Cage Match!

Mud wrestling?

Jeez, the only thing sadder sicker funnier than these guys antics is that we know there will be regular recurrances.
Too bad neither qualifies for a bimbo-eruption.

How could we tell the difference?

Which would make Mitch even lonelier, both at home and in the Senate.

I’m thinking that Mitch is already pretty lonely at (his) home.

McConnell and Bunning seem to be this session’s odd couple. I’m hoping Bunning doesn’t leave the race, too. Besides, I can’t imagine Kentucky electing a progressive Senator. The amusement value alone is worth keeping Bunning around.

In the latest installment, he takes shots at McConnell’s leadership, and blames him for the GOP’s remarkable collapse in the Senate:

I agree with him but my idea of Leadership and where to lead the GOP to get more votes is different than his I’m sure.

So what’s the male analog to a wet T-shirt contest? Wet Speedos?

Obama needs to appoint him to something. He’d accept, if only just to piss off Mitchie-poo.

In this case, hopefully wet fully-clothed-with-overcoats.

if the tea leaves that I read are correct, we will wind up with about 36 after this election cycle.

So if leadership means anything, it means you don’t lose … approximately 19 seats in three election cycles with good leadership.”

Did he just reveal the results of the GOP’s own internal polling? If the GOP thinks a 4 seat loss is good next election for them.
I wonder what is a good number for us to expect then?

Chief Federal Dog Catcher?

And hats?

Is this not what inspired the phrase ‘bumping uglies?’

OT
Rachel is giving high praise to Sanchez’s book, as insight into relationship between military, CPA, etc. during the early days in Iraq. We should invite him for a book salon.

Never heard that one before.

doesn’t mean what you might think.

substitute “naughty-bits” for “uglies”, and there you are.

Here’s what the urban dictionary sez.

Nah. Something sports-related, like some blue-ribbon steroid-abuse panel.

Oh, and guess what? Arlen realizes he might be going a bit too far. What was your first clue, dickweed?

yup.

now to banish the thought….

Like the use of ritalin or other performance enhancing drugs in spelling bee contests?

A miracle he didn’t sprain something, reaching back like that.

eCAHNomics provided this link in the last thread. It seems that this is a clarification of what Specter said in that interview. There’s certainly context I hadn’t been aware of before.

No no, he’s a rebel!

fearless prediction:

the MTP tape is gonna last a lot longer than that limp attempt at a retraction.

What’s to be misconstrued about emphatically asserting, twice, that “I never said that I’ll be a loyal Democrat”?

am I going out on a limb here or what?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Between the Weekly World News, the Onion, and Wonkette, who needs the TradMed?

I’m amazed at the notion that PA Democratic voters will eagerly vote for the guy they’ve been desperately trying to get rid of for two decades. I would think they need a lot more than a promise to *not* be a loyal Democrat to put that aside.

He would have to vote just about 100% progressive for me not to vote against his ass next year.

Yeah, I don’t see how the voters will see the switch as anything other than opportunistic to favor himself. It does nothing for the voters. Has he had any real opposition? If so, how did he do? If not, why not?

Grumpy Old Men

he’s against EFCA. Is there any way that a “Democrat” can win in PA without labor backing?

No matter what Specter does, he just makes it worse.

Can’t wait to see his campaign. Off to a rockin start.

I sure hope not. I think the plan was for him to run unopposed, but Sestak and Torsella don’t seem to be on board.

If he loses the unions, Specter will be in trouble. Otherwise, I’m not so sanguine. He has lots of name recognition, and at least some of it is positive.

Another problem is that Tom Ridge may run for the GOP nomination.

I think I might actually prefer Ridge over Arlen…

Turns out that Tom Ridge lives in Maryland.

Josh summed that up pretty well. It’s weird, alright.

Arlen Specter (I[diot]-PA)

Kind of a tossup for me.

Rick Santorum wasn’t a resident either. I’m sure this can be worked out…

Sometimes I think Specter’s losing it.

Other times I just realize it’s the Senate Club and they protect their own no matter what party.

It does seem to me that our beloved overclass is not up to doing its job anymore. Very essential duties of the overclass include 1. keeping the damn wheels from coming off their oppressive, infernal machine (with the wheels off, how do they pay their minions?), and 2. not making themselves appear ridiculous to everyone from 8 to 80 everytime they open their dman mouths. I mean look, those two items are the key, minimum, duties for feasible overclass activties of daily overclass life.

So, we have Bunning, McConnell, and Cornyn (and Boehner and the other House GOP leadership zoo),

Specter. our new disloyal Democrat, who expects Democratic primary voters to like him (for what exactly, who knows?),

A truly hacktacular botch of an attempted pre-emptive hatchet job on a possible Supreme Court nominee that reveals the authors’ incompetence or laziness more than any thing else.

Then you have the banksters… (although, those guys are still dangerous since they have not run through Uncle Suger’s last tranche of funds yet, and have not had enough time to bankrupt themselves again).

What can we say to this decayed and decrepit overclass? U R doing it rong? Or what?

Regular people in the grassroots need to ramp up for 2010 to put another dent in this dying beast, to put it out of its misery before it does more damage.

Just like it worked out for Santorum would be my guess.

That might be a better gig for him. I don’t know what the deadlines are for that sort of thing.

Specter is obviously discombobulated by his change of parties. He is confused about when he is supposed to snarl and what he is supposed to cave-on. But there are so many Democratic Senators that are past masters of snarls and caves that I am sure they will help him and he will soon find his way.

I don’t think Santorum had much real support in PA. Ridge used to, but I don’t know how strong it is now after his stint at DH(I)S. He was way ahead of Toomey in some preliminary polls.

Anyone mention that he is 79 now and would be 81 within a month of the start of the 2011 Congress, i.e. when his possible next term would begin?

Although being way ahead of Toomey probably doesn’t signify much, at least not for the general.

I think the GOP in PA has been distilled down to its wingnutty core, so this may be one of those situations where any Republican who can win in the general won’t be able to get past the primary.

That’s actually his most endearing quality.

Just for fun, Josh’s readers cast roles for Abramoff, The Movie.

Like Lieberman, Specter has been around long enough to know where the bodies are buried. The other senators probably worry that if they don’t support him he’ll drag some of them along on the way down.

You’re right, but that’s the only recent metric I could think of. It’s possible that the local GOP will self-destruct along lines of ideological purity, but assuming it doesn’t, I’d guess it will be Ridge vs. the Democrat right now. Any poll about Ridge vs. anyone else in the state is going to be suspect at this point, since most folks don’t know the other candidates very well. What was interesting about the Ridge/Toomey poll is that Ridge was way out in front – like 35 points or so.

Thing I wonder about Specter is that there has been no connection between his words and acts for years. He may be operating in a strange dissociative state that is hard for people like us to imagine. We should empathize with him and try to understand his situation.

He may have difficulty associating his thought processes, speech acts, and physical actions during Senate votes. Like, he cannot integrate those three concepts into a single identity that would in ordinary circumstance be known to the world as a single person named Arlen Specter.

I am trying to give hime the benefit of the doubt.

I saw a poll that says Ridge would beat Toomey in the PA GOP primary. Maybe the GOP primary voters are more than the bunch of wingnut crazies that everyone has assumed they are. Maybe the non-crazy remnant in the GOP primary voting popualtion is just so sick of Specter saying one thing and doing another, that they cannot bring themselves to vote for him under any circumstances. I can understand that attitude.

Specter, by his very attempt to save his cynical political hide, has initiated a paradigm shift (that is, some one else can hold his seat).

Way I figure it, Specter may have it in him to be a semi-reliable very center-right Democrat, if only we can help him work his way back to understanding his previously disintegrated persona must now function as an integrated whole.

Or, just primary him and beat him in the primary.

I think just primary him and get him out of the Senate is the better route, both in terms of getting things done.

BTW, Specter’s new status as a Democrat got him some extra special notice today (near end).

I meant to type

“both in terms of getting things done, and helping Specter find himself.”

KY (Jelly) Battle Royale…there, ya forgot something.

In a perfect world, I think that we could do without about 96 current Senators. I’d keep Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Whitehouse….

And I figure Al Franken deserves his shot. Other than that, I wouldn’t shed a tear over the lot of them being relegated to burger-flipping.

Interesting point. As a Republican, he would often speak out against Republican bills and policies shortly before voting for them. So maybe he’s going to use the same playbook as a Democrat, after seeing just how much it endeared him to his old team.

I actually was hoping to clean up on misguided Google hits…

That’s a heck of an ‘if’, that’s for sure. I guess I agree with your conclusion, but without much enthusiasm.

I agree, most of the cretins in both chambers are wasting oxygen. Being forced to spend a year living on the income from a minimum wage job would do them all good.

My feeling is that I’d rather have 41 truly progressive Senators than any number of the current crop of Democrats. Over a couple of election cycles, it might be an achievable goal, too. We have about 25 – 30 now (depending on my mood and what vote we’re talking about).

And us.

But, dude, now it seems like he is speaking against his new team, and announcing his plans to act against his new team. And earlier today he said he was *thinking* against his new team (that is, wanting Coleman to win).

So, is there something I am missing here? Why… I mean this dude is still a Republican he just checked off a box so he wouldn’t get his ass beat intot he ground in his own party’s primary. How is this guy a Democrat so far? -its a joke.

The only difference now is that he is not even bothering to go through the motions of making very center-right Democratic type arguments on some important issue. Seems like a lose-lose situation all the way around.

But, then I am not Obama, Reid and Rahmbo, so I am obviously missing some subtle angle here. I guess I don’t appreciate the opportunity to make a show of appearing very centrist and inclusive while everything goes to hell.

Did Kos post something about why we should working for new and much worser Democrats?

Some one help me out on this, please.

But that’s what I’m saying. When he was a Republican, he would speak against the Republicans… but then fall in line. Now that he’s a Democrat, he’s speaking against the Democrats. Question is whether he’ll do the same and fall in line.

I’m betting… no.

Been there, done that. I was in my teens though, so it might not count. Had a lot of dead-end jobs since then, although they paid slightly more than minimum wage. For the past few years I’ve been living on $1000-$1100 a month disability insurance.

(My reasoning is simple: He’s not a contrarian rebel, he’s just an unprincipled wanker.)

Actually, I meant that Congress working minimum wage jobs instead of fucking up the country would be good for us…

If his vote on the cramdown amendment last week is any indication, nothing material has changed about his voting.

“Never mind.”
-Emily Litella

Good idea for Congress, though.

Poor Arlen. We need to beat him in the primary so he can find himself and function as an integrated persona again. It is charity case, but we are liberals, and that is what we do.

Sestak would be good. Looks like he will run. If Specter keeps up this surreal black comedy act, some one will definitely run against him in the primary.

And the Democratic leadership will hate it, so there is another clue it is the smart thing to do, and has a good chance of success.

OT, presently watching Frontline cover the torture scandal and am so literally nauseous from the collective, systemic evil that went on to such a vast degree. Hell isn’t deep enough for Bush, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Cheney … and what is the responsiblity for the rest of us that in our name and with our money these atrocities were justified and committed.

The country had turned skull & bones secret society power and control sadism. Patriarchal authoritarianism. Right now Cheney is on tape sayng what a lucky place our detainees had to enjoy sunny Guantanamo and US detainees were treated well.

It is torture watching this documentary on torture. The monsters among us. Where was the conscience of the members privy to the system to physically and psychologically put people in hell for so long. Scott Peck wrote a book, People of the Lie. These people ran and many still are enmeshed in our government. Group-think. Macho psychotic hubristic group-think.

A policy of “cruelty” to justify saving American lives. Geneva trashed. So much insane bullshit for pure sadism. no honor to law or to history’s lessons.

I am so ashamed of my country. I am so appalled by my country.

Arlen is pulling for Norm Coleman to be seated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05…..f=magazine

(that’s from *today*)

I saw that. If the Dem leadership had any guts they’d give Arlen the bum’s rush tomorrow. Of course, if they had any brains they wouldn’t have accepted him to start with.

No, I didn’t seriously think it would. He’ll continue to be more loyal to the Republicans than most Democrats are to their own party.

And the Democratic leadership will hate it, so there is another clue it is the smart thing to do, and has a good chance of success.

If we’re really lucky, maybe they’ll send some of their top consultants to help his primary campaign.

Mark Penn has been known to run a pretty fine primary….

I found it a little disconcerting that James Carville said if Specter doesn’t vote like a Dem he should be primaried. Can’t recall offhand when Mary Matalin’s better half said something I agreed with.

And I would expect them to have a lot in common ideologically.

I don’t see much difference between Specter and the Blue Dogs. Liars, one and all.

Might as well include Harry Reid in that group.

Can’t recall offhand when Mary Matalin’s better half said something I agreed with.

Has he ever said anything like “God help me – every morning when I wake up, I roll over and see *that face*! And then I shit the bed.” (?)

Probably mutual. Wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have any mirrors in their house. Mary probably doesn’t cast a reflection anyway.

Have you ever see the episode of Family Guy where Peter sees Carville, recoils in horror and exclaims, “Geez, did somebody open the Ark of the Covenant?”

McConnell is a clown.

Weekly World News has its own theory.

Those are pretty nicely done. If clowns didn’t terrify me before, they do now.

It is a striking resemblance.

Dude, writing for WWN would be the most fun gig ever.

Tell me about it. I could never hack it, but it would be so awesome if I could.

Howie Klein has been using these, I think he commissioned them.

I hate the clown.

ratfood, there are times I think Eli IS batboy, but I wouldn’t tell him that.

Careful – I have excellent hearing.

Lisa Derrick’s latest la Figa is promoted!
Red Dawn Re-Do–Now It’s the Chinese

My, what big ears you have.

(that is a cute nose)

Maybe Lucha VaVoom!

BTW I heard these guys did a performance at the White House for Cinco de Mayo today! I’m sure the kids were in bed early.

Ridge probably has a bunker duct-taped somewhere in SW Pennsylvania.

cage match ???

mud wrestling ???

are you DFHs high ??? (I know, dumb question)

we’re talking Kentucky folks

there only 3 or four legal ways to settle this

#1, Banjo contest (or a fiddlin contest)

#2 a whitlin contest

#3 sister kissin contest

#4 duel (guns or knives)

anything else just wouldn’t be consider legsl by teh mountain folk