Thursday, July 09, 2015

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.



My favorite AC/DC tune is "Back in Business," but there's no good video of it.
This'll do, though. What's your favorite? It's all streaming now!

•     Republican pundits (or should we say RINO elitists?) are panicking over Donald Trump's strong showing in GOP polls. Jim Geraghty attempts, unqualified as he is, to talk sense to his fellow wingnuts in a post called "Do Trump and His Fans Even Want to Persuade Others?" (something I ask about conservatives generally all the time):
I realize that if you’re a Trump fan right now, energized by his in-your-face combativeness with the media and anyone who disagrees with him... 
But let’s take Stephen Covey’s advice to “begin with the end in mind” — presumably that is conservative governance — and recognize that to achieve that, we need a Republican president. And as much as Trump may be rising in the polls of the GOP primary... let’s take a look at his numbers head-to-head against Hillary Clinton: 
CNN: Clinton 59 percent, Trump 35.
Fox News: Clinton 51 percent, Trump 34. 
Quinnipiac: Clinton 50 percent, Trump 32.
Some of you will see the problem right off. Wait for it...
(One caveat: That CNN poll had Hillary ahead of Rubio by 16, Walker by 17, and Bush by 13, so perhaps we can argue that it was a Democrat-heavy sample...
A Democrat-heavy sample! Or "perhaps we can argue" that Clinton is a revered name in American politics and the Republicans are running approximately 239 feebs, flakes, and nincompoops led by a racist blowhard clown. Wait, though, Geraghty's not finished:
...Most polls have these candidates trailing by single digits or tied with Hillary.)
Geraghty provides zero links to support this assertion, so I looked up keywords in Google News and got some results such as this from the Washington Examiner:
Ted Cruz is winning at Twitter, tied with Hillary Clinton on Facebook
If only elections were totes social media LOL!  Also, that was from December of last year.  Much more recent (June 26) was this:
Poll: Sen. Bernie Sanders Is Statistically Tied With Hillary Clinton In New Hampshire
Well, now it makes sense!

•     Jesus-con Alan Jacobs has a long more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger thing at The American Conservative about how all us gay marriageists and non-fans of the Confederacy are not merely expressing opinions he does not share, but actively trying to shut down debate with our Twitter feeds and our mean looks -- which schtick, I'm sure you've noticed, is a popular favorite among the brethren these days. "Survey and critique others, lest you make yourself subject to surveillance and critique," Jacobs characterizes his opponents. "And use the proper Hashtags of Solidarity, or you might end up like that guy who was the first to stop applauding Stalin’s speech." He himself, of course, is just trying to keep free discourse alive -- his post's called "The Value of Disagreement," see?  The first tell that this is bullshit is an opening quote from a particularly passive-aggressive post by P-A Queen Mollie Hemingway. But it's even more instructive to get in the Wayback Machine and read Jacobs' 2003 article called "The War in Quotes: Journalists who don't like the war -- and like thinking even less -- have a little trick they use to tell us how they really feel." There, Jacobs calls rightblogger whipping-boy Robert Fisk "the Krusty the Clown of journalism," and notes that when referring to the invasion of Iraq Fisk put quotes around "liberators" and "liberation," which seems to me like basic hygeine for handling government propaganda, but which Jacobs calls "punctuational Tourette's Syndrome." Jacobs also complains that the New York Times and other peace creeps are doing the same thing:
...the Times apparently can't bear under any circumstances to use that term, in the context of the Iraq war at least, without scare quotes. Thus my description of this practice as a tic or as disease: After a while it kicks in automatically, and one wonders what habitual users could do to keep it from taking over their minds.
Twelve years later, Iraq is wreckage and everyone knows the idea that we "liberated" it was always a joke -- and Jacobs, then so diligent about what he considered journalists' inappropriate use of quote marks, is now telling us that liberals are the real language cops.

258 comments:

  1. susanoftexas12:46 PM

    I HAVE BEEN REMARKABLY DILIGENT in keeping up with the news from the war in Iraq--some might say a little too diligent. I was the first one on my block to track the Command Post hour by hour, and I recall with a surge of pleasure the first time I got to a juicy story before Glenn Reynolds could link to it on Instapundit. But when I realized that it had become my chief goal in life to get Andrew Sullivan to post one of my letters on his website, I began to wonder if I had not misaligned my priorities. Clearly it was time to take a break from the passionate intensity of war reportage, the struggle to sift through the vast complexities of Operation Iraqi Freedom and bring some order from the chaos of data.
    He also serves who sits and faaaarts.

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  2. It is to laugh! Trump is the Republican Id running naked through the media. He's their inner voice made audible, the exemplar of everything they have cultivated and built as the foundation of their movement for the last 50 years: He's insanely wealthy, insanely outspoken, insanely bigoted, insanely narrow-minded, and mostly just insane.

    The Republican base LOVES him because of all this. And his wealth renders him immune to the usual threats from the party to cut off his funding. It may well be that Trump ends up finally dragging the party over the cliff. We can only hope!

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  3. j_handey12:56 PM

    Let's not forget Rod Dreher, back refreshed and renewed from his Big Gay Adventure in southern Europe and ready to rumble with critics of his BO (Benedict Option). Another writer on the American Conservative website had some criticisms of Rod's BO, which were mysteriously taken down shortly after being posted. Then, Rod, in his trademark snarky-mean-girl style, posted an interview with himself in which he "answered" those criticisms.

    I don't feel like posting links to all the paleocon drama. I do think this picture should be memorialized for all time, though.

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  4. Re: Jacobs--As always, hyperbole is the soul of thought for conservatives. People disagreeing with him amounts to oppression. People poking fun at his ridiculous writing amounts to being hauled off to the gulag for a show trial and summary execution.

    With such a low tolerance for pain, a hemorrhoid would probably put him into a coma.

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  5. Then, Rod, in his trademark snarky-mean-girl style, posted an interview with himself in which he "answered" those criticisms.

    And knowing Rod, he probably lost the argument with himself.

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  6. Don't forget his weird hairdo! He must think it looks good- more crazed delusion.

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  7. You know, I can remember the Long, Long Time Ago age of the 2012 elections. The press started speculating extremely early, we ended up with a preposterously crowded field of presumptive Republican candidates (most of whom had no prayer), and every other week there was a new poll showing some massive shift towards one of the fringier candidates which made all the Goopers wring their hands until they bled. At different times, we saw Cain, Bachmann and Perry surge ahead, along with a few people who never formally ran such as Giuliani and...oh yeah, Donald Fucking Trump. I must be the only person in the country who remembers that Trump flirted with a GOP run, likely as some cheap publicity stunt.
    When the smoke cleared and fringe candidates failed to even place, Our Wonderful Newsmedia concluded that this was Republicans putting off their big date with Mr. Boring. Everyone knew Romney was going to win, but with the run-up starting a goddamn year in advance, the Republican rabble were toying with the possibility of crazy as an alternative. None of these people were ever serious candidates, they decided.
    And now here we are, in the exact same boat, and the media - from the top to the bottom, from the fringe to the mushy middle - are doing the exact same thing. Wasn't there supposed to be some lesson from 2012? Why is it that none of these assholes can remember anything past breakfast?

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  8. GeniusLemur1:08 PM

    Glad the RW has Trump to energize them like that. I mean, where else could they possibly go for someone who's in-your-face (read: egotistical), disdains the "liberal" media, and screams at anyone who dares to not kiss their ass?

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  9. coozledad1:08 PM

    approximately 239 feebs, flakes, and nincompoops led by a racist blowhard clown.



    Yeah, well that's what they said about the last Adam Sandler movie.

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  10. He won't. He'll be popular for another month, then everyone will forget about him in favor of the next Disruptor of the GOP Establishment. Then they'll all pick Jeb Bush anyway, and we'll all have a chance to sigh and moan over the reduction of our political process to cheap posturing between two dynasty candidates, neither of whom anyone really wants in the White House. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to 2016.

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  11. I remember that too. Forgive my slowness, but what lesson *should* the newsmedia have taken from 2012? That the Republican base has extreme and/or racist beliefs?

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  12. GeniusLemur1:11 PM

    Yeah, the smart money says it's going to be Jeb, ever though he's already had his 47% moment ("American workers, you need to work more hours"), and he'll probably have many more, seeing how the "smart" one's turning out to be more ignorant and more privileged than his brother, which I didn't think was physically possible.

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  13. The hairdo stuns his prey, and then the inner jaws extend like in Alien.

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  14. That starting the primary season a full year before the first vote is a bad idea that produces bad results. However, learning that there are tons of crazy fuckers in the GOP base wasn't such a bad lesson, either.

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  15. coozledad1:13 PM

    Lobster bib code?

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  16. I want to accept an embryo from this comment.

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  17. Geo X1:22 PM

    "And use the proper Hashtags of Solidarity, or you might end up like
    that guy who was the first to stop applauding Stalin’s speech."


    So I know it would be going to far to ask for the names of all the people we've disappeared for Wrong Opinions; it's not fair to expect winger rhetoric to literally correspond to anything that anyone's ever done ever. But...at the very least, shouldn't Jacobs be able to provide a short list of people we intimidated into not making asses of themselves on the internet? Because if you can't even manage that, I truly do not know what anyone can possibly say to you.

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  18. coozledad1:24 PM

    His travelling companion looks like an AWOL George Bush.


    Hide the chandeliers, folks. Monkey's gonna swing again!

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  19. Bush may well end up being the nominee, but my gut (and my old GOP contacts) tell me it won't be without another cycle of "Anybody but . . ." just like it was in 2012 with Romney. Jeb really is despised by the Republican base--they don't like what they see as his wishy-washy tendencies, and they really don't like what they see as his softness on immigration.

    Consider that all you can hear is the conservative base cheering Trump's xenophobia and racism, and that none of the other candidates are loudly criticizing Trump for this--or even coming to Jeb's defense over Trump's crack about Jeb's wife and family.

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  20. He can't provide such a list because we liberals so thoroughly control the intertubes that any name he might type that belongs to one of those we've disappeared will, you know, disappear when he tries to publish it.

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  21. But when I realized that it had become my chief goal in life to get Andrew Sullivan to post one of my letters on his website, I began to wonder if I had not misaligned my priorities.



    YA THINK

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  22. I'm in Provincetown, MA right now, and these two look like they should be walking hand-in-hand down Commercial Street right now.

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  23. Downpup E1:30 PM

    The corporate media is definitely behind Jeb(!). NationalJounal is basically just packaging his handouts and calling them articles.

    But I think it's still up in the air between JEBushBush & Walker, which is kind of smart. They both have so much sleaze and stupidity in their histories that either one could blow up completely.

    Also, year by year, the crazies get crazier & more dominant. It didn't happen in 2012, and probably won't this time, but eventually wingnut critical mass is going to blow up the party.

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  24. Brother Yam1:36 PM

    I believe Trump's success is due now to an almost perfect storm of butthurt from an almost bewildering (for a conservative) number of directions. Gay marriage, racism in the form of mass murder and the subsequent (and long due in my opinion) dismissal of the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of hate are just a couple of major blows confounding them. Since these are not small issues and conservatives will not allow these to pass quickly or quietly, I can see Trump continuing on and possibly dragging the other candidates ever farther into his madness.

    As the kids say: Pass the popcorn.

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  25. Gromet1:38 PM

    We'll never know the asses not made.

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  26. J Neo Marvin1:41 PM

    Is that Rod on the right? I had no idea he was a Morrissey lookalike.

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  27. Gromet1:44 PM

    I think Rubio is a real candidate too. He can sound smart in 15-second bursts, he is willing to trash immigration, and he gives the base a chance to scream "We're not racist -- SEEEEEEE???" Even money Rubio gets the nod or at least become's the winner's VP. (Well, him or Nikki Haley.)

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  28. coozledad1:45 PM

    From what I could see, AFP and the Koch brothers stepped in and shitcanned the old Republican presidential candidate anointing system, and it still hasn't recovered from encouraging every racist dope and delusional aphasic shitheel to hop on the feeb scooter, get down to the polls and let that freak flag fly.
    It's won them both houses of congress, partially because 2014 was principally a Confederate and turncoat states election, but that crazy shit doesn't seem to fly in the presidential races lately.


    The local republican party chair in our county calls Boehner a RINO and an "Obama brown-noser."


    All they have to do is get it close enough for Bush to steal it, but that's a tall order for the people Thorazine was designed for.

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  29. I have actually met Rubio, though it was long before he ran for office. He's a vapid, grasping, ultimately shallow person. In person, he's got the eyes of a shark--cold, dead, and somehow devoid of soul despite their darting around the room like he's searching for the nearest airlock.

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  30. coozledad1:53 PM

    And if a ten ton truck
    smashes us to krill
    we'll have had galettes
    with salmon, capers and dill.

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  31. Your local RNC guy is reflective of much of what's going on at the grassroots level with the party as a whole. There are very, very few conservatives currently holding office who are far right enough for these people.

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  32. coozledad1:57 PM

    It's a woman, and she's got a dozen corncobs up her ass.


    Where are the benzodiazepenes of old, one asks.

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  33. J Neo Marvin2:02 PM

    Some cons are crunchier than others.

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  34. coozledad2:09 PM

    Or bottle of water.

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  35. Helmut Monotreme2:13 PM

    If he weren't so tediously moralistic, and the illustration for the definition of "holier than thou", it wouldn't be a big deal that he's been overloading the fuse box of every gaydar within 500 nm of his location. In fact I think the whole Benedict option con he's been running is in part to isolate his tiny little congregation of the One and Only Old Rite Apostolic Pentecostal Orthodox Church of North Baton Rouge with Signs and Wonders Following from anyone able to recognize "sterotypical to the point of flamboyant self-parody" gay behavior when they see it modeled in front of them.

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  36. montag22:49 PM

    Maybe that lesson is that when Republicans are involved, history repeats itself, but skipping tragedy first, and going directly to farce each and every time.

    Or perhaps, maybe the lesson is that ever since the Goldwater days, the standing orders are "this is not your Grandpa's GOP," that the party has embraced crackpottery, and now, they've found full expression of their id in crackpot diversity. Last election was just a test of concept--eight or so nutballs and a couple of whiny rich people who nevertheless could put sentences together in rudimentary fashion. This one is going to be Extremism on Parade, More Clowns, More Elephants, More, More, More!

    If the Republicans lose 2016, I'm reasonably certain that in 2020, they'll have more candidates than Germany had parties in 1928.

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  37. agorabum2:51 PM

    Don't forget all the insults to Obama and that Trump was the #1 birther for some time. It was his willingness to always insult Dems and the President that put him so prominently in the Republican spotlight.
    Which is also dumb for the general, since Obama's favorability ratings have always been above his approval ratings (people generally like him, even when unsure of his performance)

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  38. agorabum2:54 PM

    Any base that put Santorum in the lead to be president of these United States - even if only for a week or two - is certifiably insane. And it's only gotten worse. Jeb! might be too sane to get the win; he won't trash the Mexicans or the gays, or waive the rebel flag.

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  39. I don't think he's as wealthy as he claims to be, he plays a billionaire on TV, but Sheldon Adelson will make him come in through the service entrance, just like he did to Romney. Shel won't, however, tell him how to run a profitable casino.

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  40. Kenneth Gleason2:57 PM

    oh man my co-worker think i'm a loon. that got me good.

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  41. susanoftexas3:01 PM

    As you probably know someone who says he went to boarding school with and was a friend of Rod's says that Rod was part of the bisexual group at his school and that he and Rod visited gay bars in New Orleans and that Rod was not anti-gay by nature.
    I have no doubt proof could be found but if it is not true Rod can surely defend himself from a total lack of proof. Normal issues of privacy and decency do not apply to such a publically indecent figure. There is no reason why Rod's purported bisexuality should be sub rosa instead of being served up on the table on a silver platter.
    Why is Rod given a polite pass when his work potentially has malevolent influence over the lives of gay people? Why should Rod be able to gorge himself on the suffering of others?

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  42. montag23:03 PM

    Isn't Alan Jacobs, like, a fourth- or fifth-stringer on the conservative intellectual squad?

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  43. Heh, Binge on Dick Option...

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  44. The Republican base LOVES him because of all this.Ordinarily, I'd say that he lacks the relevant fundigelical bona fides that, e.g., Cruz or Walker brings to the table. Heck, he's not even a member of a "heathen cult" that they suddenly discovered sufficiently shares their reactionary beliefs. But then I think of how he was the first candidate given favorable mention by Franklin Graham last time around, purely because he most openly spewed racist birther shit. Trump even got an invite to Billy Graham's birthday party out of the deal ... the same one that Billy's friend Bill Clinton wisely bowed out of, what with Trump, Murdoch, and Palin on the attendee list. This in a field that had Bachmann and Santorum in it, and without The Donald even having to mouth empty pieities about personal salvation.


    TL; DR: Yeah, the groundwork is there for even the Talibornagain to get on the Trumpwagon.

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  45. Dogma is nice, but dogma can stop you
    From finding a big leather dude to top you.

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  46. StringOnAStick3:07 PM

    A thousand quatloos to the first person to give it a good ruffling/cracking of the hairspray dome, but only if recorded on video of suitable quality for multiple showings on network TV. Because you know it will be, over and over again.

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  47. Trump worships Mammon, the true god of these people... he'll get along just fine.

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  48. susanoftexas3:10 PM

    I'm a toy balloon that is fated soon to pop
    But if, baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!

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  49. StringOnAStick3:10 PM

    Yes, chronic inflamed butthurt lasts forever with this crowd, and the degree of butthurt is currently quite high. Full immersion in a tub of Preparation H won't help much, but I'm certainly willing to watch and cheer.

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  50. Well, they all do. It's just interesting to me that Trump doesn't even have to pretend otherwise. I guess we'll see if he suddenly comes out with a "conversion story," conveniently set post-divorces. Hey, it almost worked for Newt.

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  51. petesh3:15 PM

    Dream the implausible dream: Jeb! buys the nomination and Trump is so pissed off he runs as a third party-pooper. Learning the lesson of Ross Perot, instead of rescuing people from Mexico he starts kidnapping people he thinks are Messican and airlifting them across the border. Hijinks ensue!

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  52. He's a vapid, grasping, ultimately shallow person.And this disqualifies him how?

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  53. This may be the only form of humiliation that actually makes a difference.

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  54. No need for a conversion story. We type IOKIYAR only half in jest: The data pretty conclusively shows that there is no amount or kind of marital infidelity a Republican can indulge in and be cast out. Conservatives of all religious stripes love the Newt. They love Vitter in his diapers, and Craig in his bathroom stall.

    To gain and keep the love of conservatives, one must show his or her hate for all things non-conservative.

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  55. Bizarro Mike3:36 PM

    Yeah, I think Walker really has a shot at the nomination. He seems the best positioned candidate who is not a Bush, with money and a reputation as a bully. I thought Huckabee might get a bounce with the Confederate flag and gay marriage issues, but he is apparently too tired to even benefit from these things. And the rest of the theocrats seem to have their own problems.

    Walker needs to stay ahead of the criminal cases and malaise in WI to make it. That's not a given, but he's better off than the other governors. I mean, Christie ... I can't imagine him ever having a moment when he polls out in front.

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  56. LittlePig3:37 PM

    And it works with Steve Irwin voice!

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  57. susanoftexas3:38 PM

    Mrs. Rod: But I want to go to Italy too.
    Rod: My darling, my Beatrice, I would love to have you come along but who will homeschool the children and tend the garden and put up haricot verts for the winter?
    Mrs. Rod: You said I could get out more if we moved near family.
    Rod: Of course my dove but little did I know that they would reject me anew.
    Mrs. Rod: We could hire a baby sitter.
    Rod: But the expense, my lamb! This is a research trip, not a vacation. Every penny counts. Now, where is my list of French delicacies?
    Mrs. Rod: It's in a folder in your flight bag with your other papers, an umbrella, a blow-up neck pillow, your Kindle, and all your chargers. I checked you in, printed your boarding pass, and put them in the folder too. I polished your opera pumps, packed your bags and put them in the trunk, and loaded some Cistercian chants on your ipod.
    Rod: My angel! Be sure you take the cats to the vet. The Kevlar gloves are in the kitchen. Bye!

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  58. I'm with you on Walker. He's got all that union bashing, privatizing, and keeping "those people" from voting as part of his resume. AND he's got the Koch's pledging their fortunes to his cause.

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  59. TGuerrant3:44 PM

    I'm putting in an emergency prayer request to Marcus Bachmann. This can't wait til Monday.

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  60. As the car pulls out of the driveway, the scene shifts to a steadicam tracking shot that begins in the kitchen. Mrs. Rod reaches behind the cereal boxes in the cupboard and withdraws a bottle of Old Scrotum whiskey. "Come with me, my love!" she whispers.

    The camera starts to move and follows her to the front window where Rod's car can be seen receding down the road. "God, I hope he never comes back! Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll fall in love with a mime while he's over there. Meanwhile . . ." She takes a long pull from the bottle. "I'd better have the pool boy come over and check the filter. Or something."

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  61. LittlePig3:51 PM

    wipes away tear

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  62. LittlePig3:52 PM

    Sounds like a real true Republican to me.

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  63. LittlePig3:53 PM

    I imagine he'll be infiltrated with folks holding water bottles out on fishing poles. heh heh.

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  64. Howlin Wolfe3:57 PM

    The derpmunity is working hard at maintaining the walls of the epistemic closure bubble! No need to breath the air outside, the smell of rot is good in there!

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  65. DN Nation4:03 PM

    "I was the first one on my block to track the Command post hour by hour."

    Ahahahahaha, these freaking people.

    http://instantsite.ru/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=21&image_id=366

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  66. DN Nation4:05 PM

    I for one look forward to months and months of "well, I don't think all Mexicans are rapists per se, and Donald Trump certainly is very opinionated, but, um, please don't hurt me Mr. Trump" from the GOP field.

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  67. FMguru4:06 PM

    Yeah, the triple-whammy conservatives got hit with (slavery flag, obamacare, gay marriage) a couple of weeks ago has left them reeling and in shock and angry - and especially angry at their political leaders who were exposed as impotent and useless when it came to delivering on conservative issues. It's chickens coming home to roost - Republicans have been hyping up Obamacare as HitlerTyranny and the battle against it as Ragnarok for seven years now, and it ends with two Republican justices joining the four Democratic justices to affirm its legality. Similar thing with gay marriage and the slaver's flag. So they're very receptive to someone who stands outside the conservative political establishment and is willing to push back against the liberal tide that's swamping them, a self-assured blunt talker who promises action instead of weasel words about the power of judicial review and the need to cut losses. No wonder they're all flocking to Trump's banner. It's not so much that they're in favor of Trump, it's just that they're currently appalled by the rest of their party.

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  68. Ellis_Weiner4:07 PM

    While I respect "feebs, flakes, and nincompoops," I find myself coming back again and again to who Chuckles the Clown rails against in A Thousand Clowns: "Finks, dwarfs, phonies, and frogs."

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  69. "But let’s take Stephen Covey’s advice to “begin with the end in mind” — presumably that is conservative governance — ..."


    This assumption is incorrect on the face of it - Conservatives DO NOT want to govern. Governing is work, what with all the explaining and cajoling and building a consensus.


    Conservatives want one of two things - to RULE unopposed, dictating anything and everything in our society, or to BURN THIS SOCIETY DOWN.


    There is no middle ground. We have seen that for the last 7 years.

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  70. DN Nation4:10 PM

    Being accepting of one's own bisexuality seems to me to be a new trick for a moralist freak like Rod. For the vast majority of them it's an either/or proposition of in the closet or in some sort of baroque wetsuit contraption.


    As a fellow bi, I'm....I don't know....confused? about him? It's very unique.

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  71. Ellis_Weiner4:12 PM

    Surely this is where I get to say, "They call their ravings a principled stand for the values they hold dear, but I Can't Believe It's Not Butthurt."

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  72. witlesschum4:12 PM

    It's different, though. Vitter gives lip service to the idea that he did a bad, bad thing and that's enough. Trump's not even having the lip service demanded of him, so far.

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  73. Conservative governance does invoke ruling unopposed, but in actual practice it's come down to looting the country and throwing roadblocks in front of any effort or agency that might impede that looting. It's basically a kleptocracy via intermediaries.

    Unfortunately for all involved (including us), a substantial number of their followers has come to believe ALL the bullshit. And those are the people who are slowly taking over the machine.

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  74. DN Nation4:16 PM

    Walker has weaseled his way into big victories in Wisconsin, but his mug looks like the cover of Alice in Chains' Facelift, and he's got the charisma of a grape. I dunno.

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  75. This? https://youtu.be/LLrTPrp-fW8

    or this? https://youtu.be/TG-cnpMw7_s

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  76. Helmut Monotreme4:20 PM

    He's prettier than Nixon.

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  77. Now THERE'S a campaign slogan!

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  78. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:22 PM

    One caveat: That CNN poll had Hillary ahead of Rubio by 16, Walker by
    17, and Bush by 13, so perhaps we can argue that it was a Democrat-heavy
    sample...


    *sigh* [reaching for Th Big Purple Lever] OK, DerpCon 5...

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  79. TGuerrant4:25 PM

    And stomped out of the interview shouting that he'll never speak to him again.

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  80. Besides us, who's demanding it of him? Vitter is kind of an outlier in his apologetica. Ever other prominent conservative who's been caught doing the nasty with someone other than his spouse has gotten a complete pass on it. Reagan, for example, dumped his first wife for Nancy Davis and the evangelicals flocked to his banner. So Trump's three marriages ain't no big thing for the holy rollers.

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  81. Bizarro Mike4:30 PM

    They really threw their lot in with some crazy ideas, didn't they? The outcome of the fight over gay marriage and ACA was, while not a sure thing, a pretty safe bet. But there was so much money to be made by the noise machine in continuing to pound these issues, the party couldn't control it. So here they are.

    Man, there was one commenter on LGM having a meltdown about the ACA decision meaning America was now a communist nation. It got trolled with some pretty choice Dr Strangelove quotes. "Ice cream. Children's ice cream, Mandrake!" I was having a really shitty day, but that turned it around.

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  82. susanoftexas4:33 PM

    If he's not anti-gay then he is just trying to make a buck off of his only skill set--drunken philosophical/religious ramblings.

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  83. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:35 PM

    I as seeing "It's not nice to fool...", but with rainbows. Lots of rainbows....

    ReplyDelete
  84. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:45 PM

    And speaking of his family, how many of the Troglodyte base will ever be comfy with the idea of a Messican FLOTUS? That has to have a lot of 'em reaching for the Desenex...

    ReplyDelete
  85. Sadly, rightwing science has not developed the technology necessary to detect and measure that difference. And we cruel, cruel liberals will not allow them to buy it from us (technology export controls, don'tcha know). Thus deprived of working bullshit detectors, and unable to tell a conservative from a confidence man, they buy gold and vote for Tea-party candidates.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Ellis_Weiner4:48 PM

    Someone (I think Jeb Lund on Twitter) said Walker always looks like a frat boy saying, "But Officer, I only had two beers."

    ReplyDelete
  87. I wonder if they'll circulate emails showing Jeb in a serape and sombrero, or pictures of saguaro cactus in the White House lawn, to faked state-dinner menus showing chalupas and fajitas as the main courses.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:54 PM

    They learned their lesson in 2000--if not the Roaring '90s--and that's that they can get away with it. You write what your bosses want you to write, and all will be well, unless you Rather up something, and then you retire all nice and wealthy. It's a wonder J-schools aren't turning 'em away in droves.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Tracy4:57 PM

    Ted Cruz is winning at Twitter, tied with Hillary Clinton on Facebook


    President Ron Paul knows all about the importance of winning the Twitter vote.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:58 PM

    Frankly, he's always just oozed "phony" to me, which basically means he's not sincere enough even with himself to work very hard at hiding it. And when you consider his chosen career, that's really fucking stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  91. coozledad5:06 PM

    But every night Sheldon Adelson would come around and lay the money down.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Oh, fuck you very much for that earworm!

    ReplyDelete
  93. Well, he's certainly sewed up the twit vote!

    ReplyDelete
  94. merl15:14 PM

    People I actually know say mean things about me to my face and I don't get butt hurt the way these right wing tough guys do when complete strangers make fun of them to other complete strangers on the internet. And I'm the sissy liberal?

    ReplyDelete
  95. merl15:16 PM

    I love him for the exact same reason. Ironic, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  96. merl15:24 PM

    I just remembered, I saw AC/DC perform that song in concert on acid. What a trip.

    ReplyDelete
  97. JennOfArk5:26 PM

    He certainly is:

    ReplyDelete
  98. Arizona's Republican governor Jan Brewer sez "Trump is telling it like it really truly is" with regard to those filthy Mexicans. She made that statement today in advance of a Trump lovefest being hosted by Sheriff Arpaio.

    I'm not so sure we're going to see any kind of pushback from the GOP field--not even the halfhearted stuff you've postulated.

    ReplyDelete
  99. JennOfArk5:32 PM

    (One caveat: That CNN poll had Hillary ahead of Rubio by 16, Walker by 17, and Bush by 13, so perhaps we can argue that it was a Democrat-heavy sample...



    Time to start unskewing those polls again, fellers! I mean, it worked so well the last time. Who you gonna believe, the others inside your bubble or your own lyin' eyes?

    ReplyDelete
  100. The Illogical One5:32 PM

    On behalf of grapes everywhere, I must object. After all, we can be processed into wine. What would you process Scottie into? The mind; it boggles...

    ReplyDelete
  101. susanoftexas5:34 PM

    The Republicans on their way to vote.

    ReplyDelete
  102. susanoftexas5:35 PM

    Headcheese.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Once again, reality has a strong liberal bias.

    ReplyDelete
  104. susanoftexas5:43 PM

    I think he looks like Mortimer Snerd. Strings pulled by the Koches of course.

    ReplyDelete
  105. montag26:41 PM

    There were no small number of people in the summer of 1963 saying that Goldwater had more than a good chance of beating Kennedy.

    Mistaking the enthusiasm of the wackos for broad support has been a prominent characteristic of the Republican fringe for a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Jay B.7:06 PM

    i want to swim in Geraghty's tears. Everyone in the fucking world knows Clownface Von Fuckstick because he's been a public asshole for 35 years or so. He nails all the Republican money shots so often -- "Hey, the guy humiliates people on TV by firing them", "he totally RAILS on Obama and doubts his citizenship", "He thinks Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers too!", "He steals money from taxpayers, but as a loudmouthed billionaire asshole, I don't mind paying off his shitty real estate bets!" -- he's practically spewing GOP bukkake every goddamn minute of the day. He's a well known, unrepentant, rich, racist conservative asshole, what's not to like?



    As for the rest of the gimps, oh holy shit. Scott Walker can't decide whether to be a pimp or whore. Marco Rubio eats the paste off the back of beige wallpaper (and I'd put my money on him). Jeb Bush pulls off the neat trick of being dumber and more charmless than his sociopathic brother -- his name alone is has all the sex appeal of milk left out in the sun, he's a fat, stupid pariah. The rest of them? A parade of horribles. AND THIS IS THEIR VAUNTED BENCH. There is no part of this I won't enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  107. I will frame this comment, then hang it in my gallery to admire in the evenings when the light is soft.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Brian J.8:06 PM

    The Republicans' "bench" has been a failure for decades. I was born in 1976, and here's who they've run in that time based on positions they held in 1976:


    1976: Incumbent Prez/ Senate Minority Leader (L)
    1980: Former Prez candidate and 2-term CA governor/ CIA director (W)
    1984: Same (W)
    1988: 1976 CIA Director/ Benchie (W)
    1992: Same (L)
    1996: 1976 Senate Minority Leader/ NY Congressman (L)
    2000: Son of 1976 CIA Director/ 1976 Chief of Staff (W, sort of)
    2004: Same (W)
    2008: General's son and Famous POW/ Benchie (L)
    2012: Son of Former MI Governor and HUD Secretary/ Benchie (L)


    Three benchies have made the ticket in 40 years, none as Presidential nominee. And the most successful bench candidate the GOP's produced in my lifetime, the guy almost all of these candidates emulate... is J. Danforth Quayle.

    ReplyDelete
  109. M. Krebs8:56 PM

    One is almost tempted to call it "blowback."

    ReplyDelete
  110. M. Krebs8:57 PM

    Yep. Trump is merely rich, not wealthy. He could blow it all on coke in a month.

    ReplyDelete
  111. M. Krebs9:04 PM

    I can't remember exactly how many clowns were in the car in 2012, but it sure wasn't the 15 (?) we have now, was it?


    I can't wait for the "debates." Lets hope they're true to form and stage at least 30 of them.

    ReplyDelete
  112. So many of their meltdowns could make more sense with the addition of the occasional "Mandrake."

    ReplyDelete
  113. A certain toe-tapping former senator with a wide stance would like to have a word.

    IOW, IOKIYAR, as long as you're not queer about it.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Why, oh, why, couldn't he have gotten gored?

    ReplyDelete
  115. Snarki, child of Loki9:14 PM

    Now that they're reeling with inflamed butthurt, it's the perfect time for Jade Helm to roll into town and round them up for the FEMA camps.

    They'll never know what hit 'em.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Snarki, child of Loki9:17 PM

    good times, good times...

    Yes, remember when The Donald hauled out his own "birth certificate", which turned out to be one of those souvenir ones that they give to parents, with hearts & angels & crap?

    Why, it's like The Donald challenged Obama on being a graduate of Harvard Law, and then pulled out a "certificate" that he crayoned his very own self in kindergarten.

    ReplyDelete
  117. M. Krebs9:19 PM

    RON PAUL 2012!!1!!

    ReplyDelete
  118. M. Krebs9:21 PM

    I guess so.

    ReplyDelete
  119. M. Krebs9:22 PM

    I up-voted for Clownface von Fuckstick alone.

    ReplyDelete
  120. M. Krebs9:24 PM

    Now there's some historical perspective. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  121. I would like to go and see "Easy Rider" with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  122. montag29:31 PM

    "As for the rest of the gimps, oh holy shit. Scott Walker can't decide whether to be a pimp or whore."

    Gee, if Walker would just go fuck himself, he could be both.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Woah he'll be a shoo-in then.

    ReplyDelete
  124. montag29:50 PM

    I think it would be quite funny if Jebby gets left in the dust by someone who thinks his wife is a drug dealer while he's presumably dealing with his daughter's addiction problems.

    Even funnier that Jebby just might be the first of his tribe that won't wait until he's out of office to trade on the office and that won't affect his chances one bit. Jebby just oozes "hey, my ten percent first."

    ReplyDelete
  125. And don't their beloved fascist Pope resigned, allowing a COMMIE Pope to take his place! A commie pope who believes in climate change and the Big Bang and... and... even evolution.


    HaHaHaHaHaHa!

    ReplyDelete
  126. And Preparation-H.

    ReplyDelete
  127. He told the "Rite to Life" folk that when HE is president not only will he outlaw all abortion in the USA, but the entire world. Really.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/marco-rubio-vows-hell-take-away-womens-right-to-choose-at-home-and-around-the-world/

    ReplyDelete
  128. I assume running for repug president is highly lucrative for everyone involved except maybe the Kocks and Adeledsons?

    ReplyDelete
  129. Atticus Dogsbody10:07 PM

    Roy could've least put up the Bon Scott version. Far superior.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3nEAmt5AZ8

    ReplyDelete
  130. With Rush sLimebagh as moderator. Ummm, yes.

    ReplyDelete
  131. cleter10:27 PM

    He couldn't be Bush's running mate, since they're both from the same state, but a Walker Rubio ticket wouldn't surprise me.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Marion in Savannah10:29 PM

    Ah, yes... "You think it's butter, but it's snot."

    ReplyDelete
  133. The whole Jade Helm thing is another symptom of the disease that makes Trump a viable candidate. Think about this: The U.S. military is holding well-publicized exercises that cover several states. A handful of tinfoil-hat lunatics get messages through their dental work that this is really the U.S. invading Texas.

    Any normal political party would have looked at these cranks and idiots, and then promptly shoved them back into the attic. But not the modern GOP: The fucking governor of Texas charges the Texas Guard with monitoring Jade Helm. Not one but TWO sitting senators--both of whom are running for president--say that Congress needs to look into this. And nobody--absolutely nobody in the GOP will come out publicly to say, "Man, y'all are just fucked up!"

    ReplyDelete
  134. mortimer200010:47 PM

    I thought maybe it might be Marco Rubio, but I'm convinced that the real Greg Stillson in this race is Scott Walker. We don't need to find a Jimmy Smith to shake his hand to envision his toxic deviousness -- it's for all to see -- but I'd love to get a picture of Christopher Walken shaking his hand.

    ReplyDelete
  135. mortimer200010:59 PM

    Clearly, in Rod's mind the Benedict Option (or BenOp as he calls it) isn't so much about escaping to virtual Jesusland from the homo hordes bent on rampant throat shoving-down, as it is sharing an intimate voyage with a male companion who can appreciate good food, wine, Cole Porter, and good clean hijinks, all without having to put on a cassock and surplice for a lousy Hershey bar and a Coke. Unless he's into it that is.

    ReplyDelete
  136. jennofark11:30 PM

    I love this comment, but it maybe should have been "In space, no one can hear you scream about illegal aliens." Either way, well done.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:40 PM

    FSM don't love us that much...

    ReplyDelete
  138. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:44 PM

    Judging by the brain-damaged crap he's been spouting, he's already done that...

    ReplyDelete
  139. AGoodQuestion12:10 AM

    Both the candidate and his fan base aren’t all that interested in building a path to enough delegates and 270 electoral votes. They mostly want to rant.

    It's all very good to bitch about Mexicans being rapists, but if you want to actually harass them you need to start winning elections.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Ellis_Weiner12:11 AM

    Late arriving with this, but getta loada David Cay Johnston's Hawkeye-like arrows hitting the target: http://www.nationalmemo.com/21-questions-for-donald-trump/

    ReplyDelete
  141. AGoodQuestion12:15 AM

    She has done her homework. I like when she gets into the bit about S&A Concrete (as in concrete galoshes.)

    ReplyDelete
  142. Ellis_Weiner12:17 AM

    The closest anyone on that side has come to articulating a normal, honest, intelligent person's reaction to this festival of idiocy was Bobby Jindal saying, "we can't be the stupid party." How right he was. But he then figured, in for a penny, etc., and committed to Deep Stupid. Seriously. No one we've read here, in the GOP, at NRO, or anywhere else, has said, "The lunatics have seized control of the asylum. We have to get our own house in order." Yes, two cliches! That's how amazed I am. (Or am I?)

    ReplyDelete
  143. Ellis_Weiner12:19 AM

    (It's a he. David. Formerly of the NY Times. I don't know why he left, but he's a great economics reporter.)

    ReplyDelete
  144. Ellis_Weiner12:21 AM

    The wife says, "Trump is a comet who will burn out. He's the opening act for Jeb." I think she's right, much as I haz a sad to admit it.

    ReplyDelete
  145. AGoodQuestion12:28 AM

    Maybe the fact that he changes hot young wives like socks proves that he's rich, and thus favored by God.

    ReplyDelete
  146. AGoodQuestion12:37 AM

    Proposed bumper sticker: "Arizona is for us, not them."

    ReplyDelete
  147. I'm in favor of that. Preferably full immersion for as long as possible. As the old joke about Baptists goes, they just don't hold them under long enough....

    ReplyDelete
  148. Uh, Lindsey Graham isn't real sure about that.

    ReplyDelete
  149. AGoodQuestion12:44 AM

    So he'd be a john, too. Holy Trinity, Batman!

    ReplyDelete
  150. AGoodQuestion12:51 AM

    Does that mean he'll go to war to stop legal abortion? Oh goody,we haven't invaded Europe in forever.

    ReplyDelete
  151. AGoodQuestion1:06 AM

    Were you on acid or were they? Wait, those options aren't mutually exclusive.

    "Nervous Shakedown" is a very underrated rocker.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yDYOFM8oaA

    ReplyDelete
  152. redoubtagain2:13 AM

    The pushback, such as it is, will be from Adelson and the other moneybags, sometime about mid-September. And it will be two words--"Margin Call."

    ReplyDelete
  153. redoubtagain2:15 AM

    He was disoriented by the haboob of Cheetodust.

    ReplyDelete
  154. redoubtagain2:25 AM

    Conservative governance is "the ends justify the means."

    ReplyDelete
  155. Snarki, child of Loki6:36 AM

    Trump has his own moneybags...and it's not like he's buying bunches of TV ads or anything.

    I fully expect Trump to flounce out, but it'll be on his own schedule, not dancing to Adelson's tune.

    ReplyDelete
  156. Snarki, child of Loki6:49 AM

    Yeah, but you really have to read carefully to see who that "Clownface von Fuckstick" character IS.

    Because it could be anyone on the GOP candidate list...

    ...or perhaps that name should automatically go to the GOP front-runner? With lower-rankings getting names like "Whiny I Butthurt" and "Louie L Loser" at the bottom?

    This could revolutionize the primary ballot-printing job, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  157. Snarki, child of Loki6:55 AM

    The 2000 election showed that the 12th Amendment had no teeth, I don't expect that to change.

    If the Founders really expected it to be enforced, they would have put in a "summary execution" clause, amirite?

    ReplyDelete
  158. Snarki, child of Loki6:57 AM

    Pink Slime

    ReplyDelete
  159. He might, but the large cheering crowds he's drawing these days, the carte blanche he's receiving from fellow GOPers great and small, and all the national media attention are certainly fueling his already Hindenburg-sized ego.

    Below: Artist's conception of the end of Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential Campaign.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Call Steven King--there might be fodder for a sequel here.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Perfect! Because we believe so fervently in the sanctity of life, we're prepared to kill tens of millions of living, walking people in order to save a few thousand clumps of undifferentiated cells that may or may not become a viable fetus. Truly, their god works in quite fucked-up and counter-productive ways.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Well, now, Cheney did change his "residence" to his cabin in Wyoming. And while the way he did it would not have qualified him for a driver's license or even a fishing license as a Wyoming resident, his merely stating he was a resident satisfied the FEC.

    I'm sure he checked out all the legal details while he was exhaustively vetting the entire Republican landscape in his search for Bush's VP.

    ReplyDelete
  163. Except Mexicans, and they're not happy.

    ReplyDelete
  164. "They're telling the South, 'You lost!' Well, suck it, Mexico. You lost!"

    ReplyDelete
  165. Emily688:43 AM

    I can't believe I'm defending Reagan, but Jane Wyman was the one who initiated the divorce, according to Wikipedia, and Reagan didn't start dating Nancy Davis until after the divorce.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Timelines notwithstanding, my point is that the religious Right has no problem with divorce, infidelity, whoring, or even homosexuality as long as the person in question hates on the liberals.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Longitudinally Enabled9:45 AM

    That's what he said!

    ReplyDelete
  168. cleter10:57 AM

    Dick Cheney had been a Wyoming congressman and still had a house up there, so he was able to hastily change his driver's license from his one house to his other house. Rubio is a sitting US senator from Florida. He can't pretend to be from somewhere else.

    ReplyDelete
  169. cleter11:00 AM

    Republicans in early 1995 were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of how soon they'd be rid of Bill Clinton.

    ReplyDelete
  170. LittlePig11:09 AM

    Had to study that a while before the "d'oh!" moment. Well played.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Ellis_Weiner11:19 AM

    OH THE MANATEE!

    ReplyDelete
  172. StringOnAStick11:37 AM

    The GOP used to include moderates, who have now been chased out of the party my torch wielding mobs of cons (I intend both meanings of that word).
    As for Trump, FOX has been giving him tons of free air time and that has pumped up his poll numbers significantly. This rather begs the question: what is FOX's primary goal, money or politics? Subquestion: is FOX really that crazy?

    ReplyDelete
  173. jennofark11:41 AM

    You say that as though you're unacquainted with our modern GOP, where things can always be two ways at once, if it's convenient.

    ReplyDelete
  174. StringOnAStick11:49 AM

    You may want to discuss this observation with Roger Ailes (the bad one), though I doubt he will listen given all the ad time he has to sell.
    One aspect of this current frenzy is they've just had 3 huge cases of legally inflicted butthurt: ACA, gay marriage, and the treason flag. That's 3 good hard whacks on their hornets nest, and in rather rapid succession so of course Trump looks like their savior.

    ReplyDelete
  175. StringOnAStick11:51 AM

    Perhaps what we are seeing is the late bubble stage of the market for speaking fees for failed presidential candidates.

    ReplyDelete
  176. StringOnAStick11:55 AM

    Rubio just stated that he'll take away women's right to choose not only in the US, but around the world. That young pup sure likes to think big!

    ReplyDelete
  177. StringOnAStick11:58 AM

    He also has the Koch brothers riding shotgun for him, and that alone may be his biggest advantage.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Actually I was. Now that I remember it was the "For those about to Rock" concert. When they shot off the sound cannon or light cannon, whatever, it scared the crap out of me.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Bon Scott was the best.

    ReplyDelete
  180. "It shall be glorious. Glorious!"

    ReplyDelete
  181. There's got to be a showpony in there somewhere!

    ReplyDelete
  182. Magatha1:15 PM

    Oh yes, me too. I would pay cash money for that photo. (But it was Johnny Smith, btw.)

    ReplyDelete
  183. cleter1:37 PM

    Yeah, but a sitting Florida senator can't change his residence to some other state.


    I imagine by the end of the process there's be some bad blood between Rubio and Bush anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  184. montag22:18 PM

    The minor irony in this Jade Helm business is that back in the bad old days of the first Clinton term, the military held similar exercises across the Southwest every summer, but they were abandoned because the results didn't justify the cost. And, pretty much, no one complained about it--or even noticed, except for the increased number of Marine jets flying sideways between buildings at thirty feet off the ground.

    Now, with an Islamofascist socialist communist for Commander-in-Chief, well, it's a stealth takeover of the sovereign state of Texas. It's like Alex Jones and Art Bell had a baby and it burst an artery in its brain.

    ReplyDelete
  185. montag22:18 PM

    How would PBJ know? He's the poster boy for GOP stupidity. This is someone who believes in exorcism and thinks science is a horribly expensive form of voodoo.

    I think he got a Rhodes scholarship with the recommendation of someone who wanted to prove that higher education was irretrievably broken.

    ReplyDelete
  186. montag23:09 PM

    Still, Trump is quintessentially American--part carnival barker, part flim-flam man, part snake-oil salesman, and all self-made man who actually inherited over $600 million in early adulthood. Blustering, self-absorbed and self-impressed to a fault, he's a virtual cartoon of a billionaire. And the slow-witted just eat that up--in their minds, he's the real deal, what they think is the real deal. In public, he's half Wizard of Oz, half W.C. Fields, and all grifter. He appears genuinely nuts because the grift doesn't work unless you believe in it and yourself, and, boy, does he ever believe. Most importantly, if television had never been invented, Trump would have never existed, either.

    ReplyDelete
  187. B^4,

    Adelson is an interesting case, because for most of his life he was a good and useful guy with a lot of energy, inventiveness, and value to the community. This turned out to have commercial value, and he got rich as a result.

    There are conflicting reports about whether he went broke, from billionaire to zero in a year, when his Las Vegas techno-convention business hit the wall. In any event his come-back to multi-billionaire was rapid, in the Las Vegas way, because his credit was good.

    At that point his character seems to me to have changed, in a fashion quite parallel to the way the tone of the Israeli electorate has changed under the impact of terror.

    Adelson went from constructive businessman to financier of gambling, Las Vegas, and tax evasion, Macao, exactly as he went from decent citizen to bankroller of lunatics. Israel went from decent, idealistic Mapai-Mapam to vindictive, paranoid Likud.

    And the new Adelson shills for the new Likud.

    -dlj.

    ReplyDelete
  188. Dex,

    I think you're right. The stuff Republicans muttered in their martinis about FDR wasn't that different from the John Birchers of the last generation or the Chamber of Commerce of this.

    Eisenhower's program, such as it was, only got through Congress because of Senator LBJ managing it, in the teeth of Republican opposition.

    Nixon's EPA and "We're all Keynesians now" were backed by Democratic Congresses.

    Nothing but destruction was carried out by Reagan or either Bush.

    The Republicans are not a political party as the words have meaning in the rest of the world. They are at best a neurotic card party or sewing circle, often a boozed-up hate group.

    There is nothing elitist about knowing one is superior to them. To be a non-Republican is simply to avoid walking through pigshit. Plain common sense.

    It does, however, underline the urgency of concerted civic involvement, particularly at State and local levels.



    -dlj.

    ReplyDelete
  189. montag23:32 PM

    Perlstein is right about this, as he so often is. But, I think the leap from fringe to mainstream is a direct result of Fox News and, of course, Roger Ailes. Ailes is the classic paranoid personality, in the schema outlined by Hofstadter.

    We've now had two decades of Fox manhandling the news, with the inevitable result that its message is mainstreamed by the act of repetition. Stuff that was the property of the shortwave set now gets repeated twenty times a day on cable. Trump as political phenom is an example--Fox is giving him a huge amount of play. If it had ignored him in favor of some other candidate, his cachet would be diminished.

    And, we've been, in the last fifteen years of those two decades, in an intensely secretive environment in which both internal and external threats are magnified beyond all reasonable proportion, an ideal petri dish in which to nourish the fears and the fevered ideas of the fringe, and Fox has done yeoman work normalizing those.

    ReplyDelete
  190. montag23:44 PM

    Projection is a good deal of it. Rockefeller was perceived as a liberal (he wasn't, when one got right down to it), and he was excoriated for his divorce and almost immediate remarriage, and the consternation lingered for a long, long time. It's why a sleazy fucker like Henry Hyde was never challenged on his own shortcomings--he battled the libruls, fought the good fight, in his supporters' view.

    ReplyDelete
  191. montag23:56 PM

    Quantum politics, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  192. TGuerrant3:59 PM

    I report to you now from the hinterlands, where Americans are real and logic is amazing.

    It is widely believed that The Donald has "had some work." He is suspected, primarily, of having an eye-lift, and even Floyd the Barber wishes everyone to know that The Donald's squint wrinkles stop noticeably before reaching the eye, the destination of all true squint wrinkles.

    Given the number of pix out there from different sources taken at different times and in different places but all showing the same aberration, it is deemed unlikely that the Wrinkle Gap is the product of Fotosherping.

    As your dutiful correspondent, I have asked whether a celebrity's getting plastic surgery makes voters unlikely to vote for him. I can report that 85% of those interviewed replied that they will not have the opportunity to vote for him because he's going to be "taken care of" and 15% said they probably wouldn't vote for him and then started talking about The Donald's First Lady thing being almost as bad as if the First Lady had to be Bill Clinton.

    Results may not be generalizable to the hinterland population on account of most of these people laughing during their interviews, either at me or at an undetermined target.

    You are welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  193. TGuerrant4:05 PM

    First, "switch hitter" meant a talent for baseball. Then it meant a talent for sex. Now it means a talent for deception. How can they claim evolution is only a "theory"?

    ReplyDelete
  194. TGuerrant4:11 PM

    I don't mind the outfit or the carpet, but I can't vote for a man who has no armpit hair, damnit.

    I want to be a Republican, I really do. Why can't they give me a real man to vote for?

    Now Nixon? That man had feral cats running after him hoping to mate with his pits. THAT's what America needs to get back on track.

    ReplyDelete
  195. TGuerrant4:18 PM

    Tom Delay Kitchen and Garden Spray.®

    ReplyDelete
  196. TGuerrant4:22 PM

    The regulars have all gone to the beach to bitch.

    ReplyDelete
  197. "Taken care of" in the "sent to the Shady Oaks Resthome" taken care of or the "concrete overshoes" taken care of?

    ReplyDelete
  198. Oh right, there's this guy in a fancy village and giant bubbles chase him around? Don't call us, dude.

    ReplyDelete