Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

No one could have predicted…

This really is a full service blog.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

All your base are belong to Tunch.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

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

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

After roe, women are no longer free.

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Reader Interactions

244Comments

  5. 5.

    efgoldman

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch, sheep lie down with wolves and RWNJs find common sense lying around, drunk, in the gutter:

    Let’s dispense with the “Democrats are just as bad” defense. First, I don’t much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. It’s that party’s inner moral rot that must concern us for now. Second, it’s simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem — a “woe is me” sense of victimhood that grossly exaggerates the opposition’s ills and in turn justifies its own egregious political judgments and rhetoric. If the GOP had not become unhinged about the Clintons, would it have rationalized Trump as the lesser of two evils? Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

  7. 7.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    Since this is an open thread: Whenever I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I always read the part of Jim as being played by Dave Chappelle or Samuel L. Jackson. Which is weird because they’re Maryland/DC natives respectively.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    @efgoldman:

    Around these parts, the new GOP script seems to be “Here and now.” If anyone points out that Dem supporters’ reaction to Trump is no worse than the Tea Partiers’ reaction to Obama, the official response is “Yes, but Here and Now.” I’ve heard this several times in local interviews and news shows. This is really ticking me off.

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @Major Major Major Major:

    just once I would like to see a column like this without the obligatory random swipe at Hillary Clinton.

    Just once more in my lifetime, I’d like to see RWNJs act like human beings.
    And being all shocked when one of their own gets shot at baseball practice doesn’t count.
    I’ll take what I can get from the likes of Rubin. At least she isn’t all greasy about it, like Bobo, or in total denial, like most of the RWNJ establishment.

  11. 11.

    clay

    CNN reporting that the meeting had at least eight people attending. Trump Jr, Jared, Manafort, Goldstone, Russian lawyer lady, Russian intelligence guy, an unidentified translator, and a “representative of the Russian family who had asked Goldstone to set up the meeting”.

    That’s a lot.

  15. 15.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Didn’t know Chappelle and Samuel Jackson were local to where I live. Nice!! I know Martin Lawrence, Jada Pinkett and Tupac come from Maryland. Nice to hear that a few celebrities grew up close to where I live.

    @zhena gogolia: Give it a few more weeks and we will have much more than that. These folks are sleazy as hell.

  16. 16.

    Major Major Major Major

    @efgoldman:

    I’ll take what I can get from the likes of Rubin. At least she isn’t all greasy about it, like Bobo, or in total denial, like most of the RWNJ establishment.

    Fair enough. The extraneous Hillary-bashing also bothers me a lot less with people like her do it. It’s far worse that liberals feel compelled to do it too, and often more extravagantly, devoting entire paragraphs to how she is sewer slime before they get to their actual thesis, which is that Republicans are evil.

    @Baud: The GOP wasn’t in control of the federal government from 2009-January and it still happened.

  22. 22.

    Oldgold

    The Nothing Burger has been removed from the White House’s menu. It has been replaced by Eggs Benedict Arnold with Traitor Tots.

  24. 24.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m puzzled as to why a relatively sane, decent person like Shep Smith insists on remaining at Fox News. I couldn’t work surrounded by so many boobs and frauds. He’s the one voice of rationality in a mix of lying and sensationalism. Hang in there, Shep.

  26. 26.

    hovercraft

    @zhena gogolia:
    HA! Exactly.
    That party has lost it’s fucking mind, it’s gotten so bad that even the media is starting to wake up to the fact that both sides aren’t equally bad.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    “I cannot confirm or deny there was nude Jell-O wrestling, on advice of counsel.”

  29. 29.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SFAW: What’s scary is that you didn’t believe I was posting actual video of the meeting. What ever happened to trust around here?

  32. 32.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Spaniel: When the pee pee tape is released, everyone and their pet dogs will know about it since it will be looped on our TVs 24/7. Believe me!!

  34. 34.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @efgoldman:

    Thanks for the link, E.F. wow — a brutal take-down of the GOP by one of its long-respected voices. I suspect others will join that chorus, while others — chiefly, Hannity and Rush — will hold the line in hopes of big pay days and notoriety.

  36. 36.

    Yarrow

    That set for the TV show is so weird looking. They look like they’re on a TV game show, each in their own box. Maybe a dating show and Kellyanne is the contestant.

  38. 38.

    Patricia Kayden

    @debbie: “Here and now” has no meaning to me. Republican obstruction of President Obama was within the very recent past so it’s not like we’re talking about the early 80s. Such an argument rings of hypocrisy to the point of being ridiculous and only works within the Rightwing bubble in which hardcore Trump supporters live.

  41. 41.

    hovercraft

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Not gonna happen, at this point it’s a reflex, they can’t help themselves. They are so accustomed to beating up on her that if they stopped they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.

  44. 44.

    Yarrow

    @West of the Rockies (been a while):

    while others — chiefly, Hannity and Rush — will hold the line in hopes of big pay days and notoriety.

    The big (Russian) pay days have probably already come and gone. The notoriety may be on its way and not in the way they’re going to like. Both of them have plenty to hide.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I love how Chris Wallace is left absolutely speechless. Still wearing the same insipid smirk he always does but nothing to say.

    @Patricia Kayden: I love Shep, have ever since (iirc) he cut off video of a high speed chase and police shootout in the middle of it with something along the lines of “Why are we watching this? There is something wrong just plain wrong with watching this.”

    As to why he is still there, I guess because he feels at least one voice of sanity should be heard. That and the money is good.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Remember all the “what about the children?” bullshit when they were hot on the trail of the Clenis? Don’t hear much about the children anymore, do we? Well, we’re hearing about Russian orphans a little, but no concern about explaining pee hookers and pu$$y grabbing to our dear American children.

    I hate these people.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman: Even when they’re attacking Broderism, they fall back on it, with the horseshit about Hillary Clinton being “ethically challenged”.

  50. 50.

    The Dangerman

    I got money that The Big Man (With The Little Manhood) was in the meeting with the Russians, too.

  53. 53.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I’m betting that when the pee tape is released, the response from the right will be, “A little water sport among consenting adults… who hasn’t paid to watch two women urinate on each other?”

  55. 55.

    hovercraft

    @LurkerNoLonger:
    Yes, back when the dixiecrats were still democrats. They may have been deluded in their economic policies, but they were not the pure evil that they are today. Absorbing the dixiecrats was their loss.

  56. 56.

    Jim Parene

    @Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): As a big Twain fan, I am fully behind your choice of casting Jim. Either actor will kick ass in the role.
    When do you start raising $$ for the production and who are your additional casting choices?
    I’ll go with Tom Waits as Huck’s father. I think Tom would crush such a role.
    Also, how about Helen Mirin as Aunt Polly?

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @les: We used to have decent Republicans in Oregon. They’ve been driven out of the party over the last 40 years, though.

  60. 60.

    PPCLI

    Journalists seem to be accepting rather credulously the claim that what was being offered Trump was information about money to Hillary from Russia. That seems to be an obvious cover for something else-like illegally hacked emails.

    Donald has zero impulse control. If he had heard a whiff of an idea that Hillary’s campaign was being funded directly from Russia he would not have been able to resist just out right saying so. He preached birtherism for years grounded in zero evidence. He would’ve done the same thing with “Hillary’s campaign is getting money from Russia “. But he didn’t. Ever. That was maybe the only accusation he didn’t make.

    What he did do was, Within the hour, tweet about Hillary’s emails. Then hold a press conference where he predicted that there was going to be big news about Hillary’s emails.

    Donald Junior and the rest have lied about everything else relating to this meeting, and they’re lying about what it was about.

    ETA: and they are lying about whether or not it arrived at the successful outcome

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: For anyone who doesn’t know, “adoptions” is basically code for “lift sanctions”, as the Russians put the kibosh on American adoption of Russian babies in retaliation for the US placing sanctions on Russia for egregious human rights violations.

  62. 62.

    clay

    @efgoldman: Her grand conclusion:

    A party that has to deny climate change and insist illegal immigrants are creating a crime wave — because that is what “conservatives” must believe, since liberals do not — is a party that will deny Trump’s complicity in gross misconduct. It’s a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. It’s not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any “external moral truth or ethical code.”

    I don’t even smoke, but I need a cigarette.

  66. 66.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Major Major Major Major:
    While I generally agree – indeed, I get quite angry about it – in this specific case, I think it’s useful to have a ‘the worst thing any remotely sane person could believe of Hillary is vastly, inarguably superior to Trump’ argument. It is more palatable to the people who need convincing, and opens the road that she may NOT be history’s greatest monster.

    @LurkerNoLonger:
    While the threads of racism and IGMFY have always been strong in our politics, becoming cartoonishly evil on a broad scale has been a process as the racists get more and more terrified by the increasing visibility of minorities.

  67. 67.

    Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)

    @Jim Parene: Those are good choices (I recall that Ron Perlman played Tuck’s father in the ’90s movie). Gérard Depardieu would be the Dauphin.

    I have absolutely zero in the way of resources to accomplish this, BTW; I just brought this up because I’d been thinking about it intermittently.

  68. 68.

    Patricia Kayden

    @PPCLI: Why journalists would believe anything from the Trump regime is beyond me. These yahoos claimed that Trump had the biggest inauguration ever during their first press conference and have been lying ever since (no audio/video allowed at many of these so-called press conferences). AP news has a great account of what happened at that meeting. I don’t see how Trump slips out of this undamaged.

  69. 69.

    Jerzy Russian

    Russian pee hookers are a common feature of our faculty meetings here. We tried to have pee hookers from other countries, but in the end everyone agreed that the Russian ones are the best.

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Oldgold:

    The Nothing Burger has been removed from the White House’s menu. It has been replaced by Eggs Benedict Arnold with Traitor Tots.

    Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. We have now concluded this week’s Competition for the Internets.

  72. 72.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Okay. That interview confirms for me that Putin specifically wants this to be an ongoing scandal that drags on and on, always on the front page. There’s no need for that guy to be at the meeting unless he’s working for Putin, which means his words are what Putin wants said. They have the effect of stirring the pot without making things worse.

  79. 79.

    p.a.

    The American Fascist Party is not going to go down without a fight. I don’t think they can win against the IC (although the NY FBI’s Clintonphobia is a concern: how in the tank are they?)
    But the ratfukkers are good. It’s all they’re good at. It’s already known they will try to smear unfriendly journalists. I’m thinking they’ll try to ‘sour the milk’ by planting- wait for it- fake news and using it to discredit the journalistic and legal investigations.
    How much confidence do you have that the media will keep the process clean? Hell, Fux et. al. will aid the AFP.

  81. 81.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Jerzy Russian: IKR? You hear a lot about Bulgarian pee hookers but it turns out that they won’t have their bladders surgically enlarged for greater capacity. No sense of professionalism.

  84. 84.

    Yarrow

    @p.a.:

    although the NY FBI’s Clintonphobia is a concern: how in the tank are they?)

    The NY field office of the FBI is well wrapped up with the Russian mob. Giuliani has been tight with them for a long time. He’s been strangely quiet, though, hasn’t he? Usually he loves to get his ugly mug on TV. Where’d he go? Could it be that he’s lawyered up and is keeping quiet per counsel? He’s part of all of this–long time friends with Trump. He’s dirty and I’m expecting his name to turn up at some point in all this.

  86. 86.

    Felonius Monk

    @Baud:

    feel bad now that I’ve been peeing for free all these years.

    Come on, Baud. Don’t feel bad. It’s just water over the dam now.

  87. 87.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “Why is it lie after lie after lie?”

    I know! I know! Because they are liars? Because that’s all they know how to do?

    edit: that’s not entirely true. They do know how to cheat and steal, too.

  88. 88.

    MisterForkbeard

    @PPCLI: The media is mostly accepting of everything Trump says until it’s proven otherwise, so I’m not terrifically surprised.

    The fact that Jr. demonstrably lied and changed his story 3 times in 3 days, as well as omitted details in his “effort to be transparent” means he and the White House have no credibility on the subject. We should assume that everything they tell us is wrong.

  89. 89.

    tobie

    @p.a.: @Yarrow: A propos the scum that is the NY field office of the FBI, Natasha Bertrand says on her twitter feed that the translator Samachornov lists on his LinkedIn page that he was a “program officer” for the NY field office. I’m not sure what a program officer is. This whole thing stinks like a week-old fish.

  90. 90.

    Mike in NC

    Hookers and blow standard at meetings in DC? All we ever got where I worked were half-stale bagels.

  94. 94.

    MisterForkbeard

    @tobie: If this ends up as “a faction of the FBI was working against Hillary by teaming with Trump and the Russians” I’m going to fucking throw something big out of a window. Alternately, I will find a Trump voter and throw a week-old fish at them. :)

  98. 98.

    bemused

    @efgoldman:

    Ha, Rubin’s commentaries have been very entertaining!
    Michael Gerson also had a good column this week.
    These conservatives are taking no GOP/Trump prisoners.

  99. 99.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    MSNBC saying the interpreter in the Don Jr. meeting was Anatoli Samochornov. Waiting to determine his rank in the FSB.

  100. 100.

    Mike in NC

    Hey, I have no problem believing that Trump Sr and Trump Jr were interested in ‘adopting’ a Russian orphan, as in a nubile 20-year-old blonde.

  102. 102.

    Yarrow

    @MisterForkbeard:

    If this ends up as “a faction of the FBI was working against Hillary by teaming with Trump and the Russians” I’m going to fucking throw something big out of a window. Alternately, I will find a Trump voter and throw a week-old fish at them. :)

    Start looking for a large object you want to throw. Or pick your Trump voter and fish.

  104. 104.

    Felonius Monk

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Ladies of the House decided to exercise their right to bare arms.

    Maybe the new House dress code will forbid “empty suits”, thus eliminating the current Speaker.

  105. 105.

    sm*t cl*de

    @MisterForkbeard:

    omitted details in his “effort to be transparent”

    You don’t like my principles full and honest account of events? That’s OK, I have other versions!

  109. 109.

    Yarrow

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    MSNBC saying the interpreter in the Don Jr. meeting was Anatoli Samochornov. Waiting to determine his rank in the FSB.

    Heh. Donald Trump, Jr. Traitor. Jared Kushner. Traitor. Paul Manafort. Traitor.

  110. 110.

    p.a.

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I will find a Trump voter and throw a week-old fish at them.

    Fox news will tell him it’s a bouquet of roses and 27% of the country will start wearing dead fish as necklaces and ties.

  111. 111.

    MisterForkbeard

    @tobie: I’m tending towards trout, personally. We should pass this to the DNC, maybe they can run with it.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @LurkerNoLonger:

    I’m a couple of weeks shy of 75, and the only one in my lifetime was Eisenhower. Ford was decent enough, I guess, but shit the bed forever when he pardoned Nixon.

  114. 114.

    Shana

    @efgoldman: I just clicked over to read the column, which I liked, but noticed that there are 1,200 comments. Didn’t read them but assume there’s a disproportionate amount of crap.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: I wanted to puke when he said they need decorum, especially in this chamber, or something to that effect.

    behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety.
    synonyms: propriety, seemliness, decency, good taste, correctness

    Somehow that definition and those synonyms don’t seem to fit with taking healthcare away from millions of people and ruining the lives of millions more, which they PROUDLY voted to do in that chamber.

  116. 116.

    MisterForkbeard

    @rikyrah: I’ve been meaning to ask, how do you pronounce your nym? “Rick Ree Yah” or “Ri-keer-ah”, or… ? :)

  117. 117.

    Redshift

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Wondering now why Veselnitskaya was in Maverick McMavericky’s office around Christmas of 2015. She really gets around.

    She wasn’t, that’s a RWNJ conspiracy theory. The picture is of an anti-Putin Russian, it was taken by McCain’s staff, not Veselnitskaya, and posted to his Facebook page. She grabbed it from there and posted it to her Facebook with a really against the anti-Putin guy, and she doesn’t even claim in her post she took it. The wingnuts just made that up, like the conspiracy theory that there’s something nefarious about her getting a visa during the Obama administration.

  118. 118.

    tobie

    @MisterForkbeard: I’m very fond of Schubert’s “Die Forelle” (The Trout), so I may have to go with something else. Mackerel’s an option: it’s an oily fish so should have–what shall we call it?–an odor or a bouquet.

  121. 121.

    germy

    When asked by a former Obama official why the new administration has been reluctant to take action against Russia for its meddling in the U.S. election, Giuliani “somewhat cryptically” referenced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments “that ‘of course one never knows’ who is behind a hack and why.”

    Giuliani then made the striking statement about action the Trump White House may have already taken against the perpetrators of the cyberattacks:

    “I do think we have taken action,” he said. “I just don’t think we’ve announced it.”

  122. 122.

    MisterForkbeard

    @tobie: “The week-old mackerel has a fishy smell, with highlights of yuck and that pleasing splatter when it impacts.”

  125. 125.

    WaterGirl

    @MisterForkbeard: Ha! I’m sure I pronounce it wrong – think Ricky (as in Ricky & Lucy) and Rah like rah-rah. I have asked SiubhanDuinne that very question about her name multiple times and I have never gotten an answer.

  126. 126.

    Redshift

    @SiubhanDuinne: Out of presidents, sure, but there were some legislators who actually did stuff for the good of the country, not just slash taxes and take a wrecking ball to everything.

  128. 128.

    Baud

    There’s something subliminal about the media constantly talking about the “drip, drip, drip” of this scandal.

  129. 129.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @tobie:

    I’m very fond of Schubert’s “Die Forelle” (The Trout)

    First Schubert Lied I ever learned. In a good English translation, which I wish I could track down.

  131. 131.

    lollipopguild

    @LurkerNoLonger: There were quite a few Republicans who supported and voted for the civil rights act. This was back in the early 60’s over 100 years ago.

  132. 132.

    Redshift

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Thanks to you and Steep for the correction.

    It’s hard to keep up. The other one is trying to make something suspicious out of a photo of a congressional hearing where she’s seated in the audience behind former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who’s testifying. Because apparently they’re stupid enough to believe that witnesses are allowed to bring an entourage, and think the rest of us are that stupid, too.

  137. 137.

    GregB

    @Yarrow:

    Penetration at all levels.

    There was rotten FBI rump in NY. Also, Rudy has been quiet lately. I haven’t seem him ghoulishly rubbing his together on TV in a long time.

    The noose is tightening on the whole fucking enterprise.

    The trap door is getting ready to drop.

  141. 141.

    Redshift

    I only know all this because I happened to click through to an article about wingnut conspiracy theories about Veselnitskaya.

  143. 143.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Redshift:

    Out of presidents, sure, but there were some legislators who actually did stuff for the good of the country, not just slash taxes and take a wrecking ball to everything.

    Oh, absolutely. Howard Baker, Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, Everett Dirksen. Many more, I’m sure.

  144. 144.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    “I cannot confirm or deny there was nude Jell-O wrestling, on advice of counsel.”

    Why would counsel advise nude Jell-O wrestling?

  146. 146.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Major Major Major Major: They’ll go with yellowtail. Slightly upscale, and it’s got therefore better than then common man. But they’ll only choose it because Yellowtail cheated in the primary and arrange for the tasting on a weekend when no one was watching TV.

  147. 147.

    Yarrow

    @GregB: Yep. Noted that about Giuliani upthread. He’s disappeared. Now, why would that be. Remember he was going to head up cyber security for the Trump administration. I guess until that became Jared’s job. It’s his silence that’s most telling. He’s always been out there on TV yapping. He’s not now. Why would that be?

  149. 149.

    efgoldman

    @LurkerNoLonger:

    Was there ever a time when Republicans were decent? I’m 37, so probably not in my lifetime.

    Still a few, in your early lifetime.
    Many, in mine.

  151. 151.

    Major Major Major Major

    @MisterForkbeard: but steelhead is perfect for the joke. It can’t decide whether it’s red or blue, and it only ever hits up its home district for donations, otherwise it prefers hobnobbing with elite international fish out in the sea.

    ETA: I am of course mocking the caricature of the DNC people insist on drawing

  157. 157.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    There’s something subliminal about the media constantly talking about the “drip, drip, drip” of this scandal.

    We were expecting a steady golden stream.

    I want my money back.

  158. 158.

    Yarrow

    @WaterGirl: Could be. Or maybe he’s already cooperating with the investigation in hopes of helping himself out when it comes to his treason case.

  159. 159.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Spaniel:

    Has the pee tape been released yet? Asking for a friend.

    They’re still holding it, but when it eventually pours out, expect a gusher.

  165. 165.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Just once, just once I would like to see a column like this without the obligatory random swipe at Hillary Clinton.

    That’s the goddamn truth. Or “word to your mother” as the kids are all saying these days.

  166. 166.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    Recipe for getting caught.

    He’s not even good at lying. He knew weeks ago when helping to prepare Jr’s ORIGINAL alibi.

  167. 167.

    jeannedalbret

    @Gin & Tonic: Pls note photo is not of her. If you click on that twitter you will see that “McCain released a statement saying she wasn’t in the room, someone else took the photo. She just put that photo on her FB for a weird reason.”

  168. 168.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Yarrow: Nah. The idea that Trump just “forgot” about it is pretty plausible. He’s an idiot and the meeting didn’t directly concern him, so… it goes right out the window.

    It also means that he would have to admit to himself that he only got in because he cheated, and he can’t do that.

  169. 169.

    TenguPhule

    New Lawyer, Same Problem. Trump is the Client.

    Ty Cobb, a former prosecutor and defense lawyer at Hogan Lovells, will seek to play the role of crisis manager and disciplinarian in a White House that has struggled to deal with continuing questions about the federal and congressional probes that have dominated the early months of Trump’s presidency.

    This promises to be fun.

  170. 170.

    efgoldman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I’m a couple of weeks shy of 75, and the only one in my lifetime was Eisenhower.

    Keating, Javits, Percy, Brooke, Saltonstall, Hatfield, Conti….
    All gone, gone, gone now of course, but it’s not like they didn’t exist.

    ETA: I take that back. It IS like they didn’t exist.

  172. 172.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @germy:

    Hasn’t his equally wretched colleague in Iowa (King) been rather quiet of late, too?

  174. 174.

    Hungry Joe

    Re Trump concerned about people being hurt by 60-lb. bags of drugs being tossed over the wall: Not to think this thing to death, but 60 pounds is roughly the weight of a backpack loaded up for backpacking. Who, exactly, is going to heave a 60-lb. bag o’ drugs over a 20-foot wall? Will the cartels start buying catapults? Or might they have enough sense to toss over, say, 30 2-lb. bags, and recruit former outfielders — guys who got hurt, maybe, or couldn’t hit a breaking ball — to catch them (“I got it!” “I got it!” “No, I GOT IT!”) here on the U.S. side?

    Or maybe they’ll haul the 60-lb. bags o’ drugs up ladders to the top of the wall, and just drop them over. Fair enough. But in that case I’m sure they’d at least give a “Yo! Heads up!”

  175. 175.

    Yarrow

    @MisterForkbeard: But it will come out that this meeting directly involved him. He didn’t forget. He’s just hoping the IC doesn’t know he was involved. It’s not going to work out that way.

  178. 178.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    In yonder brooklet streaming
    Appeared a playful trout
    Like some bright arrow gleaming
    It darted in and out

    Above I watched with pleasure,
    Content to lie and look
    At such a cheerful treasure
    Go swimming in the brook.

    That’s the first verse. (Think it’s pretty accurate, but might be off by a preposition or two.) For the life of me, I can’t remember the words to any of the others. If you can find this, I will owe you more drinks than I know how to count.

  183. 183.

    wvng

    Jennifer Rubin was on vacation for two weeks and came back today with three scorched earth rants about Trump and the venal GOP. It must have really been eating at her while she was off. It is worth reading the voluminous comments under her posts. They are OVERWHELMINGLY positive and trolls are quickly sidelined. I have noticed that more and more, wingers are less and less out fighting.

  184. 184.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    What ever happened to trust around here?

    Oh, I trust you. I really do.

    And if I go on that upper-body-strength training program, in a few months I’ll trust you as far as I can throw you.

  185. 185.

    efgoldman

    @germy:

    Congressman claims ‘radical Islamists’ plan on using transgender U.S. troops as a recruiting tool

    Gohmert?
    He needs an assistant to go with him to the men’s room to help him find his fly.
    Not for nothing was he the dumbest guy in congress after Pence left.
    The proverbial bag o’hair….

  186. 186.

    scav

    @TenguPhule: Trebuchet technology may also be lagging. I also think there might be some really big Roman crossbows that could be investigated.

  189. 189.

    misterpuff

    @efgoldman: Lowell Weicker Jr.
    May be the only Republican I’ve ever voted for, although he was running as an independent in the Governor’s race.
    Connecticut is (was) weird. Now it is three states behind me.

  191. 191.

    WaterGirl

    I was just cleaning up some of my open BJ tabs and came across the awesome video of Cole’s dad vacuuming and then catching the wet pups drying off in the good living room. I just can’t get enough of the ‘oh my god’ at the end. Sorry Cole’s dad, but that’s just awesome.

  192. 192.

    Gelfling 545

    @LurkerNoLonger: Oh, yes. Particularly at the local level. I’m 67 and remember Republicans in our town who were quite nice people. Even my father whose first political commandment was “no Republican is a friend of the working man” voted for one once. He had to mull it a bit but he did vote for the GOP candidate for town supervisor, the local barber.
    In times past one was disappointed if the Dem lost but not devastated. Things would not maybe be as one likes but not dire.

  199. 199.

    misterpuff

    Or might they have enough sense to toss over, say, 30 2-lb. bags,

    It’s Raining Weed! Halleluah! It’s Raining Weed! /TheWeatherGirls

  202. 202.

    efgoldman

    @p.a.:

    we cannot rest while there is a catapult gap with the Mexicans! Or Sylvania!

    We have always been at war with Sylvania!

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Of all the nonsense that goes on in DC, this seems to me to be the dumbest.
    A dress code? Decorum in the house?
    And the entire time they are planning to steal, cheat, murder citizens of the country. But they have to look good doing it? “Look we are wearing suits and ties while we roll around in pig shit, that must make it OK.”

  204. 204.

    Yarrow

    I really cannot wait for the investigation to start involving Ivanka. I can’t stand any of the Trump kids but she may be my least favorite. Her fakeity fake lifestyle brand, her enabling and covering up for her traitor dad, her monetizing her mom role, her plasticized look and coached speaking voice. All of it is awful. She’s just as much of a traitor as her husband and dad, so it’ll be her turn soon. That is going to hurt Donald more than anything until they get to him. Can’t wait.

  206. 206.

    Peale

    @efgoldman: buffoon? Maybe? Coward? Absolutely! Like we should run all of our decisions by ISIS first to see how they’d prefer us to structure our society. Because it would make them mad.

  207. 207.

    p.a.

    @efgoldman:
    Rufus T. Firefly: Gentlemen, Trumpolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: he really is an idiot… I suggest that we give him ten years in Leavenworth, or eleven years in Twelveworth.

  209. 209.

    scav

    @efgoldman: Recent arial photographs of international rubber tanker movements suggest there is the construction of a large dangerous band somewhere to the east west south and north of Syvaniagrad.

  212. 212.

    Yarrow

    @germy: Yep, but her turn hasn’t quite arrived. Almost there. I can’t wait to see all the news networks turn their attention to Ivanka and her treason. Maybe call her in front of one of the committees, like they’re doing with Jr. See if Daddy is going to throw her under the bus.

  216. 216.

    sdhays

    @MisterForkbeard: He knew about the meeting soon after Jr. received the email and the actual content of the meeting was reported to him soon after it was complete (not the content that has been so far reported). He didn’t “just” find out. He knew about it when it happened.

    And that’s all assuming that he didn’t attend the meeting himself, which, after all of the lies about who was there, I’m not quite prepared to simply take as fact.

  222. 222.

    Jean

    @clay: I read somewhere today that “there were more people at this meeting than at Trump’s inauguration.”

  223. 223.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: Roger Stone has always been like that. Remember, he was the guy who started an anti – Hillary organization that was named both to intentionally get confused with Citizens United and to have the acronym C.U.N.T.

  225. 225.

    momus

    I thought of asking my congressman, Pious Pete Roskam (R-Russia) if he was a Russian agent, but you basically have to make a campaign contribution to send an email to him.

  227. 227.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @chris: Good. That was an utter waste of time and money, and whoever is responsible for it should be fired, then disbarred.

  228. 228.

    Miss Bianca

    @SiubhanDuinne: Seriously, FUCK THIS MAN WITH A RUSTY CHAINSAW. How *dare* he – “oh, we must be ‘properly attired’ to screw the poor and fellate our corporate masters”?!

  230. 230.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: As much as I hate Paul Ryan as an embarrassment to Cheeseheads and Delts, the dress code have been around for a long time and Nancy Pelosi made sure they were enforced.

    FWIW, my company’s dress code bans striped shirts. And yet I wear any number of vertically striped Brooks Brothers dress shirts. Not to mention the blue and white tiny houndstooth BB oxford that is my very favorite – I don’t care that it is worn and 12 years old.

  231. 231.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m sorry…maybe I’m just a bit too drunk tonight on my excellent mead…which I’m totally bringing to Madison, btw, at some point…so I’m missing something obvious, but…your point IS…?

    @SiubhanDuinne: oh, by the way, also bringing to Atlanta area too…coming down that that way around St. Paddy’s in 2018. Meet up?

  232. 232.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: Paul Ryan didn’t suddenly impose new rules. Nancy Pelosi ordered that the same rules be enforced.

    ETA: Brandy and ginger ale here. Will try your mead when you bring it.

  236. 236.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Miss Bianca: I would ask why is this issue being brought up? I suggest that assholes decided that creating this as a new issue would distract from real issues.

  237. 237.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: And I would agree. So that – plus my chemically altered state – is, I guess, what’s making me ask: “Dude, you’re defending him? Isn’t this a complete distraction from real issues?”

  243. 243.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Yarrow:

    Just yesterday I was making the same point, namely, that it was high time Ivanka get some serious examination for her part in the Trumptastrophe.

  244. 244.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Not even sure you’ll see this — there are at least two new threads up — but yes, absolutely meet up in Atlanta next March! There are several of us in the area, and it’ll be fun to put a gathering of local Juicers together. I’ll look for you later this morning on a fresher thread.

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