Someone at the NRCC Didn’t Do Their Job
It seems like everyday, we’re getting a new bunch of teabagging rethuglican Congressional candidates who are not what the NRCC thought they were.
Last week, we blogged about Richard Iott, who likes to re-enact being a member of the SS.
And now we have Blake Farenthold, who likes duckie pajamas and pole dancers. Well, maybe the woman in the picture isn’t a poll dancer, but she sure looks like one to me (not that I’ve seen any in recent memory).
The picture comes from a pajama party at a local bar in May 2009, and quickly made its way from the source — thecrushgirls.com — to a publication called We The People and from there to the DCCC and Ortiz himself.
Tony Martinez, marketing director for CrushGirls confirms to TPM that the image is not photoshopped (though a larger version includes a man in a bathrobe, and a woman wearing a Santa hat).
According to its website,
TheCrushGirls.com is an online news magazine that has become Corpus Christi’s #1 Source for Entertainment News averaging nearly 16,000 monthly visitors with over 3,000+ subscribers to our weekly email newsletter. The mission of the website (now in its 5th year) is to promote a positive attitude towards Corpus Christi by providing one comprehensive source of information for all the events & activities in the area. In addition, our popular spokespersons, the Crush GirlsTM, are ambassadors to the community and actively contribute as volunteers for nonprofit/charitable activities and events.
Farenthold, like Iott, was considered a contender, one of the NRCC’s candidates in their expanded field of play. Something tells me that they won’t be playing with this rubber ducky for much longer.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCHyIqhxxVM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Oh my. Will it be enough? $20 says he’s running on family values. There’s another scandal just breaking now, too. Republican Allan West, yes he of the crazy video that makes Teapublicans high, is tied to the Outlaw Biker gang.
I’m telling you, they are well aware of the massive flaws of their candidates but the NRCC is looking to engage the most base of their base, selling “I’m you” since 2008.
Tracy Jordan as Allen West. It writes itself.
NRCC recruiting: Nazi dress-up guy, ducky pjs at a strip club guy, guy who hangs out with the Outlaw Biker gang & Ben Quayle, who wrote for a dirty magazine. None of those are me.
Yes, but this bunch is going to sweep out the failed democrats by a huge margin. If they are whacked then what are your guys?
They are big spenders, tax raisers and incompetent fools.
Actually, they cut taxes, which is what made them look like incompetent fools.
The GOP is in an all out war against competence and seriousness. The bad thing for the country about Christine O’Donnell and Allen West is that they make people like Pat Toomey and Rand Paul seem acceptable.
It isn’t really a battle between republicans and democrats anymore. It is a battle between corporations and citizens, and the corporations are winning. The republicans just happen to be more easily purchased than the democrats.
Agreed A1, it’s a weird dynamic. Corporations depend on the competence & seriousness of its own employees (at least technology-driven corporations do) but incomptence & silliness from politicians to allow them to do whatever they want.
It is a battle between corporations and citizens, and the corporations are winning.
In an ideal world, there would be business and capital on one side, and labor and consumers on the other side. Each would be represented according to their numbers in the population. The labor/consumer majority would drive progressive legislation, and the business/investor minority would be strong enough to eliminate the excesses, but not strong enough to drive the agenda.
But that isn’t what happened. Now, business and investors are defining any Democratic legislation as “excess.” And through traditional propaganda techniques as well as straight-up bribery, they have gained power through the electoral process.
The republicans just happen to be more easily purchased than the democrats.
More precisely, it is cheaper to buy 41 Senators than a majority in the House. That explains why the Senate is the graveyard for any useful law.
Great point about the Senate. I would ad that it is far easier for corporations to convince zombie Republican rank and file that they are fighting for the middle class by being on the side of the wealthy and corporations, than it is to convince a Democrat that fighting for on behalf of inherited wealth is in their best interest.
There is still some hypnotic power remaining in voodoo trickle-down economics.
Psychologists call it the “The Just-World Fallacy.” Being simple minded, middle class Republicans equate wealth with virtue.
They “want to believe that the world is fundamentally just so when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but often at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.”
Tell me that does not describe nearly every middle class Republican you know.
We absolutely need a Constitutional Ammendment to stop the corporate take-over of our government.
Being simple minded, middle class Republicans equate wealth with virtue.
Unless you are a Democrat who is wealthy. Then you are a Marxist. Or a socialist. Or some other name they don’t know the meaning of.
So true.
They “want to believe that the world is fundamentally just so when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it.
“Born on third base and thought he hit a triple.” (Ann Richards on GWB)
This is what thet want the world to believe
Obama billboard
OMG – BUT the Baggerz are NOtT racists, NOT homophobes NOT zenophobic…yeah
nice words – actions speak louder tho
JESUS JOE ! Can it be true ?
Is the secret scandal Obama’s been so DESPERATE to hide is that he is a QUAD ?
And that one brother was adopted by Muslims, another Mexicans with the third going to a gay couple in Frisco ?
I am SHOCKED ! SHOCKED !
Jason–thanks for the Just World Fallacy. That came up several years ago at our church in a sermon–exploring cases where we jump to the rationalizations that you mention.
Example–a woman is raped, and you jump to the ‘she dressed provocatively’ rather than ‘the attacker is an animal.’ One reason to ‘blame the victim’ is that you are distancing yourself from the victim (I don’t dress provocatively) so that you can feel safe and secure.
You can do the same with attacks on gays. Certainly Pat Robertson and others excel at this (not the physical attacks on gays, but condoning violence against gays). He’s the one who said that Katrina was God’s retribution for a gay pride festival in New Orleans, right?
You can also do that when reconciling the collateral damage done in countries that we occupy, wage war in. They somehow deserved it. Those Iraqis who died were likely Al Quaeda–they weren’t people like me. As you note, “the world is a just place.”
Policy-wise, it amazes me when door-knocking in the past that I walk up to lower-middle class homes, and the residents speak passionately against the ‘death tax,’ when there is no way in heck that they would ever incur the federal estate tax.
This is a different psychological fallacy, a result of the American Dream becoming the American Fantasy. By voting for Republicans I’ll somehow start earning more than $200,000 a year and enjoy low income taxes.
Connect Four. That billboard is a perfect example of why I kicked religion long ago. 1) They are fucking hypocrites 2) I become consumed with hate 3) I am not a fucking hypocrite 4) Never heard the audible voice of god. I do hear my neighbor’s german shepard, but I only speak french and english.