Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Books are my comfort food!

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

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

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

No one could have predicted…

Republicans do not trust women.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Jason Chaffetz – A Putz’s Progress

Open Thread: Jason Chaffetz – A Putz’s Progress

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And then young comer (just ask him!) Jason-in-the-House had a town hall back in Utah, and it… did not go well…

Rep. Jason Chaffetz tried to respond to questions, but many of his answers went unheard. The din of the hostile and harassing audience that filled the 1,000 seats of a high school auditorium Thursday night drowned him out.

“Explain yourself,” they roared over him.

When the congressman did get a chance to speak, the crowd often didn’t like what he had to say. And he knew it.

The town-hall meeting was 75 minutes of tense exchanges between Chaffetz and residents from across the state. They were frustrated by the Utah Republican’s refusal to investigate President Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. They doggedly pursued him for his initiatives to transfer or sell public lands. They questioned his position on immigration and refugees.

And that’s was only half of the largely liberal crowd.

About 1,500 people stood outside Brighton High School, too far back to make the cut, their signs reading, “Do your job” and “America is better than this.”…

In the auditorium, at least 20 seats were empty. A fire marshal opened the event by noting that those would not be filled “because of the situation outside.” Chaffetz heard the announcement and paced across the bare stage, acknowledging the lack of space and holding the microphone at his side when the noise got to be too much…

“There’s no case to be made that we went soft on the White House,” Chaffetz said as police nervously patrolled the perimeter of the room. “In terms of doing my job, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Melissa Batka Thomas, from Salt Lake City, steadied her shaking hands as she read a quote from Chaffetz in which he called on presidential candidates to release their tax returns and “show everything.”

“I’m asking you to explain what your timeline is to uphold your word or why there is a reluctance to do so,” she said.

The congressman said, as he has before, that the president is “exempt” from conflict of interest laws. “Until there is evidence that [Trump] has somehow overused that to ingratiate his family …” Chaffetz said before boos cut him off…

Yeah, that’s why he couldn’t wait to run to Politico and brag about how he, #JasonintheHouse, was up for rent (and at very reasonable rates!)

Reader Interactions

37Comments

  3. 3.

    Kryptik

    Price through on party lines, 52-47. Expected but doesn’t keep it from sucking like the chest wound that Mr. Price insists shouldn’t be covered by insurance.

  4. 4.

    ? Martin

    No way in hell Chaffetz is doing that referral without approval from the WH. Sessions’ Solicitor General candidate fell through and next in line is Conway’s husband. Kellyanne takes the heat for the conflict of interest, the GOP gets to look like they are checking Trump authority, they toss her under the bus and hire her husband. She gets a gig on CNN.

  6. 6.

    amk

    that’s was only half of the largely liberal crowd.

    do the libruls have their faces tattooed with I am a librul? Is that a rw rag?

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’ll believe Chaffetz is a United States Representative, and not some Soviet apparatchick, after I actually see him tell Donald that he IS subject to oversight by the Congress and if he doesn’t like that, well, let’s talk with the Judiciary Committee about seeing to Donald’s removal in disgrace from the office Vlad appointed him to.

  8. 8.

    piratedan

    in short, fuck these people…

    my grievences…

    1) our media is so bad, I don’t even bother watching the news these days
    2) the behavior of Republicans is so bad, they would nominate a pile of dog shit for a government post if it had Registered as a Republican, it would be voted in as a matter of rote.

  10. 10.

    Mike G

    @AxelFoley:

    Chaffetz has the most punchable face in D.C., and that’s saying something.

    One of so many smug asshole candidates — Cruz, McConnell, Ryan…

    And that’s just DC. Opening it to NYC would add many more, like Martin Shkreli, Hannity, Murdoch…

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    @AxelFoley: I was just thinking that if I could punch him in the face I would enjoy it. That @jasoninthehouse Twitter nym is so annoying. Grow the fuck up.

  13. 13.

    Patricia Kayden

    @piratedan: Both of your points are true. The mainstream media allows Republicans to lie about everything anyways so I don’t miss watching the news. Thankfully you can get your news from lefty blogs without having to sift through Rightwing nonsense.

    And you’re right about Trump getting all of his nominees confirmed with no problem. Chris Christie must be pissed that he wasn’t nominated for anything after all that sucking up during the election cycle.

  15. 15.

    Pangloss

    I see the Clap Louder! tag is back with a vengeance. Begun during the GWB administration, it nearly disappeared for 8 years. Now it’s back like it was born for this moment.

  16. 16.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Pangloss: IIRC, it was a sarcastic reference to Tinkerbell back then, together with the Bushian notion that librul skepticism somehow undermined the success of our troops and stuff.

    Totally different now, huh? Now that making a lot of noise and scaring the bejeebers out of GOP Congresscritters is the most productive thing we can do right now. Clap harder, damn straight!

  18. 18.

    low-tech cyclist

    Yeah, if this is what happens in an R+25 district, far from any hotbeds of liberalism, they’re in trouble, they know it, and they can just shut their mouths about paid protesters and outside agitators. Sen. Risch, I think it was, up in Idaho had the same thing happen at his Boise and Coeur D’Alene offices. (Sure, Washington state is next door, but Washington east of the Cascades is about as conservative as Idaho.)

    Chaffetz and Risch are safe, but if I were a Republican in an R+7 or lower district, I’d be shaking in my shoes already about 2018. And in the meantime, we can still scare them into at least a pretense of rationality.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    I find it interesting and encouraging that the Chaffetz town hall made for one of the top stories on my local news. In Pittsburgh. The last time Utah was a top story on my local news was, I think, during the SLC Olympics.

  20. 20.

    p.a.

    @low-tech cyclist: To quote Atrios “shit is fucked up and shit” and it’s bad and going to get worse, but it will be… interesting… to see how Lord Littlehands and admin react if/when their own congresscritters realize hey, my gig is in trouble if I follow these theives and stop rubber stamping the shit.
    It sucks, but ya gotta find your entertainment where you can.

  22. 22.

    low-tech cyclist

    @p.a.: No question, we’re gonna lose a lot of battles over the next year or two, and that’ll suck. For me, the key thing is keeping them from breaking stuff that can’t be fixed just by changing the law in two or four years. Keeping them from selling off Federal lands, for instance, was big. Keeping them from undoing Obamacare is important. Keeping Trump from pulling us out of the Paris climate change accords, very important. But if they pass a tax cut for the rich, that’s not permanent; we can hike the taxes back up in 2021.

  23. 23.

    Applejinx

    @low-tech cyclist: In fact it will help when Democrats choose to run on a ‘millyunaires and bilyunaires BAD’ platform (or help TO convince ’em to use such a platform): we’ll have an established record to point to and say, “See? Republicans. THERE’S your problem, and there is so a difference”.

    I don’t care if it’s honest or not. For all practical purposes it will BE honest, because we never lived the corporatist incrementalist Democrat reality. It would have saved a lot of lives if we had, it would have been at least somewhat or at best way better in every single respect, but we didn’t get the ‘prudent’ Dem administration.

    We got the batshit crazy Republican in name only junta, pushing forward the very worst and most unpopular aspects of Republicanism.

    Let them play Milton Friedman. It will only build public support for the tumbrels.

    (if we want to play nice, we can make our tumbrels out of legislation: they hate that! And yet, as with the banks after the crisis, they do tend to bow to the legislation nevertheless…)

  24. 24.

    MJS

    @low-tech cyclist: Why would you be shaking in your shoes? Not to be argumentative, but I’ve seen no evidence at all that Republicans will ever vote for a Democratic candidate. In fact, we’ve just seen pretty conclusive evidence Republicans will vote for the most vile, stupid, toxic piece of shit before they’ll ever vote for a Democrat. Their rationale is this – even though the Republican may be vile, stupid and toxic, he (and it’s almost always “he”) isn’t a Democrat, and therefore won’t attempt to do anything to improve the lot of the less fortunate. Because Republicans hate the thought of the less fortunate being helped by government.

  25. 25.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Watch what this bastard does over the next six months to gut the federal work place. He’s been gunning for us for years and this is his chance.

    I wish nothing but ill on these people.

  26. 26.

    Tokyokie

    Chaffetz’s congressional district includes Provo and Orem, so no way a Democrat can win there. (A Democrat might have a chance in Utah’s 2nd District, which is mostly Salt Lake City — which is more progressive than outsiders imagine — it’s been gerrymandered to include St. George in southwest Utah.) But what if Evan McMullin were to run against Chaffetz? Primary the bastard from neither the right not left, but from the not insanely corrupt.

  31. 31.

    cmorenc

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Chris Christie must be pissed that he wasn’t nominated for anything after all that sucking up during the election cycle.

    The real reason Christie was booted from Trump’s transition team and from nomination to any posts in the administration is that he was ousted in a power play by the Bannon faction, with an assist by the Preibus-establishment faction (such as they are within Trump’s circle). But the Bannon/Miller faction’s influence was by far the more crucial factor – other nominees with at least as problematic background factors (Sessions, DeVoss, Price) weren’t thereby discarded as too-damaged goods, but Christie was precisely because he had the assertive strength to effectively oppose the Bannon/Miller faction if kept on within the administration in any sort of prominent or powerful capacity.

  32. 32.

    SWMBO

    @cmorenc: Also, Christie prosecuted and jailed Kushner’s dad. Don’t underestimate the revenge factor here. Make him beg, sit up and fetch then humiliate him and dump him. This is a lot of DJT’s personal style as well.

  33. 33.

    Miss Bianca

    This couldn’t be happening to a nicer – or should I say, more deserving – asshole.

    And right on with the observation noting how Johhny-on-thespot JasonintheHouse is when it comes to holding up a *woman* to be examined or censuredas opposed to the Grifter-in-Chief!! Hmmm…what could the difference be…what could the difference be…

  34. 34.

    Goku

    @Applejinx:
    Wilmer lost fair and square in the primary and was likely never going to win the general either even if he had. The Northeastern Jew was never going to beat the Loudmouth White Nationalist Reality TV Star.

    The Democrats should definitely be more aggressive and make it clear that the Republicans will own every single fuck up they make over the next two years.
    However, being the minority party in congress there’s only so much they can do at this point. It’s up to us as citizens to keep up the pressure on not only congress but our state and local pols as well. Paying attention to what’s happening will be vital for the next few years.

    Oh, and nice use of “Democrat” instead of “Democratic”.

  35. 35.

    MCA1

    @MJS: But actual Republicans (as with actual Democrats) are around a third to 40% of the population generally. The other 20-30% without strong partisan affiliation contain a helluva lot of people who are generally uninformed and driven by stupid and superficial motivations in their political voting. And a lot of them will be susceptible to “Trump is a f’ing trainwreck of awful and your Republican House Member has done NOTHING to thwart his worst impulses.” So in any district that’s less than R+6 or 7 or so, there are plenty of independents to swing that 6 or 7 to a halfway decent Democratic candidate capable of articulating that simple message. That’s why Rep’s in more moderate districts are running scared. Heck, some of them actually campaigned on a promise to keep Trump in check. Just think of all those House districts in California that went for Hillary but also installed a GOP congressperson. Those people are in a shit ton of trouble from a re-election perspective if they don’t start acting soon to censure hair furor, and we’re only 3 weeks in.

  36. 36.

    IdahoFlanuse

    @low-tech cyclist: Dang it! I would have picketed Risch’s Boise office in a heartbeat. I missed the Boise airport protest as well. I really need to get in the loop for these things.

  37. 37.

    Sandia Blanca

    @ Martin: Interesting analysis. The folks on NPR’s “On Point” this morning also made the point that going after KAC drew the focus from DJT. She’s like a rodeo clown.

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