Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We won’t go back.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republicans don’t trust women.

We’re not going back!

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

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

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

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Late Night Open Thread: KING LEER (Winter Is Coming)

Late Night Open Thread: KING LEER (Winter Is Coming)

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In the Godfather fantasies that delight would-be GOP tough guys, you don’t bring in a made man just to pick up your dry cleaning…

… The first to leave the West Wing on Tuesday was senior assistant press secretary Michael Short, who resigned after a report emerged in Politico hours earlier saying that he would be fired in Scaramucci’s quest to uproot leakers.

Scaramucci, wearing blue-tinted aviator sunglasses and speaking to a small group of reporters in the White House driveway Tuesday morning, gestured to the guard booth on the outskirts of the complex to emphasize his threat.

“If they don’t stop leaking, I’m going to put them out on Pennsylvania Avenue — it’s a very clear thing,” he said. “You want to sell postcards to the tourists outside the gate or you want to work in the West Wing? What do you want to do? If you want to work in the West Wing, you’ve got to stop leaking.”…

Despite publicly claiming that he and Priebus have a long and respectful working relationship, Scaramucci has made one of his first moves the launch of a broad overhaul of the press office, singling out Priebus allies, many of whom previously worked at the Republican National Committee, for further scrutiny.

An unofficial list of Priebus loyalists has been circulating among Scaramucci allies as those most likely to lose their jobs or be reassigned to somewhere else in the administration…

Meanwhile, Grampa’s sundowning on camera again…

On the bright side, the old man’s at his best in the early dawn, and his “proclamations” can be fed straight into the Fox News morning shows…

Have I pointed out recently that every godsdamned Republican in the beleagured country is to blame for putting this senile old goniff into the office he’s currently disgracing?

… The Ailes demographic wants to be told that the world is going to hell, a message that harmonizes with the declining status and health many of them experience. The Ailes demographic wants simple and reductionist viewpoints on America’s cultural and policy dilemmas—from crime to immigration to taxes to war and trade. The Ailes demographic seeks the restoration of the social mores it remembers from its youth, and if the past can’t be restored, it wants modern mores castigated. And it wants to be frightened and outraged. Fox almost never disappoints them.

It was the network’s dumb luck that Trump aged into its core audience as he reached the White House. Like so many of his fellow senior citizens, Trump now spends his golden years huddled at the Fox hearth, shouting amen as it voices his resentments and disappointments. Only the hearth is in the White House. As news, real and not, travels from Fox’s lips to Trump’s tweets, we have the chance to see media history in the making. Presidents have, from time to time, courted publications to advance a White House agenda or steered the news by feeding tips to columnists and reporters, but never before has a president so consistently echoed an outlet’s message…

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    74th wedding anniversary. Something that Donald the Lecher will never experience.

  3. 3.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    How are we going to run this asshole out office? There’s no other way this country is going to make it. I think mockery needs to play the biggest part in this. He fucks up when he’s pissed, and nothing gets him seething quite like people laughing at him and pointing out his manifold and manifest inadequecies loudly and mercilessly. Sooner or later we’ll send him over the edge so far that even Republicans in the tank for him can’t defend him. #somuchwinning

  4. 4.

    jl

    Dost thou call me fool, boy?

    All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

    This is not altogether fool, my lord.

  10. 10.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Scootly Macho is going to bring a new level of incompetence to the administration. I am gobsmacked that is possible, yet I see it unfolding before my eyes.

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Damn. I am in awe. I hope I LIVE that long, much less maintain a relationship. You call for all the tumbrels you like. You’ve earned it.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Trump is a walking collection of acute, untreated personality disorders. He’s running the most corrupt, dysfunctional and besieged administration in U.S. history and getting negative coverage for it, something his fragile ego can’t bear. Most of the people who are propping him up actually hate his guts. He’ll decompensate in some spectacular way eventually. The only question is how much damage the country will sustain before, during and after the event.

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Reading fail. The 74th anniversary was that of the guy that Trump was gassing on about in the paragraph right after “Grampa’s sundowning again.”

  14. 14.

    patrick II

    Brian Williams, started his night’s broadcast extolling John McCain’s speech on the Senate floor. Williams said “McCain spoke with the heft and credibility of a thirty year veteran of the US Senate and a P.O.W. before that. Asking his senate colleques to work together, to bridge the partisan divide and in his words ` return to the regular order. ‘ His tone was serious, but his message was hopeful sunny and optimistic and as always patriotic….’
    Brian Williams did not mention that John McCain flew in from Arizona to vote to proceed on the various deathcare/taxcut plans McConnell had been secretly brewing in the Senate’s backroom caldrons to exorcise twenty million people from their health insurance.
    In his speech McCain called for more open debate and that he would not vote for the AHRCA as it stood. Three hours later and with no further debate John McCain voted for the AHCRA as it stood.
    Jolnn McCain rose from his sick bed and traveled three thousand miles to give his speech calling for removing the opportunity for health care of the type he had just received. And why? Ambition? The median lifespan for someone in his position is about eighteen months. He’s not going to run again — exceptperhaps in his own mind. No, it was one last opportunity to play the hero, to smile and raise his hands in victory as his colleagues in death surrounded him and clapped him on the back. What a glorious feeling to be the Center of attention again at the potential cost of a mere tens of thousands of lives.
    So John McCain put on his show, Bran Williams praises him for his words while ignoring his actions. Deathcare gets more chances and Brian Williams, like A fifth grade girl with a blind crush, waits for John McCain to again say something magical before John shows us once more that all of that hero stuff is gone, all of his courage used up fifty years ago in small hut in Vietnam and there is none left.

  15. 15.

    TenguPhule

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    74th wedding anniversary. Something that Donald the Lecher will never experience.

    We’re running out of demographics that Trump hasn’t already offended, insulted, belittled, humiliated or ignored.

  16. 16.

    TenguPhule

    @patrick II:

    Williams said “McCain spoke with the heft and credibility of a thirty year veteran of the US Senate and a P.O.W. before that. Asking his senate colleques to work together, to bridge the partisan divide and in his words ` return to the regular order. ‘

    Brian Williams is a brainless tool.

    And Fuck John McCain. With a rusty chainsaw.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @TenguPhule: I’m going to have to go off the grid for at least a week when McCain kicks the bucket. The unearned accolades will be pouring in from every quarter.

  20. 20.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Quick update on yesterday’s mugging victim: I’ve found a decent sleeping position & am getting a couple of hours’ shuteye between each ingestion of drugs (next dosing at 0530). Tylenol+codeine seem to be working OK. Wounded elbow now bends past 90 degrees & straightens full out & can be raised overhead with tolerable (not miniscule but tolerable) pain, & the hand that could barely lift a pill bottle 8 hrs ago can now manage a 20-oz plastic bottle full of water Full range of motion in the fingers.

    (But I will probably need to postpone my trip to FantaSe next week. I was to free my friend of half a century from keeping house while he sorts through & condenses manifold boxes of records & memories, preparing to sell his lovely house & move to a small apartment when one comes available that will accommodate him as a post-polio survivor in a motorized chair. I wouldn’t be much help with the bum wing. We’ll work out a Plan B for later in the year.)

    /TMI

  21. 21.

    Amir Khalid

    Gitarku baru saja tiba! Meine Gitarre ist gerade angekommt! My guitar just got here!1! Right this very minute!

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @Uncle Cosmo: Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that you were mugged! That’s awful. Glad to hear that you are already seeing improvement, though.

  25. 25.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    If students of American political history 50+ years from now want to understand how it all went wrong, one of the most instructive figures will be John Sidney McCain III. Not because of his volatile temper, or his impulsiveness (remember “We are all Georgians now” and “suspending” his 2008 campaign? Palin wasn’t the only reason we dodged a bullet there), his spiteful ambition, his mastery of political media courtiers, his belief that more bombs can fix most international tensions that involve US interests, his corrupt early career, or his occasional caustic eloquence when somebody pissed him off, or his craven cowardice in the face of party pressures. John McCain is worthy of study because he’s one of the best examples of a career buoyed by media sycophants seduced by the access he sometimes gave them, and they in turn made him a grand party elder, a man of principle, a leader of men in the classic sense, because they wanted a ride on the fucking tire swing. The context of his condition, followed by the speech he gave today, followed by the fawning of the media, followed by the vote, followed by more media fawning. Perhaps a clip of him trying feebly to kinda sorta disavow some of the racism his supporters wanted from him in 2008, a snippet of Palin word salad, and then any one of Cheetolini’s more horrifying rally bits. John McCain: the man who would’ve been president except for a stock market crash, and because he didn’t campaign as a bigot. Principles don’t mean shit, only the packaging. McCain understands that. And if a man famous for his spiteful nature had been just a little bit fucking meaner (supposedly he chose not to hammer Obama on Jeremiah Wright when really he could have) he would’ve won. Trump has no such scruples, and he did.

  29. 29.

    NorthLeft12

    [the average Fox addict] wants to be told that the world is going to hell, a message that harmonizes with the declining status and health many of them experience.

    I would also add on to this observation that this view also reinforces their [mostly] negative view of younger generations, and their faulty memories of all the wonderful achievements that their own generation was responsible for, thanks to their hard work and sacrifice. Yeah, right.

  32. 32.

    JGabriel

    Politico via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    The Ailes demographic seeks the restoration of the social mores it remembers from its youth …

    Fifty years ago it was 1967. Weren’t a lot of the Ailes demographic hippies? You’d think the social mores they remember from their youth would include Free Love, Civil Rights, and instituting Medicare & Medicaid.

  33. 33.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @JGabriel: A lot of the demographic was, but I’d wager the viewership is a combo of regretful hippies and people that are jealous/resentful of those that were.

  34. 34.

    NorthLeft12

    @TenguPhule: I continue to be amazed at the idiot MSM and their belief that their is some area of negotiation between the parties on health care.
    Plain and simple, the Repubs not only want to go back to a health care system that is pre ACA, they are aiming at reducing the government involvement [ahem, I mean expenditures] in the Medicare and Medicaid systems. The Dems want to expand and improve all of those programs. THERE IS NO BASIS FOR NEGOTIATION.
    Somehow they don’t get that.

  36. 36.

    NorthLeft12

    @Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: As someone approaching sixty in a few months, and retirement in a few years, I have been thinking a lot about what retirement and the rest of my life is going to look like.
    One thing I am not going to do is rail on about the youngsters and how lazy, incompetent, disrespectful, and ignorant they are. I have seen enough of each generation to know the general ratio of asshats to good folks has not changed much over the decades.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @NorthLeft12: “Health care is a right for all!” “Let the vermin die in the street!” “Where’s the leadership?” “I know, let’s ask Alan Simpson!” “Let them get just enough Medicaid to choose one medication and eat some catfood!” “Finally, some statesmanship. I’m feeling so reassured. Any updates on the missing white girl at the news desk yet?”

  42. 42.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    @NorthLeft12: Good for you. I’m trudging through what remains of my thirties and starting to feel a bit old, but I’ve always been grumpy. I’ll probably allow my developing biases and blinders for music continue (I’m the cliche that way, what I loved when I was 10-15 years younger is THE BEST, you kids listen to crap) but when it comes to anything important I’m more inclined to let the young uns take the lead. Once I became a parent my circle of concern shrank a LOT because I’m tired more than I used to be, but I don’t want it to turn into “I got mine fuck you.” The kids are alright, and I figure they’ll keep me honest.

  44. 44.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Iowa Old Lady: ,@Yoda Dog: , @satby: @Elizabelle: For the interested, details at post #58 & #109 in the “REPUBS IN DISARRAY” open thread from yesterday, q.v.. Doing OK, not particularly traumatized or blaming myself – except that resistiing could have gotten me (as the Scots say) kit. I doubt they catch the bastard but I hope he ODs on whatever drugs he bought with my folding. This morning I’m headed to the business that share that parking lot to encourage them to remove the surveillance blind spot ASAP. Maybe something positive will come of my misfortune.

  45. 45.

    JGabriel

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Nice pic. It reminds me of a similar view of NYC when one is driving (or, as in my case, returning home from the holidays on a bus) into the city from far New Jersey.

  50. 50.

    Jinchi

    “The people I care most about are the middle-income people in this country, who have gotten screwed,” Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, reiterating that he wants to bring down the corporate tax rate to 15%.

    Nothing helps middle-income people in this country like bringing down the corporate tax rate.

  53. 53.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    proposed launching a daily administration TV show

    So Trump has given up being president and returning to be a reality TV star. How long before Trump takes up watchmaking and goes full Louis XVI on us?

  54. 54.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker:

    He’ll decompensate in some spectacular way eventually. The only question is how much damage the country will sustain before, during and after the event.

    It feels like that is getting close the way he lashing out at his own staff. The public humiliation of Sessassion smack of a narcissist taking it on on the only person left who will take it.

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sdhays: True,. likely it would collecting baseball hats or something equally dumed down with Trump.

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