Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Fight them, without becoming them!

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The lights are all blinking red.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

It’s a doggy dog world.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

“But what about the lurkers?”

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

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114Comments

  5. 5.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Franken’s accuser looked mighty glib, and said that all she wanted was an apology, and doesn’t want him to resign.

    I think that she accomplished everything her check writers told her to do – deflect criticism off of Moore, suck the air from the room regarding the House vote on their evil tax reform bill. Otherwise if she just wanted an apology, why not just ask? Why be glib?

  16. 16.

    jl

    AL took down the post with the pic of Hannity’s conspiracy board!
    Time for blogger ethics panel. What don’t they want us to see… hmmmm…..?

    Edit: and IMHO, Hannity did himself a damn fine conspiracy board.

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    As soon as I’m done icing my knee, I have to go pack for my overnight train trip tomorrow. I would be looking forward to it a lot more if I weren’t still on fucking crutches. And my knee decided to start acting up even worse, which is annoying as hell.

  23. 23.

    eclare

    @Gin & Tonic: The Clinton Derangement Syndrome never ends. Jimmy Kimmel had a “ask the person on the street” bit a few days ago, asking if Hillary should be impeached. I’ll give you one guess as to what a lot of people said.

  27. 27.

    khead

    I post roughly one or two comments a day. Maybe. Most of the posts involve cats or football. So, when Cole pulled his thread I really wasn’t upset. It’s not that big of a deal.

    But Corner Stone should be pissed. Dude was rolling.

  29. 29.

    mai naem mobile

    @Gin & Tonic: did you hear Chelped Clintons daughter got ino a real tony competitive preschool in Manhattan. The same school that wouldn’t take Donnie Jr’s kid. Trey Gowdy is investigating this. There might be a special prosecutor called on for this. Maggie Habermans on the beat. Bernie Bernstein is also on the story for the Post.

  32. 32.

    Felonius Monk

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Otherwise if she just wanted an apology, why not just ask? Why be glib?

    Given that Ms. Tweeden appeared nude in Playboy in 2011 and was voted one of The Top Hooters Girls of all time, I would suspect that Al Franken’s behavior in this instance was mild in comparison to what she was probably subjected to during her career. Might her glibness somehow be related to the fact that she appears to be a known right-winger who has been on Hannity’s show a few times in the past. This is in no way excusing Franken’s behavior in this case, but it does seem to have been brought to light for the sole purpose of muddying the waters with a both sides do it.

  34. 34.

    mai naem mobile

    @different-church-lady: the point I was making was that she chose to continue to go on the tours. Volunteer tours. Tours that she probably could have gone on with other people. She didn’t have to go with him.

  35. 35.

    chopper

    @Major Major Major Major:

    all the GOP shits who were hoping that franken would distract from the shit they made must be all “thanks, donnie”. trump has an amazing ability to cock up any attempt to take negative attention off him and his party.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @khead:

    when Cole pulled his thread

    Busy day at work what did I miss? I read the second mega-thread (the first scared me with its length).

    ETA: You mean the thread above?

    ETAA: Or the one just above it?

  39. 39.

    James E. Powell

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Although the New York Times is going after Bill Clinton.

    Again? Or still? The NYT hates the Clintons more than most Republicans do. Is Sally Quinn the secret editor-in-chief?

  41. 41.

    No Drought No More

    If Trump didn’t twitter he would probably slit his own throat tonight. The WSJ is reporting Mueller flipped a Turk who dealt with Flynn. Recall it was Flynn who Trump asked Comey to stop investigating, after Trump first emptied the room of witnesses. Recall Flynn’s son is on the hook, and if Flynn has a dog and its dog’s license has expired, it will be, too. Turkey has apparently attempted to work out a deal to get this guy back to shut him up, and, if I read right, Mueller has had the Turk transferred to a safe house.

    This story is a much wilder ride than Watergate, and I wish Hunter Thompson were around to enjoy and write about it. And I’m not sure even he could do justice to how weird it’s getting..

  42. 42.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: If you look at the Twitter feed you’ll see evidence of two posts that appeared and disappeared after some asshole pointed out that there’d been three new threads in six minutes.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Clearly, Al Franken is history’s greatest monster. Only Michele Bachman can appropriately Senate for Minnesota.

    Once I noticed that the pronoun bending, cis-gender defining progressive purists (who are better than any of us) were howling for him to resign and spend the rest of his life attending womyn’s herstory and empowerment ovinars, I knew it was a manipulated shitshow.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    And the beat goes on.

    A Republican appointee in charge of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) centre for outreach to faith and community groups has resigned after a report that he said Black people had “turned America’s major cities into slums because of laziness, drug use and sexual promiscuity.”
    [snip]
    [Rev. Jamie ] Johnson extolled the economic successes of American Jews and said “it’s an indictment of America’s Black community that has turned America’s major cities into slums because of laziness, drug use and sexual promiscuity,” according to a recording posted by CNN.

    As a guest host on the AM radio program Mickelson in the Morning, in Iowa, Johnson also spoke harshly of Muslims, saying radical Islam was “faithful Islam.”

    “I never call it radical Islam, if anything, it is obedient Islam. It is faithful Islam.” Johnson said, according to audio posted by CNN.

    He later said he agreed with the conservative author Dinesh D’Souza that “all that Islam has ever given us is oil and dead bodies over the last millennia and a half.”

    In a statement given to CNN before his resignation, Johnson said he regretted the remarks and said they do not represent his personal or professional viewpoint. Source

    Not personal, not professional – so it’s what, amateur night? His LARP-like hobby to be a racist bigot?

    (With appropriate apologies to actual LARPers.)

  47. 47.

    Peale

    @Cheryl Rofer: it really is a disease with them. I wonder what it was like before Bill Clinton. I bet the rich and powerful only had sex within the confines of arranged marriages. Except for the Kennedys. Then Bill came along and invented adultery. They really want Bill to get what they think are just desserts. Or make Hillary apologize for every dick pic ever sent for some reason.

  48. 48.

    momus

    I just have a sense of a “Both sides do it” gotcha, but then time will tell. Has Al atoned or will there be a dozen more accusers by next week. In a free and open society humans will make mistakes. The question is, will the behaviors become self-reinforcing, ala Moore and Weinstein or be rectified?

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    He later said he agreed with the conservative author Dinesh D’Souza that “all that Islam has ever given us is oil and dead bodies over the last millennia and a half.”

    I guess somebody really hated algebra class.

  52. 52.

    FlipYrWhig

    I can easily imagine the following interaction leading up to the photo.

    Photographer: She can barely stay awake.
    Franken: You know, earlier I think she was pissed off at me. I wonder if she’s still mad about that kissing scene.
    Photographer: You know what would be funny — if you pretended to be super creepy towards her while she was asleep.
    Franken: Yeah, that would be funny, I could pretend to be grabbing her boobs, like, “You thought that KISS was uncomfortable, here’s what I’m REALLY like!” [does honk-honk gesture and leers]
    Photographer: Do it, it’ll be hilarious when she discovers it.
    Franken: Ya know, why not, it’ll be a laugh, maybe defuse the tension.
    Photographer: I can’t wait to see the look on her face!
    Franken: [leans in]

    -SCENE-

  55. 55.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne: 2 threads popped up after this one.

    One from John Cole and the other an open thread.

    John’s thread mentioned he had a good dinner and better dessert.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    @Peale:

    I bet the rich and powerful only had sex within the confines of arranged marriages. Except for the Kennedys. Then Bill came along and invented adultery.

    There’s the problem, Bill wasn’t rich or famous. He was a hillbilly form a single parent family, and not the fashionable kind. He was supposed to know that getting the strange was reserved for his betters and then young women threw themselves at him and he’d never even had an IPO.

  59. 59.

    BBA

    Trump is trolling us. You think he cares that we all know he’s done much worse than Franken? What does it matter to him, he’s still president for another three years and nobody but Paul and Mitch can take that away from him, and they won’t. It makes me so mad, but then Trump’s incredible talent in getting liberals angry (the only skill he has) is the entire reason why he won the primary to begin with.

    Michelle Goldberg thinks Franken should resign, even if the charges are bullshit, because a drawn-out ethics committee investigation would kill all the momentum that #metoo has been building up. I don’t know that I buy it. She also makes a joking aside about being a feminist Jacobin and wanting to see all the men in Congress replaced by women. That I can support without a shred of irony.

  61. 61.

    different-church-lady

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Photographer: Do it, it’ll be hilarious when she discovers it.
    Franken: Ya know, why not, it’ll be a laugh, maybe defuse the tension. What if I want to run for political office some day? You know, the Senate or something?
    Photographer: Dude, there’s not a chance in hell you’d win dogcatcher.
    Franken: You’re right, what the heck was I thinking? [leans in]

  65. 65.

    stinger

    @mai naem mobile:

    she chose to continue

    The same type of criticism leveled against Anita Hill and a wide range of actors, scientists, grad students, professional women, and others who for a variety of reasons may have continued to associate with men who harassed/assaulted them. Please don’t go there.

  69. 69.

    Felonius Monk

    @Mnemosyne:

    I guess somebody really hated algebra class.

    It wasn’t just algebra: Roman Numerals: I, II,…,IV, etc versus Arabic Numerals: 1,2,3,4, etc.

    If it wasn’t for Arabs these assholes wouldn’t be able to count their money.

  70. 70.

    lamh36

    Welp… called it.

    Didn’t I say Chump would comment on Franken, but still NOT directly comment on Moore…yep

  71. 71.

    FlipYrWhig

    different-church-lady, I’m not denying bad judgment, just trying to figure out how the two incidents could perhaps be linked in a way besides “creepy guy with a crush is creepy twice.”

  75. 75.

    randy khan

    @stinger:

    Yeah, I don’t find her continuing to do the tours to be particularly meaningful. It might have been that she was over it; it might have been that she felt she needed to do it for her career; it might have been that she decided she would just make sure it never happened again; it might have been any of a hundred reasons. We don’t get to decide what her reasons were.

  77. 77.

    TenguPhule

    @BBA:

    She also makes a joking aside about being a feminist Jacobin and wanting to see all the men in Congress replaced by women. That I can support without a shred of irony.

    Sorry, we’ve sent some bad representatives who are women to the House and Senate.

    Gender has nothing to do with how good you are.

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Assuming the place-name Bronx is either masculine or neuter, you need the dative case of the definite article, which for these genders is dem. This forms a contraction with the preposition in: im, which means “in the”. (In with an accusative article means “into the”.)

    Stop me if I pedant again today.

  83. 83.

    randy khan

    I need to note that my first thought on seeing that Cheryl said she screen shot the Trump tweets was that I didn’t know you could shoot tweets, but in this case it seemed like a good idea.

  84. 84.

    GregB

    Shitty behavior is shitty behavior and needs calling out.

    Interesting that Trump opened the door for Franken by asking if their are additional pictures.

    It will be interesting if there are and what they depict.

  85. 85.

    LurkerNoLonger

    Isn’t it ironic. It’s like rain on your wedding day or an admitted sexual predator accused by 12 different women of harassment pretending to be shocked by a picture in poor taste. Don’t you think?

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Either Bronx or The Bronx is acceptable in American English (Bronx Zoo or The Bronx Zoo, for example), depending on context and linguistic flow. Exceptions are generally if using the name as a specific designation of the county, to wit, Bronx County of the County of Bronx or in cases wherein one or the other is standardized, to wit, Cross-Bronx Expressway.

    Name derives from the Bronk family of New Amsterdam – the area became known as both Bronk’s Farm and The Bronks’ farm before morphing into Bronx. Following Germanic grammatical norms to choose one or the other shouldn’t get you in Dutch.

  88. 88.

    Peale

    @BBA: I’m going to go out in a limb and think that the ethics committee hearings won’t be drawn out and they won’t be much covered. They won’t be knocking wind out of anyone’s sails.

  89. 89.

    GregB

    Justice Gorsuch is such a comedian. Yukking it up the latest Nazi get together by joking about the case if the freezing trucker.

  90. 90.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    Then I guess I could have written either … war eigentlich im Bronx geboren or (omitting the definite article) … war eigentlich in Bronx geboren.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    View through critical lenses:

  93. 93.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    Allow me a slight correction:

    ‘… in der Bronx geboren…’

    It would be possible to use ‘im’, as the short form of ‘in dem’, but then it would have to be

    ‘ … im Stadtteil Bronx geboren .. ‘

    /pedant off

  94. 94.

    Millard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    View through critical lenses:

    My local independent TV station has a quick blurb that they sent out messages to 16 women that worked with Frankin, 6 replied back they they never saw inappropriate behavior.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Millard Filmore: It is what it is. I agree with Senator Franken that women, and also men, who come forward should be treated with respect, should be heard, and their accusations and recollections of events weighed on the merits, not on some partisan or tribal standard. I’m sure the Senate ethics investigation is going to be a zoo, and a useless one at that. I’m also sure more information will come out regarding this. From the photographer who is not, as was originally reported, Franken’s older brother. From others who were on the plane and awake and saw what was going on. And that’s all I can really say because until or unless any of those others come forward, there isn’t really anything else to say. And once they do there may not be anything else to say either.

  98. 98.

    SRW1

    @NotMax:

    Getting weird. As I said, ‘the Bronx’ in German would be ‘die Bronx, whereas ‘Queens’ would never have an article in German, just as it doesn’t have one in English.

  100. 100.

    Tenar Arha

    Orrin Hatch high dudgeon is proof he has forgotten his roots except as a club to beat his opponents and excuse himself. Fair warning, when I watched this I was hollering at the video.

    Sherrod Brown really takes the fight to Orrin Hatch here. No Trumpian namecalling or low blows. Instead focusing on the GOP helping only the ultra-rich. Judging by how mad Hatch got, Brown hit a soft spot. https://t.co/WxDFb8ipHB

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Once I noticed that the pronoun bending, cis-gender defining progressive purists (who are better than any of us) were howling for him to resign and spend the rest of his life attending womyn’s herstory and empowerment ovinars, I knew it was a manipulated shitshow.

    I think that Trump should resign and set an example for the country.

    The progressive purists have the wrong target. As usual.

  104. 104.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:
    Do you think your doctor should take another look? Maybe some imaging of the soft tissue? Some PT could help. It’s taking a long time to heal and you’ve got stuff to do.

  107. 107.

    different-church-lady

    @Adam L Silverman:

    From the photographer who is not, as was originally reported, Franken’s older brother.

    I am shocked, shocked to find there is misinformation going on in this establishment!

  108. 108.

    fuckwit

    @Major Major Major Major: I personally can’t stand rich warmongering egotist Dianne Feinstein. But I’m damn glad she’s there– Franken too– and don’t want Roy Moore there. Still, Franken’s sleazery isn’t excusable. Sure the right-wing model is doing a political hit on him. Doesn’t make what he did right.

    But BOTH SIDES DOOOO ITT!!! EEEMMAAAAILLLSS!!!! The media will have their shiny object and can have their bothsiderism.

    I dunno. I’m coming to think that men just suck and it’s about time we step aside and let women have their turn running all the shit. They can’t possibly do worse than we did. I don’t mind being superfluous.

  110. 110.

    mai naem mobile

    @stinger: I will go there. Sorry but AL Franken was not some huge star who was going to be able to blackball her or a Harvey Weinstein. He wasn’t a Senator. She already had a career. She wasn’t a newbie. He wasn’t her supervisor. It was a volunteer position. The 16 year olds with Roy Moore figured out how to make themselves scarce when he walked into the mall store. Go look at the CSPAN clip of Franken talking about his USO tours. BTW Roger Stone tweeted about Franken last night. There’s a bigger story here than a comedian doing stupid sophomoric shit.

  111. 111.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Amir Khalid:

    Assuming the place-name Bronx is either masculine or neuter, you need the dative case of the definite article

    So long as we agree that the plural is “Bronces”.

  112. 112.

    StringOnAStick

    e@mai naem mobile: The need to make the tax cuts happen plus keep mango moron out of the dock long enough so they can succeed at this makes me think the current oppo research on every single D makes the money spent on the Steele report look like pocket change. Deploying this bomb at the right place and time sure provided some cover for the House to pass the Screw Everyone But The Rich And Corporations bill today. Nice added touch that today’s bomb is the guy who got Sessions on the Congressional record for what will be perjury. Stone is such an egotistical bastard that he just couldn’t not do his heads up brag last night; a real assassin uses silence but not Mr Nixon Tattoo. So yes, I agree that there’s a bigger story here than a comedian doing sophomoric shit.

  113. 113.

    Basilisc

    Not sure which I find more disturbing: the Franken boob-honk photo, or my mental image of Trump staring at the Franken boob-honk photo and fantasizing about what he would have done next.

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