Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Let me file that under fuck it.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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Petty and Small (Open Thread)

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I wish every eligible voter in America were granted a week of paid leave on the condition that they’d use that time to read the Mueller report. I’m only half way through it, but I feel sure that if everyone read the report, 73% of us would rise as one and demand that Trump and his sycophants be ejected from government housing.

I’m not even talking about the criminality. It’s all just so…juvenile. Here’s one teeny-tiny example via the sworn testimony of Chris Christie, who described having lunch with Trump while the administration was attempting to contain the fallout from Michael Flynn’s firing. Here’s Trump’s genius plan to co-opt James Comey into the cult so the FBI would back off on investigating Flynn:

Christie felt it was beneath his dignity to make such a call and was embarrassed to put Comey in the position of receiving such a call. We’re talking Chris “McDonald’s Go-Fer” Christie and James “Last Honest Man” Comey, who is such a showboat that the job of FBI director wasn’t big enough for him, so he invented a brand new job and then failed spectacularly at that! (H/T: Kay)

This is just one example. There’s also Jared taking a call from Flynn (who comes off as a gigantic, lying crybaby, BTW) and assuring Flynn that Trump still “respects” him and will soon tweet positively about him, to which Trump nods assent like a monarch distributing a knighthood.

There are scads of scenes like that so far, and I haven’t gotten into the obstructiony bits yet, which are likely to be even worse. Honest to dog, I’ve driven van-loads of 11-year-old girls who were more dignified and discreet. It’s just embarrassing.

Reader Interactions

117Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    So many people in this country see reading as a… chore… so a good audio book might be more effective.

    I’ll leave it to others here to decide who would do the voice work.

  3. 3.

    Spanky

    @germy: Gilbert Gottfried playing the voice of Trump.

    I doubt people would bother with an audio book. Now, if for instance Fox & Friends could be forced to read the entire report on air ….

  4. 4.

    danielx

    Embarrassing is the very word. A spoiled child is in charge, or so he thinks – hell, he IS in charge, he’s gotten rid of all the adults. A disgrace and embarrassment to my country. Can’t even do insults well, the nicknames he comes up with would be considered juvenile by your average nine year old

  5. 5.

    danielx

    @germy:

    I heard Samuel L. Jackson nominated for that role. Few extraneous “motherfuckers” wouldn’t do any harm.

  6. 6.

    cmorenc

    Barr may not have convinced many outside the GOP faithful that the Mueller report absolved Trump, nothing to see here, but he gave the GOP base reason to not bother with reading what’s actually in the report, including the phrase “does not exonerate” Trump. It’s not even that they’ll try to argue with the facts in the report, they are convinced there’s no need to because for all the effort, Mueller was unable to nail Trump with any criminal collusion nor criminal obstruction, because it was all a witch hunt. They’ll take Barr and Trump’s word over Mueller’s and the words of Trump and his own inner circle cited in the report! This presents a penultimate example of malignantly warped confirmation bias so thick as to be nearly impenetrable by actual facts.

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    …Trump and his sycophants be ejected from government housing.

    Oh, no, they deserve government housing in the form of prisons.

    I watched as much of Judge Jeanine last evening as I could stomach; it’s amazing how hard “the other side” is spinning. I guess if I was in quicksand, I’d spin, too.

  9. 9.

    cmorenc

    @germy:

    I’ll leave it to others here to decide who would do the voice work.

    Gilbert Gottfried, or else perhaps William Shatner.

  10. 10.

    Keith P.

    Spending my Easter on painkillers. Had surgery on Thursday and Friday, general anesthesia both times…so damn sore :(

  11. 11.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @cmorenc: I’m hoping televised hearings will help. No reading required.

    OT: My internet was down for much of yesterday. It was amazing how much work I got done.

    ETA: Speaking of small, petty, and incompetent about even routine things, did the WH have an Easter egg hunt this year?

  12. 12.

    Emma

    @cmorenc: The important thing now is for the Democrats to hammer the details home over and over again. We’re aiming for the disinterested and the unconvinced. Trump’s base is unreachable. Let them fry out there on their own.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    assuring Flynn that Trump still “respects” him and will soon tweet positively about him,

    I feel better already!

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    @germy: It’s already on Audible.

    It’s free.

    It’s not clear if they’re done with the transcribing yet or not – I haven’t tried to download it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard is simply a 73 year old man-baby who likes to break things. It really is that simple.

  23. 23.

    geg6

    I have not yet had the stomach to read it. My sister has been reading it and has had pretty much the same reaction as you, Betty. Unbelievably stupid, immoral, immature and just plain disgusting are just some of her comments.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    Giuliani on the TV just now (according to my phone alert — I ain’t watching!):

    “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”

    I’m so glad the Trump brain trust deployed Giuliani as TV lawyer again.

  26. 26.

    jeffreyw

    @Another Scott: Releases 30 April, not clear who will be doing the narration.

    Your purchase includes:
    The Mueller Report: The Findings of the Special Counsel Investigation
    Robert S. Mueller III (Author)
    (Narrator)

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    assuring Flynn that Trump still “respects” him and will soon tweet positively about him

    Oh for the sake of fucks!

    Honest to dog, I’ve driven van-loads of 11-year-old girls who were more dignified and discreet.

    I don’t doubt this for a second. But it does feel like you’re slandering the good names of these young women with that comparison, as favorable as it is. ?

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: That makes me think I want it read like a baseball game broadcast, with one person doing the play by play and another doing the color commentary. I hereby nominate Harry Carey and *late innings* Mike Shannon.

    **not to make fun of him, but for a while there Mike Shannon had a bit of a Budweiser problem. by the 6th or 7th inning things got… entertaining. Yeah, that’s the word for it.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    I can’t emphasize enough what a puling infant Mike “Lock Her Up” Flynn is, as portrayed in the report. Someone should investigate his medals for “stolen valor.”

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    Election Day (and Palm Sunday) in Ukraine is drawing to a close. People are voting enthusiastically, in large numbers. Lots of them are saying something along the lines of “well, if this fucks up, we’ll have another one in 5 years.” I am struck by the long-term optimism, even among people who expect that their candidate will lose. It’s inspiring.

    People in Russia are saying “why can’t we have this?”

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    I was thinking Billy West or even the cast of The Simpsons/Futurama could narrate, then he could use his Futurama Fry as the main voice and we use Dan C.’s voice for Trump in Homer Simpson mode…. That way the millenials could enjoy it. Shame that Phil Hartmann is gone, Lionel Hutz’s voice seems really appropriate here…

  35. 35.

    Gin & Tonic

    And I had Premier League on as background noise and just looked at the screen. Boy, United’s having a *bad* day.

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Fran Drescher. With an assist from Emo Philips.

    Being dead makes it tougher act to pull off, so Sam Kinison is unfortunately out of contention.

    :)

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah: There’d be more “Man, these motherfuckers…” than actual reading of the report.

    And Mr. Jackson would be right in every utterance.

  43. 43.

    germy

    Mueller's last line (p. 180): "The protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person—including the President—accords with the fundamental principle of our government that '[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law.'”— Karen Piper (@PiperK) April 20, 2019

  44. 44.

    Mike in NC

    @rikyrah: Poor Roger Stone just needs a semi-private cell, three squares a day, and an orange jumpsuit to be set for life.

  49. 49.

    Spanky

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Extraneous closing quote in the linky.

    @Betty Cracker: Besides being a TV lawyer, according to Wikipedia also

    In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the federal government’s “detention posture” regarding the internment of over 2,000 Haitian asylum seekers who had entered the country illegally. The U.S. government disputed the assertion that most of the detainees had fled their country due to political persecution, alleging instead that they were “economic migrants”. In defense of the government’s position, Giuliani testified that “political repression, at least in general, does not exist” under President of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier’s regime.

    I did not recall that. Explains how he and Trump are such soulmates. Of course he’d fascist-splain it all away.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I am struck by the long-term optimism, even among people who expect that their candidate will lose. It’s inspiring.

    Do they not have social media to bring them down?

  52. 52.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Adam Schiff is saying it out loud.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @Cheryl Rofer: Twitter:

    Felicia Sonmez Verified account @feliciasonmez

    Democrats will meet in the next few weeks to discuss impeachment, Schiff says

    6:56 AM – 21 Apr 2019

    (Emphasis added.)

    (via ddale8 on Twitter)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah: Ken “Impeach Bill Clinton for a blowjob” Starr is weighing in on impeaching Dump?

    Ken Starr shutting the fuck up and going the fuck away is the Easter miracle we do want.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    Based on a cryptic guccifer comment, I do wonder if that breach had anything to do with guccifer being able to hack that data.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    IIRC, a lot of people got mad at the DNC for shutting off his access for a day so they could investigate. He even sued them!

  70. 70.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Oh great. Gonna be the Bernie and Biden show for the next few months. ? Maybe they’ll take each other out and let someone like Harris or Warren gain traction, but I don’t know if it’ll work out that way.

  73. 73.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Another Scott: None of this is going to happen as quickly as we would like. Reaction to the Mueller report will be spread out over time just because the thing is so long and there is so much malfeasance documented. That will help build public opinion. And the already-scheduled investigations will continue.

    Even if the I word is never spoken, those investigations are the basis. Tick tock.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Oh yeah @Keith P.: meant to say I don’t think I’d ever let them do that. When I had my carpal tunnel surgery, the Doc wanted to do one hand, than 6 weeks later do the other. Screw that. Get it over with all at once!

  77. 77.

    debbie

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    They had better establish facts through their own investigations before taking this step. Blind fury against Bill Clinton didn’t work out so well for the GOP.

  81. 81.

    azlib

    No surprise, Betty. All anyone had to do was watch Trump’s performance in the campaign to know he was a small and petty man. I guess we can thank our lucky stars he is not competently evil. Otherwise we would be in a lot more trouble than we are right now.

    The person that has me genuinely scared is McConnell because he is competent and evil.

  82. 82.

    germy

    @azlib:

    The person that has me genuinely scared is McConnell because he is competent and evil.

    Yes, and I fear he’d run circles around a President Bernie.

  86. 86.

    Starfish

    @rikyrah: There were people in the comments of this website supporting Bernie and complaining about how unfair it was of the Clinton folks to lock them out of systems and that Clinton was cheating by doing this. All of this was quiet then, and I think someone should have backed them up in publicly announcing some of the hacks against their campaign. I guess they were waiting for the FBI to do their job.

  88. 88.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I’m not even talking about the criminality. It’s all just so…juvenile.

    We all know this from Trump on twitter. Talking to MAGA hats the hard core ones are just teens in adult bodies so they are in heaven over what Trump does, finally someone is being to thoe mean old adults.

  89. 89.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I follow a Royal Family FB group and it never fails to turn into sniping whenever Meghan is in a photo. There was side view of her pregnant self in a winter coat, and assholes accused her of showing off.

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Cheryl Rofer: +1

    Yup.

    Keeping the pressure on our representatives to fully investigate this stuff – and more – is important. But we can’t get discouraged that it takes a while and that they have to work on other things at the same time.

    The press always, always, always wants instant gratification. That’s not how the real world works.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    Jerzy Russian

    @danielx:

    I heard Samuel L. Jackson nominated for that role.

    That was me. I will chip in for his speaking fees if needed.

  95. 95.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: Yup. Also wonder if Snowden caper helped to set the stage for hacking voting systems. I’m old enough to remember how Slanders played the victim card after his campaign hacked the data.

  97. 97.

    patrick II

    @Spanky:

    I have been thinking of the fastest way to dramatize this — and I’m thinking Clutch Cargo, — a mostly still cartoon with actor’s mouths screened in for dialogue. See Clutch Cargo and the Haunted House for example. A couple of cartoon Trump faces with some decent trump imitator saying lines directly from the Mueller report. The script is already written. It would lend a sort of twisted take on reality that I feel about the whole Trump presidency. It would be quick and cheap, and if I was richer and more talented I would put out a couple next week.

  98. 98.

    germy

    How about a graphic novel version of the Mueller Report? A bunch of cartoonists from the Nib can take turns illustrating it.

  99. 99.

    Another Scott

    @patrick II: Conan used to have “interviews” with “Bill Clinton” that were like that. I thought they were hilarious! That would be even faster than animation.

    Dunno if COB still does that (I don’t want much TV and haven’t seen his show in ages).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kathleen: IIRC they even used it in a fundraising email. One of their “oh noes The Establishment is trying to shut us down! Give now!” specials.

  101. 101.

    Chyron HR

    Look, libturds, the Miller Report proves that the Russian plot to elect Donald J. Trump had nothing to do with Donald J. Trump. DEAL WITH IT.

    Yours Truly,
    B. Sanders

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    @FlipYrWhig: TheRegister:

    Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has been cut off from access to the vital voter targeting database after one of his campaign staffers improperly entered the servers of the database’s host provider NGP VAN. The company hosts the campaign profiles for both Hillary Clinton and Sanders, and a 45-minute firewall failure allowed a staffer on the latter’s campaign team to view data from the Clinton’s campaign files.

    “We fired the staffer immediately and made certain that any information obtained was not utilized,” said Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign manager, in a statement.

    “We are now speaking to other staffers who might have been involved and further disciplinary action may be taken. Clearly, while that information was made available to our campaign because of the incompetence of the vendor, it should not have been looked at. Period.”

    Weaver explained that the Sanders IT staff warned NGP VAN months ago about failures in the firewall that separates the databases of the two accounts, calling it “dangerous incompetence.”

    The now-fired IT guy behind the kerfuffle, Josh Uretsky, told CNN that he took “100 per cent” responsibility. He noticed the firewall was down on Wednesday morning, and only entered the server to create a trace route that could be used as evidence that the flaw existed. He was cut off when NGP VAN closed the hole.

    “In retrospect, I got a little panicky because our data was totally exposed too,” he said. “We had to have an assessment, and understand how broad the exposure was and I had to document it so that I could try to calm down and think about what actually happened so that I could figure out how to protect our stuff.”

    Uretsky asserted that he was going to report the issue to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), but instead they called him first with a warning that there was something fishy going on in NGP VAN’s servers. He was fired by the campaign shortly afterwards.

    DNC turns BOFH

    The DNC’s chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that the problem was caused by a third-party vendor’s software patch and was quickly fixed by NGP VAN. The database was never open to external attackers, and no financial information, donor records, or volunteer data files were exposed, she said.

    NGP VAN will be performing a forensic examination of the incident, and an independent auditor will conduct a parallel analysis to find out what exactly went on. In the meantime, the Sanders campaign will no longer have access to the voter profiling database until a full report from the Sanders team is forthcoming.

    “We are working with the Sanders and Clinton campaigns and NGP VAN to establish all of the facts and move forward as quickly as possible,” chair Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.

    “Our primary goal at this moment is to ensure the integrity of the data so that the campaigns – and the entire Democratic Party – can continue the important work we do of connecting with voters on the issues that matter most to them and their families.”

    The timing couldn’t be worse for the Sanders campaign; the third of the campaign’s six presidential candidate debates is held on Saturday and it’s a prime fundraising opportunity that will be crippled without access to the database. Prolonged loss of access will be even more damaging.

    Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver called foul on the DNC’s decision to block his team from the database and demanded an investigation into the DNC’s handling of the data, including the incident reported to NGP VAN back in October.

    “By their action, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. This is unacceptable,” said Weaver at a press conference on Friday.

    “Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign – one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history. If the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction.” ®

    (Emphasis added.)

    “Yeah, we broke in, and yeah we can’t get in again until we give them a report, but it’s all the DNC’s and Hillary’s fault!!11″

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  105. 105.

    StringOnAStick

    I’m ashamed that initially I contributed to the BS campaign. I stopped doing so when I realized he was all noise with no accomplishment, long before it was mathematically impossible for him to win. I think it was the whole “the southern primaries don’t count” thing, because the dog whistle was so loud. I ‘d like to thank BJ from turning me from HRC lukewarm to strong supporter.

    When I got my first email of the season from the current BS campaign, the “tell us why you are unsubscribing” field got filled with some of my best and strongest invective. Fuck that guy and his towering ego.

  107. 107.

    Bill Arnold

    @rikyrah:

    Well in January Ivanka received patents for voting machines

    Does anyone have verification of this? Haven’t found anything in a quick search – all that http://patft.uspto.gov has is 4 shoe design patents (Italian authors) with references to Ivanka Trump’s shoes.
    She did get trademarks in china for voting machines:
    Ivanka Trump’s latest trademarks in China include voting machines, sausage casings (November 7, 2018)

    The approvals by Beijing on Oct. 13 were notable for their timing, coming just as Chinese and U.S. officials were seeking to restart trade talks that had collapsed amid acrimony. They also raised eyebrows for covering a grab-bag of products, including electoral hardware in a country not exactly known for its elections.

  108. 108.

    zhena gogolia

    @StringOnAStick:

    Kurt Eichenwald’s article (in that well-known conspiracy rag Newsweek) about the oppo research that will be unloaded on Sanders the second he becomes (kina hora) the nominee is really powerful. I sent it to some Bernie-curious people. One of them, in the Bay Area, was convinced, but he said he sent it to a Berner of his acquaintance and she refused even to click on it. So they are truly a cult. I just hope there aren’t enough of them to make a difference.

    And here’s the link once again for anyone who wants to use it: https://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @germy:
    LMAO
    Not looking at the picture. No I’m not. You can’t make me.
    Perfect caption. Or at least damn close to it.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Have had both hands in 90 degree casts for six weeks. With weeks of rehab after they came off. That means palms at the end of your arm. What I didn’t have was both of them at the same time. Had a friend who did, he broke both wrists at the same time in a fall. He said he found out how good a friend his then girl friend was because she had to do everything for him. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. Let that sink in for a moment.

  115. 115.

    Ruckus

    @StringOnAStick:
    I was never a BS supporter, was lukewarm will vote if, blah, blah. I never donated nor did I ever contact the campaign. Yet this time around I got “Thank You for your Support emails from BS. Yeah I sent them back, in no uncertain 4 letter terms telling them why they should never contact me again.
    I’m not a fan. He’s part of the reason we are here in the first place.

  117. 117.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    @Jerzy Russian: Given how much he hates Dolt 45, there’s a chance he’d do it for free, or for a nominal sum.

    @piratedan: Billy West used to read Dump quotes in his Zapp Brannigan voice. I don’t see any reason to bring Homer into this mess; the comparison does him a massive disservice. Even Zapp is disserviced by the comparison, though – Billy refused to read the Access Hollywood quotes in Zapp’s voice, because there are some depths to which Zapp simply wouldn’t drop.

    Anyway, if you’re bringing in Billy West to read the report, I think it’s fair to let him use his talents to their fullest extent. I’m sure he has appropriate voices for all of them.

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