Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

We’re not going back!

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

It’s a doggy dog world.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Hypocritic Oaf

Hypocritic Oaf

by | 163 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

AG Barr appeared on the CBS This Morning program and uttered the following:

“I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it’s President Trump that’s shredding our institutions. I really see no evidence of that,” Barr defended.

“From my perspective, the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring,” he added.

Keep in mind that this dishonest shit-whistle slammed then-AG Janet Reno for failing to publicly oppose her boss’s criticism of Ken Starr’s investigation of a consensual blowjob. If hypocrisy were flammable, Barr would become a torch that could be seen from space.

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    Uh huh
    Uh huh
    Because this is who they are.

    NC Republicans want budget cuts for new African-American chief justice. Democrats cry foul.
    BY WILL DORAN
    MAY 30, 2019 06:19 PM, UPDATED 1 HOUR 39 MINUTES AGO

    Cheri Beasley, who earlier this year became the first African-American female chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, will have her staff cut in half under a plan supported by Republicans in the N.C. Senate.
    The state had a multi-million-dollar budget surplus this year, but Senate Republicans decided to eliminate funding for three of the six staffers who work for the state’s top judge.
    Senate Democrats said it’s a politically motivated attack against Beasley, a Democrat who was appointed to the top job by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper after the previous chief justice, Republican Mark Martin, resigned to take a job leading a Virginia law school.
    Two African-American Democratic senators, Floyd McKissick of Durham and Paul Lowe of Winston-Salem, led the criticism of their Republican colleagues during a debate Thursday.

  2. 2.

    hells littlest angel

    A similar irony: the people who deliberately put Ted Bundy to death had the nerve to call HIM a murderer!

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    If hypocrisy were flammable, Barr would become a torch that could be seen from space.

    Oh he’d be one of the torched bodies from Bones.

    But would he survive this visible-from-space immolation?

  7. 7.

    SenyorDave

    Speechless… didn’t realize just how much of a shitbag Barr. To maximize my expletives I’ll go with an old standard. Fuck that fucking fucker!

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Instead of media asking Democrats in the House if they can investigate and legislate simultaneously (which they seem to have proven they can do), how about asking GOP Senate if they can do either one? GOP Senate is not investigating or legislating.

    — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) May 31, 2019

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    So I gather the real argument against Impeachment is the GOP in the senate would never ever vote for it and Trump would claim he was exonerated.

  13. 13.

    Matt

    the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring

    Shorter Barr: “my co-conspirator in the Senate has been doing a helluva job for the last decade!”

    And fuck CBS for letting that fly without challenge.

  14. 14.

    Butch

    Sitting in front of a crackling fire in a down vest. Just so homey and friendly. What the everlovin’ fck was CBS thinking?

  17. 17.

    FlipYrWhig

    Barr is horrible. It’s actually hard for me to believe just how horrible he is. He’s basically Hannity.

    ETA: With the flat affect and unapologetic badness of Cheney.

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    If hypocrisy were flammable, Barr would become a torch that could be seen from space

    Love this! Funny as hell, and so damn true.

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Butch:

    Sitting in front of a crackling fire in a down vest. Just so homey and friendly. What the everlovin’ fck was CBS thinking?

    Didn’t see the interview, but I believe I read someplace that Barr is in Alaska at the moment.

  20. 20.

    MomSense

    @rikyrah:

    I hate this timeline. I’m agreeing with Matthew fucking Dowd. As I keep saying, we should be following Mitch McConnell everywhere he goes asking him if he has read the Mueller Report and for comment on specific examples of obstruction from the report.

  21. 21.

    pat

    How can anyone sit there and not say, You’re kidding, right? RIGHT? You can’t possibly believe that crap…..

  22. 22.

    Turgidson

    @rikyrah: silly Dowd. He, of all the supposedly lapsed GOPer bothsiderist stooges, knows full well that only the Democrats have any agency. The GOP is just a dog chasing a car, forever and always.

  25. 25.

    Kent

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    So I gather the real argument against Impeachment is the GOP in the senate would never ever vote for it and Trump would claim he was exonerated.

    Probably worse than that. Nothing would stop the Senate from going off the deep end into all manner of conspiratorial nonsense “investigate the investigators” and so forth to attack the impeachment process itself. Bring in every kind of crazy witness to muddy the waters. My guess is that it would be more like the Kavanaugh hearings where the right would create an impenetrable alternate universe to which they would all subscribe and spend the whole time railing against “Democrat Coups” and how the socialist left is trying to overturn an election just like in Venezuela. Fox News would be flinging every species of feces against the wall 24/7 to see what sticks and those would become the new talking points. The process would spin totally out of control and become part and parcel combined with the President’s 2020 election campaign and the election campaigns of all the GOP Senators up in 2020.

    Or, alternatively, they could just pull a Merrit Garland and McConnell could announce some new policy of we can’t have impeachments too close to an election and postpone the whole thing until 2021. Because he would have the power to do that. And then what? The House would have made its referral and presumably will have wrapped up all of its impeachment-related investigations if they have already voted on it. So it just sits there and goes nowhere.

  26. 26.

    MattF

    I’m a little uneasy with dignifying Barr’s statements with a big and somewhat debateable word like ‘hypocrisy’.’ Lying, partisan assholery’ is clearer.

  28. 28.

    Raoul

    Several twitter feeds have been talking about Barr in effect saying that he didn’t just ‘misinterpret’ the Mueller Report, but that he is now saying that he intentionally overrode the findings.

    If that’s the case, there seems to be a law (I know, how quaint!) that Barr notify Congress asap of the override of findings, and why.

    Let’s hope Nadler and Co pull the mf’ing AG in to testify. Or, probably, subpoena him and have to cook up some sort of punishment for his non-appearance. We really are thru the looking glass these days.

  30. 30.

    Yutsano

    @Kent: I know something that could stop all that: money. Specifically, the power of the purse the House has. The Senate can pass anything it wants to EXCEPT spending legislation. The House can certainly demand that matters such as the impeachment process get considered along with appropriations. And the end of the fiscal year is in a few months. Unless they want YET ANOTHER shutdown (which the Democrats can say hey we passed our shit, ain’t our faut the knucklefucks in the other chamber can’t get their shit together) then things are gonna move along. The House isn’t totally without power here.

  31. 31.

    Princess

    I didn’t think there could be an AG more criminal, more-anti-democratic, and with fewer morals than Alberto Gonzales. I was wrong.

  32. 32.

    Emerald

    Oh I don’t think Barr is a hypocrite. I think he’s a True Believer.

    OK, he’s achieved enough success in life to say that he’s basically smart, but True Believers act on emotion.

    He’s just a conservative junkie. He was one of the people pushing for the Whitewater investigation in the very beginning. He hasn’t changed.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    @Raoul:

    Several twitter feeds have been talking about Barr in effect saying that he didn’t just ‘misinterpret’ the Mueller Report, but that he is now saying that he intentionally overrode the findings.

    He muthaphuckin’ LIED on Mueller.
    And, now, that Mueller first sent out that letter and now stood up telling folks that he lied…now, he’s got a new excuse.

    Because, he didn’t stand up there and say that he overrode the findings. This is the new lie.

  34. 34.

    donnah

    I read this today:

    The Mueller report is like the Bible.

    Republicans have never read it, but still pretend to know what it says,

  35. 35.

    Spanky

    If hypocrisy were flammable, Barr would become a torch that could be seen from space.

    I’d pay good money to see that. Someone make it so.

  37. 37.

    Kent

    @Yutsano:

    @Kent: I know something that could stop all that: money. Specifically, the power of the purse the House has. The Senate can pass anything it wants to EXCEPT spending legislation. The House can certainly demand that matters such as the impeachment process get considered along with appropriations. And the end of the fiscal year is in a few months. Unless they want YET ANOTHER shutdown (which the Democrats can say hey we passed our shit, ain’t our faut the knucklefucks in the other chamber can’t get their shit together) then things are gonna move along. The House isn’t totally without power here.

    I understand where you are going, but I doubt that impeachment is something that the House could attach as a rider to must-pass appropriations bills. Nor would they muddy up the process by playing those sorts of games. If the House does move forward with an impeachement vote it is going to be some major made-for-TV moment with endless speeches on national TV. Not some middle-of-the-night appropriations rider that they try to sneak by.

    And, in any event, the Senate wouldn’t have to play along anyway. They could just strip out all the impeachment stuff from whatever appropriations bill is in hand and and then send it forward to reconciliation and then it would be the Dems shutting down the government, stopping benefits, closing national parks and so forth in a temper tantrum over impeachment. That would not play well.

  38. 38.

    cmorenc

    @rikyrah:

    I believe that Trump, MAGA and the GOP have nearly exhausted my capacity to be shocked. To me, the sum total of their actions has long suggested that they are moving to overrun our Constitution, strip us of our civil liberties and establish a dictatorship.

    The approach they’re using is to structurally entrench the GOP’s electoral edge sufficiently to make it forbiddingly infeasible for the democrats to regain control of the federal government, such that we nominally remain a democracy but the country is effectively under one-party rule for the next couple of decades, at least. And when shifting demographics eventually undermine that control, re-tweak the structural barriers to maintain that edge permanently.

  39. 39.

    Chris Johnson

    From downthread:

    Pence is just as dirty or dirtier than Trump. He’s Manafort’s pick. Impeachment of absolute traitors who’ve done a foreign-backed coup on the United States would remove Trump and Pence, leaving Nancy Pelosi as President. Among other problems with that, she’d die to terrorism, and seems not to want to.

    Leaving that aside, it’s adorable (not really) how people like Pelosi want to act as if the electoral system of this country is not already completely compromised.

    Except obviously she DOES know that because it seems to her that we could go for impeachment and then in 2020, ‘lose’ to a Trump re-election. Remember, the system is utterly and completely compromised. It’s fake. It’s just as possible for the results to be ‘Oh so sorry! There were zero Democratic votes. Whoopsy!’ as ‘in a ratings-boosting nail-biter, Trump prevailed by X percent in Y and Z battleground states…’

    It’s all MADE UP at this point. This is not the country I got born into. We’ve been watching it go this way all this time and acting as if it was snark fuel, entertainment. It’s not. It’s always projection with these guys, and they are defending a ‘quiet coup’ aided by the Russians that remained plausible enough to not foment immediate revolution. The question becomes, is it going to stay ‘plausible’ or will they at some point just start acting with complete arrogance and the barest possible kayfabe?

    I guess we can look at McConnell for that.

    Pelosi’s actions are consistent with understanding this.

    So, “shredding of our norms and our institutions” eh? Let’s start with that ‘democratically elected’ line of shit, for starters. These people are not playing and not shy about going for broke. It could end in literal civil war (delighting Putin) because it may HAVE to: that or pure capitulation and surrender on the Dems’ part. I have no problem with Pelosi etc. grappling with the no good answers we’ve currently got: they are in kabuki theater, knowing that they are, and trying to sort out whether they can get back to ‘being a government’. Charging ahead as if we have a democratic country with norms and institutions is a sucker move, and doing anything else requires the backing of the citizenry. These are messy times.

  40. 40.

    Emerald

    @Kent:

    McConnell could announce some new policy of we can’t have impeachments too close to an election and postpone the whole thing until 2021. Because he would have the power to do that.

    Actually I don’t think McConnell does have the power to do that. I think the Constitution compels him to have a trial, and the Chief Justice presides over it.

    Now, I think that McConnell might be able to limit the trial to oh, say, five minutes or so, but I’m pretty sure he has to have one.

  41. 41.

    Haroldo

    Particularly this:

    And fuck CBS for letting that fly without challenge.

    But note that the BBC is giving him similar carte blanche. Fuck the Beeb, too.

  43. 43.

    Eural Joiner

    “Let me just say this immodestly—I probably have a better idea as to what the president has to be held accountable for than anyone,” Pelosi remarked. “The only person who knows better than I do is the president of the United States. He knows what his violations have been.”

    From Pelosi on Kimmel last night. Interesting. I think, when it’s all over and the dust has settled, that we’re going to find there was A LOT more going on then we were ever aware of. I think we are in the midst of an existential crisis for the American Republic.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    Weird to go on this campaign tour. If he’s working for the Trump campaign why do I have to pay him?
    Will he be the headliner at rallies in Wisconsin? Let’s just drop the bullshit pose that he works for the public completely. It’s embarrassing.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    @Kent: To be fair, it’s not the only mechanism the House has. But the power of the purse has been known to change some attitudes in the past. It’s just one of several ideas that could get thrown out there.

    I also understand being the party of good governance as well. Heighten the contradictions, as the saying goes. The real point is the House isn’t just stuck because the Senate refuses to play ball.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    How humiliating that elite lawyers endorsed this hack.

    Our elites seem to have a quality problem. Makes one wonder if they all cheated to get where they are. Something is certainly broken in the ‘ol merit system. It keeps churning out low quality hires with impressive credentials.

  49. 49.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Turtle don’t care.

    Normally I would agree with that, but there is an exception here. Not a useful exception, but an exception. Like other elected Republicans, public, in-his-face personal pushback terrifies him. People in public following around and protesting would scare him on a personal level. Elected Republicans can’t even handle difficult town halls.

    However, while it would scare him, I don’t think it would change his politics. It might make him worse. McConnell is a neverending fountain of spite.

  51. 51.

    plato

    I pledge to nominate an Office of Legal Counsel head who will reverse the Watergate-era rule that a president cannot be indicted for criminal behavior. The OLC’s purpose is to govern the conduct of the executive branch, not act as the president’s get-out-of-jail-free card.— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 31, 2019

    Our democracy only works if everyone can be held accountable. These changes will make sure that’s the case for generations to come. Read my full plan here: https://t.co/v1pgkcdRDm— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 31, 2019

    Happy to see dem candidates like Warren, Harris boldly taking on the thug and the traitorous party head on and not giving a damn about what the senate may or may not do.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Uh huh ??

    I keep thinking about this @maddow ban from the @nytimes.
    Can you like *imagine* a world where the Times was as worried about the appearance of “bias” from its black readers as it is from Trump voters?
    The appeasement of white supremacy never freaking stops.

    — Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) May 31, 2019

  53. 53.

    Kent

    @Emerald:

    Actually I don’t think McConnell does have the power to do that. I think the Constitution compels him to have a trial, and the Chief Justice presides over it.

    Now, I think that McConnell might be able to limit the trial to oh, say, five minutes or so, but I’m pretty sure he has to have one.

    But there isn’t any timeline specified in the Constitution is there? If they wished to delay until after the election I’m sure they could come up with any of a hundred different legalistic excuses. For example, do a Kabuki theater thing where they subpoena certain officials like Barr who, on cue, refuse to testify, and then simply delay the proceedings until those appeals work their way through the GOP-controlled courts. They know how to play that game McConnell is the master at delay.

    I put the chances at zero that McConnell is going to be held to your perceived timeline.

  56. 56.

    Hoodie

    @Chris Johnson: That’s a pretty good description of the problem. Contrary to what some agitated (and well intentioned) lefties might believe, Pelosi and Shumer are well aware that the wheels have already fallen off as far as normal processes are concerned, and that condition extends to impeachment. Republicans have been gradually stripping away norms for the last couple of decades. Pelosi knows that McConnell cannot be trusted to follow norms and handing him an impeachment trial would allow him to turn it into a Fox-orchestrated circus. I imagine their hope is to keep this in the House as long as possible to control the narrative and effectively try Trump in in the House in front of the general public (after all, a lot of people really don’t know the difference between impeachment and removal). The most that you can probably hope for in the near future is that Trump gets voted out in 2020, irrespective of Russian and other ratfucking. The Senate is an intractable problem due to the mismatch between an antiquarian structure of the Constitution and the current state of the US.

  59. 59.

    Kent

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Normally I would agree with that, but there is an exception here. Not a useful exception, but an exception. Like other elected Republicans, public, in-his-face personal pushback terrifies him. People in public following around and protesting would scare him on a personal level. Elected Republicans can’t even handle difficult town halls.

    However, while it would scare him, I don’t think it would change his politics. It might make him worse. McConnell is a neverending fountain of spite.

    With McConnell there is no “worse”. He is already at his worst. Trying to harrass him might be good theater but it is going to be pretty damn ineffective. He doesn’t do town meetings anyway. He does private meetings with his boosters and caucus. He dines a privately catered events. He flies around on private jets from secured sections of airports. The Senate itself as well as official DC is pretty well locked down and secure. He does very little mingling with the hoi polloi that he doesn’t want to. And to the extent that he notices or gives a fuck, he probably delights when Rachel Maddow gets all medieval on his ass on her show.

    McConnell is probably as untouchable as it gets in American politics as long as he doesn’t have any significant opposition in KY.

  60. 60.

    dww44

    @rikyrah: The sad thing is that Democrats DO NOT Have, but desperately NEED, a counter puncher who can get invited to the MSM shows and interviewed to provide the anti-Barr and anti Trump message that we need. Cummings? Perez? Pelosi? Nadler?, Schiff? Schumer? You guys need to go find someone who can Stand up for the real truth in a succinct, pithy, and non-boring way. Maybe bring on Howard Dean to make the rounds? Barr MUST be countered frequently and forcefully, lest we lose the all-out propaganda war he is waging on Trump’s behalf.

    Semi-serious question? How many of you believe that Barr believes what’s coming out of his own mouth?

  61. 61.

    hitchhiker

    From my perspective, the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring,

    He’s right, you know. When the Republicans gathered on the day of Obama’s first inauguration to plot his destruction and agree that they would oppose everything he tried to do, that was a vicious shredding of norms.

    And that it happened during a catastrophic economic meltdown made it 1000 times worse.

  62. 62.

    pat

    I was just struck with a thought:

    Maybe this is the final battle in the War Between the States, and the South is winning.

  63. 63.

    TenguPhule

    If hypocrisy were flammable, Barr would become a torch that could be seen from space.

    All Scientific Theories need to be tested.

  64. 64.

    dww44

    @SiubhanDuinne: And no hat tips to CBS either for providing this kind of platform to Barr without immediately providing one to a countering view. CBS News, what’s up with you?

  65. 65.

    TenguPhule

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    So I gather the real argument against Impeachment is the GOP in the senate would never ever vote for it and Trump would claim he was exonerated.

    Actually a new argument being made in the media is that impeachment proceedings would endanger Speaker Pelosi’s House Majority for members in R learning districts in the next election.

  66. 66.

    Ixnay

    @NotMax: I used to listen under the covers (about 6th grade) on the transistor radio. WNEW I think, but way past my bedtime. Thanks for the Flick link.

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    @Yutsano:

    Specifically, the power of the purse the House has.

    Increasingly looking like an empty threat. Do not put it past Trump and McConnell to literally just make shit up in order to get the Treasury to keep the federal credit line going if push comes to shove.

  68. 68.

    Emerald

    @Kent: Very good point there.

    Yes, McConnell isn’t going to want his senators to go on record as acquitting the shitgibbon once the hearings are done and the public knows the actual score (well, two-thirdsish of the public, anyhoo). Ergo, he’ll just hold his finger in the dam.

    Hoping that his story ends the same as the original finger-in-the-dam story. Whoosh.

  69. 69.

    patrick II

    He’s not an oaf in the normal sense — a stupid person. He’s very smart at sewing confusion with legalisms and doubletalk that most people who want an excuse to believe find comforting. He is, however, a moral oaf, and while he recognizes truth when he sees it (so he can step on it) he has no sense of the value of what he is stomping on, he values only power.

  70. 70.

    cmorenc

    @Kent:

    McConnell is probably as untouchable as it gets in American politics as long as he doesn’t have any significant opposition in KY.

    McConnell is actually only marginally popular in Kentucky – the problem is that the available democrats to run against him in Ky are even more marginally popular, with the result that there’s insufficient political groundswell to overwash McConnell’s modest seawall against defeat. His last electoral opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes, ran a rather ineffective campaign against him in 2914, trying to run away from Barack Obama and the ACA – and most Ds who try to run as R-lites in reddish states tend not to succeed very well with that tactic, although there are a few exceptions (e.g. Gove Jon Bel Edwards D- Louisiana).

  71. 71.

    TenguPhule

    @cmorenc:

    The approach they’re using is to structurally entrench the GOP’s electoral edge sufficiently to make it forbiddingly infeasible for the democrats to regain control of the federal government, such that we nominally remain a democracy but the country is effectively under one-party rule for the next couple of decades, at least. And when shifting demographics eventually undermine that control, re-tweak the structural barriers to maintain that edge permanently.

    And this road leads to violence. Lots and lots of violence.

  72. 72.

    TenguPhule

    @cmorenc:

    His last electoral opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes, ran a rather ineffective campaign against him in 2914

    He’s a fucking timelord too?! //

  73. 73.

    rikyrah

    @dww44:

    Semi-serious question? How many of you believe that Barr believes what’s coming out of his own mouth?

    Don’t know. Don’t care. But, THIS is why he was hired, and anyone who had followed his career knew that and told Democrats not to vote for his azz.

  74. 74.

    TenguPhule

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Like other elected Republicans, public, in-his-face personal pushback terrifies him. People in public following around and protesting would scare him on a personal level.

    As we saw last time, the response to to have them arrested and his wife to go on television to pitch “Stop bothering my poor husband!”

    McConnell is determined that the only way to reclaim the Republic is over his dead body, literally.

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:
    Holding a pair of fours and doubling down is the Republican way.

    Did he perjure himself during his confirmation hearings? They seem like two years ago and I can’t recall anymore.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    @hitchhiker:

    And that it happened during a catastrophic economic meltdown made it 1000 times worse.

    NEVER ever forget that.
    In the midst of the greatest economic downturn this country had seen since the Great Depression…
    The GOP decided to OPPOSE OBAMA, even if it meant HURTING THE COUNTRY.
    They committed ECONOMIC TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

    NEVER forget it.

  77. 77.

    James E Powell

    @Kent:

    Fox News would be flinging every species of feces against the wall 24/7 to see what sticks and those would become the new talking points.

    The NYT will provide cover for Trump and the rest of the cable shows will follow along with whatever FOX does, giving a platform for Trumpistas to lie repeatedly.

  78. 78.

    tobie

    OT: Did anyone catch Chris Murphy’s twitter thread this morning on foreign policy? It’s brilliant:

    Morning.

    A THREAD:

    I’m starting a one hour drive to Mystic for a chamber of commerce speech so I’ve got some time (sitting in the passenger seat). I’m gonna try to list all the current foreign policy disasters caused by Trump.

    Not sure an hour is long enough but here we go –

  79. 79.

    James E Powell

    @Eural Joiner:

    I think the D’s are waiting on the outcome of this issue.

    D’s waiting is a bad strategy. They will never learn.

  80. 80.

    trollhattan

    @cmorenc:
    They’ve returned Rand Paul and the thing on Rand Paul’s head to the senate so I don’t foresee Ky doing anything to rid us of Turtle. There’s an “all the way down” quip I’m not leveraging here.

  81. 81.

    Eural Joiner

    @TenguPhule:
    I’ve been slowly coming around to that same conclusion as well for the past several months.
    I do not think we get out of this without a major change to the US government and without a major restructuring of our political system. The fact that it will all be played out during one of the biggest demographic and ecological shifts in our history is only accelarating and heightening this conflict.

  82. 82.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    Our elites seem to have a quality problem.

    Its beyond that. Its intentional. IOKIYAR is becoming the de facto law of the land and all the wheels are coming off of the federal bus.

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    Our 92 year old PM needs an intervention. He has apparently been convinced by my old friend from Portland that the Russians didn’t shoot down MH17. I’m on my phone so I cannot provide a link, but that’s what the man said.

  84. 84.

    TenguPhule

    @Eural Joiner: The whole system relied on faith and trust. Once a critical mass of people realize that their vote doesn’t matter or that they can’t even vote at all, that all the normal methods to be heard or change things peacefully and legally are not working, they’ll do one of three things. Escape, Adapt or Explode.

  88. 88.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:
    I think the current “leader” of the conservatives wants a monarchy with himself at the top of the heap (of shit) but they will settle for a dictatorship.

  89. 89.

    Haroldo

    @rikyrah:

    Barr in a nutshell. All a person really needs to know.

    Semi-serious question? How many of you believe that Barr believes what’s coming out of his own mouth?

    Don’t know. Don’t care. But, THIS is why he was hired, and anyone who had followed his career knew that and told Democrats not to vote for his azz.

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @Turgidson:
    The current dog chasing the car actually caught it this time and is hooked on the bumper while it drags him along, all the time thinking he’s finally been successful at taking his life long place as the driver. So he just barks every so often to let the world know that his life’s work has been successful, he’s finally in charge of something other than shitting all over the yard.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    Yes…they go along with the bullshyt, and think that should be respected.???

    im just noting how you guys let them do this driveway thing with you nearly every day now while they’ve basically canceled the real press briefing and you all just accepted it, as a group. https://t.co/tZEv8qNP58

    — Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 31, 2019

  95. 95.

    Kay

    Radley Balko
    ‏Verified account
    @radleybalko
    Follow Follow @radleybalko
    More Radley Balko Retweeted Michael Tracey
    This is ignorant. Trump signed one decent bill, then under-funded it by 80 percent. He also reversed Obama reform policies on equitable sharing, police militarization, DOJ review of local police agencies, predatory municipal courts, I could go on.

    That’s in response to the pro Trump “Left” saying Trump did more on criminal justice reform than Obama”. I think if they cared about criminal justice reform they would have learned something about Trump’s actual “reform”. But they don’t. so they didn’t. I admit I myself did not examine it because I thought it was a given it would be crap (true) but I’m not out there making bold statements.

    This in particular they never got- that 90% of criminal justice is state and local. That, my friends, you have to know – that’s required :)

    DOJ review of local police agencies, predatory municipal courts, I could go on

  96. 96.

    Amir Khalid

    Oops. That reply was meant for Yutsano and Trollhattan, not Ruckus. sorry.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @TenguPhule:

    I’m listening to a podcast about the college admission scandal. Everyone flipped in a cascade of fleeing rats, so they have a lot of taped conversations. Good Lord. Those are some privileged people. There’s this odd exchange where it’s two vineyard owners, whatever those people are called- winemakers- and they both have signed up for this cheating scheme. But one is belligerently dumb so he keeps breaking the social rule not to talk about it with the other parent, which makes the other parent uncomfortable because he doesn’t want to be reminded that his kid is not achieving this stuff on merit. There’s this whole “let’s pretend” aspect that is fascinating. It’s a whole elaborate fantasy world where what is really happening is much less important than appearances.

  98. 98.

    Mart

    @dww44: I watch too much MSNBC… They frustrate the hell out of me when the segment has a former Justice Dept. official on and they show tape of Barr talking sideways. Then when asked if Barr is full of shit, the Justice dude says he worked with Barr, he has a great respect for him, and has full faith in Barr. What the hell does Fuck Barr have to do before his reputation is tarnished with these fuck sticks?

  100. 100.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:
    I haven’t forgotten.
    I think about it every time I shop for food, every time I pay my rent, every day I go to work, because these are all things that I had no idea I’d ever be able to do again, because of those assholes. Millions of people were in my position or worse, while those assholes got paid well to fuck the entire country.

  101. 101.

    Kent

    @James E Powell:

    D’s waiting is a bad strategy. They will never learn.

    Waiting is absolutely the wrong strategy. The Dems should be coming at Trump with both barrels and in every investigative forum available. Inside of Congress, in the courts, in the media. Everywhere.

    What they should NOT to is bring the process to a premature end and ship it all over to the Senate with the expectation that McConnell for the first time in his life is going to “do the right thing for the good of the country”

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    That’s in response to the pro Trump “Left” saying Trump did more on criminal justice reform than Obama”. I think if they cared about criminal justice reform they would have learned something about Trump’s actual “reform”. But they don’t.

    THIS is the bottom line. They didn’t know two shyts about criminal justice reform. They just wanted something that they thought was a valid way to attack 44.
    Phuck them tricks.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    It was profound for me too. Because to a certain extent I bought it. I thought “finance people know this stuff!” – which is good because it leaves me to do what I do, which is not finance. You know, a division of labor! You do your thing to make money and I’ll do mine and the big machine works. Then it came crashing down and I was like “I have to understand their entire sector? Jesus. I don’t have time”
    I have working class clients who do not believe their 401k’s. They have one- they just do not fundamentally believe that it has actual worth. To them it looks like gambling- they don’t understand why it goes up and down- that seems fishy to them. I used to think this was incredibly naive but now I’m like “well, do I know, though?” No. Not really.

  105. 105.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    This is a time when a journalist should say “sigh. He *can’t* be that stupid.” (pause) “Wait… he *CAN’T* be that stupid! He *must* be *deliberately* lying, because he *CAN’T* be that stupid!”

    Or maybe it should be “@#^*%@!!! I hate working with these slimy, smarmy, smirking sh!tbirds. They feed me the most obvious, most glaringly transparently self-serving, BS lies, and I have to report them as if… FORGET IT! This time I’m being honest!”

    Everyone remember: the absolute *best* we can hope for is, Trump is using Russia to help enrich himself, and he’s not making too many *more* slip-ups, and not giving them too much *more* classified information.

    We can’t hope for “Trump is trying to serve the nation” because Presidents who want to serve the nation document their interactions. Only a criminal would make sure there aren’t even any notes to send to State.
    We can’t hope he’s not giving Russia classified information; remember, he’s so stone cold stupid he just lets it slip, but it’s not like we really need a President who understands that burning your sources and allies isn’t a good idea.
    We can’t hope he’s *not* trying to enrich himself because he’s lied to the nation about trying to suck up to Putin to score a $300 million dollar payday while running for President.

    So let’s make sure we’re 100% clear on this: Bill Barr is saying “although I don’t know how much damage Donald J. Trump is doing to this nation, *just in his Russian dealings*, just lay the heck off the guy! Quit trying to destroy his Presidency, because that would damage the most important nation in the world, the GOP, and keep it from serving the USA.”

  106. 106.

    Central Planning

    Since this is an OT:

    My wife is hinting that I can get a lawn tractor to help with lawn cutting/bagging/mulching/leaf collection since we will have fewer and fewer kids at home in the fall, and it will probably reduce the pain and suffering of trying to get kids to mow and rake.

    Any suggestions for brands? I looked at consumer reports, but they seem to be more than I want to spend, which might be too bad for me. I could try craigslist, but that scares me a little too much. Thanks!

  107. 107.

    Central Planning

    Since this is an OT:

    My wife is hinting that I can get a lawn tractor to help with lawn cutting/bagging/mulching/leaf collection since we will have fewer and fewer kids at home in the fall, and it will probably reduce the pain and suffering of trying to get kids to mow and rake.

    Any suggestions for brands? I looked at consumer reports, but they seem to be more than I want to spend, which might be too bad for me. I could try craigslist, but that scares me a little too much. Thanks!

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    You know my opinion on this re: Harris but as someone who has seen the criminal justice system up close it is profoundly misguided to say black people shouldn’t be prosecutors. That’s a mistake. Be angry, but for God’s sake don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:
    It wasn’t totally inappropriate though I was scratching my head just a bit to figure out why.

    I’ve often wondered if leadership is 20% person and 80% luck. I’ve come to the conclusion that those numbers are correct for a good leader but a bad one has not just the reversed numbers but totally different, as in 98% bad person and 98% our bad luck that we managed to have them over us.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @Mart:
    Having someone on TV to discuss their boss is a total waste of fucking time. You expect them to shit on their boss in public? Not gunna happen unless they hate their job and want to get fired so they can’t find another one anywhere.

  111. 111.

    Ukko

    Front pagers, the site is serving up some JavaScript hijacking NSFW ads something fierce.

  112. 112.

    Chyron HR

    @cmorenc:

    His last electoral opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes, ran a rather ineffective campaign against him

    Maybe one of the reasons we don’t have DA FIBTY STATE STRAMAGY anymore is that any Democrat who unsuccessfully challenges an incumbent red state Republican is denounced as an incompetent loser.

  114. 114.

    Kent

    @Central Planning:

    Since this is an OT:

    My wife is hinting that I can get a lawn tractor to help with lawn cutting/bagging/mulching/leaf collection since we will have fewer and fewer kids at home in the fall, and it will probably reduce the pain and suffering of trying to get kids to mow and rake.

    Any suggestions for brands? I looked at consumer reports, but they seem to be more than I want to spend, which might be too bad for me. I could try craigslist, but that scares me a little too much. Thanks!

    If you have big lawn don’t get a lawn tractor (little baby tractor with mower attachment). Get a ZTR (zero turning radius) riding mower which is a much more effective tool for actually mowing lawns. They are not the same thing. As for where and what to buy. There are a bazillion youtube and online reviews as guys are SUPER obsessive about these sorts of things. That is a whole giant rabbit hole you can jump into and never escape. Craigslist is probably not a bad option especially if you can find someone moving or downsizing who doesn’t need it anymore.

  115. 115.

    Another Scott

    @Central Planning: Used from a farm implements store? Dunno.

    I assume that the technology of lawn tractors is pretty much perfected these days. And there are probably only a couple of factories in China that make all the different brands.

    My general opinion with lawn machinery is to spend a little more for a good engine. I’ve got a 20-ish year old John Deere JX-75 self-propelled mower with a Kawasaki overhead valve engine (pressurized lubrication, takes Corolla oil filters). It was ~ $700 new, but it’s never given me major problems. I bought it from a John Deere dealer in the country. Maybe wander around this weekend to see what $1000 – $1500 will get you at Lowes and HD vs from a farm equipment store? Once you have a better idea, then you can think about whether saving a few hundred more buying from a yard sale or CL makes sense for you.

    HTH a little. Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  116. 116.

    Kent

    @Chyron HR:

    Maybe one of the reasons we don’t have DA FIBTY STATE STRAMAGY anymore is that any Democrat who unsuccessfully challenges an incumbent red state Republican is denounced as an incompetent loser.

    You mean like Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum?

  120. 120.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ukko:

    You too? I was horrified, but thought it was maybe specific to me. Damn thing appeared out of nowhere, too — pretty sure I didn’t accidentally swipe something I shouldn’t’ve.

  123. 123.

    chrisanthemama

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. ” –Upton Sinclair

  124. 124.

    david

    “Keep in mind that this dishonest shit-whistle slammed then-AG Janet Reno for failing to publicly oppose her boss’s criticism of Ken Starr’s investigation of a consensual blowjob.”

    Yeah, Janet Reno slaughtered dozens at the Waco Siege. So, fuck her.

  125. 125.

    Jager

    I saw a picture a week or so ago of trump and Barr sitting side by side, they were both doing the trump “Leaning forward with arms on his knees” pose. My first thought was, together they must weigh 550 pounds or more. Between the two of them there was at least 50 pounds of jowl meat hanging off their faces. Both fine specimens of All American Manhood.

  127. 127.

    NotoriousJRT

    I know this is neither insightful nor value adding to thread, but when I watch and listen to Barr, all I can think is Dick Cheney has inhabited the body of a human-Ewok cross (with apologies to Ewoks).

  130. 130.

    zhena gogolia

    The most shocking thing about that interview that I saw quoted was Barr saying “Everyone dies” so he’s not worried about how history will view him.

    ETA: Rick Wilson said something like, Everyone dies, but not everyone has people lining up to spit on your grave.

    Really Christian attitude on Barr’s part, I must say.

  132. 132.

    TenguPhule

    “Mexico has taken advantage of the United States for decades,” Trump tweeted. “Because of the Dems, our Immigration Laws are BAD. Mexico makes a FORTUNE from the U.S., have for decades, they can easily fix this problem. Time for them to finally do what must be done!”

    Shades of SW Episode III

  133. 133.

    TenguPhule

    ‘Unapologetically’ Christian pizza parlor went viral — then its owner got busted for trying to have sex with underage staff

    EVERY FUCKING ACCUSATION WAS A CONFESSION.

  135. 135.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    This probably means we’ll be cursed to having Bernie Sanders still running for president when he’s 92.

    Stop it Mike. Just stop it. That’s a horrific thought.

    “The only problem we have in this country is income inequality!”
    “Shut up Wilmer! The Everglades are now ALL of Florida, and Louisiana is gone. What about that?”

  136. 136.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: When someone would recommend an officer to Napoleon for promotion and start praising him, Napoleon would interrupt and ask, “But is he lucky?”

  138. 138.

    JGabriel

    CBS via Betty Cracker @ Top:

    “From my perspective, the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring,” [AG Barr] added.

    Upon hearing this from the Republican AG, former-President Barack Obama asked, “Really? Did he really say that?”

    And then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And …

    He’s still laughing.

  139. 139.

    Mary G

    Sorry if this has been posted before; I’ve been offline today and just skimmed the comments.

    CNN reports that the DHS Inspector General did a surprise inspection of a border patrol station and found horrifying conditions

    The IG found “standing room only conditions” at the El Paso Del Norte Processing Center, which has a maximum capacity of 125 migrants. On May 7 and 8, logs indicated that there were “approximately 750 and 900 detainees, respectively.”

    “We also observed detainees standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets,” the report states. The report was first obtained by CNN.
    A cell with a maximum capacity of 12 held 76 detainees, another with a maximum capacity of eight held 41, and another with a maximum capacity of 35 held 155, according to the report.

  140. 140.

    JGabriel

    @Cermet:

    Barr bursting into flames is an image that would really brighten my day.

    Should be easy enough to achieve. Just hand him a bible.

  142. 142.

    TenguPhule

    @Mary G:

    a maximum capacity of 12 held 76 detainees, another with a maximum capacity of eight held 41, and another with a maximum capacity of 35 held 155,

    Those are the kind of conditions that can kill prisoners.

  143. 143.

    Mary G

    @TenguPhule:
    Probably contributes to the spread of any the illness the immigrants might have, and possibly even the deaths of the children.t

  144. 144.

    germy

    Defensive Laura Ingraham Challenges Critics To Try Making List Of Prominent Conservatives Without Including Few White Supremacists

    (Onion headline)

  146. 146.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Mary G: Holy shit – those monsters

    These are desperate families locked up in high concentration like cattle, not dangerous criminals. Let them go!!

  148. 148.

    Kay

    Happy Friday! Sen. Susan Collins’s approval rating in Maine has dropped 17 points since last spring in the biannual tracking poll Critical Insights conducts in Maine. S.E.V.E.N.T.E.E.N. And 10 points since last fall.
    In what is “the longest-running consistently-administered tracking survey in the Northeast,” Collins dropped from a 58% approval a year ago, to 51% last fall, to 41% this spring. She also only gets a 46% approval rating among Republicans, and 31% from Democrats. In the words of the polling memo, “Approval of Senator Collins’s job performance has declined dramatically since last fall, reaching a new low.”

    Great news. Well deserved.

  150. 150.

    gene108

    @plato:

    Be careful what you wish. A Republican Congress will use this change in rules to throw a Democratic President in jail, or at least stand trial for felony crimes.

    Any and all good intentions will be corrupted by these motherfuckers, whether it is charter schools or Congressional Special Counsels or the fucking Constitutionally mandated census. They will pervert it for their gain.

  151. 151.

    gene108

    @Mary G:

    Reads like what the Soviet Union did in the 1920’s and 1930’s to opponents real and imagined. Keep throwing them into jails or even labor camps, well beyond the capacity of what they were built for.

  154. 154.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    She also only gets a 46% approval rating among Republicans, and 31% from Democrats.

    What the hell is wrong with Maine’s Democrats?

  155. 155.

    TenguPhule

    @gene108:

    A Republican Congress will use this change in rules to throw a Democratic President in jail, or at least stand trial for felony crimes.

    Which is why Step 1 needs to be that no Republicans are ever allowed in Congress again.

  157. 157.

    Mart

    @emark: What a compelling read, thanks for the link. From the article

    “We could pretend guns aren’t the problem,” a Wyoming health official told me. “But that isn’t logical.”

    My BIL was fantasizing about how his concealed carry was going to mow down his attackers. I responded that the No. 1 way to die from a gun is to own a gun. He objected. I said – for starters there are 30,000 suicides. He said – oh, so now we’re counting that?

  160. 160.

    Another Scott

    @Ukko: There’s a WordPress plugin flaw that’s being exploited:

    Hackers have been actively exploiting a recently patched vulnerability in some websites that causes the sites to redirect to malicious sites or display misleading popups, security researchers warned on Wednesday.

    The vulnerability was fixed two weeks ago in WP Live Chat Support, a plugin for the WordPress content management system that has 50,000 active installations. The persistent cross-site scripting vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious JavaScript into sites that use the plugin, which provides an interface for visitors to have live chats with site representatives.

    Researchers from security firm Zscaler’s ThreatLabZ say attackers are exploiting the vulnerability to cause sites using unpatched versions of WP Live Chat Support to redirect to malicious sites or to display unwanted popups. While the attacks aren’t widespread, there have been enough of them to raise concern.

    “Cybercriminals actively look for new vulnerabilities in popular content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal, as well as popular plugins that are found in many websites,” Zscaler’s Prakhar Shrotriya wrote in a post. “An unpatched vulnerability in either the CMS or associated plugins provides an entry point for attackers to compromise the website by injecting malicious code and impacting the unsuspecting users visiting these sites.”

    The vulnerability lets anyone visiting the site update the plugin settings by calling an unprotected “admin_init hook” and injecting malicious JavaScript anywhere the Live Chat Support icon appears. The attacks observed by Zscaler use the injected script to send a request to hxxps://blackawardago[.]com to execute the main script. Visitors are then redirected to multiple URLs that push unwanted popup ads, fake error messages, and requests to let certain sites send browser notifications.

    […]

    It’ll be good when the new site is done… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  161. 161.

    SiubhanDuinne

    UGH UGH UGH just got the nasty porn ad again and I have no idea what triggers it. YUCK UGH BARF BLECH

  163. 163.

    J R in WV

    Ya’ll make me tempted to shut off my ad-blocker, session protecting add on tools to see what’s making you scream.

    But not really…

Comments are closed.