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    Tabby GevinsonHamilton Nolan
    1/27/15 11:41am

    Weird.

    Ernst was born in 1970, so she probably would have been wearing the bread bags during the Carter and/or Reagan administration(s).

    Which would mean that Noonan is either wistful for the Carter years, or tacitly admitting that Americans were worse off financially under Reagan.

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      Quantum SuicideTabby Gevinson
      1/27/15 11:52am

      Bullseye!

      Also, WUT? Ernst was born in the 70's?

      I guess the Bachmann crazy-eyes really age you.

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      Myrna MinkoffTabby Gevinson
      1/27/15 11:58am

      Wait a minute. Ernst is only a few years older than me?

      (Looks at Ernst. Looks in mirror. Looks at Ernst again.)

      My self-esteem just shot up like 20 points.

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    A_Copy_EditorHamilton Nolan
    1/27/15 11:37am

    Peggy replies, taking a sip of Lysol

    Where should we mail your Peabody?

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      benjaminalloverA_Copy_Editor
      1/27/15 12:01pm

      I must say I so look forward to these burns. Of all the people Hamilton hates and all the ways he hates them, I love the way he hates Peggy the most :)

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      A_Copy_Editorbenjaminallover
      1/27/15 12:04pm

      I totally agree. I fucking love whenever HamNo posts about Peggy.

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    Quantum SuicideHamilton Nolan
    1/27/15 11:40am

    She liked it when Americans had less, but likes it when she has more (unless she's taken some vow of poverty?)

    She really needs a "[some]" in front of that "Americans."

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      ThePriceisWrongQuantum Suicide
      1/27/15 12:17pm

      My favorite is how they crow about "having less in the old days" (being poor), and that they long for that time back. So they wish all people were poor again? Doesn't this violate the very idea of their "bootstraps" phenomenon?

      Also, if they're going to long for a time when they considered plastic bags excellent shoes, I recommend they test that theory out again and let us know how that works out for them.

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      Sue--AsponteQuantum Suicide
      1/27/15 12:43pm

      Yes. The subtext of Ernst's bizarre speech was that America is better when it's poor. Wearing bread bags over your shoes is better than having two pairs of shoes. I couldn't believe it, but Peggy clarified and drove it home. She wishes everyone were poor. Except her. Thanks Peg.

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    ManchuCandidateHamilton Nolan
    1/27/15 11:40am

    Oh Pegs, your column fills me with

    at how clueless you are.

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      Class_WarfareHamilton Nolan
      1/27/15 11:52am

      Let's also not forget that Joni left out of her speech that her family received almost a half a million dollars total in welfare. You know, the same programs she says are for the lazy takers.

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        UKStory135Class_Warfare
        1/27/15 11:57am

        You are only a lazy taker if you are non-white or from Appalachia. Otherwise taking free stuff is OK.

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        Fleet Admiral JoshClass_Warfare
        1/27/15 12:09pm

        Yeah, but her family DESERVED it

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      BIlllingtonHamilton Nolan
      1/27/15 11:40am

      Is there something in the water that apparently only Republicans are drinking? There seems to be an even higher rate of incoherence (not just bad policy, but literal word salad) from the right in the past few weeks.

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        weirwoodtreehugger3BIlllington
        1/27/15 12:43pm

        Have you ever seen the movie Pontypool? Maybe it's like that but only right wing buzzwords are infected instead of the whole English language and the right wingers have turned into zombie like creatures.

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      IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerHamilton Nolan
      1/27/15 11:54am

      "I liked imagining that. I liked her reminding me of not so long ago, before America got rich."

      "Hey, Peg? Here's news for you...some of us still aren't rich. Some of us are stuck in a place where having bread bags to spare for shoes would be a fucking luxury. Peg? Peg? Peg, are you even listening? Oh dear God, Peg....what are you doing with that thing? Peg, this is.....this is one of Regan's old State of the Union speeches! This is sick, Peg! No, literally...it's fucking gross! STOP THAT!"—the working poor

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        MeesterCreesterIAMBlastedBiggsLostBurner
        1/27/15 12:20pm

        In the 70s, folks working humble jobs could afford humble homes. Good luck finding a humble affordable rental in anything but downtown ghettos these days

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        IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerMeesterCreester
        1/27/15 12:38pm

        It was when 'price gouging' became associated with 'shrewd economic strategy' that the whole thing went belly-up.

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      unconsciousHamilton Nolan
      1/27/15 11:39am

      Vicarious, disingenuous poverty : Always better than the real thing.

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        Jerry-NetherlandHamilton Nolan
        1/27/15 11:44am

        She wistfully yearns for America to return to an economy in which plastic bags are good enough boots for children. While we're at it, shouldn't Peggy wear her seal-fur coat? The Republican platform is simply about accepting your place and being happy about it.

        Those who've got shall get, those who've not shall lose...

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          Skipping along to our shared destructionHamilton Nolan
          1/27/15 12:32pm

          OK. I feel a need to explain what Ms. Noonan was attempting to emulate. There was a certain time when Americans were - after the shock of the Great Depression and the Second World War a little more frugal and a little more - well - conservative. And she gets a tear in her eyes when we were all kept in line largely by the fear of the horrific things the Soviets or the Chinese were going to do to us at their first chance and the thought that we'd again lose everything in some financial catastrophe beyond our ken and control. We've even gone so far as to go through a finance failure beyond our ken and control and a horrifying war and the imminent threat of a resurgent Russia or China and - dammit - we're not all snapping into line.

          She misses it. She misses old Ed Meese's Law and Order Republicanism. For fuck's sake, she misses J. Edgar and his great taste in shoes. She never caught the gist of Johnson, who testily corrected a reporter who said some poor children their press tour had passed were wearing rags that those children were not dressed in rags but in clothes patched by loving caring mothers who didn't have any means to do better.

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