Lord of the Teabaggers Admits He's Full of Shit

It's difficult to believe that the Tea Party movement is "all about principles" when you read something as craven as this shit:

Armey prides himself on his intellect and rationality, but his years in Washington have taught him the political uses of irrationality and even outright fantasy. He told me he does not believe some of the most extreme charges that emerged in the debate over health care reform — for example, that "death panels" will tell elderly people when it's time to die — but he welcomes the energy and passion that such beliefs bring to his side. "You know that expression: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" he asked. "Are their fears exaggerated? Yeah, probably. But are Obama's promises exaggerated? I may think it's silly, but if people want to believe that," he said, referring to death panels, "it's O.K. with me."

Scott Walker Supporter Hilariously Refers to Primary Opponent as "Career Politician" Without the Slightest Hint of Irony

It boggles the mind...

Here's an earlier post where Maichle discusses all the work Neumann did in the, a-hem, private sector.

Note to the WISGOP

If you are going to take a clever idea, like taking out a want ad out for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and are only going fork over enough cash to pay for an ad in the classified sections of a few newspapers, just use Craigslist: it's free, more people will read the actual ad and the earned media that results from the stunt will be roughly the same.

Does WOSH Only Hire 16 Year Old Girls to be Their News Directors?

Five paragraphs into his daily self-pity party -- and, really, today's edition is quite the exercise in wince-inducing uninformed hyperbole -- Jonathan Krause drops these words a propos of nothing:

I am also resigned to the fact that the US economy will never be the same. Yes, Great Britain is still a free market--but what British companies help to drive the worldwide economy? Royal Bank of Scotland? And they would kill to have "just" 10.2% unemployment. I guess we will have to be resigned to that standard of life as well. "Living on the dole"--that is something to really shoot for in life.

Bare in mind the post is about the health care reform bill, which leads me to believe that Krause is convinced that the House passed a bill that will turn health care in America over to a National Health Service like there is in in England. If this isn' the case, then his shoddy writing is recklessly suggesting as much.

We've noted before that Krause really doesn't have the first clue what he's talking about when he starts discussing health care policy, but this glibertarian whining does no one a damn bit of good:

So that's why I am giving up...........giving up hope.

Jesus, dude: get a grip.

When are Wisconsin Conservative Bloggers Going to Finally Admonish Reince Priebus for the Way He's Captaining the U.S.S. Micheal Steele?

Seriously, how many more of these awful sound bites can one party take?

MARTIN: But your candidates got to talk to them. One of the criticisms I've always had is Republicans -- white Republicans -- have been scared of black folks.

STEELE: You're absolutely right. I mean I've been in the room and they've been scared of me.

[via M]

Groups Alienated by the GOP's Lurch to the Right, the Second Part in an Ongoing Series

Vietnamese-Americans.

Groups Alienated by the GOP's Lurch to the Right, the First Part in an Ongoing Series

Women.

MORE: Here.

Adventures in Awful Reasoning

From Texan in Wisconsin:

Rep. Ahn "Joseph" Cao, from Louisiana, was the only Republican who voted for Obamacare. His reasoning for voting as he did is all you need to read in order to convince yourself to support term limits for elected officials.

[...]

This is EXACTLY the reason we need term limits. Whatever happened to citizens who wanted to serve their neighbors for a term or two, then return to their hometown and go back to their old job?

Cao is, of course, a freshman congressman.

You're Welcome

Via Topless Robot:

Carrie Prejean, Please Take Note

Everything about this story is awesome.

[via M]

Very Good Point

Here.

MORE: And here.

Noted Without Comment

From Steve Clemons:

Palin Says Milwaukee Media Blackout Wasn't Her Call

Anyone else buy this?

Let me set the record straight on the media's follow-up reports of the great event: Despite what CNN reported, decisions about not allowing cameras at the event were the prerogative of the sponsors of the event, and I, of course, respected their decision.

She respected the decision so much that she included a cell phone photo from the event in the post ... from an event that didn't allow photography or cell phones:

Why on Earth would WRL adopt a blackout policy for this event? It would make much more sense to have the entire place rigged with cameras to capture the event for future fund-raising and promotional material.

I guess I can kind of understand the logic of the call if it were based on principles similar to the ones the NFL uses to blackout local television coverage of teams that don't sell a certain amount of tickets to a game, but that's a pretty large stretch.

Jonathan Martin on Palin's Speech in Milwaukee: Meh

Not exactly a glowing review of the Palin out-of-town opening in West Allis:

Palin had remarks prepared but frequently wandered off-script to make a point, offering audience members a casual “awesome” or “bogus” in discussing otherwise weighty topics.

As in: “It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn’t strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live.”

Other Palin touchstones included: praise for the military, jeers for the “the liberal media” and a general manner of speaking that often veered into rhetorical culs-de-sac.

While she drew applause during her remarks, Palin’s extemporaneous and frequently discursive style was such that she never truly roused a true-believing crowd as passionate about the issue at hand as she. Not once during her address did they rise to their feet.

In a closing exhortation, she urged the audience, “Don't ever let anyone to tell you to sit down and shut up.”

She then got a standing ovation from most of the crowd, but a few had begun to leave before she even finished and within seconds of her concluding, scores more got up and put on their jackets as they walked away.

(emphases added)

Palin Pushes Death Panels in Milwaukee

Sarah Palin's visit to Milwaukee last night leaves a ton to talk about, but we wanted to focus some special attention on one aspect of the speech before we get into some of the minutia.

Probably the most complete account of the speech will be found at Kathy Carpenter's blog. It's fawning and sycophantic, but to her credit, Carpenter seems to report on a lot of the actual content of the speech. Here's one troubling graph from Carpenter's write-up:

The governor even spoke about “panels” of bureaucrats making health care decisions for the elderly. The governor also promised that health care rationing is coming if this health care bill is passed in its current form. You could see the light dancing in her eyes as she spoke of the “panels of bureaucrats.” That was fun to watch.

You'll notice the modifier "death" has been conveniently omitted from the noun "panels," but there's little getting around the implication: Palin is still getting mileage off of her grossly untrue "death panels" comment made this last summer. In fact, the "light dancing in her eyes," according to Carpenter, may have been just as good as one of the vintage Palin winks.

MORE: Mudflats has an interesting (albeit incomplete) transcription and Heartland Hollar may have pulled off the most significant Wisconsin blogger coup of the year by "acquiring" a bootleg video recording of the tape.

The Crazy Company John Nygren Keeps

Advice usually comes extremely cheap to elected officials, so it's usually important to be able to distinguish between the good, the bad and the just plain crazy.

There's at least one blogger in Wisconsin who seems to be living proof that Rep. John Nygren doesn't know how to do that.

I'm referring to Capt. Karl, a Ron Paul acolyte and blogger from up north who part of a nascent movement to organize a second Continental Congress. But that's just the start of his crazy, crazy ideas: he's a Birther and paranoid about the North American Union and the Federal Reserve -- pretty standard stuff for a neo-Bircher -- but he also believes that the H1N1 vaccine is a secret government plot to implant RFID chips in the population so as to control us all. Seriously.

This last delusion disqualifies him from the pool of rational human beings in my book, but some say my standards are too high. Regardless, Capt. Karl fancies himself, if not something of a mover and shaker, then at least one of Rep. Nygren's informal advisors:

[I have worked on] Assembly Joint Resolution – 51 Wisconsin State Sovereignty, which the Democratic “tyrants” are letting die in conference and SO; and soon working on a combo with MORE TEETH that will be a “marriage” of Wisconsin Health Care “Right to Choose” combined with a MUCH STRONGER version of State Sovereignty which will be a reasonable facsimilie of the New Hampshire model.

I have been working with Assemblyman John Nygren of the 89th. If you read this blog a little more often you would know more about this. I, Capt. Karl, was the one who initiated this effort to protect my fellow Wisconsinites from The Federal Government via this legislation.

I bolded the last line just because its self-importance brings me great mirth. I don't understand what the hell he's saying in the first paragraph after the opening sentence.

The moral of the story is that this guy is under the impression that he's working hand-in-hand with member of the state Assembly -- and I find that a member of the assembly listening to advice from a guy who believes that who H1N1 vaccine nonsense to be a little troubling.

Now, I understand that I can't in good conscience say in one breath that this dude is batshit insane, then in another breath believe everything he says about just how important he is. In fact, there's evidence to suggest that Nygren's office keeps Capt. Karl at arm's length. Here's the text of an email Nygren staffer Matt Banaszynski wrote back to crazy ass Karl in response to a truly insane message that tries to tie all of Karl's paranoid obsessions into one Unified Theory of Alternate Reality (really, this thing has to be read to be believed). Most advisers don't communicate through a legislator's staff, but the notion that Nygren has some kind of Batphone with a direct line to Capt. Karl's Unibomber shack is amusing nonetheless.

Which One of the Women Pictured Below Has a Sex Tape?

Hint: It's exactly who you thought it would be.

Shorter Michelle Malkin: Brrraaaaaaaiiinnnsssss!!!

Better a donkey in office that acts like a donkey than a donkey in elephant’s clothing making a complete ass of the GOP.

[MM via Memeo]

The Stupidest Analogy You'll Read All Day

Take it away, Dan Riehl:

The New York GOP, or whomever, picked its candidate, the GOP establishment backed them, as they were all but compelled to do under the circumstances. The problem is, the entire process was FUBER aka Effed Up By Establishment Republicans living insidethe machine and not the people that make up the electorate.

This reminds me of the frustration we felt as we rolled through the primaries in 2008. We watched open primaries with cross-over voting yield results that we didn't much like in too many cases.

(emphasis added)

This assumes that floods of Democratic voters "invaded" the Republican primary, even though the GOP primaries were over well before the Democrats had finished their own hotly contested primary. Riehl is basically saying that tons of Democratic voters threw their chances at making their own voices heard away just for the opportunity to screw with Republicans like they were participating in some kind of impromptu "Operation Chaos."

It's never conservatives fault, after all...

HOFFMAN DONE

What a strange fucking election.

It seemed all too appropriate that such a strange race be capped off by Hoffman's weird "Acorn slashed my tires!" gaffe.

There's just no way anyone can convince me this race was a net win for tea baggers, conservatives, moderates in the GOP and pretty much anyone who's not a Democrat.

Even though there were probably a dozen pivotal moments throughout the race -- and certainly more that may never be made public -- for my money, the most important moment was one that never happened:

At a brief campaign appearance here last night, I asked NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to confirm whether he’d spoken with Dede Scozzafava after she abandoned her Republican bid, and before she’d been courted by Democrats to endorse Democratic candidate Bill Owens.

“No, I hadn’t had an opportunity to talk to her,” said Hoffman. “Of course I would have liked for her to endorse me, but hey, we’re going to win without her.”

That arrogant lack of consideration probably cost Doug Hoffman a seat in Congress.

Here were just some very interesting details in Politico's article on the "winning" of Scozzafava's endorsement by the White House a few days ago.

First, the Dems didn't know Scozzafava's was going to end her campaign.

Second, when the news dropped, the Dems immediately sent Steve Israel up to the district for a face-to-face meeting. Also, New York "Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the most powerful figures in the state, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo" also placed phone calls. Scozzafava also spoke with Sen. Chuck Schumer and former NYDP chair June O'Neil.

So here's the question: How the hell did she have time to speak with no less than five prominent Democrats?

I know the snide answer from conservatives is going to be "Because she always was one," but that doesn't excuse a utter lack of awareness on the Hoffman campaign's part. There should have been a ton of hand holding by the GOP after what was clearly a very emotional resignation speech. It gives the impression that she was just left on the side of the road after -- to use a cliche conservatives love to deploy these days -- being thrown under the proverbial bus by the pitchforks and torches crowd that bullied her out of the race.

Don't you think someone would have thought to do a little bit of comforting until election day, if for no other reason than to run interference against what were almost assuredly going to be Democratic entreaties for her to endorse Owens?

As soon as Hoffman heard the news that Scozzafava was leaving the race, she should have been the very first person he called. He didn't have to "make a deal" or any of that nonsense -- all he had to do was say thank you, reassure her that her voice was important, and offer her a seat at the table for at least the four days that followed. He didn't and came back to bite him in the ass.

Thanks for playing.

MORE: The Recess Supervisor has more.

EVEN MORE: Here's Erickson's take-away lesson from NY-23:

First, the GOP now must recognize it will either lose without conservatives or will win with conservatives. In 2008, many conservatives sat home instead of voting for John McCain. Now, in NY-23, conservatives rallied and destroyed the Republican candidate the establishment chose.

(emphasis added)

Except in NY-23, the GOP lost with a conservative. There's no other way to read that line than being utterly wrong. Erickson is claiming that a Democratic win last night was actually a win for the GOP -- not conservatives, mind you, but the GOP -- which is manifestly incorrect. The only winner last night were Democrats.

I'm hestitant to say that moderate Republicans dodged a bullet by not having a Hoffman victory open up the flood gates to an unruly mob of third party tea baggers, but clearly his lose isn't going to deter any them from trumpeting their own greatness.

This will likely only get worse.

NY-23 Special Election Determines Which New York Congressional Seat gets Eliminated in 2012

Most folks think that after the 2010 census New York state will lose a congressmen.

Special thanks to all the tea baggers out there for making the choice of which district goes real easy on the redistricting committee.

MORE: Or perhaps not...

A Phyrrhic Victory

If you didn't get a chance to see Doug Hoffman's utterly sycophantic interview with Glenn Beck, kick back and enjoy watching Hoffman fold like a beach chair.


I'm sure this will be greeted with hosannas by supporters, but when you pair this interview with the star-struck op-ed the NY Post published and the fact that he couldn't meet with an editorial board without Dick Armey's help, Conservatives should be worried that Doug Hoffman is going to go straight to Washington and fall in line with the GOP leadership, the very people the "grassroots" (if the term actually qualifies in this race) are trying to send a message to. He's not too bright, not too strong and not at all ready for prime time.

So he's not exactly the guy you want leading the vanguard of the revolution, and yet here comes everybody!

This will not end well for conservatives. Here's Stu Rothenberg:

In fact, Democrats might be better off were Hoffman to win the special election in New York. Yes, that outcome would prevent Democrats from expanding their House majority, but a Hoffman win might embolden the Club for Growth and encourage conservatives to take on other Republicans who aren't entirely pure. And encouraging a bigger GOP civil war is something that could help Democrats win more than a single additional seat in the House.

And Froma Harrop:

If Hoffman wins, every Baby Beck will be trying to dethrone the moderate Republican establishment in purple districts, such as this one. They will be running armadillos in Canadian goose country. And they will lose a lot more than they will win.

That's a bleak future to rest the hopes of the entire tea party movement.

Charlie Sykes Discovers David Foster Wallace

And, naturally, doesn't read the entire article, choosing to cherry-pick the part that makes him look good.

I Smell a Meme: Lady Gaga Edition

A hilarious reminder that Christopher Walken is a goddamn national treasure:



Not as funny, but still amusing recitation from Jude Law:



And Cartman's version:



This seems like fertile material for amateur readings on YouTube, but I haven't found any yet.

Again, Milwaukee isn't Going to Help Walker

Here's an interesting claim:

I do not know if Walker would win MKE County in 2010, but the DEM candidate would need to get 60% in MKE County to win statewide. I think almost any DEM could do that against Neumann (and Belling agrees), but I do not know any DEM who could pull those numbers against Walker, including Barrett.

I'm interested in the bolded line (added by me), which isn't true.

Let's go back to 2006. Doyle beat Green by a margin of 160,451 votes while winning Milwaukee County 62% to 37%, or (199,561 to 118,989). In other words, if 80% of Democratic voters in Milwaukee County had been suddenly raptured up to heaven the day before the 2006 election, Doyle still would have edged out Mark Green statewide.

For the sake of convenience, let's say that 300,000 votes will be cast in Milwaukee County next year. A Dem nominee with 60% would win 180,000 votes and come out 60,000 ahead of the Republican. That still leaves a margin of victory of 100,000 votes from around the state the GOP would need to neutralize.

The moral of the story is that the next Governor will not be chosen by Southeastern Wisconsin. Why bloggers continue to think that (a.) Scott Walker has a prayer in Milwaukee and (b.) that southeastern Wisconsin in the only geographic area is the end-all-be-all of the Wisconsin electorate, is beyond me. If Walker is going to win Wisconsin, he's going to have to craft a message that resonates throughout all of Wisconsin, not just with conservatives outside Milwaukee. Doing so inoculates him from charges of extremism and connects with independent votes (who are typically moderates).