John Boehner and House Republicans have enjoyed their assassination vacation, but they don’t have time to try out the titles of any other Sarah Vowell books, because they have to spend next week performing their most important legislative achievement of the next two years: pretending they can repeal Obamacare. This is what Gabrielle Giffords would want, after all. She put her life on the line every day, especially when meeting her violent constituents, because she believed she was doing important work, like these pointless exercises. If only that dead nine-year-old could have lived to see this, eh? If only. She would be so proud of her country.
In light of the shootings, the health care debate will be closely watched to see if lawmakers show new restraint after calls from President Obama and many others to bring a more civil tone to political discourse. In his statement, Mr. Dayspring said, “It is our expectation that the debate will continue to focus on those substantive policy differences surrounding the new law.”
Right. Such as how Obama wants to murder all of your family and, more importantly, probably even your precious pets, with socialism.
Democrats will probably even try to defend their health care legislation.
This is not going to be civil. But maybe if we dress everyone up in powdered wigs and morning coats, it will seem like it. Though Louis Gohmert will probably spill orange sherbet all over his, so never mind. [NYT]
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The GOP has promised it will be a 'civil' war.
You mean War of Democrat Aggression.
This time the south can go away and take Texas with it.
What's so civil about war, anyway?
*whistles into rainstorm*
Ah, the War of Lefty Aggression…
They also promised to keep us safe in airport mens rooms. How well did that work out?
That's "War of Liberal Aggression" to you, son.
You mean "The War Between the States" or the "War of Southern/Teabag Independence"
Will Louie Gohmert finally shoot off his mouth?
All snark aside, Jack, this was possibly one of the most poignant and hard-hitting opening paragraphs in Wonking history. I mean, the rest of it was just so-so, typical blather, but, you know. Go Jack!
As Chuck would say "Obama looks like he's got a lot of Nrg in him"
I'd prefer honesty than civility.
"Who votes to repeal slightly useful HC reform and "help" the US America people by letting Health Care Insurance companies rape them because they
a) hate poors
b) are afraid of being poors
c) are paid bitches of the same said BIG Healthcare
d) like to lord basic HC over poors
e) are so blinkered by ideology that they would rather let people suffer than ruin their precious ideas
f) all of the above
say Aye?"
Well, I certainly hope those libruls show restraint this time around, their behavior last go-round was a disgrace,. What with all the shouting at town halls, spitting, calling elected reps racist names, issuing death threats, vandalizing and breaking windows of local politicians offices, I could go on and on. But, yeah, Democrats, "tone".
And form. Remember, the best way to shatter the machismo of a stalwart shotgun wielding defender like Erik Erikson is with the form of a strongly worded letter from a cheese eating surrender monkey.
Maybe if we bring loaded guns to town hall meetings, the conservatives will like us.
It was increasing depressing to see the liberals forcing those signs with Obama portrayed as a witch doctor, etc. into the hands of the peace loving Tea Baggers as they rode their personal mobility vehicles to their assembly areas.
Disgraceful, I tell you.
A-fuckin'-men.
But, "both sides do it" so there really isn't a problem, right?
Freakishlywrong, I want to see you cut and paste that shit in every thread you come across that it's relevant to. People need to hear it.
My only regret is that I have but one thumb to give you.
Hey Boehner….we're paying you assclowns! Quit wasting our time. You know this is a chickenshit vote – you chickenshit.
Your naivete is at once charming and refreshing. You're like, thirteen, right?
they don’t have time to try out the titles of any other Sarah Vowell books,
What do you mean? The Republicans will be attempting to "Take the Cannoli," while the Democrats will play their usual role of "Partly Cloudy Patriots."
And they will all do so as "Wordy Shipmates."
I love her books! Any time is a great time to buy a Vowell! And, of course, then read it…
She has a new one coming out in March about the annexation of Hawaii. Whenever I read her stuff I can hear her voice in my head, making it that much funnier.
Oooh, I hope she has a sentence or two about John Frum!
And the following week they will put blankets over their chairs and pretend it's Fort Apache. Pew pew pew indeed, Jack.
Franklin and I could not agree more with this post.
All governmental activities should be suspended, indefinitely, until the Nation recovers from this horrible tragedy. In fact, more than that: All business activities, including food deliveries, public utilities, and transportation should be suspended to allow all of us to heal.
At most, President Obama should issue an Executive Order requiring all citizens and resident aliens to shave their heads; tear their clothing; smear themselves with ashes; and engage in mass assemblies of public weeping.
Nothing less is sufficient to honor the fallen, and to heal the wounds of the Body Politic. Dear god: A nine-year-old girl is dead!
Cordially,
Eleanor
And here I thought you were supposed to bring teh funny to Wonkette.
Dear LesBontemps:
Franklin and I are confused by your post. Wonkette.com is funny — indeed, hysterically funny — when read properly.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that most of the posters in Wonkettte.com are hysterically funny, etc.
Cordially,
Eleanor
Oooh performance art, how outre! I always wondered how Eleanor would have expressed herself if Franklin had repeatedly run over her head with his wheelchair. That's it, I'm signing you up for a Genius Grant.
Just you wait! I'm working on Franklin Pierce and Grover Cleveland characters right now! I'm already laughing myself silly working up some witty (and spectacularly relevant!) 19th century Democrat humor!
Time to cut the cord with "Cordially," methinks.
That illusion quickly disappears when one reads one of Eleanor's comments.
Dear Elanor,
Please, you and Franklin go engage in mass assemblies of fucking yourselves.
Cordially,
freakish
Madam (presumably),
You are very clumsy at setting up straw men to demolish. While this is a wonderful skill in debate, brazen use of it covers one in embarrassment. I recommend 'A Rulebook for Arguments' by Anthony Weston to assist you.
Helpfully,
Mindblank aka TGY
Actually, I thought she was quite witty.
Dear Gurukalehuru:
I hesitate to intrude on your valuable time. But given your lovely comment, may I ask you to take a moment to vote me some more "P" points?
The negative ones, if you please. I am striving for a record.
The TrueLiberal's distaste for competition notwithstanding, we all should strive for excellence. After all, remember our motto: "From Each According To His Ability, To Each According To Her Need."
Cordially,
Eleanor
Guruk:
(May I call you "Guruk"?)
Are you the one to thank for my BREAKING ONE HUNDRED POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In TrueLiberal Land, that is the equivalent of winning a Hero of Red Labor Medal, or being appointed a Shock Worker Of Liberalism!!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!
(Franklin is soooo proud! It's almost a good as the time he imprisoned all those nasty Japanese, for their own good.)
Cordially,
Eleanor
Well, if you say so, I must reconsider.
This is totally Neilhist, by the way.
oh STFU
somebody needs a Banstabbing.
"Let's have a civil discourse…how about we start by shooting down Death Panels?"
Don't we get a tax rebate if we install Solar Death Panels???
Death panels are nothing new. We had them when I was young. They were called draft boards.
They can have my death panels when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers.
Oh, wait.
So is Boehner going to write his "the Party of Hell No" speech as "the Party of Excuse Me Please But Would It Be Alright If We Agree To Disagree?"
"the Party of Excuse Me Please But Would It Be Alright If We Agree To Disagree about your Job Killing Ploicies?"
fixed.
Ploicies?
Yes, Ploicies is no longer Speaker. She lost. So there!
Nancy Ploicies
The new War On Violence brought to you by the makers of Weapons For Peace.
We will have civility up in this motherfucka or I'll bust a cap in someone's ass.
Under the Republican proposal, Giffords would have been wheeled out to the curb days ago because they consider brain damage to be a normal pre-existing condition, for which treatment is neither covered nor even desired.
Because Rep. Giffords would have wanted the House to repeal the law that she voted for the day after someone threw a brick though a glass door in her Tuscon (sic) office. Or would have if she'd died like NPR promised. Now she needs to resign because she obviously is in no condition to represent the teabaggers in Southern AZ.
Another tea-party pick-up! VICTORY IS SWEET!
Well. Until next time.
I'm afraid to take my children to Washington now that Sarah has informed me that Jews like Eric Cantor will eat them.
Assasination vacation
This is the exact type of inflammatory rhetoric I would expect from the Left…Good job Jack, keep it up. And don't let them tell you it applies to the MLK holiday either.
What exactly is "the Left?"
It's everybody other than those who think there is blood libel against Sarah.
BTW, WTF with me getting downfisted?!?? Do I need to put that "\sarc" craptag on everything or are the breitfart trolls around again?
I think we're being trolled again. I just shoved a thumb up you, so at least you've got a positive balance again.
Tx, nato, we need to be upfisting everything…until our wrists are sore…yeah, that Viagra is strong.
Wonkette is, once again, a WARBLOG.
Gah, it's postcashe Friday again.
They will probably drop her coverage because she is a risk taker.
"Honestly, Boehner and his pals are adopting empty grandstanding as their primary strategy."
Now, to be fair, empty grandstanding is one of their traditional, time-honored, market tested default positions. They've perfected it to an art form.
Yes, not repealing Obamacare will be one of Boner's biggest legislative achievements in the new Congress.
I suggest the lawmakers try, "The Wordy Shipmates". They could learn about planning and how Reagan stole from John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity"
Oh, and I could gay marry that alt-text. Just sayin'.
Getting shot because of your vote on Health care bills changes your whole perspective on how to vote repealing it eh?
I can't believe, given the circumstances of the last week, that Obama would show off his guns like that.
Haha, yes, there is no better way to honor Giffords than to repeal the health care legislation that she voted for.
To say nothing of the medical care she will require for the rest of her life.
Great name for her books. They are one strenuously long Vowel movement.
Intellectual Metamucil.
The sad part is that in thinking we're all really stupid they are, essentially, correct.
Unfortunately, a lot of us ARE really stupid.
Oh yeah. Stupid like a fox!
Remember the conspiracy, wonkeratti: Don't respond to trolls and help them on their way to peeing to glory. Thumbs down and move on. Nothing to see here but an annoying dickwad who manages to find Eleanor Roosevelt mumbling incomprehensible babble as humor.
Like toddlers throwing tantrums and the zombie Xians of the Westboro (not a real) Church. Ignore them and they will go away.
Unless, of course, an editor would see it his way to banhammer these fuckers.
Some trolls are fun. Others are just banal.
it's just neilist. be glad he's not shooting up the place.
"My" the wonket is screwing around with the reply function. Or Jack hates me. Hate that troll, Jack, not us grandmotherly types who love you.
So it's not just me? OK then.
"Reply" has eated most of my surely to be upfisted comments for the last week. Alas, my pee has suffered.
At least you broke 100. I've been commenting on this site since 1994, and can I hit over 95? No siree.
I can only fist one time.
It is a delightful, shapely fist, howeverz.
Oh, so it's not just me. But in my case, no great loss.
To leaven the tone, at this year's State of the Union, the Republicans will instruct from the gallery, "You prevaricate!"
You dissemble!
You confabulate!
I dropped my monocle into my snifter of Cognac, guffawing at that statement. Huzzah, good sir/madam!
The solution to the civility deficit is simple. All Congress needs to do is watch Question Time in the British Parliament. They savage each other brutally, but they are polite about it.
"Would the right honorable gentleman from Northwichshire-Upon-Tynebouroughhampton kindly explain why his brain is filled with lemur feces?"
Problem solved, no?
Civility to our tards is akin to that of Saddam's executioner suggesting, and then doing same after the hangee's approval, that by wrapping the refused hood around Hussein's neck prior to placing the noose that the discomfort of some rope burn could be avoided.
Did he explain?
It only works if they adopt british accents, though. Or, for our southern Members, end everything with "Bless your heart."
We all need a little less inflammation right about now.
They're smart like Fox.
Keep it up, you tone deaf dickless douchebags — you're doing great!
You can be as bitchy as you like, but you keep forgetting the Republicans have a plan for health care too…..
Wait, Obama Care is basically the Republican plan…. Oops.
That ship has been stranded on a sandbar for years. Don't tell the captain. He just emerged from his quarters and thinks they've discovered a new world which looks exactly like the old one!
At least they can hide behind the sympathetic backlash (oxymoron?) of the attempted assassination as the thwarting principle of their legitimate fight to repeal the Obama mandation. Instead of losing simply for the toddler tantrum that it is.
No current can budge it and no budget can turn it.
Republicans will soften the blow by declaring that the existence of a head is not a pre-existing condition for people seeking insurance coverage after being shot in the head.
Jesus, the only reason that Republicans want this health care repeal to go forward is so they can indulge in incivility. There is no other reason. They know it will end up as a 'loss' for them on the big board, but the act of debating it will be the best thing ever!
The debate on the floor will include angry denunciations of abortion, claims that end-of-life care provisions are murder the terminally sick, implications that SOCIALISM is takin' over, calls for a gov't based on the BIBLE and CONTITUTION, &c. They will be like pigs in shit, just cold talkin' about their retarded political philosophy, endlessly, until we all die from complications related to that time we got a Lego in our ear when we were 5 years old.
Hmm. Seems like their stated priorities like deficits or jobs get shelved pretty fast when a chance to pointlessly drama-whore over a bill they can't change comes up. Surely this can't be related to their total lack of a useful alternative on any major issue, because that would mean they never really gave a fuck about their own country to begin with … & that is unpossible. 9/11!
I can't understand why Boner doesn't go all the way. Why not repeal Cancer, unemployment, AIDS and world hunger while he's at it? It will accomplish just as much as the single vote against Obama Care, every bit as much. And Unicorns, I want Unicorns, too!
We need those death panels job killers and the death tax. And we need to apply them.
Love the picture–especially the short sleeved uniform top the nurse is wearing. And GREAT hair–I would let her poke me with a needle one million times if I could wear her uniform and run my fingers through her luxuriant blond tresses.
They can't stand the size of your pee-ness.
I think it's time to repeal the mandatory glue huffing for republicans
In 2011, we're gonna take back our pre-existing conditions and die freely with–and from–them! Yay!
Goooooooooooooly!
Look at it this way, they waste enough time on this, they won't be able to do anything about the jobs situation. After the last time the Republiklans held the House, I'm not sure if the American working class can afford anymore of their help in creating jobs.
— [A]ddressing national problems would be one way to live up “to the thoughts and aspirations of those that were involved in this tragic event.” —
Such as the aspiration to be able to pay for medical care for your bullet wounds without health insurance.
Btw, do those six dead victims have thoughts, no less aspirations? Just asking.
All your replies are belong to IntenseDebate.
I sure hope I qualify for the Blessed Sacred Mother of all Sorrows HMO Tom Coburn Dr. No Comprehensive Plan..
Heeelp..Our President is disappearing. he must have lost 50 lbs last year. he must top 101 by now. Look at him, nothing but bones.
Republicans promised the trailer people that they would lose their social security checks if they elect them. They actually like that idea, obviously.
Altho as a daemoncrat, she was still considered high risk to contracting the dreaded "Teahadi Freedumb Hole-iosis", so only the exit wounds are covered. Deathpanels also, too.
Remember The Fallen … because now that they've fallen, it's so much easier to kick them in the face. Also, pay no attention to the
crosshairsbanana-peel behind the curtain! The Mighty Emo Tangerine Boner has spoken!I just took another handful of ibuprofen and robaxin, so my wrists should be good for a while. I'm supposed to stop with the thumb once I hit prostate, right?
I was thinking more at the splenic flexure.
♫ ♫ Surgeon's World, Surgeon's Girl ♫ ♫
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