And her voice affects me like GWB's, creaky and rakey and nasty. Like claws on a blackboard. Yikes.
I can't make heads or tails of the teabag people. The other day, I overheard an older, gun-rights, anti-Obama conservative cow-orker on the phone haggling with some collections agency, because he'd gotten like 5 different bills for one visit. When I asked, honestly, even if it's not this current plan don't you think this system needs to be fixed, he just laughed. And then bitched about it for awhile longer. When asked what he would prefer, he had no ideas. There's no there there.
I'm all for making them actually filibuster.
I'm all for making them actually filibuster.
Your co-workers? Bad idea. Trust me, I've been in enough department meetings to know for sure about this.
Some needs to photoshop that so the other hand has just the word FAIL on it.
Part of me really wants her to run for president in 2012. The other part finds the idea massively depressing.
Part of me really wants her to run for president in 2012.
This part of you will get its wish. The other part of you will be depressed. Prepare to contain multitudes, Jesus.
Both parts want to leave the country for a while.
8 -- Give this one up: There nowhere on earth you can get away from a crazy president of the United States.
5: No doubt one of the European-born or located commenters knows more about this, but years after the "Orange Revolution", Yanukovych is apparently back in power. I guess the institutions are a bit different now, at least.
My tiny resentment of Tymoshenko: I gave up that hairstyle because she looks so much better in it. That's enough hair for Princess Leia cinnamon buns.
Tymoshenko is a hell of a lot brighter and more ruthless than Palin. We're talking someone who has been reasonably successfully navigating the dangerous waters of the post-Soviet energy business and Ukrainian politics for two decades.
She lost because the Orange camp was almost as corrupt and even more incompetent than their predecessors, that plus nasty infighting between her and the president. And of course being associated with the ruling camp at a time when the economy has been in freefall isn't good: the economy contracted by a sixth last year. Just for comparison's sake the total cumulative US economic decline in the Great Depression was about a quarter IIRC. She did as well as she did because of the entrenched divide between the two camps - your average Ukrainian from Lviv is never going to vote for a pro-Russian candidate from the Donetsk.
The Birchers were (are) fucking nuts as well but they still had a disproportionate influence on US politics during the fifties and sixties, did they not? Even if they never "won".
The teabaggers may be morons, but they're dangerous morons. Just having them out there makes the insane shit your average Republican politician says and believes so much more reasonable by comparison.
The hand-notes are insane, but possibly a sign that Palin was scheduled to be spoon-fed a question that she was expected to give a very specific answer to. The guy asks about what the goal is, once conservatives control the House and the Senate, and that's when she looks down, in the video. Clearly, from the picture, she was supposed to mention all those things, and had originally planned to say "budget cuts," but changed that to "tax cuts." Staying "on message" in that Q&A must have been very important to those paying her 100K to be there.
She's not so stupid that she needed that stuff written on her hand unless those particular words were given to her at the last moment.
I thought it was to prevent here from answering "all of them."
I'm surprised it didn't say TAXGAYABORTION! Or just NO.
"Lift American Spirits"
She's going to steal cigarettes?
Total nutz are overrepresented in the teabagger contingent, but there are legitimate grievances to be held by middle- and lower-class Americans in their position. Even if the teabaggers' ire is misdirected, there are plenty of reasons for them to be legitimately frustrated.
Even if the teabaggers' ire is misdirected, there are plenty of reasons for them to be legitimately frustrated.
I fail to perceive the legitimacy of the "I lost my job because black people want to take my guns and sell them to Greenpeace" line of frustrations.
Fucking Bailout. If the teaparty starts throwing bricks through Bank of America windows, I'll forget the bad things I've said about them.
21: "I lost my job" is the legit grievance. Most of these people haven't seen a real wage increase in almost two generations. People in marginal social positions (rural, lower-class, etc.) will often resort to conspiracy theories in an attempt to make a coherent narrative of their lackluster lives.
Sure, they have the same legit grievances that the rest of us have. That they're being organized and funded by the very people who created those situations, well, that's a separate issue. That they also have an entire constellation of frankly insane complaints (Communist czars!) are yet a third.
Sure, they have the same legit grievances that the rest of us have.
Thanks to the court, my illegitimate grievances get $750 a month.
Well, I call bullshit on their grievances. They not only didn't utter a peep about them while supporting the people causing the problems for those decades, their diagnoses and prescriptions today are so far off that the legitimacy of any grievance is completely irrelevant.
E.g., a bunch of them are in one single payer program or the other, and a principal grievance is that someone might allow other people into the program without having 'earned it.'
The organizers are reprehensible, no doubt; and racism is intertwined throughout the movement. But I'm hesitant to start othering the rank and file members, for the reasons that Chomsky expresses.
racism is intertwined throughout the movement. But I'm hesitant to start othering the rank and file members
Fitting both of those issues into one coherent approach is going to be extraordinarily difficult, though. They have legitimate economic grievances, but if you get them talking honestly, it almost always comes down to the blacks and the Mexicans causing them. And what made the movement coalesce wasn't the economic situation (which has been shit for at least a decade), it's that the president is black with a foreign-sounding name, stoking many of their deeply held prejudices and fears.
I mean, I agree with you on one level, but on another, I just don't really believe this is a reachable group.
Everyone's time is their own to waste. If Chomsky et al. think that these folks are going to move from 40 years of thinking that Chomsky et al. are the problem, well, I'll believe it when I see it. In 2010, though, I think it's a little much to presume the good faith of the homophobic, the evolution deniers, those afraid that Obamunism will let the others get benefits. I can't and won't take seriously anyone who is willing to take Gov. Palin seriously, no matter how rough a life they've had.
I wonder about the overlap between those who refuse to "other" the teabag folks, and those who think the President hopelessly naive/ineffective for hoping to reach Republican moderates.
I can't and won't take seriously anyone who is willing to take Gov. Palin seriously, no matter how rough a life they've had.
Well yes, but given time I'm pretty sure we can teach this doorknob to play World of Warcraft.
32: see, the teabaggers are a restless but ultimately good-hearted proletariat struggling against an elite determined to keep them down, whereas Republican moderates and Obama are colluding to keep us (the progressive proletariat struggling against an elite) from realizing that the teabaggers are really our brothers.
Good ol' Chomsky. Genuinely right on a lot of levels, but also completely fucking nuts:
So one thing to be done is don't ridicule these people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a sensible answer, like, "Take over your factories."
The thing about the teapartiers is, they're not looking for answers. They've got the answers, or they woudn't be tea partiers.
I'm hesitant to start othering the rank and file members
I'm not. They're fucking nuts. Where their grievances are legitimate, they aren't any worse off than the millions of Americans who have the same grievances and aren't nuts. Where they have particular grievances which aren't shared with millions of other citizens, those grievances are fucking nuts. O.E.D: they're fucking nuts. As No More Mister Nice Blog put it:
"If we're against it, most teabaggers are for it, and vice versa. We're never going to find common ground. The majority of them don't want to find common ground with us -- ever. The whole point, for them, is that we are the enemy."
There's a degree of exaggeration there, but not much.
(Pwned by everyone, I see.)
36: I can't look it up right now, but is that really how the O.E.D. defines "tea bagger"?
O.E.D: they're fucking nuts.
Odium erat demonstrandum.
#37. Right. With this accompanying note:
"1785 F. GROSE Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue at Well-hung, The blowen was fuckin nutts upon the Kiddey because he is well-hung."
And I will not refrain from ridiculing and otherwise othering those who cower in fear of the underpants bomber, and, as a consequence, cheerlead immoral, ineffective, and illegal treatment of foreign captives.
Most of them have a long history of cheerleading the same treatment of homegrown, garden-variety American prisoners. I'll bet they think Joe Arpaio is an unfairly persecuted hero.
That's the most chilling part for me: the willingness to rescind rights at will. And who should decide who gets rights and who doesn't? Why, Sarah Palin, of course!
I don't think terrorists are worthy of rights that people like my son fight and are willing to die for.
During her $100,000 teabavaganza, Sarah Palin has "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" and "Budget cuts" written on the palm of her hand.
More specifically, "Budget cuts" was written, then "budget" was crossed out and replaced with "tax". Nobody wants to reduce spending!!!!! Just taxes!!!!
32 is confused because of a failure to think class instead of identity.
The Republican moderates Obama is trying to reach are the Senate millionaires and Wall Street squids
CC would have much better chances of achieving his goals with the teabaggers than with Jane Harman or Joe Lieberman
Obama, OTOH, does want a neo-liberal alliance with the right wing of the imperialist oligarchy.
Jackals fighting over a carcass.
"Take over the factories" is a cute idea from an old man who thinks there are a significant number of factories left in this country.
He's one step away from suggesting that The Revolution start by pulling down the telegraph wires.
THE TEABAGGERS ARE NOT PRIMITIVE REBELS. THEY'RE FUCKING NUTS.
The teabaggers are the tip of an iceberg. Like apo says, they've got the same economic grievances as the rest of the middle class. It's true that the the teabaggers are the ones who are quickest to reach for racist explanations of their woes (not all of them are racist, though), that they're mighty confused about who's to blame, and that they have no coherent proposals for making things better. But they know something's wrong, and they're paying enough attention to see that the Obama Democrats aren't offering real solutions.
Even if the actual teabaggers, the ones who show up at the rallies with the crazy signs, aren't reachable, each of them represents five or ten or twenty others who feel the same economic insecurity, have the same sense that the deck is stacked against them, but aren't as quick to join the teabaggers' id-driven sense for a scapegoat. Those are the people the Left can reach, if there's a genuine Left to do the organizing. Centrist Democrats have no chance with them.
Is this the thread for me to report overhearing this morning someone complain that calling somewhere and listening to para español, marque dos was extremely annoying?
Right. I can't imagine how terribly unbearable that must be for you, hearing four words in a different language.
I love it when Carp gets fired up. He is absolutely correct.
Jon Stewart also had it correct when he said the Republican are like the scene from the Wonder Years show: always pulling the car away as you try to get closer.
They are just F**King with you!
They dont want to agree to anything.
I love it when Carp gets fired up. He is absolutely correct.
Jon Stewart also had it correct when he said the Republican are like the scene from the Wonder Years show: always pulling the car away as you try to get closer.
They are just F**King with you!
They dont want to agree to anything.
I'll bet they think Joe Arpaio is an unfairly persecuted hero.
I'll take that bet. I'll bet most of them wouldn't recognize the name.
But they know something's wrong, and they're paying enough attention to see that the Obama Democrats aren't offering real solutions.
Are you kidding? Compared to the type of nonsense they think would fly as a solution?
48: Sure, there are a lot of borderline tea-baggers who are reachable. But there are also a lot of borderline country club Republicans who are reachable--you know the ones who listen to NPR for the cultural reporting, etc. Whenever you recruit, you go for the moderates, not the hard core.
53: No, Bave's right. It's perfectly reasonable to be able to identify a problem, and see that the offered solutions won't work, but not know what to do about it. Just because your alternative solutions are crazy doesn't mean that you're wrong to be dissatisfied.
Is this the thread for me to report overhearing this morning someone complain that calling somewhere and listening to para español, marque dos was extremely annoying?
Oooh, I have one just like this. I was in a doctor's waiting room this morning, and the TV was saying "Snopacalypse This and That!" and the other guy in the room sneered, more or less to me, "Either move to Texas or quit your whining!" It just didn't make any sense, and it was so unprovoked, that there was no conclusion except that he is a total asshole.
It's perfectly reasonable to be able to identify a problem, and see that the offered solutions won't work,
Which offered solutions won't work, that they're correctly identifying? The solution about needing 61 votes to pass anything? The Democrats haven't done anything.
Whenever you recruit, you go for the moderates, not the hard core.
Exactly. Same strategy as getting elements of the Taliban to defect.
Which offered solutions won't work, that they're correctly identifying?
Consider that the number one goal of progressives right now is to push through a week-ass health care bill that won't cover every one but will require everyone to buy into private insurance.
Not that their preference for doing nothing is better, or that they aren't the reason the health care bill is so lame....
The Democrats haven't done anything.
Yes they have. They elected a black man to the presidency, reminding them that power has shifted to multicultural urban centers with gay people, and everything they've ever known is unstable. They might have to eat sushi one day, and they probably won't be able to smoke in the restaurant while they eat. Everything is wrong and the first family looks like a photonegative and who knows who their daughter will meet in college. That's what the Democrats did.
(Their real anxiety is probably about stagnating wages, health care and job insecurity. But I bet they feel it as a lifestyle challenge.)
57: Asking for a stimulus that's too small; bailing out the financial industry without regulating it properly -- a lot has actually happened in the last year, and I have a teabaggish (that is, poorly informed but irascible) dissatisfaction with a lot of it.
Is this the thread for me to report overhearing this morning someone complain that calling somewhere and listening to para español, marque dos was extremely annoying?
You know what's more annoying, to this non-Spanish-speaking person? Calling somewhere and listening to Pah rah ess pan yoal, oapree may dose. It reeks of capitulation.
Look, even quite moderate progressive analysis and solutions like Elizabeth Warren's work are given short shrift in the media. Do you expect someone who's working 50 hours a week to make ends meet, commuting 45 minutes each way, and raising two or three kids to have the time and energy to understand points about economic insecurity and the need to restructure and rebuild the social safety net when these topics are ignored by most media and completely mangled when they're given any airtime at all? (The Planet Money interview with Elizabeth Warren still makes me angry every time I think about it.) But that same person will know something is wrong, because she hardly gets to see her kids, she's two paychecks away from defaulting on a car loan and she doesn't know if her employer will be in business in a month, her mortgage is underwater, etc., etc.
What are the Democrats offering her in February 2010 as we keep diving deeper into the worst recession since the Depression?
61: If you are tea-bagger-confused about who's to blame, then your ill-sense of "Democrats are offering fake solutions!" is worthless.
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I just found out that one of my students lives at the homeless shelter. Or did, until now--he's been kicked out, and will have to miss the first test of the semester.
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Look, even quite moderate progressive analysis and solutions like Elizabeth Warren's work are given short shrift in the media.
Well yes, I'm furious about this, too.
Do you expect someone who's working 50 hours a week to make ends meet, commuting 45 minutes each way, and raising two or three kids to have the time and energy to understand points about economic insecurity and the need to restructure and rebuild the social safety net when these topics are ignored by most media and completely mangled when they're given any airtime at all?
But this is totally, totally irrelevant. There are plenty of people with tons of time on their hands to research all they want, who buy into this bullshit, and plenty of crazily overburdened sympathetic people who are clear-eyed about basic principles.
when these topics are ignored by most media and completely mangled when they're given any airtime at all
The same media allow tea-baggers to claim, unchallenged, that Obama is a socialist (just heard it, for the umpteenth time, on NPR last week). And I have yet to hear anyone report on the racism rampant in the movement. Absolutely useless.
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Meanwhile the Republican candidate for governor is making eliminating the state income tax the main plank of his platform. Income tax accounts for 40% of the state budget, and he has no plans to make up the shortfall. Colorado Springs here we come.
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Those are the people the Left can reach, if there's a genuine Left to do the organizing. Centrist Democrats have no chance with them.
I'm sympathetic to this, but I tend to doubt that there are many people who identify with the "Tea Party" or who are broadly sympathetic to its mission who would be happy if more socialists ran for Congress so they wouldn't have to vote for the likes of Scott Brown, Sarah Palin, or Ron Paul. I don't think the category of people who find economic populism appealing and the category of people who find Tea Party-ism appealing overlap very much.
This is, pure and simple, vague sense of one's power slipping away. A lot of that is economic power, and so it's totally reasonable to be angry.
But they are incensed by the loss of relative economic power, not by the loss of economic security. When you're trying to hang onto power, you become totally and completely insane.
I'll take that bet. I'll bet most of them wouldn't recognize the name.
I dunno, Brock. I'd bet they'd recognize "that Arizona sheriff."
I think you underestimate the appeal of green bologna sandwiches, pink underwear, and "tough on crime."
66.last: Amen
What evidence is there that I'm actually struggling to make ends meet, rather than a crazy middle- or upper-middle-class individual?
This is, pure and simple, vague sense of one's power slipping away.
"What is happiness? The feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome."
72: Most people are? The upper-middle-class is pretty small compared to the 'struggling to make ends meet' demographic? (Depending on how you define 'struggling' of course. But the vast majority of the country is either struggling or close enough to it to be reasonably worried.)
When I went to a teabagger rally, I didn't see people who looked like they were middle or upper class. My eye isn't that good, and everyone dresses casually here, but I wasn't seeing what looked like high quality clothing.
I'm willing to say that, to a first approximation, actual teabaggers - the people who show up at rallies and send money wherever - are racist, reactionary idiots. My concern is about the millions of dissatisfied people who see the teabaggers as the only ones out there who share their dissatisfaction, and so are willing to give them a listen, or grant them some legitimacy.*
The absolute refusal by Dems to either make populist noises or enact effective change (and none of the bank-related stuff was subject to a filibuster, so don't waste my time blaming the Senate for Obama's mistakes) leaves the field wide open for the teabaggers. The refusal to make ideological arguments during the last 12 months have also given Republicans the chance to offer the exact same failed policies as plausible solutions to our current problems.
* I'd note here that the dissatisfied middle are immune to arguments about whether the teabaggers are "really" racists - to low information whites, it's impossible that anyone who isn't proudly self-proclaiming as a racist could be a racist
76: Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm thinking.
The Democrats are structurally anti-populist, something that would be hard to change. But there's a bigger issue here, and the "Don't even know their own self-interest" line of reasoning disguises it. I don't get the sense that tea baggers even object to living in a hierarchical society where they are somewhere in the middle. They object to the wrong kinds of people rising in the hierarchy.
78: And to the wrong kinds of people sinking. Query whether the rising and the sinking are inseparable in their minds.
JRoth is right, though. If the economy takes another downturn with Obama in the White House, suddenly the Democrats/Centrist Party, Tea Baggers/Nazi Party analogy seems much less far-fetched.
They object to the wrong kinds of people rising in the hierarchy.
Willing to live in mud, just as long as they can be sure other people are living in shit.
There are plenty of people with tons of time on their hands to research all they want, who buy into this bullshit, and plenty of crazily overburdened sympathetic people who are clear-eyed about basic principles.
Yes. But as JRoth says, Democrats have basically abandoned the ideological field. So you've got various forms of Republican craziness and mendacity, while the purportedly socialist Democrats are offering, um, tepid pro-business policies.
I suspect that the overburdened lower-middle-class people who haven't been sucked in by the teabag nonsense are either (a) racial minorities or (b) whites with family histories of union membership, New Deal Democrat support, and the like. Category (b) is a declining reserve of voters for the Dems, who do very little for them and very little to organize them as organized labor declines. People aren't clear-eyed about basic principles in a vacuum.
I don't get the sense that tea baggers even object to living in a hierarchical society where they are somewhere in the middle. They object to the wrong kinds of people rising in the hierarchy.
Well, this is probably true of the people showing up at rallies and holding unpleasant signs. But there are a lot more people thinking that the people at the rallies are a little over the top, but they're making some points.
But there are a lot more people thinking that the people at the rallies are a little over the top, but they're making some points.
I have had conversations with people of the latter sort, whose skin of reasonableness was pretty thin (e.g., "You know, Freud encouraged the sexual exploitation of children because he hated monotheism"; "I won't vote for a politician who hasn't been in the service").
I don't get the sense that tea baggers even object to living in a hierarchical society where they are somewhere in the middle.
As I've said before, modern Republicanism is all about authoritarianism, and almost nothing else.
Why does the party of the working class have so much contempt for the working class? Unless they come in one of the beknighted ethinic varieties, then everything is forgiven.
But as JRoth says, Democrats have basically abandoned the ideological field.
This is plainly true, and it puzzles me. I mean where are the national Democratic populists? How is it that John Edwards is the most credible populist that the Democrats could cough up in the last election?
I mean, I have to believe there are votes there, waiting for someone to go get 'em.
beknighted
Dude, I didn't even know we had a knighthood. And it's just for "ethnics"? Aw damn.
I mean where are the national Democratic populists?
(1) It's hard raising money as a genuinely anti-business populist; (2) I don't understand how candidates get developed, but by the time someone becomes a viable candidate for a major office, they've been a part of the Democratic party structure for a while. If the Democratic party leaders don't want left-wing populists, it's going to be hard for them to run for major office.
88: I couldn't figure out if that was a typo or a joke.
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Jane Hamsher takes a victory lap.
But if their true objective was merely to secure campaign cash for the Democrats by sacrificing the ability to control health care costs for the next decade -- as the Senate bill did -- we said we would work to defeat that bill. We did. It wasn't the victory anyone wanted, but it kept something far worse from happening, which would have made fixing the problem of spiraling health care costs all but impossible to do in the future.
Look, if the Left wants to flood the tea bag rallies, and try to move the crowd from O is too left to O isn't left enough, it's free to knock itself out.
I just think it's a fools errand. Actually worse: it's going to turn out that the only way to actually bring over some few tea baggers (and their alleged silent mitlaufer) is to throw someone from the coalition under the bus. I see the appeal of making that Wall Street Dems* but it's more likely to be gays, women in need of abortion, or someone else without power.
* Political suicide though it would surely be.
91 -- She should wait to take her lap until November. Better yet, until a bill she wants gets passed.
The mass base of a fascist movement comprises typically a. conservative working class and lower middle class people who have been radicalised by their situation but are innoculated against the left by their prior convictions; b. small business people who are likewise threatened by the economic reality but feel excluded by the more collectivist solutions proposed on the left; c. people who might have been left wing but have been shafted by left wing organisations in one way or another (this was particularly important in the 30s when the Stalinised Comintern was all over the place and about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake).
The leadership of a fascist movement is another matter entirely.
The teabagger movement is not fascist:it doesn't have to be, chiefly because to a first approximation there is no left in America. It could become so, though, and it draws its militants from the same layers.
These are people who have to be debated. Many of them will never be won over, but some will, and for the rest, the process of clarifying the lines of divide is important, so that waverers in the middle understand their true colours. If they are ignored they will simply consolidate. They have leaders (who are another matter entirely) who will see to it.
/mcmanus
Whoa, what did Planet Money do to Elizabeth Warren? I had a low-information approval of both of them.
To the extent that teabaggers are reachable for leftwing populism, it would have to be a deeply xenophobic and socially conservative one - kick out the Mexicans, ban abortion, bash the gays, bash the banks, bash the rich, torture the Muslims, restore this country to its 'true' Christian roots. Nobody on this site would vote for them, and that includes Bob 'Stupak ammendment a dealbreaker' McManus. A majority of current democratic voters would oppose it - minorities, gays, social liberals, non-Christians.
91 Memo to self, check who Hamsher is supporting in any Dem primary, support the other person.
95: I highly recommend the PM episode in which Alex Blumberg gets his ass handed to him by Barney Frank. AB, as always, comes off sounding like a reasonable-ish, bi-partisanly condescending NPR type, and BF calls him out, over and over, for being a capitulator and a snake. It's brutal, but that episode, and BF's vicious honesty, makes it clear why PM is evil.
Sorry, it's Adam Davidson, not AB (I can't tell their voices apart), and the episode is here.
94 Also conservative peasants, at least as far as electoral support goes. In Germany this was complicated by the sectarian divide with Protestant peasants voting very strongly for the Nazis, and the Catholic ones well below the national average.
Also conservative peasants, at least as far as electoral support goes.
Also part of the tea party coalition AFAICS.
That is, like all weak centrist Democrats (and I think there is a strong centrism), AD and AB are so obsessed with announcing that they surprise themselves by how much they agree with the conservatives they listen to, and so proud of this, that they have no practical understanding of the political nature of things on the ground. They take Republicans in good faith, and barely listen to liberalish people, and not at all to the left. But don't they sound like such nice young plucky NPR guys?
100: Some German Protestants had the right idea.
Whatwhatwhat, Mr. Libertarian Economist? There are markets in everything? That makes so much sense now that I think about it. Your books are the fun ones.
* I'd note here that the dissatisfied middle are immune to arguments about whether the teabaggers are "really" racists - to low information whites, it's impossible that anyone who isn't proudly self-proclaiming as a racist could be a racist
Fortunately, there are a ton of non-whites in this country. I don't mean this flippantly, either.
If the Democratic party leaders don't want left-wing populists, it's going to be hard for them to run for major office.
True enough, but why don't more of them try? The way things are going, it's looking like I'll vote for Dennis Kucinich next time around, but Dennis has got some serious problems as a candidate that are unrelated to his lack of funding. Where is the Democrats' Huey Long/Sarah Palin figure?
Where is the Democrats' Huey Long/Sarah Palin figure?
What does this even mean, the Democrats' Sarah Palin figure? If you're just talking about getting people fired up, wouldn't this be... Obama?
Where is the Democrats' Huey Long/Sarah Palin figure?
At the moment, that's probably Alan Grayson. He has some of Kucinich's electability problems too, though. Otherwise, I don't know. Jerry Brown?
Speaking of the Democrats' Huey Long/Sarah Palin figure, sex tapes really bring out the best of Red State Update.
They were struggling to find footing, post-election, but sex tapes are truly Dunlap's (Jonathan Shockley's) muse. Their Eliot Spitzer commentary had spectacular moments, and so does their recent John Edward's sex tape commentary. Nothing else he does is quite as animated as his sex tape riffs.
Direct quote from this week's Planet Money:
Guy A: I was reading, Haiti has an enormous income disparity. Some huge part of the GDP is concentrated in, like, 10% of the population.
Guy B: And according to the World Bank, when you're that unequal, when you have such a tiny elite controlling so much wealth, and the vast majority having so little, any additional growth is unlikely to benefit those poorest people, because they're just not part of the growing economy.
First of all, a "tiny elite", Haiti-style, is not 10% of the population, it's more like 0.1% of the population. Second of all...whoa, I hate to think what these guys will say if they notice that that dialogue could just as easily be said about the United States!
It's never been clear to me what the Tea Party's actual platform is. It's essentially a libertarian impulse, no? Against big government (aka socialism) and against big business. So, against welfare spending and social programs (too much given to the undeserving), fairly protectionist (too many jobs outsourced to furriners), and, in lifestyle terms, generally anti-cosmopolitan and anti-intellectual.
Which would normally be the Republican stance; but the Republican party has let them down by ... simply by failing to adequately quash the welfare state? And/or by getting into bed with big business? Do they have any sense that government spending tends to skyrocket during Republican administrations?
It remains unclear to me what positive proposals might make up their platform. I should go look this stuff up. After I make a sandwich.
I was reading, Haiti has an enormous income disparity. Some huge part of the GDP is concentrated in, like, 10% of the population.
To me, this sounds exactly like something said on Fox and Friends. We'd hate to make it sound like we know anything, especially any real numbers or their sources, or how to compare them to anything!
Not Jerry Brown. Democrats here are bummed that he goes along with anti-tax rhetoric. I still like him for suing cities for not including climate change in their General Plans, but that's a pretty obscure populist message.
Jerry Brown should get Jello Biafra to campaign for him.
111 Pat Buchanan minus the anti-foreign wars part.
It's never been clear to me what the Tea Party's actual platform is.
And it never will be. It's just crackers complaining. They don't have a common set of complaints, except to the extent that they don't like paying taxes and "big government" causes all their problems. Not the big government that benefits them, of course (hands off my Medicare!), and not the military parts because they're patriots. Just the 80% of the federal budget that redistributes their hard-earned money to lazy-assed welfare recipients with seventy kids and a big-screen TV.
Some huge part of the GDP is concentrated in, like, 10% of the population.
There was a (much lamented) Scottish theatre company called 7:84, because when it was founded 7% (less than 10%) of the population owned 84% (some huge part of the GDP) of the wealth of Britain. In 1971.
What planet are these people on?
Also, isn't Jerry Brown about 200 years old?
God caused OFE to ask that particular rhetorical question so that ned could answer it.
Not Jerry Brown.
That wasn't really a serious suggestion. He's demonstrated his national appeal already.
From what I can gather in newpaper comments, Tea Party types out here are enormously touchy about the possibility that anything they've ever done might be infringed upon somehow. They seem to feel besieged by environmental regulations (this could be sampling bias, since I mostly only read enviro news stories) that might make them stop drinking arsenic water from their own wells, or install hoods in the restaurant kitchens they don't own.
Howard Dean was able to pull it off for a little while, before the village took him down.
Some googling tells me that the top 1% of the population owned 35% of the wealth in US in 2007, up from 20% in the mid to late seventies, down from 44% on the eve of the Great Depression. The top ten percent owned 70% of the wealth in 2000, comparing with 56% in the UK, 61% in France, 71% in Switzerland, and 44% in Germany. There is no top ten percent for 2007 on that page, but the top twenty percent owned 85% of the wealth in that year, 84% in 2001, and 83% in 1998.
Well, Jerry Brown is going to be CA's next governor in all reasonable futures. So he could have a resurgence, now that he's older and dignified. I'd like him to be a firebrand, but mostly just hope that he'll move the agencies leftward.
I very much liked Jared Huffman when I saw him talk recently. He looked golden enough to be a big politician, but I'd guess he needs to put in more years. One should make one's predictions up front, instead of claiming that one held them in retrospect, so I'll admit that during his talk, I wrote in my notes: "going to be governor one day."
I think Darrell Steinberg got eaten by our legislative structure, which was a damn shame and a waste of a constructive thinker. I doubt he'll recover from being at the head of the past two years of budget making.
Howard Dean was able to pull it off for a little while, before the village took him down.
Yeah, Brigadoon sucks.
116: Right. But then I don't know why they find the Republican party inadequate. That is, there's been a conservative fringe for quite some time now, but it grumbled mildly and pulled the lever for Republicans anyway. What's different now, that it would eschew the Republican party?
That's a slightly disingenuous question, though: of course it's the case that someone like Sarah Palin, who was ill-served by the Republican party apparatus (and she'll tell you all about it in case you didn't know), provides a rallying figure and Fox News et al. provide the rhetoric. Huh. Just a confluence of events, then? Combined with the economy.
Might we prefer that the Republicans bring the Tea Partiers back into their fold, where they once were? This is actually pretty interesting: what would it take to instead turn this cleavage of the Republican party into a semi-permanent public rejection of that fringe?
Wait, I'm supposed to hate Planet Money? I've found them informative--I recognize they give airtime to libertarian douchebags, but that's par for the course.
I've even found myself convinced by them, for instance, when they said that the public option alone wouldn't drive down health care costs because it wouldn't improve anyone's ability to negotiate with hospitals or drug companies.
In general, the tone of their health care coverage has been "You think insurance companies are evil, but hospitals are more evil, and drug companies are the evilest of all." I buy that.
Adam Davidson's full interview with Warren, for those who can stand it.
I was a bit concerned when Palin mentioned that she was seeing centrist Democrats peeking in under the teabagger tent, trying to see if they could get in on some of that populist energy. That may just be regular Palin BS, but I wouldn't put it past centrist Democrats either.
What a pleasant surprise to come back online and find everyone saying that I'm right.
What's different now, that it would eschew the Republican party?
They aren't eschewing the Republican Party. The speakers at their functions are almost all current and former Republican officeholders. Saying they belong to neither party is a semantic game so that they can plausibly dissociate themselves from the utterly failed GWB presidency. I'm sure they *believe* they're hard-eyed independents but ask them about Reagan and they turn all misty-eyed and glowing.
Anyhow, I'm still convinced that the entire "movement" is 90% racial resentment and gay panic. If those are your issues, you know which side butters your bread.
Howard Dean was able to pull it off for a little while, before the village took him down.
Yeah, there's Howard (though I disagree with your attribution of his downfall to the village.)
I guess part of it is that Obama just sucked all the air out of leftist populism. Heck, I sure did enjoy voting for him.
Just the 80% of the federal budget that redistributes their hard-earned money to lazy-assed welfare recipients with seventy kids and a big-screen TV.
In fairness, I'm pretty liberal, but even I think that we should pull that number down to ~72%. I mean, 80% is just ridiculous for the RTH-EMLAWRSKB-STV program. I suspect that there's some waste in there.
I GOT THAT PROGRAM DOWN TO 70% BEFORE I VOTED AGAINST IT.
CHIMPEACH THE CHOBAMA!
127: I get the impression teabaggers are eschewing the Republican Party less out of differences in ideology, and more out of seeing Republicans at the moment as being weak. Their party lost the White House, is massively unpopular, and is reduced to obstructionism. Authoritarian types hate weakness.
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Snowpocalypse update: I got all dressed up to walk the 2 miles to work today -- serious boots, long underwear, hat, scarf, heavy Carhartt sweatshirt under my Carhartt parka -- and still managed to fall over and discombobulate myself taking a short cut across a grassy knoll. When I was almost to work, walking along the bike/walk path next to the train tracks, up jogs a guy in his late 40s wearing shorts! At least he had a hat and gloves, but still. Sometimes we Minnesotans take the toughness-in-the-face-of-inclement-weather thing a little bit too far.
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I'd like him to be a firebrand, but mostly just hope that he'll move the agencies leftward. he'll remember to nap every afternoon during his meeting with senior staff, he can manage to move his bowels regularly, and that he doesn't do anything too terribly crazy.
132: The speakers at their functions are almost all current and former Republican officeholders.
Ah, right. For a moment there I was believing this "third party" business, but you're right, of course.
Well, rather than worry about it, I'll view it as another stage in the current Republican intra-party struggle. Damn Republican party doesn't seem like it's falling apart as a result, though. It would be nice to help it fall apart a little more efficiently.
I'd like to see a set of profiles on the money-men behind all this. (e.g. Dick Armey heads FreedomWorks, which played some not insignificant role in backing Scott Brown in Mass. recently.) There's work being done out there to track these organizations; I just hadn't really been following it from this particular perspective. It's been too easy to dismiss the Tea Partiers as a bunch of idiots.
Yeah, I think a lot of Tea-Partyism is about celebrating whatever institutions may be left that aren't actively embracing diversity and equality. The repeal of DADT terrifies them because the military was one of those wonderful places where gay people still have to pretend they don't exist. It's not that they want a world where gays get murdered for walking down the streets and they can lynch a black guy for looking at a white woman; it's that they don't want to be reminded that white straight cisgendered American-born married roughly-middle-class Christians are not actually a majority. Every time they hear "marque dos," it's another reminder that the thing they think of as "America" does not necessarily look like themselves.
It's weird to me that my parents seem to be able to act like a part of this whitewashed exclusive-inclusive group, when they're surrounded by people of color and immigrants, even at church. But they seem to be OK with Indians and Mexicans as long as they act like white middle-class people and never talk about where they're from or in some other language. (The Indian next-door neighbors who grill lamb in the backyard are so offensively inhuman that my dad will go into the house if they're out there. Apparently they "smell like shit.")
still managed to fall over and discombobulate myself taking a short cut across a grassy knoll
You fool!
I get the impression teabaggers are eschewing the Republican Party less out of differences in ideology, and more out of seeing Republicans at the moment as being weak.
Sorta, but like the progressive critique of the democrats, the image of spinelessness comes from certain policy capitulations. Progressives complain that the democrats won't take a single payer system seriously; tea-partiers complain the the Republicans won't seal the border.
In each case, too, the complaint is linked to the fact that the two parties are controlled by money. The Republicans can't get too hard on immigration, because their businesses depend on that labor. (Not to mention their nannies, groundskeepers, and the housekeepers.) Similarly, the Democrats won't do anything about the economic issues progressives care about, because it conflicts with the wall street & health industry interests that really finance their lives.
Holy shit, listening to Planet Money and these fucking childish idiots with their "dream" of a nonpartisan group of experts figuring out the smart, technocratic fix for regulatory form.
Christ.
144: Wow. His illness has completely flown under the radar nationally; not sure why.
That seat is almost certainly lost, FYI.
I am always amazed at the people you guys masturbate to.
Howard (though I disagree with your attribution of his downfall to the village.)
Eh, you may be right. It's possible my analysis is prejudiced by burning embers of disdain for Maureen Dowd.
From Murtha's Wikipedia page: "Murtha was born into an Irish-American family in New Martinsville, West Virginia; near the border with Ohio and Pennsylvania, and grew up in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania; a largely suburban county east of Pittsburgh. He loved to eat shoes."
Apparently they "smell like shit."
The standard phrase at my largely Asian-Am high school was "smell like dogs", which I heard applied in every direction about every Asian group. That's one identifies that other subset, you know.
148: Losing Ed McMahon was the toughest.
His Congressional district was the only one in the nation that went for Kerry in '04 and McCain in '08. I guess they'd better find a veteran to run.
Of course, when the Democrat loses, it will be heralded as yet another reason that the People(TM) hate Obama and don't want health care reform.
Even though Tea Party beliefs are an incoherent mishmash, from what I've seen (and reading between the lines of comments here) they still seem to run in the current of the GOP that focuses on hating taxes, "big government," etc., verging on Tentherism, as opposed to the Christian-rightist current. Those two are expert at playing nice with each other but I think overlap more at the elected level than the grassroots level.
I get the impression teabaggers are eschewing the Republican Party less out of differences in ideology, and more out of seeing Republicans at the moment as being weak.
I spend a lot of time around a group of activist rightwingers, including some that have become teabaggers. They hated the Bush administration and his Congress as well, for the spending increases, prescription drug bill, immigration reform, "nation-building," etc. They saw Bush much in the way that progressive Democrats see Obama. Yes, they are more likely to race bait and indulge thoughts of "Obama is taxing us to send money to inner city blacks who couldn't play their mortgages" than your average Joe, but they also hate Al Gore with an obsessive passion that amazes me.
How does redistricting work in PA?
Standard partisan bickering in Harrisburg - in 2000, Rs combined 2 districts that had been represented by Murtha and a Murtha-like guy*, so they had to fight each other (basically, put bugs in jar and shake). Right now we've git a Dem house and R Senate with a D governor, but all 3 of those could flip this November - who knows?
Geographically, Murtha's district looks gerrymandered, but it's pretty demographically consistent - rural/exurban and deindustrialized but (other than Johnstown) not devastated by loss of industry.
Also, it's faintly possible that PA won't lose a seat - it'll depend on how quickly the Sun Belt states see out-migration. If the Census were in 2012, I'd lay decent odds on PA holding its seats, but 2010 is probably too soon to see results.
* can't recall his name, but an old-line Dem representing an increasingly GOP district, but would never lose
Huh. Broke the blog. Everybody must be busy laying out new District maps for PA.
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Some no longer masturbate to Jack Murtha. Far more no longer masturbate to William Tenn/Philip Klass.
|>
I was reading about SARA:
http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t23c029.htm
159 -- Frank Mascara is the guy you're thinking of.
Because of the way the sunlight plays on his hair.
162: Fascinating! Do you know if any organizations actually registered themselves as "subversive" with the South Carolina Sec. of State.
165: The wording of 23-29-20(1) reads to me like it includes the teabaggers. There's certainly been plenty of indirect advocacy of violent overthrow of the US government at their rallies.
I think that such a registry richly deserves to be spammed by massive number of small organizations registering themselves as subversive.
On the other hand, that possibility is perhaps precluded by the $5 filing fee. Nice that they are charging folks to register as subversive.
163: Well done.
Nice that they are charging folks to register as subversive.
The way to tell whether they're legit is by what they write on the Memo line.
A filing fee for subversive activities seems to missing the point. I intend to subvert the government by kiting subversive activities registration checks. Take that, government!
It might be fun to just whip out the ol' enemies list, and sign up a bunch of people as subversives.
You may recall that it started with a big sack of teabags in Dick Armey's FreedomWorks offices. Deep breaths, now.
"FreedomWorks" sounds like a suspiciously subversive organization.
(2) "Organization subject to foreign control" means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or other organization, composed of two or more persons, which comes within either of the following:
(a) it solicits or accepts financial contributions, loans or support of any kind directly or indirectly from, or is affiliated directly or indirectly with, a foreign government or a political subdivision thereof, an agent, agency or instrumentality of a foreign government or political subdivision thereof, a political party in a foreign country or an international political organization or
(b) its policies, or any of them, are determined by or at the suggestion of, or in collaboration with, a foreign government or political subdivision thereof, an agent, agency or instrumentality of a foreign government or a political subdivision thereof, a political party in a foreign country or an international political organization;
(3) "Foreign agent" means any person whose actions, or any of them, are determined by or at the suggestion of, or in collaboration with, a foreign government or political subdivision thereof, an instrumentality or agency of a foreign government or political subdivision thereof, a political party in a foreign country or an international political organization; and
(4) "Business" includes, but is not limited to, speaking engagements.
There seem to be a lot of people against whom this would provide a number of opportunities for creative trouble.
I'm trying to think of what I should register my organization as..... maybe "World Citizens Against South Carolina"?
I guess I'd still need a foreign sponsor. And and address in SC.
I'm wondering what counts as advocating the overthrow of the state or a political subdivision thereof.
Would the plan to abolish the states count? What if we were willing to resort to violence to abolish the individual states?
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I just dreamed Obama appointed me Secretary of the Navy. I remember asking Clinton (it was a dream) in her office:"Exactly what does the SoN do? You know, that isn't done by the SoD, or Joint Chiefs, or other Admirals?"
Another big suit told me the hearings wouldn't be a problem.
On the one hand, six figures and healthcare for smashing champagne bottles against subs.
OTOH, would I have to take the Military Oath?
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Basically, Bob, all the admin and a lot of procurement and appointments. You'd be like Hunter S. Thompson if he'd ever got his wish to be governor of American Samoa, but with more kit and a car with equivalent protocol status to a 4-star.
Unlike Winston Churchill in his years in the equivalent job, though, I'm not aware that there's a yacht.
Plus DC, unlike Samoa, only has about four months of August each year.
OT: Who'da thunk that getting life insurance agents and the Oklahoma State athletics department together would end badly?
Plus DC, unlike Samoa, only has about four months of August each year.
This made me laugh.
"1) 'Subversive organization' means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States"
This from the state that flies the Confederate Treason in Defense of Slavery flag in front of its State House. Ha. I wonder what would happen if I tried to file a complaint against the League of the South under this?
James Howard Kunstler on the Tea Party
"We Are Weimar"
It makes sense, and especially made sense from about 2002 to 2006, to ask why progressives, liberals, and non-centrist/conservative Democrats were having so much trouble appealing to people who voted Republican. But it seems odd to be having a very similar discussion about the Tea Partiers who are, while certainly a large enough group that they can't be dismissed, are still not even the whole of the Republican electorate, even if they make up a larger proportion of the Republican party.
Also, Huey Long/Sarah Palin? Really? Long stayed in power until he died, and he exercised power while he had. Palin seems to have picked Coughlin as her model and left office to do it.
while certainly a large enough group that they can't be dismissed,
I don't even know about this. Maybe they're just getting ridiculous media.
185: the Tea Partiers who are, while certainly a large enough group that they can't be dismissed
See, we have to stop thinking like this. Does the membership of NOW or the ACLU mean that the Republicans can't dismiss them? Hardly. GFTT!
You're taking "can't be dismissed" much stronger than I intended, particularly since that comment is saying that most of this thread has been taking them too seriously.
Greece, Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Italy, Iceland...
"Cramdown" of the middleclass is happening everywhere, and accelerating. Faster than I expected.
Financial collapse II may happen this summer.
Obama is having a televised meeting with Republicans to make a healthcare deal, huh?
I imagine the Germans were amazed at how fast it all went south.
Also, I bet as many Republicans pay attention to the ACLU and NOW, well, maybe not so much NOW in recent years, as liberal or progressive Democrats pay attention to the tea partiers. The real crazies think the ACLU has a lot more power than it does. (See also: ACORN.)
Thousands of Job Cuts at UK Universities
"Geithner serves stateless elites who can say this with full confidence that their wealth and privilege will remain intact no matter what happens to the real US or global economy and sovereign debt situation in the US and the world. The key for those of us not secure within the rentier Power Elite caste is to continue to make arrangements for escape plans to try to mitigate the worse effects of sovereign defaults, currency devaluations, capital controls, confiscation, etc." ..."BC"
at Mish's
Mish says cut gov't jobs, pensions, services
I say cut off heads.
184: "Corn-pone Nazis" is good. But geez, Bob, must you sound so happy and, well, gloating about all of this?
I mean, it's not as though there's going to a marxist-feminist revolution or anything interesting like that. If anything of world-historical significance happens, it's going to be something awful and hopeless and grim.
193: I plan to wait out the End Times in a hut fabricated entirely out of Tim Horton maple donuts. You're welcome to stop by for a bite if you bring the milk.
But geez, Bob, must you sound so happy and, well, gloating about all of this?
Come on, MC. Don't be cruel. Bob hasn't had this much fun since Dollhouse was cancelled.
I'll not only bring the milk, Ari, I'll even make a chocolate cream pie. Or maybe a coconut cream pie. It'll be just like Gilligan's Island.
Jon Stewart stole apo's joke from 19.
If anything of world-historical significance happens, it's going to be something awful and hopeless and grim.
I admit that I haven't read as much world history as I should, but aren't most world-historical significant events awful and hopeless and grim?
I mean, it's not as though there's going to a marxist-feminist revolution or anything interesting like that. If anything of world-historical significance happens, it's going to be something awful and hopeless and grim.
I am not happy. Rain and sub-freezing in Dallas, Dogs are not happy.
Way Way back earlier in the thread I spent some time thinking about "What Is To Be Done?"
Facing with the juggernaut of corporate power, corrupt politicians, and no organizable base the only thing I can come up with is to get in the way.
at 192 I guess I linked to the Guardian
That link came from Lenin's Tomb.
Students in the UK are occupying the campuses, says "Lenin"
Just get in the way.
Well, you sounded...not so much happy, I guess, as somewhat energized by the deteriorating situation. But fair enough, I stand corrected.
Have I mentioned my new puppy? Actually he's not new anymore, he's 7 months old. Got him from a rescue organization when he was 11 weeks old. His mother was a lab, and he may also be part pit bull. He's a sweet dog.
further to 199:
I missed the 14-18 war
But not the sorrow afterwords
My mother dead
My father run off
My brother took the pay off hoods.
The twenties turned the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths
But how could we know when I was young
All the changes that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
Ari, are you trying to crush my world-historical gloom with puppy pictures? I just listened to "Something about England" twice and was ready to rant about race and class, and you are calling for puppy pictures?
you are calling for puppy pictures?
Yes. But MC seems to have forsaken me.
I'll bet I am the only one here who watched the Puppy Bowl last night on Animal Planet.
208: I have friends on FB who commented on it. Me? I don't even have a pay-subscription television-service contract. OTA!
Oh, I guess 209 is a lie, since I have Netflix.
Bipartisanship should be embraced in a vague, rhetorical way, since it appeals to the idea that Americans share common goals and values, a popular idea; this embrace is entirely compatible with a ruthlessly partisan political effort. The "teabaggers" should be dealt with along the lines of this dichotomy. But given that the Obama team seems to have confused "talking to the American people" with "dealing with Republican politicians," I ain't optimistic....
'listed as a subversive oranization by the governmnet of south carolina' seems like a bumpersticker you'd see on sold by a punk band to put on your guitar case
I thought we all starved to death, like, three winters ago, according to James Howard Kunstler.
207: I have a photo, but nowhere to post it.
You could post it to http://imageshack.us/
208: I watched it for a few minutes -- longer than I watched that other game with bipeds.
I stayed alive by eating James Howard Kunstler. He was tough and a bit gamey.
My puppy Lucas.
(thanks Apo!)
46: I was set to say the same thing, it sounds really antiquated, but I looked it up and according to Wikipedia manufacturing is the second-biggest sector of our economy. (After "health care & social assistance".) Maybe we're too SWPL to know what sounds authentic. But on the other hand, second-biggest is still only about five percent of total, so maybe calling out any one sector is a losing strategy.
76
My concern is about the millions of dissatisfied people who see the teabaggers as the only ones out there who share their dissatisfaction, and so are willing to give them a listen, or grant them some legitimacy.
This is true and in another context I might be saying it myself, but you know, this thread started when someone noticed Palin writing notes on her hands. Anyone who doesn't notice a problem with that is unreachable. What you are saying amounts to wondering "how can we catch up to her?", but she is so stupid that I can't believe we need to, the appearance of that must be just an artifact of our can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees, SWPL perspective, but mainly it's too depressing to try.
It's a couple of years since he started doing essays about baggy trousers and I called Peak Kunstler. Fortunately, I've almost entirely eliminated fossil-derived liquid doom from my information supply chain.
HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAPPY MOTORING CHEESEBURGER LAWN HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I just want to ask her "how's that handy-writey thing workin' out for ya?"
I just want to ask her "how's that handy-writey thing workin' out for ya?"
I write on my hand to remember things. It has worked for me before.
As long as you've never spoken before the Republican National Convention, I think we can still let you hang out with us, Megan.
Megan awaits the Republican National Convention in rapt silence.
229: I think that hopey-changey thing is working out just fine for Megan.
I write on my hand to remember things.
"WASH HANDS"
Gibbs rocks. Screw the people who says he's going down to her level- the proper response to Palin, if not teabaggers in general, is ridicule.
I don't think the Gibbs things is silly for going down to Palin's level, I just think it's silly.
