Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

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

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

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

Please don’t feed the bears.

In my day, never was longer.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

We still have time to mess this up!

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Repub Venality Open Thread: Careful What You Wish For…

Repub Venality Open Thread: Careful What You Wish For…

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Devin Nunes this weekend, from the warm damp embrace of CPAC:

The House Judiciary Committee, today:

… The requests are not at this point subpoenas, and some are likely to face vigorous objection from their targets. Some receiving the document requests are attorneys like Don McGahn and Jay Sekulow, the latter of whom Cohen testified was instrumental in misleading Congress on client Trump’s behalf. To mitigate likely objections of executive privilege, the letters sent to witnesses say they may limit the documents they provide the committee to materials already provided to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Southern District of New York and other judicial or legislative entities.

Some of the targets of the requests give indications of where the myriad congressional investigations into Donald Trump, also pursued by the House intelligence, ways and means and oversight committees, are headed.

Receiving document requests were Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica, parent entity the SCL Group, and Trump campaign data expert Brad Parscale. Among the materials sought by investigators are “discussions or attempts to provide or receive election information… with, to or from foreign entities or individuals in connection with the 2016 U.S. presidential primary or general elections.”…

From Blackwater founder and potential Trump diplomatic backchannel Erik Prince, as well as current Prince venture Frontier Services Group, any material about Russia, lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia, “the contents of meetings between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, and any contacts during the campaign or transition “with or regarding the Russian Federation, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia.”

From Erickson and the NRA—which is also the subject of at least two Senate inquiries—information on “any loan, financing transaction or investment by the Russian Federation, any Russian national, any Russian business, or any other Russian entity to the Trump Organization, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, or any of their Business Interests.”…

And so many more!


But seriously:

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    Nunes tells CPAC “everything that Mueller did” should be made public, “every email…everybody that they wiretapped, every warrant that they got, every single thing that Mueller used needs to be made public for all of America to see.”

    is that, uh…really? what you guys want? seriously?

  2. 2.

    ET

    Nunes is so confident or should I say deluded, the he feels that there is nothing that could hurt his personal savior so his position is consistent. Of course he might find out differently.

  3. 3.

    Another Scott

    @chopper: We’ve seen this play before. “What about the missing 30,000 e-mails??!”

    Republicans will demagogue anything. Don’t be surprised.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think the revelations about the ATT/Warner merger mean Kelly and Cohn will both be testifying before too long

    I despise Kellyanne Conway, but I suspect she’s too smart to leave fingerprints anywhere

    Will Reince Priebus actually dissolve into a puddle of sweat in a hearing, leaving only his adenoids and hairline?

    If Ivanka is called, it’ll be late in the game, and I still don’t rule out that Jared is selling the Beast out to Mueller, advised by Abbe Lowell and encouraged by whispery indirect murmurs from his wife, who knows which side of the family actually has cash

  5. 5.

    plato

    @chopper: Same old ben ghazi! ben ghazi! shite. Mueller has shown his evidence to people who matter, the judges. Rest is all usual rethug noise.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @chopper: this is the Benghazi/email strategy all over again, never take yes for an answer. I doubt if Mueller ever wiretapped anybody, but as long as those tapes that don’t exist aren’t made public, Nunes will go to CPAC every year and say that’s proof Mueller and the Deep State withheld exculpatory evidence

  8. 8.

    lamh36

    Luke Perry’s death is a tragic reminder that strokes can affect anyone at any age. These are the warning signs to watch for: https://cbsn.ws/2NGVtRE

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  10. 10.

    The Other Bob

    “Nunes tells CPAC “everything that Mueller did” should be made public…”

    Please proceed Governor.

  11. 11.

    BruceFromOhio

    OK, so Cohen testified, and the drumbeat started almost immediately, he’s a liar, he’s going to jail for lying, how can he be believed, etc. Well.. if you want to find out if he’s lying, or maybe perhaps being truthful, look for the corroboration. If there is none, then yup, he’s a liar. But if he isn’t …

    I think this is why Trey Gowdy had to hit the road – can’t have the last circus clown hanging around when the circus is over and the adults are back in charge again.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Will Reince Priebus actually dissolve into a puddle of sweat in a hearing, leaving only his adenoids and hairline?

    This is hilarious.

  12. 12.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    I don’t get all the hate for the Captain Marvel movie, aside from misogyny.

    This person who regularly comments on a blog I follow on Tumblr called Brie Larson a “big bigot”

    Or Captain Marvel’s situation. :P

    Yeah fuck off Brie Larson you big bigot.

    [referring to the new Sonic movie]

    Even if it’s objectively bad, I’d still rather see it multiple times than ever set foot to see (Star Wars) Episode 9 or Captain Marvel.

    Emphasis mine.

    I pointed out that those movies will still probably make money at the box office, so don’t be surprised

    Her response:

    And? Transformers managed to be box office successes despite the shitty style over storytelling approach.

    Just because something made a lot of money =/= Quality.

    Also, people thought Solo: A Star Wars Story would bring in tons of money yet look what happened there. Because the Last Jedi left such a bad taste and the way Disney/Lucasfilm handled the overall fan reception was objectively piss-poor.

    You really do not want to question my stance here again by implying I’m wrong again, let alone using a fallacy of “But it’ll still make money so that makes all criticism towards it null and void!”

    Yikes. She also likes to call women she thinks are too PC and SJW c**ts. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that even women shouldn’t call other women gendered slurs.

  16. 16.

    smintheus

    The cast of characters is approximately as long and gnarly as the freakshow that was played out during the long-running Watergate hearings.

    I presume that Ivanka will be subpoena’d if/when Trump refuses to go quietly.

  17. 17.

    Millard Filmore

    @BruceFromOhio:

    OK, so Cohen testified, and the drumbeat started almost immediately, he’s a liar,

    And he lied to congress by defending Trump.

  19. 19.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Millard Filmore: Yes, yes, I get it. But if the liar says, your house is on fire, do you just point and say, liar, liar, or do you go fucking look at your house to see if it’s on fire? There’s zero risk in the latter, and it proves the former.

    ETA: It can stand to prove the former, rather.

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    @Another Scott: to be fair, they managed to help keep the MSM focused on the Hillary e-mail “scandal” nothingburger and dutifully allow each Trump scandal its allotted 5 minutes in the limelight before pivoting back to the next breathless speculation about what might be found in the next batch of e-mails to be hacked at the directions of the GOP.

  22. 22.

    Hob

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Well, you answered your own question in the first sentence. Since no one’s seen the movie, the hate (and by hate I mean hate, not just “I don’t like superhero movies” etc. which is fine) is all either 1. misogyny or 2. misogyny plus racial paranoia, as evidenced by fake outrage about Brie Larson supposedly Hating White Men because she pointed out that film-related journalism has a disproportionate number of white men and maybe a bit more diversity might be nice.

    Also, anyone who uses the term “SJW” unironically just isn’t worth reading at all, ever.

  23. 23.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Devin Nunes is another moron who needs to start wearing prison stripes for a few hours daily so he can get used to them for when he ends up in prison for a few years.
    Also, what’s the deal with LA Senator Kennedy? He’s become such a huge Trumpov bootlicker. It would be irresponsible not to speculate on what Putin has on Senator Kennedy.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Hob: Precisely on the idiocy of “SJW”. Marvel has been SJW since the silver age. These are the same nutcases who think that Trek is somehow pro-Trump.

  27. 27.

    Hob

    @BruceFromOhio: Not to mention that basically every single time an organized crime figure is being prosecuted and one of his underlings has turned state’s evidence, it’s an absolute certainty that the underling has in the past lied to protect his boss, because of course he did.

    “Don’t listen to this dishonest criminal who worked for me, because he said that he didn’t do crimes for me and that I’m not a criminal, but then it turned out he did and I am, so therefore he’s a known liar” is not the greatest defense.

  29. 29.

    Mai Naem mobile

    When these WH people refuse to show up for the House Judiciary or refuse to turn over paperwork, HRC should repeat Trumpov’s line calling out to the Russians to find her emails and plug in the name of the person refusing to turn over the paperwork and the paperwork needed. She can they say she was just joking around.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Hob: Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests

  34. 34.

    jl

    Baud! 2020! isn’t being called? That would raise name recognition. The Baud 2020! general ignorance of pretty much everything would be just way too convenient, and would certainly be suspicious and get some press attention.

  38. 38.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks?

    So he can dunk on anyone, anytime, anyplace

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’ve been away most of the day, just did a quick scan of the front page, and I see you’ve all been busy…

  44. 44.

    James E Powell

    @ET:

    Nunes is so confident or should I say deluded, the he feels that there is nothing that could hurt his personal savior so his position is consistent.

    He is assuming that everything won’t be released. That way, he and the rest of the Trumpistas can insist that the unreleased documents prove Trump’s innocence and Hillary Clinton’s guilt and that is why they are being withheld.

  46. 46.

    gwangung

    @Villago Delenda Est: Not to mention that comic book superheroes are literally, Social Justice Warriors, personified. It’s their DNA, explicitly, ever since Action Comics #1 saw its main hero stop a wife beater, threaten a slum lord and clear a falsely accused women of murder. (And the Marvel Comics Universe in particular has SJW creds all over the place…Stan and Jack are WWII Jewish kids who knew damn well what was going on in Germany….).

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Villago Delenda Est: @gwangung: They’re pissed about two overlapping things. The first is that they’re going with the current costume and not the sexploitation one piece bathing suit with a hip sash costume from the late 80s through the 00s. The second is that Larson has stated she’d like to see greater representation in movies, especially action movies/movies adapted from comic books of women and people of color. That’s what has these morons pissed off.

  49. 49.

    Plato

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "While [Trump's] talking collusion, collusion, collusion, I think, in Oversight, we should be talking about taxes, taxes, taxes, and his bank account, his bank account, his bank account. His financial statements, statements, statements." pic.twitter.com/RgteNExul0— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 5, 2019

    I am with her.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hob:

    A continual burning hatred of The Last Jedi is almost as perfect a marker for a misogynist as is continual burning hatred of HRC.

    And I don’t mean people who aren’t into “Star Wars” or other popcorn movies. I mean the people who have an unquenchable burning hatred for that specific movie.

    (Also, if I got to heterosexually ‘ship the four main characters right now, I would put Rey and Finn together and let Rose have the fabulous consolation prize of Poe. The homosexual ‘ships are obvious and straightforward.)

  52. 52.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mnemosyne:

    The homosexual ‘ships are obvious and straightforward.

    So basically: Poe and Hux, right? And Rey and that one female pilot who survived (and is Carrie Fisher’s daughter)?

  53. 53.

    Jay

    ““You have heatwave-induced wildfires that take out huge areas of forest, but this is happening underwater as well,” said Dan Smale at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, UK, who led the research published in Nature Climate Change. “You see the kelp and seagrasses dying in front of you. Within weeks or months they are just gone, along hundreds of kilometres of coastline.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/heatwaves-sweeping-oceans-like-wildfires-scientists-reveal

  54. 54.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: People have that kind of hatred for that movie? There are parts of the internet that I am glad it don’t wander into.

  55. 55.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Three things, Rotten Tomatoes called them on their BS and killed off their ability to sabotage movie rankings for movies that havn’t been released yet.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    Been a few years since last watched it; have Irwin & Fran, a documentary about Professor Irwin Corey and his wife, playing on Amazon Prime. Felt the need for a vicarious injection of feisty.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Yep, but that’s a late addition. It was nice to see that Zachary Levi, who is playing Shazam (the original Captain Marvel), came to Larson’s defense despite them being in competing movies from competing companies. Though Levi’s movie is coming out a month after Larson’s.

  58. 58.

    gwangung

    @Adam L Silverman: Hey, not gonna lie. I think the Cockrum costume is a classic. But it just doesn’t work on screen if you haven’t seen it before. The current uniform makes more sense to me. And form fitting uniform is still sexy as hell.

    @Mnemosyne: Nah, Rose would have gotten the scoop from her sister about the other flyboys like Poe. He’d have to PROVE that he’s settled down and gotten all the macho bullshit knocked out of him before Rose would give him a chance…..

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Jay: The Bandit House of Saud and their Wahhabi co-tyrants do not need nukes. Fuck them.

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gwangung: When Cockrum first drew it it was fine. Especially given the original costume was a variant of Mar-Vell’s own Kree uniform. But as the 80s gave way to the 90s it went from being how Cockrum had designed and drew it to being much more revealing. And given the history of how the character has been written and dealt with by Marvel Comics and their writers, it’s caused a lot of heartburn.

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Debts have to be paid. This is clearly a follow the money issue to see who is really getting the profits here.

  69. 69.

    Plato

    @Jay:

    The rethugs are now openly saying they would rather be russians than democrats. Racism trumps all.

  72. 72.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    They should just give the Sawdis control over 150 US nukes and cut out all the waste in the middle. After all, the US is where the Sawdis are going to dentonate them anyway.

  79. 79.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s mostly white men, and they have been trashing any Superhero movie that’s not all white men, all the time.

    And platforms from Reddit to Rotten Tomatoes have taken steps to neuter some of their toxicity, along with a bunch of SJW’s online, which is also pissing them off.

  80. 80.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mnemosyne:
    I LOVE FinnXRose. Finn and Rey act like siblings, and it’s cool. They can trust each other, support each other. But they don’t really share. They’re not alike. Rose and Finn are the same kind of geek, and it’s awesome.

    A continual burning hatred of The Last Jedi is almost as perfect a marker for a misogynist as is continual burning hatred of HRC.

    Oh, man, they HATE Rose. She’s totally non-male-gaze and it drives them nuts. I love her as a character. She’s so human.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @gwangung:

    Rose would have gotten the scoop from her sister about the other flyboys like Poe. He’d have to PROVE that he’s settled down and gotten all the macho bullshit knocked out of him before Rose would give him a chance…..

    And thus a thousand fanfics were born … ?

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Rose can have both Finn and Poe on alternate weekends, or whatever they work out between themselves. Dilemma solved. ?

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    @dopey-o

    That was Bree, a contraction of Bridget, not Brie, the cheese.

    Although in Hindi, Bree can mean cooking stock or juice.

  84. 84.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Mouse family sticks together. Levi did the voice of the hero in Tangled.

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Rose is the audience insert in TLJ which, as you know, is not the same thing as a Mary Sue. Some people really resented that an Asian-American woman was their conduit into the story.

    And since Laura Dern and I are almost the same age, I can tell you that I could see onscreen that all of her childhood dreams of her and Princess Leia being BFFs had finally come true. ?

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Oh, man, they HATE Rose.

    Honestly, I think getting that worked up about any work of fiction is a sign there’s something really wrong with you. If you really don’t like it, don’t watch it. I guess I understand people being disappointed because a series they’ve cared about for a long time has gotten away from them, but it just seems way overboard to spend so much time hating on it rather than going back and enjoying the parts you liked.

  86. 86.

    Doug R

    @Mnemosyne:

    A continual burning hatred of The Last Jedi is almost as perfect a marker for a misogynist as is continual burning hatred of HRC.

    Rian Johnson did the best with the “mystery boxes” Jar Jar Abhrams left him. I loved how he blew all those boxes up.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    I understand why certain people are angry even if I don’t sympathize with them. They can see their cultural hegemony slipping through their fingers and they’re pissed about it.

  88. 88.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    Some of them are worked up,

    Some are faking being worked up for the LUTZ,

    As some are just using it as an excuse to spew hate and mysogency on the web,

    And some are MRA’s/Incels/FlatEarthers, so, not the best and brightest.

    http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2019/02/27/attack-of-the-tomato-killers-captain-marvel-haters-lose-it-after-rotten-tomatoes-blocks-them-from-crapping-on-movies-that-arent-even-out-yet/

    And some are just pile ons who can only bully online, because in the RW, they would get beat.

  90. 90.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Mnemosyne:

    which, as you know, is not the same thing as a Mary Sue

    Doesn’t become a Mary Sue, the bad thing, until it damages the story, traditionally by overbearing it and being too perfect while preaching how flawed they are. See Tim Burton’s bizarre personal romantic fantasy Alice movie. Rose fits well into the story, having about the same role and abilities as any secondary character.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    The following is my personal and idiosyncratic opinion that I don’t expect the other writers to agree with:

    IMO, the audience insert character is the one through whose eyes we see the movie. That character is most often the protagonist (Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars,” Neo in “The Matrix”), but it doesn’t have to be. I would argue that the audience insert character in “Black Panther” is Killmonger, not T’Challa, which is why the story begins and ends in Oakland, not Wakanda.

    The audience insert in “The Force Awakens” was Finn, but Rose tookover that role in “The Last Jedi,” which is why the misogynists all lost theor damn minds. It was bad enough that they had to see the first movie through the eyes of a Black man, but at least he was a MAN. Making them see TLJ through the eyes of an Asian-American woman was a bridge too damn far.

    You are correct that a Mary Sue/Marty Stu character is an author insert. It gets a bad name because it’s usually done badly, but it can be done well. Dorothy L. Sayers did it in her Lord Peter Wimsey books starting with “Strong Poison,” and Hermione Granger is basically the Mary Sue of the Harry Potter series that allowed JK Rowling to put herself (and, by extension, millions of other girls) into the story of “the boy who lived.” I would argue that Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories is both an audience insert and an author insert. Etc.

  96. 96.

    Matt

    @chopper: Maybe it’s a unifying strategery – there are likely to be plenty of smaller GOP fish that Mueller etc will have dirt on but don’t choose to prosecute due to finite resources. Those fish might start thinking “hey, if we throw Trump and McConnell to the wolves we might get away!”

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