Occupy DC – The Movie

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I guess they held a rally this week. I’m sure it struck fear in the hearts of evil doers the 1%ers.

This is an open thread.

Dirty Laundry

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NBC News: Debate Crowd Booed Newt’s Ex-Wife Because They Were Sexist

Melissa Harris Perry:

“As a women whose been married, divorced and now re-married to the love of my life for a year and a half, I would like to say this…

…That cheer was not a question of marriage…

An ex-wife is the easiest thing to boo. A part of these was ‘Gender Politics’

The fact is when we look at the gender divide in the Republican and Democratic party. It’s not that women are so much likely to be Democrats… its that men are much more likely to be Republicans. There is a strong male dominance in the Republican party. And that cheer that you get is in part ‘How dare my ex-wife show up and have anything to say’ Part of what’s going on there is how “I’m going to demonstrate how I am a patriarch.”

Each one of them talk about how they are married and all their grandchildren…part of what they are saying is “I’m a good family man” but also what they are saying is “I am the great father” And don’t you want the “Great Father” of the country?

And the other piece of this is saying “We the guys here? We got this under control. We will be the great fathers”

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Here’s the clip in question:

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Watch the crowd in the background. You’ll see lots of women clapping and cheering. Yeah, I know, women can be sexists too (except when they do it they are still victims of The Patriarchy).

But this wasn’t about Marianne Gingrich’s right to be heard. She wasn’t at the debate last night. This was tabloid journalism and airing dirty laundry. This was the media playing “gotcha” two days before an election with information that has been around for years.

I spent several years working in family law. It’s like being an employee on the Jerry Springer Show. You get to participate in revealing people’s deepest, darkest secrets. Family court is (usually) the last place the participants in dysfunctional relationships get to fight with each other.

We already knew that Newt Gingrich cheated on Marianne with his current wife. He also cheated on his first wife with Marianne. Her recent statements shed no new light on that aspect of his character.

As for the patriarch thing, is being a good husband and father a bad thing? I’m not saying that Newt was either one, but do we really want to condemn those qualities? Is being a loving spouse and parent inconsistent with feminism and equality?

And let’s not forget how the progressive left distinguished itself on gender issues four years ago.

At least this time Melissa Harris Perry wasn’t calling Newt a racist.

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Real Ratfucking

Kneel before Zod!

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Fake CNN email used as dirty trick in South Carolina

In what appears to be a last ditch attempt to halt Newt Gingrich’s late momentum in South Carolina, a fake CNN Breaking News alert was emailed to state Republican activists early Thursday morning claiming that the former House Speaker pressured his ex-wife to have an abortion.

CNN did not send out the email alert.

[...]

The email alert was sent from fake account made to look like a CNN breaking news email address: “BreakingNews@mail.cnn.com.”

“A source close to Marianne Gingrich tells CNN that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich forced her to abort a pregnancy conceived during the affair that preceeded her marriage to Gingrich,” the fake email reads.

Marianne Gingrich, who went public this week with charges that Gingrich once asked her for an “open marriage” while he was having an extramarital affair, has not made that claim.

“An ABC News interview with the Speaker’s ex-wife aired Thursday evening which detailed the candidate’s request for an open marriage and their subsequent divorce,” the fake email alert adds.

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I don’t want to be pointing fingers, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate. The GOP invented ratfucking and one of the original practitioners of that dark art is still in business.

During the 2000 Republican presidential primary, Senator John McCain was the target of a whisper campaign implying that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock. (McCain’s adopted daughter is a dark-skinned child from Bangladesh). Voters in South Carolina were reportedly asked, “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew that he fathered an illegitimate black child?”. McCain would later lose the South Carolina primary, and the nomination, to George W. Bush.

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This particular individual is supporting the GOP establishment candidate, Mitt Romney. A win by Mitt tomorrow could well end the primary race. A win by Newt could signal a big upset.

Coinky-dink?

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The problem with men

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Bill cheated on Hillary. Franklin cheated on Eleanor. John cheated on Elizabeth. Ross cheated on Rachel, but they were on a break. Anthony didn’t cheat on Huma, he just sexted and sent out pictures of his wang.

Some of our best presidents were philandering horndogs. Some of our worst presidents maintained their marital vows – at least as far as we know anyway. I’m not gonna even try to explain it, I’m just wondering what should the rule for politicians and extra-marital sex be?

If we said it doesn’t matter we would be lying. Sometimes (at least) it does. If we said marital fidelity is a relevant issue in politics that would a license to dig dirt on every candidate. How do we know what’s there until we look, right? But if we said it only matters sometimes, how do we determine what “sometimes” is?

I predict we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing. For reasons that are totally unpredictable and incomprehensible we will be wildly inconsistent and occasionally schizophrenic. Sometimes it won’t matter, and others it will.

Some politicians will lose their careers because of mere rumors, while others will get caught red-handed with their hand in the nookie jar and never miss a day of work. Some guys will deny it and get punished anyway, but others will confess and walk scot-free.

A lot of it will have to do with the media and how they react to these stories. But the media are hardly paragons of virtue. How many of them could survive the scrutiny the give to others? If everyone followed Jeebus’ advice about throwing stones the media wouldn’t have much to talk about.

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