Most of the reviews of the SOTU coming from non-rightie media are describing it with words like “cautious,” “modest” and “conciliatory,” which tells me I didn’t miss anything interesting. According to the wingnuts, of course, the President as “Kommandant-In-Chef” — something like that hot-tempered British fellow who stars in all those cooking shows on cable, perhaps — announced tanks in the street and a new Politburo of Central Planning.
“The world is literally about to blow up,” Lindsey Graham (R-Drama Queen) said.
There were four Republican responses, two official and two not. Sensitive to the fact that women laugh at them but incapable of comprehending why, the Party called on two women representatives — Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Stockholm Syndrome) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (likewise) to give Republican responses in English and Spanish. The womenfolk were assigned the task of sounding sane and reasonable without getting into specifics, and I don’t doubt they carried out their mission. But it seems the guys went their own way.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Bagger), who appointed himself to speak for the Tea Party, has noticed that “income inequality” is the new new buzz phrase, and he spoke of it in spite of not being entirely sure what it is.
“Today, Americans know in their hearts that something is wrong. Much of what is wrong relates to the sense that the ‘American Dream’ is falling out of reach for far too many of us,” Lee said. “We are facing an inequality crisis — one to which the President has paid lip-service, but seems uninterested in truly confronting or correcting.”
“But where does this new inequality come from? From government — every time it takes rights and opportunities away from the American people and gives them instead to politicians, bureaucrats and special interests.”
“Special interests,” like, I don’t know, the 1 percent, perhaps? OK, senator, and you keep favoring special interests, because . . .?
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Rand Paul) gave his own response, which I understand was videoed before the White House had even released the text of the SOTU. Paul evoked Ronald Reagan, blamed the 2008 financial meltdown on the Federal Reserve, and promised economic utopia through “economic freedom zones,” a plan that’s been tried already and doesn’t seem to work.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Looney Tunes) had a meltdown on Maddow’s show after he was called out for some Tweets he posted while the President was speaking. Rep. Michael Grimm (R-Flunked Anger Management) threatened to break a reporter “in half.”
And Sen.Ted Cruz (R-Pure Unadulterated Bullshit) today is in the Wall Street Journal waxing sad about the “imperial presidency.” Do we want to talk about “obstruction,” and “refusing to govern,” Senator?
It’s just one big circus where the GOP is concerned. I know many people who believe what comes out of these compromised mouths. 🙁
OOOOH!
I hope our “Kommandant in Chef” decides we all need a National Day of eating sauerbraten, wiener-schnitzel, and spaetzle!!!
And, either Linzer Torte or Apflesturdel, for dessert.
With plenty of German beers and Rieslings to wash all of that down with!!!
gulag — yum. sounds good to me!
I saw David Corn on MSNBC complaining that the president wasn’t hard enough on the Grand Obstructionist Party, but I don’t agree. I do wish he’d been more aggressive in the policies he’d proposed, but I think it’s a good strategy to take a conciliatory tone in the State of the Union and leave it to the Republicans to issue these completely deranged responses. That way it isn’t even necessary for him to point out what assholes they are. Show, don’t tell.
As for Lee’s comments, it just occurred to me that the same people who tell you that the economy is not a pie will tell you that freedom is a pie. I’ve seen that analogy used at least once–the bigger the slice of freedom pie the government takes for itself, the less that remains for the citizens.
And yet wealth is not a pie. So just because the rich are getting richer doesn’t mean that the poor are getting poorer. Although in fact they are, but never mind that. Because freedom.
I’ve never met a SOTU I liked. There’s always too many pigs and the lipstick is usually pea green and crusty.
Do you like Reisling Cundgulag?
“I don’t know, I’ve never reisled.”
Some part of me, probably the product of arrested development, still entertains a scintilla of hope that the rhetoric, nonsense and craziness coming from the extreme right will suddenly become so unbearably absurd, that it will break through the gates of Bizarro world, and reality will flood in. The jaded realist in me takes somber note that so many prefer to live in Bizarro World. The multitude of evil conspiracies give them a purpose and a sense that they have “Pierced the veil,” and their fellow travelers create a community of the like minded, with a common set of enemies and fears. It must be strangely comforting.
But, it’s a horror to watch.
Great party identification, Maha! Made my day. The American Lady Republican (you know that ‘s how they probably identify her) was such a confection of air-words! I would never have know she and her husband had government-funded health insurance to look after their child’s medical issues. I would have thought she found coverage and doctors all on her own, the way she recommended for others, till facts struck me and I re-entered reality.
Goarherd:
Just remember, 1930s Germany was populated by perfectly normal people.
If the rightwingnuts ever find a charismatic leader, or if a charismatic leader ever decides to use the Republican Party (or any party) apparatus, we are all in deep doodoo.
“I don’t know, I’ve never reisled.â€
🙂 “Why golly, sheriff, I yield as loud as I could.”
OK, I got one. A redneck was driving his pickup too fast and a state trooper pulled him over. The trooper walked up to the driver’s side of the truck and said, “Do you have any ID?” And the redneck said, “‘Bout what?”
That’s a good one.
Great Frank Rich article on how Fox News is dying. A money quote:
Was that redneck named Gohmert?
“I would have thought she found coverage and doctors all on her own…”
And they paid for them with chickens, of course.
Republicans moan and Republicans bitch
Our rich are too poor
And our poor are too rich
Yes, Dan, but I try not to exemplify “Godwin’s Law” if I can avoid it.
csm: I love the pay by chicken idea. The thing I find the most amusing about it is how quickly chickens become a liability. We’ve had pastured chickens for years. The free eggs are great, but, man, chickens can sure do a lot of damage, especially if you have too many. I always smile imagining the back room at the doctor’s office stuffed to the gills with poultry, just like in the good old days, evidently.
By the way, our local coyotes started to come by in the early mornings and gradually, only the chickens that roost in the barn were left. I was relating the tale to one of my neighbors a while back and he asked, “Can I borrow your coyotes?”
But, he’s not a doctor.
I watched the SOTU, and actually quite liked it. I think it could only be called “cautious” or “modest” in that he didn’t actually spit in any republican faces, and he was as usual a bit more complex than a bumper sticker. There were a couple of times i think he really stuck the knife in subtly though … for example, in implying that the wars Bush got us into were, in fact, exactly the wars that Al Queda wanted, and probably did nothing but help them … or in using the phrase “permanent war footing” … and especially in the fact that he really did bang the income inequality drum in several places, in several different ways.
Not a “screw you guys” kind of a speech, which I’m guessing he is just ACHING to give, but I was happy with it nevertheless.
-me
Pierce at Esquire had a fine commentary on Mike Lee’s SOTU response that Lee couched in a Boston Tea Party analogy. Here is a truly funny string of comments I shamelessly copies to paste here:
Christopher Nelson · Top Commenter · Senior Editor at Herff Jones
That whole Boston Tea Party analogy is f*cked up. I can’t even being to evaluate it on its own merits it’s so incoherent.
However historically the idea that guys can wreck billions of modern dollars in corporate property to protest a sweetheart deal passed by an unrepresentative legislature for a politically connected company and then be applauded by the GOP of today is beyond fantasy. Maybe if a bunch of white guys dressed as Indians and smashed a bunch of equipment for Keystone XL Mike Lee would approve. And then I could finally ride my unicorn to work.
Reply · 12 · Unlike · Follow Post · Edited · 3 hours ago
Charley James · Top Commenter
The Boston Tea Party wasn’t just a bunch of “guys” but, in today’s Republican language, radical terrorists who are Kenyan Moslems. Come to think of it, if the NSA existed in Colonial Boston, everyone would have been rounded up long before the first tea leaf hit the harbor.
Reply · 7 · Like · 3 hours ago
Christopher Nelson · Top Commenter · Senior Editor at Herff Jones
Charley James More dirty hippie, OWS, Marxist terrorist than Kenyan Moslems, but the point is that same.
Reply · 2 · Like · 3 hours ago
Ken Schmitt · Top Commenter
If the NSA existed in Colonial Boston, John Adams would be…Barack Obama.
Unicorns and Prestone for everybody –
I’ve never said nor will ever say “Tea Party”, as their original handle fit nicely: Teabaggers.
Truer words were never uttered.
Reply · 2 · Like · 2 hours ago
Redneck is a pejorative word. We need to get away from that.
I am working on that one myself, but you can’t call someone out on using terms like Pollack or Redskin unless you carefully examine your own speech.
Ill put the soapbox away now.
“Redneck is a pejorative word. We need to get away from that.”
Chill. Dude, I grew up in the Ozarks. I got more kinfolk living in trailer parks than even I want to know about.
I started to use “hillbilly” because I consider myself to be one. Way back when “redneck” was more of a deep South term, and I never heard it growing up, but now it seems to have displaced “hillbilly” to describe whites of a particular subculture. Until somebody comes up with a better term, we’re kind of stuck with it. So you can take the soapbox and …