Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Bark louder, little dog.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans don’t trust women.

We won’t go back.

When we show up, we win.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Repub Horrorshow Open Thread: A Clown Car Full of Pennywises

Repub Horrorshow Open Thread: A Clown Car Full of Pennywises

by | 47 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , , , ,

The entire Republican party has devolved into an authoritarian cult where aging white men vow to destroy the world to protect the purity of their essence. And now everybody within earshot of the national news knows it!

Mr. Charles P. Pierce, “I am living in the middle of a pornographic Allen Drury novel—Advise And Lack Of Consent“:

…Anybody who tells you that they know what happens next is lying. So far, El Caudillo Del Mar-A-Lago is making brave noises. Senator Dianne Feinstein wants all hearings into the nomination postponed until an FBI investigation into this mess is concluded but, at the moment, there’s no stomach for what an FBI investigation might reveal. Senator Mitch McConnell, who warned the White House that Kavanaugh would be a tough sell, knew about the Ramirez allegations a week ago, so it is fair to assume that, whatever else may be out there, he already knows it, and yet he told the Values Voters Summit last week that he was going to “plow on through” with the nomination, which is a very unfortunate metaphor in this context. In addition, McConnell’s response to the news that the latest allegations were going to come up was to try and put the nomination into hyperdrive. However, McConnell is also pragmatist enough to know when to cut bait. If the Republicans decide to pull this nomination, it has to happen early in the week. Waiting until Wednesday—or, worse, until Thursday, when Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee—is completely untenable…

Fox News reporter:



 
Seriously — the Greedy Old Perverts Defense League are crawling out from under every rock…

Reader Interactions

47Comments

  2. 2.

    Tony Jay

    You know, watching this shitshow happen it strikes me that the Republicans would have been better served if McConnell had just invoked the Garland Rule. No Supreme Court hearings when there’s an Election anywhere in the future.

    But he didn’t, so salty tears, etc.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    Cornyn wants the committee to vote on Kavanaugh on Friday. They must me scared, but not sure what good it will do. Mitch is going to allow a vote on the floor, no matter the outcome of the committee vote.

  4. 4.

    Chyron HR

    I didn’t hold dying Marines in my arms defending freedom, so corrupt politicians could disgrace their heroic sacrifice.

    Wow, I thought John McCain didn’t like to talk about his service, but Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the marines isn’t even mentioned on Wikipedia! What a humble man.

  7. 7.

    J R in WV

    What a hero of the home front incel battles “Judge” Kavanaugh must have been, exposing himself to, um, enemy gaze in dire situations… deciding to take one more big drink of Hawaian Punch with Everclear before failing to overcome another female enemy.

    Clearly this guy should take on a secret lodge like, oh, uh, maybe the Alcoholics Anonymous No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal cult, or maybe Delta Kappa Epsilon Tits and Clits Subjunctives? As a career, I mean. I think the lawyers around the Supremes may be too tough for him.

  8. 8.

    Tony Jay

    Also it occurs that one good thing resulting from Rapey-K’s exposure is that the Democrats now have thick and insulating cover for when they refuse to fast-walk whatever replacement the Republicans try to shovel in should McConnell spike the nomination. There will have to be, at the very least, a long and forensic FBI investigation of every aspect of the candidate’s personal life because, let’s be honest, the assumption now has to be that the Republicans are not sending their best, and that these are not good people.

    That should take it to the Mid-Terms, after which it’s in the hands of the voters.

  12. 12.

    JGabriel

    Sahil Kapur via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    McConnell is furious right now on Senate floor. “Even by the far left’s standards, this shameful, shameful smear campaign has hit a new low.”

    The projection is mighty in this one. Perhaps, Rhymes-With-Bitch McConnell, you should try reining in the GOP’s death threats and smear campaigns against Dr. Ford and Debra Ramirez, instead of whinging about legitimate allegations being made about a man who clearly doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court.

    “Senate Democrats and their allies are trying to destroy a man’s personal and professional life on the basis of decades-old allegations.”

    All the sympathy in the world for a would-be rapist, none for his victim. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    @Chyron HR: That’s not Kavanaugh, that’s NRA Spokescreep Oliver North. Out from under his horrible-excuse-for-a-human-being, ergo-venerated-by-the-GOP rock.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Ooopps:

    Engineers inspecting the wreckage of a public housing complex gutted by fire five days ago found a 74-year-old tenant inside, alive and well, on Monday. The discovery of the elderly survivor adds an improbable postscript to the fire that struck the Arthur Capper Senior Public Housing complex in southeast Washington DC last Wednesday. The fire started near the top of the building around 3pm, and a large section of the roof collapsed about three hours later. Firefighters, assisted by a group of marines from a nearby barracks, combed the burning building to evacuate all tenants – some of whom were too infirm to walk and had to be carried out. A handful of tenants were hospitalized with minor injuries, but no serious casualties were reported.

    On Monday, a team of engineers was examining the damaged building to assess its structural integrity when they heard the man shouting. They pried open his jammed apartment door and found him calmly sitting in a chair, said Doug Buchanan, a spokesman for the Washington DC fire department. The man appeared to be uninjured and was hospitalized for observation.

    Buchanan said it’s unclear how the tenant was missed when firefighters and marines searched through the burning building. “We were under the impression that we had either laid eyes on every apartment or banged on the doors of every apartment,” he said. “Clearly there will be an after-action meeting to assess things.”

  19. 19.

    Waldo

    “… trying to destroy a man’s personal and professional life on the basis of decades-old allegations.”

    Great plan, Mitch. Go all in with the Cosby defense the same week he’s sentenced for rape.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “A lot of women on the right feel that, from a professional standpoint, he’s qualified,” said Liz Mair, a Republican strategist, of Kavanaugh. “They are not convinced that he did this.”

    “That said, I think there are a lot of conservative women who can envision how some of what’s being alleged could have happened, given what was deemed to be more culturally acceptable in the late 70s and early 80s.”

    She must have been alive during a different ’70s and’80s than I. I don’t remember rape ever being “culturally acceptable”.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Also this from the article, Conservative women uneasy with Kavanaugh in wake of sexual assault claims

    Alice Stewart, a former aide to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, said conservative women were torn. On the one hand, she said, they are intimately familiar with the culture of sexual harassment; on the other, the allegations stood in contrast to what they knew until now of Kavanaugh’s reputation.

    “They know him as someone with the utmost character and integrity and principle,” Stewart said. “And these kinds of actions are not consistent with the man that they know.”

    They “know him”. Ummm know, they don’t. I don’t recall ever hearing the man’s name before he was nominated and he’s been sitting on the DC court since 2006. Still this woman is trying so hard to sell Kavanaugh to other women who are just beginning to realize the bill of goods they’ve been sold are not as advertised.

  27. 27.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Honestly? In settings like this, I don’t trouble myself too much over folks spelling/usage/brainfart errors. I look at the content of what they’re saying.
    In a professional setting ( emails from corp for example) I am apalled/amused, depending.
    ?

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MagdaInBlack: I don’t worry about typos unless they are confusing but brainfarts, well if I can’t correct them I have to highlight them, if only so I can laugh at myself.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @MagdaInBlack: Even if you don’t read the article, it’s definitely worth clicking the link to see the look that Kavanaugh is getting from he wife in the accompanying photo.

    She looks pretty skeptical to me.

  30. 30.

    Melusine

    “Senate Democrats and their allies are trying to destroy a man’s personal and professional life on the basis of decades-old allegations.”

    This entire “presidency” has been retraumatizing, but the last week has made me fear for my country and loathe many of my countrymen in a way I hadn’t thought possible. That so many….supposed humans…still support Yeti Pubes and Rapey McShitstain sickens me beyond understanding. Whatever happens, there’s no reconciliation after this. Just waiting for millions of abusive assholes and their protectors to die off. I used to not feel safe in crowded spaces, at school, at home. Now there are millions of people who have made it clear that they aren’t safe and are in fact active threats.
    Never Forget. Never Forgive. Never Trust.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: These testimonials aren’t necessarily as reassuring as the Republicans seem to think. Often the tone is “Oh, that doesn’t sound like him at all. He was always so polite and quiet. Human heads in the freezer, you say? I just can’t believe it.”

  32. 32.

    Citizen_X

    @OzarkHillbilly: I had never heard of him before, either. And it turns out his claim to wingnut fame is all the Vince Foster and blowjob-details work he did for Ken Starr? He strikes me as a muck-slurping creep and self-righteous pervert from that record alone.

  33. 33.

    jonas

    That’s it. They’ve done it because they serve Moloch, not the American people.

    That’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve read in a while.

  34. 34.

    Melusine

    Alice Stewart, a former aide to Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, said conservative women were torn. On the one hand, she said, they are intimately familiar with the culture of sexual harassment; on the other, the allegations stood in contrast to what they knew until now of Kavanaugh’s reputation.

    If they’re so familiar with the culture of harassment than they know goddamn well that the shitty boss or neighbor who creeps on you doesn’t do it to every woman he meets, and may play a “great guy” around coworkers and friends. Did they think all those priests got away with it for years by wearing “Proud Pedo” t-shirts and grab-assing during communion? They know full well that “upstanding leaders” can be the vilest predators. They are choosing to throw “those women” under the bus in hopes of getting the legislation they want, or praise from douchebros for being “one of the good ones”.

    Women who enable and protect men like this LIKE having a bully to “protect” them. As long as he doesn’t turn on them, and keeps hurting other people they want to see hurt, it’s fine. They’re all Stella in Streetcar. “Well, my sister says he raped her, but she’s really annoying, and if he did do it she probably made him and it wasn’t as bad as she says, and besides, he’s never done that to ME, and he’s so hot when he gets primal!.”

    If they were capable of decency and empathy they’d demand to hear the victims out and then decide. But that would damage their standing with their own pet bullies, and maybe make them reconsider the behavior of the assholes in their own lives. Self-centered, willing accomplices, every one of them.

  35. 35.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly: Kavanaugh’s been a big deal in conservative DC circles for a long time, so it’s not surprising that a number of Republican women activists would know him or be acquaintances. But shit, they voted for Trump! I don’t really understand how the allegations against Kavanaugh could disturb their peaceful little world at this point.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jonas: Conservative women in DC? Sure. But I wonder how many of Sen Blunts STL office staffers can name even a single case Kavanaugh was in the majority on.

  38. 38.

    bjacques

    @OzarkHillbilly: @22

    I’d never heard of him either, but the 2006 confirmation for US Court Of Appeals, DC, was his second stab at it, in a Republican Senate no less. He got called out then on much of the same non-sexual-predator stuff as today, with period flavor (e.g., torture). None of it troubled the GOP Senate, which was then merely a sack of bastards and not the shithouse rats they are today (though many of them *were* in that aforementioned sack). He’s putrefied further in the past 12 years, but he still would have sailed through if not for this.

  42. 42.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @MagdaInBlack:

    As a writer, I was preternaturally inclined toward observing.

    Self service much do you Mr Davis? I suppose it’s obvious why this was in with the crowd that produced. Kavanaugh.

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    @jonas:

    That’s it. They’ve done it because they serve Moloch, not the American people.

    That’s the most nonsensical thing I’ve read in a while.

    No, no it isn’t. The russo-Republicans have been serving Moloch for a long time now,, not trying to help people at all. They dn’t build bridges, clinics, schools, they build giant useless weapons systems.

    This is just Moloch worshippers projecting their misery on everyone else. They can’t imagine NOT worshiping Moloch, or someone like Moloch. And they prove they son’t want to help people every day, even trying to take away health care and pensions!

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @J R in WV: Shorter version of what JR here is saying – substitute the words “these Republicans I disagree with” for “the Democrats” when a conservative writes like this. Bit like Communists calling each other “proto-petite bourgeoisie” before the NKVD hauls them in for some hammer time.

  47. 47.

    BroD

    Gotta say this whole mess has been an fascinating window into the life of privileged. Kinda reinforced my thoughts about Yale and Yale Law.

Comments are closed.