Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

When I was faster i was always behind.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Repub Stupidity/Venality Open Thread: Folding His Tents Ducky Pajamas

Late Night Repub Stupidity/Venality Open Thread: Folding His Tents Ducky Pajamas

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Corpus Christi Republican Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned from Congress Friday afternoon, less than four months after dropping re-election plans under siege for crude and verbally abusive office behavior…

He made no mention on Friday of any of the allegations that ended his congressional career, and made no apologies for using $84,000 in taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment suit.

He promised to repay those funds four months ago, but has not done so…

Texas is seeing enormous turnover in its congressional delegation this year.

Out of 36 House members, eight announced plans to retire in the last few months. Farenthold is the first to actually leave office…

More granular detail about the upcoming primaries at the link.

ETA: Title reference, from (Republican) Charlie Sykes…

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  1. 1.

    efgoldman

    Each generation of RWNJ grifters/criminals/harassers gets away with it for a while, but eventually their lives of knuckle dragging bullshit catch up with them.

  3. 3.

    Chet Murthy

    @Corner Stone: I don’t watch the teevee thing, and ….. well, they’re no Dr. Maddow [yeah yeah, I know: some think she’s not very good] but and and Velshi do deliver *excellent* beatdown transcript.

  5. 5.

    Chet Murthy

    @efgoldman: Is it my imagination, or is the (erm) half-life of this sort of skidmark growing shorter? I could swear …. I mean, what with Porter, and that literal sex-slaver a few days ago, and …. and ….. I feel like, #MeToo has really had an impact there (amongst many other to-be-prayed-and-donated-and-worked-for impacts).

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    Somehow I doubt anyone will shed tears for the political career of Flounder’s Evil Twin.

    The BBC tells us that in WWII, with Germany sinking so much of the Royal Navy’s Atlantic fleet, Churchill greenlighted a plan to build a giant aircraft carrier with a hull of sawdust-reinforced ice. But he later cancelled it because it would take too long to complete the ship. Too bad; that giant carrier would have been so cool.

  11. 11.

    M. Bouffant

    Good riddance to the ducky douchebag.

    Speaking of Republican Congressweasels:

    U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman pulls out loaded gun in constituent meeting to make point about safety — A South Carolina Republican congressman is not backing down from critics after he pulled out his own personal — and loaded — .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun during a meeting with constituents Friday.

  14. 14.

    MisterForkbeard

    @M. Bouffant: Love this idea, too. “You see, I pulled out a gun and didn’t kill everyone in the room! That means guns are always safe and no one can say otherwise!”

    This explains so much about Republican voting patterns.

  16. 16.

    frosty

    @M. Bouffant: Those poor girls. There’s not enough money to have to put up with that. And to be photographed!!

    ETA: With any luck it will have encouraged them to rethink their career choices. Or choices in party invitations to RSVP at the very least.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @M. Bouffant: I’m saving *that* story for later.

    Waiting to see how many not-nutcase concealed-carry permit holders call the guy out (ha ha ha).

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @Amir Khalid: Pykrete, they called it, named after the guy who came up with the idea. There were a bunch of practical issues, but before they could be sorted out, there were sufficient numbers of regular aircraft carriers available (especially the CV-E merchant conversions) that the whole thing was given up.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @M. Bouffant: Can we get a ruling on whether he counts as “a bad guy with a gun”? I mean, he didn’t actually shoot anyone, so that’s good, but he’s a Republican Congressman and I feel that should weigh fairly heavily on the negative side of the scale.

  21. 21.

    efgoldman

    @Chet Murthy:

    is the (erm) half-life of this sort of skidmark growing shorter?

    Universal social media. Millions of people who fancy themselves muckrakers putting stuff, sometimes valid, sometimes not, on the intartoobz.

  22. 22.

    Geoduck

    Re: Pykrete. In one episode, the Mythbusters went to Alaska and successfully made a small-ish but seaworthy boat out of the stuff.

  23. 23.

    Manxome Bromide

    @Amir Khalid: Pykrete!

    The Mythbusters did an episode about that stuff back in their heyday. Apparently it mostly really did work as advertised, but given how long the stuff lasted even in Alaskan waters I don’t think I’d have wanted to be on a boat made of it.

  24. 24.

    bmoak

    The sad thing is that his step-grandmother is Texas Democratic and feminist icon Cissy Farenthold.

  25. 25.

    efgoldman

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I pulled out a gun and didn’t kill everyone in the room!

    Some Innocent third party probably would have been shot, but it would serve the asshole right if someone in the room was concealed carrying and drew down on him.
    How come there mouth breathers haven’t used up all the stupid in the world yet?

  27. 27.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The problem, eternal with firearms, is the “responsible owner” can, in a heart beat, become an irresponsible one. All because he’s got a tool designed for killing in his hands.

  28. 28.

    BruceFromOhio

    What is remarkable is that someplace voters looked at this guy and said, yes, I’d like him to be my congressman.

    That it has happened in as many places as it has happened is both depressing and energizing. Blue wave gonna wash some of this shit away.

    @Corner Stone: Um, yes! ~raises hand~

  29. 29.

    BruceFromOhio

    @chopper:

    I read some story about the guy and I’m all dude, just not the ducky pic and bam, ducky pic.

    This is the contemporary GOP: only the very best for those that demand to vote against their best interests.

  30. 30.

    Belafon

    @bmoak: He rightly predicted that the one and only way he was going to get elected here in Texas was to stick an R after his name.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    Unfortunately the stupid supply will quite likely never run out. It’s fueled by beer and chips, so the odds are that never is a very good bet.

  36. 36.

    MobiusKlein

    I showed this pic to my son, and we actually instead had a conversation about gerrymandering, voting rights for felons, minimum aptitude tests for voters and such.

    I have more faith in the soon to be voters than the current voters. We still have a chance.

  38. 38.

    noncarborundum

    What is remarkable is that someplace voters looked at this guy and said, yes, I’d like him to be my congressman.

    Which pales into insignificance against the fact that in a lot of places, voters looked at Donald J. Trump and said, yes, I’d like him to be President of the United States. I still have no way of wrapping my head around that idea, despite a fair amount of trying.,

    Perhaps all I need is a few more newspaper stories about unrepentant Trump voters, and it will all come clear.

  39. 39.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    The guy is a sexless, doughy toad. The Alfred E. Neuman tooth gap really sells the look. Hunka-chunka burnin’ love!

  41. 41.

    Mel

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): I propose a rating system for photos of creepy congresscritter activity:

    G: generally annoying
    PG: pretty gross, but unlikely to cause long term trauma
    R: revolting; might require brain bleach and could cause hysterical blindness

    I can never unsee the ducky pajama moose knuckles. Never. {{{shudders}}}

  42. 42.

    MobiusKlein

    @Corner Stone: in San Francisco in 2016 election, there was a proposition to lower the voting age to 16 for city elections.
    I asked my twin children, age 15 at the time, what they thought about that, and my wife and I were going to honor their wishes in the vote.

    My son said ‘I know how trollish and short sided my peers are, so I know they should not be voting.’
    My daughter’s point was it’s good to treat kids more like adults and give them responsibility, so they have a chance to learn and grow.

    Today, I used that picture to show that grownups make terrible voting decisions too, like electing this bozo.

    We then segued into other voting topic like IQ tests, voting rules, how voting tests have been used in the past to oppress people. A non-trolling and reasoned discussion with back and forth.

    I have some faith that the next generation, having grown up with trolling from day one, will have some better ability to slough it off. The kids are alright.

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    My niece and her husband just closed on a cute little 1926 house last week and are busy painting and cleaning it up a bit before they move in. Her husband is Mexican American. We adore him. He was in his front yard yesterday, talking with the neighbor next door about working together on a fence between their properties, and the neighbor across the street pulls into her driveway, gets out and does a double-take when she sees him, and then just stares. Then she goes into the garage and comes out and has a radio blasting the Star Spangled Banner while standing there and glaring at him.

    I’d jokingly told them last week that that neighbor was probably a Republican based on the flag kitsch in the front yard and the flag flying by the front door in the rain, and the beat up pickup that probably doesn’t run.

    I told him that he needed to blast “Born in East L.A” at her.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @opiejeanne:
    Some people are just racist fucks right down to their bunions. Nothing will change that. He could run in their burning house and save the entire fam damily and they would still hate people darker than white notebook paper. It’s not rational, it’s not logical, their hate has no positive value, which is the same as they do as humans. And what’s worse they equate their racism with patriotism in this here USofA. That’s what the last 70 yrs of the republican party has given us, hate as a patriotic linchpin.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    @sukabi:
    Why else would a moron carry a gun if not for intimidation? I mean other than for the obvious replacement for what isn’t in his pants.

  50. 50.

    Gretchen

    @chopper: Didn’t conservatives spend months making fun of Pajama Boy? And he was wearing actual pajamas, not yellow duckies.

  51. 51.

    sukabi

    @Ruckus: yeah. Dmsilev was asking opinions on if the dumbass was a good or bad guy…dumbass could have left it concealed and let things lay, but he chose to elevate his dumbass credentials to belligerent dumbass.

  52. 52.

    opiejeanne

    @Ruckus: Wait until she gets a look at my niece, nearly 6 feet tall, red hair, gorgeous, a substantial young woman and white as a fish belly (it is April in Washington, no one has a tan yet). They’ll do what most white bigots do, tell him he’s ok but it’s them other Messicans, you know whut ah mean, etc. He already gets plenty of that and my niece has absolutely no patience with people who do that. The only reason she didn’t go over and yell at the idiot is that she was at work when it happened and the woman was gone by the time she got to the house after work. We took them half of a pineapple upside-down cake to make them feel better.

  54. 54.

    Arclite

    Corpus Christi Fat Fuck Republican Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned from Congress Friday afternoon.

    Have another doughnut, you pig.

  55. 55.

    J R in WV

    @opiejeanne:

    We took them half of a pineapple upside-down cake to make them feel better.

    I wonder…. bet $5 they threw the Pineapple upside-down cake out, because they would have put something nasty in any cake they would have given you guys. No bastard like a racist bastard. She is that!

  57. 57.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Manxome Bromide:

    @Amir Khalid: Pykrete!
    The Mythbusters did an episode about that stuff back in their heyday.

    Ah, Project Habakkuk. The scary part is that Geoffrey Pyke was not even the most out-of-the-box genius called Pyke from WW2: there was also Marcus Pyke

    He suggested using excess human blood supplies to make black pudding for the masses.

  58. 58.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    @noncarborundum:

    I find it remarkable Farenthold managed to get elected despite owning the web domain “Blow-Me.Org.” Who knew those Bible-lovin’ republicans were so morally flexible?

    I find his uncanny resemblance to Chief Wiggum from the Simpsons fairly remarkable as well, but I’m easily impressed;)

  63. 63.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I’ve finished with my duel boot windows/hackbook, the only thing the doesn’t work on the Mac side is the backlight control(I found an app that will do it, so a workaround). The fingerprint reader will never work of the Mac side, but works great on Win10. I was looking at a new battery for it and was undecided, until I looked at the battery and noticed that it was manufactured in 2012(original battery).

  64. 64.

    Major Major Major Major

    @opiejeanne: no! Cheap flights per the ‘us.

    But yes will be refreshing myself on mannerisms and fashions.

    ETA a magazine editor offered to help me revise the short story btw, don’t know if you saw the duck pic thread—thanks for your help on all the things!

  67. 67.

    opiejeanne

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah, well I didn’t read yesterday, so that’s two day’s worth of reading.

    In other news I may go visit the Ozarks at some point before too long, to do a bit of research. DH’s cousin owns a condo at Lake of the Ozarks and has given us an open invitation. I need to go and listen to people talk, see where they lived, look at the trees and the creeks, the Little Niangua and the Osage River, what’s left of it that hasn’t been dammed up. Talk to some people in the historical society in Camdenton. I think they have a collection of Civil War diaries and I’d like to get a look at them.

  68. 68.

    Manxome Bromide

    @Sm*t Cl*de:

    He suggested using excess human blood supplies to make black pudding for the masses.

    … this really raises more questions than it answers. Let no one ever suggest this is not a full-service blog.

  70. 70.

    satby

    So Farentholt resigned too late for a Republican to replace him in the primaries, but is he running unopposed in the general? I would have thought that was a seat the Democrats would run a candidate in just because of all the other stuff.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sukabi: Since he pulled out a loaded firearm just to show it off, whether for intimidation or any other reason, makes him a complete fucking idiot who needs to have his guns removed from his possession because he has no business owning one.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne: They will probably consider your niece a race traitor. And that’s if they are feeling benevolent towards her.

  74. 74.

    Amir Khalid

    I have just had to explain to a supposedly educated person that by noon I mean 12 o’clock. Harrumph.

  75. 75.

    Citizen Alan

    @satby:

    Not unopposed, but there’s not a top-shelf Democrat running. The guy who’s in the lead to take the Democratic nomination is, I believe, a retired security guard or something like that.

  76. 76.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @satby: I believe that he had announced several months ago that he wouldn’t seek another term, yesterday was the news that he was leaving right away and it will be too late to put up an election during the regular cycle for the remainder of his current term.

  78. 78.

    Amir Khalid

    @satby: @BillinGlendaleCA:
    So his seat remains vacant until the winner of the November election is sworn in? ETA: Did he say why he now had to leave office right away? Is Mueller coming after him?

  80. 80.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Not cognizant of this district but I’m pretty sure he said that he wasn’t running for reelection months ago.

    ETA Bill and Alan beat me to it.

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    @satby:
    Apparently, any time between 11am and 1pm. They said I needed to be more specific. I said I shouldn’t have to teach them English. They got all huffy at that, and said I should be more polite.

  84. 84.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Amir Khalid:

    So his seat remains vacant until the winner of the November election is sworn in?

    Yup.

    ETA: Did he say why he now had to leave office right away? Is Mueller coming after him?

    I don’t think Mueller’s his problem, but he’s supposed to pay off a $84,000 settlement that he had the taxpayers pay off.

  87. 87.

    zhena gogolia

    I just had to see that damned ducky picture one more time. My life was not complete without it. Thanks so much.

  91. 91.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    I work for a federal agency, and first saw Farenthold while watching a T&I committee meeting involving my agency (nothing controversial, just a typical briefing with us and the regulated industries). He didn’t say much but it was still enough to give the strongest impression of a stereotypical smarmy, oily, two faced politician for sale I have ever encountered. So yeah, can’t believe a congressional district anywhere wanted that guy to represent them, but there’s a lot of that going around these days.

  94. 94.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s for a book I’m writing. set near Linn Creek around theme of the Civil War, the original Linn Creek which is now under Lake of the Ozarks.

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