Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Come on, man.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

In my day, never was longer.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Bark louder, little dog.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are here: Home / Politics / Procreating mischiefs for Cheney

Procreating mischiefs for Cheney

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The entire Cheney family should be kept out of any and all positions of power above that of Home Owners Association busybody.

Wyoming will not elect a Democratic representative, so the question is if and then how does a liberal blog play there to further the commonweal?

I am thinking of a Balloon Juice Super-PAC designed to troll the Republican primary base in Wyomoning. It would run ads saying that Liberal Boogeyman with San Fransisco or New York or Detroit values really looks forward to working with Ms. Cheney as she represents DC Values very well….

My wife has said that I can’t start that Super-PAC, but is anyone interested in a large scale trolling operation with an actual budget?

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  3. 3.

    Ripley (Whiskey Fire version)

    Mrs Mayhew,

    Please allow Richard to spend Sunday Super PAC trolling the Republicans of Wyoming.

    Sincerely,

    Epstein’s Mother

  4. 4.

    Amir Khalid

    Isn’t Wyoming one of those underpopulated states with more US Senators than House Representatives?

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Oh Please Common Clay of the West, Old and New, look askance at the Jackson Hole Part-Timer and humiliate her again. It’s a dried bean in the scales of justice for that one (even on her own, she’s been a toxic war monger), to say nothing of her evil father.

    Also, OT: I’ve always been skeptical of how much money these primary and caucus events actually generate for local economies, here’s a small glimpse

    Alex Burns ‏@ alexburnsNYT 11h11 hours ago
    Cost of a 1-night stay at the Des Moines Residence Inn on Feb. 1: $689
    Cost of Loews Regency on Park Ave. the same night: $399

  7. 7.

    PsiFighter37

    I was going to ask if she was dumb enough to primary another incumbent, but it looks like the sitting representative is retiring at the end of her term. Still, I think this could be another eventful primary – I have no doubt there are other ambitious Wyoming Republicans who would be more than happy to knock her off.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    USA Today, January 6, 2014

    WASHINGTON — Liz Cheney dropped her bid for the Senate in Wyoming, saying “serious health issues” in her family have caused her to end her GOP primary challenge against Sen. Mike Enzi.

    The entire Cheney family is a “serious health issue” for this country.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Shell: She tried for the Senate seat, I think she tried to primary Barrasso and was met with a resounding “are you fucking kidding us?”

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Eric S.:

    There are seven states with a sufficiently small population to have only one Representative: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. And you’re right — Wyoming, with something under 583,000 residents, has the lowest population of all 50 states.

  14. 14.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Richard, what do you have against the people who live in this hypothetical development where a Cheney would be on the HOA board?

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mike J:

    Or Atlanta: 448,000 within the city limits, 5.5 million in metro — or more, depending on your definition of “metro Atlanta.”

  21. 21.

    Mandalay

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Wyoming, with something under 583,000 residents….

    So Wyoming gets 2% of the Senate with ~0.18% of the population?

    That’s seriously messed up.

  23. 23.

    Mike J

    @Kropadope: The founding fathers didn’t want to take this whole “voting” thing too far. They set things up so that big landholders still had a veto, just like the system they claimed to hate in England.

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    So……Liz Cheney is back…

    LOL

    I still chuckle thinking of how her Senate Run Went..

    thing about Wyoming..every race is a statewide race…

  26. 26.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah:

    Seriously, it would be fun to run as the BJ troll candidate…I couldn’t hope to aspire to the class and taste of the Baud! campaign, but then again, we are talking about Wyoming…

    “Vote for Miss Bianca! The White is in the Name! Sure, I’m a carpetbagger, but no more so than the Cheneys!”

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Oldgold:

    Yeah, I was looking at that photo of her and thinking she’s well on the way to perfecting her old man’s contemptuous sneer.

  29. 29.

    Mike J

    @Snarkworth: The same way the grifter campaigns of the right are profitable, through donations. The difference being that with a troll campaign, the donors would know upfront they were paying for trollery. On Republican campaigns, the donors think some schmuck like Pat Robertson is actually trying to get elected.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    As someone who has served on a condo board, as a member and as president– I object. I’m fairly sure that the busybodies in my condo would be horrified to learn that they’d been compared to Liz.

  36. 36.

    NonyNony

    @Snarkworth: Well, first you find a political campaign where “media advisors” are paid a percentage of their media buy. Convince them to fund your trolling op at 250k and promise them a 125k kickback on top of the amount the campaign pays them. Then go spend some time trolling the Wapo comments under a variety of sockpuppets.

    It’s basically a con – astroturfing can move the needle by making it look like a candidate or issue has more support than it does, but trolling does nothing. So paid trolls (to the extent they actually exist – many idiots are happy to troll for lulz) are basically dumb campaigns throwing money away.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT : Donald Trump going to church for the second Sunday in a row! This week he’s carrying “his family Bible” (“Send a kid down to one of those egghead book shops down there and buy an old Bible, something that looks like it’s been opened!”). Last week I read he dropped two fifties in the collection basket, which strikes me as both ostentatious and cheap

  39. 39.

    boatboy_srq

    @Mai.naem.mobile: They chose to live in that neighborhood, and they either created the HOA or bought into it. They did so because they didn’t want to (gasp) pay the taxes necessary to fund their community’s amenities (like roads, snow removal and sanitation) and elected to pony up multiples of the millage required for those things so they wouldn’t have to share.

    What svcks is that there are so many HOA-managed neighborhoods these days that it’s virtually impossible to find a decent residence without buying into such a community – unless you want to live waaaaaay out there.

  40. 40.

    BGinCHI

    Also, I bet Alan Simpson, who famously hates the Cheneys (only good thing I can say about him), will be out stumping for one of her rivals.

  42. 42.

    Felonius Monk

    Unfortunately, she’s probably a lock to get this since her old man (the Darthmaster) held the seat for about 10 years. I think blood runs thick in Wyoming, her last foray into Wyoming politics not withstanding.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Miss Bianca:

    I couldn’t hope to aspire to the class and taste of the Baud! campaign,

    Jesus, I can’t even imagine what kind of degenerate you’d have to be not to be able to clear that bar.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT, again: I don’t know who to root against

    ‏@ DylanByers
    No joke: Turned away at the door from event because co-hosts @ MarkHalperin & @ jheil didn’t like critical things I wrote about their show.

    @NonyNony: ha! good point

  46. 46.

    Germy

    Forgot to turn off the volume on my laptop, and got treated once again to a loud autoplay ad.

    I expect that sort of thing from Salon.com or TMZ, not the fine Balloon-Juice.

    For years, I thought it was a rule of web design; that you’re not supposed to have audio launch unless the viewer actively selects it. I guess I was wrong.

  49. 49.

    Felonius Monk

    @Germy:

    I guess I was wrong.

    You’ve been here long enough to know that everyone is required to play by Cole’s Rules. :-)

  50. 50.

    Mandalay

    @Felonius Monk:

    Unfortunately, she’s probably a lock to get this since her old man (the Darthmaster) held the seat for about 10 years

    And unlike in her Senate run, Simpson is backing her, and the incumbent is retiring. Plus she will have the $$$ to destroy anyone who dares to run against her.

    Unless some dirt on her emerges I can’t see how she would lose.

  52. 52.

    Snarkworth

    Oh, I understand the grift/campaign advisor/gullible donor dynamic. I just don’t understand paid trolls. Real trolls are just offensive, not persuasive. Who would pay them to say stupid stuff on blog comment threads? The ones I’ve seen are just obnoxious and stupid.

  53. 53.

    The Other Chuck

    @FlyingToaster: First off, why would you give Texas eight more Senate seats? Secondly, there isn’t any such agreement in force now: they had an option to carve up the state before joining, but they joined as a single state which is all they have a right to be now.

    @Snarkworth:
    Destroying a successful public forum is the goal of such trolls. Rendering an intellectual commons into a cesspool where disagreement cannot be reasonable or civil serves their purpose.

  56. 56.

    The Other Chuck

    @Germy: You’re going to want to use an adblocker with Balloon Juice, no two ways about it. Maybe click the PayPal link to throw a few bucks Cole’s way to make up for it. I’ve considered blocking stuff like the autoplay ads with my extensions, but I figure anyone installing E/MBBJ is already savvy enough to install an adblock extension too.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Eric S.:

    I knew there were multiple states with only 1 rep. I couldn’t have definitively named them with looking them up.

    Me neither :-)

  59. 59.

    patrick II

    @Snarkworth:

    Obnoxious trolls have ruined Kevin Drum’s comment section. I don’t know how much maintenance it takes to keep a targeted liberal blog troll free, but constant monitoring has got to be a hassle, and not cheap for sites like the Krugman blog.

  60. 60.

    Ramalama

    but is anyone interested in a large scale trolling operation with an actual budget?

    I was just trying to egg my brother on to use his powers for good to troll the shit out of Donald Trump. He’s a grade A wise-arse. He belongs to a facebook group filled with neo-nazis and others so inclined, just so he can tease them. His comments to them are hy-larious, and they fall for him every time.

  61. 61.

    gene108

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    The District of Columbia has more people than Wyoming. But the Republicans are dead set against statehood for D.C.

    Who can blame them?

    Given the political leanings of D.C., you are guaranteed two liberal Democratic Senators and at least one Democratic Representative.

    Now if D.C. were a Republican stronghold, statehood would most definitely be on the table.

  64. 64.

    Amir Khalid

    Off-topic: I did not know that table tennis and ping-pong were two quite different sports.

    But table tennis and ping pong are the same thing, right?

    Wrong.

    “In terms of the equipment, table tennis is played with sponge on the surface of wood and ping pong is sandpaper wood,” Baggaley told BBC Sport.

  65. 65.

    Halcyon

    “My wife has said that I can’t start that Super-PAC, but is anyone interested in a large scale trolling operation with an actual budget?”

    FINALLY. I have been called to my true destiny in life. Yes, please.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    NMFTG (Think Progress)

    On Wednesday, President Obama will make his first visit to an American mosque since he assumed the nation’s highest office. The visit to a mosque in Baltimore next week is a part of the administration’s effort to address mounting hate crimes against Muslims and vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric from top political contenders.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @redshirt: I think DIck and Lynn are. Met at UW-Laramie? What was rumored to be Lynn’s crypto-lesbian romance novel was IIRC about women in the Wyoming frontier

  74. 74.

    Gvg

    @boatboy_srq: HOA don’t have anything to do with avoiding taxes in Florida at least. They pay property taxes for roads and such same as anyone else. Condo HOA’s fees cover common property maintenance such as outside walls, elevators, stairwells and grounds. Neighborhood HOA vary. Most try to tell you to keep your yard neat and maintain the entrance way. Mostly pests but I have seen people try to form one because one home owner, probably mentally ill with a form of hoarder syndrome owned a house he filled with junk, attracting rats….the city didn’t want to enforce or actually follow through. Kept telling him clean up, promise made….nothing. Eventually he died and kids sold.

  77. 77.

    FlyingToaster

    @Gvg:

    Neighborhood HOA vary. Most try to tell you to keep your yard neat and maintain the entrance way.

    The usual HOAs in the midwest (which are the gated communities founded around the time I left, and which I have friends/relatives who live in or near) were about “maintaining property values”. So they have paint-palettes for house colors, allowed decorations for your frontage, bans on signage, etc.

    So my [color redacted] house, multiple [characters redacted] inflatables at various times of the year, and Boston-Ivy encased privacy fence would get removed. Let alone my neighbors’ commie-symp signs (previously NO WALMART and now Bernie). I’m sure the lady up the hill with the Baker and Romney signs would still be allowed.

    Fortunately, I’m in the People’s Republic, and Watertown, where we don’t have those. The only gated communities hereabouts are for 55+ (and I don’t think they’re allowed to ban yard signs).

    I think if you really want to live in a gated community, you should move to an island.

  78. 78.

    Prescott Cactus

    I’m in. Collective brainstorming against her would be a real gas. Does anyone know what is involved setting a SuperPac (besides Baud).

    P.S. Richard, I hope your Son is breathing easy.

  82. 82.

    MaryRC

    @Mandalay: Yes, since Cynthia Lummis is retiring, this time she doesn’t have to launch her campaign by insulting the incumbent (as she did with Mike Enzi last time). Although, since she’s a Cheney she’ll probably insult Lummis anyway. They can’t help it, being nasty is like slop to a pig for them.

    I can’t help wondering about her husband, Philip “Not Cheney” Perry. She left him back in DC the last time but at the time she had only spent a few months living in Wyoming. Now it seems that she and the kids have been living in Jackson Hole ever since. Has Perry stayed in DC all this time? (he parlayed a few nice jobs in government courtesy of his father-in-law into a partnership in a law firm) Does he seem too much like the typical Washington insider to appeal to Wyoming cowboys? Or would his appearance remind everyone that she keeps Daddy’s name and stumps with Daddy by her side because that’s all she has to offer?

  85. 85.

    bemused

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I always thought it was interesting that from the time Cheney picked himself to be Bush’s running mate and during his two VP terms, msm didn’t give Lynn’s novel any attention that I recall. I can’t imagine it would not have been a huge thing if a Democrat running for VP or Prez whose wife wrote the same type of novel.

  86. 86.

    J R in WV

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Much of it is pretty, but the other half is high desert, rolling hills of nothing as far as they eye can see. With a huge uranium processing plant way off on the horizon, inside the Great Basin of Wyoming. A good plan, as huge leaks won’t travel to the ocean, but will just linger forever, hemmed in by the great basin geology that provided the uranium ores to mine.

    We stopped at a very old general store one afternoon. I asked the elderly cowgirl working the register if they got much snow around there – flat country. She said, “Sort of, lots of snow passes through on its way to the Dakotas. But it doesn’t pile up here, too much wind.” Other places in the Wind River Mountains we saw houses with operational doors on the second and third floors, for when it snowed a little.

  88. 88.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud:

    Ha! Powerzz of Perception, I haz them…So, on the “family values” scale, would it be safe to describe you as an “Addams Family Values” sort of candidate?

  89. 89.

    Prescott Cactus

    This message brought to by;

    “American with Heart, SuperPac”
    or
    “Americans without a Mechanical Heart, SuperPac”

  90. 90.

    Miss Bianca

    On a somewhat serious note, I do think there is a problem with Republicans running for office unopposed on federal, state and regional levels…there have been some scandals attached to the Good Ol’ Goobers currently in office in my (white white white Rancher Republican) county, which have prompted a flurry of tut-tuttery even from the old guard. I was contemplating running as a Democrat for County Commissioner and having as my campaign slogan, “Just because…a one-party system is dangerous.”

    I’d go for “I am America! And so can you!” but I think that one’s been taken…

  91. 91.

    Mandalay

    @MaryRC:

    Has Perry stayed in DC all this time?

    Well, there’s this…

    Work frequently takes Cheney and attorney-husband Philip Perry to Washington D.C., However, as she quickly told us, their main residence is in Wyoming and that four of their five children are in schools there

    http://www.newsmax.com/John-Gizzi/Dick-Cheney-2016-Elections-2016-GOP/2015/12/10/id/705274/

    Republican family values: mod and dad work in DC but the kids get left behind to go to school in Wyoming so mom can run for office. Classy.

    So much for keeping kids out of politics.

  92. 92.

    Roger Moore

    @boatboy_srq:
    You’re contradicting yourself. If it’s almost impossible to buy a nice house that’s not part of a HOA, then most of the people who are HOA members are probably people who joined because that was the only practical way of getting a nice house, not necessarily because they aren’t willing to support public facilities with taxes.

    Besides, there are plenty of places where a HOA is effectively mandatory. Condominiums are often the only affordable choice in heavily developed areas, and they have shared property that requires some kind of HOA to manage it.

  93. 93.

    cokane

    TBH Richard, I don’t see the importance of keeping a Cheney out of the Wyoming House seat. What’s the upside versus whoever she runs against? And what’s the opportunity cost of investing in some marginally less conservative or marginally less offensive Republican from there? Let’s focus on winning some actual seats and let idiot conservatives battle over shit they’re already going win.

  94. 94.

    danielx

    The entire Cheney family should be kept out of any and all positions of power above that of Home Owners Association busybody.

    HOA busybody? No way, that involves making decisions that potentially affect people’s lives. Shitpicker in Gillette, maybe.

    Come to think on it, she actually does represent DC values…all too well. You know, permanent war, the security state, all that. If a Cheney won a House seat, there would be glasses raised throughout the Village.

  96. 96.

    PaulW

    I don’t have the money, and can’t run in Wyoming as I’m in Florida.

    But there better be a reasonable Democrat in that state who can run and provide a genuine contrast against the Cheneys.

  97. 97.

    PaulW

    @Germy:

    All the while dismantling their own neighborhood’s clubhouse under the guise of “privatization” and with their contractor triple-billing the association for the fees to do so.

  99. 99.

    jonas

    Didn’t the folks in Wyoming tell Cheney to get bent when she showed up to run for Senate a few years ago? What makes her think they’ve suddenly warmed up to her now?

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @cokane: no doubt she would be a toxic presence in any chamber, but barely noticeable in a body that already includes the likes of King, Goehmert, Harztler… too many for me at least to keep track of. Even in the Senate, she’s one more voice like Cruz and those struggling to sound as nasty. She’s already a consistent media presence– the gossip a few years back was she got invited on Morning Schmoe because she and Mika were in the same Mommy and Me class– and has as much and as little chance at the White House (I suspect her long-term delusion) as Cruz or his fellow travelers.

    Would be nice if her Pappy went back to hell without seeing the family brand quasi-vindicated.

  102. 102.

    lgerard

    Reports are that the FBI and Sheriffs are moving into the refuge to finally end this charade

  103. 103.

    Davebo

    @jonas:

    Easier to win a House district than state wide normally but when there’s only one district I guess it’s a wash!

  104. 104.

    MattF

    @danielx: I’m not disputing that– my theory has always been that what we see in Dick Cheney is the fleshly remains of a man whose soul has gone to hell. But I think he makes the Villagers– a little nauseous, at best.

  106. 106.

    MaryRC

    @Mandalay: Given how she used her kids as props during her 2014 campaign — her Facebook page consisted entirely of pics of the kids with Grandpop — I can’t say I’m surprised that she’s using them as placeholders now so that she can claim she’s no longer a carpetbagger. I’m sure she’s told them that it’s only for a couple of years until Mommy wins a seat and they can all move back to Washington together. I wonder if this attitude was behind her throwing her sister Mary under the bus — “C’mon, sis, I have to diss your lifestyle for a few months, it’s just politics!” – and then she found to her surprise that Mary took her own family seriously.

  107. 107.

    MaryRC

    @jonas: In 2014 she challenged a popular incumbent and put up a lot of backs by doing so. She was perceived as a carpetbagger and had even lied about the length of her residence in the state in order to get a fishing license (considered a major faux pas in that neck of the woods). The current incumbent for the House seat is retiring so that’s not an issue this time and she has parked her kids in Jackson Hole for the last 2 years so she can claim permanent residency.

    Maybe she thinks people have short memories or maybe the GOP establishment let her know that if she dropped out of the 2014 race, her time would come around. Or maybe the Cheneys have spent the past 2 years finding out where the bodies are buried. Or buying up souls.

    What’s interesting is that, now that I recall, she gave family health reasons for dropping out of the 2014 race, broadly implying that one or more of the kids were the ones with the issues. I guess they’re OK now if they can be left in Jackson Hole while Mom and Dad are in DC.

  108. 108.

    James E Powell

    On MSNBC this morning the people there were repeating Dick Cheney’s attack on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. The people there were talking about this as if Dick Cheney’s thoughts on anything were something that Hillary Clinton, and indeed all of us, ought to take seriously. I am wondering why they thought that.

    Can we agree that every policy Dick Cheney represents is a bad one? Has anything he advocated ever done anything but enrich his sponsors?

    Why isn’t this the story whenever he says anything? Why do even non-wingnut media like MSNBC treat him like an elder statesmen with a valuable point of view?

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    @James E Powell: “Why do even non-wingnut media like MSNBC treat him like an elder statesmen with a valuable point of view?’

    The mainstream media is bought and paid for.

  110. 110.

    MattF

    @James E Powell: This is the man who outed a CIA agent and destroyed her career in order to punish someone who pointed out his dishonesty. So… yeah, I guess he is an expert on classified information.

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    Since the front pagers obviously hate us – What did we do? Please tell us what we did to deserve being ignored! :: sniff :: – I was forced to find an old thread I haven’t read yet. Luckily, I found Lord of the Fries, which is filled with win.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MaryRC:

    Exactly right, that’s the excuse she gave for dropping out of the race once it became clear she would lose the race decisively and humiliatingly. I mentioned it, briefly, earlier in this thread. Have always wondered why we never heard another word about those “serious health issues” in her family.

  114. 114.

    Germy

    @WaterGirl: Yes, I bought four copies (one for me and three as gifts)

    EDIT: sorry took so long to reply… making pizza for mrs. shoemangler & me

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @Germy: I’m hungry, and pizza sounds good. Do you deliver? I’m too hungry to start making pizza now.

    My homemade pizza has a really thin crust, but I recently saw a recipe for deep dish crust that sounds pretty good. (King Arthur Flour recipe) I may try that soon.

    P.S. I may pick up a copy, I’d like to support something new in the publishing world.

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    @Germy: Just ordered one for my friend who had surgery 5 weeks ago, just had to spend another week in the hospital and has a very slow recovery ahead of him. He’s stuck, his wife is stuck, I thought some humor in short bursts might be just what the doctor ordered, perfectly suited for the attention span they have because of this situation. Thanks for brining it to our attention!

    I will also sneak a peak at it before I give it to him and may order one for myself and another for my niece.

  118. 118.

    Bitter Scribe

    The most useless husband-and-wife team in American history have produced a spawn of equal uselessness.

  120. 120.

    jonas

    @James E Powell: Dick Cheney pontificating on protecting classified information is like having … um… Dick Cheney pontificate on the nuclear programs in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

    Oh yeah, it was all part of a single BALL of lies, so, you know, wev.

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