﻿ “It’s full of fecal matter” [Darleen Click] | protein wisdom
February 16, 2013

“It’s full of fecal matter” [Darleen Click]

Obama’s new catchphrase, Ladders of Opportunity



(h/t Weasel Zippers)

Nothing says “Leftism” like doubling down on proven failures


And raising the minimum wage to $9/hr? Well, obviously that magic number is not going to put receivers in the “middle class” so why not $20/hr? $25/hr?

Why not $100/hr and make all those minimum wage earners the FILTHY!RICH! so they can then contribute just a little bit more to King Barry?

The absurdity of arbitrarily raising the minimum wage aside, Obama lies about its effect on unemployment based on “studies” just as he does about the benefits of Head Start.

University of California at Irvine economist David Neumark has looked at more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage, and he says the White House claim of de minimis job losses “grossly misstates the weight of the evidence.” About 85% of the studies “find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers.”

The minimum wage is also an ineffective way to reduce poverty. Most families in poverty don’t have someone who works, so making it more difficult to get a job exacerbates poverty. Mr. Obama says that a “family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty level. That is wrong.”



“Full of fecal matter,” indeed.

Posted by Darleen @ 9:15am

Tags: , ,

Comments (187)

  1. Mr. Obama didn’t even tell the whole story

    You mean, he left out some of the facts?

    I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t do that.

  2. Obama’s new catchphrase, “Ladders of Opportunity”

    So, was “Trapdoor and Flaming Pit of Success” already taken?

  3. Incoherence seems to be the rule of the day. The wonder of it is how this came about? I mean, time was, incoherence was steadfastly fought against and its opposite, order, whether in beauty or in knowledge was to be striven after with all our might. Nowadays bewilderment doesn’t even merit a passing glance, or worse, receives the applause of people behaving inhumanly.

  4. sdferr

    the other day I got into a “debate” with a woman over feminism. She was amendment adamant that men & women are exactly the same and gender was social construct.

    She rejected any science to the contrary because “science” itself was part of The Patriarchy (she used that actual term) it became apparent that she had no intention of letting anything challenge her incoherence; indeed, she celebrated it!

  5. Auto-correct? I take it amendment is adament? In any case, distinguishing health from sickness would become a lost cause.

  6. Too, it would help if I could spell adamant.

  7. the lunatic fringe is the ruling elite

  8. Pre-school is about getting the children into the indoctrination machine as early as possible and having more government union workers. Raising the minimum wage is to get for people on the government dole who then vote for the big [D]. Everything Obama proposes is about helping “The Party,” that’s it.

  9. some union contracts are indexed to the min. wage

  10. pre-school is free daycare for foodstampers


    Hate to bring up our old friend Nishi, but she nailed it: the Bell Curve model of human intelligence is mathematically correct. There’s very few, numerically, at either end of it. Obama taps (‘Community Organizes’) the ‘Low Information’ ‘Voters’ located in the curve’s bulge and on the downside; radicalizing those preferring the lure of ‘animal land’ to enlightenment.

    That’s a problem we, those of us who know better than to allow these fiscally unsustainable farces politicians have used to lure those who are challenged by the curve, face: we should not give up on the dummies. When it comes time to vote, we see we’ve allowed our opposition free reign with the herds, and they’ve amassed the numbers. So, they overwhelm us.

  12. nishi nailed a lot of things a perspicacious lil critter she

  13. sdferr

    oh crud, curse the auto …. now corrected.

  14. A shame she couldn’t reverse your ailment, ‘feets… )

  15. That doesn’t seem like much of an account though, insofar as the general condition described by the precious bell curve has been the case for all of human history, and yet hasn’t been the rule, not to say that unreason itself hasn’t risen to control man’s choices now and again, but to say that those periods of folly have been more or less rare than not.

  16. There’s more people today than yesterday, sdferr. There’ll be even more tomorrow. The population of the US is what, 330+ M? As a population multiplies, the vote-counts of peeps in the bulge begin to significantly outweigh (and overwhelm) the rest. That’s where the winning votes come from, not the outlier edges. And a good community organizer realizes where to cast nets.

  17. Still that doesn’t explain the abandonment of reason by the very instruments of reason’s advancement. There is something else at work, it seems to me, but what, in the specific, is very hard to pin down.

  18. Reason (like virtue) isn’t innate, but must be taught. Reason is not taught anymore to the bulge population. Our education system now seems to contraindicate both virtue and reason. Educating the bulgers is now indoctrinating the bulgers, starting even (if our master community organizer has his way) in preschool.

    You’ll have to admit, this fellow knows how to herd, and to sustain, his bulging flock.

  19. Raising the minimum wage is a payoff to unions, who’s pay will go up along with it, as their pay is tied to being above it.

  20. That doesn’t tote up to me serr8d, since reason has to arise somewhere to begin with, and if not in nature or by nature, we can’t point to an origin.

  21. Reason originated with the original thinkers who’ve been recorded throughout history, pre-Christ and post. There’s much to learn (as you know) from them. How often do you hear them mentioned in our main stream? You’ve linked to many reasonable thinkers hundreds of times (thanks!) but that’s learning that is no longer a staple to the bulgers, who are taught and seem to learn only how to vote ‘correctly’.

  22. The simple mention of thinkers presupposes a reason innate in them, if I don’t miss my guess, and is reproduced everyday by ordinary folk, who as children learning to speak absorb their native languages as readily as sponges absorb water, or take up counting and distinguishing just as young predators take to capturing prey. It’s a thing, in other words, common to human beings as such.

  23. You’re mistaking ‘reason’ with base-line, innate human intelligence. Reason needs intelligence to develop, and much intelligence to really get off the ground, but base-line intelligence doesn’t always begat reason. My dog can fetch a frisbee, and converses well with neighborhood dogs, but can’t understand a lick of Plato, Pythagoras or Heraclitus.

  24. Heh. I’m mistaking reason. Oh, gee, that’s going to go far with me, don’t you think?

  25. Heh. A nice little thinger that neatly places the ‘Obama Voter’. God bless Little Johnny!

  26. ‘Reason’ compared to (‘with’) base-line intelligence. You are one of the most reasoned people I’ve ever read, sdferr.

  27. What do we think Immanuel Kant was talking about when he wrote his great Critique of Pure Reason if not of a manifestation, a phenomenon of the human being taken as human being, i.e., a natural component of his humanness as such? Kant goes to great lengths to distinguish reason from sensation, from sense perception, and from mere understanding, or intellection, and so on. To say that reason (as a characteristic of human beings) and acts of reasoning (as an indication of human-ness) were a commonplace for the ancient philosophers like Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle is itself a mere truism. Perhaps today, with better, newer scientific terms, more mathematical terms or terminology, we’ve a better and surer grasp of the underlying phenomenon than the earliest beholders (and namers) of the phenomena themselves. But I doubt it. ho logos, I think they called it.

  28. I think you are both right. The LIVs do have reasoning abilities. However they are using them from false premises which they have had inculcated into them as being facts by the educational system and the media they watch and consider as giving them the truth about their world.

    Reality eventually intrudes and they change but the youngest and the low tail end of the Bell Curve of them are still caught up in an indoctrinated false reality. They are the Democrats base LIVs.

  29. It would be hard for both of us to be right if the question is whether reason is by nature or not by nature, i.e. entirely a matter of convention.

    That low information voters (what does that mean, “low information” if not unpossessed of sufficient knowledge, ignorant, in other words, and does not mean lacking any reasoning capacity capable of taking on further “information” to make better decisions, which is to say better choices than choices resulting primarily in the failure to attain their desired outcomes?) can be educated isn’t the question, at least as I understand the question I’ve raised.

  30. “You’ll have to admit, this fellow knows how to herd, and to sustain, his bulging flock.”


    Somewhere I read that Obama was the first President to be elected to a second term with a smaller vote total than the initial election (sorry I’m on my phone at a soccer tournment or I’d find a link to confirm) so perhaps he’s not the pied piper we fear.

  31. sdferr,

    I’d say these LIV’s are being sheltered and prevented from the ability to reason which comes via learning from one’s mistakes.

    We all know that the bill is only getting larger and coming due soon.

  32. This is all a sleight of hand performance.

    Like so many other scam artists, the gov’t has taken to producing illusions of progress and upraising of anyone’s conditions.

    One example is SS; they increased the benefit amount by 1.7% but then increased the premium on Part B Medicare and decreased other benefits that the Govt’s doles out.

    Net benefit = zero to a negative for some.

    Same with minimum wage laws. When the minimum wage goes up, marginal job positions disappear. And what groups are predominantly doing those jobs? The unskilled. Youths of any color and the undereducated or otherwise disadvantaged by bad judgment or ancestry.

    Those who are currently in the majority of receiving assistance now.

    And if someone actually achieves success and keeps that higher paid minimum wage job, they will find that the gov’t will then take 30% of it to pay for the benefit programs now running and if they were receiving assistance, they will suddenly find that the money they receive for their effort and time will not cover the low quality services they have foregone by becoming employed.

    It’s a situation that repeats itself all over the country as fired/laid off workers find out that getting a job these days means working harder for less and still being unable to live any kind secure life that they thought they “enjoyed” while receiving gov’t benefits.

    This disincentivizes their pursuit of employment and so unemployment increases.

    Which is the goal of the current regime and seemingly the past ones also.

    Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a past that no longer exists.

    I fear that the 21st century will see how modern thought and social progress/thinking has also been applied to how gov’ts can quietly dispose of superfluous population; managed starvation of food, medicine and the psychology and means to pursue ones survival through ones own effort.

    When the population becomes reduced enough (especially of those who might be capable of forming effective resistance), then the old means of fire, plague and bullets will be brought back out.

    First they must anesthetize the victims.

  33. “an indoctrinated false reality”

    a “false consciousness” if you will

  34. The LIVs likely could be educated, if we could but reach them to educate them. We can’t even seem to get their attention. Because, new obstacles to learning; reasonable teachers are competing with distractions that prior generations would liken to magic…the most destructive I’d say to reason, television. That’s a hook that even Kant would have a difficult time overcoming, to reach and teach reason. Television brings but slack-jawed drooling to the bulk of LIVs who are also the largest part of that pesky Bell Curve.

    The static message of reason we must teach LIVs is lost in the dynamics of modern society’s communications. Obama gets that, and his message is eagerly carried by those who’ve mastered these new dynamics, to those he needed to vote him (and his partners) in. We always seem to lag behind, figuring out and using the newest dynamics that we need to message to the curve’s voting bulgers. Whomever gets the most bulgers’ votes tend to win elections, no matter how much reason our side has to offer.

  35. these LIV’s are being sheltered and prevented from the ability to reason

    Though I wouldn’t say prevented, exactly (substituting instead “not actively encouraged” or something like that, even while some may be preventing themselves), this description does comport with Dr. Carson’s view that these people, and especially the younger people among them, are self-enslaving or are actively being enslaved to false opinion. He makes of himself an escapee from this very position, in his telling, by means of an encouragement directly from his mother, who, though she could not herself read, would stop at nothing to see her son learn what she didn’t have herself at the time. From my point of view, Dr. Carson’s mom was (at that time) reasoning well, but in any case, reasoning from nature, strictly speaking.

    Much of Carson’s current mission as he explains it, is to raise reason and learning in the general esteem from the low position it now holds. And it is that low position which was my jumping off point way above, since this hasn’t been the preponderant condition of human history, and as such, seems to demand an explanation.

  36. serr8d,

    As Jeff (and others here) have posited, the TRUTH is.the only crutch we have and need. It may be slower and less glamourous than the lie but it stands on it’s own; a mighty fortress needing no external support and holds up to the most withering of tests – TIME.

    Conversely, the lie must be fed continuously by more lies and those lies by even more lies. (That’s going to need a lot of tv time ;-)

  37. sdfer,

    Could we split the difference and say actively DIScourouged from learning the truth?

  38. Late to the party and I apologize if it was mentioned upthread as I haven’t read it all, but I believe there is a difference between reasoning and cunning.

    LIV are cunning and interested in pursuing their own best outcomes and don’t give a damn about how that impacts the future or society at large. Indeed, society and the greater good are not really on their radar because they don’t see the impact of what they perceive as being ‘good’ for them, being truly ‘bad’ in the future not only for them but for all.

    If they were reasoning beyond their own immediate wants, rather than their needs, they wouldn’t be LIVs.

  39. Sure Danger, active discouragement is abundantly present on the scene today in so many ways, we’d be amiss should we fail to notice it.

    Just to note another image, and as against the “ladders of opportunity” ObaZma posits, the ladder or ascent image is precisely the image Plato makes to describe the path of learning, which of course for Plato is serious learning, as opposed to the pretend learning so often displayed today.

  40. The Presentdent’s use of new media reminds me very much of the way radio and film were used by demagogues like Hitler and Roosevelt, or the way the printing press was used to inspire mass movements (both good and bad) in a previous age.

    The effectiveness of new media for indoctrinating people into mass movements seems to have a relatively short half-life. It becomes ineffective as soon as competing messages are available. Consider rock bands. We still have rock bands, but we no longer see phenomena like Beatlemania or Elvis. Why? I suspect because there are now too many bands with competing messages, all using the same media.

    If this hand-wavy idea is true, success would lie not in competing with them on Facebook and Twitter (though that’s important) but rather in identifying what the Next Big Thing is early on and jumping into it first.

    I wish Eric Hoffer were alive. I’d love to see his take on the Internet.

  41. Leigh,

    I’d say Obama is cunning in exploiting the vulnerabilities and goals of a large section of our population (the LIV and the Statists specifically).

  42. Danger, that fits with my personal theory that Obama isn’t the jeenyus his acolytes say he is.


  43. I suspect the vast “unwashed”, those for whom work, family and the pursuit of happiness is above the scrum of daily/weekly political developments, are beaten down and tired. The war and economic stagnancy are seemingly intractable and the GOP — the natural home for the striving classes — played a large part in both of those conditions (blaming the GOP for the economy isn’t very fair, but like it or not, Bush was POTUS during the subprime mania and when things went belly up. The GOP has actively fought attempts to break up the big banks.)

    In their stead comes Obama and his brand of Keynesianism. He is an agreeable sort, likes a beer, sneaks a cig, is the opposite of McCain and Romney, who remind most everyone of the rich business people who live in the big houses at the far edge of town. So he peddles stimulus, talks a good game and well, if the economy isn’t growing fast, he’s staved off a nightmare collapse and helped the economy to limp along.

    They aren’t going to spend time deconstructing the problems of shooting the money hose at challenges, they have zero empathy for corporations complaining about the anaconda-like business tax codes, and they assume that Obama (like all pols everywhere) is smart to go for the short term patch job rather than the multi year job of wresting the legal, financial and tax systems back from corporations.

    Those people get Obama is a hack pol who saw that he only had to beat Hilary Clinton to have a shot in ’08 and can live with the clown car of lefty idiots that follow every Democrat into office. Whenever bad shit happens, like Newtown, he says warm things.

    Facts are unpleasant things, for the POTUS most of all, and Obama is a cultural progressive (albeit a closeted one) and a Wall Street bought and paid for apparatchik when it comes to reform. He’ll take visibility and symbolism over accomplishment, 24x7x365.

    But for the 10%-15% of the voting base that decides elections, the guy sounds nice, isn’t an old fart, killed Osama Bin Laden, got out of Iraq (the only fucking promise he made worth keeping that he really kept) and kept the economy from collapsing.

    That he hasn’t done anything meaningful to help the economy beyond six months out, and at the margins, is something of a Constitutional butcher, is just rightwing braying, per this view.

    For a nation where Wal-Mart is the biggest private employer in many areas, and government is growing by leaps and bounds because that’s where job creation comes from, Obama is the perfect president. If you’re under 33 and vote, the association is clear: there’s Obamaism on the left hand, and the GOP on the right, the party of deficits, endless war and regulatory capture.

    We’ve learned not to dream too much anymore and we get the leaders we deserve.

  44. Peace is our value.

  45. I don’t think the bell curve has squat to do with what is going on. The LIV is not such because of any lack of reasoning ability, it’s simply that they are voting based on reasons other than [relevant] information. Those could be anything from looking stylish, to following grampa’s example, and everything in between.

    Karl Rove, for instance, tries to attract LIV’s with the argument of competitiveness; vote for Mitt because he’s the only one that can win! There were arguments among very smart people here whether that was sound reasoning or not.

    What is so damn daunting is the sheer size and number of obstacles opposing the task of re-prioritizing what is important. For example, when voting, information should be based on the policies the candidates are putting forward, not on who your favorite celebrity said is cool. I think Mass Media in general and Facebook in particular is turning the population into herd animals at an alarming rate, for instance. The sense of entitlement that seems to evolve in proportion to societies affluence. The world is getting smaller because of growing populations and technology, so increasingly everyone is getting all up in everyone’s business. In many ways, we are victims of our own success, and how do you counter that?

  46. peace and bogo is value

  47. The “ladders of opportunity” that Ear Leader has taken to promoting are nonsense.

    One of my fields of endeavor is longetudinal studies where we study a population over lengthy periods of time. For at least thirty years, the middle class has been contracting while the the upper and lower classes have both been growing exponentially. We are on the cusp of becoming Mexico which has a large and prosperous upper class and huge and underserved lower class.

    Stir in our corrupt politicians (themselves rich), corrupt policing and corrupt court systems, et voila! Crime booms and the country becomes ungovernable. Our elected officials are very near ceasing to govern at nearly every level. We have a rogue president, a hapless congress, a puppet supreme court and an angry populace who are looking around and wondering what the hell happened.

    Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  48. ” there’s Obamaism on the left hand , and the GOP on the right, the party of deficits,endless war and regulatory capture. ”

    hi ben ghazi

  49. Roddy,

    Bush added 4T to the debt in 8 years while Obama added 6T in 4 years.

    So how does that make the GOP “the party of deficits”?


    you got a linky for dat assertion? who was pushing breaking up big banks and when were they pushing it?

  51. It’s the narrative, Danger. It’s just like Lenin said about repeating a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.

  52. because after 2006 i didn’t hear sanfrannan chirping about big banks

  53. The people I, we, even the Obama people who invented the system to identify/find each one, call “low information voters” do not see themselves as low information indeed they believe that they have more information, truthful, correct information than most every other person they meet or see anywhere. This is something that our educational system has wrought. A quote from a link I put up at PW.


    They are the product of the “high self esteem” instructional system that is in place. They believe that they are smarter than, more fully informed than, everyone. They can’t be reasoned out of their ideas since they “know” they are smarter than whoever is arguing with them. Eventually the “school of hard knocks” will bring about a different view for most of these people but for some they will never have an experience which shatters their “self-esteem” cocoon.

    The process that churns them out is the one I wrote of as emotional learning or in this case programing, brainwashing. The status symbols of this group are beliefs. To believe a certain way brings status rewards and good feelings for having that belief. Humans are wired to have these emotional reactions but the progressives have warped them, and they aren’t the only or the first to do this, to attach good feeling to certain political beliefs. Obama’s one achievement was to have a computer system designed to locate these believers. Find out what their individual set of beliefs were, and send them private, from the President to just them, messages to get them to see him as being on their side, and believing them to be smart just like he is too.

    The media’s part in this is to push certain lines which reinforce in various ways the “cult-ure” they share. They and the Obama people say things that we see as insanely stupid but we are not the audience they aim at. The audience is the high-esteem-low-info ones who will hear the words repeated on the info-tainment shows they watch and think are the best sources of news.

    Dorner was one of the high self esteem people. His manifesto taken together with his actual actions showed that he thought much more highly of himself and his abilities than were warranted by reality. I said that if he was as smart as he thought he was then LA and the LAPD were in for a terrible time but he was not that smart and, though ruthless in some ways, wasn’t in others which led to his being found and his death. Reality bit him hard in the end.

  54. Elizabeth Warren (D- Honest Injun) was yapping at the banksters last week.

    But not in a disrespectful way. She’s courageous ‘nat.

  55. “low information voters”

    Described in full, “their legs and necks fettered from childhood”, sitting in the cave watching the shadows on the wall.

  56. As with Leigh, I am late to this fascinating discussion…

    sdferr says February 16, 2013 at 9:49 am


    The Leftist Masterminds [to use Mark Levin’s phrase] understand that one of the main tools they must employ in order to achieve their end is sowing Chaos throughout American [and Western] Society. Incoherence is desired and confusion in the masses is sought for.

    A society drowning in Chaos can be exploited and more easily undermined amidst the whirlwind of confusion raging about.

    This is one of the major reasons why Clarity is so important when we make our arguments. Pussy-footing around, like so many on the Right do [not calling a spade a spade, as it were] feeds the Beast Chaos.

    [One way to effectively fight back: Do as Andrew Breitbart advised and Just Say So?]

  57. Danger,
    Perception is reality. The GOP came in with surpluses and left with a spending orgasm, unaccountable and feckless, and Obama saw the hand and raised it.

    Obama doesnt pretend much to give a shit about the budget; he’s a state senator getting away with what he can. The GOP tried to be the party of economic adults for awhile. I guess that’s done now.

    Good for her. I hope she does it again. Your problem with giving the regulators–that’s what the hearing was, BTW–crap for failing to effectively go after financial fraud by TBTF institutions is what again?

  58. That would be “none”, Roddy.

    I was making a joke about the tone of the NYT and Wapo’s pearl-clutching about Ted Cruz “disrespecting” Chuck Hagel.

  59. our fascist attorney general piece of shit Eric Holder is far more of a failure at going after financial fraud than regulator monkeys

    and the phony indian bitch knows it

  60. That the Republican Congress of the years, 2000-2006 spent too much on pork is true. They seemed to think they could remain in power by being the Democrats-lite. Pelosi and company in 2006 recruited and ran “blue dogs” against the most vulnerable porkers and by doing that regained the Congress for the Democrats. It was then that the deficits really took off as the Democrats played a game of national-security-chicken over funding of the war and Bush blinked first.

    As far as the sub-prime mortgage collapse, this was baked into the cake with the Clinton era CRA, J. Reno’s threats to the banks over loans, and his cronies at Fanny-Freddie. And Clinton’s famed “surplus” was faked on the back of internet dot-com. bubble which might have not gotten as big except that it was manipulated/allowed to grow to make Clinton’s numbers look good.

    If the Gingrich gang hadn’t taken the House in 1994 we would have seen a typical anemic Democrat government recovery which is what we had in 1993-94. Clinton was ready to “invest” every dime he and his Congress could extract from the private sector. He gets praise now but if he hadn’t been reigned in by Congress he would have been Barack the First edition.

    Carter-Clinton-Obama are all alike. Any differences are in what their opposition was able to stop them from doing not in what they wanted/want to accomplish. They are all fucking socialist-fascist-progressive trash. Right to their shriveled souls.

  61. porky porky chris christie is hellbent on cementing Team R as the pork party

    yup the man who can’t jump barks jump and boehnerfag say how high would you like me to jump, chris?

    and chris say fuck you boehnerfag I don’t give a damn about politics


    Also, I think there was a time or two when W Bush tried to rein in what was going in on in the housing market, but I can’t remember any details.

    However, that, like his plan for reforming social security, ended up just another of the many mushroom shaped bruises congress slapped on De Bush.

  63. This is what I’m talking about.

  64. Roddy, despite the respect he generates here, appears to be the low information voter geoffb described at 3:11 pm.

    It’s perception, you see, and you can’t fight the perception because it’s the perception and facts are now irrelevant because of the perception. So it’s OK to repeat the perception, be cause it is.

  65. Good Lord, but reading that timeline made my blood boil!

  66. the perceivings do matter a lot but people forget that the prescription drug benefit was coming no matter what

    the republican senate trash led by the lopsterpot bimbos and meghan’s coward daddy and lamar alexander and et cetera were already stampeding in that direction – Bush just tried to herd them in a less-damaging direction is all

    and though yes in retrospect the wars were retarded Bush couldn’t have known how americans, even the manhattan trash that had been attackered, would quickly turn into quiveringly fearful fascist pussies eager to turn victory into an expensive failshit symbol of their piece of shit country’s decline

  67. This is the intellectual vanguard of America’s dominant philosophy.

    Zombie: 1 Billion Rising San Francisco

    Depravity and idiocy are on the march. Each new thing that ought to just astound me with its unimaginable vileness or blatant stupidity just makes me shake my head and reminisce about when we used to not be completely out of our fucking minds. We are so screwed.

    I feel like I’m Meadowlark Lemon and the Generals are up by 60…for the third straight game. Then I start thinking about how mountain hermits might be on to something.

    God help us.

  68. San Francisco is not the intellectual vanguard of anything at all really

    mostly it’s just pretty and it smells like urine

    it’s like if Brad Pitt were a city

  69. Eve Ensler. That is all.

    Except for that you know they’re all the same Marxist, fascist nutbags and they own the messaging.

  70. Oh. We’re gonna build a playground for everyone who died at Sandy Hook. Each will reflect the personality of the deceased for which it is dedicated.

    We’ve damn near got that thing fixed. Or something.

  71. srsly?

    that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard

  72. What might make some sense is a playground that teaches the little ones about Adam Lanza.



  74. Depravity and idiocy are on the march.

    the white proggtards got the colored boy to dance for them so there’s that

  75. Cruz is said to have a frosty relationship with his state’s senior senator, John Cornyn (R), dating to Cruz’s surprising decision, as Senate candidate, not to endorse his fellow Texan’s bid for party whip…

    it should have dated to John Cornyn’s decision to be a nutless charlie crist-fellating pansy but better late than never I guess

  76. You gotta know that Cruz fellow is doing good, to have the whole establishment mad at him…

  77. I found out something funny today. Sen. Cruz from Texas was born in Canada. You know what that makes him don’t you?

    A White Hispanic Cuban-CanadianAmerican.

    In a word, inauthentic.

  78. nishi nailed a lot of things a perspicacious lil critter she

    Yes, if you have a great deal of appreciation for blunder. Remember, nishi thought Obama was going to be the Next Big Thing.

    And that adherence to one’s ethics is just as horribly outdated a notion as the hand-cranked telephone.

    Someone’s memory is just not very faithful, and that someone is dressed up as a Pikachu.

  79. she foretold how Team R would make of itself a repugnance

    i would like to buy for her a snifter of absinthe and a cheese plate

  80. Team R has been making of itself a repugnance since at LEAST the Reconstruction, if not a lot further back.

    It’s not foreseeing if you’re just projecting the past.

  81. nevertheless

  82. Nevertheless, happyfeets is wrong again. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong.

  83. i been wronger

  84. She’s full of foresight the same way that telephone psychics are. Make a thousand predictions and maybe a couple of them will be right and the morons within earshot will do what morons do.

    Some people try being funny like this.

  85. happyfeets needs to Google the Compromise of 1877, and read. Actually, just Google American History, 1776-2013, and read.

  86. Here is nishi’s prognosticatory skills, on film.

  87. I might watch that video another couple times to fully ascertain how well it works as an analogy. And then maybe another dozen times.

  88. i been wronger

    Existential wrongness is digital. It does not happen in degrees, you either are or you aren’t.


    Who gave you permission to make sense?

  90. she foretold how Team R would make of itself a repugnance

    She said it would happen. Her theory of how/why has gone the way of the notion that cavemen hunted dinosaurs.

  91. good heavens nothing makes sense anymore

    for example

    Oscar Pistorius fought desperately to revive his dying girlfriend after shooting her four times through a bathroom door, according to reports.*

  92. Who gave you permission to make sense?

    If we imagine that sensible statements will compose roughly 1% of all utterances in his natural state, the answer is the law of large numbers.

    Tip your TA and try the veal.

  93. for nudder example

    Dozens of pro-Dorner protesters rally at LAPD HQ

    … that happened TODAY

    Dorner was a LAST WEEK thing


  94. Those protesters are morons. “As an American citizen, you have the right to due process.”

    True, unless the president decides to drone you.

    I wonder if they’re cool with that policy?


    I think it’s more the opposite. When the R’s, to the extent they aren’t statists themselves, do not confront the statists, the LIV’s are left with the impression that things are much less fubar than they actually are.

    But I agree with you completely that what is needed is clarity. And it isn’t going to happen with conservatives being represented by the GOP. It has become abundantly clear that the GOP is not the vessel that will lead to enough of Dr. Carson’s “a-ha” moments to save this country. It just isn’t going to happen.

  96. the thing is, what food stamp and his newsertainment sluts did was to make it cool to be an LIV

    you can be a dumb whore like reese witherspoon and your opinion still counts same as jon stewart’s even

  97. I imagine we could find a corollary here at pw if we tried hard enough.

  98. that was understated yet unmistakably caustic mr. bh, what you said

  99. Stop trying on shoes to see if they’ll fit.

  100. you proteins are free to overthink all this descent into fascist desperation thing all you like as far as I’m concerned and who knows something good may come of it

    but anybody try and tell me roobs is our savior and I’ll give em a puzzled look and more or less patiently explain they be confuzzling a smarmy lifeydoodle senate whore with a savior

    and then someone will say fuck you griefer you just stupid griefer

    and i will say hey I have feelings you know and inside a tear will roll down my forlorn pikachu cheek

    but I’ll never let it show

  101. So… a test then. Yes, let’s see who responds.

    I hope they don’t become very tense like before the SAT. I’m just bad at taking tests they’ll say later. And then, even later, that question about whether or not fries would make a nice accompaniment to the meal.

  102. fries are just carbs with a certain je ne sais quoi

  103. We imagine ourselves to be serious men but we don’t even toss clowns from the room.

    We’re not serious men. What’s the problem? We are.

  104. serious men do not toss clowns

    trust me on this

  105. it’s just not done

  106. Until we have the technology to digitally mimic pushing buffoons to the edge of the crowd where their volume goes down by natural acoustics, I submit that serious men can and should toss both clowns and uppity midgets.

  107. me i losted any interest in being a Serious Man … sorta around the time when Team R decided hey let’s make this random Kevin whatever THE FACE of the food stamp administration

    and lo and also behold you loser values voters procedered to play smear the queer amongst yourselves

    and you looked fucking ridiculous

    nobody in the real world gave a shit but undeterred and even right here at pw we had quite the riotous fun coming up with ever new and ever more haha fisting jokes

    god bless america

    serious men


    at best it’s very hit or miss

    at least until the fascists try to take your guns

    thank god they did that cause it’s been a very healthy distraction for team conservabigot

  108. “The GOP came in with surpluses and left with a spending orgasm, unaccountable and feckless,”

    The “surpluses” were paper forecasts that never came to be when the dot-com bubble burst. And yes as Geoffb said above Team R spent too much but the defecit got smaller every year until 2007. Something real (not imagined or “perceived”) happened that year and it didn’t begin with an R.

    “Perception is reality”.

    Only if we stand idly by while evil flourishes.

  109. I’m tired of hearing about how stupid our fellow citizens are.

    If that’s true we’ll react accordingly. We’ll both/either educate them or invite them to shut up from time to time.

  110. Mr. Danger people also forget to factor in how much the weird and sudden gas-prices-through-the-roof thing interplayed with the subprime tipping point

    I’m not convinced the real estate bubble had to have as hard a landing as it did

    and notwithstanding bursting bubbles the real estate around these parts is still way way too bubble bubble toil and trouble to be worth paying a half mil plus for a 2-3 bedroom 1940s bungalow-ish tract home in burbank

  111. how stupid our fellow citizens are.

    well maybe that’s cause you live in a place with responsible conservative stewardship I live in a place full of fake-titted dumbfucks what just voted to raise the sales taxes on their unemployed/underemployed friends and family

  112. fashion forward

    you still have time to be the first on your block

  113. It’s fun to learn about the terrible things I’ve done without even commenting on them.

    I’m practically a war criminal.

  114. i didn’t say you I was poking at this “serious men” idea

    in that comment “you” refers to a generalized and largely non-specific Team R

  115. Am I a value voter even if I’ve only used the term “value” ironically for the last few years?

    Strange. It’s almost like there is a template you’re trying to apply.

  116. See, it was almost like you were responding to me and then using you for the pronoun.

  117. Ok,

    In case I confused anyone the “real” thing that happened in 1997 I was refering to was a Democratic Congress.

    So Happyfeet, (keeping in mind the real-estate crash) who should we have made THE FACE of the food stamp administration?
    Would Barney Frank be ok? Or would that be playing “smear the queer”?

  118. Is there a ghost here? Are you talking to ghost commentors?

  119. but if I had to name names in a purely academic sense not in an enemy’s list sense I would start with one Jim Hoft

  120. THE FACE of the food stamp administration is food stamp

    and daddy soros

    and the promiscuous coterie of cartoonishly-willing media sluts like the candy crowley and the shep smith and et cetera

    done and done

    how hard is that?

  121. Mr. bh you’re welcome to refine your definition of “serious men” and I will endeavour to respond accordingly

  122. Jim Hoft: Dumbest Man on the Internet?
    Says: Media Matters for America

    So is that whose “values” that match yours Happyfeet?

  123. no Mr. Danger media matters does not match my values

    they’re soros-funded fascists

    I’m just a winsome pikachu from rural south texas what thinks that government governs best what governs least

  124. “…and daddy soros


    Seems a bit scattered and unfocused. However I’m sure we’d look like “serious men” by launching our heavy ordnance against those three.

  125. god bless this fucker but he said it so well i can’t but reproduce his thinkings in full right here right now as we speak using my formidable cut n paste powers honed over the years

    in re: “values” that match yours Happyfeet?

    I seldom comment here, but this is pretty much the only blog I ever comment on and I have a thought I want put out there about today’s Republican party.

    I have heard several professional pontificators talk today about how this election calls into question the center-right nature of the Republic. I heard Bill Kristol tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier say Republicans need a younger face and a more effective voice for the conservative cause. Karl Rove said we’ve got to find a way to address issues that are important to Latino voters.

    That all sounds nice, but that’s not transformational thinking. I think they’ve missed the forest for the trees. The issue is not that the nation has tilted to center-left. The issue is that the Republican Party is playing by the liberal view that rights are endowed by the state and we must advocate for the rights we believe Americans should espouse. As a result, the GOP is a party held hostage to the social values issues, and we no longer represent the majority on those social values.

    I live my life by the conservative values that the Republican Party strives to represent. But my values are not endowed by the government; they are endowed by my Creator. And while my pursuit of happiness might be completely in line with conservative values, I reject the Republican Party’s belief that my pursuit of happiness is the path all Americans should pursue.

    You want to expand the Republican party beyond the social-issue Republicans? Honor all Americans for their right to pursue their happiness in their own way. A majority Republican party will necessarily look a lot more libertarian. A majority of Americans no longer share my conservative values, but they do share my desire to pursue happiness without Federal Government intervention.

    The Republican party is not in disarray. It’s very well organized and I think was well led by Mitt Romney. But if we hope to break out of what is apparently the new status quo (52/48 losses), we need to break the paradigm that accepts the idea elections are about voting for the guy who is going to get the government to make everyone else agree with me.

    Once we grab the mantle of Liberty and abandon efforts to affect social change by infringing on others’ right to exercise their Liberty, we will once again be a majority party.

    I think the Republican party should emphasize economic freedom and small government, which are core concepts that have wide appeal. Basically, we should be what the Libertarian party could be, if it were not run by kooks.


    It’s incredibly simple. Don’t hide behind baby talk.

    If, for instance, I said that you negatively affect the movement towards gay acceptance with your over-the-top asshattery, I’d like for you to respond like an adult. Not like an adult playing a child on the internet.

    [Yes, I know that given all this history, I’m being absurd here.]

  127. Mr. bh me I don’t affect the movement towards gay acceptance

    that’s a tsunami… like the one in Japan oh god oh god oh god

    but me I’m but a yeller zapzap sprinkling comments in a farflung thread on a blog somewheres in the top 50 according to someone I can’t remember right now

    just a yeller zapzap what knows which way the wind blows

  128. “values are not endowed by the government; they are endowed by my Creator.”

    And what are those values (some might say inalienable rights) that are endowed by the creator? Cus it seems that he only remembers the pursuit of happiness one. A rather shallow comment if you ask me.

  129. you’re not helping

  130. Fine.

    I didn’t expect anything more.

  131. The tide alway recedes after a tsumami. And it leaves behind death and distruction.

    Nice analogy

  132. ok yes I grant you that gay acceptance can only lead to death and “distruction”

    this is because of how the gays are

    they’re just magnets for death and destruction is what they are

    so let’s all get behind a candidate what will neutralize the gay menace – and let’s do it now – TODAY

    before it’s too late

    let’s do it together, as a team

    who will stand with me?

  133. Soccer tournament tomorrow, so time to retire.

    Whose turn will it be to hit and whose turn to hold him tomorrow?

  134. I didn’t come up with the tsunami or wind blowing analogies.

    Maybe try bh’s suggestion next time.

  135. Existentially, digitally rawng.

  136. as long as he doesn’t suggest carbs

  137. hi Mr. McGehee who lives in god’s own heaven how are you I am fine I hope you are enjoying the anticipation of the imminence of spring

    it seems to have come early here in southern california


  138. “It’s incredibly simple. Don’t hide behind baby talk.”

    I’m going to coin that bh-olosophy.

  139. Yeah, you’ve definitely taken care of this ground, ‘feets. You should pat yourself on the back. There will certainly be green shoots tomorrow. You’re a miracle worker. Tell us more about messaging.

  140. LBascom,

    I am not sure how smart I am–or what faults I have–and i will accept criticism 8 days a week from GeoffB, because well, the fellow is a smart man.

    That said, I acknowledge what he said, but differ in the relative interpretation of the weight to give it all. Look, as I have noted publicly, you don’t get what we call “a credit crisis” without POTUS Clinton, with Bob Rubin next to him, eliminating Glass-Steagall in Nov. ’99. It was downhill from there.

    I am arguing that for many people who don’t give a shit about places like Protein Wisdom, about refining arguments, or in my case, about doing primary source document research (based on the sales of my book, that’s 99.99% of the populace) they look at the “scoreboard” of our system — what party is responsible for peace and “prosperity” (however tenuous)– and they find enough arrows pointing left and are able to vote for Obama.

    Most of these people are “LIV.” We can live with that, those of us who classically liberal or Libertarian instincts. But 10%-15% of the populace who would throw a vote the GOP way based on Reagan or Bush I being sensible and serious men, those people are beginning to associate the right with some really negative things, like endless wars that have no real terminal point, and economic collapses.

    Someone will eventually come along and convince them to give the right a shot again. I’m hoping in 2016.

  141. i don’t always know what you’re talking about

  142. I’m saying that you have those worthless skills you seem to admire in nishi and thor.

    Namely: everyone wants to disagree with you.

    Tending your garden means the opposite of this.

  143. Happyfeet,

    That was a fine link and comment you posted. It’s funny to think of a serious and committed thinker lurking inside of your persona. I really cannot abide Patterico though. Being a reporter and “a public figure” I’m used to abuse and taking crap but I simply cannot stomach that guy.

    Not for the contextual Stalingrad’s that erupt between him and Jeff, because I still don’t get them, but over Patterico’s attempt to get Barrett Brown and Anonymous or what have you to dig up crap on Jeff and get him thrown back on his heels.

    What a piece of shit. What a truly bad guy. So I’m glad that a bright guy wrote meaningful words there but I didn’t read them all because I just can’t stand those pixels on my computer.

  144. i understand Mr. P can be difficult but his heart is in the right place and these days that counts for a lot

    he’s been quick to go nuclear

    but my sense is that he’s kinda sorta been working on that

  145. i love nishi and thor Mr. bh and it hurts my heart that there’s not a third one in that series

    they were fun

    they had ideas and a lacerating way of conveying those ideas

    it definitely felt more like america when we had ones like them around

  146. Do you understand how deeply misguided that bullshit is? I don’t know if you understand. I don’t.

    Dig it, I understand the dirt simple idea you’re expressing but I reject it as such.

    That’s just stupid.

  147. i love mr. barrett too

    he’s a political prisoner

    he’s a political prisoner and god help him

    how freaking terrifying

  148. no i do not understand how deeply misguided my bullshit is

    you can put me on record

  149. Nishi, thor, and Barrett are cut from the same cloth as RD, elfie, and Teh Deb.

  150. So… I’ve pretty much proven everything I was hoping to prove.

    What’s the problem? We are.

  151. We don’t just suffer fools, we’re actively accommodating.

  152. discount shades store-bought tan flip flops and cut-off jeans I think Mr. bh

  153. And the midget hilljack of Murfreesboro, too.

  154. We don’t just suffer fools, we’re actively accommodating.

    Indeed. Barrett Brown? A political prisoner? Now I’ve heard everything.

  155. so you must’ve already heard about the private label horse-meat lasagna

    europe lol

  156. Pingback: Thanks For Nothing, Brother Obama | Daily Pundit

  157. and it came to pass that thorizonoshinji begat corollaryfoot.

  158. Had to go to bed early to get up for church today and so missed much here.

    Roddy and I (IMHO) differ as to the sources of information we have and in the way the filters that we have built up over the years process that information. He has a brain full of information and stories I’d love to pick, over dinner and drinks, anytime. This thread has made many ideas rattle around in my head this morning. For that I thank you all.

  159. Thor and Nishi had an intellectually dishonest manner of putting their arguments.

  160. In the realm of economics and politics when speaking of large groups their members will vary over a range for any given characteristic. One of my filters for information is how I believe a group varies.

    One a scale of criminality I see businessmen ranging from good people to grifters and extortionists at the far end of their bell curve. Union management ranges from grifters to strong-arm robbers and those committing aggravated assault. Republicans run the same scale as businessmen from good people to grifters. The Democrats have, or had, some good people at one far tail of their curve but the vast middle bulge is in the grifter – extortionist area at this time and trending over my lifetime further and further away from good people. The leadership of that Party now is at the far tail and runs right up to rapist, sexual sadist, and serial killer.

    Any cause however good or bad it is that allows itself to be or is taken up by the present day Democratic Party is only there to be used for an evil end. In either/or the means used to push the cause or the exact end that is pushed as what that cause wants, something harmful to freedom will be baked into the cake by the Democrats. They won’t take up a cause if they can’t use it for evil.

    There is a stink on that Party which adheres to any cause they take up. Once they embrace what you are pushing your cause will stink too. Just look at what has become of the noble cause we now call by the name “Civil Rights.” The Democratic Party stink has brought that down to the huckster level of Jesse Jackson and now sinks it even lower to Reverends Al and Louis F. in the mud.

    The best thing that could happen to this country would be for the Democrats to dissolve as a Party with their ideas being repudiated for generations, and for the Republicans to then split into the new two party system.

  161. “There is a stink on that Party which adheres to any cause they take up.”

    explored further here

    The People v. the Democratic Party

  162. Pingback: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove


    Until we have an educated population which can read and understand the ideas put for by those such as de Tocqueville, Levin, etc … the stupid will continue.

  164. “and the GOP on the right,”

    Right there’s your problem.

    ” we get the leaders we deserve.”

    Really? Inevitable, they said. Am I correct? In a Democracy the polity get what it will accept.

    “the perceivings do matter ”

    Bullshite. No man defines another, accept with his blessing.

  165. What a thread! Where else can you find any mention of Kevin Jennings fisting Patterico (add commas in there if you feel the need) ?

  166. Carin, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. There are a lot of wise people who are not well-educated. The problem is they are either very old or immigrants from the former Soviet Bloc countries. Education is a blessing of course, but the miseducation of our country is a horror to behold.

    The emphasis on flash, bling and celebrity is appalling. When most young people have as their lives goal to become Famous, rather than to put their shoulders to the wheel, we have a fundamental problem with what we hold dear as a society. Especially as Americans.

    Americans have always taken the helm and in the course of doing that received a lot of grief from the rest of the world that is not so brash. We are the Ugly American. We are uncouth, etc. This never stopped us from inventing computers and rockets that flew men to the moon. From curing disease and providing aid to those in need. We had a formidable Armed Forces and well trained soldiers and sailors.

    Now? We are One World. Except that we aren’t and in our heart of hearts we know this isn’t true. We will always be Americans. Pioneers. Inovators. The engine of growth and the bread basket of the planet. Our standard of living is so high our poor have cars and air-conditioning. No one starves. Vaccination is free. What more do we want? We always want more.

    Before, as shortly as 40 years ago, we were willing to go out and grab at the brass ring. Now, our youngsters say it’s too much work and the brass ring should be lower because it’s too hard to reach.

    My grandmother always said that no one owes us a living. Our people seem to have forgotten that somewhere along the way.

  167. I have to get ready for church, so I will see you all later.

  168. We’re not serious men. What’s the problem? We are.

    Just wanted to see that repeated for effect.

  169. Insty has a headline: When Professors Ban Fox News . . .

    . . . and I’m thinking: “They don’t know it, but they’re doing their young conservative-minded students a favor, since Fox is on the other side.”

  170. *** JOHN MCCAIN: We have had two movies about getting bin Laden and we don’t even know who the people were who were evacuated from the consulate the next day after the attack, so there are many, many questions. We have had a massive cover-up on the part of the administration.

    DAVID GREGORY: But a massive cover-up of what? Susan Rice says there was a lot of confusion.

    MCCAIN: i’m asking you, do you care, David — I’m asking you do you care whether four Americans died? the reasons for that? And shouldn’t people be held accountable for the fact that four Americans died?

    GREGORY: You said there is a cover-up. A cover-up of what? A cover-up of what?

    MCCAIN: Of the information concerning the deaths of four brave Americans. The information has not been forthcoming. You can obviously believe that it has. I know that it hasn’t, and I will be glad to send you a list of the questions that have not been answered, including what did the president do and who did he talk to the night of the attack on Benghazi and why was it, why was it that we — that the people who were evacuated from the — from the consulate the next day were not interviewed the next day and then they would have known that it was not a spontaneous demonstration. Why did the president, for two weeks, for two weeks during the heat of the campaign, continue to say he didn’t know whether it was a terrorist attack or not? Is it because it interfered with the line of al Qaeda is decimated and everything’s fine in that part of the world? Maybe. We don’t know. But we need the answers. Then we will reach conclusions, but we have not received the answers and that’s a fact. ***

    Dumbass David Gregory believes he’s doing the work of the blessed asking “But a massive cover-up of what? Susan Rice says there was a lot of confusion” in his attempt to lay smoke for the incompetent and careless ObaZma conduct.

    Poor fella can’t seem to understand he only drives the ObaZma administration further into the hell-hole of self-contradiction. Maybe in the end the presence of morons like Gregory on the airwaves of major media outlets will prove to be a topsy-turvy blessing in disguise.

  171. If we knew”what” then there wouldn’t be something covered up anymore.

  172. Yep, even the near equal-of-Gregory dumbass John McCain could find himself getting angry at the stubborn refusal to look at the facts. Sophistic weasels like Gregory have a way about them of eliciting the truth, despite their intentions. Assholes like McCain, however, don’t belong in public service just because weasels like Gregory are present on the scene.


    With respect sdferr, Obama lives in the hell-hole of self-contradictions pit, built a mansion there, and moved in every progg in the country.

    They LIKE it there. The cuts down on getting caught in lies, and makes the very accountability we demand harder to grasp than a trout what spit the hook at the shoreline.

  174. If you don’t know what’s being covered up, how do you know anything is being covered up? Do you guys understand logic?

    What a bunch of wingnuts.


    All on topic too.

  176. Roddy:


    And you will happily parrot the perception (lie). Did you read the link I posted at 5:15 last evening? Bush, starting in April 2001, and continuing til the collapse in 2008, begged congress to address the mess Clinton created.

    As for Republicans being the party of endless wars? Seems you forget much. Let’s see, Clinton had Serbia and Somalia, 97% of Democrats supported invading Iraq, and Obama didn’t even bother consulting congress before going to Libya.

    I know, I know…Perception is the thing that counts, so by all means live the lie.

  177. David Gregory is an Ass!

    that is all.

  178. “Perception is the thing that counts”

    Good news comrades, the chocolate ration has gone up from 300 to 250 grams per week. Aproveche!

  179. All on topic too.

    I see what you did there.

    Oh, and why mention Mr. Hoft’s name in vain without a proper linky? As I remember it, this is the first episode that sent ‘feets completely and utterly off the rails, that Sarah Palin had…greased.

  180. feets is either stupid or pretending to be stupid. I can’t decide which is worse.

  181. I’d say he jumped on the rails unprovoked ay 9:31 last night. Although; to be fair, a post refering to fecal matter might cause someone (predisposed of such tendancy) to think of Kevin Jennings