Sunday, August 03, 2014

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about all the impeachment bullshit and I have to say, I think I found something new to say about it -- but you tell me.

UPDATE. In comments, hellslittlestangel: "While Republicans aren't calling for Obama to be impeached now, just wait until they find out he lied about WMD to get us into a war in Iraq."

UPDATE 2. Also:


It's amazing what them Yankees -- er, those Democrats -- will do to slander the Cause!

UPDATE 3. The future of the impeachment schtick may be seen in this post by Power Line's John Hinderaker called, honest to God, "IS BARACK OBAMA PLOTTING A COUP?"
That seems like an awfully strong word, but it is the term that distinguished law professor Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric...
(He's talking about this guy.)
...uses to describe the Obama administration’s oft-reported plan to issue executive amnesty to five or six million illegal immigrants in violation of federal law. Glenn’s characterization is a fair one. When a tyrant asserts the right to rule by decree in a state that has formerly been subject to the rule of law, he is commonly described as carrying out a coup d’etat.
So if Obama does an EO on immigration, whatever its scale, expect screaming rightbloggers, weeping eagles, an Army of Bob Owenses trying to take down the power grid and their arrests portrayed as Triple Hitler. My favorite part:
When Obama changed the Affordable Care Act by decree -- to name just one example, substituting “2014″ for “2013″ in a critical provision of the statute -- he acted as a tyrant.
Just like Hitler did. And yet the sheeple sleep, so weep, eagle, weep!

199 comments:

  1. "The casus bellow"
    ----------
    Indeed.
    ~

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  2. joe klein is the goddamned worst.



    the. worst.

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  3. randomworker10:00 PM

    I think I got an instant migraine reading Andy McCarthy. I've heard of putting the book down before the second paragraph, but they all evidently put the book down before even getting to the subtitle.

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  4. hellslittlestangel10:04 PM

    While Republicans aren't calling for Obama to be impeached now, just wait until they find out he lied about WMD to get us into a war in Iraq.

    I never read Douthat's columns, but the comments to his latest are a hoot. Sounds like he's almost ready to go to work at Fox -- he just needs to master red-faced screaming.

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  5. Derelict10:08 PM

    Mainstream media bigwigs sought to prove their even-handedness by declaring that sure, some Republicans may have said some things but really, aren't both sides to blame -- the GOP for talking about impeaching Obama, Obama for being talked about?

    And thus does the SCLM serve as the Rightwing Wurlitzer's enabler. So fearful are they of being called "liberal" or "biased" by conservatives that they're now incapable is even reporting that, you know, last week Congressional Republicans were calling for Obama's impeachment, but now deny ever having brought up the subject. At the very least, you'd think someone at, say, Chuck Todd's organization might replay his very own fucking reporting from last week!

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  6. Megalon10:33 PM

    "Obama defiantly vowed not only to radically
    expand the reach of government from cradle to grave, but to smash the
    Constitution's restrictions on government power while doing it,"


    Don't remind me! I voted for the guy because of his many promises to smash the Constitution and I've seen zero followup. Hell, now that he no longer needs his voting base for an election he won't even mention it any more! Damn polititions.

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  7. Don't you get it? Chuck Todd is in on it. Its turtles all the way down

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  8. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:37 PM

    Frighteningly, it appears that Obama wants to win the mid-terms and is willing to stop at nothing to do so - including pointing out what his opposition has been saying for the past 6 years. The man is a psychopath.

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  9. Pope Zebbidie XIII10:40 PM

    After all the Republican reaching across the aisle too Admittedly they were trying to steal wallets, but still it has to count in their favor.

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  10. Derelict10:56 PM

    If not turtles, then at least a shell game.

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  11. This is off-topic, but what with Ross Douthat playing such a prominent role in this week's column, it seemed appropriate.


    They just finished a massive renovation of the public library in my community, after several years in a temporary location at a disused Borders. The library has a pretty impressive collection of wingnut books, but they were all in storage - and there was no way that I was going to go to the circulation desk and ask for something written by, say, Ben Shapiro. But now they're all in the stacks, so I've decided to do a bit of perusing. Number one on my list was Douthat's own Privilege.


    I've been waiting for this thing for half a year, and it did not disappoint. Privilege is easily the most poorly written book I've ever seen released through a major publisher. It is overwritten in a way that makes it both hilarious and agonizing to read. It contains enough paragraph-length sentences that I wonder if it was even edited (and if this was the edited version, then the poor bastard who worked on it deserved hazard pay). This is the kind of crap produced by someone who spends fifteen minutes on each sentence, not counting breaks to enjoy the imaginary applause of his fictional fans.


    As far as the subject matter goes? Well, Douthat unearths some truly original insights about Ivy League institutions. Did you know that Harvard practices grade inflation? Or that many Harvard students are only there to build connections? Truly groundbreaking stuff for a book published in 2005. And even when he stumbles into something interesting, he ruins it with his narcissistic need to make everything about himself. He interrupts a chapter on two students who stole money from the Hasty Pudding to write about how hard he found it to be a conservative journalist at Harvard.


    I tried really hard to read this objectively, as though it were one of my high school impulse buys and I didn't know who this kid was. I tried to create this illusion around the book. That would last right up until Douthat wrote something about his humble middle-class upbringing or how he was a simple, quiet man with no desire for fame or fortune, and my bullshit klaxons would just shatter the illusion. I honestly can't believe DeLong read enough of this thing to find anything juicy.


    In conclusion, I skipped both chapters he wrote about sex because if I want to self-flagellate, there are easier ways.

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  12. Derelict11:02 PM

    But self-flagellating is all Douchehat is good at.

    DJ, you deserve a year's free psychiatric care just for wading into the Douthat Swamp.

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  13. AGoodQuestion11:15 PM

    Rep Steve Stockman apparently lives in a world where President Obama talks like a wrestling heel, which has to be both clarifying and entertaining for him.

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  14. Spaghetti Lee11:21 PM

    clearly an Obama ruse

    Yeah, dude. Obama secretly paid for a billboard supporting his own impeachment in Bug Guts, Texas, where 90% of the populace already supports it, in order to convince...in order to confuse...well, who the hell knows. When wingnuts are proactively renouncing their own tactics before anything has had the chance to actually come of them, who am I to apply logic and critical thinking.

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  15. In 2004, David Ignatius wrote a piece for the WaPo called "Red Flags And Regrets", wherein he tried to explain the media's treatment of the run-up to the Iraq War. Basically, the media decided they would not do much fact checking on their own... they would leave it up to those who were actually opposed to the war to make their points and do the refuting of war fever bullshit. Of course, we quickly learned that the media wasn't going to touch an anti-war piece, but of COURSE, folks trying to fact check the administration were welcome to submit their little anti-'Murrican pieces. It's the same today. Chuck Todd, David Gregory, and the rest of the talking heads will not soil their keyboards reporting the number of times some wingnut blowhard has mentioned impeachment... it'll be up to Dems to make that case,and if necessary, to ridicule their congressional Pug colleagues. They'll have to do it so often and forcefully that the media will be unable to ignore it, and that will take persistence and a willingness to appear "uncivil", and I'm not sure the Dems have it in them.

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  16. AGoodQuestion11:33 PM

    Thus, nutcases whose credibility should have been shattered around their three-hundredth call for impeachment are ridiculously afforded a place at the table, leaving advocates for common sense at a massive disadvantage, since most of their energy must be devoted to restraining themselves from screaming, "this is fucking bullshit."


    I would suggest that this self-restraint might be misplaced at present time.

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  17. AGoodQuestion11:44 PM

    Fuck, if there's a list of the top ten worst he must have at least five of the slots sewn up.

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  18. "... and that includes that i-word that we don't want to say."
    It was fairly amusing, the way Steve "Infected Assboil" King referred to impeachment while being careful to avoid saying the literal word, because that would be playing into Democrats' hands. (I am put in mind of Jack Lemmon gasping "It's the p-word" in Buddy Buddy) It becomes legamalistically hilarious if one realizes that mentally vacuous, morally monstrous, syphilitic pigfucker Steve King is calling for impeachment because Obama won't immediately deport non-Mexican undocumented immigrants back into Mexico without review ... an action that would violate actual immigration law.

    I've gradually come to understand why so many conservative politicians mock Democratic legislation for having so many pages. It's not just because it plays to their "government is stupid and wasteful" shtick; it's because they're fucking illiterate. I mean Steve King and his fellow insane sedition-promoting theocratic dumbshit Michele Bachmann suddenly became the point people for House immigration legislation this last week, and neither of them are apparently able to read, or even find anyone to read to them, what existing laws say.

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  19. susanoftexas11:47 PM

    That book was awesome.

    "Once I reached Harvard, I told myself, I would never again have to endure the sneers of the high school jockocracy, the dismissive glances of the in crowd.... At Harvard I would be happy At Harvard I would be cool."
    But Douthat gets lumped in with all the other crazy Republicans. Instead of climbing over their bodies to get invitations to the cool parties, he's stuck out in the cold once again.

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  20. synykyl11:47 PM

    Too bad there is no historical record of what Republicans and Conservative commentators have been saying about Impeachment. No printed documents, no video or audio recordings, nothing like that. We have only our fading memories of what happened 5 seconds ago, so there really is no way we can know who is telling the truth.

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  21. BigHank5311:54 PM

    It takes a very special person to watch Revenge Of The Nerds and somehow escape the subtleties of the moral.

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  22. I, uh, think Mark Yzaguirre was being sarcastic. But that could just be my natural optimism at work.

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  23. synykyl11:58 PM

    I think that tweet was satirical, but it is awfully tough to tell for sure these days.

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  24. Spaghetti Lee12:02 AM

    Yeah, on second glance, and looking at his writing history, he almost certainly was. Apologies to him, and in my defense, we live in a world where certain far-right elements are willing to publicly accuse the president of orchestrating the murder of 20 schoolchildren in order to drum up support (which never appeared, but who's counting?) for gun control laws. For the actual crazies, making such an accusation would be small potatoes.

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  25. If your impeachment delirium lasts for more than four hours, call a doctor, specifically Rand Paul or Paul Broun.

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  26. BigHank5312:06 AM

    As has been demonstrated over and over and over again, if you bring up things that Republicans have said in the past, they'll scream like the biggest babies in the world about bias and discrimination and head-hunting. And they don't complain to the newscasters; who gives a shit about those mouthpieces? They complain to the owners, and they get a hundred thousand shut-in mouthbreathers to send in some illiterate emails, and very shortly the whole idea of impartial reporting becomes something that isn't worth the hassle.

    Which is fine for the short-term future of MSNBC or CNN. The long-term health of the polity, well, not so much, as it has yet to be shown how one could earn a reliable profit from its health. If it goes down, that'd be bad, but it'd be bad for everyone, so somebody must be keeping that from happening, right?

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  27. Alright, we've established Yzaguirre's bona fides, but what about that Edroso guy he contacted?

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  28. impeachment delirium

    I swear I didn't read your comment before I posted mine, B4!

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  29. Ignore above. #@*%& Disqus!

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  30. hellslittlestangel12:14 AM

    Curse that Mitch McConnell!

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  31. Silly, my comment is a response to yours!

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  32. AGoodQuestion12:14 AM

    This one's a peach:

    BENGHAZI

    When Obama get condescending

    (He is lying and not above the law)




    First of all, verb tense: how does it work?

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  33. Yup. Just noticed. Now I'm just embarrassing myself.

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  34. buskertype12:17 AM

    wait, was McConell the turtle in question when Ben Shapiro... I can't even say it.

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  35. and awesome.

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  36. "Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told colleagues that the House should pass
    legislation with new steps to secure the border, and tell Obama if he
    didn't implement it, they would impeach him," reported [Breitbart's]
    Jonathan Strong.


    D'awwwww. If that report is accurate, I'm going to have to move on from mocking Steve "Brain Gangrene" King for being such a fuckwit. Yo-ho, Ted, this is the Constitution calling: passing one house of Congress doesn't make something a law to be "implemented" by the executive branch. They even made a musical cartoon about it, Ted. One that kindergarteners could follow.

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  37. "Ed Roso" is clearly a thinly-disguised play on sub rosa. Wake up and start connecting the dots by following the diagram I've drawn for you, sheeple!

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  38. "you screwed up again, yoho, you dickhead!"

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  39. Spaghetti Lee12:35 AM

    There's something just so precious about a rookie congressman claiming that the president is legally obligated to enforce any bill that makes it out of the house, and thinks it's a capital offense if he doesn't. The best analogy I can come up with is a third-grader who steals the kickball during recess and says "OK, now we're gonna play with MY rules."

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  40. it'll be up to Dems to make that case

    But if they do, the talking heads reserve the right to call them cynical, alarmist and opportunistic.

    Heads, I win. Tails, suck on it, libtard loser!

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  41. If you can stand to look up D.I.'s latest labor of love for Fred Hiatt's War Criminal Post, you'll find him castigating John Kerry for trying to reign in (aka 'tsk, tsk') Bibi the Baby Butcher's war crimes.
    ~

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  42. Spaghetti Lee12:46 AM

    It's not like people born into money never have anything interesting to say, but they have the habit of mistaking shit that anyone outside the bubble would have noticed long ago as profound and venerable wisdom (aka 'McArdle Syndrome). Ross wouldn't have a job if it weren't for Ivy League elitism, so I guess he's pretending to bite the hand that feeds, except in this case the 'bite' is with those plastic hillbilly teeth you can find at the dollar store, so the only person he ends up embarrassing is himself.

    There is one thing we can all thank Ross for, though: replacing Bill Kristol.

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  43. davdoodles1:33 AM

    Googling IMPEACH
    OBAMA BILLBOARD
    " provides enough unimpeachable evidence of Democrat perfidy that it justifies... drumroll..... impeaching Obama. For trying to make it appear that wingnuts want to impeach Obama.

    When they soooo don't. Or it doesn't. Or it does, but they don't. or doesn't, Or both...
    .

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  44. Wrangler2:09 AM

    Haha, George Fucking Will.


    Here's a tip: if you plan on communicating through 60 word sentences, you're going to need more than one verb per sentence. Otherwise you're less a writer and more a sort of collagist.

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  45. Wrangler2:38 AM

    I don't know, King's point seems clear enough to me. To summarize his argument: if this so called "President" keeps on presidenting, in public and with-- I'll say it now, and deny it later-- criminal smugginess, King and his coterie of the lobotomized roosters are going to have to take a real look at this Constitution thing people are talking about to find out if the thing that's left to them as an alternative is such a left for them an alternative to theretofore and so. Yes. So to forth.

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  46. Jon Hendry3:02 AM

    I doubt that his parents ever let him.

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  47. DocAmazing4:33 AM

    Actually, George Fwill's technique is perfect for this subject. He emits clouds of words like squid ink and can later claim to have meant anything or nothing by them.

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  48. He lied to get us out of the war in iraq

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  49. Look, even though the GOP went into the impeachment hen house and locked the door and you heard a lot of squawking and grunting and two minutes it came out with its collective penis covered in feathers and lit a cigarette, it is absolutely unfair for people to conclude that the GOP was, in fact fucking the impeachment chickens.

    And if it did, kinda sorta, accidentally have penis to cloaca contact with a chicken, Voodoo king Oogaboogama made the GOP do it!

    p.s. Confidential to anyone who contributed to a GOP campaign on the strength of their hinty hint hints about putting an end to Obama's lawless presidency: The next express bus to Suckerville leaves in noon. Please have your cash ready, no refunds.

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  50. Look, even though the GOP went into the impeachment hen house and locked the door and you heard a lot of squawking and grunting and two minutes it came out with its collective penis covered in feathers and lit a cigarette, it is absolutely unfair for people to conclude that the GOP was, in fact fucking the impeachment chickens.

    And if it did, kinda sorta, accidentally have penis to cloaca contact with a chicken or six, Voodoo king Oogaboogama made the GOP do it!

    p.s. Confidential to anyone who contributed to a GOP campaign on the strength of their hinty hint hints about putting an end to Obama's lawless presidency: The next express bus to Suckerville leaves in noon. Please have your cash ready, no refunds.

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  51. He hasn't produced anything worthy of those jobs. But you know what is interesting? There were some very interesting, hard working, people when I was at Harvard and they wrote for the Crimson and they got a leg up in the world, definitely, and they still didn't do as well as Douthat. The right wing sex scold thing really seems to have been a pretty good dodge. Sue Faludi may have gotten plum assignments when she wrote for the wSJ or the NYT but she wrote the fuck out of her actual journalism and she wrote some damned good books.

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  52. Inner Partisan7:21 AM

    Maybe he's a fan of Key&Peele?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qv7k2_lc0M

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  53. Derelict7:50 AM

    Um, . . . ew?

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  54. No because the worst is allways so political. Sometimes they have to give it to someone else who didn't really work for it.

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  55. Gerrymandering how does it work?

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  56. redoubtagain8:01 AM

    "Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told colleagues that the House should pass legislation with new steps to secure the border, and tell Obama if he didn't implement it, they would impeach him," reported the site's Jonathan Strong.
    All these years I thought you had to have at least a passing interest in and working knowledge of the Constitution in order to be elected to national office. Guess I was wrong.

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  57. He really is the worst.

    I remember canceling my subscription to Time Magazine because of a Joe Klein article. It was during the Bush Jr. presidency, and Klein praised him at length, saying "He has always been a gutbucket populist egalitarian."

    No kidding. "Gutbucket populist egalitarian...." that son of privilege who seemed to have a silver spoon hanging out of every orifice... a "gutbucket populist egalitarian."



    I STILL can't believe it.

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  58. Bizarro Mike8:08 AM

    I think he's upset that he was judged on the content of his character rather than the color of his nerdom.

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  59. Probably was the fact that he didn't know jack-shit about anything, like a lot of Americans. That, plus the fake hillbilly twang, which Klein probably thought was real.

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  60. Derelict8:20 AM

    THIS.

    The Dems are just trying to make political hay, score some political points, and be intensely partisan when they point out that Republicans have been actively pushing impeachment for years.

    Republicans, of course, are never, ever engaged in politics. Ever.

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  61. Agreed. Backlash was quite an eye-opener for little old sheltered me.

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  62. Derelict8:23 AM

    One minor point: Support for gun control did appear, with polls showing something like 90% of voters wanting some measure of gun control. The NRA swiftly deployed every toolbox in its arsenal to not only swat that down, but to actually convince red-state legislatures and governors to loosen existing gun controls.

    This says something about how depraved both our local governments and our media have become.

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  63. Its weird how people who advertise themselves as owning and using guns with abandon can somehow cow ordinary people into submission. I was, briefly, a member of a women's anti gun organization in my largely gun unfriendly state and the other women cautioned me to never let my name or face become recognizable to the NRA guy who was handing out checks and backslaps on the legislature floor because they were known for stalking and harrassing any citizen they could identify.

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  64. Bethany Spencer9:02 AM

    Is that a comment or wingnut poetry?

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  65. susanoftexas9:07 AM

    See also: http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com/2014/07/improve-yourself.html

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  66. glennisw9:11 AM

    "Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told colleagues that the House should pass legislation with new steps to secure the border, and tell Obama if he didn't implement it, they would impeach him,"



    I like this one best. Yoho just hopscotches right over the fact that legislation passed by the House must pass the Senate before becoming law, and decides to impeach Obama for not implementing legislation that dies in the House. And the beauty of it is that Obama has already committed fifty-five impeachable offenses by not repealing the ACA!

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  67. glennisw9:12 AM

    I see my pithy remark above is about 9 hours too late. Oh well.

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  68. J Neo Marvin9:12 AM

    A lot of guts got spilled, in or out of buckets, thanks to him.

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  69. glennisw9:19 AM

    In January 2014 CongressmanSteve Stockman (R-TX) said he was "considering filing Articles of Impeachment against Barack Obama" because "Obama defiantly vowed not only to radically expand the reach of government from cradle to grave, but to smash the Constitution's restrictions on government power while doing it,"



    I guess I must have missed the ceremonial occasion where Obama placed his hand on a Bible (or KORAN!!!!) and vowed to arglebarglebargle. You'd think that there would be some footage of such a moment, or that it would at least have made the news.

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  70. J Neo Marvin9:20 AM

    How many pages were there in the PATRIOT Act again?

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  71. glennisw9:25 AM

    Including even fundraising, God help us!

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  72. It was actually just one long sheet of two-ply toilet paper with "US Constitution" written at the top.

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  73. Derelict9:35 AM

    Which is an aspect of this "debate" over gun control that really needs to be addressed. We now have a minority of citizens who openly intimidate and threaten those with whom they disagree. The fact that we as a society have decided to be powerless in the face of such intimidation fills me with dismay.

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  74. It's always funny to hear Republicans accuse other politicians of "playing politics." They're ALL politicians; so of course they're playing politics.


    Imagine an irate basketball player pointing to his opponents and accusing them of "playing basketball." That player would get funny looks all around, I imagine.

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  75. TGuerrant9:52 AM

    Lieku

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  76. FlipYrWhig10:10 AM

    Of course Howard Dean's 50 State strategy, by design, elected many center-right Democrats, including Joe Donnelly, Brad Ellsworth, Baron Hill, Gabby Giffords, Melissa Bean, Mike Arcuri, Jason Altmire, Zack Space, Chris Carney, and Heath Shuler hisself.

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  77. Surreal American10:10 AM

    So what would be the GOP's endgame for impeachment?

    1) Remove Barack Obama from office

    2) Remove Joe Biden via expedited impeachment process.

    3) Remove John Boehner from House Speakership and install Sarah Palin instead

    Voilà!

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  78. AngryWarthogBreath10:12 AM

    Kind of 90s indie pop, wouldn't you say? Hold the note on "gha" and "zi", half talking on "he is lying and not above the law", then bridge to the chorus... I think I actually like it. Granted, the lyrics are stupid, but there are a lot of songs I enjoy with stupid lyrics.

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  79. AngryWarthogBreath10:13 AM

    God, how many fucking times are we going to hear THAT today.

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  80. mgmonklewis10:14 AM

    It's the verbal equivalent of a Symbolist painting. Only crap.

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  81. StringOnAStick10:14 AM

    Up vote for Bug Guts, Texas.

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  82. FlipYrWhig10:17 AM

    this so called "President" keeps on presidenting, in public and with-- I'll say it now, and deny it later-- criminal smugginess

    because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is
    much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more
    abstract than "[Smu]gger, [smu]gger." #atwaterUnderTheBridge

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  83. mgmonklewis10:19 AM

    The South Dakota Republican party impeachment plank is just embarrassing. The SD Democratic party passed a resolution of apology at their convention (item 15 in this list http://www.sddp.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2014-Approved-Resolutions.pdf), so take heart that there are still some decent people here. However, it's appalling how many people have such a visceral hatred for President B. Demmycrat Blackenstein that the Republican party actually passed their plank in the first place.

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  84. FlipYrWhig10:19 AM

    "So. Central Rain" (BenGHAAAzi)

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  85. mgmonklewis10:21 AM

    You forgot 4) A Pony.

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  86. Surreal American10:25 AM

    Either "Pony" or "Profit" would have worked for bulletin point 4).

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  87. mortimer200010:33 AM

    It's always nice to have a graph to see when Democrats have been shoving impeachment down right-wing throats. You can see that Democrats were especially busy begging for impeachment in October of 2013 when Democrats shut down the government.

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  88. mortimer200010:36 AM

    To me, he'll always be Steve "Kantaloupe Kalves" King, or Steve KKK if you prefer.

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  89. How does Steve Israel's practice of throwing contestable races and refusing to run candidates against republicans in winnable seats have anything to do with gerrymandering?

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  90. Joe Donnelly


    To be fair, Donnelly has pretty much toed the line after being elected to the Senate. Certainly he hasn't been a grandstanding contrarian asshole in the mold of Manchin, or Bayh for that matter. But several other people on that list were a waste of effort. A red-state wave also makes ones gains transient, as they will naturally revert to reactionary Republican from reactionary Democrat.

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  91. That would be putting the shit before the horse.

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  92. Derelict10:50 AM

    Appropriate, thought, since they're ass-backwards.

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  93. This chicken is a member of the Democrat party and it threw itself on my penis!

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  94. BigHank5311:11 AM

    Oh, no fair trying to count early REM stuff in the "lyrics" column. They were a half-step away from scat singing.

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  95. Make an intern come up with the details, sit back, and play Candy Crush.

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  96. mortimer200011:30 AM

    Impeachment is so candy-ass. Howzabout a military coup! (10,800,000 hits) For Pinochet lovers like Goldberg the supportive rationales would fill hundreds of column-inches.

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  97. heinleiners11:33 AM

    was this before or after the Martian space ships landed on the White House lawn?

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  98. Howlin Wolfe11:39 AM

    "Marge, it takes two to lie: one to lie and one to listen." H. Simpson.

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  99. gocart mozart11:50 AM

    I think we have a space/time continuem problem here.

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  100. gocart mozart11:51 AM

    Google is rewriting history! The conspiracy is deeper then we imagined. We are through the looking glass people.

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  101. Meanwhile in the the mighty fortress of the GOPLORD:

    Master! Master! The peasants are revolting!

    [Finishes chewing on baby squirrel] I could have told you that, minion. [starts chewing on baby dolphin] What do they want this time?

    O mighty Master, some of the vile, ungrateful worms have spread the rumor that you have no intention of giving them Obamapeachment and now they all say they will no longer toil and slave and hand over their finest goats for your pleasure until -

    Silence Davidgregorey!

    O forgive me Master! [cringe, fawn] Do not blame me for their foolish babble! Do not shun my studio! Do not -

    Peace, lackey. [Begins to pace] It is true that I did, perhaps, on one or two thousand occasions promise Obamapeachment. [munch munch] But that was merely to motivate them. Even though I regularly dump lead into their water, I didn't think they'd be dumb enough to believe me.

    So ... what shall you do, O Mighty One? Already they gather on the far side of your moat and since it was built by Ayn Corp, it isn't much of an obstacle.

    Easy Davidgregorey, bring me my Mind Control Ray.

    Yes! Yes! [scuttles] Here you are!

    Right. How're my robes? [strides out onto mandatory evil villain balcony because it too was built by Ayn Corp, Davidgregorey stays indoors] My people! My good, wise and faithful people, I come to tell you of a new and particularly vile plot by our enemy, Emperor Obama! Word has reached me that he has sent his slaves among you, claiming that I wished to impeach him ...

    ReplyDelete
  102. Why would the Democratic party apologize for anything the Republican party does or says? I think that might piss me off more than whatever the Republicans did.

    ReplyDelete
  103. This is the kind of crap produced by someone who spends fifteen minutes
    on each sentence, not counting breaks to enjoy the imaginary applause of
    his fictional fans.


    This, however, deserves applause.

    ReplyDelete
  104. You joke, but that already have a mad-on for search engines.

    I'm sure they're trying to work out a way to compel companies to put warning tags on search results that might conflict with their current view of reality. Kind of like creationism in public schools. "This archived news report about Day 156 of the Iraq War is just one theory about what happened..."



    Of course, to do that they have to agree on what reality means otherwise they'll spend all of their time working on the corrections.

    ReplyDelete
  105. FlipYrWhig1:17 PM

    Yeah, he's been better than expected.

    Another candidate from that same period who was carped at for insufficient progressive bona fides... one Kirsten Gillibrand.

    ReplyDelete
  106. mgmonklewis1:25 PM

    Dunno the exact reason, as I wasn't at the convention. However, I expect it's like when you have an obnoxious cousin/uncle/sibling publicly embarrassing your entire family — you apologize on their behalf so the entire world doesn't think your whole family is a bunch of dickweeds.

    ReplyDelete
  107. StringOnAStick1:32 PM

    Aside from the fact that actually writing some border security legislation would involve some actual, you know, work, so that's got zero percent chance of happening. Especially since they were all on the express corporate jet out of town to get back home to hoover up some campaign contributions and expound on the current crazy topic du jour for the next 5 weeks.

    ReplyDelete
  108. synykyl2:05 PM

    ... He has not, to my knowledge, ever produced a column that could justify these honors ...

    Talk about understatement! I'd rather comb through his actual feces than read the crap he writes. He makes David Brooks seem witty and insightful by comparison.

    Ok, that crack about making Brooks seem insightful is an exaggeration, but the feces thing is for real ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  109. I, for one, was disappointed when Obama didn't use his Bully Pulpit on Steroids(TM) to force the "Kill Whitey" Act of 2009 out of committee and to a vote on the House floor. Since then, I've lost all faith in our Muslim Communist Fascist Atheist president.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Disboose2:15 PM

    That would fit the usual schedule:
    1. Define "trigger warnings" in the most frightening terms.
    2. Rage endlessly against The Left's use of trigger warnings using same description, predict the end of free thought as a result.
    3. Request that Wikipedia and Google add trigger warnings to any Wikipedia or Google link to unflattering historical moments in the Iraq War.

    ReplyDelete
  111. You are correct w/r/t to the two florida races in ITTDGY's link, which I also linked to today at SteveM's site. But Gerrymandering has an enormous effect on whether the dream of the 50 state strategy works in any given district. No matter how crazy Michelle Bachmann is does anyone seriously think that there is a Democrat who will end up taking that seat?

    ReplyDelete
  112. I think the correct term is either criminal thuggishness or, short form: thug smug

    ReplyDelete
  113. Why do these chickens keep fucking my dick?

    ReplyDelete
  114. That seems like an awfully strong word,Psst! John! You misspelled "fucking stupid."
    but it is the term that distinguished law professor Glenn Reynolds,Psst! John! You left out the name of the distinguished law professor and a conjunction.
    Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric...Psst! John! You left an extraneous "no" in there.

    ReplyDelete
  115. When Obama changed the Affordable Care Act by decree ... he acted as a tyrant.On the other hand, when George W. Bush changed Medicare Part D by decree, all the outraged GOP patriots in and out of Congress were silent for some mysterious reason.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Only if Republicans close the circle and start calling themselves Democrats.

    ReplyDelete
  117. FlipYrWhig4:30 PM

    Whoops, forgot the main point in my earlier reply. Got too excited by the part about Donnelly -- and I don't think even Mrs. Donnelly thinks that.

    Apropos of the rest: agreed. But that's what the effect was of the vaunted Fifty Shades of States Strategy. Let's not forget that the dispute was between "let's divide up resources more evenly" (Dean) and "let's dump massive resources into a few key races and recruit self-funding candidates" (Rahm!). Neither of those were ever likely to produce a tidal wave of liberal Democrats.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Derelict4:40 PM

    . . . Obama administration’s oft-reported plan to issue executive amnesty to five or six million illegal immigrants . . .

    Oft-reported. For some meaning of "oft-reported" that does not include actual reporting or publication in recognized mainstream media.

    But for "oft-reported" as in "initially fabricated by one Rightwing loon, then repeated by another Rightwing loon, and then echoed by empty-headed addle-pates like Hewitt," I suppose it could be an accurate term.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Derelict4:43 PM

    But, on the whole, I liked Dean's strategy much better. Back when I did political consulting, trying to get money or even lip service from the DLC was impossible. I had one Congressional client who was told that he would get no DNC funding unless his race was a lock. To which he replied, "If my race was a lock, I wouldn't need your help."

    ReplyDelete
  120. No worries Spaghetti, Poe's Law is most certainly in effect wrt Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Derelict4:47 PM

    Bachmann's district may be pure red, but it doesn't help Democrats if her constituents have only the caricature of a liberal Democrat as drawn by Michelle herself upon which to make any judgments. I have found that is sometimes helps to show even extreme far-right voters that Democrats in general (and liberals in particular) do not actually favor rounding people up and sending them to re-education camps after we confiscate all their money and possessions and take their kids away from them.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Waffle_Man4:49 PM

    This whole business makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. To sum up the Republican side:


    Things which are tyrannical:
    Letting children out of cages
    Giving people extra time to comply with complicated laws


    Things which are not tyrannical:
    Presiding over a massive illegal spying operation
    Shielding torturers from prosecution
    Unilaterally executing American citizens without trial on the basis of secret law.


    Democrats, of course, just agree that none of those things are really that bad. Certainly we shouldn't impeach a President for little things like violating the war powers act or the fourth or fifth amendment.


    Meanwhile, on the impeachment front, the Republicans are arguing, at literally the exact same time, that,


    The President has broken the law, so egregiously that the other branches must step in and stop him, but


    It would be insane for the other branches to prosecute Presidential lawbreaking with impeachment.


    Am I nuts? Isn't that literally exactly what impeachment is for? To allow the other branches to stop Presidential lawbreaking? Why is suing him more sensible than impeaching him?

    ReplyDelete
  123. Derelict4:50 PM

    Why is suing him more sensible than impeaching him? Because mid-term elections is why.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Derelict4:53 PM

    To be fair, however, the destruction of Michelle's whitey tape and the subsequent house arrest of the editor simply pulled the legs out from under the "Kill Whitey Act of 2009."

    ReplyDelete
  125. Derelict4:58 PM

    I want this comment on my nightstand so I can read it over and over while dozing off into fluffy dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Derelict5:03 PM

    Or when Bush decreed that torture really was legal after all. Or when Bush illegally shitcanned DOJ prosecutors based on their political affiliation and filled their offices with political hacks hired because of their willingness to use their powers to pursue political prosecutions (hello, Gov. Christie!). Or when Bush and Alberto Gonzales looked at the raft of Congressional subpoenas on their desk and said "Fuck you, Congress! The legislature has no control whatever over the Executive Branch!"

    Mysteriously silent.

    ReplyDelete
  127. tigrismus5:20 PM

    to name just one example, substituting “2014″ for “2013″ in a critical provision of the statute


    GASP! Can you imagine if STALIN had pushed a law providing healthcare to millions - passed by an elected, representative body - back a year because of unforeseen troubles in implementation because he wanted it implemented properly rather than fining people when it wasn't? No you can't! OBAMA: doing things you can't even imagine Stalin doing!

    ReplyDelete
  128. ADHDJ5:37 PM

    "Democrats, of course, just agree that none of those things are really that bad. Certainly we shouldn't impeach a President for little things like violating the war powers act or the fourth or fifth amendment."


    You post this tiresome bullshit on every fucking thread here. This is a classy joint, dude, quit JAQing off all over it.


    It's not worth cataloging the ridiculous fallacies you're making with this statement, so how about I just tell you to go fuck yourself and we'll leave it at that? See, now you can whine about how "Democrats, of course, agree" you should perform an anatomical impossibility on yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  129. FlipYrWhig6:34 PM

    It's a fine strategy for electing Democrats. I just like it when people keep in mind that many of the Democrats elected via said strategy turned out to be ideologically irksome. So if you have a beef with Rahm Emanuel, it can't be because he cared too much about _conservatives_ per se. Dean got more conservative Democrats elected than anyone since the Dixiecrat crack-up.

    ReplyDelete
  130. TGuerrant6:42 PM

    Joe Graves managed to wrangle 49.3 percent of the vote in MN-6 in 2012, 174,944 votes vs. 197,241 for Bachmann, and picked up the endorsement from a former GOP governor of the state. She spent like a drunken sailor to scrape by, though I'm sure her Fox contract will make her boo-boos feel all better.

    ReplyDelete
  131. TGuerrant7:05 PM

    And just because the GOP has backed reform measures to stop frivolous lawsuits doesn't mean they actually want to stop frivolous lawsuits.

    ReplyDelete
  132. When Obama changed the Affordable Care Act by decree -- to name just one example, substituting “2014″ for “2013″ in a critical provision of the
    statute -- he acted as a tyrant.


    my new, $7 monthly co-pay for anti-anxiety/depressant medicine is just like stalin's pogroms--which by the transitive property, makes me stalin too!

    ReplyDelete
  133. gocart mozart7:28 PM

    From the Power Line link, a mango:
    "t's an old Muslim trick. Act like you're surrendering and when your
    opponent lets his guard down, attack. If Obama didn't learn it from
    Alinsky he learned it from the Koran."

    ReplyDelete
  134. Waffle_Man7:54 PM

    So... the Democratic party thinks he should be impeached for any of the things I mentioned?


    I mean, even guys like Charles Pierce, who have called the practices of the NSA a "threat to democracy" consider any talk of impeachment to be lunatic ravings.


    I literally have not heard a single democratic pundit argue for impeachment.


    Or is it that executing American citizens without trial is actually totally legal?


    I gotta be honest, I think the argument that the President doesn't have the right to unilaterally execute American citizens is at least plausible.

    ReplyDelete
  135. So if you have a beef with Rahm Emanuel, it can't be because he cared too much about _conservatives_ per se.


    Well, one of the problems I saw was that he cared too much about backing conservatives in primaries for districts that weren't all that red.

    ReplyDelete
  136. tigrismus8:14 PM

    So the Muslims invented perfidy! Hey, is that where the CIA got it from, too?

    ReplyDelete
  137. tigrismus8:17 PM

    YOUR lawsuits are frivolous. MY lawsuits are vital to freedom, democracy, and baby Jesus.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Jaime Oria8:23 PM

    The site is currently in "Offline Mode" with the following note:

    Thank you to all those who participated in the pre-release of ReaganBook.com Your participation is helping us build a more secure site. Thank you! Please be patient while we make the necessary changes to keep the site free from obscenity, pornography, and those intent on the destruction of life, liberty, and the family. We will be opening the doors again soon with additional protections in place. As Reagan taught us, trust, but verify.
    --Management




    I, and many others "intent on the destruction of life, liberty and the family" were able to sign on with hilariously bogus e-mail addresses and user names and post all manner of delightful (and obscene) stuff before they shut that whole thing down. 'Twas a good morning's work, to be sure.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Derelict8:26 PM

    As Bill Maher so astutely pointed out during the 2008 election:

    "McCain has never attended church, which proves that he's a Christian. Obama attended a Christian church with a radical minister, which proves that he's a Muslim."

    ReplyDelete
  140. Jaime Oria8:26 PM

    And lacking anything even vaguely erotic.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Derelict8:27 PM

    That's the sneaky part of Obamacare: Soon we'll all be riding mass transitive to Stalin!

    ReplyDelete
  142. stepped_pyramids8:39 PM

    "distinguished law professor Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric"


    I actually laughed out loud at this one, a big knee-slapping guffaw. That is comedy gold.

    ReplyDelete
  143. stepped_pyramids8:44 PM

    No, I don't think it makes any sense to impeach any President for executing policies within the broad consensus of the US political establishment. And it certainly makes little to no sense to suggest that Congress -- which both follows and defines that consensus -- would impeach a President for doing so.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Actually, it was only one ply, just for the extra fuck you.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Tehanu10:16 PM

    "When a tyrant asserts the right to rule by decree in a state that has
    formerly been subject to the rule of law, he is commonly described as
    carrying out a coup d’etat."
    If that was addressed the goddam fucking treasonous Supreme Court in 2000, I'd be all for it. As it is, of course, what it really means is, "Our judicial coup d'etat was just lovely, but the President is (clang) near!"

    ReplyDelete
  146. My prescription was supposed to be for Statins. Thanks, doctor's lousy handwriting Obama!

    ReplyDelete
  147. when your opponent lets his guard down, attack.


    It's true: that is an old trick used by Muslims. And everyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  148. gocart mozart10:26 PM

    Speaking of impeachments, when you have lost the Ray Conniff Singers ...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98nhA0JlXII

    ReplyDelete
  149. FlipYrWhig11:07 PM

    Fair enough, although it'd be useful to get specific. I remember Tammy Duckworth being a flashpoint back in those days. But the long and short of it IMHO is that the 50 State Strategy was not a panacea for liberals. Would that it were!

    ReplyDelete
  150. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:28 PM

    This has led to one of the more Orwellian rightblogger themes of recent times

    Calling it Orwellian is being waaaaaay too kind. This shite is so blisteringly stupid I can hardly get my brain around the fact that they're actually doing it. And the media complicity...GAK!
    The whole thing makes my brane hurt, and I'm not kidding.

    ReplyDelete
  151. AGoodQuestion11:28 PM

    It should be noted that #YOHO is short for "You Only Hate Once." Which isn't to say you can't make that "once" last a lifetime.

    ReplyDelete
  152. AGoodQuestion11:58 PM

    Ah, from Rightwing loon to Rightwing lump.

    ReplyDelete
  153. Wrangler12:10 AM

    Not just red states. Illinois became a concealed carry state post Sandy Hook.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Or the three stooges. Or Sun Tzu. I always get those guys confused.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Sounds like it's all about keeping a good won/lost record, which would make sense in terms of contributions. Too bad it doesn't make sense in terms of actually fighting the Republicans and teaching the country about liberalism, to say nothing of maybe winning control of Congress.

    ReplyDelete
  156. I agree that I wish great Democrats would run in every district. But its not a cost free process and how many people want to be a sacrificial lamb? Have you seen the kinds of people who are willing to get involved in politics at the local level? You meet a high proportion of cranks and self nominated kooks--they don't always redound to the credit of the party that runs them. And only one party loves those cranks and kooks and its not the Democrats.

    ReplyDelete
  157. Are you telling me that a Democrat will win next time around? I'd be thrilled. But Bachmann isn't running so who is the Democrat running against?

    ReplyDelete
  158. This was and is my objection to Rahm--he was a pragmatic money guy with no morals and no principles. Sometimes that can be useful, but its not inspirational. I far preferred the 50 state strategy but FYW is right that in many places that brought us some very blue dog dems and even really republican dems. Of course it also brought us Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Its a complicated system in which even some pretty terrible people in your big tent can have their uses. But I think that the polarization of the parties and the wipe out of the blue dogs by the tea party has been good for the party as a party and moved it significantly to the progressive side of things.

    ReplyDelete
  159. This is rich considering what a terrible unfun and unimpressive and tedious person he reveals himself to be in that book and in his columns. I think it is to the credit of Harvard Undergraduates that they didn't have much time for this posing, boring, wanking, asshole and that he wasn't invited to the good parties. Christ--would you want to spend time with this moaning bore?

    ReplyDelete
  160. Stiffed is really good. It has some great stand alone pieces--the one on VMI, the one on the shipbuilder's union as compared to the lack of camaraderie at Boeing, and the "Spur Posse" of teenagers looking to get famous for having had sex with girls.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Illinois is complicated--the cities are blue but the suburbs and rural areas are red.

    ReplyDelete
  162. But we should totally say this all the time. It would be worth it just for the puzzled looks.

    ReplyDelete
  163. I think its:

    Your lawsuits are frivolous.

    My are vital to freedom, democracy and baby Jesus.

    His lawsuits are tyranny.

    ReplyDelete
  164. I don't think it makes any sense to act as though one side in a knife fight can have a politics based on purity and the other can come armed with guns. If Obama were impeached for failing to correct the crimes of the previous administration the only thing that half the country would learn is that Democrats can't be President. That Democrats will never be allowed to be President. They won't learn that torture is bad. They won't learn that invading Iraq was a criminal act. They will simply take the lesson as this: the political classes are willing to shoot the guy we hired to clean up the mess because he couldn't magically make it go away fast enough. And they are willing to impeach Obama not to vindicate the constitution but simply to seize power back from the Democrats by any means necessary. I see no reason to throw my weight as a citizen behind the party which is seeking to drag us into a ditch in which the country is ungovernable when a Democrat gets voted into power.

    ReplyDelete
  165. If Obama were impeached for failing to correct the crimes of the previous administrationAnd if Obama were impeached for his own legally questionable approach to extrajudicial killings, that action would again apply only to Demcratic presidents. Rand Paul made it clear in short order that his hissy fit over drones was purely because a Democrat was involved. Even if the Senate somehow convicted on those articles (which it wouldn't), it still wouldn't applied as a precedent to a Republican president (like Mitt "I'd Dronekill More" Romney) unless the Senate were overwhelmingly Democratic., in which case, how did a Republican get elected? The whole thing would provide no proper teachable moment to the electorate about the ongoing creep of the security state. As stepped_pyramids notes, the electorate would have to get there before the impeachment, not vice-versa.

    ReplyDelete
  166. NonyNony9:03 AM

    ...

    I just ...

    Do they think that Muhammed Ali learned the rope-a-dope from the Koran?

    ReplyDelete
  167. I always wondered about the jettisoning of the 50-state strategy, along with Howard Dean. It won Obama the presidency, but apparently it was deemed unusable in the aftermath. Why isn't Dean Obama's chief of staff?

    ReplyDelete
  168. The guy who has been mentioned for a while is Tom Emmer, a Bachmann clone who will likely carry on in the Tea Party tradition. Derelict is right in that Liberals have ideas which are good and need to be advanced. The Tea Party is feared because, while its ideas are toxic, it has access to large sums of loot which can be deployed at a moment's notice. Sure, it can be discouraging to lose when you have faith in your ideas and you get swamped by a wave of cash, but not competing means that the Tea Partier will be the only one doing the talking, and will be free to smear Libs so thoroughly that the next time around, the voters will vote conservative out of pure reflex. TGuerrant's analysis shows that a Dem may have a shot if they're willing to do the work of campaigning by selling your ideas, and if they get some financial help.

    ReplyDelete
  169. XeckyGilchrist10:20 AM

    I miss the thug thizzle.

    ReplyDelete
  170. I was a deaniac, actually--its one of the ways I got interested in Politics and I'll always admire Dean for what he did that summer. But I don't think he was much of an organizer, himself, actually. And I'm not sure how I feel about his post politics career. Chief of Staff, at any rate, is not about organizing the 50 states--it was a very different job and required a lot more insider knowledge and bare knuckled skill than Dean had of Washington.

    ReplyDelete
  171. I don't actually think that the kind of money the tea party moves locally makes any difference. For one thing--and Atrios has a link up to an article about this today--a lot of the money the tea party captures is pure grift and does not get spent on local elections at all. For another thing I don't think many people's politics is formed right before an election--people have already made up their minds and they tend to vote along with other people they know. The idea that a candidate--from either party--gets a fair hearing on the merits is improbable. There are very few voters who are up for grabs at this point.


    The the tea party is effective at the local level because it mobilizes voters, frequent, older, white voters who were going to vote anyway and who always vote for the Republican candidate or someone under the Republican name who represents himself as more pure than the one they've got. Those people aren't switching to vote for the Democrat. In the cases that ITTDGY pointed to in the linked article up or downthread the actual electorate had changed--not the voters, but the electorate. It was becoming younger, more progressive, etc..etc...

    ReplyDelete
  172. Thell the thizzle and not the thteak.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Point taken. What I'm getting at is that he seemed to have been unceremoniously dumped after having done a lot to get Obama elected. A plum would have been nice, is my point. Chief of staff, maybe not. But a cabinet job or ambassadorship? I mean, did he accidentally piss on Obama's shoes in the men's room at the after-party? What happened?

    ReplyDelete
  174. If we don't know by now I don't think we'll ever know.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Of course we moomins would stick together. Down with Muskrat politics and the Hattifattner party.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Sura 10:3 "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Perfidy for me, but not for thee."

    ReplyDelete
  177. Wow, first mds grows a penis and now this.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Why I Am Not Even the Ambassador to Estonia (Not That Estonia's Such a Terrible Place): A Memoir by Howard Dean.

    ReplyDelete
  179. gocart mozart11:51 AM

    Imagine if you will that Obama were to prosecute the torturers, that Holder were to arrest Bush and Cheney and charge them with war crimes. This would be easy since both Bush and Cheney have admitted that they ordered people to be waterboarded. Now imagine the politics of it. Imagine if he had done so from day one. What would have his presidency been like? How would the media react? How would the American people react? I don't blame Obama for thinking that is a bridge to far.

    ReplyDelete
  180. BigHank532:35 PM

    Thanks for that link, Susan. I once abandoned the reading of Mind Over Water, a memoir that purported to be about sculling but instead turned into a 280-page tongue bath for Harvard.

    ReplyDelete
  181. BigHank532:41 PM

    Christ, I hope they at least gave you capsules and not the generic liquid Stalin--you would not believe how bad that stuff tastes.

    ReplyDelete
  182. In effect there is no way that a President of the other party can arrest and try the former President for crimes. The legitimacy of that act will simply never be accepted by half the country--even if the proof is absolutely iron clad. I know that a bunch of Kossacks are pissed at Obama but there was simply no way to bring Bush and Cheney to account--though it might have been possible to bring lower level people to trial and punishment. But what kind of person does that to people who, as Obama points out, thought they were acting under orders and thought they had exigent circumstances. Its easy to say "I didn't authorize them to do that crap" and its true--a lot of us protested at the time, a lot of us were angry about it, a lot of us said it was unlawful and if not unlawful thanks to Yoo et all then immoral. But the fact of the matter is that its easier to arrest, try, and convict a single individual for torture and murder than it is an entire, systemically poisoned, institution. Privately eliminating and pensioning off those people and trying to clean house without making an example of them is probably a more effective way of preventing it in future than a show trial which will inevitably be seen as going after low level flunkies instead of the top people.

    ReplyDelete
  183. susanoftexas4:35 PM

    I'll give him this much credit--he realizes that the only way he can convince everyone he is a gentleman scholar is to turn the clock back about 150 years.

    ReplyDelete
  184. He's no J.S. Mill, or anyone else. More like a cross between Uriah Heep and Mr. Collins with a little dime store savonarola thrown in.

    ReplyDelete
  185. davdoodles10:00 PM

    "Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric"

    He knows it's true, because he's got a certifcate that says so.

    http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li5onz69ix1qztjn5o1_500.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  186. montag211:05 PM

    Klein jumps on right-wing bandwagons. It's just what he does.

    When Bush was flying high after 9/11, there was a bandwagon effect, and ol' Joe jumped on, and when Bush talked about "the ownership society," well, Klein was dumb enough to think that was egalitarian and populist in nature, instead of the come-on to the rubes that Wall Street wanted and then exploited.

    Klein's pretty much smart enough to dress himself, tie his own shoes and wipe his own ass, but as a reporter, umm, not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  187. montag211:51 PM

    Oh, that certainly has considerable appeal with the manly men of National Review.

    Any opportunity to wear something akin to military issue without having to go through basic training gets their glands working overtime.

    ReplyDelete
  188. montag212:13 AM

    It will sit on the shelf right next to Van Jones is Defunct.

    Expediency and appearances seemed to matter a great deal not all that long ago.

    ReplyDelete
  189. montag21:55 AM

    Even though impeachment was always an administrative duty, I suppose even the founders admitted to themselves that it wasn't going to be used for simply that. They were worried that a true demagogue and tyrant was eventually going to be elected, and that enough of the Congress critters would think more of their institution and the Constitution than party and thus rid the nation of such, which is why an impeachment clause survived the drafts.

    Boy, were they ever wrong. Reagan and Bush pretty much told Congress to go fuck itself, and Bush and Cheney pretty much bent Congress over and said, "We're gonna make ya squeal lak a pig," and Congress said, "please, please, more!"

    So, now, having recently used impeachment for electoral dramatics, the Republicans have now effectively declared that it's their toy and no one else can play with it. Which is part of the reason why there's so much complaining about Obama even mentioning it.

    In terms of protecting the Constitution and keeping the administration within the letter of the law, Bush and Cheney combined were probably the most dangerous to have ascended to power in the country's history. (No other has ever maintained that the Vice-Presidency is effectively a fourth branch of government and therefore exempt from laws pertaining to other branches, for example.) And yet, Congress did virtually everything Bush and Cheney wanted and, for practical purposes, ignored oversight of the entire Executive. Under pretense of law, this administration abandoned a treaty without consulting the Senate, set up a systematic program of graft in military contracting, stocked the cabinet with people dedicated to turning over the government and its treasury to big business and to destroying the agencies they were charged with running, by executive fiat created secret prisons around the world, validated torture and indefinite detention and unconstitutional and illegal surveillance of American citizens, set the concept of habeas corpus on fire on the flimsiest legal justifications imaginable and, :and started a war of opportunity using a bushel basket of lies and distortions of uncorroborated intelligence... and yet, Congress could not be roused to consider these acts as impeachable offenses.

    Just guessing, but I doubt that keelhauling will be on the menu of options any time soon.

    ReplyDelete
  190. montag22:01 AM

    I'm pretty sure that his last name was misspelled on his birth certificate.

    ReplyDelete
  191. montag22:17 AM

    Kinda doubt Palin would be up for the job. Even the Repugs know that she'd quit halfway through.

    ReplyDelete
  192. montag22:30 AM

    Um, I think the CIA learned it at Yale.

    ReplyDelete
  193. I guess "You might have to disappear" is one of the first lessons you learn in American politics.

    ReplyDelete
  194. Oh, man, don't get me started. These cammy-wearin' douchebags . . . you love this shit so much, join the fucking army.

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  195. Shwell Thanksh2:22 AM

    Or as Ted Stevens might put it, "Impeachment is not a big truck. It's more like a series of 'Et tu, Brute's"

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