The Commentariat -- Sept. 25, 2013
Paul Kane & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The Senate moved Wednesday to take up a House-passed temporary spending bill that defunds President Obama's health-care law.... Shortly after 1 p.m., the funding bill passed its first procedural hurdle in the Senate, which voted unanimously to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the House's continuing resolution. The Senate now is scheduled to hold up to 30 hours of debate on the funding bill."
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned congressional leaders Wednesday that he will exhaust emergency borrowing measures 'no later than Oct. 17,' leaving him with less than $30 billion on hand to pay the nation's bills. In a letter sent to all members of Congress, Lew urged immediate action to raise the federal debt limit, which stands at $16.7 trillion. Without additional borrowing authority, Lew warned, cash on hand 'would be far short of net expenditures on certain days, which can be as high as $60 billion.'"
It's Almost Over!
There was clapping when the marathon ended. Not sure if it was for or agin Ted. Harry Reid described Ted's speech as a "waste of time." Reid contrasts Ted with Republicans who "worked to accomplish things for this country.... A bad day for government is a good day for the Tea Party." Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) spoke passionately of the benefits of the ACA. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has been speaking for a few moments & he hasn't said a true word yet. ...
... Jeremy Peters & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz ended his overnight assault on the new health care program at noon Wednesday after more than 21 hours on the Senate floor, clearing the way for a test vote on a plan to finance the government after Oct. 1 only if money is denied for the health law." ...
... Ed O'Keefe & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) ended his marathon talking attack on President Obama's health-care law after 21 hours and 19 minutes -- a feat of stamina that likely will complicate House GOP efforts to pass a funding bill aimed at averting a looming government shutdown." ...
... Jonathan Weisman: "Many Senate Republicans on Tuesday abandoned their colleague, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, in his tangled procedural fight over funding the government even as he took to the Senate floor and declared he would speak 'until I cannot stand' to rally voters against the new health care law. While the Senate appeared increasingly likely to override Mr. Cruz in a preliminary vote scheduled for Wednesday, Mr. Cruz pressed ahead with his opposition and compared his fight to leaders who stood against the Nazis, ended the cold war or launched the American Revolution.... Yet outside the chamber, his colleagues worked to actively thwart his efforts to block a vote to take up the House-passed bill that does precisely what he wants: funds the government through mid-December while defunding the Affordable Care Act.... Mr. Cruz's lonely stand was not really a filibuster. The first vote in a multiday process to get to a final showdown is set for around 10 a.m. Wednesday. Mr. Cruz could talk until then, but he is not able to delay or thwart the vote itself.... Senate Republicans pushed Mr. Cruz Tuesday to give up his stalling tactics.... If Mr. Cruz keeps up his crusade, the final vote cannot happen until Sunday." ...
... Sahil Kapur of TPM has more on "Rule 22," which governs debate in this instance & explains why Cruz's speechifying is a "fake filibuster." "An actual filibuster requires 41 votes to deny cloture and block legislation from moving forward. Cruz does not have that many votes." ...
It is just a form of governmental terrorism. -- Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), referring to Cruz's marathon Senate speech ...
... Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: Cruz's ploy "also struck [Rep. Peter] King as an unprincipled attempt to change the law without consent of the voters.... Mr. King himself said he had voted against the Obama health care overhaul at every opportunity, then voted to repeal it, and thinks it's a law that ought to be undone. 'But I also believe in democracy, and I don't mean that in a Fourth of July way,' he said. 'We've lost on the House floor, we lost on the Senate floor, the president signed the bill, the Supreme Court held it to be constitutional, and the 2012 election was run on Obamacare as much as any issue. President Obama won. I still think we should try to repeal the bill. But you repeal it the same way you passed it. You get bills through both houses of Congress, and you get the president to sign it.'" CW: Worth bearing in mind: King is running for president, & Cruz is expected to run against him. ...
... All about Ted. Dana Milbank: "A couple of hours before Sen. Ted Cruz launched his doomed filibuster, his Republican colleagues staged an intervention.... They pleaded with their junior colleague to reconsider his plan to block a vote on legislation that would keep the government open. The filibuster, ostensibly in opposition to Obamacare, would do nothing to halt the hated health-care reforms, they said. It would make Republicans look foolish. It would leave House Republicans with too little time to avoid a shutdown. And it could cause Republicans to be blamed for that shutdown.... His action hurt his fellow Republicans without doing anything to abolish Obamacare. But the filibuster did achieve something: It gave Cruz more TV exposure and further endeared him to the tea party. And for the ambitious senator from Texas, the most important thing has always been Ted Cruz." ...
... McKay Coppins, et al., of BuzzFeed: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's quixotic campaign to defund Obamacare -- currently culminating in an hours-long quasi-filibuster on the Senate floor -- has caused conservative activists across the country to swoon. But one key contingent of the Republican Party is decidedly unimpressed with the gambit: big-ticket donors.... Like most Americans, Republican donors generally oppose Obamacare -- but many disagree with the tactics Cruz has employed to block it. The Texas senator has pursued a strategy that could force a government shutdown unless funding for the law is revoked.... Several Republicans expressed doubt that the activist support Cruz is receiving will ultimately make up for the credibility he's losing among the big-money crowd." CW: This BuzzFeed piece is in line with safari's excellent comment in today's Comments section. ...
... Here's Ted comparing those very same Republican Senators to the reviled Neville Chamberlain:
... CW: I checked C-SPAN at 8:30 pm ET Tuesday, & Ted is still at it (with a little assist from Jim Inhofe. ...
... Update: I see Ted's "heroic" stand is getting a lot of help from his friends. Mostly when I tune into CSPAN, it's Not Ted speaking. ...
... Update 2: It's 3 am ET, & Ted & Mike are continuing their excellent conversation. Mike seems a little tired & confused, but Ted looks great. Makes me wonder if Ted is human.
... Update 3: It's 9 am ET, & Ted still looks great; he's speaking coherently (I guess, at least in complete sentences), & he doesn't have a weekend stubble. Even his clothes, which appear to be the same outfit he had on yesterday, looked pressed & fresh. Definitely. Not. Human.
... AND the Usual Suspects. Ed O'Keefe & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Cruz ... was joined in his efforts by several other Republican senators, including Mike Lee (Utah), David Vitter (La.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.). Paul even sent a callout on Twitter asking supporters to send him questions that he said he would ask Cruz later on the Senate floor." ...
... No doubt you'll want to pass along to the kiddies this reading of Green Eggs & Ham.
... As contributor Ken Winkes pointed out in today's Comments, the author of Green Eggs & Ham, Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel) was a lefty. Matt Yglesias of Slate: "Admittedly, Green Eggs and Ham lacks the overt left-wing politics of a Butter Battle Book or The Lorax but this is still a progressive book. In broad strokes, it's a book advocating openness to experience -- one of the key moral dimensions on which liberals and conservatives differ.... The Democrats' bet on the Affordable Care Act is that it's like green eggs and ham -- they're convinced the public will like it when they try it. Conservatives like Cruz .. are engaging in flailing desperate tactics to make sure nobody tries the green eggs and ham. Because deep down they fear that Dr. Seuss was right." ...
... NEW. Tal Kopan of Politico: Sen. Claire "McCaskill [D-Mo.] said she thinks the book's message is a good one for Republicans to learn, that when Obamacare exchanges open Oct. 1 and Americans enroll, they will try it and like it, just like the main character in Dr. Seuss's book and the infamous green eggs and ham":
... CW: From contributor Kate M., composed, I think, by a friend of hers:
... CW: Apparently all over the Internets inquiring minds are wanting to know who Corner Guy is:
... Benny Johnson of BuzzFeed has the answer (you should read/look at the whole post). Corner Guy is John R. Ellis, IV. AND, curiously, "he is Ted Cruz's legal counsel" AND "he got his JD at Samford University Cumberland School of Law.... And a BA in political science and government from the University of North Texas." I say this is curious because according to a GQ profile by Jason Zengerle (linked yesterday), "As a law student at Harvard, he refused to study with anyone who hadn't been an undergrad at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale. Says Damon Watson, one of Cruz's law-school roommates: 'He said he didn't want anybody from 'minor Ivies' like Penn or Brown.'" (GQ editors have since added a note to Zengerle's report: noting that "GQ's original article should have reported that Cruz voiced his reluctance rather than flat-out refused." Their explanation is in the editor's note at the linked page.) I hate to tell Ted, but the U. of North Texas is not exactly an "ivy," or even a "minor ivy," & neither is Samford U. I guess Ted isn't an elitist anymore. At all. Not one bit. ...
... Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The House Republican leadership is seriously considering attaching a one-year delay of Obamacare's individual mandate to the Senate bill to avert a government shutdown, according to senior GOP aides. If House Republicans decide to go this route, it would all but provoke a government shutdown, since Senate Democrats might not even schedule a vote on a bill that includes that provision, Senate leadership staffers say. Even if the Senate schedules a vote, there might not be time to move the legislation through the slow-moving chamber." ...
... MEANWHILE, Up the Road in New York City.... Martha Moore of USA Today: "In a nearly hour-long pitch for his signature legislative achievement, [President] Obama and his health care ally, former president Bill Clinton, said that mandated health insurance would improve the economy and torpedo the budget deficit, all for the cost, Obama said, of a monthly cellphone bill":
I can tell you right now that in many states across the country, if you're, say, a 27-year-old young woman, don't have health insurance, you get on that exchange, you're going to be able to purchase high-quality health insurance for less than the cost of your cellphone bill. -- Barack Obama, Tuesday
... ALSO. Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Hillary Clinton made a forceful case in support of Obamacare's implementation and slammed the "noisy minority" of Senate Republicans advocating defunding the program, saying a government shutdown will be blamed on Republicans and 'we've seen that movie before.' 'I find the debate over the issue to be quite unfortunate,' Clinton said at an afternoon panel at the Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan, two hours before her husband and President Obama were set to take the stage to discuss the health care initiative." ...
... Robert Pear & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: " The Obama administration on Tuesday provided the first detailed look at premiums to be charged to consumers for health insurance in 36 states where the federal government will run new insurance markets starting next week, highlighting costs it said were generally lower than previous estimates.... However, the data provided only a partial picture of the reality that consumers will face."
Tom Edsall of the New York Times takes a look at the work of some social scientists to try to figure out why Tea Party conservatives are so radical, or -- as some traditional conservatives observe, not actually conservative at all. Edsall concludes, "Until more white voters come to terms with their status as an emerging American minority, the forces driving voters to support Tea Party candidates and elected officials who adamantly reject compromise will remain strong -- and the Republican Party will remain fractured." ...
... Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Democrats are working hard to exploit massive unrest in the Republican Party over the looming government shutdown, which many see as one of their best chances of holding the Senate or even gaining the House in next year's midterm elections."
Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times: "Signaling that he may be serious about giving up his chemical weapons, Syrian President Bashar Assad has disclosed the locations of dozens of poison gas production and storage sites to international inspectors, according to Western officials." ...
... Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "In what may have been the most widely awaited speech at the United Nations, Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, preached tolerance and understanding on Tuesday, denounced as a form of violence the Western sanctions imposed on his country and said nuclear weapons had no place in its future. Mr. Rouhani, whose speech followed President Obama's by more than six hours, also acknowledged Mr. Obama's outreach to Iran aimed at resolving more than three decades of estrangement and recrimination, and expressed hope that 'we can arrive at a framework to manage our differences.'" ...
... CW: It's a Three-Fer for MoDo! A confluence of circumstances gave her a chance to bash President Obama, President Clinton & Secretary of State Clinton. ...
... OR, you might prefer John Judis's analysis: "President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday to the United Nations was his most significant foreign policy statement since becoming president.... The speech ... displayed what has always been the most attractive feature of Obama's foreign policy, one that clearly sets him off from his predecessor -- his willingness to court erstwhile enemies and adversaries, or to put it in negative terms, his not possessing what my former colleague Peter Scoblic called an 'us versus them' view of the world."
Obama 2.Zero. Daniel Klaidman of the Daily Beast: "It’s been two months since the Homeland Security secretary [Janet Napolitano] announced her plans to resign, but the White House still isn't close to settling on a replacement, according to administration officials familiar with the search. At least two potential candidates have rebuffed their advances."
Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post tells a slightly different story from the L.A. Times story I linked yesterday re: the 2007 background check of Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter. The Times story doesn't mention USIS, but Whitlock writes, "Alexis's security clearance background check was performed by USIS, a Falls Church government contractor, on behalf of the federal Office of Personnel Management. Last week, OPM said in a statement that the check was performed properly, 'in compliance with all investigative standards.' Portions of the check provided to the Navy, however, do not mention that he had been charged with a gun-related crime in Seattle, only that he had been engaged in a verbal altercation with a construction worker."
** Where's My Pitchfork Lynchin' Rope? Ezra Klein: "AIG's CEO Robert Benmosche -- who came in to rescue the company after the 2008 financial crisis -- told the Wall Street Journal that the outrage over the bonuses promised to AIG's members was just as bad as when white supremacists in the American South used to lynch African Americans.... Yes, enduring some public criticism for receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses after helping crash the global economy is a lot like being hanged from a tree by your neck until you die." CW: Seriously, somebody should shake some sense into these reprehensible, thin-skinned crybabies. ...
... Matt Taibbi: "Stories like this 'hangman nooses' thing give some insight into the oft-asked question of how the 2008 crisis could ever have happened, the answer being that the people who run our economy, like Benmosche, are basically idiots." Read Taibbi's whole post as he wanders into other aspects of Benmosche's assholedness. Thanks to contributor MAG for the link. ...
... Digby: "I honestly don't know when I've ever seen a more repulsive spectacle than these vastly wealthy Wall Street barons whining and blubbering over and over again about how unfair it is that they aren't popular. Even now! What a big bunch of Marsha, Marsha, Marsha losers. Just crawl off somewhere, count your money and STFU." ...
... AND for readers who think, "Oh, well, so what? This is just hyperbole," Paul Waldman of the American Prospect provides a point-by-point about all that is wrong with Benmosche's false analogy.
George Chen of the South China Morning Post: "Beijing has made the landmark decision to lift a ban on internet access within the Shanghai Free-trade Zone to foreign websites considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government, including Facebook, Twitter and newspaper website The New York Times." Via Alex Rogers of Time.
News Lede
New York Times: "Over two decades at the nonprofit Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty, [William E.] Rapfogel and two confederates stole more than $5 million, much of it taxpayer money, said [a criminal] complaint, which detailed the schemes and charged Mr. Rapfogel with grand larceny, money laundering and other crimes."
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I just tuned in to CSPAN to see what's doing. Durbin is trying to school Cruz on the ACA. Even Sessions is challenging him. Cruz actually held up a piece of loose leaf, with binder holes, and said it was a letter from a constituent explaining how the ACA hurt him. Can't say for but I'd bet there was no writing on it. Cruz is the spin master. He turns every logical argument against his spittle on its head. His genius is masquerading sophistry as argument. The Senate should just walk away and ignore him.
My mistake: Sessions is propping Cruz up not challenging.
During the TED TALKS Cruz took a moment to tell us how much he loved his two daughters, Caroline and Katherine who were watching their Dad on the TV, and how it pained him not to be home to tuck them in bed and read them stories–––SO, he was going to do that now. His first story was not a story, but Bible proverbs––my favorite–-"Kind words are like honey." He then pulled out from under his desk "Green Eggs and Ham" and read this whole book with a flourish, and with an actor's skillful rendering. The point of the story he tells us is once the green eggs and ham were finally tasted and liked was like Obama Care: Once people had a taste of this terrible health care they would hate it. Now if this makes sense to any of you, then please explain it to me. "Goodnight, now girls, Daddy loves you––sleep tight." Nothing like a little honey to spread on a fake filibuster.
Ted. Cruz. Narcissist. Sociopath. In. It. For. The. Money. Period.
The Cruz Chamberlain "lesson" I heard a snatch of on Lawrence O'Donnell tonight was instructive. This supposedly brilliant man placed Chamberlain's Munich surrender in the wrong decade, the 1940's, twice. I thought I'd misheard it the first time, but no, he said it again. Just another instance of Cruz factphobia, I guess.
So anyone who listens to him will learn nothing about health care, nothing about history and nothing about senate rules. But they will get a little Dr. Seuss. Wonder if Cruz knows he was a dedicated left-winger. That made me smile, because I'm guessing this brilliant man doesn't know that either.
On my CSPAN during the morning commute, Ted commented on Marco's comparison of the debt ceiling problem to those horror movies where the audience knows not to go through the door, but the protagonist/victim does it anyway (tragedy ensures). Ted's comment on Marco's analogy was that Obamacare presented the conundrum, is it more like Jason or Freddie? Both of them averred that they were in this anti-Obamacare fight to protect the middle class and small business, because big bidness and pols have the ability to protect themselves from the horror of O-C with lawyers, lobbyists, etc., but the little guy is helpless against the depradations of Big Government. They are on the Senate floor to speak for those who are disempowered.
Talk about doublespeak. I think these guys (well, at least Rubio) have mastered the art of believing what you know is false, while you are saying it.
I can't help but think we're witnessing a minor "historical" moment in US politics as gridlock takes on another level and puts itself on center stage for all of the country to watch in shock and awe. All of the GOP civil war infighting that is being recorded throughout the media during this episode and in the days to come is going to be a damning collection of the discombobulation of one of our major political parties. We all knew they were splitting at the seams but it typically happened behind the closed doors of "strategy meetings." Now, the GOP leaders have been publicly sterilized and rendered impotent in the face of this all-poweful junior renegade and his sidekicks. The hours of hot air coming out of the GOP fanatics will no doubt provide timeless archives to teach future generations the dangers of empowering lunatics.
One thing I've been thinking while watching the GOPers threaten shutdowns and debt defaults: The GOP is bankrolled by old, rich white men. The rich business class is their sugar daddy, that's clear enough (ok, the Dems, too, but at least they haven't sold their ENTIRE soul to the Corporate devil, or so I'd like to think). But government shutdowns, credit rating downgrades and especially debt defaults all hit the bottom line of those greedy old fucks. When it's their bottom line that is the only important thing in their little world, how do their political muppets get away with threatening their precious income? When it comes to debt defaults you'd think the Corporate Gods would appear in the night and strike down such preposterous ideas, no? Whatever happened to the infamous confidence fairy that heals economies with a flick of the wrist? Their is no confidence when US politics is in Cruz control. All I can imagine is that the Corporate Barons responsible for these modern mavericks have their tentacles wrapped so far across the globe nowadays that they the feel a complete disconnect with the nation that provided the framework for their success (they built it all by hand, remember?). Can they be so pompous they really believe playing debt default limbo will not bring down the economic system they rely upon? The 1% are gobbling up all the goodies for now, but what about the majority of the rich Republicans who aren't in the Club? Have they too lost their collective influence, sidelined by the Koch puppet masters? The GOP innards have becoming so rotten that they only way to straighten things out will be a full autopsy, starting with the brain of course.
Matt Taibbi joins Ezra Klein in taking on AIG's Benmosche. For sheer "Let them eat cake"-ness, this ranks right up there with Lloyd Blankfein's "I'm doing God's work" riff and Berkshire Hathaway billionaire Charlie Munger's line about how it was proper to bail out Wall Street, but people in foreclosure should "suck it in and cope."
However you spell or say 'Chutzpah' this smug jerk is the very definition of the word.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/aig-ceo-robert-benmosche-compares-bonus-criticism-to-lynch-mobs-20130924
So here I was, driving to work, listening to Morning Edition, deciding on my Rant of the Day while listening to a report on the Cruz-a-thon, and how happy was I to read the first comment out here from Dave S. (Yessssss!....as cross-dressing sports announcer Marv Albert used to say) which included his use of the acronym....(drum roll) ACA! Yessssss....again.
I am so tired of hearing everyone (Harry Reid, fer chrissakes) refer to this law as "Obamacare". I realize that it's a useful shortcut and it takes less time to write, read, and say than the Affordable Care Act, or its actual title the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but c'mon.
Normally I wouldn't quibble about such a piddling thing, if only it were a piddling thing, but language is power. Ken, last week, wrote a nice comment about the usefulness of language in staving off many potentially damaging urges, its inherent power. But "Obamacare" is employed with such undisguised glee by wingers and wingnut radio and TV hacks to demean and denigrate one of the great achievements in American legislative history (I know, I know, it has a lot of problems, it ain't single payer, and it's far from perfect, but really, did any of us believe, in our lifetime, that even a watered down version of universal healthcare would come to fruition? Hell no...).
So, whenever I hear Cruz or McConnell or any of the usual suspects spit out "Obamacare" I can practically see slimy bile coating each syllable, and those grandees being exceptionally bilious, I expect no less. But when I hear Harry Reid and other Democrats use this pejorative formulation, I want to scream.
It seems that the term was used first (according to Lexis-Nexis) by a trade journal, "Healthcare Financial Management" (this one is not on my night stand) in 2007 but was first used as a political cudgel by--guess who? THE RAT! The Fucking Rat who devised a similar (and quite successful) plan when he was regent of Massachusetts. Certainly the earlier invention "HillaryCare" provided some inspiration, but that never got off the ground. Why? In small part, perhaps, because of the name.
One other reason to despise the term is its double whammy. Wingers use it to deride what they believe (stupidly) to be socialized medicine (interestingly, the suffix "care" works its negative magic because it is associated in the minds of most with the various "managed care" plans that are so universally reviled, problems the ACA was designed to address) But it also allows them to incorporate, and constantly revitalize, their animus toward the terrible, awful, no-good nee-groe now living in their White House.
Obviously everyone's free to do as they like and I have no illusions of ever weaning a single winger off such a convenient tautological hand grenade, but I hereby forswear the use of this term.
To paraphrase Chief Joseph, I speak it no more, forever.
Here endeth the rant.
It appears that Teddy Boy wanted his very own Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment (Lil' Randy had one, din' he?). How nice for him. I noticed, in the Post article linked by Marie, that he had help. Doubly nice. From whom, you may ask?
Mike Lee, David Vitter, Rand Paul, Pat Roberts, Jeff Sessions and Marco Rubio.
Now ain't that a rogues gallery of wingnut wacko birds?
A group portrait would be reminiscent of those pictures Al Capone had taken of private parties with conniving mob bosses sitting around chomping cheroots, cheering chorus girls popping out of cakes (a new job, perhaps for Fox's cheesecake "news" personalities?).
My previous comparison of Republican teabaggers to gangsters was not entirely facetious. And it seems I'm not the only one who thinks so.
The ever readable Molly Ball on the The Atlantic's site offers a view of the changes wrought on the inner workings and outward effects of the Heritage Foundation, once considered a source of credible (not by me, perhaps, but by some) policy ideas based in a conservative ethos, which has become little more than a thuggish influence peddling operation under the "leadership" of head thug Jim DeMint. Now Heritage is waving baseball bats at the heads of GOP pols who even hint at straying from the crazy.
Like Al Capone, who famously bashed in the heads of underlings who tried to go out on their own, the DeMint led Heritage now serves more as teabag enforcer than policy think tank. The not so surprising news is that the power behind all this teabagging (Kochs, et al) have succeeded in turning a policy shop with a belief in the power of ideas into a heavy-handed muscle operation forcing any Republican with an idea that they can think for themselves back to what's most important: maintaining the hegemony of the bosses and controlling congress.
Read it for yourself.
Heritage, schmeritage, get outta line and we break-a you kneecaps
Oh joy.
Regular weapons aren't good enough so a Texas company is now selling rifles with digital tracking capability that can let anyone (maybe even blind people in Iowa) hit moving targets over half a mile away with almost 100% accuracy.
Cool, right? Everyone will want them. They might cost $25K right now but the company already sold out a run of 500 with thousands on the way. Those prices will plummet.
Now any drunk, half-blind psycho hearing voices can kill with near impunity at great distances. No more trying to get through school security to kill children. Wayne LaPierre acolytes can set up shop 1000 yards away and kill at their leisure.
Every kid on the block will want one! And according to CNET, cooler, more powerful fun guns are on the way.
Yay!
Any schmoe can be Annie Oakley with this thing Buy two!
Akhilleus,
And I can think of no one more likely to "stand his ground" than a "drunk, half-blind" twit with a bad case of the D.T's. Oh, what a wonderful world it will be when every paranoid we create can act on his delusions at long distance.
And for Cruz: Mountebank (great work which should get more use) comes to mind.
"I hate to tell Ted, but the U. of North Texas is not exactly an "ivy," or even a "minor ivy," & neither is Samford U. I guess Ted isn't an elitist anymore. At all. Not one bit. ...". The Ivy teaches employment security through networking...Ted offers neither.
Akhilleus mentions the word "Obamacare". Read up on the Frank Luntz stuff from the other day on focus groups, language and take-away political sentiment. The violent imagery of so much of the authoritarians formerly know as Republicans is very much meant to taken seriously. Hell, Dick Cheney shoots his FRIENDS! And doesn't apologize. There is something to be said for out-nicing the fascists in the Republican party; in the short term it's not too gratifying.
Citizen,
Luntz has been in the vanguard of winger consultants whose job consists primarily of finding ways, through his cagey use of language, to do two things: mischaracterize progressive and liberal goals through dishonest reframing phraseology, and masking the actual goals of the far right through similarly misleading characterizations and judicious employment of anodyne euphemisms.
So for instance, Bush gutted the Clean Air Act under the guise of his "Clear Skies" program, the implementation of which guarantees the opposite.
"Right to Work" means "Kill All Unions" or "Right to Work at Slave Wages".
The Patriot Act, sold as the one and only way to keep our FREEEDOOMM sought primarily to diminish, attenuate, and in many instances, extinguish freedom.
"Focus on the Family" means "Gays Should Drop Dead".
There's a submachine gun on the market called the "Peacekeeper" and Colt used to manufacture a .45 for the Army called the "Peacemaker".
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" sounds like removing the cushion from the back of the chair rather than lifting you up by your thumbs and beating you with truncheons.
Have you ever noticed how many right wing authoritarian, anti-democratic institutions cloak themselves in righteousness using names liberally sprinkled with words like "freedom", "patriot", "liberty", "America", and did I mention "freedom"?
It's not rocket science, but it's extremely effective, especially with low information viewers. If you don't want to go along with the fascists, you have to explain on Fox why you'd vote against the "Patriot" act. Your first 1,000 words would be spent trying to disentangle the name from the true goal of the thing. By then the talking heads would be knee-capping you with 2 x 4s personally autographed by Roger Ailes.
Frank Luntz has been in the business of keeping Republicans from having to tell the truth for years. And he's well paid for this service to the wingnuts.
Sneaky little fucker. (No employer of dodgy euphemisms is Akhilleus.)
Re: The name game; great pop song from the sixties, You know how it goes...
Fuck it; add an "s" and say it loud and say it proud; Obamacares. Affordable Care Act; you bet your sweet patootie, Obamacares.
Obamacares, say it or I'll make you listen to The Cruz for twenty hours. Obamacares; asswipes...
Many CR readers will enjoy this piece by Alexandra Petri, a relatively new writer at the WaPo who is a really good writer, currently pushing comments in a light, entertaining style. But you can tell she has killer chops if she ever decides to change style – could become the love child of Jonathan Swift and Molly Ivins.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/09/24/down-with-comments-popular-science-makes-the-right-call/
BEGIN EXCERPT: The few places where the comments sections are the home of a vibrant, riveting, polite discussion are the ones where the host site has made a vigorous effort to create community.
…
The places on the Internet where the discussion is good are places where people are bound by other bonds than simply Having Just Read Something – they come back to the same blogs day after day, they share an interest in certain policy areas, they like panda erotica, whatever it is, it forces them to have a stake in making conversation polite enough today that it won’t be uninhabitable tomorrow. You can be much ruder to the waiter in a place where you are not a regular. END EXCERPT
Sorry, "RC" not "CR." I've got Continuing Resolution (CR) dysphasia this week!
Lil' Randy is on CSPAN declaring that it's the Democrats who are threatening to shut down the government if they don't get their way.
First, what does "their way" mean? Are we talking about a desire to see a bill that is currently the law of the land, duly debated, voted on, passed by congress and signed into law by the president properly allowed to take effect? That's the teabagger definition of "they want it all their way?"
Second, has anyone heard a single Democrat talk about wanting to shut down the government??
Jumping Jesus! These fucking people!
(Oh, and Ayn Randy must have been tuckered out from the fauxlibuster last night. He picked out the absolute worst toupee I've ever seen. Fucking thing looks like a fourth grade art project gone bad.)
@Ak: Maybe the toupee was left over from his three kids' projects or the remnants of a raccoon cap.
From Cicero:
Quo usque tandem abutere, Teodoro, patientia nostra?
@Victoria: Maybe forever. He likes to try our patience. That makes him the center of attention. Unlike Cataline, he appears to be an army of one.