Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Accountability, motherfuckers.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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77Comments

  4. 4.

    Steve

    Erickson’s entire schtick depends upon being the mighty RINO hunter, so I can’t say as I’m surprised. What’s funny is that there are plenty of bloggers on the left who are constantly ranting about how we need to purge various mainstream Dems, but you’d never see the MSM giving them any credence. You might see them brought onto Fox News for 5 minutes to help support a “divided Dems” storyline, that’s about it.

  5. 5.

    Warren Terra

    We should be so lucky as to see these rhetorically moderate Republicans get primaried out by full-on Teahadist nutballs. Should the Teahadists actually win the seats, the voting records would be essentially indistinguishable (hence my qualification of “rhetorically” moderate), but they would be worse candidates, not even counting the advantages of incumbency.

    We should be so lucky, but I don’t think we will.

  7. 7.

    joe from Lowell

    Don’t worry, Erick. The good people of Massachusetts have got your back with the Scott Brown thing.

    But, srsly, Orrin Hatch? John Kyl?

    WTF?

  8. 8.

    Batocchio

    I was shocked to see super-partisan hack Kyl on that list, so I checked. The actual post says:

    Note that this is just the list of Senate Republicans running. Not all will be targets, but it will be from these men and women that the tea party movement starts looking for targets.

    Erickson then muses about some of the possible targets. So that is not a RINO list, although one may come later.

  10. 10.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @Tulip: Orrin Fucking HATCH is a RINO?

    No doubt – he is (I regret to say) my senator. Indeed he’s not a really proactive troglodyte, but he’s probably blocked a million democratic judge appointments.

  11. 11.

    Chat Noir

    Jon Ralston told Rachel Maddow last week that the NV Republican Party is in really bad shape. He implied that Ensign is toast anyhow in 2012.

  12. 12.

    MattR

    Umm, those are the only 10 Republicans up for reelction in 2012. (not counting Joe Fucking Lieberman)

    (EDIT: Batocchio beat me to it. Damn, late as usual)

  13. 13.

    joe from Lowell

    2012 is going to be a freaking turkey shoot. It was already going to be a big win, but if the Republicans come out of this election with the lesson “We need to replicate our success in Colorado, Delaware, and Nevada,” it’s going to be 1964 all over again.

  14. 14.

    Dudeguy

    Sounds great! Run your teabaggers after two years of right-wing screeching and zero economic progress. Dems pick up 3-4 of those seats without breaking a sweat; Brown, Snowe, Ensign, and at least one of Lugar/Corker/Hutchison/Kyl.

    Book it.

  15. 15.

    soonergrunt

    @Tulip:
    That’s what I was thinking. Orrin Fucking Hatch is a RINO?!? Ensign and Kyl are RINOs?
    REALLY?
    Brown and Snowe, I can kind of see, but that’s the nature of being a Republican from that part of the country, but Orrin Fucking Hatch, John Fucking Ensign, and John Fucking Kyl are RINOs?

  16. 16.

    El Tiburon

    I@taylormattd:

    He’s the Jane Hamsher of the right blogs.

    Oh for fucks sake, still?

    Also, it’s probably just me, but does anyone else see the beginnings of a stupid limerick in those names?

    There was once a douche from Wicker
    Who liked to fondle his Corker.
    Alas, he took it in the Barasso
    And from that day forward his Hatch
    was all Brown.

    Or something.

    I’m tired.

  17. 17.

    MattR

    From Erickson’s post, here’s his list of actual targets.

    Now, before you all get giddy about Olympia Snowe, I would respectfully suggest that Corker, Hatch, Hutchison, Lugar, and Wicker make better targets as we have a much greater certainty of both beating them in primaries and also winning the general election.
    __
    Wicker and Corker in particular make exciting prospects for the tea party movement.

  18. 18.

    shortstop

    If there’s any message Massachusetts voters sent last night, that message is “Steer hard to the far right.”

  21. 21.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Tulip:

    I doubt it’s about Hatch’s RINO offenses. It’s more about the fact that Erikson sees an opportunity for whack-job Tea Party candidates to win in states like Hatch’s Utah as a way to double down on the winger in the 2012 Senate.

  22. 22.

    Davis X. Machina

    If there’s any message Massachusetts voters sent last night, that message is “Steer hahd to the fah right.”

    Fixed. Oh and “….come off the rotary at the Honeydew Donuts place.”

  27. 27.

    Lev

    Erickson doesn’t have to worry about Ensign or Brown, they’re leaving one way or another. I suspect Snowe will be primaried and may or may not go indy. Kyl strikes me as someone that can be toppled with the right candidate, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Napolitano stepped down from the Cabinet to run against him. She’d probably win too.

    Still. Barasso?

  28. 28.

    Tsulagi

    You can always count on RSSF Commander E2 for some comedy.

    So now he’s the Naughty or Nice decider. Maybe to show those TINOs how a real teabagger brings it, he’ll get his feared strike force to fill their mailboxes with teabags. And we’re not talking Chamomile.

  29. 29.

    CalD

    In open-seat races, people tend to revert to the partisan voting index for their area. There are at least two, maybe three seats on that list that Democrats would have a real shot at picking up if the current incumbents weren’t still in them but likely wouldn’t if they are. So bully for Erickson, I say.

  38. 38.

    Mike in NC

    In yesterday’s USA Today, even the Doughy Pantload was predicting an ugly war between the old line GOP and the Teatards. Bring on that circular firing squad.

  39. 39.

    lacp

    What a stirring vision for Teabaggers for 2012, with Einsatzgruppenwanker Erick Erickson leading the II SS Motorized Scooter Corps Wiking in a Red State Strike on Hatch’s HQ, with a veritable sea of doughy fists angrily waving their Medicare cards……

  42. 42.

    Rey

    Surprised that Corker (TN) is on this list- he’s crazy but not batshit crazy, so I guess he needs to go. This is fine by me, we have two Senator’s here in ruby red TN and they are both Refugs. Lamar Alexander the other senator did vote to confirm Sotomayor– surprised he made the cut…

  43. 43.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    @Mike in NC: Please tell me you misread this so I don’t actually have to say I agree with “I don’t really have time to write a full piece or understand all the issues but…”

  44. 44.

    Cermet

    If Hatch is a RINO then so is Obama – nonesense and utter stupidity – that writer couldn’t find their own asshole even with the shit coming out.

  45. 45.

    Citizen Alan

    Wicker and Corker in particular make exciting prospects for the tea party movement.

    I actually think I could die happy if that loathsome prick Wicker gets primaried in 2012 by some Teabagging dipshit. If Mittens Romney gets the Presidential nomination, I think it’s possible that Mississippi could get a Democratic Senator out of the deal.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    Reading Roger Wicker’s (R-MS) name on that list, it occurred to me that the only big-name Democrat left in Mississippi, since Wicker defeated the former governor Ronnie Musgrove, might just be John-freaking-Grisham, given that he served in the state house from 1984-90. He is friends with Jim Webb and I think Webb nearly convinced him to run for something or other. Grisham could probably raise a lot of money on name alone, so who knows?

  49. 49.

    Wilson Heath

    Heh, indeed. Spinning the narrative as they are spinning it there could never ever be an overreach in the aftermath of this election.

  50. 50.

    Tom Q

    I’m old enough to remember when Hatch was first running for Senate, in 1976. I thought he was the nuttiest far-right-er I’d ever heard, outside of obscure radio stations I could pick up late Sunday nights. That he’s now considered a squish tells you all you need to know about the devolution of the GOP over the decades that followed.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @JoshA:

    AND, Hatch supported the right of Park51’s supporters to build.

    That sort of thing certainly gets the wingers into a lather.

  52. 52.

    shecky

    Yes, Erickson wants to replicate the successes of purging RINO candidates in NV, DE, and AK.

    Godspeed, Erick. Godspeed.

  53. 53.

    Citizen Alan

    @Jay:

    Grisham is not someone I would have thought of, but looking over his wiki page, I was surprised to learn that he did three terms as a Democratic state legislator. I also think Mike Moore might be a possibility once the whole Dickie Scruggs thing will have died down by then.

  55. 55.

    Chris G

    @Tulip: I suspect it’s less that than an awareness that the nutters in Utah are entirely likely to go after Hatch and win the same way they did with poor Bob Bennett this year. So Erick Son of Erick is just getting in front of the parade and pretending to lead it.

  56. 56.

    Dr. Squid

    @themann1086: Yeah, her preference is to grouse about how bad a candidate is after the primary when she doesn’t have to actually do anything but criticize her own party publicly so she can get some Fox News cheddar.

  58. 58.

    Dr. Squid

    @JoshA: I also believe that Corker went into Ted Kennedy’s hospital room without a knife. That’s enough to get the teabaggers all worked up.

  60. 60.

    R. Porrofatto

    Hatch? Kyl?

    >godwin

    That's like Martin Bormann targeting NINOs like Himmler and Goebbels.

    >/godwin

  61. 61.

    New Yorker

    Scott Brown? Really? I thought he was a teabagger hero a mere 7 months ago….

    I mean, I have no problem if the Massachusetts GOP self-immolates and nominates someone to the right of Francisco Franco, but still….

  63. 63.

    SRW1

    I’m not sure why, but reading this made me feel much better.

    John Potter (1964): “But I know it when I see it …”

    Of course, he was writing about p0rn, not overreach, but the principle is the same, and in a way political p0rn is also p0rn.

  64. 64.

    IronyAbounds

    The list is also a terrifying look into how difficult the Senate elections will be for the Dems in 2012. That is all the republicans up for reelection in 2012. There will be 23 Democrats. The Republicans could easily come out of the election with a filibuster proof majority. Very very scary stuff.

  66. 66.

    BruceJ

    Jon “dumbest guy in the frikkin Senate??!!” Kyl a RINO??

    He may be sentient in name only. but he’s certainly a stalwart and loyal Republican, so long as they feed him bits of liver while in the ring, for the judges.

    (and I know from the yutz; he’s afflicted my state for years now)

  67. 67.

    Spaghetti Lee

    By 2012, the class of 2010 will also be RINO, and Erickson will be raging at the bit to get those squishy moderates like Scott Lee and Rand Paul kicked out. This strategy only works in the South and part of the West. We saw voters from Delaware to New York to Ohio to Alaska yesterday not buy into that shit.

  68. 68.

    mai naem

    @4jkb4ia: He had an extramarital affair and was busted, also too he embarrassed Tom Coburn.

    Also too, John Barrasso? Why? Because he’s from batsheet crazy country and he’s not as batsheet as Jim Demint? I don’t get it. Barrasso did a fair bunch of Obamacarepunching.

  70. 70.

    Bulworth

    I remember when President Pickup Truck Scotty Brown was Da Bomb! His wife and his daughers were hot and stuff. I think that was actually just this year. Oh well.

  72. 72.

    Remember November

    Erickson is a secret goat f*cking kiddy raper. Why else would he accuse someone else of such a heinous crime, like a Supreme Court Judge.

  73. 73.

    PaulW

    @Tulip:

    Orrin Hatch?!?
    Orrin fucking Hatch is a RINO?
    God, I need a drink.

    The Far Right RINO hunters get so obsessed with hunting down and purging everything in their path, they’ve gone after politicians who have been and still are hard-core conservatives by every definition of the word. It’s not the politics: it’s also the ego-stroking and knee-bent fealty that the RINO hunters want out of their targets. Hatch is on there probably because he once knocked over Erickson’s latte at a Two Minute Hate a few months ago.

    To note: those Senators are going to be needed to ensure a possible GOP takeover of the Senate in 2012. It is far easier to elect an incumbent (90 percent success rate at least) than to dump said incumbent in a primary and replace with a Teabagger who’ll have less than a 50-50 chance of winning. And yet Erickson would rather shoot himself and the rest of the Republican Party in their collective feet by risking control of the Senate if only to remove “moderates” (Hatch? Seriously?!) and replace with “die-hard true believers” regardless if they win or lose. The true purpose of the party purge isn’t to win office: it’s to seize control of the Republican Party and use it to their whims. Because in a Two-Party system like ours, there will always be Republican voters who will vote R no matter how crazy, ignorant, vile and criminal the Republican candidates are.

    Interesting to note that Sen. Ensign is on that list. Hasn’t he been indicted yet for the bribery/extortion case? He might not even be there in 2012.

  75. 75.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Jay:

    Hatch supported the right of Park51’s supporters to build.

    ‘Cause if there’s something that Mormon’s get, it’s mindless religious scapegoating and persecution.

  76. 76.

    Nancy Irving

    @Tulip:

    I laughed when I saw Hatch on this list, too, but then I remembered that he was actually a friend of Ted Kennedy, and even worked with him on some legislation.

    That makes him dead meat on the tea-baggers’ plate.

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