# Stupid Republican idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 687
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13721 "2014-03-26T13:06:58Z")
Mitch McConnell released an ad yesterday morning featuring a bunch of scenes from Kentucky, including shots of a basketball team in blue and white celebrating a national championship win. The problem? [The team was the Duke Blue Devils](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/25/mitch-mcconnell-basketball-_n_5027530.html). This seems like a fairly inconsequential mistake, unless you know anything about Kentucky basketball. UK fans feel roughly the same way about Duke as the Palestinians feel about the Israelis. They immediately replaced it with a shot of current UK star Julius Randle…which is, of course, a huge no-no with the NCAA. They immediately got a cease and desist letter from UK. Mitch, dude, whoever is making videos for you is not on your side. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13722 "2014-03-26T13:07:46Z")
Whoops … wrong thread for this post … say, those Republicans, what a bunch of stiffs, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13723 "2014-03-26T13:14:34Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > How much time did you guys take to learn cursive?? It can be learned in a single day, if you actually know how to write in block letters already. I understand it’s near useless, but there are far more useless things than cursive that get taught in K-12 education that won’t keep the student from being able to READ certain forms of the language when written down, which is a pretty big deal. What school did you go to that spent one day on cursive handwriting? That was a major part of several years of elementary school. It eventually got combined with other things, like spelling, but handwriting was still graded and we still practiced. Maybe learning to read cursive would take a day, but writing in cursive is a skill like any other. You may understand the theory after one day, but you would not be able to do it smoothly, quickly, and legibly. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13724 "2014-03-26T13:16:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > You’re not any more? Did you have an accident? > > I’m also left-handed and have pretty much given up on cursive. The effort to make it legible to others isn’t worth the time. I’m left-handed and I use cursive regularly. It enables me to use a $2.00 device called a “notebook” that I take with me everywhere to write. No batteries, no recharging, very handy indeed. It allows me to transform what would ordinarily be down time spent standing in line or waiting in offices into productive time. Of course, I have to retype it all into a computer at home, but that takes little time and since I’ve already written the words, it becomes part of the editing process. I suppose I could do the same with block letters, but there’s another advantage … it’s not all that easy for others to read my cursive. So … cursive for the win. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13725 "2014-03-26T13:23:55Z")
Put me down as a European scratching his head about all the cursive hate. That’s how I learned to write (printing here being limited to learning one’s ABCs, basically) and it’s 10x times faster than printing since you don’t have to reposition your hand all the time and one letter flows into the next. As a left-hander it was annoying back in high school because teachers wanted us to write with fountain pens - now \*that \*was a right mess. The first few months I came home with blue hands and blue pages. But with ballpoint or felt tip pens it’s the king’s road to proper doctor-style chickenscratching ! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13726 "2014-03-26T13:26:35Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > Mitch McConnell released an ad yesterday morning featuring a bunch of scenes from Kentucky, including shots of a basketball team in blue and white celebrating a national championship win. > > The problem? [The team was the Duke Blue Devils](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/25/mitch-mcconnell-basketball-_n_5027530.html). Is this like a Mets-Yankees screwup or a Yankees-Redsocks mistake? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13727 "2014-03-26T13:26:43Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Fucking hilarious. Diego Garcia has, at any given time, at least a dozen tenant commands on site along with a goodly number of visiting ships. So a Malaysian Air jet lands there in full site of hundreds, if not thousands, of military people and all of them can keep that secret? :smack: Not to mention it’s a _British_ territory. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13728 "2014-03-26T13:41:30Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Is this like a Mets-Yankees screwup or a Yankees-Redsocks mistake? Yankees-Sox, except possibly worse. To illustrate: a wildly popular shirt among UK fans since last year reads [“I Still Hate Laettner”](http://www.amazon.com/STILL-LAETTNER-KENTUCKY-BASKETBALL-T-SHIRT/dp/B00HSPRS4G). This is in reference to a UK-Duke game that happened in _1992_. (See also the “Duck Fuke” shirt, popular ever since said game.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13729 "2014-03-26T13:56:46Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Is this like a Mets-Yankees screwup or a Yankees-Redsocks mistake? The latter, I should think, Duke U. is not even **in** Kentucky, it’s in North Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13730 "2014-03-26T13:59:26Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Not to mention it’s a _British_ territory. You realize this added to the UK-Duke the confusion. So Duke is in the non-godforsaken Carolina; UK is the University of Kentucky. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13731 "2014-03-26T14:13:54Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I’m left-handed and I use cursive regularly. It enables me to use a $2.00 device called a “notebook” that I take with me everywhere to write. No batteries, no recharging, very handy indeed. It allows me to transform what would ordinarily be down time spent standing in line or waiting in offices into productive time. Of course, I have to retype it all into a computer at home, but that takes little time and since I’ve already written the words, it becomes part of the editing process. I suppose I could do the same with block letters, but there’s another advantage … it’s not all that easy for others to read my cursive. So … cursive for the win. Well, that’s why I said “legible to others”. For notes for my own use, my crappy cursive will do, but if I ever have to communicate with others, I type or print. Besides, you _pay_ for notebooks? I get them free from work. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13732 "2014-03-26T14:26:53Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > You realize this added to the UK-Duke the confusion. > > So Duke is in the non-godforsaken Carolina; UK is the University of Kentucky. Both of which are, of course, British territory.\* - For some reason there is, here in the colonies, a persistent mythology about a “Revolution” that supposedly happened in the late 18th Century. Actually, the British tax collectors simply stopped coming around. No one knows why; the prevailing theory is that everybody in HMG thought somebody else was handling the colonies. Please don’t tell them. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13733 "2014-03-26T14:38:17Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > You realize this added to the UK-Duke the confusion. Did McConnell’s third campaign video accidentally include footage of the Fifth Fleet? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13734 "2014-03-26T16:39:22Z")
[Meanwhile, over in the TP wing:](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/26/the_great_tea_party_swindle_how_to_make_lots_of_money_off_the_naive/) > [@](#): > > This should be pretty obvious, I hope, but you probably shouldn’t donate money to a “tea party” group. You, the Salon reader, probably weren’t considering doing that any time soon, but what I mean is that _no one_ should ever donate money to a “tea party” group, even (especially!) people who explicitly agree with “tea party” politics and support “tea party” candidates. Because (and this shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve been keeping up with the modern conservative movement) many of these groups don’t actually do anything to help Tea Party candidates. They just raise money and spend it on themselves and their friends. Because barely regulated free-for-all campaign financing is both a boon to powerful interests and a windfall for shady political consultants. > > Roll Call recently ran the numbers on spending by a number of tea party groups, and they are all spending quite a bit on overhead and “office expenses” and travel and not that much on actual candidates. The Wire’s Philip Bump helpfully broke down the spending into pie charts, to make it clear how much these groups are spending effectively on themselves. A PAC called The Madison Project spent $1.8 million in the 2012 cycle. $97,000 of that spending was on candidates. The Daily Caller tells us of another PAC, the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, that has spent a grand total of zero dollars on candidates, though it has spent quite a bit of money on other things: > > > [@](#): > > > > According to the year-end spending report filed with the Federal Election Commission, of the $6,405,087 that the group has raised since early last year, $5,335,162 has been spent, and all of it has been put toward operating expenditures. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13735 "2014-03-26T16:51:58Z")
I stand to state my firm disapproval (_snicker_) of such dastardly goings-on! The very idea (_chuckle_) of defrauding Tea Party enthusiasts (_giggle_) for contributions that in no wise (_chortle_) advance the agenda of the Tea Party is wholly unacceptable! I denounce, renounce and condemn in the strongest possible vigor! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13736 "2014-03-26T17:33:37Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I stand to state my firm disapproval (_snicker_) of such dastardly goings-on! The very idea (_chuckle_) of defrauding Tea Party enthusiasts (_giggle_) for contributions that in no wise (_chortle_) advance the agenda of the Tea Party is wholly unacceptable! > > I denounce, renounce and condemn in the strongest possible vigor! For a modest donation, I can denounce it for you at much greater volume. Disclaimer: “can” != “will.” ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13737 "2014-03-26T17:35:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Meanwhile, over in the TP wing:](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/26/the_great_tea_party_swindle_how_to_make_lots_of_money_off_the_naive/) Heh, I actually felt a moment of outrage about the Teabagger groups not spending money on the candidates before I realized that them wasting/stealing it is in fact a better outcome. Of course, not taking the money from their victims in the first place would be best. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13738 "2014-03-26T17:41:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, that’s why I said “legible to others”. For notes for my own use, my crappy cursive will do, but if I ever have to communicate with others, I type or print. > > Besides, you _pay_ for notebooks? I get them free from work. My notebook demands are very specific: gotta be spiral bound, with a stiff backing so they don’t bend when you try to write on them, and small enough to hold easily in one hand while writing, but as large as possible so I’m not writing one word per line. The Wired 5x7" spiral bound works perfectly. I can also attach a pen to the spiral binding, very handy. All I’ve ever seen at work are those cheap perfect bound yellow notepads, the filthy cheap bastids! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13739 "2014-03-26T17:53:46Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > My notebook demands are very specific: gotta be spiral bound . . . :mad: Heretic! The thread-or-glue-bound speckle-covered kind are The Only True Notebooks! ---
**Author:** ![AHarris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@AHarris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHarris)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/13740 "2014-03-26T17:54:07Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > My notebook demands are very specific: gotta be spiral bound, with a stiff backing so they don’t bend when you try to write on them, and small enough to hold easily in one hand while writing, but as large as possible so I’m not writing one word per line. The Wired 5x7" spiral bound works perfectly. I can also attach a pen to the spiral binding, very handy. All I’ve ever seen at work are those cheap perfect bound yellow notepads, the filthy cheap bastids! Are notebooks that support printing hard to find where you live? Where I live they’re so ubiquitous that they don’t go to the trouble of mentioning it on the label. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=686) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=688)