Thursday, March 12, 2015

DEATH, TAXES, AND AUTHORITARIANISM.

Over and over and over again I have to remind people that the conservatarian enlightenment on police power and civil rights --which starry-eyed opportunists tell us is coming any day now -- is never going to happen. This is partly due to the necessity of keeping the racist element of the Republican base enthralled with ooga-booga, suggesting that blacks are animals that must be kept at bay by Blue Knights, and partly due to the authoritarian equity to which they always return when an election gets close. Remember how the Justin Amash wing of the GOP was going to save us from trumped-up foreign wars? Look how that's working out.

But no one ever learns. On March 5, Leon Neyfakh had a story at Slate called "Cops and Conservatives: Could the DOJ’s Ferguson report lead the right to abandon its love of law enforcement?" Neyfakh interviewed "one of the most prominent conservatives in the criminal justice reform movement" who told him, this time for sure! Well, here we are a week later, and two cops have been shot in Ferguson. Here's Jazz Shaw at Hot Air:
Leaders from the local level all the way up to Eric Holder are pursuing a policy of appeasement in the face of mayhem with tragic results which should not be coming as a surprise... the state and the feds have essentially delegitimized the law enforcement structure and punished those charged with keeping order. And not just the police, but even the courts as well. Under such a public specter, why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law? And why would those contemplating criminal activity feel any fear of the consequences of their actions? (Yes, “fear” is the correct term, even if you don’t care for it. Criminals should fear the long arm of the law. It’s how deterrence works.)
Expect more such lawn-order ejaculations in the days to come. By 2016 Bernie Kerik will take the stage at the Republican Convention riding a tank and wrapped in Kevlar, and "prominent conservatives in the criminal justice reform movement" will not be in attendance.

130 comments:

  1. Helmut Monotreme11:08 AM

    Of course they will fall out of love with the police, and in a hurry too. The minute they experience any personal inconvenience from a corrupt cop.

    ReplyDelete
  2. coozledad11:12 AM

    (Police chief) Belmar figured that the protesters had to be involved somehow: “I don’t know who did the shooting to be honest with you right now. But somehow they were embedded in that group of folks".


    When they slip, they slip hard.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TGuerrant11:14 AM

    I suspect Brian Williams.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Helmut Monotreme11:14 AM

    Where was Cliven Bundy last night?

    ReplyDelete
  5. GeniusLemur11:17 AM

    "the state and the feds have essentially delegitimized the law
    enforcement structure and punished those charged with keeping order."
    Yep, it's the state and feds' fault for pointing out the problem, not the cops'/judges' fault for being racist and corrupt.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ted the slacker11:20 AM

    Unfair to point out too, that they don't like lawnorder in the hands of a guy like Eric Holder? But they love some lawnorder, oh boy they love it when one of their guys is playing sheriff.

    ReplyDelete
  7. swkellogg11:28 AM

    Quick someone call Brooks!


    This can all be remedied by the speedy reintroduction of a moral vocabulary!

    ReplyDelete
  8. In a world where most sentient humans understand life is change, and against the veracity of this truism proven every day in front of them, conservatives remain unconvinced.


    Look no further than Bobby Jindal. He urges fellow Republicans to "stop being the stupid party" and then turns around and sticks his dick in a light socket.


    That they revel in this stupidity makes it doubly delightful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tehanu11:41 AM

    "And why would those contemplating criminal activity feel any fear of the consequences of their actions?"

    Oh, so no criminal activity ever took place until now. I see. Up till now everyone was too fearful of the consequences to commit crimes. Riiiiiiiiight.

    ReplyDelete
  10. swkellogg11:49 AM

    Shorter: Holder -- get off my lawnorder!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Both Holder and his boss are both the wrong color and the wrong party.

    ReplyDelete
  12. It's all Obama's fault because EVERYTHING bad is Obama's fault. This is bedrock principle in the Conservative Universe.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Conservatives do not understand any human motives beyond hate, fear, greed, and lust. This is why their approach to fighting crime consists entirely of imposing ever-more-draconian penalties. IF ONLY we make jaywalking a capital offense, then nobody will ever cross against the lights!

    That criminals do not weigh the potential penalties when they're committing a crime never occurs to conservatives.

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  14. That they revel in this stupidity makes it doubly delightful.

    That they use this stupidity as a basis for running things makes it doubly distasteful. That they are, at this moment, in control of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court makes it doubly dangerous.

    ReplyDelete
  15. TGuerrant12:03 PM

    There's a lawn jockey hiding in that comment somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  16. swkellogg12:06 PM

    Also reveals that author thinks like a sociopath.

    ReplyDelete
  17. TGuerrant12:09 PM

    Is their definition of "stupid" different from ours? (Our test subjects for researching that hypothesis could include the voters who repeatedly re-elect Louie Gohmert.)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Jay B.12:15 PM

    Under such a public specter, why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law?


    Because the cops are racist and the system corrupt? Or was Jazz looking for a different answer?

    ReplyDelete
  19. ColBatGuano12:26 PM

    So, sort of like the reformacons who were going to come up with tax reform that wasn't just tax cuts for the rich and then came out with tax reform that was basically tax cuts for the rich with a fig leaf of child credit?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Bizarro Mike12:27 PM

    They really need criminals to be the other. They can't handle the fact that a criminal can be a person just like them who was too reckless or too desperate.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Yep. To be perfectly clear, I thoroughly lament the fact that America has an out-sized proportion of people who are ignorant, who consistently vote against their own best interests; the confoundingly credulous who who clutch their bibles and their guns and are spoon-fed a steady diet of (false) fear by those that control them; that the US is saddled with a large faction of the populace that either doesn't care, or chooses not to care about anything beyond their front gate; a populace that is preyed upon by people interested only in lining their own pockets, and not their purported goal of making their country a better place to live.


    It makes me sick to my stomach to see a nation of greatness hobbled by apathy, inertia, and charalatans. Truly.


    But this sorrow doesn't preclude also enjoying the shitshow unfold. And if enjoying the shitshow, mocking the clowns and extremely bad actors starring in this performance for the ages makes me a bad person, well, geez, I can certainly live with that descriptor.

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  22. tigrismus12:33 PM

    policy of appeasement in the face of mayhem with tragic results

    This apparently does not mean doing ANYTHING to cops for killing innocent people, or changing their "we can do no wrong, cover-up and protect our own" culture.

    the state and the feds have essentially delegitimized the law
    enforcement structure and punished those charged with keeping order


    Otherwise why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law? Why would bad cops fear the consequences of their criminal activity? Dear Lord, there's nothing said here that doesn't apply MORE to militarized law enforcement run amok.

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  23. Helmut Monotreme12:33 PM

    Is there a word that encompasses both racism and classism and acknowledges that they are inseparably entangled? Especially one that implies that focusing on one to the exclusion of the other plays into the hands of the people benefitting from both?

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  24. Remember how the Justin Amash wing of the GOP was going to save us from trumped-up foreign wars?In some fairness to Mr. Amash, who has opposed additional sanctions and probably wouldn't have signed the borderline-treasonous Cotton letter, it's not entirely his fault that the Justin Amash wing of the GOP is pretty much down to Justin Amash. (Rand "Rand" Paul signed the letter, of course, since he's running for President.) I mean, sure, the intellectually and morally stunted economic ideas, the reactionary theocratic views on reproductive rights, those are his fault. But not the fact that the rest of the GOP just can't quit those ugly, violent foreign entanglements.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Bad person? Not at all! Just someone who's decided on a healthier response to such madness.

    As to the rest of your comment, we just had our town meeting elections here in Vermont. In my little town, people turned out in droves to vote against a measure to fluoridate the water supply. They were well and truly riled up about it. Yet, somewhere around 20% of those who came into town specifically to vote against this left the rest of their ballot blank--they couldn't be bothered to vote on who would sit on the Select Board that helped bring this issue about in the first place. Of the remainder of those who voted against fluoride, a majority voted to return the incumbent to his seat--AND to vote for the only candidate (of 8 running for 2 seats) who stated he backed fluoridation.

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  26. Or too greedy--see former GOP congressman Duke Cunningham or former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

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  27. But the Justice Department report details exactly that point. When justifying the higher percentage of African Americans who are cited, fined, and jailed, Ferguson officials claimed that "those people" did not have a sense of responsibility. Then those same Ferguson officials turned around and sent emails to their cronies asking for favors like clearing citations. Of course there are two sets of policies for the same infractions. One set is for people with a "sense of responsibility". The other is for black people.

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  28. Bennington?!? OMG, I wasn't able to pick up on the Presidents' Day offer, but we really do need to find some way to conduct a BBBB/Aimai/Derelict/mds Northeast Torrid Tangle Meetup.

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  29. Well, I think the answer to the question "why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the law?" can best be summed up by the words of a Ferguson PD officer: "Nigger, I can find something to lock you up on."
    In fact, I believe that may be the Ferguson city credo.

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  30. That's us. I'm definitely up for a meetup--I'd like to put some faces and voices to the, uh, voices I admire so well here.

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  31. The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.

    A. N. Wilson...


    ...who would know, since he lives it fully.

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  32. Gromet12:54 PM

    J'ever notice how there were never any riots or murders in America before Holder got put in charge of enforcing all the laws?

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  33. Chyron HR12:55 PM

    "By 2016 Bernie Kerik will take the stage at the Republican Convention."

    More like Bernie Goetz,.

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  34. Is there a word that encompasses both racism and classism and acknowledges that they are inseparably entangled?



    Republicans.

    ReplyDelete
  35. gratuitous1:09 PM

    I was struck by the difference in the Ferguson police's reaction to shootings when the victim wasn't an 18-year-old black high school student. Last night, they got immediate medical attention for the shooting victims, and I have yet to hear if any of last night's victims might have misbehaved in the recent or distant past.

    So, you know, maybe there's hope for reform after all the next time someone gets shot in Ferguson.

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  36. gocart mozart1:10 PM

    A "small government" conservatism, consistently applied, remains a myth much like unicorns and "state's rights."

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  37. witlesschum1:12 PM

    Amash was able to turn back a well-funded primary challenger in 2014, mainly because the Kochtopus stuck with him, if I remember right.

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  38. Under such a public specter, why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law? And why would those contemplating criminal activity feel any fear of the consequences of their actions?

    Such an amazingly ignorant crock of shit. A police officer comes under scrutiny every time he discharges a firearm, and in some cases simply for wielding one. This isn't new, we've had shooting boards for a long time now. It's an important part of civilian oversight of the police. The only thing that was different in Ferguson was that it was a national story, so we were all paying closer attention. Oh yeah, and also the part where it turns out that the police there might not be so impartial when it comes to people of a certain complexion - but probably not, after all racism is dead.

    I don't understand how conservatives can obsess over Big Gubmit and then not understand the basics of how the government works. This is Intro to Civics shit, here.

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  39. gocart mozart1:19 PM

    Much as Obama and Holder are forcing them to be racist pricks.

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  40. gocart mozart1:22 PM

    A cop asking a white guy carrying an AR-15 for his ID is the real oppression, man.

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  41. Zack Budryk1:23 PM

    #NotAllCops but #DefinitelyAllProtestersAndAnyoneWhoSympathizesWithThem. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.

    ReplyDelete
  42. The problem is that we've really lost track of why it is that we confine criminals. Imprisonment was not originally intended to be a form of punishment, it was for reflection and reform (hence "penitentiary"). That ideal didn't last very long, though, and ever since the "tough on crime" 70s, prison reform has been poisonous. That's why our criminal justice system is so fucked up, and it's unlikely to change unless there's some social movement that undoes the effects of the Nixon years.

    ReplyDelete
  43. zencomix1:48 PM

    "By 2016 Bernie Kerik will take the stage at the Republican Convention riding a tank and wrapped in Kevlar"


    In the hotel after the convention, he'll be dressed in a wetsuit with a dildo up his ass.

    ReplyDelete
  44. swkellogg1:57 PM

    " Under such a public specter, why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law?"



    Gee, didn't the DOJ's report say the black residents of Ferguson pretty much weren't?


    Oh I get it -- "law abiding" = white.

    ReplyDelete
  45. After the convention? What do you think will be under the Kevlar?

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  46. satch1:58 PM

    Here's an interesting tangent: regular Thom Hartmann listeners will know one of his frequent guests, Sheriff (Richard) Mack, a self-styled "constitutional expert", advocate of small gummint libertarian law n' order, and an implacable foe of the socialistic health care reform law that was rammed down our throats by the Kenyan Usurper. Well, wouldn't you know... seems that both he and his wife have run into some major health problems, and are now running an online fundraiser to help pay for their medical care. This site, http://sheriffmack.com/
    is the internet equivalent of standing at in intersection with a cardboard sign around your neck begging for spare change, but of course, donors can be secure in the knowledge that they are giving to a true American patriot, and not some off-color moocher, and I'm sure they're lining up as we speak.

    ReplyDelete
  47. BigHank531:59 PM

    Well, it's the difference between how the government actually works and how they think it ought to work.* You and I think the rich and poor, black and white, etc ought to be equal in the eyes of the law. Conservatives, in large part, pine for an aristocracy. Short of that, they'll take a plutocracy, a patriarchy, or a racist kleptocracy if that's all they can get their hands on. Government is for making the right people happy, healthy, and prosperous.

    *This idea isn't restricted to conservatives, by the way. I'd like to see single-payer health care in the US, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it without martial law and firing squads.

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  48. TGuerrant2:00 PM

    limbaugh I lim'-bah | noun | Old Germ. | archaic, sound of gas escaping

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  49. Which is interesting, because his occasionally rational views on national security and foreign policy have left him pretty much out of favor with the neocon / Talibornagain teabagger contingents, and hence less influential than he could be. Devin Nunes, the new chair of the House Intelligence Committee (oxymoron alert, w/ emphasis on "moron"), was actually one of the funders of that primary challenger, along with some "pro-business" groups. I guess it's another example of how the Kochs really aren't all about the bottom line, but are actually dedicated ideologues.

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  50. gocart mozart2:08 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn-WYzU6jYk&t=24

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  51. donors can be secure in the knowledge that they are giving to a true
    American patriot, and not some off-color moocher, and I'm sure they're
    lining up as we speak.Well, Wonkette commenters certainly were, especially since donors could leave comments.

    ReplyDelete
  52. TGuerrant2:12 PM

    I'm sorry, but I've given all my disposable income to the Sheriff Arpaio Liposuction Fund this month.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Even if this works, the Macks will no doubt realize that not everyone has a similarly high profile in Far Wingnuttia, so online fan fundraisers are no way to pay for healthcare in general. Hence, this difficult situation could well turn into a moment of epiphany, making them finally understand that HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no, sorry, I can't keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
  54. satch2:15 PM

    Wow... this has gotten around more than I thought. The obvious lesson that Mack should have learned by now is... don't include comments in your online begathon.

    ReplyDelete
  55. redoubtagain2:28 PM

    A spectre is haunting Ferguson. It is the spectre of justice.

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  56. redoubtagain2:29 PM

    the state and the feds have essentially delegitimized the law enforcement structure and punished those charged with keeping order. Man, it's like they won't let you chase runaway slaves through swamps with bloodhounds anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  57. mgmonklewis2:45 PM

    All True Conservatives know that the most law-abiding places in the world are authoritarian banana republics, what with their swift and immediate consequences for every action.

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  58. montag22:58 PM

    The only traditional reason we have police is to keep the poor and minorities from killing the rich. The natural constituency of conservatives is the rich, so they're forever going to be kissing the asses of the police, and are constantly thinking of ever more creative ways to subject the poor to their idea of law `n order. (This might be why there's been so much hostility toward Martin Luther King over the decades--King made that creative destruction obvious for all to see for what it was.)

    Ferguson officials just used the law to slam the lid down on community discontent and then decided that the easiest way to manage the turmoil was to use the cops and the courts to make the poor poorer and the near-poor poor, thus making the community a cash cow, probably on the principle that it's a lot harder to complain from jail, or if you're trying to scrounge up the money for fines. That's the sort of policing of which the conservatives approve--hey, it's a twofer if you can keep the Nigras down and pick their pockets at the same time.

    Still and all, it's amazing that Ferguson residents have shown as much restraint as they have. If what was in the DOJ report had mostly happened to white people, they would have burned down city hall, the municipal court and police headquarters and there wouldn't be a city official left untarred and unfeathered.

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  59. JennOfArk3:15 PM

    I guess it's pretty inconvenient that they've now determined that the shots were fired from up to 500 feet away, not the vicinity of the protesters. That distance also indicates that it wasn't some homie with a handgun but someone with a long gun who was also a pretty good shot. Not the usual profile for a street thug or small time criminal.

    Come to think of it, weren't there some white guys who "volunteered" to prowl around Ferguson with their guns? Why yes, yes there were.

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  60. And yet, the last picture of him I saw, his looked no smaller than it's always been.

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  61. Bizarro Mike3:37 PM

    Rumor has it he was in a van in Toronto.

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  62. swkellogg4:23 PM

    I don't think you'll hear any cries of "false flag" on this one.

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  63. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:24 PM

    Which will include words like "stop" and 'frisk", and phrases like "I was in fear for my life"™

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  64. swkellogg4:26 PM

    Now that's family values!

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  65. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:34 PM

    "This is your democracy, America, cherish it"...

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  66. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person4:34 PM

    Except for the smell of burning dickheads...

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  67. "And why would those contemplating criminal activity feel any fear of the consequences of their actions?"



    Well, the police sure don't fear consequences of their murders. And you know, if these guys openly murder civilians without consequences, you know they're committing other crimes agains the public: theft, of course, torture, arson, just name it. Why wouldn't they?

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  68. Your comment WINS today's award.

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  69. A police officer comes under scrutiny every time he discharges a firearm, and in some cases simply for wielding one. Oh the horror and shame of being scrutinized! And then they get away with open murder.

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  70. JennOfArk5:11 PM

    I KNEW it was a grift!!!

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  71. Helmut Monotreme5:29 PM

    All that's left is a spectre since the cops murdered it and left the corpse in the hot sun for five hours.

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  72. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:43 PM

    In Larry Niven's Organlegger stories, the public gladly goes along with the death penalty being applied to ever-less-heinous crimes, until it reaches the too-many-speeding-tickets level, yet the prison-hospitals are still full of involuntary donors. In Larry's universe, TBTB knew damn well the stiffer penalties wouldn't slow people down, or straighten 'em out.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Gabriel Ratchet6:54 PM

    Or how Obama made Tom Cotton and those other 46 senators commit borderline treason. 11-dimensional chess, indeed.

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  74. TGuerrant7:18 PM

    Aw, c'mon, Roy just gets a little goofy when there's a full moon. Nothing serious.

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  75. TGuerrant7:20 PM

    He's still trying to trick them into impeaching him.

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  76. gocart mozart7:35 PM

    Speaking of death, taxes and authoritarianism, should Glen Beck quit the NRA if the elect Muslim Brotherhood sleeper agent Grover Norquist to their board?

    Was this story rejected by the Onion for being to silly?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjZr4M-Me2s

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  77. TGuerrant7:36 PM

    Unfortunately, Goetz is now an advocate for vegetarianism, inc. vegetarian school lunches, and does squirrel rescue, which both kind of read "liberal."

    But when he ran for mayor of NYC in 2001, it was at least on a third-party ticket, and since getting busted for selling weed in 2013, he's become an advocate for decriminalizing marijuana and so may have some appeal to the GOP's libertarian wing.

    He is 67 years old and so should be able to credibly talk to chairs and reassure Tea Partiers that he will keep the government out of their Medicare. I'd say he'll out poll Santorum in Missouri unless someone starts a rumor that he's Jewish.

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  78. TGuerrant7:40 PM

    Said bedrock principle resides in a zipped file suitable for e-mailing to Hillary on January 20, 2017.

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  79. TGuerrant7:42 PM

    Gaffney! Mah man! Old Reaganites never die, they just go on YouTube. Jesus.

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  80. Yes, his head. Damn Disqus seems to drop words at random sometimes.

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  81. gocart mozart8:07 PM

    Asshole marries a Muslim, they revoke his wingnut credentials.

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  82. gocart mozart8:09 PM

    Gaffney went full Geller a few years ago.

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  83. Glenn is packin' on pounds and using Boehner's spray tan outfit.

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  84. I have to admit I fear being disapointed when mds doesn't look like moominpappa--and what if bbbb has hair? I'm not sure how this will work.

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  85. In Bob Altemeyer's "The Authoritarians"--his book covering his years of research into Authoritarian personalities, he demonstrates that you can get a high scoring authoritarian follower to do almost anything an authority tells him to do up to and including reporting on people just like him, members of groups he himself belongs to, believing that they have been determined to be bad people. You just have to tell them, for example, that "members of the Canadian Farmer's Milk Board" have been determined to be a danger to society and they are right there with the axe and tumbril.

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  86. Unfortunately, I look exactly like the little icon--a gray circle atop a larger-radius semi-circle.

    In all seriousness, I would like to arrange some sort of get-together. We just need someplace convenient to all of us.

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  87. I want Roy and Kia to be there, though.

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  88. AGoodQuestion10:56 PM

    Interesting that Smooth Jazz Shaw takes all of four words to characterize the treatment of Ferguson as "appeasement." 'Wingers typically use that word for foreign relations, and it always carries the specter of Neville Chamberlain's treaties with Germany. So who is supposed to be Chamberlain in this scenario? Who's Hitler?

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  89. AGoodQuestion11:00 PM

    Look out guys...

    ReplyDelete
  90. M. Krebs11:07 PM

    I want to die in this comment's side after being run over by a double-decker bus.

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  91. M. Krebs11:09 PM

    Clearly. Either that or they think "stupid" is a compliment.

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  92. AGoodQuestion11:10 PM

    Hell, sometimes the consequences happen before the action. How's that for efficiency?

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  93. M. Krebs11:13 PM

    Didn't I read something recently about GOP governors beginning to see the light regarding the economics of imprisoning a large fraction of the population for drug violations? Maybe they aren't so dense as not to notice that violent crime rates have been falling for a while now.

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  94. Brian Schlosser11:14 PM

    Obama is Chamberlain and the Dusky Hordes are Hitler. Obama is also Hitler.

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  95. Brian Schlosser11:18 PM

    Yup. Ol' Grove was never in the Culture War branch of the GOP, no matter what shiboleths he may have tugged his forelock towards. He was always in the Money and Power wing. But now that the former is actually in control and not just stage dressing, he finds himself out of the club.

    My heart bleeds.

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  96. M. Krebs11:22 PM

    You mean once wasn't?

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  97. M. Krebs11:23 PM

    Since gold took a dive, he's back to eating at McDonald's.

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  98. AGoodQuestion11:23 PM

    Just when you think Glenn Beck must be the dumbest motherfucker in America, you see him next to a picture of Frank Gaffney.

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  99. Brian Schlosser11:24 PM

    Squirrel rescuse? Since when do the nasty little brutes need rescuing?

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  100. AGoodQuestion11:26 PM

    I've always said - and apologies if you've already seen me say it here - that Norq's marrying for love is pretty much the only non-obnoxious thing he's ever done, so it's the one thing the gomers will never forgive him for.

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  101. M. Krebs11:27 PM

    Randall "Tex" Cobb?

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  102. M. Krebs11:28 PM

    (Honestly, I don't know where that came from.)

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  103. M. Krebs11:35 PM

    I just noticed a video at the Times named "Making Grilled Cheese Without a Recipe."


    We are all doomed.

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  104. That's two westsuits.

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  105. Suttree2:09 AM

    Is it Buford T. Justice or Roscoe P. Coltrane?

    ReplyDelete
  106. Was the author Megan ArgleBargle? Sounds like one of her helpful-hint time-saver articles.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Drop me an email at

    bennforum at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  108. Let's see if we can put a meet-up together. Drop me an email at

    bennforum at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  109. This perspective, imho, defines conservatoids. They have no internal morality/ethics and so depend on external authoritarian structures (e.g. religion, feudalism, military, etc.) to maintain social integrity.


    They are skeptical that any individual can behave in an ethical manner without such structures, and so despise and fear those individuals who have escaped their clutches. Other groups must have competing structures, so not only are individuals dangerous but so are other groups of people different from them. This opens the doors to all manner of abuse and manipulation by opportunists, as we have seen here in this experimental nation.

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  110. Emily688:26 AM

    Here's where we learn if the Ferguson has any idea how to solve a real crime. They've got years of practice busting jaywalkers, but now they're actually going to have to find some clues.

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  111. redoubtagain8:41 AM

    More like Jim Clark.

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  112. Halloween_Jack9:40 AM

    There's never anything wrong with posting something from Raising Arizona, no matter how slim (or nonexistent) the pretext. "Smalls. Leonard Smalls. My friends call me Lenny. But I got no friends."

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  113. Halloween_Jack9:47 AM

    I noticed this in the Slate article:

    Pat Nolan, one of the most prominent conservatives in the criminal justice reform movement. Nolan, a former member of the California State Assembly who served time in federal prison for campaign finance violations during the mid-1990s, was later the president of Justice Fellowship, a Christian group that advocates for a broad range of criminal justice policy changes.



    What was that old definition of a libertarian? A conservative who's been audited?

    ReplyDelete
  114. StringOnAStick10:22 AM

    I've about reached my limit on the cynically maudlin displays of police reps wrapping themselves ever so tightly in their blue flag of can-do-no-wrong brotherhood.
    The Ferguson subtext: "gee, they wrote a report; isn't that enough?" Somehow a report is supposed to quell all anger in that abused community, magically and over night.

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  115. StringOnAStick10:30 AM

    And yet, every news story I heard yesterday about the officers who were shot was all about their medical status (both released, full recovery expected), and not a mention at all about this inconvenient fact. Memory hole, here comes another useful fact...

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  116. John Wesley Hardin12:16 PM

    Obama is also Dusky, so double Hitler.

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  117. You've reminded me of the one of the most epic threads, ever, in the history of plastic.com. It was about grilled cheese sandwiches.


    One would think the topic wouldn't garner much attention or interest, but a scintillating write-up had the punters rushing the gates. Never has a simple sandwich been so thoroughly discussed.


    Now I'm hungry.

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  118. swkellogg2:27 PM

    Egads, I would hope it wouldn't be construed that way!

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  119. realinterrobang5:41 PM

    John Birch is alive and well and living part-time in your town, and part-time in mine, I see...

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  120. realinterrobang5:45 PM

    The Milk Marketing Board is a danger to society. Nobody past weaning age really should be eating dairy products.

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  121. realinterrobang5:57 PM

    What's that old saw? "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested"?

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  122. realinterrobang5:59 PM

    To me, that proves Goetz is still a total nutbar. Squirrels are just rats with better upholstery.

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  123. J Neo Marvin7:22 PM

    You can have my Dubliner cheddar when you pry it from my cold dead creamy salty fingers.

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  124. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person7:28 PM

    I'm curious. What percent of those people who had to "come into town" to vote are actually on a municipal water supply?

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  125. No real way of knowing that. However, the water system serves only 1,300 or so households in a town of about 15,000 people. All eligible voters got to vote on this, whether or not they were on the water system.

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  126. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:04 PM

    Also too my Godiva White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle...

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  127. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:38 PM

    I remember a Candid Camera episode where college students were convinced to administer fake electric shocks to other students, not knowing they were fakes.
    Or....I *thought* I remembered that. Google tells me those were the "Milgram experiments". Google also tells me there's quite a bit of crossover between Milgram and Alan Funt. Milgram admired the show, and told everybody they should watch it, because basically Funt performed 35 years of social psych experiments and showed them on TV every week. One of my favorite shows. It was probably a clip from his film Obedience that I saw, and filed in the wrong mental drawer.
    Al Kelly's doubletalk was a favorite bit. I wonder if Irwin Corey was influenced in any way by this guy. Ya think? Incidentally, the Prof is gonna be 101 in July, and is still performing...

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  128. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:40 PM

    For mugging the Liberal, I misdoubt...

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  129. Halloween_Jack10:16 AM

    Her recipe would involve Wonder bread, three pounds of butter, and a Thermomix, somehow.

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