previously worked for Paulsen.
trollhattan
@RaflW:
Am amazed he’s still in the club after yelling at the billionaire wife over Medicaid expansion. It’s almost as though there’s a glimmer of soul they haven’t managed to excise yet.
22over7
@Tim C.: Mmmmm. Chaos-filled brokered GOP convention.
I need a cigarette.
mdblanche
@Mike J: What a corporatist sellout.
Schlemazel
@RaflW:
Having had to live with the enflamed asshole as my governor I disagree. Timmy made a slightly better public face but was just as stupid and stumble bum as Scottie, he hid it better.
bemused
@Schlemazel:
And as soulless.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
And, of course, The Mick’s follow-up testimony: “My views are just about the same as Casey’s.”
As best as I can tell, Mantle was no genius, but that response may be genius-level.
RaflW
Those of you who Twitt, if you aren’t following Jeet Heer, ya should. Some great commentary like this one:
[no link, ’cause Buzzfeed]
Schlemazel
@bemused:
I had not heard that. It’s a shame norm was allowed to breed.
Paulson is a souless SOB, a man literally without a soul or a sense of morality.
Gravenstone
@Gian:
Not that I disagree with this assessment, but this would be quite the contrast with 2008, featuring the Great Disappearing Vice Presidential Candidate! Seriously, after a couple bad public performances, Ryan was basically “disappeared”, kept solely to private Republican money grubbing appearances.
Smiling Mortician
@pseudonymous in nc: I miss Gary.
Gravenstone
@Mike in NC: Why do you think RTR is so chatty? Penny a post piece work is hard on a guy.
NotMax
OT:
Jimmy Olsen, dead at 87.
rikyrah
He has $100 million dollars, and believes he’s ENTITLED to be President. He’s not going anywhere.
…………….
Jeb Bush should drop out for the good of the Republican Party
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on September 21, 2015, 5:22 p.m. ET
It would, of course, be totally ridiculous for Jeb Bush to drop out of the 2016 Republican primary this week. He’s got a ton of money in the bank, a ton more money in his super PAC’s bank, he’s ahead of all the real politicians in national primary polling, and he leads the field in endorsements. If he sticks it out, Donald Trump will probably fade. The Ben Carson boomlet will probably vanish. The nascent Carly Fiorina boomlet will keep going for a while and then she’ll come back down to earth too. Bush has the cash to gut it out and try to prevail against all comers and the odds of it working are at least decent.
But if he cares about his family legacy, the good of the Republican Party and the ideological principles he espouses, he should drop out as soon as possible and endorse Marco Rubio.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9366669/jeb-bush-should-drop-out
Recovering bonsai
@Right to Rise: Why are you mistaking ennui for outrage?
Schlemazel
@bemused:
Yes, I made the same comment about congressman Paulson. Totally without morality or any beliefs beyond what makes them more. They would easily pretend to be Dem if it benefited them personally.
Colman stood before the DFL convention and pronounced himself a Wellstone Democrat a couple of years before running against Paul as a Republican. Scum scum so low that they really should be shunned by decent people of every party.
RaflW
@Schlemazel: I live in MN too. Never thought I’d look back on a glass-jawed pro wrestler as a model of good governance, but T-paw (ugh) showed us what a mullet in search of mid-high office can do.
That said, Pawlenty managed to finish both college and law school. And work at a law firm and a private corporation and stuff. I’m not saying he’s smart. But he has enough intelligence to actually act on his bad instincts. Walker just does what the mean guys behind the curtain tell him to do.
Anyway, now we just have to get through the next legislative session with those scurrilous goopers messing up our House.
ETA: Norm Coleman is one of the lowest worms ever to wriggle into MN. He shoulda stayed back east where people seem to know better what to do with such snakes.
rikyrah
September 21, 2015 12:08 PM
Key Takeaways from New GAO Report on Income-Based Repayment
By Jason Delisle
Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on borrower enrollment in income-based repayment plans for federal student loans. While some of the report’s findings are out of date (enrollment in the plans has grown 70 percent since the GAO conducted its analysis) the report sheds new light on these repayment plans.
Loan Balances in Public Service Loan Forgiveness are High
We’ve long argued that Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), the program that promises loan forgiveness after ten years of working for the government or a non-profit, mainly benefits students with graduate degrees because they have enough debt to accrue significant benefits — and they can borrow effectively unlimited sums to finance their educations. The GAO seems to bear this out when it says that 80 percent of those enrolled in PSLF borrowed more than $30,000.
But a closer look at the same chart suggests the PSLF story may be even bigger than we thought. The median amount that a PSLF enrollee borrowed is between $60,000 and $70,000. And a shocking 26 percent borrowed more than $100,000.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/key_takeaways_from_new_gao_rep.php
Morzer
@Gian:
Snarly Fakerina doesn’t add anything to the ticket in terms of swinging a state, and I can’t see her turning women against Hillary. I think she’ll be an attack sheep with a promise of some sort of high-ranking government position, not the VP. Department of Mergers and Acquisitions, perhaps?
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
do you see this scam?
…………………….
Campbell Brown’s website pays well, got help from anti-tenure group
Tax filings from former CNN anchor Campbell Brown’s nonprofit education site, The Seventy Four, detail its salary structure for top editorial employees and payments for public relations, as well as help in setting up that it got from an anti-teacher tenure group.
The top editor earns about $200,000, two other editors earn about $150,000 and $125,000, respectively, and a reporter earns about $90,000, according to The Seventy Four’s application to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status. (Salaries more than $50,000 were listed as estimates and without names because the January 2015 application was filed before the staff was hired.)
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/09/8577302/campbell-browns-website-pays-well-got-help-anti-tenure-group
RaflW
Do people still read Matt Yglesias?
I guess I hadn’t realized that.
Right to Rise
@Morzer:
This isn’t my main job, numbnuts, it’s a kind of side project. An experiment, if you will.
The more liberals hate Jeb the more conservatives will like him. It’s what kept his brother afloat for so long. W. absolutely fucking ENRAGED the Left like no other politician I’ve ever seen, Liberals during the ’00s were so mad, so much of the time, I’m surprised we didn’t have exploding heads, especially after November 2004. Remember when the Bush team turned Kerry’s war record from his biggest strength into his biggest liability? It was an utterly superb troll job.
Not even Reagan made you guys so pissed. And the more pissed they got, the more the base liked him despite holding some moderate positions.
I can’t imagine what y’alls blood pressure is going to do when you start hearing the phrase “President-Elect Bush”. Again.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’m hoping that the truth of that statement doesn’t depend on what the word “slept with” actually means.
Bobby Thomson
@Gin & Tonic: that wasn’t his name (which might trigger the filter), it was his mantra. And he’s a DougJ sock puppet anyway.
Tripod
@catclub:
Their consultants told them that it would work itself out.
Right to Rise
@rikyrah:
Yup. Bush has the cash and the name. He’s invincible. The Bush family is invincible.
They’ll never go away.
NEVER
George P is next in line after Jeb…handsome, young, charming and Latino. Future Governor of Texas. Future POTUS.
Bet on it.
Schlemazel
@RaflW:
Tim is worse, he is smart enough to know better. I wish a slow wasting disease on him and Norm. They know they are doing evil. Scottie is just stupid.
Another MN disaster, Bachmann. She is crazy but not stupid whereas Palin is stupid but not crazy.
WaterGirl
@SFAW: Can you dig it?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It depends on what qualifies as barnyard animals.
Truth be told, I sleep with my dogs every day.
Gravenstone
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Different med was reverted to the non-profit. The med with the 5000% price increase (Daraprim) is still in Turing Pharma’s hands at present.
eta: looking at the synthesis, it’s bone simple. Getting the FDA approval as a new supplier would be much harder than actually making the drug.
rikyrah
who ever thought they had turned away from abortion? only delusional folks who haven’t been paying attention to what they’ve been doing in the states since 2010.
……………………………
Pay Close Attention to What the Republican Candidates Are Saying About Abortion
PAUL WALDMAN
SEPTEMBER 20, 2015
How abortion became the dominant issue of Republican politics.
If a year ago you had tried to predict what issues would dominate the presidential primary campaign of 2016, there would have been a few obvious contenders. The economy, of course, which is a central issue in every campaign. Obamacare? Definitely. After making opposition to the Affordable Care Act the defining feature of contemporary Republicanism—they’ve voted to repeal it over 50 times, after all, which must be unprecedented in American history—how could they not spend their primary arguing about which of them loathes it the most? Then there’s immigration, an issue that both animates the GOP base and has been the subject of lots of contention between the president and the Congress. Terrorism would surely figure prominently, as the candidates would compete to show that they are toughest-talkin’ buckaroo in the bunch.
But abortion? You might not have thought so. It would, like usual, be a box that requires checking—I’m pro-life, I’ll appoint only judges who “respect the Constitution,” nudge-nudge wink-wink—but beyond that, what more is there for Republican candidates to say?
It turns out there’s quite a bit more. And though it sometimes seems like the country has been locked in the same place on this issue for the last four decades, anti-abortion activists are probably feeling like they’re finally getting the attention they’re due, for the first time in years. That’s because those activists have long believed that the GOP mistreats them, asking for their labors at election time and promising that abortion rights will be a memory once they take power, but then failing to deliver.
http://prospect.org/article/pay-close-attention-what-republican-candidates-are-saying-about-abortion
Schlemazel
@Right to Rise:
Maybe true but unless you are Putin or ISIs why do you wish such a disaster befall American? Liberals love America and that’s why they work so hard to avoid another Bush disaster.
Patrick
@Gian:
It will be pretty easy to make her irrelevant. Put HP employees that she laid off and have them testify in an ad about her awful performance as a CEO. To make it even worse, they were laid off while she got a hefty good-bye package from HP. By the time Hillary’s ad team is done with her, she would look as irrelevant as Quayle or Palin.
They would be better off with a Kasich who at least is from a swing state and doesn’t have a disastrous run as a CEO.
Right to Rise
BTW, Hillary took the bait on #HeKeptUsSafe. One of her Super PACs released an ad blaming W for 9/11. Now Jeb is hitting her for exploiting tragedy for partisan gain.
NotMax
@rikyrah
You could have saved time and the risk of carpal tunnel problems by just linking to Political Animal.
WaterGirl
@MomSense:
Is that something they sell at the state fair in Maine? (Do they even have state fairs in Maine?)
Anoniminous
@Tim C.:
Ask and thou shalt recieve.
There’s a top line chart giving the basics. To really get at it have to dig into the state files.
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My gob, it is well and truly smacked. Diplomacy is a bad thing? Well of course it is! if you’re a Republican…
Bobby Thomson
@goblue72: and Trump loses because reasons?
bemused
@Schlemazel:
Strib: Jake Coleman, age 29, ihow, has been “lucky and blessed” and public service is a way to “give back”. That always sounds like a threat coming from R’s. He moved to Chanhassen after Ortman’s seat opened up, not the reason he moved there, simply wanted to live in “a place that shared his values”.
Mary Pawlenty considered running for Kline’s seat decided no.
@RaflW:
Pawlenty did utter his real views on occasion. He called schools/unions a cabal. Before he was gov, he said as speaker iirc he wasn’t responsible for disadvantaged families. iow, why should he give a rat’s ass.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Like herpes.
What a maroon ³.
Mike J
Well on our way to a TBogg unit, purely from neglect. Blog Protective Services are going to come take us away.
22over7
@Bobby Thomson: That’s what I’m saying. I’d like to hear an exit that doesn’t sound like fan fiction.
Renie
@Eric U.: You don’t need to be paid by Trump to do that, JEB makes himself look like a loser without anyone’s help.
Chris
@goblue72:
While that mostly makes sense… the other thing to consider is the sheer weakness of the Jeb Bush candidacy. Sure he starts out with handicaps (like the name), but it’s stunning just how bad a candidate he’s turning out to be, worse than Romney was at this point and he was absurdly uninspiring to the base already. It’s a question of whose sheer weakness ends up being greater, Jeb or the rest of the clown car.
Morzer
@Right to Rise:
More energy tonight, I like that.
redshirt
@Right to Rise: That’s some good trolling. Thanks.
Chyron HR
@Right to Rise:
Is that what the Bush family tells themselves? That Dubya is banned for life from the Republican National Convention because eeeeeevil liberals hate him so much?
That’s fucking hilarous.
Roger Moore
@Gravenstone:
It does look like an easy synthesis, but doing anything to FDA standards is tough. I would look to see if there’s a manufacturer in another country that you could buy from. Any patents on the API itself have long since expired, so they shouldn’t be able to prevent you from importing it. If somebody else is making it to standards that are acceptable to a serious regulator (e.g. EU, Japan) it shouldn’t be too hard to convince the FDA to let you import and sell it here.
SFAW
@Schlemazel:
Right to Rave is just projecting, as do all Rethugs and wingnuts. It’s the right that gets enraged when anyone they deem insufficiently pure or “right-thinking” gets elected. They go completely fucking nuts, all because of who a person is, not what they do or have done.
The left watches what the RWTMs do, and get pissed when those same RWTMs fuck over the poors, browns, or the country in general.
Right to Rave is just trying to convince himself that his savior is actually worth more than a pitcher of warm piss, and thus his shrieks are growing ever louder, more reality-free, and far more unhinged.
We should just pray he doesn’t blow his (figurative) “brains” out — whoever would have to clean up the blood stains shouldn’t have to put up with that.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
Check again, Bunky. The ad wasn’t released by a superPAC, but by a non-affiliated to Hillary group whose president also happens to head a superPAC.
What a maroon⁴.
Gravenstone
@Right to Rise: Aren’t you cute? You’re betting that one of the “little brown ones” will actually ascend to an office of government higher than dog catcher? Pro tip, bunkie – there will never be another Bush in Federal office again. The family name is toxic, and Poppy and Babs will die bitter and unfulfilled knowing this truth. No More Bushes!
Morzer
@NotMax:
He has the right to rise; what he lacks is the capacity.
Gravenstone
@Mike J: A little judicious troll baiting helps rack up the post count as well.
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: only Bushes are allowed to exploit tragedy for personal gain.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
We have lots of fairs in Maine with lots of 4 H clubs, oxen pulls, and all the other classic things. We don’t do the corn dog thing however.
Gravenstone
@Morzer: I hear there are many modern medicines that can help one with this little … dysfunction.
Morzer
@Gravenstone:
He should definitely see Alice.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Right to Rise:
Now, that’s really funny coming from the guy who talked about his brother, “He kept us safe”.
Renie
@Right to Rise: Does JEB read goat books too? or pig ones like Cameron?
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Wrong. ¡Heb! took the bait. His deserting coward of a brother did not keep us safe. They didn’t accuse him of causing 9/11, but it happened on his watch. He kept no one safe that day.
Morzer
@Renie:
Jeb! or as his real friends call him Bacon Peckerwood.
NotMax
@Morzer
Ain’t enough yeast or enough helium in the world to get the sorry concatenation of balderdash to rise.
NotMax
@MomSense
No giant butter lobster though, AFAIK.
:)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Maybe the blue pills will help.
Morzer
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I think the troll is trying desperately to tell us that “Dubya” is his safe word.
NotMax
@Morzer
Can’t take credit for the coinage, but really ought to change his nym to Jebberish.
Truth in advertising and all that….
SFAW
@MomSense:
That’s as good a way as any to keep Michele Bachmann outta Maine. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@MomSense: So everything doesn’t come on a stick at the Maine State Fairs? That’s kind of refreshing, though I imagine you don’t have the life size butter cow, do you?
I will never view a corn dog again without my brain conjuring up the images of the Bachmans eating their respective corn dogs at the Iowa State Fair. ::: shudder ::
WaterGirl
@SFAW: I call jinx.
NonyNony
@Morzer: R2R is my favorite performance artist.
I mean look at his work just on this thread – it’s a hilarious sendup of what someone dumb enough to think that Jeb! is a good candidate would be like. He pushes it a bit too far and gives himself away when he directly references cleeks law in all but name, but otherwise he’s doing some fine parody here.
WaterGirl
J. Michael Neal,
If you are reading this… I just want to say congratulations on finishing your story!
Really, congratulations are in order. It must feel great, and strange>
WaterGirl
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Lobster corndogs exist.
Morzer
@NonyNony:
Well, DougJ has officially denied being Asleep at the Switch…
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Maui county fair coming up this week. Menu choices are a bit … eclectic.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Gin & Tonic:
@Gravenstone:
Man, I can’t win for losing while posting today. I guess I should avoid posting during daylight on the 3rd Monday of September for a while. :-p
Thanks for the corrections!
Cheers,
Scott.
goblue72
@Bobby Thomson: Trump loses the primary because he’s hit his ceiling. And when the GOP primary rolls through the states that are actually important – California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and New York – he’s going to flame out. In part because by the time of the actual primary elections in those states, a number of also-rans will have dropped out – Carson, Walker, Perry, Cruz, Santorum & Huckabee will all be gone. Bush will be around, maybe Rubio, and maybe Fiorina – but she’ll only be around if Trump hasn’t quit yet and they need her to continue suicide bombing Trump. But even that I doubt. The Establishment will circle the wagons and voters of those big states will speak – and Trump won’t be their man.
You’ll notice that several of those states are “Blue” states – NY, CA, & IL – they matter in the GOP primary because they are BIG states and they exert a strong “pull to the center” due to the more moderate make-up of their GOP voters. Its why Romney and MCain were the nominees and not one of the looney tunes running those years.
This is all unfolding to script. Remember Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 Plan? He had his moment in the sun too.
The first GOP primary is Feb 1, 2016 in Iowa, followed by NH on Feb 9. That’s over 4 months away. The average voter hasn’t even made out their Christmas lists yet. They haven’t decided whether Uncle Joe gets invited this year to Thanksgiving. Heck, the average voter hasn’t even figured out what their kid is going to be for Halloween.
Bobby Thomson
@Morzer: not convinced.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
From the link:
Not a confidence builder for the average home cook, that.
NonyNony
@Morzer: If R2R were dougj in disguise I’d be surprised. R2R isn’t as polished as I’d expect a dougj troll to be. (For example, dougj would likely not have thrown a cleeks law ref in there unless he wanted to get caught.)
Right to Rise
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Exactly. Trollololol. That was the whole point with #HeKeptUsSafe and Hillary fell for it.
Morzer
@Right to Rise:
Much the way Jeb! fell to 8% after getting the inestimable benefit of your strategic genius, eh?
goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: That thing looks like the sort of abomination only someone outside of Maine would do to a lobster. The only thing a lobster in Maine needs after coming out of the lobster pot – preferably as close to the docks as you can get – is maybe a little squirt of lemon or bit of clarified butter. If absolutely necessary because you are on the run or cuz you’re in Wiscasset for a pit stop on your way to Boothbay Harbor, you can shove it on a buttered hot dog roll and call it a day.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey, those look much better than the real corn dogs. (which I have never eaten and will never eat)
Morzer
@NonyNony:
I don’t really think the troll is DougJ. I was just joking about official denials. Or, as Sarah Palin calls them, official denalis.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: How do they get the spaghetti and meatballs on a stick?
WaterGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Never stop posting!
Right to Rise
@Chyron HR:
W is going to be there when Jeb is the nominee. It’s already in the cards–and a prime time slot, too. The only question is does he introduce the Vice Presidential nominee or go on the first night.
Omnes Omnibus
@goblue72: Dude, I wasn’t advocating for the things.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
You hold the Republican down and you take a good sharp knife and.. well, you have to get the balls from somewhere else, but the spaghetti’s easy to remove.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Jeb stuck his dick in a hornet’s nest. Not a very bright move, but he’s been working for months to prove he’s NOT the S-M-R-T one.
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est:
I can’t keep up. Is that better or worse than sticking it in a dead pig’s mouth?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
A gaggle of Scouts, getting in their knot tying practice at the same time.
:)
Right to Rise
@Villago Delenda Est:
How so?
W had an entire freaking convention devoted to September 11th. You think 9/11 is going to hurt a Bush? W’s leadership in the days and months after the attack were his finest hour, he had 90% approval ratings. You think remind people of the warm, fuzzy things W did when the nation was terrified is going to hurt Jeb?
Remember this ad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWA052-Bl48
Watch it. Some say it’s why Bush won Ohio in ’04.
#HeKeptUsSafe
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Have to snicker at the booth offering not just a plate of smoked meat (unspecified as to what the meat is) but also a tub of smoked meat.
Haven’t attended in years, but may have to drop in to scope that out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Because his deserting coward of a brother ignored all the warnings and 9/11 happened. On his watch. If he was actually the leader you say he is, he would have demonstrated that BEFORE 9/11 and PAID FUCKING ATTENTION to the warnings, and the advice of Clinton’s national security team.
Instead, he blew them all off. And was caught with his pants down, reading “My Pet Goat”.
Objectively, that means he did NOT keep anyone safe. Thousands died. The truth hurts, doesn’t it?
Right to Rise
@Villago Delenda Est:
Watch the ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWA052-Bl48
We’ll run stuff like that if they try to bring up W and 9/11. How do you like it?
I like the “My Pet Goat” talking point. Do Diebold voting macines next! Let’s relive the ’00s Greatest Fails from the Left!
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Hillary is going to clean his clock, and that’s assuming (a very iffy assumption) that he is actually the nominee, because he’s been dropping in the polls, not rising.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I haven’t eaten unidentified meat since I lived in the dorms in college.
goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry about that – there was just something about it that horrified something deep in my soul.
Right to Rise
@Villago Delenda Est:
Watch the ad.
That’s what we do when you bring up 9/11. I notice you dropped it alreayd.
I know, you should scream “HALIBURTON!” at the top of your lungs. It didn’t make your side look like cranks at all in the ’00s.
SFAW
@Right to Rise:
Some also say the Earth is only 7000 years old.
But, as you know, Bush “won” because Ken Blackwell cooked the books.
Please! Don’t get ENRAGED by hearing the truth. I mean, you seem to get ENRAGED by every other thing that doesn’t join you in fellating Jeb?
We’re just worried that your RAGE will cause your head to a-splode. Notice I didn’t say “brain” — I don’t want to ascribe things to you that you don’t have
redshirt
I’m watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and it’s woken up all kinds of feelings.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
Clock?
CLOCK‽
Terrorist!
;)
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Not going to work. Besides, Ohio was “won” by Diebold.
Wendy Faulkner died because the deserting coward ignored everything he was told prior to 9/11.
SFAW
@Right to Rise:
No, what you do is the equivalent of “Look over there! Whitewater!” and so forth.
You’re so cute when you’re lying. Which is, I guess, all the time. Does typing your stuff also give you dimples? Even cuter!
goblue72
@Right to Rise: Sweet. It will be immediately followed by a video with the photo of W in his stupid flight suit in front of Mission Accomplished banner, fading into the iconic photo of Hillary in the Situation Room with the administration that actually caught Osama bin Laden.
But, yes RtR, please proceed.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: You saw what I did there!
Right to Rise
@SFAW:
Yeeeees….that’s the stuff! Do “imminent threat” next. I’m having so much fun reliving this. The ’04 campaign was just fantastically fun for me.
@redshirt:
Michael Moore: not a dipshit, fringe crank at all! After all look what happened to Wes Clark when he got endorsed by him, he rocketed to the top of the oh wait it was the beginning of the end for him because Americans fucking hate Michael Moore and think he’s a loud, boorish, morbidly obese bully and crank.
redshirt
@Right to Rise: He may be, but it’s a nice period piece of 2001-2003. Scary times, they were.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Yet Donald Trump is loud, boorish, morbidly hair challenged and a crank, and he’s kicking ¡Heb!’s ass all over the place.
Right to Rise
@redshirt:
Not scary at all.
America was united behind real leadership possessing moral clarity, and the Left was relegated to the lunatic fringe. Democrats even had to basically pretend they were Republicans to have a shot at the nomination.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: “Moral clarity” is one of the things that a certain Central European politician promised his people in the 1930s.
Morzer
@Right to Rise:
Your heroic candidate can’t even stand up for his own wife against Donald Trump. He can’t crack 10% in the polls these days.
Seriously though, isn’t it time you made an honest chicken out of your partner?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Looking the page over again, noticed one of the booths is actually offering balut. (Do not visit link if easily prone to queasiness.)
No lines there; instant service.
Right to Rise
@Villago Delenda Est:
BUSHITLER! Yeeeees! Bingo!
Mike in NC
Every week is going to remind us:
JEBzzzz campaign
Slowly circlin’ the drain
Nothin’ will be sweeter
Than the Bush family’s pain
The electro-shock therapy still won’t improve his low energy levels.
Morzer
@Right to Rise:
Put a ring on that chicken, son.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: If you’re not a Partei member, you can see the parallels all too clearly. Right down to the echos of Gleiwitz in 2003.
Right to Rise
@Villago Delenda Est:
Keep it up. Compare Cheney to Darth Vader next.
Morzer
@Mike in NC:
He’s a loser
He’s a loser
And he is what he appears to be
Of all the love he has stumbled and lost
There is one love he should never have crossed
She is a girl in a million, my friend
Jeb should have known Hill would win in the end….
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Darth Vader managed to redeem himself in the end.
The Jedi say that no one is beyond redemption.
They never met Dick Cheney.
NotMax
@Right to Rise
No one has the right to rise Cheney up from his particular cesspit of depravity, vitriol and malevolence to the relatively lesser evil plane of Mr. Vader.
Bobby Thomson
@goblue72: a couple problems with that. First, you’re begging the question by asserting without proof that Trump has hit his ceiling. He’s giving the rank and file what they want, and Rush and Fox are on board. Second, even if the establishment puts all its eggs in one basket, the establishment, collectively, is getting pantsed. Third, Rubio, Carson, and Fiorina (where Trump’s competition actually is) are getting the “racist/sexist but in denial about that” vote. Maybe not all of their supporters, but a good chunk, and they’re more likely to go to Trump than to Bush or a lesser candidate.
Bobby Thomson
@goblue72: also, too, this ain’t 2012 and there is no Romney – other than Trump himself.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Not looking! :-)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Right to Rise: Hell, Cheney compared HIMSELF to Darth Vader.
Morzer
@Bobby Thomson:
It’s going to be hillarious when El Shruboso drops out and the troll slinks away weeping and raging.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: The only question is if the Jackson estate would let us use the music.
SFAW
@Right to Rise:
As usual, can’t respond to the truth, so you continue to play the insult game, and make shit up.
Fortunately, I don’t speak Lying Motherfucker, so I can’t translate your “imminent threat” bullshit into Standard English
But you’re still cute when you’re lying. Pretty soon, we’ll see a picture of you mixed in with those of Marc’s kittens. I bet your Mommy just pinches your cheek every night when you come up from the basement, to toddle off to your Sparkle Pony sheets and pillow case.
Nighty night, sweetie.
SFAW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
And he determined that Vader was a rank amateur.
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: I certainly hope 2016 isn’t a referendum on Junior’s presidency, or worse yet, a comparison to the Bill Clinton years. What chance would Democrats have?
Bobby Thomson
@Right to Rise: and I definitely hope Republicans don’t repeal the 22nd amendment. That would allow Junior to run for a third term and we’d be powerless to stop him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Right to Rise: Of course, any comparisons of George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler are unfair.
Adolf Hitler was a decorated combat veteran.
The deserting coward, not so much.
Davis X. Machina
@MomSense: We give the kids the Friday off the week of the Fryeburg Fair. That way they’re all basically skipping the same day, instead of ditching school on a rolling basis. Makes it easier to plan.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
And a better painter.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Guess Hitler didn’t have a pop who could get him into the National Guard.
SFAW
@Chris:
Edited for accuracy.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax: A whole apartment in an afternoon! Two coats!
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Is that you, Ron? Ron Vibbentrop?
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yuuge! Very classy!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Morzer: Fiorina has never held elective office. I can’t see any Republican with national ambitions, who has been waiting in line for years, simply rolling over and saying she should be Veep.
We should remember that she was a disaster when McCain tried to fluff her up as some sort of economic adviser for his campaign in 2008:
Say what you will about Kasich and Rubio (and I think evidence shows they’re disasters), at least they’ve been elected to a substantial office before.
Fiorina is a GOP flavor-of-the-month. I expect she won’t last as long as Bachmann did.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gravenstone
@Morzer: Nah, he’ll just change teams – again. I seem to recall UNLIMITED CAMPAIGN CASH shilled for someone else before Rmoney became “inevitable”.
Doug Gardner
@Renie: Thank you for stating my thoughts far better than I would have done. I’m rather tired of RtR hijacking every thread, though to be truthful, the responses of so many in the BJ commentariat are not helping. Your comment, however, is perfectly on-point.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Gravenstone: I don’t think r2r is our old friend V e r i t a s (s/he of UCC) myself.
See, e.g., https://balloon-juice.com/2011/12/22/back-door-man/#comment-2948695
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who is having trouble posting again. Grr…)