Thursday, June 12, 2014

THE RETURN OF THE REAGAN DEMOCRATS.

National Journal's Ron Fournier is today's Mr. Bi-Partisan, and this month went among The People way out in non-Philadelphia Pennsylvania in search of fellow bi-partisans. He ate at their diner. He shot the breeze in their barber shop. He heard their disappointment with their leaders. They clearly saw -- or rather Fournier, filled with their wisdom, clearly saw -- that the unseating of a powerful Republican, Eric Cantor, is a warning to both parties. There's a "populist" breeze a-blowin', and here's what it sounds like:
"This country's doomed," Guy said. Kercher nodded her head and told me that she's close to losing her house to a mortgage company and can't get help from Washington. For years, their county salaries haven't kept pace with the cost of living. "The rich get richer. The poor get benefits. The middle class pays for it all," Kercher said.
Ah, the middle class -- they've always been America's salvation, at least in newsweeklies, and now Fournier say they're bringing us "a peaceful populist revolt -- a bottom-up, tech-fueled assault on 20th-century political institutions." You know it's not the nasty sort of revolution because it's tech-fueled, meaning those few Americans who conditionally qualify as middle class can still afford laptops. Plus it's bi-partisan.

And what's the bi-partisan middle-class populist revolt agenda? Fournier brings in Doug Sosnik, who wrote a book called Applebee's America so you know he's clued-in and tech-fueled, to supply bullets for the revolutionary arsenal:
  • A pullback from the rest of the world, with more of an inward focus.
  • A desire to go after big banks and other large financial institutions.
  • Elimination of corporate welfare.
  • Reducing special deals for the rich.
  • Pushing back on the violation of the public's privacy by the government and big business.
Sounds reasonable -- oh, wait, we forgot the most important revolutionary bullet:
  • Reducing the size of government.
Because if you want to rein in the rich, corporations, the financial industry, etc., the first step is to scale back the government -- the SEC, the CFPB, the Justice Department and all that, they just get in the way; flying squads of billionaires, battening on the bathtub-drowned Small Government, will take care of all that for you.

Or maybe they're just loot the treasury on behalf of their buddies and destroy whatever effectiveness our government still has, as usual. But to paraphrase an old showbiz proverb, if you haven't seen it, it's revolutionary to you. Now if only we can get Joe Lieberman to run for President...

211 comments:

  1. gocart mozart10:40 AM

    "This country's doomed," Guy said. Kercher nodded her head and told me
    that she's close to losing her house to a mortgage company and can't get
    help from Washington."

    These tea party people, fuckin' moochers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Modulo_Myself10:53 AM

    "I don't see how it can happen," Kercher said of a unification of
    barricade-busters. "You keep waiting for everybody else to do something
    about it because you're just keeping your head above water. I can't take
    the time to worry about it, because if I lose my job, I'm homeless."

    She paused and laughed sarcastically. "Of course, then maybe I could get some help from the government."


    Oh man, because those homeless people really do have it made. With this Engels-like analysis of the conditions of the working-poor and alienated in America, I'm sure the revolution is right around the corner.

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  3. dstatton11:17 AM

    The woman who is close to foreclosure and "can't get help from Washington": Does she want limited government, too?

    ReplyDelete
  4. ain't no dissonance like the cognitive dissonance cause the cognitive dissonance don't stop!

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  5. Oh look whiny, resentful people who think Big Government's sole role is to give Cadillacs to welfare queens. Gosh that sure is novel.

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  6. Derelict11:27 AM

    For years, their county salaries haven't kept pace with the cost of living.

    Yes, these government employees are demanding that government downsize. And do away with wasteful spending like, say, providing raises that keep pace with the cost of living. All while providing more government help to struggling middle-class government employees like themselves.

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  7. whetstone11:30 AM

    Only Ron Fournier could get me irritated at members of the struggling middle class. Which is probably the point if you read between the lines.

    I get the feeling that Cantor's loss has a lot less to do with America's Restless Populism than major changes in the Virginia GOP, specifically in northern/central Virginia. I'm from farther southwest—which used to be GOP Crazy Town in contrast to clubby Establishment NOVA Republicans—but NOVA has been producing some real dicks recently, like Ken Cuccinelli. (I have to confess I breathe a sigh of relief when a state rep says something cretinous about women or the poor and they're not from SWVA.)

    I'd love to read something really long and analytical about the DC-burbs GOP. Shit, I'd write it if I still lived in Virginia. FFS, it's right in the backyard of 75% of the big political writers in America. Hoping Cantor's loss leads to something.

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  8. StringOnAStick11:37 AM

    Yes, "the middle class pays for it all", and gets no benefits whatsoever, like a mortgage interest tax deduction (largest # of households receiving it = the middle class), schools for their kids, roads, bridges, fire departments, etc. Yep, the middle class gets nothing, nothing at all, just Uncle Sam's picking their pocket.
    Having just spent 5 days with my Fox-addled wingnut parents, I know exactly where these resentful ideas come from. I also think I'm onto the scent of a lot of age-related dementia in this country, because if your only reality is from Fox news, then you aren't actually engaged with reality, and that way lies cognitive decline.

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  9. It's hard to say. VA07 isn't NOVA, although you do now have execs commuting in to D.C. from Culpeper (?!?)

    NOVA in my experience at least, is becoming really not GOP friendly territory, especially when they start flapping their yaps about LGBT issues, women or ... anything really.

    On the other side of the District you have Maryland, which is an ultraviolet state even when you count more conservative counties like Howard.

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  10. dmsilev11:38 AM

    "Doug Sosnik, who wrote a book called Applebee's America"



    Please please please tell me there's a whole chapter about the salad bar.

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  11. Derelict11:40 AM

    Probably BECAUSE it's in their backyard that they won't write about it. They keep hoping that by ignoring the monster they helped to create ("The Tea Party is a grassroots organization!" "Tea Party people just want to rein in excessive government!"), it will not devour them as well.

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  12. Silly Fournier! Sarcastic is not a synonym for Half-witted.

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  13. Yes, but you see these doinks think they are only ones who pay taxes, therefore they own the schools and the roads and the bridges and so forth. Everyone else should have to ask their permission. Or something. I just know that 99% of the time, when someone starts in on taxes, I should turn my head because I don't want to see their pimply ass.

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  14. Derelict12:01 PM

    If you're a half-wit, it most certainly is!

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  15. They've been fed a pretty steady stream of bullshit about welfare queens and poors making babies just for free healthcare, by people that intend to sell of their job to a private firm so someone can collect a nice paycheck after laying off half the staff.

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  16. Waingro12:05 PM

    Well, it's true. What the Romans ever done for us?

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  17. synykyl12:07 PM

    So, Fournier and Sosnick have discovered that "regular folk" are morons? Who would have guessed?

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  18. whetstone12:10 PM

    Admittedly, being from Roanoke, I tend to lump in anything past Richmond as NOVA, the same way everywhere in Illinois besides the Chicago burbs is "downstate."

    Yeah, the influx of immigrants and highly-educated government workers in the DC burbs is not friendly territory for the GOP. But man, they are producing some not-house-trained Republicans, which I totally don't get.

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  19. Because if you want to rein in the rich, corporations, the financial
    industry, etc., the first step is to scale back the government -- the
    SEC, the CFPB, the Justice Department and all that, they just get in the
    way; flying squads of billionaires, battening on the bathtub-drowned
    Small Government, will take care of all that for you.

    Obviously. Just ask Dave Brat, who a commenter at Crooked Timber is implicitly claiming will be tougher on the big banks than Elizabeth Warren. Brat certainly has criticized the behavior of the big banks, yet is also a Tenth Amendment fetishist who wants to eliminate virtually all government regulation and oversight, especially as it pertains to business. What are we supposed to use to punish the banksters, Dave? Harsh language?

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  20. whetstone12:11 PM

    If it's a guide to finding the best Applebees in America, I'd buy it.

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  21. Watch Fox News and give your synapses a rest!

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  22. Fournier brings in Doug Sosnik, who wrote a book called Applebee's America


    Oh, fuck you.


    On the basis of that, I took a look at the linked Sosnik column (in Politico, natch). It's that typical middle-way, both-sides-are-at-fault piece you usually get from our wonderful newsmedia, livened up with a general helping of context-free Gallup poll results. For instance, he throws in a very popular one showing that fewer people self-identify as liberal than conservative to prove that (all together now) America is a center-right country. Never mind that studies which question people on their actual beliefs demonstrate that left-of-center positions are predominant; the elite nattering class decided before I was born that this is a center-right country and everything must be viewed through this lens.


    Sosnik also predicts the rise of a middle-way third party to crush the Democrats and Republicans. Yes, again. Yes, he does seem to think this is a novel idea.

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  23. Gromet12:25 PM

    "This country's doomed," Guy said. Kercher nodded her head and told me that she's close to losing her house

    Should it strike me as quite a leap, the step from "my mortgage is doomed" to "this country is doomed"?

    Are there any personal situations that are not also national apocalypse? When I read rightwing journalism, I feel like there are not.

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  24. The revolution will not be televised. It will be streamed in hidef.

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  25. Derelict12:28 PM

    There's no surer way to boost your income than by lowering your salary! That's why the U.S. government needs to run its budget just like any American household does,.

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  26. I am a DA civilian employee. I am surrounded by retired military now drawwing civil service paychecks. In many cases married to double dippers as well. And virtually all are small government/low tax believers.
    MY government benefits are earned.
    YOUR government benefits are welfare.

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  27. Derelict12:30 PM

    The magic of the marketplace will punish them. After the bank has taken all of your money, foreclosed on your house, towed away your car, and sold your children into slavery, you will close your account with them. And that'll teach 'em not to mess with you!

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  28. Jay B.12:31 PM

    Well fuck it though, really. If you look at the laundry list of things they hate, those are largely GOOD THINGS TO HATE. The "reducing government" stupidity is because they think we give too much to poor people which is stupid. One way to change that part is to open up the government spigot to the middle class and poor. God, it's not that difficult. If the Democrats were a functional political party, they'd promise confiscatory taxes on the wealthy, they'd say that the banks would have to pay trillions in reparations for ruining the world economy and they'd promise chickens and pot to everyone else to build a better world/future/energy independence/orgasms. Social Security? Double it! How would we pay for it? On the backs of those who've exploited the shit out of the middle class for 40 long fucking years. Double the minimum wage. Give tax breaks to small businesses while taxing the fuck out of the box stores. Whatever. Why Democrats have spent the last 20 years talking about reducing benefits is beyond my ken of understanding. Curb military spending, increase domestic spending and tax the rich. Not hard and politically popular.

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  29. Derelict12:33 PM

    If it's not the apocalypse, the reader won't get outraged enough to vote Republican. Only those blinded by rage can act against their own interests.

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  30. Derelict12:34 PM

    The third way is, indeed, right up the middle between all of our buttcheeks.

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  31. A few years back, there was a survey that attempted to ascertain how much assistance people received from the government vs. how much they thought they received. First, they asked everyone if they received government assistance; a sizable majority said no. Then they ran through a list of twenty or so government programs (major ones plus some smaller, more obscure ones) and asked each respondent if they ever received aid from any of those programs. Of the ones who said they'd never received assistance, most of them admitted to receiving assistance from at least one of those programs. Some of them received assistance from several.


    The lesson is simple: "Big government" is that which the government does for someone else.

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  32. Gromet12:40 PM

    All we have to do is remove regulation. Then the banks will behave rationally, which is to say in a manner pleasing to 99% of their customers. Gone will be the days of their rapacious insanity and unaccountability -- those are things that only exist in response to big government. Why, big banks would be happily making a modest profit by moral means RIGHT NOW, if not for that Barney Frank gumming up the works by telling them not to gouge and over-leverage and deceive all the time!

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  33. No, you have to chant the Laffer spell while you lower tax rates. Then the deficit goes away.

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  34. I have no idea who Doug Sosnick is talking to. I'm on the lower fringe of middle class (as in barely hanging on with my wretched claws) and my concerns are very different.

    I want to be able to pay for child care so that we can go to our jobs without going bankrupt. I want access to organic brussel sprouts AND I want to be able to roll them around in hot wing sauce if I so choose. I want to be able to peruse said brussel sprouts without having to worry about dying from a hail of gunfire sprayed out by the dude on Aisle 2. I want my neighbor to do a little better at taking care of his lawn. It doesn't have to look like Augusta National, but come on. I want the defense budget cut in half and the remainder spent on a One-Freaking-Password-For-All-Things project. And I want my kids to put their shoes on when so ordered. That's about it.

    My biggest middle class fear in life -- aside from cancer -- is that the private
    company that our town hired to collect the garbage and recycling will be
    one day late.

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  35. Ellis_Weiner12:51 PM

    --even when it's stopped!

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  36. Interesting how the third way always seems to be lower taxes, and entitlement reform, and deficit reduction. Only difference seems to be they get a couple of conservative dems on board.

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  37. Gromet12:53 PM

    the U.S. government needs to run its budget just like any American household does


    Oh hey GOP, instead of running our national budget like we make $24,000 and live in a bank-owned 2BR ranch under a cruel ARM in collapsing, hopeless Pennsyltucky, how about we run it like our GDP is $16 trillion and we span an entire continent and file 1,500 patent applications per day? Just a thought.

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  38. No, the Office of Strongly Worded Memos will be abolished under Brat.

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  39. Ellis_Weiner12:54 PM

    Why not? We know all the tricks--sarcasm, dramatic irony, bathos, lytotes, etc.

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  40. Third way parties, imaginary or real, are great for ensuring nothing gets done. Nothing progressive, anyway.

    The perfect solution for the honest, hard-working janes and joes who are self-reliant, cynical, rugged and wise as they repeat Fox-approved talking points about government and the poors to our intrepid reporter who wandered one-hundred miles away from DC for an afternoon.

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  41. DocAmazing1:10 PM

    Why Democrats have spent the last 20 years talking about reducing benefits is beyond my ken of understanding.
    Our problem has a first name,
    It's "d-o-n-o-r",
    And our problem has a second name;
    It's m-o-n-e-y"...
    Okay, so it doen't rhyme. You get the gist.

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  42. StringOnAStick1:13 PM

    Yes, and they really, really resent the fact that those people get to use all that infrastructure that they paid for with their hard earned taxes (cause you know those people don't pay taxes, Hannity told them so!). Why, it is all the Cadillacs those people drive that's causing all these potholes and bad bridges!

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  43. stepped_pyramids1:14 PM

    I wonder if she knows that the Tea Party movement specifically started in opposition to the idea that people like her might get help from the government.

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  44. Jay B.1:14 PM

    Yes, but time was, there were Democrats who could take their money and still vote against them. It's a political thing that takes finesse and craft. But why they don't just take money and still grandstand for votes, it's really stupid.

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  45. Derelict1:16 PM

    It's not just courting donors. The DLC is infested with people who are convinced that the only way to beat Republicans is to BE Republicans. Marshall "Bullshit Moose" is the poster boy here.

    Since the late '80s, they've pushed the party ever farther to the right, and demanded it abandon everything that has populist appeal. Thus the instant revulsion against anything that's labeled as populist. (See Clinton, Bill, for "ending welfare as we know it," "must cut Medicare and Medicaid to save programs," "must deregulate banking and investment by repealing Glass-Steagal," etc. ad infinitum.)

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  46. Derelict1:17 PM

    The Tea Party: An army of morons started by Dick Armey to ensure that banks and investment houses would not lose a dime on the economic disaster they created.

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  47. redoubtagain1:19 PM

    Not so much "limited" as "restricted".

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  48. There are many variations of Fournier in the DC punditocracy and, after you clear away the blather (the equivalencies, the stock columns we've been reading for years, the "novel ideas", the heartfelt one-on-ones with angry white folks), they all trade in futility.

    Which, I suppose, is their big problem with Obama. He actually tried to improve a few things.

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  49. redoubtagain1:27 PM

    (I'm one of those people, I work for the government, and boy do I pay taxes. Hannity can go f himself. Sideways.)

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  50. redoubtagain1:33 PM

    Gotta go with Jim Hightower on this one.

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  51. LookWhosInTheFreezer1:35 PM

    "They've been fed a pretty steady stream of bullshit about welfare queens and poors making babies just for free healthcare"

    I have it on good authority from George Will that many of the women saunter around in seductive clothing just so they can get that Rape Kit performed on Joe Taxpayer's dime!!

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  52. Gromet1:45 PM

    They might consider changing their elephant to an eighth-century berzerker. Angry, senseless, violent, extremely old-school, Nordic -- what rightwing pleasure center doesn't it rub?

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  53. LookWhosInTheFreezer1:47 PM

    This would also explain their animosity towards rap music. All those people stepping up to the microphone that Ronald Reagan paid for!

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  54. Spaghetti Lee2:00 PM

    "Small government" barely even qualifies as a policy position for people any more. It's a mantra. A talisman. A shibboleth. Witness the endless parade of polls that show people are in favor of "smaller government" yet can't name any specific things to cut; not only that, but when the pollster starts asking about specifics, like education or health care, people say the government should spend more. So what it is, I guess, is a coded affirmation of personal rightness. I feel more liberated already.

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  55. Spaghetti Lee2:02 PM

    Also, I wonder if the Fournier-types' fetishization of populist revolutions, third-party/independent saviors, the wisdom of the people, and so on, is due to subconscious guilt over having spent most of their careers helping to shove the people into a dirt whole and make the establishment stronger than ever.

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  56. RogerAiles2:07 PM

    ● A pony.

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  57. willf2:23 PM

    And Fournier once wrote a mash email to Karl Rove enjoining him to "keep up the fight". Such a fine example of a nonpartisan journalist.

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  58. As above so below, as below, so above. Surely our collective fate is tied to the fate of the smallest and least important among us? Is not my personal fate a microcosm of the fate of the universe? When I fart, does not the whole world fart with me?--Jonah Goldberg "I and Thou and Cheetos"

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  59. willf2:27 PM

    Because the politicians make even more money from those same greedy screw-headed campaign sponsors when they retire, and are richly rewarded for having taken a crap on the country at their behest.

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  60. Well you pretty much hit the nail on the head at the end there. This oft-seen fancy that the poor are getting all the breaks on the middle class's dime has the convenient side effect of driving a wedge between groups of people who are all, ultimately, workers. But it's always all those other workers who are lazy layabouts, so when Mitt Romney calls them moochers, I can nod along even though I have absolutely nothing in common with Mitt Romney.

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  61. M. Krebs2:43 PM

    What I wonder is why there's no a single person with a megaphone who says "Look, congresspeople, if getting reelected is your main concern---or really any real concern to you at all---then YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB."

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  62. Lurking Canadian2:49 PM

    That is a logical contradiction. There are good TGIFridays, good Chilis, good Pizza Huts, good Olive Gardens. There are even good McDonald's locations.


    There are no good Applebees.

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  63. M. Krebs2:50 PM

    To be fair, the mindset you're speaking of has been around since before Roger Ailes was producing the Mike Douglas Show.

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  64. Hen Sholar2:50 PM

    Fournier, that rotten skallawag 'dough-cooker'
    'haps he can put out a line of trumbrels so's the name "Fournier" is already printed on top of his. I'll be saving a nice rotten cabbage for that gangster when he rolls by...

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  65. Lurking Canadian2:50 PM

    Obama's most radical policy position, the one from which he has never retreated and for which he can never been forgiven, is that he thinks, and is willing to say out loud, that sometimes the government can help.


    Since this contradicts the Gospel According to St. Ronald, it must not stand.

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  66. StringOnAStick2:53 PM

    Ah yes, this mindset has been around a long, long time, but now there is a 24 hour channel that has as it's goal crazy-making and wingnut meme propagation so resentful people can get their daily rage-on and vote as instructed.

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  67. It's weird how America is the greatest country on Earth, until we need to repair a bridge or provide healthcare for our people, at which point we're suddenly broke and overextended.

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  68. L Bob Rife3:03 PM

    [x] MONTY PYTHON
    [ ] SIMPSONS

    [ ] NIEMÖLLER
    [ ] THAT ONE ONION ARTICLE

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  69. We all know how well that worked!

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  70. Funny how, to these people, "bipartisanship" looks suspiciously like mainstream Republican policy. Oh, Fournier, the Tea Party make it less likely that you'll be invited to nice parties?

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  71. I call it Chapman's Law...

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  72. E. coli free for the past 37 days!

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  73. Wait, when people start talking about taxes, they end up baring their ass?

    That's only happened to me once, and I assumed it was a fluke.

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  74. Witness the endless parade of polls that show people are in favor of "smaller government" yet can't name any specific things to cut


    Certainly not military spending, I tell you what. "I want the largest military in the world by far, but why the hell should I have to pay for it?!"

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  75. If nothing else, if absolutely nothing else, McDonald's has tolerable coffee.


    Nothing at Applebee's is tolerable.

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  76. LittlePig3:37 PM

    Ah, Ron Fournier, the common clay of the New West...

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  77. Halloween_Jack3:37 PM

    Doug Sosnik, who wrote a book called Applebee's America


    David Brooks sees someone trying to deal on his corner, gets out his gat.

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  78. LittlePig3:41 PM

    everything about it is revolting.
    everything about it makes no sense,
    no matter how you've beaten down the bastard
    he always finds his recompense...

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  79. Derelict3:42 PM

    As I've pointed out often here, there's huge swaths of the electorate who are utterly innumerate when it comes to "government." They're convinced that half the federal budget goes to foreign aid, half goes to welfare, half goes to stupid programs for the NEA, another half goes to unions, yet another half gets funneled directly into the pockets of illegal immigrants, and so on. The defense budget? Well, it's OBVIOUSLY waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small. Republicans keep telling us that, and Democrats keep voting to increase it, so . . .

    Since you've got 2-1/2 budgets just in my list, you can understand how people are overwhelming in favor of "small government."

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  80. Derelict3:43 PM

    Spot-on, except for the second sentence. The smallest and least important are for laughing at and scapegoating, in Jonah's view.

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  81. LittlePig3:44 PM

    Shock Doctrine REPRESENT!

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  82. LittlePig3:45 PM

    Amen. With a rusty chainsaw.

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  83. Derelict3:47 PM

    And its political corollary: MY congressman brings home the bacon.

    YOUR congressman ladles the pork.

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  84. LittlePig3:47 PM

    MY government benefits are earned.
    YOUR government benefits are welfare.


    This. Exactly.

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  85. LittlePig3:48 PM

    I know, right? I thought they were kidding.

    I only hope Moral Hazard doesn't get caught in the crossfire.

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  86. But Derelict! The Tea Party is a populist movement that's strongly opposed to the plunder carried out by financial institutions! Sure, the candidates they elect to office haven't done a damn thing, and in many cases fought to loosen restrictions on those banks. To the untrained eye, that may be telling. But as our wonderful newsmedia tell us, the Tea Party is a serious group of reformers and absolutely not a rebranding of old ideas as voiced by braying loons.

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  87. Actually, Sosnik and his peeps (including Fournier, who had a hand in this thing) went a step further and actually went into Applebee's. That's where they conducted their interviews.


    Seriously.


    You can't see me right now, but I'm trying very hard not to explode and throw things.

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  88. Derelict3:57 PM

    Don't forget all the new ideas that were part of the initial "platform" of the Tea Party. Great new ideas for the country like "Keep Government Out Of My Medicare!" and "Get a Job, Morans!"

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  89. PersonaAuGratin3:58 PM

    Yeah, I had to go to Amazon and look it up, as if I had never heard the expression "You can't make this shit up":



    Though their narrow interview sample is a weakness, they draw
    conclusions about the political arena, where lifelong Democrats voted
    for Bush in 2004 on "gut instinct"; the business world, where customers
    at the more than 1,700 Applebee's restaurants deem it "a second home";
    and in megachurches, which fulfill Americans "need for belonging and
    purpose in a new century."

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  90. I read far enough into the book to see what those "interviews" looked like. As far as I can tell, these nitwits went into Applebee's franchises, talked to random people, assigned them to some category they made up (like "Tipping Tribe") and then implied that these random people were representatives of broader trends. That blurb about "narrow interview samples" is Publishers Weekly being ridiculously kind. Probably because the reviewer agreed with their conclusions from the get-go.


    I hate the publishing industry so much, you don't even know.

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  91. J Neo Marvin4:26 PM

    This has to be one of the most beautiful, elegant "fuck yous" I have ever read. Perfectly executed. Thank you.

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  92. FlipYrWhig4:27 PM

    They like the part of the government that spends money on specifics. Aid to the poor, they support. Health care, education, housing, cool with those. It's just that, as Derelict observed earlier, they're wholly convinced that the government is ALSO spending money on waste, kickbacks, and corruption. I bet they would estimate that the percentage of government spending that is wasted is, like, 50%. Maybe more.

    So in their minds the task is simple: stop wasting money, do only the necessary things, and there should be plenty to go around, so we can all pay less in taxes. This is the creed.

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  93. No, man, the Applebee's beat is mine!

    "It's getting real at the Applebee's salad bar,
    I got my gat, 'cos that fucker Sosnik's gone too far."

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  94. tigrismus4:35 PM

    So government should be limited, so long as that means limited to helping me.

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  95. Mickey_Zellberg4:38 PM

    NOVA McMansion country is starting to expand into the northeastern area of that district big time. I was driving through there the other week and the only viable businesses seemed to be landscaping outfits.

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  96. Gromet4:42 PM

    Yes. Of course going to the moon, D-Day, building the atomic bomb, organizing NATO to stop the Russians, the Marshall Plan -- the things that put us on top are all textbook examples of private-enterprise, small-govt initiative. Unlike the Obamaphone Program -- that kind of octopus will smother us in a dusky New York minute.

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  97. Smarter than Your Average Bear4:47 PM

    I was getting excited until that last bullet point - Ah snake oil salesmen you gotta despise them. Watch the hand the magician doesn't want you to watch -

    ReplyDelete
  98. Gromet4:48 PM

    This is one for the ages. I feel like you just updated Bull Durham.

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  99. Smarter than Your Average Bear5:16 PM

    See Thom Hartman's take on Brat - it's revealing to say the least

    http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/eric-cantors-upset-dark-portent-future-billionaires-dark-money-elections



    Very much in the pocket of the Koch Brothers - including getting his "professorship" (I put that in quotes as anyone who believes in the shit Rand put out does not have the intellectual wherewithal to be a real professor)

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  100. It's worse than you think, the website for the book has a pop quiz. I don't know if this says more about me or about the craptastic book, but I threw up my hands because my answer to almost all of those questions was "neither".

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  101. Smarter than Your Average Bear5:27 PM

    "Of course, then maybe I could get some help from the government."


    Well we all know that the homeless chose their lifestyle (oooh teh gays too) just so they could live off the taxpayers.

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  102. Christopher Hazell5:28 PM

    Something that endlessly frustrates me about American politics is that we see no connection between the size of the government and its ability to, e.g., monitor huge chunks of our communications.


    Mostly when people say they want "smaller government" they don't mean they want to maybe tone down the NSA a tad.

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  103. Smarter than Your Average Bear5:29 PM

    That's not a convenient side effect that's the main purpose of that meme. Divide and conquer.

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  104. mgmonklewis5:32 PM

    Ron Fournier's pen swings both ways.

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  105. smut clyde5:35 PM

    "a peaceful populist revolt -- a bottom-up, tech-fueled assault on 20th-century political institutions."
    By "bottom-up" perhaps he means lordosis.

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  106. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person5:36 PM

    Actually 6 ponies, they just spelled it different every time...

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  107. mgmonklewis5:38 PM

    Methodology, how does it work?

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  108. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person5:41 PM

    Because it works that way in their fantasy home budget, and the government is just like a big Daddy and Mommy and we're all Wallys and Beavers, and if Mom would stop wearing pearls when she does the dishes and dropping 'em down the Insinkerator, we'd have money for a new bike and that trip to Disneyland...

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  109. mgmonklewis5:41 PM

    Ubi sunt the stale old rants of yesteryear? Whither the bitter old cranks? [wails, rends garment]

    ReplyDelete
  110. TGuerrant6:31 PM

    Imagine when they couldn't find the salad bar.

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  111. smut clyde6:34 PM

    Yes, but it only needs the huge military to keep up with China.

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  112. TGuerrant6:34 PM

    The kind elision of Cantor snark here is a mark of distinction to be cherished. I, ummm, will just take mine elsewhere...

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  113. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:39 PM

    Goes hand in hand with their ability to badmouth ACA, yet pick all the individual parts of the law they like. Which is, like, all of 'em...

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  114. Mooser6:43 PM

    Anotherwords, what they want is to go back before the Civil Rights laws. They want States and the Federal Government to be able to discriminate, and of course, not just racially. They just want to discriminate against everybody except themselves.
    And gosh, what a country, there's an entire, respected industry dedicated to telling them that is possible and laudable.

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  115. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:45 PM

    Or "either one, depending on how I feel". Man, that thing is a work of art. Bad art.

    Which special event would you be more inclined to attend?
    Monster Truck Show
    Pro Wrestling Match


    This is supposed to select between two "tribes"? Where's "Roller Derby" at?

    You're at a cocktail party, and the only choices are gin, bourbon, scotch and vodka. Which liquor do you choose?
    Bourbon or Scotch
    Gin or vodka


    I won't even...

    You're at happy hour and there is a special on domestic beer. Which do you choose?
    Coors
    Bud



    Oh, fuck you.

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  116. Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
    Lord, don't they help themselves,
    But when the tax men come to the door
    Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale,

    ReplyDelete
  117. Mooser6:47 PM

    I wonder if a little info on the purchase of the house this woman is supposed to be losing might not be enlightening. When she bought it, how much, what were the terms? It could only make us more sympathetic to know these things.

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  118. Mooser6:58 PM

    If you are dealing with an audience which receives TV as something directed at them personally, why not take advantage of it?

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  119. Well, there you go. Taking the Third Way shows you are obviously not an Applebee's American, you sunuvagun.

    ReplyDelete
  120. smut clyde7:05 PM

    Forced-choice questionnaires are great if you know in advance what conclusion you want and the goal is to avoid hearing any responses which might conflict with it.

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  121. JennOfArk7:45 PM

    I must respectfully disagree. "...good Olive Gardens" is an oxymoron.

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  122. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:12 PM

    there were Democrats who could take their money and still vote against
    them. It's a political thing that takes finesse and craft.


    They had plenty of practice, taking our money, then voting against us...

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  123. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:16 PM

    Blinded by the fright
    Revved up like a deuce
    Another voter for the Right

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  124. Nothing says populist! more than being a Koch whore!

    Good Day, Sir!
    ~

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  125. Derelict8:16 PM

    I would like to order this comment as a framed embroidery to hang in my hallway.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Derelict8:30 PM

    Okay. That's it. Marry me, damnit!

    ReplyDelete
  127. Derelict8:31 PM

    Just as Red Lobster is for people who don't know what seafood is supposed to taste like, Olive Garden is for people who don't know what Italian food is.

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  128. Derelict8:33 PM

    It's all in the spirit of compromise as it's been defined for the last 20 years: Do what the Republicans want.

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  129. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:34 PM

    Yeah. A dirt nap...

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  130. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:38 PM

    Oh, yeah? [grabs crotch] Well, cog diss!

    ReplyDelete
  131. Pope Zebbidie XIII8:40 PM

    After setting fire to the hallway carpet.

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  132. Pope Zebbidie XIII8:42 PM

    Who doesn't like getting their dick sucked? That's got to be popular.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Pope Zebbidie XIII8:45 PM

    Donor Kronor. Damn those Swedes.

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  134. Pope Zebbidie XIII8:53 PM

    Well it is, but the profits are not being used to cover the costs of production.

    ReplyDelete
  135. M. Krebs8:59 PM

    Wait, that can't be fair to TBogg. Can it?

    ReplyDelete
  136. mgmonklewis9:00 PM

    Sounds like data collection by some people I work with.

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  137. DocAmazing9:02 PM

    We have to keep up with our military jones, as well.

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  138. satch9:38 PM

    Andrew Cuomo is the future of the Democratic Party. Just ask him...

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  139. satch9:52 PM

    Ken Cuccinelli said all kinds of cretinous things about women, and he STILL won 54% of the votes of married white women.

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  140. realinterrobang9:54 PM

    Sheesh, as if it weren't bad enough that people use "spastic" as an insult; now they gotta go after one of my obscure medical conditions...

    (Love ya, Smut.)

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  141. montag210:08 PM

    Hallway carpet? The entire town!

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  142. Tehanu10:18 PM

    You mean in a manner pleasing to those of their customers who own 99% of the wealth, don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  143. montag210:29 PM

    "We don' need no steenking margin of error!"

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  144. montag210:30 PM

    Sounds more like marketing disguised as sociology, doesn't it?

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  145. YNWA4051510:44 PM

    And the biggest question of all-- does she have granite counter-tops?

    ReplyDelete
  146. "Maybe their brains don't show up on infrared."

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  147. tigrismus11:07 PM

    Not a good guy with an underpants bomb?

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  148. tigrismus11:12 PM

    It really does. "Which brand of water in your fridge?" and no mention of my brand, "Du Robinet."

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  149. Derelict11:44 PM

    Considering that his father pretty much killed the old Democratic Party, it seems only fitting. When Mario finished giving the keynote speech at the '88 convention, there wasn't a single person in that room who did not realize we'd nominated the wrong guy. Cuomo's response was to shuck and jive, then take the money and run.

    He could have been the conscience of the party. He could have reminded Americans of just what the commonweal means to each of us. He could have gone down as one of the great statesmen of the 20th century. Instead, he's become just another bagman, and his son wears the Democrat nametag as cover for his plutocrat agenda.

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  150. Derelict11:53 PM

    Judging by the loops, I think he's a righty. And probably a bottom.

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  151. Well, that part is already implied by "Elect more Republicans."

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  152. Cantor and Ryan played Settlers of Catan? What, did they fight over who got to be the robber baron job creator?

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  153. FMguru1:14 AM

    Well, yeah - when I get benefits I'm just getting back some of what I paid in through my hard work and tax money. When other people get benefits, they're mooching on my dime.

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  154. This comes up all the time. Over at the Ann Landers blog there is a an older woman (in her late sixties) who worked for many years but is now on some kind of Canadian version of disability and welfare. She supports herself making and selling jewelry at street fairs. She is continually attacked by (some) other posters for being a moocher and for "having chosen the wrong profession" and "wasted her time in college." She's in her late sixties she had a perfectly workable work life, paid her taxes, all these years before becoming disabled. But the idea that there is no hard and fast line between the "real people" who "worked hard and did everything right" and the person on welfare is quite strong. The people complaining about her "spending too much time blogging" basically unload every sterotype of the moocher on her but race, without regard to the passage of time or her age or the recession. No: a person who had a good job in her profession (singer) for 30 years didn't "take the wrong classes in college." Yes, people sometimes get sick, become disabled, and end up needing some welfare support. It.Can.Happen.To.Anyone.

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  155. You have to admit this would be very practical and work out well--for one person.

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  156. My house does look like a rummage sale. And I am a fortunate one.

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  157. Brat's prescription for high student debt is to just, you know, cut out the bullshit and go back to the days of Socrates and Aristotle when teaching was cheap. He literally said that, in a somewhat garbled fashion. Right before he denied having a position on the Minimum Wage but implied that it, like all market manipulations, was wrong. But how would his theoretical approach to the high cost of college actually work? Wouldn't that have to be done by fiat as well? Because if professors such as himself were willing to work for free, with no health care benefits and no office space and no lecture halls wouldn't market fetishism tell you they would be swamped with eager students? And would other colleges and professors follow their lead in accepting a few chickens, or slaves, in exchange for wisdom? Because as I understand it if the market isn't offering this "solution" then the market has deemed this solution unworkable.

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  158. Derelict7:20 AM

    This comment matches your avatar perfectly. Just as I'm sure your shoes and purse are a great combo!

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  159. And our voters are filled with people who would rather sit on their hands and bitch than run their own equivalent of Brat and try to win against long odds by getting out the vote of the disaffected. Say what you want about the Tea Party but they have the brains to run in Republican primaries, against Republican candidates they have come to despise, and to win their fucking elections. I can't say the same for the "any way but democratic" former democratic voters. They can't even get out of bed to spite vote their own party.

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  160. This seems apropos. I found it on Tiny Revolution, reprinted by the proprietor. But it was written by my grandfather.

    This is I.F. Stone speaking in 1984, from the book I.F. Stone: A Portrait:

    This whole business of intelligence, it's a waste of money, highly overrated. You don't understand what's happening in history or in your time by peeking through keyholes…

    What's the good of all the money we spend on intelligence? When they get an intelligence report that has something in it, they ignore it. They don't like to read. They want everything on one piece of paper…

    There very few things that are really secret or remain secret for very long. Basically, an intelligence service is there to tell the boss he's doing the right thing. It's very overrated and we're swamped with these organizations.

    We're becoming a partially closed society. It's a terrible concept...those few members of Congress who have access to the oversight committees become prisoners of the intelligence apparatus because they can't say what they've seen. And if they come out and criticize, they can't produce the proof, because the proof is classified. It's a disease…

    When I was in Russia, the phone book was classified. The dictators in the Politburo, they don't know what's going on. You don't know what's going on if you depend on cops, on secret police. Paranoia is a disease of secret police. They're paid to be suspicious of their grandmothers. And that isn't the way you understand people or what is going on. We're getting Sovietized in this country. Thank God it is nowhere near as bad, but it's creeping.

    —Jon Schwarz

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  161. Sounds good. [rubs hands together briskly] when can we bring out the second edition?

    ReplyDelete
  162. But apparently you may be drunk on scotch or domestic beer.

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  163. The "tech-fueled" revolution will not be televised, but it will definitely be carried live on Twitter and Facebook. To the virtual barricades! Like it or leave it! There's an app for that!

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  164. Derelict7:47 AM

    You're right about "all that talk," but I'm still not sure about the skeleton.

    And his kid is not just useless, but actively hostile and harmful to Democratic causes.

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  165. And funny how nobody ever mentions the "welfare Beemers" that our friends from the bailed-out banks are driving. That's more to the point, given that you really can't buy a fucking Cadillac--much less maintain it--on a welfare income.

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  166. redoubtagain8:01 AM

    George W. Bush: great president or the greatest president ever?

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  167. Speaking of the "one person" rule, have you noticed how so many advertisements these days ask the question, "What's your plan?" "Which one is right for you?" "How much money do you need?" etc.There's a movement in the ad world to focus everyone's attention on themselves, which bothers me, not because it might foster a me-against-the-world point of view but because three decades ago the left was accused of being "the 'me' generation," self-involved, over-psychoanalyzed, and heedless of the greater good or something. Now, as with so much else that the left owned from those days, it's been repurposed by Corporate America into another revenue stream.


    Maybe I'm making too much of this but it still gets under my skin.

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  168. "This has been another episode of Life Imitates Art."

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  169. Do people like him even know how to count votes?

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  170. aimai, aimai, aimai - can't we all just chat about the celebratory aspects? constantly? for the next two years?

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  171. Re Socrates and Aristotle, you gotta admit that "let's have class on the lawn" days are pretty popular. They wouldn't work very well year-round, however, even here in Florida where January might be nice but September would be a bitch without air conditioning. But still I think students would be down with picking up their tuition chickens at the local Publix, especially if they happened to be on sale that week. I think this hasn't worked as a market solution because nobody's tried it yet. Ball's in your court, Professor Bratwurst.

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  172. Brian Schlosser8:50 AM

    Us= well off white people and our pet tokens

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  173. Hell, for all we know those are the lyrics.

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  174. And you can see what kind of jones that is when Congress tries to take away the pipe.

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  175. LittlePig9:10 AM

    You know, "us" us.

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  176. Minor point: what does "wasted her time in college" mean? As far as I know, college is mostly just a class marker. If you look at college graduates, how many of them are working in their "major" today? I'm going to guess it's 50% or less. Does anyone have good data on that?

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  177. Absolutely agreed on Cuomo the younger. What a truly horrible person. But I guess I just never got the Cuomo the elder love. He talked a good game, but he didn't deliver and I tend to think retrospectively that he knew he couldn't deliver.

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  178. I guess I think that kind of selfishness has always been owned by the upper class/capitalist/bourgeois right. I mean, except when they are running the kinder, kirche, kuche rig on the women, or the patriotism and religion rig on the poor, its always been every man for himself.

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  179. I think there is a popular, poll tested, right wing, fetishization of the notion that there are "real" skills that college age people should be learning like "marketing 101" or "Dental hygienist" and the rest--economics, psychology, anthropology, english, music, history are all just fake. There are continual attacks on "feminist dance majors" or whatever, the equivalent of the attacks on the "1000 dollar hammer" in the military. Basically students are thought to be a kind of fraud on their parents or on the economy as a whole. In the case of this particular woman I think she was a music major who actually made her living as a singer for many years. Her college degree was actually directly relevant to her work.

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  180. More or less in character, in other words.

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  181. Derelict10:03 AM

    Cuomo the Elder actually undid some of the damage done by his GOP predecessor, so I give him props for that. Hugh Carey was terrible and did horrible damage to the state's education system.

    And, of course, after Cuomo came Pataki. So Cuomo looks really good when compared to what came before and after him.

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  182. LittlePig10:04 AM

    iAR15

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  183. Derelict10:07 AM

    As George Carlin pointed out, "First there was Life, which was pretty all-encompassing. Then came People and narrowed things down. That was followed by Us. The next obvious title is going to be Me!

    And given just how much personal data corporations are collecting on each of us, producing a monthly 80-page magazine devoted to you as an individual is not too far fetched.

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  184. "Cut out the bullshit".

    Hmm... I recall that was John McCain's solution to sectarian violence in Iraq... and pretty much the all-purpose solution to any and every problem in Wingertopia. Just like following "Natural Law" it the answer to every moral quandary, and Libertarianism is the answer to all economic problems. I envy them... life is so simple in their little world.

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  185. They realized that overheated, crappy coffee doesn't have much of a market these days. Also, decades ago, there were only coffee houses in the bigger cities, Starbucks hadn't taken over the country yet, and people who cared about what their coffee tasted like were stuck with grinding it and making it at home.

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  186. Ya gotta love the strategy from their perspective: Keep the rubes terrified that THEY might end up like the poors they've been encouraged to demonize; Throw in a few platitudes about the nobility of self-reliance, and the (illusory) power of one brave, discerning consumer to influence the economy with their choices that will automatically weed out the bad actors; add a few more platitudes about the American Way of self-reliance and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps; add fears regarding personal safety... as in every new workplace or school shooting just reinforces the need for YOU to get your own gun, since God knows the police can't protect you; and you end up with an electorate pissing themselves in fear and eager for comforting fairy tales from experienced grifters.

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  187. Possible, but don't you think that if there WERE a skeleton in his closet, the Pugs wouldn't have hesitated for a nanosecond before pulling it out and nailing it up in the public square. In Pugworld, if you've got a hammer, you USE it.

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  188. "Cut out the Bullshit" was my paraphrase, an implicit call back to McCain. I'm sure Brat, being a christianist wingnut, would never say anything so crude. He seemed to think it would just take an act of will.

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  189. Credit where credit is due... their food photographs well in their ads.

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  190. XeckyGilchrist10:42 AM

    s/deuce/douche/

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  191. I remember the "waiting for Cuomo" love fest but my point is that it never panned out. He never was willing to risk going for higher office. There has to be a reason for that--either that he didn't really have the stomach for it, or he had a skeleton in his closet that he knew would knock him out of contention. I don't think he could have been the "conscience of the party" because he wasn't really willing to fight, for whatever reason, for more than an adjunct position as kibbitzer.

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  192. Well, many of the forms do say to use the backside.

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  193. I thought you were going more for an OSCAR MAYER style advertisement.

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  194. DocAmazing10:54 AM

    An army of morons started by Dick Armey


    Dick Armey's dick army.

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  195. Although of course nothing can stand in the way of our mighty military machine, the only aspect of our national existence for which cost is no object. Because nothing says "peace" like the world's largest military by a factor of everybody-else-combined-and-then-some. And really: Who gives a shit what those cabbage-heads at the State Department think?

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  196. Badaboom!

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  197. Makes me think of an article I read years ago, where a food photographer noted that, for example, when photographing hamburgers they only cooked the burgers enough to brown them on the outside but no more, guaranteeing a nice, plump burger for the picture. Same goes, I'm sure, for steaks and meats generally, along with all the other tricks photogs use to make otherwise boring food look delectable (and worth the money).

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  198. Upvote for artistic licentiousness.

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  199. J Neo Marvin11:34 AM

    Please tell me this media crush on Brat and his fresh new perspective on politics is not going to continue. I think I hate the witless mainstream centrists worse than the wingnut noise machine. They will be our doom.

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