Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

The willow is too close to the house.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

A consequence of cucumbers

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Un-Corkered

Open Thread: Un-Corkered

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YOU GUYS Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker’s not running for president!  This is huge news or something!

“I have no plans to pursue that. I’m very challenged with my current role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. It’s involved me in things beyond what I ever anticipated… I haven’t thought of it by the way, in months and months and months, as I saw the field shaping up in a good way.”

SIRENS AND CRAP.

Also open thread.

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I plan to form a committee to prepare an announcement that I am not running for president. We will meet at lunch and I will issue a press release when I’m done with my cheeseburger.

  5. 5.

    monkeyfister

    I am so happy my place of forced domicile will not play a prominent role in embarrassing the nation. At least in this one thing.
    I’m so old, I remember when uber-Fascist Bob Corker took office. He’s considered a moderate by today’s GOP standards. But, he’s still a monster.

    The best thing out of Tennessee?
    I-65 North.

  8. 8.

    KG

    this is really important, he’s the only republican (like, in the entirely country) that isn’t running for president… he’s the deciding vote in the primaries!

  10. 10.

    Botsplainer

    @NotMax:

    Translation: “Veep? Ooh, pick me! Pick me!”

    The Rand Paul/Bob Corker ticket is going to inspire great excitement all around.

  11. 11.

    patrick II

    I’m not running for the GOP nomination for president either. Where do I announce? Do I have to provide refreshments?

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    Brace yourselves for a wingnut ragegasm today, likely led by Sen. Graham.

    BBC is reporting that among the dead in a UAV strike in Helmand Province is one Mullah Abdul Rauf, who recently switched allegiance from the Taliban to the Islamic State. Rauf was formerly detained at Guantanamo.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31290147

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @burnspbesq: Well, one could speculate that his detention at Gitmo convinced Rauf that the destruction of The Great Satan was a righteous cause.

    Thanks again to Al Qaeda’s top recruitment officers, the deserting coward and the Dark Lord.

  17. 17.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    BBC is reporting that among the dead in a UAV strike in Helmand Province is one Mullah Abdul Rauf, who recently switched allegiance from the Taliban to the Islamic State. Rauf was formerly detained at Guantanamo.

    @burnspbesq: So much for closing Gitmo. The GOP will flog this for the next 30 years.

  18. 18.

    Botsplainer

    I dropped this in the now dead thread underneath. Too funny not to propagate, and it is about that thar homersekshul marrige in Allabammy.

    To: Jim Robinson

    If the probate courts don’t do their jobs, then state law still needs to be enforced. That’s where county sheriffs come in. The sheriffs can send deputies out to monitor courthouses and arrest any judges who violate state law.

    18 posted on 2/9/2015, 2:16:04 PM by GodAndCountryFirst
    [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

    Yeeeeeeeeeee-haw!!!!

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @burnspbesq: @Villago Delenda Est: Rauf, who spent six years in Guantanamo Bay after being captured by US forces in 2001, was reported to have fallen out with the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar.

    That damn Obama. That release was around the same time he tanked the economy, wasn’t it?

    And I’m pretty sure Senators Waylon Smithers and C Montgomery Burns were advocating closing Gitmo for a couple of years after that, before That One stole their presidency and the reevaluated their deeply held convictions.

  21. 21.

    Botsplainer

    Clearly, this was Barry O’Commie Muhammad X Obummer’s fault….

    “Until 9/11, the hard-nosed Khadim commanded (Taliban creator) Mullah Omar’s elite mobile reserve force, fighting regime opponents all over Afghanistan,” Newsweek wrote of Rauf in a 2011 list of list of most-wanted insurgents. “Arrested and sent to Guantanamo soon after the Taliban’s collapse, he was released in late 2007, having convinced his jailers that he wanted only to go home and tend his farm. Escaping from house arrest in Kabul, he fled to Pakistan.”

  23. 23.

    greennotGreen

    @monkeyfister: Yes, we’ll have to content ourselves with our legislature continually embarrassing the state. Luckily for me, I live in the blue island in a sea of red, Nashville, where we love tourists (they spend money!) immigrants (they spend money!) gay people (they spend money and gentrify neighborhoods!) and country music (we can make money!) If we could just keep the legislature out of our business (no, they will not allow a city to be less bigoted than the state,) we could probably make even more money.

  24. 24.

    japa21

    It is because of people like Rauf that Corker is so challenged by his job as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

    Well, not really. He’s challenged by it because he thought Foreign Relations were the type of thing Mark Sanford was involved with and he wanted to get in on the action.

  25. 25.

    kbuttle

    Guys, geez, I’m sorry it took me this long, but I should clarify my position as well: I also will not seek nomination for the Presidency.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    So Bush let an actual terrorist get away, and Obama killed him. That story seems familiar somehow….

  27. 27.

    Botsplainer

    And can I say this?

    A huge gripe of the American Revolution was the English practice of gathering Americans on charges and shipping them to England for trial.

    Personally, I have a gripe with calling a local resistance fighter a terrorist and shipping him around the world for trial while pretending he’s History’s Greatest Monster and worthy of lifetime imprisonment.

  28. 28.

    burnspbesq

    @Roger Moore:

    I await their explanation for how Bush releasing him from Gitmo is all Obama’s fault.

    Are you forgetting about the Keenyan Mooslim Usurper’s time-travel and mind-control abilities? He obviously traveled back in time, used a stolen Romulan cloaking device to sneak into the White House, and used his telekinetic abilities to force President Bush’s hand to involuntarily sign the release order.

  29. 29.

    srv

    Obama loses ANOTHER country

    The United States has ordered the closure of its embassy in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and said its ambassador will leave the country by Wednesday.

  30. 30.

    SatanicPanic

    What’s the creepiest presidential nickname? I used to think “Tricky Dick” but now I’m leaning towards” Old Rough and Ready”. Eyew

  31. 31.

    piratedan

    well Corker is one of those dudes that makes the geisha play of being a “reasonable and principled” Republican and then turns around and votes with the rabid loonies anyways. Fuck him, he’s a coward who knows what’s right and refuses to step up and do the right thing.

  32. 32.

    Sibelius

    Anyone out there use a pre-paid or monthly plan from page plus cellular? Spending money now for phones we hardly use and wife’s phone is dying. If we “upgrade” phones on our current VZN plan we have to get data service that will cost much more and be hardly used. We need the VZN network and page plus piggy backs on it. Tried Sprint, ATT, T-Mobile and we had no coverage at work for her. I’m not really a Luddite, just don’t have a large circle of contacts that I talk to so I don’t need thousands of minutes and data that cost a fortune and aren’t used.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: Well, it happened during Obama’s pre term, so it’s of course his fault. Just as the invasion of Iraq took place during Clinton’s third term.

    George W. Bush? Who is that?

  37. 37.

    japa21

    @SatanicPanic: Just looked up a list. There are some weird ones;

    Monroe was called “The Last Cocked Hat”
    Cleveland was “Uncle Jumbo”
    Taft was “Big Lub”

  39. 39.

    srv

    South Park comes to South Dakota

    Last year, the South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA) agreed to a new policy that would allow transgender students to participate in interscholastic athletics. Lawmakers are now pushing a bill that would eradicate that policy and instead impose a ban transgender student athletes. It advanced out of the House State Affairs Committee by a vote of 10-2 on Monday.
    …
    According to Rep. Jim Bolin (R), House sponsor of the bill, the organization made a “significant error.”

    Bolin believes the the SDHSAA has “decided to essentially question the validity of birth documents of the state of South Dakota.”

  41. 41.

    Bobby B.

    Bob Corker: can you be on “Meet the Press” on Sunday? The pundits are awhirl. “Twirling, twirling, ever twirling toward freedom!”

  45. 45.

    Botsplainer

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s the 10th of the month. The rent is probably late and the penalty kicked in today. He’ll do an ETA mentioning that he’s light and asking for a couple of bucks to tide him over.

  49. 49.

    jeffreyw

    @Sibelius: Verizon offers “feature” phones that don’t need a data plan, don’t they? We went with Tracphone for a couple of years with pretty good luck, they used the Verizon network.

  52. 52.

    Belafon

    @srv: That seems to be the newest meme for Republicans regarding transgender people. Erick Erickson was tweeting about how Liberals won’t admit that the transgender teen that killed herself is actually named whatever the birth name was (I can’t get on twitter so I can’t put the actual quote). We just won’t follow God’s choices when the person was born.

  53. 53.

    Sibelius

    @jeffreyw: Hey, you’re right, I just checked and they do have something without data. Last time I went through this I didn’t see that option. Thanks.

  56. 56.

    Botsplainer

    @Belafon:

    Oh, sure. Lots of whackiness there.

    What I always find interesting is the near worship of the demigod in the guise of the pot-bellied, swaggering, slackjawed, head-busting, nigger-hating, spic-beating, tobacco-chawing sheriff among FReepers. Never afraid to swagger around and physically enforce the will of the salt-of-the-earth local bigots, local judges, librul judges, them damn fedrel burocrats, them rogue agents of the FBI and jackbooted ATF thugs all need to fear the sheriff’s local supreme authority and his jail.

    It’s all gold-fringed flag stuff, of course. Back when I was a semi-wingnut, I’d troll them into passionate arguments about what the local sheriff could and could not do regarding federal authorities coming into their locality. The nuts had a network of sites built up (usually geocities) where they quoted and reinforced one another on ugly sites with bad graphics and a lot of capital letters, and misattributed, out of context and made up quotes.

  58. 58.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    I shall not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my … well, only if they absolutely insist.

  60. 60.

    Mr. Longform

    Well, I was going to announce my candidacy for the presidency and await matching funds, and then I got them, and since I still couldn’t afford the coffee I bought while waiting for my supporters to show up, I am now announcing that I will not be seeking the office of POTUS after all. So, I am now ready to begin my Fox News career. Contract? Just tell me what you want me to say about whomever, and I’m ready to go. Roger? Anybody? Hello!?

  61. 61.

    Mr. Longform

    @Sibelius: I use Virgin Mobile – can get a cheap phone and pay $30 a month, no contract. It’s on the Sprint network, so coverage isn’t bad overall, but sounds like not good for your situation.

  62. 62.

    Sibelius

    @Mr. Longform: Yeah, we had Sprint before and coverage was abysmal here. We’ve found that Verizon is the only network that works where my wife does in freakin’ Palo Alto for crying out loud, the “heart of Silicon Valley” and we can’t get reliable service in her building any other way! Looks like VZN does have other options for us, they are just buried under mountains of expensive smart phone options.

  63. 63.

    brantl

    I’m very challenged with my current role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

    That’s what his parents told him, but they didn’t tell him what it really meant. They’ve been using that for a code-phrase since he was a kid…..

  64. 64.

    jafd

    The latest ads that have appeared for my perusal, when I’ve surfed to Balloon Juice the past couple of days, have been for:
    clothes for zaftig ladies
    clothes for pregnant ladies
    clothes for little girl dancers
    mail-order razor blades
    travel to Taiwan

    I might be interested in the last, but it’s hardly within my budget in the forseeable future. The rest make me wonder what strange cookies and warped algorithms have gotten attached to me.

  65. 65.

    ThresherK

    @Sibelius: Virgin Mobile also works for us. We live in the Northeast Corridor. We don’t use a lot of minutes, so the “unlimitedness” of other carriers is not a draw.

  66. 66.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I’m very challenged with my current role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

    No shit, Sherlock.

  68. 68.

    Cervantes

    SIRENS AND CRAP

    In the course of an interview, he was asked a question, which he answered. Criticizing him for this is passing silly.

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