Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“woke” is the new caravan.

Please don’t feed the bears.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

You cannot shame the shameless.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Let me file that under fuck it.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

We’re not going back!

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Young Marco, Still Not Ready for Prime Time…

Open Thread: Young Marco, Still Not Ready for Prime Time…

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From the NYTimes article:

In the final days before today’s Iowa caucus, the campaign staff of the Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio worked furiously to quash a scurrilous story line about their candidate that had been circulating among the Washington commentariat. The damaging rumor in question was that Rubio — who for weeks has been considered Iowa’s likely third-place finisher, behind Ted Cruz and Donald Trump — was in fact closing in on Cruz and likely to place second…

… [N]o one has worked harder to keep expectations lower than the high-energy Rubio. Going into today’s caucus, as one member of Rubio’s team put it: “the best Cruz can do is what everybody expected him to do. The worst we’re going to do is a strong third, and that looks like a big success for us.” Rubio’s aides perversely relish the fact that, as one of them told me, “Marco is every voter’s second choice.” Rubio has spent far less money on television ads than his former mentor Jeb Bush. His crowds have been large, but nothing on the order of Trump’s gladiatorial throngs. In Iowa, Rubio — who tends to ramble and look rundown when pushed beyond his physical limits — has not tried to match Cruz’s marathon slog through all of Iowa’s 99 counties, instead focusing on about 20 of the most densely populated among them. And Rubio has spent comparatively little time attacking the two front-runners. His campaign has embraced what seems to be the most risk-averse strategy in the Republican field, one that is in fact filled with risks despite its basic logic…

Imagine Little Mister ‘Don’t Push Me’ trying to debate either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Halfway through the first hour, he’ll be whining for a juice box and a nap.

***********
Apart from deploring the low quality of our opposition, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  2. 2.

    Steve M.

    Imagine Little Mister ‘Don’t Push Me’ trying to debate either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Halfway through the first hour, he’ll be whining for a juice box and a nap.

    And Chuck Todd and Ron Fournier would declare him the winner.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    The Village is so happy they have one establishment person they can now concentrate on. Cuts down on overhead.

  4. 4.

    David *Rafael* Koch

    Another gorgeous gown from the SAG awards (Sophie Bush)

    Yesterday Ronda Rousey turned 29. She celebrated by posting this cheeky photo of her in her birthday suit. Phew!! Help me, Rhonda!

  5. 5.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Times Hearts Rubio.

    NYT’s keyboard commandos love his Neo-Con drivel.

    SHOW ME YOUR WAR FACE!

  7. 7.

    Trentrunner

    Jesus Christ, the red-baiting of Sanders that Chris Matthews is doing in his interview with Hillary is just appalling. He really thinks Sanders is Robespierre-Trotsky-Nader.

  12. 12.

    Gimlet

    Another MSM cover-up that’s important to Americans everywhere.

    Raw Story

    Michele Bachmann appeared Saturday on the “end times” radio program hosted by Jan Markell and Eric Barger, who she warned that the Syrian civil war was setting up the biblical battle of Armageddon, reported Right Wing Watch.

    Bachmann predicted world leaders were poised to grant “legitimacy to the Islamic State,” and she said Russian and Iranian military intervention in Syria was establishing grounds for a future invasion of Israel to seize its energy resources — in accordance with the biblical prophecy.

    “I believe that they are positioning themselves so that someday they could invade Israel to be able to take over the vast stores of oil and natural gas that Israel is controlling,” she said.

    She said a partnership between Russia and Iran, supported by China, would match the scriptural account laid out in the Book of Revelation.

    Bachmann then cited a dubiously sourced report to predict that President Barack Obama was seeking to enlarge and expand his power by becoming secretary-general of the United Nations — that is, assuming he doesn’t cancel the November elections and remain in the White House.

    “Obama would only go into an empowered, powerful UN, powerful enough to see the United States come under the UN’s authority,” Bachmann said.

  14. 14.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Trentrunner:

    Jesus Christ, the red-baiting of Sanders that Chris Matthews is doing in his interview with Hillary is just appalling. He really thinks Sanders is Robespierre-Trotsky-Nader.

    The other night he said he didn’t know anyone that would be willing to vote for a socialist who wants to upend the system or somesuch and I thought, the system is working for mega millionaire Chris Matthews and his comfortable friends. Sander’s election may not pan out this time but income inequality is working in our favor over time.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    Marky Blond the Parched will shrivel like a raisin under the candlepower of the national spotlight.

    Enough of a tangential connection to link to a fun article looking at the physics of enlarging/shrinking in relation to depictions of same in mass media.

  16. 16.

    Trentrunner

    @Baud: So far, no. But he really is still going at it. She immediately pivoted to the Republicans, so good on her. But she does keep throwing in “who can actually get things done.” Fair enough.

  17. 17.

    ruemara

    The GOP could run Steaming Goat Turd/Anthrax Ice Cream and get nearly 50% of the vote. Im good with mocking, I just can’t forget that.

  18. 18.

    JMG

    Sanders will win my vote if he goes on Matthews’ show and says “well, Chris, socialism means useless people like yourself making millions for keeping other rich people happy will pay confiscatory taxes.” But I’d want advance notice so I could tune in.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gimlet: I try not to make fun of or disparage or denigrate anyone’s beliefs, but if there is a better poster person for the need for the US to do better in terms of both conducting mental health screenings and providing treatments, I’m not really sure who it is.

  24. 24.

    gogol's wife

    Paul Dano continues to be brilliant in War and Peace. I’m really looking forward to the last part next Monday. They have to do the Battle of Borodino, the burning of Moscow, and the French retreat all in 2 hours.

    Meanwhile I usually watch the repeat of Downton on Tuesday evening, but my heart’s not in it this week. Ick. Almost as icky as thinking about this campaign.

  30. 30.

    Gimlet

    @Adam L Silverman:

    From “The Guardian”
    Monday 10 August 2009

    George W Bush attempted to sell the invasion of Iraq to Jacques Chirac using biblical prophecy.

    President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw “Gog and Magog at work” and the biblical prophecies unfolding.

    But they have been for the last two hundred years the subject of increasingly excited evangelical fanfic, especially in America; in the 70s and 80s, Gog was meant to be Russia. Ronald Reagan seems to have believed that.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @WereBear: actually my understanding from some of the reporting is that he does. It’s a metabolic double whammy: constant sensation of dehydration combined with excessive sweating.

    I’ve had that happened to me, but usually only if I’m training very hard and my electrolyte levels get wonky as a result. As someone who drinks several liters a day of water because of my training regimen, I can tell you that there is something physiologically/physically wrong with the Senator for him to have this reaction all the time.

  34. 34.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @WereBear:

    I don’t know what the opposite of gravitas is, but Rubio has it.

    Buoyancy. He is a lightweight and all around him is (are) dense.

  37. 37.

    Gimlet

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Even scarier to think what’s going on in the mind of Papa Cruz and “The Anointed One”.

    http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/brucewilson/ted-cruzs-father-suggested-his-son-anointed-bring-about-end-time-transfer

    “The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur.” – Rafael Cruz, August 26, 2012

    In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz’ father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as “kings” to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the “Seven Mountains” mandate, and “bring the spoils of war to the priests”, thus helping to bring about a prophesied “great transfer of wealth”, from the “wicked” to righteous gentile believers.

  38. 38.

    Prescott Cactus

    @Baud:

    To be honest, I don’t think I’d necessarily be 100% opposed to Obama canceling the election.

    Flop sweats ? Say it ain’t so !

  40. 40.

    Felonius Monk

    @Adam L Silverman: Amen. I thought that it was just her schtick as a RW congresscritter, but now that she’s keeping on with that stuff out of office and out of the spotlight, I think she is probably certifiable. For her I would be recommending a lobotomy, although the issue of the existence of a brain in this creature has not yet been clinically confirmed. Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard.

  41. 41.

    kped

    I Rubio/Clinton debate would be similar to Biden/Ryan. That is how out of depth Rubio will look when he has to debate a serious person.

  44. 44.

    Davey C

    Surely I am not the only one who remembers when Rubio was considered a solid member of the tea party. Whence did this “establishment” nonsense come from?

  46. 46.

    raven

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Boise, Idaho (CNN)Victoria Sharp says she is certain LaVoy Finicum was unjustly gunned down by state police after they and the FBI pursued his vehicle in southern Oregon.

    “I was just a few feet away in the truck,” she insisted to CNN. “I know what I saw.”…

    Sharp agreed to sit with CNN and view the FBI video.

    CNN pointed out the first, then the second time on the video where viewers can see Finicum reach across his body toward that left-side pocket.

    “You know, I can’t say that he was reaching for a weapon or not,” said Sharp.

    She watched the video again.

    “OK, he was running through snow and it does not look like he is reaching to me. He’s trying to keep his balance. He’s running, I remember it. He didn’t reach for anything.”

    Sharp reviewed that moment several more times. Each time, CNN pointed out what looked like a reach toward that pocket.

    “I’m saying that the video does not show that he’s reaching for something,” said Sharp. She said she was in the truck and knows what she saw.

    The FBI had no further comment Friday on Sharp’s contentions and referred calls to the Harney County Joint Information Center, which referred to an FBI statement issued Thursday. It does not contain any information about Sharp. Employees who answered CNN calls to the center said officials would not discuss anything about the truck’s occupants.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    Open thread? Good; I have something to get off my chest:

    God, I hate sports parents! I’m at a swampy, big-ridden softball field watching my kid’s team lose by a wide margin, and these fucking freakazoids are SCREAMING at the kids and hurling insults at the coaches. Not just a few. A bunch.

    Yes, our team sucks. But I look on the bright side — chances are the mercy rule will be invoked soon so I can go home and have a fucking martini.

  51. 51.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Betty Cracker:

    God, I hate sports parents! I’m at a swampy, big-ridden softball field watching my kid’s team lose by a wide margin, and these fucking freakazoids are SCREAMING at the kids and hurling insults at the coaches. Not just a few. A bunch.

    I had to stop going to the kids games when I got in the face of one those parents.

    The boy was 8. The kids were 8. The parents were out of control.

  52. 52.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax:

    (Oh, and please – please – learn to link.)

    You’ll have better luck banging your head against a brick wall.

  57. 57.

    raven

    @Just Some Fuckhead: It’s the responsibility of the organizing entity to deal with that shit. We made parents sign a code of conduct when they registered their children and part of it said they knew they, and their child, could be removed from the program if their behavior was unruly.

  58. 58.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    All day I’ve been seeing things on my FB feed implying (or stating outright) that Hillary cheated somehow with the coin flips.

    I finally blew up a short time ago (sadly, at someone who’s always been a good friend and with whom I largely agree on politics, who posted a “WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LET A COIN TOSS DETERMINE THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD?” meme. He’ll probably never speak to me again, and that makes me sad.) Here is what I said in a comment:

    Deep breaths, okay? Presumably, Bernie’s ground team knew going in that Iowa Democratic Party regulations mandate a coin toss to determine delegate count in the case of close caucus numbers. If they didn’t know, then shame on them for not doing their homework. If they did know, then stop complaining that the rules were followed. (I say this as one who very much admires and supports what Bernie is doing during this primary cycle, but is getting increasingly fed up with the BS on behalf of BS.)

  60. 60.

    beltane

    @Betty Cracker: Back when my son played Little League, my husband would often impress upon him how important it was to learn to lose, and boy did that team learn how to lose. They were the champions of the humiliating defeat.

    It was a happy day when he decided not to play baseball anymore.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @Gimlet:

    “I believe that they are positioning themselves so that someday they could invade Israel to be able to take over the vast stores of oil and natural gas that Israel is controlling,” she said.

    I wonder if Israel is aware that they’re in control of vast stores of oil and natural gas.

  65. 65.

    raven

    @Betty Cracker: So this is a school program? It’s a real bitch when the jackasses pay to get in. The believe that gives them the right to do anything they want. I remember working both a girl and boys varsity game between two schools that really disliked each other. The schmuck was standing on the baseline and just screaming at us. I finally stopped the game, went to the AD and said “it’s him or me”. They threw him out and then let him pay to come back in for the second game.

  66. 66.

    raven

    @efgoldman: In Urbana we had the Royal Academy of Dance curriculum and these nasty ladies would come from the UK and terrorize the poor little dancers. Worse than any team sport.

  70. 70.

    raven

    @Betty Cracker: The thing I hated the most were the motherfuckers that would ride your ass the whole game and then try to shake hands when it was over. Fuck that.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    I had teachers that would hit us with switches but they were better than the stage moms. Conniving, mean, horrible people. My parents worked so these monsters would offer to drive me to rehearsals just so they could run psyops on me round trip.

  74. 74.

    delk

    And TLC announced that they are bringing back 19 Kids and Counting. I’d hope for a gay scandal but I’m terrified what those hateful parents would do to that kid.

  75. 75.

    PurpleGirl

    @Roger Moore:

    I wonder if Israel is aware that they’re in control of vast stores of oil and natural gas.

    Well, why wouldn’t G-d have given Israel vast stores of oil and natural gas if he gave them to them Arabs and Persians? It’s the Middle East, isn’t it? It has vast stores of oil and natural gas, right?

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: I wasn’t complaining. I have a very demanding TRX set I do, followed two nights a week by teaching aikido. So I expect it to happen sometimes. But I’ve never given a briefing or lecture or symposium and not been able to survive with only the occasional sip of water to keep my throat wet.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @raven: The same Victoria Sharp who’s initial statement included her informing the world that she was lying on the back floor of the truck’s cab. So she couldn’t see anything. Eyewitness testimony, as I’m sure everyone here knows, is notoriously unreliable and easily to adjust from both external inputs, as well as by the eyewitness themselves.

  78. 78.

    Germy

    In Las Vegas, Rubio was staying at the Bellagio. We met in a suite appointed in the Vegas Italianate style—leather, chrome, photos of fountains. When I stopped by one morning, the windows were shrouded by heavy burgundy drapes, and Rubio was worried about his voice. “I’ve been coming down with something,” he said, crossing the conference room to retrieve a bottle of water. “My throat is always feeling dry.” Doctors had told him it was an allergic reaction. “I said, ‘How come I’ve never had allergies before, and now, suddenly, the last four years I’ve developed allergies? And the answer the doctor gave me was: ‘Well, because you’re travelling to places that you never used to travel to before.’ ”

    He had made his first impression on many people outside Florida in 2013, when he gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union and leaned awkwardly offscreen to guzzle from a Poland Spring bottle—a moment that took flight on Twitter as #watergate. Trump, as the Party’s schoolyard bully, carps on the habit constantly, and recently mailed Rubio a case of Trump-branded water.

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/30/the-opportunist

  80. 80.

    WereBear

    @delk: I understand many of these channels have been acquired by church ministries. It explains a lot about their programming shifts over the last decade.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    Doesn’t take The Amazing Kreskin to predict the relationship is kaput.

    Pennsylvania authorities say a man aiming a gun at his girlfriend during an alcohol-fueled fight accidentally shot a dog instead. Source

  83. 83.

    NonyNony

    @Baud:

    To be honest, I don’t think I’d necessarily be 100% opposed to Obama canceling the election.

    Why Baud? Why do you hate Obama so much that you’d condemn him to another four years of putting up with the bullshit he’s been putting up with?

  84. 84.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No, I was teasing. I had my first “hot flashes” this week and it was crazy. There is no warning. One minute you are going about your day and the next your heart is racing and your body is on fire.

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    @PurpleGirl: actually the joke was, until they found the Levant fields in the Med off the coast of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey, was that if it was the Promised Land, and if the Jews were the chosen people, how come they got the one parcel that had no oil at all?

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @raven: Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Just go over and read the comment thread to the posting of the FBI released video at TTAG and see how the conspiracies are being written up. They’re all over the map. As I wrote about Congresswoman Bachmann, I don’t like to make fun of people’s beliefs, but I’m not sure there’s much difference here between these deeply held, alternative, and completely, factually incorrect beliefs and delusions. Nor am I sure how a trained professional could make that diagnosis.

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: Or your latent X gene is finally manifesting. Please let us know what mutation you wind up with.

    Also, are you okay with blue and yellow spandex?

  96. 96.

    Anne Laurie

    @Roger Moore:

    I wonder if Israel is aware that they’re in control of vast stores of oil and natural gas.

    I remember this being discussed when Bachmann was an honest-to-the-Trickster-God presidential candidate.

    Shorter, per Michelle: Gawd intended all the resources to be in the hands of “righteous” people, ergo, what Middle Eastern oil & gas reserves America doesn’t care to tap right this minute belong by right to Israel, American Jeebus’s second-favorite nation. It’s Biblical, and also in the Constitution!

    You wish I were making this up, but I’m not; just too cold-medication-addled to link.

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    @efgoldman: Sorry it didn’t work out. Yeah, I saw that message yesterday. I was traveling over the weekend, not visiting the late Buddy — sorry to burst your bubble. Looks like I will be missing the funeral, too, as I’m heading out to Utah for a long weekend.

    So that leads to the obvious question for RI politics/scandal junkies – what ties Little Rhody and Salt Lake City?

  101. 101.

    max

    Imagine Little Mister ‘Don’t Push Me’ trying to debate either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Halfway through the first hour, he’ll be whining for a juice box and a nap.

    Yes. That’s why yesterday’s (R) results really were great news for the Dems. It took some spin off the Trump ball for a little while, it got Ted Cruz up top so he can climb down, and Rubio got closer to 1st than last for once, and he is probably obviously the easiest of the R candidates to face, outside of Ben Carson.

    I’ve been trying to figure why the hell the establishment D’s have been running around hyping Rubio as the big threat, and I finally decided they were just trying to bait the R’s into doing something stupid, but the last couple of weeks have convinced me that they believe it. Which is just weird.

    (The downside to Rubio is not his electoral chops, but the fact that it would show the R party had officially and publicly become a wholly owned subsidiary of the billionaires which would send the R base careening off into into the universe somewhere with the kind of free spinning rage such that there is no telling who would they would wind up attached to. Those are the circumstances that would give you World Net Daily and Stormfront as the biggest R news channels and create the kind of situation that would actually lead them to embrace a real Hitler type and start having torch light parades and such for real, unlike the billionaire who is merely willing to use some of those old school tricks.)

    max
    [‘So that all worked out pretty well.’]

  103. 103.

    Shana

    @Gimlet: Israel has oil? That would be news to them.

    @MomSense: my dear, email me if you want. I’ve been dealing with hot flashes for a while and have experience to impart.

    @Gimlet: Sounds remarkably like the talk around Mittens that he was the Mormon savior.

  107. 107.

    mclaren

    @max:

    I’ve been trying to figure why the hell the establishment D’s have been running around hyping Rubio as the big threat, and I finally decided they were just trying to bait the R’s into doing something stupid, but the last couple of weeks have convinced me that they believe it. Which is just weird.

    No, it makes sense. Rubio is the least obviously insane Republican candidate.

    Trump is obviously batshit crazy, Carson is either on heavy medication or suffering from severe flattened affect + some kind of personality disorder (just look at the guy with the sound off, you don’t even have to listen to the craziness about pyramids and granaries that dribbles out of his mouth), Cruz is a repellant morbid narcissist so repulsive even Republicans can’t stand him, and Bush is a gelatinous millionaire so self-entitled that he can’t even be bothered to cover up his cruelty and sociopathy (“Our message…isn’t one of…’Get in line, and we’ll take care of you with free stuff.’ “).

    So who’s left who could even momentarily pass for human in the Uncanny Valley of the Republican candidates? Only Rubio.

    Of course, Rubio is a spendthrift whose best family pal was a major drug dealer who may or may not have funded Rubio’s early political campaigns with cocaine profits…but at least Rubio comes off as superficially human. The rest of the Repub candidates, you have to wheel ’em onstage like Hannibal Lecter with a hockey mask fastened over his face.

  108. 108.

    mclaren

    @Trentrunner:

    Jesus Christ, the red-baiting of Sanders that Chris Matthews is doing in his interview with Hillary is just appalling. He really thinks Sanders is Robespierre-Trotsky-Nader.

    More of this, please. These wealth inside-the-Beltway assholes like Matthews have badly miscalculated.

    The mood of this country is savage and trending ugly for the billionaires and their minions. And the more the bully-worshipers like Chris Matthews try to smear common sense policies like Sanders’, the bigger the backlash will get on election day.

    Advocating a living wage is not communism and everyone knows it. Proposing that we reinstate FDR-era regulations that prevent bank fraud is not socialism, and everyone knows it. These kinds of peurile lies are so grotesquely stupid that they’re going to backfire, and massively.

  114. 114.

    Paul in KY

    @raven: I would tell them that if I was worth a crap as a ref, I wouldn’t be reffing these piddly little games.

    That usually shut em up.

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