I use the term “bi-curious” to denote folks who make friendly explorations into the birther issue. Representative Yoho sponsored a “birther bill” in Congress, previously earning for himself that distinction.
Now the New York Times takes Yoho to task for ignorant remarks about the economy. The Times wrote:
Representative Ted Yoho, a freshman Florida Republican who had no experience in elective office before this year, said the largest economy on earth should learn from his large-animal veterinary practice.
While the Times didn’t mention Yoho’s flirtation with birtherism, it was not lost on Salon.com, quick to repeat the Times story with the birther connection.
If you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
And birther is a special kind of stink that don’t wash off! Once you get enough of it on you, your political career is pretty much done. Even if you manage to keep your job, your peers will just sort a put a potted plant in front of you, in the hope that no one notices you sitting there.
The fact that they truly are ignorant imbeciles — ignorant of history, economy, foreign affairs, etc. — is bad enough, but they loudly proclaim their ignorance before a world aghast that these people are in effect part of your ruling class.
I’m too young to remember the McCarthy era, but I’m certain the coverage of the US was more positive during the Viet-Nam and Nixon than it is today.
It is appalling.
from the miami herald:
“Yoho’d:” The newest contribution to the political lexicon and FL’s cast of congressional characters
Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/10/yohod-the-newest-contribution-to-the-political-lexicon-and-fls-cast-of-characters.html#storylink=cpy
read especially “what top business leaders and economists have said about the economic impact of failing to pay our nation’s bills”
Also it’s not like it hasn’t happened before:
http://www.ibtimes.com/debt-ceiling-2013-lessons-last-time-us-defaulted-1410778
They have no knowledge or memory of history.
In many respects, it wasn’t. And often with good reason. A much larger segment of our population was like today’s neandercons: ignorant of the history and culture of other countries, and unjustifiably arrogant. There was a _lot_ of resentment of our use of “Third World” countries as battlefields in proxy wars with the Soviets, and our willingness to support almost any dictator, no matter how vile, as long as he claimed to be “anti-Communist”.
I remember Baby Boomers in the 60s and 70s sewing Canadian flag patches on their jackets and/or luggage before they travelled abroad to avoid the stigma associated with being American.
I think most of the world saw us as doing more good than harm, most of the time, in most places. But we did a lot of nasty things, too (mostly in the prosecution of the Cold War), for which some still haven’t forgiven us.
A lot of the anti-American feeling of the Dubya era was a result of seeing his policies in the War on Terra as a return to the Cold War attitudes.
The scary part is that we have a significant number of people in Congress who really believe that refusing to raise the debt ceiling is no big deal.
The question is, does John Boehner really want to be remembered as the Speaker of the House who presided over this fiasco?
Well, Lupin, I’m sure you are correct in calling the U.S.A. political nutters behavior, “appalling”, but the foreign press’ coverage of that behavior is no less than this country deserves for its general complacency for so long in letting a small minority of anti-social right wing intellectuals cobble together a voting coalition of ignorant and superstitious folk whose votes against their own self-interests, and ultimately,the strategic interests of the nation, can consistently be harvested by cleverly inserting into every election, a handful of bullet issues – abortion, sexual orientation, racism, firearm ownership etc, and asserting that every vote in every one of those elections should be steered by an eruption of moral outrage as scripted by the simple slogan-based narrative these politicians feed to poorly informed citizens.
It saddens me to say that the World has a right to know for its own protection, that our government can be significantly taken over by the fruits of such cynical tactics.
I can only speak for the French Press, and rely on possibly rose-tinted memories of my youth, but the French Press in general gave more credit to Nixon than it gave to Bush — rightly so IMHO, because a, Nixon was smarter when it came to foreign policy, and b, there was the real threat of the Soviets to balance the use of US power.
My perception, of course.
Bush was so appalling that he virtually guaranteed Obama his Nobel prize, no matter how undeserved. But I don’t think people saw it as the “sane folks vs the lunatics”.
What i see today is people seriously asking questions and looking at the US the way they would look at, say, Zimbabwe. (Sorry for the racist comparison.)
Honestly, IMHO, this is the worst PR I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Lyndon B. Johnson: “They may be bastards, but they’re our bastards.”
“If you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”
Please. You don’t know how hurt Angel was, when I read that to her. She sleeps next to me.
She is the luckiest Afghan in the world. She goes to the groomer once a month, for a bath, human conditioner and dog cologne. Then she gets a Revolution treatment – available only by prescription.
As a registered service dog, she goes into restaurants, taxis, on trains and flies next to me in the cabin.
Right now, she has her head on my pillow, imitating me.
Remember, dog backwards spells god.
Both of my degrees are from schools in Buffalo. Whenever my classmates went to Toronto for the weekend, they would put Canadian flag pins on their jackets.
Know how bad it got? One night I went with my girlfriend to a Toronto Fuller’s – a Canadian version of Denny’s. When I went to my car with NY plates, two others had parked their cars literally one inch from my front and rear bumpers, and the rest of the street was almost empty.
It took me at least a half-hour to extricate my car. I had a stick shift, so I touched bumpers, and popped the clutch.
USA! USA!
I’m still a better driver than Mitt Romney:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085412/The-shocking-pictures-Mitt-Romney-died-young-Mormon-missionary.html
The difference between my cat and God is that my cat doesn’t think it’s God.
Bi-curious …. no good IMO. Wrong connotations. Maybe “birfurious” or “disingenius”. What would the birther version of “lipstick lesbian” be? Wait, that’s not right either, we’re not talking about someone pretending to be what they aren’t, but rather pretending not to be what they are. Thus, “disingenius”.
It is humorous to see a loon, very conspicuously sticking his toe in the water, when he’s already constantly, and consistently, soaked. Only a coward–or a person with an incentive to try to pass in disguise–tests for acceptance before declaring his convictions.
Well, the term I would use to describe people like Yoho wouldn’t make it through the swear filter. So i’ll just go with the blanket term “idiot”.
Yoho is quickly developing an identity as one of Congress’s craziest and dumbest teabaggers. He’s got over a year to build up a portfolio that will perhaps help him fill the big black hole of batshittery that Michele Bachmann will leave behind when she leaves office.
When I went to the UK in the 1980s, during the height of anti-American demonstrations over nuclear weapons, I tried to blend in as a Briton or as a Canadian.
Max thinks he is. He’s a 25 lb. Siamese, and he chases Angel from her bowl, and steals her food. When he wants attention, he gets loud like a baby screaming.
I named him after my paternal grandfather, Maximilian, who was from Vienna.
That’s because he was kicked in the head by a cow.
I suspect he’s running for the Vice-President nomination on the Palin ticket.
Important update on Yoho:
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2013/10/yoho-traumatic-brain-injury.html