Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

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

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / More Halloween Horror Stories Open Thread

More Halloween Horror Stories Open Thread

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Washington Post‘s Alexandra Petri is a gem. “The Cask of Amaralago”:

The thousand injuries of Don Ald I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge…

When I encountered him on the night of the festival (his costume was only an orange Make America Great Again hat with a pumpkin on it, available on his website for $45.00), I could not let off clasping his hand, such was my delight at seeing him, on the very evening of the ripening of my design. And because he insisted on clasping my hand a long time as a show of dominance. But it did not affect me.

“It is fortunate indeed that we are met, Don Ald,” I said. “This night I was on the verge of making a deal with Chuck and Nancy, and now I encounter you.”

“Bob,” he said, “Liddle’ Bob.”

“Yes,” I said, “I have been called such a name.” I choked down the bile that rose in my throat. “I have found something quite remarkable in the vaults below my party’s ancestral home — oh, it was a party once! A way to build your wall, that is cheap, and for which Mexico will pay. Ah, but I must not trouble you on this festive night. Chuck and Nancy will believe me, if you will not. I shall descend and eat my well-cooked steak and admire my wax replicas of your beautiful children in solitude, surrounded by gold leaf, and trouble you no longer.”

“No!” he said. “I will come with you, Liddle’ Bob.”

I placed a mask upon my face. I took two flambeaux from their braces on the wall and led him into my party’s vaults…

“There,” I said, and pointed to a narrow three-walled enclosure. It was composed on three sides of the bones of an elephant. I had gotten them from a cartoonist who wanted something he could draw as an unsubtle metaphor. “Go in and I will show you.”

He wandered in. It was the work of a moment to chain him to the bones. I pulled out bricks and mortar.

“Now,” I said, “I will build the wall.”…

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  5. 5.

    divF

    Halloween makes me think of Sandy Denny and Tam Lin:

    “Oh tell to me Tam Lin” she said
    “Why came you here to dwell?”
    “The Queen of Fairies caught me
    when from my horse I fell

    And at the end of seven years
    she pays a tithe to hell
    I so fair and full of flesh
    and fear’ed be myself

    But tonight is Halloween
    and the fairy folk ride,
    Those that would their true love win
    at mile’s cross they must hide.

  9. 9.

    clay

    The House has delayed their big tax plan rollout. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

    No one? Okay, then.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    @TenguPhule: My gran is at this moment getting ready to get her house ready for the holidays…my sister told me today…THE CHRISTMAS IS GOING UP TOMORROW…lol

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: You need to pay better attention. I have been telling you all since I got here back in 2015 that the GOP caucuses couldn’t fix a sandwich. Too many factions within each chamber’s caucus. Too many of them in the House elected since 2010 (75%), which means they have absolutely no experience with, and therefore no ability to, actually do anything under regular order. These folks don’t know how to write legislation or shepherd it through committee and onto the floor. They know how to create crises by sabotaging the institution, then freaking out because of the crises they’ve created, then get mad when their leadership has to turn to either Pelosi or Schumer (previously Reid) to deliver the votes to bail them out of the crises they just caused.

  21. 21.

    FlipYrWhig

    Donnie Junior does realize that this is a holiday whose core ritual is opening one’s home and distributing treats equally to strangers, right? Seems pretty socíalistic to me. Maybe in his family they just kick in the door and take whatever they like and smash the rest.

  25. 25.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Adam L Silverman:

    You need to pay better attention. I have been telling you all since I got here back in 2015 that the GOP caucuses couldn’t fix a sandwich.

    Don’t act like all that is necessary to agree with you is paying attention. I have been paying attention, and it’s a fact that the House was able to get their shit together and pass an Obamacare repeal bill, which to my mind should be a hell of a lot harder than tax cuts.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    @randy khan: She gets to the heart of the matter so sharply, with such great allusions to works of literature and pop culture (and PUNS!)…it’s hard not to be a little taken in.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    @Major Major Major Major: Nothing is complicated w/ these House goons…
    1) repeal Obamacare? Ok, just repeal Obamacare and damn the torpedoes!
    2) tax cuts? Ok, just pass massive tax cuts mostly for the already-rich!

    The thing they keep forgetting…which is what I think Adam is alluding to…is that in theory they’re there to govern, not burn the country down (or its equivalents, such as putting 25-30M people back out into the wild without health insurance, or bankrupting this already-bankrupt country beyond belief in order to get the obscenely wealthy even more wealth.

  32. 32.

    clay

    @Major Major Major Major: Perhaps, but it’s likely that a lot of House members voted for ACA repeal with the full expectation that it would die in the Senate.

    This tax bill would actually have consequences, in their mind.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @Feebog:

    Actually Donnie, you are describing asset forfeiture, something you may want to bone up on.

    Wasn’t somebody saying that, given the charges Manafort is facing, he may have to forfeit some of his ill-gotten gains?

    This Tweet may be more of a Freudian slip than we first realized. ?

  35. 35.

    Arclite

    Last year, my nine year old went to the costume shop with his (non-political, non-American mother) and came home with a Donald Trump mask and a t-shirt with a jacket and tie printed on it. He was easily the most popular costume in our neighborhood in our liberal state, with both laughs and comments like “scariest costume of the night!” He made off with a ton of candy (he kept the best stuff, and the rest went to work with me).

    I asked him this year if he was going to be DJT again, and he said, “No, someone will beat me up.”

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Focus!!!//

    More seriously, I know you’re paying attention. But the House was barely able to pass their repeal when it actually mattered. Seven years to actually do the hard work and yet it hadn’t been done. Same thing here. A generation of GOP members of Congress, as well as staffers and people coming and going through conservative think tanks and lobbyist shops and amazingly enough they haven’t done the work. Part of this is because the actual ideas they’re proposing are almost impossible to translate into policies and strategies to achieve those policies because no matter how you torture the numbers they still won’t add up. The other part is because they actually are really, really bad at this. They’re good at eating store bought dessert. They’re terrible at actually making and eating dinner.

  39. 39.

    randy khan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At a certain level, it’s remarkable how bad the Republicans are at legislating, because after all, many of them were in state legislatures before they got into Congress, but given their general nihilism and the number of people who claim to have very specific uncompromisable requirements, it’s not remarkable at all.

  40. 40.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Major Major Major Major: It’s sunset to sunset, October 31 to November 1, close to halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. That may make it a cross quarter day. I think Christians incorporated this into All Hallows Eve (10/31), All Saints Day (11/1), and All Souls Day (11/2). But the actual religious scholar – ahem, Dr. S – should be consulted on that part.

  41. 41.

    oatler.

    “The 1980s turned all that optimism into the most banal forms of nostalgia and triumphalism (Falklands, for instance), and the fall of the USSR was an opportunity to gloat rather than come together to serve the world. I think that was the cleverest and most evil trick big business and its political henchmen played on all of us. To keep us from resisting them they had to corrupt individual memory as well as history.”
    Michael Moorcock 2013

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @randy khan: They were state legislators in state legislative districts just as heavily gerrymandered as their Federal ones and in states where the GOP has overwhelming legislative majorities. So it took very little work on their parts. Receive draft legislation from ALEC or Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Prosperity, etc, have staffers transfer it to official forms, submit, blather in hearings, vote, blather on the floor of the chamber, vote, have GOP governor sign it or override Democratic governor’s veto. The GOP has a very deep bench. As in a lot of very shallow and poorly experienced folks are stacked very deep on it.

  45. 45.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    Seems Manafort has three fucking passports. Each with its own number. Well, if there’s one thing that this teaches us, it’s that Dear Leader does indeed have the best people. Shit. Can you even think what the reaction would be if it turned out that Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager had three passports?

    I guess I’m just a sad-assed loser. I only have one lousy passport.

  50. 50.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Adam L Silverman: right, but I figure tax cuts should be simple as sin. Their problem is that they’re trying to do massive structural looting through reconciliation. If they’re smart (ha) they’ll just do bush tax cuts part 3.

    ETA I will say that it’s heartening to see them acting like this is their last bite at the apple for a generation.

  52. 52.

    Feathers

    My Halloween story this year. The Red Line was borked, so I decided to wait it out by getting dinner at the Kendall Chipotle. It was a zoo. Got to the cashier and he barked “What’s your costume?” I said “What?” “It’s Halloween. Three dollars off if you’re in costume, just make something up.” He looked at me, a middle aged lady in Lands End blue khakis and tunic top. I looked down at my outfit and looked back up at him. “Darth Vader?” “ He laughed and said “That’ll do, that’ll do. I’m a huge Star Wars fan”. I must have made an impression, because every employee who came by while I was eating giggled and wished me a happy Halloween.

    On a sadder note, I remembered the costume I was thinking of wearing at 9 tonight. Will have to make and put away for next year.

  53. 53.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    I guess I’m just a sad-assed loser. I only have one lousy passport.

    PSA: always carry a Canadian passport in case you run into an anti-American mob. Stash your US passport in your pants and pull out the Canuck one while talking about your pro-ject about hockey.

    I assume you all have friends in the Intel community who can hook you up.

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Two is easy. One personal and either one official governmental or military. Or for the State Department folks diplomatic. Three is pushing it. And I doubt any of these are anything but personal passports. Just on this he’s in serious trouble. And right now someone at the passport office in DC is trying to figure out who is responsible for this. But it shows us something else: that shady folks with good connections and lots of money can get around the rules. Remember when Michael Cohen claimed he couldn’t have gone to Prague or anywhere else in Europe because there were no stamps in his passport for that time period and anywhere in the EU? Well here’s a question: how many passports does he have?

  55. 55.

    gwangung

    @Adam L Silverman: I suspect that’s the achilles heel of any ideological politician, as opposed to a pragmatist. I fully expect the same thing to happen to left leaning parties if progressive ideologues get into power.

  56. 56.

    clay

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah, it’s the reconciliation part that’s tough. If they wanted to, they could find enough Democrats to pass some sort of tax cut, but it would have to be (somewhat) less skewed to the super-rich, and it wouldn’t be “the biggest ever”.

    But they are so opposed to negotiation and compromise that the thought never even enters their mind. Which makes it exponentially harder to pass any sort of bill, let alone a decent one.

  60. 60.

    cckids

    @Feathers:

    Got to the cashier and he barked “What’s your costume?” I said “What?” “It’s Halloween. Three dollars off if you’re in costume, just make something up.” He looked at me, a middle aged lady in Lands End blue khakis and tunic top. I looked down at my outfit and looked back up at him.

    You needed the Addams Family line “I’m a homicidal maniac. They look just like everybody else”.

    Works every time.

  61. 61.

    jimmiraybob

    “It’s never to early to…..”

    Him go best skools. Him have best adverbs. Him IQ best. Him do reel good in prison. [rolling eyes]

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    @randy khan:
    Am not particularly surprised given since the holy days of St. Ronaldus they have held that government is the problem and thus, killing government is the solution. Electing a Republican is equivalent to hiring Christian Scientists and Santaria shamen to handle your cancer surgery.

  63. 63.

    randy khan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The GOP has a very deep bench. As in a lot of very shallow and poorly experienced folks are stacked very deep on it.

    I need to steal this line.

    And, in fact, the truth of that statement was demonstrated during the 2016 Presidential primaries.

  64. 64.

    Major Major Major Major

    @clay: I’m sure they could all agree on cutting the capital gains tax to zero for nine years or something, but what’s hamstring them is that, one, they want *structural* changes, and two, they want to use reconciliation and can’t agree on where the money should come from.

  65. 65.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mnemosyne

    : This Tweet may be more of a Freudian slip than we first realized. ?

    “Criminal fines for breaking the law! Why that’s socialism!”
    The Trumps really have the mentality of gansters.

  66. 66.

    Aleta

    DJ in PJs “kid who sat at home”. If his kid worked tonight it can only be because her entire life with him is an endless chore. Sit in jail you motherfucker.

  68. 68.

    Jerzy Russian

    Remember that episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where our heroes came upon a planet where the citizens were genetically engineered for their roles in society? Well it seems Don, Jr. has been genetically engineered to be a colossal disk.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @Jerzy Russian:

    Well it seems Don, Jr. has been genetically engineered to be a colossal disk

    Or something.

    Also, since the thread is now (likely) dead: at around 8 PM Tuesday night, the phrase going through my head — well before this post happened — was “For the love of God, Montresor!” [It was catalyzed by Final Jeopardy!, of all things.] So that’s kind of s-s-s-pooky.

  71. 71.

    psychobroad

    As always,VERY late to the party. Junior posted his idiocy on Twitter,and someone responded by calling him a “malignant potato”. It made me plotz.

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