The Watering Hole: Wednesday, 1/11/12: And the Winner is…..

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When I think of the commentary on the major networks as they announce the results of the primaries…trying to make the inane exciting…stretching on and on and on and on and… well, you know…. filling the time as they wait for those last few precincts to report (are there some precincts that delay reporting just to mess with the networks?) I am reminded of that most famous of all horseraces:

And the Winner is….!

Open Thread: On your marks; get set; POST!

146 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: Wednesday, 1/11/12: And the Winner is…..”

  1. ~ Happy 374th birthday Nicolas Steno ~

    “Father of Geology”

    “Despite a relatively brief scientific career, Nicholas Steno’s work on the formation of rock layers and the fossils they contain was crucial to the development of modern geology. The principles he stated continue to be used today by geologists and paleontologists.”

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  2. Want to watch/listen to something different?
    Try Thom Hartmann’s Monday show from Iceland, where he interviews politicians there and compares their political problems and party ideologies to the US. (Due to technical problems, push the slider over to about the 20 minute mark, when the show starts. The audio has a hiss, but gets better.)
    I couldn’t get around to this Monday evening, as I was otherwise preoccupied with a certain football game, and when I saw this morning that Karl Frisch had subbed for Thom yesterday, I checked Thom’s regular site to find out why. Very interesting program.

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    • Last night I started working on an intervention for a young woman I work with, who might just be amenable to reason. I need to put together a list of specific plans he has outlined to destroy the network of protection the country built in the 20th Century. I hope to get her in a non-confrontational conversation and present her with specifics. “He’s a racist” is not going to help.

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      • Where does he really stand? This interview won’t clarify – Paul talks about “transitioning” from SS and MediCare yet has no real plan on how that would successfully be accomplished. Paul attempts to soothe us with (paraphrasing) No one would be thrown out into the streets or not have medical care. Sounds as if he’s expecting the young people (who have ‘opted out’ of SS) to take care of the elderly…
        (doesn’t make sense to me)

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  5. On last night’s Daily Show, the moment of Zen shows a young man making a call for the Romney campaign. At first, I thought that I recognized the man’s voice, then I saw his face. He looks and sounds just like the person that was managing the local office for the Joe Sestak campaign in 2010. I’m not 100% sure this is the same person. It’s the voice that makes me think it is the same person. The physical appearance is similar, but that voice is recognizable.

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  7. You’d think there was no other news happening for the past two days and even into today except for the NH primary. With 24/7 news, I don’t understand why one topic must dominate the airwaves. I can’t stand to hear that much repetition about anyone, much less the rethuglicans.

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    • 100 people died in Syria yesterday.

      A country that is so wrapped up in itself that it needs to have perpetual elections that are indistinguishable from reality TV shows is going to be ignorant of what is happening elsewhere that *is* of great importance – certainly was an important day to 100 Syrians

      A country that is as ignorant and as powerful as the United States….. it will blunder about and continue to cause great distress at home and abroad until it collapses under it’s own weight.

      Sorry, listened to too much news which seemed to only about the national idiocy called the American presidential election campaign.

      I’m going to hang this evening with a friend of mine who just spent a blissful month in Canada and hope some of the laid-back pragmatism of that wonderful country will rub off on me,

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      • Well if the terminally ill wife had packed heat herself she’d have been able to take out her husband – /Chuck Heston off

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    • She said her brother-in-law probably let his wife live because he loved her so much.

      So that’s how a woman knows a man loves her so much — when he shoots her family in front of her.

      Uh huh…

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      • The wife didn’t say why she’d been spared, Henderson said.

        “I think he thought if he would kill her he would go to hell,” he said.

        Killing three people and sparing one for the fear of “hell and damnation”? – Does not compute

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        • Well, he did kill three people over an orange, tea, and toast, so this previously convicted murderer obviously had a problem “computing.”

          Another family annihilator off the planet, taking most of the family with him. I have a feeling we should expect more of this in the coming years…

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  9. I was watching Mitt Romney’s winner’s speech attacking Barack Obama last night and it’s just an observation, but with all of the Romney signs being held up behind Romney last night, I noticed how they all made a very WHITE backdrop to Romney. And I wonder how intentional that was or if I was just reading too much into it? Subliminal message or not? What do you think?

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      • Not many – since they are considered cursed as the children of Cain if you beleive what Joe ‘trust me God says we have to have sex’ Smith says he read on his ‘golden tablets’. That’s why they kept black people out of positions of authority in the Mor(m)on church until 1979.

        Over to you Mitt for comment…. you were a member of an apartheid regime until 1979, how do you want to explain that to minorities as you pander for their vote this year?

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        • I always was of the impression that it had something to do with BYU football, that it was hard to win without black dudes on the team so God told the LDS HMFIC that Joe Smith didn’t have it quite right, that just because they were children of Ham and descendents of Cain (or however that went), it didn’t mean they shouldn’t have a shot at fielding a winning team.

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    • My observation about the second tier candidates attacking Romney by tell the truth about Romney’s involvement with Bain Capital indicates to me that REpublicans actually know the truth, they just never seem to tell it unless it can benefit them in some way…. the rest of the time, they dissemble.

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  11. On a completely unrelated note, This morning’s sunrise was just spectacular… Beautiful pink and yellow streaks of light across a deep blue sky…. breathtaking!

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  16. Rudepundit skewers the Mittser’s speech and the media coverage last night.

    This state from Mitt’s projectile-vomit into the airwaves struck me:

    “”[Obama] wants to turn America into a European-style social welfare state”

    Really? Like this one? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16390429

    Germany, lowest unemployment in 20 years, growth still kicking along – exports going wild, f**king good cars, great beer, educated and worldy people, Der Mannschaft beats England everytime they meet now with interesting & exciting football ….. you mean we shouldn’t try to be more like Germany?

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  17. The Beginning words of my brother’s Christmas letter:

    “Merry Christmas… (changing from the politically correct Happy Holidays salutation this year)!”
    No joke.

    (And Yes. To answer your question. He is a conservative and he watches Faux News.)

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  19. Must laugh at the conundrum facing the GOP clown car members as they bash Romney for what he did at Bain and then see the backlash from the GOP establishment “Don’t bash Romney for being a corporate raider, that’s what we do!”

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    • Mmm yes, she writes to me every week you know, sometimes 2 or 3 times …. I know, I’m a lucky turtle to have her on my trail.

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  26. gummitch, (these may already be on your list)

    would these qualify as taking away safety net/measures for the country?

    Ron Paul’s Economic Plan Eliminates Department of Education and 5 Others

    Under a Paul presidency the departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Interior would cease to exist. Their elimination would slice about $179 billion from the federal budget and cut about 134,000 federal jobs.

    Paul would slash funding for the remaining departments, including a 40 percent cut for the Food and Drug Administration and a 30 percent budget reduction for the EPA. The Department of Defense would see $832 billion disappear from its budget during Paul’s first term in office, most of which would stem from Paul’s plan to end all foreign wars and foreign aid.

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    • (I’d never ever vote for Paul – cutting funding for war is the only item that gets my nod. Cutting foreign aid isn’t a smart move)

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        • *all* – let’s start with stopping sending tear gas and rubber bullets to Egypts military and police and cluster bombs to Israel. Actually any country that kills it’s own people or people it claims owenshership of the territory of – stop sending them shit, end-of-story.

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    • The old woman draped with a flag was very condescending and insulting to the Occupy representatives. I have to disagree. There was only one side speaking intelligently and that was the Occupy side. Once again, the Tea Bag Party representatives sounded stupid. Did I expect something different? I was hoping but the truth eventually comes out into the open.

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  29. I have what I regard as a really weird question, but I’ll ask it anyway. How should one respond when his sis-in-law asks him if he wants some of his recently deceased brother’s “cremains”? I don’t wish to hurt anyone’s feelings, but have never been one to covet any remains other than memories. Anyone have any experience in such matters?

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    • I dumped my portion of Dad’s cremains in our favorite trout stream where we spent much joyous time together. I’ve left instructions for my cremains to be dumped in the same place. I don’t think there will be any postmortem joining of souls, or anything like that, I just like the idea of my nutrients going to a good cause.

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    • My friend Sandy had to deal with this when her cousin put some of Sandy’s much beloved father’s cremains in her hand, saying she thought Sandy would want them.

      Rather than knocking the crap out of her cousin for such an unbelievably insensitive move, Sandy calmly told her to put them with the others strewn across his land in the CA desert — and that’s where ALL of his cremains better be, because that’s what he wanted.

      I think “no, thank you” is a great response. Why do people do this kind of thing anyway?

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    • Just to pick a quarrel: that’s not a review. And, as a former reviewer myself, I think it’s a terrible attempt at writing a review. And it’s about five times longer than it should be.

      But that’s just my own humble opinion, of course.

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      • What I liked about it was that it contained a lot of information from other named sources — useful information to anyone interested in the details of JFK’s undercurrents. That he didn’t think much of Matthews’ book was of secondary interest to me. Having listened to Matthews hype his book on Hardball for several weeks now, I had begun to assume it wasn’t what I hoped it might be, and DiEugenio confirmed my suspicions. Also, I did appreciate the length — it wasn’t hollow, it was informative. Not a typical review; with that I agree.

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    • I think Tweety just doesn’t know how to handle a format where he doesn’t have anyone to talk over. I appreciate his willingness to go for the kill when he smells blood but I find him almost intolerable. At his best he’s a useful idiot. At worst? He’s just an idiot who loves to hear himself talk.

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    • His dad was born in Mexico as I understand it. His grandfather went to Mexico so he could have multiple wives…err avoid oppression.

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      • Sort of weird. Willard’s grandpa left America of his own free will to avoid US law. His dad came back for his own reasons but George was definitely born in Mexico. If folks want to find religious reasons for why a President isn’t a Christian, the Romney clan has a 3 generation history of just that. Mormons aren’t Christians anymore than Muslims are.

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        • Shhhhhh, that’s a secret! Only the high muckety mucks in the Mormon church are supposed to know that.

          Of course, you will NEVER find a cross on or in a Mormon temple.

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  32. Republicans are weird. Willard’s family fled to Mexico to avoid religious suppression. Santorum’s family came to the US to avoid religious suppression. These anchor babies are weird.

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  37. From Daily Kos:

    Diane Black, one of the House Republicans sponsoring a resolution complaining about President Obama’s recent recess appointments, issued a press release with the following two lines:

    “I hope the House considers my resolution as soon as we return to Washington so we can send a message to President Obama.”

    And:

    “[The NLRB appointee] names were only put forward on Dec. 15, a mere two days before the Senate recessed for the holiday.”

    So … the House wasn’t in town and the Senate had recessed for the holiday, but it’s an outrage to the Constitution that Obama made a recess appointment, and just as soon as Diane Black gets back into town from her non-recess and Republican leadership stops blocking anything from getting done, the House is going to register its outrage over this abuse. And, while Black claims that the recess appointments are “an affront to the Constitution … [that] doesn’t pass the smell test,” in fact, as David Waldman notes, “the outrage fails the old ‘show me in the Constitution where it says you can’t do that’ test,” since the Constitution says nothing about how long a recess has to be for recess appointments to be made.

    If Republicans had any brains they’d realize just how fucking stupid they really are.

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