Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

I was promised a recession.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

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

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Yes: You’re Crazy. What? You Want A Second Opinion? OK. You’re Ugly Too*

Yes: You’re Crazy. What? You Want A Second Opinion? OK. You’re Ugly Too*

by | 99 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , ,

*Old shrink joke that applies with a depressingly tight fit to Trump’s Republican Party.

Update: I just noticed I bigfooted Anne Laurie below. Ordinarily, I’d delete this and reschedule it. But my reschedule function has been verklempt lately so I don’t trust that, and I’m about to pass out, so I’ll leave this here on the assumption that the jackals can multitask.

———————

So here’s the thing.  I heard that the Trump-Pence folks were fundraising w. a push poll on immigration.

I decided to respond, as below:

    • is an astonishingly stupid idea that both won’t work and apes the worst of our adversaries in the Cold War. It’s unAmerican, and idiocy to boot.

  11. A truly responsible immigration bill is one that does not begin from a premise of ethnic cleansing. Hatred of folks who talk funny and don’t look like you is no way to go through life.

I’m not going to suggest that any jackals should swamp such a poll — and in fact, it’s pointless to do for this one, as it’s just another iteration of crappy digital age fundraising.  But if you want to tell some of the worst people on earthy how shitty they are, here’s the link.

File this one under completely futile gestures that are still, somehow satisfying.

And, more seriously, if anyone doubted that the Republicans are going all in as the party of ethnic cleansing, doubt no more.

This thread? It is open.

Image:  Pigsty and Latrines, earthenware, probably Henan Province, Han Dynasty, between 1st c. BCE. and 1st c. CE.

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    The idea that you have to speak English perfectly to be allowed to immigrate here is hilarious when you consider that so many Americans speak English poorly. Looking at you, Trump. And you too, Sarah Palin. My Haitian husband and his siblings couldn’t speak a lick of English when they first arrived here.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m starting to want a t-shirt that says something like “Proud Product of Chain Migration.” Still trying to decide on wording. ?

  4. 4.

    Ruckus

    I doubt that ever again in my lifetime any one will be doubted making the statement “Republicans are all fucking assholes.”

  6. 6.

    hellslittlestangel

    Your reschedule function has become overcome with emotion? That’s weird.

    ETA: No Yiddishland citizenship for you!

  7. 7.

    Ruckus

    @Patricia Kayden:
    If it wasn’t so sickening it would still be pathetic, the thought that there is one supreme language and one supreme skin color. The fucking arrogance of people to assume that. Especially given that they are useless humans themselves. Maybe they figure since they really can’t find a microgram of humanity among a thousand of them that everyone else must have less.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    Excellent, Tom.

    Miller’s Trump’s MAGA was already tried in Albania. It didn’t work out too well.

    Keep up the fight. See you tomorrow. ‘Night all.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    varmintito

    I’m pretty happy with my #1: “If it’s good enough for the GDR it’s good enough for the GOP.”

  14. 14.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Trump is tweeting.

    Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!

    Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA. We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people!

  17. 17.

    Villago Delenda Est

    By “merit” they mean “white”.

    This much is obvious.

    I hate these motherfuckers. They’re undermining the entire concept of “America” as I understand it and want to impose the concept of the Third Reich.

  18. 18.

    Ruckus

    I’m posing a question.
    Is there anything, anything at all positive than anyone currently involved in republican politics has provided to the human race?
    And no, their dying doesn’t count although that might be the best thing they could do.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ruckus: It’s the only way they can make a claim about their “superiority”. So they go for it.

    They are wretches unworthy of this country; they deserve to be enserfed.

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    I’d support depatriating (not sure if this is a thing, but it should be) lots of stupid Americans. And keeping Dreamers and immigrants.

    I wish I could buy a container of cheese cannoli filling and sit back right now and devour it.

  26. 26.

    The Dangerman

    …if anyone doubted that the Republicans are going all in as the party of ethnic cleansing…

    Nope. DACA may pass the Senate, but I don’t see it going anyplace in the House. To their base, amnesty is verboten…

    …unless it’s their President boning a porn star and then paying her off. Then, amnesty is OK.

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Actually no.
    I can see where you’d think that, given my writing here for the last what 10 yrs? But no, I’m thinking a list of positives along side their negatives might just be interesting. We see regularly the positives that numerous dems have added to humanity, can anyone think of any major positive that a republican in politics has added?
    And it can be someone who finances conservative politicians as well.

    ETA I’ll start off. I can’t think of one. And I’m going all in, a better pizza would qualify for example.

  33. 33.

    Suzanne

    @Ksmiami: Let’s just drop them off Somewhere Else so I never have to deal with them again.

    The tariffs on solar panels did not put me in a good mood.

  35. 35.

    Duane

    I filled out the survey and am now a member of the team. Obviously, they didn’t read my responses.

  41. 41.

    Peale

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I think they want to see every text those two ever sent but their phones didn’t store them. Whatever. They want to root out any other agents who might be disloyal is what they want.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Probably reconsider the entire US market. It may just not be worth doing business here for any offshore company. How many auto factories are in drumpf states? Wonder if they might just say screw it, shut em down and import the cars, who cares if they cost more. `

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: Does it come premade? Every time I make it, I have to drain the cheese a day in advance, blah blah blah. I just want all of the work done for me so all I have to do is eat it.

  48. 48.

    gene108

    Thanks for the link to the survey. It probably won’t get read, but it is somewhat cathartic to think I am actually telling the President off in some manner that someone, who shares his views might read what the majority of Americans think.

  49. 49.

    Lyrebird

    @Suzanne:

    I’d support depatriating (not sure if this is a thing, but it should be) lots of stupid Americans. And keeping Dreamers and immigrants.

    Did you see any of the signs from last year along the, “Will trade racists for refugees” line? Thought that was excellent.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: How the fuck would I know? I assume you can order most food online. I’ve spent all but seven years of my life as a bachelor.

  55. 55.

    Ksmiami

    @Suzanne: it’s coming to that/ this story of the majority being ruled by a minority never ends well- for the minority that is: the French aristocracy thought they were safe too…

  60. 60.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Ruckus: Something I learned last year from a talk by a person from the New Mexico commerce department was that cars that are “made in Mexico” are actually manufactured in a complicated back-and-forth of parts shuffled back and forth across the border. Quite a bit of it occurs in New Mexico and other HIGHLY DANGEROUS border states, which is good for them. IIRC, the process in the northern states is somewhat similar.

    I’m guessing that something like that would happen at the washing machine plant in South Carolina – some of the parts would come from Japan, maybe other places including the US, and the final assembly in in the US. Which part is made where, according to the New Mexico guy, has to do with tax and tariff laws, which makes sense.

    So now Samsung and others will have to reshuffle all that and decide what’s in their best interests.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve tried it. It’s a letdown. I like tiramisu-flavored, though. And amaretto.

    But the cheese is the best part of the cannoli. It doesn’t translate well to gelato, IMO.

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    Easy peasy.
    That place we went last time in Old Town, sat in the patio, it’s on the south side of Colorado. Was actually the time before last, when we went to the bar near PCC. Food is OK, lots of beers if one likes that sort of thing, 2 blocks from the Del Mar gold line station. There is a place in the gold line station with outside seating, La Grande Orange Cafe. Never been there but it looks good.

  66. 66.

    Chris

    @Suzanne:

    I’d support depatriating (not sure if this is a thing, but it should be) lots of stupid Americans. And keeping Dreamers and immigrants.

    Frankly, yeah. The extent to which native-born Americans have always needed the immigrants they hate to save their bacon is kind of mind-boggling. (You can thank a hell of a lot of South European, East European, and other immigrants from “shithole countries” who partially brought the Old World’s new bizarro ideologies with them for all the labor gains of the 20th century).

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    I’ve been to the pizza place at the Del Mar station — it was good, but super busy. Grand Orange is expensive.

    Congregation Alehouse is across the street, but I can’t remember what non-booze options they have.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    @gene108:

    Precisely. I was assuming that none of these people were as obsessive SW nerds as I was.

    (After all, SW is only one letter short of SJW, and we all know to stay away from those people).

  70. 70.

    Duane

    On the subject of I hate these people, Missouri’s wife cheating, misstress blackmailing Governor has proposed a 10% cut to higher education. 6.5% was cut last year.There’s no reason for it, just IGMFY.
    Look out Kansas here we come.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    This is what these business geniuses have not one clue about. I can’t think of many thing entirely manufactured in one country any more. I’m sure they exist but I can’t think of a thing. Take a machine tool manufacturer such as Hass, a company in southern CA. I’d bet that the electronics are not mfg here nor the precision parts. These are purchased. The do a huge amount of machining of raw castings, also made here, assembly and such but some parts just are not reasonably made here. Same with cars, same with Harley Davidson motorcycles, that American Icon of loutishness. Several of some of the most expensive parts of a HD are made in Germany or Japan. The engine in my 2016 Ford is made in England.
    It is a small world and the fucking nut jobs of the republican party want to be isolationists, which will accomplish exactly what they want, getting them back to the 1850s Fucking morons. Maybe @Villago Delenda Est: has had the right idea all along. Follow the French example. Let them eat blade. We’ll make them comfortable, nice place to lie down and all that.

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @Tom Levenson:

    Using morans (in #2) outside of the Balloon Juice in-joke-o-sphere probably not a great idea.

  75. 75.

    NotMax

    @Cheryl Rofer

    My understanding is that Samsung contracts out to have at least some parts made in China, not Japan.

    A bit more info.

    In a blow to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on two industries with big stakes in the state’s economy.

    McMaster has spent the past several months heavily lobbying the administration for leniency in the two trade cases, expressing cautious optimism his ties to the president could help protect the state.
    [snip]
    Samsung recently opened a home appliance plant in Newberry, S.C., and affiliates with the manufacturing giant say tariffs could make it difficult for the new operation to stay viable. It has opened for business and hired more than 600 people with plans to employ as many as 1,000 by 2020. The company has also been working to forge research partnerships with Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.

    A Samsung spokesperson would not discuss the company’s next steps, saying in a statement that “today’s announcement is a great loss for American consumers and workers.”

    Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who represents Newberry, told McClatchy Samsung president’s had told him this decision would “not bode well” for the company.

    “I didn’t expect this to be the end result,” Norman said. “It’s a real setback, particularly since it’s after the fact” of the company’s opening.

    The solar industry, the other target of Monday’s ruling, has boomed in South Carolina. There are concerns that tariffs on imported solar panels could stall this growth by making panels more difficult to afford.

    The only manufacturers that can provide panels by the thousands — the number needed to set up solar farms — are companies overseas in places like Taiwan, Malaysia and China.

    Southern Current, which has 80 utility-scale solar projects planned for South Carolina, now has nowhere stateside to buy the 72-cell solar panels it needs, said Bret Sowers, vice president of development and strategy.

    “We just put a tariff on a product that we can’t even buy in the United State,” Sowers said.
    [snip]
    At his fundraiser in Greenville in October, McMaster facilitated meet-and-greets for Trump with representatives from Samsung and state solar power companies at a VIP reception for some of the governor’s most generous donors. Source

    Haven’t come across any reaction from SC’s Senator Graham or from former governor Haley as yet.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    CA is way too noisy. I’ve been to another for lunch and it wasn’t bad but every time I walk by CA it is loud.
    Is the place I’m thinking of the Kings Row Gastropub?

  78. 78.

    catclub

    @Peale:

    They want to root out any other agents who might be disloyal is what they want.

    I think establishing a precedent that FBI agents who don’t like party X can be rooted out will come back to haunt them in a few years.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:
    I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for anything positive.
    At some point the not completely brain dead state pols will have to realize that their favorite son is fucking them, and not in any good way. Will it be soon enough, are there enough not brain dead republicans left? I’m not holding my breath waiting either.

  83. 83.

    Duane

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Bricks in the wall is right. Homeschooling, the attacks on public schools and higher education are republicans attempt to keep the populace ignorant and under control. If they leave the farm, they might gain knowledge. Education is kryptonite to republican ideology.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Thanks, that’s what/where I was thinking. It is the best place I can think of, not horribly expensive, outdoor seating is big enough for a gathering, Sunday afternoon not a hugely busy time, which would work for a few other places but most of them are noisy no matter how busy.

  86. 86.

    Ruckus

    @Duane:
    Don’t forget it might just be that they think that schools in the 1850s could also be segregated very easily. Can’t have any of that mixing stuff going on, one never knows who might screw whom and dilute the master race.

  87. 87.

    Duane

    @Mike J: I’m ashamed of the legislature’s response to black people wanting fair treatment at MU. Obviously,our state government has no such shame. Another example of not even trying to hide it amymore.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    Sure they did — that’s why they fought a whole war to prevent them from becoming citizens, and then spent another 50+ years preventing them from voting.

    Conservatives love “chain migration” when they can keep those people in chains.

  91. 91.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Ruckus: AFAIK Andy Gardiner hasn’t done anything in Florida politics since being forced out of our State Senate by term limits, so I can’t think of anyone. If you’d asked this before that, I could’ve answered in the affirmative (as one of at least a few examples, he diverted tens of millions of dollars in the state budget to scholarships for disabled children/students).

    State and local politics are weird when it comes to party ID, though; a lot of people who would run as Democrats elsewhere (and whose politics consistently align with the Democratic Party) run as Republicans here. I personally know one of our former school board members; his politics are consistently liberal, almost aggressively so, but he ran as a Republican because, with a single exception (Barbara Ford-Coates, county tax collector since 1984, is a Democrat), only Republicans get elected in Sarasota County. (That may change this year – we’ll get a good indication with next month’s special election for the state House – but it was definitely the case before Trump.)

    Apart from that, I’ve heard tell that Nevada governor Brian Sandoval isn’t completely terrible, though I know almost nothing about him, and a few of the Republican governors seem to have come down on the side of Medicaid expansion, though unlike Gardiner’s case, that seems like a case of what TV Tropes would describe as “wants a prize for basic human decency”.

    At the national level, though, it’s a complete wasteland. I can’t think of anyone with an R after their name who currently has a seat in either the House or the Senate where I can’t help thinking humanity would be better off in the aggregate if they’d never been born. And that’s even taking into account relative comparisons – e.g., if they weren’t there, someone even worse would be instead. They’re almost unanimously terrible through and through.

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @(((CassandraLeo))):
    Considering how many there are in office the few that people can name is pretty amazing. I can’t think of any in CA and I agree with you about the national ones, some are among the worst assholes on the planet, far worse than just useless, they are actively trying to be horrible. Although this shouldn’t be a surprise, they been trying, and succeeding, to be horrible, for decades.

  93. 93.

    ohthatguy

    Filling this out was kind of fun. The Bible is pretty clear on how foreigners should be treated, so quote liberally. Make interns look at their sinful behavior

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @ohthatguy:

    And don’t forget the parable of the sheep and the goats: those who don’t help for strangers and refugees get thrown into the fire. ?

  95. 95.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Mnemosyne: As far as I understand it, one of the most stinging insults you can call a Christian True Believer is to call them a goat.

    Pretty much all of today’s right-wing evangelicals are goats.

    (Incidentally, one of my favourite albums of all-time, Fas – ite, maledicti, in ignem, aeternum by Deathspell Omega, takes its name from the Vulgate of this passage, with the rather pessimistic implication that all of mankind is incapable of salvation. I don’t agree with that interpretation, but it certainly is compelling music. Definitely not for the faint of heart, though.)

    With that, I think I’m off to bed. G’nite all!

  96. 96.

    Vhh

    @Chris: For example: In WWII, the Rad Lab (which developed radar and the instrument landing system for aircraft) and the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) were heavily staffed by high skill immigrants and first gen Americans from Germany, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Italy, Austria, and other countries turned into shitholes or collaborators :by Hitler and Stalin. These people, who did not speak English at home, were largely responsible for the US transformation into a high tech superpower. Oh yeah, and huge fraction of them were not even Christian….they were Jews.

  97. 97.

    schrodingers_cat

    And please can we leave fucking “chain migration” and “anchor baby” terminology to VDARE and other assorted hate sites.

    Thanks.

    Its family reunification, that’s what the law of the land calls it.

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    @Suzanne:

    Regarding the solar tariff, me neither! Our tiny house in AZ is totally off grid.

    But on the other hand good news, I read a comment from someone who works in the solar industry, who said that the tariff only causes a small effect on large capital solar investments, and changes to cost of actual solar panels to be about what they cost in early 2016. And 18 months from now, they will be cheaper WITH the tariff than they were the day before the tariff was announced.

    So you can’t fight scientific and technological change with accounting trickery. Trump’s new tariffs will not substantially change the speed of adoption of a less expensive source of electric power.

    Hope you’re doing well in Phoenix. I had planned to be in SE AZ from late Jan to early March, but changed my mind when we signed up for a trip to Baja and the Sea of Cortez in early March. I understand the scenery and experience is a bucket list event, I love shallow reefs and desert islands, etc. A mixture of the Sonoran Desert and the Ocean.

    A good trade off, though I love Tucson and the Gem and Mineral (and fossils) event which takes over the city for the last 2 weeks of January and the first two weeks of February.

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