• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

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

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Please don’t feed the bears.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

In my day, never was longer.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Immigration / Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Rep. Pete King Shames His Clan

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Rep. Pete King Shames His Clan

by Anne Laurie|  December 30, 20181:53 am| 30 Comments

This post is in: Immigration, Open Threads, Republican Venality, All Too Normal, Rare Sincerity

FacebookTweetEmail

The competition for Most Horrible Congressman King is fierce, but @congpeteking came to play. Watch your back @SteveKingIA. I mean, you watch it anyway because brown people might be sneaking up, but watch it MORE.https://t.co/cUu1X3HZug

— ShutItAllDownHat (@Popehat) December 29, 2018

As a fellow member of the Irish-American community, I apologize for this… person.

You can be sure young Peter was taught to despise the cruel Brits and effete WASPS who hand-waved Irish suffering because “Those people don’t really care about their children — that’s why they have so many, so carelessly.”

We were not supposed to think “I can hardly wait to oppress other people the same way”… but then, in those days decent Irish-Americans didn’t become Republicans, either.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Open Thread: Fake Wall, Real Suffering
Next Post: Sunday Morning Open Thread: Never Mind ‘Be Best’, Just Be Better »

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    December 30, 2018 at 1:57 am

    Christ, what an asshole! If it wasn’t for that phrase, I would be speechless now.

  2. 2.

    Mike in NC

    December 30, 2018 at 1:59 am

    I grew up in an Irish/Italian-American neighborhood in Boston. Probably mostly Trumpists these days.

  3. 3.

    Raoul

    December 30, 2018 at 2:07 am

    “Pro-life”, the marketing slogan that launched a thousand rancid, immoral political careers.

  4. 4.

    Schlemazel

    December 30, 2018 at 2:08 am

    @Mike in NC:
    I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. They were painfully aware that the WASPs hated them and they were social justice warriors because they understood that an attack on one was an attack on all (the exception being my Jewish neighbors whom the catholics despised)

    Today those folks are heavily GOP because they believe they are now “white enough”.

  5. 5.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    December 30, 2018 at 2:10 am

    I’d forgotten all about Peter King. I didn’t even know he was still in office. “Only” two children, eh? Oh, and gotta love that dig at African-Americans. Because “housing projects” is totally a dig at African-Americans.

    Fuck that asshole. Fuck him with a rusty-chainsaw.

  6. 6.

    sukabi

    December 30, 2018 at 2:11 am

    He’s right that it’s remarkable that only 2 kids have died in ICE custody, since they are being kept in conditions not unlike a refrigerator, conditions that ICE has set and maintains. Conditions that are inhumane.

    That is not what King meant of course.

  7. 7.

    Gozer

    December 30, 2018 at 2:27 am

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: He deserves the double roasting.

  8. 8.

    Llelldorin

    December 30, 2018 at 2:28 am

    Is there a Gaelic equivalent of “a shanda fur die goyim”?

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    December 30, 2018 at 2:48 am

    @sukabi:

    Because I am a cynic, I’m assuming that these are the 2 kids that we know of. When you have kids getting disappeared into the foster care system, who knows what happened to them?

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    December 30, 2018 at 2:53 am

    @Llelldorin:

    Is there a Gaelic equivalent of “a shanda fur die goyim”?

    If I knew it, I’d have used it! But when I was growing up in the Bronx, even my lace-curtain anchor-baby Irish Nana used “A shonda for the goyim” as her go-to insult — she knew it was ‘Jewish’, but it’s what *every* New Yorker said.

  11. 11.

    patrick II

    December 30, 2018 at 2:54 am

    I am of Irish descent also, and I have just been ashamed of O’Reilly, Pete King, Hannity…to many to name. It seems to me that if you are a member of an oppressed group (not just Irish by the way) when you find yourself on the next rung up on the ladder you either pull it up after you in an attempt to be on the winning side and never on the losing side again, or remember what it is like and work so it doesn’t happen to other people. Most Irish I know are pretty much one way or the other without much middle ground. Of course I guess that could be said for the entire population these days.

  12. 12.

    sukabi

    December 30, 2018 at 2:55 am

    @Mnemosyne: I know. This entire thing is sickening.

    The D’s had better set investigations into ICE / BP treatment of immigrants and tracking down what’s happened to the disappeared kids.

  13. 13.

    John Revolta

    December 30, 2018 at 3:10 am

    This fucking guy. This is the guy New Yorkers are talking about when they say “Loong IIIIIIsland” and their lips curl up. He’s been an embarrassment to me* for what, 30 years? He started out by making a hero out of himself to the Armchair IRA by collecting and sending money (i.e. guns) over to Ireland, although he’s pro-gun control………over here. Then he took over the horrible Al D’Amato’s seat in Congress. And there he squats, 20 years later.
    I’m surprised he still gets elected. LI has changed a lot but not his district, I guess.

    *And what I’m getting at here is that yeah, it’s getting harder to feel proud of the roots anymore when so many of “my people” have gone full “I Got Mine Fuck You”. We were maybe never paragons of racial tolerance but at least we knew who the Republicans were, and what they stood for.

  14. 14.

    Martin

    December 30, 2018 at 3:13 am

    Another Irish NYer here, and yeah, sorry all. But, that said, there’s really no contest for the worst King. Pete’s gonna have to up his game here.

  15. 15.

    patrick II

    December 30, 2018 at 3:14 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    It’s not just children dying…

    A young South American boy was so traumatized after being forcibly separated from his father at the border that he nearly jumped out of a second-story window, according to a new lawsuit filed by 18 attorneys general against the Trump administration…The boy who nearly jumped out of the window said he wanted to because he missed his parents. Twelve other children had to be hospitalized in New York City hospitals because of mental and physical illnesses, including depression and anxiety. In New York state, many of the children who have been separated did not yet speak, including multiple toddlers and one nine-month-old baby.

    And that was just NYC which holds a small percentage of children that have been taken from their parents.

  16. 16.

    Burnspbesq

    December 30, 2018 at 3:28 am

    Are we sure Peter King isn’t an Ulster Protestant? He’s more DUP than the actual DUP.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    December 30, 2018 at 3:28 am

    @Schlemazel:
    @patrick II:

    I can’t remember where exactly, but I saw an interesting Twitter thread within the last few days talking about the relationship between Jewish Americans and African Americans. Short version was, Jews were the second-to-last group that was allowed to purchase property, so they ended up being the sellers willing to break redlining and sell their homes to Black families, but also as landlords to Black families, with both the good and the bad that goes along with that.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    December 30, 2018 at 3:37 am

    @patrick II:

    There are always a lot of stories in popular culture about abused kids who are adopted by loving foster families, but almost none about kids from loving homes who end up in the foster system. That’s because (a) it’s pretty rare for that to happen unless both parents die in an accident or something and (b) a kid who gets ripped away from loving parents is REALLY FUCKING TRAUMATIZED by that experience and will not have a good outcome with foster parents.

    I’m guessing that even experienced foster parents who have custody of these kids are at something of a loss for how to deal with them, because their trauma comes from being forced to live with the foster parents, not from anything their own parents did. The mere experience of being in the foster home is the trauma, and the foster parents are participating in hurting that child whether they like it or not. I would honestly hate to be one of those foster parents, because I’m sure they know that, as well-meaning as they may be, they are the cause of the child’s issues.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 30, 2018 at 4:02 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    they are the cause of the child’s issues.

    No, the admin policies and the situation it put them in is the cause. The foster parents are powerless to reverse those facts and left with the impossible task of trying to hold the pieces together.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 30, 2018 at 4:22 am

    Nancy Pelosi was perched on the end of a sofa in the Oval Office when the balance of power in Donald Trump’s Washington decisively shifted in her favour.

    The event in early December began as a simple photo call with Trump – the first attempt at bipartisan dialogue after the midterm elections saw Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives.

    The president was in domineering form, making demands about funding for his stalled border wall and contemplating shutting down the government if a budget was not passed giving him $5bn for his unfulfilled promise.

    “I think the American people recognise that we must keep government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything,” said Pelosi as Trump nodded. “And that we should not have a Trump shutdown.”

    The president looked up and said: “A what? Did you say a Trump – ?”
    …………………………
    Perhaps she stands somewhere in the middle of the two cartoonish characterisations: on one side, the progressive left ready to dismiss her as a symbol of the status quo; on the other, Republicans who have branded her an extremist liberal radical feminist.

    Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, said she was the best and pragmatic choice for Democrats. “In hindsight, keeping Pelosi seems pretty obvious, but while the desire for someone new and younger was great, someone with less political skill than her would not have survived this challenge.”

    What is in store for Trump? “She is as tough as he thinks he is,” Cook said. “He could not have a more tenacious adversary, the combination of Pelosi and Schumer is hard to beat. They have seen it all and are both shrewd as hell.”

    Their White House meeting with Trump was “an omen of things to come”, Rosenthal said.

    “There was a lot in that episode that is very familiar to women in the corporate world, women in politics – where they get talked over, minimised, and men underestimate them and frankly treat them not as equals. What she demonstrated is that she is a woman who knows all those tricks and is not gonna be defeated … you know, the president is gonna have his hands full.”

  21. 21.

    patrick II

    December 30, 2018 at 4:54 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The thing about Pelosi is she can count. When she thinks progressive legislation can pass, she will get it passed.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    December 30, 2018 at 5:35 am

    Oh, to live in a country I could take pride in:

    Under cover of darkness, Maysoon al-Masri and her husband began their march towards the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

    Masri was the head of the women’s division in southern Syria of the White Helmets, the rescue organization that has saved thousands of people from under the rubble of homes after Russian and Syrian government airstrikes.

    Now she is now in Canada, along with dozens of other rescue volunteers who fled Syria earlier this year, as the noose of Bashar al-Assad’s forces tightened around them.

    But before that, she endured months of shelling and bombardment, a retreat from a government offensive, loss of hope and finally, salvation. A dramatic escape through Israel – a mortal enemy of Syria – was followed by three months of misery in a Jordanian refugee camp, and finally an autumnal welcome in Canada.

    “We weren’t scared of death, we feared being detained and tortured,” said Masri. “Every family had somebody in jail. The pictures of detainees stayed with us all this time. We knew that death would not come easily.”

    Nearly five months after Syria’s famous volunteer rescue workers escaped the advancing Assad regime fighters and Russian air force, many remain in “humiliating” conditions in a Jordanian refugee camp, where they spent most of the summer awaiting resettlement.

    Dozens have arrived in Canada, the country that orchestrated the rescue and pledged to take in most of the White Helmets volunteers who escaped. But hundreds more remain in Syria and are at risk of detention and torture by the Assad regime, which has systematically targeted them during the war.

  23. 23.

    JR

    December 30, 2018 at 6:45 am

    I am certain that we haven’t heard the worst of what is happening with ICE.

  24. 24.

    FlyingToaster

    December 30, 2018 at 7:12 am

    @Mike in NC: Unlikely. Unless they moved to Boxborough, Tyngsboro, or Mashpee.

    Even our PITA conservative Dem Steve Lynch (MA-8) finds this shit reprehensible.

    Mind you, we have our Trumpistas everywhere (I’m looking two doors up the hill and scowling), but they get no quarter from the rest of us. She got told flat out to wear headphones rather than blast her RW radio out the window; one of the neighbors (the hispanic family with small kids) called the cops on her. She was appalled to hear me comparing childrearing strategies with a black neighbor across the street; I said, “Look, we all came outta Olduvai Gorge, didn’t we?”.

    MA has gone solidly blue only because of right-wing overreach. A large number of Massholes are racist AF; but nowadays nearly as many are getting right in their faces and shouting them down.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    December 30, 2018 at 8:52 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “A what? Did you say a Trump – ?”

    “Another thing with my name on it! Score!”

    He probably didn’t mean it that way, but it’s still best that he never, never be allowed to tour the CDC labs. “The Trump plague….”

  26. 26.

    gogiggs

    December 30, 2018 at 10:36 am

    So his position is that since the number of people our system actively kills is fewer than the number of people our system passively lets die, it’s all good? Because that seems like that’s his position but I don’t want to believe a person with that opinion is allowed to walk the streets, much less serve in Congress and go on TV.

  27. 27.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 30, 2018 at 1:48 pm

    @Schlemazel: Italoamericano (cento per cento) here to report that a Jewish friend remarked to me recently, Remember the days before we were white?

    I’m not old enough, I replied, & neither are you – but our dads sure as hell did.

    TBH something that disturbs me whenever anyone left-of-center starts gloating over the changing demographics that are spozeta lock in a Democratic majority: A fair chunk of Hispanics are sufficiently melanin-deficient & Falangist-Catholic to get their Acceptably White ticket punched for admission to the Far Wrong – the same way we paesanos were “godfathered” into the GOP. Court these folks & take nada for granted!

  28. 28.

    Uncle Cosmo

    December 30, 2018 at 1:49 pm

    WTF AM I IN “MODERATION” FOR???

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    December 30, 2018 at 2:49 pm

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    You know what you did. ??

  30. 30.

    mapaghimagsik

    December 30, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    Its been said before, but it bears repeating.

    Christ, what an asshole

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • wjca on Wednesday News Roundup, A Little Late (Apr 17, 2024 @ 11:47pm)
  • YY_Sima Qian on War for Ukraine Day 785: Chernihiv Attacked! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 11:45pm)
  • VFX Lurker on Wednesday News Roundup, A Little Late (Apr 17, 2024 @ 11:44pm)
  • VFX Lurker on Wednesday News Roundup, A Little Late (Apr 17, 2024 @ 11:42pm)
  • Jackie on Wednesday News Roundup, A Little Late (Apr 17, 2024 @ 11:40pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!