Never this close, The Stench, Allen West: Angel of Death, TARP for Romney, David Brooks’ bomb shelter, GOP Strategist: Voter Fraud = Complete Bullshit, Paul Ryan: Total Hypocrite, The Complete Guide To America’s Jobs Crisis And The Failure Of Monetary Policy Using Animated GIFs, a special message to Conor Friedersdorf, confronting a troll, and the GOP is most definitely not racist.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
First up, a new article from Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, in which he laments “This Presidential Race Should Never Have Been This Close”.
Romney is an almost perfect amalgam of all the great out-of-touch douchebags of our national cinema: he’s Gregg Marmalaard from Animal House mixed with Billy Zane’s sneering, tux-wearing Cal character in Titanic to pussy-ass Prince Humperdinck to Roy Stalin to Gordon Gekko (he’s literally Gordon Gekko). He’s everything we’ve been trained to despise, the guy who had everything handed to him, doesn’t fight his own battles and insists there’s only room in the lifeboat for himself – and yet the Democrats, for some reason, have had terrible trouble beating him in a popularity contest.
Taibbi is right. The Presidential race shouldn’t be within ten points. It shouldn’t be within twenty. Frankly, I think the spread should be closer to forty. But, beyond the 6-7% of the population that is intellectually uncurious, there is approximately 27% of the population that will vote for a Republican purely on the basis of being a Republican, and another twenty-ish percent of the population that has their head firmly lodged up their ass. Consequently, Obama beating Romney by 10 is still a decent win.
Next up, Roger Simon from Politico has a report that Paul Ryan has started referring to Mitt Romney as “The Stench”. Also, apparently Romney refers to Ryan as “Gilligan”. I didn’t think it was possible for a Presidential Campaign to be MORE inept than the 2008 McCain/Palin ticket, but the Obama/Biden campaign is going to put up really similar numbers in 2012 as they did in 2008 in a far, far less favorable political environment.
From nomoremisterniceblog, Allen West: Angel of Death.
“My statement to the United Nations would have been, ‘The future does not belong to those who attack our Embassies and Consulates and kill our Ambassadors. The Angel of Death in the form of an American Bald Eagle will visit you and wreak havoc and destruction upon your existence,'” the Florida congressman wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday…
Seriously, what the fuck? Cartoon supervillains don’t even talk like this. The fact that people like West and Michele Bachmann continue to get elected is a reminder that there is something very rotten in America, and it’s starting to stink.
The Atlantic’s James Fallows asks Professor Samuel Popkin whether or not the Romney campaign can be saved. I’m no political scientist, but unless the Press catches the President in the Lincoln bedroom with a pair of fine white women smoking a giant ass blunt, I’m going to guess no.
Doghouse Riley lambasts David Brooks’ latest column, “History is written by the victors. Then forwarded to the ad writers for punching up.”
Reagan, or, in the interest of accuracy, his handlers, ran screaming every time imposing “traditional conservatism” clashed with Daring Ventures and Large Sums of Cash. Reagan–meaning Reagan Idolatry–is the very reason you’re in this mess today. There was no “traditional conservatism” left by the time he and Mommy left Washington. Just the slime trail from everyone who’d been gorging himself at the public trough for eight years. If you wanna reform the Republican party, there’s your place to start. And Godspeed.
And Charles P. Pierce piles on:
In today’s column in The New York Times, in which he traces the current paradox of modern American conservatism, David Brooks mysteriously overlooks all the hard work Harry Dent and his acolytes did in making sure that conservatism could count on the backing of the supporters of American apartheid.
If slamming David Brooks as a self-righteous pompous windbag is wrong, I don’t ever want to be right.
Next up, GOP Strategist John Weaver:
I’ve worked all over the country: in South Texas and the rural South, in Dade County and New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. While I’m totally supportive of legitimate ballot-security efforts, what is being sold to the GOP base, the media and the courts is complete bullshit. The days of widespread voter fraud, the kind that South Texas patrons and Mayor Daley used in 1960 to help the Kennedy/Johnson ticket, are long gone. Long gone. I’ve never seen widespread voter fraud, and certainly there is little evidence of it. The various GOP attorneys general should be ashamed to be part of this effort, especially as they’ve produced damn few true cases of fraud.
Jimminy Christmas, a Republican admitting that this is all bullshit? Be still my beating heart.
I say we follow the money trail behind this national effort to suppress the vote. As soon as the election is over in November, the Justice Department should leave no stone unturned in pursuing this. The two worst programs that strike at the core of our Republic is the Citizens United decision and this program to subvert and suppress Americans from voting. And I have no doubt that funds hiding in the shadows of the Citizen’s United decision are being used in this program.
Goddamn, that was awesome.
More Charles P. Pierce, on Ryan talking about the Scab Referees:
Yes, it is terrible when the “producers” in society try to break unions in a $9 billion industry over what amounts to pocket change. The quality of the product actually suffers when the “producers” value their own profits over the notion that their mooching employees deserve decent recompense for the work they do. Not only that, but people are happier with actual pensions than they are with 401K’s that exist at the whims of what Paul Ryan believes is the genius of the capitalism system. Yes, by and large, unionized industries are better for everyone involved, including consumers.
Worth noting: in the picture, Ryan is holding a Terrible Towel. I don’t know a single real Packers fan that would be caught dead holding a Terrible Towel.
This is relevant to our interests: The Complete Guide To America’s Jobs Crisis And The Failure Of Monetary Policy Using Animated GIFs
And now, a special message to Conor Friedersdorf.
I don’t see how anyone who confronts Obama’s record with clear eyes can enthusiastically support him. I do understand how they might concluded that he is the lesser of two evils, and back him reluctantly, but I’d have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers.
Well Conor, I’ll tell you.
We have big, structural problems in this country, mainly related to the fact that one of our political parties has gone completely and utterly insane and both of them are pretty much entirely owned by a very small cabal of tremendously wealthy individuals that have spent the last thirty years bleeding both the American Government and American Citizens dry of their last pennies. However, because the two major political parties are such an ingrained part of our society, we as voters don’t have a whole lot of choice. I understand why you could refuse to vote for President Obama. He’s waging a constitutionally questionable drone war on the other side of the planet. When historians look back on this period of history, they’ll go “Wow, that’s pretty fucked up.” but, here we are. Regardless, if we’re giving Presidents the power to wage drone wars anywhere on the planet, I’m more inclined to give that power to Democrats, who as President have shown themselves to be of reasonably sound judgement, rather than Republicans, who have been a rather iffy bunch since Nixon.
Moreover, it’s not the President’s job to restrict his own powers. That would be Congress.
Normally, I like your writing quite a bit. I use it often. In this particular case, I think you’re dead wrong. I think you’re well within your rights to go vote for Gary Johnson or write in Ron Paul or do whatever you want to; after all, it is a free country. But please don’t kid yourself into believing that you’re making some kind of brave stand against the forces of American Imperialism by voting Libertarian rather than Democrat or Republican.
I’m voting for President Obama, warts and all, because I believe that if we’re going to have any hope at all of changing the way our government works it starts with having people in office that are least receptive to hearing the argument.
Next up: “The day I confronted my troll”, by Leo Traynor. A phenomenal article from The Guardian about a guy who tracked down his internet harasser.
And finally, via Wonkette: the GOP is totally not racist!
