Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans in disarray!

Infrastructure week. at last.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

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

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

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

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

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

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

No one could have predicted…

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: We All Do What We Can

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: We All Do What We Can

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Since some people liked the idea (and nobody spoke up who hated it), let’s make it official: Every Wednesday, I’m going to do a “One Good Thing” post, where we can remind ourselves that even when almost everything is terrible there’s still some good left in the world. I plan to schedule the inaugural post tomorrow for approximately noon EDT, which should give the left-coasters a chance to chip in. Of course, since I keep vampire hours, this means I’ll be trusting the FYWP ‘schedule’ function to work… or at least hoping that one of the daylight front-pagers will notice & force-post if it doesn’t!

… “We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift’s post,” said Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org.

For context, 190,178 new voters were registered nationwide in the entire month of September, while 56,669 were registered in August.

In Swift’s home state of Tennessee, where Swift voiced support for two Democratic candidates running in this year’s midterms, voter registrations have also jumped.

“Vote.org saw [Tennessee] registrations spike specifically since Taylor’s post,” Guthrie said. The organization has gotten 5,183 in the state so far this month — at least 2,144 of which were in the last 36 hours, she said, up from 2,811 new Tennessee voter registrations for the entire month of September and just 951 in August.

Guthrie said the site had also seen a big jump in the number of visitors since Swift’s post, with 155,940 unique visitors in the last 24 hours — second only to the number of people who visited on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25 when there were 304,942 unique visitors (The average daily users for the site are 14,078 in 2018)…

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  5. 5.

    Yellowdog

    So I guess we’ve answered the question of whether Taylor Swift’s post has had any effect. Good on you Ms. Swift!

  6. 6.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: Remember two years ago when we were sure Hillary would win? Remember how Rikyrah gave us sad faces for months after that election? Remember Brett Kavanaugh?

    Blech!

  8. 8.

    p.a.

    I’ll see your blech and raise you a meh.

    Also too, why the feck does my autocorrect always change I’ll to I’LL?

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Yellowdog: Even without that, there is the epic butt hurt of RRWNJs.

    “Oh yay! Another literally retarded celebrity the left can fawn over while we make fun of her and them for being retarded,” wrote one poster on the often-controversial online message board 4chan.

    “Taylor swift just ended her entire career lmao,” [sic] another poster wrote. A third chimed in: “Guys I think those fucking cultists who tortment [sic] us killed Taylor Swift and replaced her with a brain dead [non-playable character]. Those fuckers have gone too far this time. I will defend the honor of my lady Taylor Swift and find a way to return her to normal.”

  13. 13.

    Immanentize

    Has anyone else noticed that there is a sudden anti-Warren online push against Elizabeth Warren on left blogs because of her past claims of native American heritage? I smell a Russian.

  14. 14.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    From your link:

    Falwell said he had known Trump personally since 2012, and talked to him “all the time”. He added: “I usually tweet something similar to what he tweets a day or two before him. We think alike.”

    Falwell needs to be brought up on charges of heresy. WWJT?

  15. 15.

    Waldo

    I don’t know — if Taylor Swift really wanted Bredesen to win, she might have been better off encouraging her fans to not vote.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    Good morning, everyone.

    While last week was not a good one for us and the SCOTUS, we have to remember history and not get discouraged. We have to keep fighting!

    Erwin Chemerinsky at The American Prospect (from July):

    The just completed Supreme Court term will come to be regarded as the beginning of a new era in constitutional history: a time of a very activist Court that aggressively follows the conservative political agenda. This term was the most conservative since October 1935, when the Supreme Court repeatedly declared unconstitutional key New Deal laws. The 2017–2018 term was a year filled with cases of unusual importance, and the conservative position prevailed in almost every case.

    One measure of this term’s conservatism is found by looking at the 5–4 decisions. There were 19 5–4 rulings out of 63 decisions. Justice Anthony Kennedy voted with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch in 14 of them. He voted with the liberal justices—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonya Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—zero times. A year ago, in the ideologically divided cases, Kennedy was with the liberals 57 percent of the time. Two years ago, Kennedy was the key vote to uphold the University of Texas’s affirmative action program and to strike down key provisions of Texas’s restrictive abortion law.

    Now, there is every reason to believe that Kennedy’s replacement will be in the mold of Neil Gorsuch: young and very far to the right. All of the names on the Trump list would be more conservative than Kennedy has been over the past three decades. In that way, this term, where Kennedy always voted with the conservatives, is the harbinger of what is to come.

    What explains the decisions of October term 2017 is not any principle like judicial restraint or originalism, but simply the conservative values of the majority of the justices. The justices were adhering to the vision of the Republican platform. As Justice Kagan expressed in her powerful dissent in Janus v. American Federation, where the Court overruled a 40-year-old precedent and held that non-union members cannot be forced to pay the share of the union dues that support collective bargaining, the Court’s decision was rooted in neither precedent nor sense. The Court ruled for Janus “because it wanted to.”

    The last two weeks of June, as case after case came down on the conservative side, felt devastating in terms of the consequences for the law and for people’s lives. But Kennedy’s retirement means that this type of conservative judicial activism will be here for a long time. Clarence Thomas is the oldest of the conservative justices at age 70. Samuel Alito is 68; John Roberts is 63; and Neil Gorsuch is 50. The new justice surely will be in his or her 40s or early 50s. Absent unforeseen circumstances, these five justices will be together for another 10 to 20 years.

    The eras of constitutional law

    There are clear eras of constitutional history on the Supreme Court. From the 1880s through 1936, a very conservative Court declared unconstitutional more than 200 federal, state, and local laws that were enacted to protect workers and consumers. This period is referred to as the Lochner era, taking its name from a 1905 Supreme Court decision (Lochner v. New York) that declared unconstitutional a state law that had limited the number of hours bakers could work each week. The Court struck down the first federal law limiting the use of child labor law, minimum-wage laws, statutes designed to protect the ability to unionize, and countless more. During Franklin Roosevelt’s first term, the Court repeatedly declared unconstitutional New Deal legislation meant to stimulate the economy and protect people from the ravages of the Depression.

    In 1937, the Court dramatically shifted course. Initially it was because Justice Owen Roberts switched from voting to strike down federal and state economic legislation to upholding them. Soon after, the conservative justices, who all were over 70 years old, began leaving the bench to be replaced by Roosevelt appointees. From 1937 to 1969, a majority of the justices were appointed by Democratic presidents.

    In the initial years of this era, the Court was very deferential to the federal government. The justices had lived through the Lochner era of aggressive judicial activism and the lesson they took from it was the need for the Supreme Court to be more passive and deferential to the government. This is reflected in cases like Korematsu v. United States, where the Court upheld the constitutionality of the evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West coast, and the many cases where the Court allowed the government to take actions against communists or suspected communists.

    This changed when Earl Warren joined the Court as chief justice in 1953 and a time of progressive activism began with Brown v. Board of Education. The liberal Warren Court really emerged in 1962, when Felix Frankfurter was replaced by Arthur Goldberg. From then until 1969, there always were at least five liberal justices and they did much of what the Warren Court is most remembered for: expanding the rights of criminal defendants, limiting the presence of religion in government, applying the Bill of Rights to the states, and ending malapportionment.

    Richard Nixon got to pick four justices in the first two years of his presidency, between 1969 and 1971. This ended the liberal era and the Court moved sharply to the right. I think we will come to see that era lasting from 1969 to 2017. From 1969 until Justice Scalia’s death in February 2016, there always were at least five and sometimes as many as eight justices appointed by Republican presidents. But some of these appointees—like John Paul Stevens and David Souter—turned out to vote with liberals more than conservatives. Others, like Lewis Powell, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Anthony Kennedy sometimes would vote with the liberals.

    Overall, the Court came to conservative results more often than liberal ones, but there were notable exceptions, such as the protection of abortion rights, the allowance of limited affirmative action programs, and the safeguarding of rights for gays and lesbians, including for marriage equality.

    But this era is now over. No longer is there a Stevens or Souter, let alone a Powell or O’Connor or Kennedy to join the liberals. Instead of Powell or O’Connor or Kennedy being the “median justice” ideologically, it is John Roberts who is the ideological middle of the Court. Roberts is much more conservative than Kennedy on the most high-profile and controversial issues. The chief justice wrote a vehement dissent from the Supreme Court decision in 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared unconstitutional state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. It is the only dissent that he has read from the bench since joining the Court in 2005. Roberts has voted to uphold every regulation of abortion that has come before him. He is emphatic that all forms of affirmative action are unconstitutional.

    So it is important to look at October term 2017 not just as a devastating term in itself, but for what it tells us about what is to come.

    […]

    Recently Kennedy voted the same way that Kavanaugh would have voted.

    Yes, the SCOTUS matters. But in almost all of the country’s history, except for the brief period between 1937 and 1969, the SCOTUS has been conservative. We can’t give up because it continues to be now. We can and must still make progress in spite of those obstacles. And we can.

    We have to keep fighting to elect sensible people to office. From community association board member up to President. We have to treat every election as if our lives and futures depend upon it, because it does.

    That doesn’t mean if we lose battles along the way that we throw up our hands and gnash our teeth and make plans to emigrate to Canada. We have to continue to fight to make our country a “more perfect union”. The war is never won – the battle goes on. There are more of us than them, and we will turn things around if we keep working and fighting.

    If you suspect someone isn’t registered to vote, make sure they get registered today!

    27 days to go!! Onward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    SFAW

    Oh, shut up and sing, Taylor, you libtard.

    The ONLY valid opinion “entertainers” are allowed to have is supporting RWAs. Because ‘Murica.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @Waldo:

    I don’t know — if Taylor Swift really wanted Bredesen to win, she might have been better off encouraging her fans to not vote.

    Thought exercise: which would be more effective in that regard: Taylor Swift telling her RWA supporters not to vote? Or President Obama telling the “target” audience to make sure they vote?

  22. 22.

    MazeDancer

    Apparently the GOP think PostCards work.

    Yesterday, someone – likely a GOP troll – reported an innocuous PostCard Patriot tweet and the account got locked. Someone actually warned me. But then deleted their tweet. I had to get a phone code to be allowed back in, then got sent a copy of the rules.

    So, if you are on Twitter, could you please follow @PostCardPatriot ?

    Going to tweet like crazy the next two weeks, and every re-tweet could bring in another PostCard writer.

  24. 24.

    But her emails!!!

    @Immanentize:
    Eh. There’s no reason to assume Russians here without additional evidence as Republican ratfuckers are more than sufficient explanation given their past devotion to fact free assholery on this issue.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The number of Swift-inspired registrations shocks me. Obviously it’s a good thing, but I’d never have guessed so many people were sitting there waiting to be inspired to register in such a straight forward way.

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    Because left leaning people would have a problem with a candidate that has Native American ancestry?

    I assume it’s because the RWA trolls think they can generate outrage that Fauxcahontas got all sorts of special treatment that she didn’t deserve. I have a tough time believing a real lefty would be making that pitch.

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    @Chyron HR:

    “Taylor Swift needs to shut up and leave the politics to serious adults like (checks notes) ‘Yeezus’.”

    A question for the kids: Is Kanye now calling himself “Ye” because he’s shortening “Kanye”? Or is he shortening “Yeezus”? Or maybe it’s both?

    Based on what little I know of him: based on the high regard in which he holds himself, I figured it was Yeezus, but I’m an old.

  37. 37.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott:

    Recently Kennedy voted the same way that Kavanaugh would have voted.

    Again, makes all of this very strange; the Republicans had a massive internal party struggle just to vote along party lines to replace a meh conservative justice with a worthless one and this is winning in their minds all the time crying about everyone hates them. On top of their man is a human toad who will be the gift that keeps on giving for years because the left can simply dismiss any ruling we don’t like quite truthfully as examples of partisan hackery. The only explanation in all this is Trump is a lazy so this is the best he can do to show his base he doing something.

  40. 40.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: I should not be surprised that Evangelicals are so easily gulled, but then what should one expect from people who believe one can not be “saved” unless one is baptized and reborn. As tho God needs a human ritual to help him decide who can reach his heavenly abode.

    Talk about hubris.

  41. 41.

    germy

    Greenwald is alarmed that a he’s got a trump in his own home country now.

    When fascism has the potential to directly affect your life vs when it's just the lives of others (& more importantly, there are libs to own). pic.twitter.com/d1XJ22xhCX— Centrism Fan Acct ? (@Wilson__Valdez) October 8, 2018

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    I’m feeling a bit blech myself this morning, uncharacteristic for me.

    I’ve got a dentist’s appointment at 10:00 that I’m feeling very foot-draggy about. I’m usually pretty stoic—I endured a few years of medieval orthodontics way back in the ’60s, plus the aftermath of a broken jaw 12 years ago—and this is a minor thing, repair of an old filling. My dentist is very good. It’s just a rare feeling (for me) of “I really don’t want to do this.”

    It may be connected to my feeling slightly out of sync ever since getting back from my trip Saturday morning. I haven’t gotten back into my routine yet—and that’s with not much routine to get back into. Everything feels sort of “not really happening and I’m just going through the motions.”

    Finally, I woke up at 4:00 this morning in an absolute rage about everything Trump, GOP, fascist and white-supremacist (but I repeat myself). Fantasizing about all the ways I want to see them humiliated, driven from public life and, yes, physically harmed. I could feel myself getting amped up and couldn’t turn it off. I’m usually pretty stoic about this stuff, too, but, man, today the deflector shields are down. Ugh.

    So I’m going to drag myself to the dentist and think of something nice to do later. I know—maybe I’ll go to the Bloodbath ’n’ Beyond gun store and get a couple of Glocks and an AR-15. That sounds like a great idea. Or maybe just a nice lunch somewhere (assuming I can eat). One or the other.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Cleek’s Law. Getting in the candidate that makes liberals the most upset is absolutely the biggest win for them– it’s a pure show of power. It’s also a blow against anyone making a sexual assault allegation, which is another win for them. You’ll notice the Kavanaugh story got a lot of anti-Trump conservatives back in the tent; this is tribally appealing to them.

  45. 45.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @MazeDancer:

    Apparently the GOP think PostCards work.

    I think what’s going on is pretty obvious; this is directed at elderly Republican registered women that you have to vote Republican so they can protect your grandsons from those mean feminist. Old folks are the kind of people who read post cards after all. What’s hilarious is the homosexual subtext in the examples they sight, Yes, grandma, your well dressed grandson doesn’t date girls because he’s scared of the,,..lol

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Getting in the candidate that makes liberals the most upset is absolutely the biggest win for them–

    Shame our side couldn’t feel the same way when it came to Hillary.

  48. 48.

    chris

    So they elected a know-nothing entertainer but Swift should shut up because she’s a know-nothing entertainer? Right, got it.

  50. 50.

    Emma

    @OzarkHillbilly: And considering that one of the biggest of the Big Rules is “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” they seem to be on a gallop to Hell. I am sort of a softie on the matter — New Testament forgiveness and all that — but this is one I would gladly sit back and watch.

  52. 52.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You’ll notice the Kavanaugh story got a lot of anti-Trump conservatives back in the tent; this is tribally appealing to them.

    Well them getting back in the tent was going to happen anyway. Bit ham fisted because it’s clear they also are given the left reasons to vote as witnessed by Taylor Switf. During the Bush admin they also picked stupid things the left didn’t care about like flag burning or Muslim desecration of Burlington Coat factory stores to rile their base up for a vote.

  54. 54.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    That’s news to me. Those two will in all likelihood shortly be rivals for the nomination.

    Maybe. But they still love her.

  55. 55.

    SFAW

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think any upset was short-lived.

    Aah, who knows? Maybe I’m worng, yet again.

    If so, and I keep up my “streak,” maybe the Wilpons will hire me. (Waves to LAO.)

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Manchin is toast. Proving the old saw true once again: There’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos. Dead racoons and possums too.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    What’s interesting is Democrats are all-in on this. You saw it with Franken and again with Kavanaugh. We pay so much attention to the GOP base – well, not “we”- political media do- but this is a real fundamental split. It’s a clear dividing line between the two parties. It will get clearer too because it will become self-selecting. Democrats with metoo problems won’t run and Republicans with metoo problems will run because the Republican Party isn’t just not opposing these people- they’re embracing them. I think I’d rather be the Democrats in that scenario.

    Republicans are setting the bar really low. Corruption is okay, constant lying is okay, sexual harassment or assault or pedophilia accusations are okay- that sends a message to candidates- it becomes self-selecting for lower quality candidates. These people are out there. It’s just they might have been reluctant to put their name up before. Not now!

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @OzarkHillbilly: And I love this:

    One West Virginia Trump supporter, 74-year-old Linda Ferguson, explained the politics bluntly as she watched the parade at Saturday’s Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins.

    “If he didn’t vote for Kavanaugh he could have kissed his seat goodbye,” Ferguson said.

    So Linda, you’re going to vote for Manchin now, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

  59. 59.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    My favorite was on Twitter where Sam Stein tweeted: “Who is she?”

    Sammy has 330k followers to Swifts 83MM. He was getting buried. and to be honest I had to google to find out who the hell he is

  60. 60.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Candidate quality is really important and you send a message on what you’ll accept. We have this absolute scumbag local “businessman” here- he’s a slum lord with a pizza place where he hires low income young women and then hits on them. His wife was actually convicted of some online scam selling financial “consulting”. She did like 9 months in prison. He ran in the GOP primary for county commissioner several years ago and lost. He won an open seat primary this time- it’s 65% GOP. He’ll be the new commissioner. It’s like quality just fell off a cliff. They would have stopped him in the old days- made sure he lost the primary.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    Republicans are setting the bar really low. Corruption is okay, constant lying is okay, sexual harassment or assault or pedophilia accusations are okay- that sends a message to candidates- it becomes self-selecting for lower quality candidates.

    SSDD.

  63. 63.

    Schlemazel

    @rikyrah:
    I assume it is more that they believe we need a candidate so pure there is no way the Rapeublicans can mock or sully them. These are simple, naive, folk who do not understand that Jesus himself would be sullied and mocked by those people. There is nobody so pure they could avoid the shit-spewing machine of the GOP.
    Gore was a boy scout by all accounts
    Kerry a 2x Purple Heart earner who volunteered for combat
    Obama was a hardscrabble kid who excelled on his own merit & was moral & just
    If you can name one candidate cleaner than those 3 I bet it will be because the garbage brigade has not yet been turned loose on them.

  64. 64.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay: Yes, but were does it in – will the replacement for Thomas in 2020 be accused of cannibalism? I know there is a stereotype about us white guys but drunken rapist is a pretty low thing the way I was raised, yet they all embrace him.

  66. 66.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    Because left leaning people would have a problem with a candidate that has Native American ancestry?

    Given the stuff I saw acquaintances (all under 30, at the time), I thought were somewhat liberal, posting on Facebook in 2016, I wouldn’t be so sure. They basically bought all the Clintons are corrupt noise that went from the right-wing fever swamps to more liberal places on line that got repackaged as liberal counterpoints to the DNC machine.

    I think the issue that will sink in is the right-wing talking point that she got unfair career opportunities by claiming to be Native American. It will play on the liberal sense of fair play and honesty, and low info liberals will buy into it.

  69. 69.

    Butter Emails!!!

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Manchin is toast. Proving the old saw true once again: There’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos. Dead racoons and possums too.

    Toast is probably an overstatement. Manchin’s opponent will probably manage to convince all the Democrats currently wavering in their support of him to turn out by the time the election rolls around.

  70. 70.

    MomSense

    @gene108:

    If you have to hold their attention long enough to explain that she checked off that box Native American so she could be found by Native American students as a possible advisor, you realize that this is a problem. The unfair advantage claim isn’t true but it’s easily exploited and provides excellent opportunities for the racist displays the right love so much.

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    @MomSense:

    If you have to hold their attention long enough to explain that she checked off that box Native American so she could be found by Native American students as a possible advisor, you realize that this is a problem.

    Unfortunately, responding with truth (“Her opponents are lying motherfuckers, who are lying about that entire thing”) would probably be characterized as “Uncivil! OMFG!!!”

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @MazeDancer: This gets even better, the guy in the picture has been tweeting basically his mother is full of it, he dates all the time. Shades of 4/chan and Taylor Swift ROFL

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Another Scott: we were told in law school that SCOTUS was generally two generations behind the rest of the country. May have to amend that to 200 years.

  75. 75.

    Steve in the ATL

    @germy: did anyone read the long New Yorker profile of griftwald a few issues back? Christ, what an asshole.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    Republicans are setting the bar really low. Corruption is okay, constant lying is okay, sexual harassment or assault or pedophilia accusations are okay- that sends a message to candidates- it becomes self-selecting for lower quality candidates. These people are out there. It’s just they might have been reluctant to put their name up before. Not now!

    So true. The WSJ has an op-ed up called “Dogs Bite Men and Trumps Duck Taxes” – they ‘duck’ them, see, they don’t actually break the law and deserve to go to jail, they’re just ‘ducking’ paying their legal obligations as US citizens. Ho-hum. YAWN. All they did was commit systematic tax fraud over decades – what’s shocking about that? Totally ‘dog bites man’. YAWN.

    That is the climate we’re in now – where it’s actually a partisan issue as to whether or not one follows the law. One set of laws for Republicans, one set for everyone else (with a special subset of those laws being for women, people of color, immigrants, the Clintons, etc).

    These ‘Stand Up Republicans’ and #NeverTrumpers better get their shit together quickly and join the only party that upholds the rule of law anymore. No more kibitzing like J-Rubs did yesterday, about needing a “Plan B” if the Dems nominate someone – gasp! the horror! – socialist. There are worse things than tacking left, Jennifer. Things like having no law at all in your country. Things like corruption on an epic scale. Pay better attention and get with the program, SUR’s and NT’s!

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @Steeplejack: Wow, not fun on every level. What’s happening really is surreal, and very distressing. Hope your day turns around once you get the dentist behind you. Get thee behind me, Satan! (my lame attempt at humor)

    I have been wondering if I’m the only one who is waking up crying in the middle of the night. Based on your comment, even though you’re not crying, I’m gonna guess I am not alone.

  83. 83.

    germy

    @schrodingers_cat: Centrism Fan Acct on twitter has been pointing out how blithe GG was concerning the election of our own fascist vs. the alarm he feels at what’s going on closer to where he lives.

  84. 84.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Not a nobody but darn close
    @schrodingers_cat:
    A pro poker player who writes a news letter about MSNBC or dailybeast – or something like that

    I tweeted back “This is like a fart claiming a turd is nothing”. He is after all just noxious gas

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:Speaking of this:

    These ‘Stand Up Republicans’ and #NeverTrumpers better get their shit together quickly and join the only party that upholds the rule of law anymore.

    Max Boot of all people has an excerpt from his upcoming book out in the Post: The Dark Side of American Conservatism Has Taken Over

    By Max Boot
    Columnist
    October 8 at 2:51 PM
    This article is adapted from Max Boot’s new book, “The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right.”

    You know how, after you watch a movie with a surprise ending, you sometimes replay the plot in your head to find the clues you missed the first time around? That’s what I’ve been doing lately with the history of conservatism — a movement I had been part of since my teenage days as a conservative columnist at the University of California at Berkeley in the early 1990s. In the decades since, I have written for numerous conservative publications and served as a foreign policy adviser to three Republican presidential candidates. It would be nice to think that Donald Trump is an anomaly who came out of nowhere to take over an otherwise sane and sober movement. But it just isn’t so.

    Upon closer examination, it’s obvious that the history of modern conservative is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, isolationism and know-nothingism. I disagree with progressives who argue that these disfigurations define the totality of conservatism; conservatives have also espoused high-minded principles that I still believe in, and the bigotry on the right appeared to be ameliorating in recent decades. But there has always been a dark underside to conservatism that I chose for most of my life to ignore. It’s amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed!

    Welcome aboard, Max! We can resume having differences once there are two parties that respect the rule of law in America.

  89. 89.

    Butter Emails!!!

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Why vote for Republican Light when you can get the real deal?

    Well, WV has continue to vote for Manchin despite going deep red. So my guess is because he provides the coal, rah, rah thing without fucking over healthcare in general and treatment for miners with black lung in particular.

  92. 92.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Please do. I made it up a while back as part of a response to someone dismissing BHO.
    Corrilary, the only thing less substantial than fart is an artificial fart. All noise, not power

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    Robert Costa, in the WaPost:

    ‘An angry mob’: Republicans work to recast Democratic protests as out-of-control anarchy

    When thousands of furious, screaming protesters marched toward the Capitol over the weekend as Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed, Republican staffers peered out at the scene from the windows above. They were not alarmed but elated.

    Weeks ahead of the midterm elections, Republicans have cast the Trump resistance movement as “an angry mob,” a term used by many of them to describe a faceless amalgamation of forces that they say threaten the country’s order and, they hope, energize their voters.

    President Trump and the GOP firmly control Congress and the White House and have massive financial and media infrastructure behind them. But in an effort to flip the midterm elections from a referendum on the unpopular president, they are casting themselves as defenders at the barricades.

    In Virginia, Rep. David Brat (R) is running against the “liberal mob,” and GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart has decried the “mob tactics” that “tried to destroy” Kavanaugh.

    “When we’re out at grocery stores or at events, we’re finding swing voters are turned off by how Kavanaugh was treated,” Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said. “Chasing senators down the hall, running up the stairs at the Capitol — we’ve been taken aback by how people have reacted to it. And we’re responding.”

    Those aren’t “swing voters” King is seeing. They are low information, easily manipulated people.

    I hope this blows up badly on them. Not only do they not listen to women and those who oppose Trump, now they’re calling us the lawless mob.

    Tearing the country apart to try to keep power. Guillotine bait.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    More from the Costa article: first, the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-angry-mob-republicans-work-to-recast-democratic-protests-as-out-of-control-anarchy/2018/10/08/c8648e8a-cb13-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.d0228343028f

    The characterization evokes fear of an unknown and out-of-control mass of people, and it taps into grievances about the nation’s fast-moving cultural and demographic shifts that Republicans say are working against them. With its emphasis on the impact on traditional values and white voters, particularly men, it strikes the same notes as earlier Trump-fanned attention to immigrants, MS-13 gang members and African American football players protesting police treatment of young black men.

    … This time, the GOP’s foil is composed of leftists, elitists and feminists, of academics and celebrities, of Trump nemesis Michael Avenatti, philanthropist George Soros and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who has called for the president’s impeachment.

    The turn toward a culture war is also a tacit admission that many of the issues that Republicans had sought to run on, from tax cuts to the upbeat state of the economy, have not been enough to fan GOP voters’ enthusiasm and counter an electrified Democratic electorate.

    “It’s aimed at firing up Fox viewers and the more strident elements of Trump’s base; it’s fearmongering,” said John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist who is a frequent Trump critic. “I’m sure there is some little old lady in Iowa who now keeps her doors locked because she thinks there’s going to be some anarchist mob coming through Davenport.”

    Weaver noted that many of the marches that have cropped up since Trump’s inauguration have been led by suburban women or young Americans focused on issues important to voters, such as gun safety or science.

    “They want to take the freedom to assemble and turn it into a negative,” Weaver said. “ ‘The mob’ is trying to dehumanize and belittle and dismiss the current activism that we’re seeing around the country.”

    The groundwork to cast Democrats as angry and out of control has been months in the making.

    It is such projection with these people.

    …. “They have encouraged mob rule,” Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said on the Senate floor Friday. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said there was “a paid mob trying to prevent senators from doing the will of their constituents,” while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wondered on Twitter: “Imagine the coverage on cable news if an angry mob of conservatives stormed the steps of the Supreme Court building.”

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) touted: “We stood up to the mob.”

    At his Saturday night rally in Topeka, Kan., Trump joined in, asserting that “the radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob.”

    Many Republican candidates have received sudden bursts of support when caught in the maelstrom of the nation’s charged politics.

    When Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and his wife, Heidi, were confronted by protesters at an Italian restaurant in Washington last month — as Kavanaugh’s nomination was teetering amid sexual assault allegations — the grim-faced couple quickly ducked out as activists chanted, “We believe survivors!”

    But when video of the episode was uploaded and went viral, it boosted Cruz, rather than his critics.

    Republican strategist Jeff Roe, who is advising Cruz’s hotly contested reelection bid, said that September day was the campaign’s biggest fundraising day of the year — and noted that the influx was unsolicited and a visceral response to the way Cruz was treated.

    “Their tactics are too hot. They insult Republicans and turn off independents even more than the prospect of impeachment does,” Roe said, adding that other GOP candidates he’s advising are also taking aim at Democrats as a mob-like party.

    “We’ve used it everywhere because it’s effective,” Roe said.

    I don’t necessarily believe this guy. It’s in his interests to lie about the fundraising, and who knows where it came from?

    Saying that Democrats are “too hot” after you have illegitimate Trump out there tearing the country apart for cheers at his rallies?

    These people need to go down. Hard.

    And the structure of the Post story: it’s 32 paragraphs before you get to this weak sauce stuff:

    Democrats, however, have balked at the GOP’s attempts to define the Trump resistance movement, arguing that it’s simply a movement by people appalled by Republican policies.

    Neera Tanden, who runs the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, has changed her Twitter account’s name to “Women’s Mob” alongside an emoji of a blue wave as a way of countering the Republican argument.

    “They clearly need a way to juice turnout, but the women who protested against Kavanaugh are women who have experienced sexual assault, who are mothers. The resistance to Trump is predominantly college-educated women,” Tanden said. “Donald Trump may want to wage a culture war, but attacking women writ large is attacking 50 percent of the population.”

    Jessica Campbell-Swanson, a 35-year-old from Denver, flew to Washington last week to lobby Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) with a nonprofit group, End Rape on Campus. She was among those outside the Supreme Court, protesting as Senate Republican staffers peered down.

    “Brett Kavanaugh was allowed to be angry, and they were fine with that,” she said. “We have a right to be angry. We’re not a mob. We weren’t violent. We were completely nonviolent.”

  95. 95.

    chris

    With every new photo of Kanye I now imagine him wearing Sheriff Clarke’s cowboy hat and random array of small pins and medals.— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) 9 October 2018

  96. 96.

    Keith P.

    CNN breaking that Nikki Haley resigned. Maybe she wrote the op-ed and held off so people wouldn’t know it was her? Maybe the #hetoo stuff was a bridge too far for her.

  100. 100.

    MazeDancer

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Old folks are the kind of people who read post cards after all.

    Maybe, the GOP thinks “The GOP has announced they will gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid” is effective messaging…

    Wish we had lists of “Grannies in Nursing Home via Medicaid” so we could PostCard: You will be thrown out of your home to pay for more tax cuts for the rich.

    Also, a list of “Children of Grannies in Nursing Homes”. So we could PostCard: She’ll be living with you. Just so rich people pay less taxes.

  101. 101.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    If GreenGrift wishes to envision what life in Brazil will look like he can turn his gaze to the Philippines. That’s working great.

  104. 104.

    Schlemazel

    @BlueGirlFromWyo:
    I will defer to Cole’s opinion on this since he is a lot closer to the ground there than we are. I do know the majority of voters in WV wanted Rapey McRapejustice confirmed. Manchin could have voted no. Then either Dense breaks the tie or they try again Monday when the clown from MT got back & it is a done deal anyway. Then Manchin loses for sure. Alternatively he could vote yes since it could not affect the outcome. He knows even many D voters approved and he hopes the others recognize his vote was insignificant and would not have ended better with his GOP opponent in the seat.

    But you know, we are Dems please let us flay our own for doing what has to be done sometimes instead of dying in a needless way

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Keith P.: that would make me laugh only as Lindsey crawled into a bottle of bourbon.

    Not a good headline for trump a month before the midterms, whatever the reason. Still hard for me to see her joining even the half-assed Corker/Flake ditherers, much less the Neverttrumps

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Schlemazel: I won’t send Manchin any money, but I’m still gonna hope he wins and serves as our wobbly right flank in a majority for the next six years. Maybe after 2020 he’ll be superfluous.

    He sponsored a gun safety bill after Parkland, and that was not the easy choice for him

  109. 109.

    Butter Emails!!!

    @Schlemazel:

    I consider myself a pragmatist and I’m aware of the tightrope walked by many red state democrats, but I also understand that for many democrats this may be a line Manchin cannot be forgiven for crossing.

  110. 110.

    Schlemazel

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    exactly. Also remember he did not want to run this year & had to be begged to do so. He was challenged in the primaries by a Bernie bot, Paula Swearengin and he won by 40 points! So please do not pretend there is a strong liberal current that could have carried this seat leftward.

  112. 112.

    Doug R

    @Baud:

    Getting in the candidate that makes liberals the most upset is absolutely the biggest win for them–

    Shame our side couldn’t feel the same way when it came to Hillary.

    Well, 2,800,000 more votes usually means you win….

  116. 116.

    Schlemazel

    @Butter Emails!!!:
    and this is how we got Rapeublican control of all 3 branches of government with hair furor to lead it all. Gore was not pure enough, ACA was not pure enough, Clinton was not pure enough.

    There is a chance we can take the Senate by the slimmest of margins. Losing WV could easily be the difference. While I understand the anger I am more angry at those Dems who could not manage to ‘sell their pure souls’ in 2010 and 2016 that got us to the point this even happened.

  119. 119.

    Doug R

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    During the Bush admin they also picked stupid things the left didn’t care about like flag burning or Muslim desecration of Burlington Coat factory stores to rile their base up for a vote.

    I remember the “ground zero Mosque” which was going to be a prayer room in a community center, a little further out than the Ground Zero peeler bar and the Ground Zero OTB parlor.

  121. 121.

    Butter Emails!!!

    @Schlemazel:

    OK. Let me put it this way. Voting to put a likely attempted rapist on the Supreme Court is not the same as giving a speech to Goldman Sachs.

  123. 123.

    JAM

    I can’t believe Bredesen would come out in support of Bret Kavanaugh. It’s like he’s trying to discourage women from voting for him. Why not say he would want to see the FBI report or something?

  125. 125.

    The Moar You Know

    OK. Let me put it this way. Voting to put a likely attempted rapist on the Supreme Court is not the same as giving a speech to Goldman Sachs.

    @Butter Emails!!!: I’m as enraged by Manchin’s vote as anyone but Rapey McBeer was getting on the Court anyway. So cut him slack. He by all rights shouldn’t exist in WV so I’ll take him. A Dem in the Senate, is a Dem in the Senate and one more vote to stop Trump from packing the judiciary with Heritage judges, one more vote to a Dem Majority Leader – and speaking of, the one we have at the moment is IMHO a far bigger problem than Manchin, but he’s all we have.

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