Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Adios, Cantor

Adios, Cantor

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Fuck you, Harry Ellis, and good riddance. One last sweet time:

856433805

People are tut tutting that the guy who replaces him, should the Republican win, is a full-on teahadist. And he is! But this is a Republican district, so basically we are just replacing an enormous shit-heel with a no seniority having teabagging clown who can serve as another object lesson as to how the GOP has gone off the tracks. And who knows, the Dem might win.

Let’s just break this down. Erick Erickson is happy Brat won. Simple logic dictates that this is good news for Democrats.

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84Comments

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    But this is a Republican district, so basically we are just replacing an enormous shit-heel with a no seniority having teabagging clown who can serve as another object lesson as to how the GOP has gone off the tracks. And who knows, the Dem might win.

    People have been saying that for quite a while. But it is nice of you to notice. I guess.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    The Newsmax headlines are making me think I’m right that private Republican polling turned against them hard when they went after Sgt. Bergdahl:

    Sen. Inhofe: Freeing Terrorists Is Issue, Not Bergdahl

    Inhofe had better be careful — he’s gonna throw out his back moving the goalposts like that.

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    Was majority leader Cantor even able to get immigration reform to a vote last year? From what I recall it passed in the Senate and then the House, where he lead the majority party, couldn’t even get its shit together well enough to even hold a vote.

    If you lived in his district would you want somebody so completely ineffectual they couldn’t even get an up or down vote when he was in charge of the majority?

    If you’re a Republican you are, almost by definition, either evil or stupid. Cantor couldn’t even rise to that level. He was just useless.

  6. 6.

    amk

    Ironic that a (somewhat) moderate lindsey graham was able to torpedo six teahadists while the teahadist lookalike cantor got thrashed.

  8. 8.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    We need to start a campaign to make Louie Gohmert the majority leader.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    If you’re a Republican you are, almost by definition, either evil or stupid. Cantor couldn’t even rise to that level. He was just useless.

    This. In spades.

  12. 12.

    piratedan

    I would say “Fuck Eric Cantor” but there’s way too many of you out there that take things too literally. Still, glad he’s lost and who knows, Brat has an entire four months to show just how truly batshit crazy he is (hello Sharon Angle and Christine the conservative witch!), I hope that they enjoy the collective turd polishing and if they elect him anyways, fine, we can watch more shoe in mouth antics from other Republicans who aren’t nearly as slick as Cantor was, who had weasel worded statements down to an artform. Fun times and anything that continues to remove the veneer from the awful churning white resentment caucus means better chances for Dems in kicking these tools outta office.

  13. 13.

    Greg

    My hope is that this guy will follow the usual Teabag playbook and say something or do something so incredibly stupid that even his own constituents won’t vote for him and the Democrat will win. On the other hand, if he does win he will be Chairman of the Congressional Menu Planning Committee or similar, and Eric Cantor will be gone so, hey, fun all around. Also I have read a lot of different sources and apparently the good folks in VA 7 seemed to believe that this guy will get Eric Cantor’s position as well. So sad for them when they realize that they will now be ignored by anyone of any importance whatsoever.

  14. 14.

    David Koch

    2016 — D.O.A.

    Rubio

    Jeb “illegal immigration is an act of love” Bush

    Chris “In state tuition” Christie

    Rand “legalize the migrants workers that are already here” Paul

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    Like I said in the previous thread, I think Booman’s take is just right here: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/6/11/01913/8039

    This sentence being the most interesting aspect of this defeat that seems even people in the MSM haven’t even realized yet.

    The national Republican Party just lost their only remaining Jewish member because he wasn’t racist enough.

    Think about that for a moment.

    Also too, this:

    How Eric Cantor Lost

    …Some observers cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions about immigration, and when the dust settles, it may prove that Cantor’s problem was less ideology and more a sense that he stood more for his own ambition than for any definable policies. He frequently reinvented himself with splashy policy speeches, and toured the country raising money and gathering chits for an eventual run for House Speaker.

    “Was immigration an issue? Yes. Was it the deciding factor to the tune of 11%? Not no, hell no. It’s a fairy tale,” Virginia Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said. “People talk. And they talk about Eric Cantor. `Where is he?’ His constituent services suck. He was never in the district. And when he was in the district and he went out, he had a [security] entourage with him. He was out gallivanting all over the country being a big deal and this is a lesson.”…

  16. 16.

    Suzanne

    @lamh36: I can buy that. The guy just seems so nakedly self-interested. The fact that no one saw this coming is very telling.

  17. 17.

    jl

    @Suzanne: I can buy that too. But what are the chances the brave hearts of the GOP establishment will buy that? They way that they have reacted to any teabagger victory in the past points to a complete collapse of the Establishment Serious Daddy GOP crusade against the crazies.

    The effect on GOP outreach efforts will be interesting to follow.

  18. 18.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Suzanne:

    I can buy that. The guy just seems so nakedly self-interested.

    The district is Virginia suburbs, exurbs and not-exurbified-yet rural. Most of the population’s in Henrico County, which is Richmond metro area, not Richmond itself which is where Those People live. Probably a few DC commuters, but the kind that get stuck in traffic for two hours and hate their jobs. Cantor projected the DC insider image, his campaign funders backed up that idea, and he seemed to enjoy hanging out with the Masters of the Universe.

    If he had a more rural district, he’d have enough distance to bring the pork home; instead, it’s just close enough to DC and just far enough away to create that kind of teabagger reaction.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @lamh36: The rest of the paragraph is just as interesting:

    The national Republican Party just lost their only remaining Jewish member because he wasn’t racist enough. I wonder what Jewish Republicans like Bill Kristol and David Frum think about that. I wonder if they still feel at home in a party that is literally foaming at the mouth with xenophobia and is awash with pseudoscientific and anti-intellectual conspiracy theories about climate change and intelligent design and the United Nations and Benghazi!

    They are crossing over from the soft fascism of Benito Mussolini to the hard, race based fascism that Godwin says we cannot name.

    This is trouble.

  21. 21.

    James E. Powell

    @lamh36:

    It is generally true that congress-creatures who do great constituent work rarely lose.

    What’s strange is that no one seemed to like him. On the cable news shows, I didn’t hear anyone who really lamented his passing from the scene.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    When will mah gummint stop harassing tru Patriots and get back to chasin’ those non-‘murkins back where they came from? When?

    Federal agents seized five pistols, two rifles, two shotguns and a small amount of a deadly chemical last month during searches conducted after the arrest of a Carmichael man who is accused of illegal gun sales and is believed to have sold toxic poisons nationwide to buyers over the Internet, according to newly unsealed court documents.

    James Christopher Malcolm, 29, was arrested May 5 and indicted last week on weapons charges. Agents searched his Garfield Avenue home, his 2007 Chevy Trailblazer and two storage lockers he rented.

    The results of those searches remained a mystery until Tuesday, when three of the four search warrant returns were unsealed in U.S. District Court filings in Sacramento, showing that agents seized the weapons, at least 32 computer hard drives, ammunition, Malcolm’s passport and instructions on how to convert Glock pistols to fully automatic weapons.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/10/6473527/firearms-and-poison-seized-during.html#storylink=cpy

    He sounds nice.

  23. 23.

    jl

    @trollhattan: From the story, it looks like they seized the toxins he had bought and was hoarding. That is good news too.

    Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. That is a saying in an old book that these people claim to read all the time.

    Edit: As you sow, so shall you reap, also comes to mind. And you will know the tree by its fruit; I think that is in the sequel people have been talking up so much.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It’s hilarious that these cretins wail about “crony capitalism” when the shitty grade Z movie star was the greatest friend crony capitalists ever had in the White House, and tailored all his policies to facilitate them.

    The teabaggers really are stupid motherfuckers who are utterly blinded by their hatred of the ni*CLANG*.

  25. 25.

    Mandalay

    The voters dumped the Jew because he preferred steak to pork:

    Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Cantor’s campaign had spent about $168,637 at steakhouses compared with the $200,000 his challenger, David Brat, had spent on his entire campaign.

    If you are looking for numbers to demonstrate that Congress is completely out of touch with the voters, that one does nicely.

  27. 27.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MikeJ: Probably during the Eisenhower administration. Which, by an amazing coincidence, is the last time we had a decent GOP President. If you don’t count Bill Clinton, of course.

  28. 28.

    Mandalay

    @James E. Powell:

    I didn’t hear anyone who really lamented his passing from the scene.

    Well Peter King had a sad:

    Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said he wondered whether the GOP was crumbling as a whole. “I don’t know where we go now as a party,” he said in an interview. “I’m very concerned that we may go all the way to the right.”

    Of course that’s only because he now realizes that Lady Gaga has a better chance than him of becoming president.

  30. 30.

    KG

    @jl: sequels are never as good, so people will tend to ignore them… I mean, it’s a shame they never made a sequel to The Matrix, but it probably would’ve ruined it.

  31. 31.

    Arclite

    @trollhattan:

    He sounds nice.

    Well, you know, boys will be boys! Confiscate his stuff, and give him 6 months probation.

    Now, if he’d been a browny muslim, then he should get 20 years in the pen.

  33. 33.

    ? Martin

    @Suzanne: Meh. Low turnout election where Dems could ratfuck because we picked our guy yesterday in a party meeting.

    The problem with polling in primaries is figuring out who is actually voting. That’s harder than you think.

  34. 34.

    ? Martin

    @Mandalay:

    If you are looking for numbers to demonstrate that Congress is completely out of touch with the voters, that one does nicely.

    Boy, doesn’t it, though.

  35. 35.

    David Koch

    @lamh36: What makes that all the more hilarious is Frum, himself, is an immigrant from Canada.

    Immigration for me, but not for thee (especially if you’re not white).

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    One worry: David Brat is a popular economics professor, might be smoother than the average Teahadist, and may be able to walk and chew gum. He seems more likable than Eric Cantor. I wonder if he’ll turn out to have national appeal.

    A few student reviews mentioned that he was scattered, but good at repeating key concepts over and over and over again, which stayed with the students and helped later in formulating their analysis.

    It’s lovely to see Eric Cantor fall, and hard, but be careful what you wish for.

  37. 37.

    Arclite

    So Digby’s got this story:

    Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham campaigned here with the long-shot primary challenger to Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Randolph-Macon economics professor David Brat, issuing a blistering attack on Cantor’s immigration record.

    What I really want to know is, was Laura Ingraham ALL IN?

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @KG: Well, I’ll grant this for The Matrix Reloaded: the freeway segment was just amazing.

    Too bad the plot of the last two movies sucked swamp water.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    One of the few occasions one looks forward to watching Morning Joe.

    Although they’re such tools, they might pivot.

  44. 44.

    John Revolta

    @Elizabelle: I wonder if he’ll turn out to have national appeal.

    Yeah, I was thinking about that too. He’s young, not bad looking, and presumably has somewhat of a brain. At the very least, he could be a convincing Flavor of the Month in ’16. Let’s hope he’s got some big ol’ skeletons back in the closet. Or that he comes out of the closet.

  46. 46.

    Alex S.

    I thought immigration reform would be the only bigger bill that this Congress will pass. Well, not anymore. Any republican supporting this is dead in the water.

  49. 49.

    Chris T.

    @amk:

    Ironic that a (somewhat) moderate lindsey graham was able to torpedo six teahadists while the teahadist lookalike cantor got thrashed.

    Why vote for the fake teahadi when there’s a real one available?

  55. 55.

    raven

    Brat called the win “a miracle from God,” and said the upcoming campaign with Democrat John “Jack” Trammell — another Randolph-Macon professor — would be about “returning the country to constitutional principles, returning the country to Judeo-Christian principles and returning the country to free-market principles.”

  56. 56.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mnemosyne: Yet the welcome home parade had to be canceled and Bergdahl’s family has been subjected to death threats. Plus, Fox News and its ilk have been advocating the death penalty for him before a military trial has even begun.

    Let the backlash begin. I thought the Republicans LOVED OUR TROOPS. Guess not so much.

  57. 57.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: Yeah, I had to turn to a different channel when Brat started quoting from Luke. Nauseating fellow. But the Devil himself could have beat Cantor and I would have been happy just to see Cantor lose.

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Mandalay: I’d like to ask Rep King how anyone can say with a straight face that the Republican Party hasn’t already gone “all the way to the Right”.

  60. 60.

    WereBear

    @raven: “returning the country to constitutional principles, returning the country to Judeo-Christian principles and returning the country to free-market principles.”

    Uh huh.

    We’ll probably thrown some money Jack’s way… Mr WereBear has been downright giddy. I made him sit down before I told him the news.

  61. 61.

    bemused

    @lamh36:

    Establishment Republicans dug their own hole catering to the teaparty base and now they are having to dance with who brung them. I have a mental image of teaparty neanderthals shooting at establishment Republicans’ feet screaming “dance, old men. dance”.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @raven:

    returning the country to Judeo-Christian principles

    I’m hearing that Biblical passage about sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Buh-bye, GOP.

  63. 63.

    WereBear

    @bemused: I have no love for Goldwater, but he was smart enough to know that letting the crazies in would be the END of the Party.

    And that looks like the case.

  65. 65.

    JPL

    @WereBear: The republican party changed a long time ago when they let in the dixiecrats. I just hope that they aren’t able to destroy our democracy as we know it.

  66. 66.

    WereBear

    @debbie: Yes, but he covered well. The Tea Party is loud and proud!

    In essence, he was politically astute and recognized that the work of governance was compromise; to get what he wanted, he would settle for half a loaf. He pointed out specifically that THESE crazies would not compromise, and even if they got what they wanted they would push even further next time.

    So they were doomed to long term failure.

  67. 67.

    WereBear

    @JPL: Oh, the Southern Strategy was short term gain to long term detriment, no question. But the Nixon guys all made out just fine! They’re happy, and that’s all that counts.

  68. 68.

    bemused

    @WereBear:

    Goldwater at least had a sense of the potential problems that loose cannons would create for the party. It didn’t seem to occur to establishment Republicans that they wouldn’t be able to make the teaparty base fall in line which is astonishing considering all the glaring warning signs most could easily see.

  69. 69.

    BruceFromOhio

    As I recall, White Knight got plugged by Snape, rather unceremoniously.

    Never let a salesman negotiate on your behalf.

    @JPL: Hmmm, rampant gun violence, codified racism, all in a security surveillance state…. I’m thinking it’s pretty much done for, the question is what to do next.

  72. 72.

    Cris (without an H)

    The Ellis comparison makes me giggle, but this tweet by August Pollak made me think that Cantor was more like Tommy DeVito, thinking he was a made man walking into the Speaker Of the House position, and found himself face down on a rug in an empty room with a bullet in his brain.

  73. 73.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @MikeJ:

    When’s the last time a Republican made a train run on time?

    You can’t make the trains run on time if you don’t first make the trains.

  81. 81.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @amk:

    Ironic that a (somewhat) moderate lindsey graham was able to torpedo six teahadists while the teahadist lookalike cantor got thrashed.

    It’s not ironic. It’s that the Republican Party is literally and figuratively schizophrenic, by every real definition of the word. It’s got so many delusional theories and paranoid hallucinations it’s trying to manage that it simply cannot function in a rational world. It’s eyes don’t even know what it’s hands are doing on any given day.

  83. 83.

    Jay C

    @amk:

    Ironic that a (somewhat) moderate lindsey graham was able to torpedo six teahadists while the teahadist lookalike cantor got thrashed.

    I think the difference between Cantor’s and Graham’s primaries is that the latter was in South Carolina; a one-party state rather like North Korea – minus the execution of losing candidates*, of course, though that’s probably just because they haven;t figured out a plausible excuse for it, yet.

    *though to be fair, opposition candidates in the DPRK usually run pre-executed…

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