The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Hail, CPAC! Silly Season is Upon Us. Can Spring be Far Behind?

    By Ramona on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 10:38am | Politics, Humor & Satire
     

    To this liberal there is no more fun in the world than when CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) comes to Virtual Town.  I look forward to the two-day conference every year and I'm never disappointed. Best comedy show ever!
     

    Photo:  Media Matters

     This year's roster includes all the usual Biggies:  Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie (Wait. . .seriously?),  Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Jim deMint, Mike Huckabee, Wayne LaPierre, and lastly but not leastly--not in his eyes, anyway--Donald Trump.  (Inside, but not on the front page:  Newt Gingrich, Ralph Reed, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Grover Norquist, Michele Bachmann, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and a star-studded cast of delightfully daffy dozens.)

    A few of the workshop titles (Full PDF schedule here):

     

    • More Guns, Less Crime:  How Law Enforcement is Beginning to Embrace a Well-Armed Civilian Population.
    •  
    • Healthcare After ObamaCAre:  A Practical Guide for Living When No One Has Insurance and America Runs Out of Doctors
    •  
    • Conservative Journalism:  From Benghazi to the IRS - A Layman's Guide to Covering "Phony Scandals" New Media Style.  Sponsored by TownHall Regnery Publishing 
    • [Ed Note:  Is that an admission that they are, in fact, "phony scandals"?  I think so!  Remember, you read it here first.]


    There will be a  book signing by former candidate Christine O'Donnell. (Remember her?  She is still not a witch.)  Also one by Newt's current wife, Callista.  And one by Ann Coulter.  (I'm swooning.  Bring on the smelling salts. Can this be Heaven?)

    Ted Cruz is speaking right now, as I write this, and he has his McCarthy face on.  He's got the voice down pat, and you gotta hand it to him--he could be teaching Demagoguery 101.  He's that good.  Already I'm hearing "first amendment rights" and "second amendment rights".  I should just stop watching.  I'll never get anything done.

    So, since I have a busy day today, I'm going to pull myself away from this.  If anything really exciting/hilarious happens in the next couple of days I'll put my reporting cap back on and bring it to you posthaste and pronto. 

    For your further entertainment,  I've written about past CPACs here, here and here.   I don't know--those guys just tickle my funny bone.  I get an even bigger kick out of the fact that it's not my funny bone they're after, but, no matter how hard they try, that's as much as they're ever going to get from me.

    Topics: 
    Politics
    Humor & Satire

    Comments

     

    After opening his address by joking that “by virtue of your being here today, tomorrow, each and every one of you is going to be audited by the IRS,” Cruz said Republican “got walloped” in the 2006, 2008 and 2010 elections because they followed the advice of “DC consultants” who “say if you stand for principle, you lose elections.” He joked, “Of course, all of us remember President Dole and President McCain and President Romney.” While he respected those failed candidates, said Cruz, “When you don’t stand for principle, Democrats celebrate.”

     

    I would hope that Senor Cruz is correct in his prognostication; that all CPAC visitors are audited; and that they all lose interest and principle!


    by Richard Day on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 12:44pm

    I am so starved for political conversation that I often find myself watching "Morning Joe", even though it usually gets me so riled up, I want to scream at the television at 6:00 AM, which is not good when you live in a co-op apartment.  Today, to 'celebrate' the start of CPAC, they had on Jim DeMint, the smarmy ex-Senator who decided it was a step up for him to go from being a member of 'the world's greatest deliberative body', to be the head of a craven think tank / lobbying group ... Anyway, Mr. DeMint also was hawking his new book.  It is the usual formulaic America is blah, blah, blah and we need to blah, blah, blah.  In his screed ... errr, interview, however, I noticed something new;  he was suddenly talking about the evils of the trickle-down theory.  Of course, to Mr. DeMint the trickle down theory was now re-defined to refer to the greedy Government that wants to control everything and nothing ever trickles down to the poor middle class people.  I almost threw my couch through the television. (If I could have lifted it, which I can't, but never mind that.)  I suddenly saw in that short interview, the Republican playbook for the next three years;  they are going to re-define every buzz word that the Democrats have used successfully and every argument they are losing, and keep pounding away that the words and concepts mean exactly the opposite.    I can't stand it.   I want a vicious plague to wipe the entire GOP off the face of the earth.  Is that too much to ask of a caring, benevolent God?

     


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 12:58pm

    This is the third time I have returned to this comment.

    hahahahahahahahh

    I have not read a thoroughly thought-out rage presented this magnificently in a long time.

    I have not even written such a thoughtful rage in years.

    hahahaha

    I hereby render unto Mr. Smith the Dayly Comment of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site given to all of him from all of me.

    I mean, I cannot stop laughing and unless I skipped something in your rant, I fail to find a swear word.

    hahahahahah

    Our Resident Poet has gone ballistic. And good for him.

    hahahahahahah

    As an aside, the only reason I have been skipping Mornin Joke is because of Mika; I cannot stand her voice. hahahahahaha And besides it is just retread of Hannity and Colmes like my favorite Senator used to write about. hahahahah

    I could go on and on like I usually do.

    That's enough for now; except I must inform you that I cannot stop laughing.

    I MEAN A COUCH INTO A TV? hahahahaha


    by Richard Day on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 3:22pm

    http://www.redstate.com/diary/moe_lane/2010/08/26/talking-points-memo-denies-role-in-carnahan-firebombing/

    Maybe this "belongs" here...

    Did anyone ever discuss this?

    For some reason, the name Ripper McCord has stuck in my mind and popped out the other day when talking with my wife.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 3:54pm

    Wow, that's some heavy-duty conspiracy theory stuff.


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 4:49pm

    I found plenty evidence at the time (on like, journalism sites) that suggested that TPM was just being afraid of having to spend money on expensive lawyering up, hence they just said nothing for a while, like any average attorney would advise anyone to do, until cleared of any possible liability or involvement. Probably scared by a subpoena for all the information they had on him and also questioning was probably requested.

    My big picture takeaway thoughts at the time: one important role that big funded media like the NYT can play that scrappy little news organizations can't: they are already lawyered up with top First Amendment people and other fancy lawyers. So something along the lines of a lousy little FBI subpeona doesn't scare them into silence until they know wassup. They just go and try to figure wassup before the law enforcement will even tell them wassup, consequences be damned, even if they are more involved than just a registered user of their site.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 5:23pm

    Yes, we've talked about this before, I think, but I don't quite understand why this post reminded you of it.


    by Ramona on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 5:43pm

    It didn't really, but it seemed like a good place to put it because of the CPAC=Red State connection. I'm working with this guy whose last name is McCord, and I kept wanting to call him Ripper McCord. I knew that name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. I thought maybe he was a movie character. So I Googled him and came up with this.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 8:22pm

    Totally bananas. Except not healthy or appetizing.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Thu, 03/06/2014 - 9:17pm

    At CPAC, Paul Ryan told a story of a little boy who didn't want free school lunches, preferring brown bag lunches from home. The story implied that the little boy felt that the free school lunches were from an impersonal government while the brown bag was a sign of food prepared by parents who cared. Ryan was justifying cutting school lunch programs.

    Ryan said that the story was told to him by Eloise Anderson,  a Black Wisconsin GOP state administrator and former welfare recipient. It turns out that the story comes from a book written by a White female former business executive who helped a young Black child who was panhandling.The message of the book was how individual citizens can impact the lives of those less fortunate. The author thinks that cutting school lunch programs is not the right thing to do.

    Ryan tried to use a story to bolster the rationale for letting kids starve,. Eloise Anderson either has a parallel life to the author of the book "Invisible Thread", Laura Schroff,  or Anderson is not telling the truth.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 12:24am

    I watched that clip in total disbelief.  Paul Ryan takes "clueless" to whole new levels.  Couldn't he see right from the start that his analogy made no sense at all?  The thing that will finally get the government off the hook from having to deal with hungry kids is--awwwww--loving parents who care enough to pack a good school lunch. 

    There. 

    All done.

    Fairy Tales Do Come True. . .


    by Ramona on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 7:41am

    Ted Nugent is a respected icon on the right. Wayne LaPierre salivates at Black youth getting gunned down. Rand Paul goes to educate the darkies at Howard and can't remember the guy he supposedly admires. Darrell Issa disrespects one of the most mild manners people in Congress. Paul Ryan wants children to starve. Conservatives express admiration for Vlad Putin, a dictator. Is there any wonder why the majority of a Black voters reject the GOP?

    Robert Woodson, a Black Conservative activist, was on a minority outreach panel at CPAC. Woodson had to tell his fellow panelists that Blacks were voting for Democrats because Blacks wanted government gifts. Blacks wanted jobs. By the way, the degree of interest in minority outreach at CPACwas demonstrated by the fact that the room was literally empty.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 9:17am

    Saw that.  The speaker went over his time and the room began filling, and filling and filling.  Soon it was at capacity.  Wayne LaPierre was coming in next.  Oh, well.


    by Ramona on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 11:00am

    Well, Daily KO's presents this awesome picture of a hall dedicated by the repubs to Racial Outreach?

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 5:46pm

    49 years ago today was the first attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in support of voting rights. The response to the march was a brutal assault by Alabama law enforcement. The current crop of Conservatives are using political maneuvering to prevent people from voting. These modern Conservative are less brutal physically but equally brutal in their goal of keeping specific groups of people from voting.

    The people at CPAC don't care about outreach. They don't want Blacks and other minorities to vote. 

    The disrespect directed at Elijah Cummings by Darrell Issa has been supported by Boehner and the rest of the House GOP who voted to table an effort by The Black Caucus to have Issa reprimanded. Cummings was just too uppity.

     


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 8:52pm

    KO's are far left--to some anyway--but damn they sure got the picture, as they say, on this one.

    Of course CPAC has no interest in OUTREACH. hahahahahah

    Oh and the Issa thingy...what is most marvelous about that little scene was that Elijah aint takin no shite from that .....oh I am not going to swear. hahahahah

    I love Cummings, I have always loved Cummings and what a great statesman to have on a level to take care of hypocritical lying frauds like Issa!

    Sometimes, out protocols work!

    My God, I love Representative Cummings.


    by Richard Day on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 10:10pm