Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

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

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

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

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Bark louder, little dog.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Accountability, motherfuckers.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

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

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night California Nightmarin’ Open Thread: Guvernator Thiel

Late Night California Nightmarin’ Open Thread: Guvernator Thiel

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From the Politico article:

… Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, has been discussing a prospective bid with a small circle of advisers, including Rob Morrow, who has emerged as his political consigliere.

Morrow has worked at Clarium Capital, the San Francisco-based investment management firm and hedge fund that Thiel started.

Those who have been in touch with the 49-year-old entrepreneur are skeptical that he’ll enter the race. He is a deeply private figure, and California is unfriendly territory for a Republican — particularly a pro-Trump one. The president-elect won just over 30 percent of the vote there.

But they add that Thiel has conspicuously yet to rule out a bid and that those around him continue to discuss it…

Thiel, who is worth an estimated $2.7 billion, would fill an important need: the ability to self-fund. Waging a gubernatorial bid in California, where campaigns are famously expensive, could cost over $100 million.

He isn’t the only billionaire who may run. Environmentalist Tom Steyer, a prolific giver to Democratic causes, is also seen as a possible contender.

With Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown term-limited, several high-profile Democrats, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang have already launched campaigns…

I’m assuming, from my perch here on the opposite coast, that Thiel is just drafting in Trump’s slipstream, getting his vanity stroked by Repub apologists like Politico without having to task his highly evolved brain with grubby political calculation.

Another sign of the President-Asterisks’s negative effects on the general political sphere — he hasn’t even been inaugurated, and he’s already encouraging the worst sort of anti-human grifters to speculate about following his slimy path.

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  2. 2.

    Yarrow

    Trump at least has a certain kind of charisma and, as a long time promoter of himself, knows how to keep the rubes entertained. Thiel has nothing but money. I don’t think that’s enough to win elections. But by all means, spend a ton of it on a vanity campaign.

  3. 3.

    Anne Laurie

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I suspect Thiel sees himself as Schwartznegger ver.2 — the guy who takes over California because he’s not eligible to run for President. Thiel’s already talking about California seceding, because if that happened, he would totally become President-for-Life of the new Independent Republic, yah?

    Much more efficient than this shoddy old-fashioned “democracy” kludgeware!

  4. 4.

    Juice Box

    Oh good god. Do these billionaires all think that they’re so brilliant they can do even the most comp,ex task? Why couldn’t he take up human powered flight or self-brain surgery?

  5. 5.

    Darkrose

    I’m worried, just because I didn’t think the shitgibbon could win and he did. But Thiel is uniquely unappealing in much the same way Meg Whitman was. It’s going to be important to tie him to Trump early, though.

  6. 6.

    Ruckus

    @Juice Box:
    Awake self-brain surgery. With no anesthetic. So he finally understands what the rest of us feel like when he speaks.
    Fixit for you.
    It might be cheaper for him to just offer each of us ten thousand a vote. Take the ten grand and then tell him you voted for him. He’s a republican, he should be used to lying.

  7. 7.

    Shantanu Saha

    I don’t think he’ll actually run, because it would detract from his ultimate dream of becoming a true-life vampire.

  8. 8.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Darkrose:

    Thiel is uniquely unappealing in much the same way Meg Whitman was

    Uh, why are you worried? I know Meg romped all over the hapless Gov. Moonbeam retread from the 70’s.

    @Anne Laurie:

    I suspect Thiel sees himself as Schwartznegger ver.2

    I’m sorry, I just recovered from the coughing fit brought on my laughing at that.

  11. 11.

    Mary G

    Yeah, no. I also remember Meg’s complete failure to connect and compared to Thiel, she’s Oprah v2. His speech at the convention was lame.

  12. 12.

    MobiusKlein

    Thiel is not winning*.
    I know about 20 gazillion CA Tech dudes, and they are not voting for that butt.

    * Offer void in multiverses where Trump is POTUS**.
    ** Actually, I do work for a subsidiary of PayPal, and those folks are not tech assholes, generally.

  13. 13.

    mai naem mobile

    @BillinGlendaleCA: yeah but Meg Whitman was a woman. Peter Thiel is a manly man. Also too,I am sure the evangelical fundies are all going to be gung ho about a gay candidate.

  16. 16.

    Suzanne

    Just got back from seeing Hidden Figures. Saw Moonlight last night. A great weekend of movies. If the Oscars are so white again this year……there should be hell to pay.

  17. 17.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    The only reason the Governator ever had a chance is that he got in through the recall of Gov. Davis(instigated by your friend and mine, Darrel Issa), he’d never have been able to win the Republican primary.

  18. 18.

    mai naem mobile

    Why do almost all of Lumpys people have just the most punchable faces. They just have these cruel shiteating mouthaction faces with dead eyes. James Bond bad guy kind of faces who enjoy looking on as people are being tortured. Just ugly.

  21. 21.

    Darkrose

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I’m worried because I clearly underestimated how awful people are, because I was sure there was no way the shitgibbon could win. I like to think that Thiel is enough of a creepy asshole that people won’t vote for him, but there are an awful lot of libertarian tech bros like my former co-workers who’d vote for him and use that as proof that they’re good guys because he’s gay.

  27. 27.

    GregB

    Wow. Was reading a Teitter exchange between Raimondo and Scahill.

    Raimondo is now full blown Trumpist because he will bring peace to the world.

    War is peace.

  28. 28.

    Origuy

    I think Meg learned her lesson about politics. She supported Hillary in the election; I got the feeling she had personal reasons not to like Trump.

  30. 30.

    XTPD

    Don't. Please stop. We left-liberals have no chance running against you.

    @Ruckus: You don’t actually need anesthesia for brain surgery, as it has no pain receptors.

  32. 32.

    tpherald

    I don’t understand why other wealthy douches on the Left side of the political equation don’t follow Thiel’s lead and sue Breitbart, InfoWars or Drudge out of existence the way that he did to Gawker?

    It seems like you’d have your pick of people who’ve been wrongly accused and harmed by those sites.

  34. 34.

    fuckwit

    @Juice Box: My experience with Sand Hill Road douchebags is that they were all born on third base and thought they hit a home run.

    Luck is what made them, not skill.

  36. 36.

    The Dangerman

    Hold it. City people sure in the fuck ain’t voting for him (Republican). The Central Valley sure in the fuck ain’t voting for him (Gay). He might be able to carry the North Coast (but they are all so high they’d probably forget to vote). I don’t see it happening for him.

  37. 37.

    GregB

    @efgoldman:

    No the guy from Anti-War.com. I used to think he was libertarian with a left bent but now seems full blown Trump blood gargler.

    Trump is the peace candidate because Russia is like Sweden or something.

    Christ we will have war in China it Iran before the year is out with this cabal of cartilidge knawing cretins.

  38. 38.

    James Powell

    We ought to talk less about this asshole and talk more about who we are going to run. We need two strong candidates for the governor’s race and two more for the race to replace Feinstein.

    Who we got?

  39. 39.

    XTPD

    @GregB: Scahill, Sam Biddle, and Liliana Segura are the only people at the Intercept worth reading, even if their politics are a bit too left for my taste (and Segura at the least has the good judgment to not be an ass on Twitter).

    @tpherald: It’s because the left is too concerned with basic decency. Note how reception to David Brock’s proposal for a “Breitbart of the left” has been mostly derisive.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    Sadly, we moved to the one weird strip of Burbank that is NOT in Schiff’s district. Our new rep is Brad Sherman, who is a perfectly adequate Democrat, but no Schiff.

    Schiff would never be acceptable to the Wilmer crowd, though. He used to be a Blue Dog and he’s in the pocket of Big Media since Disney and Warner Bros are both in his district along with innumerable small media companies.

  46. 46.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: It was loud, but good for a b-day dinner(our friend’s was the same as Elvis & Bowie and mine is next Sat). We do his and mine together and madame and the kid’s together(there’s are only 5 days apart).

  47. 47.

    sigaba

    @XTPD: In fact they usually try to keep you awake, so they can ask you questions and make sure they’re not breaking anything.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: No I think she’s talking about my people. Porn is not small, even in California. And I find the suggestion that a federal officeholder would openly lobby for porn to be… dubious.

  48. 48.

    sempronia

    Thiel’s a piece of work, but I think he would get many more votes than he deserves by championing California secession. Could definitely see bros and frustrated lefties flocking to him just for that.

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @XTPD:
    No pain receptors? You’ve obviously never had a migraine. I have, for over 40 yrs I’ve been enjoying them. Believe me you can feel pain in the brain or at least surrounding the brain. When you feel like a 6′ 2″, 200 lb 25 yr old fire fighter has just hit you in the head with his best shot with his fire axe, you will call that pain.

  60. 60.

    Aleta

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-are-trump-allegations-hanging-around-when-they-havent-been-substantiated

    the Guardian and the BBC are now both reporting that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant investigating ties between Trump associates and Russia.

    if reports that a FISA order was obtained are accurate, that means that the FBI has developed a lot more evidence than just this private dossier on the point. To obtain a FISA warrant, the government must show probable cause that the entities in question are agents of a foreign power (the precise showing is different depending on whether US persons are involved). The dossier document alone does not remotely suffice for that showing; it is, after all, nothing more than the writings of a single person who does not work for the intelligence community reporting on the unverified comments of anonymous sources. On this point, note Clapper’s careful insistence that the intelligence community “did not rely upon [the dossier] in any way for our conclusions.”

  63. 63.

    p.a.

    There’s no Repub legislature to sabotage the state in advance to give Thiel traction as a ‘change’, ‘effective businessman’ candidate.

  64. 64.

    M. Bouffant

    Your lips to ears somewhere

    he’s already encouraging the worst sort of anti-human grifters to speculate about following his slimy path

    Laura Ingraham is alleged to be thinking of running against Tim Kaine for Senator from Virginia. Gah.

  65. 65.

    bjacques

    The same actors running the 2016 playbook could try it for 2018. Only 31% of eligible voters (42% of registered) turned up in 2014, so flipping 1-1.5 million votes could put a Republican in the governor’s mansion and change the Assembly from a Democratic supermajority to a simple Dem majority.

    You’d need a purity pony candidate whose followers could be set against the Democratic frontrunner, some state Party dirt, hacked or not, that can be thrown up as proof of corruption and a rigged election, more media attention than usual and maybe even personal attention from President Trump to encourage state Republicans and local brownshirts. A Republican state executive branch would make local voter suppression a lot easier.

    Maybe not every factor in that was in place nationwide in 2016 would be in place in California in 2018, but flipping the state red would be worth the effort, with its 55 EC votes and its symbolic value as the largest and most organized seat of opposition to Trump and the GOP.

    Something to keep an eye on, anyway.

  67. 67.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @mai naem mobile:

    yeah but Meg Whitman was a woman

    Whitman won most of the white vote, which is a big meh in a majority of none state. Tribal politics don’t work here.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @GregB:

    No the guy from Anti-War.com. I used to think he was libertarian with a left bent but now seems full blown Trump blood gargler.

    Trump is the peace candidate because Russia is like Sweden or something.

    Christ we will have war in China it Iran before the year is out with this cabal of cartilidge knawing cretins.

    Does the little dear understand Trump want this Russian alliance to wage war on the Muslims?

  69. 69.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: Wow, those are so cute! I wish I could say I was going, not just for the sake of sisterly solidarity, but to get one of your hats! I can’t knit worth a damn so I’m always rather in awe of those who can!

  71. 71.

    eyelessgame

    OH FUCK NO

    Any halfway decent Dem will crush his weenie ass – but we need a halfway decent Dem.

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