Thursday, November 13, 2014

SIDESHOW.

The simple version is, a consultant to the Democrats on Obamacare made some impolitic remarks about voters, and the conservative response has been to elevate the consultant, Jonathan Gruber, to the imaginary office of Architect of Obamacare so they can impeach him from it -- Washington Post:
Hearings floated as Hill Republicans seize on Gruber Obamacare comments... 
Jordan said House Republicans have been sending each other a blizzard of e-mails and text messages this week, and he expects the interest in "bringing [Gruber] up here to talk" will gain traction as members return to Washington. House Republicans will gather Thursday evening for their first series of votes since the election. 
"I just had a colleague text me saying, 'We've got to look into this!" Jordan said as he glanced at his phone outside the House floor Wednesday morning.
It's not like they have anything important to do.

This miasma has led some of the brethren unto weird, elaborate fantasies. Bryan Preston at PJ Media:
Allah makes another good point, which is that Republicans probably shouldn’t lead with Gruber’s capitol dressdown. Gear up for it, make sure it’s not another missed opportunity, wasted on grandstanding instead of asking the witness questions and letting him squirm on national TV.
Wouldn't want any grandstanding!
But not first thing. First thing, they should take Mary Landrieu up on a Keystone vote first, see how the Democrats behave and what Obama does after it passes. Increase dissension in the opposition’s ranks before launching the assault on their castle.
Preston's D&D cards and Risk gameboard are getting a workout today.
Just make sure to get him [Gruber? I guess] in Congress under oath ahead of the Supreme Court’s look at the exchange issue. He’ll surely provide more useful soundbites about how he and the Democrats lied to everyone, gamed the CBO, and knew all along that the subsidies/exchange
Maybe Gruber will insult Chief Justice John Roberts specifically while he’s under oath, too. 
Then he'll yell I'M A BIG STUPID JERK AN I KISSED OBAMA AND HE LIKED IT and dissolve into smoking dust as an outraged public rises up and makes Bryan Preston (who, after all, told them how to assault the castle) Lord Protector.

As usual with rightbloggers, delusions of grandeur must alternate with persecution mania, and there are actually people who will tell you that this fulsomely-covered story is being hushed up by the liberal media:


It's always piquant when they take a break from hollering that the hated MSM is dead to complaining the hated MSM is not only alive but so powerful it can hide all the videos of Jonathan Gruber from the public, except on YouTube

Their aim, inchoate as it is, seems to be to convince enough reporters that they must be even-handed about this (that is, take their bullshit seriously) to generate sufficient airtime to make them feel all zeitgeisty. They've already been pretty successful  (from the Washington Post story: "The controversy has lit a fire under conservatives eager to dismantle the law and has raised eyebrows among the law’s defenders, who are concerned that such comments will further damage" blah blah), but they won't be satisfied until some big-time brow-furrower like Jake Tapper has done a hard-hitting special series, maybe even bringing on Ron Fournier to do his Mickey Kaus act and talk about innocence betrayed. For extra laffs they could get Romney, for whom Gruber labored to develop Romneycare, to weep that he had ever nourished such a snake at his bosom.

The signal irony of the whole grift is that the grifters are pretending to be outraged that someone said voters are stupid, which is the First Principle of their livelihoods.

202 comments:

  1. Those silly goopers.


    The architect for Obamacare was Elizabeth Fowler.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just make sure to get him [Gruber? I guess] in Congress under oath ahead
    of the Supreme Court’s look at the exchange issue. He’ll surely provide
    more useful soundbites about how he and the Democrats lied to everyone,
    gamed the CBO, and knew all along that the subsidies/exchange


    Yeah, somehow, I can't think how, this reminds me of the Clinton impeachment when Ken Starr was about to give testimony, and Limbaugh was all seeing starbursts over the SEEKRITS he would reveal that would seal Clinton's fate and show what an evil man he was, the true silver bullet that would doom Democrats from ever taking the White House ever ever again.

    Three guesses as to what happened in the event, and the first two don't count.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The architect for Obamacare was Elizabeth Fowler OUR DARK LORD SATAN PRAISE HIS NAME WORMS

    fixed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Megalon10:17 AM

    This is another supposed scandal, like Benghazi, that I absolutly do not understand at all. "Hearings" into what, exactly? Some asshole politician shooting his mouth off? What crime has allegedly been committed? God, do you want to make congress even more hated and an even bigger joke than they are already?

    "Maybe Gruber will insult Chief Justice John Roberts specifically while he’s under oath, too."


    Yeah. Maybe.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What crime has allegedly been committed?

    Does there even need to be one, anymore?

    ReplyDelete
  6. AHEM.

    http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/e5/cc/0c/e5cc0ca79f8b80adb73943cecbfc8a22.jpg
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  7. M. Krebs10:23 AM

    The stupid in this country is on the verge of becoming a massive, hideous, sentient being. Remember The Blob? Kinda like that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Digby has the scoop on this:
    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rM-FQE9UoXc/VGPsBFmv3TI/AAAAAAAAVmc/8kuYVW8Qn3c/s640/Screenshot%2B2014-11-12%2Bat%2B3.22.47%2BPM.png

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  9. susanoftexas10:29 AM

    McArdle jumped on that like a libertarian on free government goodies. Scandal! Horror! Death Spiral! Of course she has been taking her readers for a ride for years, depending on their stupidity to lie to them and inflame their hatred of insurance reform.
    It's just like when she tried so desperately to gin up a scandal against Solyndra, a solar panel company. The Koches have been attacking solar power gains and evidently it doesn't occur to libertarians that solar panels can help free them from the tyranny of oil and save them a lot of money.

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  10. gocart mozart10:30 AM

    A longstanding and solemn principle of statutory interpretation going all the way back to Sir William Blackstone and English common law is that whatever a Gruber said once is permanently binding on a law's meaning even if the Gruber later says he had misspoke and and he has subsequently retracted said prior statement because no takebacksies.

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  11. susanoftexas10:30 AM

    I'm in. Let's prove their stupidity under oath.

    ReplyDelete
  12. susanoftexas10:32 AM

    It already took out the roller rink and now it's heading for the freeway.

    ReplyDelete
  13. gocart mozart10:32 AM

    Their mendacity will trump their stupidity.

    ReplyDelete
  14. susanoftexas10:33 AM

    You are not thinking like a Republican. Simply go on tv and say "Republican" and "stupid" over and over and over until it sticks in people's minds like a Libbey commercial.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I would doubt "no takebacksies" is truly a legal term, but, hell, whoi knows with lawyers, amirite?

    ReplyDelete
  16. jcricket10:34 AM

    so the mouth breathers want to put stupidity on trial? don't they do that every time they're in front of a camera?

    ReplyDelete
  17. "byyyy... MEN-EN!"

    "Stuuuu.. PI-ID!"

    ReplyDelete
  18. Some asshole politician shooting his mouth off?Worse. Someone who's not a politician expressing a personal opinion on legislation drafted and voted on by other people. I almost fainted dead away just typing that.

    God, do you want to make congress even more hated and an even bigger joke than they are already?[GOP looks at Congressional and GOP approval ratings from 2014]

    GOP: Sure, why not?

    ReplyDelete
  19. GeniusLemur10:36 AM

    "Maybe Gruber will insult Chief Justice John Roberts specifically while he’s under oath, too."
    Which isn't a crime either. Or terribly controversial, seeing what a pro-business shill Roberts is.

    ReplyDelete
  20. He's probably hoping they can cite Gruber for contempt of court or something, which of course will doom Obamacare because stuff & things.

    ReplyDelete
  21. susanoftexas10:39 AM

    Why are we not calling them cons? And libertarians ex-cons? Moderates are con-temps.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Zencomix10:41 AM

    If they wait until the new Senators are sworn in, they can bring Gruber into the cloakroom where Joni Ernst can cut his balls off. We were promised things out here in Iowa, so let's get on with it...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Three guesses as to what happened in the event, and the first two don't count.(1) The American people saw what stupid, mendacious shitbags Republicans were, and voted them out of power for at least a generation?


    (2) Rush Limbaugh lost all his listeners?


    (3) We're currently looking yet again at Republican Congressional majorities doing all they can to delegitimize any exercise of power by a Democratic president? And the shitshow will continue, at least in the House, even if Dems hold the White House in 2016?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Actually, making Justice Roberts feel pissier might well doom Obamacare. It would certainly work on Anthony Kennedy.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Smurch10:43 AM

    "No takebacksies" is much more powerful in the original Latin.

    ReplyDelete
  26. montag210:45 AM

    I remain sore amazed at the frothing, baying frenzy amongst the right wing over a plan that did as much or more to prop up the increasingly (and rightly) unpopular for-profit health care industry than it did for the average American.

    Yes, their rabid base is always eager to bite off its nose to spite its face if there's even the merest suggestion that the "undeserving" (almost never defined, except in rather dark and amorphous terms) may benefit, but when was it ever in the long-term interest of a political party to enter into a suicide pact with its snarling, unhinged fringe?

    Oops, that snarling, unhinged fringe is now in Congress. Never mind.

    ReplyDelete
  27. montag210:53 AM

    "Roller rink" is code for Congress.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I maintain that at this point, Congress (at least from the GOP perspective) is little more than a farm league for the conservative media apparatus. The entire point is to raise your public profile via grandstanding and feeding bullshit to the fans so that once you leave office, you're assured a cushy job - a think tank, a radio show, a revolving speaking tour, a show on FNC. It doesn't matter if the general public thinks you're crazy, stupid or spiteful, so long as they know your name.
    What better chance to build up your profile than with an endless set of pointless hearings? Rep. Jim Jordan needs a lot more material for his demo reel, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Has anyone yet pointed out that the FSM is basically Cthulhu minus the mass insanity?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Wow, thanks for the increased minimum standards for coverage, O Satan. And the ability to purchase coverage with pre-existing
    conditions, because evil. And the extended dependent coverage, the better to keep them healthy for eventual sacrifice. And the attempt to increase access to birth control for sluts. And the greater availability of affordable subsidized
    insurance in the individual market, along with the Medicaid expansion, that have
    covered millions with your leathery mantle of government dependency.

    On the other hand, fie upon
    you, O Satan, for not creating sixty votes for single payer in the US
    Senate using your polychromatic dragon's magical hellpoop. Or
    architectizing something that is more resistant to flagrantly lawless
    Supreme Court rulings. (I mean, come on, they're lawyers.)


    On balance, though, I gotta say, PRAISE YOUR NAME.

    ReplyDelete
  31. montag211:04 AM

    Indeed. Now that we're in the era of pre-crime enforcement, there doesn't even need to be any evidence. There only needs to be a charge. And if it's thought up by Loonie Louie Gohmert, all the better.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Jon Hendry11:05 AM

    I'll have you know, good sir, that D&D doesn't have "cards". [flounce]

    ReplyDelete
  33. The funny part is that if you spend enough time on wingnut sites, you'll see plenty of ads for solar cell kits from dubious online companies. They're always sold either as survivalist gear or under one of those classic "Obama doesn't want you to know about this!" tags. So yeah - at the same time these guys are preaching that solar power is some kind of scam and we should just keep burning fossil fuels until Joe Bob finishes his perpetual motion machine, they don't see any problem with using solar heat pumps and the like themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I think 4th ed. did, actually. They had cards for spells or some shit like that.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Jon Hendry11:08 AM

    4th edition was an illusion.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Yeah, I'd like to think that too, but it stubbornly refuses to go away when I dispel it.

    ReplyDelete
  37. *rolls to disbelieve*

    Yeah, no, it's still there. Shit.

    ReplyDelete
  38. He’ll surely provide more useful soundbites about how he and the Democrats lied to everyone, gamed the CBO, and knew all along that the subsidies/exchange



    gruber displays said devious plans in this shocking photo below.

    ReplyDelete
  39. BigHank5311:15 AM

    It's another retread of the wingnuts' version of the first amendment, wherein batshit crazy reactionaries get to say anything that pops into their heads, because radical Alinskyite feminist homosexual community organizers are too corrupting the youth of America, while asking them to produce proof of their claims is anti-freedom Darwinist perfidy*.

    Once every power structure (legislative, executive, judicial, military, police, etc.) is thoroughly politicized, I think you'll find that anything can be turned into a crime. Would you care to spend a year as a black person in this country?

    *They will never use the word "perfidy".

    ReplyDelete
  40. BigHank5311:17 AM

    They're entitled to cheap energy. The rest of you peons can get back to work fattening up their retirement portfolios.

    ReplyDelete
  41. BigHank5311:18 AM

    I'm failing a lot of saving throws these days.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Satan, like the Klan, is working to be more inclusive.

    ReplyDelete
  43. susanoftexas11:18 AM

    If we could harness the nuclear-sized energy of their "fuck you, I got mine" we wouldn't need solar energy.

    ReplyDelete
  44. They will never use the word "perfidy".

    It'd gobsmack me if they could pronounce it, much less spell it.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Back... and to the LEFT.

    Think about it.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Mr. Wonderful11:25 AM

    Not to be pedantic, but "no takebacksies" IS the original Latin.

    ReplyDelete
  47. The Cons have been the ones banking on the stupidity of the general public ever since the ACA was rolled out. Remember death panels? Rationing of health care? Free abortions that would wipe out an entire generation of Americans? And of course, the ever popular "This bill is a gazillion pages long and SO complicated that NO ONE can understand it!" The mistake that Obama and the Dems made was in overestimating the intelligence of the public, and assuming that of COURSE, people would see that no caps, no pre-existing conditions, keeping college age kids on the family health plan, and subsidies for folks too poor to afford anything more than worthless high deductible, low cap sucker policies were good things. Well, the public proved that they were not immune to the relentless barrage of lies from the right, and the Dems were too cowardly to stand up and fight for their own bill, so here we are. If Gruber is smart and articulate enough, maybe his testifying before Congress will be a good thing.

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  48. +1 triangulation of fire

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  49. Estoppel. Which is Old French, not Latin, but still.

    ReplyDelete
  50. GeniusLemur11:28 AM

    "...batshit crazy reactionaries get to say anything that pops into their heads, and automatically get a huge public forum to do it, such as radio or TV, because radical..."
    Fixed.

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  51. Mr. Wonderful11:32 AM

    ...plus meatballs?

    ReplyDelete
  52. because no takebacksies.The ones asserting this over Gruber are the same crowd who are freely flip-flopping previously-expressed legal arguments in the Halbig Case. Which, back in Sanityworld, would be a lot more dispositive than Gruber's off-the-cuff remarks.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Are we really sure those are meatballs?

    ReplyDelete
  54. If Gruber is smart and articulate enoughGiven how much fodder he's already provided for wingnuts, I'd surmise that this is a pretty big "if."

    ReplyDelete
  55. Unfortunately, there seems to be something about TV cameras that transmutes "stupidity", into "good, old fashioned common sense". Maybe it's the post vidclip "commentary".

    ReplyDelete
  56. Mr. Wonderful11:38 AM

    Gruber could, if it comes to that, use such hearings as an opportunity to get off some good ones about how many Americans seem not to understand how insurance risk pools work, how "stupid" Congress is, how our health care system is "the best in the world" only if you're rich, how irrational it all is, etc. Imagine the dunderheads who would be questioning him, after all.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Mr. Wonderful11:40 AM

    First, I should have read satch's comment first. But the difference here would be, Gruber would be going into these hearings prepared, and not (as he did at Penn) speaking off the cuff to a gathering of peers. The circs would be completely different.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Mr. Wonderful11:41 AM

    Schismist.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Well, this is his big chance, and he's all we've got.

    ReplyDelete
  60. BigHank5311:48 AM

    You'd think there'd be more of a market for a pundit who'd roll a clip and then shout "What the fuck was " but it looks like everyone else is willing to let Jon Stewart have all of it.

    ReplyDelete
  61. KatWillow11:49 AM

    the grifters are pretending to be outraged that someone said voters are stupid Truth is to repugs what 1) sunlight is to vampires 2) soap is to 10 year olds 3) Hydrofluoric Acid to enemies of Walter White.

    ReplyDelete
  62. tigrismus11:49 AM

    Pfft. "Oh-nay akebacksie-tays."

    ReplyDelete
  63. KatWillow11:50 AM

    Gruber should say "I'm very very VERY sorry that the stupid people took offense at my comment! The intelligent people know it wasn't aimed at them."

    ReplyDelete
  64. KatWillow11:51 AM

    Montag2: I love you, may I have your baby?

    ReplyDelete
  65. KatWillow11:54 AM

    Someone who's not a politician expressing a personal opinion on legislation drafted... by Republicans. Who then refused to vote for it.


    A Black Hole example of repug "intelligence", which doesn't even reach the level of animal cunning. More like "stimulus–response".

    ReplyDelete
  66. tigrismus11:56 AM

    Aw, hell yez.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Preston's D&D cards and Risk gameboard are getting a workout today.

    That's not what he's playing with!

    ReplyDelete
  68. gocart mozart11:58 AM

    Google translates says "Non accipies backsies"

    ReplyDelete
  69. Robert Massing12:03 PM

    I AM OUTRAGED (by this year-old comment that I just heard about yesterday.) HOW DARE HE INSULT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (a year ago)? Why, I've half a mind to go back in time and be OUTRAGED contemporaneously!

    ReplyDelete
  70. Yeah, yeah. I know. Conservative Dems in Congress wouldn't let Obama do all those good things he wanted to.

    That's why he campaigned for Joe Lierberman and Blanche Lincoln in their primaries. And got rid of the 50 State Strategy. And made Debbie Wasserman Schultz head of the DNC.

    Thatss the problem with the "conservative Dems wouldn't let Obama do what he wanted" dodge. He is one. He filled his cabinet with them. A couple liberals here and there,
    like Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod? Deep sixed.

    Obama's legacy isn't the ACA. It's that he took the biggest mandate for change the Democrats have had
    in my lifetime and blew it protecting and enriching the banksters. Not to mention the
    Bush-Cheney war criminals
    .

    It wasn't Ralph Nader, or Glenn Greenwald, or "emoproggies' that did that. It was our cynical Corporatist-in-Chief.

    Instead of wasting your time making excuses for him, mds, why don't you spend some energy fighting his next set of betrayals? Bill Clinton did some of his worst damage in the last two years of his 2nd term (e.g. repeal of Glass-Steagal and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000).

    Expect more of the same from our hero.
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  71. zencomix12:27 PM

    If they wait until the new Senators are sworn in, Joni Ernst can fulfill some campaign promises and cut off Gruber's balls in the cloakroom.

    ReplyDelete
  72. tigrismus12:27 PM

    "Voters are dumb" is a basic tenet of conservatism, and now they're going to act appalled?

    ReplyDelete
  73. gocart mozart12:29 PM

    Acting appalled is also a basic tenet of conservatism.

    ReplyDelete
  74. tigrismus12:38 PM

    And being appalling, but I guess they had to be good at SOMEthing.

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  75. It's bad form to talk about the scam in front of the marks.

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  76. Acting appalling is yet another basic tenet of conservatism.

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  77. tigrismus12:40 PM

    GET OUTA MA BRANE

    ReplyDelete
  78. GET OUTA MA BRANE

    He's just stringing you along.

    ReplyDelete
  79. DN Nation12:45 PM

    A lot of American voters are stupid. Particularly conservative ones.

    Cry about it, Fournier, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Thanks for that link to the article about the "free trade" deals that may get fast-tracked. Very informative.


    I do expect President Obama to push for that, and for the Keystone Pipeline, and for some kind of "Grand Bargain" that cuts Social Security. I suspect that he would very much like to add these items to his legacy.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Another Kiwi1:02 PM

    The shadows are all wrong. That was NOT on the moon.

    ReplyDelete
  82. BigHank531:03 PM

    No fair trying to change the topology.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Plus there are no stars and you can see the strings.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps1:05 PM

    I love fourth edition, but I also really love World of Darkness, so what do I know

    ReplyDelete
  85. Another Kiwi1:06 PM

    From The Crown vs mabel Pig 1225? Mabel was set up.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps1:07 PM

    The moral of the story: mocking stupidity is bad, but praising stupidity is good.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Original World of Darkness, or post-Time of Judgment reboot?

    ReplyDelete
  88. Another Kiwi1:23 PM

    I wonder if Gruber held the same attitudes when "he was a key architect of both the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, sometimes referred to as "Romneycare"...,"- Wikipedia.

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  89. Gruber would be going into these hearings preparedThese hearings will be an opportunity for Republican members of Congress to grandstand, to present Gruber with variations of "Have you finally stopped beating your wife?" gotchas, and to cut him off if he starts to say anything substantive. If any facts accidentally start to make it into the record despite all that, the chair may well have the lights and sound equipment turned off. So I hope Gruber has been preparing by learning movie-style Shaolin kung fu, because that's the only way he'll be able to win the dog-and-pony show they'd put on.

    ReplyDelete
  90. catclub1:30 PM

    It is an anagram of derpify, which they know how to do.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Another Kiwi1:31 PM

    And are we going to see retractions of the "Liberalism is a mental disorder" slogan? Now that it's bad to mock the stupidsl.

    ReplyDelete
  92. The cabinet, of course, has nothing to do with the composition of the house and Senate.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Since the return from his stay on the moon,
    He legislates like spring and shoots like June.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Yes, that would offend ANY grifter.

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  95. I have this image of Congress scrambling through BenghaziBoweFastGruber!! searching for anything that will allow absolutely get the votes for impeachment, until the end of time.

    "Senator, President Obama has been out of office for 15 years, don't you think it is time -?"

    "Shut up, damn you! I know it's here somewhere!! Maybe if we play all of his speeches backwards ... at half-speed?"

    ReplyDelete
  96. FlipYrWhig2:11 PM

    Oh noes, Teh 50-State Strategy! A plan whose goal and outcome was getting center-right Democrats elected to Congress. True progressives know that such perfidy will never be forgotten.

    ReplyDelete
  97. FlipYrWhig2:14 PM

    Estoppel is the libertarian with the mustache, right?

    ReplyDelete
  98. Adrian2:15 PM

    So Gruber is replacing Lois Lerner as Current Wingnut Boogeyman?

    ReplyDelete
  99. Matt Jones2:29 PM

    "The controversy has lit a fire under conservatives eager to dismantle the law"


    Fuck the WaPo, let's call a spade a spade: these are "conservatives eager to FUCK OVER AND/OR KILL THEIR CONSTITUENTS". That's what this is.

    ReplyDelete
  100. ADHDJ2:31 PM

    The scandal with Solyndra was that the Chinese decided to undercut them on prices and sell panels at a loss to kill a promising American startup. They had cheaper, better technology that was a real threat to the growing dominance of the Chinese in solar panel manufacturing. (For some crazy reason, probably because they are commies, the Chinese think that solar power is the future.) And like Fast & Furious, it was yet another Obama "scandal" that actually happened before Obama took office.

    ReplyDelete
  101. That would cause a con-tre-temps.

    All right, I'll show myself out.

    ReplyDelete
  102. And everything under the Sun is in tune,
    but the Sun is eclipsed by BENGHAZI!

    ReplyDelete
  103. It could always be worse. Ever played in a d6-based system? There's nothing like a fight lasting a fucking hour because you have to roll twenty dice every time someone moves.

    ReplyDelete
  104. montag22:52 PM

    Uh, nice thought, but, I'm pretty sure her husband would object.

    ReplyDelete
  105. gocart mozart2:57 PM

    That aint an act.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Another Kiwi2:57 PM

    Lois Lane?

    ReplyDelete
  107. dmsilev3:03 PM

    Dick Cheney architected Obamacare? Did not know that.

    ReplyDelete
  108. redoubtagain3:05 PM

    Your Multitalented Republican Party, Ltd, ladies and gentlemen--simultaneously able to commit real crimes and manufacture fake ones for export to Democrats.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Of course. She is in some sort of extra-marital relationship with a FOREIGNER.

    ReplyDelete
  110. waspuppet3:12 PM

    "Maybe Gruber will insult Chief Justice John Roberts specifically while he’s under oath, too."

    That'd be awesome. If he can't manage it, bring me up there.

    ReplyDelete
  111. No, because reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Another Kiwi3:14 PM

    That guy's father's name is Jor El. Elbola?!?! Just saying.
    Now, AK can you tell us the first step of Glycolysis which you learnt 30 years ago?
    No. But I do know the name of Superman's father which I learnt 45 years ago, without having to look it up.

    ReplyDelete
  113. ADHDJ3:26 PM

    (RON) PAUL IS DEAD

    ReplyDelete
  114. ADHDJ3:29 PM

    "Maybe Sarah Palin will show up in a stars and stripes bikini specifically while she's wearing a Reagan mask, too."

    ReplyDelete
  115. Upvote for snark, not image.

    ReplyDelete
  116. TGuerrant3:37 PM

    Gruber? Guy wears some nice suits.

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  117. Gromet3:44 PM

    Maybe Gruber will insult Chief Justice John Roberts specifically while he’s under oath, too.



    Then of course Roberts would strike down the ACA! Awesome!


    "I was going to issue a ruling based on jurisprudence, but with this insult you've gone too far, little-known bureaucrat who was one of 400 people who helped write the law! Now I shall gleefully destroy all that you have worked for, and the dreams and well-being of 30 million Americans! LEARN FROM THIS, PUNY GRUBER! LEARN, ALL WHO WOULD FAIL TO BOW BEFORE MY etc etc etc" seriously, these guys think their own Chief Justice is such a fragile megalomaniac?

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  118. I would say "that would awfully childish of him", but then I remember Fat Tony Scalia and Thomas are on the court as well, so there you go.

    ReplyDelete
  119. tigrismus3:50 PM

    "Well you did ask, and you wouldn't want me to perjure myself, would you?"

    ReplyDelete
  120. Another Kiwi3:56 PM

    I would hope that Roberts would wear the Skeletor mask when he said that.

    ReplyDelete
  121. I blurry sauce...


    Get off the line, Boehner!

    ReplyDelete
  122. Jimcima4:18 PM

    I read the entire quote, and his point was (essentially) that Americans didn't understand that sick people took more out of the system than healthy people paid in, and if they were made aware of this obvious fact then they would "stupidly" not support such a system.



    Now, expressing this is clearly impolitic, and it may or may not even be true, but if Obamacare "benefited" from concealing this fact then so does every other health insurance system ever devised as well.

    ReplyDelete
  123. I agree.

    In fact, there ought to be some kind of law requiring public officials to wear such a mask whenever they're doing or saying something that's blatantly evil.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Yep. I'm not even going to visualize.... oops.

    Too late.

    ReplyDelete
  125. He's not even a politician. Never was. This is more Alinsky! Alinsky! Alinsky! crossed with Cloward! and Pivens! or Emmanuel Goldstein! Because this guy is nothing but a policy wonk from MA who, gulp, cares about getting health care to everyone in the country. If people like him had any power we'd be in fucking clover right now.

    ReplyDelete
  126. I'm sorry, the Skeletor Mask is on permanent loan to the people of Florida and is being worn by Rick Scott.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Another Kiwi5:26 PM

    Scene: The castle hall in Antarctica where the Supreme court meets.
    Head Person: All rise for the Supreme Court Judges.
    (A stretched Limo crashes through a side wall. Five (5) drunken Palins fall out. Track is wearing a Stars and Stripes bikini)
    Track: You fuckers, I can take you fuckers. (Falls over)
    Sarah: (wearing a pirate costume complete with a stuffed parrot pulls out a flintlock pistol) Perfidiouness of the almighty state of lobama. Thus sic gloria Booth Turnip tractor. (Shoots Clarence Thomas)
    Bristol: (Wearing sexy halloween nurse costume) Oh momsie I gots powder on me. (Attacks Track with a shoe)
    Todd: (wearing Zardoz style mankini) Your highnesses. Get off our plane. (Falls over)

    ReplyDelete
  128. montag25:26 PM

    Hasn't Satan always been an equal opportunity employer? While the Klan, given their mission statement, will likely never achieve that status....

    ReplyDelete
  129. ken_lov5:33 PM

    They really have this tactic perfected now. It's the same as the IRS, and "you didn't build that", and "what difference does it make?", and Ebola. Bomb the media with such an intensive outburst of "OMG this is an earth-shattering event with huge political implications for Obama" outrage and nobody in the MSM is game to say "Hang on, just what exactly is so bad about it?" The hive just takes it for granted that with such a choking blanket of smoke wherever they look, there must be a roaring fire somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  130. montag25:42 PM

    I think they have had ol' Tex Sensenbrenner stationed at the switch for days now, since he's the only one with that sort of experience in this Congress.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Adrian6:10 PM

    Wingnut Outrage du Jour

    ReplyDelete
  132. KatWillow6:12 PM

    Mine too.

    ReplyDelete
  133. gocart mozart6:19 PM

    The lunatics are in the House.

    ReplyDelete
  134. KatWillow6:20 PM

    "He's telling our secrets! They'll see the Big Board!"

    ReplyDelete
  135. KatWillow6:23 PM

    (4) The Dem Party were so terrified of "bad publicity" they started repudiating their own people, and imitating repugs?

    ReplyDelete
  136. KatWillow6:26 PM

    Its not smoke

    ReplyDelete
  137. KatWillow6:28 PM

    Didn't congress make a big deal out of cheating on TV game shows? Way back in the 50s? I'm surprised they haven't had hearings about Pro Wrestling, or what the 10th dentist recommends kids chew.

    ReplyDelete
  138. KatWillow6:31 PM

    Fie upon you Harry Reid...

    ReplyDelete
  139. montag26:35 PM

    Just an addendum to the previous thread appended to this thread, where the flying monkeys aren't likely to find it:

    http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/What_A_Song_Is_Not_About

    Just scroll to the bottom. The juxtaposition of images is sublime.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Sadly, there are thousands of Republicans with half a mind, and they're outraged all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  141. glennisw8:20 PM

    Jeez, if we're going to hold hearings on people who say shitty things about other people, Gruber's at the end of a long line of Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  142. glennisw8:22 PM

    If he was a Republican, it would be called "telling it like it is" or "being a straight shooter."

    ReplyDelete
  143. glennisw8:24 PM

    The same people who call Democratic voters "low information voters" or "moochers" are upset that somebody said that voters are stupid.
    Gruber should go before Congress and quote everything Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh has said.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Mr. Wonderful8:30 PM

    You don't win the *entire* Internet with this, catclub, but you do take home a handsome portion of it.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Mr. Wonderful8:33 PM

    I want to give this comment a three-picture deal.

    ReplyDelete
  146. Mr. Wonderful8:35 PM

    Dentist Whom.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Another Kiwi8:35 PM

    Done! Your people, my people.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Wingnut Outrage du Jour

    If that's the soup of the day, I'll just skip right to dessert, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  149. A Black Hole example of repug "intelligence"

    The gravitas is so great not even information can enter it.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Brian Schlosser9:45 PM

    Mickey Kaus act? I'm pretty sure that I saw that one performed in a little bar in Tijuana.

    ReplyDelete
  151. When asked what advice she had for Bill Clinton on Election Night (11/8/94), ABC
    commentator Cokie Sherwood Roberts snapped: "Move to the right, which is the
    advice that somebody should have given him a long time ago."


    Before the fact, but it set the tone going forward.

    ReplyDelete
  152. Schismist.

    Gesundheit!

    ReplyDelete
  153. There's a mad loon on the right.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Land Of A Thousand Dunces.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Goddamnit, don't give her any ideas

    ReplyDelete
  156. Tehanu9:58 PM

    Need more upvotes for this.

    ReplyDelete
  157. But we'd still be stuck with that toxic waste disposal problem.

    ReplyDelete
  158. You sure about that? I thought Rick Scott was the model for the mold of the Skeletor mask.

    ReplyDelete
  159. How can you tell the dancer from the dance?

    ReplyDelete
  160. Look for the Stupid label
    when you are buying and old bag of hair!
    It means Republicans are really working
    to fill your braincase with lies and hot air.
    So always look for the stupid label
    it says we're able to bamboozle the USA!

    ReplyDelete
  161. Its field distortion effects cause otherwise stable voters to be sucked in. They often find themselves being shorn of cash as they approach the event horizon. This is known as gold bugging, or the Glenn Beck Effect.

    ReplyDelete
  162. AGoodQuestion10:27 PM

    Reading Fournier you get the impression that he knows on some level that there's more to journalism than horserace handicapping and the airing of this week's conventional wisdom. He also believes he is doing this something more. On that second point he is very much mistaken.

    ReplyDelete
  163. I would like to stamp this comment's bill of lading.

    ReplyDelete
  164. I'm pretty sure dessert is yet another shit sandwich.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Obligatory:

    "Weeh! Liberals are making me eat this shit sandwich!" [Omf, nomf]

    ReplyDelete
  166. AGoodQuestion10:48 PM

    Up til now he's only worn the mask when cruising the bars, but this would be a special occasion too.

    ReplyDelete
  167. :Gag on the moon. How'd it get there?

    ReplyDelete
  168. AGoodQuestion10:58 PM

    I maintain that at this point, Congress (at least from the GOP perspective) is little more than a farm league for the conservative media apparatus.
    It would be nice if Congress had a kiddie table. You know, have one congressional chamber for people who wanted to do the actual work of governance and another for people who just want to be asinine in front of the camera. Of course I can make a guess as to which would be bigger.

    ReplyDelete
  169. AGoodQuestion11:04 PM

    Yeah, but how's that supposed to go?
    Gruber: Before I answer your question, your honor, I'd like to say that you look like you couldn't fuck your way out of a paper bag. Or at least that's what your wife says.

    ReplyDelete
  170. AGoodQuestion11:13 PM

    How much tequila did it take to wash that one out?

    ReplyDelete
  171. AGoodQuestion11:19 PM

    Lillie Langtry

    ReplyDelete
  172. AGoodQuestion11:19 PM

    They don't stand a chance.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxyfsZsmn6o

    ReplyDelete
  173. Another Kiwi11:27 PM

    Lyndsey Lohan

    ReplyDelete
  174. these guys think their own Chief Justice is such a fragile megalomaniac?I know, right? They're finally accurate about something?

    ReplyDelete
  175. M. Krebs12:00 AM

    Wingnut outrage au jus.

    ReplyDelete
  176. M. Krebs12:01 AM

    Lotte Lenya.

    ReplyDelete
  177. M. Krebs12:06 AM

    VERA LYNN-nyn-nyn-a-nyn-a-nyn-nyn.

    http://youtu.be/mBqn8RYIHCU

    ReplyDelete
  178. sigyn2:23 AM

    Request: Could you insult Alito as well? I missed his wife crying last time. Thanks in advance.

    ReplyDelete
  179. sigyn2:32 AM

    "...people of the land. The common clay of the New West..."

    ReplyDelete
  180. It would be sentient, but it keeps sticking a pseudopod into any light socket it encounters so it can find out what electricity tastes like.

    ReplyDelete
  181. susanoftexas7:47 AM

    The number of uninsured was so high and getting higher because people couldn't afford insurance. That had to change. Also, an aging population will need drugs.

    The insurance and drug industries would not have supported Obamacare--which they did, hugely--unless they were planning on making millions on it.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/big-pharma-wins-big-with_n_516977.html

    "...

    Either way, pharmaceutical lobbyists won new federal policies they coveted and set a trajectory for long-term industry growth. Privately, several of them say their biggest triumph was heading off Democrats led by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who wanted even more money from their industry to finance the health care system's expansion.

    "Pharma came out of this better than anyone else," said Ramsey Baghdadi, a Washington health policy analyst who projects a $30 billion, 10-year net gain for the industry. "I don't see how they could have done much better."

    Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales. The industry will have to provide 50 percent discounts beginning next year to Medicare beneficiaries in the "doughnut hole" gap in pharmaceutical coverage, but those price cuts plus gradually rising federal subsidies will mean more elderly people will purchase more drugs.

    Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies. They also defeated efforts to require more industry rebates for the 9 million beneficiaries of both Medicare and Medicaid, and to bar brand-name drugmakers' payments to generic companies to delay the marketing of competitor products.

    ...

    Pharmaceutical interests spent $188 million lobbying last year, more than all but a handful of industry sectors, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. They employed an army of 1,105 lobbyists.

    And after years of funneling most of its campaign contributions to Republicans, the industry has favored Democrats with 56 percent of the $5 million it has handed candidates so far this year. The biggest recipient, by far, of the industry's 2008 election cycle contributions of $13.8 million was Obama, who received $1.2 million for his presidential campaign.

    "They're certainly going to get a very high return on that investment," Waxman said in a recent interview."

    It was worth the bargain for most of us but we had the upper hand to get Medicaid for all. We had the money. Now the government is giving them money, we have less leverage.

    There is no excuse for not prosecuting the banksters.
    Let's primary Clinton with Al Franken. Everyone will scream their heads off but maybe we can get a little something out of it for ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  182. . . . this guy is nothing but a policy wonk from MA who . . .

    . . . no doubt helped Romney craft his signature achievement as governor of MA, which Romney was then forced to run away from during his presidential campaign.

    I have to admit that this completely baffled me. Romney SHOULD have campaigned on it by saying, "Yeah, I did it. I did it first. AND I got it right."

    ReplyDelete
  183. redoubtagain8:04 AM

    "Brought to you by TARDIS Dental Supplies, makers of the WhoChair(c)"

    ReplyDelete
  184. Halloween_Jack10:02 AM

    I think that 5th edition--which seems to have gotten mostly good reviews so far--was WotC's version of this. (Context: Madonna had hosted the opening episode of SNL in 1985, generally considered to have been one of the show's worst, despite having people like Robert Downey, Jr. and Joan Cusack on it. This was from the intro to the 1986 season, which introduced the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey cast.)

    ReplyDelete
  185. BigHank5310:17 AM

    ALIEN: To whom should this be addressed?

    DOCTOR WHOM: Yes, that's correct.

    ALIEN: (pauses) But I was under the impression that your companion was Miss Correct.

    MISS CORRECT: Oh, I am!

    (ABBOT and COSTELLO burst onto the stage and commence striking everyone with large, smelly halibuts.)

    ReplyDelete
  186. So we needed sixty votes for single payer and yet the Save Health Insurance Today act was passed through reconciliation with only 51 votes?


    Darn conservadems.

    ReplyDelete
  187. I think we all are.

    ReplyDelete
  188. David Rickard12:09 PM

    You're not in trouble until you blow a spot check

    ReplyDelete
  189. mgmonklewis12:54 PM

    Maverick™!

    ReplyDelete
  190. mgmonklewis12:57 PM

    How did you get inside John Roberts' thought bubble?

    ReplyDelete
  191. mgmonklewis1:07 PM

    GOP hearings on stupidity? Isn't that what we used to call "an ordinary session of Congress?"

    ReplyDelete
  192. mgmonklewis1:12 PM

    That's what is so consistently frustrating about Obama and modern Democrats. When they actually do pass something good (over the screaming, teeth-gnashing fits of Republicans), they don't finish the End Game: Make sure everybody knows about those good things, and that you're responsible for them. Cripes, it's basic politics and marketing, but they don't even bother, like it's somehow vulgar and beneath them. Average, everyday people (who later won't vote in midterms, and then will be castigated by harrumphing Beltway Dems) simply aren't policy wonks and don't know about this stuff until you tell them. And tell them again. And remind them a dozen times after that. The knowledge doesn't leap unbidden into their heads.

    Why can't anybody in DC figure out something so simple? Is there a hermetically sealed bubble over the Beltway that removes all common sense?

    ReplyDelete
  193. mgmonklewis1:14 PM

    If only we came to bury stupidity, not to praise it.

    ReplyDelete
  194. mgmonklewis1:21 PM

    An increasing chunk of the electorate — in particular the rabid Republican base — doesn't view government as a means to solve problems or even do anything anymore. Their base is still generally okay, overall, in economic terms — okay, that is, in the sense that very few are starving in the streets, and have enough disposable income to afford basic cable and Fox "news." For them, politics is nothing more than reality TV and a way of unleashing their Id. The more dysfunctional and assholish their elected officials are, the more they like it. "That'll show those stupid libs! Go team R!"


    It's no way to run a country. However, this is what we're doomed to get from a group of selfish jerks who are content to coast on what their grandparents built (while flattering themselves that it was all built by their own hard work and bootstrappery).

    ReplyDelete
  195. mgmonklewis1:24 PM

    What about RUPAUL?

    ReplyDelete