The nut shot.

Believe it or not, I can’t watch everything on TV and read everything on the internet. So it wasn’t until yesterday — and last night in particular — that I was able to read much about Michele Bachmann and her interesting thoughts about Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. As you know, I have a part-time gig gathering health-care news. I’ve been reading about Gardasil for years now, and I’m well-aware of the debate, such as it is, about the vaccine against human papillomaviruses 6, 11, 16 and 18, which are the culprit in most cases of cervical, anal and other cancers of the down-there regions.

Early work on HPV vaccines was done in Australia, and the doctor credited with being the original discoverer is a national hero, decorated with Medal of Freedom-type laurels in his homeland. I get the feeling that under a President Bachmann, he’d be clapped in leg irons and shipped to Gitmo for crimes against humanity. That’ll teach the inventor of the Slut Shot.

That’s what lots of social conservatives call it; I believe the term was coined by an anti-vaccine activist, Barbara Loe Fisher. She has a blog (but of course) called Vaccine Awakening. Here’s the entry on the top of it today, from a few days ago, just to give you a sense of the tone:

Vaccine Wake Up Call for Parents: Your Children Are Being Taken

Every mother has had the nightmare. We dream our child, who we love more than we thought we could love anyone, has been taken away by strangers and cannot be found. The cold fear rises up from our stomach into our throats as we search, endlessly, to find the child we would give up our own life to protect from harm.

Whew. To be fair, I think Fisher is against pretty much all vaccines, especially the childhood ones that have never proven to be linked to autism and other complications. But her charming turn of phrase on the Slut Shot is all social conservatives like Bachmann need, really. There was a story in the New Yorker a few weeks back, about Bachmann and the alternate history she believes, all that stuff about the founding fathers and their tireless work to end slavery, and how she can use a few dog-whistle phrases that catch the ears of her fellow travelers:

I’m a mom, and I’m a mom of three [daughters]. And to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. That should never be done.

Innocent 12-year-olds forced to have a government injection! That’s not a dog whistle, that’s a klaxon. Your innocent 12-year-old will have her arm stripped naked and readied for the long, hard government injector. She’ll turn her head away, her lip will tremble, but there’s no stopping the relentless spike. And then, with a gasp and a tear, the tender flesh yielded and the burning poison poured into her body…

And if you don’t get the undertone of sweet virgins receiving hot vaccine injections, “government” is in there, too. Big bad government, everyone’s favorite boogieman. (I’ve reached a point now that as soon as I hear the phrase “government schools” in a conversation, I flip a switch in my brain, adopt a half-smile and remember an urgent appointment on the other side of the room.)

But it’s the sex angle that flips their switches; if this were a vaccine against a virus that causes liver cancer, no matter how much money Rick Perry got from its manufacturer, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Because, you see, there’s a perfectly good preventative against cervical cancer already. It’s called an aspirin. Hold it between your knees until your wedding night (to another aspirin-clencher), and there’s no need for any of that nonsense. See? Problem solved.

It wasn’t until I saw this clip from the Daily Show that I fully grasped the existential weirdness of the event where Bachmann made her comments. I think it’s safe to say that her remarks were fully in keeping with the tone of the CNN debate. No, “debate.” The national anthem? Are you kidding me?

As I have related here before, I was there when CNN was launched, June 1, 1980. I toured the facility with Ted Turner himself. The question asked by every reporter there, in one form or another, was “how on earth will you fill 24 hours a day with news?” I guess the answer is both “you won’t” and “with this.”

Back to Gardasil. Just once, I’d like to see this group of Republicans, whom you’d think would have learned something from the past few years of wide stances and Appalachian Trail hikes, acknowledge some simple reality about human sexuality. Just once I’d like to see some brave conservative say out loud, “You know, maybe cervical cancer is too high a price to pay for sleeping with the wrong person. And now we have this vaccine.” The thing is, I’m sure many are saying it. I’m sure millions have had their daughters vaccinated, and perhaps one day even their sons. They just can’t talk about it, because y’know, SLUT SHOT.

OK, time to get the day under way. A little bloggage:

Neil Steinberg: Let’s take these lunatics seriously. Not a bad idea.

Haven’t checked in with Jon Carroll for a while. What’s he up to? Still bringing the silly as well as silly can be brought. A few thoughts on shoe-selling copy.

And if you’re not a comments reader, you should know we heard from Alex yesterday afternoon, and he is fine, but finds it hard to type with a clothespin on his finger, but he appreciates all our well-wishing. Here’s wishing him some more wellness, and y’all, a happy Wednesday.

Posted at 10:12 am in Current events |
 

56 responses to “The nut shot.”

  1. coozledad said on September 14, 2011 at 10:36 am

    Well, now you know what forged the link between Michele and Marcus. It’s clear it’s not a sexual relationship, at least in the way most people would understand sexual relationships. Theirs is more like the two slack bellied pompadoured Baptists I saw embracing at the Lowe’s in Henderson the day after the Supreme Court put Bush in the White House. They approached each other tentatively at first, then fell into each other’s arms. Then they grabbed each other by the shoulders and the larger haired of the two said “I have hope, now, brother.” I cleared off before they commenced cornholing in the rope and chain department. Michele and Marcus are drawn together by their mutual hatred of women. They’ve reproduced, which leads me to believe she plays the “minister of music” to his “pastor” every now and then. If they lose the rubber Reagan mask during foreplay, it’s over.

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  2. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 10:41 am

    You said it yourself Big Daddy, mendacity is a system we live in. Brick Pollitt (Paul Newman), in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

    What the political echo chamber produces on the right wing. Republican voters eat up these ridiculously bogus claims like strained carrots and peas, because it’s the same thing they here from Jaba the Rush and Fox 24/7. They all just lie they ass off, and confirm to each other that it’s the Word of God.

    Perry’s problem with HPV is that Gardasil is made by Merck, for whome his former goobernatorial (sorry, but really) chief of staff is a big bucks lobbyist, and Merck has donated oodles of cash to Good Hairs various campaigns, None of which, apparently, is illegal in the Wild West. For that reason, I’m happy to hear him get pounded from both sides. Of course, the hypocrisy of this particular goobernor mandating injections for anything is truly monumental. I mean, didn’t Pasteur and Edward Jenner just present theories about which he should still have his doubts?

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  3. Dorothy said on September 14, 2011 at 10:50 am

    It’s a cryin’ shame Cooz isn’t running for President.

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  4. Sue said on September 14, 2011 at 10:56 am

    A response to the other shocking incident from the CNN debate:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/13/1016557/-That-was-my-brothers-death-you-were-cheering,-you-a$$holes

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  5. Suzanne said on September 14, 2011 at 11:11 am

    Neil Steinberg’s piece brought to mind the book I recently read (& may have mentioned here), Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts. It highlighted that a number of people saw Hilter as lunatic material, but assumed that would keep him from progressing politically and would lead him to crash and burn in short order. As we all know, he eventually did crash and literally burn, but took an entire nation and culture with him. And I fear that.

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  6. Deborah said on September 14, 2011 at 11:11 am

    Nancy, that SunTimes link was good, best paragraph:
    “Perhaps this is not a Democrat v. Republican issue. Perhaps it is those who believe in a functional nation of interconnected citizens moving toward the future in the fact-based world versus backward-scrambling fabulists who believe the only purpose of government is to marginalize anyone unlike themselves.”

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  7. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 11:34 am

    Earthies web site. Dominatrix wear in the tradition of Doctor Martens, with a hippie name.

    Shoes for Carrie Bradshaw to wear to crush Mr. Big’s nads. Another kind of nut shot.

    That Jon Stewart segment may be his all-time best.

    Watching the wackos all call each other liars in Simi Valley (fortuitous name), reminds me of two troops of wild chimps turning on one another with murderous intent in Brazzaville Beach, by William Boyd. (superb writer, excellent book.)

    Deborah, that sentence sums up my opinion almost perfectly. What makes 2012 elections, including Congressional races, is the makeup of the Judicial Branch in the future. GOPers have fouled the Supreme Court for years to come, and they have blocked nominations at an unheard of pace to lower federal courts.

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  8. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Neil Steinberg demonstrates on a weekly basis why he is the best newspaper columnist in Chicago.

    I will second Suzanne’s comments about the underlying theme in “In the Garden of Beasts.” There is one incident after another recounted in which one old diplomatic salt will talk to another diplomat about those crazies Nazis, but as Suzanne notes, they are not taken seriously because the veterans cannot conceive that such crazy and young zealots –many of the top Nazis were only in their late `30s and early `40s– will sway a great nation for long.

    This is why I cannot take much pleasure in the weakness of the Republican field. One of these people stands an excellent chance of being our next president. I shudder to think what a Perry presidency would look like other than something even worse than the last time we had a big talking, small thinking Texas shitheel in the White House. Can you imagine his Supreme Court appointments?

    Congressional Republicans chose party loyalty over patriotism and have contributed mightily to the feelings of despair, disgust and hopelessness that infects so much of our country these days. And they may well pull it off. If the unemployment rate stays as high as it is, people will vote with their wallets and Obama will be back at the U of C teaching Constitutional law again while President Perry is setting up a rifle range in the Rose Garden.

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  9. coozledad said on September 14, 2011 at 11:54 am

    Jeff Borden: The photograph accompanying this article speaks volumes. This is the way a woman kisses a husband she’s caught blowing an employee. This is also the way a Republican kisses his beard. Both of them look like Anna Wintour air-kissing a windshield washer.
    http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/anita-perrys-salary-indirectly-financed-by-political-donors.php?ref=fpb

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  10. LAMary said on September 14, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Ms. Bachmann reported that a mom approached her after the debate and told her that the papilloma vaccine made her daughter “retarded.” So we all should be aware of that dangerous side effect.

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  11. Bob said on September 14, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Here’s how far things have gone with those anti-vaccine immunity-freeloaders: After I wrote an editorial about their malignant nonsense a few years back, one of the offended freeloaders wrote to me, including a medical journal citation URL. I looked it up and found that it looks like a scientific journal — with old-timey typography, deeply serious — but with a 21st-century twist: Anybody can include an article in it, so that snooty peer-reviewing elitists won’t censor your personal accounts of nervous allergies or alien abductions.
    Today, I guess we’d call that crowdsourcing science, and maybe that’s one key to figuring out how 25ish percent of Americans live inside impenetrable bubbles of imaginary history, science and economics.

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  12. LAMary said on September 14, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    A peek at Joe McGinnis’s book about $P and a great photo of her snowbilliness:

    http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/world-exclusive-sarah-palin-book-secrets-revealed-joe-mcginnis-rogue

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  13. brian stouder said on September 14, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    At the risk of further breaking the rule about internet discussions and Adolph Hitler, here’s what increasingly troubles me as I become an old guy: US history is chock-full of people – including presidents – who would have had no argument with Hitler’s world-view and prejudices. I used to think that non-sense concepts such as “Ayrian race” or “racial purity” were the stuff of old Nazi propaganda and/or latter day hate groups and tattoo shops based in the Michigan woods or the Texas out-back.

    But, read about Teddy Roosevelt and his views on race (and Ayrians) and armed conquest, and how to treat non-white non-combatants (as for example in the Philippines) – not even to mention how the US government treated native Americans in the 19th century….and then contemplate not just how badly a newly empowered Republican party might act, but indeed – how badly we have always acted. (by way of saying, I definitely see the denial/invention of US history by the “tea party” types; and this should also spur us to look again at the things we routinely downplay or – worse – take for granted – in America’s history. That whole “American exceptionalism” thing springs to mind…but we digress!)

    further digression; an interesting – and troubling – book to read is Imperial Cruise by James Bradley, the guy who wrote Flags of Our Fathers.

    Here’s a review –

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/books/19book.html

    The lead:

    James Bradley’s incendiary new book about Theodore Roosevelt is not really packed with secrets. Much of the material it discusses has long been hidden in plain sight. But Roosevelt biographers often subscribe to certain orthodoxies, and one of them is this: When Roosevelt made noxiously racist and ethnocentric remarks about Anglo-Saxon greatness, so what? He was just voicing the tenets of his time.

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  14. MarkH said on September 14, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    Yeah, guess we’d rather have the antics at the 2000 Dem convention featuring Al and Tipper’s makeout session. Or, the slobbering tonsil hockey Barbara Boxer tried to play with Clinton as he took the stage after his rock star walk entrance. But, I digress….

    You people kill me sometimes. Forget “Tea Party”. You actually think centrist/moderate/independent voters are going to stand for this shit? They’ll be the ones determining the 2012 outcome and I give them a lot more credit than most of you do. Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, Newt? Losers, all. It’ll just take time. As I said yesterday, this early, extended GOP campaigning and frequent and multiple circus acts, er, excuse me, “debates” will backfire on all but Romney. The more they talk, the more they self-immolate. If any of the others do secure the nomination, and unless the economy is REALLY in the septic tank, all Obama may have to do is phone it in.

    EDIT — Thanks for that link, LAMary. Now the fuse may really be lit, if the book proves the story correct. Now all that has to happen is for the topless photos of Palin to emerge. That will satisfy every last vestige of real curiosity about this woman and she can finally disappear.

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  15. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    Wow, that $Palin photo at Mary’s link looks like a publicity still for The Walking Dead. Like the Dave Davies song
    Death of a Clown: “My makeup is dry and it cracks on my chin”. That makeup application is layers thick theatrical, as in projecting to the last row of seats in the auditorium. God, that is worse than the infamous Bachmann Newsweek cover.

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  16. LAMary said on September 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm

    MarkH, what we’re all seeing is this nutball group of Republicans. Even Romney, who was less extreme, feels the need to join the craziness just to keep up.

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  17. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    Sorry, but I am not as optimistic as MarkH about our electorate. Too many of our fellow citizens are easily swayed by political advertising and next year we’ll be up to our next in unbridled spending thanks to the Roberts court. I hope I am proven wrong, but at the moment, I think it is entirely possible a rightwing loon could wind up in the Oval Office simply because of the lousy economy.

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  18. moe99 said on September 14, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    I’m with Jeff Borden. Yesterday’s election in NY of a GOP, breaking a Dem trend since 1923 indicates to me that a large portion of the electorate does not pay attention to the larger political currents that are swirling us down the toilet.

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  19. MarkH said on September 14, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Uh, my point exactly, Mary, empahsis on “nutball”. Romney will play politics,as you inidcated, until he gets the nomination. Then it’s time to go more to the center for real campaigning, imho.

    Jeff, from your standpoint I understand your pessimism. I guess I’m more optimistic on the level of the public’s stupidity once they are in the voting booth.

    Don’t agree, moe. That district was solidly democratic. Do you believe Turner is a full blown tea-partier? If so, that says a hell of a lot more about democrats than anything else you might believe. I think it’s nothing more than disenchantment with Obama. And, it does not bode well for Elizabeth Warren’s quest in Massachusetts since republican Brown (who just may be a RINO) is already the incumbent. Just my $0.02.

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  20. Jason T. said on September 14, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    Jeff at 17, thirded. Never overestimate the electorate.

    I was amazed at how many people I talked to last year believed everything they saw in the political TV commercials they were watching: “Well, the Democrats are going to cut Medicare, I saw it on TV.”

    (Challenge them, and they would respond: “Well, there must be some truth to it. They couldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”)

    Not to mention the fact that they have no idea who they’re voting for, or even who represents them. Several people in Pittsburgh told me last year they were voting against Mark Critz. Which is fine with me, except Mark Critz doesn’t represent Pittsburgh — his commercials were just running on the Pittsburgh TV stations.

    As far as that goes, you’d be surprised (or maybe not) at how many people who don’t live in Pittsburgh think they can vote for the mayor of Pittsburgh, because, I mean, you know, he’s on the tee-vee.

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  21. Sue said on September 14, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    MarkH, with all due respect, I believe it’s a matter of training and repetition with voters. Many ‘normal’ voters are deeply frightened of what the Dems will do if they get in power; they think they’ll lose what little they have left if the Dems have any say in it. How did it get this bad? How did these people become convinced that as bad as it is with Republicans, it will be worse with Democrats?
    In Wisconsin the latest arguments are about whether the Scott Walker opponents won or lost by “only” recalling two senators. The two senate races that resulted in recalls were not won by landslides and they should have been: one recalled senator lived with his honey in Madison (the honey he almost got a nice govt. job for) and didn’t really even live in his district anymore and he still got almost 27,000 votes, losing only by about 2000. If Wisconsin doesn’t have an informed electorate since January of this year no one does.
    Training and Repetition: Scare tactics work and if the presidential election is anything like what’s been happening in WI for the last several months, you might as well turn off your tv now. It will be non-stop ads and believe me the Koch Bros, Karl Rove & Company have more pooled money than anyone on the other side. They will outspend on the airwaves and the message will be frightening, superficial and consistent.
    Let’s not forget targeted efforts to deny the vote all over the country, plus increasingly creative legislation like Pennsylvania’s attempt to split electoral college votes.
    Sorry, but centrist/moderate/independent voters are already standing for this shit, and if they don’t stand for it there are plenty of people out there working to marginalize them.
    Just speaking from the trenches, here.

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  22. Jason T. said on September 14, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    “No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”
    —H.L. Mencken

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  23. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    It was the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 that led me to despair, MarkH. He was elected in 2000 by the Supreme Court of the United States in an egregious decision denying Al Gore his victory. So be it. But four years later. . .after the 9/11 attacks, after passage of the dangerous and intrusive Patriot Act, after the disastrous decision to invade Iraq (without paying for it, of course), after we turned our backs on the Geneva Conventions by embracing torture. . .the sumbitch managed to actually win, albeit it by a small margin and against a lackluster candidate.

    Given the flood of untraceable political money that will soon wash over the election process for 2012, we may look back on the 2004 race –with its swift boats, etc.– as a high water mark for civility and class.

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  24. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    MarkH: How’s Romney going to finesse the successes of Romneycare and his cult membership with his GOPer/teabanger/fundagelical base. I don’t think Phillipe Petit could walk those tightropes.

    Ridiculing Palin? You Betcha: Interview with Nick Broomfield, with clips from his $Palin movie at the Toronto Film Festival. And does she collect Nutella commercials on video? Glen Rice played with Kobe two seasons, and I’m sure he’d introduce them. Rice was a good shooter with a ridiculously soft game for his size, considerable baby fat and no D whatever.

    Good News Elizabeth Warren is running against Boytoy Brown in Massachusetts.

    Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. –also Mencken

    Keep Government hands off my Medicare. –allegedly informed American voters

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  25. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    The National Enquirer is running a brief chunk of Joe McGinniss’ new book on $P and, since it is the National Enquirer, the focus in on an explosive incident involving SEX! The book claims that Our Lady of Wasilla made the two-backed beast with then-University of Michigan star Glen Rice, when he was at a collegiate basketball tournament in Alaska and Mooselini was a sports reporter for an Anchorage TV station. The Enquirer quotes the book as saying Rice confirmed a one-night stand with the former half-term governor and that the incident occurred only about nine months before she eloped with Tahd.

    If this proves to be true –no doubt the snowbilly is even now contemplating how to respond on her Facebook page– I’m not particularly bothered by two attractive single people getting it on. But, if she used her pull as a sports reporter to get close to Rice, well, it underscores how early $P threw away any pretense of ethical behavior.

    One last point: There is a portion of the book quoted in this week’s “Doonesbury” strip –the one many craven and cowardly newspapers such as the Chicago Trbune are censoring– that says she asked that minority members of her campaign staff be fired after her electoral victory. The person doing the firing stated Mooselini was “uncomfortable” around people with dark skin. So, her attitudes must’ve changed in the intervening years?

    I’m sure the wailing of the rightwingers who worship this pinhead will be heard all the way to Saturn. And the book, even if well documented, is not going to keep the marks from being swayed by her grift.

    What say you Michiganders? Did Glen Rice have a reputation as a ladies man back then?

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  26. Julie Robinson said on September 14, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    The Washington Post has also picked up the $Palin/Rice story: http://wapo.st/nOWcsy. It’s worth following the link for the video clip showing the young snowbilly as a sports presenter. Correct me if I’m wrong, LAMary, but it looks to me like Our Lady of Wasilla has had her nose shaved down.

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  27. Bowditch said on September 14, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    Apropos of nutball politics, I had to chuckle at the email Barry Ritholz flagged this morning: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/09/email-of-the-day-thoughtful-vs-dogmatic/.

    More to the point, I found Andrew Sullivan’s discussion of the current Republican dogma to be perfectly framed: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/goodbye-to-all-that-the-lofgren-thesis.html. The key graf:

    “And so this political deadlock conceals a religious war at its heart. Why after all should one abandon or compromise sacred truths? And for those whose Christianity can only be sustained by denial of modern complexity, of scientific knowledge, and of what scholarly studies of the Bible’s origins have revealed, this fusion of political and spiritual lives into one seamless sensibility and culture, is irresistible. And public reminders of modernity – that, say, many Americans do not celebrate Christmas, that gay people have human needs, that America will soon be a majority-minority country and China will overtake the US in GDP by mid-century – are terribly threatening.”

    Like Andrew, I view all of this with great trepidation.

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  28. coozledad said on September 14, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    Nah, Republicans just play the racist homophobic asshole card until they get elected, then they get right to the business of creating jobs..uh wha?
    http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2011/09/14/pro-amendment-nc-legislators-look-at-how-many-lgbt-families-will-be-hurt-by-your-bigotry/

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  29. coozledad said on September 14, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    I think another four years of some Reagan manque will be great for the jobs situation. We can have a flag burning amendment, a “we din’t come from no monkey” menmint, A tertiary syphillis is good for you! amendment, and a lead paint chips is a vegeble menmint. And whichever corporate sockpuppet they elect will give the rest of our money to the banks, the energy corporations, and the military hardware industry.

    Republicans are always lying that the New Deal didn’t get us out of the depression, WWII did. As though it wouldn’t be possible for a government to spend that much money without the incentive of slaughter. Well, maybe not a Republican government. So OK. Let’s spend the money we did on WWII on infrastructure, instead of leaving a mountain of goddamn rusting jeeps on Okinawa. Send the southrens who are still wiping their ass with moss and corncobs to school so they understand the significance of vaccinations, and not drinking water out of a pothole. And for god’s sake find that gene that makes Republicans get such a hardon for killing and eradicate the motherfucker.

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  30. Sue said on September 14, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    I don’t know if any of you have been following this story or heard about it when the health care reform debate was raging, but it’s ended very sadly.
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/129173268.html

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  31. Jason T. said on September 14, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    Coozledad @ 29:

    Republicans are always lying that the New Deal didn’t get us out of the depression, WWII did. As though it wouldn’t be possible for a government to spend that much money without the incentive of slaughter.

    World War II couldn’t have gotten us out of the Depression.

    World War II was a massive, centrally planned, government-run spending program, overseen by left-wing Democrats, which dictated to the free market what goods could and couldn’t be manufactured, and at what prices.

    Everyone knows those don’t work!

    And need I tell you that during World War II, women were encouraged to seek employment outside of their homes?! And that government doctors gave people vaccinations, and that government schools provided compulsory education?

    The decline of traditional family values, that’s all World War II was!

    Vote Republican: Because we need World War III to put things right again!

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  32. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Jason,

    But that was the Greatest Generation. How could we ever hope to live up to that?

    Speaking of war and fiscal problems, has it dawned on any of the yahoos that the war on homegrown is one massive waste of every dollar spent?

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  33. moe99 said on September 14, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    Mark H: What I didn’t say clearly enough is that I think the electorate knows superficial stuff that they glean from the ads but they don’t read deeper and understand that a very large part of our fiscal crisis actually stems from the profligacy of the Bush administration (2 unfunded wars? tax cuts for the wealthy? deregulation of Wall Street?) and the refusal of the Republicans to do anything to ameliorate the current deplorable economic condition because it would help Obama. In fact, that is what we see in NY where the electorate have elected a GOP representative because they are assigning the blame for the current economic travails to Obama. When, if they would look a bit further than their tv screen, they might see who’s really behind the curtain.

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  34. beb said on September 14, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    When I was younger I was shocked when Gore Vidal would argue in his historical novels that in Washington there was only one party — the incumbent party. Now that I’m old I see that he was — as ever — right.

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  35. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    A comment I saw elsewhere I found rather illuminating:

    If teachers were paid the equivalent of baby sitters salaries, say at $3 an hour per student (try finding a babysitter for $3 an hour), for 30 students for only the hours they worked, they would be paid over $105k/year ($3 * 6.5 hours * 30 students * 180 days). By comparison, even bad teachers in Michigan would appear to be a bargain.

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  36. Jeff Borden said on September 14, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    More from the National Enquirer report of McGinniss’ book on SheWho claims she and Tahd were seen snorting cocaine off the top of an overturned 55-gallon drum before embarking on a snowmobile ride. Given their snowbilly tendencies, it somehow seems appropriate they’d be doing their lines from the top of an old oil barrel. I guess they didn’t have a rusty, wrecked automobile up on blocks in the front yard to use instead.

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  37. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    Beb,

    And don’t you wish
    Vidal and Buckley had been left to come to blows. I imagine you could dig up a video of Cicero and Buckley would remain the pompous ass champ of the world. Alltime catfight, suitable for Roberto Rodriguez. I was one of those people in Chicago and nobody told me to or convinced me to go. I thought “This land is your land, this land is my land.” I was near the flag and was almost trampled underhoof. As for my Constitutional right to assemble and to associate with whomever I choose, Buckley’s so full of shit it comes out of his mouth. And as an eyewitness, the Chicago cops acted like Sauron’s hordes. They avoided anybody that appeared capable of fighting back. They attacked women and skinny teenagers. I was there and that’s what I saw. I didn’t fight with cops, except to try to get injured kids and women out of their insane tidal wave. Buckleys assertions about being in the infantry are ridiculous. He was in the OSS or the CIA depending on the year. A monstrously facile liar.

    It seems to me that sometime back some of y’all were discussing names and genealogies of Native Americans, and the Creek Nation in general. Anyone ever heard of Chitto Harjo, also known as Crazy Snake?>What an incredibly cool bastard.

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  38. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    And MarkH@19 ia still bugging me. Exactly what is MarkH claiming is “this shit”? Republicans breaking the government and the balance of powers to get a white guy back in the White House. Unless you subscribe to the bankrupt belief that anything Obama has done has created the debt or the deficit (if you really think that means shit, when Dickless Cheney said it doan mean shit), or the current economic situation, then Occam’s razor is what’s left. “He’s a Democrat, and he’s brown-skinned.” Only conceivable explanation. I mean, otherwise, these are Teabanger patriots. So holding the “full faith and credit” immortalized in their sparetime by the Founding Fathers trying to do away with slavery, figured was important in the world, hostage to anti-Government pledges they had signed match up with the fact that the debts they were aiming to renege on had been proposed and enacted before the current President took office? What a helluva bunch of liars. Qu’elle horeurs. How do the fuckers that pulled this bullshit get a pass and blame it on somebody else?

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  39. MarkH said on September 14, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Did you watch any of the debate, April? It should have been evident what I was talking about. I couldn’t even stomach the highlights I saw later. We are more in agreement than you might think.

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  40. Jakash said on September 14, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    Re: Jeff Borden’s 1:38 p.m. comment. That 2004 election WAS the worst. After 4 years of poor decisions, that had PROVEN to be poor by that point (i.e, Iraq), the Decider gets reelected. That was just crushingly disappointing when assessing the qualities of the electorate. But then came 2008. Okay, I thought, so it took 8 years instead of 4. But people are finally so fed up that a majority are willing to give the Muslim from Kenya (except that he’s a Christian from that radical church with the wacky pastor), socialist-commie (except that he’s ending up more conservative than Nixon) guy a chance. I really thought our long, national nightmare was over. Guess again! After watching Bush drive in the wrong direction for 8 years, people just can’t believe that going in the right direction, however tentatively, for 2 1/2 years hasn’t gotten us back to where we started from. So, lets get another down-home cowboy from Texas to start driving in the wrong direction again and see how that goes, because it worked so well the first time. Huh?

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  41. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 8:10 pm

    MarkH: That’s evident. You are too smart for these humps. I guess I just can’t see your point clear. And I don’t understand how you see anything to do with the GOPers as a way out of the miasmic maze they’ve created. And please don’t bring up Ron Paul, or I’ll loose faith (I typed loose on purpose, where does that idiocy come from?). I’m not understanding your point apparently. I can see that Romney is not a total shitheel and with the current Congress might make some headway, but his judicial appointments would be disastrous for civil liberty and Constitutional rights of individual citizens, because his backbone is mushier than Octopus Grigori. I’m thinking about the great band sort of from Athens, Dumptruck: Get off my Island. I believe that the point of organizing people into governments and countries has to do with a divine intention to take care of everybody. Now if you believe in an all-forgiving God and his creation, it seems extremely counter-productive that you are supposed to decide part of His creation is unworthy of nurturing, like coma guy. I know, it’s God and everything, but didn’t She make us rational? How is this remotely rational or God-like? It’s the fucking opposite, or God is cruel and vindictive and thinks the whole shebang is a fucking joke. I don’t believe She does.

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  42. Judybusy said on September 14, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    Prospero, I couldn’t watch that whole clip; it was so full of blather. If we had universal health care as managed by the VA–they’ve been surprisingly forward-thinking–our costs would be lower. One third of our costs are attributable to the insurance companies’ overhead costs. Paul also skirts the issue that of course that young man is going to get care and we will end up paying one way or another. It’s just so inefficient now, the way we do it. I know I’ve got the choir here, but this is one of those issues in which the facts just don’t matter. It’s very discouraging.

    The more I observe the political scene, the more I do worry about a Republican win. In his book, Winner Takes All politics, the author talks about that supposed rational, careful independent voter. Turns out he/she’s ill-informed and subject to be easily swayed. I’d link the info on the book, but just got called to dinner!

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  43. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    MarkH:

    I’m being completely honest and quite sincere, here. Please explain what you think “this shit” is that Obama is supposed to be responsible for that middle, centrist, independent voters will find unacceptable at the polls in 2012. Accounting for the costs of the Discover Card wars? You obviously are intelligent enough to understand that W’s wiping out the inherited budget surplus with the moronic and purely political tax cuts was disastrous, and mounting the Iraq invasion the PNAC tried to talk Clinton into in 1998 just buried the country. And that the damaging effects were exacerbated by grotesque deregulation of big banking concerns, allowing them to blur lines between trash mortgages and trash derivative investment services. People that were undeniably close financial and political allies of W’s circle of friends (they all signed the PNAC letters, so rounding up the usual suspects should be exceptionally easy) made obscene amounts of cash, to the detriment of died-in-the-wool normal American retirement investors. Ken Lay faked his fucking death, probably, and got away scot-free. These people are the most horrific crooks in US history, and Cheney arranged their ascendance in concert with his canned duck hunt buddy Scalia. Other than profit motive, it’s difficult to figure out what these assholes were trying to accomplish, and it tends to seem like it was pure profit for Cheney to keep his vampiric body alive. Excuse me while I vomit. If what they mean is to bring government down altogether, why keep at it? It would explain the just say no brainless obstructionism by the scurrying Congressional Wormwoods under the lashes of their Uncle Screwtape, Grover Norquist. I just don’t get it. Who programmed these assholes bent on destroying everything this country ever stood for? Was it their own idea? The behavior is so treasonous there is no historical antecedent. Nothing to compare it to. None of these dickwads believe in America or the idea of American Constitutional government.

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  44. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Judybusy, You are absolutely correct. When things come up as far as substandard treatment, in the VA system, they are taken care of post haste. In the past, Viet vets lagged in attention, despite the obvious difference of Agent Orange involvement. When my child Emily was born, we hired a nanny, Barbara, a wonderful woman whose husband had been damaged physically in VietNam. I read a lot about Agent Orange exposure and I knew that physical and mental problems Joe had were exactly results of that Dow scourge. Think about it? Gasoline made into jelly that would stick forever to skin? What sort of civilizaation would figure that shit out? I’m not sure how to consider things. My mom did everything exactly as how it should have been done. As did my female child, who excels and is incredibly beautiful and stunning in her personal spirit.

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  45. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Pardon me for sounding like a partisan on this subject, but the VA was seriously let go to shit when Raygun and the Shrubs were in charge. That is a fact Jack, and nobody can say it isn’t true. That money was necessary at Xe HQ.

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  46. Dexter said on September 14, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    The Palin-Rice tryst received little or no mention on the Sirius-XM XL radio shows today. XL means totally uncensored and anything might be said in the foulest word choices,and nothing is sacred.
    You might think this would be the topic of the day, but no…young kids do this every day and there just is no fascination with it.

    So what was the crazy topic, which went on for hours? Nude photos of a young Scarlet Johannsson were leaked to Gawker and others around the web. Opie and Anthony (XM 105) did a parody of the 9-11 attacks, chatting about how 9-14 changed the world, and the world stopped functioning as all men were off by themselves for a little while as the photos appeared on their digital devices. I have to say, quite funny. Glen Rice and Palin? Geez…forgettable, right?

    In recent election pre-years I have watched repuggs debate on TV, but this crop of candidates are so damn repulsive I will not watch. Sad Sack Ron Paul raving on about abolishiing government agencies, Bachmann spewing double-talk, Perry trying to LOOK like Reagan, and Romney playing Beavis to Perry’s Butthead.
    I see Newt standing up there, too, but who’s listening?

    And Obama’s going to reveal a plan to cut Medicare and Medicaid $480 BILLION by 2023. A man for all people, with Hope and Change, while two wars rage and troops are slowly invading Libya, if you believe the rumors.

    I wonder how many people are doing what my brother’s friend just did. He had a sale, real estate and all his belongings, and he moved out of the USA forever. This guy picked Mexico, which seems like a downgrade, but he left here for sure.

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  47. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    Where’s that shit about one way or another?

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  48. april glaspie said on September 14, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    Could I get answers from MarkH? And Good Day Sunshine? the answer is contained in the better song Good Morning, Good morning, GoodMorning. That’s just a fact.

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  49. basset said on September 14, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    “Everybody knows there’s nothing doing…”

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  50. moe99 said on September 15, 2011 at 12:46 am

    http://www.happyplace.com/4286/brilliantly-sarcastic-responses-to-completely-well-meaning-signs

    Which is your favorite sign? I think mine is the donuts one.

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  51. Dexter said on September 15, 2011 at 2:52 am

    moe99: “Please keep penis off seats”. A howler. Also, Push Button, Receive Bacon. Chuckle out loud for that one. A lot of wit there on that site.

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  52. MarkH said on September 15, 2011 at 3:50 am

    Answers to what, April?

    My posts were clear. It pains me that the vast majority of these republican nimrods are taken so seriously (especially by the media, as well as some here), as if any of them have a chance of actually getting elected. The “shit” I was talking about is this circus passing for serious debates. Further, I expect that by starting way too early, this extended campaign will be the undoing of this “tea party” and Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, Newt, etc. The longer this goes on, the more and faster they will be exposed and start to whither. I exclude only two from this assessment: Huntsman (moderate, more common sense, smart, but acts like he can take it or leave it) and Paul (at least he is speaking his truth, not some parroted tea party lines). I can certainly appreciate Mencken (thanks, Jason T.!), but it’s only a matter of time before these influences fade. As an Eisenhower republican, it’s dismaying to watch this shit. Not that we’ll return to that type of republicanism, but the pendulum has to swing back some time.

    OK?

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  53. april glaspie said on September 15, 2011 at 8:15 am

    MarkH,

    Santorum, Ron Paul? Full-goose looney as Ken Kesey would say. An Eisenhower Republican should be just about where Obama is right now. Eisenhower undertook building the interstate highway system which is as close to the WPA as you can get, but it was accepted roundly by Republicans because it screwed over the Railways and Porters Unions, quite foolishly. Now those roads and those cloverleafs are disintegrating. Just ask Pawlenty. Do conservatives really want the country’s infrastructure to go to hell?

    It’s clear that American voters might choose some fresh hell. Americans these days are apparently dumber than grunt. I fail to see how what you’ve been saying is clear. Romney is an answer? Is that the message? He believes in a bizarre cult created by a 19th Century grifter interested in multiple teenaged wives and magic union suits. And he’s turned his back on the one good thing he ever accomplished in public life, his health care plan in Massachusetts.

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  54. coozledad said on September 15, 2011 at 8:29 am

    Sarah could get up on a stage and make coded references about blacks all day and her base would lap it up. They find out she might have nailed a budding NBA draftee and she’s history. Go figure.
    Also: Do not let your kids do coke. Very strong correlation with being a Republican.

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  55. brian stouder said on September 15, 2011 at 9:45 am

    I dunno Cooz – this looks like a clever Tea Party nod to modernity*, that touches upon all of Sarah’s strong-points (so to speak)

    *wherein the wealthy white plutocratic WOMAN gets to ride ‘the help’

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  56. MarkH said on September 15, 2011 at 10:58 am

    April, I just don’t know what to do with all this attention.

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