Hippy punch is frequently used on many blogs I read: Pandagon, Eschaton, Hullabaloo, to name just three. They've been using it since 2008, at least. They are among the more popular blogs on the left -- it shows that while the White House may have some sense that the so-called professional left is upset, they don't care enough to read what they are writing.Ah! It's a shibboleth. This is a term used within an in-group. If you don't know the term, you reveal that you don't read those blogs. Here was Axelrod trying to get the lefty bloggers to help Obama out, but — gasp!!! — he doesn't even read their blogs. How devastating for them! LOL. Imagine if Axelrod sat around reading Pandagon, Eschaton, and Hullabaloo?
September 27, 2010
I'm beginning to understand why that lefty blogger asked Axelrod if he knew the term "hippie punching"?
Tobin Harshaw reviews the incident in the NYT. He quotes me. You may remember that I said I'd never heard the term (and I've been something of a hippie since the original days of the hippie movement). The light bulb went off in my head when I scrolled down to the comments:
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Why do lefty blogs always have such stupid names?
It makes me want to punch a hippie, or at least kick one in the nuts.
He wore the patchouli but he couldn't speak the code.
The Eau d"Axelrod.-
Neil Young should write it and Carla Bruni could "sing" it.
"Ah! It's a shibboleth."
i.e. a term used by Upper West Side bloggers?
Reading Pandagon, Eschaton, Hullabaloo, would lead one to use the term clusterfuck.
I'm happy that he doesn't read those blogs.
You mean Karl Rove NEVER read my blog, www.thingsthatareorange.com???
That explains a lot.
Getting involved with Pandagon did a lot for John Edwards.
What is funny is even lefties find hippies annoying.
Conservatives on the other hand find hippies annoying but mildly amusing. Like a very ugly dog or cat. Which is amusing until it projectile vomits on the carpet.
Hippie punching explained. Well, sort of.
The gals at Pandagon, Bitch, et al., don't get what crushing bores they are to the rest of us.
If I started a fem blog, I'd call it Sheverse (She-verse, as in universe.)
Adults never understand what the kids are saying. Probably a good thing for both sides most of the time.
Will we ever find out what it means?
I don't want Axelrod or Obama or any other national leader reading blogs. But somebody on their staffs should be, and then submitting periodic reports.
Those reports, however, would probably not use and/or explain the term "hippie punching."
If the term hippie punch is mispronounced, the speaker is killed on the spot.
Axelrod as the narrator of Kipling's "Tommy"?
So it's Davy this,
And Davy that,
And chuck 'im out, the brute,
But it's Savior of the Revolution,
When the Tea Party starts to shoot
Well, the Lefties were always obsessed with being "in".
(The Crypto Jew)
Hippie Punching
It’s not ILLEGAL is it?
Are there rules?
1) Like is there a Hippie Season”?
2) Do I need a license?
3) Is there a daily limit on the number of hippies that can be punched?
4) Are there specific rules and seasons, like certain times when sucker punches are or are NOT legal? Is there a baseball bat season for Hippie Punching? What weight and style of gloves, if any, are acceptable for Hippie Punching?
5) Are female hippies exempt from punching, or only gravid female hippies?
6) If I punch a Hippie out of Season what is the fine? What if I accidentally punch a Hippie? Who do I call?
7) In certain areas, like Haight-Ashbury, I understand hippies are over-populated, will there be a “culling” of hippies?
I’m interested in the answers to these questions. Can anyone provide me with a source of answers?
What is funny is even lefties find hippies annoying.
True to their deep mendacity, lefties first declare that all hippies come from middle or upper middle class backgrounds, which then makes it okay in leftyland to hippie punch. But as anyone who has experienced hippies up close and personal knows, hippies come from working class and under class backgrounds too. And in significant numbers. Lefties are such mendacious shits.
Michael Kinsley, the reputed big thinker from Slate, recently admitted he did not realize the states and the cities had big debt problems just like the fed govt. But I bet he knew the definition of a hippie punch.
So call it what you want ..insularity ..bubble.. non compos mentis..it's a real affliction among our ruling elites.
Joe, all hippie punching rules and regulations will be announced by a soon-to-be-announced new agency authorized in the Health Care Reform law. (ca. page 2,397 I think)
The attendant taxes and fees from hippie punching were a significant source of cost-offsetting revenue for Obamacare, according to the CBO.
Why would any intelligent person read Pandagon?
Digby clarifies the history of the phrase for those, like Ann, slow to grasp concepts.
She also mentions Ann Althouse.
He then links to Ann Althouse to explain it. (I assume he did that since she's a female and so is Madrak? There's absolutely no other reason to consult a right wing crank like her on the matter.)
Digby is so right, so often.
She also lays out the long history of the use of the term and like-minded concepts, on the right.
Ok, first things first. The term "punch a hippie" has been around for decades, although it's recently cropped up again on the right blogosphere. It's considered a pastime, fun, a sort of recreation for ignorant neanderthals. I don't know how many people actually do this (real hippies aren't as easy to find as they used to be, and you might just make a mistake and beat up Ted Nugent or Toby Keith) but they love to chit chat about it in joking fashion. It's one of those primitive, sadistic forms of wingnut entertainment like blowing up frogs or tying cats tails together and throwing them over a clothesline.
Let me give you an example from the violent right wing "humor" blog IMAO** (most famous for his side splittingly funny t-shirt that said "Rope, Tree, Journalist"):
Often I'm asked, "Why, if I punch a hippy, would I be arrested for assault? Are we supposed to believe that the Founding Fathers wanted hippies to walk around un-punched?"
He's practically begging for me to punch him. Why can't I?
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
Emily Dickinson
(Possibly applicable to Ann's pivot on Paglia)
Fred4Pres:
I can't believe you didn't post this.
http://www.thoseshirts.com/imaofred.html
To continue Ann Althouse's education, from the Digby post linked above:
So nearly forty years on from the chaotic '72 Democratic convention, the left, whether Netroots or "Professional" are still seen as disruptive, scary hippies and it is assumed they are loathed by all decent people. Just like the idiotic right wingers, they conflate "the left" with that carefully nurtured anachronistic wingnut fantasy of the "smelly, dirty, hairy" leftist and are scared to death of being tarred by it. And it is why many in the left blogosphere defiantly took the moniker "DFH" which stands for Dirty Fucking Hippie.
It's all part of a dynamic that closes off America from left wing solutions and policies while allowing us to repeat failed right wing policies (trickle down economics, say) over and over.
I, of course, much prefer conservative punching, or wingnut punching.
(The Crypto Jew)
I, of course, much prefer conservative punching, or wingnut punching.
I’m sure you and Kos do, but as many more Conservative/Wingnuts are ARMED it makes it much more problematic, doesn’t it? Mayhap you could get some government agency or Secretary to designate Tea Party/Conservatives/Wingnuts “Enemies of the State” and begin an official pogrom against them…..
Was that you hitting Kenneth Gladney, BTW, Alpha?
AlphaLiberal said...
I, of course, much prefer conservative punching, or wingnut punching.
That would be bad for your health.
Well, it's the real answer for why I come around here so much. to kick conservative ass.
But, as sport goes, there is little to it anymore. Conservatives have gotten dumber and dumber over time, as they believe their alternate reality and extol stupidity, such as that shown by their chosen leaders Steve Kind, Michelle Bachman, Sharron Angle, Rand Paul,
and Christine O'Donnell.
To the point of the post, "hippie punching," as a term has parentage on the right wing, as part of their love of violence. Lefties just took it on as a form of protest.
Should be "Steve King," he dumber than a box of rocks.
I was afraid it was some sex practice that I was missing out on. Axelrod was probably afraid of this too. Everybody knows what a hippie is. And a punch. It's when some hip youngster asks us if we know what it means, then we start to freak out. Am I out of it? Am I the establishment? What are those damn kids up to, anyway?
Should be "Steve King," he dumber than a box of rocks.
Nice use of Ebonics there, Alpha.
I had no idea you were bilingual.
(The Crypto Jew)
To the point of the post, "hippie punching," as a term has parentage on the right wing, as part of their love of violence. Lefties just took it on as a form of protest.
Funny how all the violence is on the Left, though, eh AL?
Should be "Steve King," he dumber than a box of rocks.
But I betcha he could spell your name, so who’s dumber Alpha?
Digby sure didn't provide a lot of links about where on the right "Hippie Punching" has become a popular phrase again.
How silly to have time with the President's BFF and use a goofy in-term.
Axelrod reads the Tulane student newspaper Hullabaloo? Who knew? :)
So not implementing the far-left Marxist agenda 100% = hippie punching. Wonderful!
BTW, nice of Beta Liberal showing up here to edumacate us on hippie punching.
Digby sure didn't provide a lot of links about where on the right "Hippie Punching" has become a popular phrase again.
Probably because he/she made it up.
I have never heard the term and I read a LOT of blogs both right and left wing.
To the point of the post, "hippie punching," as a term has parentage on the right wing, as part of their love of violence.
What about the lefty love of violence? 1999 WTO protests, ELF, Bil Ayers?
Well, I was going to reply to a comment or two here and there, but it's just a string of lies.
* Political violence is almost entirely from the right wing. That includes actual violence like murders, the plane flown into the IRS, shooting of immigrants, etc. As well as violent language (just read up this page).
* Digby gave a couple examples and quoted from them.
* Nobody anywhere said that hippie punching means not doing 100% of what we want.
You're a lying and mendacious bunch.
You're a lying and mendacious bunch.
LOL!!!!
(The Crypto Jew)
Political violence is almost entirely from the right wing. That includes actual violence like murders, the plane flown into the IRS, shooting of immigrants, etc. As well as violent language (just read up this page).
We’re mendacious….the IRS fellow didn’t vote for Bush…shooting immigrants, got a citation on how that is rightwing, looks like most immigrants shot are shot by their own ethnic group, legal or otherwise. Or have I missed the Great Immigrant Hunts of 2008/2009/2010? Violent language..oh yes check out Zombie Time for Anti-War protests, and then of course, there’s good ole’ Kos talking about the “American Taliban” and how “they” are plotting civil war….and that ignores, as someone else pointed out the Black Bloc Anarchists or the folks arrested for planning violence at the 2008 Republican Convention, and the like.
I’ll basically ignore you on this thread from now on, Alpha because, as usual you’ve run out of ammunition and are just hurling gratuitous assertions, now.
My guess is that a hippie punch is a tool for making holes in a hippie's belt as he reaches the middle age spread years. It is a clever insult directed towards fat baby boomers.
I’ll basically ignore you on this thread from now on
You're just now coming to this realization?
My guess is that a hippie punch is a tool for making holes in a hippie's belt as he reaches the middle age spread years. It is a clever insult directed towards fat baby boomers.
No, no. That's the hippie-paunch.
Yeah, I already vented about silly jargon that only shows what blogs you read.
It's interesting that you almost never see 60-something hippies that don't have the paunch.
Silly me, I though a hippie punch was a regular fruit punch with LSD in it.
Alpha...I haven't been called "mendacious" since college. You win the award for use of the biggest word in a name calling contest in 2010. Are you a student of Latin? I can just hear Joe Wilson yelling out at Obama , "That is mendacious". But then no one would have known that Joe meant an insult.
Alex: it's because they get the "muchies" a lot....
it's because they get the "muchies" a lot....
The post-LSD munchies?
I don't think need to worry about over 60, over eating, hippies much longer. That is the up side to Obama's new Death Panels. Bloomberg's removal of sugar and salt from their diets will drive most of them into a final rebellion where the movement will only eat potato chips, ice cream and Moonpies until they die from obesity.
Here is an incomplete list of recent acts of violence from the right wing:
* Richard Poplawski, a right-wing extremist who shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers.
* Remember the shooter, Jim David Adkisson, who hates liberals and shot up a liberal church in Tennessee? He was a big O'Reilly and Hannity fan.
* There was the guy who walked into Arkansas Democratic headquarters and shot and killed the state chairman, Bill Gwatney.
* James Von Brunn, white supremacist, shot up the Holocaust museum.
* Scott Roeder, abortion rights activist (and hero to many), shot dead Dr George Tiller.
* Byron Williams was on his way to shoot up the offices of the Tides Foundation, a favorite target of right wing leading light Glenn Beck, when police stopped him.
* Shawna Forde, Minuteman leader, killed an Hispanic father and daughter and left the mother for dead in Arizona. They had other "operations" planned.
* A Michigan militia, the Hutaree, was, thankfully, caught before they could go on a cop-killing spree.
* Timothy McVeigh.
* TN Man Enraged By Obama Sticker Slams SUV Into Car With 10 Year Old Child
Inside http://www.wkrn.com/global/story.asp?s=12208009
* Jerry Kane, antigovernment angry right winger who thinks he is a "sovereign citizen," gunned down two cops in Little Rock, May, 2010.
* John Patrick Bedell, anti-government right winger who thought Keynesian economic policies were unConstitutional, shot up the Pentagon in March.
I haven't been called "mendacious" since college. You win the award for use of the biggest word in a name calling contest in 2010. Are you a student of Latin?
No, it's just that English is my native language.
I was also watching that old Tennessee Williams movie over the weekend where "mendacity" comes in to play.
This is one of Digby's unlinked "examples" of the term "hippy punch" cropping up again "recently" in the right wing blogosphere. This t-shirt sales pitch from 2004:
On the other hand, Kevin Sites of NBC is a traitor. Beheading civilians, booby-trapped bodies, suicide bombers?? Sorry hippie, American lives come first. Terrorists don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. This Marine deserves a medal and Kevin Sites, you deserve a punch in the mouth.
Compelling.
(The Crypto Jew)
Richard Poplawski, a right-wing extremist who shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers.
Who worried about the “Zionists” who controlled the media and government, sounds more like Cedarford than a Conservative. Nice try.
* There was the guy who walked into Arkansas Democratic headquarters and shot and killed the state chairman, Bill Gwatney.
And no motive has been advanced, IIRC…so how is he an example of “Conservative” violence?”
* James Von Brunn, white supremacist, shot up the Holocaust museum.
Only in YOUR world is a white supremacist a “Conservative.”
* Shawna Forde, Minuteman leader, killed an Hispanic father and daughter and left the mother for dead in Arizona. They had other "operations" planned.
EXPELLED from the Minutemen…..
* A Michigan militia, the Hutaree, was, thankfully, caught before they could go on a cop-killing spree.
Most of whom is not ALL of whom were registered as Democrats.
* Timothy McVeigh.
Expelled from militia group
* TN Man Enraged By Obama Sticker Slams SUV Into Car With 10 Year Old Child
Inside http://www.wkrn.com/global/story.asp?s=12208009
* Jerry Kane, antigovernment angry right winger who thinks he is a "sovereign citizen," gunned down two cops in Little Rock, May, 2010.
Anti-government is right wing, eh? So Bill Ayers is a Conservative….one article mentions the “Aryan Nations” so that kinda excludes him from the Conservative Movement, and puts him in the Cedarford Realm.
* John Patrick Bedell, anti-government right winger who thought Keynesian economic policies were unConstitutional, shot up the Pentagon in March..
Democrat and libertarian-anarchist…..
Only three of these could be considered “Conservatives” dood, nice try, and of the ones that might be Conservatives, do you see anyone awarding them “Tenure” at a university?
Ha! I just googled that block of text to see where it came from. The top 6 searches were (unlinked) posts on Digby's site. A favorite anecdote of hers, apparently.
Alpha...I hpoe you liked Elizabeth Taylor's acting skills too. Southern families can be so special that Williams made a living writing plays using the people's dialog that he heard as a boy. Those speech patterns are like the briar patch to me. In many southern areas violence and guns are a part of survival skills learned as children, especially so in Alabama and Mississippi. Atlanta is more a commercial center from all of the RailRoads intersecting here than part of the agrarian south.
But guess who's getting donkey-punched come November?
But guess who's getting donkey-punched come November?
I prefer to think of it as getting the Cleveland Steamer they so richly deserve.
WV - "hatermon" - a Jamaican bigot
AlphaLiberal said..."Digby clarifies the history of the phrase for those, like Ann, slow to grasp concepts."
Clarifies? Well, it's boring rambling blather, so I'm surprised anyone reads this person, but she never establishes that "hippie punching" is a standard term. She doesn't even link to examples.
"She also lays out the long history of the use of the term and like-minded concepts, on the right. Ok, first things first. The term "punch a hippie" has been around for decades..."
That's mere assertion, and it's false as far as I can tell. I have searched through old news archives and am convinced that it has never been a standard expression. I'd never heard it, and my own research backs me up now. Digby isn't linking to anything that proves what she apparently believes.
The tendency of lefties to reflexively call other people stupid is truly repulsive. Look to yourself, lady. You are wrong, and you are calling other people stupid.
And you, Alpha, you just ride along with these people.
The IMAO stuff is bad, but it does nothing to establish the supposed point in issue: that "hippie punching" is a *standard expression.*
Proving hatred of hippies isn't the same thing. Nor is the general proposition that people find it easy to insult hippies or to bully relatively weak people.
The issue is whether it's a *standard expression.*
Speaking of difficulty "grasp[ing] concepts."
Hey, have you ever heard of the famous term "concept grasping"?
Can't we forget about punching and return to those glorious days of the late 60s when we had shoot on sight laws? Good times...
Hippie-punching went out with "Unleash Chiang Kai-Shek". Today we on the right are all about shooting hobos.
Having formerly read IMAO regularly, my feeling (no strong evidence) is that Digby is somewhat on the right track as far as the lefty blogosphere picking it up in response to IMAO. Frank J. has made a theme of hippie punching on IMAO and when I heard of its use in the Axelrod's press conference, I thought it was an appropriation of the term in response to IMAO'S usage.
Now IMAO attempts to be a humor site — and the hippie punching is part of that — but I eventually felt that it is more damaging to the right than it is funny. Some people find it funny to be offensive or to make others mad — and Frank J. can be funny — but he can also cross the line, and I think his audience often takes him a little more seriously than is healthy.
I am pretty sure I saw that term "hippie punch" on Susie Madrak's blog at least one time before the Axelrod brouhaha. She is a big fan of Digby and they view themselves as smart, cutting edge, far left libs. So it is probably more that they think "this term should be in common usage" than it is in real world. Btw I don't know if they are real people anyway -could be a group blog thing.
It's hilarious to see lefties get the vapors over IMAO's (a conservative comedy site) comedic riffs on "hippy-punching", when within the sophisticated salon atmosphere of JournoList you have Spencer Ackerman earnestly talking about "smashing a right-winger through a plate-glass window, taking a snapshot of the bleeding mess & sending it out in a Xmas card to let the right know it needs the live in a state of fear."
Oh, obviously, he meant that rhetorically. Whereas, obviously, IMAO must literally mean that hippy-punching should be legal. Of course, only the left gets to be "rhetorical." The right, I guess, is too simple-minded to use rhetorical figures or, you know, make jokes. (Like, say, Sandra Berhnard's sophisticated joke about Sarah Palin getting gang-raped in NYC. That's humor!)
You've got to take absolutely literally anything said by those right-wing neanderthals, those bitter clingers, those monstrous tea-party folk-- boogedy boogedy boo!
Face it: Madrak embarrassed herself and bragged about it and got her friends to brag for her too. That was really, really embarrassing!
I can't believe Althouse actually called out one of the serial spammers! Is Ritmo next?
AlphaLiberal comes on a "right wing" site to explain the violent right wing term "hippie punching", which is ironically adopted by left wing blogs making fun of the violent rightys. Such explanation being necessary because nobody at the right wing blog has any idea what this "right wing" term means.
I wish I could express that more pithily, but it is very funny. Especially because AL thinks he's so much smarter than everyone else while completely missing the irony of the situation.
Well, you know what they say--you have to learn a lot before you can even begin to understand how little you know. Liberals have no idea how little they know.
BetaLib bragged: "Well, it's the real answer for why I come around here so much. to kick conservative ass."
In the words of another great Althousian - LOL
Tradguy said: "You win the award for use of the biggest word in a name calling contest in 2010. Are you a student of Latin?"
You should've stuck around for some of Ritmo's closing contributions in the Colbert Cornpacker thread. Some epic fluff there.
I've been something of a hippie since the original days of the hippie movement
I knew it.
It explains why my heart throbs every time I see your picture.
I still don't know why you didn't join the movement:
Hippies For McCain Palin
The tendency of lefties to reflexively call other people stupid is truly repulsive.
I expect that explains your vote for "The Won".
"Political violence is almost always from the right." Yeah, because Digby (whoever the hell that is) says so.
Uh, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel...No contest, is there?
The hippies I hung out with you wouldn't go around punching.
That would be the Outlaw Biker contingent.
I thought it had something to do with Archie Bunker (or Cartman).
I think it's more jargon or slang than something so grand as a "shibboleth".
Patrick -
"Uh, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Fidel...No contest, is there?"
Leftists don't count it when one of their own murders a hundred million or so...It's the most vile form of hippie punching ever to point out that their political philosophy has killed more human beings than every war fought SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MANKIND.
But hey, let's get ourselves worked into a lather about what some kid wrote on a site that also calls Professor Reynolds a "puppy blender," right?
Because Alpha Liberal thinks THAT is way more important than your 100 million dead bodies lying at the feet of his political allies...
Hippie puncher.
The reason politicians on the Right go down with sex scandals is because Conservatives believe in honor and integrity. (No pun intended.) Violating your wedding vows is huge. Politicians on the Left don't have that problem. They have no honor, they have no integrity. That a poster would admit "Now IMAO attempts to be a humor site — and the hippie punching is part of that — " seems outrageous to me. They are going to laugh about hurting people them deem unworthy. No wonder the left supports abortion. Truly, they are "haters."
Do these elite leftist laugh at clumsy people and say things like "I bowl like I'm in the Special Olympics."? Yes.
President Obama has exhorted us to raise the level of discourse to a higher level. Laughing at a group of people, and suggesting violence against them, hardly counts for civil discourse. Examine your conscience: Are you being kind, charitable and patient with your fellow man? If not, do you have a really good excuse for not doing so?
I love Althouse and have been a reader for quite some time. I really enjoy so many of the clever and witty comments from posters here, and to almost all of them I thank for their interesting points of view and wit.
Then I feel the cringe come on - a post by the one called "Alpha Liberal". The smarm that reeks from every word typed, the punch in the face worthy pompous posturing, the aggressive stupidity. There are few regular posters I read on comments sections that reek so much of juvenile, snide, annoying, assholism (to steal from Divine in Pink Flamingos).
I pity anyone who must actually have to deal with this smirky little cretin in real life. I would only imagine that the people who must suffer its presence reach for the toilet lid, the pies, and the open handed slap-readiness every time this smug little douche utters a single word.
AL - your very existence is a hate crime. Not because of your views and beliefs, but because of what a complete unadulterated hideous dick you obviously are. If you are actually over the age of 17 I really just pity you more than anything, but not as much as I pity the poor souls who must have to deal with you and your insufferable personality on any kind of regular basis. Get a serious life adjustment, you malignant jerk.
Am I the only one who remembers what a "Sista Soulja Moment" is, or is "Hippie Punching" not exactly the same thing?
Hipster, I'm a little unclear how you feel about BetaLib. Please clarify.
Am I the only one who remembers what a "Sista Soulja Moment" is, or is "Hippie Punching" not exactly the same thing?
No, it's not just you. It's been part of the reason many of us are upset over the hippie punching by the Administration.
Seems that the "Sistah Souljah Moment" is a subset of hippie punching. The SSM is practiced by a Dem pol trashing a Dem constituency to look good before "The Village" (hat tip: Digby).
But hippie punching is practiced by both the left and the right. Oh, hell, toss in the center, as well.
And, Ann, Digby actually did provide links and cited examples for her assertions. I think, as a right winger, you just don't like her incisive commentary, so you just do the usual lazy ass right wing response: deny and insult.
HipsterVacuum, this is your one post on the site, ever (not counting sock puppets). And you deny and insult. Look, I contributed to the conversation and the actual subject of the post. I brought in other points of view, along with my own (which tends to be playful while reducing conservative positions to rubble, granted)
If you disagree, HV, why not try doing so by addressing the actual content of the message? Wait don't answer, I know; because you lack the ability and, so, must resort to childish name-calling. Ya got nuthin' but insults.
And the movie was "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Milwaukee made me, you know, "smirk":
The reason politicians on the Right go down with sex scandals is because Conservatives believe in honor and integrity. (No pun intended.) Violating your wedding vows is huge.
ha ha! Have you heard of Senator John Ensign of Nevada and his sex and payoff scandal which is now under criminal investigation?
No, I doubt Fox News has covered it much.
John Ensign had a sexual affair with one of his aides (a woman) who was married to Ensign's Chief of Staff. The Ensign CoS got testy about this and mad enoises. So, Ensign got his Mumsy and Dadsy (full grown man, here) to pay $100,000 in hush money which was apparently done illegally or whatever.
AND then when the cuckolded CoS leave Ensign's emply to set up a lobbying business, ensign steers work to the guy! More violations of law and Senate ethics rules.
You will note this has received scant coverage from the corporate media, run by wealthy robber barons.
That's one example.
OK, now it's your turn to deny and insult. Follow the formula!
'"Political violence is almost always from the right." Yeah, because Digby (whoever the hell that is) says so.'
No, it's because that's what the facts show. I'm referring to our country in the modern age, not every tyrant who has ever lived anywhere.
Otherwise we would have to mention the long line of right wing despots and dictators. Pinochet, Shah of Iran, Francisco Franco, etc, etc...
Reponding to Althouse:
'Hey, have you ever heard of the famous term "concept grasping"?'
No. Looked it up online and found nothing. Seems easy to grasp, though.
Well, don't know what to tell you. Prior to Madrak using the term, it was very well-known on the left. You don't listen to the let beyond looking for opportunities to bash us, Ann, so of course you wouldn't know about it. And I'm tired of trying to explain it.
But you're left with the fact that your take on the exchange is shallow and superficial. No real analysis just what, I hope is, feigned ignorance.
And, I agree with Digby's more recent posts that Obama and Biden et al are probably bashing the left to win favor with rightie independents. the ploy doesn't make sense otherwise. Kind of a Sistah Souljah moment, indeed.
Alpha Liberal: There isn't a group I belong to that some member of that group has not caused me embarrassment. Sometimes that person is me. Right you are about the Senator from Nevada. The Republicans have been slow to act on his misbehavior. But Republicans were among those pushing for the Governor of South Carolina to be removed. What about the Republican Representative from Utah, who, after an indiscretion came to light, resigned promptly. Then we have Eliot Spitzer, who as wasted no time in returning to the limelight.
Years ago I was a public school teacher. Hard to be a public school teacher and be a Republican. Besides, some Republicans aren't "pro-free market" they are "pro-business", as in supporting some businesses over others. And President Bush didn't see a growing budget he didn't like. Yes, deficits grew under him. But nothing like under this administration. Now this conservative movement, this is easier to hold on to than being Republican. Alpha Liberal, I do believe that if each side took turns, first naming a disgraced Right-wing type, and then naming a disgraced Left-wing type, the side naming lefties would win.
Christians are strongly admonished to never deny Christ. Muslims are encouraged to lie about their faith when convenient. So too Communists will lie about their party affiliation.
Franco did turn out to be an abusive dictator. But he entered the Spanish military into civil war in part because the socialist were murdering priests and nuns. His government did go astray. This frequently happens on the left and right. People seize power to protect the country, and because they don't know how to manage the power, they destroy the country. Can you think of an instance when a person or group seized power, were dictatorial, and then moved successfully toward a democracy?
MKE:
What about the Republican Representative from Utah, who, after an indiscretion came to light, resigned promptly.
Well, good for the them, but they did it as an individual. I mean, come on, I can raise you a Mark Sanford. Or a Newt Gingrich.
Or, you have Senator David Vitter, busted for patronizing a prostitute and then getting the Senatorial treatment - no legal consequences. Could happen to anyone, right? (And let's not talk about that whole diaper thing!)
Being on the right wing just does not make a person morally superior. Period. You guys have a lot of weird stuff going on under your tent and you'll cover it over when you can.
Alpha Liberal: Did you read my post? I already mentioned the Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, just not by name. (In this game, naming a person by title one time and by name the a second time doesn't count the second time. And naming a person with one transgression one time, and a different transgression a second time also doesn't count the second time.) South Carolina Republicans did investigate what sanctions they could levy on him. The mechanisms to do so weren't sufficient. That Newt Gingrich has behaved in a despicable fashion in the past is not disputed. I, myself, have made fun of Gingrich for posing as a family-values leader who had his wife served divorce papers when she was in the hospital receiving cancer treatment. That's cold.
The reason the Alinsky rule is "make them live up to their own rules" is because being a person of integrity can be difficult. People slip. But the Right expects it's leaders to behave morally. The Left can claim no such expectation. Being on the right doesn't mean moral superiority. Right you are. Absolutely spot on. But being on the Right does carry an expectation of moral behavior.
Fair enough: since it's the left doing the "hippie punching" it's a Sista Soulja Moment.
I suspect Madrak didn't want to call it that because it makes her look less like a victim than being "hippie punched".
In a SSM the "victim" is the politician suffering guilt by association. Madrak needs to be the victim, so she tosses aside the commonly-understood "Sista Soulja Moment" and awakens a mostly-dormant description with a more sympathetic implied narrative: "hippie punching".
An irrelevant mini-debate ensues over just how common the phrase "hippie punching" is which is proof of its obscurity.
"Tip O'Neil said it to Alan Cranston once back in 1976. It's right here on this microfilm!"
If it were truly popular we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Ironically it's part of the working language now; if this was the real intention of having the mini-debate then congratulations are in order.
Full circle will be when a politician's allies claim they needed a "Sista Soulja Moment" while the called-out pundit and her allies will claim they're victims of baseless "hippie punching". This will at long last prove that SSM's and HP'ing are both the same and different.
I love the English language.
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