We've been dealing with this asshole since 1985

Go raise some taxes.

that's inspired!

We'll all get a nice fresh start!

Bathtub Day?

Wonder what his tea bag supporters would say if they knew that.

I wonder what his bagger supporter would think of that!

most Americans never heard his name mentioned.

If I can't call him a body part, then why can you? How is asshole different from _____?

He sets the standard in that department..........

like an ugly-demon-nightmare-shitneck-from-hell...

Perhaps the confusion arises from the fact that Norquist's 'birth canal' was actually a lower intestine culminating in a rectum?

We just didn't pay attention to his machinations. He wasn't hiding. He was waiting for his chance and getting his ducks in a row.

so small that they can be drowned in a kitchen sink!

What did he ever do, was he ever elected to anything, is he a zillionaire Who is he ???????

conservative activist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He's also an asshole.

and, at the same time, take an oath to support the economic principles of Grover Norquist. Really seems to be a conflict of interest ... to the point of being criminal.

Grover just needs a good beating. A public horse whipping might change his mind and get his oath takers to have a change of heart. He's nothing more than a guy who collects money from wealthy elites and uses that money to bribe legislators to get laws passed to benefit those who give him money. For reasons unbeknownst to man or science, this is all legal.
When a crime has been committed, follow the money. The American people are Grover's victims, and the time for prosecution is long passed.
The fucking prick Norquist belongs behind bars or marched into the sea.

We need some more Supreme Court justices who are in the pocket of the US Chamber

federal slammer for the rest of his life would seem to be an appropriate punishment for this treasonous little troll.

What is it about this non-elected *person* that the right fears so much?

I really don't understand it.

That Reagan asked him to form, so Grover says.... wow, surprise huh?

There is a pledge they make all republican congress critters sign and they keep track to be sure the congressman doesn't vary from the pledge he signed, and if he/she does, a political machine would be rallied against them and they would lose their seat.

So, pretty much blackmail. Do what we say or you won't be a congressman next year.

Of course, it takes lots of money to do this. Just one more way money controls our electoral process.

And the reference in the OP is that Grover said he wanted to make gov't so small that you could drown it in a bathtub.

I hate Grover Norquist like you wouldn't believe.

relationship map for rubbish bin dweller...

http://www.muckety.com/Grover-G-Norquist/3963.muckety

And where he got his "pledge" concept from:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/?term=Grover+Norquist&start=0

Merely for those who might be interested...

donations to the politicians. The difference is that his is a spigot for money going to Republicans.

He'd sink like a ton of bricks.

He's like Limbaugh and Hannity in that regard.

politician does not negate what was said. He is like Rahm Emanuel, Reid, and Pelosi in that he is a spigot for money. He's a money man, someone who decides which candidates get the money.

If I ever claim that he has actually campaigned and vied for votes, I'll let you know.

especially Democrats. To equate Pelosi, Reid, or Emanuel with his method of operation his disgraceful.

He is nothing but a filthy extortionist.

I think I ate something bad last night. I'll be right back, I gotta go take a "Norquist".

...and Flush--TWICE!!

That's the whole problem, though. We as a nation are not feeling well. We are ill. We have norquist disease. I'm trying to think up a good word for it, like romnesia for wrongney. But he is a disease. An opportunistic infection that has blighted most of the country, kinda like a political Dutch Elm Disease.

And yes, I'm attempting, in my word and phrase choices, to dehumanize and minimize him. To make him a thing. All the easier to despise.

And remember that - quite literal - "war of words." The newt gingriches and frank luntzes of the world have thought up all these verbal devices to help paint the correct word pictures to get the desired meanings across to the unsuspecting targets (ie: ordinary citizens and potential low-information voters). They do focus group testing of words, phrases, concepts, slogans, and figure out just the exact perfect ways to convey messages. What words and phrases don't just say something, they INFER or IMPLY or SUGGEST. It's almost like subliminal advertising.

Words and phrases are carefully analyzed and categorized as to whether they're positive or negative connotations. Words with positive meanings or associations are deliberately and purposefully to be used when speaking of things or concepts or individuals that are supposed to be regarded positively. The same exercise is done with more negative words and phrases. Those are, in turn, supposed to be used whenever referring to something you don't like and you want to turn others against as well.

gingrich had a whole book full of them, developed through his GOPAC during the early 80s when he rode into Congress on reagan's coattails. For all things CONservative, regressive, republi-CON, or GOP-related, you were told to use positive words to associate them with. Words like "family," "American," "concerned citizens," "freedom," "liberty," "people of faith," "traditional," "hard-working," "God-fearing," and more. For all things Democratic or liberal or progressive - oppositional or negative words and phrases were used like "socialism," "hippie," "limousine liberals," "the looney left," "tree-huggers," "unAmerican," "godless," and worse. What used to drive me mad was that the term "do-gooder" was actually a put-down. A put-down!?!!!?!?!?!???? Doing good is a negative thing? Since when??????????????????? But yeah. It was. It was a derogatory term. One step lower than "nanny state." But in a "You're On Your Own" world, or an IGMFU world (I Got Mine, F-U), we can't have this "kum-by-ya" crap. Even "kum-by-yah" is a put-down. So is "peacenik." And "women's libber." Some of us were demeaned by the use of the term "bra-burner."

frank luntz and others were the ones who focus-group-tested all these words and phrases to see what registered and how. They made a science out of it.

So - if you wanna change the tax laws or cut taxes or whatever, the word "tax" has to be rendered SECURELY negative. Why not attach
the word "relief" to the word tax - because the phrase "tax relief" implies that taxes are something bad from which one yearns for relief. Notice, in the last few years - since Obama became president - the phrases "job-creating" and "job-killing" have been added to everything from legislation to toilet paper brands to actual people. Slap "job-creating" on any crap-ass legalized piracy legislation and BOOM! Instantly you have this nice little mental sticky-note or audio earwig that's gonna bury itself into your tissues and take root, and make itself a nice permanent home. BOOM! "Job-creating" - whatever it's attached to suddenly becomes something good, positive, desireable, admired, coveted, something to be hailed, promoted, protected, increased, accellerated, enforced, even worshipped. "Job-creating!" Hey, says the low-information viewer/listener. Well, THAT thing creates jobs! Must HAVE! And on the flip side, a "job-killing" fill-in-the-blank-here is a total negative, toxic, a loser, an undesireable, a poopy-head (to quote the ever-eloquent overflowing bathtub candidate), and something to be avoided, hated, defied, ignored, demeaned, scorned, bad-mouthed, minimized, vilified, brought down, destroyed.

They've been on this for at least 30 years. More like 40, I think, 'cause reagan didn't just arrive, fully-formed, on a half-shell on the ocean waves. A lot went into building him and the favorable, fertile environment of the national mindset in which he was to be planted. lee atwater was at work back then and there have already been clips of him giving lectures about effective wording and phrasing. In one clip, he referred to what we now all recognize as dog-whistles, describing how people used to use the "n-word" regarding the racist feelings they had, but you really couldn't say stuff like that in polite company anymore, so you could say OTHER things - like "states' rights" and so forth, to subtly telegraph what you meant to say, and other fellow racists who felt as strongly about the rectitude - even nobility - of their own racism and had no intention of changing their views would understand your message very clearly. And if they didn't, you keep on doing this and they'll pick up on it soon enough. It used to be NOT respectable to be greedy and selfish. Once even regarded as sinful. But these lovely folks changed all that and made it respectable - through this lexicon they developed and the way they evangelized it across the American political and social landscape.

It's the money talking. The corporations et al. The free-marketeers. The rich. They've bristled against the New Deal for decades, because it leveled the playing field, and deep-down, the captains of "the sanctity of competition" hate that more than anything. THEY want the upper hand, the edge, the fix. They want the game rigged so they win. Fairness for all is no fair to them. The more level the playing field, the more the OTHER guy has an even shot at winning, and we can't have that if we're to claw our own unimpeded personal way to the top of the ziggurat. So basically all these annoying "rights" and "programs" and "benefits" and "entitlements" that the rich and elites don't need because they already have PLENTY in all those departments, are bad things. They must be done away with. After all, ayn rand says we're entitled to keep everything and we're not supposed to have to share or make a little room for anybody else.

For example, ever wonder why it's the CONservatives who want to do away with affirmative action? It's total IGMFU. clarence thomas, for example, was MORE than happy to avail himself of all the advantages that affirmative action offered - in its design to help level the playing field and give those who'd been historically shut out a chance to get inside. But once HE got in, he wanted to shut the door and lock it behind him so nobody else could get in after him, and make use of those advantages he used.

These assholes have been at this Satan's Work FOR DECADES. It's perception management. The main objective was to make this shit respectable so it would be much easier, even to the point of being systemic, to enact their agenda into law - and preferably into the Constitution. They've been working on this for a LONG time, trying to change the nation's views from progressive to CONservative. Trying to push the pendulum as far as they can to their side and then tie it in place there. They infuse the mind with positive and negative associations to things - and then the job is done. The impressions are made, and they stick. It's almost like they've made your mind into a mine-field.

At least there are more people waking up to this, and recognizing it as a fact. These are the building blocks of that alternate reality we've known about, and fought against, for years, and that the mainstream media and other Pox Noise/limbaugh critics have only just recently discovered. Thank Heavens the awakening has finally begun.

What WE have to do is make sure nobody dozes off again.


Aw, crap. Glad you're here! Sorry to be so long-winded.

I flushed it immediately, of course.

... I'll wait to celebrate the end of this asshole's reign of terror on the 99% until it's actually over.

Nothing has been solved. Not a single penny more of taxes has been leveled on the 1%, Social Security and Medicare are still "on the table" and in jeopardy. We are still dumping hundreds of BILLION$ into the MIC with no end in sight. Millions of us have no hope of ever being employed in decent jobs again.

So what is it exactly, we are doing this victory dance about?

But this would be a sweet start wouldn't it?

And it would be quite a victory for us, no?

... when it's actually a victory, not before. There has been no significant change, that any realist can see. I still hold on to hope that change might come, that we can once and for end the lunacy of Voodoo Economics, but to be honest, that hope is very slim. The very rich have a stranglehold on not just this Nation, but the entire World and I doubt that anything short of massive rebellion will make a difference. Getting the best of this one man, while a good sign, isn't going to right the ship.

underestimate the trickle down, effects this will have on that class of people.

Because to take this man down, he will have lost support and there will be legislation that makes him irrelevant.

Not saying it's the end all be all, but it's a mighty fine victory!

None of that has happened yet. No taxes have been raised on the rich. No jobs programs have been enacted. 50 million people have virtually no health care. The MIC is still spending like there is no tomorrow. Washington DC is still infested with corporate lobbyists, who have OUR government in their pocket.

And CRITICAL safety net programs that millions DEPEND ON to survive, are still "on the table."

I'm with you there. I wish I heard a lot more convincing language from democrats on that front, ei, they aren't going to raise the retirement age, and they aren't going to raise the eligibility age for Medicare.

I want a full throttled declaration from the party leaders on those two issues.

... what worries me. The use of slippery language to screw us, has become standard practice. Frankly, I see no reason to believe it will be different this time around. When it happens, (when the 1% succeeds in starting the process to finish off SS and Medicare) all bets are off, there will be revolution. I wish it weren't so, but it's where it's been headed for at least 3 decades.

that during the first presidential candidates' debate, like a sucker punch, R$ comes out spewing his version of everything that Obama had been campaigning on like chimp on crank. All the lip service one could stand without puking. And that's just what we're seeing from the mouths of the obstructionists this week, lip service... or the equivalent of a big wet BJ to make it look like they are having a change of heart so that we might foolishly give them the benefit of the doubt again. Not this time, sportsfans.

We've seen this dog and pony show too many times now and we keep getting the shaft thrust further and further up our collective wahoo every time. I'm not holding my breath.

The president has the power of executive order and should we decide to go over the mole-hill-sized fiscal cliff, he could make certain that a number of bad things do not go immediately into effect giving the NEWLY ELECTED Congress the time to rally and make the necessary changes. I have no confidence in the current lame duck set of cronies make any more legislation. Tell them to just go home now and fucking stay there and STFU.

We'd all love to hear them.

And I believe the word you want is celebrate.

... a spelling cop. Just in the knic of tyme.

I'm sure all the words in Grover's pledge are spelled correctly.

It tends to make readers take it more seriously.

It's more about knowing the definition of the words you use

Well then..

.. that makes you a Typo Cop. Aren't you so proud?

Now, run along and find another leg to hump.

Bye, bye.

As the Planet's Stupidest Critter.

for a very long time. Let's hope that after 27 years, his 15 minutes are *finally* up.

Oh wait, it must be this: $$$$$

I just served on the jury for it.

***

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

Let's not stoop this low, calling people assholes because they have a different viewpoint. Leave that tactic to the unenlightened please.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Nov 26, 2012, 07:53 AM, and the Jury voted 0-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: He *is* an asshole that has worked to undermine our nation for years strictly to benefit his cronies. I see know problem with the OP calling it like she sees them.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: An asshole is an asshole by any other name. What's the problem?
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: This is a stalking alert.. Admins need to take a look at the "alerter"
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Someone hasn't been at DU long
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

I was juror #2. (and my comment was supposed to read "I see NO" not know, but I'm caffeine challenged)

When I see certain avatars, I look them up on google images to see what they mean if I don't know. A sakabatou is a reverse-edge sword, wielded by Rurouni Kenshin to atone for his time as an assassin. Even the signature fits - I am a wanderer.

Very neat .

As for the signature, it's one of Kenshin's quotes.

That's the sort of Alert that I would rather the owners take a good look at. Just click the "alert abuse" button down at the bottom of your Results of your Jury Service message and let Skinner, Earl, or Elad do a bit of investigation.

I have seen that phrase used, "a different viewpoint", in quite a few of the results when a Jury fails to remove something that obviously should have been hidden.

Who the hell is a member here that believes Norquist simply has a different viewpoint, anyway?

I agree with what juror #4 has said...forward those results on to Skinner!

This kind of BS is a waste of time. There's a huge thread in Meta about it now. Apparently the alerter is butthurt about getting a post hidden because they used a misogynistic slur and feel the urge to alert on everything in the world.

1000 think tank-fed and coordinated and very loud radio stations have been allowed to scream all day to 50 mil americans, many of which live in areas where there are NO free alternatives for politics while driving and working, attacking good people and ideas and creating made-to-order pro-corporate constituencies for any issue they want. many of those states it dominates have few people but 2 senators.

176 of those limbaugh stations and many other RW stations without limbaugh piggyback the good names of over 70 universities, which piss on their own mission statements when they broadcast sports on those stations. https://sites.google.com/site/universitiesforrushlimbaugh/

and it has worked so well because the left ignores the talk radio monopoly while it kicks our ass. there is NO organized opposition to it.

yeah we got the white house and senate, but we also have lost 20 years with those motherfuckers short circuiting the feedback mechanisms a real democracy depends on to deal with problems such as global warming and chickehawks screaming for war.

He can go fuck himself as far as I am concerned. Who the hell does he think he is that he insists elected House and Senate members take his stupid pledge? Drown, Grover, drown in a bathtub of your own filth.

Grover really has no power himself. He's a sock puppet for guys like Ted Peterson, the Koche, and Morgan Stanley's Erskine Bowles.

But this mans undoing will be his own having to turn on him.

And legislatively there will be victories.

we need to watch out for his other tentacles. His slimy fingers are all over the reagan/bennet education plans. Those plans are currently being championed by this administration's ed secretary/pick-up bb buddy.

Let's bury his stupid tax policy, but not exalt his plans for America's school children.

He must have been some fun kid to play with, don't raise my taxes bro.

is he basically blackmails Republicans with Primary challenges if they deviate from the no tax pledge. No matter how long that Republican has served.
He has no loyalty to the Republican Party or any member.
And they allow this asshole, who has no respect for a single one of them, top dictate their position.
A profile in cowardice.

Oh that's right he wasn't.

Whom.... by whom....

who, whom. Whatever, he's still an unelected asshole.

FINALLY.....a balanced approach to the buget based on "I want what's best for America" ideology? Really, where they hell was that sentiment, from any Republican, 4 years ago? Never mind, the political contortions being employed to pretend that Grover Norquist and his unpatriotic pledge is still relevant is amusing.

That's some food for thought... really..

But I do think the very public throttling he will take, will cause ripples... we'll see.

opposition to federal income tax. A man named Robert Dresser proposed a constitutional amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment. Thirty-one states passed it, just 2 short of the number needed to convene a constitutional convention.

some ever referring to Grover Norquist, but they have no intention of compromising.

No one should be fooled into entering into a victory dance over Grover Norquist.

The Republicans are still going to get a Grand Bargain where the American middle-class, or what is left of it, is going to continue to get screwed.

The Grand Bargain is not going to be good for us.

This dude is the pinnacle of the iceberg perhaps, but do not forget they fill a few streets in the Capitol and throw around a lot of money, sometimes illegally. What is his weakness? His pals? The Siegelman framing? There is a lot of mud on this guys Rolls!

Grover Glenn Norquist is founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

==============
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Tax_Reform

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is ostensibly a group that pushes for lower taxes. It has close ties to the Republican Party and has frequently allied itself with the tobacco industry.

Monthly radio program
Grover Norquist's Radio Show, "Leave Us Alone" broadcasts on the internet every fourth Thursday on Rightalk. The organizational website maintains an archive of the programs.

K Street Project is "non-partisan research of political affiliation, employment background, and political donations of members in Washington DC's premier lobbying firms, trade associations, and industries." Ironically, it shares its name with the project by the Republican Party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. That projects was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist and ATF founder Grover Norquist working with former House majority leader Tom DeLay.

... In March 1999, Norquist was active lobbying members of the Senate Budget Committee in defense of the tobacco industry. ...

================
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Tax_Reform_and_Jack_Abramoff

"Norquist ...met Abramoff through the College Republicans in the early '80s; he managed Abramoff's successful campaign to become chair of that group. ..."

... Ralph E. Reed, Jr. and Norquist are "implicated in the questionable funneling by Abramoff of more than $4 million of Preston Gates Ellis Native American client funds to back antigambling campaigns run by Reed from 1999 to 2003," Parrish wrote. "In one case involving funds from an Indian casino client, as much as $1.3 million in client funds may have been used to launch a campaign.

... some of the Preston Gates money was allegedly laundered through Norquist's anti-tax group, Americans for Tax Reform, which took a cut. The point was for Abramoff's Native American casino clients to pay for campaigns that would shut out potential competition from state lotteries or new casinos.

... Norquist accompanied Abramoff, Ralph Reed, General Services Administration head David Safavian, and Ohio Rep. Robert Ney on a 2002 golf trip to Scotland in which Abramoff allegedly illegally picked up the costs for Ney and for Safavian, a former Norquist business partner in the firm Janus Merritt Strategies. Norquist raised big bucks for the 2004 Bush re-election.

... Abramoff client Raul Garza, chief of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, was allowed to atend a reception with President Bush on May 9, 2001, just days after he gave $25,000 to Norquest's Americans for Tax Reform at Abramoff's direction.

Mr. Norquist organized and attended the May 9 reception in Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds .... Another Abramoff client, a leader of the Louisiana Coushattas tribe, has said he also paid $25,000 and then attended a separate event sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform with Mr. Bush.

Didn't they get Al Capone for the same thing?

Nothing but a silly ant man bee pushing the failed policies of Reagone.

Why doesn't someone spine up and tell these people: "Your duty is to the American people and to the Constitution of the United States Of America . . . not Grover Norquist. He is not an elected official, he is not a full time worker, he is not a government employee. You are NOT to answer or bequeath any pledge to him; that's not what you swore to do when you took this job."

Norquist has been on TV all weekend long. In the meantime, they've all been talking about this "fiscal cliff" horse shit.

It is amusing to see CNN make a big deal out of this and speculate on the upcoming "negotiations," when those negotiations were already concluded two years ago and now the federal budget is going to automatically receive a huge infusion of tax revenue while making billions in defense industry cuts.

That is what the President and Congressional Democrats are going to achieve if they do nothing at all. Does anyone seriously think Republicans are going to give away more than that? Of course not. They're trying to "negotiate" away the baseball bat we're going to beat them down with.

No backroom dealing is going to give back Grover's tax cuts for the rich. They're going to expire according to a firm timetable made in a prior, air-tight agreement. The President has already promised to veto anything Congress does to extend them, and they won't have the votes to override the veto.

That is the starting line Republicans will have to meet in order to negotiate any other compromise, and we all know they're not even going to seriously try, just like they couldn't seriously try during the debt ceiling negotiations.

Instead, just like the last times, the Republicans are going to hold the middle class tax cuts hostage, and wind up making sure those expire, too.

And then, after Republicans have gone out of their way to raise taxes on everyone, through hostage-taking, double-dealing, false negotiation, and incompetence, what's the media going to do? Invite Grover to come back on and promise to run a primary challenger in every Republican district, as he has so direly promised to do for 25 years?

I don't know. Maybe. But my guess is that the GOP will destroy him long before he has a chance to do that. Grover is a very, very dirty guy, and in the past he escaped criminal prosecution only thanks to a favorable political environment, which he does not enjoy any longer.

It looks to me like his romp through pundit-land this weekend is a setup designed to first raise his visibility, so that he can be more thoroughly wrecked in two months. The real question is which way they're going to destroy Norquist, because they have a fielder's choice of crimes to pursue and expose (which they can easily do because they of course were in on it with him the whole time): money laundering, blackmail and/or extortion, or lobbying for terrorists.

a one-way ticket to the remotest place on earth. Or maybe Somalia.

The demise of his public career can not come soon enough.

As long as people like him, who do treasonous actions and espouse treasonous policies, aren't called out about it and brought to justice, there will be more of those like him in positions of power playing their power games. I'm not asking for draconian punishment, but maybe some large fines, a little prison time, depending on the treason, and discrediting who they are.

If the pledge takers just stand strong to show Grover they will not be controlled by this wimp he will dry up and fade away. Why they signed the pledge is beyond thinking. Maybe we can get McCain to get a special committee to investigate Grover.

The day he is pushed off his perch is the day the GOP grabs back some Independant votes.

I love Grover.


He, and he alone guarentees a Democratic majority in the Senate and Presidency for years to come.

Don't you think for a second the few recent detractors on his side already know this?