Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

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

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Republicans do not trust women.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

You cannot shame the shameless.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

How stupid are these people?

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I really should read my own blog.

Bark louder, little dog.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

You are here: Home / Politics / Religion / Religious Nuts 2 / Nutcases, Every Last One of Them

Nutcases, Every Last One of Them

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Jim Newell captures this gem:

One day after President Donald Trump shocked the Capitol by accepting Democrats’ three-month debt ceiling extension over the strenuous objections of both Republican leaders and his treasury secretary, most congressional Republicans are saying they’re not panicking. Yet.

“I don’t think it’s the last deal he’ll cut with Schumer and Pelosi,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told me on Thursday, “but I don’t think it sets a precedent necessarily, that it’s going to happen all the time.” His fellow Freedom Caucuser, Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, also isn’t worried, telling reporters that he’s not sweating over Trump’s sudden buddy-buddy relationship with Democratic leaders.

“I’m a Calvinist,” he said. “I don’t panic.”

That last line pretty much sums up the Freedumb Caca.

If the name seems familiar, Brat is the asshole who out-assholed Eric Cantor in the 2014 primary to win that seat.

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I saw that this group proposed Gingrich and Santorum to replace Ryan. Last week some reformicon proposed they name Romeny Speaker to prepare for impeachment of the Beast and li’l sidekick

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    The Art of No Deal: How Chuck and Nancy Used GOP Dysfunction to Roll The Donald

    When Republican and Democratic leaders headed to the White House on Wednesday for a meeting – a negotiation – on the debt ceiling, government funding and disaster relief funding, few had expected its outcome. The Republican leadership had publicly and summarily rejected Democratic demands to extend the debt ceiling for only three months.

    Republicans wanted an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling, particularly so that they could work on their tax cuts without having to be rudely interrupted by a fiscal cliff. They also wanted enough wiggle room to forget about the Dream Act with no leverage left for the Democrats. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi knew this, and they wanted to hold onto their leverage on both taxes and immigration.

    …………………………..

    But that’s not what happened. Donald Trump, by all accounts to the astonishment of the GOP leadership and his own Treasury Secretary, quickly accepted the Democratic offer,
    then took off on Air Force One to North Dakota, taking with him North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp. Ryan, McConnell, and other Republicans were shell-shocked.
    Democrats now have what they want. They have neutralized Trump’s own threat of a government shutdown without funding for his wall, they have knocked a powerful GOP leadership, and they have rolled the Republican agenda along with the Republican president.

    How did this happen? Conservatives are fuming, and the media is still trying to understand. But I suggest that the roots of this had been sown in events of the past eight months, as well well as the prior eight years. Republicans essentially rolled themselves. Donald Trump essentially had no choice but to cave to Democrats, because Republicans created this path.

  11. 11.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    The Department of Justice on Thursday filed a brief on behalf of baker Jack Phillips, who was found to have violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to created a cake to celebrate the marriage of Charlie Craig and David Mullins in 2012. Phillips said he doesn’t create wedding cakes for same-sex couples because it would violate his religious beliefs.

    The government agreed with Phillips that his cakes are a form of expression, and he cannot be compelled to use his talents for something in which he does not believe.

    “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights,” Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall wrote in the brief.

    Sure would be a shame if something bad happened to Phillips’ bakery.

  14. 14.

    Mike in NC

    Cantor was against emergency relief funds for his district hit by an earthquake because was hardcore Republican, and anything that doesn’t enrich the 1% is a nonstarter.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    So…Trumpov tweet yet about that lady and her prison inmate boyfriend? I’d imagine he’s warning the husband not to take her back a la Robert Pattinson

  16. 16.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @opiejeanne: Calvin was actually a decent guy. Calvinism per Calvin is different than “Calvinism” as it is currently understood. But it is fine. No one ever notes that or that the Puritans weren’t the intolerant monsters that they are portrayed as. I’ll shut up now.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @clay: it comes up from time to time. When Boehner walked away and Ryan was resisting taking the job, there was a lot of chatter that came to nothing.

  25. 25.

    Fair Economist

    Everybody’s talking about Trump accepting Pelosi and Schumer’s deal. But what exactly is Trump offering? He can’t bring it to the floor of either house. As long as McConnell or Ryan refuse to bring it to the floor, it doesn’t happen.

  28. 28.

    BC in Illinois

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    @clay:

    A non-House Member Speaker is something to keep in mind when the Democrats take over the House next year. While I would be perfectly happy with a Nancy Pelosi Speaker / President-in-waiting, there are those who have suggested Hillary Clinton.

    My own preference, as we anticipate the departure of the “Don and Mike” show, would be to have Joe Biden in place as a consensus choice.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    If I remember The Scarlet Letter correctly, the message was that Dimmesdale was a fucking hypocrite who deserved to die for letting Hester suffer alone.

    Hawthorne had an ancestor who was one of the judges during the Salem Witch Trials, so he was pretty cynical about the Puritans.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @BC in Illinois: Speaker Biden works for me. I’m hoping trump gets impeached, or is dragged to resignation, but I’m not betting on either. Somebody on MSNBC said a few days ago that “people close to trump’ say he hates the job and wants to pass one big bill, like the tax cuts, and name one more justice, then he’ll quit . I can’t see it. There would have to be some situation that he could spin as winning by quitting, and I can’t imagine it.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: Pray tell, what does Calvin have to do with the Salem Puritans?

    Also, fwiw, John Proctor is one of my great….grandfathers. But do please base your judgments on a novel.

  33. 33.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah:

    Donald Trump essentially had no choice but to cave to Democrats, because Republicans created this path.

    There’s a lot to this. The Republicans have been dithering for the past 6 years, and for the past few months now without Obama to blame, it’s been really, really obvious that this is all they can do. The only thing they know how to do is make something more painful and more complicated than it was. Governing is hard, but it’s not supposed to be half as hard as Republicans insist on making it. After the shit show that we’ve all watched for the past 8 months (really since 2011), why would anyone have confidence that Ryan and McConnell could deliver on what they were promising when the clock was clearly running out?

    Part of the calculation (such as there is in Trump’s “mind”) has got to be that with Ryan, McConnell, and the Freedumb Caucus, there was going to be a lot of whining and drama and incompetence all throughout September and then they’d all lose to the Democrats anyway because the Republican “strategery” was doomed from the beginning. Or they’d fail to do anything at all, Houston would rot, and he would preside over the first default in our nation’s history.

    I hope this smack of reality makes Ryan and McConnell more amenable to Impeachment… Summer 2018 would do nicely, assuming nuclear war with North Korea is still “merely” brewing.

  35. 35.

    sdhays

    @Fair Economist: I think the issue is that they were already in a really shitty bargaining position, and now that even Trump isn’t behind them, they don’t have even any semblance of a path to victory on their terms. Sure, they have the power to block the deal, but they don’t have the power to replace it, and the items we’re talking about here aren’t things that they can afford to let fail (which was why their bargaining position was never very good).

  41. 41.

    James Powell

    I have a question and I’m hoping to get an answer without getting pummeled.

    Why would Democrats do anything to work with Trump on any issue? If Trump and the Republicans can’t come to an agreement, why not let them shut down the government like they threatened to do with Obama? Why not let their inability to govern become apparent.

    I’m expecting the Beltway Pivot Hunters to declare that this proves Trump can be a bipartisan president.

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    @James Powell:

    Why would Democrats do anything to work with Trump on any issue? If Trump and the Republicans can’t come to an agreement, why not let them shut down the government like they threatened to do with Obama? Why not let their inability to govern become apparent.

    Debt ceiling is not simply shutting down the government. Its blowing up the world economy.

    There is nothing else I can think of that would kick off mass rioting and complete chaos on that level short of actual nuclear war.

  44. 44.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @opiejeanne: Michael Servetus fan here as well. The world might be a better place if Calvin hadn’t personally had Servetus killed in Geneva. Servetus said: God condemns no one who does not condemn himself through thought, word or deed. If there is a hell, I hope John Calvin is rotting in it.

  45. 45.

    Denali

    @opiejeanne,

    Well, I didn’t know about Michael Servetus either – now I do, thanks to Google. Balloon Juice has certainly brought me into contact with colorful characters lately, from attempted axe murderers to wife of Trump lawyer involved in car sex with prison inmate. No wonder I spend so much time here.

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