Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

T R E 4 5 O N

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

A consequence of cucumbers

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

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

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread — Whited Sepulcher Edition

Open Thread — Whited Sepulcher Edition

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Since I’m old enough (barely) to remember how ecumenical the “good Christian patriots” were about John F. Kennedy’s allegiance to his weird foreign cult, that last tweet was my first thought, too. But there’s another new tidbit of Vaticanology that got pushed off the lead by Trump’s bluster…

Big, as they say, if true. What with chemical abortions becoming better known/more available, the ‘modernizing’ Vatican forces are beginning to accept that they’ll have to refine the doctrine on ‘wrongly preventing potential life’ (no birth control) if they’re to have any chance of holding the line on ‘fetal personhood’ (abortion).

Here’s hoping the ‘Ziki fly’ bites LePage, and he transmits the virus to Donald Trump and/or Fallwell Jr via tongue bath.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  3. 3.

    Geeno

    Pope Francis is trying to reconcile the dogma to real life. Do I agree with his every pronouncement? No – I’m not even catholic, but I agree with where he’s trying to direct religiosity – toward a more real life basis.

  4. 4.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Vatican City has a big, classy wall around it, right? That should be good enough to protect it from ISIS – otherwise why would Trump be saying that we need one to protect us???!!?

    /snark

    In other news, Booman reminded us of an interesting fact:

    But base mobilization is more of a midterm strategy than a general election strategy. The Republicans have only succeeded in winning the popular vote once in the last twenty-eight years (in 2004), and they barely won the Electoral College that year. They need to change the shape of the electorate in their favor, because their base just isn’t big enough.

    2004 was a re-election year, also too.

    Yeah, that’s 6 elections completed after 1988 (we didn’t have national elections every year), but it’s still interesting to contemplate. Demographics and insane Teabagger policy positions should tilt the Presidency even farther away from them this year. With all of the doom and gloom, we should keep that in mind.

    While nothing’s guaranteed, things continue to be stacked in Team D’s favor for the Presidency, and the cycle is such that we have a very good chance of flipping the Senate. We should do what we can to make our team as strong as possible down-ballot to fight for every possible seat in the House and in the states, also too, so that we go into 2018 and 2020 working to make the gains more durable with sensible redistricting.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  5. 5.

    amk

    “So Trump’s comments probably won’t do him much harm”

    the racist pos picks up a few hundred more racist pos voters. yay.

  6. 6.

    TriassicSands

    The GOP has been tearing down that wall — no, not THAT wall, but the one between Church and State for political advantage for years now. Led by Antonin Scalia — and now joined by the other religious zealots on the SCOTUS (especially Alito), the right wing majority has been chipping away at the separation of Church and State. If the Republicans succeed in thwarting Obama’s nominee to the Court (almost certain unless Obama chooses someone that no Democratic president should ever choose), and they win in November (Definitely not certain, but HRC is polling poorly against individual Republican candidates (the last time I checked — and she did best against Trump, but, surprisingly, head-to-head, Sanders was doing better against the Republicans generally. That’s probably HRC’s baggage dragging her down.), then we’ll see yet another radical right wing ideologue, who, in all likelihood, will be another religious zealot.

    Falwell’s son claiming there ought to be a wall between Church and State is laughable. Any religious person with an ounce of intelligence should know that religion will fare best when there is a significant separation between Church and State. Sadly, right wing religion seems to come without even a modicum of intelligence.

  7. 7.

    moonbat

    Trump’s gift at this point is being pitted against a bunch of grifters, fakers, dimwits, and upper class twits. I suspect that he will not fair so well against anyone with a modicum of class or conviction. Pope Francis’ reputation is in no danger.

  12. 12.

    Luthe

    New Pope has opened the door to birth control being downgraded to “say ten Rosaries and think really hard about your life choices” territory. Abortion will probably still stay in “go straight to Hell” terrority, but it’s likely birth control will get tacitly approved in the interest of stopping those abortions in the first place. The Church is very slow to do so, but it can learn.

  13. 13.

    oldgold

    I like Pope Francis, but his remark concerning Trump is not where wisdom lies. Direct confrontations with skunks are to be avoided.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Will await The Donald’s platform stance on this.

    California officials in charge of workplace safety voted down a proposal Thursday that would have put condoms on porn actors, heeding the call of scores of industry officials who said doing so would force them to make films nobody would watch.

    The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s Standards Board voted the measure down when only three members supported it, Cal/Osha spokeswoman Julia Bernstein said. Four yes votes were required for passage. The vote was 3-2 in favor, with two members of the panel absent.

    The board will now begin the process of considering a new worker-safety measure for the porn industry, Bernstein said.

    Whither that wallbarrier of some sort, The Donald? We already know what Pope Frank thinks.

  18. 18.

    PeakVT

    @efgoldman: The inter-state competition is definitely very strong these days. Still, LePage is just blatantly an ignorant jackass, which is a talent I don’t think any other serving governor has.

  23. 23.

    bluehill

    Sometimes I think that Trump is a democratic sleeper agent. He has said a number of things that are heretical to right-wing orthodoxy, but his support doesn’t seem to suffer. 9/11 was Bush’s fault??? Tax the rich??? Too much money in politics??? Wow. It’s fun watching party leaders tying themselves in knots figuring out how to deal with him. Falwell arguing for separation of church and state. Hahaha. Only Trump could cause that. The evangelical base seems to have embraced Trump despite his clearly unchristian way of life. Another good one. Their hate of minorities is that strong.

  24. 24.

    Mike J

    @bluehill: Republicans don’t give a shit about policy. They want a strong leader who will stand up and be an asshole to everyone they think has it coming. There is literally no policy he could put forth that would alienate his base as long as he called somebody stupid while he announced it.

  25. 25.

    bluehill

    @Mike J: So true, but unfortunately they assess strength based on appearances, which explains their paradoxical love of Putin. Meanwhile Obama has Putin boxed in, the Russian economy has tanked, and Obama is viewed as weak.

  26. 26.

    Mike J

    daveweigel ‏@daveweigel 12h12 hours ago
    Based on leaked internals I’ve seen, this could hurt Pope Francis in key Super Tuesday states.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @bluehill:
    There’s a story going around that Bill Clinton encouraged The Donald to run as a Republican. I don’t know how credible it is, but it’s out there.

  28. 28.

    OGLiberal

    @Mike J: Exactly…as long as he “claims” (pretty sure he doesn’t believe half the shite he says) that he hates the same people they do, the baggers and God squaders will forgive just about any deviation from the standard wingman philosophy. Bush lied about WMDs, Iraq war a mistake, 9/11 Bush’said fault, Planned Parenthood does good work, etc? All OK as long as he continues to openly berate brown people and promises to make America great again. (I forgot when we stopped being the richest, most powerful, most militarily armed, most feared nation on the planet. Or is America only great when we’re really sticking it to the browns in our midsts?)

    But according to John Podhoretz (o, does his neo-con, son of failed, shunned by the Beats at Columbia, failed poet dad, arse hate Trump) Obama made Trump possible because he went on the Daily Show in 2010 and let Stewart call him “dude”. Nothing to do with conservatives dog whistling racist, sexist, etc -birthed BS the leaders of the GOP and their followers. Trump’s supporters love him because he says things that they would have said themselves, only they felt constrained by politically correct rules and normd. Now, they feel like the can say n-word or sp#c or other stuff because Trump made it OK. (

  30. 30.

    Central Planning

    I woke up early this morning (flying Germany -> US) and caught the Donald town hall on CNN International.

    It’s funny to watch him try and walk back what he said about Bush/Iraq, the Pope, and just about everything else he says.

    Every question/response was this format: “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” “Obama is the worst president. You all love ice cream. I’ll make ice cream great again”

    Trump also said he would have the best business people in his cabinet. Cabinet positions going to donors/business people scares the hell out of me.

  33. 33.

    PurpleGirl

    @Central Planning:

    Cabinet positions going to donors/business people scares the hell out of me.

    This already happens, by both Republicans and Democrats. They pick chief executives from large corporations to take certain spots, i.e. Obama had a banker as Treasury Secretary (name started with a T). Maybe not all Cabinet posts but some of them.

    Donors tend to be picked for special ambassadorial jobs: Democrats have picked Pamela Harriman (WJClinton) for the post in France, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg for Japan (or was it South Korea?). FDR had Joseph Kennedy and then Averell Harriman as ambassador to Great Britain. The actual diplomatic work is done by career foreign service staff but the big name is often a big donor in certain select countries..

  34. 34.

    sharl

    If I am recalling correctly, in the past two or three days someone in comments here posted a link to an article from a Vermont source that addressed Bernie Sanders’ effectiveness while in public office(s). Can anyone point me to that, or the post that contained the relevant comment? Thanks to anyone who has this information, or at least a clue as to how to find it.

    The primary is usually all decided by the time Maryland’s voting date arrives (late April or early May, as a rule), but just to be safe, I reckon I should start researching this more diligently.

  35. 35.

    fuckwit

    It just occured to me that the Rethug tactic, now and for a long time, has been the classic abusive spouse/parent pattern: DARVO.

    They’re bulliies. Troll is the most blunt example of it.

    The way they treat women, people of color, gays, non-christians, young people, really, everyone. They deny that they’re abusive. They go on the attack. They claim that they are the victims.

  39. 39.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @fuckwit:
    I’ve been saying that for years. It ties into the racism, evangelism, and narcissism as well. They all rely on similar mindsets and encourage each other. You can see it starkly in their attitudes to welfare. Their explanations are paraphrases of ‘I’m hurting you to build character’. The media’s ‘brave’ makes perfect sense as ‘This hurts me more than it hurts you.’ Note how the media absolutely eats up abusive thinking.

  41. 41.

    Bill

    The argument between Trump and Frankie is just so entertaining.

    First, the idea that Trump wants to pick a fight with the Pope speaks to just how far through looking glass we are. That said, I have no doubt that this will only help the Donald in the polls.

    But I also find Francis calling out The Donald for nor being “Christian” to be so very entertaining. “Christian” is essentially self defined. Trumps brand of hate fits in mainstream Christianity for large swaths of believers. At best, the pope could call Trump “Not Catholic,” but I suspect a large number of American Catholics would disagree with him on that one too.

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