Let God Sort Them Out

It’s Tyranny Weekend, and Teabaggers are out in force to make sure the Kenyan Usurper doesn’t hand America over to the Good Samaritans Godless Commies:

People with ties to Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project, Tea Party Boise and other conservative causes plan a protest outside Rep. Walt Minnick’s office this weekend, with the claim that the Idaho Democrat co-sponsored one of the health care bills that Congress is considering.

That’ll show him! Don’t let Walt Minnick sell you out!

Oh, and never mind that Minnick didn’t sponsor the healthcare bill, didn’t vote for the House version, and won’t vote for the revisions.

Seems Minnick originally sponsored a House bill offering a home-buying credit to veterans. That bill was gutted and refitted as a vessel for the Senate healthcare bill. But the way things work, Minnick is still listed as a sponsor.

They didn’t cover that part in Schoolhouse Rock, but it happens all the time. Even the RNC, which tried to make mischief with Minnick’s name, apologized.

But the Idaho teabagger and self-described “angry American” who originated the story doesn’t give a shit about your fancy explanations of the legislative process. Bill Turner is still going to picket Minnick’s Idaho office today. And he’s going to be damn “militant” about it, too.

Because Walt Minnick is still a Democrat, after all. And Turner’s backing a Republican to replace him.

Tea Party protesters target lawmaker who agrees with them [McClatchy]
24 Comments

In my moments of weakness, I wonder if I’m as observant, capable and competent as I’d like to think I am then I realize it would be much much much worse to be a Teabagger. It would be my worst nightmare, to go through life thinking you are the universe’s greatest gift but only as a joke that everyone else sees but you.

Maybe it’s the intellectual snob in me, but I think that self-awareness and internal doubt must considered as incredibly important to the murky mess we call human intelligence. It’s not just IQ.

Those psychological studies on competence are startling and true and very applicable.

Maybe Prommie is right and that this push for self esteem got us here. That a lot of people who had too much ego and not enough talent had it given to them is too unhealthy much in the way like giving fried chicken to Kirsty Alley.

My self esteem (what little there is) was forged from the fires of failure and understanding, but it is oh so real. Not given because I participated.

@ManchuCandidate: I think that being an outsider is helpful in forging self-awareness, e.g. being a Big-Assed Jew (me) or perhaps a Korean-Canadian (you?). These Teabaggers think they are The People and so consciousness ends there.

T/J: hey Nojo, open thread on the health care vote tomorrow? Whattya think the over and under line will be? One? Two maybe?

@Dodgerblue:
Good point. I’ve always been an outsider (even among fellow Koreans.)

Boring story about Manchu’s personal life warning:
Back in the day, my parents tried to forge a Korean identity into me. Kinda hard growing up in white bread rural Canada City. One summer, my parents decide it’s time to visit their homeland for the summer. In the process, they send my sister and I to “Welcome to Korea, you lazy foreign Koreans” Camp run by the ROK. We ended up at different camps for the month.

Anyway, it was strange meeting people who looked like you, didn’t mind eating food that grossed white people out, etc. I thought I was home. Heh. Then the barrage of questions. “Who do you know?” “What kind of clothes to do you wear?” “What church do you go to?” “Who are your friends?” Turns out I didn’t answer any of them properly. They were horrified that I mostly hung out with white people (like I had a choice), spoke with a perfect “eh” Canada City english accent, was a nerd, dressed like one, liked (!) white people food, not a big fan of Kimchee, and went to a White Scottish Presbyterian church (again, like I had a choice.)

After some serious conflict, I suddenly found myself kicked out of my original room, labeled as the “Guy who likes white people” and dumped into a room with the “Guy who had Chinese friends”, the “Guy from Alabama”, the “Weirdo I” and the “Weirdo II”.

I ended up to be friends with the “Guy from Alabama” and “Guy with Chinese friends.” Got into fights with both Weirdo I and II, but they left me alone after I managed to beat both of them and “earned” their respect because I was “tough” (it’s amazing what learning how to rassle in PE and knowing how to put down a really tough choke hold (my speciality) does to a guy who out weights you by 20 pounds.)

It was bad enough to be an outsider by people who looked at you as the “chink” (hell I could understand that) but it was worse to be an outsider by folks who shared the same DNA/looks as you. That rejection hurt more. To this day, my parents wonder why I don’t want anything to do with most of the Korean community or why among my Asian friends, none of them are Korean.

“I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known..”

@ManchuCandidate: An outsider among outsiders. If you were gay and left-handed, you’d be in the running for the Nobel Prize for literature.

@ManchuCandidate: I often wonder if similar “outsider to both sides” sorts of things are going to happen to the Chinese girls adopted by westerners in the U.S. and Europe.

@Dodgerblue: Where the hell have you been? It’s been your move for four days in the Scrabble game with me and baked!Nevermind, saw you moved. My turn.

@SanFranLefty:
Probably. I don’t think it’ll be easy for them.

An Idaho Republican likes to think of himself as a Republican’s Republican so if somebody is trying to position himself beyond the hard right of the party…well, if the perfect is the enemy of the good then doctrinaire ideology is the enemy of reality. Minnick is as blue dog as they come, but his predecessor makes him look progressive or, at least, sane.

@Dodgerblue: open thread on the health care vote tomorrow? Whattya think the over and under line will be? One? Two maybe?

Not sure when, but yes. And they’ll hit 218 (or whatever the number is) with no votes to spare — in part because Pelosi will release votes she doesn’t need.

And while there’s still time for twists, Barry wouldn’t have held Healthcare Theatre if he wasn’t confident the votes were there. We’ve been following a script for weeks now.

@SanFranLefty: Hanging out with comely German girls in Death Valley. Well, part of that is true.

@ManchuCandidate: To me, teabagger exeptionalism comes right out of the American variety:
desired conclusion
+ ‘tree of liberty’ reference
x manifest destiny
+ whipped-up rage at ‘the enemy’ (carefully selected by our overlords)
sprinked liberally (sorry) with genuine ignorance of the rest of the world
= this.

I hpe you’re right. If it passes, the next political theatre will come when states like Idaho and Virginia sue the feds over HCR violating states rights. It’s amazing how many people yearn for the good old days of 1859 before that Republican socialist Lincoln trampled states rights using the flimsy excuse that slavery some property rights were bad. (As Glenn Beck might ask, “Can you prove Lincoln didn’t read Marx?”)

Just had a look at the latest DC headlines. Glad I’m not paying attention today.

@nojo:

Seriously. Every dispatch I read from the TPM reporters on the Hill creeps me out more. We’ve got teabaggers yelling “faggot” at Barney Frank (and cheering about it), and others ominously threatening Rep. Slaughter with “their own slaughter rule”.

I really hope we’re not watching the birth of a new American fascist movement, but it seems increasingly likely…

@al2o3cr: Yeah, I looked at TPM, and I thought, golly, it’s a nice day in Sandy Eggo…

But even after a year of this, I’m not sure how much to read into the histrionics — as long as the bill is pending, there’s plenty of opportunity for mischief. Once it’s signed, and the practical details start to emerge, I keep thinking the mood will change — or at least, move on to something else.

In particular, predicting November on the basis of what happens this weekend is a longshot. I don’t think we’ll have a clear picture until after Labor Day.

And hey, we saw the teabagger circus with Bubba — it may be reaching new heights of absurdity, but it’s a familiar story.

The good news, from my perspective, is that they may be taking clear, separate votes on the Senate Bill and the Reconciliation. If the House passes the Senate Bill as is, then we have something approved by 60 Senators and a House majority. The “fix” then becomes, well, a fix — and Republicans will be forced to vote against removing those elements they say they hate.

I’ll probably feel compelled to post a wrap-up tonight. But not until the roller-coaster ride is over.

@SanFranLefty: OK, SFL, this is a Nancy Fashion Watch question, what do you think of her scarf in this picture? I think she’s channeling the original Willy Wonka movie.

@rptrcub: I think I have a new avatar is what I think. And yes, it is a little freaky.

Once it’s signed, and the practical details start to emerge, I keep thinking the mood will change — or at least, move on to something else.

My prediction is they latch onto immigration reform, but still add a healthy dollop of healthcare. They’ll find some teabagger who bought the wrong insurance and flog it ….

@blogenfreude: They’re more than welcome to blow off what few Latinos remain with them. But Cap & Trade remains on the back-burner.

In terms of insurance, plenty of tenthers out there, and they’ll certainly try to flog it, but I think it blows over after a month or so.

In end, it still comes down to jobs, as it always has. If the unemployment stats continue looking bad in September, there goes the midterm. Everything else is just entertainment.

@nojo:

I’m less concerned by the particulars of what they’re trying to stop, than the side-effect of a gang of formerly apolitcal tax protesters realizing that threatening violence and revolution might just be a valid method for influencing the government. The 2010 election is probably too close to see much of a teabag-effect, but I’m not stoked about the idea of taking a bunch of angry people and mixing them with the white-power / neo-anarchist crowd that’s hanging around the fringes of the Tea Party. *Those* people are scary, but they’ve traditionally been so far beyond the pale that even the average grumpy conservative paid them no mind.

In other news, teabaggers are pissed about taxes, but know exactly DICK about taxes. Probably not a huge shock to anybody, but the *scale* of the idiocy is remarkable.

@al2o3cr: Plenty of cause for concern, no doubt. But since we all pay closer attention than most, we may also be amplifying the problem — it may be less than we think.

For a clearer take on that, we need to get beyond the primary season — June or July, say. How are the teabagger candidates doing? Which candidates who pandered to the teabaggers are now switching gears? We’re in the heat of a very specific moment right now, and I’m not sure how much can be projected from it.

All that said, storming the capitol is jaw-droppingly awful. But it doesn’t take that many folks to make a show out of it.

@nojo: But it doesn’t take that many folks to make a show out of it. Where the MSM is concerned. They need a show to sell those beer and Viagra ads.

@Dodgerblue: And I think it was al2o3cr who pointed out that the recent pro-reform rally didn’t get near the attention of Tuesday’s teabagger blip — even though more warm bodies were involved.

@nojo:

They’re more than welcome to blow off what few Latinos remain with them.

That happens in the van, after the rally.

did you see that crowd?
it’s the bodine family reunion.

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