Watering Hole: Monday, April 2, 2012 – What’s That Phrase?

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Lately, I’ve been hearing a phrase uttered by every Republican that has access to a microphone and the media.  It must be the phrase of the week or the month.  The teabaggers kept shouting this phrase as they protested in front of the Supreme Court this week.  They, along with Senator Pat “Wall Street” “Club for Growth” Toomey were protesting to “protect our freedoms”.  Others were there to support health care for all Americans.  There is no correlation between the two arguments and this is why there is no room for dialogue.

Some key Republican phrases:

  • “Protecting our freedoms” – this is one that is currently popular and is a catch all phrase.  The Republicans are pushing this one even though they wrote, championed, and signed the Patriot Act.
  • “I never supported [fill in the blank]“- this is known as the flip-flopper.  It doesn’t matter that the contradiction is recorded.  They will still deny, deny, and deny.
  • “I misspoke” – this one is used to cover up the lies.  Republicans NEVER accept responsibility.
  • “Job creators” – this one is used as an excuse to tax the 99% while giving tax breaks to the 1%.
  • “I don’t recall” – this one was used to cover up the crimes.

Sounds like all the Republicans are reading from the same notebook.  They are so very boring and predictable.  I don’t understand why the Democrats can’t beat their dupas.

This is our Open Thread.  Add more, if you please. 

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111 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Monday, April 2, 2012 – What’s That Phrase?”

  4. Fascists rely upon propaganda. The following list has been posted by others before, but it’s worth repeating. I found a copy of the list at: Council for Secular Humanism Emphasis is my own.

    1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism – All the slogans about how great we are, and ignoring the facts that we often rank below other western nations in terms of healthcare and education.

    2. Disdain for the importance of human rights – The recent right-wing War on Women(tm) is the latest chapter.

    3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause – _______s are going to destroy us. Lately the blank is “liberal”.

    4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism – The one thing they care about us being #1 in the world is military. Make any attempts to cut military spending, and your ears will bleed from the screeching.

    5. Rampant sexism – Again the War on Women(tm) is the current example.

    6. A controlled mass media – Fox is the most rampant example. They don’t hide it. The “liberal” media is a myth. It’s all corporate owned.

    7. Obsession with national security – The fear that a small group of people living in caves are going to destroy this entire country isn’t rational.

    8. Religion and ruling elite tied together – See Rick Santorum

    9. Power of corporations protected – See GOP policies

    10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated – Look at what took place this year in Wisconsin and many other states.

    11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts – Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader pretty much sums this up.

    12. Obsession with crime and punishment – Well unless it involves a certain murderer in Florida, then yes. And unless it involves the 1%.

    13. Rampant cronyism and corruption – Super PAC anyone?

    14. Fraudulent elections – Florida 2000. Electronic voting machines with no way to trace the results.

        • Sorry, don’t watch a lot of television unless it’s Looney Tunes.
          So I’m not too sharp on the Today show.

          • I thought it was an April Fool’s joke. The only thing I watched this past weekend was UCONN get beaten by Notre Dame. Not happy………………….

      • I never want to hear a Republican make a comment about Joe being gaffe prone. Between this and Frothy’s real men don’t play with pink balls, they have topped anything Joe ever came out with.

    • You gotta love the last paragraph of that article, especially when taken in the context of the main part:

      Maryland’s primary will be held on Tuesday. Ann Romney has not been on the trail with her husband who has been campaigning in Wisconsin, saying that she is taking some time off from the stump.

      A dirty-minded person, such as myself, might get the idea that Ann isn’t too impressed with Mitt sexually.

    • Funny, I always think of Romney as being “buttoned up” — zippers are too modern for him. ;-)

    • Matt Lauer, whoever he is, certainly got a dig in, about the newspapers!
      Why is this ignorant person considered significant? She’s not grown intellectually AT ALL in the past four years. That is very sad.

    • She’s a “vessel of the lord”, don’t you know? Not expected to think for herself..”the man”/”head of household” does all that.
      And he’s as simplistic as she!

  14. From the “Things No Republican Has Ever Pondered” Department, an interesting essay on truthout.org entitled Who Benefits From The Organized Violence of War? The answer is, of course, obvious; the followup questions, the questions that are easily derivative, are asked by the author and should, one would hope, inspire we the people to at least ponder the matter.

    . . . can’t we see our complicity in our own oppression? Don’t we contribute to militarism through the federal taxes we pay – about half of which goes to the Pentagon? The Pentagon, of course, then funnels much of this swag to its corporate cronies.

    Are we so caught up in personal debt, are our lifestyles too snared in addiction, distraction and co-optation, that we can’t think straight? Are we so snared that our hearts have gone AWOL?

    Don’t we give a damn that our children are inheriting an increasingly depleted and dangerous world? Or that our nation’s much vaunted democracy – like our proud Judeo-Christianity – risks becoming a soulless sham.…

    Far as I’m concerned, this nation’s “vaunted democracy” became a “soulless sham” about the time the M.I.C. took over … WWII’s aftermath, IOW. Out of glorious global victory came ignominious defeat for every value this nation ever pretended to support. And today, we’re well on our way down and out. All that’s needed to secure our demise is to grant full power of the state to the GOP, then boom blam, it’s over. “The Dream” dies.

    Emily Dickinson was likely not talking about the death of her nation when she wrote, 150 years ago . . .

    After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
    The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
    The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
    And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

    The Feet, mechanical, go round –
    Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
    A Wooden way
    Regardless grown,
    A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

    This is the Hour of Lead –
    Remembered, if outlived,
    As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
    First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go –

    . . . still, if and when the shoe fits . . .

  15. Reminds me of this….”Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

    • Lest we forget, tears came to Ike’s eyes as D-Day opened up. My dad was there in central combat control in order to keep the radar up at that crucial moment when nothing could be left to chance. He was one of those civilian experts (contractors in today’s parlance) needed for the moment when nothing could go wrong. He stayed with Army radar units until the Rhine was crossed and radar suddenly became a item to be placed on a back burner. By that time, the Army Air Force was in control of the skies.

      • I’ve been told that anyone who has been in a war, never wants to see another one…

  18. Just checked the calendar and it is the “Parade of Repugnants/teapottier Ignorance” day..

    (Dr.)// Trump warns Fox News viewers: Autism caused by vaccines

    • I’d recommend he read “Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All” by Paul A. Offit.

      (thanks to nwmuse. We miss your input on the blog)

  19. Blame Wayne if this works. This also came up from some Repubs last year, wanting to abolish the NWS because it offered unfair competition to private outlets — which rely on the NWS for all of their data.

      • Hey, it worked! (You might have been able to end your original comment with that link and that might have worked, too. I’ll try it the next time I post one. Good job, Gummitch! :) )

        It fits with my theory that today’s Republican believes that if you can’t make money doing something, it isn’t worth doing at all.

        • I tried that initially, Wayne but it didn’t display properly after text. Seems to me I had a similar problem with YouTube videos.

          • When it happens to me, I go back to the open tab with just the tweet and copy the URL, then go back to “edit-mode” on my comment and replace the previous link with the new one, even if they are identical, then, and I think this is the key thing, I hit the Enter key to “make it official.” It often works the second time, as it did this past time when I posted that comment above. Just trying to be helpful. But go with whatever works. That’s how I do it. :)

      • This isn’t a joke, is it?

        Doing away with the NWS..gawd, if you exist, just take Sanitation away from us, will you please.

    • In a saner world that would be enough to scare off anyone who survived a tornado because of a weather warning but, alas, many of those in “tornado ally” are as vehemently anti-science as Sick Rantorum himself.

  20. I can’t believe that no one else has posted the FAUX”News” phrase that they use in place of naming a source like a real journalist:

    “Some people say…”.

    It’s the FAUX”News” code for: “I’m just going to say this because it will make stupid racists more afraid of the black guy in the White House”.

    • Gives new meaning to the words “flash drive.” ;)

      He was totally holding that flash drive for a friend…right? :lol:

    • A “shared” flash drive, how sweet.

      A verbal presentation by the priest could have it’s challenges too, as it would therefore be an oral presentation about communion.

    • OK, I’m clueless. Who’s this Barton guy? I wikipedia’d him, but I’ve never had the displeasure of knowing who he is.

      • David Barton is the history-revisionist that Glenn Beck goes to when he wants to make some, technically untrue, point about America being founded “as a Christian nation.”

  23. The rank and file provincials who drink up these catchy phrase they hear from the media put them into practice. They begin to live in this insular paradigm that causes them to feel threatened someone is going to “take it away from them. The error next they make is taking it for granted I think and act like they do. When it dawns on them that I specifically do not want anything remotely like their lives or times, and actually do not care, it em-bare-asses them. Then they start the attack: “There must be something wrong with me” because I don’t believe what they do.

    “Protecting our Freedoms” degenerates into greed and competition to keep their own little world secure. Undermining others, vague and implied threats, harassment, a whole host of anti-social behaviors. This is the “base” that FOX, hate-radio and the rest of the right wing propaganda mill media are supported by.
    In my one-cow town in rural New Mexico there is a healthy tribe of these rubes. “Tribal cow-lords” defending their turf is my metaphor. (Turf is not the best description of their parched windy patios).
    On the highway in town, someone put a large 4×6 foot sign which reads
    “( )bama worst president ever.” Maybe I’ll find out who did it, but then why bother? I know it’s not the liberals, the yoga people, the artists or the Navajos, and that’s all I concern myself with.

    So I’m going to stick my foot in my mouth and say to “To hell with them!”

    Or wait till after I’ve said it, then put the boot in. :)

    • Are you out on the res?
      It’s also sad that the fundies had route 666 out to Shiprock changed Route 491

      • I’m not near “the big res”, I’m on the edges of a smaller reservation, the Alamo Navajo.
        …and it’s snowing hard at the moment!

        Interesting that way back when it was the “fundies” who assigned that road number to begin with. The number 666 and it’s connotations with the devil was given as part of the drive to eradicate native beliefs. It was a label of sorts back then.

  24. QsOTD:

    “I appreciate NBC’s boldness in having me on,” said {Sarah} Palin, adding, “Doesn’t it kind of reflect that diversity of opinion that I hear that you all espouse?…”

    “Or desperation,” said Meredith Vieria …

    • Plaintively pleading for her poor disadvantaged-minority point of view to be recognized.

      “Do you like my hair?”

  26. More proof that:

    A) Republicans can’t count

    B) They have some deep seated issues

    C) If a republican plays a record backwards enough times, they will hear something

    D) Rick Santorum is as of yet, unaware of this

    Also, I’m pretty sure BECK didn’t grant permission for the use of E-PRO

  27. SCOTUS v Obama … Oh, it’s on now:

    “I think [the individual mandate] is important and I think the American people understand, and I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to insure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care,” said president Obama … Overturning the law would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” since it was passed by a majority of members in the House and Senate,” he said. “I just remind conservative commentators that for years we’ve heard that the biggest problem is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That a group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

    • I still think that “5-4 against” is the default assumption on anything perceived as coming from “libruls”. I just assume the worst and feel happily surprised when the Reichwhiners on the bench actually do the right thing. In this case there are a couple other wildcards. Thomas’ wife has actively campaigned against the ACA- and been well paid for her work- and Roberts, Scalia, and Alito have all shown themselves to be against it. In fact, Thom Hartmann is reporting that Alito and Scalia were recently guests at a fundraiser hosted by one of the lawyers arguing in favor of repeal. It’s obvious that the fix is in but there’s still a miniscule chance that Kennedy will deal fairly.

      • I’m beginning to wonder whether Obama’s statement reflected some inside information that the case has already been decided by vote against the mandate, and that the campaign against the Supreme Court is about to begin in a major roll of the dice for Obama.

        • The Roberts Court really can’t strike down Obamacare, and then think they will continue to be taken seriously. Obama knows this and is making sure they know he knows.

          Popcorn!!

  29. Since my doctor has convinced me to drastically reduce my consumption of beer and snacks? I have a little extra disposable income. So? I just ordered a beautiful, scale, electric glider with a 90 inch wingspan. I’ll have to wait another month for all the electronics so I have time to give it a slick paint job.

      • You’re not far off. Lots of people are attaching mini video cameras to their planes and big, slow, gliders make the best platform. Although, to be honest, the in flight video I’ve watched tends to be quite boring unless said camera is focused on some interesting aspect of the plane itself. One guy did before and after video when he added some fiberglass to a foam glider much like the one I ordered and it was quite revealing. Another showed the operation of a retractable motor that pops in and out of two plastic doors on the top of the plane. If I decide to get a higher performance glider later in the summer I think I’m sold by the gadget factor alone!

    • That’s a big plane, pete.
      El Condor.
      I recently read about someone doing kite photography, and I’m thinking of trying it.

      • I used to have a 12 footer. I got carried away flying with a pair of vultures and the radio ranged out while I was in a big thermal and the last time I saw it, it was heading for the Atlantic at about 5,000 feet! They were also much, much, more expensive in those days.

        The little cameras they sell now are really cool. One can even get a mount that allows one to pan or, for a few bucks more, one with a transmitter and receiver so that one, with the help of an extra pair of eyes, can direct the plane to get more interesting shots.

  30. The school is of a christian persuasion..lest the rightwingnuts glom onto the war on
    christians.

    Seven dead, three wounded in Oakland university shooting

    Seven people were killed and three others wounded after a disgruntled student walked into a classroom at a small independent (Oikos) university

    • Side note…Has an atheist ever been the perpetrator of a mass shooting?

    • Only liberals should be allowed to buy guns – two benefits – gun sales of weapons of war would plummet and murders would follow he same trend.
      On the plus side, no conservative would have a supply of Uzis to use for ‘deer (hamburger on-the-hoof?) or wild bird (‘pink slime?) hunting’. Where, but in America, would one require an Uzi to land a 22 lb black Bass (‘raw fish chowder’?)?

    • [T]he Court does not hold that it is always reasonable to conduct a full strip search of an arrestee whose detention has not been reviewed by a judicial officer…

      Do we really think this will be adhered to? Of course not.
      Always will become the norm…

      • The only way to handle protesting is to do it in overwhelming numbers. All those strip searches will cost the counties beaucoup bucks, and they will stop wanting to look inside our naughty bits.

      • I’m not a cop, thank goodness! Nothing personal, Pachy, I just wouldn’t want to inspect anyone’s bits for a living. :D

  32. Ratings Down for Eliot Spitzer’s Current TV Debut

    The unexpected debut of “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer” drew a disappointing 47,000 Total Viewers and 10,000 A25-54 viewers to Current TV on Friday night.

    Spitzer’s debut ratings mark a drop from “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” which averaged 152,000 Total Viewers and 42,000 A25-54 viewers for the month of March.

    To be fair to Spitzer, ratings for news is usually down on Friday nights, particularly when the weather is pleasant like now. We never got regular ratings for Countdown, but if it was averaging 152k, Keith wasn’t getting the ratings I thought he might be. I was expecting 250-300k, but it’s hard to predict how many people are watching via ‘bootlegger’ sites. I would like to know how Cenk and Jennifer Granholm are doing.

    • As a bit of an audiophile I find Cenk’s show almost unlistenable. The echos off the cinder blocks drive me up the wall.

    • He’s doing very good, thanks for asking. He just opted for aloe vera juice soaked food over fresh dry food. He came in for a snack and has returned to his post protecting the parking lot.

      I’ll see him again at 5AM when I get up for a mouse run.

      Time to hit the sack!

  34. Hey, pachy. I had another thought on your computer issues. Do you use Firefox? If so, there’s an add-on called NoScript that automatically blocks Javascript from running unless you want it for a particular feature on a website. It’s free and super easy to install and use and it just might help reduce crashes.

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