...about two events last week -- the filibuster vote and the Iran deal -- that seem to have thrown the brethren for a loop. They'd gotten used to just piling abuse on Obamacare, and I think they genuinely believed they'd never have to work hard for a dollar again. No wonder they're pissed!
Not that they haven't quickly developed some tropes for the occasion, but they're kinda lame. For example, after referring to the "Obamacare train wreck" -- man, that one never gets old -- Doug Powers of the Michelle Malkin site refers to Obama's attempts to seat judges on the D.C. Court of Appeals, which the GOP filibusters was blocking, as "court stacking." This comes straight off the Republican Party boilerplate, which would embarrass Powers if he had any pride, but worse that that, how's that supposed to motivate voters? Maybe they think it sounds enough like "court packing" that some elderly voters will get outraged and storm the voting booths in 2014, thinking they're turning out for Wendell Willkie.
UPDATE. On the Iran tip, I missed this bit from Power Line's Paul Mirengoff, claiming that Obama and Kerry "grant concessions to regime that don’t like America because they themselves don’t like America all that much" and want to surrender it to Islamic fundamentalism, which totally rocks. Mirengoff cites as back-up the fact that after serving in Vietnam, Kerry said he thought the war was a mistake. (Mirengoff, uncontaminated by experience of combat, presumably thinks it was great.) Most Americans seem to share Kerry's opinion, which means they also don't like America, which is why they reelected the America-disliking Obama in 2012, which leaves Mirengoff to wait patiently, as a representative of the Saving Remnant, for Jesus to reincarnate Reagan and reclaim his people. At least that's the charitable explanation; it may just be that Mirengoff's an idiot.
Oh, that Wrong-Way Obama! He appeased the Iranians and used the nuclear option on Republicans, instead of the other way around.
ReplyDelete"This is who progressives are -- ruthless and nasty! Welcome to Obama's version of the Third Reich!"
ReplyDeleteI really don't feel I need to add anything to this.
Some Guy appears to be very concerned that his readers might forget Obama is black. I can only say that I would be quite surprised were this to happen.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the jack booted thugs seating judges, it's Judicialnacht all over.
ReplyDelete"Conservatives are totally color-blind, unlike the AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION PRESIDENT."
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats subverted the GOP's efforts to stall the democratic process! Whatever happened to FREEDOM?!
ReplyDeleteMaybe they think it sounds enough like "court packing" that some elderly
ReplyDeletevoters will get outraged and storm the voting booths in 2014, thinking
they're turning out for Wendell Willkie.
Oh, come on, most of them aren't that old. And wouldn't be fans of a commie RINO like Wilkie anyway.
On the other hand, misleadingly mention one of the senators who was an early proponent of filibuster reform at the beginning of this Congressional session, and they'll be on much firmer ground with the base: "Judiciary *COUGH* Warren *COUGH* impeach *COUGH* Negro."
Wait, why are the rest of us here? The thread was complete at the first comment.
ReplyDelete"...and then pretended to weep for the lack of comity that would ensue..."
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure comity in the Senate died when Cheney told leahy to go fuck himself on the Senate floor.
Cheney just delivered the coup de grace. Preston Brooks beat comity into unconsciousness 150 years ago.
ReplyDelete"Now Obama can appoint the Rev. Al Sharpton to a judge seat and GOPers are powerless to stop him,..."
ReplyDeleteI'm really hoping for Jello Biafra, myself.
I just... I just have an overpowering need for validation, okay?!
ReplyDeleteIf heading off war with Iran and restoring some semblance of functionality to the Senate are merely ways to distract attention from the rough run-out of the ACA, I'd love to see what's going to distract me from Benghazi. A cure for AIDS? Jamie Dimon perp-walking? Come on, I need distraction!
ReplyDelete"Doug Powers
ReplyDeleteof the Michelle Malkin site refers to Obama's attempts to seat judges
on the D.C. Court of Appeals, which the GOP filibusters was blocking, as
"court stacking." . . . how's that supposed to motivate voters? Maybe they think it sounds
enough like "court packing" . . ."
I think the operative rhyme is more like "court Blacking.
So, if The Big One has distracted us from Benghazi with the ACA rollout, from the website beta-testing with the Nukular Option, and from Senatorial shenanigans with the Iran deal, what is he going to use to distract us from that, eh?
ReplyDeleteThink we could find him a cute intern?
Mitch McConnell gravely says, "Never again... will I eat potato and egg salad that's been lying out in the sun."
ReplyDeleteCloture is the Auschwitz of liberal fascism.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good tagline for a politics-themed BDSM.
ReplyDeleteSo perhaps the President is more like areplicant Chamberlain, or a Transformers version that can mutate into other historical villains who have also eluded the historical opprobrium they clearly deserve, such as Bill Clinton.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking he's more the Voltron version, made up of the mechanical lions FDR, Carter, Clinton, and Chuck D.
Rush Limbaugh compared the vote to rape because, well, Rush Limbaugh. (Don't worry, Rush fans, Limbaugh "is swinging back at critics," as reported by The Daily Caller -- his spokesman said, "Rush Limbaugh has spent 25 years illustrating absurdity by using extrapolated analogies." Well, that clears that up.)
ReplyDeleteI would compare that spokesman's defense to that of a child-rapist's lawyer who argues that his client was using performance art to illustrate the pitfalls of moral relativism.
Non-rightblogger question: Where did the name "nuclear option" come from anyway? Seems like some Luntzian crap custom-made for election-year push polling. "Obama and the Senate Dems enacted the NUCLEAR OPTION! Wooooo! Scary!" Yes, because it really is a catastrophic act of destruction we'll never recover from, not, you know, re-introducing the concept of majority rule to the Senate. (Fun fact: There is no mention of the senate filibuster in the Constitution, and its first recorded use was in 1837. But FOUNDING FADDERS OBAMA DICKTATER BLARGLE BLARGLE.)
ReplyDeleteWhat part does Clinton form?
ReplyDeleteThe penis, of course. FDR has to be the arms or the head or the chest because of the thing with the polio.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, to answer my own question, given that congress is less popular than genital warts these days, maybe panicky robocalling about Obama 'destroying the hallowed traditions of the Senate!' will lead to more responses of 'lend me a sledgehammer and I'll join right in.'
ReplyDelete"Nuclear option" came from the Republican threat to blow up the filibuster back in the mists of history before the Kenyan usurper. Remember the Gang of However Many and the "deal" they made, which was "ok, we Democrats will let all these horrible judicial picks through in exchange for scuttling these three REALLY horrible judicial picks and Republican agreement not to change the filibuster rules on judicial appointments."
ReplyDeleteOf course, the difference in the two situations was that the Dems offered something in exchange for keeping the filibuster, which was, "we'll let you slide on most of this." The Republicans offered "fuck you - see how well you can run a government when we block every appointment" in exchange for...well, blocking every appointment.
Fuck those fucking fucks.
What Limbaugh's spokesman meant: "Rush Limbaugh has spent 25 years illustrating absurdity by using extrRAPEolated analogies."
ReplyDeleteRobert Stacy McCain: Even to think of negotiating with the Tehran regime is a disgrace.
ReplyDeleteActually selling them a bunch of missiles, though? That's cool.
On that note, back when Tom Daschle's filibusters were one of the few things standing between us and a Margaret Atwood dystopia*, I bet every rightblogger who has a record going back that far had a 'smash the filibuster, onward with Great Leader Bush's plans' post, or at least an Instapundit-style passive-aggressive 'thought exercise' about, golly gee, those Senate Democrats sure are a bother, and wouldn't things be easier if the president castrated the Senate and bulldozed his agenda through them? Something to think about, heh heh.
ReplyDelete*-The Wiki sez that during the Thune-Daschle campaign, Bush, Cheney, and Frist all referred to Daschle as the 'chief obstructionist', which is of course these days a label that every two-bit teabagger dipshit wears with pride. Tempus fugit, eh?
"They can take...our parliamentary procedure that has been exploited beyond all common sense in our deliberate effort the crash the federal government and blame everyone else for doing it...but THEY CAN NEVER TAKE, etc."
ReplyDeleteEse fue el chiste. C'mon, Jenn, a little ribaldry before we get to the punchline? For your ol' pal Lee.
ReplyDelete(I was considering doing the 'FDR can't be the legs' joke, but I thought it would be in poor taste (and I once threatened to hatefuck Rush Limbaugh's corpse, so don't tell me I'm squeamish.) Anyway, kudos for Going There.
Man, I'll probably regret this post in the morning.
You try being a ruthless power-grabbing dictator simultaneously with being an ineffectual milquetoast of whom the Iranians took advantage. It's easy to confuse the two roles.
ReplyDeleteAsking Rush Limbaugh to apologize is just like raping him, which is why most people don't do it.
ReplyDeleteI can see McCain's logic. If there is nothing to complain about from the results of negotiation, you complain instead about the fact that negotiations took place at all.
ReplyDeleteRush Limbaugh compared the vote to rape because, well,
ReplyDeleteBecause that's what he thinks about.
...kudos for Going There.
ReplyDeleteEh, don't mention it. Sure, it's poor taste, but...it's also factual. The man was paraplegic. Nothing particularly vicious about stating the facts if there's nothing hateful ladled over the top of them, plus even though he died years before I was born, I love him.
The Big One has distracted us [...] from the website beta-testing with the Nukular Option
ReplyDeleteSo who were the dumb feckers who gave the Democrats such a golden opportunity for distraction from website deficiencies, in the form of filibuster reform? Perhaps the Republicans should stop grumbling about Obama's strategems and look for more competent leaders who manage not to be fooled by them.
And the whole rightwing crew now running around rubbing their hands and muttering "Oh boy! Just wait until we're back in power! The people are gonna love what we'll do to them!"
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, back here in the real world, voters are increasingly hearing what Republicans want to do to them, and they're recoiling in horror.
Hey, can't you at least congratulate him for keeping his inner Atwater under control?
ReplyDeleteNumber of Senate Republicans, Tea Party activists and conservative commentators currently in or being transported to a Konzentrationslager = 0
ReplyDelete"Hallowed Traditions of the Senate", huh? Jesus, the Senate already functions to preserve the rights of a bunch of wingnut mountain states with more livestock than people and neoconfederate enclaves with guys in caves waiting for the return of Nathan Bedford Forrest at the expense of population centers with ... you know... actual people in them. How much more fricking protection do they need?
ReplyDeletethe threads over? therre isn't any reason for us to be here? THANKS OBAMA
ReplyDeleteI am in fuckin' awe.
ReplyDeleteTHANKS, OBAMA.
ReplyDeleteArbeit macht tea
ReplyDeleteExactly. "I don't always negotiate arrangements to mitigate the threat of nuclear disaster...but when I do, I prefer that nothing be achieved by virtue of not having done so in the first place." Robert Stacy McCain is...The Most Abstractly Principled Man in the World.
ReplyDeleteBoth Jimmy Carter and George W Bush used nucular.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they got tired of having things rammed down their throats and decided a little Black packing was in order.
ReplyDeleteJimmy was full metal "nuculah".
ReplyDeleteWould that were true! You seem to think that people vote based on rational self-interest. I'm afraid we're in for some ugliness.
ReplyDeleteBe not afraid, the ark of history sails over the horizon whither none may see, before it crashes against the rocks and sinks into the comforting arms of the deepest ocean.
ReplyDeleteHistory is like a powerful snowmobile, speeding along the frozen tundra, until it flips, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what this means but contemplating it just helped me achieve satori [looks off into distance sagaciously to the haunting notes of a wooden flute]
ReplyDeleteJimmy Carter can pronounce nuclear any way he wants; I give him a pass because he was a naval officer who majored in reactor technology and nuclear physics.
ReplyDeleteI'm just wondering which GOP candidate in 2016 will announce his VP running mate as ice weasels.
ReplyDelete...and sinks into the comforting arms of the deepest ocean.
ReplyDeleteThen Halliburton is awarded the no-bid contract to recover the wreckage.
Reading Roy's VV piece and the quote from Andrew McCarthy was an interesting exercise in translation/interpreting the sociopathic wingnut mind. I think he's trying to telegraph the next strategic move: have the Senate retroactively reduce the number of judges on the DC Court of Appeals to the number currently serving, thus eliminating the 3 vacant positions that Obama's nominees would occupy. We've already heard some elected winger say there are "too many" judges on that court anyway, so I expect we'll be hearing more along this line soon.
ReplyDeleteHarry Reid better get those 3 noms through pronto, before the boys in the new memes dept at Faux get this ad campaign up and running.
Groening FTW.
ReplyDelete"OBAMA MOCKS THE CONSTITUTION" declared Charles Hurt
ReplyDeleteat Breitbart.com ... What Mr. Obama is doing
is not funny and cannot be undone."
So... there's a real, live political analyst who thinks the filibuster is in the Constitution, and also imagines that his beloved GOP, being so dedicated to this Constitution of the Mind, can't simply reinstate the filibuster rules as soon as they have the majority? I don't follow, Charles. It's almost like you have no knowledge or ethics.
I'm thinking of him as The Thing -- an alien who can quickly mutate into whatever villain is necessary to do the most damage. A minute ago he was Hitler, then he was Chamberlain -- now his chest is turning into a mouth he can use to bite off your arms AND nominate Al Sharpton to something.
ReplyDeleteyeppers. I knew someone in this erudite crowd would know the reference.
ReplyDeleteThey can't write because they can't think. And they don't dare start thinking because they'd have to answer questions like: "How come the guy who just made $300,000 on Apple stock is being taxed at 15%* while I'm paying twice that rate on the money I have to pester my boss for?"
ReplyDelete*And if he thinks his tax bill is too high, he can defer those earnings 'til next year, giving him another sixteen months to figure out how to shelter those poor innocent dollars from the grasping claws of Uncle Sam. No, really.
Doug Powers of the Michelle Malkin site refers to Obama's attempts to seat judges on the D.C. Court of Appeals, which the GOP filibusters was blocking, as "court stacking."
ReplyDeleteWell, "Twitch his own"...
I'm just wondering which GOP candidate in 2016 will announce his VP running mate as ice weasels.
ReplyDeleteOh, come on, there has to be some diversity on the ticket.
Of course you are correct. It is a joy watching Roy write/think circles around these guys (and many commenters here do that hilariously well too) -- I suppose my real question is, As these idiots refuse all opportunities for honesty and thought, how do they not collapse under the weight of their shame? It's startling! They seem to be so sturdy, we should use them to build an elevator to the moon.
ReplyDeleteSo, if the wingnuts start calling Obama "President Peachfuzz", it shouldn't be taken as racist, right?
ReplyDeleteThanks to hellslittlestangel, some "artist" on the Right is sure to Photoshop Obama into a Rocky & Bullwinkle still within 48 hrs. Bets?
Constitution of the Mind
ReplyDelete*golfclap*
"How come the guy who just made $300,000 on Apple stock is being taxed at 15%..."
ReplyDeleteBecause he's a Job Creature™. Duuh...
I read that cartoon probably in 1991 (yikes) and that is the line that just STUCK. Thanks for the memory, Jenn!
ReplyDeleteFood stamper, please!
ReplyDeleteBecause they have no shame. SATSQ.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting for one of those Powerliners to make perhaps a deathbed confession that the Dan Rather documents kerning blah blah blah was a Rove ratfuck they were in on from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteDidn't McCain already do that in 2008?
ReplyDeleteThe penis, of course.
ReplyDeleteAftermirth cleanup, Aisle 7.
I seem to recall Jimmy Carter have an idiosyncratic pronunciation: Nu-key-ar. He struggle to say it the right way, but that was the best he could do with his Blind Willie McTell diction. At least he tried.
ReplyDeleteBecause nothing says "I hate my country" like serving in high office.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you can barely hear the "L" when he says it.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/KhwBLE2bpnw?t=2m6s
That is pretty rich. Also golfclap.
ReplyDeleteI imagine Republicans in a few years huddled around a campfire, all wearing tattered and poorly-cured hides, carrying bone cudgels and having wild, matted beards, flinching at every noise in the night. They are discussing policy, as they understand it.
"We have to do what the Constitution says!" one of them bellows. "But what does the Constitution say?" comes a tremulous voice, possibly of a junior or female member of the tribe (if there are any of either.)
The biggest, fattest, most grizzled one holds a battered conch shell to his ear. Everyone holds their breath. "The Constitution says..." - he grumbles ominously - "it says... DEATH TO THE LIBERALS!"
I pointed out Cheney's awfulness to my winger brother, who defended the VP on the grounds that congress critters used to FIGHT DUELS!...Maybe that's what happened with Cheney & the guy whose face he shot off?
ReplyDeleteI bet the filibuster was introduced/used by pre civil war southerners.
ReplyDeleteYep, what aimai said. You can look at a lot of what's wrong with the world today as representative of a shame imbalance. I've had a hard time looking at it any other way since I first read Rushdie's Shame which is about how fucked up things get as a result of the utter shamelessness of a few and the burdens of the undeserved, unearned shame heaped upon the many, the marginalized minorities or second-class citizens especially. Think about it: spending $100K on a stupid fucking handbag in a world where half the population is living in abject poverty is shameless. Worse, instead of being presented as shameful, it's lauded and paraded about as a goal to be pursued by the population at large. Just think, if you win the next Powerball, you could spend all of your time shopping just like a Kardashian! Truly disgusting. At the same time, probably the majority of the poor feel shame for their condition - a condition that in most cases is worse than it needs to be because of the demands of people who need those resources (money, etc) more so they can buy $100,000 handbags, and it could be improved quite a lot if not for the legal and other constructions of the shameless.
ReplyDeleteShame imbalance. That's the real root of evil.
Yup. Some of 'em seem to think that Bill the Clinton spent all those years Governatoring and Presidenting just so he could cash in. Of course, they forget that he sorta kinda had to scramble for the moolah to pay the lawyers they made him hire. (Yeah, he overshot; it's the 'Mercan way.)
ReplyDeleteI want to take this comment on a shopping spree in a favela? I'm not really sure what to do with it. I'm just sure it's correct and persuasive. Thanks, Jenn.
ReplyDeleteIt might be interesting to gather in one place all the terrible things wingnuts warn us Obama's about to do but **SPOILER ALERT** never actually happen.
ReplyDeleteThey're ALL ice weasels. Try to keep up!
ReplyDeleteum...all of them?
ReplyDeleteI've pictured it more like the following...the characters and setting as you describe. Republicans are in the foreground. The only remaining liberal, Zog, is in the background. You can tell he's a liberal because he's wearing glasses so you just know he's a poindexter.
ReplyDeleteOf course, in the next frame, they kill Zog, and go on burning their hands whenever they cook.
THOSE ARE YANG HOLY WORDS! YOU SHALL NOT SPEAK THEM!
ReplyDeleteActually, the Obamacare screw-ups were intentional to distract attention from Benghazi. It's the Circle of Life...
ReplyDeleteTHAT WHICH WAS OURS IS OURS AGAIN!
ReplyDelete*scampers around crude replica of White House made out of sticks and excrement*
Mirengoff's schtick wins the prize for most tiresome, lazy and self congratulatory of all these winger laments. I'm impressed - and not in a good way - that someone who graduated from an Ivy and became a lawyer can't come up with anything more substantive than "they hate America!". I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and allow that he might have been pressed for time, but according to Wikipedia, he's retired. Lazy, it is then! Or senile.
ReplyDeleteLearning that changed my whole understanding of that old 3 Mile Island skit from SNL.
ReplyDelete