Worse Than Even I Could Imagine
When Graeme Frost spoke on behalf of expanding the S-CHIP program, I’m sure he had no idea that he was setting up his entire family to be condemned by every loser gasbag in the right-wing blogosphere. Here, for instance, is Dan Riehl:
Yes, the Frost children are victims, but not of conservatives. They look more like victims of a couple of mostly spoiled brats who became parents and never felt compelled to take responsibility for themselves when it came to the bottom line on that.
Y’hear that, Graeme? Your daddy sucks! The super-cool Dan Riehl has said so!
This is the crown jewel, though:
How about getting Dad [Ed. note: The 12-year-old kid’s grandfather] to cash in on the vintage 1956 T-Bird, 56 being the year he graduated from Princeton, F H? Doesn’t he care enough about his Grand kids? I mean, that question’s fair game, right? After all, you weren’t too ashamed to put it to us by allowing your child to be used by a liberal political machine, right?
That’s the car that recently won him third place in an antique car show. He has money to help send the Princeton Band on the road – how about calling Dad next time you need some help instead of trying to reach into the collective pocket of the American taxpayers, you irresponsible, simpering wimp.
I hate to pile on here, but some of what I’ve been reading given a deeper search kind of steams me. Following up on Michelle’s post on Graeme Frost, meet Mr. and Mrs. A. Corwin Frost of Bronxville, N.Y.
And since Dan didn’t move out of his parents’ house until the age of 59 (he’s now a sprightly 197 years old), he knows what he’s talking about.
The lesson here, folks, is this: if you publicly take a stand in favor of a policy that wingnuts don’t like, they will rummage and troll through your personal and financial life in order to ‘expose’ you in any way possible. As I’ve said before, they simply have no souls.
UPDATE: John Cole is making sense:
If you look through this family’s dossier, it appears they are doing everything Republicans say they should be doing- hell, their story is almost what you would consider is a checklist for good, red-blooded American Republican voters: they own their own business, they pay their taxes, they are still in a committed relationship and are raising their kids, they eschewed public education and are doing what they have to do to get them into Private schools, they are part of the American dream of home ownership that Republicans have been pointing to in the past two administrations as proof of the health of the economy, and so on.
In short, they are a white, lower-middle-class, committed family, who is doing EVERYTHING the GOP Kultur Kops would have you believe people should be doing. They aren’t gay. They aren’t divorced. They didn’t abort their children. They aren’t drug addicts or welfare queens. They are property owners, entrepeneurs, taxpayers, and hard-working Americans.
Nope, that don’t matter none. They got help from the government to pay for their kid’s health care, ergo, THEY ARE SIMPERING LOSERS, unlike that hunka-hunka-burnin’-hottt man, Dan Riehl.
Now aren’t these caterwauling flying monkeys of the right the same people who were absolutely outraged that MoveOn dared to attack General Petreaus?
Let me see:
A 4-Star General who writes Op-Eds and testifies on policy to Congress vs a 12-year old brain injured child?
Oh, I understand. Obviously, the 12-year old is the one it’s all right to attack. We can’t allow the General’s feelings to be hurt while a 12-year old brain injured child is being allowed to get SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!
They don’t call ’em Values Voters for nothing!
Nuff Ced?
I can’t imagine the seething self-hatred necessary for admission into wingnutistan. The projection of every daddy issue they have onto 12 year-old kids is sickening.
In case it’s unclear, it bears noting that it’s the kids’ grandfather who has the antique car. I guess that’s the conservative solution – if your family catches a bad break, ask your parents to liquidate your assets for you. And if they won’t, then hell, I guess it’s your kids’ fault for having such stingy grandparents.
Wait…are they…is Dan Riehl going after the kid’s grandfather now?
What never fails to amaze me is how bent out of shape these yay-hoos get when you call ’em “asshole”. It doesn’t matter what sort of foul, filthy garbage spews forth from their word-holes, you say “Hey, man, that’s kind of a shitty attitude to have” and all of the sudden you’re “unhinged”.
Sheesh.
Hey, Dan, why didn’t you go kill Saddam yourself instead of reaching into the collective pocket of the American taxpayers, you irresponsible, simpering wimp? It’s sickening to think of savages like Riehl, Malkin etc. howling over the relatively modest expense of providing basic necessities to their fellow human beings when they have no qualms about spending hundreds of billions of dollars to blow other human beings into pieces.
Let’s make the military efficient, folks — bring the troops home, strap Riehl to a rifle and a parachute, and drop him somewhere over Falluja. I’m sure he’ll sort things out like the rugged individualist he is.
man how i hope some wingnut gives Frost an opportunity (and the inclination) to sue ’em for slander.
maybe the undisclosed wiretapping program is where the bloggers that meet with Bush on a regular basis get access to the Information Awareness Office, where they can easily determine if you have given enough to party principles.
the eGregious Old Party.. not the Central Committee or the Nationalist or anything…
Shorter Dan Riehl: Maybe if this Frost kid, if he even exists, was really hard up, he would’ve sold his dog to animal research farms. The fact that Rover isn’t sucking hairspray proves these yuppie, small-business-owning, private-schooling SCUM deserve to be beaten with tire irons.
Or maybe something about Granny not baking cookies to sell or something. Fucking hell. Ya know, I honestly never expected wingnuts to go after the white middle class like this. Black folks, sure. Poor white trash, of course, no one gives a shit about them. Immigrants of all colors that aren’t pale white, well no shit. Rich people that are class traitors, well, duh. Veterans or relatives of veterans who don’t toe the line, man, you ain’t gotta tell me about the conservative hatred for soldiers as anything but an abstract idea.
But middle class white people with such venom and hatred? Man, who do wingnuts like? Rich white people who hate everyone but rich white people…and who else?
Man, who do wingnuts like?
Other wingnuts.
Where does the Right find these phony humans that they use to advance their anti-American agenda?
He argues that Mr. Frost a spoiled brat because he doesn’t depend on his father for assistance. Huh?
Isn’t the point of S-CHIP to capture the children of those not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but not wealthy enough to buy insurance? These people seem to qualify.
This just makes me feel all kinds of awful. I have to admit that my exposure to extreme wingnuttia (Riehl, Steyn, Malkin and the rest of the jolly gang) is pretty exclusively limited to what crops up here or at Tbogg, Eschaton, alicublog, etc. Therefore, I really have no idea how big a readership these vicious ratfucks have, how much influence they have. I do know that they show up as talking heads on Fox, which is creepy enough, but do they get play in other big markets? And given that Fox is pretty big, aren’t these guys high enough profile that other mass media outlets should be reaming them? I mean, condemning them really ought to be a no-brainer, right? Right? Please say “right” . . .
[crawls away, dejected and vaguely ill]
He argues that Mr. Frost a spoiled brat because he doesn’t depend on his father for assistance. Huh?
Yep, that seems to be the long and the short of it.
Isn’t the point of S-CHIP to capture the children of those not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but not wealthy enough to buy insurance? These people seem to qualify.
2-for-2. That’s the big problem for the wingnuts. They *have* to attack because the program’s working, and they can’t have that. It might give people the crazy idea that there might be other programs out there working too, and where would that leave us?
Wingnuts can’t yell at Daddy BushCo for blowing billions and billions of their precious tax dollars on neverending war and such, cuz Daddy’s a drunken failure and would backhand ’em somethin’ fierce. So, like any scared and humiliated member of a dysfunctional family, they displace their rage onto something, or someone, safer — the family dog, or the younger brother, for example. It’s essential for the self-loather to delineate someone who’s weaker, and therefore more deserving of that hatred, for the displacement.
What confuses, and apparently enrages, these dysfunctional hatebags even more is the realization that liberals don’t care if poor children, even “borderline poor” or whatever, are helped out by our tax dollars. We look at that as part of what humans do to help each other. We don’t view such a child as the underfed family dog snatching a piece of bread off our dinner plate and thus deserving of a swift kick.We view such a child as a fellow human being who has fortunately benefited in a way that relieved his suffering, and we share his joy at that fortune. It’s something the rabid right simply does not understand. I guess they just weren’t raised right.
Everyone knows that a shiny car will pay your medical bills 4evar.
I particularly like whoever it was who attacked the family for splurging is such luxuries as a house, instead of hording up all their money for 20 years in case something bad happened to them.
Again, when this all over, these talking heads have to get real jobs. I wouldn’t trust any of them as a health care worker but there’s trash to pick up, floors to mop, car washes need attendants, etc.
There’s lots of honest work out there where they don’t have to make fools out of themselves every time they open their mouths.
Super Dan prefers to be at the bottom of the wank pile.
Dan Riehl and his ilk are what Bob Ewell would be if a briefcase of cash and privilege fell on him.
Wingnuttia seems to think they’ve been cheated out of something when they have to pay for things that, well, they can afford. When someone else gets a “free ride” on the state’s tab, they get all indignant at the $500 they had to pay of the $50,000 a month they make for health care/car repairs/pie.
Look, all I’ve got is a link to a wedding announcement, but I think it’s safe to say that the grandparents and the parents clearly still all have both of their kidneys and both of their livers. Admittedly, the old folk’s parts are probably too old to command a high price on the black market for organs, but the parents are still relatively young. You want your kids to have healthcare, why do you refuse to sacrifice your own creature comforts?
Hell, they’ve already got those kids in surgery. What’s the big deal in extracting that kidney and liver? You fix my kid, you get to sell his extra liver to the next Mickey Mantle. Call it a “pay as you go” plan.
If I had money, I’d buy part of the ribcage and have it made into a nicely scrimshawed paperweight.
Retinas, blood, bone marrow, hair plugs, all the assorted chitlins … it’s a veritable goldmine that these lazy, ne’er-do-well parents just can’t be inconvenienced with. Instead they want to tap into my wallet.
What a selfish, uncaring couple.
John Cole does sound a thousand times more rational than Reihl. But even Cole is pushing the Overton Window- what the hell is wrong with sending your kid to a public school, if there is a good one near you? Does John Cole consider my parents to be somehow compromised because they sent me to a public high school? Does he think I’m damaged goods?
Well, look at it this way:
If there is a civil war, we won’t have to dehumanize the enemy. They do a perfectly good job themselves.
The thing that gets me is that going after the 12 year old kid is unnecessary. They could argue, (at least somewhat convincingly) that while the Frosts were aided by S-CHIP, in the larger case there are people who are harmed by it through higher taxes or inefficiencies or some sort of free market mumbo jumbo. But these—um, well, I don’t want to call them people any more—seem to have it in their head that anyone who was in need and received anything of government assistance is somehow evil in nature and deserved to get sick/hurt/lose thousands of dollars through no fault of their own. It’s insane.
Atheist: I think it’s because Baltimore City schools are especially poor (as in quality).
Hunh? I went to public school, too, and graduated from a public land-grant University. All I said was that according to Republican dogma, they are doing what you expect of good citizens- eschewing public school.
John’s come a long way. If current wool-shedding trends continue at Balloon Juice, he’ll be calling Tim F. a wingnut in about a year’s time.
Seriously, John still thinks libertarianism is a good idea at bottom. He’s dumped the church, but not the faith yet.
I like this quote:
they apparently believe it’s cool to play with wood, or hold low-paying, fun, or perhaps lower stress jobs without having to worry about providing for whatever number of moppets one might feel like dropping into the world.
Because it’s not like there’s any stress involved when you own your own small business.
Lucky duckies.
And here he is! That was Goldstein-like in its quickness of response!
John Cole has only recently come to my attention through Crook and Liars. He seems to hardly qualify for a wingnut.
See, John makes sense sometimes. Can you say that about any of the regular targets around here?
What kind of wingnut would do a blog roundup for C & L? He seems more like one of them centrists.
Hunh? I went to public school, too, and graduated from a public land-grant University. All I said was that according to Republican dogma, they are doing what you expect of good citizens- eschewing public school.
Oh, OK Mr. Cole. I misunderstood. You were just pointing out the self-contradictory nature of their rhetoric, not making their argument.
Thanks for clarifying. These days, it’s honestly hard to be sure sometimes.
Actually, I thought John Cole’s piece yesterday was very good. Bravo, sir.
I’m not a libertarian, but I think there’s DEFINITELY something to be said for real, actual libertarians of the Jim Henley/Radley Balko variety who are basically equal-opportunity bullshit detectors for government action. I ain’t got a monopoly on the truth, although I know jackassery when I see it (Hint: It’s normally at Riehl’s website).
I hate to say it, but every time I see Dan Riehl’s face, I am possessed by the desire to punch things hard enough to make them lose molecular cohesion.
Yes, the Frost children are victims, but not of conservatives.
I never wanted to hit the kid. I didn’t get any pleasure from it. His mother made me do it. It was like she was using him as a human shield.
After Michelle Malkin misleads her readers with petty comments about the Frosts like Question: How many working poor couples get wedding announcements in the New York Times?,she “updates” her blog with this announcement:
and
John Cole has only recently come to my attention through Crook and Liars. He seems to hardly qualify for a wingnut.
At his worst, he was pretty bad. But then the Schiavo fiasco (understandably) freaked him out, and the Editors forcibly deprogrammed him.
I see. My short tenure on teh interwebs is showing, I guess.
His Grace said,
The thing that gets me is that going after the 12 year old kid is unnecessary. They could argue…
Your Grace, you are on the wrong wavelength. Mark Steyn explained the paradigm:
And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you’re welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended
In Steyn’s world, the correct response to a policy argument is to “clobber”. ‘Genuine debate’ consists of smearing, stalking and making shit up.
“I am possessed by the desire to punch things hard enough to make them lose molecular cohesion.”
Ow! That’s gotta hurt!
Sir, I am offended that you would compare Dan Riel with Tor Johnson. Tor acted with Bela Lugosi, and he was once directed by Coleman Francis! That’s a hell of a lot classier than acting with Mark Steyn and being directed by George Bush I’ll tell you that right now! Also Tor would often drink a whole six-pack of beer in one meal and have a full gallon of ice cream for dessert! Is Dan Riel that talented? I didn’t think so! Oh and everyone who knew Tor said he was highly intelligent, charming, and quite kind in person. As for Dan, well I don’t know what he’s like in person, but If it’s anything like his public persona…
Wow, Malkin didn’t make such a barking stink about her “update” being, you know, the fucking whole truth of the story, as she did to her rabid speculation of aristocratic communists suckling from the tit of the hard working taxpayer, did she? I guess the first *made up story* just didn’t bring as much sexy as the fucking truth.
And of course her regular mouth-breathing readers will simply find some other way to demonize a kid and his family:
“OMG tehy went on vacation one year!!!111one FRAUDz!!!111seventeen!! Communistszz!!”
Yeah, g, I love the anti-entrepreneurial, anti-small business vibe.
More fun with Dan:
Or, hey, get a second job with benefits. I’ve done that more than once in my life when I needed the cash. And do it before you let Graeme tell the media how much you struggle to take care of him, because there are enough people in America who really do struggle with these issues. And when they take a look at your lot in life they are left far from impressed and unmoved to cough up one thin dime so you can enjoy afternoons playing with your lathe, or whatever the hell else it is you do in your factory.
The best part? On the top right hand corner of Dan’s page, this legend appears:
Donations appreciated
Can someone please remind me who the Republican congress critter was that had a bunch of kids at an appearance so that reporters couldn’t ask him questions about his issues. As I remember it the reporters even asked him to dismiss the kids so they could ask adult questions…
Ted, I believe that was John Boehner (sp?).
Okay, the parents are both working and paying taxes and now they need a little help to make life a bit more normal. Why is that such a fucking problem for these assholes? The parents are paying into the system for fuck sakes. Oh man I could spit nails. I’m currently training a woman who pronounced herself a big fan of fox, loves bush, blah,blah, blah. My boss ducked when she said this to me because he thought I was going to come unglued. I told her that we couldn’t discuss politics at all. She is currently in the process of opening a chain, in the meantime she is going to collect unemployment. Apparently social programs are wrong, wrong, wrong, unless the repukes utilize them. They are definately some fucked up people.
I keep seeing them (including Dan Riehl) rip on the father for being a wood worker. They call it “playing with wood,” as if somehow working with wood is a shameful or silly or self-indulgent profession. “Playing with wood” is far less serious than a manly job like “Blogging.”
Perhaps they should publish lists of jobs that meet with their approval vs jobs for which they have no respect.
John Cole has only recently come to my attention through Crook and Liars. He seems to hardly qualify for a wingnut.
At his worst, he was pretty bad. But then the Schiavo fiasco (understandably) freaked him out, and the Editors forcibly deprogrammed him.
Ah, I wondered what happened. I removed my Balloon Farts bookmark in 2003, when Cole was screaming gibbering obscenities at any commenters who dared question the Noble War to Spread Freedumb.
Bloody hell. Going after brain-injured children. This is some kind of horrible, sick joke, right? Are they going to organize puppy-kicking contests next? Do they have any idea how utterly loathsome they look to normal people, with human feelings? Oh, wait, they utterly lack empathy, so of course not.
Yeah, Cole has been refreshingly rational lately, but check his sidebar. He’s still linking to people he calls “drooling retards.”
I keep seeing them (including Dan Riehl) rip on the father for being a wood worker. They call it “playing with wood,” as if somehow working with wood is a shameful or silly or self-indulgent profession.
Woodworkers are fair game. But keep in mind, if you dare to make fun of an exterminator, you’re a snob of the absolute worst kind!
“Playing with wood” aka carpentry. Hmmm, who else was a carpenter, kind of a celebrity in certain right wing circles… can’t place the name but kind of a hippy, long hair, sandals… Ted Nugent? Nah… It’ll come to me.
Hmmm, who else was a carpenter, kind of a celebrity in certain right wing circles…
Died in a carpentry accident, too
Well, to be honest the good Doktor’s right.
He did get nailed…
mikey
You know who else was a carpenter?
TEH STUPID! IT BURNZZEZZ!!!1!!11
Dammit, Johnny! Quit that!
Child of woodworker injured in tragic carpentry accident!
Roman authorities investigating possible parental neglect!
Herr Doktor, I know I ain’t on the same wavelength as Steyn. Same with Relapsed Catholic. Canada doesn’t have many wingnuts but boy are they radical. But shit, I have libertarian and conservative friends and family. We have arguments sure. I knew a guy who grew up under the communists in Poland. His libertarianism is more than understandable, considering how fucking bad—and I don’t pretend to even remotely understand how bad—things were over there. And considering I have benefited from government healthcare I am a might more partial to teh left But sweet jebus, I don’t think I have ever recalled any of my debates with him had either of us going, well that person in your anecdote probably deserved what happened to them. These things are… I don’t know what the hell they are.
Apparently social programs are wrong, wrong, wrong, unless the repukes utilize them
My parents were about as wingnutty as they come. It wasn’t until I was 14 or so that I found out that there wasn’t any difference between the “government cheese” that the black people ate and the kind that my mom used to grill on white bread for us.
When I pointed out one time that the bulk of social spending goes to rural areas, not urban areas, my dad exploded that rural aid was helping people who were the backbone of America make ends meet. Urban welfare was just giving handouts to layabouts who hadn’t lifted a finger in generations because it was “PC”.
The funny thing is, claiming that “the poor are lazy” has a more pernicious effect that you would expect. On the one hand, the rich and middle classes do come to believe that the poor are indeed lazy. On the other, the poor come to believe that by that definition they are not poor, and that other people must be getting it easier than they are.
First time I’ve ever really been tempted to try the “donate $.01 and let Paypal sock ’em with $.29 in transaction fees for the donation” scheme.
Seriously. Tor Johnson seems like a perfectly honorable man who pursued a perfectly honorable profession. Unlike some people I could name. Dan Riehl, for instance.
He’s still linking to people he calls “drooling retards.”
So does TBogg, but we’re not exactly smacking him around. Shiat, I even had Volokh in Teh Blogroll once.
Meanwhile, it’s not like S-CHIP is free for its subscribers.
[…] if this weren’t bad enough, there’s still one choice bit of vile at the bottom of this barrel […]
DeLay was a struggling small-business man, striving to keep his company above water so its handful of employees could keep their jobs.
Wonder if he paid his employees health insurance…..??? What government programs for which he was eligible do you suppose he took advantage of?
I suppose we should try and find out how many of these critics made their way in life without an FHA or VA loan, a Pell grant or subsidized school loan, attending a state college, owning rental property where tenants used a housing assistance program, found their job via their state employment department, or used any of all the myriad programs our government provides, since MOST BY FAR go to the middle class.
Aw fuck it. I’m just going to go breed a few dozen more kids and get them all on welfare. There’s no point using logic, so I might as well just join the Frosts in giving these clucking biddies a thousand more people to gossip about.
And every Halloweeen we’ll TP their houses while I get my kids to sell their kids crack.
#
Herr Doktor Bimler said,
October 10, 2007 at 0:22
“Hmmm, who else was a carpenter, kind of a celebrity in certain right wing circles…
Died in a carpentry accident, too”
Genius,Doc!
Understand he was a self hating Jew as well,kept siding with the Palestinians and other downtrodden underdogs.Probably woulda made the Masada S.H.I.T.list.if he was still around.
This is a from a Dan Riehl commenter in this thread: “Smaller schools without the budget for a employing a standing counter-terrorism unit or armed security squadron might have to take it upon themselves to secure their own firearms and CCWs or open carry permits, as well as getting safety training during summer break on their own dime.”
This is par discourse from Regular Riehl Readers
I want to say something about this, but then I’d be using my own free time to contribute something to the site without getting anything back. That’s temporal socialism.
These right wing losers “love” America but hate Americans.
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