Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The words do not have to be perfect.

In my day, never was longer.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Bark louder, little dog.

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

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Second rate reporter says what?

Come on, man.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

He really is that stupid.

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

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Schadenfreude Open Thread: Neither the Best, Nor the Brightest

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Neither the Best, Nor the Brightest

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Meanwhile, the “intellectual” wing of the Republican Party has decided to champion Carter Page as… too dumb to be an actual conspirator. As Jonathan Chait reports sarcastically in NYMag, “Republicans: If Poor Carter Page Can Be Wiretapped, Who Among Us Is Safe?”

… There were reasons for the FBI to notice Page. Described as an “energy executive,” he lived for a time in Russia, was always trying to drum up business, often in Russia, and his name popped up in a case against three Russians who in 2013 were posing as businessmen and trying to recruit Americans to become Russian agents. The Russians apparently wanted to enlist Page, who in the end was not accused of any wrongdoing and has denied any contacts with the Russians beyond ordinary business communications. For their part, the Russians came to view Page as something less than a prize; one of them was captured on a wiretap calling him an “idiot.”

So Page was no Russian agent, nor did he ever appear to be in danger of becoming a Russian agent. Nevertheless, the case put Page on the FBI’s Russia radar screen…

One reason some Republicans cite for their interest is based in civil liberties: If they’ll do it to Page today, they’ll do it to you tomorrow.

But another motivation for some Republicans is the growing suspicion that the FBI simply botched a critical aspect of the Trump-Russia investigation, that the bureau acted without sufficient reason to believe Page was a significant figure in any alleged Trump-Russia collusion…



And Junior is still doing his best to “help”…


SO MUCH WINNING!

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  2. 2.

    misterpuff

    To think we could have avoided all of this if Jebbie had backed up the Brinks trucks to Trump Tower…..

  5. 5.

    Jerzy Russian

    Meanwhile, the “intellectual” wing of the Republican Party has decided to champion Carter Page as… too dumb to be an actual conspirator.

    To be fair to them, Mr. Page is unusually stupid…

  7. 7.

    Mike J

    Has anybody come up with an educated guess why Gates’ lawyers all quit today? I have a wild ass, completely uneducated guess.

    Conflict of interest is a very good reason to quit. I can’t believe they would have taken the case to begin with if they were representing somebody else. But who was paying them? If you’re negotiating a flipping, perhaps potential joint defenses turn into conflicts of interest.

  10. 10.

    efgoldman

    @NotMax:

    Or an imaginary number.

    I have long (long, LONG) forgotten 12th grade math. But I knew at least one of you jackals would jump in

  11. 11.

    Feebog

    @Mike J:

    Could be any number of reasons. Gates has hired an attorney known for his ability to negotiate plea deals. It may be as simple as he no longer needs courtroom litigators.

  12. 12.

    FlipYrWhig

    It’s hard to imagine a person who says “You know who’s a smart guy who really knows what’s going on? Sean Hannity.” And yet that person is now the President. Hannity looks and sounds like a high school football star who couldn’t hack the college game so he went back to his home town and opened a car wash.

  14. 14.

    Mike J

    @Feebog:

    It may be as simple as he no longer needs courtroom litigators.

    I would think if that were the case, they would still be counsel of record, but just wouldn’t be doing any work. Asking to be taken off the case seems like more than they aren’t needed.

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @FlipYrWhig: Sean Hannity as an adviser certainly explains why Trump still obsesses over ratings and popularity. Apparently Trump still hasn’t learned from Wolfe that reporters might be sucking up to Trump for some hit piece.

  18. 18.

    efgoldman

    @Mike J:

    Asking to be taken off the case seems like more than they aren’t needed.

    Lots of lawyers speculated in the earlier thread that there’s no more money to pay them

  20. 20.

    joel hanes

    @efgoldman:

    > > went back to his home town and opened a car wash.

    > With a big stars ‘n bars on the outside of the tunnel.

    Quietly employs a smart high school kid to keep it running
    Skims the till

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ ArthurDelaneyHP
    Republicans say 3 million workers have benefited from tax reform bonuses or raises.
    2 million of those work at Walmart, Home Depot & Lowe’s, which announced $1,000 bonuses.
    You only get the full $1k if you’ve worked there for… 20 years.

    and the Waltons laid off several thousand people when they shut down Sam’s Clubs. Carrier moved its plant to Mexico, and yesterday I read that Harley-Davidson, another of trump’s photo-ops, is laying off 600 people due to market loss they attribute to trump pulling out of TPP

    ETA: and what made me think of that Delaney tweet

    Mike Dorning‏Verified account @ MikeDorning
    Twinkie Maker’s Response to the Trump Tax Overhaul: Employees Get a Year of Free Snacks

  26. 26.

    eemom

    Byron fucking York. Yep, real intellectual heavyweight; kind of like George Will on a bad hair day.

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    I’m kind of binge watching a new series on Netflix called “Babylon Berlin” set in the late 1920s before the Nazis came to power. Recent German show dubbed in English. Depicts the flaws of the Weimar Republic, with corrupt cops, decadent popular culture, and includes plenty of collusion by Soviet agents and spies. What is old is new again!

  30. 30.

    B.B.A.

    Well, it’s officially been more than five years since Hillary Clinton and her email server left the State Department, which means the statute of limitations on almost any federal crime she may have committed while in office has expired. So it looks like LOCK HER UP is one campaign promise that Donnie will never fulfill.

  32. 32.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The gang that couldn’t shoot straight at least remembered to load their weapons. These guys can’t manage that.

  33. 33.

    Tim C.

    @Mike in NC: This is a better analogy than people sometimes realize. Most of pre-Nazi German politics was blaming the liberal Social Democrats for every dumb-ass thing the conservatives did along with leftier-than-thou idiots thinking Hitler would “Heighten the Contradictions”

  35. 35.

    clay

    @efgoldman:

    Their IQs multiplied is a deep negative number

    Well, no. The problem with this analogy is that, in order for a product to be negative, one of the factors must be positive. It’d work better if you said:

    The sum of their IQs is a deep negative number

  37. 37.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Duane: Watch, went Trump implodes Hannitry will shop his conversations with Trump as a tell all about Trump is an idiot and a RINO.

  39. 39.

    GregB

    In Trumpworld, a Republican Congressman bringing a neo-Nazi to the SOTU speech is 10 items down from the top most outlandish news.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @GregB: and another school shooting barely makes twitter– which I now read was accidental, which is kind of a relief but still deeply weird

    In a telephone interview with his mother alongside, Jordan Valenzuela, 12, told The Associated Press he was in the classroom next door when he heard a loud bang. He said he talked to the girl just after the shooting and she was sobbing.
    “She was like, ‘I didn’t mean to. I had the gun in my backpack and I didn’t know it was loaded and my backpack fell and the gun went off,'” he said.
    Shortly after that he said the girl asked him to hide the weapon.
    “She said, ‘If I give you the gun will you hide it for me?'” he said. “I said ‘No.’ Then I moved away from her because I was a little bit scared.”
    Shallin Lopez, a seventh-grader at the school, was in the room at the time of the shooting. She said she never saw a gun.
    “I just saw something pop,” she said. “It was loud. I didn’t see her shoot.”
    Police recovered a semi-automatic handgun after the shooting. TV video from helicopters showed a dark-haired girl in a sweatshirt being led from the school in handcuffs as anxious parents and family members gathered on a street corner, many crying and talking on their phones as they waited.

    what the hell is a little girl doing with a semi-automatic pistol in her backpack?

  45. 45.

    Mary G

    Adam, any comment on this? I have not seen anything like it before:

    Stunning news that the directors of all three Russian spy agencies (FSB, GRU, SVR) visited Washington last week. These are the very people who planned and executed the attack on our election. So why were they invited?https://t.co/9nx8dU1y8d— Michael Carpenter (@mikercarpenter) February 1, 2018

  50. 50.

    Aleta

    Needed Time
    Habib Koité, Eric Bibb, with Mama Koné on percussion
    (song starts around 1:30)

    Right now is the needed time, right now is the needed time.
    Now is the needed time.
    Right now is the needed time, right now
    We’re living in the needed time.

    Even if you don’t stay long, if you don’t stay long
    i’m praying come by here.
    Right now is the needed time, right now
    Right now is the needed time.

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    Good evening, jackals. (Early morning, for me.)

    So, wait, what? Was someone saying on the overnight threads that if we acknowledged that the 2016 presidential election was fraudulent, because of interference by hackers and criminals, Russian and domestic, we would have to go to war with Russia? And then, nukes.

    Say what? I think I read that twice, and it does not follow.

    It would seem to be in our interest to remove the illegitimate president, replace him with a non-Republican (since they stole the election), and negate his and his administration’s acts. Right down to throwing Neil Gorsuch’s ass off the Supreme Court.

    War with Russia? That’s doomsday thinking.

    I hope Mueller has uncovered evidence of fraud in the swing states that might not have actually swung towards Trump.

    ETA: And if this starts a 21st century Civil War, it is time to have it. Clean out the viper’s nest of rightwing media and gazillionaire GOP money we try to live amidst. All of them. Down.

    Money is not free speech. It drives out free speech. Overturn Buckley v Valleo, too, along with Citizens United.

  52. 52.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mike J:

    Has anybody come up with an educated guess why Gates’ lawyers all quit today?

    99% of the time it’s because they aren’t getting paid; the rest because the client has lied to them about material things which wrecked the defense they had constructed.

  53. 53.

    ZyklonBeaArthur

    @joel hanes:

    > > went back to his home town and opened a car wash.

    > With a big stars ‘n bars on the outside of the tunnel.

    Quietly employs a smart high school kid to keep it running
    Skims the till

    Hires a series of giggly high school girls to work as cashiers, sexually harasses them so vigorously Roy Moore himself would suggest he seek psychological help.

  54. 54.

    efgoldman

    @clay:

    Twenty fucking years?!!?? Who works that long at one retail store?

    When mrs efg and I were first married, late 1970s, she worked in the flagship Jordan Marsh in Boston (long since absorbed into the Macy’s Borg). There were many long time employees, mostly female, from sales associates to floor managers in their 50s and 60s. The senior ladies were respectfully called “blue hairs”, or if they were authorized to void a sale, “red pencils.”

  55. 55.

    efgoldman

    @Elizabelle:

    Overturn Buckley v Valleo, too, along with Citizens United.

    Bad decision wrongly decided, in my view, and the seed from which Citizens United grew. Not going to happen with the current court, however.

  56. 56.

    Elizabelle

    @efgoldman: Hello there. Are you feeling more back to (new) normal? Glad to see you here.

    Well, Gorsuch is an illegitimate justice. He needs to go. Agreed, we need a better Supreme Court. And stop falling for taking up cases from the rightwing hothouse (Citizens United). It’s more dangerous to decide them wrongly than to let them languish.

  59. 59.

    Jager

    I feel sad today, I sold one of our 4 god damned cars. The guy paid cash for it, I handed Mrs J a fat envelope of cash and pocketed a 100 dollar bill. Since she picked me up when I dropped off the car, we stopped at the grocery store on the way home. We shopped and I paid with my 100 dollar bill. I have $7.35 left. Now in the garage we have our car, her car and my car. On the way in the house, she said, “Do you really need your Corvette? You hardly ever drive it anymore.” Screw that, I want to will it to my grandson so the little bastard can sell it at Barrett-Jackson and send his future children to college with the money.

  63. 63.

    Chet Murthy

    @efgoldman: Oh lordy, *yes*. [n.b. this has happened with males youngsters, too ….]

    Went to a Peet’s, ordered a double-espresso for $2.85.
    Gave the cashier a $10.
    She rang it up as if it were a $5 — the register said “change $2.15”.
    I pointed out it was $10 (it wasn’t in the drawer yet).
    She looked flustered.
    She calls over a colleague.
    They both look flustered. (I’m standing pat, b/c at this point, I don’t understand the depth of their cluelessness — truly I did not).
    the colleague fetches a calculator, and computes that I am owed $7.15.
    They pay me the $7.15.

    Two observations:

    I HAVE NEVER had this problem with an immigrant of any color, ethnicity, or religion, WHATSOEVER. It is ONLY with the overfed children of America, who can’t seem to do simple sums in their head. The sort of sums I do without conscious effort, in order to ensure that at every opportunity, I can pay with dimes/nickels/pennies, and get back quarters.

    And this was true in France (when I worked there for 3yr, too): the “marchandes arabes” all could make change without any visible effort. The cashiers in the big supermarkets? Not a chance.

    Maybe this is “rocket science” and we don’t need to expect it of modern Americans. Idunno. It seems pretty scandalous to me.

  64. 64.

    efgoldman

    @Chet Murthy:

    Maybe this is “rocket science” and we don’t need to expect it of modern Americans. I dunno. It seems pretty scandalous to me.

    It used to a unit in primary grade arithmetic, everywhere

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @Chet Murthy

    Always get a most confused reaction when, as an example, the amount due is $16.78 and I hand over a twenty and two singles in order to get a five back. Cashier tries to hand the singles back to me and I explain I did it because I want a five in change, not ones. When the change due pops up, then cashier says something like, “Oh, look, you were right.”

  71. 71.

    sigaba

    @efgoldman: My mother worked at a Donaldsons in St. Paul when she was married. She returned when I was old enough, it became a Carson Pirie Scott and she became a Red Pencil.

  72. 72.

    cosima

    @Mike in NC: You should read the Berlin Noir trilogy. Can’t remember who wrote it (too lazy to google, do we have an acronym for that? TLTG). Philip ??? Sounds a lot like the show you’re watching, but on paper. They’re great books.

  73. 73.

    Citizen Alan

    @Chet Murthy:

    Ironically, Common Core would help fix that. Perhaps that’s why the Goopers hated it so much. They might learn something useful.

  74. 74.

    Zinsky

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: it amazes me that people think these $1,000 “bonuses” are a result of this horribly God-awful tax bill that was passed. They are actually early 2020 campaign ads for Trump, sponsored by Republican CEOs. These creeps could have given their employees a $1,000 bonus even if this bill had never been brought to the floor of the House. The $1,000 checks are NOT a result of the tax bill. It’s all free advertising for Trump – again! IMPEACH AND IMPRISON DONALD J. TRUMP!

  76. 76.

    Gvg

    @NotMax: it’s not new, I encountered it 30years ago working in fast food. It’s called being young and inexperienced. Not all youngs start that clueless but some do. A few months of constant doing fixes it. It’s still part of elementary school too, I’ve had to help with homework and it starts in first grade both pre common core and common core. However it’s going to get worse because they don’t need it any more and management isn’t going to make them deal with it because most customer’s don’t care. People use debit and credit for everything. I do myself mostly. It’s to the point where the snack joint I pick up stuff from has cash registers that don’t take cash and the management thinks nothing of saying I have to move to a different line and waste my time because they can’t take cash. The cashiers never do the change figuring since there aren’t many change transactions so they never get fast at it like I did. I delivered pizza’s, so I did it all in my head. Even then, most cashiers used machines.
    I wish they would still learn it but to be fair they have to learn stuff I didn’t and the little kid homework level is much more than I had to learn.

  78. 78.

    clay

    @efgoldman: Oh sure, that kind of thing used to happen all the time, but these days? The retail chain is much more likely to lay-off an employee before they work that long, so they can replace them with a cheaper salary.

  80. 80.

    sherparick1

    Technically Bryon York, the sinister Obama administration FBI and Justice Department knew in 2013 that Trump would run for President and make Carter Page his foreign policy advisor since that is when they started putting him under surveillance for all his dodgy contacts with the Russians.

    Let’s see this week in Republican misrule, the scorecard.

    1. Release a memo with cherry picked classified information to obstruct justice. Then send out twitter messages stating that the intent is to obstruct justice and end investigation into 2016 election and Russian interference.
    2. Head of CDC resigns after disclosing she bought tobacco stocks after becoming head of CDC, which promotes (or not) anti-smoking, anti-tobacco campaigns.
    3. Appoints a new Secretary of Health and Human Services who is the former chief lobbyist for the major distributor of synthetic opioids in the United States and World.
    4. Secretary of HUD has been steering business and conducting seminars to promote the business of his son and daughter.
    5. On going scandals of EPA and Department of Interior on rolling back Environmental regulations and opening up public land to be looted by energy and mining interests, including the entire coastline of the U.S. (except Florida where a certain President has his resort by the sea.)
    6. Contrary to the law, allowing the States of Kentucky and Indiana to impose “work” requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries.

    Just one week of this horror show.

  81. 81.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    So Colbert explained what Adam was hinting at – The White House fed Nunes the classified information for the memo.

    Just wow, that is so chickenshit and stupid.

  82. 82.

    Barbara

    @Chet Murthy: Welcome to the world of new math. Seriously, I can do complex calculations in my head and I sometimes amuse myself when bored by doing math problems in my head (like how many seconds there are in a day). But my kids struggled even to memorize the multiplication table. I asked other parents and they all see the same thing. The focus is on how to set things up, to understand the underlying logic of operations, but too often, the calculator solves it, and in your case, the cash register was the calculator. Drives me bananas. To the extent immigrants don’t have this problem, it’s because they were educated to way you and I were when it comes to math, not because they are smarter or our children feel entitled, a sentiment I consider to be uncharitable.

  83. 83.

    Tata

    But another motivation for some Republicans is the growing suspicion that the FBI simply botched a critical aspect of the Trump-Russia investigation, that the bureau acted without sufficient reason to believe Page was a significant figure in any alleged Trump-Russia collusion…

    Motivation? Growing suspicion? Botched? Without sufficient reason?

    What do these words in this order mean?

  84. 84.

    sherparick1

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fox, Right-wing talk radio, and right wing internet and print will simply repeat Trump’s and his minions lies.

    However, the fact is the economy is good right now and Trump and Republicans will claim credit as that what any incumbent President and party will do. But it had been good for most of Obama’s last term. It would have been better if Obama had not had to deal with an obstructionist Republican Congress and that instead of austerity in 2011 the Congress had enacted an infrastructure program. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-blocks-60-billion-infrastructure-plan/2011/11/03/gIQACXjajM_story.html?utm_term=.abf154c4d1d7v, but steady management had allowed unemployment to fall to 4.5% by the end of 2016 (you have noticed that the Republicans are no longer criticizing the unemployment figures as “fake” now that they are in in charge.) As Paul Krugman wrote today (and he is the only reason I still subscribe):
    ”
    …The answer is that America is a very big country with a lot of strengths, and it can run on momentum for a long time even if none of the people in charge know what they’re doing. Sooner or later, however, stuff happens — and then incompetence becomes a very big deal, as it already has in Puerto Rico.”

    The tax bill just past is not going have a lot stimulus effect, but it will have some in 2018. However, as deficit expands, I expect the Fed will raise short term rates and long term rates will rise in 2018. Eventually, the rise of rates will start a contraction in demand, reduced investment, and a puncturing of various bubbles (this might be happening right now in “bitcoin.”) This recovery is old, and the prosperity has been mostly for those at the top, so it is fragile. Interest rates will go up 1.5% to 2% this year so that by end of the year Feds fund rate will be 2.5% to 3%. Historically, that is not high, but it will be the highest rates since 2008.

  88. 88.

    Miss Bianca

    @cosima: I dunno, I know jackals and others who have thrown bouquets around about this series, but I read the first one and was distinctly underwhelmed. Struck me as a tired Chandler knock-off with its only redeeming facet being the setting. Don’t feel any inclination to go on with the rest.

  89. 89.

    J R in WV

    @lamh36:

    Loved that. They were so earnest and serious, and the little girl putting her glasses on and off, great stuff.

    Thanks!

    Glad you seem to have had a good time in LA last week, also too! We’re going to be there in mid March for 5 days, hope to do museums, eat well, maybe a night club. Surely there’s great Latin music in LA, tho sadly one of my favorites, Los Lobos are touring now and will be in Texas while we’re in LA. Darn!

  90. 90.

    Quaker in a Basement

    But another motivation for some Republicans is the growing suspicion that the FBI simply botched a critical aspect of the Trump-Russia investigation, that the bureau acted without sufficient reason to believe Page was a significant figure in any alleged Trump-Russia collusion…

    And that’s exactly backwards reasoning. The FBI didn’t need
    a reason to think Page was involved in Trump-Russia collusion. They only needed a reason to think HE was working as a Russian agent to conduct surveillance. Once that was under way, whatever else they learn is fair game.

  91. 91.

    John Fremont

    @joel hanes:And then spends most of his time at the bar, hitting on the waitstaff, and bragging to the patrons from his barstool on how great he was in college

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