“Alert the patriots: Tyrants are ruining our country!”

It goes to show that Limbaugh has the Nut Vote in hand.

Mr. ‘Talent On Loan From God’?!?

I guess God called in the loan.

What will these apoplectic morons do come Monday morning? Will they turn the crazy up to 11? Or will they collapse in despair, eating ice cream for dinner in their pajamas until their kids send them off to the death panels?

Thanks, Kate. But this chain of errors could’ve been even better with a little sarahdipity….
TIME.com ran an interview with a retired dominatrix (alas, Amy didn’t do the interview)….
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1973315,00.html
…therefore I wish Rush had given out a phone number to one of her active colleagues instead of the FUSA #. Oh well….

This is a beautiful story, Kate Pickert.
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Absolutely excellent blog post.
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Thanks so much, really great stuff.

Unlike his callers, Rush Limbaugh can afford his drugs out of pockets. A multi millionaire unleashing middle class schlobs to give him tax cuts and continue having them get pre-existing conditioned out of health care is funny and depressing at the same time.

“If you ever had any doubts that there are people out there who truly believe the Democratic health reform plan is a communist conspiracy to take over America…”

If only that other crazy demographic garned as much attn. from our beloved MSM.

This is not news. It is hilarious though….
Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer but boy oh boy, who knew he had a rabid following of crazies.

I can understand having an ideological problem with the Healthcare reform plan but this sort of rabid anger is simply silly!

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

If Rush isn’t in a drug induced fog, he might come to realize that this newfangled telephone thing is too confusing for his followers. They can push a button or turn a knob on the radio thing but dear lord, 11 numbers is too much for these mathematically and technologically challenged people. They can’t figure out how to find their reps. online site and e-mail. Pitiful.

I just listened to 4 or 5 minutes of the recorded comments- fascinating and terrifying. Has this combination of ignorance and hatred always existed at this magnitude, and is only now showing it’s face, or is this a new phenomenon? Anyone else getting a little frightened for this country?

The real question here is: if the wingnuts are freaking out about something as innocuous as this, then how are they reacting to the U.S. Census?
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Michelle Bachmann and some of the other leading nutjobs were telling their followers to rebel against the Census for a while there, and I’d have to think these people would think it’s an evil ACORN-Islamocommie-Obama-Soros plot to destroy them.
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The beauty, of course, is that if they refuse to participate, their regions will have less of a say in terms of their representation in Congress and will receive less in federal spending. Their own paranoia will cripple them.

On a side note, how exactly is it that being an ‘entertainer’ makes it socially acceptable to fill people’s heads with this kind of idiocy? Don’t get me wrong, I’m feeling very entertained right now, but I’d rather be bored and have that poor man not be an imbecile.
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John Stuart Mill once said, “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.” I used to think that was an unfair characterization, but it seems more and more like it only tells half the truth. There’s the stupid conservatives, and the ones, like Limbaugh and Beck, who shepherd them in their stupidity in order to swell the ranks of a political platform which, in a society of honest people, would be so unpopular as to have no chance of electoral success in a functioning democracy.
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If only Reagan hadn’t been so damn handsome, we’d never have gotten into this mess. Curse that charismatic dreamboat!

I’d love to be the census worker handling Michele Bachmann’s form.
…and Sarah Palin’s too. “How many live here? …uh, does Trig count? Where was he born? Where the hell’s his birth certificate? I keep recalling that Wild Ride so many different ways. Should Bristol still be here or is she on her own? Okay, what is this person’s sex? Straight, I hope. Wait, what’s this? How many newspapers do I read?”

Wow… I called the 666 number… those messages are amazing! Just goes to show you how completely uninformed and brainwashed these people are. Thanks again, really brightened my day!

So, does this means Rush is part of the govmint conspiracy too?

It just goes to show you that conservatives are more concerned about pissing off liberals than anything else. And I mean anything else. Limbaugh was more concerned with sticking liberals with a big phone bill than with making an impact on the legislation. If Limbaugh really cared about the issue, he would have paid for the phone line himself. But that wouldn’t have screwed a liberal interest group.

Incidentally, one of the reasons that I have so much contempt for Obama and the Blue Dogs is that they think they can rationalize with these people. Obama has two choices: Switch to the GOP and repeat every Beck-Malkin-Limbaugh talking point or prepare to be irrationally hated forever.

Whatever the issue (Energy, environment, foreign policy, etc.) nine times out of ten, Republicans simply ask themselves what liberals want and then dedicate themselves to the opposite.

Is there any possible explanation for opposition to solar and wind power (even if you don’t think that, alone, those sources can meet our energy needs) other than “liberals want it, so I’m against it.”? Opposing solar power is like opposing money falling from the sky, but Republicans manage to do it.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the only place where Republicans support wind farms is off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

Seriously though, this following of Rush concerns me. It has all the makings of a Guyana tragedy. I did not know people could be driven to such anger by the personal opinions of an entertainer. Is this all it takes?

How silly can the public really be!!! Goodness!! Rush is making his millions and these followers are running head first in massive brain aneurysms.

Rush who is instigating this mad dog frenzy is probably right now (and every night) sipping some champagne and eating some caviar sprawled out in his living room! Who knows, he and many folks on the left might be best of friends who hang out and play hockey.
Yes, it is not unlikely. I was never enemies with opposing counsel. Opposing counsel was simply doing a job and we had no enmity.
Clients who wanted me to “gut” a colleague outside court were just amusing to me. He was doing his job and I was doing the same.

Rush is doing his job and all the drama king and queens who are overreacting need to stop and think about their fury. Political difference should not induce such fury. No one should make you that furious because of things he opines from an obviously jaundiced perspective. Different from Obama, yes, but worth all this anger and fire breathing??? Absolutely Not!!

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

They don’t support wind or solar power because the oil industry doesn’t support wind or solar power, because wind and solar power aren’t things that you can exercise sufficient control over. No matter how many windmills Exxon puts up, they couldn’t stop somebody else from putting up their own and selling the juice cheaper. As opposed to oil fields, which you can license from the right-wing governments our government supports for their willingness to give licenses to our oil companies.

You’re both right. But it’s almost always useful to separate the playas from the rubes since their motives are mostly different. Certain corporatist elites use “conservative” politicians and media to cultivate hatred of liberals (and government, and black people, and brown people, and gay people, and Muslims, and non-religious people, and artists, and Hollywood actors, and doctors who perform abortions, and, most especially, liberal people) among the right-wing authoritarian-following dopes who think Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes are paragons of truth, so they will unwittingly (in the extreme) act against their own self-interest just to stick it to liberals and Democrats.

Is this sarcasm, Stu…? I’d think I’d know sarcasm when I see it, but with the lack of contextual cues, I’m not sure.

Herr Limbaugh is probably sprawled out in his living room, but it’s not from caviar and champagne…

So, is their credo now, “fear, hate, greed … and piss of liberals”?

I’m being completely sincere.

I wrote a smart-ass comment about SZ breaking my sarcast-o-meter in MS’s post yesterday (link). However, I decided to call it off when it occurred to me that Zech was possibly being sincere. SZ, you’re a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an 90′s industrial rock hairdo.

damnit jc- I get a 404 ‘not found’ error, and I’m not savvy enough to figure out if you were being ironically meta, or you just mistyped the link.

@Kevin-

It’s part of beautiful, natural cycle. First Republicans have gotten the crazies to vote against their own economic interests for decades. Then they got them to oppose a healthcare plan which would disproportionately help them out. Now the Republicans get them to write off their representation altogether through census abstention. Next comes the lemming route, simultaneously eliminating a whole lot of crazy from the national dialogue while at the same time demonstrating through services rendered why the Republican leadership considers themselves to be such great patriots.

@MNG- Their three chief weapons are: fear, hate, greed, and a fanatical devotion to pissing off liberals.

Interesting conversation.
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“What’s really wrong with the right wing? Are they crazy? Stupid? Both? What is it?”
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I’d like to get into this, but right now I’m a little more concerned about how liberals were just crushed and humiliated by the centrist leadership of their party into supporting a Third Way health care policy.
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I guess the intellectual superiority of liberals isn’t terribly evident at this moment in political history.
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Centrists deserve a great deal of credit, since they’re the ones who were so successful at beating back movement conservatives and movement(-less) liberals. Third Way democrats just won a massive political and ideological victory. Health care is the new NAFTA, but bigger and better.
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Here’s Joe Klein celebrating this evening:

The bill unnecessarily expands Medicaid…a program that really should be abolished–Medicaid recipients should receive their health care through the exchanges (as should senior citizens for that matter, but that may come in time, too).

The House hasn’t even voted yet, and he’s already trotted out the DLC’s old Medicare privatization plans, albeit surrounded by the same deceptive language that made liberals jump up and down with hope for future “progressive” policy fixes to come.
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Take a good look at what “reform” will mean next, now that ol’ Joe’s finally gotten his way with health care. He’s back to pushing the Third Way Social Security and Medicare privatization schemes he advocated for in TIME back in 2005, when he was castigating “The Incredible Shrinking Democrats.”
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Why shouldn’t he?
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Why would he expect liberals not to ultimately accuse each other of killing poor old people if we don’t go along with the New Democrats’ “market-based solutions”? Why wouldn’t Rahm expect Markos to threaten to primary Kucinich for making noise about voting against Medicaid abolition and Medicare privatization?
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Given this huge victory for Third Way Democrats, why shouldn’t they start next year? Rightists will just rant and rave like the serially misinforming lunatics they are, and liberals will just fall in line like the collaborators and dupes we are. Maybe the White House will call us “f*cking retards” a little sooner, next time, so that we understand our role a little earlier in the process.
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But never mind, go ahead and enjoy your examination of how stupid and deranged populist conservatives are. That’s all liberals are ultimately good for, apparently –at least according to the establishment center.
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Sorry for the interruption, folks.

I’m a bad communicator, apparently.

Those voicemail recordings are a golden example of the giant disconnect between the politically informed, and the brainwashed. And they’re not the first of their kind.

I have a liberal friend who lives in Alabama, and one summer he volunteered to answer phones for his local congressman’s office. The second the Glenn Beck show or Rush Limbaugh program ended, he’d be swamped with calls from elderly widows, ignorant bigots, etc.,who were outraged at the prospect of “death panels” and “socialist government”. They would make completely incomprehensible “arguments”, often paraphrasing and misquoting their “sources”, and he’d have to assuage their fears with sound-bytes on the Congressman’s policies. If only those callers hadn’t failed high school social studies, they’d know what socialism actually is…

stuartzechman,

I agree with you, that Rahm Emanuel was right to castigate the coalition of liberal Dems who were planning to create a schism within the party. But I fail to understand your beef with Joe Klein. Now that a centrist version of healthcare is certain to pass, Klein is merely stating that there’s still more to be done policy-wise. Granted, it’s highly unlikely that the Democratic leadership will continue discussing healthcare once the bill has passed – they need to shift focus to a calmer topic before midterm elections – but in a year or two Obama may wish to tack on a few things.

Anon, not sure what’s up with the link–it works for me.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/18/progressives/index.html

@SZ- Its Friday night, and that means no mellow-harshing.
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And, lest you forget, there are reasons for honest people to celebrate the coming passage of HCR, without the need to resort to bashing spineless liberals and dastardly third-way centrists.
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ps- Your elipsis in the quote from Joe excise the part where he attributes the ‘medicaid should be abolished idea’ to KT. I never did the follow up to see if she had indeed written many articles espousing that position- perhaps you could see verify prior to bashing Joe. Worst case, you have to add another MSM correspondent to your sh!tlist, best case, you have another dishonesty point against JK.
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@barronjohnston- head’s up, I don’t think you really agree with SZ if you think that Rahm’s outburst was justified.

Thanks JC- actually now both links work. I think I’m going to blame the f*cking webmonkeys tinkering around at Swampland. I’ve experienced several little glitches today …

Good to hear the link works. Me too on the glitches. My log-in isn’t working. Have to go in thru WordPress and then access my recent comments there, then presto it works. Weird.

You know I’d love to hear from right about now? Derek. His preemptive threats (as a DFH) seem rather prescient about now.

Can I buy a “who”?

Yeah, me too on the log-in issue. Decon as well, apparently. At first I thought I had been banned, as I had no problem commenting on other WP blogs (including other Time blogs). My guess is that the webmonkeys at Time are about to unleash something newer and better- they seem to always do their alpha testing at Swampland before porting to the sibling blogs.

@anon76

SZ said “Centrists deserve a great deal of credit, since they’re the ones who were so successful at beating back movement conservatives and movement(-less) liberals. Third Way democrats just won a massive political and ideological victory.”

In this sense, I agree with SZ; with his regrettable and derogatory use of expletives, Rahm Emanuel beat back those liberals who were pushing for the public option. Though I happen to believe that the public option is great policy-wise, it isn’t centrist enough to realistically gain support and allow a bill to pass. Emanuel was being political by demanding that the liberal dems drop the issue so the Democratic party could remain united, and he was being ideological in a pragmatic and bipartisan sense.

I know that last part may sound a lil’ weird, but what I mean to say is that pragmatism is an ideology, and a more effective one than die-hard liberalism or conservatism for a chief of staff.

Trust me when I say that SZ was not meaning that ‘Centrists deserve credit’ in a complimentary fashion. He’s on record as saying he’d rather see the whole HCR ship sink rather than have it pass as currently written.

anon76
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Your elipsis in the quote from Joe excise the part where he attributes the ‘medicaid should be abolished idea’ to KT. I never did the follow up to see if she had indeed written many articles espousing that position
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That’s not what Tumulty did.
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She did not take Joe’s position that Medicaid should be abolished.
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That’s all Third Way Joe Klein.
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He’s referencing her simply for reporting that Medicaid is expanded under the Senate bill, something that he opposes.
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Here’s the full quote:

The bill unnecessarily expands Medicaid, as Karen has reported extensively, a program that really should be abolished–Medicaid recipients should receive their health care through the exchanges (as should senior citizens for that matter, but that may come in time, too).

See?
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Karen reports extensively on the bill expanding Medicaid, and Joe takes the opportunity to lay out one of the “fixes” they’re contemplating making later.
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You know, because the whole idea is to “pass anything now, fix it later”…I mean, “pass anything now, abolish Medicaid and privatize Medicare later.”
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That’s the kind of change we can expect to see down the road, that’s the kind of unfinished business New Democrats have with this reform. They’re not going to do a public option later, they’re going to try to privatize single-payer for the elderly later.
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In that light, the talking point about “Social Security and Medicare weren’t perfect at first, but got better over time” is starting to make sense. They’ve got work to do to make the system even more like how they envision it should be.
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They might even get their prize bipartisan support for those changes down the road, but maybe not. They may have to twist liberals’ arms to make those happen in the absence of any Republican votes once again.

“I mean, “pass anything now, abolish Medicaid and privatize Medicare later.”
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That’s the kind of change we can expect to see down the road, that’s the kind of unfinished business New Democrats have with this reform”
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SZ-what do base that on other than a (justifiable) suspicion of the “New Democrats”?
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I’m against this bill for many of the reasons you are but that seems to be quite a stretch unless you have something to point me to that shows elected Democratic officials support for abolishing Medicaid and privatizing Medicare.
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PNNTO:
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SZ-what do base that on other than a (justifiable) suspicion of the “New Democrats”?
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It’s their ideology.
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Your question is like asking:
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“Apart from justifiable suspicions, what makes you think that conservative Republicans will try to roll back Federal work-place safety regulatory authority?”
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That’s what they do. They’re conservatives. The policy they try to enact is the result of a defined political-economic ideology they really believe in, whether they’re corrupt, or liars, or politicians first, or cowards, or whatever. What defines their thinking, their solutions is conservatism.
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New Democrats are the same way, although they’re much less up front about what they believe, and who they are. They’re also more flexible than conservatives –they pride themselves on “pragmatism.” While that’s true to a certain extent, it’s not that they’re without ideas or policies or philosophy of governance. That bedrock set of ideas is known as the “Third Way.”
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This legislation looks very much like the Third Way-approved Dole-Daschle plan from 2009, with some compromises they felt they had to add when Dole’s 20 GOP votes predictions failed.
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This Administration’s policies on almost every front look exactly like Third Way policy proposals. I think they’ve become particularly adept at confusing liberals into thinking that New Democrats are trying and failing to enact liberal policy, when they’re just lining up liberal support for what they really want to do all along, albeit more so since the GOP isn’t playing along with their bipartisanship fantasies.
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So when Joe Klein says that the next steps are the “necessary, market-based overhauls” of public health care programs, and this follows a similar “necessary, market-based overhaul” of health insurance, it’s not hard to understand that they’re going to do the same kind of “reform” wherever they think they can.
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That’s what they do. They repealed Glass-Steagal. They passed NAFTA. They passed Health Care Reform. They’re ideologues, just in the vein of Tom Friedman and Joe Klein, not Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer.
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It’s not a suspicion of wrong-doing or corruption I’m talking about, it’s a prediction of what people who hold a particular political philosophy will try to enact. It’s just like predicting that liberals will try to enact single-payer, or that conservatives will try to take apart the Federal Reserve.
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It’s what they believe in.

Thanks for the response SZ.
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I was curious if there was something specific I missed.
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I couldn’t care less what tired old Joe K thinks should happen. I was more interested in elected Democrats.
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I don’t deny you your assumptions but that’s really what they are. Stating that they are going to abolish Medicaid and privatize Medicare is strong enough I wanted you to expand on it.
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I appreciate that you did.

PNNTO:
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If you’re really interested, this actually expands on it: link to “A New Medicare for the New Economy” DLC | Blueprint Magazine | February 7, 2001
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Although you wouldn’t know it from last year’s campaign rhetoric, most Democrats and Republicans in Washington now agree on a basic approach to Medicare reform and on the need to expand the program’s benefits, especially for prescription drugs. This year, the new administration should rise above the usual partisanship, offer to share credit with its political opponents, and close the deal for a durable new Medicare.
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To finish the job, we must expand benefits and create a new, market-based approach to how Medicare actually delivers benefits.

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, and then this expands on it some more: link to “How Obama Plans to Reform Medicare”

“To identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by a Republican Congress,” writes Barack Obama in his letter to Sens. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus.
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“Under this approach, MedPAC’s recommendations on cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a fiscally responsible way.”

Just read what they say they’re going to do, and then look at what they try to do.
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We might want to do this sort of analysis prior to actually having legislation that we didn’t expect put in front of (sold to) us.

It is called an Idiocracy.

In any other country, or if Bush was still President and Faux Noose was saying the same things about him that they are smearing about Obama, Faux Noose and Limbag would be justifiably jailed as part of a terrorist conspiracy.

Now they are just a “Conspiracy of Dunces.”

SZ thanks for the links.
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I don’t put as much stock in 9 year old DLC stuff as perhaps you do. That may be my mistake.
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The Ezra Klein link was interesting. I wouldn’t call that privatizing but need to think that proposal through. Anything that takes responsibility away from directly elected representatives I am generally against.
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Also the take it or leave it no changing it part is simpleminded.
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What came of it, do you know?
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html#s74975
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This is what happens when we ignore the demogogues
like Beck, Limbaugh, Fox, hate radio: Crowds that spit on Reps, yell the n word, scream faggot and hold up reprehensible signs. And, a Republican party that continues to encourage these actions instead of rejecting them. And, a traditional media that excepts the hate spewed as just amusing, just politics. Where is our Edward R. Murrow, our Welch? Shame.

I don’t really follow a lot of the rants on both sides on this particular thread. Quite frankly I won’t bother myself to read a lot of them because I can tell in the first two sentences that the writer is a ideological nut one way or the other.

But, this is lumping on a shocking and disturbing scale. Republicans and Democrats are guilty of it. Saying that ALL Republicans “…yell the n word, scream faggot and hold up reprehensible signs.” Is as ridiculous and indefensible as Code Pink screaming that all Marines are “baby killers” or that all Republicans are “war criminals” and using that to say that every Democrat wants to take every Marine and put them on death row (yes, that is on the radio). The whole thing has gotten totally out of hand on both sides. The simple fact is that both sides have a lunatic fringe which has gotten loud and obnoxious in the last 20 years. On the left you literally have socialists and communists while on the right you have totalitarians and religious nuts who want to force people to pray to their God or accept their policies at gunpoint or kill them for disagreeing. Both parties need to reject this kind of insanity.

There are groups on both the right and the left that have a terrible history of abuse of power and like it or not, in many cases outright murder or attempted murder.

Rush is a total lunatic just like that Savage guy on the radio and just like Olberman and Maddow. People like them take what one person says and paint the whole group with that brush (on gun control, abortion, civil rights etc.). There is no doubt that there are people in this country that would like to see a total ban on citizens with firearms and others who want to destroy any sense of a free market anywhere in the economy and have it all run by central control. On the other hand there are people who would like to see this country be a religiously run dictatorship that bases its’ public policy on 2000 year old fairy tales. Both of these groups are NUTS.

Just because someone (like me for example) likes the separation of church and state and the right to bear arms and would like to see some fiscal sanity in Washington doesn’t make them a “right wing nut”. The same way that someone (like me again) who would like to see an end to the War on Drugs and equal rights for gays and lesbians isn’t a total “left wing nut”.

As I’ve said many times I belong to neither party but agree with points that both make on certain issues. But the media has managed to convince people that because someone disagrees with DETAILS on some particular point of legislation that they are the “enemy” to be condemned, dragged through the mud and crucified if possible. It’s the people like Rush and Olberman that create this atmosphere.

Both sides are treating this like a religious war where the simple fact that someone doesn’t believe what you do or agree 100% gives you the right to attack them. It doesn’t. Just because Bill Maher or Rush Limbaugh said it doesn’t make it right, both of these groups are out to breed hate.

Stop blinding believing the ideology. Politicians lie for a living regardless of the letter after their name.

After listening to these people, reading various protest blogs and their other material, it is becoming more and more evident that Cheney, Limbaugh, and McCain’s followers are generating a state of sedition for their leaders, and with Republican silence, when they should be reproving their constituents, sedition shows potential to emerge and become actual.

iamsource-

That is a very, very bold statement sir or madam. Sedition is getting close to treason. I certainly hope that you either don’t understand the use of the word or misspoke.

I don’t listen to Limbaugh, as I said earlier he is a nut. However accusing people of seditious speech is a very grave accusation and I hope you don’t take as lightly as you seem to.

McCain’s followers however and Cheney himself have come no where close (as far as I have heard, if you have sound bites or video please share them).

Unless you have some good sound bites or video on the subject, to share, under your assumptions, there are a number of liberal groups that treaded into the same basic ground of seditious speech under the previous administration. No one ever called publicly for them to be arrested or detained in any way even when Code Pink suggested attacking the Marine base at Quantico…

Under the previous administration I, and others, were threatened to be arrested if we stepped outside of a ribboned box over 60 yards away from the entrance to a place where Dick Cheney was to speak during his campaign in MO. Our right to protest was most certainly infringed upon. Tell me what good is it to have a right to protest if you are not allowed to be anywhere close in proximity to those your voice is meant to be heard by?
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If you listen to the recording of these people who left messages, you will hear very REAL language that is meant to be a threat to our elected officials, Democrats all over the country, and indeed children.
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Here is a propaganda video produced by Conservatives with the very intent expressed therein to mount an attack against Democrats and Liberals SIR. This attack was purposefully meant to be left ambiguous in nature so as to allow the implication that the attack would be a physical one, and not just a political vote/verbal protest one!
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Speaking of treason, that is exactly what George Bush did to the Constitution during his illegal occupation of the Presidency.