Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

T R E 4 5 O N

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

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

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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161Comments

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    Texas to Florida: hold my beer and watch this.

    The movement against mandatory vaccinations is rallying around a Republican state congressional candidate in Texas who also is a key player in a bizarre plan to build independent libertarian cities in the middle of the ocean. As the Texas Observer reports, anti-vaxxer organization Texans for Vaccine Choice has endorsed Republican candidate Susanna Dokupil to represent the district of West University Place in this year’s GOP primary against incumbent Rep. Sarah Davis.

    Although Dokupil insists that she isn’t against vaccinations on a personal level, she has won support from anti-vaxxers after she told Texans for Vaccine Choice last year that “we believe in what you’re doing, we believe in parental choice and your cause and we will fight with you.”

    In addition to her work with anti-vaxxers, Dokupil is also a board member of the Seasteading Institute, an organization once backed by Trump supporter Peter Thiel that aims to build a floating libertarian utopia in the middle of the ocean.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    She sees the hammer coming and doesn’t want to be any of the nails in sight. I personally think she has been cooperating with Mueller from the beginning.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    Florida to Texas: Amateurs!

    During President Donald Trump’s press conference announcing a bipartisan bill aimed at increasing school safety and addressing gun violence in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting, a Florida Republican admitted that he brings his concealed carry weapon into “gun-free zones” where doing so is illegal. “I don’t know where those gun-free zones are that I may be walking through at the mall or the donut shop or wherever I might be,” Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) said. “That’s why I carry concealed so that I can protect myself, I can protect my family who might be with me and I can protect all of those around me who choose not to carry a firearm.”

    The president reminded the Florida congressman, who was a sheriff in Jacksonville, that he’s “not allowed concealed in a gun-free zone.”

    “You can’t carry in those areas,” Rutherford admitted.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Moving to Fox & Fiends in order to exert more influence over you know who?

    Shacking up with that hunky catch Porter?

    Both?

    O what a tangled web we weave…

  17. 17.

    No One of Consequence

    Growing Concern and Dismay Over the Impending Journalism Labor Bubble:

    There is going to be a plethora of unemployed journalists after this administration. If the next presidency is *anywhere* near normal, there is going to be a huge pool of available unemployed talent.

    As a journalism/mass-comm major who never worked a day journalisming in his life, I will help them find gainful employment, smiling the whole time.

    – NOoC

  20. 20.

    Jeffro

    Love it – BYE FELICIA!

    On a tangent: I wonder what would happen if a Democratic president proposed to ban “bump stocks” by executive order a la Trumpov’s proposal today? Actually, I don’t wonder, I already know.

  21. 21.

    burnspbesq

    She isn’t good enough for pro lacrosse, so I’m thinking she’ll be the newest friend on “Fox & Friends.”

  23. 23.

    eclare

    And once again all of the late night shows (Colbert, Meyers, etc.) get about an hour to change their monologues.

  26. 26.

    PST

    @raven:

    Time to stop being HICKS and Dicks!

    Although Hicks is on my naughty list, Dicks [Sporting Goods] is now on the nice list.

  29. 29.

    jl

    I thought telling white lies, and worse, was part of a political communications staff person’s job description. But, then, never ever admitting it is part of the job description too.

    I see in her Wiki bio, that Hope Hicks majored in English. She should have found time for a few courses on basics of political PR when she signed on for WH duty.

  31. 31.

    chris

    Is Hope covered by any sort of executive privilege? Does she lose it if she quits her job?

    also, too, bye, bish!

  32. 32.

    eric

    @jl: except when “white lies” could be construed as obstruction of justice. paging Martha Stewart to a off-white courtesy telephone

  34. 34.

    No One of Consequence

    I don’t suppose any astute journalisming person had the wherewithal to think to ask Ms. Hicks what color normal lies were?

    – NOoC

  35. 35.

    Cat Call of Cthulhu

    Who are the rest of the staff gonna bone now? Conway? The Huckabeast? Lord knows Trump’s not sharing Ivanka.

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @eric: MSNBC just reported that it was in answer to a question from former prosecutor Eric Swalwell, who asked if the president had ever asked her to lie, that she gave the “white lies” answer, after consultation with her lawyer. Her lawyers told her to cop to “while lies”… that seems odd.

  37. 37.

    Yarrow

    Hope Hicks has only ever worked for Trump businesses, after her modeling “career,” I mean. She’s got to know all sorts of dirt. Trump’s got to be terrified.

  38. 38.

    jl

    @eric: Obvious lack of professional training when a WH communications director is reduced, apparently vary quickly, to using terms like ‘white lies’. Good chance that they were not ‘white’ and better described as whoppers.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: See my guess at a good translation in plain English above. If correct, that would remove the oddity.

  39. 39.

    Fair Economist

    The question now is why?

    Something from the closed door interview?
    Her “white lie” gaffe?
    Getting asked to cross a bridge too far?
    Covering up for her boyfriend with improper clearance?
    A call from Mueller?
    Melania putting her foot down?

    And it says something about the administration that there are so many possibilities. Normally you know why somebody has resigned, but in *this* administration there are so many scandal and gaffe you have to guess.

  45. 45.

    chris

    Daniel Dale reporting on the shitgibbon’s random walk through gun control.

    Donald Trump: “I’m not into popularity.”

    I give this all the Pinocchios. I am reincarnating deceased Pinocchios to give them to this.

    Link.

  47. 47.

    MisterForkbeard

    @eric: Legally, but I don’t think Mueller would prosecute her for that. Too easy for her to become a martyr. Young, pretty, etc.

    But he’d absolutely want to get a list of those white lies from her.

  48. 48.

    ThresherK

    @trollhattan: She’s not against vaccknew on a personal level, she says?

    Yeah it dudden matter what she feels in her heart of hearts. I wait for this idea to catch on at clinics, where the christianists will claim shit about a Right to not vaccinate other people.

  53. 53.

    Thoughtful David

    The fact that this comes one day after her Congressional appearance is not a coincidence. It has to do with Russia.

  54. 54.

    Cermet

    @chris: As I understand it, once she resigns and officially leaves, that legal protection (what ever there really was) is over. She can sign a non-disclosure agreement but that has zero affect upon a legal deposition for a Federal Agent like Mueller. She is toast if she lies and is caught.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    In days of old, when the nutbars and criminals in Republican administrations quit or were fired or went to jail, there were always these gray-eminence James Baker types who were ready to step in and take control.

    The Republicans don’t have these people any more. Either they just get replaced by even worse people or the positions just stay vacant.

    It almost feels like at some point Trump is going to have almost nobody in his administration any more.

  56. 56.

    scav

    Hick Hops: Is that the tune she will be singing or just her way of getting off the bus? (50 Ways to Leave Your Leader)

    I also heard Hick Hock Mutherfuckers, which in turn lead to hic haec hoc, but that’s pretty much a dead-end for my knowledge of the dead languages.

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    @Fair Economist:

    Melania putting her foot down?

    Putting her foot down where? Trump has ritually humiliated her for their entire sham of a marriage. He DGAF about what she wants.

  60. 60.

    jl

    @Thoughtful David: Haberman’s credulous reporting on it makes me think that she believes that there is one more gigantic ‘get’ on access with the Trumpsters. Maybe she gets into the basement bowling alley when the staff is bunkering down there huffing drugs out of bowling ball holes during the final days, or something.

  63. 63.

    jl

    @scav: ’50 Ways to Leave Your Leader’

    Any names rhyme with ‘March like a frog’ or ‘Go on the lam’?

    Edit: I hope ‘sing like a bird’ is a favorite method, but can’t think of any names that go with that either.

  64. 64.

    Fair Economist

    @jl: I’m sure Melania could pass some really interesting info on to Mueller. She’s got leverage, if she chooses to use it.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @Steeplejack: She’s just a 29 yr old girl. Practically just removed from the 5th grade playground. Really a naive naif who knows nothing of the world.

  66. 66.

    scav

    @jl: There’s got to be a Sam, somewhere (Or a nickname Ham? Sham?). We also need something for ‘Jump Under the Bus,’

  72. 72.

    The Dangerman

    Hope. Rhymes with dope. Admitting to a lie is such an anathema to Trump that I’m surprised she wasn’t gone yesterday. Never give up the kayfabe if you are a Trumper.

  73. 73.

    randy khan

    @Cermet:

    And there are no NDAs for government work. (You’re subject to obligations not to disclose classified information, but that’s different.)

  75. 75.

    Karen S.

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
    I like this explanation a lot. She’s such a nonentity compared to the rogues gallery that is the Trump maladministration that I’d forget she actually was a part of the circus until her name would pop up in the news. And she’s got terrible taste in men. She’s pretty enough for a gig on Faux News, so she may turn up there soon.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @ThresherK:

    She’s not against vaccknew on a personal level, she says?

    I assume this means she’s only against some vaccines, i.e. Gardasil. I sincerely wonder how much Gardasil is responsible for the popularity of anti-vax on the right.

  80. 80.

    mskitty

    @trollhattan: The anti-vaxxer support is being whooped up for a candidate in a district that includes … The Texas Medical Center (I’d have to get a directory to count the hospitals, med schools etc) and is right next to Rice University, home to untrammelled freethinkers but of a strictly scientific persuasion.
    Any meet-the-candidate occasions would be well attended – not by potential donors, but by pro-vaxxers wishing to make her look silly in public.

  84. 84.

    Davebo

    @trollhattan: I refuse to believe Dokupil stands a chance in West U.

    It’s certainly affluent, but not populated by idiots. Hell Rice University is there.

  85. 85.

    lgerard

    Good for her. I guess she figured out that Ivanka isn’t really her big sister and that nice Mr trump is actually a crazed megalomaniac.

    i/m sure Melania can fix her up with a job with the Met ball or something

  86. 86.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Corner Stone:

    Yup. Everytime a young(?) person screws up, we’re told he was just a kid. Consider 39-year-old Donald, Jr. Poor little guy is just trying to do his best… why’s everyone so mean to him?

  87. 87.

    John Revolta

    I blame Nixon for making the young Revolta a political junky. When Trump was elected I was astounded and despondent, like most non-insane people. But I gotta say…………………….on some strange and possibly sick level, I’m having the time of my life here.

  88. 88.

    Calouste

    @Matt McIrvin: The Republicans still have some of those people, but they were all NeverTrumpers, which completely disqualifies them from being hired currently.

  91. 91.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Google tells me that Bobby three sticks has been married to his high school sweetheart for over 50 years.

    The writers have to work harder on realistic characters. These guys straight out of central casting are wearing thin.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @p.a.:

    When she goes blonde we’ll know a fox gig is in the works.

    I just saw a photo online that was supposed to be her. Fox contract must be pending, because she’s blonde now.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    @mskitty:

    I’ve run into a surprising number of nurses who are anti-vaxxers. I think it’s a bit like Engineer’s Disease — knowledge in a related field can be a dangerous thing.

  94. 94.

    Brachiator

    Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless
    Babe, can you hear me now?
    The chains are locked and tied across the door
    Baby, sing with me somehow

    — Hat tip to Neil Young

  95. 95.

    Tokyokie

    @No One of Consequence: Considering the drastic staff cutbacks newspapers have made over the last 10 years, there’s already a large pool of newspaper vets who are now teachers, PR hacks, or some such. Think the number of full-time newsroom staff at my last gig is probably no more than 15% of what it was the turn of the century.

  96. 96.

    Calouste

    BTW, 13 months and 1 week in and we’re already looking at White House communications director #4 coming up.

  103. 103.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @trollhattan:

    Texas to Florida: hold my beer and watch this.

    Apparently it all comes down to lack of civility. Antivaxxers would just go away if only the experts respected their feels and stopped using facts and being right.

    Schlegel, who insists her group is not anti-vaccine, but rather “pro-vaccine choice,” lamented what she says is uncivil treatment from doctors and lawmakers opposed to their mission.

    The best part of the story is the involvement of no-longer-doctor, career-grifter Andy Wakefield. If he’s shilling for the cause, the antivax fund-raisers will not find as much money in their collection boxes as they expected.

  108. 108.

    mai naem mobile

    Lets get the Obama bumoer sticker out again. Hope and change. Say it with me …..Hope and Change.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    Schlegel, who insists her group is not anti-vaccine, but rather “pro-vaccine choice,”

    Wait. Right wing dope claims to be … pro choice…?

  113. 113.

    Gerald

    @Manyakitty: Hey …they been flippin’ and tossing her around like a bag of potatoe chips in that WH.
    WH just fired her current Bo for beating his TWO former wives/girl friend and fired the previous Bo last year!
    Next thing we hear about her will be “Keep Hope alive!”
    That is if she shows up with anything other than a hickey!

  114. 114.

    NCSteve

    if anyone has a personal PACER account they can ethically use, this would be really good time to check and see whether any new sealed indictments have been filed in the DC District Court since her interview with Mueller, with a special emphasis on the last couple of weeks.

  122. 122.

    NotoriousJRT

    @Cermet:
    Um, yeah, Steve Bannon. Congress has to enforce its prerogatives in order for invocation/ requiring/ no longer entitled to executive privilege to be operational.

  123. 123.

    debbie

    I think Kelly’s consolidating power and removing anyone or thing related to Jarvanka. Mark my words.

  128. 128.

    Elizabelle

    I think Hope should go into a 12 step program to learn how to recognize good men.

    In between the cretin she worked for, and the beater she dated …. beautiful woman (exterior only, perhaps) with the most suck taste I have ever seen. Something is seriously wrong with this one.

    If she goes to prison, she can only meet people and women of better character in her next iteration.

  131. 131.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo expat)

    If Jared’s security status has been downgraded, what about Ivanka’s? She’s on interim clearance. She apparently is high up enough to deliver foreign policy statements to the North Koreans, so what exactly is she seeing that’s classified? And if her husband’s security clearance is downgraded due to murky dealings, shouldn’t hers be too?

  132. 132.

    Mnemosyne

    @Elizabelle:

    Despite being a completely untrained random person on the Internet, I predict that she has Borderline or Histrionic Personality Disorder. Those are the Cluster B disorders that lead one to prefer a ton of relationship drama all the time, to the despair of one’s family and friends.

  134. 134.

    TenguPhule

    @Elizabelle:

    I think Hope should go into a 12 step program to learn how to recognize good men.

    Why? If we’re lucky the only ones she’ll meet after the trial are her wardens.

  135. 135.

    frosty

    @jl: Check with Subaru Diane. She’s our resident Expert In These Matters*.

    * very obscure Dave Rosgen reference

  141. 141.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne: I’d heard her mother suggested she write a book. Her’s gonna have a lot more time on her hands soon.

    Something is very, very wrong here.

  143. 143.

    jimmiraybob

    @MJS:

    Leaving to pursue other opportunities in the correctional facilities food or laundry service fields.

    I would buy a license plate that she made.

  144. 144.

    scav

    @Gravenstone: They nearly named my cousin’s kid Maximillian — instead they went for August. But it didn’t scan. Alas. Nor did my other obscure go-to name pan out: Jerusha. (Wear a babushka?)

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @Calouste:

    BTW, 13 months and 1 week in and we’re already looking at White House communications director #4 coming up.

    This job is about as unlucky as being Al Queda Number 2.

  152. 152.

    M. Bouffant

    @Sm*t Cl*de: Nope, we are stuck w/ him here.

    Thiel plans to permanently move to a 7,000-square foot home overlooking the Sunset Strip, a house he purchased six years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited individuals familiar with his plans Thursday.

    He also will move Thiel Capital and Thiel Foundation to new Los Angeles headquarters.

    Thiel is also considering resigning from the Facebook board, where Thiel has been a director since 2005.

    More vicious personal take/threat. (Pimps gotta pimp.)

  153. 153.

    No Drought No More

    It would be great if Trump were to parrot GW one of these tweets, and say of Putin: “I looked into his soul”.

  155. 155.

    OGLiberal

    @jl: Did you see Maggie’s response to Josh Marshall about his disbelief that she was buying it? She called the Polk Award winner a “non-journalist”.

  157. 157.

    Manyakitty

    @daverave: I know he was looking at property there. Not sure what happened with it. I read something yesterday about him living in Austin. I could be wrong.

  160. 160.

    Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog

    @jl:

    Way late to this post, but it seems to me that “Haberman’s credulous reporting” is an oxymoron.

    Wasn’t she shocked, shocked, a month or so back, to learn that her sources had been — nobody could have predicted — so effective at lying to her?

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