First Draft

Weekend Question Thread

You okay? 

Seriously, I feel like it's been a hell of a summer and just as everybody's getting back from their vacations, I need one. How's everybody else doing?

A.

Friday Night Music: Lonesome Road

Time for a bit of Francis Albert at his best, fedora and all:

 

Total Recallin'

I might be alone on this, but I imagined Scott Walker wandering the halls of power this week, whistling “The Farmer and the Dell” and telling Peter Barca that “I keeps one in the chamber, ‘case you pondering.”

After a titanic struggle for power, the Republicans held on to the majority in the state senate, winning 4 of the 6 races in the recall elections. The GOP margin can only grow later this month if the Dems lose either of the remaining two recalls.

Pundits have been spinning this as giving more hope for bipartisanship and more power to moderate Republicans and more hope for... Oh, spare me. Walker remains unchecked and with his signing of the redistricting bill his party jammed down this state’s throat, he’ll be on Easier Street for the next decade.

The Democrats failed for the same reason they always fail: They played a nuanced finesse game while their opponents hit people in the face with a bag of nickels.

This set of elections set records for ad buys. The money spent here, if diverted directly into the state’s coffers, could have probably put the state in the black. The Fitzgeralds could be lighting state-bought Cuban cigars with taxpayers’ C-notes and we’d still be fine.

The ads were a draw, with the outside interests attacking and attacking and attacking, while the candidates themselves tried to come across like kindergarten teachers: kind, compassionate and your bestest friend in the whole wide world! What they didn’t do, and what they should have done, is shown people a very simple diagram:

Here you are. Here is the set of things Republican X has done. Here is EXACTLY HOW THIS FUCKS YOU. It’s that last step was always the hardest and yet the one that needed to be made the most.

People are self-interested. It’s a fact of life. When they hear “tax,” they never think “good thing.” Thus, the Republicans just drive home the word “tax” and they win. The Democrats talk about goods and services and cuts to funding and education and policy and people fall asleep and drool on themselves.

I would have killed for an ad that said, “Hi, I’m Sandy Pasch and I’m done watching you get fucked over. Here’s EXACTLY how you got fucked if you are in any way connected to education, health care, women or breathing. I promise to unfuck things for you because I’m not a moron. Vote for me and prove you’re not one either.”

The Democrats have tried to spin the two pick-ups as “wins.” At the very least, Randy Hopper won’t be at my parade next year getting his sweaty mouth-breather hands on my car. Yes, a little more sanity is nice, but in the end, you can’t say this was a win. Not. Even. Close.

WisDems, be honest and look at what you actually did.

You knocked out Dan Kapanke, which is like beating a kid with no arms or legs at a game of basketball.

Kapanke essentially admitted he stole from a charity. He ran in a district that Obama carried with 60 percent of the vote and 55 percent of the people polled said they’d support any Democrat who ran. Thus, when Jennifer Schilling won with 55 percent of the vote, it wasn’t as much of a “Yay Jen!” as it was a “Hey, you’re not Dan Kapanke” outcome.

Essentially, Dan Kapanke could have lost to a bag of shit if the shit had run a “I’m not Dan Kapanke” campaign.

Yes, you took out Randy Hopper, and yes, that district hasn’t had a Democratic senator since Pluto was a puppy, but, again, look at the reality of the situation.

Hopper voted for something that crushed medicine and education, two things that play huge in his district. He took a heavy whack at the UW system and his district includes several UW branches.

He was embroiled in a scandal because he was not living in the district. It got worse, when we found out it was because his wife tossed him out after discovering that he was schtuping some 26-year-old sexual trophy. He also managed to get Barbie a job with the state AND get her a huge raise.

When Hopper and Jessica King clashed last time, none of this stuff had happened and King lost by less than 200 votes. This time, she won by about 1,250.

In other words, the Democratic Party took on a cross between Homer Simpson and John Holmes, but only managed to move the needle by about 1,500 votes.

Nearly 27,000 people said, “Hey, we don’t care that he’s a whore, a cheater and a weasel. He’s still our guy!” (At least half of these people, mind you, likely have downloaded an app for their phone that has Bill Clinton’s penis under GPS tracking 24/7.)

The Dems had played for a 6 for 6 strategy, which even the most optimistic person had to know was crap.  Cowles and Harsdorf were going to hold on, unless someone found them in a three-way with a gay monkey in a voting booth while burning the Bible and using the American flag to smother it.

And even that might not have done it.

However, they had two legitimate shots to bring home that third crucial vote and blew them both.

Olsen? He’s back.

Darling? She’s back.

And not by cheap margins either.

These recall elections reminded me of ballot initiatives for social justice issues: People say they want change, they say they want to do the right thing and they say they are good and decent people. Then, in the solitude of the voting booth, they quietly mark their ballot with a morally superior sniff and maybe a tiny twinge of guilt. After the initiative fails, they cluck their tongues softly and say, “Oh… that’s too bad…”

The Dems say they’re going to press forward with their plans to recall Walker. Getting the signatures should be pretty easy. Getting the votes won’t be.

The only hope they have is that Walker will continue to be dumber and dumber (safe bet) and that they can show people how it hurts them as individuals (50/50 at best).

When that recall does start gaining steam, they need to keep one thing in mind:

If you come at the king, you’d best not miss.

Malaka Of The Week: David Cameron

There are many reasons why British Prime Minister David Cameron (aka the Posh Boy) should be malaka of the week but I'll focus on his weirdest statement of this turbulent week in the UK:

David Cameron has told parliament that in the wake of this week's riots the government is looking at banning people from using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook if they are thought to be plotting criminal activity.

The prime minister said the government will review whether it is possible to stop suspected rioters spreading online messages, in his opening statement during a Commons debate on Thursday on the widespread civil disorder for which MPs were recalled from their summer recess.

Answering questions after his statement, Cameron said the home secretary, Theresa May, will hold meetings with Facebook, Twitter and Research In Motion within weeks to discuss their responsibilities in this area.

The prime minister also said that broadcasters – including the BBC and Sky News – have a responsibility to hand unused footage of the riots to police.

Past attempts to force broadcasters to hand over their footage have been met with fierce resistance. On Wednesday, the BBC's head of newsgathering, Fran Unsworth, said voluntarily giving unused footage to the police would damage broadcasters' editorial independence.

"Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill," said Cameron.

"And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and sevices when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

How does Cameron propose to do this? By jawboning, which will, of course, not work. I assume that the Posh Boy is far too grand to actually use social networks himself so perhaps he can have his valet check into it on his behalf. It's what Bertie Wooster would do...

The initial spark for the rioting were savage public sector budget cuts, which threw thousands out of work and on to the dole. Among the agencies cut were-you guessed it-the police. Cameron's war of words with the cops continues as he refuses to relent on po po funding cuts. Cameron would  be well advised to patch up his differences with the constabulary and pronto. It's what his *real* political role model, Tony Blair, would do. Blair would look resolute, hector the rioters and back the police while his Home Secretary would be in charge of rescinding the police spending cuts. The Brits call this a U-turn and it's nothing compared to the gymnastic flip flops of Mitt Haircut.

The core malakatude of this situation is that the Conservative party is at war with the bobbies, which cannot end well for them. It's another test for Labour Party leader Ed Miliband who has to walk a delicate balance between condemnation of the looters and attacking the coaltion. The Tories are making it easier for him by blasting the coppers and refusing to take any responsibilty. Maybe they can blame the perennially po faced Deputy PM Nick Clegg. It's what junior coalition partners are for, after all...

I'll let Frank Zappa have the last word with this Watts riots inspired classic:

 

Yeah, I know the clip is blurry but it features the antics of Napoleon Murphy Brock who has one of the best names in rock and roll history.

Friday Ferretblogging: Nap Interrupted

A.

Friday Catblogging: Oscar's Ire

Oscar doesn't usually do anger. His reaction to any sort of adversity involves hurt feelings and hiding under the bed. This time it was different: we'd gone to Texas and Oscar was-by his standards at least-pissed:

 

Deep In The Heart Of Texas

Or since it involves the looming Presidential candidacy of Rick Perry, Heart Of Darkness might have worked better. It's hard to tell whether Perry will prove to be a formidable contender for the GOP nomination or the Fred Thompson of this election cycle.

The Texas Observer has been covering Governor Goodhair for eons and they tweeted a link to their Perry page today. So, I thought I'd share:

 

Look Here, a Fail Festival!

Sometimes I read ONTD just for the tags on stuff like this. 

Tags: classism, consider the source, daily mail/fail, flames on the side of my face, godless liberals, irl troll, opinion piece, people suck, right-wing rage pimp, riots/rioting, uk, uk riots, you stay classy

The commenters have at Phillips pretty well, and as I said over there, while she's lamenting the passage of a golden age of England she might want to consider that as a chick her life in Victoria's Empire would not have been all that and a bag of chips. Crisps. Whatever. 

There's the usual parade of nonsense about fatherless children, as if nobody's father was ever an asshole, and the stereotypes of how young black women think having a baby is the same as winning the lottery, and shaming them would magically make them not pregnant. Still, I want to highlight my very favorite Rich Wingnut Argument, which is, it sucks that I no longer win automatically because I'm white!

All of this was compounded still further by the disaster of multiculturalism — the doctrine which held that no culture could be considered superior to any other because that was ‘racist’.

That meant children were no longer taught about the nation in which they lived, and about its culture. So not only were they left in ignorance of their own society, but any attachment to a shared and over-arching culture was deliberately shattered.

It's so funny that none of these people, all of whom show abundant self-interest if not actual self-love, can attribute self-interest as a motive to anyone else. It's not that people wanted to riot, or even were driven to riot. It's that they didn't hear the national anthem enough.

It really pisses these people off that they don't get to consider themselves automatically superior anymore. Memo to Phillips: I can get a giant fucking kick out of my culture all I want. There is absolutely nothing racist in my celebrating the fact that both my German and American heritages are about frying up a giant sausage and eating it with as many potatoes as possible, because fuck yeah. I can wave a flag around on the Fourth of July and set off fireworks in my alley and talk about everything I love about America, like our food and the Grand Canyon and Matt Damon.

I can do all of that. I just can't gloss over the fact that my country did and does some ugly things. If your patriotism and your pride in your culture can't survive the adult acknowledgment that good countries do lousy shit sometimes and should be called out for it, it's not the teaching of your culture that's the problem. This all just comes off as the same long whine: Why do I have to think so hard? I just want to be a stupid jingoistic bag of ass, kick some minorities around, wake up white tomorrow and have that be enough! Why do all these other people have to insist I treat them like human beings too! GOD.

A.

I somehow missed this cartoon

The Guardian is not only the best newspaper in the English speaking (reading?) world BUT it has the best editorial cartoonists as well in Steve Bell and Martin Rowson. I missed this late July masterpiece by Steve Bell on Speaker Boehner and the teabaggers:

OK, Sometimes the Red Shirt Survives the First Commercial Break

From Album4

But we all know before the credits roll there will be a death scene, agonizing or not, then the severance check/walking papers (Walker papers?).

Sure, one seat short of a Senate takeover has its own agonies (not to mention its own Black Hole of Waukesha) ; but contrast the press wall-to-wall breathless reaction to Joe Miller...or Christine O'Donnell or...two Tea Partiers on a park bench wearing tricorner hats and griping about how the gumbit better stay away from their Medicare...versus the almost can't-be-bothered-and-had-to-be-shamed-into-coverage when in February, not exactly picnic weather, more people gathered in Madison than the combined vote totals for Joe and Christine.

The recall of two legislators is unprecedented, but the news coverage has been suprisingly muted. Hmmm...just saying, but do you think the press would react the same way if it'd been the Tea Party winning the recalls?

Anyway, I think Scottie, and not the good, chief engineer Scotty, but the crappy red shirt extra Scottie ought to be worried. His "not a good idea to cheat on your wife" crack comes across as more whistling past the graveyard than honest reaction.

"He's politically dead, Jim."

On Michele Bachmann and the Deathly Hallows

I'm gonna say this once: My biggest problem with the Bachmann Newsweek cover is that she's on it at all.

Did they deliberately choose a photo that made her look bonkers? Of course. What do you think they do, sit around and throw darts at page proofs until somebody scores a bulls-eye and that's the one they use? Of course they used a photo that made her look like a lunatic, and of course they did it for the LULZ and the clicks and attention. They did it hoping she'd make a big fucking stupid deal out of it for her mouthbreathy followers and oh, hey, look at that, suddenly somebody gives a flying fuck what Newsweek is doing again.

Would they treat a male presidential candidate like that? No, but the real sexism here is that the only female presidential candidates, the only female politicians, who get this kind of treatment are the ones they want to single out as nuts or movie stars.

There are lots and lots of hardworking, smart, interesting women in politics today. They're just not celebrities, not on the scale of Bachmann or Hillary (everybody's other favorite punching bag), and so not as worthy of attention.

It's not that they only treat female politicians with scorn. It's that they ignore the fucking club of the most of them until one opens her mouth and says shit so mind-blowingly stupid that Republicans in Iowa want her to be their president.

A.

Let's Do Anything Other Than Our Jobs!

American newspaper companies have decided that the real problem with their business is not that they're no longer covering things people care about, or covering them well, or spending their money and stewarding their resources responsible, but that there's just no new toy shiny enough to get people to read!

Via leinie:

Tribune aims to offer the tablet for free, or at a highly subsidized price, to people who agree to sign up for extended subscriptions to one of its papers and possibly a wireless-data plan with a partner cellular carrier, said five people briefed on the project.

 

The report states that this is the pet project of Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune’s chief executive, and they are working with manufacturing partners which may include Samsung.

As my Twitter crush Dan Sinker put it last night, noting that there were NO locally written Wisconsin recall stories on the Trib's web site until well into the election returns, despite the fact that you can chuck a rock from here and hit Kenosha, "Don't spend money developing a dead-end hardware device when you can't even get reporters 60 miles north."

Honestly. Is there anybody who doubts how this will go? A launch, some good sales numbers the first day or so, and then ... news comes out about the bugs, or the service sucks, or the thing can't be repaired or altered or played with or hacked or anything else geeks like to do with their toys, and also it's expensive, and nobody cares all that much, and then there will be like a six-month black hole followed by a bunch of bitchy stories about how kids today just don't want to pay for news.

It is getting so that it's a fucking drinking game, watching these people screw this up. And hey, it would be a lot of fun, getting drunk and mocking people, if we didn't actually need media fundamentally awake and aware and on top of stuff these days. It would be a really great game, if it wasn't a war. 

A.

A Game of Inches

There's a lot going to be written about the WI elections last night in the national press, and a lot of it probably crap from morons who've never been to the state, so let's just say this:

The reason we even have unlikely victories in the face of impossible odds is that the victories are unlikely and the odds impossible.

We do this by inches. We've been doing it for years. Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush again. Every year it seems things get just a little bit worse, and we scrape forward. It looks so easy in the movies, in the history books, but time is compressed. You don't feel the long night, looking back. You're not still living in the hour between 3 and 4 a.m., and you're not still barely awake hoping the coffee hurries up and brews. .

I will say this, for Alberta Darling's district. I hope it works out for you, guys. I hope being scared and angry and bitching about your taxes, about selfish lazy teachers who don't want to pay for their own health care, about how terrible it is that people stand up for their rights, I hope that works out for you. I hope that makes your lives better. I certainly hope that in a year or two years or four years or six, you don't look around and see that the world is, at it always seems to be, just a little bit worse for you and yours. I hope you don't then wonder why, and wonder aloud, because great big signs are expensive and my budget doesn't have room right now for one that reads WHAT DID YOU EXPECT YOU STUPID RACIST FUCKERS?

I'm tired, today, and disappointed, and angry at my people for being so shortsighted. But I'm awake, and so are you, and we don't have any other choice, not really. I wish I had better words for you. I wish I could bullshit you and me into thinking two out of three was a great victory. It wasn't. But it was another inch, and another, and as long as you're going forward you're not going back. 

A.

Hopper and Kapanke OUT

Two odious Republicans go down. One more race is too close to call, and if it breaks the D's way, it will swing the Senate. Alberta Darling appears to hold on in suburban Milwaukee, where fear of black people is the defining characteristic, and is apparently more important than good schools and a thriving middle class. The Republicans hold the Senate, but barely, and Dale Schultz, a more moderate R, is now a critical swing vote.

Scout's at the WI Dems' party and will be reporting back with photos and vids later tonight/tomorrow.

Let me just throw this out there, in all the craziness: This is like the 5th close election I've stayed up half the night hoping and worrying for, in the past decade. We're making a lot of things fights that shouldn't be fights, and that's not nothing. Even if all you do is sharpen your teeth and die hard, you're doing something.

A.

We Are Wisconsin's Crack Van

Here is TPM's live election results board. Here is the Journal Sentinel's. Here's the Isthmus, my old paper, liveblogging. MSNBC should have live coverage for those of you outside the red zone, AM620 is streaming (but odiously Republican and smug) and we have enough Wisconsinites on board to keep us all in the loop.

Here's the van. Share the HAMS. Tell Adrastos he is wonderful, help me keep the ferrets out of the scotch, and whatever you do, don't touch Maitri's feather boa. Perverts. In all seriousness, posts in the van belong to those posting and not to First Draft, threats of violence toward anyone will get your ass banned, and don't test me because I'm in no mood. TEACH ME HOW TO BUCKY, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Update: Van closed. Thank you all for being here, and for keeping each other on track and sane. TWO REPUBLICANS DOWN, a bunch more to go!

A.

Recall Day - Update 1

 
There was good sized crowd for the Capitol Sing Along today. People are energized here. This is such an unusual election that it is hard to predict and haven't talked with anyone yet making predictions. That said everyone is very hopeful for good results tonight. 

Here are some pics:

A new Heart Balloon

 

 

Singers and banners

 

 

 

UPDATE: Reports on Twitter and at WisPolitics.com quoting several City Clerks that voter turn out is high and rivaling that of a presidential election.

UPDATE: Via Twitter Madison's WKOW reports: Fond du Lac City Clerk tells 27 News Capitol Reporter Greg Neumann voter turnout there will be between 70-80%

UPDATE: At the Capitol Sing Along today...very short but energetic video of "Scotty We're Coming for You"

Recall Day

Here are pics from the Labor Temple on Park St. in Madison. Volunteers are busy phone banking. Groups are also leaving from here to go out to the various recall districts.

 
 
 

London Calling

It's a long hot summer everywhere but particularly in the UK. The rioting in London and elsewhere is conjuring up memories of the late 1970's and early 1980's. There were riots in Brixton in 1981 caused by Tory budget cuts and heavy handed policing. Sound familiar?

One thing that *has* changed, however, is the relationship between the government and the police. David Cameron is suffering some fallout from the phone hacking scandal, which caused several senior coppers to resign and blast the Posh Boy on their way out. Also, Mrs.Thatcher had the good sense *not* to cut spending on police. Nobody has ever accused Cameron of having common sense; nothing common about the Posh Boy or sensible either:

The parallels with the 1980s are everywhere; in the burnt-out buildings, the looting, the anger of an apparently disenfranchised youth and the agonising over what caused an urban uprising which police have labelled the worst disorder in living memory.

There is one significant difference, however. During the riots of the 1980s, when Brixton and Toxteth burned and PC Keith Blakelock was hacked down with a machete as he fled for his life in Broadwater Farm, the police could count on the full support of the government. Margaret Thatcher was in power and the police were seen as an unquestioning arm of the state.

On Tuesday as David Cameron sits around the table with the home secretary, Theresa May, and senior police officers the ambience will not be a warm one. Relations between the country's top police officers and the Conservative leadership are at an all-time low, with senior Tory sources briefing against the country's top officers and they in turn speaking openly of the "stupidity" of government policy.

Cuts to frontline policing – an estimated 12,000 officers are to go as a result of budget reductions – the determination of the coalition to impose elected commissioners, the attacks on the public service pensions of both rank-and-file and senior officers and the Winsor review into pay and conditions have all served to increase tensions.

<snip>

A senior police source has said privately that the government holds the police in utter contempt and, while the service is resilient, the government is starting to lose goodwill from both rank-and-file and senior ranks.

Asked to put their lives on the line night after night, sources say the rank and file feel unsupported and vilified by the government.

It's quite unusual for a right of center government to have such a terrible relationship with the po po BUT this is class based mutual loathing. I keep waiting for the Tories to blame Brown and Blair for the chaos but they haven't quite gone there yet. But they will, they're already making shit up about Labour Shadow Cabinet member Diane Abbott who happens to be-you guessed it-black. It's time for the nasty party to come out of the sewer and start throwing shit around. It will be interesting to see how Deputy PM Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems respond to this: they'll probably stick to the old stiff upper lip and say nothing.

Since everyone is talking about the dark days of 1979 and 1981, here's one of the quintessential British bands of that era:

 

We Are All Wisconsin

Athenae frequently reminds us--NOT ONE INCH. A few years ago I made a slideshow for us based on that and so on this election eve, looking to tomorrow when WI can Get our government Back Up, I offer the WI edition.

A look back at where it all began, where we first Got Back Up. Tomorrow FORWARD!

Kids Today, So Lazy They Volunteer!

I hate this article every time I read it, and I've read it like six times in the last week. I'll let 365reasonswhy speak for me here on dissecting this masturbatory nonsense: 

I'm not even really a millennial, I'm the tail end of Gen X, but seriously a big fuck you to the writer of this article.

THIS made me stop reading mid-post so I could rage:

Meanwhile, they tend to worship fame more than fortune, and put family and friends before work and career. They don't have much employment experience, in fact, but they do a lot of volunteer work.

Oh God, how RIDICULOUS of millennials to VOLUNTEER when there's no work to be found. I have a feeling this person would be whining about millennial laziness if this weren't the case, but instead of looking at the volunteering as a plus, since unemployment is high, it's somehow a negative?

Perhaps because they don't get much practice working for bosses, millennials can often be no picnic to manage on the job. Their unemployment rate is about 14%, compared with the national rate of 9.2%. Another 23% of young people are not even looking for a job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Or maybe it's just that there aren't many jobs to be had. And does the 23% include millennials who are still in school?

Many millennials have been known to hold out for the perfect job at the perfect company with the perfect salary and a clear path to the vice presidency, even if it means crashing with mom and dad well into their 20s. The Pew Research Center found that in 2008, when the recession began, the percentage of the population that lived in households where at least two generations were present inched upward to 16%. In better economic times, that figure might be as low as 12%.

I'm a Gen X and I ended up moving in with my mom for a short time after I lost my job. How dare I become unemployed through no fault of my own. I More than one generation living under the same roof is not just a millennial thing, it's an every generation thing these days. Sixty year olds are co-habitating with their still living parents in order to save money. You do what you have to.

ETA:

Millennials are in no rush to start the rat race, because they work to live and not the other way around. They saw their parents get laid off or trudge to jobs they hated. They're determined to be different.

How terrible, not to live merely to be a worker for a corporation. Volunteerism = meh, apparently.

Ok, I'm going to try and read the rest.

You all know my feeling on kids and their relative terribleness and especially on anecdotes versus actual, you know, stuff, so I'll just say this for the millenials: I'm not reading stories by them on CNN about how no other generation than theirs was ever hard-working and good. That's a point in their favor.

A.

Texas Signage

We saw this in League City, Texas.  It's a bit jarring but it has the virtue of being direct:

 

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - Wheel Of Misfortune edition

Good morning, gentle people - it's time to spin that airlock door wheel and venture into Freeperville, where up is down, black is white, and All True Scotsmen love Sarah Palin!

Bimbo Bozo Bum Boots Boffo Boxoffice!!

Palin film disappears at box office
The Hill - GOP12 ^ | August 1, 2011 | Christian Heinze

Posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:01:20 PM by CedarDave

The pro-Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, suffered another huge drop in ticket sales over the weekend, earning just over $5,000.

Last weekend, the distributor pared things down and ran the film in only four theatres, which should have raised its per theatre average, even while reducing ticket sales.

Well, overall ticket sales did, indeed, fall, but so did sales/theatre, which were just $1,300 last weekend -- its worst performance since opening.

(Excerpt) Read more at gop12.thehill.com ...

Nonetheless, my "I'm voting for Sarah" bumper sticker will continue to remain on my P/U.

This was predicted by a number of FR members. However, while it would have been nice to have better numbers, the DVD and online releases coming in six to eight weeks will enable many more to see it.

1 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:01:28 PM by CedarDave

.

Her appeal is definitely becomig more selective.

.

To: CedarDave

Did anyone not already a Sarah supporter see it?
Will anyone not already a Sarah support buy it/pay for it on pay-per-view?

I have to think not.

4 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:08:15 PM by dmz

.

.

To: CedarDave

No, this is part of a brilliant strategy!
Taking the country by storm! With a brilliant strategy!

And timing! It’s brilliant and timing and strategic. By storm!

Millions!

Wait, what?

6 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:13:07 PM by humblegunner (The kinder, gentler version...)

I can't imagine what's keeping the True Believers.

.

To: humblegunner

I can’t wait to see what you have to say in September. You’re such a bitter jerk.

7 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:18:17 PM by toddausauras

Ah - there we go...

.

To: dmz

Am definately a Palin supporter, but why on God’s green earth would I want to pay a dime and sit through a 90 minute campaign ad??

This movie thing was NOT a smart move!

8 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:19:57 PM by dusttoyou ("Progressives" are wee-weeing all over themselves, Foc nobama)

.

.

To: CedarDave

This was a definite PR misstep.

11 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:22:32 PM by wideawake

.

.

To: CedarDave

I was a box office flop Jim.

12 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:22:37 PM by org.whodat (What does the Republican party stand for////??? absolutely nothing.)

You Palinistas aren't gonna take this lying down, are ya?

.

To: org.whodat

“I was a box office flop Jim.”

Do you mean that Sarah’s movie was a box office flop? I, for one, would’ve gone, but the closest theater where it played was four hours away. It wasn’t played in many venues. (I won’t go more than a half-hour to see ANY movie.)

Besides, most people who’ll vote for her don’t need to see a movie to convince them. People who suffer from PDS wouldn’t go on a bet. Perhaps some undecided voters saw it and learned something.

21 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:31:05 PM by MayflowerMadam

.

.

To: wtc911

It was a bad idea from the beginning. The only people who would pay to see a 2 hour infomercial about Palin are die hard fans. I wouldn’t pay to see an infomercial lasting 2 hours about any candidate...or non candidate. LOL

She is a known commodity. It would have been far better to join the race earlier and change minds by competing alongside the others.

Like it ot not, people pretty much have made up their minds about her over the past 3 years. She has loyal fans, but not enough to win a national election.

No doubt some will watch it for free, and they can still sell DVD’s to the same people.

With a free gift in every box!

I guess The Undefeated was Defeated.

37 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:43:58 PM by indylindy

.

.

To: alstewartfan

She can always sell DVDs from the bus when she goes back on the road to finish the America tour...................any day now..........

26 posted on Monday, August 01, 2011 4:34:21 PM by wtc911 ("How you gonna get down that hill?")

Oh - the bus tour!

Sounds like something we should explore after the vertical elevation.

.

Feel More Like London

Reading this tonight, via Kos, I was reminded of something Megan wrote some time back, about what happens to people when you continually tell them they're nothing: They start to believe you.

Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don’t know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’

There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re paying attention now.

Giving people who need assistance a stake in society doesn't just help individuals. It tethers people in, so that even if they don't have what you have, they see the value in what all of us have, and feel a part of things. This isn't charity. There is an actual benefit to me in creating a world that benefits you: It makes you less likely to SET ALL MY SHIT ON FIRE. God Almighty, what happens when you wall people up in their own little worlds and only venture there when something's broken? You give them incentive to break things.

A.

 

Sunday Night Music: Wedding Bell Blues

I'm just back from my law school classmate/old buddy's wedding in an undisclosed location somewhere between Houston and Galveston. This is for Evan and Gloria:

 

The Week To Come and What's At Risk

WI "Budget Repair Bill" Protest (Feb 20-24?) Pt. 3 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.

 

Tuesday night we'll be crack-vanning the Wisconsin recall election results, as well as hosting Scout/Jude/Doc updates from Wisconsin all day (or whenever they can check in amidst the madness). Be here, and follow along on Twitter, and generally watch, because this is something we've not seen in a while.

It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Phila wrote something which is deservedly making the rounds, about what we consider security and what we consider danger:

I hold this truth to be self-evident: Most of us will never find ourselves on the business end of an Islamic radical. Many of us, however, will struggle to stay housed and fed if we're too old to work, or we fall seriously ill. "National defense" that focuses on cartoon figures of ethnic menace, as opposed to the prosaic and preventable disasters that cause most of the actual suffering and death in this country, is a cruel joke, and I suspect its extremely dark humor is not entirely lost on heartless neo-feudalist chatterboxes like Lieberman and Coburn.

There were a lot of stories after 9/11, about how people who had previously thought they were safe now felt unsafe. I wanted to find everyone thus quoted and drag them down to where I worked, to where people needed no crash course in coping, to where people didn't suddenly feel unsafe because they had no feeling of safety to lose. We have built any feeling of safety we have on the backs of people like that, and presumed they shared our feelings of entitlement and security. Why should they, when we share none of their pain?

What happens in Wisconsin isn't just in Wisconsin. I have this tattooed on my arm now, no shit: Our fate is your fate. People are threatened, right now. People are scared, right now. What kind of world are we building? What kind of place are we living in? Before, in the Bush years, I felt like there was a genuine schism, between the kind of country Americans thought they had and the kind of country America was.

Now, watching Walker and Kasich and Scott, watching the Austerity Olympics, watching Obama running scared from every Teabagger he sees, getting the pointy end of smug Republican soliloquys about spending on programs most of them are in no danger of needing, I feel like most people know what kind of country we are. They know we're mean and paralyzed and small. They know we've talked ourselves into being unable to move, and either they can't see how we can get out of it, or they don't care if we ever do.

This is how it works: You start out just not doing one thing because it's too hard, and pretty soon you can't do anything. We are a country that cannot button our shirt in the morning because we actually cannot conceive of the process by which we would do that, no matter how many shots of brandy we take to steady our nerves. And into that steps a group of people that says, no more. That says yes, we know how things like this are supposed to work, and we're supposed to lie back and take it, and fuck that basically because no fuck no not today not while I'm alive this is just not how it's going to go and the way I know that is that I'm going to make it go otherwise and sit DOWN, asshole, I'm here now and your turn is over.

Into this national paralysis, into this world in which the one thing we cannot do is the only thing we really have to do, walked tens of thousands. On bikes and in cabs and on tractors and on foot, from sunrise to sunset, saying shove your war on America. Saying we are not going to be like this anymore.

They could have stayed home and written hectoring opinion pieces about how Americans and particularly kids today are just lazy and can't ever protest like the Egyptians or Greeks. There's quite the market for that these days. Instead of lecturing other people about how to stand up to power, they went out there and did it.

That needs to win right now. That needs to show, right now, to everybody who's threatened and scared by everyday, ordinary, animal greed that there is more than one way for things to go. That just because some knob in a suit on TV says we can't, we can't, we can't doesn't make it so. That inevitable's just a dare. That there's never too little time or energy to help others. That courage isn't a bowl of sugar with a bottom you can hit. That all actions are choices, and all choices are chances, and all you have to do is make them and the ground beneath your feet will shake.

That we don't back down. We don't back off. We don't back up.

Not. One. Inch.

A.

Ewww

Joel Osteen got cooties all over my city.

*crosses fingers*

Hey, anybody who preaches what he preaches deserves a response on exactly this level.

A.

Weekend Question Thread

What's your bedtime?

My insomnia's back with a vengeance, so mine is somewhere between midnight and 3 a.m. depending on whatever is kicking around in my head and/or has happened that day.

A.

Kickoff to Get Out the Recall Vote!

We Are Wisconsin hosted a picnic tonight to kickoff the biggest GOTV weekend for the six, critical recall elections on August 9th. Several volunteers spoke along with John Nichols and Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

Here is our video of John Nichols fiery speech:

Here is our video of Representative Tammy Baldwin. BTW, Baldwin received a great round of applause and cheers when Nichols spoke of her recent No vote on the debt ceiling bill.

Here are the 6 Republicans who hopefully will be recalled on Tuesday. Click on pics to read.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

You can go to We Are Wisconsin for info on volunteering to GOTV or to make a donation.

You can also volunteer from home by making phone calls through DFA and PCCC. (h/t DKos)

Pocan kicked out of ALEC event

Yesterday I linked to WI state Rep. Mark Pocan's report from the ALEC convention in NOLA.

Dane 101 reports that last night he was kicked out of an ALEC event.

Not only had Pocan paid for his registration to the conference he also had an invitation to the reception. Pocan issued a statement this afternoon in which he said, "despite being a dues paying member of ALEC, paying to attend the convention and having an invitation to a corporate reception, I was still kicked out of the cigar reception by an employee of ALEC. ALEC has become a secret society where they will kick out anyone with a video camera, tape recorder or an original opinion."

Additionally 2 reporters from Think Progress were ejected but not before being physically attacked.

While we stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded us, demanding that we leave. As we were leaving, they approached us, violently pushed us and twisted our arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back.

Think Progress has pics and video at the above link.

Insanity in Bulk

“You OK?” A asked me late tonight. “It’s not like you to miss a deadline.”

To be fair, it was only 9:50. I hadn't "missed" anything, Bob.

Truth be told, I’d had part of a block all day. There’s only so much you can write about when it comes to these recall elections. I swear there isn’t enough time in a commercial block to fit all of the vitriol I’m seeing during the local news. It’s also not worth complaining about education, budgets or anything else. Pondering the events of the day yielded little either.

Besides, it was a Friday in the summer without The Midget, who was spending the week with my folks, which meant a chance to poke through other people’s crap.

Ever since I was a little kid, summers meant estate sales with Mom. She’d circle dozens of entries in the morning paper and we’d hit them all day. Usually, Friday was the big day as we waded through boxes of stuff, knocked on pieces of furniture and haggled over glassware. Some days, the bargains were small, like figurines or dishes for Mom. Other times, it was something ridiculous, such as the time we had to cram a 1950s grocery cart into the backseat of my Thunderbird because Mom just had to have it.

Even without Mom, estate sale shopping has been in my blood. When I was about 12, I rode my bike to a sale about three miles away. I found a huge stack of paper placemats that had the box scores from old Milwaukee Braves games on them. For $2, I procured the stack and took them home to show Dad. He took them to one of His Guys who said, “They’re not worth much. Only about $4 each.” Each month, we took them to the local card show and sold a handful in the auction. After one such adventure, a guy who lost out on the bidding asked if we had any more.

Dad brokered a deal with the guy for about $5 each and we sold them all.

Over the years I’ve sought old wood furniture for refinishing, old tools to add to the collection and various other items. Dad and I have also bought and sold old newspapers, Playboys and Ichiro ornaments. All part of our “buy low, sell high” adventures.

The one moment that lives in infamy, however, was The Beer Can Incident.

My wife was about 8 months pregnant and we were in Milwaukee for her baby shower. Mom took her to get a mani/pedi and Dad and I were left to our own devices.

We took a walk and found a rummage sale that didn’t have much that we were interested in. The lady running the sale, for some reason, asked us, “You guys wanna buy a beer can collection?”

We had no interest in it, had never collected cans and realized this was likely to end poorly. However, as is always the case with my father, he asked a fateful question:

“How much?”

“Fifty bucks.”

We left the place and walked back toward home in silence. I finally turned to him and said, “Dad, I can hear the gerbil running around in your head. You’re thinking about those beer cans.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because I am too.”

We went home and grabbed the SUV and drove back. The lady still had the cans and we bought them.

We loaded up the truck until bursting and we had to come back for more. When we had the second load almost ready, the lady said to us, “Don’t forget the ones on the side of the house.”

I looked down the side of the house and there were cases stacked four deep that ran almost the entire length of the house. After another couple runs, we got them into Dad’s garage and almost filled the entire stall where his Escalade usually sat.

When Mom and The Missus came home, they could tell something was up, so we showed them.

“You should have just watched their faces,” Dad told me. “I can’t even describe the look they had.”

After several Wisconsin-to-Indiana trips later, I had several thousand beer cans in the nursery, thus, setting me on a deadline: sell all these damned things before The Midget was born.

I got to know the guy at the post office on a first-name basis and I became and eBay super seller of some kind. When all was said and done, the cans were gone shortly after she was born and I had enough money to buy a video camera to keep an eye on her early moments of life. Our $50 investment had gone all “loaves and fishes” on us. Still, to this day, whenever Mom sees a beer can at a rummage sale, she pulls my father away from it like it’ll give him herpes if he gets too close.

Today, I had a much simpler goal. There was a plastic cow creamer thing that I saw online at an estate sale that reminded me of something my grandmother used to have. Figured a long drive and a cheap purchase would be enough to shake the cobwebs loose.

When I got there, the cow was long gone, but it was still worth digging around. In the garage, I found a box of programs from the 1970s Green Bay Packers. Behind it was another box. And then another. I figured there were about 100 in there.

“How much for these?” I asked the guy in charge.

“Buck each.”

I could feel myself channeling my father. “How much for all of them?”

The guy paused and counted and hemmed and hawed.

“$35?”

“Sold.”

“You know,” he said. “There’s more in the bedroom.”

“You throwing those in?”

“Uh…”

“I asked for all of them,” I pushed.

The guy took me back there and only one thing came into my mind.

Oh shit.

The whole place was filled with these things. Boxes, piles, bags and more.

“Give me another $20 and we’ll call it good.”

Now, I was screwed. Had to do it. Of course, I’d taken Betsy, not the truck so this got interesting.

I poured them into the trunk. When that was full, I filled the back seat and the foot wells. I kept going back and the guy kept finding more of them. I must have had at least 400 of these things. The guy kept stacking crap into my car.

When I told the Missus I’d made a buy of some kind, I could practically hear the panic in her text message.

“Please no bear cans.” Despite the odd text correct function on the iPhone, I knew what she meant.

I started sorting until the dust made my nose run all over the place. After several hours, I figured out what I had. It’ll take months just to figure out the prices, though.

I stood up and looked at the bounty that had covered my basement floor. I grabbed the phone and called home.

After chatting with Mom, I got Dad on the line.

“Hey,” I said. “You wanna get in trouble with me?”

After hearing about the whole thing, he muttered, “Christ, I don’t even know how you got all that home. Still, there’s no way we don’t end up ahead on this. Count me in.”

Another adventure begins.