Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / GOP Venality Open Thread: Choral Squawk of Shame

GOP Venality Open Thread: Choral Squawk of Shame

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The rest of us, we’re just drab white-collar players. The Republican Party, an effectively criminal enterprise just waiting for the right enterprising criminal…

The LAWN ORDURE party. Doesn’t even rise to the level of bullshit, just tight little balls of sheep manure.


Reader Interactions

156Comments

  1. 1.

    Jersey Tomato

    Seems to me everyone knew BIll Clinton was a player before he was elected, too. That didn’t prevent the GOP from launching the world’s longest pantyraid when he was in office.

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    Did anyone expect different from republicans?
    I expect them to rally round till it’s not just obvious, but massively, two weeks past 300% fucking obvious. And waver for another month before thinking there might be a problem

  7. 7.

    Pogonip

    I don’t know where the Daily Beast gets its info. We have plenty of Trump supporters, or previous supporters, around here, and most of them seem to be disgusted with him. Shrug.

  11. 11.

    SFAW

    My monitor resolution is not as high as I’d like, so I need someone to help me out: how deeply were Susan Collins’s brows furrowed, if at all? Because, being a Maine Moderate, I’m sure she’s ever-so-concerned. Or she would be, if it were a Dem in the White House.

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    He is such a fucking asshole. Is this a Kapo Miller extravaganza? Or did Fuckhead-in-Chief come up with that on his own? [Yes, I realize he’s too fucking stupid to “think” of that on his own. So is it Miller? Or Bannon? Or CoS-in-Waiting Jarvanka?]

  15. 15.

    Martin

    @Cheryl Rofer: This is what has everyone here on edge. From your link:

    Not only does the Trump administration now claim that the agreement doesn’t protect people with criminal convictions, but it now believes it doesn’t protect anyone who came before 1995 who has a final order of deportation — which you can get simply for violating immigration law, i.e., for being in the US without papers.

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    You can make anything a crime under the current laws.

    WTACTUALF Orrin Hatch????

    He’s been a “lawmaker” for how many years now??

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    I love that Hatch quote from Manu Raju: “Everything before his election, we’re gonna ignore that. From the womanizing to the lying to the conspiracy to the tax fraud to the campaign finance violations to the shell corporations – gone, whitewashed. Everything after the election, the obstruction, the perjury, the conspiracy, well, that is all trumped – ar ar ar – by this here ay-may-zing economy we got going here. Now, Mr. Smart Reporter, if you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed a crime right in between, at the mathematical moment he was elected…well, we still won’t give a shit, but that’s the only ‘window’, so to speak, that Imma gonna give you. El to the Oh-El!”

    FUCK THESE PEOPLE

  20. 20.

    MazeDancer

    Just had an extraordinary moment.

    Post Card Patriots is attempting to offset the expense of maintaining a political force by selling some gifts and Holiday Cards. And got notice that someone had bought two PDFs of Holiday PostCards that had same “headline” (“Peace First”)

    So, I emailed her to check if she had actually wanted both. This is an $8.00 transaction (4 bucks each). But can’t have peace without clarity.

    She did want both. We exchanged a few messages. And it turns out this woman has been writing PostCards since Ossoff, for a total of 4,000. Yes, 4,000!! One woman: 4K PostCards. (Zero for PostCard Patriots, hope to change that around 10/19.) She says it is her “therapy”.

    Told her I was bowing down to my Queen Nancy Pelosi, yesterday, but bowing down to her today.

    (Also, told her about BJ.)

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    Rudy tries out his comedy routine on the road.

    “I’m probably the most ethical person you ever met,” Giuliani told the Times. “I follow all the rules. I have no desire to trade on anything.” Source

  22. 22.

    japa21

    “As long as Cohen’s a liar I shouldn’t give much credibility to what he says,” senator tells reporters.

    Told that it’s prosecutors alleging it, Grassley replies: “He got his information from a liar.”

    I see this everywhere. The government is basing its case on the word of a liar.

    First of all, the government would never make an accusation like they did without corroborating evidence.

    Secondly, and I have not heard a single person bring this up, is that there is a second person, mentioned in Cohen’s tape of his phone call with Trump, that has also spoken with the grand jury. Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization. I wonder just how much of what he had to say is backing up Cohen’s story.

  24. 24.

    lollipopguild

    @dmsilev: Of course. People like trump are never to blame for anything, someone else either did something or forgot to do something and are therefore to blame.

  27. 27.

    Chris T.

    “Senator Repubibluster, I have a hypothetical question for you. Suppose the next Bill-Clinton-esque Democrat—let’s call him William Dipwick—is running for President, and allegedly has an affair. Then his wife dies under mysterious circumstances, and he wins the election, perhaps due to the sympathy vote. Meanwhile the mistresses have stated that they did indeed have affairs with Dipwick. Now, two years into his presidency, his then-lawyer is convicted of hiring an assassin. The lawyer alleges that he hired the assassin at the direction of Dipwick, to kill the wife to keep her from divorcing him. Should the president be indicted, or at least investigated?”

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    @SFAW

    The only, and I mean only, good thing is that more Mainers are finally seeing who she is. For a long time I felt like I was taking crazy pills because everyone loooved her for being so reasonable, moderate, and civil.

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Every one of these sorry excuses for a U.S. Senator needs to borrow Melania’s I DON’T REALLY CARE. DO U? jacket and wear it for a day. Yes, in public. Yes, in the Senate chamber. Yes, in front of photographers.

  30. 30.

    TenguPhule

    Collect those receipts folks.

    The next Democratic President gets to do WHATEVER they fucking want to.

  33. 33.

    Chyron HR

    People understood Trump is a flamboyant player.

    It’s weird how “he’s no angel” apparently doesn’t mean “kill on sight” when you say it about a white guy.

  36. 36.

    TenguPhule

    At this point a viable argument could be made in a court of law that GOP Senators are illegitimate enemy combatants of a hostile foreign power.

    Just saying.

  37. 37.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Ruckus: For a long time, I thought that mushroom clouds would be what it would take. I now think that self-preservation will eventually draw the 21 R senators needed to convict.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MazeDancer:

    That’s such a great story! I hope she does join in the jackalarity here (and identify herself as the 4K-postcard person).

    I have a way to go to catch up! Would need to go back and subject myself to arithmetic, but I think I’m somewhere around 80-90 cards.

    Absolutely love what you’re doing with Postcard Patriots, MazeDancer! Just a terrific initiative.

  40. 40.

    Mandalay

    @Platonailedit:

    Pathetic group of cowards, who will grovel before the thug forever

    Many are actually even more pathetic than that; they will grovel before the thug until the polls consistently tell them that the wind is blowing in a different direction.

    And when that happens, and true believers like Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller stay loyal to Trump, I will have more respect for them than for cowards like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, and all the other shills who have never believed in him for a moment, yet supported him solely because it served their own interests.

    At least Miller and Scavino misguidedly believe their support for Trump helps the nation. Cowards like Rubio and Cruz support him despite knowing that he is destroying the country.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    @SFAW: Fat Bastard and his minions have a weekly staff meeting where they decide which group of non-white people to go after next.

  42. 42.

    Bobby Thomson

    @SFAW: she is the biggest POS on Capitol Hill. Even more so than Steve King and Ted Cruz, who at least are upfront with their evilness.

  43. 43.

    Steve in the ATL

    Talked to some farmers in Indiana today (you guys are SO jealous of my travel). Asked them what they think of trump. Half the farmers round these parts grow soy beans so I thought they might have come to their senses. Haha hell no!

    They think their short term pain will lead to long term gain, so they still support the lazy moron.

    I may go back into banking just so I can take the farms in a year or two.

    Jackasses.

    Steve in BFE

  44. 44.

    MJS

    It would be nice if some reporter could remind these fuckwad Republican Senators who voted to impeach Clinton that those investigations were started based on issues (Whitewater, Paula Jones) that pre-dated his election as President.

  45. 45.

    Yarrow

    @MattF:

    What they’re all actually saying is “I won’t vote to convict”.

    For now. They’re seeing which way the wind blows and they don’t want to be on record one way or the other. The pressure is only just beginning to build.

  50. 50.

    cain

    So someone shoudl ask why is Bengazhi and Clinton emails so important to them if you shrug off crimes the President does where they are actual convictions happening? If you don’t fucking care about the rule of law, then why care about Clinton, assholes?!

  51. 51.

    gratuitous

    “Crimes! Pfffft! You can cite the law to make anything even remotely illegal a crime.” Formerly known as the Homer Simpson Defense, this is now the Orrin Hatch Defense.

  55. 55.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Chetan Murthy: I drove through “towns” today that were just a cluster of buildings at a 4-way stop. I thought I had reached New York City when I got to a crossroads with a traffic light.

    And I will be arbitrating a case involving a former employee named “Peyton”. Apparently that name is quite common here now….

  57. 57.

    sukabi

    @MomSense: his Alzheimer’s meds aren’t working like they used to, and his aides lost track of him…they weren’t fast enough hustling him out of microphone range.

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Questions I think these senators should be asked

    * So we are to talk this that the conservative obsession over family values is merely so many words?

    * So hypothetically speaking, Mr Trump were to torture and eat a small child alive on national TV, would that be a crime to far or would you be fine with that too?

    * Do you believe the real criminal in Hooker Bribery scandl is Hillary’s emails?

  61. 61.

    sukabi

    @japa21: anybody that claims the cases are based on a liar should ask them why they believe anything proven serial liar donald fucking trump says.

  64. 64.

    TenguPhule

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    So hypothetically speaking, Mr Trump were to torture and eat a small child alive on national TV, would that be a crime to far or would you be fine with that too?

    Oh I know this one!

    “I don’t discuss hypotheticals.”

  67. 67.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Yarrow: And it is in America’s interest to pressure the senators until they start peeling off. Watergate happened that way.

  68. 68.

    TenguPhule

    @Yarrow:

    But at some point it’ll be in their self-interest to vote to convict.

    Never. They hang together or they hang separately.

  69. 69.

    TenguPhule

    @cain:

    If you don’t fucking care about the rule of law, then why care about Clinton, assholes?!

    Its only OKIYAR.

  70. 70.

    West of the Rockies

    This the ludicrous crew who shat their collective britches when Obama wore a tan suit. May they all some day perceive their own vile hypocrisy; may they all feel the palpable soul-weight of shame.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MazeDancer:

    Well, it’s not quite 4,000, but it’ll do for now.

    P.S. Your new pen pal has apparently dropped something like $1,400 on postage alone. I find that both wildly admirable and wildly daunting.

  75. 75.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    War crime apologist Tulsi Gabbard is on hardball saying she’s seriously planning a run for the nomination.

    Blech

  76. 76.

    karen marie

    @MazeDancer: I think it’s lovely that people write postcards but I don’t know how effective they are at getting recipients to do anything they weren’t going to do already. I received a couple postcards before the November election and – sorry! – they went straight into my recycle bin. The amount of mail that’s generated by candidates from dog catcher up, and political parties and interest groups, in the weeks before an election is insane. Adding postcards to the mix seems to me to be an exercise in futility. Now, doing postcard campaigns to elected officials on discrete issues – that I can get behind. I just think this person you’re referencing probably has better things to spend her time on than writing another 4,000 postcards that have zero impact except allowing the people writing them to feel like they’re doing something and impressing people selling postcards.

  78. 78.

    TenguPhule

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    War crime apologist Tulsi Gabbard is on hardball saying she’s seriously planning a run for the nomination.

    That’s why I kept warning you all to get ready to torpedo her in the primaries. One of the other women planning to run better take point and grill her because for obvious reasons the men in the party can’t do so without setting off landmines.

  79. 79.

    piratedan

    this gets at the core of what is rotten in the GOP… they’ve bought into the idea (much like a good many members of our loyal profession of stenographers) that this is all a fucking game and guess what, they’re winning!!! yay go team! We’re all about horse races and pushiong our policy and what policy do they push, why they push the policy of whoever fucking owns them, be it whatever industry, whatever constituency or whatever foreign entity… they’re getting paid and as such, they’re duty bound to deliver, regardless of how it looks to them. Everything else are just the mechanisms by which the game is played, at least that’s how they see it.

    Nevermind that there are people being deported, babies in cages or people dying because of the lack of affordable health care, mental health treatments or dirty water… it’s NOT THEM, so it doesn’t affect them so they don’t fucking care.

    If the Mueller investigation turns deeper into the subsoil and we determine that not only are these people dirty, they’re flat out fucking filthy, I think perhaps jail time would be too fucking easy for them… I think they should be fed a steady diet of Flint’s drinking water, food that couldn’t bothered to be inspected and they can live in one of these lovely ICE detention camps and do their time, perhaps we can even put them to work on public projects, like building a wall of something.

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    @piratedan:

    perhaps we can even put them to work on public projects, like building a wall of something.

    I would force them to dig trenches so that every exposed power and phone line on a pole can be run underground.

    For the whole country.

  81. 81.

    Chetan Murthy

    @piratedan:

    I think they should be fed a steady diet of Flint’s drinking water, food that couldn’t bothered to be inspected and they can live in one of these lovely ICE detention camps and do their time

    Careful now, don’t write things like that on Twitter, or you’ll be banned.

  82. 82.

    Steve in the ATL

    @piratedan: you weren’t around the other night when I needed support on obscure late 70’s/early 80’s music! I assume you have the Scientists’ ”Frantic Romantic” in heavy rotation in your iTunes library.

  85. 85.

    Steve in the ATL

    Rust Belt Juicers: should I trust the waitress at Max and Erma’s next to an outlet mall when she assures me that the salmon I ordered was caught fresh this morning and flown to the restaurant just in time for my dinner?

  89. 89.

    TS (the original)

    @Cheryl Rofer: the only way trump can feel his wins is by hurting people. He doesn’t care who or why – but if their skin is other than white – it gives him two wins for the price of one.

  90. 90.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m thinking a person could probably drive to most of the addressees and deliver the cards in person and maybe spend less on fuel, food, and lodging than on the total cost of printing and stamps.

    ETA: Plus: ROAD TRIP!!

  93. 93.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: I like to eat local when I travel. Why dine at restaurants that I can patronize within a few miles of my house when there’s so much local flavor available?

    A couple of years ago I was feeling adventurous in Zionsville, Indiana and ordered a local wine off the (laminated) wine list. The salty old waitress hesitated briefly, then said “we just opened a nice bottle of California cab. Let me bring you that instead.”

    Message received!

    Indiana wine probably merits my usual comment on Michigan wine: “it’s an acceptable option when you’ve run out of prison cell toilet wine”

  94. 94.

    Jeffro

    @TS (the original): That’s very true – he learned it at his dad’s knee. “Only two kinds of people in this world, Donnie: winners, and LOOOOSers”. That’s it. No possibility of working together (well, except for when Fred and DJT worked together to commit tax fraud for decades. THAT, that’s do-able…)

  98. 98.

    TenguPhule

    @Steve in the ATL:

    should I trust the waitress at Max and Erma’s next to an outlet mall when she assures me that the salmon I ordered was caught fresh this morning and flown to the restaurant just in time for my dinner?

    Ask them from which coast it came from.

  101. 101.

    Geoboy

    These people are fucking pathetic. I’m in agreement with John Dingell when he says the Senate should be abolished.

  102. 102.

    TenguPhule

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Why dine at restaurants that I can patronize within a few miles of my house when there’s so much local flavor available?

    Because sometime the local flavor is just terrible?

  105. 105.

    Steve in the ATL

    @debbie: yes, I normally eat it at the Columbus airport! But it’s a regional chain. And I wasn’t in the mood for Cracker Barrel because, you know, I don’t hate black people.

  107. 107.

    Steve in the ATL

    @TenguPhule:

    Because sometime the local flavor is just terrible?

    Yup. Which is why my labor guy and I ate at Chili’s last night in Battle Creek.

  108. 108.

    Platonailedit

    The assholes are still circling the wagon for protecting the dickhead.

    Nicolle Wallace spoke with a Trump ally, who told her this: "The entire question about whether the president committed an impeachable offense now hinges on the testimony of two men: David Pecker and Allen Weisselberg, both cooperating witnesses in the SDNY investigation." @MSNBC— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 13, 2018

  109. 109.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Huh. When I lived in Flint, I made the grievous error of purchasing a bottle of Michigan red. One sip told me I had wasted a couple of perfectly good dollars. But what to do? I didn’t dare pour it down the sink or the toilet for fear it would corrode the plumbing. I don’t quite remember, but I think I eventually used it for cooking.

  110. 110.

    B.B.A.

    Earlier today there was a thread about what we regret, which it’s too late for me to post in.

    So let me just say: I regret everything.

  111. 111.

    Yarrow

    @Elizabelle: I’ve been optimistic for quite some time about how this will play out. Since summer 2017. It just takes time. Hence my “tick tock, motherfuckers.” I knew what was coming for them. We will prevail.

  112. 112.

    Mandalay

    @TenguPhule:

    One of the other women planning to run better take point and grill her…

    While I don’t care for her at all, I have every confidence that Kirsten Gillibrand will happily shiv anyone who who threatens her right to become the next leader of the free world.

  117. 117.

    hells littlest angel

    Please, Republicans, delay, delay, delay … until Nancy Smash is 2nd in line of succession.

  125. 125.

    Catherine D.

    Stealing it! GOP – LAWN ORDURE is my next t-shirt design. (Not commercially, just make them for myself as stress relievers. )

  132. 132.

    Burnspbesq

    @Mandalay:

    While I don’t care for her at all, I have every confidence that Kirsten Gillibrand will happily shiv anyone who who threatens her right to become the next leader of the free world.

    Knowing how to do politics as a contact sport is a useful quality for a politician to have.

  137. 137.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Josie: that was an unforced error. In Chicago one eats deep dish or ketchup-free hot dogs. Though my labor guy has been suffering from gastric distress since eating a burger at Scotty’s Brewhouse last night in Ball. Go, Fighting Lettermans!

  139. 139.

    Mnemosyne

    @karen marie:

    Yes, but you’re someone who hangs out on political websites and pays attention to stuff. Those of us who do that are a very tiny group.

    IIRC, the estimate that Postcards to Voters has is that for every 25 postcards that get sent, 1 additional person votes who might not have without that reminder. In these very close elections that we’re having, those additional 100+ votes could make a difference.

  140. 140.

    Wapiti

    @Steve in the ATL:

    A couple of years ago I was feeling adventurous in Zionsville, Indiana and ordered a local wine off the (laminated) wine list. The salty old waitress hesitated briefly, then said “we just opened a nice bottle of California cab. Let me bring you that instead.”

    We used to go back to my mom’s hometown every year. When they got a Pizza Hut, we went there, and had a pizza with anchovies. When we came back the next year, we were told that nobody else in town ate anchovies and they had to throw the can out.

  143. 143.

    Mnemosyne

    @Schlemazel:

    Meh. He did far less to harm national security than George Papadoulous, though he was dumb enough to leak the information to his secret mistress:

    Wolfe was not accused of leaking classified information. Prosecutors said Wolfe was in regular contact with several reporters who covered the committee, in violation of Senate rules. He also maintained a yearslong personal relationship with one reporter that he lied about until being confronted with a photograph of himself and the journalist.

    I admit, I would love to know who his reporter/girlfriend was, but it looks like her name may be kept confidential as part of the deal.

  145. 145.

    FlyingToaster

    @Steve in the ATL: I did a century (read 8 long years) getting educated in Bloomington. Once you’re outside of the college towns, it’s fucking appalling. Do NOT get off the bus in Martinsville. Just don’t.

    And the local religion is basketball; that’s important.

    Of course, I grew up in Missouri, which is worse outside of KC, STL, and on campus at Mizzou, MSU, TSU.

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    @Steve in the ATL:

    …should I trust the waitress at Max and Erma’s next to an outlet mall when she assures me that the salmon I ordered was caught fresh this morning and flown to the restaurant just in time for my dinner?

    Count yourself V lucky it didn’t come out of a can, fresh, that morning!

  149. 149.

    scott (the other one)

    @NotMax:

    “I’m probably the most ethical person you ever met,” Giuliani told the Times. “I follow all the rules. I have no desire to trade on anything.” Source

    REPORTER: I assume you’re drawing a sharp distinction between morality and ethics? Or does your current wife know that you consider cheating on your spouse perfectly okeydoke?

    (I just learnt Rudy’s in the process of getting divorced yet again. So I guess the question’s moot.)

  153. 153.

    Tehanu

    There was a great tweet I saw — can’t remember from whom — about Republican attitudes: Central American refugees fleeing violence are “breaking the law and the law must be enforced” — but when Dump & Co violate election laws right and left, the law is just some feeble thing that everybody should ignore.

  154. 154.

    oldgold

    I have always enjoyed this apocryphal tale about white salmon.

    In order to sell a bunch of white salmon he acquired on the cheap, P T Barnum placed a sign on the door that said:

    “Fresh salmon, guaranteed not to turn pink in the can.”

  155. 155.

    Origuy

    @FlyingToaster: I grew up in Bloomington. Our basketball teams would run to the buses after games in Martinsville and the black cheerleaders wouldn’t go there. Even in the mid 70s it was known as a sundown town. But I’ve been through there in the last few years and I think it’s changed. It’s more of a bedroom community for Indianapolis now. Of course, I’m a white guy. Others may have a different opinion.

  156. 156.

    r€nato

    Republicans circa 1998: RULE OF LAW! RULE OF LAW!
    Republicans circa 2018: Who cares if the president committed multiple felonies?

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