In January [2014] Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit addressed some Obama conspiracy theories: “…that the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives, or that Chief Justice John Roberts' sudden about-face in the Obamacare case might have been driven by some sort of NSA-facilitated blackmail.”
Yeah, you might shrug, there are plenty such crazy notions out there. But Reynolds went on: “A year ago, these kinds of comments would have been dismissable as paranoid conspiracy theory. But now, while I still don't think they're true, they're no longer obviously crazy. And that's Obama's legacy: a government that makes paranoid conspiracy theories seem possibly sane.”
Reynolds’ main theme was the IRS “scandal,” one of a long series on alleged wheels-within-wheels Obamaspiracies that have not gotten the traction he and his colleagues think they deserve. But it’s his idea that crackpot theories about Obama are somehow legit because of other crackpot theories about Obama that’s really interesting...This week you may have heard about the U.S. Army exercises in Texas and how that state's governor, apparently inspired by conspiracist wackos like Alex Jones anticipating the Day of the FEMA Camps, has instructed the commander of the Texas State Guard "to keep a watch over the exercises and help keep local law enforcement agencies and their citizens informed."
What's Reynolds' opinion? Dunno, but his hired hand at Instapundit tells the troops:
This is why I love Texans. And kudos to Abbott for doing what he thinks is right, knowing the onslaught of mainstream media criticism to come. A healthy dose of suspicion is warranted, especially with this Administration.You can read the explanation from the Army here, but they haven't overthrown the tyrant Obama so their word is no good.
These people used to issue tinfoil dispatches like this from the darkest corners of public discourse. Now it's part of mainstream conservatism. It's as if Robert Welch had challenged Eisenhower for the 1956 Republican Presidential nomination and gone on Face the Nation to demand Ike answer charges that he was a Communist dupe. This will be a difficult period in American history to describe to our descendants, if we have any.
Support the Troops Army National Guard!! (Baltimore)
ReplyDeleteShit, this stuff is so mainstream even serious (well...) Presidential candidates are afraid to laugh at it. Of curse, that assumes Rand Paul doesn't actually believe it...
ReplyDeleteI am waiting in excited anticipation for when Instacracker gets off the Obama paranoid BS train and saunters on over to the Hillary misogyny rollercoaster.
ReplyDeleteHe's stated his going to be "looking into" whether the administration is using these war games to take over the southwestern US. Sprog Paul's already seen how quickly Caribou Barbie had to start shakin' it for nickels, and the Kochs have already picked their automaton; he's feeling that cold, throat-squeezing fear of a grifter without an adequate supply of marks.
ReplyDelete2015's annoyingly dumb fucking white men, ranked:
ReplyDelete2) alex jones
...
12) this annoyingly dumb fucking governor i've never heard of, but will probably have to put up with in the 2020 presidential race
...
17) glenn reynolds (tie with martin o'malley)
...
33) kelly olynyk
51) mike dunleavy
It's going to be a wonderful transition to watch. They veered from casting Hillary as a DykeSheBitch in the 90s to The-Acceptable-Parallel-Universe-Democratic-President-We-Shoulda-Had in the past 8 years. I wonder if they'll try anything new this round or just fully revert to 1990s mode in hopes no one will notice.
ReplyDeleteThat's just quality Duke basketball, dex.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, all I can think of is what Molly Ivins so notably said of Camille Paglia (but it fits here too): "Sheesh, what an asshole."
ReplyDeleteYeah, and when is Obama going to get serious about the threat posed by the Circle Trigon Party?
ReplyDeletehe maketh boys into-eth men
ReplyDeleteGive the man a little credit. I'm sure he can ride both.
ReplyDelete1) Tom Cotton
ReplyDeleteWithout peer or contender.
It's as if Robert Welch had challenged defeated Eisenhower for the 1956 Republican Presidential nominationFixed that for you. As has been noted, Rand "Rand" the Paulet is on board with this. Huckster Huckabee and Rafael Himmler Cruz are already declaring (non-sarcastically) that liberals are bringing tyranny and an end to "religious freedom," and it's a virtual mathematical certainty at this point that the 2016 GOP presidential nominee will have to at the very least pretend to believe some pretty deranged treasonous fascist shit in order to get through the primaries. (Was it only 2008 that John McCain could actually push back against the notion that Barack Obama is a Muslim traitor?) He'll certainly be backed to the hilt by the sons of Robert Welch's fellow traveler Fred Koch.This will be a difficult period in American history to describe to our descendants, if we have any.When I feel crushing despair about our future, I try to remember that at least I'll probably be able to vote for Hillary Clinton instead ... and I don't feel particularly better. Then I think about leftier-than-thou types asserting that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Ms. Clinton and Scott Walker ... and I don't feel particularly better, but at least I get to laugh hysterically for a while.
ReplyDelete" This will be a difficult period in American history to describe to our descendants, if we have any."
ReplyDeleteI've been saying much the same thing for years... maybe decades. Future historians are going to be doing a whole lotta "what.the.fuck?" as they're digging through the mountain ranges of horseshit this era will leave behind.
Hell, they already occupied Lampasas County,TX back in '52!
ReplyDeletePS - I love the whacky Ruritanian crests on the Trigon's helmets.
He's stated his going to be "looking into" whether the administration is using these war games to take over the southwestern US.Oh god, he's on to us. He's noticed that Obama has been declared president of the United States.
ReplyDeleteHell, they already occupied Lampasas County,TX back in '52!
ReplyDeletePS - I love the whacky Ruritanian crests on the Trigon's helmets
Is it irresponsible to hallucinate? It is irresponsible not to.
ReplyDeleteI hope they've got radiation gear on at the time.
ReplyDeletePanic At Level 21
ReplyDeletehttp://img.wonderhowto.com/img/75/78/63494545470634/0/keep-your-fingers-clean-while-eating-cheetos-chocolate-chips-and-more.w654.jpg
This seems as good a time as any to point out the difference between different types of nutjob. It's not that right-wing nuts are crazier than left-wing nuts, or even more numerous. It's that left-wing lunacy doesn't get amplified. It doesn't have a media apparatus to force it into the mainstream of political thought. It never appears on the lips of sitting Senators or Congresspeople. Government officials are never brought out to address it while using every drop of willpower to resist the urge to roll their eyes and sigh.
ReplyDeleteWith the erosion of Trutherism and the rightward shift in anti-vax and other altie nonsense, political derangement is once again the province of the right - not because they have all of the nuts, but because they keep passing the mic to their nuts. Enjoy it fuckers, you did this to yourself.
Those "future historians" will probably be cockroaches that can read. They'll be impervious to ionizing radiation.
ReplyDelete"And kudos to Abbott for doing what he thinks is right..."
ReplyDeleteAnd why stop there? Kudos to Tim McVeigh, for doing what he thought needed to be done. Kudos to Alex Jones, for thinking what he thinks is right regardless of some politically-correct definition of "sane." Kudos to Cliven Bundy, for grazing his cattle where he knew they needed to graze. Just as it's not a lie if you believe it, Jerry, it's not demented, paranoid, or nuts if it's connected to some larger principle in your mind.
This prompts the thought that, assuming it's Hillary, her v.p. should be a man adept at ridicule and derision. Let HIM mock these loons and idiots with the contempt they so richly d. She can smile knowingly. I'm not krazee about her voice to begin with.
ReplyDeleteA healthy dose of suspicion is warranted, especially with this Administration.Yeah, especially with this Administration. Not exclusively, though. Who knows how close we've come, in the decades the military's been doing this kind of thing, to a coup by an out-of-control federal government thinking that we are no longer governed by the fucking Articles of Confederation? But the risk is all-the-greater now, given this administration's demonstrated penchant for using military force against domestic dissent. Which, out here in reality, translates into Cliven Bundy not being dragged away by troops after his posse of seditious asswipes threatened federal law enforcement officers. Jeebus, I'm unhappy with Obama's use of targeted assassination on executive say-so, yet there are shit spouters walking around free right now that I'd be extremely tempted to have whacked. Which is one of many reasons why I shouldn't be President. God Emperor, maybe, since that's largely ceremonial.
ReplyDeleteSo there weren't any red flags with the previous Administration?Well, the previous administration demonstrated that it would seize US citizens from civilian law enforcement on US soil, throw them into a pit, deny habeas, and torture them, but no, not particularly. Why?
ReplyDeleteNah, new Hillary is an ultra-rich old jet-setter who roams the world taking bribes in return for favorable government decisions. And did I mention she's old?
ReplyDeleteGiven how many and sundry right-wing yahoos are exclaiming that they "need to take their country back," I'm guessing that if there are coups to be carried out, it's going to be by right-wingers against an elected government. Every camo-wearin' moron in the country has been waiting for some Bob Roberts/Edwin Walker clone to give them the signal.
ReplyDeleteI guess that depends on whether or not Tailgunner Ted wins. Two right-wing religious wackos from Texas in sixteen years just might be enough to turn the country upside-down, tectonically.
ReplyDeleteBut, then, see below. States' rights probably aren't very important to other species.
Bush consolidated most of the Army bases into Texas and Kentucky. For the grift, of course.
ReplyDeleteMove 'em back out!
~
Ah, the extremely contagious Cheetitis. My wife's a pediatrician, she sees several cases per day.
ReplyDeletePDOTNW at least had something to shake.
ReplyDeleteNoticed? Has he ever even admitted it?
ReplyDeleteHell, the paleohistorians of the future will probably be evolved apes if we succeed in rendering the planet inhospitable to "advanced" (technology-dependent) lifeforms. We're creating the Planet of the Apes (hopefully) without nukes. For being such a stinker of a movie, the original was quite possibly prophetic.
ReplyDeletethat the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives,
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the NSA, it was an underpaid worker, invisible to the MotU types, who was in a "behind closed doors" setting.
Don't forget the hair color.
ReplyDeleteIt might be that my judgment is skewed, living as I do in one of the battier bastions of the Southwest, but I must differ on this 'equal number of nuts' business. Just figuring in the right-wing religious nuts (about 40 million of those alone), they've got the left-wing nuts badly outnumbered,, and that doesn't include the rabid corporatists, the conservatoid libertarians, the authoritarian gun nuts and the militant survivalists, the anti-environmental ranchers, the oil and gas fan club or the Droolers for Palin, the Israel Firsters and the Sturm und Drang Front. (And, no, I will not do a Venn diagram of this.)
ReplyDeleteOn the lefty side of the ledger, how many old-guard Stalinists are there left in this country, for example? Fifty would probably be too high. Even lefties who think Bush and Cheney planned the entirety of 9/11? A couple of million, maybe (most of us realize that neither of them are bright enough for that, and that letting it happen is more plausible, and that's only because Cheney has proven himself to be one of the nastiest fuckers on the planet and is clearly capable of anything). Nikola Tesla conspiracists? A few thousand, maybe. Same for PETA extremists. Monkey-wrenchers? The same. Dedicatedly frootloops UFOers of a lefty persuasion? A few hundred thousand. Maybe a million at most. Atlantis New Agers into crystals? Now, you're probably creeping up into the five or ten millions, but they're mostly harmless.
Add `em all up and it still doesn't come close to equaling just the number of wingers already licking their chops at the thought of Ted Out-Of-His-Fuckin'-Gourd Cruz in the White House. Nope, I'm afraid that when it comes to outright loonies, idiotic and otherwise, the right has had that market cornered in this country for a long, long time.
That said, your point about the ease at which truly wacko right-wing
ideas get mainstreamed is, of course, quite right. But, it's also true that the media don't challenge or dismiss those ideas out of hand because they know that if they do, if they even hint at ridicule, they'll be shit-bombed by millions upon millions of truly crazy fuckers, and that by the time Fox gets through with them, it will seem like the whole fucking country has gone nuts because they didn't treat something crazy and irrational as if were the contents of the Ark of the Covenant.
They've got amplitude... and bandwidth.
I bet a lot of the "blame 9/11 on a plot by Bush and Cheney" are actually far to the right of them and consider them "one world government" leftists.
ReplyDelete"This is why I love Texans; majority are apparently gone bugfuck, like myself" he could have said.
ReplyDeleteThat was my motto, until my connection got busted.
ReplyDelete42) Vox Day
ReplyDeleteEven contemplating the existence of someone or some group that thinks the Bushies, in aggregate, are one-world commies give me the fuckin' willies. That's a condition in dire need of long-term psychiatric care and/or some pretty powerful sedatives.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you're probably right. I doubt we've yet seen the upper bound of right-wing insanity.
I don't know what it's like where you are but here the bodies of political dissidents are beginning to pile up -- some still in there moldy tricorn hats and Fourth of July-themed appliqué sweatshirts.
ReplyDeleteWho wouldn't love to see the US Army swat the Texas Guard. It would probably be the first time anything blew entirely though those lardasses for the past ten years, edifying for the whole country and a repeat of the last time a bunch of racist speculators took on people who had to work for a living.
ReplyDeleteShit through a goose.
Per Juanita Jean:
Do you know what the Texas Guard is? It’s not the Texas National Guard. It’s just the Texas Guard. It’s like the Boy Scouts except with no adult supervision.
Remember the old sheriff we had here who often tied his shoelaces together? He was the head of the Texas Guard here and his mistress was the Lt. Col. I am not making that up. Just ask anybody.
This ought to make you feel better. Krzyzewski got pissy with one of his giants back in the eighties (Cherokee Parks) and told him "I'll show you how to take a fucking charge- now come at me!"
ReplyDeleteParks did .
Coach was in a world of back pain and surgery for a good part of the season.
Bi-salivary.
ReplyDeleteDon't you go besmirching Lindsey Graham like that, unless you're ready to take off your shirt and wrassle him.
ReplyDeleteNot only is right-wing craziness amplified and passed on without significant criticism, but at the same time even sane and moderate left-wing ideas are treated like fringe beliefs unworthy of being taken seriously by the same media outlets. Thus, ideas like, say, universal health care or the notion that the 1% should pay their fair share of taxes are portrayed as wild-eyed lunacy beneath serious consideration by the same media outlets who treat the ravings of anti-vaxxers or Second Amendment absolutists or would-be theocrats as bland "opinions differ" issues.
ReplyDeleteThe problem today is that the hallucinations must be taken seriously or, if far too outlandish, simply ignored.
ReplyDeleteToday, we have TWO serious candidates for the Republican presidential nomination who have openly advocated for secession and armed insurrection against the government of the United States. We have a United States Senator who has spent the last 10 years building her political base by giving speeches about Agenda 21, fluoride conspiracies, and the Muslim/Mex hordes hiding under her bed. We have Congressman King (from Iowa), as well as congressmen Yoho and Gohmert.
Forty years ago, none of these people would have made beyond a city council seat, and most would be spending their nights in their basements, tuning the shortwave in search of the secret communist invasion signal while deciding which of the bulging cans of beans they'd stocked up to eat first. Today, these people run for Congress and find themselves sitting opposite Chuck Todd on the TV while Chuck nods sagely as they explain that last night's transmission from Planet Peeps came through their molars and they KNOW that Obama's going to occupy Texas and turn it into just another American state.
This is it in a nutshell. Because of this, we as a country have now reached a place where we can't even broach the idea of a tax increase to deal with even the most pressing problem.
ReplyDeleteThe best example is roads and bridges. We have bridges actually falling into rivers and taking cars and trucks with them. Raising the gas tax 10-cents a gallon would cover all of our road-repair costs and then some, but doing so is unthinkable because it's a tax increase. Instead, we have to develop a system that tracks exactly where you drive, how far, how long, what roads--and then bill you based on that.
Ten-cent increase in gas tax = wild-eyed ultra-extreme leftist notion.
System that tracks your every move and costs tens of billions to develop and implement = common sense extension of liberty.
There's nothing in Bastrop but a state park that burnt up a few years ago and a tiny town trying desperately to remake itself into a hipster tourist destination for people driving to Austin. It's surrounded by tinier towns spread out in a vast nothing of trees and fields with nothing to do but work in a factory/plant or raise a few cattle. Every little town has a mess of churches, large US and Texas flags, and pro-Republican signs. They must spend way too much time listening to the radio.
ReplyDeleteOh, hell, I've got roughly twenty years on li'l Lindsey, and I could strip down to my shorts, put on an orange wig and a red nose and floppy shoes and still ride him like the goat that he is.
ReplyDeleteSome things are easy.
This will be a difficult period in American history to describe to our descendants, if we have any
ReplyDeleteNot really. As long as our descendants know about the Salem witch trials, the Red Scare, various freakouts regarding satanism in anything you care to name, various freakouts about the exotic drug craze of the moment, UFO cults and the John Birch society, explaining the politics of the 21st century will be as easy as saying: same shit, different day.
And the warrantless surveillance, the vacuuming of all our personal data, the indefinite detainment without charge--these have been a part of America since the Norman Conquest.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the reality is that IOKYIAR. A Republican president could invade Texas, confiscate all their guns, and enslave all their women--and it would be absolutely A-Okay. A Democrat president visits Dallas at his own mortal peril.
And fat. Their secret weapon this time around is pictures of her doing yoga. Those photos give them the double-funk whammy of "old ugly fat bitch" and "completely out of touch elitist who does suspicious foreign exercise."
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. He'd cooperate and it enjoy it.
ReplyDelete(Calculate Republican craziness using the Least-Sane Denominator (LSD).)
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of overlap among those left wing whacko sets. Crystals/Atlantis/UFOs are usually a cluster, not exclusive, and so the imbalance is likely even greater.
ReplyDeleteUh, oh. The tinier the pinhead, the more dramatic the result.
ReplyDeleteI would go with this, but there is a difference: We now have people running for public office who have stated their objective is the destruction of the government--and those people are winning elections.
ReplyDeleteThe rightwingers used to say "America: Love It or Leave It."
Now they say "America: I wanna burn this sucker down."
My quick estimate of the number of right wing wackos is 27% x 319 million people in the USA = 86.13 million give or take a few million.
ReplyDeleteWe've seen that 27% often enough in the last fifteen years that it's time to say there's enough data to support the supposition. And, Bob Altemeyer's surveys, decade in, decade out, keep finding a consistent ~25% of the population in the right-wing authoritarian category, and that's close to the margin of error for most polls, so, fuck Rmoney and his 47%. It's the 27% that's hogging the zeitgeist.
ReplyDelete"They must spend way too much time listening to the [shortwave] radio."
ReplyDelete...in their heads.
ReplyDeleteThis. Although I haven't been particularly enthralled by most our candidates in past election cycles, I've been head-bangingly, teeth-grindingly enraged that our surrogates have not been more combative. Jeezus, wingnut whackos swarm out of the woodwork like roaches and practically elbow each other out of the way to get to whatever microphone is available to reinforce the looniest of conspiracy theories, while the best our side can come up with, when it gets heard at all, is "Well, George/Bob/Chuck, I think the evidence will show that that's not true, although we DO have to guard against the appearance of impropriety, and blah-de-blah..." It would be great if we had about two hundred Alan Graysons willing to point at insanity and right wing mental illness and laugh, instead of begging folks to look at the evidence that shows them to be wrong.
ReplyDeleteObama has also inflamed race relations by choosing to govern while black.
ReplyDeletethat the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, despite Obama's vast abuse of the NSA, the IRS, and the Bureau of Land Management, we still haven't gotten a gander at all of Romney's tax returns. This is what happens when you have a president who's too weak to man up and really use the power of Big Government.
Next up: Black (i.e., ooga-booga) helicopters!
Also, per Atrios, it is interesting that Sanders' candidacy is not Serious (tm), but these nutballs are tres serious. There really isn't anything in what Sanders has put out that hasn't been US policy, or proposed, seriously considered policy in the past. This whole affair is a mark on the wall that lets you see how far the window has shifted.
ReplyDeleteSo it's decided, Colbert for V.P.
ReplyDeleteRidicule from a woman is worse because it involves a challenge of authority. When someone "lower" than an R. authority attacks they feel free to kick down and the results are often spectacular. See: Rand Paul
ReplyDeleteNow if we could only find a woman who was quick with a funny insult.
Sad Bucks fan is sad.
ReplyDeleteIt's also "emasculating," but for that reason the Dems would lose female votes. Having said that, who wouldn't want to watch Kathy Griffin in the V.P. debate?
ReplyDeleteI want to see the part of the secret plan to drain the Great Lakes and divert the water to the southwestern US. Thanks, Obama!
ReplyDeletenah. just anti-douchebag
ReplyDeleteIt's worth remembering that Tailgunner Joe McCarthy had presidential ambitions to some degree, although he badly overreached and also liked his booze a bit too much. (And it's not even worth asking much of the current clown car ridership whether, at long last, they have even a shred of decency; never had it, never will.)
ReplyDeleteThere's also Sarah Silverman if Kathy needs a break. Thanks, EW, I am feeling more cheerful.
ReplyDeleteHow is that different from the confederacy, the 'business plot' of Smedly Butler's allegations, or any of the other 'rule or ruin' tactics employed by conservatives since 1776?
ReplyDeleteWANDA SYKES!
ReplyDeleteSanders: "I'm running for president."
ReplyDeleteMedia: "Sanders is a socialist!!!!"
Sanders: "Perhaps it is not a good thing that bridges collapse and kill people."
Media: "Ha! What a socialist!"
Sanders: "And maybe having children die of preventable and curable diseases isn't a good thing."
Media: "Oh! What a wacky socialist!"
Sanders: "If we took a small fraction of what we're planning to spend on the F-35 fighter jet and used it to fix our roads . . ."
Media: "Clearly, Socialist Bernie Sanders is a socialist who hates America and is actively working toward its downfall!!!!"
Ted Cruz: "I think we need to have people taking up arms against the United States government, exercising their Second Amendment rights because the number one threat to our liberty is our government. So elect me and I promise to bring down the government of these United States!"
Media: "Clearly, Republican patriot Ted Cruz is a patriot who loves America, and we must take his views quite seriously."
See also: Spend millions on trying to catch welfare/food stamp/unemployment cheaters who are depriving "real hard working Americans" of what amounts to pocket change.
ReplyDeleteIf I suddenly landed a gazillion dollars, one thing I'd do is send a healthy monthly allowance to every single one of y'all who lives in the cognitive dissonance states. No strings, just money so you can keep talking to your neighbors, maybe pool your money and take over a radio station, maybe enough money so you can keep campaign signs in your yard and replace them whenever they get torn down, maybe pay for a security system in your house. Maybe pay for Barbara Ehrenreich to come speak at the library. Nobody wants to listen to an oldish lower-income old lady from the Left Coast (that would be me), although I grant you, I have my work cut out for me among many of my own neighbors. Jeez, if we could just turn down the noise machine and talk about what really worries us....okay, I'm dreaming. But it was nice while it lasted.
ReplyDeleteOMG, yes yes yes. Wanda Sykes.
ReplyDelete"I have here in my hand a list of communists in the State Department!"
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a list of items to pick up at the grocery later, but it doesn't matter. He's got a piece of paper, and it would be un-American to consider asking him for a copy.
"And that's Obama's legacy: a government that makes paranoid conspiracy theories seem possibly sane."
ReplyDeleteUh huh. Too bad Ye Olde Perfesser was, uh, "following closely" that "Obama had sex with me for smack" story The National Enquirer was running with *in 2008*. It's almost as if you're predisposed to chow down on bullshit, Glenn! Almost!
I'd love to see it be a Black woman if it weren't for all the racism/sexism that would be inevitable.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess I'll have to go with Al Franken, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi.
IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!
ReplyDeleteWhat did CM Punk do this time?
Well, ever since his robot sex partner had that short-circuit and sucked out half his brain, Glenn's had a hard time paying attention.
ReplyDeleteWith a significant percentage asking "then why are there still apes, huh???"
ReplyDeleteI keep clicking the upvote button, but it only went up once. I blame UN black helicopters.
ReplyDeleteSo very much of this is suburb-ification. The burbs require extended infrastructure with a real maintenance overhang . Everything was fine during the expansion, but now the low density region needs to produce taxes to pay for maintaining all the pavement and pipes, and it is really expensive.
ReplyDeleteA sarcasm translator!
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, the commitment we made 35 years ago under President Saint Ronald Reagan in his famous speech before the Washington Wall of Blockheads:
ReplyDelete"We are prepared to pay any price, to bear any burden, to sacrifice even our own children's futures in pursuit of lower taxes!"
Yep, see also those pensions no government can now afford. They're a lot easier to afford if you use the black magic voodoo of actuarial science and set aside money at the required rate as you go along. It gets my goat when I hear how unfordable these promises are. Only when you fuck it up, asshole.
ReplyDeleteugh---it's a bigger complaint. he's like henry rollins, his narcissism and neediness makes his self-awareness totally nil.
ReplyDeletehe's well poised to talk about inequities in wrestling, particularly the wwe, but all he's done is snipe vince and mock the fanboys. this is old hat for the mcmahons; you can bet vince and steph are already recording the interviews for the "best in the world" 15th anniversary dvd, about how they always knew they'd be friends again.
"to sacrifice even our own children's futures in pursuit of lower taxes!"
ReplyDeleteWow! No Truer Words...
Punk's his own man, and aside from some vague comments about "talking about this for the boys in the back," I don't think he's presumed to assume some sort of revolutionary mantle. I get that. Get money, get paid, get that concussion checked, Punk.
ReplyDeleteHis personal agency noted, I agree with you that I wish he were doing more than what amounts to some worked-shoot Vince-trashing, just without the work. And you just know that he's going to show up on the Raw after WrestleMania, oh, 33 and GTS Hunter or something and all will be right again.
His wife smacking Steph around on Twitter was pretty good, though.
the aj lee tweets were AWESOME (and it drives me nuts someone so cool and smart is married to such an incredible asshole). the aj thing goes to the heart of the matter. that shit puts the fear of god in the mcmahons.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't think this is crazy. I'm not sure he'd be a very good politician, but then again, he'd be the VP. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know enough about policy to be a good administrator, but then again, he'd be the VP.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a funny, telegenic bomb-thrower, he'd be right on the money.
Punk's a good-looking hombre. Don't forget that.
ReplyDeleteyes. i should probably move him further up the list then.
ReplyDeleteOne should mention that this topic impinges noticeably on the subject of two relatively recent books that have at least made the attempt to explain the phenomenon of mainstreamed crackpottery: Charlie Pierce's Idiot America, and Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion.
ReplyDeleteIt's likely impossible to condense all the aspects of the mechanics of the process into something comprehensive. That would probably result in a sticky, oleaginous bolus settling to the bottom of one's consciousness, but both Pierce and Taibbi make valiant attempts to nibble around the edges of the matter without causing the intellectual equivalent of a gall bladder attack, although some heartburn is inevitable.
Highly recommended for those still trying to divine the true nature of American bugfuckery.
I have relatives in Texas. One if them lives near Tyler, which, based on some of its' recent history, I'm sure has a Hellmouth nearby.
ReplyDeleteNow if we could only find a woman who was quick with a funny insult.Chelsea Handler? I'd put her at the top of the ticket, though, due to her approach to foreign policy.
ReplyDeleteLet HIM mock these loons and idiots with the contempt they so richly d.Say what you will about Biden (and there's a lot), but he came pretty close to treating Paul Ryan with the level of contempt he deserves.
ReplyDelete(And, no, I will not do a Venn diagram of this.)Jeez, how hard is it to draw a circle?
ReplyDelete"But now, while I still don't think they're true, they're no longer obviously crazy."
ReplyDeleteYeah, yeah they are.
The real problem is people confusing uncritical, incompetent reporting with reality.
It's akin to the delusion that 'infamy' and 'fame' or 'celebrity' are all synonymous, another bit of salesmanship from media that no longer practices journalism.
"This year notoriety got all confused with fame."
ReplyDeleteDon Henly, In The Garden Of Allah
Yeah, man. Hard to believe that tune is closing up on twenty years old.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Jennifer Rubin, this is what they were eavesdropping on:
ReplyDeleteUntil October it was the Perils of Pauline campaign. It moved in fits and starts on foreign policy. The message was rarely consistent from day to day. Gobs of ads were aired to no apparent effect. The convention speech was a huge missed opportunity. Romney made a lunge now and then in the direction of immigration reform and an alternative health-care plan without giving those topics the attention they deserved. The communications team was the worst of any presidential campaign I have ever seen -- slow and plodding, never able to capitalize on openings. It was hostile, indifferent and unhelpful to media, conservative and mainstream alike.
Matters did improve once Ed Gillespie moved forward to take charge of the message. A message at least became discernible. The ads certainly were simpler, more direct and more attuned to making a case for Romney's agenda. But if not for a stunning series of performances in the debates and unexpected eloquence on the stump in the last month, Romney almost surely would have done worse than he did. A presidential race needs more than a good month to be successful.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/07/wapos-jennifer-rubin-admits-she-misled-her-read/191214
Given the convolutions and variations and near-infinite gradations of right-wing fuckery, I was afraid that it would look more like a Mandelbrot set on acid....
ReplyDeletePurity of Essence, Mandrake.
ReplyDeleteCLINTON-SYKES 2016!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/TdUsyXQ8Wrs
ReplyDeleteBoring, irrelevant story:
ReplyDeleteI grew up watching CM Punk wrestle as part of the "Lunatic Wrestling Federation" in the SW Chicago suburbs.
That's an all-timer Mort.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Who'd a thunk rampant, poorly-planned development and overexpansion would lead to any problems? Maintenance is free, right? Or unnecessary?
ReplyDelete(To say nothing of paving over much of our best farmland so people can live in unwalkable sprawls of McMansions and Chem-Lawns. But point out that, hey, maybe someday we'll wish we could still grow food there, and it's all "Haw, haw, haw! Stupid libs!")
Conservatives are quite fond of the story about the ant and the grasshopper. But they are more fond of living like the grasshopper while lecturing everyone else about how they need to be ants.
ReplyDeleteno--this is an awesome story and i salute you and your comment.
ReplyDeleteThat pipeline will be buried under The NAFTA Highway that the UN is going to build right after the ChiCom invasion takes away our guns and imposes Sharia Law and veganism.
ReplyDeleteObviously, LWNJ-ism doesn't have the monetary/financial backing that the right wing has. If there were, they'd be getting the attention of the MSM in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteBut since most of the 1% considers Bernie Sanders' agenda anathema, that's pretty unlikely.
I'm not sure campaign finance reform would rectify this in any meaningful way; but it sure might. The other benefits of CFR are needed anyway. But even if the rich RWNJ couldn't give unlimited money to a candidate, they could still spew their BS and be taken seriously by the credulous Chuck Todd-types. They would still control much of the media.
I have found it be even worse. If I click a second time, my original vote is stolen. I pretty sure Disqus is owned by Diebold and are trying new methods of trueing the vote
ReplyDeleteBut the VP to a woman must be a beta male and therefore lower than any Republican manly man, so they can still kick down without feeling chauvinistic
ReplyDeletewell Del Monte French-cut Green Beans are very communist, and Andy Warhol captured how Campbell's soup cans can stack together to make socially realistic art. That was known beofre Waehol did the art, he just was the first to capture the soup zeitgeist
ReplyDeleteYou know, shit like conservative opposition to walkable construction is one of those reasons why we need to stop calling them "conservatives" and dub them what they are - the Asshole Party. There's no element of conservative thought that requires one to embrace sprawl. In fact, I'd argue there are as many reasons to oppose it from the right as the left. After all, aren't these the guys who are always rambling on about the breakdown of the community and civic virtue? Don't you think communities would be strengthened if we focused on local development and gave people an opportunity to meet their neighbors face-to-face? There - conservative argument for sensible community design.
ReplyDeleteBut it doesn't matter, because they're not interested in policy or thought, they just a pack of pricks who want to yell at someone, so it's all "ARGLE BARGLE ECONAZIS." Not conservatives, just assholes.
Yeah... and afterward, the media treated Biden as though he'd kicked a puppy.
ReplyDeleteAnd, the funny back story about the movie was that (IIRC) Jeff Sharlet mentions it in one of his books on the Creepy Christians of C Street, that the producer was tied up with them in a somewhat obscure and slightly dark way, and the writer was his protege. When they were doing the set and art direction, someone had picked a shade of iridescent blue for the Blob, I suppose because it worked well with the film stock they were going to use, and this sent the writer and producer into fits and spasms, because the Blob was a metaphor, don't you see? For Communism. So it had to be red. Bright red. Menacingly red. So, it was Communism slurping up everyone in sight. So, yes, it's apt, since the Blob was borne out of right-wing pants-pissing sixty years ago.
ReplyDeleteOur corporate media have encouraged these terrible people to gain positions of power, thinking such stupid and crazy people will be easy to control, where more sensible (Democrat) types won't be.
ReplyDeleteNow they're finding out they may have miscalculated.
THE COMMENT OF THE DAY!
ReplyDeleteNot suburbification, its greed and power craving of people like Murdoch and Kocks and CEOs of multi national corporations.
ReplyDeleteYES!!! But I'm not sure they have enough ethics or moral intelligence to figure out they may have miscalculated. A tad OT, but I am enjoying the video clips where protesters in Baltimore are telling the media the truth about how useless they are. One guy told what he referred to as the white media to get out. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteThug helicopters is what my autocorrect produces.
ReplyDeleteShit, man, if advocating for community involvement, getting to know your neighbours, and civic participation are conservative positions, I'm a huge fucking conservative.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought I was a European-style social democrat.
But they aren't really left wing in any sense--they tend not to be really political at all and certainly not interested in things like the economy or militarism. Maybe they are "liberal" in the sense that they pursue what used to becalled an "alternate" lifestyle, or they are socially liberal, or don't care about gays getting married, or consider themselves "spiritual" and not part of an organized religion. But they really aren't on the left in any real sense.
ReplyDeleteYeah, if you want to sell a lot of oil & gas and related products you can't have "walkable construction". Values, schmalues, not when it comes to Koch pocketbooks.
ReplyDeleteWait, so you're telling me "in-famous" *isn't* a synonym for "really famous"? BRB, gotta go punch a telegraph operator. :)
ReplyDelete"In his letter to the governor, Todd Smith of Euless, who retired from public office in 2013, said he is “horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my Governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my Governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do.”
ReplyDeletehttp://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/former-gop-lawmaker-blisters-abbott-for-pandering-to-idiots-over-military-exercises.html/
. . . thinking such stupid and crazy people will be easy to control . . .
ReplyDeleteWhich, when you think about it, tells you how stupid the corporate media and the oligarchy are. Ever met someone who's stupid and crazy? If you have, then you KNOW that combination is not controllable--whether it's wearing a Gadsden Flag t-shirt or a $4,000 Armani suit.
So. Are we finally approaching the Wingnut Singularity?
ReplyDeleteThe Texas Guard is a volunteer civic organization made up of good ole boys without any kind of authority or weaponry. I can't imagine what they are supposed to do if the Army decides to take over. Probably just shit their pants and run away. Ted Nugent can teach them how to do it.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that I'm stupid and lie to me constantly.
ReplyDeleteJon Stewart will soon be looking for a job. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteOn second thought, let's DRAFT WANDA SYKES for PRESIDENT.https://youtu.be/zmyRog2w4DI
ReplyDeleteYes ... asymptotically.
ReplyDeleteWANDA SYKES: Woman of the people!
ReplyDelete(skip to around 12:00 if for some reason you can't appreciate Maron's take on livermush.)
https://youtu.be/XM82gy666G8
Whitey tape!!
ReplyDeleteFillings.
ReplyDelete"Mary Shelley, white courtesy phone. Mary Shelley, white courtesy phone."
ReplyDeleteI've seen Ryan do his kicked puppy act. He looks like Patrick Bateman lip-syncing Kajagoogoo.
ReplyDeleteAnd when you don't tax the motherfuckers who have all the money.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of puppy? Because it matters.
ReplyDeleteWas the original in color or B&W? Because in this (I assume colorized) version, the blob looks like chocolate.
ReplyDeleteO(1/log(n))
ReplyDeleteYou paid into a pension fund, we stole it, pensions are now unaffordable. You fucked up, you trusted us!
ReplyDeleteI look at many suburban towns these days and see the same patterns of soaring public education costs leading to huge cuts in municipal services including basic maintenance. Because both of those things are funded through property taxes, suburban homeowners see their tax bills rising and demand relief. Much of the increase on the education side is driven by unfunded mandates from the federal and state level, leaving only the municipal side of the ledger that can realistically be "adjusted."
ReplyDeleteSo, we'll skip updating the sewer system and waiting until there's a geyser of shit somewhere. And we'll skip updating the water system and just fix water main breaks as they happen (at much higher total cost over the long run, but hey). And we'll stop repaving the roads and just patch the potholes. And and and . . .
Fifteen years later, everything has fallen apart to the point where tens of millions of dollars are needed just to keep things functioning. I see this in my own little town which has a total municipal budget of under $20 million, but needs something like $40 additional dollars just to catch up on deferred maintenance of roads, sewers, water, buildings, etc.
I have the mimeograph on that right here, somewhere . . .
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't colorized. It was originally done in color, processing by Deluxe.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is that it wasn't a Hollywood picture--it was done entirely in Pennsylvania, around the area where the studio was, Valley Forge. And, when the producer/backer and writer decided on a color for the Blob, it didn't photograph at all well, and I doubt they had someone there who could (patiently) explain to them that what they wanted wouldn't look the same on film because of the color temperature of the lights they were using. It looked different depending on whether light was reflected off it or transmitted through it. There are shots in the movie where it looks a rather dark ruby red, but in many scenes, it's kind of a dark reddish-brown. At that time, the industry standard for color negative film was Kodak 5248, which had pretty good daylight color rendition, but at night, or with studio lights, took some expertise to look right.
Union Carbide made the material for the Blob out of red dye and silicone, and according to the main producer, they kept adding more red dye to it as it "consumed" its victims, but I doubt that translated effectively on film.
It was rather low-budget, even for the times. It was advertised as costing $240,000, an average sum those days, I suppose, but, in actuality, most likely cost only $110,000 (about $850K today).
does he or doesn't he?
ReplyDeleteA puppy with big, sad eyes and earnest, thoughtful ideas which need to be seriously considered on how to solve Amurka's looming fiscal problems
ReplyDeleteOh, c'mon, that wacky little Bavarian corporal is going to be easy to control- nobody takes a guy like that seriously. After we use him to break the communists and socialists and unions, we'll just reel him back in- in the meantime , didja see the way his latest speech roused up the base?
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of crazy, but it just might work. and may get rid of the zebra mussels
ReplyDeleteThat's so old I think some Cistercian Monks copied in Medieval Times
ReplyDeleteAhhh, 'dittos', that smell!
ReplyDeleteI want to see Sprog Paul and Trump in a hairpiece/taxidermied squirrel shake-off, but that might be more than the intertrons can bear.
ReplyDeleteAnd kudos to [Adolf Hitler] for doing what he thinks is right, knowing the onslaught of mainstream media criticism to come.
ReplyDeleteWe could play this all night. John Wayne Gacy? Attila? Oh, wait, I know...Abraham Lincoln!
And the gobies.
ReplyDeleteCan't he do both?
ReplyDeleteI'd be cool with the U.S. invading Texas for humanitarian reasons if I weren't worried it'd end up about as well as invading Iraq did.
ReplyDeleteSadly, Peak Wingnut is only a myth...
ReplyDeleteI do love that movie so, and now I love it even more.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I couldn't explain technically what was going on, I always noticed the 'weird color'. This was at the movie theater back in the day, and it is even more apparent in the dark. Blue-shifted greens and overdriven reds. I remember walking out of the theater and the trees looked 'too green' in normal sunlight.
To be fair, that was all long before he became a pundit.
ReplyDelete"So what's your entry in the Science Fair, Glenn...OH MY GOD!"
ReplyDeleteDorkstosslegende
ReplyDeleteI know, right? Ahhhh...
ReplyDeleteI want to provide this comment with all the rubber knives it will ever need.
ReplyDeleteOh my god! So true!
ReplyDeleteNugent's propensity to shit himself whene startled by that terrfying predator called "patriotic duty" appears to be a less-charming form of Autotomy - where lizards self-amputate their tails.
ReplyDeleteAlso see Sea Cucumbers:
"When sea cucumbers are threatened they release a sticky thread that distracts their enemy.... As a defense mechanism some sea cucumbers can self-eviscerate parts of their own body. They do this by violently contracting their muscles together and secreting some of their organs out of their anus."
- sciencefriday.com/blogs/05/07/2012/the-surprising-sea-cucumber.html?audience=1&series=16
I remember when being 'horrified' at one's government was generally reserved for acts of governmental overreach, but now it appears that the lesson we are supposed to have learned from Kent State was that not enough young people were killed by the State, and nowhere near enough black folk.
ReplyDelete.
"But now, while I still don't think they're true, they're no longer obviously crazy."
ReplyDeleteI agree with Reynolds that the crap his side spouts constantly is untrue, but it really is still as 'obviously crazy' as ever. That Glennie no longer recognises how crazy his fellow nutters' bumph is anymore says more about him than it does about Obama.
.
Baby great dane.
ReplyDeletethat wacky little Bavarian Austrian corporal is going to be easy to controlSo viel Zeit muss sein.
ReplyDeleteI would like to treat this comment to a delicious Schweinshaxn and a litre of helles.
ReplyDeleteLet's see, people in Dallas participating in the grand tradition of drawing the Prophet....two shot by police..no big shocker there....What? Pam Gellar?? In Texas??
ReplyDeleteHow in the world do they evan undahstand haa?
Now we are going to have to endure a thousand right wing pundits mewling "See? We TOLD you ISIS was in Texas!"
ReplyDeleteI guess I only ever saw it on a B&W TV. Probably mid-60s, when we had after-school scary movie time.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to paraphrase WKRP here. "Glenn! See a psychiatrist, really, it's worth the money."
ReplyDeleteUnd Hasenpfeffer mit Rotkohl!
ReplyDeleteThey used to pretend otherwise, at least a little bit? I mean, what used to be Butler's unthinkable alleged plot, hatched in secret, is now known as "Koch Brothers pretty openly declare their intentions to spend a bajillion dollars on seizing complete control of the country."
ReplyDeleteProperty taxes to fund education ranks near the top of America's stupidest ideas.
ReplyDelete"... They do this by violently contracting their muscles together and secreting some of their organs out of their anus."So that's where modern Republicans learned their approach to politics.
ReplyDeleteHunh, good god y'all...
ReplyDelete3000 FB likes in the time it took me to read it. Retired Navy Warrant Officer minces no words about that Jade Helm/Walmart bullshit. Minces a nutbag FB commenter pretty well, though...
Oh, they understand Jugs, all right...
ReplyDeleteAnd she can protest all she wants, but she got exactly what she wanted when those two showed up...