Now Playing Tracks

House Republicans will hold a 37th vote to repeal Obamacare. Because doing something over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and expecting a desired result and being petulant about not getting it is the definition of partisan insanity.

Luntz and Penn student spar over secretly recorded footage

shortformblog:

  • action Yesterday, Mother Jones released secretly-recorded audio of GOP strategist Frank Luntz criticizing right-wing talk show hosts during a talk with College Republicans at the University of Pennsylvania. “They get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it’s really problematic. And this is not on the Democratic side. It’s only on the Republican side,” Luntz said.
  • reaction “I’m very disappointed that at Penn, [the] trust between students and speaker is gone,” said Luntz, an former student and professor at the school, after the release of the audio. ”Call me naive, but I thought it was possible to have an open, honest conversation about American politics and not make it a national conversation.”
  • rebuttal “The Penn environment should be one in which people are encouraged and expected to speak unencumbered by self-interest,” wrote Aakash Abbi, the student who recorded the speech. ”If influential GOP figures like Frank Luntz truly believe that the party’s media kingmakers harm the national interest but refuse to say so for fear of backlash, they knowingly work against the spirit of open and honest debate.”

There’s also a question of journalistic ethics. Luntz requested that the remarks remain off the record; while a journalist who was in the room verbally agreed to this request, Abbi (who isn’t a journalist) and Mother Jones (who wasn’t present) did not. So are they still bound by it? Does a request to remain off the record amount to a decree, or must it be agreed to? Regardless of where you stand, it’s a fuzzy area. Meanwhile, Luntz has withdrawn a scholarship in his father’s name since the remarks leaked.

She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.

Leader of an opposition research meeting held with MITCH McCONNELL (R - Kentucky), about McConnell’s prospective opponent, actress Ashley Judd; she would later announce she would not run for McConnell’s Senate seat.

Listen to the whole recording, obtained by Mother Jones, and hear a gleeful, cackling Republican political teardown operation in all its sickening glory.

MEDIAITE: "(Margaret) Thatcher took an interest in (Sarah) Palin when she first emerged as a national figure and even wanted to act as a mentor of sorts for the vice presidential candidate, but Palin rejected her help. (Ann) Coulter recalled the common narrative about Thatcher’s life, that she grew up as a common grocer’s daughter and had to teach herself to 'talk properly' and 'speak like a lady.' She went on to say that 'when Sarah Palin first burst on the scene, [Thatcher] wanted to have a meeting with Palin, because she saw raw political talent, but wanted to teach Sarah Palin to do what she did… speak proper English.'"

The best of the worst of all worlds.

To Tumblr, Love Pixel Union