Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Everybody saw this coming.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

This fight is for everything.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Cruz-ifiction / CPAC Open Thread: Social Notes from the Clown Parade

CPAC Open Thread: Social Notes from the Clown Parade

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Why I love Twitter, for days like this…



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Off to the parties, boyz!

Reader Interactions

106Comments

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    John Weaver‏ @JWGOP

    Reminder to media: CPAC doesn’t represent the now non-existent conservative movement, but rather is a gathering of fringe players, low travelers, white nationalists and knuckle heads. Being kind, actually.

    That is all they have ever represented.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    Oh dayumn, Missouri.

    Mssouri Governor Eric Greitens was indicted on a felony invasion of privacy charge, a St. Louis prosecutor said in a statement on Thursday. The indictment stems from a probe into an extramarital affair and an allegation of blackmail involving the Republican governor. Kimberly Gardner, city of St. Louis circuit attorney, cited an incident that took place on March 21, 2015, in St. Louis.

  7. 7.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Corner Stone: that one is The Ben formerly known as Virgin Ben, right? And Ben Domenech is Plagiarisin’ Ben? I sometimes get my Coreys Bens mixed up.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    B) Neither Marge nor Homer are Republicans.

    Marge leans D, and Homer never bothers to vote*.

    *ETA: Except for that one time he voted for Kodos.

  11. 11.

    germy

    Good Lord, even she’s shocked:

    I know I should be over it, but the speed at which the organized conservative movement became the ideological home of Marion Le Pen, Seb Gorka, Nigel Farage, Dinesh D'Souza and their ilk remains shocking to me.

    — Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) February 22, 2018

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @craigie: For years he was known as “The Virgin Ben” due to his militant insistence that he was as pure as the driven snow, and had never had sex. Of any kind. To include auto eroticism.

    @Bobby Thomson: Yeah, Domenech is the plagiarist.

  17. 17.

    germy

    So, I found Seb Gorka and asked him for comment on the video of him attacking a reporter this morning.

    “Who are you? Where are you from?”

    I tell him.

    “ThinkProgress isn’t reporters. I’m not interested.” He starts walking away, then turns around and WHISTLES at me.

    — Addy Baird ? (@addysue) February 22, 2018

    “I have a comment for you.”

    I walk back over.

    “You’re as much of a reporter as he is.”

    — Addy Baird ? (@addysue) February 22, 2018

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: Seb Gorka is a good example of a naturalized citizen who should be denaturalized and deported. He’s scum.

  28. 28.

    bupalos

    @germy: I’ve gotten checks (big ones) from the Heritage Foundation, so I’m something of a mole…. the “conservative movement” is intellectually dominated by people who are still focussed on the 1960’s. A whole shitton of this stuff comes as a direct descendant of wholly or partially imagined dystopian scenes that did not occur in Chicago and Ithaca NY c.1962.

  34. 34.

    jl

    I don’t know about Maggie and Marge, but happily bragging that your party is the party of Homer and Bart?

    I posted in an earlier thread that, what I see now on a regular basis, is the national GOP is starting to replay the noxious and toxic and absurd public antics of the CA GOP right before it cracked up and got rejected by the state’s voters. I also said I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

    But now Ted comes out and says the country can expect Homer and Bart from from GOP governance. OK.. I’ll still try to not get my hopes up, and will contribute to and work on upcoming election campaigns.

  36. 36.

    raven

    @Steve in the ATL: My brothers Floyd band is playing at the Grove in Anaheim this weekend

    Which One’s Pink?
    Public · Hosted by Which One’s Pink? – a tribute to Pink Floyd and
    clock
    Saturday, February 24 at 8 PM – 11 PM PS
    Grove of Anaheim
    2200 E Katella Ave, Anaheim, California 92806

  37. 37.

    dmsilev

    @germy: The university presidents I’ve met or seen over the last several years are by and large too young to have even graduated high school in time to be a sixties hippy.

    Not to mention that they’d have probably been ‘squares’ back then.

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    I’m beginning to think arming schools may not be an answer after all.

    Armed Officer at Stoneman Douglas High School Didn’t Enter Building During Shooting

    An armed police deputy who was on campus at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as Nikolas Cruz gunned down 17 people last week was suspended Thursday because he never went in the building to stop the shooting. At a press conference Thursday, Sheriff Scott Israel said he suspended school resource officer Scot Peterson without pay after speaking to witnesses and watching surveillance footage from outside the school.

    “What I saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of building 12, take up a position, and he never went in,” Israel said. Peterson got on his radio at one point, Israel said, and remained outside the building for “upwards of four minutes.” After he was suspended, Peterson resigned and retired.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:
    Arming schools was never the answer. It was never intended to be an answer. All it was ever intended to be was a distraction to get people talking about anything other than restricting gun sales.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    Meanwhile, I see that WV teachers went on strike STATEWIDE today because they’re tired of working for peanuts:

    And they’re pretty savvy about social media and pounding on legislators too…hmm…a trend?

    Thousands of demonstrators flooded the state’s Capitol on Thursday, said Kym Randolph, West Virginia Education Association director of communication. Lines snaked around the building, she said, with some people waiting more than two hours to get in. The crowd was mostly constituted of teachers, but included parents and students, she said.

    “The place was packed,” Randolph said. “It was very loud. That is by far the largest crowd inside the Capitol in a long, long time.”

    I guess they are all collecting SorosChecks? Or maybe just participating in their democracy…the way it was meant to be…

    Teachers in the state feel empowered, Campbell said.

    “I’ve never seen anything like this, since I’ve been here,” she said. “They’re reading bills. They’re talking about it on social media. They’re understanding the process better. They’re reaching out to the legislators at record numbers.”

    We
    Are
    Coming
    For You,
    Republicans

  45. 45.

    The Dangerman

    @Corner Stone:

    …this Dana Loesch CPAC clip just gets more creepy every time they show it.

    It’s degeneration in action in that that is what it takes these days to rile up the CPAC crowd to open their wallets; in the future, they will have to bring out an immigrant to flog on stage to get people’s attention.

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @Roger Moore: Exactly. They’re trying to make us fight and waste time making arguments against something that’s absurd on its face in multiple ways. NEXT!

  47. 47.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Sara‏ @NeckleFreck

    I just feel like my heart is going to burst because it’s full of rainbows

    (photo)

    02:18 AM – 22 Feb 2018

  48. 48.

    Citizen Alan

    @bupalos:

    Five seconds of math informs me that someone who was 21 in 1969 would be 70 today. How many 70-year-old academics do they think are still in the teaching profession?

  51. 51.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    shauna
    ‏✓ @goldengateblond

    Look, Canada, you got Justin Trudeau and we got … well, let’s just say we needed this. #USAvsCAN

    (video)

    542K views

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @smintheus: Seconded!

    (actually most professors and adjuncts at my college are relatively young…HOWEVER…that’s not ‘data’, that’s an anecdote, and from what I understand it’s pretty far outside the norm)

  54. 54.

    The Dangerman

    @trollhattan:

    Armed Officer at Stoneman Douglas High School Didn’t Enter Building During Shooting

    The bigger problem with arming teachers is this Barney Fife might have blown away a teacher (if one WERE armed) if he had gone into the building. It amazes me that the arriving “good guys” are supposed to know which are the armed “bad guys” in an active shooter scenario.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @trollhattan:

    They’ve been telling cops for years that they should never, ever get into any physical confrontation that they’re not 100 percent sure of winning, and now they’re surprised that their careful training helped this tragedy unfold?

    SMDH.

  59. 59.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ BenjySarlin
    . @ tedcruz “I think the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and Republicans are happily the party of Homer and Bart and Maggie and Marge.”

    They’re the party of beer guzzling, TV-addled, slack-jawed yokels? I wonder if he’s ever seen the show. In any case, always interesting when the Cruzes and trumps of the world wittingly or unwittingly express their utter contempt for their own voters.

  61. 61.

    Jager

    I can’t believe Cruz is dragging out the “60’s is where all the trouble started” bullshit again. They’ve been grinding that axe forever. As a guy who was in high school and college in the 60’s, it was nothing like these assholes think it was and I seriously doubt anybody who is running a college today is my age or older. Seems to me they are about the same age as Ted Cruz. In fact, the crack smoking dean who just got bounced from USC’s medical school is in his 60’s, so he must have been a long haired hippie grade schooler.

  62. 62.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @The Dangerman:

    It amazes me that the arriving “good guys” are supposed to know which are the armed “bad guys” in an active shooter scenario.

    The answer to that is that they don’t.

    In that case a student helped wrestle away a weapon from crazed gunman in a church, then got shot multiple times by the police for his trouble. He survived.

    LaPierre’s CPAC speech was all about rights. Unsurprisingly only those of gun owners. His solution to school massacres is to turn schools into armed and fortified camps.

    Apparently locking away the students in a compound and requiring teachers to become part-time security guards has no impact on their rights at all.

  66. 66.

    jl

    @Viva BrisVegas: Clearly, the reactionaries shouldn’t be allowed to watch superhero movies, which fog up their impressionable minds and leads them to confuse reality and fantasy.

  68. 68.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Jager:

    I can’t believe Cruz is dragging out the “60’s is where all the trouble started” bullshit again.

    He’s absolutely right. In 1964 to be exact.

    That was when the lower orders started to get way too uppity.

  69. 69.

    woodrowfan

    @germy: the 60s hippies (eye roll) have mostly retired by now. I’m a late baby boomer who came of age in the 70s, not the 60s, and I’m the 2d oldest in my department…

  71. 71.

    Mnemosyne

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    LaPierre’s CPAC speech was all about rights. Unsurprisingly only those of gun owners.

    American conservatives are big on rights, not so much on responsibilities. And, of course, they project their unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions out onto liberals. Carrying an AR-15 around is the most responsible action ever, libtards!

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    Meanwhile, the BS meter is stuck at 11: Kushner’s security clearance is being held up because of…Mueller’s investigation?!?

    Washington (CNN)Jared Kushner has been unable to obtain a full security clearance in part because of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is unlikely to obtain the full clearance as long as the special counsel’s probe is ongoing, one of the sources said.
    Kushner’s application for a top-level security clearance has been held up for over a year in part because it cannot be completed while the special counsel’s team continues to probe Kushner’s contacts with Russians and his financial dealings with foreigners, the sources said. During that time, Kushner has been able to access the government’s most sensitive secrets thanks to an interim security clearance. But that access could soon be cut off — unless Trump steps in with a waiver.

    What about the six months or so between the election and the start of Mueller’s investigation???
    Give me a fucking break!

  74. 74.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    His solution to school massacres is to turn schools into armed and fortified camps.

    I doubt La Pierre’s children go to such a school though. Ditto Trump’s kid.

  75. 75.

    Honus

    I was driving to a hearing today and both MSNBC and CNN broadcast Dana Loesch and LaPierre’s speeches live, in their entirety, without interruption. WTF? Neither holds any office and both are paid hacks spouting completely partisan propaganda. Where s the news value?

  77. 77.

    sukabi

    @Jeffro: you know, it IS kind of hard to get a security clearance while you’re the target of at least 2 criminal investigations…so it’s technically true….Mueller’s investigation is “holding up” his clearance…of course so is the IRS investigation….and the forthcoming indictments will also slow the process down a bit…????

    “2 sources familiar”…. Any bets on who they are? I’m going with Sarah Sanders and Ivanka…

  78. 78.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Jeffro:

    Jared Kushner has been unable to obtain a full security clearance in part

    Only in part.

    Is the other part that he was forced to revise his clearance application about 16,427 times because he kept getting caught lying?

  79. 79.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Jeffro:

    During that time, Kushner has been able to access the government’s most sensitive secrets thanks to an interim security clearance. But that access could soon be cut off — unless Trump steps in with a waiver.

    So why doesn’t Trump just step in and issue the waiver? Kushner is already accessing our top secrets so why not just clear him to continue to do so? It’s amazing what you can get away with when you’re a Republican.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @sukabi: The reporting on this one does suck. Why not point out first and foremost that he could have been cleared in the 6 months before Mueller’s investigation started?!?

  84. 84.

    sukabi

    @Jeffro: probably because he left off a huge number of foreign contacts and business deals…the folks clearing the forms probably compared his financial disclosures to Ivanka’s and saw a bunch of discrepancies…and wanted more details.

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    There sure are a lot of famous people I’ve never heard of.

    Never heard of Bari Weiss, so I googled her.

    Still don’t know who she is. Probably just as well.

  86. 86.

    Iron City

    @Jeffro: That was the 6 months that he couldn’t fill out the SF-86 truthfully and completely. After several “do overs” it is supposedly done now.

  87. 87.

    neldob

    @Honus: And they did that for our current oligarch in chief before he hit the big time. Pure profit infotainment. Very amusing.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    @Iron City:

    I suspect that Jared didn’t realize that the FBI actually checks the information on that form and doesn’t just take the person’s word for it.

  89. 89.

    Chet Murthy

    @Honus: Yaknow, I’ll give this to the networks: they understand “newsworthy”. And these two imbeciles, yeah, they’re newsworthy. In a way, maybe it’s good:

    (1) the RWNJs aren’t gonna get any more rabid. That Trumpist woman in Florida, with her “Hillary and her bandits” and “I didn’t work with any Russians” shit, she’s not gonna get any -more- Trumpist.

    (2) But progressives who didn’t vote, who aren’t -quite- convinced that voting matters, or who think it’s OK to vote for Fucking Traitor Stein, maybe some of them will realize that the GrOPers are coming for their children. And maybe that’ll make some of ’em vote the safety of their kids.

    I don’t have cable so I didnt’ watch any of CPAC. Did they televise anybody else’s speeches? B/c honestly, if I were the NRA, at this point, any publicity isn’t exactly good publicity. Sure, it’l make the mouth-breathers buy more guns. But it’s gonna piss off a LOTTA folks. I mean, it’s like “how many new Taliban did we create today” every time our troops bomb an Afghan village. But hey, I hope Shooty McRageyPants LaPierre keeps it up. Really, I do. Maybe he’ll pop a fucking aneurysm and stroke out. I’d love for him to spend 20yr as a boxed-in case.

  90. 90.

    Uncle Omar

    @smintheus: Only a grand? What a cheap piker. That must be the one he wears for the rubes. Four large apiece at least for the ones he wears when he goes calling on the boys at Ruger, Remington, Charter Arms, et al..

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chet Murthy: Ari Melber seems to be showing some interest in Bernie Sanders and the Russians. I keep waiting for someone to tell him about Tad Devine and Ukraine. I don’t necessarily think there’s a there there, but can you freaking imagine if Clinton/Obama et cetera, et cetera

  95. 95.

    Honus

    @neldob: yes, and I was driving to another hearing in 2016 when they broadcast Ted Cruz’ speech at liberty U, again, complete and uninterrupted. I wasn’t certain who it was for a while; it was fascinating, like those fascist speeches and cheering crowds from WWII.

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I suspect (and have suspected for months) that there is a “there” that was coordinated by Tad Devine but perhaps without Sanders’ knowledge.

    Though the more Bernie flubs the questions about Russia, the more I start to wonder. ?

  98. 98.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Funny thing about Bernie. I was always a Hillary partisan, but I kinda thought Bernie was OK. Sure, he had to get -taught- to take BLM seriously. But I thought he was -learning-, and that was OK. Mostly, I didn’t inquire deeply, b/c he wasn’t gonna get my support in any primary anyway. Hillary was my candidate. Then I see these vids of him saying “vermont is different from chicago” and …. yaknow, I’m having a LOT of trouble forgiving that shit. And now we find that the IRA was supporting him? And yeah, Tad Devine. We need to get to the bottom of this. If for no other reason, than this: if he’s dirty, his supporters need to know. If he’s clean, same thing. We need to know. There are too many questions.

  100. 100.

    JGabriel

    @bupalos:

    I’ve gotten checks (big ones) from the Heritage Foundation, so I’m something of a mole…. the “conservative movement” is intellectually dominated by people who are still focused on the 1960’s. A whole shitton of this stuff comes as a direct descendant of wholly or partially imagined dystopian scenes that did not occur in Chicago and Ithaca NY c.1962.

    That’s no entirely fair. Many conservatives are less interested in the 1960’s and, instead, are more focused on re-living the 1860’s.

  101. 101.

    JGabriel

    @Chet Murthy:

    … the RWNJs aren’t gonna get any more rabid.

    The natural peak point for Right-Wing Nazi Jerks is genocide. So, yes, the RWNJ’s could still get more rabid – and probably will.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @trollhattan: What, you mean to tell me that even an armed police officer didn’t feel like engaging with a guy wielding an AR-15?!

    So, does that mean the NRA is going to revoke his “good guy with a gun” status?

  105. 105.

    Marcia

    @germy: (quoted)

    I know I should be over it, but the speed at which the organized conservative movement became the ideological home of Marion Le Pen, Seb Gorka, Nigel Farage, Dinesh D’Souza and their ilk remains shocking to me.

    Like the proverbial cuckolded spouse, she was the last to find out?

  106. 106.

    Thad Phetteplace

    Well that was wild… Reading this post and did a double take when I realized a bunch of the featured tweets were from my friend Anna. Very cool. If you are not already following @MalteseAnna, do it… you won’t regret it.

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