Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

He really is that stupid.

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

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

T R E 4 5 O N

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

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

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

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / I wake up screaming

I wake up screaming

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Jake Tapper used to show up here and I always respected his attitude. I didn’t always agree with his positions, but it seemed like he gave a fuck. And giving a fuck is the most important thing. I like this a lot:

Jake Tapper sometimes wakes up angry. This may be a good thing for America.

Amid the chaos of the Donald Trump presidency, and the deep partisanship that filters through seemingly all aspects of American life in 2017, Tapper is motivated by the same forces that have animated much of his career in journalism. He can’t stand hypocrisy. He can’t stand unfairness. He can’t stop talking about it.

“I recognize that it’s probably a pain in the ass for a lot of people now,” he told The Atlantic. “But it is just who I am.”

“I’m just like, I don’t want any of this to be happening,” he added. “There are so many lies and so much indecency, and I’m not only talking about President Trump. There is just a world of it exploding—and we are, I fear, as a nation, becoming conditioned and accepting of it. And it’s horrific.”

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    Never forget who we are, who we aspire to be. You only get conditioned if you think there is nothing you can do about it. And that is just what the two-bit ratfuck soulless criminals running it into the ground want.

    #Resist

  4. 4.

    LurkerNoLonger

    Tapper used to come around here? Interesting. I wonder if CNN forbade him from ever coming back.

  5. 5.

    donnah

    The frustration is inescapable as long as Trump and the Republican party and all of their followers continue to normalize, accept, and adopt their outrageous behavior. Lying, stealing, bigotry, racism, and misogyny are blatantly accepted now, at least more than ever before. For the Republicans, as it has always been, party over country. The party is horrific, and anything now will stand: increasing the national debt, politicians who are pedophiles and rapists, military build-up to record levels, and a destruction of social systems and schools.

    Every day is packed with new revelations of how low the Republicans will sink. There is no bottom of the barrel. We’ll have to continue to back the good guys, get out the votes, and find the guts to beat them.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    “There are so many lies and so much indecency, and I’m not only talking about President Trump.”

    But Trump is a special case. His lies and indecency affects us all. It pulls us all in, and endangers the nation.

  8. 8.

    Scotian

    @Doug!:

    @timmeh:

    Better than Wolf and Chuck Todd.

    Really low bar there. Like microscopically above the ground IMHO.

    Me, I remember Tapper’s obsession with emails enough that it seriously undercuts his credibility with me, and it would not surprise me more than a few others. The outrage at this point feels more a part of his “brand” than genuine. That is just my POV though, YMMV.

  10. 10.

    Calouste

    @donnah:

    Lying, stealing, bigotry, racism, and misogyny are blatantly accepted now, at least more than ever before.

    Let’s keep things in perspective. 50 years ago racism was still the law in a number of states. You can’t have it more blatantly accepted than that.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It’s a world Tapper helped create with his chronic Broderism during the Obama years, particularly his defense of the propaganda outfit known as Faux Noise.

  12. 12.

    Raoul

    @Doug!: I think Tapper has stepped up in the wake of the Trump-journalism debacle in far better ways than most mainstreamers. Is he perfect, oh heck no. But he could teach a masterclass on accountability compared to a horde of bothsiderists still plying their devastating trade.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @rikyrah: The most vocal homophobes always seem to be deep in the closet…wouldn’t be surprised at all if that were the case with Tony “Not the fine film actor” Perkins.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    OT, but we’re on WTF territory here.

    A U.S. warship collided with a Japanese commercial tug boat in Japan’s Sagami Bay on Saturday, marking the fifth time this year that a ship in the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet in the Pacific has been involved in a crash.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: Crews are overworked, over tasked, errors happen. The Armed Forces are understaffed, and the reason is we’re in a perpetual war that discourages volunteers, especially when they know Donald and the GOP will fuck them over if they get injured.

  22. 22.

    HeleninEire

    Ireland just beat Fiji in, dunno, football? rugby? baseball? (yeah prolly not baseball) dunno. No clue about Irish sports except that they are CRAZY about sports. This pub is gonna get crazy even though it is 2 miles from Aviva Stadium.

    Oh while writing this 50 drunk Irishmen came in. One asked “Is this the bar?”

    Yes sweetie, this is the bar.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    What Will Become of California’s Progressivism If the Court Sides with Janus?

    Gabriel Thompson

    November 17, 2017

    The Supreme Court is expected to side in Janus v. AFSCME against public-sector unions, a key force in bringing the state’s progressive ballot initiatives to victory.

    Mark Janus, an Illinois child-support worker, will soon argue
    before the U.S. Supreme Court that his free-speech rights have been violated because he must pay “agency fees” to a union that negotiates contracts on his behalf. Last year, California elementary school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs made the same First Amendment arguments at the high court against the teachers association to which she paid agency fees.
    The court deadlocked on Friedrichs’s complaint following the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, but his replacement, Justice Neil Gorsuch, is widely expected to cast a decisive vote in favor of Janus and against public-sector unions in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

    In 2012, as Election Day neared, polls
    showed dwindling support for California’s Proposition 30, which sought to avoid a crippling $6 billion cut in the state’s public education system. Without Prop 30, Governor Jerry Brown warned, many more teachers would be laid off from a system already racked by cutbacks, and the schoolyear would likely be slashed by three weeks.

    Despite a $36 million donation from Republican activist Charles
    Munger Jr. to a committee opposing both Prop 30 and another ballot
    measure, along with a competing proposition sponsored with $44 million from his sister, Molly Munger, voters passed the initiative by a
    55-to-46 margin. By doing so, they rescued the school system by
    reinvesting billions of dollars into preschool, K-12, and community
    colleges. And voters did so, in large part, thanks to the political
    muscle of the state’s public-sector unions.

    In the weeks leading up to the election, armies of union members
    fanned out across the state to knock on doors, while three unions—the California Teachers Association, the statewide council of the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of Teachers—spent a combined $26 million in support of the initiative, serving as a counterbalance to the deep pockets of the Mungers and other wealthy donors. Last year, as Prop 30 was set to expire, unions pushed through Proposition 55, which extended the income tax on high earners for another dozen years.

    “The truth is, in the last 25 years, no major progressive proposition
    has passed without labor being a primary donor,” said Kenneth Burt, who retired last month after spending two decades as the political director of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT). A 2012 study of public-sector union influence over California ballot initiatives since 1980, prepared by the conservative Manhattan Institute, came to the same conclusion. “Whenever a proposal was especially important to the unions,” its author wrote, “they almost always won.”

    http://prospect.org/article/what-will-become-californias-progressivism-if-court-sides-janus

  26. 26.

    Ruviana

    I’m sort of glad to see this. I remember in the mid-to-late 90s when Tapper was one of my go-to reads at Salon. He covered the Clinton stuff in a way that reduced my fear and panic about the right-wing ratfuckery going on at the time–think Olberman on MSNBC in the early-to-mid aughts. Sometimes you take your support where you find it. I’ve noticed his comments and tweets have gotten, shall we say, more robust lately.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    Eric Boehlert‏Verified account @EricBoehlert
    24h24 hours ago

    reminder: during Obama years, DC press couldn’t sleep at night knowing bills might pass w/o GOP support.

    today, press couldn’t care less that WH can’t get *single* Dem vote on anything
    72 replies 1,535 retweets 3,057 likes

    Eric Boehlert‏Verified account @EricBoehlert

    DC press was **obsessed** w/ bipartisan votes. (they were signs of LEADERSHIP)

    today, they couldn’t care less.
    1:05 PM – 17 Nov 2017

  28. 28.

    Another Scott

    @rikyrah: Horrifying.

    But we can’t forget that we can change the laws and rules, too.

    Things like this should motivate people to vote for sensible candidates, and sensible executives who appoint these federal judges.

    Yes, these are dark times. But if (as appears to be the case) it finally wakes the complacent up to the damage that these monsters can do when they’re in power, well, maybe the country’s path will “bend towards justice” a little faster in the future.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  29. 29.

    ThresherK

    Two years ago, did Tapper think Trump would be in the White House? If Hillary were Madam President now, would Tapper be any better a journo than he was a year and a half ago?

    On each, I think not.

    For him and everyone like him: Try acting like the victim at a show trial, looking for the perfect amount of kneeling, begging, scraping, and combination of words. You know, the thing they demanded of Hillary, and Bill, time and time again.

    And then, maybe, I’ll change my mind.

  31. 31.

    ThresherK

    @rikyrah: Oh, I remember a pundit, or an R, not being run out on a rail when they suggested that a genuine, acceptable bill (either the stiumulus or the ACA) needed 75-80 votes in the Senate or someone’s fucking fee-fees would be hurt.

  35. 35.

    cain

    @Doug!:

    Better than Wolf and Chuck Todd.

    Wolf always sends me around the bend.. the vapid look on his face just irritates me to no end. I don’t see how he got where he got while looking at him gives you the impression of what a bovine bi-ped looks like after tequila bender the night before.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: It is and Perkins has finally gotten himself in trouble he can’t get out of (emphasis mine):
    http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2151.421

    2151.421 Reporting child abuse or neglect.
    (A)

    (1)

    (a) No person described in division (A)(1)(b) of this section who is acting in an official or professional capacity and knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect based on facts that would cause a reasonable person in a similar position to suspect, that a child under eighteen years of age, or a person, under twenty-one years of age with a developmental disability or physical impairment, has suffered or faces a threat of suffering any physical or mental wound, injury, disability, or condition of a nature that reasonably indicates abuse or neglect of the child shall fail to immediately report that knowledge or reasonable cause to suspect to the entity or persons specified in this division. Except as provided in section 5120.173 of the Revised Code, the person making the report shall make it to the public children services agency or a municipal or county peace officer in the county in which the child resides or in which the abuse or neglect is occurring or has occurred. In the circumstances described in section 5120.173 of the Revised Code, the person making the report shall make it to the entity specified in that section.

    (b) Division (A)(1)(a) of this section applies to any person who is an attorney; health care professional; practitioner of a limited branch of medicine as specified in section 4731.15 of the Revised Code; licensed school psychologist; independent marriage and family therapist or marriage and family therapist; coroner; administrator or employee of a child day-care center; administrator or employee of a residential camp, child day camp, or private, nonprofit therapeutic wilderness camp; administrator or employee of a certified child care agency or other public or private children services agency; school teacher; school employee; school authority; agent of a county humane society; person, other than a cleric, rendering spiritual treatment through prayer in accordance with the tenets of a well-recognized religion; employee of a county department of job and family services who is a professional and who works with children and families; superintendent or regional administrator employed by the department of youth services; superintendent, board member, or employee of a county board of developmental disabilities; investigative agent contracted with by a county board of developmental disabilities; employee of the department of developmental disabilities; employee of a facility or home that provides respite care in accordance with section 5123.171 of the Revised Code; employee of an entity that provides homemaker services; a person performing the duties of an assessor pursuant to Chapter 3107. or 5103. of the Revised Code; third party employed by a public children services agency to assist in providing child or family related services; court appointed special advocate; or guardian ad litem.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Also, given this is one of his former staffers who engaged in the abuse, what did Congressman Jim Jordan know and when did he know it? Has the founder of the Freedom Caucus been covering for his former staffer?

  40. 40.

    BC in Illinois

    @rikyrah:

    And the head of the “Family Research Council,” who covered up the sexual assault of a young man by a GOP candidate at a fund-raising event, is Tony Perkins, a big name in right-wing circles.

    Perkins told the young man:

    “Trust me . . . this will not be ignored nor swept aside,” replied Perkins, who also heads the Family Research Council, a prominent evangelical activist group. “It will be dealt with swiftly, but with prudence.”

    Perhaps words were spoken privately, “with prudence.” Nothing was done.

    “Goodman continued his campaign and went on to defeat two fellow Republicans in a hotly contested primary before winning his seat last November.” Now, after he has resigned, “Emails and documents show a small circle of people discussed the complaints about Goodman before he went on to later misconduct at the statehouse. . . . In Ohio, supporters of Goodman’s campaign wondered why they were not alerted to his past behavior.”

    Family – – maybe. Party – – always.

  43. 43.

    Citizen Alan

    @ThresherK:

    I still remember the Toddler receiving the privilege of being the very first journalist chosen to ask a question of Obama at his very first Presidential news conference, and the question the son of a bitch asked was “will you veto a healthcare bill if it doesn’t have any Republican votes?”

  44. 44.

    HeleninEire

    @Omnes Omnibus: So this is the 4th time I am writing this.

    Thank you. I thought it was me, but Schrödinger’s Cat at 30 makes me think that maybe it was the site.

    So Thanks; once. Don’t get a swelled head and think I said it four times if the other Thanks show up. ;)

  46. 46.

    frosty

    @Adam L Silverman: I find this to be utterly depressing. The DoD takes most of my tax dollars and we still can’t field a fighting force without crippling it for 6 months? Sailors are too tired to avoid collisons? Where the fuck is my money going?

  48. 48.

    frosty

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, sure. But there aren’t that many CEOs and hookers and blow generally cost less than several trillion dollars. I suspect I know the answer: F-35, and other poorly-spec’d hardware designed for the last war, or the one before that. Or is there something else too?

  49. 49.

    PJ

    @Ruviana: Tapper was always a tool. He would still be working at the Washington City Paper if he hadn’t bought himself a ticket out with a piece describing his date with Monica Lewinsky.

  51. 51.

    Davebo

    @Villago Delenda Est: I’m not sure I’m buying that explanation. At least not completely.

    Crews in the 6th fleet are overworked too but you don’t see it happening in the Med. Why just West Pac?

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: NavyTimes:

    A Japanese tug boat lost propulsion and collided with the guided-missile destroyer Benfold during a routine towing exercise Saturday, a 7th Fleet release said.

    “No one was injured on either vessel and Benfold sustained minimal damage,” 7th Fleet officials said.

    A full damage assessment is underway, according to officials.

    “Benfold remains at sea under her own power,” the release said. “The Japanese commercial tug is being towed by another vessel to a port in Yokosuka.”

    The ship is currently forward-deployed to 7th Fleet’s vast area of operations.

    Towing exercises are a routine part of individual unit training of surface ships, designed to prepare the crew for how to handle bringing their own ship under tow by another vessel.

    While understood to be minimally severe, the incident is yet another red flag for the Navy’s troubled 7th Fleet.

    […]

    Anytime anything hits a ship, it’s a big deal.

    But this is very different from the McCain and Fitzgerald collisions earlier this year.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Mike in NC

    “No one was injured on either vessel and Benfold sustained minimal damage,” 7th Fleet officials said.

    That’s the good news but the CO will still probably be canned because that’s how the system works, plus there are plenty of ambitious surface warfare officers waiting for a command assignment.

  61. 61.

    Duane

    @rikyrah: People who enjoy the benefits of a union but dont want to pay for it are scabs.If it’s so damned bad, go find a non-union job and live in your Galt’s Ditch utopia.

  62. 62.

    laura

    @rikyrah:
    I’m expecting my 20 years as a Union business representative to come to and end with the Janus decision. It will probably take 18 months and so long career.
    In the meantime, negotiating for better wages after 10 years of slight increases that were more than off set by cost shifting, taking disciplinary cases with merit to arbitration, listening to Members work life and home life problems because they have few places to turn -watching the Case Deakins study happen in real time doing the best I can for skilled and semi-skilled blue collar workers until I’m out of a job.

    And it has been a privilege to serve them. I love them, truly respect them. If you knew how much pride your union garbage truck driver had in their work driving a route, or how difficult it is for your shelter attendant to spend days euthanizing animals and still keep coming to work in hopes of making animals lives better, the highways and bridges workers who ensured that the extreme rains didn’t cut off access in and out of the capital, the custodians at the mental health treatment centers who make sure the soiled linens are stripped off beds and moved outside so that the day shift at the psych ward, and family can walk into a facility that doesn’t reek of human waste.

    Janus will harm me. But Janus will really harm working people even as it’s being sold as a help.

  63. 63.

    kbuttle

    Man the last time you had to step back it was such a bummer, but Doug!/DougJ/MetrosexualblackAbeJ/allthenames: “You know it’s true, everything I do, I do it for you…”

  64. 64.

    Kathleen

    @Doug!: Two awfully low bars. Tapper can be one of the worst both siderists out there. He can also be decent sometimes. I still don’t understand his obsession with Obama sneaking smokes after he said he quit. FFS.

    ETA: Thomas The Train is better than Wolf and Todd. Congratulations and be prepared to become immersed in the world of Thomas, which is a pretty good one.

  66. 66.

    Bart

    Yeah, let’s not heap too much praise on Tapper, who right now is dragging up Bill Clinton’s scandals because heaven forbids if we can’t “both sides” the #metoo fall-out. Hell, he’s also still talking about the Donna Brazile CNN town hall scandal…

    Oh, and he’s retweeted a tweet about Louis Farakhan saying something anti-Semitic, because Farakhan is such an influential figure.

  69. 69.

    DanR2

    Jake Tapper’s writing on Salon helped get me through NOV-DEC of 2000 during the Shrub-Gore recount nonsense. Seemed like he lost his edge scrambling up the ladder and became the king of bothsiderism.

  70. 70.

    Brachiator

    @HeleninEire:

    Oh while writing this 50 drunk Irishmen came in. One asked “Is this the bar?”

    Very belatedly, there is something humorously redundant about 50 drunk Irishmen walking into a bar.

    Cheers

  71. 71.

    WarMunchkin

    This is the Obama is dishonest because he struggles with cigarettes guy? Or is he the Nico Pitney is such a dick guy. I think that was Dana Milbank? Man media jerks are hard to keep track of…

  72. 72.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Baud: Trump is bad luck. Warship collisions, hurricanes, pipeline breaks and oil spills – bad, bad, bad luck.

  73. 73.

    SgrAstar

    @laura: I think I’m crying. We are losing so much. Thank you for the powerful statement, Laura. Gotta keep strong, somehow.

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