Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

He really is that stupid.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans in disarray!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

Come on, man.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You are here: Home / Immigration / GOP Venality Open Thread: Slam the Door Behind Them

GOP Venality Open Thread: Slam the Door Behind Them

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Chaffetz has fled DC before the Dems take over, but his sentiments remain GOP dogma…



 
And Fox’s Prep School Rep has strong opinions, too also:

This is, shall we say, insensitive to the status of Fox money-source Rupert Murdoch, American immigrant. More importantly, one suspects, it’s not just Pacific Life pulling their ads now — how long before Carlson either (a) issues some kind of mealy-mouthed “I’m sorry you were offended by my honesty” apology, or (b) is forced into Bill O’Reilly-style ‘home office podcast’ media retirement?

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Blech.

    “We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided.”

    Tucker Tucker, Tucker… We already have you. We can’t get any poorer, dirtier, or more divided.

  5. 5.

    JGabriel

    SurlyZ via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    Instead of mocking Stephen Miller’s spray-on hair, we should be working to stop his vile policies.

    Whoa. Just saw the hair. We can multitask.

    We all know it’s inevitable that WaPo or NYT are going to post a story about how Trump is pissed and fuming that Stephen Miller undercut his message on immigration by going on air with bad fake hair. So I’m not even gonna pretend to wait for that story to come out before mocking him for it. Consider this a post from the near future:

    Donald Trump is pissed at, and mocking, Stephen Miller because Miller went on the air with bad fake hair. Donald. Trump.

    And the thing is, yes, Miller’s spray-on-hair-job really is worse than Trump’s combo-weave-layer-and-combover nightmare. You know you’re in a bad place when even Donald Trump has legitimate grounds to mock your fake hair.

    Is it unfair to mock Trump for things he hasn’t even done or said yet? Is it irresponsible? On the contrary, it’s irresponsible not to (‍™Peggy Noonan).

    I mean, c’mon, we all know it’s coming.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    @JGabriel:
    It’s hard to think of a more misbegotten product than spray-on hair. Isn’t there some way to use it that doesn’t make you a laughingstock?

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    If I do that, will I hear the lamentations or the laughter of their women?

    By the way, Liverpool FC fans will be disappointed to learn that Manchester United have sacked first-team manager Jose Mourinho. We were hoping that he would stay to the end of the season and keep United playing like the cowering children they were at Anfield on Sunday. But I suppose the fury of the fans and the puzzlement of the pundits demanded the Glazers make a blood sacrifice.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    There’s major flooding expected on the Suwannee River, where my late mom’s siblings and their spouses live, so we’re going to host flood refugees at our place over the holiday. We had already planned to host Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners for the entire family, and now we need to feed six people three meals a day for three or four days on top of that! I need to get my shopping done pronto because Friday will be too late! I’ve got presents mostly done, thanks to online shopping, but I need to lay in some food and beverage supplies.

  14. 14.

    SRW1

    @Amir Khalid:

    For once a blood sacrifice seems to have hit the right person. Spending 400 million quid on players and then systematically alienating them seems to be a somewhat questionable strategy to achieve success.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s hard to think of a more misbegotten product than spray-on hair. Isn’t there some way to use it that doesn’t make you a laughingstock?

    There must be some non-laughingstock purpose for it. Maybe using it for illustrative experiments to teach kids about static electricity?

    I suppose one could use it to make that spot of psoriasis look like a hairy mole instead, but that hardly seems like an improvement.

    Oh, wait, wait, I got it. You could use it to refresh the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror when they start to get old and develop bald spots – and yes, that’s still sort of a laughing-stock usage but, let’s face it, you crossed that threshold when you bought the fuzzy dice.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Their houses will be okay — they are built on tall and sturdy stilts. But the roads are becoming impassible, the electricity may go out, etc., so my relatives are wisely bugging out while they still can. Hopefully the river will crest short of major flooding, but the forecasts aren’t good — all that rain and snow melt from the big Southeast storm is making its way down.

    The Suwannee is an amazing river. At my relatives’ houses, there are super steep banks, and you have to go down two flights of stairs to get to the river. When it floods, it covers all those stairs and then some. My uncle’s mailbox still has prop marks from a flood ten years or so back — he accidentally ran over the top of his own mailbox in a jon boat when he went to check on his place.

  17. 17.

    montanareddog

    @Amir Khalid: Much wailing to be heard in the red half of Liverpool at the news of Mourinho’s sacking. Much wailing in Manchester (where City fans live). A huge sigh of relief in London (where United fans live).

    As a supporter of none of these teams, I just hope we have seen the last of the indigestible football produced by United this season and I hope that the players can start enjoying the game again. They all looked so miserable. This is a quote from the Guardian on Sunday: “This was beyond dire – dire squared, dire football played in dire fashion by a dire selection. Imagine a bad plan, enacted badly, by someone not very good at enacting bad plans. Imagine a negative approach, applied with extreme negativity by a group of players feeling negative about the actual merits of all this negativity. Why would anyone want to keep doing this?”

  19. 19.

    JGabriel

    @Betty Cracker:

    Their houses will be okay — they are built on tall and sturdy stilts. But the roads are becoming impassible, the electricity may go out, etc., so my relatives are wisely bugging out while they still can.

    How many, if any, of these relatives are wingnuts/Trumpsters? Just worried about the level of misery that could be coming your way.

    Be safe and well, Betty, and may your relatives be not fascists.

  20. 20.

    Patricia Kayden

    Paul Ryan’s parting shot was to announce his support for visas for Irish nationals. I suppose that since he’s of Irish descent, those are the kind of migrants he’s okay with. Other (darker) migrants can go kick rocks.

  21. 21.

    Platonailedit

    @Amir Khalid: For all the hype about Fergie, Jose’s 58.3% win ratio is comparable to their god’s 59.7%. I blame the players. How many coaches did they chase out since Fergie? The team seems to have a big daddy issue.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Some Okie caver friends of mine bought some riverfront property knowing they would have to deal with flooding issues. After talking to other landowners in the area they decided another 4 feet of concrete pier for a total of 12 feet would be a good idea (IIRC their house sits well above the river at normal stage) Last spring they were showing me some video of their latest flood. The water was only an inch or 2 from entering their house. For some reason 500 year floods are happening a couple times every decade now. Not sure why that would be.

    My uncle’s mailbox still has prop marks from a flood ten years or so back — he accidentally ran over the top of his own mailbox in a jon boat when he went to check on his place.

    Heh. I’d keep using that mail box too.

  25. 25.

    Quinerly

    Trump’s AM tweet:
    “Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!”

  28. 28.

    Elizabelle

    Happy Countdown to Christmas, jackals. Seven days.

    @ Betty Cracker: all the best to you. Did not know about the Suwannee River and its steep banks. Is this an unusually early flood? For central VA and mountain NC, heavy winter snow (and meltoff) certainly came early this year. Technically, not even winter yet.

    Happy Countdown to the Winter Solstice. Three days.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    @JGabriel: The flood refugees are approximately 75% Trumpsters, unfortunately. The good news is they’re awfully quiet about Orangemandias these days; I think even they can see what an embarrassing clusterfuck this administration is. If there is an outbreak of hostilities, my husband will back me up. He LOVES to argue and can do so without getting upset. When the whole family is gathered, we’re more like 50/50 pro- and anti-Trump, and the 50% who hate Trump really hate that bastard’s guts and aren’t shy about saying so. I won’t feel outnumbered.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @Quinerly:

    in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign

    Not without Russia’s considerable assistance, you fucking pussy.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    Hey, raven, if you’re here: Have you and your bride recovered from Shingrix yet? I wussed out again yesterday.

  32. 32.

    Quinerly

    “I hope the judge understands when he has the case tomorrow that Flynn did not commit a crime by lying,” Dershowitz told Fox News host Bill Hemmer. “Because the lie has to be material to the investigation. And if the FBI already knew the answer to the question and only asked him the question in order to give him an opportunity to lie, his answer — even if false — was not material to the investigation.”

    “Lying to the FBI is not a crime!” the law professor added.

    Dershowitz is essentially asserting that Flynn’s lie about speaking to the Russian ambassador regarding removing sanctions was not “material” to Mueller’s Russia investigation.

  33. 33.

    Tony Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    I, personally, am gutted. Jose at United was the gift that kept on giving and to snatch it away from us just before Christmas is such a ‘United’ thing to do. Arseholes!

    On the other hand, much hilarity is being had in guessing which over-paid failure is going to be slotted on top of the Old Trafford Christmas Tree in a few weeks. Zidane won’t do it (too big a rebuilding job), Simeone doesn’t play attacking football. Getting Potch out of Spurs would require a pay-off beyond anything the United Board would stomach. Who will it be?

    Please be Mark Hughes. Please be Mark Hughes. Please be Mark Hughes. (It won’t be Mark Hughes)

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: I’m not sure. Seems like the last big flood on the Suwannee was in the summer of 2009, but I could be mistaken. I’m on a river too, and our river tends to be high in the summer and low in the winter, but its source is the Green Swamp in Central FL, so this state’s rainy season drives its fluctuations. The last major flood on our river was caused when four hurricanes traveled up the spine of the state in the summer of 2004. The Suwannee’s source is the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, which is subject to different meteorological events.

  35. 35.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    The key word in Carlson’s quote is “dirtier.” That’s a sign this is about something other than just the practicalities. I’m not even sure what it could mean in some kind of literal way.

  38. 38.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Here’s some Trumpy advice the Fed:

    I hope the people over at the Fed will read today’s Wall Street Journal Editorial before they make yet another mistake. Also, don’t let the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s. Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2018

    None of that number stuff, says the guy who brags about going to Wharton (which he did not).

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly:

    “Lying to the FBI is not a crime!” the law professor added.

    I don’t know about that, but being terminally stupid — as you are, Dersh — might be thought of as a crime against Humanity.

    Yeah, yeah, I know, Alan — “but her e-mails!!!”

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @Tony Jay:

    Zidane won’t do it (too big a rebuilding job)

    Oh, bullshit — he can just head-butt all the “players” he wants gone. That’s always worked for him.

  45. 45.

    Amir Khalid

    @Platonailedit:
    A win ratio doesn’t tell you everything. Look at the other data, too. What was United’s league position in Sir Alex’s heyday, and what is it now? Halfway through the 2018/19 season United are a mid-table side 19 points below the league leaders, 8 points below the last place for European competition, and their goal difference is zero: as many conceded as scored. Jose has spent hundreds of millions on star players to warm his bench. Spurs spent nothing in the last transfer window; they lead United by two places and 13 points. United have really been in crisis since Sir Alex retired, and now it’s too big to ignore.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    FYI. Think pink, dude.

    Astronomers have spotted the farthest known object in our solar system — and they’ve nicknamed the pink cosmic body “Farout.” Source

  48. 48.

    Barbara

    @Quinerly: “If they already knew the answer the lie can’t be material.” I am not an expert on the jurisprudence in this area, but I strongly doubt this is a totally subjective test, and assume it includes an objective component, as in, was the lie mayerial to the metter under investigation.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:Wikipedia:

    In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University.[1][10] After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[10][11] While at Wharton, he worked at the family business, Elizabeth Trump & Son.[12] He graduated in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics.[10][13][14]

  50. 50.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: @Baud: you’re a better person than me too Betty, because I don’t think I could cope with having Trumpsters around. If I felt compelled to help family I would kick in on a hotel room for them.
    Kudos to you.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The good news is they’re awfully quiet about Orangemandias these days;

    I went to the Republican lawyers Christmas party last night and this is true of them, too. It’s the county lawyers Christmas party but they’re all Republicans so in my head it’s the Republican lawyers party.

    They’re freaking out about the stock market, too. Right now the group of active lawyers skews older and they’re looking at retirement and watching their savings drop, drop, drop. Nothing like a personal hit to get your attention.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @Tony Jay:
    It’s possible that Zidane is still on his break and not interested. Now, the manager I’d like to see at United is Roy Keane. His dressing-room fist-fights with underperforming players will be epic, I tell you.

  53. 53.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Baud: You mean someone else wrote it? I don’t know. He’s tweeting other stuff and that advice to go with your gut sounds like him. OTOH, no random caps.

    @debbie: I have no idea what that means. I assumed it was financial speak, but maybe it’s Trump talk.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @Kay: I finally feel some vindication for getting out after the 2016 election.

    Maybe it’ll fall far enough that they’ll feel like voting for another black Democrat to rescue them.

  57. 57.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: Wharton is a graduate school at Penn. As an undergrad, Trump went to Penn and took classes in an undergrad program Wharton runs. He went to Penn, not Wharton.

    ETA: I just clicked on over to Wharton and I may have to take it back. They do list an undergrad program. My god, I hate Trump.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Yep. My Trumpster relatives are all retirees whose meager stock portfolios have taken a massive hit lately. Oh well. We tried to warn them! :)

  65. 65.

    Kay

    There’s a wealthy person who grew up in Ohio and is making a huge gift to this county to study/treat opiate abuse. He chose this county because it’s 2nd in the state for high rates of overdose deaths. He doesn’t want to be identified so the gift will be administered by a trust. He actually chose a town, not the county- good choice, that town, it probably is the center of the problem. The town has only 1500 residents though and a part time mayor and volunteer council so they asked for the county to take it over. The donor wants it centered on health care rather than law enforcement so the hospital will be the lead. The gift comes with funding for a writer- a kind of chronicler of events. He’s already started.

    It’ll be interesting to see what a real focus with funding will produce.

  66. 66.

    Quinerly

    @Baud: a little altar set up with HRC as Madonna. Or we can work in the action figure RBG doll that is advertised on my Book of Faces feed.

  67. 67.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s been fixated on some thing with bonds or whatever that happens $50 billion at a time. Because he’s desperately, flailingly stupid about every possible thing, and uses swagger to cover it up in the hope no one will notice — including himself.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Mine too! Mine. My personal savings :)

    I know it goes up and down, giant global economy, blah, blah and I really wouldn’t have blamed him! Except I will because he was dumb enough to take credit for the gains. If you take credit for the gains to get blame for the losses. That’s the rule. I don’t make the rules- I just enforce them.

  72. 72.

    Procopius

    @Quinerly: Dersh should have been defending Martha Stewart. You know, many people who knew him said that at one time, up to 2012, maybe 2013, Flynn was a brilliant, capable intelligence officer and a pleasure to be around. Something happened and he abruptly became a crazy person, obsessed with conspiracy theories. I can believe that. Maybe a small stroke damaged some essential area of his brain. The idea that a Lieutenant General in the Army and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency did not know that lying to the FBI is a felony is so absurd Dershowitz probably needs a mental health examination himself.

  73. 73.

    randy khan

    @Quinerly:

    As I mentioned in a thread last night, Dersh is wrong, as the standard for materiality is based on whether the person making the statement would have thought it would influence the investigation, not on whether it actually did. And he knows that, too.

  74. 74.

    Platonailedit

    @Amir Khalid: Sure, but then Jose has a big resume too across Europe and even in EPL. Yes, he is a dour & sour man, but that doesn’t make him the sole villain. ManU players are pampered fuckers and instead of chopping and changing managers, the owners should demand performance from them.

  75. 75.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    If you take credit for the gains to get blame for the losses.

    I apply the same rule to all the “job creators”.

  78. 78.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly: For some reason 500 year floods are happening a couple times every decade now. Not sure why that would be.

    I’m going with “because gay marriage”

  79. 79.

    Procopius

    @Kay: Good to see someone with real money recognizing that increased law enforcement is not going to help. They’ve been ratcheting that up ever since Nixon and the results have not been good. When we ask for more funding for schools all we hear is, “Throwing more money at the problem won’t do any good.” Funny, they never think that applies to The War On Drugs.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You should! The only thing holding Trump at 40 is the economy. There’s a bump and he loses 10, immediately.

    “I alone can fix it”. There’s consequences for claiming that. It’s amusing how closely HE follows it. Because he knows.

    I’m a boring investor – shocker, I know. I don’t try to guess. I just stay the course. I feel differently about it since the 2009 crash. More fatalistic. For all I know the gains are based on some invented value anyway. I will never get over that they invented property value. This goes to my very core – property! I thought you could value that, that it was a real number. I sort of knew it in 2006- it’s a small town and I know what people make and I know what house + new car+ college tuition costs and I knew it didn’t add up but I thought finance people knew something I didn’t. Something…magical :)

    Now I’m sadder and wiser.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Procopius:

    Yeah, it’s interesting. The whole opiate thing has been a learning experience for me. I do some legal work in the juvenile court- I’m paid for that portion by the county- and so I go to drug court meetings. Not always, but when there’s something that applies to my people. The presentation that sticks with me was from a grief counselor. That never occurred to me- that addicts are also grieving. They’ve lost a lot of people- friends, family members. There’s this intense sadness about them, and that’s part of it. I felt like a dope- of course they’re grieving. In a way we all are.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: There is something about that phrase that I absolutely loath. Perhaps because it’s used to venerate a bunch of soulless greed filled morally ambiguous leeches.

  85. 85.

    montanareddog

    @Platonailedit: “ManU players are pampered fuckers and instead of chopping and changing managers, the owners should demand performance from them.”

    The same thing was said of the Chelsea players when Mourinho lost the dressing room in the 2015-2016 season (following his bullying of the club doctor) and the team then lost 9 of their first 16 matches. A year and a half later Conte had coached the same club to the title.

  88. 88.

    chopper

    @Quinerly:

    so, the judge accepted flynn’s plea, agreeing that the law was broken. but at the sentencing hearing, the judge should give him no jail time because he didn’t break the law? what the fuck is this bullshit?

    somebody needs to remind him that this is a sentencing hearing. of course flynn broke the law, he’s literally being sentenced for it.

  89. 89.

    Platonailedit

    @montanareddog:

    He also brought Chelsea their first league title in what, 40-45 years? Intermilan their title after a long drought. It seems to be Jose’s curse that he will leave each club a bitter man and a bitter team. And where is Conte now?

    I am not saying he is blameless but at the same time the overpaid players didn’t pull their weight either, under 3 different coaches now.

  90. 90.

    JGabriel

    @Betty Cracker:

    The flood refugees are approximately 75% Trumpsters … When the whole family is gathered, we’re more like 50/50 pro- and anti-Trump, and the 50% who hate Trump really hate that bastard’s guts and aren’t shy about saying so. I won’t feel outnumbered.

    Relieved to hear you won’t feel outnumbered, but that still doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. Here’s hoping the flood threat recedes quickly, and the family invasion pulls out with equal alacrity.

  94. 94.

    Gelfling 545

    @debbie: I have a policy about introducing new meds. Nothing before a major holiday and absolutely nothing in December unless I’d die without it. This is no time of year for side effects and unfortunate reactions.

  96. 96.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The key word in Carlson’s quote is “dirtier.” That’s a sign this is about something other than just the practicalities. I’m not even sure what it could mean in some kind of literal way.

    That’s a true sign of a real racist. Those dusky people are all literally dirty, even if they just had a shower, because they can’t see the dirt to wash it off — or more likely because that dirt is inside them. I had a “science” teacher in 7th grade who beat that drum constantly. He told a story… well, I can’t repeat it, actually. Too much triggering nasty racist language. But believe me it was unlikely to an extreme that little black kids would have ever asked this bigot anything.

    Mr Pugh was so happy the day JFK was shot… dirty Irish Catholic, doncha know!!!

    Tucker is a fucking racist to his core, a despicable fascist hater of everyone not just like him, which would be everyone else, actually. I Hope he visits some other racist and catches ebola.

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    I will never get over that they invented property value. This goes to my very core – property! I thought you could value that, that it was a real number. I sort of knew it in 2006- it’s a small town and I know what people make and I know what house + new car+ college tuition costs and I knew it didn’t add up but I thought finance people knew something I didn’t. Something…magical :)

    I knew we were in big trouble when I learned that most of the big new houses in the Eastern Panhandle – aka DC suburbs – were being sold with interest only loans… yes, interest only payments, principle never to be paid off.

    Planning to flip, and when the market turned, all those loans were gone! as was the real estate! Bankrupt builders, developers, “owners” lenders, everyone. This will be different, but the same…

  98. 98.

    Batocchio

    Tucker Carlson, always finding new ways to be vile. And as usual, his conservative fans are claiming that a sponsor pulling out (at least temporarily) is impinging on Carlson’s free speech rights.

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