Andrew McCarthy speaks Truth to [GOP Establishment] Power …
It is repeatedly said that the crusade to defund Obamacare was delusional, that it never had a chance. That is an overstatement. Hail Mary passes are tried because they occasionally work. A lot of things have to go right, and the success rate is low. But a Hail Mary is a ray of hope when the clock nears zero, when something has to be done, and when you are out of better options.
So, were we out of better options? I think so. To my mind, if the defund plan was delusional, the GOP establishment’s “repeal Obamacare by winning elections” alternative is delusional squared.
Inertia is a powerful non-motivator. It is always extremely tempting to avoid the hard thing that must be done now by rationalizing that we’ll have both the capability and the stomach to do hard things at some indeterminate future time. That is the main appeal of the GOP-establishment strategy: It is outlandish, but unlike defund/delay, it is hard to disprove in the present because its impossible assumptions are conveniently imagined to occur several years from now, in a brighter and shinier future. […]
To repeal Obamacare on the establishment plan, the GOP needs sudden and sustained electoral success — despite the high hurdle of media bias. At least two federal election cycles, and more likely three or more (i.e., at least four years, and probably six or more), will be necessary. Obama, after all, will still be president for three more years and will never sign a repeal bill. Even if a Republican wins the White House in 2016, and even if Republicans by then have held the House and won the Senate, the GOP will not have overwhelming congressional majorities.
Furthermore, unlike Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats are unified and disciplined. Knowing the press is the wind at their backs, they are disposed to use every parliamentary privilege available to a minority to obstruct a repeal of Obamacare. Remember, Democrats unilaterally enacted Obamacare at a time when it was very unpopular and seemed likely to cost them dearly at the ballot box. But they are influenced by movement progressives to a far greater degree than the Tea Party influences Republicans. So important was socialized medicine to the Left that Democrats rammed Obamacare through, regardless of the likely electoral consequences. They are going to fight repeal to the death. […]
Today’s Republican establishment is the George W. Bush “We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move” GOP — with all that portends, as Jonah expertly itemized in this 2004 G-File (i.e., before the GOP Congress and White House larded a few trillion dollars more onto the national debt).
Republicans do not have a unified position on Obamacare, on “entitlements,” or on the relationship between the citizen and the central government. Yes, it is an exaggeration to say there is no meaningful difference between the GOP establishment and Barack Obama — although I do not believe there is much difference between, say, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. But it is not an exaggeration to say the GOP establishment is more sympathetic to Obama’s case for the centralized welfare state than to the Tea Party’s case for limited government and individual liberty. And it is not an exaggeration to say that Beltway Republicans are more worried about what the media will say about them today than what the Tea Party may do to them every other year.
That is why the GOP establishment’s proclaimed strategy to repeal Obamacare by winning serial elections is not even a Hail Mary pass. It is politics as the art of the impossible.
FTFT.
Could Democrats have been made fearful that the public would hold Obama responsible for keeping the government shut down solely over Obamacare in spite of the law’s unreadiness and unpopularity? It was a long shot in which three things had to go right: (a) The public had to see that the government shutdown was not as painful in reality as the media had predicted it would be; (b) Obamacare’s deleterious consequences had to begin to emerge such that they were seen as a bigger problem than the shutdown; and (c) the Republicans had to stay united — they had to keep pounding these themes with unwavering conviction.
The GOP had two out of three things happening FOR THEM, not by their own hand but the hand of their putative opponents.
The third was entirely in their hands and only entailed TALK, and they refused to do even that.
This wasn’t a debate on tactics: this was about spite, malice, and envy. The Establicans didn’t rip on Cruz because they were afraid he would fail; they ripped on him because they feared he wouldn’t.
But you GOP boosters, you keep rewarding these bastards by making sure they get elected so that they finally might do your will. Go on, keep giving them money and support. Keep tamping down the crazy talk of a third party.
You just do that.
And may the IRS have mercy on your soul.
…because the tea party should get its way without winning elections…
So how do you hold these two thoughts simultaneously in your head;
1. Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. Most people will see there premiums rise, and that’s not even counting the shockingly high deductibles. Plus, no one will be able to enroll before the deadline, and even if they did, they’ll be in obamacare plans that effectively have no doctors in-network.
2. So stitched to the tit of this handout will be America’s lips that it will never get repealed.
Could Democrats have been made fearful that the public would hold Obama responsible for keeping the government shut down solely over Obama care in spite of the law’s uneasiness and unpopularity?
This question has two parts. First, who caused the shutdown and second, did they have a justifiable basis for the action. To make the argument that Obama caused the shut down and his basis was not justified is very difficult. The first part is almost impossible. The media, history, Ted Cruz, the default rider to the CR, all set the stage for the Dem’s to win the first part: The GOP caused the shutdown. The best the GOP could have hoped for was shared reasonability but they didn’t make that case very well.
The next challenge was to justify the action. Saying the shutdown wasn’t so bad and hoping that Obama cares flaws would emerge was a very week construct. The GOP’s key mistake was in starting with the “defund Obama care” rider to the first continuing resolution. They quickly backed down to “delay the mandate” but by then the “defund” meme was set with the media. Delay is one thing but defund is a very high bar to justify and never had a chance. As a bargaining strategy it’s fine to start high but with the media working for the other side it only serves to lock in a loosing position.
The third point that the GOP needed to be united and coherent in their communications, whatever that was goes without saying. The most disgusting part of that particular show was the infighting that broke out with the likes of King and McCain. At least wait until the current battle is over before trying to gain an advantage against the guys on your own side.
…because the tea party should get its way without winning elections…
1. Every single one of the GOP in the House and Senate were voted into office. Lee and Cruz almost exclusively on Tea Party momentum.
2. The Constitution provides procedural means to prevent the majority from overwhelming the minority. When Dems are in the minority, they use every one of those means and then some. You never object to that nor should you.
3. If the GOP were proposing kicking Obama out of the White House and usurping his authority, you’d have a point.*
4. If the GOP had kidnapped Senate Democrats to physically prevent them from voting, you’d have a point.*
5. When the House tells Obama “we’ll fund everything but that,” they are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do: represent the wishes of their constituency.
6. When Obama decides that the 17% of the gubmint to cut should be the most obnoxious, painful part — instead of sending home the IRS or any number of red-tape departments — he was within his authority but being an utter butthead.
7. When Obama threatened to default on our debts against the explicit language of the Constitution, he was behaving as a tyrant.
*Your insistence on arguing in bad faith actually renders all of your points null and void, even when they’re technically right.
To make the argument that Obama caused the shut down and his basis was not justified is very difficult.
Not because they were wrong but because they are cowards in a world full of liars.
In other words, jls, most of your arguments require that you accept the same corrupt assumptions as the Establicans.
Had they the cojones (or the desire) to be a true Opposition Party (as is their Constitutional duty) many of those assumptions would be flatly untrue or nonexistent.
McCarthy is right: The conventional wisdom about What’s Possible and What’s Not is exactly backwards, not least because the Establicans are not conservatives and have no intention of becoming so.
So how do you hold these two thoughts simultaneously in your head
You think it is impossible to believe that something can be an unmitigated and ultimately lethal disaster that the users of same would be very unwilling to quit? See also ‘heroin’. (Pro-Tip: For every Robert Downey, Jr., there are a thousand Heath Ledgers.)
I’ve never tried heroine, but I’m sure it doesn’t feel like getting your money taken for nothing in return.
The Ted Cruz’s can try whatever they want. And the citizens of America didn’t want what they were selling. Your problem isn’t that America doesn’t understand you. Your problem is that they don’t agree with you because your ideas are tragically bad.
Why do I get the feeling you really don’t speak for the “citizens of America”?
Oh wait: Prog parrot. Nevermind.
“but I’m sure it doesn’t feel like getting your money taken for nothing in return.”
No, that’s called “Obamacare”.
Have you broken the news to the “little woman” yet that a) your existing coverage disappears on Jan. 1 b) it’s not possible to actually sign up for the “awesome” replacement coverage and c) if if it were, none of the alternatives have any actual doctors signed up?
‘Cause I’m betting that’s going to make for an unpleasant Christmas surprise.
“Your problem is that they don’t agree with you because your ideas are tragically bad”
The ideas Cruz promotes and we believe in are based on the constitution of the US.
You think our constitution is tragically bad?
Not because they were wrong but because they are cowards in a world full of liars.
I am not suggesting they were wrong. But surely you can see and agree that in the world as it exists today the case for ”Obama caused the shutdown” is a difficult one to make. Especially when you start with everyone knowing that the GOP initiated the action. You can argue that the GOP’s actions were within their constitutional powers and the use of those powers were justified but it’s a leap to get to Obama caused the shutdown.
I am suggesting that the GOP’s case would have been stronger if they were willing to say “Yes, we caused the shutdown because it’s the right thing to do” and then make their case. I don’t believe it would have been an easy case to make to the voting public but if you are going to pick the fight you should to fight to win. Ultimately the battle was decided by the pollsters and as far as I can tell that battle space was dominated by the left. Seems we could use a little improvement in that area.
I have a serious question for you Steve. Aren’t you even just a little bit concerned about the national debt?
I remember vividly when Bush was president, everyone was concerned, and it was only half as bad then.
Do you realize what would happen to your precious government bennies if the interest rates go up to the historically normal levels of 5-6%, and servicing the debt sucks up most of the revenue?
We’re in bad serious trouble. It boggles my mind that people like you can’t see it.
“it’s a leap to get to Obama caused the shutdown”
The House passed all sorts of bills to fund the government. Obama refused to sign any of them on the insistence of a “clean CR”.
Ain’t no leap, it’s fact.
but it’s a leap to get to Obama caused the shutdown.
Obama offers to fairly negotiate with nuclear-armed GOP terrorists [VIDEO]
and harry reid killed all the house back bills so dear leaders finger prints were nowhere to be found
I don’t believe it would have been an easy case to make to the voting public but if you are going to pick the fight you should to fight to win.
Who didn’t fight to win? Senate Republicans.
And they failed to fight because they don’t want to achieve the goal that fighting would accomplish.
surely you can see and agree that in the world as it exists today the case for ”Obama caused the shutdown” is a difficult one to make.
Shrinking from difficulty is not admirable in the least. Declaring a fight over before you’ve begun is cowardly.
There’s a reason that we remember the Alamo, and it’s not because they pragmatically chose a battle they could win. It’s because they fought a battle they had to fight, even though they were doomed at the outset.
The Establicans attacked Cruz instead of Obama.
What does that tell you?
That they weren’t choosing battles based on which ones they could win but on which ones they wanted to win. Getting Cruz and Lee and Paul and everyone else who wants to remove power from them is their real goal. Getting rid of Obamacare is not.
All of their actions point in that direction.
Politics is the art of the possible. But that’s not all it is. A single slogan shouldn’t dictate all of our calculations, no matter how apt.
He thinks the entire US economy depends on endless deficit spending and borrowed money, and he’s OK with that. Clearly, he’s too fucking stupid to take seriously.
Good grief, Pablo. If he had the inclination, he could produce fistfuls of studies that show that he’s right and you’re a Nazi.
How could he possibly be stupid?
He (and all his proggy [Krugman won a Nobel you stupid bagger!!] studies) would have to ignore the history that resulted in the *actual* Nazis.
I’m sure he could be that stupid. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and declare it to be so.
That we’re on opposite sides.
Seems we could use a little improvement in that area.
One of the most forceful arguments that McCarthy makes is that the majority of GOP politicians do not represent us at all. Using “we” to mean “Republicans” is increasingly a misnomer.
Also, the “the world as it exists today” is not written in stone, and furthermore, the GOP has done quite a lot to bring about the current conditions. We err if we think they just need to try a little harder.
The only way to change the way things are is to say “screw how things are” and PUSH IT.
Nobody thought that the USSR could be defeated in our lifetimes. We all believed that they were as powerful as we were, maybe more so.
Everyone shrieked when Reagan called them “the evil empire” and began to play hardball at the negotiating table. Those who weren’t attacking Reagan for political reasons were worried he’d provoke the Soviets into nuclear war.
Because as far as most of us knew, that was the world as it was. Reagan refused to accept that assumption and gave them shove after shove. He upped the ante until they had to fold.
Turns out, the truth was that the USSR was a termite-riddled structure that continued to stand only because it hadn’t been knocked down yet. The corruption and poverty and kludgy technology had taken its toll. Only by refusing to accept what everyone “knew” and accepted was Reagan able to change things.
Glenn Beck is a current example of not accepting “how things are.” Remember how leaving Fox to start his own network was insane? Well, it was insane, but Glenn was just crazy enough to try it. Now, he’s pulling down 8 figures and The Blaze is the 10th most-linked site on social media. He’s picking up TV shows that the other networks reject and hiring first-rate talent. The Blaze has it’s own Sirius channel and cable networks are picking up The Blaze.
Not to mention that his subscriber hits often beat MSNBC cable show ratings. He couldn’t have done it without first rejecting conventional wisdom prizing his hopes over the naysaying.
Here’s the thing: Beck and Reagan were taking a leap of faith. They did not have precedent at their backs. People hadn’t collapsed an iron curtain before, and nobody’s built a successful network over the Internet, as Beck has.
Saying that the GOP will NOT DO JACK to repeal Obamacare, even if they have both houses and the presidency, is based on long, sad experience.
Those who insist that THE GOP HAS TO WIN ELECTIONS TO CHANGE THIS THING are proposing something that has not been true for decades, if ever. Those who believe that Lucy can’t pull away the ball forever are delusional.
Crazy times call for crazy measures. It’s scary as hell but it’s not as scary as the alternative.
So no, the Establicans get no sympathy. They cite “how things are” as cover to ignore us and do what they want anyway.
All of their actions point in that direction. I don’t see how you can read it any differently.
THE GOP HAS TO WIN ELECTIONS TO CHANGE THIS THING</i.
i was listening to the powerline podcast earlier. they started talking about what the gop accomplished under clinton. i turned it off thinking what they did under gwb with all 3.
test
I don’t see how you can read it any differently.
See also “There are none so blind…”
Dicentra – Not sure the Alamo is a good example. Getting all your folks killed off seems counter productive.
And they failed to fight because they don’t want to achieve the goal that fighting would accomplish.
I disagree, I can believe they are cowards and didn’t want to take the risk or I can believe they are some smart fellow and didn’t want to overplay a losing hand. Perhaps a little of both. And, it wasn’t just the Senate. To win a contest of wills you have to be perceived as crazier and more committed than the other fellow and Boehner was dead set on being “not crazy”.
I think they were going with the Patten line ”I don’t want you to die for your country… I want the other “fellows” to die for theirs”.
Norquist vs. Cruz Represents Battle Between Establishment and Conservative Republicans
Those who insist that THE GOP HAS TO WIN ELECTIONS TO CHANGE THIS THING are proposing something that has not been true for decades, if ever. Those who believe that Lucy can’t pull away the ball forever are delusional.
I would add that beyond winning election conservatives have to focus on the primaries… as Sarah Palin has. And elect true conservatives or the most conservative candidates possible. Beyond that we have to find a way to win the language war….. You can’t win an argument when the other side defines the terms. “Government Shutdown”… “Credit Default” …. “Tea Party Terrorists” … “Hostage takers”. To ask the questions defines the answer as the current language police has set the terms. How can we take that on?
“the Patten line” is nonsense when you’re talking about only “your” country. What you are talking about then is competing ideas about “our” country, and you aren’t as committed as the competition.
Which pretty much sums up the situation…
Dicentra – Oh by the way, thanks for your work. I always appreciate your perspective.
The inspiration the Alamo provided for others to fight like the devil was worth a helluva lot. It would have been better for them to win against those odds, of course, but they knew it was better to fight and lose than to surrender. Better for the cause; better for their personal honor.
I can believe they are cowards and didn’t want to take the risk or I can believe they are some smart fellows and didn’t want to overplay a losing hand
Can you believe that some of them are lying about their opposition to Obamacare? Can you believe that
The GOP has been dealt some pretty good hands in the past and they have failed to push their advantage every damn time.
Obama’s choices in the gubmint shutdown is at least two pair, the sticker shock of the exchange premiums is a full house, and the horrific failure of healthcare.gov is a freaking royal flush.
But instead of pushing that advantage as far as they could, if only in the court of public opinion (which is their effing JOB), they attacked Cruz in public forums over tactics.
So between the two propositions — they were merely risk-averse OR they despise Tea Party values — which is supported by GOP behavior?
I would add that beyond winning elections conservatives have to focus on the primaries… as Sarah Palin has.
And which terrifies Ann Coulter to a panic.
Oh by the way, thanks for your work. I always appreciate your perspective.
Because you’re not being a jackass in the least, I’m always glad to share. I’ve had some other exchanges with GOP boosters that has included accusations of bitchery and lunacy.
How can we take that on?
“We” take it on all the time. Talk radio and the blogs are very explicit about the thuggery in Left-wing language.
The Senate Establicans agree with Obama and Reid about “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” BTW. If you haven’t already read this, Orrin Hatch attacks The Heritage Foundation, for the sake of Pete: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2013/10/17/msnbc-orrin-hatch-whacks-heritage-foundation-radicalness
Hatch is an Establican to the bone. He hates FreedomWorks and the Tea Party with his whole soul because they had the temerity to primary him.
He would never had said this kind of thing in public if he didn’t have plenty of like-minded colleagues in the Senate.
We have genuine enemies among the Establicans, enemies of liberty and the Constitution. Primaries are necessary but not sufficient. Even when “our folks” get into office, they’re flattered into joining the Establicans or threatened into inaction by people who have connections at the IRS and NSA and who provide committee appointments.
Obamacare gives Washington more toys for the Santa politicians to give out to the nice and withhold from the naughty. The IRS gives
colonoscopiesaudits, the NSA finds and “finds” dirt on you, and now with Obamacare, they can deny you and yours medical treatment.Don’t think for a minute that they’ll give up that kind of delicious power without taking out as many of us as possible.
For Meaningful Bicameralism
This is why we are where we are.
We are become a silly and self absorbed nation for a reason.
In response to Steyn’s article linked by newrouter, I have invoked Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, who addresses the core difference between Us and Them, albeit from a different angle: The freedom that Christ granted to mankind — the terrible freedom of being fully exposed to the consequences of one’s choices — is instead cruelty, because it doesn’t protect people from hunger and misery, which is what they really want.
However, Dostoevsky uses the Inquisitor to condemn an argument with which he disagrees.
The inqusitors who show up on NRO are making the inquisitor’s argument because they want to give people bread and thus acquire their loyalty.
Their enmity to “too much freedom” is of exactly the same stripe as the Inquisitor’s, and is just as insidious. Jesus isn’t real, so we’ll have to be your saviors instead. I left this part out:
The more things change…
the msm propaganda war
This is why we are where we are.
The last contrast — “The United States of Texas” instead of Benedict Cumberbatch — is by far the most egregious.
LBascom we be thinking alike. sorry about dat.
Conservatives need to focus on destroying the GOP.
That’s what you get when you don’t tease your links more explicitly.
“Your problem is that they don’t agree with you because your ideas are tragically bad.”
Our problem is that people too stupid to have the vaguest idea of what our ideas are repeat cartoonish nonsense about ‘ they gonna put’ ya’ll back in chains ‘ rather than bother to learn what the fuck they are even talking about.
“2. So stitched to the tit of this handout will be America’s lips that it will never get repealed.”
I expect that it is going to go broke before it is repealed. You idiots will then insist that it is not broke and try to borrow to cover it. Because you are idiots.
potpl page 148 1977
Society must gradually overcome its enthralment by a stare
which seeks, with the help of its bureaucratic machinery and powers
of coercion, to achieve total domination of the life of society as a
whole and of every individual down to the last detail. This tendency
is worldwide, which is why it will take a worldwide programme to
halt and suppress it. It is obvious that such a grandiose project can
be sure of success only if it will be undertaken in all countries and not
just in one part of the world. International understanding of a
non-governmental and extra-governmental character is becoming
absolutely vital in this connection. What is more, we are talking
about a considerably long-term operation. None the less, the first
steps allow no delay. We can never be sure when, as a result of all
sorts of disorder, breakdown or catastrophe on the existing international
scene, these systems will become less rigid and tense, and
susceptible to the introduction of new elements and principles. We
must certainly count on such an eventuality by the end of the century
at least. It would be unforgivable if we were caught unawares,
inadequately prepared for a new situation.
Nr, what is this you keep quoting? I don’t recognize it and the formatting is weird.
“Your problem is that they don’t agree with you because your ideas are tragically bad.”
They’re not bad; they provide too much of that scary freedom and accountability.
People have a rotten tendency to opt for security over liberty, and then they get to live in Soviet housing and stand in bread lines.
I don’t recognize it and the formatting is weird.
Yes. Paragraph breaks are God’s Greatest Invention.
“We” take it on all the time. Talk radio and the blogs are very explicit about the thuggery in Left-wing language.
I see that .. the thuggery ..but it always seems to take a common and ineffective form. The routine goes something like this: the left/media selects a term to describe an action and then the right spends all their effort playing defense by arguing that the term isn’t an accurate descriptor. Meanwhile everyone goes right along using the term.
An example is the terms such as “clean CR” or “credit default”. As in “If the republican don’t pass a “clean CR” it will lead to a “credit default”. We can talk on the radio until we turn blue explaining how these terms don’t represent reality but it won’t change a thing in the Gallop poll. My thought is to play a little jujitsu and shift the terms by using them ourselves.
For example: “We are willing to work with the president to secure an increased debt limit if he is willing to work with us to avoid a credit default. Unrestrained spending leads to default so we need to work together to find a solution. The presidents request for unlimited spending is reckless and irresponsible therefor we refuse to join him in that direction. We are however, willing to allow a limited debt increase if the president shows a commitment to long term solvency.”
Or: “If Obama doesn’t accept our “balanced CR” he will force the country into a “limited government”.
The interesting part of this strategy is that even if the media resists the language shift they would be force to constantly explain why one sides uses the terms one way vs. the other. The minimum would be that the Dem’s message would become garbled and confused in the public mind. This assumes of course that this strategy would be adopted by those who actually speak in the media.
>Nr, what is this you keep quoting? I don’t recognize it and the formatting is weird.<
The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
@ page 72
Some people, faithful to the classical Marxist doctrines of the nineteenth
century, understand our system as the hegemony of an
exploiting class over an exploited class and, operating from the
postulate that exploiters never surrender their power voluntarily,
they see the only solution in a revolution to· sweep away the
exploiters. Naturally, they regard such things as the struggle for
human rights as something hopelessly legalistic, illusory, opportunistic
and ultimately misleading because it makes the doubtful
assumption that you can negotiate in good faith with your exploiters
on the basis of a false legality. The problem is that they are unable to
find anyone determined enough to carry out this revolution, with
he result that they become bitter, sceptical, passive and ultimately
apathetic – in other words, they end up precisely where the system
wants them to be. This is one example of how far one can be misled
by mechanically applying, in post-totalitarian circumstances,
ideological models from another world and another time.
My thought is to play a little jujitsu and shift the terms by using them ourselves. … This assumes of course that this strategy would be adopted by those who actually speak in the media.
The Establicans on the Sunday shows and in their interviews need to do it, but they won’t. They are perfectly comfortable accepting the Left’s definitions.
Why? Because they enjoy using the Left’s insults against their own base. They enjoy using the Left’s framing of the issue to justify Yet Another Surrender. They’d rather accept the premise that Obamacare is the law of the land (unlike DOMA and the immigration laws) than fight their BFFs in the Senate.
Hewitt frequently advises these politicians on-air and off about changing the terms of the debate (and improving their communication skills in general), but they’re either too stupid or too venal to change their ways.
People like Cruz, Lee, and Paul already know how to work the rhetoric. The rest refuse to learn.
That. And also the fact that they have no core or foundation to speak of, so they’re forced to argue why something like Obamacare won’t work instead of arguing why Obamacare is wrong.
Back when Steele was babbling about how he dealt with racism in the GOP on panel shows and just left that hanging out there I knew that the party had a very serious “I’ll do ANYTHING to be liked by you for the next ten seconds what do you want me to say or do” problem. I wasn’t sure if it was tricksy pandering or naivete or just fucking spiteful contempt but I could see then that the face of the GOP was prone to a certain depraved emptiness and tendency to flail and sabotage its own interests for nothing of value in return.
The GOP didn’t even remotely give a shit how the metaphorical pie it was baking turned out. It just REALLY wanted a blue ribbon and was willing to essentially give head or put daggers in backs for any hope no matter how illusory of getting one. The contest is rigged and the GOP just couldn’t accept that and work on the pie. So they pissed on their own base, sold them out, lied about them, baked a shitty pie and blamed the base for suggesting they learn to bake fucking pies and only enter honest contests. But that looked too much like hard work I guess and so they baked us a McCain Pie with Palin topping and then scraped the Palin topping off. Then they blamed the pie’s blandness and awfulness on the topping they had scraped off. The voters shrugged and offered the GOP a chance at redemption in 2010 with an admonishment to learn to bake and only enter honest contests. Romney was proof that this was asking way too much of the GOP who are still trying to position rotten shit-pie as the next big thing and trying to sent treats and wine baskets to the contest judges who are trying to figure out how to keep the GOP out of the contest altogether so they can figure out how to run Hillary or Kerry or Biden against Rapey Slavery Poison Satan instead.
The GOP is throwing away wine baskets and treats on nothing and kicking their friends who know a little bit about baking and kind of liked that Palin topping though it was not quite a pie by itself it was a START that might have led to a pie.
I think the GOP is hoping that Hillary and Biden will fall off the stage and give them a pity Blue Ribbon at this point for being such good sports. But who knows. They think they have a good shot next time because…..because…um… OMG look over there at that stupid TEA party! You like it when I slap the Tea Party right judge?
Colin Powell/Zell Miller 2016.
“I think the GOP is hoping that Hillary and Biden will fall off the stage”
They’re going to be running Cory Booker. Count on it.
lBascom @ 4:55
I’d really like to hear his answer, but I don’t think he has one that would make any sense. I keep hoping someone on the left would enlighten the rest of us on how their economic system works.
“Because Magic Negro” shall be the whole of economics, and all arguments for the left. Only who the MN is will change as needed.
Dicentra – The Establicans on the Sunday shows and in their interviews need to do it, but they won’t. They are perfectly comfortable accepting the Left’s definitions.
I concede your point and agree that it applies to some but for others I think they are stymied when they are faced with the terminology challenge. Perhaps they are not smart enough or they haven’t recognized the problem they face. It’s easy for cognitive thinkers to accept the challengers terminology. The unstated assumption is that we will define our terms and stay true to them for the purposes of debate. Under this notion it doesn’t matter which terms are selected as long as the definitions are maintained. That appears to be the fatal assumption.
I am trying to conceptualize the difference between a reframing of the ideas and a recapture of the terminology. I see in the lefts linguistic strategy a game of what we might call bate and switch. They start by accepting what we consider a rational framing but they then describe this frame with loaded language.The language has two characteristic. First it is tangentially connect to the idea and secondly it carries negative emotional connotations. Their trick is to get us hooked on the reasonableness of the cognitive description by showing the small area it is appropriate but then having done that switch to an emotional appeal to win their case.
We just saw this play out with: If the republican do not raised the debt limit we will be faced with a credit default. Wow, nobody wants the scary “credit default” so those republicans must be pretty extreme. The rights sucker move is to carefully explain that holding the debt limit does not necessarily result in a credit default. “A credit default can only come about if the president fails to prioritize the spending and since we take in revenue greater than or equal too the total amount that is necessary to actually maintain the full faith and credit even if the debt limit is not raised the credit default will not be our fault.” Or something along those lines.
This sets up the one two punch of “The republicans don’t think a credit default is a big deal but I have sworn an oath to maintain the full faith and credit of the Untied States so I will not give in to their extreme demands. I will not negotiate as long as they hold the credit default gun to my head.” And so it goes with the polling following the expected lines.
My question if you care to reflect on it is how can the republicans go about combating the “terminology capture”?
“Aren’t you even just a little bit concerned about the national debt?”
Of course. It’s just a question of the timeline and mechanism for addressing it. The debt isn’t an enormous problem today. If it were, it would be hard to borrow, but the US can borrow at ridiculously low rates.
But in the mid to long term, the debt, and the rising cost of mandatory spending are big deals. A growing GDP shrinks the deficit. Raising taxes shrinks the deficit and slows economic growth. Cutting spending shrinks the deficit and slows economic growth. Entitlement reform can shrink the deficit and slow growth.
So I’m in favor of raising taxes, cutting spending, and reforming entitlements in a way that’s gradual and not the largest economic shock possible.
You don’t understand money, lending, markets or business in the slightest. Do you steve?
Your “solution” is bankrupting Europe and causing the wealthy to flee. It also lead to Japan’s “Lost Decade” that I will submit, they are still lost in.
Dicentra – To further illustrate here is an example in embryonic form of the left trying to capture the terminology and attach the label “sedition” to Ted Cruz.
What’s the counter strategy and how is it combated? Any ideas?
The NRA is the new KKK. It used to be bankers in business suits were the new KKK. The problem is, I only care about the old KKK. I don’t give a damn about the supposed “new KKK’s” that pop up as democrats find new targets to calumnize with the ancient sins of the Democrat party itself.
I also don’t care about whatever is being passed off as ‘the new Taliban’. I’m still worried about the old ones that the dems actually ran interference for.
And tomorrow, we’re all dead.
“So I’m in favor of raising taxes, cutting spending, and reforming entitlements in a way that’s gradual and not the largest economic shock possible.”
Raising taxes will hurt the private sector, and so reduce revenue.
Cutting spending will only be effective if it settles at or below revenue, and that means wiping out whole regulatory bureaucracies like the EPA and Dept. of ED. Are you for meaningful cuts, or just progg symbolic cuts like to the military?
Reforming entitlements in a way that’s gradual and not the largest economic shock possible would maybe start best by not allowing new entitlements to take root in the first place, such as Obamacare, don’t you think?
Personally, I don’t think YOU believe a word of what you wrote.
They are quantitatively easing the value of the dollar or debt and net worth down to its actual current post borrowing value, which is shit. And if the system busts out they can try for a new economic system with a new magic foo dollar basis, or lead a revolutionary push for a whole new order with no ties to the old and a violent movement to impose it. No doubt they will claim that it is post-economic or some such.
The debt isn’t an enormous problem today.
I did the math, dimwit. If we were to STOP all deficit borrowing completely, RIGHT THIS INSTANT, and not only continue to pay on the interest of the outstanding principal amount (pushing $17 TRILLION last time I checked, which also does not include the $90 TRILLION in unfunded mandates), but start paying the actual debt amount down at the rate of $100,000/minute, round the clock, 24/7/365, which adds up to $52.5 billion per year), it would take more than 300 YEARS to pay it all off. Slower means longer.
That is with absolutely no increases to the debt, AND paying the interest (although that amount will trend slowly down to zero over the next few centuries). And all the other wealth distribution scams that will be proposed between now and then by the next crop of shitheads like you that can’t do math.
No problem, right?
I’d call you an idiot, but your kind of stupidity is willful.
As a political matter, though, if the GOP had taken the establishment’s advice, and treated Obamacare as “the settled law of the land,” subject to repeal only if the Republicans win back the Senate and the presidency, I think that and other lawsuits would have been doomed. If the courts were to decide that some major part of Obamacare is unconstitutional or contrary to statute, it would throw a huge program into chaos. Courts don’t like to do that, and they especially don’t like to do that with settled programs that are well-established and have bipartisan support, or even acquiescence. Put another way, if the political arm of the Republican/conservative movement wasn’t willing to expend political capital to challenge Obamacare, why in God’s name would judges be willing to stick their necks out, regardless of how they feel about the law? But the fact that the GOP was in fact willing to provoke a government shutdown–though let’s be clear that, legally speaking, only the president’s veto power can shut down the government if Congress passes a budget–and take the political heat gives the judiciary all the political cover it needs to do rule in favor of the challengers, if it is otherwise inclined to do so.
So if any of the remaining significant challenges to Obamacare succeed, you can thank (or blame) Ted Cruz.
link
Drum, sadly talking to dudes like steve is like talking to your cat. He just looks at you and hacks up a hairball.
Steve, that means anywhere from eight to fifteen generations. Your great great great great great great grandkids will still be paying on it, and not necessarily seeing any end in sight.
Which would mean your great great great great great great grandkids’ great great great great great great grandkids would still be paying on it, with still no end in sight, if the Statistocratublicans keep on the way they’ve been going.
The way you, steve, think they ought to.
Why do you hate your great great great great great great grandkids’ great great great great great great grandkids, steve?
Also, what did the bank say when you told them to raise your credit limit so you could keep
payingrunning up your bills?steve does not. steve is a rhetorician, fed his talking points, which therefore sound benign and vaguely on-point. They are not.
Ironically the real problems steve misses are also the real problems the ostensible right misses.
I mean, denies. With its soul. And for the same reasons.
Problem: It isn’t the debt, it’s the liabilities. Read the last line.
Problem: it isn’t the debt or the liabilities. It’s the derivatives. Read the small print.
Problem: It isn’t the debt, the liabilities, or the derivatives. It’s the insolvency. And.
Sigh.
I was hoping you’d show up on this thread, JHo.
I was watching a roundtable with a bunch of the editorial staff from the WSJ and everything they said is exactly what you just pointed out as the problem with the right. E.g., “Why can’t the GOP offer some solutions to the Obamacare debacle?” No talk of entitlement reform, tax reform, the debt et al, just “how can we help fix Obama’s mess?”
That and insisting that the right is hosed until the twelve of never. Because we can’t play nice.
Such nonsense. All of it.
The right did not design this last lost last- hour stand, leigh, although as such it could have been a thing. (One could argue that defunding the ACA was the last hill and had it been aimed that way, could have been. I had hopes, just not for the ACA component.)
But the right had lost the initial ACA debate after losing the requirement to prevent statism decades ago. Then it lost the ACA vote. Then it lost the legal appeal (in which some really spectacularly wrong things happened). Then it lost some other stuff I can’t remember, all of them blown opportunities but none of them the initial successful resistance to what is just another chapter in the lineage of Good Socialism.
Good legacy Socialism. Good GOP Socialism. Point is the nation doesn’t really care. It just polls that way once in a while.
Things like nationalized education, retirement, pre-ACA medicine, immigration, money, welfare, and on and on to the tune of hundreds of agencies.
Defund ACA? To what end?
Feckless GOP isn’t even in a position to proclaim “We told you so”. As if that would matter after the Great Devolution.
Yes, that horse had left the barn long ago.
I guess we just wait for the collapse now since it’s gone into overdrive.
See, the problem isn’t political. It’s always been philosophical.
Consider this: Thirty five years ago I became aware of what was already a long-lived phenomenon; the tit-for-tat ratcheting leftward by incremental preemptive leftist rhetorical offensives: Make a point, a stand, or a program and even if it’s resisted it won’t be repealed.
You make incremental progress. You cannot lose. You don’t need the stolen language and intent or the next deceiving narratives to succeed except by a tiny percentage. Remember that as steve demonstrates, all you need to do is float the lie that all the left’s branding contains at least a modicum of goodness. Bingo. The narrative ratchets to the next point and the process begins again.
Consider Engels, who posited as much way back when.
The dialectic always wins. The nature of liberty is single-ended; inherently perfected as such — just as you cannot quench illumination below absolute darkness or temperature below absolute zero, it is impossible to rarefy liberty or make it more free. You can only encroach on this absolute.
Nice, JHo. “Losing More Slowly, Visualized”
My question if you care to reflect on it is how can the republicans go about combating the “terminology capture”?
They would have to give a shit.
They are only bothered by not being in power; being rolled by the MSM on the messaging and linguistic fronts day after day doesn’t even phase them. Their “strategy” such as it is consists in figuring the Dems will screw things up enough that the populace will vote for the only visible option. They have no intention of being a genuine opposition party.
Stop giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt by assuming that something remains to be saved among the “stymied” and merely stupid. If anyone challenges the Left’s framing of an issue, they get blasted by the Left AND the Establicans. The milquetoasts can see for themselves what happens to Cruz and Lee and Paul and they want none of it. No cause is worth that kind of battery. They are not men and women of principle but political creatures, pure and simple.
The Republic has already been lost. Like the old Soviet Union, we’re standing only because nothing has knocked us over yet.
Man the lifeboats, for the love of God. The deck chairs cannot be saved.
Drum, sadly talking to dudes like steve is like talking to your cat.
I keep a little spray bottle handy for when the cat won’t stay out of my face.
What’s the internet equivalent?
Well, I did tell him to DIAF, which is a bit harsh but necessary with his type.
being rolled by the MSM on the messaging
See, I brought this up about two years ago and got mocked for my efforts. I wasn’t talking about it in the manner that Jeff is, I was talking about messaging to the LIVs and how the right sucks at it.
OT: Anyone else throwing in the towel on watching the news? I find myself yelling at the teevee too often.
“steve does not. steve is a rhetorician, fed his talking points,”
Are you sure he’s a rhetorician? I was getting more of a Blue-and-yellow Macaw feel from him.
You’re giving him too much credit. Macaws are at least amusing.
I rarely watch the news. I usually watch the FauxNewz roundtable but those guys have been really getting on my nerves lately.
I’m not sure if they deliberately want us to tune out, or if it’s just a happy coincidence for them.
Certainly the addition of George Will wasn’t an improvement. I find myself pissed off at Dr. K quite a bit, too.
party of slavery, segregation, sedition cont.
Obamacare Spends Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars To Match Doctors, Patients Along Racial Lines
They would have to give a shit.
That is sooo bad. I hope this is just a spell your going through and you pull out of it.
The Republic has already been lost. Like the old Soviet Union, we’re standing only because nothing has knocked us over yet.
Are you saying best we can hope for is to lose more slowly?
Chuck Schumer Introduces the ‘McConnell Rule’
Are you saying best we can hope for is to lose more slowly?
Yes. Now you’re getting it. That’s why voting for the moderate Republican and reaching across the aisle is nonsense. Either we have principles and stick by them or we just give up and say “Uncle”.
Your way is saying “uncle”.
I would say the best we can hope for is that we stop worrying about whether or not we’re losing, slowly or otherwise. Then we can start thinking about winning.
Dicentra wrote: The Republic has already been lost. Like the old Soviet Union, we’re standing only because nothing has knocked us over yet.
Goddamn brilliant and, sadly, true.
The American Republic is a husk.
However, as I’ve said before, as long as the idea of it lives within the Soul of one human being, there is Hope. And that idea is alive right now in the Souls of a minority of millions [‘We few, we happy few….’].
I know not what course others may take, but as for me:
I will not be a slave; I will either live free or die.
Burn it down. Scatter the stones. LEARN THE FUCKING LESSON.
Constitution 2.0
When a government is afraid of its citizens, you have freedom. When citizens are afraid of their government, you have tyranny.
Tell me, when TFG made it clear to his subordinates that they were to use the government to get even and influence, do you think he had “they deserve the maximum freedom” or “they need to do what I want them to, and I will keep adding official pressure until they do” in mind?
And would it be any better if those subordinates were acting on their own initiative to use government functions to punish private citizens for no other reason that because they disagree?
The end result is the same, and the first time the Government tells all those citizens they have been bribing with their more affluent neighbor’s wealth that “there is no money today”, There Will Be Blood.
Amusingly enough, they want to take away our power to resist. Gee, I wonder why?
“I usually watch the FauxNewz roundtable but those guys have been really getting on my nerves lately.”
I rarely watch even them anymore. What is interesting is it’s becoming painfully clear to easily distinguish between establishment Repubicans and TEA Party types, the interesting part being the establishment types still try and identify as conservative, when it’s obvious they themselves don’t even approve of or respect conservatives.
It’s actually quite humorous, in a gallows humor kinda way, to hear people like Prager trying to defend his establishment positions against the majority of his listeners, and coming off as clueless as our own Steve.
>I rarely watch even them anymore. <
the dc bubble heads on the "right" side are self identifying daily. hi jonah goldrube.
I’m not sure why they needed George Will when they already had Krauthammer.
Probably because Bill Safire is already dead.
The only person on the panel who isn’t moving left is Bret. I imagine they will put him out to pasture eventually.
@ page 189 potpl
A dilemma facing the bureaucracy is the contradiction between its
attempt to preserve the status qu0 and therefore to survive as a
bureaucracy, and the need for social changes, particularly in the
fields of culture and economics. The institutions of bureaucratic
centralism are unreformable, but minor improvements within the
framework of the system are important because they encourage the
development of a critical spirit, a mood of opposition, and
embryonic structures independent 0f the state. Reforms in themselves
have limitations that are well known: they always stop – or
are repressed by terror – when they touch on fundamental solutions
to social contradictions. In this sense every attempt at reform has a
revolutionary aspect to it, for it reveals the illusory nature of reform
and strengthens the growth of a revolutionary consciousness.
At a certain stage of development, societies of eastern Europe
are going to have to face up t0 the necessity of eliminating the
bureaucratic dictatorship. This social change, even were it to disrupt
bureaucratic power over a period several months, will radically
affect all the present institutions 0f power, disrupt the relationships
between them and, ultimately,destroy them. Therefore it is correct
to term this overthrowing of bureaucratic power a revolutionary
process.
The American people have two plans before them:
1. Raise revenue, cut spending, reform entitlements – all gradually, or
2. This
They are choosing plan #1. Sorry they’re not all rushing to you’re self-inflicted chest wound of a great idea, but go figure.
Oops. By This, I mean This
“They are choosing plan #1”
Bullshit. They are having; raise taxes, raise the debt, and raise entitlements shoved down their throats.
They are choosing plan #1
Really now? Citation?
Unlikely to happen, stevie. Though I have to say I’d love to see the boy king wave the red flag of raising taxes.
Again.
Amnesty is going to eat his lunch and Ocare won’t last as long as Prohibition did.
Steve has no idea what he is babbling about. he is spouting feel good nonsense divorced from reality. He’s telling you all about the idiotic and simple cartoon cotton candy he has been spoon fed and mistakes for real knowledge of politics. It’s all a lot of LIV fog he’s refusing to see through.
You’re right. The truth is, the Tea Party is super popular and experiencing widespread support among the public. They could really take over the House, and the Senate, and even the White House. Their stock is way up. And if you ask people if a government shutdown should be used to force a defunding of Obamacare, most people say, “Hell yeah.”
I just didn’t know all this was true because I’m divorced from reality.
You’re a dick head, Stevie. A small one, and diseased with terminal Marxism, but without doubt a dick head.
You’re just being sarcastic. The real truth is Obamacare is wildly popular, and no one expects elected officials to be able to use it. The debt limit needs to be continually raised to pay our bills, and raising taxes raises revenue every time it’s tried.
The vast majority of Americans know if we just elect Obama once more, the country will be a paradise with equality of outcome for all.
Except for the politicians not getting to use the glorious Obamacare of course…
They would have to give a shit.
That is sooo bad. I hope this is just a spell you’re going through and you pull out of it.
Do show me where I’m wrong based on the actions of the GOP over the past 30 years to indicate that they care oh-so-very-much about fighting the left’s narrative stranglehold.
Show me their efforts to improve their messaging and communication skills.
Show me where rank-and-file GOP have refused to toss a candidate under the bus just because s/he said something and the left clutched their pearls in faux outrage.
Show me where the electorate has (a) recognized and (b) rejected the underlying linguistic assumptions that get us rolled every damn time.
Show me anything that isn’t another round of wishful thinking. Show me where it dawns on Charlie Brown that Lucy absolutely will not ever, EVAR let him kick that ball.
The Senate Establicans attack Cruz instead of Obama. Obama is unprincipled; Cruz is a man of honor.
What the hell else can that possibly tell you except the Establicans are cut from the same cloth?
Even if we were to pack the Senate and House in 2014 with 100 Cruzes and 435 Chaffetz and Gomerts, there’s nothing they can do to stop the collapse, the foundations of which were laid 100 years ago and now they’re yielding their inevitable fruit.
Let go of your normalcy bias. The U.S.A. Titanic struck the iceberg a loooong time ago and has been taking on water so slowly we’ve always thought that maybe it could be saved.
But the lower decks began to fill up during the New Deal. The Great Society filled the middle decks. With Obamacare, the ship has begun to tip nose down in preparation to break in two.
I’m not kidding when I say our only option is to man the lifeboats. The ship of state has taken on too much water, and the pumps we thought were working have been rusted shut for decades.
A phase I’m going through?
God Almighty that’s thick.
You gotta admit, it’s sad Obama doesn’t get to use his own signature legislation, but oh well, he is a civil servant of the people after all, am I right?
Also, jls, the GOP keeps trying over and over and over to push these immigration bills that will ONLY ensure that the Dems are perpetually in office.
THEY ARE NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO THINK THAT THE MEXICANS WILL VOTE FOR THEM, but you might be stupid enough to believe them when they provide that excuse for kneecapping the Tea Party.
The Establicans despise the Tea Party and all that it stands for. They will make sure that anyone bold enough to push back will pay and pay dearly.
Don’t you see?
This is the part in the movie where you and your allies are just about to beat the monsters, and then your allies peel off their masks and show their monster faces, because that’s who they were all along.
Only this time there’s no scriptwriter to provide a deus ex machina for the happy ending.
The law of the harvest is merciless: we are reaping exactly and precisely what we’ve sown.
And we deserve every bit of it.
Every. Damned. Bit.
Embrace the suck.
What lifeboats ? There’s no place to go. Democrats have allowed Marx and Engels to take over their Party, and have used the Treasury to buy votes from abysmally stupid people who are faint shades of those who brung ’em here. Stevoid brags that these stupids voted the Marx Party to power, twice, thus delivering this Republic’s knockout.
We can but point and laugh as we watch them drown, too.
“and then your allies peel off their masks and show their monster faces”
Funny you should mention that. I was listening to Pragers Friday show today, and was strongly reminded of Braveheart, first when Wallace was begging the Bruce to join them, and he was told he looks like he’s just raging,.Then later in the movie when The Bruce peals off his helmet after the final battle and revels he was fighting with Longshanks.
Makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
“The truth is, the Tea Party is super popular and experiencing widespread support among the public. They could really take over the House, and the Senate, and even the White House. ”
The truth is, they already did take over the House. Didn’t you notice?
How’s that “awesome” coverage coming along, Slaphead?
What do you think is going to happen two years down the road when the Obamacare voters has time to discover that a) they can’t buy the coverage, b) if they can buy it, the records are so fucked up that no one can figure out whether they have it, c) it costs them hundreds to thousands per month and still has a $5,000 deductible, d) they can’t find any doctor that will take it, and e) their old insurance no longer exists?
Cruz is going to look like a prophet.
Have you broken the news to the “little woman” yet? The part about her kids/your sperm donees not having medical insurance after January 1, I mean.
What lifeboats?
“Abandon ship” at this point mostly means “stop putting the slightest amount of hope in the GOP or in DC’s ability to reform itself.”
BTW, Mark Steyn and Mark Levin (and Glenn Beck, but duh) are in exactly the same place as I am. They’re not going through a bad spell, even if I am.
They know too much about historic trajectories and have seen too much lately and they know exactly how this movie ends.
Furthermore, they know that when we finally go, we’ll take the whole world with us. The world will see horror on an unprecedented scale, enough to make the devil himself shrink back in terror.
Brace yourselves.
I guess a feller can’t be too hard on steve in his ignorance. Proggs work hard to keep him that way.
Well, maybe you can blame him a little, ‘cuz he so WANTs to believe.
Of course it all makes sense once you realize the media is the Democrat propaganda arm, and there’s a railroad needs building…
Don’t forget that California’s tax burden is second only to that of New York, and has ranked #1 at “Worst Place to Start a New Business”.
I’d shout “We’re #1!”, but it’s hard to shout in a cheerful manner while weeping…
The Tea Party caucus in the house has less than fifty members. So yeah, they obviously rule the roost. That’s why the debt limit didn’t get raised.
And I just can’t imagine what you’re going to do when I get insurance for less than I’m paying, now, it’s good coverage, and I have a great choice of doctors. You’ll just accuse me of lying, I’m sure, or claim that I don’t actually know what I have. But you sure as fuck won’t admit to being wrong, because if you were capable of that, well, you would have left here a long time ago.
“And I just can’t imagine what you’re going to do when I get insurance for less than I’m paying”
Be sure to let us know when that actually happens, Slaphead, and particularly when you get an actual appointment with an actual human being with an actual medical degree.
“I have a great choice of doctors. You’ll just accuse me of lying”
You’re obviously lying, since none of the companies offering Obamacare in Oregon have published any list of doctors. Fact is, neither you nor anyone else knows what kind of “choice of doctors” there’s going to be.
Doesn’t that strike you as a little…odd…less than two months out? Shouldn’t there be at least SOME doctors on the list by now?
Willful blindness is funnier than the other kind, but no more productive.
The TEA Party is the reason San Fran Nan isn’t Speaker any more.
Even you can add to 218. Or can you?
Well that does it. Steve has convinced me.
America has never been in a better place, and the future is so bright I gotta wear shades.
I think I’ll by a boat with my insurance savings, what are you doing with yours stevie?
Shouldn’t there be at least SOME doctors on the list by now?
Other than the ones signing up for “suicide assistance”…
It seems highly likely to me that they’re concealing the shortage of doctors to persuade more suckers to sign up.
Not to worry. Obama has an “expert team” on the job.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2022091736_obamacaretechxml.html
No mention of why the $262 million wasn’t spent on an “expert team” to begin with.
“The Tea Party caucus in the house has less than fifty members ”
And where did their seats come from Steve? How big was it in 2008? As it it so it ever was and ever shall be? You don’t understand the idea of a movement growing and change occurring over time?
Slaphead, I’m going to give you some advice only because I feel sorry for your sperm donees.
Pick one of the “awesome plans”, call them up, and apply manually, ’cause that’s the only way your application is going to get processed for the foreseeable future. If you wait until near the Jan. 1 rush, your sperm donees will be facing weeks or maybe months without insurance.
While you have your “awesome plan” on the line, ask for a list of doctors. If they actually give you some names , make appointments with them for your sperm donees now, even if you have to pay out of pocket.
“I just didn’t know all this was true because I’m divorced from reality. ”
Because you are not a seven year old anymore, you should try responding to what people actually say instead of resorting to some lame, childish, incoherently snarky, random, irrelevant schoolyard shit you just thoughtlessly made up, just to have something that you hope will pass for a come back.
“The American people have two plans before them:
1. Raise revenue, cut spending, reform entitlements – all gradually, or
2. This
They are choosing plan #1. Sorry they’re not all rushing to you’re self-inflicted chest wound of a great idea, but go figure.”
The drivel you posted, quoted above, Steve, is what shows you are divorced from reality. Your vapid and delusional summary is utter fucking horse shit. Your shrieking that I must think the tea party is super popular and currently rules congress, which I have not actually said at any point, is not going to make the cartoonishly dumb ‘Jon Stewart’s R3al Newz for Kidz’ style pablum quoted above look any more connected to reality. It’s sort of like trying to hold Sarah Plain responsible for something Tina Fay said in a comedy skit. It’s asinine and borderline delusional. It doesn’t sell very outside of Dumbassylvania
Sorry man.
jls, you are exactly right about the media determining the terms and suddenly all across the land those precise terms are on everyone’s lips all at once. Borg collective. Your examples are perfect.
And so is your solution. Simply do not accept the terms. Do not respond directly. Not ever. Never. Rule 1, never answer directly using the terms given, always respond using one’s own terms, make them up on the spot if necessary, but do not even acknowledge they used that term by repeating it. Do not repeat the new term. Don’t. Speak another language. Use the time to talk right past them. As if your ears shut off. It’s infuriating.
Best guess? The Republicans will run on “we’ll fix it” because their overpaid, underperforming campaign consultants will tell them that’s the way to get the people who like it to consider voting for you, without causing the people who hate it to reject you out of hand.
The Democrats will run on replacing it with free government provided
cheezhealth care because1) The Republicans broke Obama Care by not supporting it in the first place
2) We tried martet oriented reform with Obama Care and the market doesn’t work, Republican greed sickens a nation in need etc. etc.
To say that 1 & 2 are mutually exclusive, and therefore lies, will never occur to the Republicans’ overpaid underperforming campaign consultants because negative campaigning just causes the moderates to tune out and you can’t win without the moderates (but don’t ask Mitt Romney about that).
The Republicans will run on “we’ll fix it” . . .
That’s a good pick-up Ernst, since if we listen carefully to the Bushian coterie at SurrenderNews we’ll hear they are already running on “we’ll fix it”: it only needs a bit of Establican tinkering, and presto! Profit!
By plan 1, what you really mean is borrow & print, print & borrow more money, reduce the rate by which spending increases year over year, and create more entitlements.
So it seems to me plan 1 and plan 2 are the same plan.
And here I thought there was only one Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz receives 8 minute standing ovation in San Antonio.
So much for that purple state rhetoric.
Sarah Palin initiates #CBC: DC’s ‘Corrupt Bastards Club‘. First name she mentions? Barack Obama. That’ll go over well.
RUN SARAH RUN!
dicentra – when i saw this i thought of you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JGJe_DaH1KQ
Hang in there.
BTW, I hope you are not offended. Just trying to lighten the mood.
If everything you’ve told us is true (which we’ll momentarily assume for the sake of argument) and things work out the way you’re envisioning them, I’m going to concede that Barack Obama actually is a deity, because that would be a fucking miracle.
Of course, that still doesn’t put a non-ridiculous health “insurance” plan on my table.
I stand by my prediction that Ocare will go the way of Prohibition and tout de suite.
OT: Woman on dais behind the Wan as he speechified passed out. She look a tad sickly and had a shade of green to her gills when they tromped up there. Thank god she has Ocare. Now if they can find her a hospital and a doctor to treat her . . .
No, they chose Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_jnE3OdxNw
Daniel’s Covered. You Can Be Covered Too!
Thing is, Daniel was already covered. Now, he’s covered with a taxpayer subsidy. Because we’re cutting spending and reforming entitlements, obviously.
I’m not sure how you reconcile a “growing movement” with cratering support, but generally when someone points that out to you, you just machine gun off a word salad of insults.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/10/16/Pew-poll-Tea-Party-support-hits-all-time-low/UPI-63141381973633/
(hint: this is the part where you accuse all the polls of being liberal and perhaps in need of unskewing)
How many seats did the TEA Party have in 2008, steve? How many in 2010? 2012? With the riproaring success of 404Care lingering in the minds of the very kids refusing to get involved and even KosKidz decrying a 120% increase in premiums, how many do you think they might have next year when Hillary announces her run and starts badmouthing the lack of leadership in DC?
How’s that Oregon doctor list coming, btw?
Not holding my breath
Hey, Steveoid, the TEAParty isn’t going anywhere. What’s going places are the Marxists Democrats who’ve succeeded in shoring up the wall this Republic is readying to hit. Economic collapse, in a country with as many guns as we have, won’t be good news for anyone.
When that happens, you should seek out and crawl in a hole, and hope Barky and his UN Blue Helmets care enough about you to save your worthless, dumb ass.
Or maybe you will run into Danny McBride and he will make you his street bitch… maybe the chains won’t be too heavy
“hint: this is the part where you accuse all the polls of being liberal and perhaps in need of unskewing”
Hint: this is the part where you actually sign up for that “awesome” Obamacare and get assigned a doctor.
Call ’em up on the phone, Slaphead. Dear Leader said to do it!
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/21/21064263-obama-the-affordable-care-act-is-not-just-a-website?lite
Also: “Nobody’s madder than me that the website’s not working like it should”?
Nobody? Seriously? Not even the people who’ve wasted hours of their time and still don’t any coverage?
Ever notice that it’s all about him? What about all the Slapheads out there and their soon-to-be-uninsured sperm donees?
Polls? Heh.
CBS, NBC Acknowledge ObamaCare Approval At All-Time Low
Obama’s Approval Rating Plummets to 37%, Reid 18%
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/21/group-behind-obama-at-rose-garden-speech-includes-only-3-obamacare-registrants/
LOL! Only three. And only one of the three actually managed to complete the purchase through Dear Leader’s $263 million web site.
No, polls are only real if they bash Republicans, otherwise they are proof of that VRWC…
I’m guessing steve is not being truthful about his life situation or he’d be getting the lead out about signing up for the “awesome” ACA. It is awfully broad-minded of him to marry a Little Person, though. Perhaps they can get a reality teevee show.
Steve, polls are driven by the pollsters and the questions are designed for the responses they wish to gather. This is why people on both sides rightfully throw stones at polls they disagree with, and both sides are right. This is called confirmation bias and it is built into most polling.
Incidentally, poll driven agendas weren’t even common until 1989. So for less than a quarter of a century. Live by the poll, die by the poll. True words spoken by one James Carville.
Or at least a quick trip up against the wall.
Well, SBP, he DID say that he was going to have all of the successful enrollees with him. Three, huh? I lose the over… :(
Loved what Barky said this morning!
“The Affordable Care Act #ObamaCare is so good? Earlier today I went online and signed up Michelle, the girls and me. And all of my comrades in #OFA.”
“Over time” =/= a news cycle, dumbass.
He’s busy polling his FB friends for a pithy response, guys.
let’s see the chart of the week
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/joncgabriel/the-reality-of-americas-finances
300+ years to pay that back, steve. But adding more debt will fix it all, right? (About like adding a coup de grace to the groaning guy roped to the firing squad post would.)
and… Pablo fantasizes about committing violence against fellow citizen because constitutionlibertyfreedompatriotismrealamerican.
So let’s nail the predictions down because I really want to know exactly what humble pie I’ll be feeding you. And I want to be crisp on this because y’all squeal and weasel when you say shit that turns out to be 100% wrong. So what are you actually predicting?
1. I won’t get health insurance before the deadline and will have to pay a penalty?
2. I will get insurance, but it will be more expensive than what I have now?
3. I will get insurance that’s less expensive than what I have now, but I will not be able to attend an appointment with a doctor because the doctors will be so limited?
I’m willing to consider you as being right if any of the above turn out to be true. So who has the balls to predict specific things that will turn out to be true or false? SBP might have the sack for it, but I’m guessing the rest of you will say witty things to pave over your cowardice on nailing down a position.
“Well, SBP, he DID say that he was going to have all of the successful enrollees with him. Three, huh? I lose the over… :(”
Well, technically only one of them has actually completed the process and allegedly has coverage. I wonder if that person has found a doctor who will take it.
Hey Steveoid, insurance should be the LEAST of your worries. Unless ObamaCare can cure delusional thinking and nirvana-madness that’s induced by swallowing Big Gulps of Barky’s…koolaid.
No, dumbass, Pablo is familiar with history and its tendency to repeat itself. Try reading for comprehension, halfwit.
Steveoid is just another one of Barky’s deluded crazies…
What good is insurance going to do you when there are no doctors or hospitals that will honor it?
As for manning up, well I am a woman, but I have made my prediction about Ocare twice in this thread.
serr8d, Obama’s sycophants remind me of the Hindu devotees thanking the Swami for causing the sun to rise again.
“So let’s nail the predictions down because I really want to know exactly what humble pie I’ll be feeding you”
How about you call them up today and prove us all wrong, Slaphead? Dear Leader said to do that. Specifically.
404Care alternative phone number?
(800) F1UCKYO (no, seriously)
As the program’s central website was under repair, Obama encouraged Americans seeking insurance to sign up the old-fashioned way by calling 1-800-318-2596.
Direct quote, Slaphead:
“We’ve also added more staff to the call centers where you can apply for insurance over the phone. Those are already — they’ve been working. But a lot of people have decided first to go to the website. But keep in mind, these call centers are already up and running. And you can get your questions answered by real people, 24 hours a day, in 150 different languages. The phone number for these call centers is 1-800-318-2596. ”
Get busy, mang!
Hey Steveoid, here’s what we term a ‘moderate’ (weak-sauce) GOP elitist, telling you in easy-to-understand sentences exactly what’s happening. Can you let go the Teat of Barky Juice long enough to comprehend it?
Ah, the pungent smell of backpedaling. So bitches, no one has the cajones to make a testable prediction. So far, SBP really stuck his wang out and said that if I can’t be enrolled and sitting in a Dr’s office today, he wins. No one else was even willing to go that far.
Which means (1) you’re all pretty fucking nervous about making a prediction that will turn out to be wrong, and (2) you don’t really want to have a discussion, you just want to be assholes.
Mission accomplished. I never doubted you.
I’ll say you win if any of the following turn out to be true:
1. I won’t get health insurance before the deadline and will have to pay a penalty?
2. I will get insurance, but it will be more expensive than what I have now?
3. I will get insurance that’s less expensive than what I have now, but I will not be able to attend an appointment with a doctor because the doctors will be so limited?
Who’s in? C’mon, you expect your representatives to take the heat and stay in the fight, and yet you’re too craven to engage in a no-stakes bet against some “divorced from reality” libtard?
There’s no “testable” prediction to be made, son. No one has any accurate information other than Obamacare is a giant pile of Fail.
The only one back-peddling is you. You still haven’t come up with that citation on your ass-pull about the country choosing your version #1 in your silly hypothetical.
You spend your time here jumping around from one piece of nonsense to another and never making a single coherent point. I’ve had more coherent talks with three year olds or the mentally ill.
Pro-tip: Swearing a lot and name-calling just make you sound like a juvenile delinquent.
“Mission accomplished. I never doubted you.”?
It doesn’t matter what you doubted Steve. You’re full of shit and have no idea of the particulars of what you are trying to defend. You just rant about how unpopular you think the tea party is and how you can cut spending by not increasing the rate of spending increase as much as you originally wanted to. You cherry pick facts and move goalposts around and award yourself points for it. It’s all lame bullshit emanating from your ignorance of the topics you want to make the half-ased bumper sticker quips about.
I think “divorced from reality libtard” is sticking to your wall quite well Steve. Sorry. Maybe you can self applaud your way out of it somehow. Good luck. Something clever will eventually come to you. Stopped clocks know what time it is twice a day and all that.
“Ah, the pungent smell of backpedaling.”
No one is “backpedaling”, Slaphead.
Let us know when you get it.
Did you call the number? Too late, my friend. It’s already switched from putting people on hold to just hanging up on them.
Hope! Change!
Gosh, leigh, I lay out three criteria, and you say, “There’s no testable way. It’s just failed for you because I say so. Because as of this exact instant you’re not enrolled and sitting in a Dr office.” Coward.
In terms of the country choosing #1 instead of #2, well, your own party didn’t nominate a tea party candidate for president. The country re-elected Obama. The Tea Party did win seats. Congratulations. People who think Obama’s birth certificate is fake, and evolution isn’t science, and the government always makes things worse, finally had someone to vote for. Think the number of those people is going up?
Let’s see how the movement does in 2014. Right now, the tea party is less popular than it’s ever been, so that’s not a good sign, right? But maybe they can find a way to engage in government that doesn’t freak the shit out of everyone. I think they’ll just keep digging though.
So your own little twerpism was, “What good is insurance going to do you when there are no doctors or hospitals that will honor it?”
You sticking by that? If I end up with insurance that costs less than what I have now and has plenty of doctors and hospitals to choose from, and I make appointments, and I get seen, will you admit you’re wrong? Because that takes a level of self-confidence that I don’t expect you have.
Testable prediction, SBP? Or just more cowardice wrapped in weasel talk. Oh, I see, it’s the latter.
You might want to talk to the people in Concord, NH before choosing an “awesome plan”, by the way. Their only “choice” is one that puts them in a hospital an hour away, two hours round-trip if you need an ambulance.
Hope! Change!
Oh, and the company offering the most awesomest deal that you were jabbering about? They’ve been losing money, so they’re kinda desperate. Better hope they still have some money when you need a doc.
Oh, have you bothered to read those links I gave you a week or ten days ago about the US Constitution? I thought not. I’ll find you a link to the Federalist Papers once you get the first part done. Whether or not you read up will indeed be “testable.”
I’m tired of this one. He’s worse than Dalek.
“Testable prediction, SBP?”
I’m not the one who needs Obamacare, Slaphead. That would be you and your sperm donees.
I’ve already told you to call them up today, buy an “awesome plan”, and get back to us with a doctor list.
Seems pretty “testable” to me.
Why haven’t you done it?
Oh, right: because you can’t.
Until you can, you’re basically just talking out your ass. Which we already knew.
When you have some actual “testable” data to share with us, lay it on us.
4. Communitarianism kills.
And you, steve, are a communitarian.
My friend Pablo did no such thing. As a simple matter of fact.
You however, steve, do more than threaten it. You invite it on an enormous, avoidable, and nationally-outlawed scale. Because progressivemythsaboutfreestuffimpossiblefromanyrational,adultstandpoint.
Crisp?
hahaha. I put down some goalposts and you all point off to the left and say “Look! Squirrel!”
I had no idea how lame and pathetic you folks are. Fucking terrified about making a prediction and being wrong. Well, on the bright side, that’s some context for your revolution murder fantasies at least.
How about I call them in a week? Or two weeks? What’s your hangup with TODAY! Is TODAY the only day you feel confident about?
Gosh, leigh, I lay out three criteria, and you say, “There’s no testable way. It’s just failed for you because I say so. Because as of this exact instant you’re not enrolled and sitting in a Dr office.” Coward.
Where did I say this? I said your criteria are not testable. They are not testable because you are a liar.
As to the rest of your spew: “Your own party” assumes that I am a republican. That would be wrong, stevie. As for “popularity”, who cares about that? Didn’t your mother tell you that it is better to do the right thing than to be popular? I mean, when she was sober, of course.
As the always wise SBP said: “When you have some actual “testable” data to share with us, lay it on us.”
BTW, I hope you are not offended. Just trying to lighten the mood.
Trust me, I can take as well as I can dish out.
steve, you won’t find me arguing against the ACA on the grounds that the website is a neo-Marxian disaster today, or that central power can’t dispense whatever it elects to dispense, or for whatever situational, relativist, losing-more-slowly Republican meme du jour says I should.
I see these “arguments” being linked or even made by leading “Libertarian” bloggers, as if having these foolish conversations mean anything.
They do not. Earlier I said this was a philosophical problem and not a political problem and I was right. Political problems deal with blips on the trajectory. The trajectory, however, is philosophical.
Which is why you never address my comments.
See, the ACA website is a neo-Marxian disaster. Today, for a neo-Marxian immediate future. Central power can dispense whatever it elects to dispense by whatever means it decides. That is its very point each and every time.
These problems are what matter, they and infinitely worse, the handwriting on the wall of which had already been reported. And you, steve, lack the integrity of thought, reason, and character to so much as acknowledge that they exist.
And this, in turn, is because having sacrificed that integrity, you, like countless of your fellow citizens — but none of your countrymen — are not American enough to either reform your own minds or to go somewhere and spare the rest of us living through the nightmares you’re all about to grossly oppress us with.
That, steve, is no way to go through life. And yet here you are.
“How about I call them in a week? Or two weeks? What’s your hangup with TODAY!”
Because it was supposed to be working three weeks ago and it still isn’t? Because your Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama told you to call them if you were having trouble, and it turns out he was lying about that, too? Because you claim to have two offspring who won’t have medical insurance come January 1 unless you manage to purchase it through this clusterfuck?
Here’s another alternative: how about you just shut the fuck up until you actually manage to get coverage and find a doctor? Then come back and crow.
I won’t be holding my breath for that to happen.
slippy’s smacktalk attempts just have me seeing Jesse Pinkman where his Gravatar ought to be.
That, steve, is no way to go through life. And yet here you are.
He never has to experience the sharp humiliation of being mocked by Jon Stewart’s eyebrow.
Surely you can agree that’s the pearl of great price.
“I had no idea how lame and pathetic you folks are.”
Did you have any idea how lame and pathetic you were though?
So Steve, since it’s no good as a currency here, where will you go to cash in all your dumb little boy bullshit?
How about I call them in a week? Or two weeks?
Backpedal much? Those are YOUR criteria, and it is only YOUR failure to act (or inability, which kind of disproves all of your claims) that prevents us from knowing whether ObamaCare is the failure it is increasingly revealing itself to be (even TFG admitted that there were problems, and could only find three people to stand behind him, only one of which had actually gotten insured) or whether you are just a lying liar what lies.
Of course, it could be both. I’d want to get some money on that action, but who would pay me for a sure thing?
After shortbus posts a pdf copy of the terms of his current insurance policy, (he can redact his last name and street address, SSN & other personal information, but I want a city and a zip code and the dates the policy is in effect) then I’ll make a prediction.
It’s the way of the left: achieve nothing of value or import, or actually make a mess, and then demand respect and deference for it.
… and complain that you’re not helping to fix it.
You forgot the follow-up: claim that whoever has the unmitigated gall to point out your failure is only doing so because he/she “hates” whatever group you claim to want to help.
Because Road to Hell and all…
Where’d steve go?
Obama blames all his fuckups on the people who tried to stop him from fucking up.
“Where’d steve go?”
He’s probably off sleeping the Odinsleep since he expended so much awesome on us wingnut birther flat earth maggots. Or maybe he’s frying up some steak-ums for all I know.
Yeah, he sure told us.
-Leigh: Where’d steve go?
Is Modern Family on tonight? If so, then he’s laughing along with another show about how cool it is to live in an age where The Family is being destroyed.
-[With fake apologies to Lenin]:
We’ll ask the man, where do you stand on the question of the revolution?
Are you for it or against it?
If steve’s against it, we’ll stand him up against a wall.
You’ve laid out both what you have now and what you think you’re getting in fairly specific detail. So make the fucking call, take the dive, buy your new plan and then we can see what you’ve got. Talk is cheap. Let’s see what happens when you put your money where your mouth is.
We’ve got all kinds of awesome competition here. We get to choose between Blue Cross Blue Shield and Blue Cross Blue Shield!
Let’s see what happens when you put your money where your mouth is.
But steve doesn’t want it to be “his” money. He wants money to be stolen from his wealthier neighbors at gunpoint (under the guise of “higher taxes” and “social justice”) to pay for it.
Of course he doesn’t realize that those just slightly less well off that he lies… er, claims to be will be thinking exactly the same thing, and that it will be HIS rates that will be going up.
Because, $52,000/year = “millionaire” to Obama and his bots…
I think steve stumbled over here to the Shire and thought it was going to be like the other conciliatory right-ish sites.
Heh.
steve says he makes $250K. He says.
That must be the magic number with trolls.
well, then, he’s fucked, because no one in that income bracket will see their premiums drop.
“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.” — Michelle Obama
Guess steve-o doesn’t think he’ll be asked to give up anything… Tough shit since he’s in that evil 1%
That’s the wrong question. Your predictions are what’s in play here.
Make them come true and then you can tell us all about it.
then, he’s fucked, because no one in that income bracket will see their premiums drop.
That’s exactly what I told him, Drum. Spies told him too and so did a few others.
Of course he’s a lying liar what lies, so there you go.
Downloading more talking points from the hive mind.
Or maybe his masters found him… lacking and they’re decanting a new clone to send in.
Plus claims of owning large property and similar. (Had one troll over on IntenseDebate claim to have a “castle-like” house. Then he got all pissy when I doubted him.)
Odd, since they tend to piss and moan about “the rich” as well.
They’re all 1%, Pat. Every last one of them who trots out his talking points over here. I guess we’re supposed to be awed. *Yawn*
I love it when they stick around long enough to forget what they lied about because we sure don’t.
Stevie is under 24, goes to city c0llege with a >3 GPA, and lives at home (older home in a lower middle class neighborhood) with his mom and her little rat dogs.
I bet he can play Angry Birds like nobodies bushiness though.
Just a guess, but I bet I’m not far off.
Sounds dead on to me, Lee.
Failure to Launch, indeed
That sort of makes a little bit of sense: They seem to think those of us who disagree with them “worship” the rich or similar so maybe they think claiming to be wealthy and so on will make us like them.
Nope, they’re still jackasses.
That reminds me. I want income verification too. A paycheck and last year’s tax return should be sufficient.
After the personally identifying info is redacted of course. Same deal with his insurance policy, first name, city/state, & or zipcode
I guess the library is closed. Or do you suppose steve is one the phone with Ocare?
Maybe he’ll have exciting news about his “awesome” plan tomorrow. Since his fictional wife is a Little Woman, he should got to the head of the line!
Ernst, you seem to be implying “testable” doesn’t mean taking little stevies word for it.
Very unsporting of you…
Make sure that Steve knows how to clear metadata before you have him send you redacted images.
Hail Galaxar!
trust but verify lee
For example. I’m prepared to trust that he’s a 1%er. After all, who the hell else can afford his brand of liberalism?
Now I want verification.
Don’t make fun of the library. If it rains/sleets/snows here in the next 12-36 hours like it’s supposed to, I’ll be in the library by Friday at the latest.
“Hail Galaxar!”
Cut off one Terthalk and 2.71828 more shall take its place! Ewige Blumekraft! Ewige Serpentorkraft! Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Oh wait no…um Hail Me!
And here I thought I was good at obscure quotes.
Only to find out I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
Damn.
One of really nice thing about having kids is that you finally get to start watching good movies again. Seriously. The best movies I’ve seen (in the sense of serious ideas dealt with lightly and intelligently) have been animated family flicks. Just saw The Croods on Sunday. Minor classic in my book.
Would have rated a major classic, if Hollywood didn’t consitently and predictably dishoner the idea of Sacrifice with the inevitable Happy Ending.
dishonor
that was embarrassing
I was thinking of an old cartoon from the 90s called Exo-Squad:
Draconis: But you can’t kill me, you need me!
Phaeton: Yes, I need you. But which you?
*Disintegrates Draconis and a new Draconis gets decanted from its tank*
Sounds like Leto Atredes II ordering up a new Duncan Idaho Ghoula from the Tlielaxu when the old one gets uppity.
In my case, obviously me and the kids just watched Monsters v. Aliens.
not bad, but not my favorite.
It’s all pop-culture nerdy stuff.
“Cut off one Terthalk and 2.71828 more shall take its place!” makes fun of “Hail Hydra! Cut off our head and two more shall take it’s place! ” only alienized with e and the made up word terthalk.
” Ewige Blumekraft! Ewige Serpentorkraft!” Bavarian Illuminati slogan in German, from Robert Shea, and Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Illuminatus trilogy’ ” Eternal flowering skill! Eternal Serpent skill!” Meaning always be learning and gaining power so you are the biggest dog on the block, and always be supremely deceptive, secretive, and treacherous like a snake.
“Frog Blast the Vent Core!” Was gibberish shouted by aliens that had infiltrated the USS Marathon in the 90’s video game Marathon. Being aliens, they were trying to sound human by shouting random human words. It was a slightly funny shibboleth that told you that a civilian was about to attack you.
“Hail Me!” was the smart assed response of Galaxar to his clone’s militaristic adoration in Monsters Vs. Aliens., which is the reference I thought you were making.
I got the “Hail Me,” the rest of it was gibberish
I’m a History uebergeek –and have the test results to prove it, somewhere, not a popculture nerd.
“Please don’t go. The drones need you. They look up to you.”
Sounds like something uttered more than once by JadeGold.
“Ewige Blumekraft!”
I had always translated that one as “Eternal Flower Power”, given that it was written at the tail-end of the hippie era.
“Plus claims of owning large property and similar. (Had one troll over on IntenseDebate claim to have a “castle-like” house. Then he got all pissy when I doubted him.)”
There was an old-school troll board where any such claim was countered with “Yeah? Well, I live in a 500-room mantion (sic) fully-stocked with supermodels”.
Kind of like Jon (name escapes me) “The Liar” on SNL?
“My wife (pause) Morgan Fairchild . . . “
“Why ObamaCare can’t ever work”..
Hayek KNEW THINGS.
Jon Lovitz
Tommy FlanAgan.
Tommy
More Tommy.
I love that one.
There’s a skit with Lovitz (thanks, Drum) and PeeWee Herman in jail lying their asses off to each other.
PeeWee: When I was being tortured, they cut off my head – – – everyday!
Summoning Beyonce. We’ve found a snake for you…
Speaking of Pee Wee, Phil Hartman was Captain Carl back in the 1980s.
I still think that was still stolen from Billy Crystal and “I hate it when that happens”
I found some transcripts — http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84ewillie.phtml
well I read the Illuminatus trilogy back in 1987 so…I guess I got it FNORD wrong.
Don’t feel bad, Palaeo – as long as you can still see the Fnords and still remember to never whistle while you’re pissing.