Free Advice for Republicans Courting the Tea Party Voters

Filed under:Jerks,Language Barrier,Politics — posted by Anwyn on June 13, 2011 @ 10:15 am

Don’t answer like this Republican when asked why he’s careful to state that he’s a Republican, not a Tea Party candidate. (And, of course, don’t let your deputies grab the camera of a citizen blogger who is asking the candidate questions. Personally, I find this blogger’s manner in asking questions and narrating his video highly irritating, but that’s no excuse either. Jim Holden, as a displaced Hoosier, I’m ashamed of you.)

But back to the political advice: When you’re a Republican stating from the platform at a Tea Party rally that you’re a Republican, not a Tea Party candidate, and when somebody asks you why you’re overtly distancing yourself from the Tea Party at a Tea Party rally:

1) Saying, as you did, that the Tea Party doesn’t actually have any candidates on the ballot and so you couldn’t run as a Tea Party candidate if you wanted to is okay, but we already know you wouldn’t even if you could, so that doesn’t advance the ball all that much.

2) Saying, as you did, that there are people who would like to “paint” you as a Tea Party candidate gives your game away–that you are trying too hard to walk the line and really do want to keep your distance. So–

3) You should say the following: “Because the Tea Party folks don’t want a bandwagon-hopper. I’ve been a Republican [for X years], long before the Tea Party came into being. I admire the things they stand for such as [X, Y, Z], and my mission here is to show them that I share and support those positions and hope to get their votes for the U.S. Senate. But it would be dishonest to identify myself wholly with the Tea Party, and the Tea Party itself wouldn’t like it if they thought I was trying to cash in on their movement. I’m a Republican who admires the Tea Party and agrees with many of their positions, and I hope they will see that I’m the best candidate to advance those positions in the Senate.”

When even I can see what the answer should have been, you’re heading toward a FAIL.

Andrew Klavan is Wrong

Filed under:Jerks,Politics — posted by Anwyn on June 6, 2011 @ 12:57 pm

On women, regarding Weinergate, written by Andrew Klavan and linked with a Read the Whole Thing by the Instapundit:

I blame women. No, really. Women — by which I mean each and every single member of the female gender — you know who you are — need look no further than themselves to explain why Weiner-types behave toward them in this fashion. We men are always hearing complaints from women about how badly we treat them, what pigs we are, how pushy and abrasive… on and on. But what these same women conveniently fail to mention is that this stuff really works on them!

I’m angry about Klavan’s offhanded blaming of “each and every single member of the female gender,” which he then qualifies with “you know you are”–why would we need to know who we are if he is blaming every member of the sex regardless? But that’s beside the point. The point is that it is only THOSE WOMEN, the ones who fell into bed with the Governator or eagerly solicited dirty pics from a congressman or even didn’t eagerly solicit then but played along in accepting them, that he should be talking about blaming for the reprehensible behavior of these men. Does he even think women who don’t like this stuff exist? We do exist. And if he even grants that we exist, does he think we’ve never had men approach us like this? He’s wrong. We have. And we have shot them down in disgust.

I’ve spent way too much time online ever since college and I’ve seen this more times than I can count, first in the I-don’t-know-you-but-let’s-just-talk-dirty-awhile way and then in cases where I actually have known the men offline. At least one man I was attracted to for his smarts, humor, and articulate, pointed reasoning spent a lot of time trying to get down in the dirt of online sex-baiting with me. That fizzled, at least partly because I tried to simultaneously like him as a person, be attracted to him, and yet not play that dirty-talk game too much. There have been a few other men who I could tell were staying away from me because I would not play their type of game. There was a man in college who tried to ask me out after previously being shot down by my roommate. Why did we both reject him? Because we knew this was the kind of “dating” he was into–sleazy and fast, in every sense of the word.

These men are into sex and its pre-actual-sex trappings and flirtings; they do not, as Klavan plaintively says, just want women to love them, much less just one woman to love them or even one at a time. There are different varieties of men with different styles of approaching women, and there are different varieties of women with different styles of reception to men’s different approaches. I am not a feminist and usually don’t get mad about most high-level characterizations of group-wide behaviors, but this one is dead wrong. This is not a group-wide behavior; it is men who act this way seeking out and gleefully latching onto multiple individual women who are receptive to it.

Klavan should be ashamed of himself for stating straightforwardly that all women like this kind of garbage and that’s why men do it. All women don’t, and that’s not why some men do it. Those men do it to gratify their own urges, and they just have to look around for women who are open to it. And when you’re a celebrity, even the weird kind of political celebrity that is a congressperson, you have a much wider field to look around in. And as a side note, when you are a politician, what are the odds that a woman might be “open” to this kind of thing precisely for the purpose of getting you in trouble later? It’s a trump card. But Andrew Klavan seriously states without a glimmer of LOL that All Women like this, that this is why these piggy men do it, period. And the refutation is right there in Klavan’s own piece: “…why Weiner-types behave toward them in this fashion.” Weiner-types? Oh, so it’s not each and every single member of the male gender who behaves this way? And yet, it IS each and every member of the female gender who encourages and causes it? No, Andrew Klavan, the answer to that is no. The answer you gave is wrong. You fail on both bottom line and reasoning.

With Apologies to Schoolhouse Rock

Filed under:Jerks,Politics,Priorities — posted by Anwyn on March 10, 2011 @ 10:04 am

I’m just a bill; yes I’m only a bill,
But if they vote for me on Capitol Hill,
Well, then, the protesters there will go completely insane.
They’ll lock the doors and enter through the window pane
And try to keep me from becoming law–
How I hope and pray that I will,
But today, I am still just a bill.

This Passes for “Education?”

Filed under:Jerks,Oh Hell No,Politics,Priorities,WTF? — posted by Anwyn on May 20, 2010 @ 6:55 am

[The teacher] planned to base final exams on the Michael Moore film, “Sicko“.

A single conservative student objected and also says that her teacher called her a “teabagger” earlier in the year, during a different controversy. But what manages, incredibly, to bother me even more than the choice of movie and the public insult of a student by her teacher, is this:

…Blessman distributed to students in her Senior Literature and Composition class…

So for a Literature and Composition class, the final was … a movie.

The teacher should have been fired before anybody discovered she was pushing her odious political bias on her students. She should have been fired when it was discovered she is not a teacher of literature and composition. Good luck getting that done now.

Dear National Republican Party

Filed under:It's My Life,Jerks,Politics — posted by Anwyn on March 19, 2010 @ 8:35 pm

As an organization, you are sucking the suck right now. You have called my house every night this week. Being perfectly able to read the words “political call” on my caller ID, I didn’t answer until tonight. Thus the calls got later and later until tonight’s came at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night. So I picked it up just to stop the hounding. I didn’t actually say “Hello?” though. I waited to see if you would say anything. Your computer system is pretty good; it didn’t put a person through to me until I actually said something, to which your witty response was “Uh huh!”

Me: “Who’s calling, please?”

Female drone: “May I please speak to Anwyn?”

Me: “Speaking.”

Female drone: “Mrs. Anwyn, I’m calling on behalf of the Republican Party. Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat?”

Me: “I’m a Republican.”

Her: “Mrs. Anwyn, I’m very glad to hear that. This is a critical time right now for the blah blah blah Obama blah blah health care–”

Me: “I’m sorry–” This would have been followed by “but are you with the national Republican organization or the local one?” had you not HUNG UP the second the words “I’m sorry” were out of my mouth.

That’s right. YOU called ME and then HUNG UP when I wouldn’t go along with your script. You are not interested in me beyond my money. That’s just reality, but at least learn how to disguise it.

Republican Party, quit relying on idiots to represent you. Stop sucking the suck.

A Question for Crazy People

Filed under:Ew,Jerks — posted by Anwyn on September 7, 2009 @ 10:12 pm

If your name were “Squitiro,” wouldn’t you probably go ahead and take your husband’s name, even if it was “Funkhouser?”

No, wait. You’re crazy.

Allah Getting Huge Kick Out of Baiting at Least Two-Thirds of His Readers

Filed under:Ew,Jerks,Not Cool,Politics,Uncategorized — posted by Anwyn on June 24, 2009 @ 5:24 pm

The third that hates Huckabee with a fiery passion and the third that loves him with a … fiery white passion. Don’t mess with me, punk.

One Wonders How He Really Feels about the Revolutionary War

Filed under:Church of Liberalism,History,Jerks,Language Barrier,Politics,Priorities,Sad — posted by Anwyn on June 23, 2009 @ 8:47 am

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs spouts what keeps recurring as an especially jarring note in Obama’s mealy-mouthed nothings over the fraud and violence in Iran:

“He’ll continue to speak out in support of those that are seeking to demonstrate and do so in a way peacefully,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told FOX News.

Obama said this himself a few days ago:

What you’re seeing in Iran are hundreds of thousands of people who believe their voices were not heard and who are peacefully protesting and – and seeking justice. And the world is watching. And we stand behind those who are seeking justice in a peaceful way.

We “stand behind” and “speak out” only for those seeking to topple their violent, repressive, tyrannical government in a “peaceful” way. Because that’ll probably work, no?

Only two explanations occur to me for this particular idiocy. Either Obama really is of the no-exceptions “peace at any price” camp, an enemy of the freedom we enjoy in this country, which was bought with blood, or else he simply is too dim to understand that in Iran and places like it, fradulent elections don’t simply mean that one party yelps about it for a while and then it’s back to business as usual, complete with a peaceful transition. They mean that a party that has no qualms about ordering its thugs to kill its own people will stay in power with their thumbs, bootheels, and various other metaphorical appendages planted squarely on the metaphorical throats of the very real people. And while I think he’s dim, I don’t think he’s quite that dim. Which just makes him, potentially, very wicked. There’s nothing like protesting protests in the name of “peace” to confuse well-intentioned people into believing that what they want isn’t important enough to break the peace. And then, to quote one of C.S. Lewis’s less savory characters, one would have carte blanche.

Via Xrlq.

But He Tries to Be a Good Person in Other Aspects of His Life

Filed under:Authors,Jerks,Priorities,Wacky Oregon — posted by Anwyn on June 19, 2009 @ 10:03 am

So that gives him a pass on calling soccer moms “brainless” and claiming people who live in the suburbs have “little to do and everywhere to drive.” Guess those soccer moms should’ve gotten off the highway and let him pass on his important business of, one hopes, leaving the state as quickly as possible.

His most recent story follows 17-year-old James Hoff through his troubling junior year of high school. He rants and raves about environmentalism and how we are all killing ourselves with our rolling smog machines. As he rages against society and capitalism, he yearns for the love of his ex-girlfriend Sadie. James’ soft side is slowly revealed in between his humorous rants.

One day after a mall visit he writes, “I love the rumor that the air in the malls is oxygen enriched to make you stupid and make you buy stuff. Why are you there if you’re not stupid and going to buy stuff?”

Soccer moms: Brainless. Mall shoppers: Stupid. Check-check.

As Nelson worked to craft the character and came up with the book’s unique narrative style (it is told as a series of journal entries, school essays and internet postings) he began to relate to his angry teenage character.

“The kind of stuff the guy does in the book is the stuff I did in high school,” he said. “I really felt like I was that kid. I was really in his brain.”

You mean, the author who thinks people who don’t live as he does are stupid can relate to a fictional teenager who thinks people who live the way he doesn’t want to are stupid? Pretty profound, you pretentious L.A. jerk.

How d’ya Like Your Commander-In-Chief, Boys?

Filed under:Jerks,Not Cool,Politics — posted by Anwyn on April 27, 2009 @ 10:21 pm

How’d you like to be that fighter jock who buzzed his F-16 over Manhattan today?

How’d you like to be the pilot of that AF-1?

How do you like knowing that the NOTUS calls your shots?

How do you like your Commander-In-Chief? I feel for you, I really do. Sign up to protect America and spend your afternoon recreating New York’s worst nightmare. For a photo op.

Sleep tight, Caldera. Heckuva job, you colossally self-important airhead.


For Smart People, You’re Awfully Damn Dumb

Filed under:Jerks,Politics,Priorities,Sad — posted by Anwyn on March 31, 2009 @ 9:12 pm

Auto execs who flew their corporate jets to DC to shill for taxpayer money for stockholder corporations? Dumb. Bankers and financial gurus who insisted certain businesses were too big to be allowed to fail? Dumb.

You shilled for all that taxpayer money and honestly didn’t believe it would have government filaments unbreakably attached to every single dollar? Really? You didn’t consider the possibility of Obama handing you your marching orders every day from now on? Really?

God, are you dumb.

I’d rather be the one to be telling you what to do, since it’s my money, but hey, it’s some untraceably small percentage, so my elected representatives whom I didn’t vote for get to tell you what to do instead. Isn’t it fun to get barrels of money from an apparently limitless well?

God, are you dumb. Our country’s economy may die, and if it does, your hands were on the stake through its heart.

Buy Honda. And Toyota and Nissan. And Hyundai. And Mercedes and BMW and Volvo and Volkswagen. Drive the government out of the car business. And hoard your cash and drive them out of the banking and financial services business, too. Out.

And, Just Like Clockwork:

Filed under:Jerks,Not Cool,Politics,Priorities — posted by Anwyn on February 6, 2009 @ 3:10 pm

Liberals who advocated unrestricted abortion in the name of government butting out of “reproductive freedom” and universal health care start demanding that the government dictate who may have babies and how many since, after all, with universal health care, we’re all paying for it.

That would be why the smarter among us keep howling NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to universal health care. Duh.

Via Ace.

Note to “Moderate Republicans”

Filed under:Jerks,Politics — posted by Anwyn @ 3:04 pm

One hundred billion out of an eight- or nine-hundred-billion bill is not “moderate.” It is “turncoat.” If this passes and prolongs seven-percent unemployment, which it will, on your heads be it, Snowe, Collins, and Specter.


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image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace