Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

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

Let’s finish the job.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

White supremacy is terrorism.

So many bastards, so little time.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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Open Thread: Visual Proof

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70Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    And, of course, at this point the only vaguely plausible “Establishment” candidate is Rubio. Who has pretty much the same set of cockamamie policy beliefs as Cruz, he’s just better at hiding them and cloaking them in seemingly-inoccuous language.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    @efgoldman: One could make a reasonable argument that post-Crucifixion Jesus was the original zombie. He died and is risen, and HUNGERS FOR YOUR BRAINS!

  4. 4.

    maya

    Trump and Cruz could settle their affairs in Weehawken, just up the road from where those mooslims were cheering the WTC collapse. It has historic appropriateness and involves GUNS.

  7. 7.

    Redshift

    @dmsilev: And more important to the establishment, Rubio’s “beliefs” are whatever works at the moment to get elected, and he’s much more likely to go along with the establishment program if elected (based on his having espoused sincerely held beliefs at both ends of the GOP spectrum on immigration.)

    I don’t think Cruz’ beliefs are any more sincere, but Rubio seems to believe whatever is best for him, whereas Cruz goes for whatever is best for him at the expense of everyone else.

  8. 8.

    Cermet

    Cruz is a dangerous, power hungry psychotic; Rubio is a bush the shrub twin (maybe even more stupid if that is believable) and would be a complete tool for neocons and teabaggers; bush the so-called smarter is an utter tool of big business; chump is a power seeking actor who would rubber stamp much of the thug congress passes; and all the rest are clowns with issues too big to get near the steering wheel of the clown bus. The worse past is this really is the best the thug party has to offer and far more sane then much of their voter base – talk about scary! Where are the Goth’s when you need them … lest Darkness does Fall … .

  9. 9.

    MattF

    I have a theory about why Ted Cruz is so unattractive– he’s a bad actor. And I mean that in the sense of ‘acting’ as a sort of skill. He has to put on an act– as many politicians do– and he’s very, very bad at it.

    And that must really frustrate him. He’s so smart, after all– and actors as a group have the reputation of not being the sharpest tools in the drawer– but he just can’t do it right. He memorizes his lines, he gets every little gesture down pat, but it still looks fake. The difference between good acting and bad acting is microscopic, but everyone sees it immediately.

    To take a specific example, Tilda Swinton is, to put it gently, an airhead. But her performance in, e.g., Michael Clayton was amazing and hypnotic. How did she do it? Cruz will never understand that, or approach that– not ever.

  10. 10.

    Another Holocene Human

    Good lord, Ted Cruz’ tweet sounds like something that came out of Evil Chucky Johnson’s mouth.

    Isn’t Evil Chuck a big fan of Ted Cruz?

    That mixture of ego and sociopathy.

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    Argh. It would be so much easier to keep up with new threads if we had out next/prev thread dohickies back. If the fancyschmancy side things don’t work, bring back the static text links. I like them better that the nearly invisible things that require javascript anyway.

  16. 16.

    Anoniminous

    I’m mildly surprised Trump or Cruz don’t have their very own little “private security force” = paramilitary wing. Given their demographic support Trump would have an easier time organizing one but Cruz could get some true wing-dings from the violent ward of the Pro-Life crowd.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    Now that Cruz is getting more airtime I’m better able to gauge how pathological he is–basically Sarah Palin with 50% more glibness and 50% lower ethics.

    Once again: thanks a lot, Texas! You manage to take Kentucky off the hook as state doing the most damage to the nation.

  18. 18.

    Another Holocene Human

    @dmsilev: Technically the zombies were the righteous dead who rise from their coffins on Judgment day. On that day Jesus, who had previously returned to his spiritual, heavenly realm, will descend back to Earth.

    And there’s also the silly passage in one of the Gospels–Matthew?–where the dead in Jerusalem rise from their graves and go berserking after Jesus dies.

    And then there’s Lazarus. JMS did a good series on that. The curse of immortality.

  20. 20.

    FlipYrWhig

    @MattF: I think that comes from his debate training. I have said before that whenever he’s speaking you can practically see him counting the beats for each carefully chosen pause.

    The thing about Cruz is that it’s easily evident that he thinks everyone else in the world is inferior to him. That’s why his demagoguery is so hollow. You can tell he thinks everyone listening to him is a peon waiting to be manipulated. I think Trump is a megalomaniac who craves everyone’s approval. Cruz is an unloved, loveless sociopath who sees “people” as a means to amass overwhelming power.

  22. 22.

    Anoniminous

    @efgoldman:

    I think they know just enough history to see the immediate brownshirt comparison potential.

    Do you think it would matter? Given what I’m reading in the Infortainment Mediums I think it would be a wash.

  23. 23.

    danielx

    It’s getting worse.

    Every time I see Ted Cruz with that Eddie Haskell smirk (h/t Betty Cracker), that most excellent word backpfeifengesicht leaps to the front of my mind.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    @FlipYrWhig:
    He was using debate-fu on Morning Edition this week. “You and I are both old enough to remember when climate scientists were predicting an ice age…”

    Manufacture a “shared experience” then to on to show how the interviewer’s line of questioning is based on a false premise (along with 99% of those totally-bought “scientists”).

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @trollhattan: I’m old enough to remember when scientists were proposing the earth was “round.” Yet where’s the proof that anyone has fallen off the planet?

  29. 29.

    Anoniminous

    @BR:

    I don’t know. I haven’t found any evidence of it. The only thing I can find is*:

    Mercutio Southall, who was violently kicked out of a Donald Trump event in Alabama last month, plans to meet with the Birmingham Police Department next week to discuss a hate-crime investigation.

    On the other hand:

    A protester at a South Carolina rally for Donald Trump was charged with assault at the request of the mother of a Trump supporter.

    * see: http://newsone.com/3292133/black-protester-assaulted-at-trump-rally-seeks-hate-crime-charge/
    I’m at the three link limit.

    ETA: not that doing it that way did a bit of good!

  30. 30.

    patroclus

    @MattF: Michael Clayton is one of the greatest films of all time! It’s so epic and mythic and the acting – particularly by Clooney and Swinton is amazing. That last scene between the two is riveting! Everything about the movie is great – Realm and Conquest is reality!

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @FlipYrWhig:
    The thing about Cruz is that it’s easily evident that he thinks everyone else in the world is inferior to him.
    This is why his face is so punchable and why people who know him think know he’s an asshole. He’s not even a good sociopath, almost everyone can see it in his face.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @Baud:
    I drove off the edge once and my insurance company totally refused to pay for my totaled car! Some “flat-earth rider” was not included in the policy.

  35. 35.

    pamelabrown53

    @dmsilev:

    Speaking of “Establishment Rubio”, it’s worth a gander to click on Vox on our blogroll. Interesting recent article entitled “Marco Rubio’s strategy is utterly baffling”. The crux is that he’s doing little campaigning or field organizing in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Instead, he’s relying on FOX appearances and advertising. Reminds me of the Guiliani non-strategy.

    I have to admit it makes me wonder if he’s in the race to raise his profile enough to land a mega-$$$ job. Fits with his pattern of living beyond his means. Rubio= shallow/callow. Any thoughts?

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    @pamelabrown53:
    And here I thought it was Rubio=swallow.

    He’s a piece of fluff somehow groomed to get the oldster Florida vote. Not translating to the national stage too well, although he can still forge a role as “least-crazy finalist.”

  39. 39.

    oldgold

    Cruz is a much more dangerous shark than Trump.

    Predident Trump would be a disaster. President Cruz would pose an existential threat to the Republic.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    As some RWNJs are wont to say, “Just because XX is widely accepted doesn’t mean it’s right.” XX could be any social issue, climate change, etc.

  44. 44.

    Cermet

    @Baud: Every astronaut who ever flew in space “fell off the Earth” while in orbit …(they are in continuous “free fall”. ) As for explaining gravity – try explaining light or anything microscopic in general, really. It all requires a common agreed upon “accept this” and then all else follows … mostly. Gravity as curved space makes sense as long as you ignore what is curved like one ignores what “waves” in light and exactly what makes mass … well, mass. Or what is a vacuum or what is time or its direction. All concepts break down as you look at the details – that is what makes quantum mechanics really a powerful concept unlike all previous theory’s – it avoids many unexplainable aspects of reality while clarifying most microscopic objects.

  45. 45.

    Zinsky

    Cruz is as phony as a two dollar Rolex. With Trump – what you see is what you get. Cruz is a fake, a shell, a Trojan horse. He might truly be the devil under that smarmy “Bill Murray fucked a ferret” face. I would not trust Ted Cruz about anything. Pure evil and pure deceit.

  46. 46.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MattF: Cruz just looks like a nasty, sanctimonious religious hypocrite from Central Casting. Huckabee and Santorum and Carson are all in that same niche, but they don’t look exactly like what they are to the degree that he does.

  49. 49.

    pamelabrown53

    @efgoldman:

    Well, to us, Rubio, may be too “callow to be a rainmaker” but to K Street and Wall Street “callowness” may be a feature not a bug. IMO, he wants big money that goes beyond hawking Florida citrus.

  50. 50.

    pamelabrown53

    @Baud:

    It is amazing. After reading the Vox piece I don’t know what to think. Do you think Rubio’s in it too win it?

    Hell, you’re campaigning harder than he!

  51. 51.

    pamelabrown53

    @efgoldman:

    While I don’t disagree, exactly, i.e., you may be right, he’s got the youth and will have national name recognition. They’ll provide the contacts and spiel.

  53. 53.

    Julia Grey

    @efgoldman:

    Things go up. Things fall down. Who can explain why?

    It takes a LOT of energy to throw things up over the edge of the gravity well.

  56. 56.

    Redshift

    @Zinsky:

    Cruz is as phony as a two dollar Rolex. With Trump – what you see is what you get.

    I disagree about Trump. He’s a BS artist. I don’t think he believes half of what he says, he only cares what works. He has a good instinct for getting the RWNJ base what they want to hear. For example, I don’t think he planned to make the first part of his run about Mexicans; he just threw a lot of stuff out there and that was what got a big response.

  57. 57.

    benw

    @efgoldman: Scalia’s a “geological originalist.” He honors the brilliance of medieval church thinkers by believing the sun orbits a flat earth. That fucker Galileo had it coming!

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    Cruz may want to be a lobbyist, but he probably wouldn’t be very successful.

    Cruz is a cobra. He believes his soaring rhetorical powers will hypnotize anyone listening to him into a state of bliss. Let him take over Ralph Reed’s job.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @debbie:

    More like a rattlesnake who thinks he’s a cobra. As Scott Walker found out, having soaring rhetorical powers in your home state doesn’t usually translate to nationwide powers.

    (Though I’m aware I’m probably libeling rattlesnakes, who mostly just want to be left alone.)

  61. 61.

    Gimlet

    @benw:

    Must be a Republican

    https://www.rt.com/usa/325536-us-town-fears-solar-farms/

    A proposal for a solar farm has been rejected by the town council in Woodland, North Carolina following public concerns.

    One local man, Bobby Mann said that businesses would stop going to Woodland, the community would suffer as a result and the farms would suck up all the energy from the sun, according to the Roanoke-Chowan News Herald.

    “You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

    A retired science teacher, Jane Mann, expressed concerns that plants in the vicinity of the panels would not photosynthesize which would prevent the plants from growing.

    She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @pamelabrown53: I really can’t figure them out anymore. He has an opportunity — it seems strange that he’s not taking advantage. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s surrounded by grifter consultants instead of people who can give him good advice.

  63. 63.

    raven

    I don’t want to read any of this because I just turned the DVR recording on. I was in the Army but I’m from a Navy family. My old man was an enlisted swabby in WW2, graduated from Illinois and became an officer. He hated the fuckers from the Academy with a passion. I felt the same way about the few West Point dopes I encountered in my 3 years. One particular butter bar could have gotten the reaction force I was on in Korea killed when we bolted out the gate in pursuit of “infiltrators” that were spotted. Thanks the FSM we didn’t find them. So, lets hope for a good football game and screw both Academies.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Gimlet:
    What.
    The.
    Fuck?
    Some people are very lucky that breathing is an autonomic function.
    OK not the rest of us, that’s for sure.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Ruckus:

    Well, c’mon, doctors keep telling us that the sun causes skin cancer, so *obviously* collecting sunlight in one place is going to cause cancer in the people who live near it. Science!

    For the sake of her former students, I really hope that retired teacher is currently suffering from some form of dementia and didn’t teach these weird theories to her unsuspecting students.

  68. 68.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):
    Considering that some of her fellow citizens also have bizarre “ideas” about the sun and solar cells I’d say she did.
    Some days I’m amazed that we aren’t all still grunting to communicate, wearing raw animal hides, eating raw meat and berries and living in caves. How have we managed to create a semi modern society with this level of neanderthal thinking reactions?

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    Does anybody here watch James Corden? I am a big fan and think his show is 10x better than Colbert’s.

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    @MattF:

    I have a theory about why Ted Cruz is so unattractive– he’s a bad actor. And I mean that in the sense of ‘acting’ as a sort of skill. He has to put on an act– as many politicians do– and he’s very, very bad at it.

    He oozes creepy.

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