Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Everybody saw this coming.

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

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

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

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Let’s finish the job.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / GOP Luzers Open Thread: Malevolent Leprechaun Tests Water, Finds It Cold & Unsympathetic

GOP Luzers Open Thread: Malevolent Leprechaun Tests Water, Finds It Cold & Unsympathetic

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He got the chance to hurt so many of Those People — not-whites, immigrants, anyone younger or hipper — and then it was all ripped away. And yet, for some reason, there is no sympathy for the plight of Jeff Sessions!

… The former attorney general and Alabama senator said in an interview on Wednesday that he doesn’t miss being a senator and won’t decide on a run anytime soon. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) is seen as the most vulnerable incumbent on the ballot in two years — and Sessions is viewed as a prime candidate to beat him.

But, after enduring months of attacks from President Donald Trump for recusing himself from the Russia probe and being forced to leave his attorney general perch after the midterms, Sessions sounds eager to decompress…

Sessions didn’t have a general election challenger when he last ran in 2014, though he might face a GOP primary challenge if he decides to challenge Jones.

At least at this moment, though, that looks like a long shot. Sessions has told former colleagues that running for the Senate could be seen as a demotion after serving in Trump’s Cabinet.

Write your own snark about that ‘demotion’ line.

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel

    I assumed he would either return to the tree cookie factory or Jeb’s place with the CEE-ment pond in the hills of beverly

    seriously though I expect he will go after Jones in 20 & sadly the klan will come through for him. There is no god

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    I could see him trying to take out Doug Jones in 2020. But that would really be his only chance. He ain’t exactly in spring chicken territory.

  5. 5.

    lamh36

    Watching A Thousand Words with Michelle Obama on BET. It’s from the the conversation she had with Valerie Jarrett in front of a group of Black female journalists (you may recall the one where one of the news blogger got in trouble with BET and the rest of the female journalist for writing about it against the wishes of BET).

    I love how candid Michelle is and how real she still is.

    I just LOVE her

  9. 9.

    PsiFighter37

    Kind of find it hard to believe that Sessions would run in 2020 given how much Donnie shat all over him. I have to imagine he’s viewed as damaged goods by the local Trump worshippers.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    I think he’s going to a farm upstate where he can run and run.

    That’s a possibility, if he tells what he knows about Trump-Putin-Manafort-Flynn-I-could-go-on-for-hours.

  16. 16.

    Platonailedit

    Amazing how the US media always tries to rehabilitate disgraced gop thugs, traitors, felons and their ilk.

  17. 17.

    piratedan

    i’m sitting here wondering how in the hell anyone might think that JB Sessions might be anywhere other than jail in 2020, much less running for a Senate seat, just because this asshat recused himself from oversight on the Mueller investigation doesn’t mean that his hands were clean when it came to the entire Trump Family Crime Wave, lets be honest here, apparently they have a club in place where you can’t join unless you’re breaking the law or are completely devoid of ethics and as far as I can tell, Jeffy certainly fits that bill. The only color I see him in right now is orange, as in correctional jumpsuit… he best plan that time with the grandkids sooner rather than later because IIRC, Jeffy was a big mover and shaker on the Trump Transition team and so far everyone on that list has been implicated in some nefarious deeds.

  18. 18.

    GregB

    Every flaming bag of shit in Trump’s vicinity will smolder in infamy and will never recover their standing.

    It is incumbent upon our nation to make it so.

    This goes for inveterate shitheel Scott Walker too.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    I’m glad someone brought up that shitbird Sessions. I thought it was very interesting that in all the analysis yesterday of the Michael Flynn situation about who might be in danger from his testimony no one (that I saw) mentioned Sessions.

    He was Trump’s earliest supporter in the Senate. Stephen Miller came from his staff. So did acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker (although Sessions might have been stuck with him). Sessions was on the Trump transition team. He is on record as having lied to the Senate in his confirmation hearings about his conversations with the Russians.

    How in the hell does he escape scrutiny or possible criminal culpability? Rhetorical question. Just because he’s out of the government now—and sort of sidelined himself in the Mueller investigation—doesn’t mean he’s out of the big picture.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @Schlemazel: ” he will go after Jones in 20 & sadly the klan will come through for him. ”
    Maybe Sessions is finding that he is not so popular in AL anymore, and winning the primary might be more than a walk through. I heard an interview with an expert on AL politics, I think named Steve Flowers. He said Trump has an ‘almost mystical hold’ on the white AL GOP voter, and was surprised that Sessions’ popularity held up so well despite being on Trump’s shit list. But lately, Trump saying mean things on Sessions so much has taken its toll on Sessions’ popularity. Several manic AL Trumpsters are chomping on the bit to run of Senator.

  23. 23.

    Platonailedit

    @Steeplejack: Instead of talking about his criminality & corruption, we have gopolitico tongue bathing him. Having 10 fucking grandchildren is not a fucking achievement, it’s a fucking disgrace.

  25. 25.

    Schlemazel

    @jl:
    We can hope the GOP will select a real Roy Mooreesque figure to help Jones to victory

    But I would not count him out because I’m sure he would follow the George Wallace dictum to not be “out Ni**ered”

  27. 27.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Schlemazel:

    On Saturday, he traveled to the state GOP meeting so that he could be there to answer any questions from those voting on the religious freedom resolution. He was delighted, he said, that he did not have to try to convince them that he was just a regular Republican, free of terrorist ties and focused on lowering property taxes and improving school safety.

    They voted 63-0 to pass the resolution — in turn, reaffirming Shafi’s belief in the party, he said.

    “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to speak fully without breaking down,” Shafi told the room, the American-Statesman reported.

    He revealed that “there were moments of doubt in my mind” over the past six months, as he feared that his own local party might really oust him. The easiest thing he could have done, he told The Post, was resign.

    But he didn’t want to, believing it would signal a loss for religious freedom.

    “The reason I have stayed on is because the issue before the party is not about who the vice chair should be. It’s much more fundamental than that,” Shafi said. “It is about religious freedom, and if we are going to have a test of religion in the party, where will we stop? If Muslim Americans are not welcome in the GOP, who will be excluded next?”

    He probably should be only given sporks for meals.

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    @lamh36:
    Musical biopics aren’t that common, though, are they? I can think of only a few in recent years: Ray Charles, The Runaways, Florence Foster Jenkins. (Although I’m not sure that last one counts, given its subject’s limited talent)

  30. 30.

    Mart

    @Amir Khalid: There are a multitude of musical biopics – 8 Mile, La Bamba, Walk the Line, Amadeus, Get on Up, I’m Not There, Purple Rain, Straight Out of Compton, The Buddy Holly Story, The Doors, Selena, Cadillac Records, etc., and so on.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mart:
    Some of those films are not exactly recent, and some others are technically fiction rather than biography.

  36. 36.

    Mandalay

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: You beat me to it. That WaPo headline was rancid clickbait (“Some Republicans want…”), and completely misrepresented the situation.

    The headline would have been more accurate if it was “The Texas Republican Party tells a couple of Muslim hating racists to go fuck themselves”.

  41. 41.

    Schlemazel

    @danielx:
    There is a stage play that has been running around the sticks for a bit. We saw it in St. Paul 2-3 years ago. They used 2 actresses to play Janis. One was a dead ringer down to the speech pattern and the other, who did the musical numbers, was not as close visually but if you closed your eyes she sounded just like Joplin.

    Janis sister was part of the writing team & they used her letters to build the script. Still I don’t know if her fame is such that it would pack theaters.

  42. 42.

    Schlemazel

    @Mandalay:
    They report that it was several GOP chairs

    It is more accurate than the much more common, “some Democrats are saying . . . “

  44. 44.

    schrodingers_cat

    Its as if the Orange Man in the WH has given permission to all bigots to be open about their bigotry and meanness.
    This hit piece on Priyanka Chopra in NYMag’s The Cut was a total WTF.
    TBH I had never even heard of this Nick Jonas person before he was engaged to PC.

    * They took it down, but not before someone took the screen shots.

  47. 47.

    TriassicSands

    …running for the Senate could be seen as a demotion after serving in Trump’s Cabinet.

    Cleaning toilets would be promotion after serving in Trump’s cabinet.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    @trollhattan:

    She’s great. I couldn’t find a suitably Joplin-esque song by her, but she looks close enough physically and could really bring it in a biopic, IMO.

    Going in the chillin’ direction: “Spooky.”

  51. 51.

    gwangung

    @schrodingers_cat: Oh, yeah, that was pretty rancid.

    But you have to remember that media has a LOT of implicit biases that they loudly deny, particularly if you shove their faces in it. THey’re almost all white, but it’s that denial of their own faults that crosses the ideological spectrum.

  53. 53.

    Quinerly

    Trump is tweeting tonight his thanks for a 50% Rasmussen poll. The comments/reply tweets (obviously, I don’t tweet) are brutal.

    In related news, I truly think the end is near. Use your preferred translation.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Quinerly: Oh, no, Flynn actually just revealed all of Obama, Kerry and Clinton’s many crimes committed during his time at the DIA, according to Some Guy on Twitter…

  55. 55.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @gwangung: SInce this is an open thread, my Google-fu/library catalog/Amazon have failed me, and you’re very knowledgeable about Asian and Asian-American theater, I’d like to ask you if you have any suggestions on how it might be possible to find a copy of the script for Carry the Tiger to the Mountain, Cherylene Lee’s play about the murder of Vincent Chin.

    Am I just out of luck for finding it to read, or is there another source specifically for scripts that I don’t know about that could have it?

    Thank you!

  56. 56.

    gwangung

    @thalarctosMaritimus: Hm. A toughie, since so much of Asian American theatre is not published, and since the author passed away a year or so back. Have you tried her agent? They may still be handling the rights…

    If not them, I can connect you to a couple of the theatres that have done that particular script; they may still have copies hanging around….

  58. 58.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @gwangung: Those are great suggestions–thank you!

    I’m sorry to hear she passed away–she was young.

    I’m starting with IMDB and Google to find her agent, but I may well take you up on connecting to the theatres if that doesn’t work out. Again, thank you.

  59. 59.

    Shalimar

    Jesus what faux-folksy bullshit. His “home in the woods” is a huge antebellum estate in one of the most elitist vacation areas in Alabama.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    @danielx:

    There’s a skinny 13-y-o British girl who does Janis stuff on one of those vocal talent shows, she doesn’t look too much like Janis just standing there, because she’s tall and skinny. But when she starts singing and dancing, holy cow, she is channeling the goddess of blues rock!

    @Shalimar:

    Jesus what faux-folksy bullshit. His “home in the woods” is a huge antebellum estate in one of the most elitist vacation areas in Alabama.

    There’s a elite vacation area in Alabama? Honey, I lived in Alabama once upon a very long time ago. There is nowhere in Alabama that’s elite in any way whatsoever! They may delude themselves that they are elite, and spend money like it was elite, but they’re still in Alabama. Oh! WAIT! You said elitist, not elite. That’s different. Never mind!

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