Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

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

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

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

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

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let’s finish the job.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

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

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

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Reader Interactions

49Comments

  2. 2.

    Redshift

    Sorry to miss out on that, but I have tickets for an MST3K live show tonight. I’m volunteering for the March, so if you see a blond guy with a ponytail in a bright green volunteer t-shirt and hat tomorrow, say hi!

  3. 3.

    ruemara

    Sorta wish I could be there, but it’s both distant and cold. Have a great time, Wonkejuicers!

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    Will be at the March tomorrow w/ the missus and kids…probably going to get down there early and leave early as well…that’s just how this team rolls.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    If anyone is planning to go to downtown LA, Ruckus and I are going to meet up to be Team Gimpy & Slow since we’re both a little physically impaired right now.

  6. 6.

    Ohio Mom

    I am going back and forth on attending the Cincinnati March. I am pretty sure I can get there, and tolerate the cold and the snow, but I am not convinced the streets will be in any condition to allow me to get home to the northern suburbs if it snows as hard as it is predicted to during the mid-day hours.

    I guess I will have to wait and see. Just another reason to be sick of winter.

  9. 9.

    ruemara

    @Mnemosyne: GO TEAM GIMPY & SLOW!

    I’ll be in Team This Is A Situationship with my roomie in Sac. He keeps insisting that we go and since I finally convinced him sitting shit out is a dumbass move and he’s motivated to vote – because black women are magical or something – ugh, I’m letting my ethics reduce my sleeping.

  10. 10.

    FlyingToaster (Tablet)

    We ca’t make a march tomorrow; WarriorGirl’s music school in the morning and violin graduation in the afternoon preclude it. Sigh.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    Caitlin Emma
    ‏@caitlinzemma
    Mar 22
    A group of seniors from Dunbar High School meets with @MurielBowser to discuss gun violence.
    Several students say they’re not sure much can be done about it, save for getting rid of guns.

    I just love how they keep bringing that up :)

    “Still…it’s the GUNS, is it not?”

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    Man, talk about between a rock and a hard place…the GOP-controlled Congress and a GOP president signed this???

    Republicans know that if they actually did cut spending the way they claim to want to, the public would be horrified. And with a wave election coming, they didn’t want to pass a bill full of cuts to popular programs, which would generate controversy and give voters even more of a reason to reject them in November.

    So they gave Democrats almost everything they wanted. Here are some of the ways Democrats won out in this bill, despite being in the minority in both houses:

    $1.6 billion for border fencing, but with the specification that it only applies to existing designs, meaning no wall.

    The Fix NICS Act, which modestly improves the existing gun background check system, plus a provision instructing the Centers for Disease Control that it is free to conduct research on gun violence. Such research was effectively stopped in 1996.
    A slight increase to the IRS budget. While not nearly what the agency needs, especially given the challenge of implementing the new tax law, at least it doesn’t continue the longstanding GOP effort to starve the IRS of funds and make enforcement a joke.

    $380 million in assistance to states to improve the security of their election systems, and $300 million to the FBI to combat Russian hacking of those systems.

    No repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which prevents churches from endorsing candidates and acting as political organizations. President Trump has advocated that the amendment be repealed.

    A bar on employers like restaurants keeping any portion of workers’ tips. The Trump Labor Department had proposed allowing tip “pooling,” including letting the boss control and potentially take workers’ tips.

    Increases for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Trump had proposed eliminating them entirely.

    No cuts to the EPA (Trump had proposed cutting the agency’s budget by a third) and an increase in funding for clean energy research through ARPA-E, which Trump had proposed eliminating entirely.

    Increased funding for affordable housing.

    Increased education funding, along with what nearly everyone is describing as a complete rejection of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ agenda.

    Increased funding for the National Institutes of Health.

    A doubling of child care funding for low-income families.

    No defunding of sanctuary cities or Planned Parenthood.

    Yes, there are some things in there that Republicans wanted. They boosted the defense budget to $700 billion, and threw money at some other of their priorities, such as “abstinence only” education. But when it comes to cutting domestic spending — which nearly all Republicans say they want to do — they took a pass.

    Why? The simple reason is that they’re afraid. They understand all too well that while voters might say they like “small government” in the abstract, voters also really like nearly all the things government does. And when you start cutting those programs, there’s a backlash. With an election coming less than eight months from now, the last thing they need is to provoke controversies over slashing important and popular programs.

    Their base is going to eat them alive. Meanwhile our base is Fired. Up. I’d expect to see generic ballot polling swing an additional 3-4 points minimum once word gets out. Huzzah!

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    Trump’s lame press conference means he knows his base won’t be happy, especially the “pro-life” evangelicals. Planned Parenthood just keeps on keeping on. He was very low energy and didn’t sell it well at all. Even the “I will never sign a bill like this again” rings hollow.

  16. 16.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I wish I could join the meetup but 2,500 miles is too far. I’ll be at the SF march tomorrow – joining the kids from local Jewish youth groups to make signs first. My 14-year-old son says he probably won’t go “because school shootings don’t directly affect me.” I didn’t argue with him, just said that his dad and I feel directly affected because every time there is one, we know that could have been our child. Since I know my kid pretty well, I’m going to assume this is teenage rebellion and not a sign of sociopathy, but it really, really bothers me and makes me feel like parentfail.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: The Base will be fine because Donnie vetoed it.

    Wait, what?

    Well it’s not on his Twitter feed yet, so let me be the first to say “Fake News!!11”.

    Seriously, reality doesn’t matter to The Base.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    It may also be a bit of psychological defense — he needs to believe that he’ll never be affected by a school shooting or else he’ll never be able to get himself to walk inside the school building again. This may be an area of anxiety you or (even better) his dad need to discuss with him.

  19. 19.

    Mary G

    @Jeffro: @Mary G: The reviews are in on Twitter.

    Ann Coulter – yeah, you’ll never sign another bill like this again, because you’ll be impeached.
    Laura Ingraham – missed opportunity, you’ll be impeached.
    Joe Walsh – yes, Republican Congress betrayed you, and so did Trump.
    Wayne Allen Root – swamp wins

    Winning!

    ETA:

    Most unlikely union in the history of politics.Democrats and Tea Partiers working together to impeach Trump.— Expat_Matt (@Expat_Matt) March 23, 2018

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    @Jeffro: HAHAHAHAH! Which is why when folks say we need to get rid of experienced leadership & legislators, I want to nut punch them. We do that when we have control & power. Get us there and we let them retire.

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    @Mary G:
    Ahhh, I now see how the base and Usual Suspects plan to respond to a Trump impeachment (oh please, oh please…) ahem:

    “Everything was fine until he signed the Democrat [sic] budget bill!”

    Conservatism can’t fail, it can only…. Rinse and repeat.

  22. 22.

    Jeffro

    @Mary G: It is a KILLER in terms of GOP turnout – still funding PP, still funding those blessed ‘sanctuary cities’, still no wall (someone check Vicente Fox’s Twitter feed!). Try and blame this on the ‘deep state’, right wing morans!

    I think I’m going to crank up some DBTs here in the office around 3pm when the office manager leaves. Time to celebrate the end of the best Infrastructure Week EVAR!!1!

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    Reddit saddens wingnuts.

    Gun Deals, Beer Trade and Cigar Market are three of the latest communities to be banned by Reddit in a move to distance the social website from transactions of “illicit or strictly controlled” goods.

    Drugs, personal information and “paid services involving physical sexual contact” are also on the list of banned transactions announced on Thursday.

    A Reddit spokesperson said “users who attempt to conduct [these transactions] will be banned from the site”, but declined to answer all of the BBC’s questions about the bans.

    Why they gotta do beer like that?

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: And to top it off, I might pick up some Bon Chon Chicken on the way home, and watch Super Bowl highlights later too…I’m THAT giddy…PHILLYPHILLY!!!!

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    @Jeffro:
    I’d be a little more sanguine if Trump’s plan to torpedo the US economy weren’t proceeding full steam ahead. My fvcking 40i(k) statements are going to be the saddest read ever, or at least since Q4/08.

  27. 27.

    Chris

    @trollhattan:

    If you control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, and still you can’t manage to get anything but “the Democrat bill” passed, that’s on you.

  28. 28.

    Zinsky

    You don’t compromise with the criminally insane. I would have preferred the Dems to dig in their heels and not vote for anything these reptiles vomit forth. Shut the f*cking government down permanently until the GOP is the minority party in Congress, where they belong. As my very wise brother-in-law has said, “when you make a deal with the Devil, all it gets you is halfway to Hell!”

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    @Chris: Yup. Because of course he did.

    But it doesn’t matter to his Base. They’re going to go down with the Dump, and will be happily singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” all the while.

    Notice there’s still nothing on his Twitter feed about signing it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @trollhattan: Hey, at least you’re buying stocks and bonds on the cheap (if you’re still contributing, that is). Everything will bounce back once Larry Kudlow explains Wall Streety-type things to Orange Crash, I’m sure…

    Actually that was a bit chilling, realizing that Trumpov will soon have Larry Kudlow, Joe DiGenova, and John Bolton around him 24/7. Yeesh. That is some serious loser-villa stuff right there…”the best people”…LOL

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @Jeffro: My snark tags seem to be vanishing from my comments here.

    Gotta send Cole and Alain a nasty message, in ALL CAPS, demanding that they fix it NOWNOWNOW!!!1

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jeffro:
    I think he does that partly because he knows the Stones don’t like him using their music that way. I doubt he identifies with the song in any way: being Trump, he must believe that he can always get what he wants.

  36. 36.

    Chris

    @Another Scott:

    Isn’t YCAGWYW from the Stones? The same filthy un-American people who sing things like “Sweet Neocon?” Perish the thought that they go down singing that.

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    @Gin & Tonic: ok, now THAT would be funny…can you imagine being rejected by Joe DiGenova?!? But even Joe must sense that ‘Shit Midas’ effect…

  39. 39.

    Ohio Mom

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I was worried about my kid, who avoids all things political — I think to his point of view, it’s just something that riles up Mom and Dad and he’d rather us be calm.

    But when time came to vote for the first time, he was puzzled why anyone thought he wouldn’t vote the straight Democratic ticket.

  41. 41.

    Ohio Mom

    @Chris: Yes, it has always struck me as a very odd choice. You Can’t Always Get What You Want is the complete opposite of the old favorite, A Chicken in Every Pot.

    Just further proof that Trump voters are missing marbles.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:
    @Ohio Mom:

    Since I’m all about amateur psychology today, it’s the perfect theme song for a narcissistic abuser. He’s not going to give you what you say you want, he’s going to give you what he knows you need, you little shit, and you’re going to take it and like it.

    And his fans love it because they came from those same kinds of abusive families and re-created them with their own children and think that it’s normal. ?

    Or, more simply, it’s an authoritarian’s song: he’s going to give you what you need, not what you want.

  45. 45.

    randy khan

    The meetup is three blocks from my office, so naturally I’m in New York right now. The pizza’s really good there.

    I found it inordinately amusing that Trump threatened to veto the bill *after* it passed Congress – not exactly the moment of greatest leverage – and then signed it in the end, probably because McConnell and Ryan told him that half of Congress already had left town.

  46. 46.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    I can’t believe I just typed “​talk to J about school shootings” in my to-do list.

    (J is the aforementioned 14-year-old son.)

  47. 47.

    Smiling Mortician

    @Amir Khalid:

    being Trump, he must believe that he can always get what he wants.

    I don’t think so. He definitely believes that he should always get what he wants, but most of his tweets focus on whining about how unfairly everyone treats him.

  49. 49.

    Caphilldcne

    Much fun had by all. Pleasure to meet you Mr. Mistermix and all the wonketteers too! Cheers.

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