Here lies Instaputz (2006-2013).

So, about that hiatus...

It's been a great run, but I'm officially retiring from blogging. With my new day job in New York, I simply don't have the time to write about politics every day.

Back in July, I thought I could carve out a time and schedule that made sense. But it never quite emerged. So, after mocking Putz and various other wingnuts for seven years, first here, then at Glenn Greenwald's old place, then FDL and finally, C&L -- I've just run out of time.

The reason I started Instaputz back in April 2006 was a simple one: Glenn Reynolds was still regarded in the corporate media and a good chunk of the blogosphere as a "nonpartisan libertarian." Back then, he had respectable gigs at The Guardian and was profiled glowingly in the Times. And his faux centrism skewed the debate about the Iraq War -- and American politics generally -- to the right.

How times have changed.

I'd like to think this post had something to do with the erosion of his ability to successfully pose as a "nonpartisan libertarian," but ultimately, as the War in Iraq deteriorated even further and Bush proved himself to be every bit as incompetent as his critics had been saying from the start, Glenn helpfully outed himself as a boringly conventional, Bush-supporting, gun-toting right-winger from East Tennessee.

It's been fascinating to watch his descent into 110-proof wingnuttery. His total wrongness about the Iraq War was followed by his total wrongness about the Great Recession. And after Barack Obama was elected (yes, Putz was bullish on a McCain victory -- along with other things), just like every other Bush/Cheney cheerleader who didn't want to call themselves Republicans after being humiliated in back-to-back elections, he put all his energy into promoting the Teabaggers -- a movement that just four years later is now, predictably, a massive dumpster fire.

And here's the best part. The sad, small fig leaf Putz used back in 2006 to make himself seem "centrist" -- his support of gay marriage -- is now boringly mainstream. And, tellingly, he hasn't found another to replace it. But he doesn't bother with the pretense anymore, and anyway, no one's buying it when he tries.

His hatred for liberals, Democrats, and "the media" -- which simmered and occasionally boiled over during the Bush years -- became unhinged, spittle-producing rage during the Obama years. The "nonpartisan" who constantly whined about how mean and unfair "the press" and "the left" was to Bush finally snapped and labeled the first black president in American history a "racist hatemonger," sounding more like a deranged Stormfront blogger than a law professor.

In short, this blog's reason for being -- exposing Glenn Reynolds' wingnuttery -- has run its course. So, I'm saying goodbye.

The best thing about blogging has been all the great people I've met through it along the way, especially, my two former Instaputz co-bloggers, TS and Ed.

Other friends I've made through Instaputz: Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Dave Neiwert, Marcy Wheeler, Eli, Greg Levine, Bmaz, Pachacutec, Tbogg, Christy Hardin Smith, Watertiger, Phoenix Woman, the late and classy Scarecrow, Peterr, Richard Taylor, Spencer Ackerman, David Dayen, the FDL crew and the C&L crew. They're the best.

Can't sign off before giving a special shout-out to the most loyal and hilarious Instaputz commenter, Charles Giocometti. Charles -- next time you're in New York, I'll be happy to buy you a beer.

I never imagined back in April 2006 that this thing would be visited over 3,000,000 times, and at one point, attract over 3,000 visitors a day. That's just weird.

Thanks for all the visits. And thanks, especially for all the comments on this post -- which to this day, still move me.

BT

Glenn Reynolds publishing comments.

I have to take a break from my hiatus to note that Putz is now publishing comments.

This should be...very enlightening.

Why is Dr. Mrs. Putz on my teevee?

Sure, it's Fox News, but seriously? Amazing how much wingnut welfare there is sloshing around out there.

 (And yes, I'm still on hiatus.)

Gone fishin'.

Life has gotten much busier since my arrival in New York. I'm still trying to figure out a routine and finding time for everything, despite the fact Mrs. Blue Texan and the Masters Blue Texan are still back in Austin.

So, I'm putting Instaputz on hiatus until the school year starts. In the meantime, you can always read me at C&L. 

Neocons for Obama.

Didn't really see this coming, but then it occurred to me that the neocons want to preserve the expanded executive power acquired during the Bush era for the next Republican Daddy.

Immigration reform was never going to happen.

There was just no way the GOP Teamams in the House and Senate were going to simultaneously grant SHAMNESTY! to the brown people and hand B. Hussein X a big legislative win.

Anyone who has been following the GOP since the '90s shouldn't be surprised. 

No one cares about Scandalmania! Still.

Putz and Freddoso were heh-indeeding each other the other day on Twitter about how Obama was "losing" in the wake of all the "scandals." (As an aside, that conversation is worth reading in its entirety.)

Nope.

President Obama’s approval ratings have increased since a trio of controversies involving his administration began dominating the news cycle. 

Fifty percent of those surveyed in Gallup’s three-day tracking poll released Wednesday say they approve of the job the president is doing, compared to 43 percent who said they disapprove.

But 99% of Fox viewers and Instapundits want the president impeached.

California, failed liberal hellhole.

Or, put another way, the largest state in the country -- with a budget surplus.

Scandalmania! is a big bust.

Keep right on screaming Benghazi, Republicans.

Obama’s job-approval ratings are pretty much where they have been for the past few months, before the controversies over Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Associated Press began dominating the news two weeks ago. The May 17-18 CNN/ORC poll pegs Obama’s job approval at 53 percent, up 2 points from early April. The Gallup Organization’s polling for the week of May 6-12 showed that 49 percent approve and 44 percent disapprove of the president. For the following week, May 13-19, the numbers were precisely the same. The three-night average ratings for May 20-22 were 50 approve, 44 disapprove. Obama’s numbers have been within the same range for months. His job-approval rating, according to the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, released May 21, is still hovering around the same place, at 51 percent.  

More troubling for the GOP should be the CNN poll in which only 35 percent of respondents said they view the Republican Party favorably and an incredible 59 percent said they view the party unfavorably. In CNN polling, dating back to 1992, neither party has had an unfavorable rating higher than 59 percent (the GOP hit 59 percent one other time). Democrats are hardly riding high—recording 52 percent favorable/43 percent unfavorable ratings—but they’re doing a heck of a lot better than Republicans in the public’s eyes.

Glibertarianism strikes again.

I'd love to see some serious environmental writer do a post on what good things might come from global warming. Surely there must be some.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 21, 2013

Pwned.

I know that term has been stale for over a decade, but it really applies to this.

Blue Texan is now Blue New Yorker.

Blog went quiet again -- apologies -- because we moved. Or actually, I moved, and the family is coming up in a bit. So, as you might expect, it's been pretty crazy. Trying to figure out how to incorporate blogging into my new routine, and whether or not I'll continue writing under a pseudonym, since it no longer applies. Stay tuned.

Also, I have to say, the news cycle is just impossible to follow these days with the Benghazi! and IRS! craziness. And I think Tomasky is exactly right -- there's a good chance the GOP will fire up the impeachment machine again. Hell, I thought they'd do it over the debt ceiling.

Printed guns.

What freaks me out about the 3D-printed gun -- aside from the obvious people-amassing-arsenals-without-restrictions aspect -- is that the film In the Line of Fire saw this coming over two decades ago.

The invisible hand gives El Rushbo the finger.

Man, the free market's a bitch, ain't it?

Way of life.

Yes, as Pierce notes, some of them are better than others.

If your "way of life" involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should change it immediately because it is stupid and wrong. (And, again, also, too: goddammit, "learning to use and respect a gun" means at least knowing that the fking thing is loaded when it's sitting in the corner of the parlor like it's a damn umbrella stand or something, and we should talk about that part, too.) It is not in any way "normal" to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too. If your culture demands that, in the face of a general national outrage over the killing of other children, your politics work to loosen the gun laws you have, as they apparently did in Kentucky, then your culture is making your politics stupid and wrong and you should change them, too. I do not have to understand these people any more, and it is way too early in the day to be drinking this much.

He was KIDDING.

Don't you people get it? It's a JOKE.

Man, everyone's so politically correct these days.

Comedy gold from Breitbart.

This sentence is awesome.

For whatever reason, after the Sandy Hook massacre, Scarborough decided to go all-in to advocate for  stronger gun control laws. 

Man, these people are stupid.

War crimes.

Might be best to avoid overseas travel, W. If you want to stay out of prison.

Black helicopters around every corner.

Mr. Nonpartisan Libertarian is impossible to distinguish from Glenn Beck or Alex Jones these days.

SO WHEN DEMOCRATS ARE PUSHING TO BAN PEOPLE ON THE “TERROR WATCH LIST” FROM BUYING GUNS, they’re really pushing to have a constitutional right blocked by your placement on a secret list put together by unaccountable bureaucrats with no due process. Just to be clear what they’re really talking about.

Meanwhile, let's hear again from Tony Scalia.

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. 

Pretty clear, isn't it?

Republicans were the real champions of civil rights.

Kilgore, on Kevin Williamson's latest absurdity.

Williamson accuses Democrats of duping African-American voters in 1964 and afterwards into voting for them, presumably via all those federal benefits (including the right to eat in a restaurant alongside white folks) that Democrats used to imprison black folks on a new “plantation” of dependency. It’s an insulting argument, but hardly uncommon among conservatives (see Rand Paul’s recent “outreach” speeches at black colleges). But what Williamson doesn’t deal with is why all those southern racists who voted Democratic up to and in most cases beyond the New Deal moved en masse into the Republican column, for the first time ever, in 1964. At a time (prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965) when black voters were rare in Mississippi, Goldwater won 87% of the vote in that state. He won 69% in Alabama, where Johnson (the hero of segregationists according to Williamson) was not even allowed on the ballot. In general, Goldwater’s vote was directly correlated to the size and intensity of southern segregationist sentiment (and to black disenfranchisement), and within each state directly tracked the old Dixiecrat enclaves of 1948. 

So to buy Williamson’s hypothesis, you have to believe that not only were African-American voters universally duped (94% voted for Johnson), but so, too, were southern white racists. In other words, the vast majority of the voters most focused on civil rights fundamentally misunderstood what the two parties and their presidential candidates stood for on this issue—but Kevin Williamson sees through it all!