Tuesday Trivia and Open Thread

 

"Texan Love Song" - Elton John

- Okay, when I bet on Perry to win the GOP nomination, I thought he could at least simulate a being with a three digit IQ.  Jesus Christ, the guy has held statewide office for twenty years -- okay, I understand the state is Texas (sorry bbw) and the bar may not be set at the highest, but really.  How bad do you have to be in a debate setting to send the right-wingers running scared?  I am pretty confident though that no one else is going to join the race -- in other words, there is no magically mean fat man who is going to save them.  Which oddly enough means that Perry might still get the nomination.

- Yeah, that's the ticket Paul.  Go for it.  Everyone wants tax cuts for the rich and for Medicare to be voucherized.

- Small brains, a smaller conscience, and big balls -- it's the Republican way. 

- Let's review Ted Leonsis's accomplishments.  1.  He made a fuck load of money from the virtually defunct AOL by selling his stock before it went down the shit chute.  2. He owns a really unsuccessful basketball team That's it.  If that's "carrying our country on his back" that might explain the current sorry state of the republic.

So what's on your minds?

  

Comments

[nancy]

Sir C -- I left the "small brains, smaller conscience..." guy link specifically for Paula in the previous thread. I'd forgotten this though. His high school yearbook motto . Yuck. "I want what I want when I want it". I guess he made himself clear from the outset.

[big bad wolf]

no offense taken, SC, i'm not from here/i just live here

[Sir Charles]

bbw,

One of the great James McMurtry songs of all time.

(Who I was astonished to see the other day as a child appearing in the 1970s movie "Daisy Miller.")

I understand now why Kay Bailey Hutchison thought she could beat Perry.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

Jesus, I thought you were kidding.

That's quite the governing philosophy.

I prefer "the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards me."

[nancy]

Sir C,

Kidding? Would that I were. Argh and sigh. Or sigh and argh. Not sure of the proper order.

Here's the happy family. Notice the mahogany doors . Nothing's going to touch this guy. Hurricane Irene. Forget about her. (Oh, and so should you if you don't live in his state). Guy's impervious apparently. Goodness, he brings out the worst in me.

Do we suppose he's with us (he's 47 I think), for 30+ more years? Words fail. Incumbency. What a concept.

[nancy]

Sir C

re Coach outlet guy.

I think I've figured out the spam entries. The captcha net letter series request is repeated about every x 5. fwiw.

Helpful I hope.

[oddjob]

That hair style was in fashion in the mid-70's. What the hell was he doing wearing it five years later when it was well on its way out?

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

I wish I had the technological know-how to stop our spammer friends, but, alas, merely posting and deleting things is about as sophisticated as I get.

oddjob,

Things move slowly down Richmond way.

[oddjob]

It is to weep....

[kathy a.]

oddjob -- that sarah, such a sense of humor she has!

rand paul has decided to display his libertarianism by blocking a pipeline safety bill, because nothing shows teh glory of the free market like letting neighborhoods explode because of service provider errors. seriously! "...because he is opposed in principle to adding regulations and expanding the federal government."

[Joe S]

The scary thing is that Perry might win the presidency. I'm beginning to cheer for Romney because I think Obama's toast, and Romney won't turn the country into a Mad Max style dystopia in eight years.

[oddjob]

Romney + a Republican Congress will do that.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

Any Republican victory -- whether it be Romney or Perry -- is going to be apocalyptically bad. Any Replican president, particularly one as suspect with the base as Romney, is going to have to pander in a god-awful way to the various lunatics that make up the party at this point.

From tax policy to the environment to employee or reproductive or gay rights, it is going to be a horribly reactionary period if the Republicans grab the presidency.

[low-tech cyclist]

What SC just said. No matter whether it's Perry or Romney in the White House, the GOP Congress will pass terrible stuff with horrible consequences, and neither will veto it.

And don't expect the Senate Dems, who will by then be in a minority, to help out via the filibuster. Once the GOP realizes that getting rid of the filibuster will allow them to do whatever they want, the filibuster will be gone.

Help re-elect Obama, it's our only hope.

[Joe S]

Sir C, a Republican victory is probably baked into the cake-- which means we get an apocalyptically bad couple of years. It was baked into the cake when Barack Obama decided that Tim Geithner and the treasury crew had the answers to the economic problems of this country. It was baked into the cake when the Administration picked conservative board members of the Fed so that monetary policy would always be inadequate to the challenges at hand (instead of using political capital to recess appoint members of the Fed who would actually act to combat the unemployment crisis). It may have been baked into the cake given the nature of the Democratic Party after the crash. It may have been baked into the cake given the predilections and prejudices of the current electorate. Whatever the combination of Obama policy mistakes and structural impediments, its basically too late to do anything other than hope people are more disgusted with Republicans (which is highly unlikely).

And let's face it, Democrats have pretty much lost in the short term on reproductive rights and gay rights in the Red States already. The Obama Administration has pretty much given up on environmental and tax policy already. The reactionary period pretty much started in 2009. We're just living through it. Second, let's just face it that not enough of the population cares about tax policy, environmental policy, and gay and feminist interpretations of civil rights to make a fundamental difference in an election. Without a successful economic policy, the Democrats are basically sunk. Which means the Democrats are basically sunk. All we can really do now is start trying to rebuild on the (probably) correct assumption that Republican economic policy is going to be a disaster in either the short or medium term.

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I still think Obama can beat any of these clowns, notwithstanding the head winds of the economy.

I especially think he can beat Perry -- like a drum actually.

[Paula]

FWIW, I've reached a Zen-like state about the possibility of a Republican win. If, after being subject to Republicans' continuing anti-middle class policies, ignoring the fact that Republicans seem to like giving money back to rich people; if, after the reprehensible booing at the various debates, the science-averse, proud-ignorance they continually display still means that Americans vote for conservatives --

They they deserve the hell that would come. For educational purposes. FDR may have only stalled the inevitable class cataclysm that much of Europe inevitably had to go through. It may not turn out well, but maybe America has to go through it.

[Paula]

Sorry, this is a lurker Paula (another one), not your regular poster Paula B

[kathy a.]

omg, joe. a republican victory would be unfathomably bad. horrible, awful, unthinkable, worse than the bush years -- and no way would it be a "bad couple of years". if ever there was a time to pull out the stops against the forces of evil, now is it. the prospect of what perry or romney would do the SCOTUS alone is enough to worry me badly, and we're not talking a couple of years in that context. i don't much favor a few years of watching people die on the streets, either. we have some real problems that they only propose to make worse.

and it almost goes without saying, but we need to be looking at local, state, and congressional races very hard, too. we obviously need to be thinking of the long term, and supporting those who might make a big difference in a few years.

[low-tech cyclist]

a republican victory would be unfathomably bad. horrible, awful, unthinkable, worse than the bush years -- and no way would it be a "bad couple of years".

All too true. GWB wasn't brave enough to try to dismantle Social Security without at least some partial buy-in from the Dems. (Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!) I don't think today's GOP would worry about that - once in the White House, they'd change the Senate rules to dispense with the filibuster, and ram through anything they damn well pleased. I don't think they'd really give a shit about popular opinion either - if people got upset, they'd just figure they'd have to hurry up and get 'er done before they were answerable at the polls.

So expect the gutting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, just for starters.

[kathy a.]

going back to my earlier comment about the libertarian / tea party / republican glory of letting pipelines explode in neighborhoods because government regulation is bad -- we can expect more of that, too.

what, you want bus drivers to be licensed? and doctors, too? isn't it awfully burdensome on banks to require that they not steal or fritter your money? it supposedly stifles the economy to require safety regulations, so your kids don't get squashed if some idjit hits your car, or those bridge workers -- you know they love the job -- miss the opportunity of falling a few hundred feet every now and again. yadda.

[nancy]

re our GOP/TP 'frontrunners'. My learned spouse intermittently tries to set me straight, as in 'we've always had crazies in American politics', but I'm not convinced the stage could ever have been as surreal as what we're watching.

Surely this isn't the best the Chamber of Commerce party can do. Poor Jon Huntsman -- born with a silver spoon, brains and a Mormon tradition of studious service. He should be the GOP dream candidate. U of U, now in the PAC-12, kicks off at the Huntsman Arena on Saturday. I'm sure he's got his sights on '16, and one would think the Party would be pleased to have him offset the nuttiness and offering a path back to sanity. Is there a secret plan in the works? Take back the WH by re-creating Hooverville USA? Then it will magically turn on a dime for them after the inauguration?

kathy -- All those benefits from regulation are optional, maybe even imaginary, apparently. Inside the heavily-gated communities of our future, all will be bliss.

[kathy a.]

"bliss" is not usually what people feel when their homes blow up, their retirement savings disappear, their kids get killed in work accidents or during a routine operation, the neighbor's kid dies of food poisoning, etc.

[beckya57]

I'm with Sir C. I still think Obama's going to pull it out.

I'm focused on BB at the moment. Bal-Bos in a rain delay, with the Bosox up 3-2, Phi-Atl tied 3-3, Cards winning big and TB losing big. We could be looking at 2, 1 or no playoffs tomorrow. It's all very exciting to a junkie like me, and a lot more enjoyable than contemplating the GOP's plans to turn us into Mexico North.

[nancy]

@kathy. Yes, many odd definitions of blissful. Watching social Darwinism from the sidelines I fear is one of them.