Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

He really is that stupid.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

This blog will pay for itself.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Let there be snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Repub Venality Open Thread: Rand Paul Has THOTS, Y’All!

Repub Venality Open Thread: Rand Paul Has THOTS, Y’All!

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Yeeeah, not really: Rand Paul is the GOP’s whiny little brother, who gets shoved first through the back door when they need to find out just how mad Mom is about those mysterious neighborhood vandalisms and the resulting ‘drop by’ from the police. Pretty mad, it turns out!

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  4. 4.

    bluehill

    Hmmm. This is an unexpected plot twist.

    Fox News personality Bret Baier on Wednesday reported that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has referred allegations of judicial misconduct claims against Justice Brett Kavanaugh to outside judges for investigation.

    Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George H.W. Bush nominee, forwarded more than a dozen misconduct complaints to the chief justice after determining they were substantive enough that they needed to be investigated by judges outside the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, where Kavanaugh was serving as a judge.

    “The situation is highly unusual, legal experts and several people familiar with the matter said,” The Washington Post explained on Saturday. “Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that a series of misconduct claims against that nominee warrant review.”

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: From now on, everytime I post some political news that pisses me off, I’m gonna also post some frivilous pop culture stuff to balance it out.

    like…

    More movie news…apparently there is supposed to be some “first look” stuff coming out tomorrow on the movie! But until then…check out the first official teaser poster for the LIVE ACTION Disney’s Aladdin!!! Alls I want to know it…who’s gonna be sining “A Whole New World”

    https://twitter.com/THR/status/1050122230573752321

    ETA: Will Smith is kind a perfect choice to play Genie for this LIVE action reboot. RIP Robin Williams

  8. 8.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    People have already been killed, Rand. At the hands of your fellow travelers, I might add. Heather Hayer in Charlottesville last year and children being held in American concentration camps this year.

    Oh wait, you’re probably more worried it’ll be you.

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    Rand Paul could have stood up for civility when his campaign guy head-stomped that lady protestor. Did Rand do any such thing?

  13. 13.

    Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog

    @bluehill:

    “Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that a series of misconduct claims against that nominee warrant review.”

    A fact that NPR’s reporting omitted for some reason… How odd.

  15. 15.

    Mike in DC

    We haven’t really had significant violence from left-of-center people or groups, with a handful of obvious exceptions(the guy who shot Steve Scalise, some ELF/ALF people who put spikes in trees or burned offices, e.g.). Nothing compared to right-wing extremist violence. I don’t see a major rise in left-wing violence absent a series of Really Bad Things happening(major setbacks for civil rights, an escalation of right wing violence including assassination of elected officials, de facto election rigging by the GOP).
    The hypocrisy of Rand Paul’s statement is of course staggering considering what has gone before.

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: There def needs to be a balance for sure…if all you’ve got it darkness drowning it the light all ya gonna have is despair…and that is no way to live and full non mental life!

  22. 22.

    cynthia ackerman

    I’ve had plenty of high points this week, per the new thread class from Anne Laurie.

    But the low point this week was seeing a barely adult (maybe 20-ish) scruffy-bearded male driving a Ford Bronco with a giant “Don’t Tread On Me” flag flying from his side window.

    Many of my neighbors in Wasco County, Oregon are brainless enough to think this guy’s a hero.

    Blech, about twelve hours early.

  25. 25.

    kindness

    What happened to Tennessee? It didn’t used to be nuts. What did they put in the water where you get McConnell & Rand fucking Paul as your states Senators? And they say California is nuts. Jeez.

  26. 26.

    mad citizen

    I’m worried that no one will ever grab that thing on Rand Paul’s head, George Costanza style, and throw it out a window.

    I’ve never seen E.T., any Star Wars movie (other than falling asleep during the first one watching it on cable), or any Jurassic Park movie.

    Too lazy to pull it out to see if it’s the same set of shows, but the Jimi plays Winterland release is excellent, of course.

    Got to love the new Brett plot twist. Hopefully the confirmation was a false ending.

  33. 33.

    Mike in DC

    @lamh36: Yeah, that did occur to me. “That H Over There” is probably not what AL had in mind. I have seen “thots and prayerz” used to mock “thoughts and prayers” messages after school shootings, though.

  35. 35.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Omnes Omnibus: Roberts allegedly cares a great deal about the public seeing him as the Great Umpire. Drunky McRapeface puts all close conservative decisions in a bad light. If there were a simple way to have him replaced with another federalist clone, why not do it?

  37. 37.

    Frankensteinbeck

    So @RandPaul means he’s worried that rhetoric will get someone like HIM killed.

    No. You vastly underestimate the cowardice of these people. Rand Paul is afraid he’s going to get yelled at in public. I have been watching public anger rise against Republicans through the Trump presidency, and it terrifies them. Not terrifies them for their jobs, terrifies them personally. Facing angry shouts at a town hall makes Republicans pee their pants with fear. Merely being outnumbered by peaceful counterprotestors is too much for the youngest, healthiest, most aggressive alt-righters to endure unless they are absolutely confident the police are on their side. They ran and hid like cockroaches when that one guy got punched. People are starting to confront Republican officials in public and say mean things, and they don’t know what to do about it. The current tactic is ‘remind liberals that they’re not allowed to hit back.’

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    @mad citizen:
    You need to see E.T. The Extraterrestrial, the original version which is a classic. It was Drew Barrymore’s first movie, and still her best by far. Spielberg is a brilliant director with children. And all eight episodes of Star Wars, at least so you’ll understand the references made here by jackals. (And who knows, you might turn out to like old-school space opera.)

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    If the allegations of judicial misconduct are upheld, will they be enough to remove Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court? Or must he still be impeached? Because it’s hard to see an impeachment of a newly-confirmed Justice happening while the Republicans hold the Senate.

  47. 47.

    sukabi

    @Omnes Omnibus: that ain’t gonna happen. If he had any decency he would have withdrawn his name from consideration from the beginning because as a partisan hack HE WAS NEVER QUALIFIED to begin with.

  48. 48.

    Jay

    @sukabi:

    Russian trolls would say that.

    These disgusting bottom feeders, Rand Paul, his wife Kelly Paul and other ReThugs are deliberately signing on the The Insane Clown POSus’s “mob” meme in the hopes that the Deplorables will start killing Democrats.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    I feel good about myself this morning. The Girl and I figured out a Malay rock’n’roll classic, Bunyi Gitar, all by ourselves without looking it up on the intertubes.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @bluehill: Chief Justice Roberts knows he’s got both a problem and a problem child on his hands. And he doesn’t want to be left holding the hot potato.

  54. 54.

    eemom

    The Roberts thing is being blown way out of proportion. The ethics complaints against Kavfuck — which are the same ones Merrick Garland recused himself from last week — being on the record, SOME court has to deal with them; so Roberts picked an appeals court way out in fuckville, the Tenth Circuit. (Jursidiction over the lower federal courts in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, OK, Utah, Wyoming.)

    I don’t know anything about that particular court, but I kind of doubt it’s going to lead the revolution. And even in the unlikely event it were to publicly find that Kav violated ethics rules, he would still need to be impeached to get him off the supreme court.

  59. 59.

    mad citizen

    @Amir Khalid: Yes, been thinking recently I should watch E T. I do like some of Speilburg’s films very much. Duel is one of my all time favorites.

    Drew Barrymore on the netflix Norm MacDonald show is really funny.

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Starfish: The problem is he wants to have it both ways. Anything he doesn’t like politically, socially, economically, religiously, etc that the government involved in is tyranny. And as such he has a right to take up arms and rebel against the government if he feels that all normal/normative/legal means to redress his grievances have failed. But anything that anyone else perceives as tyranny isn’t. And any means that anyone else takes to seek redress of their grievances from the government that he is a part of are sui generis illegitimate.

    I wrote this about this insanity back in 2017 after he and his colleagues were shot at while at softball practice.
    https://balloon-juice.com/2017/06/14/some-thoughts-on-todays-shootings/

  63. 63.

    frosty

    @Amir Khalid: Excellent! Once you can pick off the chords and melody by ear you’ve taken a big step forward. Sets you up to play any song you want. Lotsa good stuff isn’t tabbed on the ‘tubes.

  65. 65.

    Redshift

    So @RandPaul means he’s worried that rhetoric will get someone like HIM killed.

    I disagree. I think this is just his way of joining the Trump chorus of “Democrats are a dangerous mob!”, which they’re screaming to try to rile up the base because they don’t have anything real to run on.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @eemom: Here you have a difference within the different flavors of Federalist Society members. Those who are all about the authoritarian power of the government as long as the government is controlled by Republicans and those who are skeptical about the power of the government because they’re not sure we should have government.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: I’ve read Neiwert’s TL on that and don’t disagree. My response was in response to a comment about Paul being worried he might be yelled at. I was pointing out his cowardice in regards to just being spoken to politely.

  74. 74.

    Shakti

    @Frankensteinbeck: Well, it’ll be a year this November 3 that Rand Paul’s neighbor assaulted him, breaking 6 of his ribs and lacerating his lungs for “a landscaping dispute.”

    Rand is a little worried someone else will kill him from his HOA. Or he’ll be collateral damage from standing next to Turtle Neck since they’re both from the same state and party.

  75. 75.

    Jay

    @Redshift:

    They arn’t trying to rile up “the base” to stoke turn out for the midterms,

    They are trying to rile up “the base” to kill again, and more.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/10/08/this-is-an-age-of-thuggery/

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1049048025073512448.html

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/10/your-right-wing-relatives-think-hillary.html?m=1

    http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2018/10/they-will-want-to-kill-us.html?m=1

  76. 76.

    Suzanne

    Haven’t been too active on the series of tubes for the past few days, as Mr. Suzanne and I took the kids to Southern California for a music festival and then a couple of days at Disney. For the most part, we had a great time.

    Except for this shit, which is bonkers:

    Music festival was on Saturday at a large amphitheater near San Bernardino. We booked two nights at a Hampton Inn off the I-10 near the venue, and we got in right around midnight on Friday night. The next morning, we went downstairs for breakfast. We were sitting in the breakfast area, eating and chit-chatting, when four members of the Hammerskins sat down at the table next to ours. They were all completely decked out in Hammerskins attire….belts, shirts, patches, you name it. Then four more of them joined their, uh, buddies. As Spawn the Elder is trans and Spawn the Younger goes to bilingual school and often speaks Spanish, I got the kids right out of there and told them both that they were not allowed to walk around the hotel unattended. The next day, we told the hotel management that I did not feel safe having my kids at that hotel, and asked what their policy was about providing service to members of the largest neo-Nazi group (that is known for random violence, BTW) in the country. They all said they had no idea. We wrote to corporate (they’re owned by Hilton), and their manager gave us this very milquetoast reply, like, “la la, well, they didn’t commit any violence, sorry your son was scared, give him a hug from me! Next time you’re here, we’ll give you a free night!”.

    This response is NOT CUTTING IT from me.

    I was not about to engage in any Nazi punching with my kids around. Not to mention, I would certainly lose.
    I think the hotel should have immediately told them to leave, as they were clearly presenting as goddamn Nazis, and Nazis have no place in society.

    Thoughts? Did I do the right thing? I am thinking of taking it to Twitter, but I also don’t want to out StE or make myself a target to, you know, LITERAL FUCKING NAZIS.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: I’ve been at the gym late the past two days. Just the way the schedule works. That means I’ve been fortunate to be able to scan portions of Tucker Carlson’s and Sean Hannity’s shows. They are most certainly trying to stoke a race riot. As in scared, angry white people preemptively attacking everyone else. Apparently the Blue Footed Booby of Budapest, Seb Gorka, has written a new book about this. Which is hilarious, because that guy doesn’t know the first thing, let alone the last thing, about low intensity violence and warfare. Hannity’s had Seb on both last night and tonight. Tucker had Dana Loesch on tonight. At some point a viewer of Carlson’s or Hannity’s or a Gorka enthusiast (EWWWW!) will decide they’ve been given explicit instructions and take matters into his own hands. And at that point Carlson, Hannity, Loesch, and/or Gorka will all dissemble and claim they are protected under the 1st Amendment, this has nothing to do with them, and start complaining about Chicago.

  81. 81.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Suzanne: I don’t have any advice, but your experience makes me think we need a new Green Book. You know, for decent people. So when decent people see shit like this, we can flag the place, and other decent people can avoid it like the plague.

  82. 82.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Jay:
    Then we’ll just have to strike back twice as hard.

    Republicans make up roughly 30% of the population. Dems are also 30% and 40% are unaffiliated. How much of that 30% will truly become violent? The ones who do will be put down hard by the rest of us who don’t share their delusions. Sure, they might kill, but it won’t earn them any favors. I think they are the last agonal gasps of GOP authoritarianism

  83. 83.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    “Thoughts? Did I do the right thing? I am thinking of taking it to Twitter, but I also don’t want to out StE or make myself a target to, you know, LITERAL FUCKING NAZIS.”

    Yes, sort of. You protected your family.

    No. You should have gotten your family out of there immediately, cancelled your stay with clear and concise words that made it clear why.

    Pointed out to Hampton Inns Mgmt that you had no interest in being “comped” by a Nazi supporting hotel chain,

    Then blown it up on social media.

  84. 84.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    Because it’s hard to see an impeachment conviction of a newly-confirmed Justice any Rethug or RWA happening while the Republicans hold the Senate.

    Not disagreeing with you, just expanding the target group without losing truth_value.

    You may think I’m joking. I’m not.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    @Geoboy: He could also, gee, I dunno, actually vote with the sensible Justices on the SCOTUS and write sensible opinions. That might help the public’s opinion of his leadership on the court.

    Unpossible, I guess.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And at that point Carlson, Hannity, Loesch, and/or Gorka will all dissemble and claim they are protected under the 1st Amendment, this has nothing to do with them, and start complaining about Chicago.

    Well, you see, there’s this principle of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire. That’s not protected speech.

  90. 90.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @B.B.A.:
    Despite the unfortunate history, I think the principle still stands. Intentionally stoking racial hatred to start a race war shouldn’t be protected speech.

  92. 92.

    Jay

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    In the 1980’s, we had a Nazi infestation up here.

    We drove them from the Public Square with both mockery, Civic engagement, and violence. We sued them into bankruptcy, found their little playhouses, ( private social clubs), and burned them down.

    All they had on their side were some Nazi cops.

    They have respawned on the web, but now, they have:

    – good people on both sides Politicians,
    – both sides Media,
    – pet Judges, Courts, Jury’s, Cops, Military.
    – Billionaires.

  94. 94.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Suzanne: It’s unclear, was it corporate who replied to you, or the site manager? I would definitely pursue this up the corporate PR chain of command. Write to Marketing as well, ask them if they or that property want to become known as a Nazi hotel. My daughter’s been in corporate marketing/advertising/PR for some years now (not for Hilton) and you’d be surprised how few people take the time to write a polite but carefully emphatic letter (on paper, with a stamp) to a large corporation, and the extent to which it can actually have an effect. No guarantees you’ll get anywhere, but somebody will have to read it. I’d first find out the corporate structure – is this a franchised or corporate-owned property, whom does the site manager report to (i.e. is there a district or regional manager, and what’s his/her name) etc. You get the idea.

    I’d wait with the “blowing it up on social media” until you see what happens. You’re gone, the Nazis are gone, nothing is time-critical.

  96. 96.

    Suzanne

    @Gin & Tonic: It was the site manager who responded. Just some generic corporate platitudes. The line that incensed me was the manager saying “give your son a hug from me!”. NO, LADY. He doesn’t want a vicarious hug from some rando. He wants to feel safe as he circulates in public space.

  99. 99.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Jay:
    Are you talking about Canada or the US?

    You’ll need to provide evidence of them having the “military” on their side as well as the courts.

    Even then, there’s orders of magnitude more of us than there are of them. None of that will ultimately be enough when 60+% of the population is against them. The alt-right is currently extremely disorganized. They are in disarray from both committed and overwhelming opposition as well as internal infighting.

  100. 100.

    B.B.A.

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: Personally I favor the legal category of hostis humani generis for fascists, and the imposition of an affirmative duty for law-abiding citizens to kill them on sight.

    I admit this is pretty hard to bring in line with, um, every single legal principle we have. It’s a work in progress.

  101. 101.

    eemom

    It IS theoretically possible that, if Roberts really is, as reputed, concerned with the legacy of the Court under his watch — i.e., that he does NOT want to go down in the history books as having presided over the most blatantly politicized court IN history — he will vote with the liberals on some high stakes issues, as he did with the ACA.

    Not saying it’s gonna happen — just saying it’s possible.

  104. 104.

    eemom

    @eemom:

    Also note that this possibility does not depend on Roberts possessing any actual principles — merely that his own ego could not bear the condemnation of history that would result from presiding over a supreme court that was indisputably a republican whore. And that’s a good thing in terms of the likelihood of the possibility.

  107. 107.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Jay:
    Disturbing. But there’s more of us than there are of them. They either run away or don’t show up when the opposition shows up in overwhelming numbers. When the Democrats win control of Congress I’m going to write to my Rep and my Dem Senator about opening up investigations into the US military’s handling of white supremacists at the unit level.

  109. 109.

    Yutsano

    @eemom: It was like he was trying to hide his lack of knowledge by trying to blame it on Congress. I mean I can totally believe he has no clue how Chevron works, and he probably doesn’t care. He got his sinecure. He doesn’t HAVE to be a legal genius. Just to protect his mob boss.

  110. 110.

    Unknown known

    In an ideal world you have cell phone pictures/movies of the Hampton with full uniform Nazis in it. That is the kind of content that Hampton would be genuinely terrified of going viral on them (doesn’t even need anyone’s real name attached).

    In the real world taking those pictures is obviously risky enough to be foolish, especially with vulnerable kids in tow, and, frankly, even without them. I would have done the same thing, with the post haste exit. But maybe something for the brave/foolhardy/stealthy to consider if they ever run into this same situation in future.

  111. 111.

    r€nato

    Every single time one hears a Rand Paul or other fundamentalist gun-humper insisting the 2nd Amendment exists to shoot at tyrannical government, the rebuttal should be: “Oh, so you support the right of #BLM to shoot at cops. Interesting.”

    I’ve yet to meet the fireams fundamentalist who didn’t either sputter in impotent rage or block me for saying this.

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