412 Comments

1. RaviT:

We should really go after Frank Rich, and get his scalp—what a twit! If the NYT really is circling the drain, maybe we can get it.

Nov 2, 2009 - 7:35 pm 2. Sgt. Mom:

Hmmm – can’t really speak for any other Tea Party organizations, other than the one I’m with – the San Antonio Tea Party, but although we do the same sort of protests as the local Republican Party, and act in concert with all sorts of other Libertarian-to-Right groups … quite a lot of our members are almost as mad at the GOP leadership as they are at the Dems. Any inside-the-Beltway Republican leadership cadre who thinks that all they have to do to get ahead is to co-opt the Tea Partiers and then hurrah – happy days will be there again – is set up to be brutally disappointed.
The hard-bitten and determined Tea Partiers that I know are all set to take over from the inside, and from the bottom-up.
The Repubs as currently constituted have not served us well, and they will be replaced by candidates and leaders who remember how the Constitution really is supposed to work, and how we the people looked to be governed.

Nov 2, 2009 - 7:41 pm 3. Greifer:

Only the Left has revolutions that start top down. The rest of us have to have revolutions that start bottom up. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to thwart a permanent campaign. But fortunately, it makes us even more lethal.

Bottom up revolutions that can arise out of nothing and return to civility are much like citizen soldiers. Throughout history, citizen soldiers have been more lethal, more vicious, and more decisive than mercenaries. It is precisely because they come from and go back into normal society that they can be roused to such heights as their ferocity of the Pacific War in WWII, or Sherman’s march in the Civil War.

But it needs to be engaged and then enraged.

Honestly, the tea party movement looks to be the birth of a new party, The Tea party (whose name is no dumber than “Grand Old Party”.) It doesn’t look like a third party to me. It looks like a second. It’s the GOP that is dying.

The Whigs went away, and went fast. The most agile and bright of the GOP will be the first to leave it, I suspect, to become members of the Tea Party, rather than try to co opt them to support the GOP.

Nov 2, 2009 - 8:09 pm 4. Gordon:

Differences between the armies of the Left and Right? Yes, yes. Those who go into politics and ‘public policy’ and ‘think tanks’ and their useful idiots have this as their career. Ideas, symbols, papers, programs–all intangible, all symbolic, abstract. They are not independent; they must hold to the Truth as they’ve been instructed. To do otherwise is to risk banishment, as indeed described by Orwell–the worst fate. Not to be wrong but to be cast out.

The Right: people who prepare themselves to do some ‘thing’, ie train for a profession, trade, pursuit. Making things, providing a real service, interacting with other people rather than trying to control them.

So, yes, the Left is always organized, ready to do whatever they’re told. The Right is doing their own lives, slow to react but when they do it is with a distributed intelligence, genuine ability (not derivative). Once they are–hopefully–sufficiently alarmed their independence and ability to think for themselves should prevail. How? I don’t know; the game is now being played.

But the second paragraph above is correct: alarmed citizens, frightened and angered about the future, are the most dangerous foes; they have the most to lose. Those who fight in a top-down organization, told what to think rather than deciding for themselves and fearing being pushed out–they are the weakest even though their leaders think they’re ruthless. They’re only able to be ruthless against their own kind.

Nov 2, 2009 - 8:11 pm 5. Pajamas Media » Decision ‘09: Watershed for Obama:

[...] The most interesting question raised by Frank Rich’s reaction to Doug Hoffman’s earthquake: Wher… (Richard Fernandez) [...]

Nov 2, 2009 - 8:22 pm 6. john lynch:

This isn’t a left/right thing. It’s an American thing. Grassroots organizations campaign to get their side elected. Then they go home. Lots of Democrats feel they did their part and it’s up to the people they elected to fulfill their end of the bargain. It’s time to justify the blood, sweat and tears of the base.

Remember the huge antiwar demonstrations? They dwarfed the Tea Party movement. The left is perfectly capable of demonstrating when they are out of power. When they are in, what’s the point of protesting? They won.

Protest is a tactic, not an end. Where were the Tea Parties during the last administration? If Obama is not reelected, they’ll go home.

Nov 2, 2009 - 8:39 pm 7. RWE:

I understood Newt’s support of the selected Republican in NY 23 – he explained it was both a recognition of “local control” as well as the need to take a Big Tent approach to gaining votes in the Congress. He has a point that a Republican from, say, Oklahoma would have trouble running on the same stated principles in NY.

When I heard that the Republican in NY 23 had dropped out I thought that at last some Republicans were coming to their senses. Then today when I heard she had endorsed the Democrat I realized it was far worse than I had thought.

One of the more curious aspects of the Left is that they really seem to think that the real grass roots of the Right are the same kind of top-down carefully controlled Potemkin demonstrations they do. It is not just Soviet style “they do it too” defensive accusations but seems to be a real, basic belief. You hear it over and over that Conservatives are mind-numbed robots spouting Rush’s talking points, when in fact it is the Left that really seems to be reading the DNC teleprompter and hiring Rent-A-Crowds.

Nov 2, 2009 - 8:50 pm 8. Autarkes:

“The crucial question which every man of the left must wrestle with is whether Tea Parties of the Left will ever be led from the bottom. George Orwell always assumed the answer to be “yes” until he learned differently in Catalonia.”

The great and tragic shortcoming of Orwell is that, while avowedly not a Stalinist or Communist, he was too romantically attached to the notion of socialism. Even to his dying day, he spoke in socialist terms, for the need of a revolution, trying to get the people to overthrow the monied and powerful. Even in England, which he revered as a backward but good and noble place, he saw that as the crucial issue. Orwell never seemed to make the connection that socialism was indeed run by the monied and powerful and not for the working man. I think he never really escaped Catalonia and those fleeting golden days when he saw Barcelona as the working man’s paradise, before the purges. Furthermore, his pessimism about the world, strangely, made him untrustworthy of the very people he championed, the poor, the downtrodden, almost as though he didn’t think they could look out for themselves and that they needed a system to support them that they couldn’t screw up. He was indeed the prophet of the last century but there is a paternalistic vein in his prose and thought that should not be overlooked.

Nov 2, 2009 - 9:17 pm 9. Thrasymachus:

Yawn. I’m not impressed. I’m old enough to have read about this happening, and seen it happen multiple times. Conservatives- as we understand from recent polling, which reflects historical norms, are a large part of the population. Probably the largest single part of the electorate, 40%, with the rest split between moderates and liberals.

Every 10 to 15 years for the last 50 years conservatives have revolted and taken over the Republican party for awhile. They don’t accomplich anything and the moderates take control again. Goldwater was a spectacular failure. Reagan succeeded on the things that were easy, tax cuts and a military buildup (which of course brought federal money to many Democratic congressmens’ districts.) On the difficult thing, the federal budget and the size of government, he made no headway. Gingrich got control of the House, tried to control the budget, but was rolled by Bill Clinton. The death of the conservative coalition and eventually the Republican party dates to this confrontation.

So we got another Bush, Obama, and now it is happening again. I doubt the outcome is going to be any different this time. Moderates get swept along in a consensus created by liberals, or in the Obama administration progressives. Ever dollar of federal spending is “critical.” Every attempt to limit the meddling of the legal bureacracy in daily affairs is “mean spirited”, “racist”, or “sexist.” For moderates it is just easier to go along and avoid getting smeared than look at things with any kind of critical eye or stand on any sort of principal.

Americans are just not ready for any other way of dong things than was established during the New Deal. They love it when things are fair, and liberals and progressives define what is fair. I would say the imminent bankruptcy of the US is an opportunity for conservatives but every crisis resolves in favor of the left. Times are good? We can afford more programs! Times are bad? We need more programs! Times are really bad? We need more programs NOW, and if you’re against it, you’re a mean evil racist!

Seriously there is just no way to stop it.

#8 Autarkes While Orwell was against Stalin he was in fact an orthodox Communist (the books are stored so I can’t quote but it’s all in “Homage to Catalonia.”) Actually, to say Orwell was against Stalinism isn’t really correct either. He disliked it, he found it really regrettable, what he regarded as its “mistakes” pained him, but he was not against it to the extent of actually fighting it, rather than jsut complaining about it. Orwell sums up everything wrong with the left.

Nov 2, 2009 - 9:58 pm 10. Promethea:

If the U.S. gets a new party (which I’m not necessarily recommending), maybe the name should be the Constitutional party. Or maybe the Small Government party.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the Conservative/Liberal and the Right/Left dichotomies. Life is too complicated to fit into these archaic categories, which really don’t describe what’s going on.

What’s going on is that the Big Spenders and the Crooks have grabbed the fruits of our labor because they have access to the power of the state. It’s time to slap them down. Big time.

Nov 2, 2009 - 10:13 pm 11. Josh:

hey hey hey what is this about Orwell being a socialist, is this is or is this ain’t the guy who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm? apparently his socialism was of an aetherial type superior to any actually here on the earth.

and WWII England was a very different social milieu than twenty-first century Washington. although, perhaps POTUS is the one guy in town who still thinks it’s 1937 – and what was a hare-brained attitude then, is unbelievably moronic eighty years of history later.

if Orwell summed up what’s wrong with the left, I’d be all for it.

–

OK, I should say somethinga about Scozzafava and tea parties and the like too, right? Dang this ajax editor, I’ll make a separate post.

Nov 2, 2009 - 10:19 pm 12. JMH:

Conservatives… band together at need but tend to form no permanent organizations. By contrast, the Left is a standing political army. It never sleeps. It never disbands. It is always on the march, in season and out of season.

The Left are the barbarian nomads, the Vikings, the brigands. The hunter-gatherer tribes. Their culture doesn’t understand production, just consumption, and raiding civilized neighbors is as natural to them as breathing.

Civilized tribes that have barbarians for neighbors face a choice. Civlized people don’t have large standing armies, they’re too busy farming, logging, building. That makes them vulnerable to quick raids by the barbarians, because it takes time to gather their militia. Civlization on the defensive against barbarians are forever arriving just a little late, in time to clean up the mess but not prevent it.

The most successful tactic to use against barbarians is to go on the offensive. Strike into the barbarian homelands, burn their villages, scatter their people, destroy their strongest bands. That’s when the barbarians are no longer on the march and civilized people can enjoy a few years of peace before the next barbarians ride down from the wilderness.

Nov 2, 2009 - 10:19 pm 13. bob k. mando:

The National Review saw Scozzafava’s defeat as the “first Republican scalp” of the Tea Party Movement, itself a kind of insurgency within the GOP

at this point, the GOP needs to be Whigged.

there are simply too many sociopaths ( like Dede and those who selected her ) who have attached themselves to the Republican Party exclusively because they view it as an avenue towards power.

Nov 2, 2009 - 10:45 pm 14. marymcl:

~ “Takashima argues that Orwell — perhaps intentionally, in order to warn the intellectual elite — compromised with “Big Brother”, while Camus confronted with The Plague.” ~

That’s interesting, since at the time of its publication, Camus was criticized for not writing a more straightforward polemic against the Nazis- his critics thought he should have framed the story so that the struggle depicted was against jackbooted men and not the impersonal microbes of a disease. I like his response (in a letter to Roland Barthes, who was leading the critical charge at the time)

~ “The Plague, which I wanted to be read on a number of levels, nevertheless has as its obvious content the struggle of the European resistance movements against Nazism. The proof of this is that although the specific enemy is nowhere named, everyone in every European country recognized it….

“…In any case the question you ask: ‘What would the fighters against the plague do confronted with the all-too-human face of the scourge’ is unjust in this respect: it ought to have been asked in the past tense, and then it would have received an answer, a positive one. What these fighters, whose experience I have to some extent translated, did do, they did against men, and you know at what cost. They will do it again, no doubt, when any terror confronts them, whatever face it may assume, for terror has several faces. Still another justification for my not having named any particular one, the better to strike at them all. Doubtless this is what I’m reproached with, the fact that ‘The Plague’ can apply to any resistance against any tyranny…” ~

(Lyrical and Critical Essays – pp. 340-1)

Exactly. Though he identified himself as a man of the Left, Camus was more an anarchist than a socialist, and I think he genuinely liked his fellow man too much to get lost in the theorizing that blinded so many others to what the Soviet Union was up to. He never stopped thinking for himself and he wasn’t afraid to change his mind.

Another big difference between Orwell and Camus (and what ultimately made the difference in terms of ideological flexibility) is that Camus was first and foremost an artist, whereas Orwell was primarily a journalist. A great one, to be sure, but the two had different concerns and different purposes. Also each man came to political activism from opposite directions -when Orwell went to Spain he was already a Party member and in fact that was his reason for going in the first place. Camus’ political activism was motivated by a belief in the necessity of artistic freedom as much as anything else.

He was an extraordinary man. Buried in the Wiki article is this fascinating bit of prophetic observation -

~ “When the Algerian War began in 1954 it presented a moral dilemma for Camus. He identified with pied-noirs, and defended the French government on the grounds that the revolt in Algeria was really an integral part of the ‘new Arab imperialism’ led by Egypt and an ‘anti-Western’ offensive orchestrated by Russia to ‘encircle Europe’ and ‘isolate the United States’.” ~ !

Nov 2, 2009 - 10:48 pm 15. John O:

Politicians of all stripes seek office to wield, not yield, power, which is what the teaparty movement seems to me to be all about. The political class is fine with the fact that power of the elite is flowing while the power of the average American is ebbing. Its obviously a deliberate strategy and Americans are tired of politicians acting only in their own interests at the expense of ours and getting away with it.

Nov 2, 2009 - 11:06 pm 16. Marcus Aurelius:

Congressional candidates are the triple-A league of the political system. They are polished and appeal but are still essentially bush-leaguers.

I’ve served as the cog in the local party machinery and the only work I enjoyed was the resolution writing and debate (however, not exciting enough to pull me away from ski weekends). In my duties doing that I had the pleasure to debate with one out and out RINO (every position he took was boiler plate Dem he was a Republican for the business connections he got from his membership) and one so-so Conservative. However, I did meet some very good active and solid conservatives.

I can see how the likes of Dede Scozzafava rises to earn the party favor in such a race, even though she is no Republican. She has business and personal connections with the local leaders and she has money, and in her district I bet no Democrat gets elected to county office, happened in my district. My so-so Conservative friend emphasized the first order of business is to win elections and her prescription to win elections was to take squishy & “moderate” positions.

Yeah the assessment that she is the first victim of the Tea Party movement is not too far off of the mark.

We elect people to do the dirty work of getting our views passed as legislation, so when we help them get elected we expect them to do just that. How many times have I heard pro-life voters whine that Bush and the Republicans don’t seem to be doing too much about pro-life causes. It is hard to hold their interest — such success has to be built on and sustained for a number of election cycles.

In any event another NYT Genius Thomas Friedman laments we are not like China and our govt can not wantonly bust skulls to do things and that whine is sweet music in my ears.

Nov 2, 2009 - 11:37 pm 17. marymcl:

@11Josh

It’s true, Orwell was a card-carrying Commie who believed in the international revolution. His disillusionment began when he went to Spain and realized while there that the Soviet Union, despite its propagandizing to the contrary, didn’t really want the Left to win the war and was even helping the Fascists. It’s all there in “Homage to Catalonia”, which is a great book BTW, probably his best.

Nov 2, 2009 - 11:44 pm 18. 49erDweet:

What 2. Sgt. Mom: said. And Newt blew-it. Say goodbye to him.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:27 am 19. buddy larsen:

Obama would’ve inspired Orwell to write “Homage to Catatonia”.

49er/18; you’re right i’m afraid –of the many forgiveable and forgettable errors Newt could hae made circa this juncture, siding high-profile with the DC GOP against a truth-bearer from the people –ain’t one of ‘em.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:28 am 20. presbypoet:

If this is 1933, and the 2012 election 1936, remember Roosevelt ran against Landon in 1936. I believe the quote is, “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.” In 1936, they still blamed Hoover for the depression. They still blamed him decades later to justify voting D. That is what the big0 will try to do, paint Bush as Hoover in 2012. These few swallows will not make a spring. (One variation, 1930 may be the more appropriate year for now). Zero will try to blame everything on Bush. We can’t let him do it.

We need to wait till after the votes are counted to say anything about who “won”. Reference: chicken, eggs, hatch, count.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:58 am 21. RagnarD:

Thrasymachus @ 9:

Seriously there is just no way to stop it.

There is, of course, but most are too scared or lazy to try and do so. It makes them …… uncomfortable.

The language of the debate has been twisted. Classical Liberals are conservative. What we call “Liberals” now are just garden variety Marxists.

Watching Van Susteren tonight and she was interviewing GHW Bush (41). They were talking about the anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down. Neither touched on the fact the wall kept the communists/marxists IN and OUT OF the West. I think most miss that salient point. Heh.

We must return to our senses in this country or see it become Europe. Europe’s problem is they still labor under the delusion that they still matter in the world and refuse the information delivery that they really are just a ‘banana republic’ backwater now. Lots of pretty history and museums but ….. just a backwater. The action is in Asia. Hmm, idea for a tourism campaign for the EU – “Come see the museum continent! We’re really pretty!”

The first shots of the new American revolution have been fired. We shall see if they hit their mark.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:04 am 22. Pajamas Media » The Armies of the Right:

[...] Read the entire story here. [...]

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:10 am 23. buddy larsen:

To avoid interference from Lieutenant-Governor Dunmore and his Royal Marines, the Second Virginia Convention met March 20, 1775 inland at Richmond –in what is now called St. John’s Church –instead of the Capitol in Williamsburg.

Delegate Patrick Henry presented resolutions to raise a militia, and to put Virginia in a posture of defense. Henry’s opponents urged caution and patience until the crown replied to the latest congressional petition for reconciliation.

On the 23rd, Henry presented a proposal to organize a volunteer company of cavalry or infantry in every Virginia county. By custom, Henry addressed himself to the Convention’s president, Peyton Randolph of Williamsburg. Henry’s closings words were:

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle?

What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

(note: patrick henry NOT a Disney character nor scriptwriter configuration, but a flesh n blood feller living and breathing hereabouts, not too very long past)

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:00 am 24. Barry Meislin:

The spirit of Eva Peron lives!!

But I guess we’re not Argentina.

Yet.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:12 am 25. dtmack:

Rich does some crowing about a GOP civil war and extended DEM control of the country as a result, but you can sense an undercurrent of fear there. Although he claims to fear a violent uprising, it may be that he really fears the people rising and reclaiming their power from the “elites” of both parties. That would be a true disaster in his (or Newts) world.

9. Thrasymachus – you’re not convinced this means anything, and perhaps you’re correct. OTOH there have been political movements that have changed the face of this Country permanently, the New Deal being just one. In all of our previous political battles the “elites” were the winners, whether of left, right, or somewhere in between. This has the smell of something different, but maybe it’s just an illusion. In extraordinary times, like now, strange things can happen.

We’re about to see what happens when Citizens can communicate directly with each other, in a time where Frank Rich and his like sink into meaninglessness. Who now listens to anything someone like Peggy Noonan or Newt says? Only others who are like situated. They are fighting the last war, and seem totally unprepared to deal with the new political landscape. The only politician of any stripe who is saying anything interesting is Palin, and both DEM and GOP power despises her because of it.

Many people are convinced, and rightly so, that the powers in both parties are looking out for themselves, and have no interest in the people of this country, other than to assure that they keep working and generating wealth. That way, there’ll always be plenty to siphon off for their buddies. No one is looking out for the people, and many people have become aware of that. That’s what Rich fears, the awareness. That’s what they all fear.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:33 am 26. Patrick Of Atlantis:

Frank Rich has a lot of effrontery to label Hoffman and the popular movement behind him as “Stalinist”.
Stalin and his band of Bolsheviks murdered 47,000,000 Christians,including 100,000+ priests and nuns. They blew up, burned, and bulldozed thousands of churches. Stalin’s
was the first nation to legalize abortion.
And in this country Rich’s employer, the New York Times, was an accessory to Stalins crimes in so far as it covered them up.
Frank Rich is a Pravda hack and stooge.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:48 am 27. buddy larsen:

BM/24; yep, almost time to call rewrite — “DO cry for me, Argentina” (showstopper from Broadway hit “Eviscerita”)

***
PoA/26, well said –Hey FRANK, here’s your huckleberry!

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:50 am 28. Dave:

My hunch is that the USA is at the biggest tipping point since a warm July afternoon outside Gettysburg PA in 1863.

The good news is that it looks like Armistead
and Hancock are on the same side this time.

The times are really, really scary and that too
bodes more well than ill. Disaster is usually preceded by complacency and there are darned few complacent folks today.

Time to put your trust in God and keep a round chambered, I would say.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:58 am 29. Dave:

I see that Hagar the Larsenous is up late again.
How’s tricks Buddy?

BTW: For the record, there was an earlier Patrick Henry speech that was even more radical than the better known “Liberty or Death” one.

He was upset with the King over some pretty minor issue and shouted out in the House of Burgesses; “We are in a State of Nature, Sir!”

This outburst was met with murmurs of “Treason!” from numerous others present. You see, as learned as those gentlemen were, they still ass u me’d that the Crown was divine and
therefore immune to falls from grace and other forms of (self)impeachment.

This was a matter of cultural conditioning
inculated over centuries. But the very fact that it could be sucessfully challenged in a public forum (a) showed that a reformation was underway and (b) certainly helped shape,
direct and enlarge same.

Similarities to today are perhaps more than coincidental. Sooo; shall us invite Barack to Come to the Bower? (Just a fleeting thought you understand.)

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:13 am 30. buddy larsen:

dave, check out the video in my link above yorn. “How one Big Man did what he had to do (your own Big Man’s mileage may vary a little)”

as far as ‘keep a round chambered’ –here’s the deal, the door has flown open and the light switch turned on, and the burglars are exposed red-handed in the middle of the home invasion. What happens next? Do they back out of the house with a modicum of grace while a decent history of the time can yet be writ? Or do they just ignore us standing there watching them, and keep on loading up their swag sacks like we’re not even there? On the answer turns the story.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:17 am 31. Gary Ogletree:

I had the bought the premise that OFA would be a big deal, something like Chavez’s Red Caps. All they have are ACORN and SEIU thugs. Hope and Change turns out to be thin gruel compared to Liberty.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:17 am 32. buddy larsen:

and a goodly portion of them are public employees, Gary –a fact that could come a sticky wicket as more and more plain folk understand that they are directly subsidizing their own robbery –”Here’s my wallet –go buy a gun and come back for my house!”

Come to the bower at Runnymede, where Magna Carta do indeed let everyone back away with a modidum of countrymenship –izzat the bower, dave? Dave, i always feel like HAL 9000 when i address you. I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen, dave.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:30 am 33. tommy gunn:

This movement is coming from ground zero and is moving up from the people. The annointed Republican leadership will need to be shaken up and undergo some real “ideological detox” before they will be able to participate.

Somewhere in America there is a republican party hack scheming away about how he will spend our money into the next oblivion whether it be on defense or some other stupid idea beyond the scope of government. Somewhere out there is a scum bag crook republican who thinks they can thread the needle and mine the K street lobbyists for whatever gain they can get.

A message to you. We are coming and you are history.

Got it?

Tommy Gunn

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:41 am 34. buddy larsen:

GO/31; re ‘thin gruel’ –search on “Kennedy Serve America Act” –signed into law on April 21st this year –during the blizzard of so many initiatives the whole thing –3.5, or 5, or 6 (i lose track) billion$ to raise AmeriCorp from 75k volunteers (’paid volunteers’, like ‘refundable tax credits’) to 250K volunteers –it just whooped thru without so much as a reach around –who noticed –not me –tol all was said n done n signed. feller’d have to move to DC and set up a hooverville in the marbled halls, to keep up with what this bunch conspires behind locked doors and then springs on us while we’re still groggy from YESTerday’s mugging.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:43 am 35. buddy larsen:

next time the Mighty Mississip floods, i can just see 250,000 stoners and carjackers descending on Des Moines to help fill sandbags.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:52 am 36. toad:

Isn’t it delicious watching how upset Democrats are getting on the defeat and probable defeat of RINO’s. You would think they would be happy at a civil war in the Republican ranks and just sit back and watch, but perhaps someone has explained the numbers to them. They came exhibiting a goose fear complex. Without RINOs and a possible majority of Republicans in the House they could find themselves really stalled. There aren’t really all that many RINOs but any are enough to betray the country. The nature of those beasties is becoming much clearer to people these days. Compromise is something other people do with them, not something they do.

“Say, Do you have a light? No, then what good are you. BANG!”

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:09 am 37. RAH:

All revolutionary leaders have the problem of being killed by their own revolution. It is the classic problem of riding the tiger— how do you get off safely?

Obama and Plouffe wisely decided that getting control of the sans culottes of the left was safer. After all Obama did not want to replicate Robespierre ending as victim at the guillotine of his own revolution.

Maintaining control of the most active elements of your fringes is hard to do, like herding cats. The characteristics that make activists good is their passion which if leashed do no harm or good. But the passions will need an outlet so they will endeavor to slip off the leash.

GOP had pacified their activist’s elements into sublime passivity and so the base failed to turn out to vote in 2006 and 2008 allowing Obama to win.

With the tyrannical mandates coming from Washington the Conservatives passions are again aroused. But having been betrayed by the profligate leaders of the GOP whose main concern is maintaining a small grip on power. The conservatives have morphed into The Tea Party and have persuaded many Reagan democrats and Independents to their cause.

NY 23 with its unique conditions was the perfect small war of the Tea Party against the quislings in the GOP.

They rallied behind a businessman who was also energized to run that was endorsed by the fiscal conservative Club for Growth, a proven group that promotes conservative positions and candidates.

Armey has been a power behind the Tea Party’s activities this summer providing experience and guidance, so he endorsed Hoffman.

The Tea Parties had an obvious choice as a leader in Palin, a known politician who is willing to attack corruption in the GOP in order to clean house before going for the leadership position as a candidate.

Palin’s pattern has been to push for clean up from outside the power structure and she did that again this summer by resigning from the Governor’s position. Palin has from past experience quit rather than be hamstrung by the conditions of office.

Palin foretold that she would campaign for conservative candidates regardless of party affiliation and that is exactly what she did.

With one well-written endorsement from Facebook, Palin again demolished the dynamics of the situation just like she did with “death panels”.

Dede was shown to be exactly what conservatives accused her off, of being a Democrat in Republican clothing or a RINO.

The lesson is that the RNC better pay attention to the principles that the conservatives and the Tea Parties have been espousing and if they don’t the RNC will lose support both politically and financially. Many conservatives have been saying they will refuse to donate to the GOP but rather will pick and choose their candidates.

The conservatives have been more like a herd of cattle passively grazing and now they are spooked by Obama and in a stampede. The GOP needs to either get out of the way or direct the stampede.

Palin has shown she will get out in front and direct the stampede and take the chance of being run over rather than being a follower. Pawlenty, Romney, Huckabee failed the leadership opportunity and will be relegated to followers by the herd.

Palin’s power has been demonstrated and she is coming to a campaign race near you is the message.

Next stop is Rubio versus Christ and Perry versus Hutchinson.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:13 am 38. toad:

Excuses, excuses, I wonder which low level staffer will be thrown under the bus.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/02/for-petes-sake

“Regardless of what happens on Tuesday in the special election between Conservative Party candidate Hoffman and the Democrat Owens, House Republican leaders and staff say there will be repercussions inside the NRCC, which failed to do the most basic vetting of a candidate before backing Scozzafava, who, according to media reports late Saturday, had spent the day calling supporters to encourage them to vote for the Democrat in the race.
“We didn’t,” says the NRCC source about checking Scozzafava’s voting record and her previous campaign history for the New York state legislature. “The local party endorsed her; they didn’t endorse Hoffman or anyone else. She was their pick. That’s what we went on.” But the aide added that even then, that should not have precluded the NRCC from withholding endorsements and funds to the candidate who clearly was not a Republican in the traditional sense of the term.
“We assumed she was a lot like other northeastern Republicans, similar to the [Susan] Collinses of the world,” says the aide. “We had no idea she was that far to the left until we started reading about her on the blogs. By then, given the way politics and this place [Capitol Hill] works, it was too late to turn back.”"

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:23 am 39. Dave:

Why Buddy, I could have sworn you were Mycroft Holmes IV. Who else could sit there with Minerva and Dora tickling his, er, uh, circuitry?

Me, ME ??? In cahoots with Frank Rich? I oughta give you forty lashes with a wet floppy disc for that one.

BTW, recently read of two Texas Guardsmen buying the farm in Afghanistan. One was an Aggie. Grew up in Fredricksburg, resided in Boerne. A & M gave him advanced degree in
“renewable resources” which translates
as the kind of agriculture and animal husbandry you, I and Konyok were talking about not too long ago. Sounded like he had been picked to go there precisely because of those skills.

If so, I would not be surprised to learn that he and the other Texan were specifically targeted by that IED.

But at any rate, his demise, regrettable as it is, indicates that somebody is at least trying to act along the same lines we geniuses have been advocating. (Ever so modest geniuses I must add.) Another hopeful indicator I detect among all the gloom and doom.

Now won’t you come to the bower,
I have shaded for you?
Your bed shall be the roses
All spangled with dew.
There under the bower
On roses you will lie,
With a tear upon your cheek
And a smile in your eye.

Said to be the only tune Big Sam’s impromptu
version of a fife and drum corp knew.

Legend control says they were singing it to Emily Morgan who was busy seeing to it that Sandy Anny got caught with his pants down.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:24 am 40. Donna V.:

Autarkes: Interesting comment. Orwell died pretty young and perhaps before he could work through the implications of socialism. Yes, he had a paternalistic streak about him – but he was a basically decent man who cared about the truth. We don’t know where he would have ended up politically if he had lived longer, but he deserves great credit for understanding the reality of Stalinism at a time when many of his fellow intellectuals remained willfully blind.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:39 am 41. Nobama 2012:

“I’m afraid I wasn’t realistic,”

Ms. McAreavy, 76, a retired school nurse, said on a recent morning on the deck of her home. She received a fund-raising letter last month from the Democratic National Committee, a sense of disappointment had set in. She returned the solicitation with a handwritten note, saying, “Until I see some progress and Obama lives up to his promises made here in Iowa, we will not give one penny.”

That same sense of disappointment has set in all across America.

I do hope that Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Greed get their 2,000 page-1.2 Trillion dollar-Universal-Social-National-Immigrant- ‘Conservative’ Public Option-
Health Care Bill shoved down our throats.

President Hopenchange shall crash and burn, and many of his liberal that are left democrat friends will try to bail out.

During the 2010 mid-term elections remember that word- ‘Conservative.’

You will hear Democrat congressmen and Trolls on PJM use that word over and over.

Please don’t fire her/him,
She/he are ‘Conservative’ Democrats!

lol..

…. turn on FOX News….
and pass the popcorn….

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:40 am 42. Xixi:

Back from voting here in Northern Virginistan. Straight Republican ticket. I said, “No to the ‘O.’” Best I could do. Patrick Henry wasn’t on the ballot.

Dave: We will honor that Aggie at Silver Taps next April.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:56 am 43. Dave:

Xixi; I hear you are looking fairly good in Old Virgiddy. Between you, Jersey and NY23, I rate you aa the key indicator of how the
socio-cultural and socio-politcal wars shape up.

Since it looks like the D’s are running into
a stone wall (pun intended), I think I shall retire for the evening full of hope for the morrow.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:13 am 44. John "birther" Samford:

Leverage requires two things; a lever and a fulcrum. ACORN, MoveOn, SEIU, etc. are the levers of Socialism. The fulcrum is the economy.
So long as the economy is doing well, the lever can move the body politic about.
The economy IS NOT doing well. It has stopped it’s slide but historically that is what always happens before it falls off the cliff. This administrations policies are geared toward pushing it over the cliff. Printing money and raising taxes has the same effect on the economy as bleeding a patient does on the patient.
I expect unemployment to jump to 15% by the administrations cooked figures ( 25 in reality) some time in the spring. When the new grads hit the bricks in early summer, Unemployment will set new record highs. Meanwhile back at the treasury, inflation will be sniffing at the door.
A long hot summer that will lead to a revolution. It may be a non-violent one but I don’t have much hope of that.
Traditionally, Socialists have seized total power AFTER getting elected on sweet sounding promises. Once the voters figure out that those promises were lies, the tendency is to vote the liar out. That is when guys like Chevez, Hitler, et. al. grab power and become tyrants.
US Law alows for this. POTUS can suspend the Constitution for 30 days(IIRC, it might be 90)before Congress has to suthorize an extension.
How do you think a Congress-critter that has been hearing all summer from their constituents how eager they are to retire them will vote on that extension? Especially if it gets them past the election?

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:22 am 45. Doug:

32. buddy larsen said,

…and a goodly portion of them are public employees, Gary –a fact that could come a sticky wicket as more and more plain folk understand that they are directly subsidizing their own robbery –”Here’s my wallet –go buy a gun and come back for my house!”

Steyn says Britain’s NIH is the third largest enterprise in the World.
Think how many times larger Government Medicine of America would be:
The Juiciest Prize of All:
Millions of Government Workers replacing, and far exceeding the number presently employed by Insurance Companies.
Millions of new Public Employee Members!
Game, Set, and Match.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:24 am 46. buddy larsen:

RIP young Aggie soldier. There will be a great deal of sadness over Fredericksburg -them 1850 Germans really love and cherish their younguns. For anyone noy knowing, that’s the boyhood hometown of Admiral Chester Nimitz. The old Nimitz family-owned hotel has become the center of a world-class museum of the Pacific Theater WWII. Ollie North, a San Antonio neighbor, shoots many of his “War Stories” TV shows there at the Nimitz Museum. Japanese veterans have come and erected a beautiful quiet Japanese rock garden in the courtyard. The boulders set alone and in groupings here and there across the meticulously raked riverine gravel bedding, all seem to be five times their actual size –even viewed in close, so artflly arranged are they. Bonsai trees in basaltic rock from ’somewhere in the Pacific’. An ancient old guy or two, usually American but sometimes Japanese, are usually about, trailing a couple generations gaggle of family along behind. The old boys who fought that war. always touches one a little to see their intense interest in the displays and artifacts. history and its strange long shadow. and now a local boy is gone off into it with all the rest.

anyhoo, dave, there’s more’n one Frank in the world –the line is from HAL the psycho computer, the Frank is the astronaut that HAL has just robotically murdered in the Kubrick movie “2001″. There’s also that Frank in that old story about the two spinsters who were quite Frank with each other but i shant repeat such doggerol here. Well the elections kept me wide awake all night and now that the polls are openig i’m keeling over n falling out –

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:42 am 47. texmac:

RAH:
Lots of Texas conservatives aren’t too sure about Gov. Perry either. We are watching another candidate, Debra Medina, and are considering supporting her. She looks like the real thing.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:45 am 48. buddy larsen:

doug, right, SEIU includes unionized hospital workers –just wait, the new regime will fill every hospital with SEIU staff who see grandma a lot differently than you do. soon the hospitals will be the LAST place you’ll take grandma –and *poof* another big saving! except for people who ought to be in hospital but stay home instead, won’t be much saving them.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:59 am 49. Rock:

@ 18. 49erDweet

Yup, ole Newt had his chance on the national stage and shot his wad in the wrong direction. Trouble is that nobody has the guts to tell him to get lost.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:00 am 50. Sk8 Punk:

Hands down the best post on PJM in the past month. Great context, well thought out and carefully constructed. The real problem for Rich and the rest of the Left is that rumors of the death of conservatism have been greatly exaggerated. Does Rich’s colleague at the Times know about the Gallup poll that recently showed the highest number of self identified conservatives since the poll began asking the question?

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:03 am 51. BC:

This is more or less just about perception and where you get your “news” from.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:08 am 52. anton:

41. Nobama 2012:

Regarding; “Until I see some progress and Obama lives up to his promises made here in Iowa, we will not give one penny.”

I just sent a very similar letter to my local Republican party here in Michigan. I will be donating money to specific campaigns, not the general party this next few years. I see no point in helping the RNC elect Rinos.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:09 am 53. Commuter:

This is a great example of the quality of the articles that drew me to and keeps me reading PJM. And it’s a real pleasure to be able to read through intelligent commentary without having to slide past half or more of the comments (from the trolls and from the people pointlessly engaging them).

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:29 am 54. Bilgeman:

Mr. Fernandez:
“Conservatives operate on a different model from that of the Left. They band together at need but tend to form no permanent organizations.”

Well, yes. We can’t afford to be 24/7/365 political activists since we have jobs and families.

The moonbat cadre are largely subsidized via student loans, mom and dad, or do-nothing Quango/Non-Profit/Government jobs.

That’s why any Leftist movement is ALWAYS centered around college students, who have someone else paying their way.

De-fund the Academic Industry PAC by cutting student grants, loans and scholarships for economically useless majors; ban unions for civil service employees, and then watch the Left shrivel up and disappear.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:46 am 55. seanmahair:

I have always wondered why people who obviously disagree with a parties platform (or at least the majority of that platform) are doing in the party. Why for instance does Liberman still retain his Democratic party membership. While not a Republican he certainly isn’t a Democrat either.

I guess maybe it’s the whole Independents can’t get elected theme.

The cynic in me says however that is more likely an opportunistic exercise. As with the NY 23 race a democrat saw that she was not going to get a chance to run so she changed parties to do so. She couldn’t however change her past actions or words so as a Republican she should not have passed muster.

The moral to the story should be that Republican leadership shouldn’t field candidates who’s ideals are inconsistent with the parties platform and more importantly with the parties base. Of course the moral the leadership will take from this is that they have to make sure the candidates keep quiet about their liberal tendencies as well as to better demonize those “right wing conservative fanatics”, “clinging to their God and their guns” you know those of us on the “fringe” who “don’t play well with others.”

It’s time for a new party, the “Liberty Party” or the “Common Sense Party” or the “Reality Party”. Of course the last one would get picked up by NBC as a new reality show and then it will be almost as useless as “The Bachelor”.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:48 am 56. Doug:

Quirk said…

The National Mediation Board proposed a rule change Monday that would allow airline and railroad workers to unionize, even if a majority of workers don’t participate in the election…

The change would overturn more than 75 years of precedent. It would eliminate a requirement that a majority of workers must participate in a unionization election for it to be valid.

The proposal is opposed by airlines, which maintain that only Congress has the power to implement such a sweeping change. They’re also concerned that unlike non-transportation unions that report to the National Labor Relations Board, airline and railroad workers would have no recourse to decertify a labor union under the new rule.

Airlines Oppose Mediation Board Proposal

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:05 am 57. deguello:

Nothing’s happened to Obama’s grass roots;they’re still infesting the republic.They are busily collecting welfare,whether in the inner cities,or in the Hamptons.Wall street plutocracy+inner city rabble= Obama’s sociopathic base.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:11 am 58. Dave K.:

I tell you what happened to Obama’s grassroots.

They won the election.
And I’ll tell you what’s happening with the Republican/Reptilian grassroots:

They are eating their own, all in the name of ideological purity.

And I’m all for, since I’m not a regressive.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:12 am 59. anton:

Perhaps what we are seeing is a revolt of the masses against the “Bosses”. To me it appears that the Party Bosses (on both sides of the line) have moved away from the positions held by the majority of their constituents. This is particulary the case with the Republicans.

The collapse of the Army of the Left was caused by the fact that each portion of it was largely driven by a single issue, when the issue was adressed (or ignored, just ask the Gay Rights folks what the O has done for them) the group loses intrest and drifts away.

Given that the Tea-Party folks are joined together in opposition to big-government and lunatic spending we should probably get used to them being around for quite a while. The Republican “Big Tent” mob (the ones that chose Scozzafava, a candidate who would have a hard time getting past a lot of Democrats gatekeepers due to her far left stances) are like union bosses who are striking deals that do little for the workers while giving the union heirarchy power and cash. In the end they become irrelevant and will either reform or be discarded.

What we need is a party of Constitutional Centerists.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:15 am 60. cfbleachers:

Most people on the Left think that rebellion is a permanent condition of “their” side. When out of power maybe. When in power things are different.

Interesting point, wretchard. Leftism is a virus…always looking for a host. It needs, thrives on…invading and burrowing into an established body politic. It feeds off the host as a parasite, but once its cells reach unchecked and rampant growth and take over the entire body politic, it becomes malignant, kills the host body and ceases to have a place to do its damage. Leftism therefore, loses when its own malignancy is most successful.

Conservatives operate on a different model from that of the Left. They band together at need but tend to form no permanent organizations.

Conservatives, moderates, independents do not have as a raison d’etre, the need to constantly find a host body to attack. They are not parasites by nature. They are assimilators, not agitators. They are rules followers, not rules breakers. In fact, they act in times of virulent parasitic attack…just as we see here. Human leukocytes…they become more visible and prominent when the attack is most serious against the body politic.

When the parasite is neutralized, they fade back into dormancy.

By contrast, the Left is a standing political army. It never sleeps. It never disbands. It is always on the march, in season and out of season. And even when it isn’t doing anything — it is doing something.

Indeed. The left is in need to march inexorably toward totalitarianism. There is no other end game for them. In the movie “Awakenings”, the victims of an invasive disease called Encephalitis Lethargica, caused a Parkinsonian array of tremors to become so violent that they all sort of caved in on themselves and caused paralysis…a waking death.

Similarly, rampant and unchecked leftism must continue..press on with its attack on the body politic, until such time as the attack caves in on itself and wipes out the ability of the body politic to mount a defense. The waking death of politics, the silence of principled dissent, the killing of the host by the parasite.

Totalitarianism…being “do-gooded” to death by the nanny virus.

And when it is in power, it must do even more.

Truer words were never spoken. It’s the even more that ought to frighten the devil out of us. It’s the even more, wretchard, that calls down the thunder. It’s the even more.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:28 am 61. maineman:

A very big problem for the current leftist version of the Democratic Party is the administration’s failure to establish a new scapegoat to replace Bush. He’s about dried up for the bulk of Americans in that regard, and the efforts to replace him with Rush and now Beck and Fox just makes them look silly and mean, at best, tyrannical at worst. The projection has no effectiveness and mostly tars them rather than the new target.

It’s been said that human sacrifice is the default religion of mankind, the way less aware and developed peoples kept internal violence under control.

What we have here is the loss of such an object for the ravenous left. Last couple of years, they were able to coalesce with useful idiots of all stripes because the scapegoating of Bush was very effective. Now, most of them have peeled off and all that’s left is the 1/5th of the population that can gather around the scapegoating of neanderthal images of conservatives, Rush, and Fox news. In other words, all that’s left of them are the party members and the fellow travelers, none of whom are particularly grounded in reality. Hence the increasingly self-destructive behavior we’re now seeing.

The bulk of the U.S. population, those who aren’t still asleep, are aligned against a very real enemy and they know it. The populist movement is not based on some regressed, mystical scapegoating waiting to be demystified and neutered.

The showdown is going to get very interesting as it continues to develop.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:33 am 62. dan:

after fevery months anxious about leninism, i’ve snapped out of it: watching plouffe this morning on the today show with his medvedev widow’s peak and barely restrained smirk and idiocy, i had an inference instinct with thrasymachus’s post and bezmenov’s vision of crisis. whether by design or the triumph of postwar counterculturalisms, a big brother was voted into office, who kisses the bottoms of a new generation – actually, not necessarily so new – of assassins in the Kremlin, Tehran, Caracas, Damascus, Beijing. as with a certain thesis, it does not matter whether it was designed; what matters is that those who would design such a thing and spent all their energy doing so should have envisioned exactly this kind of circumstances as penultimate to Weltoktober. as i see it, these idiots, led by the glorified teacher’s assistant, will make the circumstances absolutely fertile for the kind of coup-d’etat-by-deception so fervently dreamt of.

but it wont happen. the only result will be further debauchery of the currency, so to speak. the people will be further stupefied and turned against one another as they are rendered increasingly mutually unintelligible. who hasn’t had a conversation with a friend or once-friend from the other side which must be begin with a long disquisiton on first principles and definitions, as in a legislative Act or The Leviathan, only to get hopelessly drowned in the details and inability to suppress hostility, until the thing explodes in frustrated assertions, diffused only by recourse to the former glory days of the friendship? this is not communication. and so the public order is frayed and frayed and frayed at the level at which the second directorate attempted to exert its control and into which the Party sought to insinuate its manipulative axioms.

i do wonder what’s taking the jihadis so long in striking though. the limits of american military power – in which political will must be included – has already been demonstrated. it’s not like we’re going to start firebombing the kush or wherever. maybe bush really did keep us safe through his wily inarticulate magic.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:33 am 63. maineman:

Dave @ 43: “Between you, Jersey and NY23, I rate you aa the key indicator of how the
socio-cultural and socio-politcal wars shape up.”

I wouldn’t be so quick on that one. A crucial battle in the culture wars is being fought up here in Maine today. If my dingbat neighbors succeed in making Maine the 1st state to approve a same-sex marriage law, that virus could spread fast.

What they plan to do if successful, I have on good authority, is go straight for the Defense of Marriage Act.

Alinsky may have had a reasonable side, but his mentor is a much more worthy adversary.

We can use all the prayers we can get.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:42 am 64. Dave K.:

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:45 am 65. Sgt. Mom:

[i]“What we need is a party of Constitutional Centerists.”[/i]

Working on that, Anton #59. And yes, it will be interesting. The most interesting part will be watching the “inside the Beltway” pols and their creatures scramble for relevancy and for cover, after being blindsided by the Tea Partiers, although to be fair, there were a few who saw it coming.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:47 am 66. herb:

I was again struck by the hostility that Brian Williams displayed to GWB. He was almost contemptuous. Striking.

Theres a lot of wanting the Repubs to follow the identity politics which the fascists have mastered. I think thats a false choice. Anton’s right. Once a factions wants are satisfied, they go away.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:58 am 67. RAH:

Those who have romantic fantasies about third parties don’t understand the electoral rules and how parties develop. The Tea Party will, if it keeps energiz, will take over the GOP like the Liberal/progressive left took over the Democrat party. Once they have secure the prominent positions a name change can happen.

A Party has to have organizations in all 50 states. Big L has done that but the electoral college elections only are set up for 2 parties. So the only path is to take over and change an existing Party. That is the only method that has long term viability.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:06 am 68. Mr Lucky:

58. Dave K.

“And I’ll tell you what’s happening with the Republican/Reptilian grassroots:

They are eating their own, all in the name of ideological purity.”

What aspect of your ideology is impure?

“And I’m all for, since I’m not a regressive.”

Are you an oppressive?

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:07 am 69. Dave K.:

Mr Lucky@68:
“What aspect of your ideology is impure?”

I’m talking about the Republican party and its purging of RINOs, which I, as a Democrat/Progressive/Liberal, applaud.

Alienating the moderates and independents is an awesome way of staying in opposition!

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:12 am 70. RAH:

Texmac. I am not a Texan resident so do not know the local candidates. That I have to leave up to the residents. But I know that Perry is stronger than Hutchinson on 2 A rights and her ramblings to me indicate possible early dementia.

However the conventional wisdom is that sitting Governor has enough name recognition and popularity to get elected.

A novice or unknown for a statewide race is a harder campaign. Not impossible but the current candidate must be bad like Dede or Arlen to go for a long shot.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:12 am 71. toad:

As a side note:

I don’t have any statistics but there seem to be more ex-military running for offices these days. This is all to the good since they tend toward the conservative side, the military has a much higher approval rating than reporters and such and they are not lawyers, or at least tort lawyers.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:25 am 72. tdiinva:

Dave K:

You like Frank Rich live in a fantasy world. The real message of today’s election is that the Democrats have lost the independants. Obama won Virginia by 6 points and now it looks like a Republican sweep. It doesn’t matter if Corzine eaks out a win because that’s a 20 point swing in favor of the Republicans. It all comes down to “Fool me once same on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:27 am 73. David S:

Nobody here noticed the massive turnout for gay rights, the worldwide events related to 350.org, the massive protests against the Iraq war, or the millions who stand behind them.

The left is organized from the grass roots in ways the right does not even understand.

Peace.

DS

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:28 am 74. Dave K.:

toad@71:
“As a side note:

I don’t have any statistics but there seem to be more ex-military running for offices these days. This is all to the good since they tend toward the conservative side, the military has a much higher approval rating than reporters and such and they are not lawyers, or at least tort lawyers.”

The military is conservative?

Working in the biggest federal tax-dollar waste of a welfare system with free food, housing, healthcare for uneducated slobs too dumb to be able to enter college is conservative?

And getting government-paid healthcare from the VA for the rest of your life after retirement is also conservative?

And paying for your own education, working your way through college and ,after graduation, working in the private sector as a lawyer and competing with other lawyers about jobs is liberal?

Nice mental acrobatics there, bub.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:33 am 75. anton:

57. deguello:

A fair number of them are still dead too, oh wait a minute, that his voters not his nutroots supporters.

73. David S:

So the Iraq and AfPak war is OK now?
Gay Rights? They have got no help from the O.

I really couldn’t give a fig for “worldwide events” as unemployed EuroSocialists standing around holding signs mean little to me.

As far as political organizations go I care little if one party or the other is taken over by the “small government-lower taxes-less interference” party just as long as it happens.

There has to be some place in the political spectrum for the vast majority of people who want to be left alone to live their lives. People who know that we need a govenment for a very limited number of things, not a hectoring old shrew of a nanny-state telling us how to live and spending all our money.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:46 am 76. johnt:

Surprise, there aren’t millions out there marching for huge deficits, higher taxes[ including a VAT],reduced energy sources, forced health care control, and a foreign policy right out of a horror movie. All managed by what are now known to be three of the damnedest fools this side of a zoo, Axelrod, the ballerina Emanuel, and the head stumblebum, None dare call him Hussien, Obama.

Time to wake up Suckers. Actually, past time!

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:49 am 77. Saltherring:

Where are the Grassroots Leftists? For the present, they are contently sucking at the teat of “Swindle-Us” largess. When this milk from their thoroughly scripted activism dries up and the sow walks off (hopefully after the 2010 midterms) they will awaken from their stupor in a foul mood and proceed to burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground. So much for Hope and Change.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:49 am 78. Tex Taylor:

Great article.

My biggest concern about the “latest” Conservative moment, is if by chance the elections don’t go the way today most of us wish, many will give up hope that things won’t and can’t change. Americans have little patient these days when it comes to politics.

I can still remember in ‘92 telling my friends that a Bush loss may have been the best thing that every happened to Conservatism. They thought I had lost my mind and nobody believed me for two years. I felt the same way about the Obama victory. Today will only be an indicator of how fast the change will take place and patience is required.

Before defeating the “progressive” moment, we must first defeat the rot in our own party. And that may require for a time more Obama lackey wins. Don’t lose sight if that happens. Our objective is to win one battle at a time, and this was but a start.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:58 am 79. Doug:

Dave K said,
“The military is conservative?

Working in the biggest federal tax-dollar waste of a welfare system with free food, housing, healthcare for uneducated slobs too dumb to be able to enter college is conservative?

And getting government-paid healthcare from the VA for the rest of your life after retirement is also conservative?”
—
Such genius deserves repetition.
Great stuff,
Dave K

“healthcare for uneducated slobs too dumb to be able to enter college is conservative?”

Nothing could better demonstrate your ignorance of reality and lack of appreciation for who it is that defends your right to spout such nonsense.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:59 am 80. anton:

74. Dave K.:

“Working in the biggest federal tax-dollar waste of a welfare system with free food, housing, healthcare for uneducated slobs too dumb to be able to enter college is conservative?”

Are you a friend of John Kerry? I am sure you know very few modern soldiers as the ones that I know are nothing like what you describe. In fact your description would better fit The One’s support base (except they aren’t working, just sitting around colecting the dole).

Lawyers might get respect if enough of them ever behaved in a respectable way, rather than as blood-sucking ambulance chasers.

I offically apologize to everyone for feeding the troll. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:00 am 81. Dave K.:

Saltherring@77:
“Where are the Grassroots Leftists? For the present, they are contently sucking at the teat of “Swindle-Us” largess. When this milk from their thoroughly scripted activism dries up and the sow walks off (hopefully after the 2010 midterms) they will awaken from their stupor in a foul mood and proceed to burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground. So much for Hope and Change.”

Did you have a specific demographic in mind when you wrote “burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground?”

I don’t drink sow’s milk and I don’t think you should either.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:00 am 82. maineman:

Please stop feeding the trolls.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:04 am 83. Dave K.:

anton@80:
“Are you a friend of John Kerry? I am sure you know very few modern soldiers as the ones that I know are nothing like what you describe. In fact your description would better fit The One’s support base (except they aren’t working, just sitting around colecting the dole).”

At least they are not uneducated federal welfare queens, sitting on military bases and sucking the teat of the US taxpayer, while getting everything they point at for free.

“I want a salary, free clothes, free meals, free lodging, free healthcare, and a free retirement plan, because I’m an American HERO!!”

“Waah! Waah! Support the troops! Socialism is bad for everyone else but me!! Waah! Waah!”

The entitlement culture at its best.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:05 am 84. tdiinva:

David K:

I see you are bleating John Kerry’s talking points again. (By the way all the known indicators of intelligence and academic performance put Kerry well below W in intelligence) The fact is that US military is better educated then the general population. Many soldiers, sailors and airman earn their degrees while they are in the Service and when they leave the service to go to college they out perform slugs like you. Most people join the military out of a sense of patriotism and adventure. You got ask yourself who would you rather have at your side when that airplane hit the World Trade Center: Col Rick Rescorla or that Community Organizer Barak Obama?

I think Rudyard Kipling has the best answer to your smug bigotry:
I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind”,
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:05 am 85. geokstr:

“64. Dave K.:
Nov 3, 2009 – 7:45 am”

Dave K: For the first time since you’ve been posting here, you made perfect sense. Your post #64 was totally logical, actually described the real world instead of some leftwing Marxist lunatic fantasy, and I agreed with you wholeheartedly. If you keep posting comments like that, I think it’s safe to say you will always be welcomed herE and find total support from everyone on this board – except of course, people like the salaried Sorosbots vivo, Now and Then, David S, Moho, BC, and a few others, whom I would not trust to tell me the date or the time of day.

Yes, I am absolutely with you on this – it is Nov 3, and was probably 7:45 am when you posted.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:11 am 86. Saltherring:

Dave K @ 81:

“Did you have a specific demographic in mind when you wrote “burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground?””

Not quite sure what you’re asking but how about a historic reference: Detroit 1968

“I don’t drink sow’s milk and I don’t think you should either.”

Your “grassroots” contemporaries were raised on it like manna from their DC gods. They will resort to violence when shooed away from the sow. I, however, have never tasted it, having chosen to work for my living.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:12 am 87. Doug:

Good Catch, geokstr!

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:15 am 88. Dave K.:

tdiinva@84:
“David K:

I see you are bleating John Kerry’s talking points again. (By the way all the known indicators of intelligence and academic performance put Kerry well below W in intelligence) The fact is that US military is better educated then the general population. Many soldiers, sailors and airman earn their degrees while they are in the Service and when they leave the service to go to college they out perform slugs like you. Most people join the military out of a sense of patriotism and adventure. You got ask yourself who would you rather have at your side when that airplane hit the World Trade Center: Col Rick Rescorla or that Community Organizer Barak Obama?”

SUPPORT THE TROOPS!
GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION!

GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE IS SOCIALISM!
SUPPORT VA HEALTHCARE!

9/11 CHANGED EVERYTHING!
OBAMA – STOP USING THE PATRIOT ACT!

If you’d actually bothered to read reports and actually had friends who had been in the service, you’d know that most military welfare queens join the military because they can’t get better jobs and the benefits are better than average.

It’s just a cushy government job for those without a college degree.
Grow up.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:16 am 89. Dave K.:

geokstr@85:
“Dave K: For the first time since you’ve been posting here, you made perfect sense. Your post #64 was totally logical, actually described the real world instead of some leftwing Marxist lunatic fantasy, and I agreed with you wholeheartedly. If you keep posting comments like that, I think it’s safe to say you will always be welcomed herE and find total support from everyone on this board – except of course, people like the salaried Sorosbots vivo, Now and Then, David S, Moho, BC, and a few others, whom I would not trust to tell me the date or the time of day.

Yes, I am absolutely with you on this – it is Nov 3, and was probably 7:45 am when you posted.”

Censorship and having posts removed by moderators seems to turn you on.
Such an interesting fetish.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:18 am 90. wGraves:

Those aren’t the armies of the right, those are the people of the United States, and they’re pissed off. Citizen armies always fight ten times as hard under one circumstance: When their children are in danger.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:19 am 91. Sebastian Shaw:

President Obama never was a true grassroots candidate. Although he chose to run, the media already picked Obama as early as 2004 from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews & other MSM outlets; his momentum grew from artificial means, again, from being puffed up by the degenerate, corrupt MSM. On top of the corrupt MSM, Obama was buoyed by his radical UNION associations, a staple for Democrats. Furthermore, he used the corrupt ACORN to help add to his numbers throughout the country. Take all this away & what do you have? President Obama is nothing. His unthinking SEIU purple shirt hordes & ACORN zombies cannot think for themselves. All of Obama’s movement came from the top down. The contrast between the fake Obama & the true grassroots of the Tea Parties is staggering. President Obama cannot fight against the Tea Parties because they–we–are Americans of all stripes from all backgrounds. While President Obama is wannabe dictator in president’s clothing. He’s toast.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:21 am 92. Dave K.:

wGraves@90:
“Citizen armies always fight ten times as hard under one circumstance: When their children are in danger.”

And their children are in danger how?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:21 am 93. Doug:

“Censorship and having posts removed by moderators seems to turn you on.
Such an interesting fetish.”
—
I assumed you made an innocent mistake and entered ENTER by mistake.
Now we know better.
Thanks, Dave.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:22 am 94. deguello:

#84TDIINVA RE DAVID K: When I posted earlier describing Obama’s base as comprised of welfare dependent inner city and wall street sociopaths,I omitted the David Ks,a key component of his coalition.Moral/physical/intellectual degenerates too cowardly,syphilitic or child molesting, to be allowed to serve.This filth’s mindset will serve only to alienate the military from the Obama regime when they need it the most.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:24 am 95. johnt:

Dave K, you sound bitter.
“filthy and defiled ghettos”, Dave, think of it as a state of mind, the interior of a liberal’s skull, the remnants of a diseased brain, the dregs of idiocy, the infectious bacteria of degeneracy, in other words the slime of liberalism. Think of it as metaphor and the light of understanding will shine on you.
Be of good cheer Dave, Obama’s deficits will assuredly increase, the tax increases you crave are on their way, millions will be coerced into health care they don’t want,[so much for privacy ], the dollar will soon lose it’s reserve status, etc. and so on.

Isn’t this what you wanted? Are you not happy?
And just think, in another six months or so Field Marshall Obama will get around to making a decision on the Good War in Afghanistan. You can’t rush genius.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:25 am 96. cas:

David K. @74, @83, @88:
Working in the biggest federal tax-dollar waste of a welfare system with free food, housing, healthcare for uneducated slobs too dumb to be able to enter college is conservative?

You do remember the part of the Constitution that states “Congress shall… raise and support Armies…provide and maintain a Navy…make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces” don’t you? (Article 1, Section 8).

All those things that the military provides for those “uneducated slobs,” it first makes them work for, or it removes them back to the “private sector.”

Also, you do realize that in order to become a commissioned officer, or to progress as a non-commissioned officer (NCO), a college education is bascially required, don’t you?

Also, about that wonderful “government-paid health-care from the VA,” well, most vets only use it if they have absolutely no other options! And that care is provided on a “means-tested” basis, meaning that they base how much they charge you for that health care based on what you and your family report to the IRS.

What do you call taking college classes at night, on weekends, online, and from overseas locations worldwide, (including warzones) except “working your way through college”? That’s how I earned my degree, while working 40-60 hour weeks.

But why do you despise those who serve their country?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:25 am 97. Sarah:

WOW! Last time I checked there was something to be said for VOLUNTEERING to serve your country a.k.a being shipped off to a foreign country for heaven’s knows how long to PHYSICALLY FIGHT/maybe DIE for a war you may not even believe in…. Yeah, I would think those people deserve any kind of compensation we can give them!
I also find it interesting that according a previous comment if you are in the military that somehow automatically makes you dumb…the last time I checked (a month ago) in order to be an OFFICER in the military you have to have a degree to even be considered!
So, in other words it would make complete sense to FORCE everyone that is currently on welfare in our country to be in the military since they’re already getting the benefits… wonder how long it would take for us to be overrun with even more Islaamic extremists if we tried that tactic, I’m guessing about a day!

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:26 am 98. Dave K.:

Saltherring@86:
“Not quite sure what you’re asking but how about a historic reference: Detroit 1968″

ACORN? Obama? Detroit 1968?
But not Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice?

Am I getting close?

“Your “grassroots” contemporaries were raised on it like manna from their DC gods. They will resort to violence when shooed away from the sow. I, however, have never tasted it, having chosen to work for my living.”

Is sow’s milk some reference to your mother’s milk?
I don’t quite get some of your Southern slang.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:27 am 99. Habu:

A few observations.

One contributor pointed out that her Tea party affiliation was not a signal to the Republicans that they have a free pass or will gain unalloyed endorsements come election day. She appears to be alluding to a third party movement. Well they are an unmitigated disaster in every country that tries them and would be so here in the USA. The Democrats would love that to occur.

Patrick Henry, the most famous Anti-Federalist and his observation that men cry peace but there is no peace is a point I have made at least five times over the past two years and it holds today. We are already in a revolution, it’s simply that the bullets have not been chambered; but the magazines are fully loaded. Why? obama, pure and simple.

obama however has his thugs, the SEIU, Black Panthers, and he’s got Geo. Soros’s money financing the attempt to overthrow this country. Asked about his organizing philosophy, SEIU president Andy Stern summed it up this way:

“We prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”

That my friends is an invitation to war and as I have said, bring it on NOW, RIGHT NOW, ANDY STERN. Yes you’ll have the full support of the WH but so what, obama is a clear and present danger to this country so he can come right along.
Few of us wish for any of this but we are in it now and our options are few and so far totally impuissant.
Now those with some no guts who are more talk the talk far more than walk the walk will keep on talking. Sunshine patriots, are simply leftist enablers. Some of us are ready for it all right now.
We are way, way past the point of talking this country out of the situation obama has created. He is a dedicated enemy of the USA. He is a liar and thief. He is a menace.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:28 am 100. tdiinva:

Dave K said to me:

“If you’d actually bothered to read reports and actually had friends who had been in the service, you’d know that most military welfare queens join the military because they can’t get better jobs and the benefits are better than average.

It’s just a cushy government job for those without a college degree.
Grow up.
”

I am thinking nice bluster as I sit hear in the Pentagon wasting a little time today because for some reason my calendar isn’t very full. You see, I talk to military people of all ranks every day and I suspect that it is you who have never met a member of the Armed Forces.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:30 am 101. Dave K.:

johnt@95:
“Dave K, you sound bitter.
“filthy and defiled ghettos”, Dave, think of it as a state of mind, the interior of a liberal’s skull, the remnants of a diseased brain, the dregs of idiocy, the infectious bacteria of degeneracy, in other words the slime of liberalism. Think of it as metaphor and the light of understanding will shine on you.”

So “Detroit 1968″ is a metaphor?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:31 am 102. geokstr:

Dave K:

Note you have not been banned, as I was on all your fave boards like DK, DU and HuPo, after just a few comments expressing mild disagreements with the Religion of Leftism. You are allowed to come here with your Dem talking points that Soros undoubtedly orders you to use and spew them to your hearts content.

If someone actually did delete your comment (rather than you just being incompetent enough to push “submit” too soon), then it must have been because it was in the usual style of the left – slimy, slanderous, obscene and foul mouthed, you know, sort of like your other posts here but worse.

I see you and the others named in my first comment all over every post here and some even show up in other conservative/moderate boards for the express purpose of disrupting every thread possible. You all have absolutely no sense of shame or honor and will lie, twist and spin everything you say because the facts are not on your side.

It’s easy to see why the Obots want to control the internet, and are actively working to do so. The right finally has a place to hear the truth and to communicate and organize againts the Professional Leftist Community Organizers and you don’t like that.

Too bad.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:31 am 103. Saltherring:

Dave K:

maineman @ 82 is correct. It is best to refrain from dialoguing with fools.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:33 am 104. Dave K.:

cas@96:
“Also, you do realize that in order to become a commissioned officer, or to progress as a non-commissioned officer (NCO), a college education is bascially required, don’t you?”

And now many commissioned/non-commissioned officers are there in the US military as opposed those who aren’t required to have a college degree?

What’s the ratio between officers/non-officers?

“Also, about that wonderful “government-paid health-care from the VA,” well, most vets only use it if they have absolutely no other options! And that care is provided on a “means-tested” basis, meaning that they base how much they charge you for that health care based on what you and your family report to the IRS.”

Good. Let’s get rid of it then.
Socialist government healthcare is bad, right?
I’m so glad we agree.

“What do you call taking college classes at night, on weekends, online, and from overseas locations worldwide, (including warzones) except “working your way through college”? That’s how I earned my degree, while working 40-60 hour weeks.”

You got your money from the US taxpayers to do all those things, so I call you a welfare slob with a cushy government job.

“But why do you despise those who serve their country?”

You took a government job because nobody else would hire you.
Yeah, what a great sacrifice.
Truly, you are serving your country because nobody wanted you to serve them their burgers.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:36 am 105. Mark:

Frank Rich’s charges of Stalinism are an almost comical act of projection. He can’t very well say that conservatives are “socialists” or “Marxists,” because, you know, his side is obviously those, and his side thinks those are kind of good things.

But is not Stalinism a direct outgrowth of Marxism-Leninism?

Here is a brief selection from Daniel Mahoney’s review of Solzhenitzyn, October “First Things” that makes clear just that linkage:

“There was nothing fated or inevitable about the Russian revolutions of 1917. But through certain choices or the lack thereof, the ‘red wheel’ began to turn with something like cosmic intensity. Its destination was ‘the gulag archipelago,’ the massive system of Soviet repression centered around the forced labor-camp system. In this diptych, Solzhenitsyn establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the gulag flowed logically and in that sense inexorably from Lenin’s self-proclaimed project to ‘purge Russia of all the harmful insects,’ to eliminate the real or imagined enemies of a quasi-mythological socialism.”

I hadn’t realized that S’s “The Red Wheel” is 6000 pages long. Hmmm. It’s not fully translated yet, so we have an excuse not to read it, and we can thank Prof. Mahoney for doing that job. Got to give academia credit when it’s due!

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:40 am 106. Sgt. Mom:

Was that me, Habu? Actually, while some Tea Partiers are thinking ‘third party’, just as many (or more) don’t think it will work very well. It hasn’t in the past, and most of us know our history pretty well. It’s my reading that most of us are about taking over the existing parties from the inside and locally from the bottom up – favoring, funding and voting for strict Constitutionalists, wherever we can find them. The “inside-the-Beltway”, permanently elected aristocracy have got to go – and this we know very well. I think the 2010 elections are going to be very interesting. Interesting in the sense of the old Chinese saying.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:40 am 107. Dave K.:

tdiinva@100:
“I am thinking nice bluster as I sit hear in the Pentagon wasting a little time today because for some reason my calendar isn’t very full. You see, I talk to military people of all ranks every day and I suspect that it is you who have never met a member of the Armed Forces.”

“Government is not the solution to our problem;
government is the problem.” — Ronald Reagan.

And the Pentagon is a very, very, very large part of the government.

Also, why are you wasting my taxpayer dollars by surfing on the web when you should be working, you welfare queen?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:43 am 108. cas:

Dave K.@ 104
I’m curious, where did you serve in the military? Where did you notice all these “welfare slobs?”
And if they made such an negative impression on you, why didn’t you help your comrades-in-arms get rid of them, and send them back to the “private sector?”
Or, is that too constructive an action for you to take?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:44 am 109. anton:

Back to the idea of a Constitutional Centerist Party; I think that the Tea-Party folks could very well be able to carve out a position near the center of the political spectrum, hollowing out the reasonable core of both parties and leaving the existing parties as the fringes (on the left we have the true commies, the green cultists and the Code Pinkies, on the right we find the extreme Libertarians, the xenophobe isolationists etc). The emphasis would be on fiscal conservatism and social freedom. Very few Americans want crushing debt and Soviet style government interference in their lives. This needs to be done from the bottom up, a Congressional Representative here, a Governor there. It is unlikely to succeed via the H. Ross Perot approach of top-down. Such a POTUS would be isolated and constantly struggling to get anywhere.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:45 am 110. olde fogey:

anton @ 80 and others

Dave K shined a big spotlight on his mental prowess with his comment about the military.

That should be more than enough evidence to ignore all postings of his and do not respond or you merely extend his stay at this site.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:47 am 111. Dave K.:

cas@108:
“Dave K.@ 104
I’m curious, where did you serve in the military? Where did you notice all these “welfare slobs?”
And if they made such an negative impression on you, why didn’t you help your comrades-in-arms get rid of them, and send them back to the “private sector?”
Or, is that too constructive an action for you to take?”

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” — Ronald Reagan.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:55 am 112. tdiinva:

Dave K:

Caught speaking out of your hindquarters eh?

Well, Dave, some days I work 12 hours, admittedly cheating the taxpayer by only working half days and someday it’s just 9 to 5. I assure you that I will be working hard on defending an idiot like you both tomorrow and Thursday when I have full calendars. Friday is a leave day as I am going to visit my son at school and going to our family rivalry college football game so I will be absent from my desk. But at least I do have a desk and don’t have to work sitting on mommy’s couch in the basement like you do. Please be a little charitable and don’t begrudge a guy who has spent nights and weekends working on hard problems under difficult circumstances (like showing up for work on September 12, 2001 in a burning building) a little play time.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:56 am 113. Whitehall:

Politics is the art of the possible…and some see the possibilities ahead more clearly than others.

Newt make a bad call based on incomplete information – policies vs organization is a balancing act every party has to make. He’ll own up to his mistake and continue to make positive contributions to conservatism in the years ahead. President? I doubt it.

We are seeing the GOP change course in light of electoral power of ideas. Parties HAVE to respond to and reflect the voters if they are to win elections. Unfortunately, gerrymandering of districts and the MSM both work to conceal voter opinions. A “safe” district for one party doesn’t provide what in business is called “price discovery” beyond D vs R. The MSM, like Mr. Rich, grinds their own axe until people stop giving them their attention.

Most politicians FOLLOW and reflect the voters. When was the last time a political speech intended and achieved a conversion of basic political views? A leader who can do that, as Reagan and now Palin seem to be able to do, is a rare person. I’l even give Newt credit for having been able to do that to some degree in the past.

The Left still follows the “Vanguard of the Proletariat” methodology from Lenin. We conservatives will be called reactionary when we react to the Left cramming programs down our throats and taking away our liberties.

BTW, only a Trotskyite or a Maoist gets to use “Stalinist” as an insult.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:00 am 114. cas:

I apologize, ole fogey, he poked me in a sore spot, but you’re correct, ignoring trolls is usually best.
But I am intrigued that so many seem to believe that the “Taxed Enough Already (TEA)” party movement can and will replace the current GOP. I just wonder, will it happen before, or after, the congressional (and local) elections in 2010?

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:02 am 115. Dave K.:

tdiinva@112:
“Well, Dave, some days I work 12 hours, admittedly cheating the taxpayer by only working half days and someday it’s just 9 to 5. I assure you that I will be working hard on defending an idiot like you both tomorrow and Thursday when I have full calendars. Friday is a leave day as I am going to visit my son at school and going to our family rivalry college football game so I will be absent from my desk. But at least I do have a desk and don’t have to work sitting on mommy’s couch in the basement like you do. Please be a little charitable and don’t begrudge a guy who has spent nights and weekends working on hard problems under difficult circumstances (like showing up for work on September 12, 2001 in a burning building) a little play time.”

You’re a regular Tom Clancy novel come to life.

I’m sure you have very such difficult problems to solve, such as whether to use your left hand or your right when playing “Minesweeper.”

If you work at the Pentagon, you’re nothing but a glorified federal office clerk with a uniform paid for by the Government, so forgive me for not being impressed by an anonymous poster trying to impress me with his cowardly whine of “Wah! Wah! I had to go to work after 9/11, even though that’s what I signed up to do!”

Real heroes don’t brag.

And you’re nothing but an uneducated government parasite, living off my taxes because you’re too unqualified for anything else.

The fact that you’re proud to be a government moocher is just sickening, but that’s the entitlement culture for you.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:13 am 116. Dave K.:

cas@114:
“I apologize, ole fogey, he poked me in a sore spot, but you’re correct, ignoring trolls is usually best.”

So I’m a troll for quoting Reagan?
Wow, even Reagan is a RINO now.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:14 am 117. anton:

114. cas:

What I would hope to see is that the Tea Party gets enough seats that they can try to steer the direction of the platform. The expressed objectives of the Republicans are not so far from what the Tea Party folks want. They just have too many RINOs because they are easier to get elected, they have grown fat and lazy and need to be chased a little to trim the weight and tone up the message.

The biggest problem is that the ‘Pubs have fallen away from the “true faith ” and have become Slow-Motion Socialists. If enough of the Tea Party message can penetrate the conciousness of the Republicans maybe they will open their eyes and return to their roots.

Until then we have to fight, perhaps not to win, but to at least go down swinging. Like the Spartans and their allies marching toward Thermopylae we must be ready to stand our ground. You cannot compromise with a Progressive as they will hold to not deal, it is just a pause before another relativist onslaught.

Mole Labe!

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:23 am 118. Tcobb:

I think it would be a mistake for the Tea Party movement to attempt to organize a separate political party. The key to success is letting the politicians know that we are an INTEREST GROUP. That they understand, and they understand it well. Interests groups don’t care what political party you’re with, they care whether you’re going to further their agenda or not. If the interest group has more clout than the competing interest groups it wins out.

The prostitutes who inhabit the Legislature would much rather go with the Dude in the Mercedes with the hundred dollar bill rather than the guy in the old Yugo with a coffee can full of pennies.

And if an interest group might have the power to break their little pretty political careers, they listen. None see the light so well as those who have watched others being drowned in the mud, wondering if they might be next.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:25 am 119. flying squirrel:

New York state politics is the mother of all sewer backups. Skuzzyfavora was a dem mole who was released from covert status by her string holders for this little grandstand play, once it became apparent that her usefulness as the (putative) “republican” option was over.
Dollars to donuts (I’m not sure which is worth more these days) shes an out of the closet democrat by next year or next state election. Only the dems will pay her bills now.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:26 am 120. Ashen:

Dave k @74

you forgot to mention:
people shooting at you
working on a floating runway out in the open sea
patrolling the depths of said sea
flying at supersonic speed
taking your skills(engineering, mechanics, logistics etc) back to the private sector to be used raising a family and contibuting to a prosperous free market
civic pride
duty
honor
country
and you lament about giving them room and board. Damn kid, I could walk over to the local college and find scores of reprobates in the lib arts dept who want the same thing….for making ceramic pots!

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:31 am 121. anton:

118. Tcobb: Excellent point, they could impact the votes of both parties and give a haven of support to centerists who would otherwise be driven to extremism by the howling of the nutters on the fringes.

My point of carving out the center of both parties; you could still be a D or an R without being beholden to the shreiking fools on the edge if there was a base of support in the center.

An interest group with a clearly stated mission but no certain political afilliation. Each Pol is judged by their performance, not the letter after their name.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:33 am 122. Thomas Fink:

Maybe after so many years of redistribution and reeducation there is now a turning point. Not only in America but also in Europe. Maybe eventually enough people can see that the ones who claim to “fight the system, to fight the machine” are in fact the system and the machine. And that it is time to give them their daily dose of haldol. Which will also reduce frantic trolling.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:35 am 123. marymcl:

@62 dan

~ “I do wonder what’s taking the jihadis so long in striking though. the limits of american military power – in which political will must be included – has already been demonstrated. it’s not like we’re going to start firebombing the kush or wherever.” ~

They’re on a different timetable that has nothing to do with us. Remember Camus’ prediction referenced above @14

~ “…the revolt in Algeria was really an integral part of the ‘new Arab imperialism’ led by Egypt and an ‘anti-Western’ offensive orchestrated by Russia to ‘encircle Europe’ and ‘isolate the United States’.”

He made that assessment in 1954 – 65 years ago. No doubt everyone thought he was nuts. We think in terms of electoral cycles. The jihadis think in terms of centuries. Those guys don’t mind waiting, they’ve got all the time in the world. A long war indeed.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:38 am 124. Tex Expatriate:

I have not read the National Review article referred to in the first paragraph, but it seems to say that the Tea Party movement is a GOP insurgency. That’s wrong. Old line Democrats who are not socialists, independents who are not socialists, and dissappointed Republicans and Conservatives constitute the Tea Partiers.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:39 am 125. tdiinva:

Folks, David K doesn’t even meet the standards of a troll. I think he is a George Soros funded artificial intelligence project programmed full of Alinsky inspired talking points for use on any occasion. David S and co. beware. Soros is planning to automate you out of existance but given the performance of the program known as Dave K you don’t have anything to worry about for a while.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:40 am 126. Commuter:

@53. Commuter (me) said:

‘This is a great example of the quality of the articles that drew me to and keeps me reading PJM. And it’s a real pleasure to be able to read through intelligent commentary without having to slide past half or more of the comments (from the trolls and from the people pointlessly engaging them).’

I take the second part back. One goblin from the fever swamps was all it took to derail a good discussion. Shame. Still a good article.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:41 am 127. M. Report:

The Armies of the Right

Literally ?

20 years ago, on BIX, one Thread
speculated on our current situation;
Yes, one could see it coming in 1989,
Hell, in 1959, with good eyes.

I asked a Serving Officer if the military
would hand control back over to the civilian
authorities, after having had to declare
Martial Law, and spend a couple of years
pulling the country out of the ditch.
Twice ? Thrice ?
A: Absolutely, maybe, no way Josey.

Or perhaps we are on another timeline,
the one where the first President of the
Re-United States is a Mormon, installed
in office by the New Nauvoo Legion.

There will not be many protesters;
Opposing the ascension of The Lord’s
Anointed to temporal power is Heresy,
and Heresy is punishable by death.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:45 am 128. Tom Perkins:

“What we need is a party of Constitutional Centerists.”

@ Anton, 109, et al.

Respecting the constitution is an inherently conservative thing, it will never be centerist from the perspective of the current political spectrum. What you want is an impossibility. Take over the Republicans, work for electoral and balloting reform, term limits should allow unlimited non-consecutive terms–or good people can’t be sent back. Healthcare reform should be the smallbill–smallbill.org. Roe v Wade should be sent back to the states or codified as an amendment to make forbid citizenship to those gestated less than one trimester, mandatory for those in the third trimester, and per-state for the second…that’s something about 90% of the population can get behind. Civil unions should be allowed per state and marriage should be divorced from government interference.

In other words, take over the Republicans from the idiots running it into the ground.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:46 am 129. Dave K.:

Ashen@120:
“you forgot to mention:
people shooting at you
working on a floating runway out in the open sea
patrolling the depths of said sea
flying at supersonic speed
taking your skills(engineering, mechanics, logistics etc) back to the private sector to be used raising a family and contibuting to a prosperous free market
civic pride
duty
honor
country
and you lament about giving them room and board. Damn kid, I could walk over to the local college and find scores of reprobates in the lib arts dept who want the same thing….for making ceramic pots!”

I have not a problem with the government, I have a problem with individuals in this thread who think that the government is this evil entity that will enslave them with “socialism” and government health care and who’ve elevated Ronald Reagan to the status of a saint, only to turn around and be offended when someone points out that the military is a very, very, very big part of the government.

But I guess what they really mean when they’re talking about “The evil Government” are the parts of the Government they don’t like and are not being employed by.

Welfare/healthcare for civilians – SOCIALISM!
Welfare/healthcare for the military – PATRIOTISM!

And the military is paid for by our tax dollars, so think about that whenever you see the “Taxed Enough Already” signs besides the “Support Our Troops” signs.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:47 am 130. Josh:

Scozzafava’s rejection by the Republican body politic is a great sign of its health. There, I put in two cents on topic!

Re Orwell, it’s one of those deals where he was all for socialism, just not that of the Soviets or Brits or Spanish – oh, maybe he liked the Spanish, but if they had won, I think he would immediately have been disillusioned again. I would trust his intellect, even if it never did quite win over his political predilictions – I know modern liberals of the same ilk.

I suppose a lot of Obama voters feel the same about him today – but with much much much less supporting evidence. And it is the old debate, which really needs to be looked at differently today than 80 years ago. But, I suppose the old argument, “This time we’ll do it right!” will never die.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:48 am 131. Dave K.:

Josh@130:
“But, I suppose the old argument, “This time we’ll do it right!” will never die.”

Yes, one day laissez-faire capitalism will work.
We just need more market deregulation and less government interference!

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:54 am 132. marymcl:

Good grief – I was surprised to see the number of comments that had already accumulated here overnight but then it turns out we’ve been invaded.

David S and Dave K are resident PJM trolls. They are here to make insults, hijack the conversation into a discussion about themselves, and admire their own multitude of posts. That’s it. We all know what we have going here at BC – we’re probably stuck with them for the duration of this thread but please dear friends don’t give them any reason to hang around. In other words, ignore them. Don’t read their posts and continue the conversation as if they weren’t here.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:55 am 133. Dave K.:

marymcl@132:
“David S and David K are resident PJM trolls. They are here to make insults, hijack the conversation into a discussion about themselves, and admire their own multitude of posts. That’s it. We all know what we have going here at BC – we’re probably stuck with them for the duration of this thread but please dear friends don’t give them any reason to hang around. In other words, ignore them. Don’t read their posts and continue the conversation as if they weren’t here.”

Wow, you destroyed the points I made in this thread and eviscerated them with the sword of logic and the spear of reasoning.

“THEY IS TROLL DEBILS AND DARK SIDED!
IGNORE THEM! THEIR ARGUMENTS IS FROM JEW DEBIL SOROS HIMSELF!
THEY IS ACORN ROBOTS FROM THE FUTURE!
DARK SIDED I TELLSYA!!!”

Go back to your mirror-walled echo chamber, please.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:59 am 134. buddy larsen:

off/thread, but in case anyone wondered what was “the bower” in Dave’s bit o’ verse in #39, ’tis the tree that here you see. beg forgiveness for ‘rupting thread –

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:00 am 135. buddy larsen:

T/112; you didn’t happen to know Rick Rescorla, did you (i realize what a long shot, but he was in security and KIA at WTC 9/11/01)?

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:13 am 136. buckets:

Please to stop feeding the trolls. Only respond to the clever ones who try to cloak their talking points in semi-reasonable terms. (see Russo-Georgian conflict).

I tend to agree that this Tea Party thing might be around for a while. There is really only one very clear message – less government. The Left was held together by opposition to EvilBush, but also a myriad of special interests that has fractured fighting over the “largesse pie.”

And really, Dede, immediately endorsing the Dem candidate? Way to prove your bona fides, sweetheart.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:15 am 137. Dave K.:

buckets@136:
“Really, stop feeding the trolls. Only respond to the clever ones who try to cloak their talking points in semi-reasonable terms. (see Russo-Georgian conflict).”

So anyone who disagrees with your point of view is a troll?

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:16 am 138. Thomas_L......:

David (N.) K. needs a job unless, sadly, this is it. In that case, he needs a clue. Ignore the trolls.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:22 am 139. Storm-Rider:

Rich, Hoffman: “the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama…re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode.”

Spoken like a Stalinist in full projection mode.

“(Radicals, i.e.: Marxists)…have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class (”the right”). They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt…” Saul Alinsky

“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down — [up] man’s old — old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.” Ronald Reagan

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/twentyfive_years_after_the_rea_1.html

More on “left” and “right”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJfwa9XKZQ

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:24 am 140. Brock:

No, the Left cannot raise citizen soldiers, because that sort of personal reponsibility and civic engagement is pretty much what defined the Right. Leftists are a gang; and every gang needs a strong Leader; and they want to be the most powerful gang in the country so they can impose their will. It’s a fundamental difference in psychology.

But that doesn’t mean the Armies of the Right will be successful unless they get to the root of the problem. Mr. Smith can go to Washington D.C., but Washington is bigger than any one man (or even 435 of them). Pretty soon the realities of campaign finance, lobbyists, and re-election cycles will begin to influence how they act and behave.

-Without real campaign finance reform lobbyists will continue to write the legislation.
-Without switching to a Range Voting system two Parties will remain in control (even if it’s not the same two Parties as today). Only range voting can allow real third party competition.
-Without term limits too many Congressman will come to see themselves as Washington insiders first and citizens and Representatives of their home districts second (or third).

It’s like capitalism and socialism. No matter how well intentioned the individuals inside the system, it’s eventually the system and its incentives that control the results. Sending men and women of good character isn’t enough.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:26 am 141. RebeccaH:

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the coming election cycles, or if the new Tea Party movement will maintain itself and grow, or if the Democrats have it all in the bag. What I do know is that people are more frightened of our government than we’ve ever been before, and today, on this off-year election day, my small town has more candidates for local office than we’ve ever had, the turnout so far is far larger, and the promise of every candidate was fiscal conservativism and less meddling in people’s lives.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:27 am 142. RagnarD:

That wretchard’s post struck a troll worthy nerve tells you something about the quality of the ideas (stellar).

When you see Dave K, Dave S, moho, vivo and the other paid Soros fools (whether they recognize they are someone else’s tools is still up for debate) show up – DO NOT RESPOND to them. Go to any other PJM article, say one by Prof. Hanson, and watch them perform their derailment trickery. They bang and bang and attack with ad hominem’s until they hit a nerve and they are then off and running. I see it time and time again.

Get back under your bridge, troll!

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:27 am 143. Saltherring:

geokstr @ 102:

Excellent posting. Yes, leftist blogs like the ones you have named do ban those who attempt rational discourse. They prefer a vile, sophomoric and obscene environment that most civilized people would rather avoid.

Most conservative-leaning blogs prefer open dialogue with those of differing viewpoints. Posters like Dave K abuse the spirit of PJM openness, however, with their inane, abusive and highly personal rantings. Heavy on Soros-generated talking points and light on fact, they contribute little or nothing to a discussion. One can only assume their purpose is to derail honest, adult-level discourse. I for one, will refrain for accommodating them.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:28 am 144. JMH:

Conservative voters have an Agency problem. We’ve “hired” the GOP to manage our political activities, but the GOP management team has a serious conflict of interest. Not only that, but the conflict pretty much forces the current leadership into unworkable strategies and earns them the “Stupid Party” nickname.

Conservative voters are about limited government and traditional morality. Politics does require a certain amount of compromise, you can’t find a workable majority that agrees 100% on everything. But some issues are more amenable to compromise than others, making them more amenable to political solutions. Size of government for instance. I want a 10% tax rate, you want 20%, and the other guy wants 30%. You and me compromise on 15%, out-vote the Liberal and both grumble a bit but go on functioning. A lot better from my perspective than you and him out-voting me on a 25% tax rate.

Moral issues are harder. What does a compromise on Abortion look like? When there’s a big gulf on social issues, the only compromise possible is to remove it from the government (i.e. mandatory compliance) sphere and argue it out in the civil (i.e. voluntary cooperation) sphere. Even that compromise – both sides agreeing to not use goverment power to enforce their viewpoint – is tough to swallow (and that’s one big reason the Founders thought a religious people was essential – it gave the populace a common moral framework).

The current GOP leadership isn’t interested in pursuing a smaller government platform. They’re in the government business. Less government means less money flowing past them and fewer opportunities to dip their rice bowl into the trough. So they ignore that plank of the platform and focus on social issues. But those are incredibly difficult to make progress on because getting the “moderates” on board means reaching way, way across the isle. By the time the GOP leaders have the social moderates on board, they’ve lost the base. Ultimately, they offer nothing to their own voters on either core plank. The only chance Republicans have is when the Democrats overreach and scare or piss off too much of the country.

The remedy is to swap out the current “for profit” leadership and figure out a way to get folks into leadership positions who can be happy and thrive with limited government. I’m not entirely sure how to do that long-term. Short-term, an anger-fueled TEA party issurection seems the best bet. If we can recapture the party temporarily that way, it might buy us enough time to work out a more permanent solution.

If we have a GOP that can focus on fiscal issues, we can build on that. There’s a workable majority of voters who will buy into a limited government program based on acceptable compromises. Once we have that, there’s no need to seek support from social moderates. the only compromises we need to make on social issues will be to not scare off too many fiscal conservatives. That is a much better social compromise than what the GOP has been trying lately.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:37 am 145. marymcl:

@48 buddy larsen

“SEIU includes unionized hospital workers –”

In states that don’t recognize “right-to-work”, joining the union is a prerequisite for working in certain occupations. When I went into nursing after 9/11 I chose the county hospital because I thought that’s where the need would be greatest, especially in the event of another terrorist attack. I didn’t know jack about public employee unions or realize what an enormous political machine they were. They have ridiculous authority on the job as well. It’s a second boss you can’t negotiate with and in practice it’s really the one that matters most – failure to comply with a union directive is just about the only thing (short of killing someone outright) that is grounds for immediate dismissal. It’s not that incompetence is ignored, but usually people just get transferred or promoted. (They can’t be fired, as is well known) There is no opting out of membership either, except via the religious exception, which is there for the Muslims.

All of which was a big part of why I finally quit my job recently. Which creates a whole ‘nother set of problems, but at least I’ve got a clean conscience. But I mention all this to point out that not all public employees are on board with what *their* unions are up to with their money. I’m fortunate in being able to rely on my son for financial help, but lots of people don’t have that option.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:38 am 146. Storm-Rider:

“As right-wing protesters dominated the news this summer, it would have seemed the perfect opportunity for Obama’s much-touted organizers to drown out the conservatives with some coordinated agitation of their own. But they barely made a ripple. Where were they? And how could such a formidable grassroots operation–having just put Obama in office–fall quiet so quickly?”

The proletariat class with their vanguard of intellectuals are re-grouping. The Bolsheviks of Russia had to re-group from time to time before their ultimate victory over the Russian middle class (Bourgeois, Kulaks, etc.); just a blip on the way to their establishment of utopian “equality” – where some (themselves) somehow ended up more equal than others (the masses).

People somehow believe that the Marxist/Socialists are still in revolution against the despotic oppressor (European Monarchy) when in fact they are the new oppressor in counter-revolution against the real revolution – The American Revolution.

For God’s sake; read Animal Farm and 1984.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=animal+farm

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=1984

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:39 am 147. Poor Citizen:

The armies of the the right, indeed. Glad to see they are out there. And Obama.s grass roots? Do you mean the civil rights movement, environmental movement, womens rights movement, the working people and full employment movement? ….they have been there, and have been very active for many, many years….trust me.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:48 am 148. joe buzz:

Folks, focus.
The lesson from NY23 is that the Republicans are not vetting their own candidates. Where else is this ocurring? We are damned fortunate that a Conservative was running against the two Liberals and that word got out in time to make a difference. Tcobb 118 is correct. A little less back slapping and a little more ear to the ground.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:49 am 149. peterike:

Not only is thug leader Andy Stern getting face time with the Big O, but White House records also show one Mr. Soros has had two, count ‘em, two meetings with Obama. No doubt to pass along more marching orders.

Interesting tidbit: “Like the sociable Stern, administration records show Soros’ appointments were officially scheduled within hours of his actual visit. It looks like fast service.”

So Unkle George snaps his fingers and the O shows up for him. He is quite a efficient puppet, that Mister Obama is.

Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511113

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:50 am 150. tdiinva:

Buddy:

No I did not. I just know his story from 9-11 and the amazing coincidence that he was caught in one the iconic photographs of the Vietnam War.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:54 am 151. Habu:

Anton @109

James Madison provides the answer to your proposal in the very first sentence of the most important Federalist #10. In part:

“The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations”

#10 is the keystone in understanding the constitution. A good reading of it along with a good expalnation by a Thomas Sowell or DVH will be a tonic for you. Good luck.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:01 pm 152. Habu:

Buddy, StormRider et.al… let’s say health care passes. How far along the czarist train to real pain are we to obama genuinely having his Okhrana in place and working?

He said he was going to have a police state.

* Caution only one source provided
http://tinyurl.com/yhlue8p

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:13 pm 153. Habu:

Armies of the Right.

I personally know close to a thousand former Blackwater, The Olive Group, and other now out of work former honored defenders of our freedoms who have since been treated like pariahs. They in turn have a network.

The Right does indeed have a force and it has a raging fever that doesn’t appear to be abating any time soon. A close look shows the pressure relief valve is askew and inop. That means they’ll have to pull out the big wrench to reset things …they vote too.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:23 pm 154. Dave K.:

Saltherring@143:
“Heavy on Soros-generated talking points and light on fact, they contribute little or nothing to a discussion. One can only assume their purpose is to derail honest, adult-level discourse. I for one, will refrain for accommodating them.”

Welcome to the Internet. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.

And for those who do not speak right-wing butthurt, here’s a translation:

I cannot argue with his points, so I’m going to resort to ad hominem arguments and use the old “JEW DEBIL SOROS IS PAYING THEM TO SPEW EVIL!” scare tactic.

The fact is that I used one of Reagan’s quotes to illustrate how misguided this whole movement is and all I got was “Harrumph! He’s but a troll!”

Enjoy your mirror-walled echo chamber where you can all agree with each other and admire each other while the world progresses away from your antiquated world view.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:23 pm 155. Subotai Bahadur:

I suspect that as it was during the Russian attack on Georgia; BC is now the assigned target of enemy trolls. Before they were directed by the modern equivalent of the GRU. Now I would guess they are coming from that brown stucco building south of the Capitol. That, in a way, is ok. I have lived my life assuming that one is known by the quality of one’s enemies.

As we await the count of the votes today, a short review may be in order. National Review Online understates the offense of nominating DeDe Scozzafava for that position. First, this was not a “purple” or “pink” district that would require a more liberal version of Republican. This was a safe, relatively conservative Republican seat, and had been so for decades. Second, the party Chairman who forced her through [of which more later] had to know of her background. Not only was she a supporter of every government “stimulus”, bailout, and takeover that we have endured; in Albany where she is a State Assembly-critter she was to the Left of the NYC delegation. If none of that rang alarm bells, being endorsed and having run on the ACORN/”government funded child brothels” – controlled Working Families Party ticket [in New York, you can run on more than one party ticket] should have woken someone up. Especially since James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles have been releasing their videos for the last couple of months showing ACORN people conspiring to commit felony after felony.

Scozzafava was not the choice by vote of the 11 person committee as candidate. She was the choice of the Chairman, who over-rode the vote. This is not uncommon. One of the things that is coming to the fore is the autocratic nature of the Republican Party “leadership” and its hatred for Conservatives. In this, as in all things, they are being Democrat-lite.

And perhaps this is part of a greater awakening amongst Conservatives nationwide. I am pretty sure that in every state of the Union, the Republican party has deliberately committed the political equivalent of what used to be called “crimes against nature” on the Conservatives in their state.

In Colorado; our party is so desperate to be “bipartisan” that they have refused to fund Conservative Congress members and legislators if they win primaries for the US Senate, tried to unseat an incumbent Conservative Congressmen and replace them with a DIABLO who will “reach across the aisle”, and when we last had a Republican governor, he would regularly appoint Democrats to his cabinet so that they could build their resumes to run later.

If Conservatives think about it, that kind of conduct is pretty much a constant nationwide, rather than a local fluke. The Republican Party wants our money year round and our work every other even numbered year; but otherwise wants to pretend we are not there.

The National Party doubling down on Scozzafava brought that out in public. They claimed that they could not pick and choose who to support, even if they were to the Left of the Democrats. Funny thing, they have no such problem in opposing a Conservative Republican and supporting a Liberal over them. I offer Spector -v- Toomey, Crist -v- Rubio, Hutchison -v- Perry, McCain -v- everybody in Arizona, and indeed a number of Conservative candidates in the Southwest. The Republican Party, such as it is in California, is known for trying to run “me-too” Republicans who promise to be Democrats in office.

The largest, most active, political movement extent right now in this country is the somewhat amorphous Tea Party/Town Hall/ etc. coalition that spreads across party lines. And who are the only ones actively fighting the Obama regime. The Republicans hate and fear us as much as the Democrats do, and just want to find some way to get along.

Wretchard mentioned the nascent Sturm Abteilungen based in that brown stucco house. #34 Buddy Larson mentions the government funded “volunteers”. I cannot cite it precisely now, but I remember at the time that Organizing For America [the vermin in the brown stucco building] are funded through AmeriCorps in that bill. The Democratic party thugs are being funded with taxpayer money. That should give not only Conservatives, but all those who ARE our countrymen pause.

The elections being held today are being discussed on a number of blogs. I ran across some incredulous comments on one by some Aussies. They were appalled that we were “joking” about the level of vote fraud we expect as a matter of course.

I think they mistook what was being said for joking, but it was not. But it brought to mind that we have assimilated, in part, the concept that one has to assume that the Democrats and ACORN are regularly going to commit vote fraud. The miraculous, and yet regular, appearance of boxes of votes for Democrats from the trunks of cars, attics, basements, etc. of Democrat officials AFTER the election is now a consistent feature of any election that is close. The registration of non-existent persons by Democrats is the norm. As is the Democrat article of faith that any attempt to make sure that the votes cast are legal is worse than the Holocaust. And absentee ballots by loyal party line voting Cadaver-Americans, Cartoon-Americans, Housepet-Americans, and Alien-not Americans are key parts of the Democratic electorate. The presence of armed thugs at polling places to intimidate non-Democrat voters has been specifically endorsed by Obama’s Attorney General. Incidentally, the fund cut-off for ACORN’s electoral activities was only till the end of the fiscal year. November 1, 2009 the Federal funding taps were turned back on full blast.

Intellectually, we have assimilated the concept that our electoral system is broken and does not reliably reflect the actual vote totals. We accept that we have to win by a large enough margin to overwhelm the number of false votes inserted into the system by Democrats and their allies further Left. Emotionally, we have not had that hit us yet. Someday, the essential injustice will be forced home by some incident or another. The ability of the state-controlled media to frame the news is weakening their ability to keep this from being realized. When it is realized, something will have to give.

Government funded thugs, government funded electoral fraud; and the realization that government funds come from our pockets is a dangerous mix.

The elites of both parties are scared. There is a tide flowing that they have not figured out how to control. And they fear it. They do not know how far it will reach, nor what will be swept away. Neither we nor they know which will end up a flotsam.

We ourselves do not know what will result from today’s vote. It is expected that Virginia will be a sweep. That it is likely that NY-23 will be taken by the Conservative candidate, but it is far from certain. And then there is New Jersey. The state where election laws are considered to be mere hints with no force, where the dead vote, and where the state penitentiary has a special wing for elected officials. Christie is ahead by a margin that is equivalent to Obama’s margin over McCain. So Corzine is within the range of possible cheating.

No matter. This is a process not an end. The Republican elites have been served notice that the tectonic plates are shifting. We do not know if they will ride with them, or try to push back. Virginia was a bellweather state in 2008, but the Democrats say that it is meaningless in 2009. I’m going with closer to bellweather. For a Republican to come within the Democrat margin of cheating in New Jersey of all places has got to scare someone in a stucco building.

It is a process. No matter who wins, what will count is the reaction by both sides. Will the Republicans join or attack the Conservatives? If the Democrats lose, will they back off on their plans or force them through regardless of the will of the people? Will the level of electoral cheating break through the emotional barrier, and what will people do if they believe that in fact the law and Constitution are ineffectual?

Times are getting interesting. In the Chinese sense.

Be Thou then truly Resolved …..

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:25 pm 156. Storm-Rider:

Habu, 152
I don’t know the answer, but we may find out the answer someday – in real life. The question is whether, as individuals, the American middle class really loves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (private property creatively earned through labor – while loving your neighbor). Are we different from the (extinguished) Russian middle class? Our founding generation and subsequent generations of Americans were always ready to fight, and if necessary kill (or die) for their sacred unalienable rights; I believe it may soon be our turn at bat.

“Understanding socialism as one of the manifestations of the allure of death explains its hostility toward individuality, its desire to destroy those forces which support and strengthen human personality: religion, culture, family, individual property. It is consistent with the tendency to reduce man to the level of a cog in the state mechanism.” Igor Shafarevich

“There is, first of all, the profound experience of Russia, the significance of which we are only now beginning to understand. The question therefore arises: will this experience be sufficient? Is it sufficient for the entire world and especially for the West? Indeed, is it sufficient for Russia? Shall we be able to comprehend its meaning? Or is mankind destined to pass through this experience on an immeasurably larger scale? There is no doubt that if the ideals of Utopia are realized universally, mankind, even in the barracks of the universal City of the Sun, shall find the strength to regain its freedom and to preserve God’s image and likeness–human individuality–once it has glanced into the yawning abyss. But will even that experience be sufficient? For it seems just as certain that the freedom of will granted to man and to mankind is absolute, that it includes the freedom to make the ultimate choice–between life and death.” Igor Shafarevich

http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:36 pm 157. Dave K.:

Habu@153:
“I personally know close to a thousand former Blackwater, The Olive Group, and other now out of work former honored defenders of our freedoms who have since been treated like pariahs. They in turn have a network.

The Right does indeed have a force and it has a raging fever that doesn’t appear to be abating any time soon. A close look shows the pressure relief valve is askew and inop. That means they’ll have to pull out the big wrench to reset things …they vote too.”

Sedition and treachery?
Such are the “patriots” of the right…

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:43 pm 158. peterike:

A troll by the name of Dave K
Had nothing of interest to say.
He wasted our time
With his Soros fed slime.
Oh well, every dog has his day.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:43 pm 159. johnt:

Dave K #101, Detroit 1968 ?? Deep Dave, very deep.
Admit it, you love the attention, even if you can’t give a sensible rejoinder.
Sorry boob, I have no more time for you.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:45 pm 160. Tarnsman:

Little story that I find amusing:

As many of you are aware the State of California is behind the eight ball in terms of its finances. Cash strapped is the term. So into order to bridge the gap the State is imposing a 10% surcharge on the amount of State income taxes being withheld from every worker in CA. Effective November 1st 2009. Right before the holidays. When the real unemployment figure in CA is quickly approaching 20%. Of course, “they” say this isn’t a new tax and the taxpayers will be refunded the extra money come tax day 2010 (right, just like that one year temporary one cent increase in the Sales tax to help pay for the Northridge earthquake back in 1994 that still is in effect). Think of it as a loan to the State, an involuntary loan, that is. The State figures to raised 1.1 billion through this sleigh of hand trick, and it was done in a way that almost no one in CA knew it was coming (way to go, CA media). Needless to say, folks out here are PISSED.

Anyway, at work I have a die-hard Democrat / Obama supporter who was complaining to me about this stealth tax and we had the following exchange:

“I can believe they’d do this right before Christmas. What wrong with you guys?”

“What you mean, us guys??”

“You Republicans. You’re supposed to stop shit like this.”

Needless to say, I was dumb-founded. A Democrat looking to the Republicans to save him from the taxes his party imposes on him (Democrats have nearly 3/5ths of the seats in both houses of the state legislature). File it in the “you can’t make stuff like this up” folder.

Change is a coming, folks, if die-hard Democrats start complaining about the taxes.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:48 pm 161. Konyok:

A year ago this forum resounded with *dark mutterings* about “target rich environments.” Since then we’ve seen both a protracted run on guns and ammo (could this be a measurable component of jobs “created or saved?”), and the vigorous development of the Tea Party movement.

On the plus side, the Obama juggernaut has clearly lost steam. (Each e-mail that I still get from the permanent Obama campaign is more desperate than the last.) Living in a bluer than blue district, I see the Obama stickers disappearing quickly. On a recent walk around the neighborhood I saw more ancient Kerry stickers than Obama hope and change.

On the negative side, we seem to be in the position of the fabled boiled frog, as Buddy pointed out. Although the flag ship legislative agenda has been somewhat slowed by the blue dogs, the steady drip drip has desensitized us to trillion dollar deficits and executive branch economic interventions.

Still, who would have predicted the Tea Party? The American people are again showing their genius for self organization that Toqueville so admired.

Tonight I shall open a bottle of Georgian wine and watch the returns with guarded optimism.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:48 pm 162. Dave K.:

johnt@159:
“Dave K #101, Detroit 1968 ?? Deep Dave, very deep.”

From the post I was referring to:

“86. Saltherring:
Dave K @ 81:

“Did you have a specific demographic in mind when you wrote “burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground?””

Not quite sure what you’re asking but how about a historic reference: Detroit 1968″

It’s Saltherring’s answer when I asked him what he meant with “burn their filthy and defiled ghettos to the ground?”

But, yeah, dissent is very patriotic, except when the dissenter disagrees with your point of view.

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:50 pm 163. Storm-Rider:

Dave K: “Sedition and treachery? Such are the “patriots” of the right…”

Dave K the Marxist could have taken his anti-American talking points from the mouth of King George III.

The true American “right” are anarchists – and they are the tools of either Marxists or Fascists in order to bring about some new “revolution.” The American Marxists on the left wish to first extinguish the great American middle class – the keepers of the keys of sacred liberty. We, the American middle class are not “left” (Marxist or Fascist), or “right” (anarchists) – to hell with all three.

The American middle class stands on the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights – we are in the middle – neither right nor left

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJfwa9XKZQ

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:55 pm 164. anton:

156. Storm-Rider:

“… really loves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..”

As I said earlier; Molon Labe!

If they dare.

(full disclosure notice, I’m one of those bitter-clingers)

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:55 pm 165. Dave K.:

peterike@158:
“A troll by the name of Dave K
Had nothing of interest to say.
He wasted our time
With his Soros fed slime.
Oh well, every dog has his day.”

It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal!
You cannot argue the facts!

You bumped into the ceiling of logic which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing!

You lose!
Good day, sir!

Nov 3, 2009 - 12:57 pm 166. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider@163:
“The American middle class stands on the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights – we are in the middle – neither right nor left”

Middle is a relative concept.

For instance, if the right tends very much towards the extreme, then the middle will be more right-leaning.

Or vice versa.

Only if the left and right are equally extreme, will the middle be truly representative.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:00 pm 167. Dave K.:

Tarnsman@160:
“Change is a coming, folks, if die-hard Democrats start complaining about the taxes.”

Interesting.
Do you have any statistical evidence to prove your point?

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:03 pm 168. Marty:

A few random thoughts:

Conservatives are Minutemen, the Obama Left are Bolsheviks (i.e., paid career agitator-politicians), Alinsky was neither.

Today, Alinsky would be reviled on the Left. He would see great promise for the poor and unorganized in things like school vouchers and micro-loan programs, rather than large, dehumanizing and crippling welfare-state programs. He was, indeed, a radical for his time, but let’s remember that ‘his time’ was the apex of big government, from the National Recovery Admin in Washington to the Four Year Plan in Berlin to GosPlan in Moscow. He stood in opposition to what big govt was doing to powerless communities, he was there to help them organize to defend themselves against big government.

Yes, much of his analysis sounds leftist because he had no patience with big business, either, but in an argument between socialist big govt, corporatist govt-big business alliances, or free market capitalism, his inclination would have been first to get his communitioes a seat at the corporatist negotiating table, and failing that, better the free market than being dominated by anyone.

It’s easy to forget how patriotic FDR and most of the New Dealers were. Naive about Stalin and Soviet infiltration (Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, et al), but read about the preparations and prosecution of WW2 and you’ll see how much they valued America… totally unlike Obama and his crew, which makes all the current FDR allusions esp. nauseating.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:11 pm 169. Tcobb:

#155 Subotai Bahadur
An interesting analysis, as usual. And here we enter in to the dichotomy between tactics and strategy. Good tactics will not make up for an intrinsically flawed strategy. Look at the Nazis with their invasion of Russia. Nor will good strategy make up for bad tactics.

In these days and times the TACTICS of the left has been not to attack the actual ideas of the people who oppose them, but rather to revile them for their personal failings. Rush Limbaugh is addicted to pain killers. Therefore he is a bad person, and therefore any message he gives must be false, which logically speaking is a load of crap.

The fact that a mass murderer says that the sun rises in the east does not mean that what he says is not true.

Its time to take the gloves off and start doing to the “progressive” politicians what their toadies have been doing to their opponents. Show them to be the corrupt little whores that they are. Nancy Pelosi would be a good first start.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:12 pm 170. marymcl:

@163 StormRider

You don’t really think he’s listening, do you? These characters position themselves with a few insults and then just scroll down till they see their names attached to someone’s post. They’re like a rash that won’t respond to treatment and won’t go away. Watch – he’ll probably cut and paste what I just wrote so he can impress himself with a sarcastic bit of sophistry. Except I won’t be reading it (which come to think of it probably doesn’t matter to him anyway, since the troll’s favorite audience is himself.)

So don’t waste your thoughts and efforts on him. He’s not engaging in an honest difference of opinion here, he’s just trying to provoke people, like a nasty little kid with a hatpin turned loose in a crowd. And now I’ll take my own advice!

That said, nice limerick, peterike

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:13 pm 171. Subotai Bahadur:

#160 Tarnsman:

Needless to say, I was dumb-founded. A Democrat looking to the Republicans to save him from the taxes his party imposes on him (Democrats have nearly 3/5ths of the seats in both houses of the state legislature). File it in the “you can’t make stuff like this up” folder.

Inquiring minds want to know:

1) Did you correct his misperceptions of reality?

2) Did any such correction take hold for any period of time in his head, or did it go in one ear and out the other?

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:16 pm 172. Dave K.:

marymcl@170:
“@163 StormRider

You don’t really think he’s listening, do you? These characters position themselves with a few insults and then just scroll down till they see their names attached to someone’s post. They’re like a rash that won’t respond to treatment and won’t go away. Watch – he’ll probably cut and paste what I just wrote so he can impress himself with a sarcastic bit of sophistry. Except I won’t be reading it (which come to think of it probably doesn’t matter to him anyway, since the troll’s favorite audience is himself.)

So don’t waste your thoughts and efforts on him. He’s not engaging in an honest difference of opinion here, he’s just trying to provoke people, like a nasty little kid with a hatpin turned loose in a crowd. And now I’ll take my own advice!”

Yes, that’s the Alinsky spirit!
Ridicule, belittle, and ignore those who disagree with you!

Troll projection, much?

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:20 pm 173. Saltherring:

Tarnsman @ 160:

One of the problems is that only about 50% of us pay any federal taxes. Every citizen should have a stake (and with it a voice) in America’s success by paying some income tax, even if it’s $20/year. We also need to put an end to the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is nothing more than tacit redistribution of wealth.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:21 pm 174. Dave K.:

Tcobb@169:
“Nancy Pelosi would be a good first start.”

What did Nancy Pelosi do to earn such hatred?
I honestly haven’t seen any reason why.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:22 pm 175. Marty:

Tarnsman @ 160 and Subotai @ 171

Evidence of how the national congressional GOP under Hastert and DeLay and Frist destroyed the GOP brand, with teh help of the MSM. Surveys in 2008 and into 2009 showed in a generic question, more people trusted the Dems than the GOP to restrain spending and keep taxes down. Part of why they voted in the Dems. But it’s a rare bird who will admit they were stupid/wrong, so it has to be someone else’s fault.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:28 pm 176. Storm-Rider:

Dave K,
The American Declaration of Independence is not relative because man’s human nature is not relative – human evil and tyrannical government power are real – and so are man’s sacred unalienable rights. The American Revolution is in the middle – between anarchy of the right – and the Marxist or Fascist left (the beneficiaries of anarchy). The American Revolution is unique and exceptional in history. Only the word “middle” is relative, not the reality of human rights and the American Revolution.

Give up your evil design and join the only real revolution in human history; help us defeat the Marxist leaders of the Democratic Party – and the cowardly RINOs as well.

The American Revolution is not over – the struggle for human liberty is eternal.

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” Thomas Jefferson

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Thomas Jefferson

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:30 pm 177. Marty:

And everybody, PLEASE STOP FEEDING THE TROLL!!!!!!

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:31 pm 178. Tcobb:

Whey did Nancy Pelosi do to earn such hatred?
I honestly haven’t seen any reason why.
The blind, through no fault of their own, are incapable of enjoying the beauty of the sunrise or the sunset. On the other hand, they are spared from seeing the maggots on the road kill.

Ms. Pelosi owns a vineyard. If you have the wit and the time you can probe just how wonderfully she treats the workers in the family business by using a search engine.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:34 pm 179. Dave K.:

Tcobb@169:
“Rush Limbaugh is addicted to pain killers. Therefore he is a bad person, and therefore any message he gives must be false, which logically speaking is a load of crap.”

It’s the hypocrisy of Rush Limbaugh concerning drug use that people react to.

It’s “do as I say, not as I do” and “Jail for you, fancy therapy for me.” which disgust most people.

And that applies to all media figures, not just Rush Limbaugh.

Here are a couple of quotes from Rush Limbaugh to back up my point:

“What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.”

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (10/5/95)

“These tough sentencing laws were instituted for a reason. The American people, including liberals, demanded them. Don’t you remember the crack cocaine epidemic? Crack babies and out-of-control murder rates? Liberal judges giving the bad guys slaps on the wrist? Finally we got tough, and the crime rate has been falling ever since, so what’s wrong?”

–RushLimbaugh.com (8/18/03)

“When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he’s being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks.”

–Rush Limbaugh radio show (quoted in the L.A. Times, 8/20/95)

“What he’s saying is that if there’s a line of cocaine here, I have to make the choice to go down and sniff it….And his point is that we are rationalizing all this irresponsibility and all the choices people are making and we’re blaming not them, but society for it. All these Hollywood celebrities say the reason they’re weird and bizarre is because they were abused by their parents. So we’re going to pay for that kind of rehab, too, and we shouldn’t. It’s not our responsibility. It’s up to the people who are doing it. And Colangelo is right.”

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (9/23/93)

“I’m appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say, “Hey, you know, we can’t control it anymore. People are going to do drugs anyway. Let’s legalize it.” It’s a dumb idea. It’s a rotten idea, and those who are for it are purely, 100 percent selfish.”

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (12/9/93)

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:35 pm 180. Dave K.:

Tcobb@178:
“Ms. Pelosi owns a vineyard. If you have the wit and the time you can probe just how wonderfully she treats the workers in the family business by using a search engine.”

I will do so, and thanks for the tip.
I have a real problem with hypocrites, whether it’s Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore or Nancy Pelosi.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:37 pm 181. Cetera:

The Tea Party rebellion is most dangerous to the GOP in the short term, but much, much more deadly to the left in the long run.

I think the Tea Parties are just a symptom, and the first symptom, of something much more serious. The Tea Parties are the first step of a large portion of the nation preparing to go John Galt.

The first step is outrage, followed by a movement to peaceably wrest their rights and power back from the elites and the government. The Tea Parties, in other words.

Should the Tea Parties fail, should the political parties not listen, should the people’s needs not be met by their leaders, then large numbers will go Galt, but in their own homes. Step two is to stop paying credit cards, mortgages, but most importantly, taxes. The financial system will fail, and the government will fail.

At that point, there are two options remaining for the government: to capitulate and voluntarily return the rights and power of the people, or to use force to eliminate dissent.

Step three is inevitable once step two is reached: Come and Take It!, or Civil War. The government either voluntarily capitulates, or those that go Galt defend their decision with arms. Winner take all, no holds barred. The government has the force necessary to win, but has the biggest disadvantage. Its really, really difficult to wage war against your own people and not lose all your supporters in the process. It can be done, but never well, and it is always temporary.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:40 pm 182. Dave:

Let us now bestow a proper title where it belongs:

BY THE AUTHORITY I DONE GONE AND VESTED IN MYSELF, I HEREBY DIRECT ALL GOOD BC COMMENTERS
TO UTILIZE THE FULL AND TOTAL PEJORATATING HONORIFIC OF:

The Foxboro Baptist K.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:48 pm 183. buddy larsen:

Warren Buffett, deep, heavy supporter of Obama and all his policies (yes, i know, unbelieveable) has just bought Burlington Northern (the stock is up 30% today on the news –he just got a large piece of his purch price back!). Anyhoo, this is a BIG move out of cash (take note!) and into the future of American economic performance. Burlington hauls the Powder River low-sulphur coal, that’s a good sign –assuming WB has inside info on upcoming coal regs.

but since paranoia is afoot these days (well, IS it paranoia?), can’t hurt to note how tyrants have used threats to railroads (notorious weak points in the terrain of a command/control economy) to do such things as pass emergency measures (rails are vital to the state) to legally restrict freedom of movement, to force curfews, curfews that in Ukraine 1932-33 starved ten million soviet citizens (thirty percent of them children) to death sitting in their own empty kitchens. At the point of 25% of the population executed by starvation, the state relented and allowed the no-longer-resistant-to-collectivization remaining 75% of the Ukrainian peoples to leave the home and begin organizing some bread. Sounds like the twelfth century –but i daresay the parents of many of the commenters here were already at play in their long pants here stateside while that genocide was taking place across the pond and behind the Carpathians.

take a look, blow your mind

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:51 pm 184. Subotai Bahadur:

#169 Tcobb

Its time to take the gloves off and start doing to the “progressive” politicians what their toadies have been doing to their opponents. Show them to be the corrupt little whores that they are. Nancy Pelosi would be a good first start.

If we were engaged in a calculated operational strategy of resistance, there would be a wide range of tactics already in play; ranging from hard to soft. However, unlike TWANLOC, we are not doing this in accordance to any plan or under any central control. This is ad-hoc-ery at its finest. There is no central control. That is not necessarily a bad thing. That which is diffuse cannot be targeted with precision by a centrally controlled hostile force. Attacking one of the diffuse aspects, opens their flanks to counters.

We are following “the watercourse way”. If things go Tango Uniform, each aspect will evolve its own tactics, and they will be targetted differently.

It is a process.

Waiting is.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:54 pm 185. Storm-Rider:

Dave sounds like his prophet.

“I declared to them point-blank: we have received our mandate as the representatives of the proletarian party from no one but ourselves.” Karl Marx

Dave, you are hearby granted the disgusting title of “Foxboro/Chicago Marxist C.”

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:54 pm 186. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider Alinsky@185:
“Dave sounds like his prophet.

“I declared to them point-blank: we have received our mandate as the representatives of the proletarian party from no one but ourselves.” Karl Marx

Dave, you are hearby granted the disgusting title of “Foxboro/Chicago Marxist C.””

So you use Alinsky-style tactics on me and then you accuse me of being a troll?
Ah, the sweet, sweet projection of a tea-bagger.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:58 pm 187. rbell:

I totally disagree with the author that the Tea Baggers are the army of the right. This is the kind of fussy journalism that passes out stereotypes and labels instead of sound analysis. I was at the DC rally and I was totally shocked, not only by the size of the crowd but by the different ages, regions of the country and races that were represented there. I daresay there were as many democrats as there were republicans at the rally. This is not about left or right. It is about right and wrong.

The government is going in the wrong direction, depriving us of our freedoms under the banner of fixing something they broke. The fair minded people of both parties see this as a major undermining of our way of life. It is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. It is about the people who are still rational thinkers pitting themselves against the power brokers in Washington who are hell bent to deprive us whatever few liberties and wealth we have left and subordinate us to the foreign powers in Europe and the United Nations. This is a call for rebellion that far exceeds party labels and stereotyping.

The 23rd Congressional District illustrates how rigged our elections have been in the past. There was not a hair width of difference between the 2 candidates labeled Republican and Democrat. It is time that we put an end to these fraudulent elections.

The Republican Party is as much a part of the problem as the Democrats.

Nov 3, 2009 - 1:58 pm 188. Tcobb:

How interesting–my post (#178) comes in at 1:34pm. The response from Dave K. comes in at 1:35pm, replete with quotes. I must admire his typing skills and the speed of his internet connection. There is no way in Hell I could have generated a response of that length in that kind of time interval.

One might almost thing it was a “canned” reply waiting upon a trigger–one which I provided.

It might behoove PJM to do a little data mining on the trolls here. Do they come from the same place? I suspect that they do. And where is that place?

An inquiring mind wants to know.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:02 pm 189. RIA:

The Left don’t have Tea Parties. They are too busy crashing Tea Parties or waiting to be told what to do by billionair George Soros and move on.org

A Left Tea Party would end up woth more trash on the ground and several arrests.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:03 pm 190. Jeffrey:

The Left, however you want to describe it IS DEAD!
What we have seen is a big bad wolf based on lie after lie and the fools including Republicans who believed them the BLOWHARDS on the left.
The Left if one were to sum them up are nothing more than thieves seeking to steal as much from the earners as they can while creating a slavishly dependant voting block living at the public trough.
But now has come the time to pay for ALL of the lies and to watch the Truth prevail yet again as it always has. Truth and Righteousness always win in the end.
We can’t lie; cheat and steal our way to heaven not even heaven on Earth. It was a loser’s game to begin with and always was. The fools looked at the shadow of MR. Big on the wall and they were afraid so they capitulated.
Well the fools have awakened and are no longer afraid of Mr. Big. Mr. Big Blowhard is now Mr. Small and insignificant. A bigger presence has arrived and trumps them all.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:03 pm 191. Dave K.:

Tcobb@188:
“How interesting–my post (#178) comes in at 1:34pm. The response from Dave K. comes in at 1:35pm, replete with quotes. I must admire his typing skills and the speed of his internet connection. There is no way in Hell I could have generated a response of that length in that kind of time interval.

One might almost thing it was a “canned” reply waiting upon a trigger–one which I provided.”

I used this super-secret Alinsky-smear left-wing device called google.com where I typed in, using my Soviet-made keyboard, “rush limbaugh drugs quote” and the trigger response from the time-travelling ACORN robots activated the ChiCom/Soros satellite network for me to download the automated response using a hacking technology called copy-and-paste.

“It might behoove PJM to do a little data mining on the trolls here. Do they come from the same place? I suspect that they do. And where is that place?

An inquiring mind wants to know.”

Luke 8:30:
And Jesus asked him, saying, “What is thy name?” And he said, “Legion”: because many devils were entered into him.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:07 pm 192. buddy larsen:

TC/178; but the blind CAN play night golf, when the fairways are nice & empty
(*groan*)

hey hey –HABU –two years ago –or three –when you advised buying gold –why didn’t you say you were serious? damn –up 30 something bux today –heading to 1.1K –Go get em, Obama Economic Team!

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:08 pm 193. Dave K.:

RIA@189:
“The Left don’t have Tea Parties. They are too busy crashing Tea Parties or waiting to be told what to do by billionair George Soros and move on.org

A Left Tea Party would end up woth more trash on the ground and several arrests.”

We’re more of a “Starbucks Quad Venti caffe latte/MacBook Pro/Pretentious outfits” party than a tea one.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:11 pm 194. Cary:

The left Tea Partiers, ACORN/Working Families Party, do not operate in public – why go public when you can do all the persausion you want covertly or in the dark of night — (The Chicago Way of Bullies & Thugs). They conduct their passions by questionable voting/ballot irregularities. They have been very, very busy in NJ and I am sure in all voting areas.

What do they have to lose — look who would/could/should prosecute election fraud!

Read John Fund’s latest book on stealing elections. . .he also spoke about some of the latest shenanigans in NJ this week — stay tuned.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:17 pm 195. Dave K.:

Tcobb@188:
“How interesting–my post (#178) comes in at 1:34pm. The response from Dave K. comes in at 1:35pm, replete with quotes. I must admire his typing skills and the speed of his internet connection. There is no way in Hell I could have generated a response of that length in that kind of time interval.

One might almost thing it was a “canned” reply waiting upon a trigger–one which I provided.

It might behoove PJM to do a little data mining on the trolls here. Do they come from the same place? I suspect that they do. And where is that place?

An inquiring mind wants to know.”

I actually did some testing and it’s the editing button that makes the timestamps look strange.

If I edit something, submit, and then re-edit, the original timestamp for submission will not be overwritten, so even if I add, remove, edit my posts within the 10 minute range, it will still look as if I typed everything within a one second window.

So there’s your answer.
Feel free to test it out yourself.

The time-traveling ACORN robot part is true, though.

Edit: An additional example:

Limbaugh on Drugs
People like Limbaugh should go to jail, says Limbaugh

There’s nothing good about drug use. We know it. It destroys individuals. It destroys families. Drug use destroys societies. Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods, which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use. Too many whites are getting away with drug sales. Too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we’re not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too.

…We are becoming too tolerant as a society, folks, especially of crime, in too many parts of the country…. This country certainly appears to be tolerant, forgive and forget. I mean, you know as well as I do, you go out and commit the worst murder in the world and you just say you’re sorry, people go, “Oh, OK. A little contrition.”… People say, “I feel better. He said he’s sorry for it.” We’re becoming too tolerant, folks.

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (10/5/95)

These tough sentencing laws were instituted for a reason. The American people, including liberals, demanded them. Don’t you remember the crack cocaine epidemic? Crack babies and out-of-control murder rates? Liberal judges giving the bad guys slaps on the wrist? Finally we got tough, and the crime rate has been falling ever since, so what’s wrong?

–RushLimbaugh.com (8/18/03)

In the audio link below, I go into detail about these non-thinking talking points that “you can’t tell people what to do with their bodies” and “you can’t legislate morality.” First of all, we tell people what they can do to their bodies all the time–no cocaine, no prostitution, no throwing yourself off a building. Second, laws are nothing but defining morality!

–RushLimbaugh.com (6/27/03)

All right. Joe Fernandez came to New York from Miami, ladies and gentlemen, to be schools chancellor…. Now he is embattled–he’s got a book that just came out, an autobiography that’s soon to come out, I think, in which he admits that he was a mainliner as a teen-ager. This guy [pretends to stick needle in arm]–pfsst–shot up heroin. And people are praising him. He overcame the scourge. He triumphed over that profound obstacle in his life and has gone on to become this great schools chancellor…. [Plays a clip of Fernandez saying that the message of his teenage drug use is "to not give up on our kids."]

Reach out and try to help them, not give up on the kids, give them condoms and teach them about a bunch of stuff that is worthless in terms of preparing them for their future as adults in the greatest country on Earth, teaching them all this social gobbledygook. “Let’s not forget about the kids.”…

Whoa. The guy wants to be education secretary, folks. Watch out. Now why does he want to go to Washington? Probably because he’s studied the case of Marion Barry. Here’s a guy who got involved in drugs. You want to see my Marion Barry impersonation? Do you want to see that? All right. I’ll do the Marion Barry impersonation.

You put some stuff out here on the table and you go [pretends to snort cocaine]. “You tell Jesse to stay out of my town. This is my town, and Jesse–you tell him to stay out. [More snorting.] And I said no, no, no, no, I don’t smoke it no more. Tired of ending up on the floor.” [More snorting.]

So what is he? He gets involved in drugs and ends up, ladies and gentlemen, as a newly elected official in Washington, D.C…. So I’m sure Joe Fernandez is looking down there saying, “Hey, there’s a future for, you know, drug users in Washington, D.C.”

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (12/8/92)

When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he’s being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks.

–Rush Limbaugh radio show (quoted in the L.A. Times, 8/20/95)

I want to let you read along with me a quote from Jerry Colangelo about substance abuse, and I think you’ll find that he’s very much right…”I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don’t buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that.”…

What he’s saying is that if there’s a line of cocaine here, I have to make the choice to go down and sniff it….And his point is that we are rationalizing all this irresponsibility and all the choices people are making and we’re blaming not them, but society for it. All these Hollywood celebrities say the reason they’re weird and bizarre is because they were abused by their parents. So we’re going to pay for that kind of rehab, too, and we shouldn’t. It’s not our responsibility. It’s up to the people who are doing it. And Colangelo is right.

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (9/23/93)

I have a solution for Mrs. [Jocelyn] Elders. I mean, if she wants to legalize drugs, send the people who want to do drugs to London and Zurich and let’s be rid of them. Now…The problem with legalizing drugs is, it’s just another abhorrent example of human behavior that we’ve suddenly decided, “Hey, we can’t handle it. We’ve given up and we’re going to sanction the destruction of lives. We’re going to let you destroy your life. We’re going to make it easy, and then all of us who accept the responsibilities of life and don’t destroy our lives on drugs–we’ll pay for whatever messes you get into.”…

I’m appalled at people who simply want to look at all this abhorrent behavior and say, “Hey, you know, we can’t control it anymore. People are going to do drugs anyway. Let’s legalize it.” It’s a dumb idea. It’s a rotten idea, and those who are for it are purely, 100 percent selfish.

–Rush Limbaugh TV show (12/9/93)

Edit: The timestamp is still 2:21 pm even with my info dump.
And now I’ve done some additional editing and it’s still 2:21 pm, according to the Pajamasmedia timestamp. It’s 16:25 EST here on the East Coast now.

Edit:
And the ChiCom/Soros satellite network isn’t working. Must be the new version of Mac OS X. (16:28 EST at editing time)

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:21 pm 196. Storm-Rider:

Dave K,
Sarcastic rhetoric was not invented by you or Saul Alinsky; it is a lacerating tool for anyone with sufficient intelligence and sense of humor. I don’t like your Marxist labeling of American Patriots as tea baggers, but I’d rather be a redneck or cowboy (Kulak) tea bagger than a Marxist any day.

“The Devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked.” St. Thomas More

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:23 pm 197. Tcobb:

Dave K.
Methinks that the lady (meaning you) doth protest too much.

My apologies to everyone here for feeding the trolls. Wretchard should ban me. I wouldn’t blame him.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:30 pm 198. Dave K.:

Tcobb@197:

“Dave K.
Methinks that the lady (meaning you) doth protest too much.

My apologies to everyone here for feeding the trolls. Wretchard should ban me. I wouldn’t blame him.”

Do test it yourself, if you don’t believe me.

Write a small post, submit it, then edit it, type some additional words, add a heaping bowl of fresh copy-pasta and look at the timestamp.

Or edit post 197 and look at the timestamp to see if it’s changed or not.
You have 10 minutes to do so.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:34 pm 199. Thomas_L......:

Storm-Rider@196: What can you do with trolls and cowards? I’d prefer to kick his stupid, smug, rude buttocks but it’s better to make fun of them or just ignore them. I mean is David N.K. too stupid to realize no one will read his last long, lame post or is Soros paying him by the word? He loves his Dear Leader though so it may be pro bono insanity, ya never know.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:40 pm 200. Dave K.:

Thomas_L……@199:
“Storm-Rider@196: What can you do with trolls and cowards? I’d prefer to kick his stupid, smug, rude buttocks but it’s better to make fun of them or just ignore them.”

Ah, another ITG (Internet Tough Guy) shows up.
So you want to meet me and try to kick my stupid, smug, rude buttocks?

I’ll be more than happy to accommodate your wishes.
Let me know where and when you want to meet me and I’ll be there, provided that you’ll be there as well, of course.

Your wish is my command, oh mighty ITG.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:43 pm 201. Knight1:

I only got to #4 Gordon in reading the thread and will continue after posting – the descriptions of the Left leading from top down and the right from bottom up remind me of the difference between the USSR and the US fighting forces. As I understand it, even the Russians commented / acknowledged that our style of training and fighting was that if an officer died, the next in line of command picked up the lead and continued the mission whereas the Red Army would wait for instructions. And therein lies our strength.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:47 pm 202. deguello:

195 DAVE K :Nice try slimer!Addiction to drugs taken for medical reasons is not equivalent to recreational drug addiction. Speaking of drugs,Dave,why don’t you take your penicillin?I don’t think it’s addictive,and it may save the rest of your brain from rampaging spyrochetes.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:48 pm 203. Foul Harold:

34 posts in seven hours, most of which have contributed nothing of substance.

Dave K has got to go.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:49 pm 204. Habu:

Buddy,
I was serious and put 20k into gold and 20k into silver, or down your way and Montana’s motto Plata y Oro. I’m still sitting on it, for we’re a long way from the denouement of this cycle. In fact we may not live long enough to see the good times we saw in previous years. The government economic figures obama is putting out are all fraudulent and impeachable, none to be believed, but we have come to expect no less from him.

I made some huge money last year weapons and ammo trading. I had to deep earth a cache. I could go totally off grid and do nicely provided I’m not on the Florida property when the balloon goes up. 2011 and it’s Montana full time although I’ll keep the Florida property for tax purposes. BTW I’ll be driving my new Nissan Z to Montana in the late spring and will endeavor to stop by and see if your photo is still on the post office wall. If so I’ll try to locate you.

The troll(s) on board today would do well to remember:

The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happen to them all. Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:53 pm 205. Dave K.:

deguello@202:
“195 DAVE K :Nice try slimer!Addiction to drugs taken for medical reasons is not equivalent to recreational drug addiction.”

Obtaining drugs illegally is a crime.
Abusing prescription drugs is a crime.

Keep grasping for those straws, though.

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:54 pm 206. Dave K.:

Foul Harold@203:
“34 posts in seven hours, most of which have contributed nothing of substance.

Dave K has got to go.”

I agree, the heretic must go.

Shun the unbeliever!
Burn the witch!
Free speech is only for those we agree with!
He’s a Soros/Alinsky/ACORN troll and 0bama is his Messiah!
He must die!!

Nov 3, 2009 - 2:57 pm 207. Foul Harold:

You’re an irritating twit who obviously isn’t gainfully employed or beholden to any other meaningful personal obligations given the amount of time you have spent on this website badgering others.

I don’t care what you believe. Don’t go away mad. Just go away.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:03 pm 208. Dave K.:

Foul Harold@207:
“You’re an irritating twit who obviously isn’t gainfully employed or beholden to any other meaningful personal obligations given the amount of time you have spent on this website badgering others.”

Or maybe I’m capable of multitasking as well as using more than my index fingers when typing on a keyboard?

“I don’t care what you believe. Don’t go away mad. Just go away.”

Well, isn’t that special?
Censorship does become you, sweetheart.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:05 pm 209. Storm-Rider:

deguello, 202; re: Dave K
Syphilis is sexually acquired; following acquisition of the spirochete, an ulcer forms on the sex organ at the site of inoculation. The chancre represents an initial local infection, but syphilis quickly becomes systemic with widespread dissemination of the spirochete. Patients with neurosyphilis often have symptoms, such as headache, dizziness, forgetfulness or personality changes. Many individuals then develop deficits in memory and judgment leading to depression or psychosis.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:07 pm 210. Foul Harold:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85sIJcC8zbs

“You can speak your mind, but not on my time.”

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:09 pm 211. buddy larsen:

habu –hey that’d be great –wretchard can send you my regular email addy –dunno what his policy is on that but it’d just be to exchange the occasional Emerson and Longfellow verse –we ain’t interested in whereabouts of no national emergency Montana & Texas rally points or anything like that. we just want to lobby for adequate ventilation in our Stalag Luft barracks and an extra potato every week for good behavior

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:10 pm 212. Dave K.:

“209. Storm-Rider:
deguello, 202; re: Dave K
Syphilis is sexually acquired; following acquisition of the spirochete, an ulcer forms on the sex organ at the site of inoculation. The chancre represents an initial local infection, but syphilis quickly becomes systemic with widespread dissemination of the spirochete. Patients with neurosyphilis often have symptoms, such as headache, dizziness, forgetfulness or personality changes. Many individuals then develop deficits in memory and judgment leading to depression or psychosis.”

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors.

HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.
This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:11 pm 213. Dave K.:

Foul Harold@201:
“You can speak your mind, but not on my time”

Oh, my apologies.
I didn’t know that this was your web site and that you were forced to read every post here.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:14 pm 214. Storm-Rider:

I forgot to mention that when syphilis is acquired rectally it may lead to constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.

Who will rid us of this turbulent priest of Marx?

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:17 pm 215. Dave K.:

“214. Storm-Rider:
I forgot to mention that when syphilis is acquired rectally it may lead to constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.”

Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air
In west Philadelphia born and raised
On the playground was where I spent most of my days
Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool
And all shootin some b-ball outside of the school
When a couple of guys
Who were up to no good
Startin’ making trouble in my neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said ‘You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air’
I begged and pleaded with her day after day
But she packed my suitcase and send me on my way
She gave me a kiss and then she gave me my ticket.
I put my walkman on and said, ‘I might as well kick it’.
First class, yo this is bad
Drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass.
Is this what the people of Bel-Air Living like?
Hmmmmm this might be alright.
But wait I hear there’re prissy, bourgeois and all that
Is this the type of place that they should send this cool cat?
I don’t think so
I’ll see when I get there
I hope they’re prepared for the prince of Bel-Air
Well, the plane landed and when I came out
There was a dude who looked like a cop standing there with my name out
I ain’t trying to get arrested yet
I just got here
I sprang with the quickness like lightning, disappeared
I whistled for a cab and when it came near
The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror
If anything I can say that this cab was rare
But I thought ‘Nah forget it’ – ‘Yo homes to Bel Air’
I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8
And I yelled to the cabbie ‘Yo homes smell ya later’
I looked at my kingdom
I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:23 pm 216. Storm-Rider:

Dave K,
Some courageous Russians; by cruel necessity, found their way to study religious Marxist zealots such as yourself.

“The religious aspects of socialism may explain the extraordinary attraction of socialist doctrines and their capacity to inflame individuals and to inspire popular movements… The ideology’s impact is through the emotions, which render the ideology attractive to man and induce him to be ready for sacrifice on its behalf. Spiritual elation and inspiration are the kinds of emotions experienced by the participants in socialist movements. This accounts, too, for the behavior of the leaders of socialist movements in the thick of the fight, down through the ages–their seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy as pamphleteers, agitators, and organizers.” Igor Shafarevich

http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:25 pm 217. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider@216:
“Dave K,
Some courageous Russians; by cruel necessity, found their way to study religious Marxist zealots such as yourself.”

Not to be troll-like or anything, but I was under the impression that Western tradition states that the accuser has the burden of guilt.

So when you accuse me of being a religious Marxist zealot, what exactly do you base that on?

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:28 pm 218. myth buster:

Dave K.- you asked what the ratio of enlisted to officers is- it’s about 5:1, including all the staff officers like doctors and JAG corps. The job of a soldier or sailor is by no means “cushy,” at least not in the general case. A couple jobs may be cushy, but most entail spending months at a time away from your family in dangerous conditions. I do not begrudge them compensation, both immediate and deferred, nor do I begrudge paying for it, save that I wish they would allow me to join and fight by their side. That said, they earned their pay and benefits; civilians have not. Therefore, there is no contradiction in saying that we would like to shut down most of the government, fire most of the government workers, cut taxes in half, and yet maintain military spending.

When we conservatives speak of the government, the military is typically the implicit, if not explicit exemption to our charges. Assholes like you should be grateful that there are men willing to silently patrol the deep, ready to launch nuclear missiles at any nation that should incur our wrath, doing so for months at a time, and contact with one’s family is limited to RECEIVING (not sending) one 50-word telegram a week. Note, communication is one way- your family sends you a short telegram; you can’t reply to it. Sleep soundly tonight, knowing that men far braver than you are ready to do violence on your behalf, to defend your right to disparage them by comparing them to welfare queens.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:40 pm 219. Sebastian Shaw:

Dave K, you protest too much.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:42 pm 220. JIMV:

The left can only produced mobs bought and paid for, union thugs, and victims…there is no real grass roots with the left.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:46 pm 221. buddy larsen:

SS/219; lotsa free time –thanx to taxpayers –in that GS-3 cubicle, watching that clock crawl.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:49 pm 222. Storm-Rider:

Dave K,
Yes, you stand accused as a religious Marxist zealot. No official trial will occur, only the inevitable trials of life that naturally await you; and for those Rednecks, Cowboys and Kulaks who, if things turn out your way, might fall under your authority. So, go ahead and have a little wet dream about the latter, and don’t think too much about the former.

Belmont Club is populated by people who are in love with the idea that man is made in the image of God; that the individual therefore has corresponding unalienable rights to life, liberty and property honestly earned (pursuit of happiness). Since you mock us it is merely logical to conclude that you are opposed to those principles, as would any true Marxist believer. Like the Cross is to Dracula, the Declaration of Independence is to the Marxist.

Under Marxism the individual has no unalienable rights – they belong to the King – oops – I meant to say those reversible “rights” belong to the Marxist State.

Nov 3, 2009 - 3:51 pm 223. Don Rodrigo:

HEY EVERYBODY!

“V” starts tonight, 8:00 EST Tuesday on ABC. It’s caused quite a stir already, you know, charismatic, attractive, smooth-talking leader promising change and a brighter tomorrow (AND universal health care)?

Rumor has it the White House tried to get the producers to tone it down a bit. Again, a rumor. I wonder if 1) it will be a hit, and 2) if people will begin to make the ironic/humorous connection with Obama? Since the “V” aliens are lizards, the unfortunate Anita Dunn has already been the butt of “V” jokes with her tongue-flicking lecture on the wisdom of Mao.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:04 pm 224. Konyok:

Anita Dunn’s favorite political philosopher wrote: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” (No disagreement from Habu, I’m sure.) Another bon mot from the little red book that helped stimulate my own recovery from socialsm is: “The revolutionary army is to the people as the fish are to the ocean.” I never could process the existence of so much *false consciousness* among the working class – eventually I came to the inevitable conclusion that maybe working people might actually know something unrevealed by marxist theory.

Obama’s “movement” is gasping. Instead of swimming in the people’s ocean, riding its currents and anticipating the waves, Obama’s “movement” inhabits tidal pools with only its own splashings to break the silence.

The clever “creative workers” and clamoring interest groups still don’t comprise the center of gravity of the people. Bitter clingers still matter.

It is difficult to muster the troops for Byzantine legislation and impossible to cheer the conquering hero without accomplishment.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:08 pm 225. Subotai Bahadur:

#223 Rodrigo

I heard that they are re-shooting episodes so as to minimalize any less than flattering comparison to Buraq. May or may not be true, but there were reports that after the premiere tonight, that the next episode would be shown in early 2010. IMDB says that it will be weekly through episode 5, which is as far out as the site tracked. Don’t know which.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:16 pm 226. Konyok:

Buddy,

I’m afraid that our brave splasher is more likely a GS14 or 15. That pay grade breeds a certain arrogant sans souci, while the humble GS3 still has to show some work.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:19 pm 227. myth buster:

I would like to take this opportunity to paraphrase Jefferson: Hundreds of billions for defense; not one cent for wealth redistribution!

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:24 pm 228. buddy larsen:

Oodles of self-evident behavioral tells in a person’s written repartee –right here on the screen. Themeless, random, ad hoc ridicule is the coffee-shop bullying indelibly associated with Marxist proselytizing. Coarse, vulgar, loud, obnoxious, haranguing speech is all lined out as political method in the marxist manuals. Beria said “To produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our first most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust, economic depression and scientific turmoil. At last, a weary populace can seek peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only Communism can resolve the problems of the masses.” IOW, the doctrine of rule or ruin produces a certain behavior that if the practitioners can’t see it in themselves, everyone else surely can.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:31 pm 229. Dave K.:

myth buster@218:
“Dave K.- you asked what the ratio of enlisted to officers is- it’s about 5:1, including all the staff officers like doctors and JAG corps. The job of a soldier or sailor is by no means “cushy,” at least not in the general case. A couple jobs may be cushy, but most entail spending months at a time away from your family in dangerous conditions. I do not begrudge them compensation, both immediate and deferred, nor do I begrudge paying for it, save that I wish they would allow me to join and fight by their side.”

So what’s stopping you?

“When we conservatives speak of the government, the military is typically the implicit, if not explicit exemption to our charges.”

Don’t you think that it’s dishonest to say “The Government is the problem” when you actually mean “The parts of the Government we dislike is the problem?”

“Assholes like you should be grateful that there are men willing to silently patrol the deep, ready to launch nuclear missiles at any nation that should incur our wrath, doing so for months at a time, and contact with one’s family is limited to RECEIVING (not sending) one 50-word telegram a week. Note, communication is one way- your family sends you a short telegram; you can’t reply to it. Sleep soundly tonight, knowing that men far braver than you are ready to do violence on your behalf, to defend your right to disparage them by comparing them to welfare queens.”

Nobody forced them to “defend” me.

They signed up voluntarily and they get paid, directly and indirectly to do their job.

You romanticize and glorify the military way too much.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:42 pm 230. presbypoet:

Now: Vote no money
teacher’s union.
Troll ignore, only
“Useful” idiot.

Later: Egg, chicken.
Hatch, count.

Mileage vary.
Depend on egg
Acorn lay.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:50 pm 231. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider@222:
“Belmont Club is populated by people who are in love with the idea that man is made in the image of God; that the individual therefore has corresponding unalienable rights to life, liberty and property honestly earned (pursuit of happiness). Since you mock us it is merely logical to conclude that you are opposed to those principles, as would any true Marxist believer. Like the Cross is to Dracula, the Declaration of Independence is to the Marxist.”

Just because I mock you because I find you to be an intolerable, pompous, and humorless buffoon without any understanding of logic and reason, doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily opposed to what you believe in.

That’s a very Manichean view of the world, but it does explain why you take all criticism so personally.

“Under Marxism the individual has no unalienable rights – they belong to the King – oops – I meant to say those reversible “rights” belong to the Marxist State.”

Yes, only in a Marxist state would the President and other officials have the right to declare anyone, including an US citizen, an “unlawful enemy combatant”, essentially making that person so declared with any ability to redress, without any way to appeal, no ability to challenge that designation, and to potentially be held and tortured without charges forever.

And only in a Marxist state would the CIA have the right to target and assassinate these “unlawful enemy combatants”, including US citizens.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:51 pm 232. Josh:

TrollK: Yes, one day laissez-faire capitalism will work. We just need more market deregulation and less government interference!

Popular leftard strawman.

Fannie and Freddie were all about government interference, and only loonie libertarians think that unconstrained lassize-faire capitalism “works”. It seems that some government intervention is needed to make a market and keep it stable, even if that intervention will itself cause problems. Such is life. But to think that more intervention can eliminate the problems, is the new fallacy.

If Obama wants my respect, he should seize all personal assets from and jail for life a couple of hundred principals and execs from wall street, on the multiple basis of criminal and civil frauds of a dozen different kinds. But no, he’d rather hire one of their chief lackeys as his secretary of the treasury – and a tax dodger to boot.

Laissez-faire my ass.

Nov 3, 2009 - 4:54 pm 233. exhelodrvr:

I had decided to nominate “dave k” for commenter of the year next year, but couldn’t decide which post to choose.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:04 pm 234. Dave K.:

Don Rodrigo@ 223:
“Rumor has it the White House tried to get the producers to tone it down a bit. Again, a rumor. I wonder if 1) it will be a hit, and 2) if people will begin to make the ironic/humorous connection with Obama? Since the “V” aliens are lizards, the unfortunate Anita Dunn has already been the butt of “V” jokes with her tongue-flicking lecture on the wisdom of Mao.”

Rumor has it that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
Again, a rumor.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:08 pm 235. marymcl:

Wretchard – I thought you said awhile back you were categorically against torture – in the name of our dear departed fred, how much longer do we have to put up with this trolling Torquemada?!?! For crying out loud he’s screaming in boldface already….54 posts and counting – I realize I’m ignoring my own advice but seriously, what exactly is gained here by letting him go on and on and on and basically wrecking the entire conversation?

Meanwhile Habu @204 sets the bar for next year’s best comment awards -

~ “The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happen to them all. Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.” ~

LOL – Amen to that!

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:08 pm 236. buddy larsen:

J/232; –the germ of truth in the laissez-faire strawman is that the unregulated CDS –the bullet in the gun –WAS a matter of too little regulation. And for that here’s yer huckleberry. In a hurry? Just read para two of the ‘biography’, won’t take but a jiffy.

quick read of the wiki, seems to’ve been scrubbed since a few months ago, when it did mention that the Enron system later repaired by sarbox, were both designed in part by this same fella. Lots of connects among Enroneers and this admin –check out PERAB. This financial mess –and its political stepchild –if dated only from the CDS setup in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of yr 2000 –is a decade long refinement of the protection racket, wherein no thug shakes you down for money to protect you from himself, but these wizards set up regs and rules which go down in flames (while friends make money off the swings), and which then only they can ”fix” –a la Timmy gGeithner.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:12 pm 237. Delia:

Someone said today (I can’t remember who and where to give credit) that there is a civil war going on right now, only it isn’t between the Left & the Right but between the people and the politicians.

I’m apt to agree with that summarization.

There are plenty of folks who are disgusted with politicians of all stripes who are only out for their own skin and don’t represent the people they are supposed to be looking out for.

P.S. 235. marymcl, I kept your email and I’ll send you one so you have mine too. -Glad you kept your accent.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:18 pm 238. exhelodrvr:

marymcl,

I now know the answer to my question from the other day.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:20 pm 239. joe buzz:

There is no wonder I used to find a sense of freedom and joy within the fences of the three comment/thread rule.
Habu, let me know if possumtater cant ride shotgun for you on your swamp to big sky jaunt, I can cover for him if need be.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:27 pm 240. Grumpy Old Man: (Status == Sick):

“I’ve got an ekelectic reading list”.

Got to love it.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:30 pm 241. Dave K.:

marymcl@235:
“Meanwhile Habu @204 sets the bar for next year’s best comment awards -

~ “The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happen to them all. Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.” ~”

Quoting from the Bible impresses you that much?

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:30 pm 242. We Need A Politically Incorrect Political Party « CIIDG:

[...] 59. anton: What we need is a party of Constitutional Centerists. Nov 3, 2009 – 7:15 am Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Are Political Parties Necessary?Political Halloween Costumes — 8 DIY Disguises for the Partisan Partier [...]

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:37 pm 243. Habu:

Buddy ,
Your idea of having Wrethchard forward one of us our real email adddress is a wonderful idea. We’ve traded ideas and known on another for what five years plus and meeting you would be a pleasure.

He has my permission to provide you with my email address should he be inclined to do so.

They did get Blue Duck a while back so I feel safe.

This troll who has managed to garner such attention and feedback, hmmm….folks if ya just ignore them they will evaporate …

Now having said that I will admit that at a tea party I did pick out a pinko-commie-obama t shirt wearing pencil neck geek , went over next to him and just made him very nervous by physically intimidating him…he finally left after I stepped on his sandled foot with my hobnail boot and accidently lost my balance and knocked him over. I have to admit I love that stuff and go to many events just to protect my sides interests from thugs. Life is good.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:43 pm 244. Storm-Rider:

Dave K: “only in a Marxist state would the President and other officials have the right to declare anyone, including an US citizen, an “unlawful enemy combatant”

Not true, this can occur in a Constitutional Republic. Our republic has enemies, foreign and domestic. Jose Padilla is an unlawful domestic enemy combatant and a traitor; a redundancy in language because being a traitor is self-evidently an unlawful enemy.

“On August 16, 2007, José Padilla was found guilty, by a federal jury, of charges against him that he conspired to kill people in an overseas jihad and to fund and support overseas terrorism.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:46 pm 245. vivo:

142. RagnarD:

“When you see . . . vivo and the other paid Soros fools”

If I were paid I wouldn’t be wasting my time in this hilarious blog.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:55 pm 246. Storm-Rider:

Dave K: “And only in a Marxist state would the CIA have the right to target and assassinate these “unlawful enemy combatants”, including US citizens.”

Not true, this can also occur in a Constitutional Republic. Our Republic has totalitarian enemies; some must be justly killed in self-defense. We assassinated, or killed in combat, many enemies during our just wars in defense of life and liberty.

Jose Padilla was not assassinated by the CIA, but I do recall the assassinations that Clinton ordered at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Nov 3, 2009 - 5:59 pm 247. Almost Daily Right 11/3/09 « The Quantum Conservative:

[...] *The Armies of the Right, by Richard Fernandez. [...]

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:02 pm 248. marymcl:

@238 exhelodriver

Yeah, funny how it’s always in the last place you look

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:11 pm 249. Dave K.:

Habu@243:
“Now having said that I will admit that at a tea party I did pick out a pinko-commie-obama t shirt wearing pencil neck geek , went over next to him and just made him very nervous by physically intimidating him…he finally left after I stepped on his sandled foot with my hobnail boot and accidently lost my balance and knocked him over. I have to admit I love that stuff and go to many events just to protect my sides interests from thugs. Life is good.”

You go, girl!

You sure showed that 0bummie that he doesn’t have a right to assemble unlike Real Americans, because he’s an Obumma sympathizer and no Real American would support a Marxist like Barack Hussein Obumma Bin Laden.

It’s what the founding fathers would’ve done.

You’re my hero!

Real American Heroes 1
Unlawful Enemy 0bummie Combatants 0

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:11 pm 250. vivo:

The Armies of the Right?

You’re dreaming

Oh, wait! There’s the toothless, gun-carrying fourth-graders in rural areas and the looting briefcase-carrying Wall Street vultures, plus the voices of the Jerry Springer shows called Fox/Limbo. Forgot the T Partiers acting like lemmings. What a vision! The Real Americans.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:12 pm 251. rbell:

I am sorry people find it necessary to reply to David K. He needs attention to deal with his real life situation and its cheaper than therapy. His sole purpose on this web site is to slim decent people. HE was probably bottle fed as a child because even his own mother could not stand him. He thinks this is a forum about him. Ignore the imbecile. If want to argue with him you need to get down to his level, a foot below pond scum.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:14 pm 252. Dave K.:

rbell@251:
“I am sorry people find it necessary to reply to David K. He needs attention to deal with his real life situation and its cheaper than therapy. His sole purpose on this web site is to slim decent people. HE was probably bottle fed as a child because even his own mother could not stand him. He thinks this is a forum about him. Ignore the imbecile. If want to argue with him you need to get down to his level, a foot below pond scum.”

But, yeah, I’m the Alinsky-style, character-assassinating troll.

Keep on trying to silence, belittle, and ridicule those who disagree with you.
It’s working really well.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:22 pm 253. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider@246:
“Dave K: “And only in a Marxist state would the CIA have the right to target and assassinate these “unlawful enemy combatants”, including US citizens.”

Not true, this can also occur in a Constitutional Republic. Our Republic has totalitarian enemies; some must be justly killed in self-defense. We assassinated, or killed in combat, many enemies during our just wars in defense of life and liberty.

Jose Padilla was not assassinated by the CIA, but I do recall the assassinations that Clinton ordered at Ruby Ridge and Waco.”

And the kingly powers of the President and other officials to declare anyone, including an US citizen, an “unlawful enemy combatant?”

You find nothing wrong with that?

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:24 pm 254. Konyok:

Habu,

Your little tease got quite a rise from the splasher. I find the note of sexism in his reply fascinating.

Pace Buddy’s 228, I’m reminded of the sophomore philosophy student who claims that he can prove that I don’t exist. Your hobnail boot is a good metaphor for the correct counter argument …

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:39 pm 255. Konyok:

Actually, the Virginia electorate is applying the hobnail boot as we speak …

Buddy, re your 236, could you provide us with a rogue’s gallery of these characters?

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:42 pm 256. buddy larsen:

Virginny –57% in, 61-38 –woo hoo –ObamaCare e dead! Capon Trade e dead too! e card m checkum e dead also too!
Dead dead deadity dead,
deadity dead,
deadity dead,
deadity deadity, dead dead dead!

Congrats to the Olde Dominion !

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:46 pm 257. JFSanders031:

I get on and read an excellent article by Wretchard and then notice it has 236! comments!!

So off I go into the mix reading and truly enjoying myself only to be assaulted by some little kid putting his hands into his diapers and flinging his feces all about the place…

At least the Russians are polite and well read.

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:49 pm 258. Storm-Rider:

Dave K: “And the kingly powers of the President and other officials to declare anyone, including an US citizen, an “unlawful enemy combatant?”
You find nothing wrong with that?”

The President should publically declare our enemies once they become a clear and present danger to the American people. As long as the Bill of Rights and 14th Amendments are adhered to (along with the rest of our Constitution) then I don’t fear the President or our government. I fear American government when the Constitution is not followed – I fear un-Constitutional criminal government – I fear the “Living Constitution.”

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure(Living Constitution).” Thomas Jefferson

“If “the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government,” … , then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de so. … The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they may please (Living Constitution).” Thomas Jefferson

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Thomas Jefferson

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 1st Amendment, U.S. Constitution

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” 2nd Amendment, U.S. Constitution

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” 4th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” 5th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” 6th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” 14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/

Nov 3, 2009 - 6:50 pm 259. buddy larsen:

Konyok, yessir i do believe i can. in fact the entire time-space sequence is inside my haid, the aspect of a spinning spiderweb blotting all sense of reality and drenching every little sparkfire of joy that the old gray matter struggles to defend itself wif. Yassuh, ah gits plumb outraged –who do these people think they are anyway?

But do gimme a day or three –i’ll holler atcha in comments –
if you enjoyed the link, here’s the Levintine mothership (remember, need hi-volume for full effect! if fam’s around, git da dam headphones!)

http://www.wabcradio.com/sectional.asp?id=34043
http://www.wabcradio.com/getpodcast.aspx?sid=34043&lid=5145&id=1560933&source=2&url=http://podloc.andomedia.com/dloadTrack.mp3?prm=10804xhttp://podfuse-dl.andomedia.com/800185/podfuse-origin.andomedia.com/citadel_origin/pods/WABC/WABC-Levin/10-23-09Levin.mp3

(go straight to last ten or twenty seconds rant)

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:01 pm 260. Dave K.:

JFSanders031@257:
“So off I go into the mix reading and truly enjoying myself only to be assaulted by some little kid putting his hands into his diapers and flinging his feces all about the place…”

I think you’re being unnecessarily mean to Habu.
I mean, yeah, it’s incoherent nonsense coupled with physical violence, but the fecal references are a bit much.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:07 pm 261. Cannoneer No. 4:

Subotai Bahadur@184:

If we were engaged in a calculated operational strategy of resistance, there would be a wide range of tactics already in play; ranging from hard to soft. However, unlike TWANLOC, we are not doing this in accordance to any plan or under any central control. This is ad-hoc-ery at its finest. There is no central control. That is not necessarily a bad thing. That which is diffuse cannot be targeted with precision by a centrally controlled hostile force. Attacking one of the diffuse aspects, opens their flanks to counters.

Distributed Resistance from radicalized ex-conservative Strategic Citizens linked via social networking and Virtual Think Tanks, persuading, changing and influencing each other without “leadership from on high” to assume airs of superiority over the little people and provide the enemy targets for demonization and personal destruction.

We surround them.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:11 pm 262. buddy larsen:

well i lost my hyperlink race with the damn robot editor –just click here for the mp3 good part –lasts 45 seconds and it WILL grin ya all up real good!

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:15 pm 263. Dave K.:

Cannoneer No. 4@261:

“We surround them.”

Glönn Böck 2012!

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:17 pm 264. JFSanders031:

Buddy, that guy is off the chain! Have you read his latest book? It was pretty good reading imho. Very tight.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:19 pm 265. Dave K.:

JFSanders031@264:
“Buddy, that guy is off the chain! Have you read his latest book? It was pretty good reading imho. Very tight.”

And who are you referring to?

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:22 pm 266. buddy larsen:

JFS/264 –ain’t he something tho? naw i haven’t read it yet but want to –i have followed the guy’s essay writings for some time now –you’re right –”very tight” describes his mind well –he’s a lawyer (or as they say hereabouts, a “larya”) and the training shows, as he is never in a hurry to respond to a question –he takes a moment, and then a polished finished summarized brief comes tumbling out –replete with a natural performer’s dramatic delivery –must be why he got him a New York City radio show!

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:29 pm 267. Dave K.:

buddy larsen@266:
“JFS/264 –ain’t he something tho? naw i haven’t read it yet but want to –i have followed the guy’s essay writings for some time now –you’re right –”very tight” describes his mind well.”

Listen to them. Children of the right. What music they make.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:30 pm 268. olde fogey:

Buddy,et. al.

N.J. governor’s race: Christie, 56, Corzine, 38 percent

These are exit poll results, not vote results but the votes are close and, if the exit polls were conducted properly, it might be a great night.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:36 pm 269. Konyok:

This is neither the time nor the place, but our splashing friend did finally, inadvertently, put his finger on something.

Who will be the POTUS pretender(s)in 2012?

Has the Obama personality cult permanently changed our presidency? Need only telegenic “transformative figures” apply? Are there any men or women of common sense available for the national stage? With the current crop of nonentities in the bull pen, we are bound for some neck twisting surprises. Jesse Ventura?

BTW The Great One IS a terrific writer.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:39 pm 270. buddy larsen:

OF/268 –crossing fingers & holding tight, c’mon Jersey fight fight fight!

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:40 pm 271. Josh:

buddy larsen @ 236: J/232; –the germ of truth in the laissez-faire strawman is that the unregulated CDS –the bullet in the gun –WAS a matter of too little regulation.

Absolutely true, but the canard is that the Republicans were to blame, and favored then or favor now the same sort of un-regulation.

The CDS thing is still alive, the CDO thing is mostly dead now, but they work on the same theory, that you can separate the principle from the risk at a price. I suggest this is WRONG and should be a major lesson in the history of economics – and by that light, has little to do with regulation, this is a singularity in *theory*. Nobody today knows what regulations to put in place! To “regulate” the CDS market is like “regulating” a ponzi scheme, it cannot work except to facilitate the underlying errors and fraud.

I daresay that somewhere there are “rocket scientists” who knew this stuff was unstable – and they were not listened to, as they would have spoiled the party for trillions in instruments and billions in executive compensation.

Has anybody yet learned the right lessons from any of this? I despair of the public or government grasp of simple arithmetic anymore, much less more complex economics or science.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:45 pm 272. buddy larsen:

K/269;

>>”petra”: (n) archaic greek for “Rock”

>>”rock” (n) constituent of Earth crust, mineral materials formed into hard solid mass. Also, (v) to energize, to move, to “get up & go”.

>>”us” (n) we who need more rock features in our being. Also (alt) abbrev. for United States.

petra us

“palin”: (prefix) “again” as in ‘palindrome’ or ‘palingensis’

***
free association; ‘let us Again be heavy in aspect, and solidly durable’

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:54 pm 273. Konyok:

There is something about a man in uniform. Especially one with that magnitude of accomplishment.

Once upon a time I would have followed Colin Powell anywhere …

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:57 pm 274. myth buster:

David S.:”What’s stopping you?”

Glad you asked. Until last March, I was in ROTC, slated to become a commissioned officer in December 2010, but the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine decided that my very mild case of Asperger’s Syndrome (diagnosed in January, so mild that the diagnosing psychiatrist thought it to be a non-issue) was a disqualification from any form of Naval service and refused to grant a waiver. I petitioned my Congressman and a retired General to get advocate on my behalf, and I was granted another hearing, but their original decision stands. Thus, even though all my superior officers and the Navy’s own psychiatrist deemed me fit for unrestricted line duty, the top doctors at BUMED substituted their own jurisprudence for that of the people who observed me.

In short, I was screwed out of the opportunity to become a Naval officer despite being quite capable of being placed in command (more fit for duty, in fact, than most of my classmates, according to my Captain). And I’m sure people here are really going to like this part [/sarc]: This decision came after the Navy had spent over $70,000 training me to become a Naval officer. Yet another way the government wastes money- disqualifying perfectly good candidates for the military after spending tens of thousands of dollars training them.

Nov 3, 2009 - 7:59 pm 275. olde fogey:

K/269
That might be sorta true IF O actually wrote even one of his biographies. Big IF.

Buddy/272
Petra????

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:00 pm 276. Konyok:

olde fogey,

That doesn’t really matter. The personality cult as political marketing strategy has arrived and will be emulated in future.

Buddy,

Petrae = “of the rock”

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:07 pm 277. buddy larsen:

J/271; yes, ‘rocket scientists’ were on the case and fter much study i do believe they knew what they were doing. ‘tells’ are all over it. start with the Vanity Fair piece on Joe Cassano and let the sequence and oddities and non-sequiters sink in. That’s a good place to start.

OF/275; Petra eus, “Petraeus”

Also see Palin genesis, palingenesis

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:10 pm 278. Dave K.:

myth buster@274:
“David S.:”What’s stopping you?”

Glad you asked. Until last March, I was in ROTC, slated to become a commissioned officer in December 2010, but the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine decided that my very mild case of Asperger’s Syndrome (diagnosed in January, so mild that the diagnosing psychiatrist thought it to be a non-issue) was a disqualification from any form of Naval service and refused to grant a waiver. I petitioned my Congressman and a retired General to get advocate on my behalf, and I was granted another hearing, but their original decision stands. Thus, even though all my superior officers and the Navy’s own psychiatrist deemed me fit for unrestricted line duty, the top doctors at BUMED substituted their own jurisprudence for that of the people who observed me.

In short, I was screwed out of the opportunity to become a Naval officer despite being quite capable of being placed in command (more fit for duty, in fact, than most of my classmates, according to my Captain). And I’m sure people here are really going to like this part [/sarc]: This decision came after the Navy had spent over $70,000 training me to become a Naval officer. Yet another way the government wastes money- disqualifying perfectly good candidates for the military after spending tens of thousands of dollars training them.”

Yeah, it’s too easy as a target for me.
No sport.

Isn’t that a blessing in disguise for you,
since you can always become a military contractor?

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:12 pm 279. peterike:

N.J. governor’s race: Christie, 56, Corzine, 38 percent

These are exit poll results, not vote results but the votes are close and, if the exit polls were conducted properly, it might be a great night.

Indeed. But they haven’t yet tallied the votes of the dead, the long-since-left-New-Jersey, the illegals, the “vote early and vote often” set, the boxes and boxes of absentee ballots dutifully filled out by Mickey Mouse and Homer Sexual. All yet to be counted.

And then the bigger question. If Christie does manage to win against the wave of fraud, will he clean the Augean Stables of New Jersey politics, or will he do like all the rest and just take his, now that the takin’ is like easy street?

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:14 pm 280. buddy larsen:

FOX PROJECTS CHRISTIE

sez upstate new york will be ”long night”

(did those two little squirrels eat that big old acorn?)

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:19 pm 281. olde fogey:

B/277

I’m old and slow.

Are you saying you think it was engineered?

If so, how far? Could it include Schumer starting run on Indy? Can it be “capitalism” of the wicked that recognized potential of CRA combined with Fannie/Freddie or does there have to be a behind-the-scenes string-puller?

I’m not denying possibility but the scope staggers.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:22 pm 282. olde fogey:

Both Fox and AP just called NJ for Christie.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:25 pm 283. buddy larsen:

OF/281; can’t do it tonite, but soon i’ll have ten questions for you, and then you can judge for yourself.

Yes, the scope staggers. Ralph Nader has been looking at it –he was interviewed the other day (on O’Rielly’s show iirc) and he said it was done by about 120 people.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:29 pm 284. myth buster:

I could become a contractor, or work for the Navy as a civilian refueling nuclear vessels, or I could go into private industry. It really depends on who’s willing to give me a job. Still, I wouldn’t call it a blessing in disguise, except to avoid having to take orders coming from Obama. I put a premium on keeping my word, and the contract I signed says I’m supposed to serve at least four years as a Naval officer. Far be it from me to suggest that I shouldn’t honor the contract. I should note that the contractors I’m referring to are shipbuilders, design firms, and suppliers of nuclear fuel, not various security firms (I’m a nuclear engineer, you see).

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:35 pm 285. olde fogey:

B/283

Thanks. I’ll be gone for awhile but will check archives as soon as I return.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:37 pm 286. marymcl:

@254 Konyok

~ “I find the note of sexism in his reply fascinating.”~

If you liked that you’ll love the Amos ‘n Andy bit he does @133

(sigh…)it looks like we’re stuck with this one, we may as well have some fun with it . (On the other hand, his shift might be over soon….what to do…) anyway per your 269 – what about Dave K? He’s perfect, Hard-hitting, pithy, unafraid of the tough issues, even (dare I say it) dense …I was just checking out the rest of PJM and while you might think he’s been devoting himself to our little neck of the woods, not so….he’s all over some other threads too. Amazing. This kind of dedication calls for a reward somewhere. Obama’s already shown the way – don’t you want to see Soviet-gothic posters of the most dedicated troll in America on garage doors in your town? Hasn’t he earned it today?

You know wretchard, it occurs to me that a headline like “Armies of the Right” is asking for trouble….just saying

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:42 pm 287. anton:

VA goes R

NJ goes R

NY23 still up in the air but looking weak

Looks like the army of the right found it’s way to the polls; KosKids and MoveOn must have been waiting for ACORN to make the first move and everybody on the left stayed home.

I just hope that these results don’t get overturned by some crates of Franken Votes!

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:43 pm 288. Dave K.:

myth buster@284:
“I could become a contractor, or work for the Navy as a civilian refueling nuclear vessels, or I could go into private industry. It really depends on who’s willing to give me a job. Still, I wouldn’t call it a blessing in disguise, except to avoid having to take orders coming from Obama.”

Well, to paraphrase Tennyson:
Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do and die.
That’s the military way, right?

“I put a premium on keeping my word, and the contract I signed says I’m supposed to serve at least four years as a Naval officer. Far be it from me to suggest that I shouldn’t honor the contract. I should note that the contractors I’m referring to are shipbuilders, design firms, and suppliers of nuclear fuel, not various security firms (I’m a nuclear engineer, you see).”

Cool beans!

I’ve always believed that if people weren’t so scared of the word “nuclear”, we’d have isotope-based laptop batteries by now.

Isotope batteries would’ve been less dangerous than the current “crotch explosives” that we have in our laptops now.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:50 pm 289. JMH:

Just had a fundraising call from Newt Gingrich. Asking me to send $75 or $100 for a College Republicans rally to yell at “hippie, dope-smoking professors” (that exactly what the staffer on the phone called them). I said I generally supported Newt’s positions and agreed with yelling at lefty professors, but with Newt’s fumble on the Scozzafava issue I didn’t have any confidence he would know who to funnel my money to. So I declined to contribute.

The fundraiser tried to keep jabbering at me, even after I twice politely said “no thanks.” The third time I wasn’t polite.

Looks like a good night for conservatives. Not sure yet about Republicans.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:51 pm 290. buddy larsen:

Old Fogey, read Michael Lewis’ work on AIG and Joe Cassano. Not now of course –but save this and come back to it. the thread leads back and forward in time from this. One thing to look for before reading Lewis, is the charges Elliot Spitzer used to remove Hank Greenberg and install Cassano. You’ll by now after two years of Obama quickly recognize the argot for what it is. Next, ask “What was Greenberg’s presence thwarting?” then to answer THAT, read the Lewis. Then you’ll be seeing the middle of Act Two.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:53 pm 291. JMH:

You know wretchard, it occurs to me that a headline like “Armies of the Right” is asking for trouble….just saying

Mary, maybe it’s about time to ask for some trouble. Like one of Suess’ books ends:

I’m all ready you see,
I’ve bought a big bat,
and now my troubles
are going to have trouble with me

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:54 pm 292. anton:

I’ve been flipping back and forth between Fox and CNN, it is fun to watch the different spins thrown at the results. Wolf Blitzer’s head almost exploded when they had to call NJ for Christie. Poor little Wolfy has been wearing a plastic smile ever since it was clear VA was going to the Rs in a big way. Fox on the other hand looks like a college cheerleading squad. Both channels have way too much loud music and special effects.

I know Cronkite was a closet Commie but his style was much easier to survive.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:57 pm 293. Dave K.:

marymcl@286:
@254 Konyok

“If you liked that you’ll love the Amos ‘n Andy bit he does @133″

Nah, I was going for the Southern Gothic style.
There’s this crazy woman on one of the television shows who became a cult figure for screaming “DARK SIDED!” when she saw something she didn’t like.
And, yes, she was white.

“(sigh…)it looks like we’re stuck with this one, we may as well have some fun with it . (On the other hand, his shift might be over soon….what to do…) anyway per your 269 – what about Dave K? He’s perfect…I was just checking out the rest of PJM and while you might think he’s been devoting himself to our little neck of the woods, not so….he’s all over some other threads too. Amazing. This kind of dedication calls for a reward somewhere. Obama’s already shown the way – don’t you want to see Soviet-gothic posters of the most dedicated troll in America on garage doors in your town? Hasn’t he earned it today?”

When I was getting my background check done processed in the sex offender registry, the Homeland Security employees prison wardens had to take my fingerprints twice, since the excessive typing masturbation had actually worn off parts of my fingerprints.

Cool story, bro.

“You know wretchard, it occurs to me that a headline like “Armies of the Right” is asking for trouble….just saying”

I would’ve gone with the more Bram Stoker-esque “Children of the right”, but that’s just me.

Nov 3, 2009 - 8:57 pm 294. buddy larsen:

Wonderful victories for the traditional America tonight. however, if this sort of thing keeps up, we will have to start thinking about getting started digging that bomb shelter. this bunch ain’t leaving office without ”fundamentally changing America” you know.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:01 pm 295. Dave K.:

JMH@289:
“Just had a fundraising call from Newt Gingrich.”

Sir Bedevere: What makes you think she’s a witch?
Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt!
Sir Bedevere: A newt?
Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause] … I got better.

Sorry about that. Just couldn’t resist.
I blame poor impulse control.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:04 pm 296. JMH:

Buddy,

Thanks for bringing up the Spitzer-Greenberg issue. Spitzer deserves his own special hell for how he abused his office as AG. I (through my employer) had some dealing with Spitzer back when he was AG, and frankly, I really hope he draws Habu as his guard when he gets sent to the camps.

(Edit: PS Habu, if you need a new pair of golf spikes for Client #9, just let me know. )

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:04 pm 297. buddy larsen:

Better than ‘93!

JMH/ ; yep –AIG for a variety of reasns was the ideal repository for holding that secret pile of Privacy Act darkened CDS –which were to be –and were –the proximate cause of the September Panic –wherein 2007 SEC rules changes (forced by an agent of the plan who is now on the PERAB, Bill Donaldson) plus scofflawing naked shorting led by several other agents of the plan (see deepcapture.com) forced the big bank stocks down 70% in a week or so and led to the TARP and the gov’t banking takeover. CDS hidden by Gensler’s yr 2000 dereg went from a start few hundred million to 60 trillion in seven years–

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:08 pm 298. marymcl:

@291 JMH

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it in real life. What I wouldn’t give for 10 minutes face to face with our little trash-talking keyboard sniper…

But BC is a special place. As Alexis once remarked, we need citadels. That’s what BC is. I admire wretchard’s tolerance. I just hate to see it abused.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:13 pm 299. Dave K.:

marymcl@298:
“@291 JMH

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it in real life. What I wouldn’t give for 10 minutes face to face with our little trash-talking keyboard sniper…”

I’ll be more than happy to spend 10 minutes face to face with you and explain to you why you are wrong and how you can mend your ways.

I’ll talk slowly and use pictures.
Maybe I’ll read from “My Pet Goat”, since that book never fails to entertain the less gifted on God’s green earth.

Of course, you won’t take me up on my offer, because being Internet tough is quite different from standing up for your beliefs in the real world.

In the off-chance that you might actually want to stand up for your beliefs:

Let me know where and when and I’ll be there, provided that you’ll be there as well.

My email address is: david.kistenmacher@gmail.com

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:27 pm 300. buddy larsen:

JMH; deepcapture seems to attract a strangely hysterical level of attack –ad hom of course, not ideational –from presumably financially disinterested folks who all somehow happen to be hard lefties oddly supporting the “wall street fat cats” who brought down the economy in the lead up to election 2008. huh? wazzup, comrades?

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:29 pm 301. myth buster:

David K.: I won’t dispute what you’re saying about isotopic batteries, but they already exist; we just don’t publicize that fact much. Am-241 powers smoke detectors, Pu-238 is used for deep space probes that travel too far from the sun to use solar power, and Tritium is used in EXIT signs so they’ll glow even if power is cut off. Most other isotopes would be dangerous on account of gamma ray production that normally accompanies decays (few beta emitters decay to the ground state of the daughter isotope), or else the isotopes have half-lives either too long to get a significant power source, too short to maintain power for a long time or involve weapons grade material.

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:37 pm 302. Papa Ray:

I don’t know if anyone cares, but I have a bad feeling (well, right now just an uncomfortable feeling) about this tidbit on Ace’s site.

Syracuse reports problems with the new voting machines???

And the results of ” paper ballot backups…” won’t be counted until tomorrow.

Problems? What kind of problems…?

Papa Ray

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:45 pm 303. buddy larsen:

(oops didn’t mean to bold that whole comment –must give it a rest –pilot to beanie, feather that runaway propeller -

Nov 3, 2009 - 9:45 pm 304. Mark_B:

Myth Buster:

Civilian nuclear power plants love ex Navy guys. I take it you’re a graduate of NNPS? Ops is a great place to start. Reactor engineer and Shift Engineer positions abound. They will be happy to start you at Senior Reactor Operator.

The government has deprived you of a truly unique opportunity. Here’s your short summary. Listen to what the junior folks are telling you. Why guess when the guy in the field is trying to tell you that the valve fell clean off the pipe?

Navy Officers generally don’t get hired in civilian nuclear power. Having no experience will be to your benefit. Operations can’t find qualified people, or rather people that can qualify. That said, my favorite Shift Engineer was a Navy Officer and Nuclear Engineer from MIT.

Find a new plant. South Texas Project, maybe. They’ll hire you in a heartbeat.

Really try and find a new plant. There was at least a decade where plants thought it was easier to change their procedures than to fix equipment.

I am sure you’ve noticed. There are several nukes here.

Sorry Wretchard, but I have a vetting process before I will tell others about your site. I know you could handle the traffic, but I don’t want to be the one responsible for screwing up a good thing.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:05 pm 305. buddy larsen:

josh, Fogey, JMH –there’s just tons of this stuff out there –your gov’t knows who these people are –as jim Cramer sez, “they have the tapes from the brokerages and exchanges” –Cramer (and others) keep making the point that the four or six trillion that stepped away from the markets in late 2008 wants to see some perp walks before it’ll EVER reenter the investment capital mkts.

(okay NOW feathering beanie prop)

FLASH –Fox calls –NY23 goes to Democrat –with 49% vs 45% for Palin’s guy and 6% for Benedict Dede ( note 45 + 6 = 51 )

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:08 pm 306. Storm-Rider:

marymcl,
Stay away from that creep – keep some pepper spray and your hunk nearby in case he shows up with date-rape drugs, viagra and child porn.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:10 pm 307. buddy larsen:

jeez i hate that pepper spray –caused me to quit dating –no seriously marymcl SR’s right –don’t get baited into meeting some meth freak –you can’t help ‘em –they have to bottom out on their own –

I have to finish my thought on TARP (sorry). That artificial, rumor-juiced, frauded up September bank run that gave us TARP –TARP i 700 billion unaccounted administration slush fund and ‘walking around money’ with which the takeovers are run and the pals paid off –exactly equals one year of gov’t payroll tax withholding. Just think of where thr USA and world would be today if instead of TARP that $ would’ve been sent back to taxpayers via a one year holiday.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:20 pm 308. d'Percy:

Fascinating coincidence…this convergence of conservative electoral victories and the arrival of “trolls” here at the BC.

Dave K, it’s cool…let your pain show through. I know this doesn’t quite compare to being Iowa’s numero uno Grocery Bagger . Hey, life skills are a good thing to possess…keep on pumpin’ for that increase in the mininum wage.

Sorry all, couldn’t resist feeding the troll after reading him all day.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:24 pm 309. JJRedfan:

It is a shame when someone on heavy thorazine wakes up and washes down his meds chugging down what turns out to be the liquid in the Urinal on the nightstand instead of the water carafe placed in suspicious proximity.

Recent double-blind studies among long-term psychotic patients have shown conclusively that the interactions between the metabolic constituents – urea, free phosphorus radicals, and the breakdown products of various anti-psychotic agents – end up synergistically amplifying the patient’s delusional state.

In some cases, the only way to establish some link with the patient is to engage in the patient’s fantasy world. Role-playing by staff pretending to be actors on a black & white soap opera which is fed to the TV in the patient’s room… Fake newspapers with letters to the Editor and large ads in the kinky personals… and sometimes, comments in a blog post.

We may be witnessing the unfolding of some pathetic disturbed person whose caregivers are desperately – feverishly – scrambling to drag back from the brink of personality dissolution.

Or it may just be an attention-starved shut-in adolescent, redolent of acne-cream, who might otherwise be squeezing model airplane glue into a baggie to sniff.

Hard to do a diagnosis. gotta have some entrails to examine. So far we only got the contents of the entrails.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:29 pm 310. marymcl:

Storm Rider, buddy larsen -

Thanks guys – but not to worry. Only in his dreams. I’ve been around the block too many times to fall for a stunt like that

btw I can attest to the virtues of pepper spray. Wonderful stuff – carried it for years.

Nov 3, 2009 - 10:37 pm 311. buddy larsen:

http://www.deepcapture.com/

enjoy the site but do read the fascinating undercover trenchcoats, suicides, and wise guys in the Mitchell Report (link near page top). an angle of Madoff, too, that you will not get from the ‘captured’ folks currently placeholding in the government financial regulatory offices.

Though all this may seem to be only about the money the biggest truth of all is that it isn’t.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:08 pm 312. Konyok:

Anyhow, Hoffman lost. Not really a good harbinger for a new conservative third party.

I think that the Tea Party now needs to stage an insurgency inside the Republican Party. In about three or four months caucus season begins. Imagine if turnout triples or quadruples with these “Armies of the Right,” all bright-eyed and eager to choose counterrevolutionary congressional candidates.

Last time, there were two of us from my precinct. We flipped a coin to decide who went to the county assembly. I’d love to see some of the same folks I saw on tax day this time.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:14 pm 313. JMH:

I think that the Tea Party now needs to stage an insurgency inside the Republican Party. In about three or four months caucus season begins.

Absolutely. I heard Rush say something on his show last week that stuck with me. He said the far-Left didn’t create a third party to carry out their agenda, they took over the Democrat party.

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:32 pm 314. RagnarD:

164. anton:

As I said earlier; Molon Labe!

If they dare.

(full disclosure notice, I’m one of those bitter-clingers)

Heh, me too. Big 5 has Mosin Nagant M91/30’s for $99 this week. Monte Carlo composite stock from Cheaper Than Dirt = $59.97 Scope mount with bent bolt handle = $100

That means you can have a tack driver in 7.62×39R for less than $300 and some gunsmithing. Sweet.

Also, via Gates of Vienna today – “It’s Showtime!”

President Václav Klaus, after months of political and financial arm-twisting — including the ominous spectacle of Don Corleone Nicolas Sarkozy casually slapping a baseball bat into his palm next to Mr. Klaus’ head — has finally caved in and signed the Lisbon Treaty on behalf of the Czech Republic.

And so Europe falls under the Comintern.

When will our pResident Pantywaist start his campaign to subvert the US and the Constitution to the Internationale?

anton @ 287 said:

I just hope that these results don’t get overturned by some crates of Franken Votes!

We have a Winner! Lasting phrase, that one. I love it! “Frankenvotes”

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:40 pm 315. Subotai Bahadur:

#310 marymcl:

I’m glad you have “been around the block” and won’t meet with him; but I’d like to add my two cents to Storm Rider’s comment. I have dealt with criminal sociopaths for decades before I retired. A lot of them have been sex offenders. I see warning signs all over his posts. Do not meet with him in the absence of the ready availability of deadly force and the skill to apply it, and/or bloody-minded back up, preferably with the same options. This is not me trying to yank his chain on the internet. This is professional opinion based on a lifetime of law enforcement experience.

BC is a special place, and those of us who contribute here are a family. We need to take care of each other, so that as many of us as possible can meet someday on the other side of the hard times to come.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:44 pm 316. Wadeusaf:

Buddy,

Ralph says 120? Figure six groups coordinated, some highly skilled in various required arts and knowledgeable to be able to push the right buttons. This was not a singular event, it had to have been done before to a lesser degree.

By standards as they are, the only thing they have had to fear was/is exposure. Unlike old monied castles sitting atop an old rocky crag those icons can’t list without peril.

Interesting topics discussed on the same thread with the guest, too.

Some thing more philosophic, I find it a bit of irony, that a group supporting Darwin is so fearful of Darwinism in the market place of ideas or of dollars. Is size a constant factor in Darwinian evolution? If evolving a Democratic-socialistic economic structure can be considered evolving, then perhaps the free market really is dead. Trouble is evolution and nature show that constrained systems especially, will evolve in opposing ways. For every action their is an equal and opposite reaction. Keeping nature bound or under wraps is bound to cause a huge flood of something, somewhere, at sometime. Tea perhaps.

Petra oleo scissors.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:04 am 317. Alexis:

Steady as she goes.

There seem to be plenty of well-connected people who know more than I do about court intrigue who apparently think there is an imminent civil war about to start. The closer they are to the centers of power, the more thoroughly polarized they seem to be. The hinterlands may be oblivious to the ways of court intrigue, for there is an eerie disconnect between the confusion in the hinterlands and the bitter feuds of the Beltway.

What happened in 2001? Was it the Anthrax attacks that broke the sense of unity? What happened to the sense of vendetta against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and all who support them? The war is not over. The war has not ended. And this is a war we must win. If victory requires overthrowing the Saudi dynasty, so be it. If victory requires overthrowing the Iranian mullahs, so be it. If victory requires drastic measures against villagers who support al-Qaeda, so be it.

For what it’s worth, I think it may be necessary not only to take back the Republican Party, but to take back the Democratic Party too. If the institutional power of the Democratic Party becomes a bastion of a “New Left” pseudo-aristocracy, it not only becomes a means for the “New Left” to expand its power but also ensures that Americans must decide between the agenda of the “New Left” and whomever Republicans choose to run for office. The activists who control the Democratic Party don’t seem to reflect the actual attitudes of their electorate. For example, most Democrats would openly oppose the murderous sentiments of Michael Moore if only they knew what he really said in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Michael Moore’s remarks on September 11, 2001 ought to be seen as nothing other than treason.

Whatever else can be said about the Tea Party, it has helped stiffen the spine of not only Republicans but also Democrats who oppose the Obama administration but are unlikely to say so publicly.

Presidents come and go. The American people remain.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:25 am 318. marymcl:

@315 Subotai

Thank you, and rest assured I am in no danger of being baited into meeting him – I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me. And if I’d actually read his posts I would not have made the remark about wishing for 10 minutes in person – which wasn’t meant literally anyway, and was in response to the number of his posts, not the content, most of which I’d not bothered to read. It wasn’t until he posted his email and dared me to meet him that I realized he was more than just an immature pest. So in retrospect it does look a bit reckless on my part, as though I were baiting him – considering that the signs were there, as you say (in particular #293, which left me speechless for a minute or two – not what we usually see around here)

Anyway, I really appreciate the concern and the support – you guys are the best, and I’m glad to be in your company

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:37 am 319. buddy larsen:

W/316 –i gotta crash –pooped –but to advance your narrative, let me offer this (below), and we can chew on its meaning within the naked shortselling to create TARP and STIMULUS, and how that fit into the Pelosi/d’Alessandro/genovese/mafia/unions frame, at some later date.

(picking up part way down, italics mine)

***
now mix in this (and yawn…zzzzz…sorry…later)

http://www.bing.com/search?q=underfunded+union+pension+funds&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n

…Deep Capture has reviewed evidence showing that little Penson Financial and one other relatively unknown firm were by far the biggest traders in financial stocks in the first nine months of last year, handling more than 80 percent of volume. To repeat, Penson Financial, a little firm in Dallas, Texas, and one other relatively small firm handled by far the biggest volume of trading in the stock of all those big banks that collapsed last year, leading to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. When it came to clearing trades in financial stocks, Penson was bigger than Goldman, bigger than Merrill, bigger than every major brokerage on Wall Street.

We do not know for certain that the trading through Penson was naked short selling. We know only that naked short selling accounted for much of the overall trading last fall in companies like Lehman Brothers. And we know that a preponderance of the overall trading went through Penson. Perhaps Penson carefully weeded out the naked short sellers, in which case it handled almost all of the trading in financial stocks except for naked short selling. But if Taibbi’s video is any indication, Penson was certainly willing to locate stock that did not exist.

If I have anything to add to Taibbi’s terrific reporting, it is this: Penson Financial’s vice president in charge of stock clearing (that is, the head of the division that appears to have located stock that did not exist) is a man named Christopher Sandel. From 1985 to 1995, Sandel was a top executive at Adler Coleman, best known for being the clearing firm to the Genovese Mafia family.

Adler Coleman famously went bust when its top customer, the Genovese-controlled brokerage Hanover Sterling, self-imploded in one of the greatest naked short selling scandals of all time. Several traders tied to the Gambino crime family were charged with naked short selling companies that were underwritten by Hanover. That the Genovese Mafia brokers at Hanover were not charged in this case seems odd, because the most likely scenario is that the Genovese underwrote hapless companies, pumped their stock prices, and then called in the Gambinos to vaporize the companies, with everybody profiting on the way down.

Anyway, when some of America’s biggest financial companies collapsed under a barrage of short selling last fall, an enormous chunk of that trading was being cleared by a fellow who used to work for a company that seemed to specialize in clearing trades for the Mafia. Should this concern us? Might the Mafia have played some role in the collapse of the financial system? If I were more heavily armed, I would venture an opinion.

(end quote, see the rest at the link)

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:53 am 320. buddy larsen:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=underfunded+union+pension+funds&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n

(mix that in, and take two aspirin, and call the doctor in the mourning)

(marymcl, i’m glad to be in yours, too!)

Nov 4, 2009 - 2:04 am 321. Where are the grassroots of the Left? | Cranach: The Blog of Veith:

[...] Richard Fernandez notes that grassroots conservatives have mobilized, what with all of the Tea Parties and the surge of political activism. But where are the grassroots leftists, the ones that raised all of that money and that did all of that organization for Barack Obama during his campaign? We learn that those grassroot organizations have been subsumed into the official Democratic party apparatus. They are directed from the top. Whereas the conservative groups are directed from below, to the point of defying the Republican party when necessary. [...]

Nov 4, 2009 - 2:16 am 322. dtmack:

http://www.iowagrocers.com/news-center.cfm?article=138

Nov 4, 2009 - 2:48 am 323. Dave K.:

marymcl@ 318:
“@315 Subotai

Thank you, and rest assured I am in no danger of being baited into meeting him – I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me. And if I’d actually read his posts I would not have made the remark about wishing for 10 minutes in person – which wasn’t meant literally anyway, and was in response to the number of his posts, not the content, most of which I’d not bothered to read. It wasn’t until he posted his email and dared me to meet him that I realized he was more than just an immature pest. So in retrospect it does look a bit reckless on my part, as though I were baiting him – considering that the signs were there, as you say (in particular #293, which left me speechless for a minute or two – not what we usually see around here)”

From your previous post:

marymcl@298:

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it in real life. What I wouldn’t give for 10 minutes face to face with our little trash-talking keyboard sniper… “

You wanted 10 minutes face to face with me.

I was more than happy to oblige, because I have principles I believe in and I’m willing to tell them to your face without hiding behind a keyboard.

And, as usual, you, the right-wing Internet tough guy backtracked and showed his/her/its true colors (yellow, bile, and vomit green) when called on his/her/its bluff.

You’re the troll around here, marymcl.
Trash-talking and then running away is what trolls do.

PRO TIP:
If you can’t stand the heat, stop making idle threats and then cry like a Republican when called out.

“Anyway, I really appreciate the concern and the support – you guys are the best, and I’m glad to be in your company”

The Internet tough guy and the Internet white knights.
It’s a veritable cornucopia of weak-willed ego stroking around here.

You guys need 10 minutes together?

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:09 am 324. anton:

314. RagnarD:

I grabbed a pair of Finnish M-39’s a few years ago when SOG first brought them over the water. At $139.00 each they were a steal. Solid as a rock and shoot a sub 1/2 MOA all the time. Heck, they are better shots than I am. I’m glad to see that I am not the only guy that likes old bolt-guns.

Too bad about NY23, all things considered having a D there or a Dede, what’s the difference?

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:17 am 325. Dave K.:

Storm-Rider@306:
“marymcl,
Stay away from that creep – keep some pepper spray and your hunk nearby in case he shows up with date-rape drugs, viagra and child porn.”

Let me clue you in on something that is required if you want to become an actual Naval Officer and one of the many reasons they kicked you out:

Reading comprehension.

marymcl@298:

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it in real life. What I wouldn’t give for 10 minutes face to face with our little trash-talking keyboard sniper… “

If someone writes such John Wayne nonsense, they should be expected to be called out on it.

He/she/it then ran back under the bridge to continue chewing on goat carcasses and crying in the rain.

But it’s OK, Obama will repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” for you trollosexuals and then you’ll have a fighting chance to attain the position of 1st deck scrubber on the USS Mondale.

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:26 am 326. Dave K.:

Wadeusaf@316:
“Some thing more philosophic, I find it a bit of irony, that a group supporting Darwin is so fearful of Darwinism in the market place of ideas or of dollars.”

One does not support “Darwinism” (I assume you mean the theory of evolution) any more than one supports the theory of relativity.

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:29 am 327. Dave K.:

d’Percy@308:
“Dave K, it’s cool…let your pain show through. I know this doesn’t quite compare to being Iowa’s numero uno Grocery Bagger . Hey, life skills are a good thing to possess…keep on pumpin’ for that increase in the mininum wage.”

I applaud you for showing us the true “conservative” values:

Despise and mock those with low-paying jobs, because they are worth less than you.

At least you’re honest enough to admit that and for that I salute you, good sir!

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:41 am 328. LFMayor:

Ragnar, Anton. I’m an m44 man myself, have 3 of them. I used the bolt conversion you’ve mentioned on one, had troubles keeping it secured though. I ended up taking the bolt apart and was able to weld the handle… the best part of that whole operation is that since the locking lugs are on the removeable bolt head I didn’t have to jump through all the heat paste and heat sink hoops like I would have needed with a Mauser conversion.
there’s also a “scout” mount that replaces the rear leaf for use with LER pistol scopes, I have one of those as well and get good results.

Just be sure you wash old girl with windex (or ammonia), you need to clean after shooting corrosive ammo with it to neutralize the salt primers. And don’t wait a day… do it soon or you’ll frost your bore.

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:43 am 329. Wadeusaf:

Dave, I didn’t say that, Dave. Yawn?
Do you support gravity? LOL.

Buddy, I have to admit to not being well enough armed to say either , but I think it is in the legal system where the stuff would be fought out, delay tactics till the folks with a memory are no longer able to pursue the matter. It seems swift justice is a thing to be approached slowly and with caution.

Nov 4, 2009 - 5:57 am 330. anton:

328. LFMayor: “…with windex (or ammonia), ..”

Boy I learned that ther hard way! I took an Austrian M-95 to the range and shot it with the old 8×56R from 1938. It shot great but I left it about eight hours before I cleaned it, the whole barrel was orange rust! Ruined it as a collector’s item, it still shoots fine however.

A lot of the “modern” Russian stuff is still mildly corrosive. I have taken to swabbing everything with ammonia.

The M-44 is a good gun, kicks a bit with that shorter barrel/lighter gun. Have you noticed that the zero seems to shift with the bayonet retracted/extended? Mine seem to have a decided shift of POA.

I have an old M-91 circa the Russo-Japanese War, the much longer barrel (and heavier gun) makes it a kinder gun to spend the day with at the range.

Nov 4, 2009 - 6:33 am 331. Habu:

Your eyes see it this morning in the results.
Allow me to repeat the Bible, with my own editorial comment for the one who is so obnoxious.

“The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all.

Time and chance happen to them all. Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.”

Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.”

Sometimes it’s not by chance but it can be devastatingly swift.”

obama is one and done and now a lame duck. He can now go back to being a toiletry organizer at the local community perfume parlor,and still maintain that ghetto affectation gangster shuffle he effects so well.

“it can be devastatingly swift.”

Nov 4, 2009 - 6:35 am 332. The Wobbly Guy:

Getting Dede out didn’t matter. Hoffman still lost, in a supposedly safe republican seat. Nevermind the final backstabbing actions of Dede, he should have won by all rights if the voters agreed with him.

Dede’s last call to vote for Owens was more powerful than many here thought – it indicated there was a strong core of support for the left.

This is a worrying sign – either many in the US still agree largely with the Democrat/Obama/Leftoid/crazy agenda, or they’re still dozing away and did not bother to find out the issues. Hoffman would not have necessarily won EVEN if he had Repub backing from the start.

Encouraging signs from Virgina and New Jersey, but given the wave of support for the Tea Party recently, I would have thought it should be a clean sweep. You could be underestimating the hardened core of the left – there could be a lot more of them than you think. If it’s anywhere near 40% of the electorate, you’d be better off just going to guns right now.

I remember people saying the US is still a conservative nation. I also remember pressing that person on the definition of ‘conservative’ and getting a pretty liberal set of answers in the end. In short, many americans may THINK they’re conservative, but actually they’re moderates leaning left – leaving the still substantial but shrinking right to fight for its very life.

Ten, twenty years from now, would historians and pundits view the Tea Party as the start of a revolution, or the final dying gasp of a doomed movement?

You may have 2 million voters descending on Washington DC, but what if they’re virtually ALL YOU HAVE?

I’m still trying to crack my head over how to solve the Democrat problem, but it probably involves cracking the education establishment at some point.

Nov 4, 2009 - 6:45 am 333. Dave K.:

Habu@331:
“Your eyes see it this morning in the results.
Allow me to repeat the Bible, with my own editorial comment for the one who is so obnoxious.”

“Folks, I want you to print these words out. I want you to get the transcript off my website. I want you to print these out, I want you to distribute them, I want you to carry them with you, and we’ll just see how close I am to being right. (When Hoffman wins) the State-Run Media will say, “New York-23, the race is more about the demise of the Republican Party and anger on the right than Obama or his policies.”

Rush Limbaugh, the Nostradumbass of the Republican Party.

Nov 4, 2009 - 6:57 am 334. Dave K.:

The Wobbly Guy@332:
“Getting Dede out didn’t matter. Hoffman still lost, in a supposedly safe republican seat. Nevermind the final backstabbing actions of Dede, he should have won by all rights if the voters agreed with him.”

Yeah, it’s that obscure part of the law that states you also need votes from voters.

It’s only there because of those pesky activist judges!

And thanks to the purging of the RINOs by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the crazy clown conservatives, the Republicans lost a district that was solidly theirs to the Democrats.

Go, Sarah, go!
Drill, baby, drill!
And remember: You surround us! You really do!

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:03 am 335. Doug:

Well, gang, I ain’t gonna read 333 comments.
Hopefully not largely in response to “Dave K”
—
The Conservative Victory in New York

The biggest defeat for RINOs in New York wasn’t the pre-election collapse of Dede Scozzafava in the 23rd CD. It was tonight’s stunning victory by conservative Republican Rob Astorino in the race for County Executive of Westchester County—the affluent and heavily taxed suburb just north of NYC, which has been solidly Democratic for more than a decade.

Astorino’s victory is a stinging rebuke to the brand of New York Republicanism personified by Assemblywoman Scozzafava, former Gov. (and Westchester native son) George Pataki, and Westchester’s famously liberal former state Sen. Nicky Spano of Yonkers, who had endorsed incumbent Democratic County Executive Andy Spano (no relation) and engineered Andy Spano’s endorsement by the local Conservative party. Astorino, 42, a county legislator who used to co-host a satellite radio show with Cardinal Egan, happens to be pro-life — but going against the trend established by Pataki and other suburban Republicans in the 1990s, he didn’t waver from that position. He knew the pro-choice swing vote in Westchester would be motivated by primarily economic issues. He was right, and has a bright future in statewide politics if he does a good job. An even more stunning Republican showing came in the other big, affluent NYC suburb, Nassau County, where an underfunded Republican named Ed Mangano was — as of midnight — in a dead heat with the charismatic Democratic County Executive Tom Suozzi.

Meanwhile, the GOP recaptured control of that county’s legislature. Nassau residents apparently were so fed up with the status quo that they may have returned control of county government to the same discredited GOP machine that nearly drove the county into bankruptcy just eight years ago.

And from the Westchester Journal News:
Voters rejected the Democratic incumbent’s bid for a fourth term, opting instead for a candidate who pledged to downsize government and cut the highest county taxes in the nation.

“It’s far surpassing anything we expected,” Astorino said after taking Spano’s concession call at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. “But I think the message resonated. People wanted change and they are going to get it starting in January.”

Astorino’s victory came despite Democrats’ 2-1 margin over Republicans among Westchester’s 538,822 registered voters.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:05 am 336. anton:

332. The Wobbly Guy:

I concur, last night was a start, I would have loved to see Hoffman win in NY23 but I am comforted by VA and NJ. All the same it is like being ahead at the end of the first inning of a seven game series, no time to relax or take the pressure off. I hope the Tea-Party stays in there swinging for at least the next three years.

I think that the biggest thing is to try to move the “center” a little to the right, to pull the veil off of the crazy Commies hiding on the edge of the Dems (and in the White House). The Dems are helping by scaring the hell out of the middle class with their cram-down legislation, but we still need somebaody saying that the Emperor is naked.

Your last point about the educational establishment is key, it is one of the reasons that the Dems and their pet unions have been so adamantly opposed to school vouchers. Vouchers would allow parents to choose to send their kids to a school that doesn’t toe the line of Marxist Orthodoxy. The only remaining option is to attend school board meetings, read your kids text books, sit in (if you can) some of the classes your kids take. Be confrontational, in a polite way, whenever the stink of socialism enters what is supposed to be neutral educational environment. Most educators that I have encountered are retreaded hippies (many went to school to dodge the draft) that ooze left wing nonsense. They are our employees, don’t let them forget it.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:12 am 337. Richard:

I just found the “Hope” we were looking for from “saved jobs”. The saved jobs is the way back. The link tells all those who worried about our future we have saved your job. The quotes are very encouraging!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jMNoef6xDenBbHWO0Im6rIjDmAgAD9BOJH300

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:13 am 338. buddy larsen:

TWG/332; edu is right –but the core issue is the level of taxation. Conservatives attract the ”greedy selfish” label on the issue, but of course –and it is surely true for some and partly true for all that parochial concern with old number one’s bank account is the ”low tax” driver. BUT to a great degree for most, the idea is that past a certain point, dollars sent to DC are not only wasted, but transformed from units of value to units of devalue –via the mechanism of corruptions active and passive, and the lure of the rent-seek spreading the corruption from material into spiritual.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:17 am 339. anton:

338. buddy larsen:

Taxes are a key wedge issue beacuse people get frightened when they see rising prices and shrinking paychecks. Just wait until they see what kind of deal they get from National-Socialist Health Care. This is an excellent short-term tool to block the advance of the Left.

Education reform (real, not D.C. style) is the long-term cure. Corrupted content in education is the toxin that has allowed the Dems to get away with it. Kids minds have been poisoned by the Lefto-babble and they have been conditioned to think that the grasping lawyers in D.C. have answers to every problem. Years of never being challenged to come up with answers of their own have left many of them without the tools to see otherwise. Parents need to take control of their kids education so that they learn useful skills not “feel good” nonsense.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:35 am 340. Habu:

Richard #337

Here’s a handy tool that will bring those large addresses down to a manageable size.

Go to:

Tinyurl.com

copy and paste the huge one and press the button. Yours would go from 87 characters to 26.

To this size: http://tinyurl.com/ygazkpq

Never had it fail. I’ve had then go from over 100 characters to 25.

Good luck.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:43 am 341. Marie Claude:

while some persons quoted Albert Camus, and Pascal, I ‘d like to recal them Levi-Strauss that died last week at the age of 100.

Also, I read (in comments sectin) that Algeria war was kinda written in the muslim jihaders objectives, though it wasn’t perceived by anyone as so at this period, but just to get rid of the colonial power.

314. RagnarD,

I’m glad thet that narcissic soviet defector finally signed, otherwise his mobs would have hanged him by the feet !

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:58 am 342. Habu:

obama claims he didn’t watch the returns.

Here are some possible reasons why.

* planning his next golf game
* planning with the Black Panthers and SEIU the next goon squad methods.

*Stalling General McKrystal and the Afghan decision while our troops die.

“Hey, hey “O Hussein” HOW many troops have you killed today?” Dithermeister

*looking at which part of the US Constitution to blame…

Please feel free to add to the list. It’s endlist, because like all uncircumcized Muslims there’s no end to this prick.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:59 am 343. peterike:

Well, well. I’ve just discovered all we need to know about our resident pest, Mr. David K.

Note: link not fit for children.

Here’s an interesting search item concerning a post our Mr. K put up on a Dell user forum. The forum entry itself seems to have been deleted, and with good reason. But the vile stench of his presence remains. Check it out.

http://www.google.com/search?q=and++down+Jeff+Bezos+throat+until+he+chokes+on+my+brown+burrito+babies+%22my+email+address+is%22+david&hl=en&lr=&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&filter=0

Note the first two hits on the search. Clearly, our boy has some anger management issues. Not to mention other odd habits of thought.

Nov 4, 2009 - 8:11 am 344. mac:

This “Dave K.” punk is a grocery bagger? A GROCERY BAGGER? Google his name. There’s a picture there with him holding a cardboard check for $500, won for being Iowa’s best GROCERY BAGGER. Probably the most money he ever made at once. That’s just too, too funny… Yeah, I’m sure he’s a real “tough guy.” Screw with him and watch out, you’ll get paper instead of plastic! How pathetically hilarious–and typically Democrat!

So help me, that’s the best laugh I’ve had all day! Who do we get next as a troll, a shoeshine boy?

Nov 4, 2009 - 8:33 am 345. myth buster:

No, I’ve never been to Navy Nuclear Power School. NNPS is something you attend after being commissioned; I wasn’t slated to start until sometime in 2011. Even so, you’re right about nuclear engineers being in high demand, but they won’t be crediting me with any experience (and rightly so). My beef is with the doctors at BUMED substituting their jurisprudence for that of their own examining physician and my superior officers. The $70,000 figure I quoted was what they spent on my scholarship. Actually, factoring in transportation, compensation and other training costs, the total probably exceeds $80,000. While some of that could be recouped if SecNav demands it, I would have ten years to repay the tuition and book stipend costs without interest. All other expenses are completely sunk. Clearly, there is something wrong with this picture.

Nov 4, 2009 - 8:48 am 346. marymcl:

@341 MarieClaude

Actually the point made earlier was that Camus perceived it (he also saw that Russia was egging it on for its own nasty reasons) I find the more I learn about him the more there is to admire

@343 peterike

There’s just no end to the good reasons for bagging your own groceries. Des Moines shoppers, take heed

Nov 4, 2009 - 8:50 am 347. mac:

You know, there is always a lot of truth behind stereotypes, much as some people refuse to believe it. Stereotypical internet troll: someone who lives in Mom’s basement, unemployed or with lowly menial job, no sex life other than masturbation to internet port, and living a Mittyesque fantasy life as a “tough guy” on the Net.

“I’ll be more than happy to spend 10 minutes face to face with you and explain to you why you are wrong and how you can mend your ways.”

Marymcl, it was kind of you to turn him down. Poor sap probably couldn’t even afford to take Greyhound any further than the Iowa state line. However, I’m sure “The Ballad of Bagger Kistenmacher, Famous Internet Tough Guy” is playing full time at full volume inside this poor lad’s fevered brain. The long line of American heroes: John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Bruce Willis, Bagger Kistenmacher…oh, Hell, it’s just too funny for words…

We used to think that “Do you want fries with that?” was about as bad an insult as we could give the humanities types. Now there’s “Paper or Plastic?”

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:07 am 348. Dave The K.:

Seems that my old account has been cancelled.
Freedom of speech only applies with those I agree with, right?

That’s the Right-wing way.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:10 am 349. buddy larsen:

P/343; he probably has an ivy league philosophy doctorate, so we dasn’t make fun of him

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:13 am 350. Dave The K.:

The contempt of the working man is strong in this thread.
How very interesting.
Suddenly the floodgates of regressive hatred has opened up against those who actually pay for your government welfare.

Of course, the politics of ad hominems and personal attack are the only things regressive conservatards have left.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:13 am 351. johnt:

Nice tape of Bush, and as always an idiot media person clumsily trying to trap or contradict him.
Camus, always a great read. I daresay even more profound than Saul Alinsky, whom the genius Obama tucks under his pillow at night.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:15 am 352. Dave The K.:

And I’d like take the opportunity to congratulate all you Internet sleuths for the great people-finding skills that you are capable of.

Not only were you able to directly pinpoint my identity, my physical location, my place of employment, and my educational background amongst the many individuals I share my name with, but you were also able to ascertain that I am not using a nom de plume when attempting to communicate with rabid right-wing extremists/crazy clown conservatives such as yourself and that, in fact, all information found on the Internet is factually correct.

Also, you’ve showed me that all Republicans/conservatards/regressives hate those who actually work for a living in the private sector.
And that all you have instead of reason and logic are sad attempts at mockery.

In summary:

YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:18 am 353. buddy larsen:

The problem with Albert Camus
(shared with all foreign writers too)
is he wrote in the French,
and translation’s no cinch,
so i haven’t read him. Have you?

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:20 am 354. Agoraphobic Plumber:

Holy Crap. Miss a day at the Club and look at what ensues. Trolls R Us.

Based on a skimming of some posts, here are some perhaps counter-intuitive guesses and a prediction: Dave K is either a college student or a fairly recent grad. He’s proud of his education. He hasn’t held a job for more than a year or two. He knows some people who went into the military, but he’s lost touch with them and probably wasn’t much friends with them anyway. He’s not married and has no children. He’s either an atheist or an agnostic. He identifies as a Dem, but he’s very upset at what he perceives as a lack of action by the Obama administration on a number of fronts, including gay rights, ending the wars, etc. He does honestly believe that military people are generally uneducated, but he’s amping that up for the provocation/entertainment value in this forum.

The prediction? Dave K will, starting in the next few years, experience an identity crisis. He will go on a personal journey of discovery, and after a few years of studying the issues, he will realize he is a conservative. He will wince when he recalls the things he wrote in this forum (and likely elsewhere). He may even turn out to be a regular contributor, depending on whether he sticks it out and reads more than he writes.

All of the above, of course, all assumes that he isn’t a completely synthetic troll paid by someone in politics to try to disrupt our happy little home. In that case, FWIW, IMO he certainly earned his pay yesterday.

But if he’s a real person, he’s the spitting image of what I was 15 or 20 years ago.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:21 am 355. Dave the K.:

Agoraphobic Plumber@354:
“Based on a skimming of some posts, here are some perhaps counter-intuitive guesses and a prediction: Dave K is either a college student or a fairly recent grad. He’s proud of his education. He hasn’t held a job for more than a year or two. He knows some people who went into the military, but he’s lost touch with them and probably wasn’t much friends with them anyway. He’s not married and has no children. He’s either an atheist or an agnostic. He identifies as a Dem, but he’s very upset at what he perceives as a lack of action by the Obama administration on a number of fronts, including gay rights, ending the wars, etc. He does honestly believe that military people are generally uneducated, but he’s amping that up for the provocation/entertainment value in this forum.

The prediction? Dave K will, starting in the next few years, experience an identity crisis. He will go on a personal journey of discovery, and after a few years of studying the issues, he will realize he is a conservative. He will wince when he recalls the things he wrote in this forum (and likely elsewhere). He may even turn out to be a regular contributor, depending on whether he sticks it out and reads more than he writes.”

Yes, one day I’ll grow up to be just like you.

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin’ home dad?
I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son
You know we’ll have a good time then

From the Internet, with love:

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Conservatives

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:25 am 356. buddy larsen:

dave the K
whaddaya say
i’ll send you three quarters
a dime and two nickels
if you’ll run back in the store
and grab me some pickles

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:28 am 357. twobyfour:

No, troll. No contempt for a working man. Contempt for feeble minded trolls. That’s all.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:33 am 358. Dave the K.:

buddy larsen@356:
“dave the K
whaddaya say
i’ll send you three quarters
a dime and two nickels
if you’ll run back in the store
and grab me some pickles”

I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the gay dating scene and its related codewords.

And you really should be careful with that whole “pickle grabbing” part and at least use some protection.

I understand it’s hard for you with “no sex until marriage” when you can only be gay-married in a couple of states, but we’re working on it.

One day you’ll be able to combine your conservative values with your desire to know other men in the biblical sense.

Keep reaching for that rainbow, Buddy!

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:35 am 359. Dave The K.:

twobyfour@357:
“No, troll. No contempt for a working man. Contempt for feeble minded trolls. That’s all.”

Self-hatred is an ugly thing, young man.
Then again, calling yourself “twobyfour” is a symptom of hatred of your body and your self.

“Fatty, Fatty, two by four,
Couldn’t get through the bathroom door,
So she did it on the floor,
Licked it up and did some more!”

You see me trollin’, you hatin’…

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:39 am 360. buddy larsen:

Dave the K
will show us the Way
“Heavy items on bottom
(that is if you got ‘em)
except for the eggs, I must say!”

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:43 am 361. annie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=G44NCvNDLfc

this was taken off the house floor videos but is on utube, for now

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:46 am 362. johnt:

Buddy Larsen, #353
Translation is never a cinch, but if Montaigne of the 16th century and Villon before him can be translated, I guess Camus of the 20th ought not to be especially difficult. Yes, I did read Camus, Vintage Books, translated by Anthony Bower.

I think David K is working on a new translation of Villon, having just finished his superb translation of Herodtus.
We wait in anxious anticipation.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:47 am 363. peterike:

Wow. That’s twice now, his Dell post and his doggerel @359. In both instances Dave focuses on ingestion of feces. I dunno, but thousands of internet posts later, I’m pretty sure I’ve never gone down THAT particular road.

Psychiatrists, have at it.

Meanwhile, I think it’s high time Richard shut down this increasingly useless thread.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:48 am 364. Storm-Rider:

David K, 350: “The contempt of the working man is strong in this thread.How very interesting.

Dave, you must realize that Karl Marx was a liar. He hated the working man – the ordinary individual – the ordinary middle class owner of property.

“You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx

When Karl Marx said this: “workers of the world (proletariat class) unite.” what he really meant was this: “non-workers of the world (proletariat class) unite – and we’ll use (Marxist) to get other people’s stuff – the people who actually labored for their property – the working man.”

Karl Marx broadcast his feeling for the ordinary working man (the middle class owner of property) in a drama he penned: “Oulanem.”

“And still, you personified mankind (the working man – middle class owner of property), I may take you by the power of my mighty hands (Marxist government) and crush with fierce force. In the meantime, as the abyss gapes before me and you in the darkness, You will fall in it and I’ll follow you, Laughing and whispering into your ear: “Come down with me, friend! (down into political tyranny and poverty)” Karl Marx

http://www.forerunner.com/predvestnik/X0013_Karl_Marx.html

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:48 am 365. Dave The K.:

buddy larsen@360:
“Dave the K
will show us the Way
“Heavy items on bottom
(that is if you got ‘em)
except for the eggs, I must say!””

Let’s see if I can translate this from gay to English, using google:

A bottom is someone enjoys the receptive role in a sexual act, such as being penetrated, and adopting a submissive role.

So you’re a submissive or bottom and you want your partner to be careful with your huevos or eggs.

Am I right?

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:50 am 366. buddy larsen:

dave the k
tho three aisles away

heard the sound of the shatter
and shook his head, sadder,

knowing cleanup was his job that day

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:52 am 367. Storm-Rider:

Correction:

When Karl Marx said this: “workers of the world (proletariat class) unite.” what he really meant was this: “non-workers of the world (proletariat class) unite – and we’ll use (Marxist) government to get other people’s stuff – the people who actually labored for their property – the working man.”

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:52 am 368. Delia:

Someone slipped. Cleanup on aisle Freud.

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:57 am 369. Dave The K.:

Storm-Rider@364:
“Dave, you must realize that Karl Marx was a liar. He hated the working man – the ordinary individual – the ordinary middle class owner of property.”

Who’s talking about Marx?

I’m talking about the hatred and contempt of someone bagging groceries for a living.

The ridicule, laughter, and pure vitriol that is in that thread, just because someone bags groceries for a living, tells me everything I need to know about what the Republicans/Conservatives/Regressives/Crazy Clowns really think about those working menial jobs.

Friends of the working man, indeed.

I really should save this thread to show the world what the Republicans really think about the unskilled and uneducated American workers.

In summary: YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!

Nov 4, 2009 - 9:58 am 370. Storm-Rider:

I have no doubt about your lack of skill and education (we can also throw in lack of wisdom and judgment); and yes, you (not the ordinary working man) are a perfect target for mockery.

Keep your job – make yourself better – don’t suck the Marxist government tit – it leads to the abyss of envy and poverty.

BTY, I come from poverty; both my parents were born in Appalachian log cabins – no indoor plumbing or electricity. I worked many menial jobs in my youth – and I was glad to do it – I needed the money.

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:06 am 371. marymcl:

@353 buddy larsen

For starters, I’d recommend “The Myth of Sisyphus” – a short collection of essays. If you prefer a novel “The Plague” is his best, IMO. Haven’t compared different translations (MarieClaude may have some recommendations) but the Stuart Gilbert translation of “The Plague” is the one you’re most likely to find and it’s got a beautiful style. It’s in my all-time top five works of fiction

@368 Delia

LOL – I love this place. Special ops medal of honor indeed

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:07 am 372. buddy larsen:

dave the k
asked the lady the way
to her car parked out in the lot.
She said “honey, I itch,”
he said “sorry, a glitch,
those Japanese cars I know not!”

M/371; sorry, had to emit that one last limerick –but THANKS –what i needed was a word on which translation was –well, can’t say ‘best’ –but ‘aligned with this reader’. the local sensibility is just what i needed –

D/368; Someone slipped. Cleanup on aisle Freud. –ha hahha! that’s TOO funny –

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:10 am 373. mac:

Woohoo! “Conservatards,” and “Regressive Conservatards,” at that! You cut me to the quick, Bagger! I’m bleedin’, man, I’m bleedin! Razor sharp, that wit of yours is!

Why, Bagger, I bet you “coulda been a contenda!” That is, if you weren’t too busy saying “paper or plastic?” and chasing prices for tins with damaged bar codes. Probably best not to bring that up, though, since I wouldn’t want to hurt the precious and fragile self-esteem of the best GROCERY BAGGER in Iowa.

Lefties. Your jealousy of your betters stands out a mile. Everybody from Shakespeare to O’Neill to Rand has a field day with bitter, envious types like you. Again, pathetically hilarious. Now, tell me again how disdainfully contemptuous I am of the “working man,” Bagger. Restock the canned tomatoes first, though.

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:14 am 374. Foul Harold:

It looks like our host will have to employ an IP block to rid us of this puerile pest.

My grandparents were first generation immigrants to the United States. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth and have had to earn every penny I’ve ever made. I served honorably in the U.S. Navy, worked my way through four years of college, and ultimately started my own business. I don’t look down upon you as a result of your manner of employment, Dave K. I look down upon you because rather than striving for better things or engaging in meaningful discussion you have wasted valuable time here in an entirely unproductive pursuit. Your ideology and immaturity cloud your reason.

I suggest you take a long, hard look at who is really being represented by our present political class these days and under what circumstances your personal well-being is going to be most enhanced. I submit to you that your current activities here are not contributing one iota toward that end.

http://tinyurl.com/ygpryek

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:25 am 375. Storm-Rider:

Dave, there are two ways to achieve equality – American and Marxist. If someone has more money than you in the American system of free enterprise, and you desire “economic equality,” you must work harder or smarter and aim for that level – you can do it. Under the Marxist system of non-free enterprise, and you desire “economic equality,” you do not have to lift a finger – you can hire (electoral votes) your Marxist government to steal other people’s property and, viola, economic equality.

There is no better example of Marxist Equality and American Equality than the story of Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding. Nancy was the better skater and Tanya was envious. What did Tanya do? Did she put in extra time at the ice rink – do more workouts at the gym? Did Tanya work harder to bring herself up to the skill level of Nancy – to skating equality? No, she used the envious Marxist (no different from Fascist) tool of bringing Nancy down – hired a thug to bash her knees. There are two ways to achieve equality – one natural and just – one unnatural and unjust.

Abraham Lincoln understood all of this as well:

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:26 am 376. buddy larsen:

SR/370 is dead right –any honest work is good. hell i threw a paper route a few semesters in college –way overaged for a kid’s job –the only non-teenager in the 4 a.m. group waiting for the delvery truck. but it was spending money and i was thru by sunrise –so it was a great job for me & the time and place. we’re just joshin’ ya dave the k, cuz you’re sort of insufferable –

looking back on it, i shoulda leveraged my relative maturity and ‘organized’ the teenagers –and led a strike for better conditions –”We start at Noon, mr morning newspaper baron!”

“i coulda been a contendah…instead of a bum…which is what i yam….”

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:30 am 377. Delia:

371. marymcl,

It takes a special kind of ‘bag-boy extraordinaire’ to have more crumbs in his Dell keyboard than in his toaster. I have to give him a charitable C- for his uncanny ability to type in a haze of Cheeto dust and a full adult diaper whilst throwing out his email address like a ‘crips/bloods’ sign of gangsta toughness and giggling maniacally to himself about himself for himself.

I mean, that takes some mad internetz skillz right thar even if it does lead to thrombosis and a flaming case of ‘roids.

Maybe when his Proctologist operates on his lonely, suffocated cranium in a few years he’ll finally see the light. Hallelujah!

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:30 am 378. marymcl:

~”….Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

“Nonetheless he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.

“And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew that those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.” ~

Albert Camus ‘The Plague’

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:33 am 379. Storm-Rider:

Oh yea, I forgot; the great leaders of the Marxist government are greedy. In the end they turn out to be a Marxist oligarchy of not-to-be-equalized equalizers – equalizers of the masses of equal serfs; and guess what – it’s called “social justice.”

Read Animal Farm.

Here’s another excellent analysis of this subject.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Z-Social%20Justice-Code%20for%20Communism.htm

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:33 am 380. Mark_B:

There’s no way he’s got a degree. Most undergraduates are sick to their stomachs of the educational system by the time they graduate to talk like that.

Unless they are heading for post graduate work. And by post graduate work I mean a masters degree.

Dave’s considering taking classes down at the community college to impress the teeny boppers that he is a college man.

What he needs is to shack up with some nice senior girl like Teresita for a few weeks. Not to have sex, but so she can lovingly explain the ways of the world to him.

Then again it might take a man like Dean Wormer of Faber College to straighten out his views on life.

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:41 am 381. starling:

David may not have the most prestigious occupation, but it’s honest and necessary work. Within his chosen profession he has excelled and gained a measure of recognition. That is commendable and worthy of respect. As a management professor I like to think that America is still a place where someone can enter an organization at or near the bottom and can grow with and within the company to as high a level as their talent will allow. Though his politics are clearly not my own, I still wish David every success he can find in his professional life.

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:55 am 382. marymcl:

BTW buddy if biography is more your style, there’s a fine one by Herbert R. Lottman (titled simply ‘Albert Camus’)

Nov 4, 2009 - 10:57 am 383. buddy larsen:

Mm/378; that’s good stuff –esp the third para, the dormant evil. that’s along the lines of the thought that the tyranny forms are not artificial and ‘wrong’ but intrinsic and ‘evil’ –evil being the word we use to describe the thing, the mirror of the ‘god gene’, that may’ve stimulated those Cro-Magnon clans that did survive –vs those that did not –by evolving an idea that we shouldn’t eat each other. No, not even helpless grandma, can’t eat her even in the dead of a protein-starved winter, because –well, just because.

okay, because either we’re sacred or we’re evolutionarily deprived of a great higher-powering help in moving our genes thru time. Clans reining in sharp toothed and hungry young with cannibal taboo would outlive clans not doing so. So here we debouch upon the plains of modernism and the sharp toothed and hungry young once again question the taboo –and call the question “marxism”.

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:01 am 384. marymcl:

@314 RagnarD

“When will our pResident Pantywaist start his campaign to subvert the US and the Constitution to the Internationale?”

My money’s on Copenhagen in December –

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/29/gullible-eager-beaver-planet-savers/

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:04 am 385. buddy larsen:

PS –the clever marxist perhaps won’t have to eat grandma so long as he rids himself of her before she drains more larder than the clever must –because she has some sort of defensive power, such as private property –acquiesce to.

so there’s that ‘moderate’ middle ground.

(S/381; outstanding –and effective –comment!)

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:21 am 386. Dave The K.:

Mark_B@380:
“Then again it might take a man like Dean Wormer of Faber College to straighten out his views on life.”

“Fat, drunk, stupid, and Republican (but I repeat myself) is no way to go through life, son!”

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:41 am 387. Dave The K.:

Delia@377:
“371. marymcl,

It takes a special kind of ‘bag-boy extraordinaire’ to have more crumbs in his Dell keyboard than in his toaster. I have to give him a charitable C- for his uncanny ability to type in a haze of Cheeto dust and a full adult diaper whilst throwing out his email address like a ‘crips/bloods’ sign of gangsta toughness and giggling maniacally to himself about himself for himself.

I mean, that takes some mad internetz skillz right thar even if it does lead to thrombosis and a flaming case of ‘roids.

Maybe when his Proctologist operates on his lonely, suffocated cranium in a few years he’ll finally see the light. Hallelujah!”

Hurr durr hurr I cannot argue with him, since I dropped out from life permanently, so I’m going to try and insult him and use scatological references, because that’s better than trying to engage in a debate with him hurr durr hurr

The conservative intellectual elite at its finest.
Trolltastic!

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:47 am 388. RagnarD:

dtmack @ 322:

Dave K in person

dtmack – Thanks! I LOL’ed! I surely did.

marymcl @ 384 – Mine too.

Someone tried to block the troll-ling but did not succeed. Shame that.

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:51 am 389. Dave The K.:

Foul Harold@374:
“It looks like our host will have to employ an IP block to rid us of this puerile pest.”

“Silence him!”
“Silence the unbeliever!”
“Shun the heretic!”
“Freedom of speech for us, death to the others!”

It’s so great that you understand American values such as freedom of speech.

“My grandparents were first generation immigrants to the United States.”

Based on your less-than-stellar opinion about free speech, I’m going to guess Iran.

“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth and have had to earn every penny I’ve ever made. I served honorably in the U.S. Navy, worked my way through four years of college, and ultimately started my own business.”

That’s precious.
You want a medal?

“I don’t look down upon you as a result of your manner of employment, Dave K.”

No, of course you don’t. Because I’m a grocery bagger, hurr durr durr.

“I look down upon you because rather than striving for better things or engaging in meaningful discussion you have wasted valuable time here in an entirely unproductive pursuit. Your ideology and immaturity cloud your reason.”

Welcome to the Internet, sparky.
Hope you’ll enjoy the stay.

“I suggest you take a long, hard look at who is really being represented by our present political class these days and under what circumstances your personal well-being is going to be most enhanced. I submit to you that your current activities here are not contributing one iota toward that end.”

I just love staring into the abyss and seeing you staring back at me.

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:55 am 390. Dave The K.:

starling@381:
“David may not have the most prestigious occupation, but it’s honest and necessary work. Within his chosen profession he has excelled and gained a measure of recognition. That is commendable and worthy of respect. As a management professor I like to think that America is still a place where someone can enter an organization at or near the bottom and can grow with and within the company to as high a level as their talent will allow. Though his politics are clearly not my own, I still wish David every success he can find in his professional life.”

Thank you for your kind words, Sir.

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:57 am 391. LFMayor:

Anton: I removed the toad-stabbers from both scoped models, pawl (correct term?) and all. I agree with you, the unaltered one I have seems to balance better with it extended. I was going to take it to an Appleseed last year, but the stripper clips work so much smoother on my 98k that I took it instead.

I’ve never fired a M39 or M30, a pal has an M38 and it’s a nice little carbine. The Steyr’s intrigue me… I’ve been looking at those for a while, even more so since there was a good article in a recent Shotgun News about converting calibers on the 6.5mm models. I also have a straight pull Schmidt-Rubin and would fully recommned those as well.

This Dave… “Bagger Vance” (emphasis on bagger there) has so much to offer. Why, just think of all the wasted talent that goes down the drain each day after drudgingly slow day at the supermarket. I’m sure he does. If some higher power or great one would only recognize the huge contributions he could make, his star would be born and rise.

Dave, sorry man, but life isn’t like Hollywood. Magical Minorities, Magical Learning Impaired and Magical Grocery Clerks don’t appear to make a struggling family, nation or planet all better in the last 45 minutes of reel.
Your posting here is just a form of self abuse, it’s gonna pay out in hurt at the end for you.

Nov 4, 2009 - 11:59 am 392. Dave The K.:

Storm-Rider@375:
“Dave, there are two ways to achieve equality – American and Marxist. If someone has more money than you in the American system of free enterprise, and you desire “economic equality,” you must work harder or smarter and aim for that level – you can do it.”

When I was young, I believed in fairy tales.
Then I grew up.

I’m sorry, but you seem to believe that we’re all born equal and the truth is that we’re not.

There are those who are born disabled, for instance, and they cannot compete on the global market as well as others.

Economic equality of the kind you espouse is not available for them.

And, frankly, to work harder for less money while racing to the bottom to compete with Chinese slave labor for the breadcrumbs of global trade isn’t my idea of a good time.

“Under the Marxist system of non-free enterprise, and you desire “economic equality,” you do not have to lift a finger – you can hire (electoral votes) your Marxist government to steal other people’s property and, viola, economic equality.”

Have you actually read the books of Karl Marx or are you using someone else’s interpretation of his philosophy?
I’m not trying to insult you, I’m genuinely curious.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:06 pm 393. johnt:

Dave K, for you babe.

Twelve years packing bags
long years listening to hags
Twelve years at the bottom
of the heap
Dreaming of revenge you will
someday reap
Causing in your psyche a
terrible fuss
But why take it out on us?

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:09 pm 394. Dave The K.:

To all those who think that bagging groceries is something to laugh about, I encourage you to contact me at work or complain to my manager, since I’m obviously just sitting in front of the computer instead of doing my job.

I expect you to, since you all hate those who work for a living.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:10 pm 395. Dave The K:

johnt@393:
“Twelve years packing bags
long years listening to hags
Twelve years at the bottom of the heap”

What’s with the gay innuendo and limp-wristed poetry?
I know that the Republican party is a party with a wide stance,
but this is just ridiculous.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:14 pm 396. Storm-Rider:

I think David K. has a future in proletariat community organizing – just like our dear leader. Dave’s proletariat community can conduct their early organizational meetings in the grocery store parking lot; but later move into comfortable surroundings once empowered with the property (excessive taxation) of those fools who labor for it. Man, “social justice” is fun.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:14 pm 397. Dave The K:

Storm-Rider@396:
“I think David K. has a future in proletariat community organizing – just like our dear leader. Dave’s proletariat community can conduct their early organizational meetings in the grocery store parking lot; but later move into comfortable surroundings once empowered with the property (excessive taxation) of those fools who labor for it. Man, “social justice” is fun.”

That’s Dear Leader Commander-in-Chief President Barack Hussein Obama to you, monkey boy.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:20 pm 398. always right:

Alexis@317,

Thank you, sir. Finally! Some one put the finger on the rotten spot.

We’ve been begging for a while now, ‘Would (Could) some one rational take back the Democrat Party, please!’

Unless and until Dem Party comes back to be a viable political party, all we are going to see is ‘the other side’ becoming less patient and less accommodating (i.e., adapting and using the left’s strategy and brute force).

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:22 pm 399. Delia:

387. DSK.,

3L173? //|-|0 15 3L173 |-|3R3? $(@ r3Ph3R3||(35? 0|-| (0//3 0|| ||0//!

397. DSK.:

“That’s Dear Leader Commander-in-Chief President Barack Hussein Obama to you, monkey boy.”

ZOMG! DSK. put ‘boy’ and ‘monkey’ in the same sentence as Dear Leader! RACIST!

P.S. What was in the briefcase? Many people think it was Marsellus’ soul.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:24 pm 400. twobyfour:

Dave The K./359

Self-hatred is an ugly thing,

You project that in spades.

young man.

Wish I were. Judging that you are in your late 20’s, I am at least twice your age.

Then again, calling yourself “twobyfour” is a symptom of hatred of your body and your self.

No. It is my nickname from times I were working as a carpenter. My peers referred by it to my sometimes explosive temper. I mellowed out in time.

But I think you are projecting here again.

“Fatty, Fatty, two by four,
Couldn’t get through the bathroom door,…

Please grow up!
I don’t hate you, I feel pity for you. You display a degree of intelligence (not a smidget of wisdom). It is sad to watch how you decided to waste it in childish trolling games.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:30 pm 401. Storm-Rider:

Dave the Marxist: “I’m sorry, but you seem to believe that we’re all born equal and the truth is that we’re not.”

We are born naturally equal before God and law – law which must secure the individual’s sacred rights to life, liberty and property. All other equality, such as economic equality, is unnaturally outcome-based, and thereby Marxist. Freedom, i.e.: equality before law, naturally leads to economic and social inequalities. Equality before just law – that’s the American ticket. You really should consider bagging groceries in Havana.

Dave the Marxist: “There are those who are born disabled, for instance, and they cannot compete on the global market as well as others. Economic equality of the kind you espouse is not available for them.”

Karl Marx didn’t give a rat’s a** about the disabled; he only wanted to crash the whole system and replace it with a new ruling class.

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property… In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend (We in the Marxist government will take care of what was once your property – trust us – we’re not greedy – we’re just doing that good ole religion of social justice).” Karl Marx

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie (middle class working man – owner of property), to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the (Marxist) state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property (he admitted it)…You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible (man – what hatred we have here – of the ordinary laboring property owner).” Karl Marx

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time…The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible (get that) overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Karl Marx

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

David is the proud beneficiary of American Marxist education; once a Marxist, always a Marxist.

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted….Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” Vladimir Lenin

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:34 pm 402. Dave The K.:

We did it!

Over 400 posts!
I made my quota and I couldn’t have done without you guys!

Now that I got my Paypal transfer from Soros/ACORN, I can finally quit this stupid grocery bagging job and go 100% pro trolling!

It’s the Big Leagues, baby!

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!
MUCH LOVE FROM THE MARXMEN, YO!

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:37 pm 403. myth buster:

David, if it should ever come to pass that the average American worker were to work for $1/day rather than $150/day, then a loaf of bread would cost a mere penny or two. Who cares about what nominal wages are? It’s what those wages can buy that is important.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:39 pm 404. buddy larsen:

Marx has had lessee 2010 -1850 = 160 years and the only success it has had is in keeping keeping a few tyrants in office forever (by filling graveyards with those who exercise their human rights) and their surviving proletariat as poor & needy as Job’s turkey.

That’s the record. So what’s the appeal?

Personally, i think a lot of ‘em, in view of history, must have some sort of vision of themselves wearing those great-looking black SS uniforms and loading everybody else, especially the neighbors, into those railroad boxcars.

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:45 pm 405. Storm-Rider:

David the Marxist: “That’s Dear Leader Commander-in-Chief President Barack Hussein Obama to you, monkey boy.”

Spoken like a zealous Marxist collectivizer of the Kulaks – in love with his dear usurper-in-chief. Aaah, what a beautiful golden calf you have – just bow down a little lower and kiss the ring. Ain’t that good ole manifesto-thumping religion great?

Nov 4, 2009 - 12:52 pm 406. Foul Harold:

“So what’s the appeal?”

It’s a fundamental flaw in the leftist’s character which was never properly addressed by their families in childhood or our education system. They covet what they do not have and will stop at no length in order to secure what their callow minds believe is an equitable condition, including the destruction of those around them.

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:04 pm 407. anton:

391. LFMayor:
I felt a little bad going OT but this thread has been driven off a cliff by “you now who” anyways. So.

The Austrian M-95 rifle and carbine are decent guns, they balance well and are very well made. Compared to the bulk of a Schmidt-Rubin they are almost elegant. The idea of a straight-pull bolter scared me a little at first but I’ve banged through a thousand or so rounds without any problems. The biggest problem is recoil, the very straight stock and heavy (200g) bullet make for a pretty sharp bite. In 6.5 they would be much better behaved.

If you like straight-pulls there are several others out there, my favorite is the Canadian Ross. It is a gresat bull of a gun but a real tack-driver. The US Navy had a 6.5mm straight pull back in the 1900s but I have never had the pleasure of owning one.

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:06 pm 408. buddy larsen:

SR/405; the Kulaks? Who cares?

(catch the letter @ 4:55)

and, for a look of the contemporary:

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:09 pm 409. marymcl:

Ya know, Subotai was really on to something when he pointed out the anti-social tendencies of this character – interesting how the juvenile determination to offend whenever possible (by means of thinly veiled racism and homophobia, no less, that he’s constantly projecting onto others) coexists with and warps what are probably sincere pleas for respect. Not to mention the hyper-magnification of what he’s done here – which is basically to put his own immaturity and psychological warts on display – as an accomplishment, accompanied by pathetic bullying threats to anyone who’ll listen about how he’ll go anywhere, anytime to “stand up” for his “beliefs”. And then he dares us to reveal it all to his boss. No wonder he speaks of “staring into the abyss” as if it were something everyone does first thing every morning. Sad like a time bomb.

I don’t even believe he’s the grocery bagger in Des Moines anymore either.

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:11 pm 410. wretchard:

They’re never going to leave you alone. That’s the point. Always in your face and ready to run somebody else’s business.

Not to be loved
but to be loved alone

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:14 pm 411. Tcobb:

buddy larsen writes:

Marx has had lessee 2010 -1850 = 160 years and the only success it has had is in keeping keeping a few tyrants in office forever and their people as poor as Job’s turkey. That’s the record. So what’s the appeal?

The appeal is that the theory, once stripped of the verbosity, is something so simple that even someone who majors in Transgender Studies can understand it. I mean, its really so obvious and true, you know, just like its obvious that the Sun orbits around the earth.

Nov 4, 2009 - 1:14 pm 412. Steynian 395 « Free Canuckistan!:

[...] THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT and conservative activists continue to rock political life in the GOP. But what ever happened to [...]

Nov 4, 2009 - 3:27 pm

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