Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Not all heroes wear capes.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

White supremacy is terrorism.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

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

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Lackey Lindsey

Lackey Lindsey

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Another day, another breach of rules in the Senate.

Donald Trump is having another rally tonight, and he needed some material, so Lindsay Graham was only to happy to provide it for him.

Ben Orlebeke (yeah, I don’t know him either, but the thread looks okay and Emptywheel went with it) live-tweeted. Here are the highlights of his thread.

I see that some folks are making hashtags with Russian cities added to Republican names, in the manner of #MoscowMitch. So there seems to be #LeningradLindsey, but that’s anachronistic and not really relevant. I prefer #LackeyLindsey.

Open thread!

 

Reader Interactions

156Comments

  4. 4.

    Mary G

    This shit gets worse every day. I have always been positive about getting rid of Twitler and making America better, but I am starting to feel like we’re fucked.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    Not even fig leaves anymore.

    Not a good sign.

    The clocks have moved another step closer to 1939.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    Here’s Leahy’s own take with video:

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    maybe not so off-topic

    Rep. Will Hurd @ HurdOnTheHill
    I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    It is nice, 15 years on from Republican congressional leaders in the majority in both chambers, that Democratic senators have noticed that the rules do not apply to the Republicans when they are in the majority, but they always apply to the Democrats regardless of whether they’re in the majority or the minority. Welcome to reality, we’re glad you’re finally here!

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Large numbers of retirements, even in safe districts, is usually a leading indicator of a wave election. The internal polling for these folks must really indicate that while they may get reelected, the Republicans will not retake the House. Now we have to see if this starts to effect the Senate races.

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Dems stand ready to work with Rs in good faith

    They must plan to wait forever. Because that ship sailed off the edge of the world and its never coming back.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t know. Seems like a decent guy and a solid senator, but like Leahy and Feinstein and Schumer and the other senior Democratic senators, they seem to have managed to not actually understand what had been going on in Congress, starting in the House in 94 and then the Senate by 2002, with how the Republican caucus conducted themselves in both the majority and the minority.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve been thinking Collins was full of shit when she prtends she’s not sure about running, but I wonder if she isn’t smart enough to have figured out she is not ready for what’s coming. I still think she has an edge because of incumbency and the small-state, good-services thing. But she’s gonna be the focus of some rage.
    ETA: I”ve always thought Collins loves being a Senator because on some level she knows she’s a blazing mediocrity who never should have risen as high as she has

  17. 17.

    chris

    Am I crazy to wonder if some of these retiring rethugs might vote to impeach before they leave?

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @chris:

    Am I crazy to wonder if some of these retiring rethugs might vote to impeach before they leave?

    Yes. SATSQ.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott: I am an atypical voter, and have alas only spent one week in the great state of Maine, but that ad looks to me like a freakin’ masterpiece

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @Another Scott:

    She’ll be disappointed to hear you say that.

    I watched that ad about a week ago. Maybe I’m just a fucking moron about this*, but I’m still trying to figure out the target audience, or the overarching message, or what’s supposed to be so fucking great about that ad (as numerous persons have said it is)

    * Note that the “maybe” only applies here. My moronitude about numerous other things has been well-documented, of course.

  30. 30.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: It makes her look ridiculous, and a woman in her position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous!

    (Godfather references are still timely, right?)

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    @SFAW: As I understand it, her team made the video and put it up on some public site so that PACs and others can use it via supplying their own text and voice-over and the PACs will pay for broadcasting it. Because actual coordination between her campaign and independent PACs is illegal and wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more she would never do anything illegal to further her campaign.

    What’s great about this ad, is they took her campaign’s video and made it a meme before any of the groups supporting her could use it. So it’s effectively dead for her. And any ads that look like these will be mocked as well.

    Sure, voters who aren’t plugged in won’t know about it and won’t care. But it gets people who are plugged in and who want Collins gone enthusiastic. And that’s a good thing.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): We might get a fire in addition to a Reichstag. A leading China expert from Claremont McKenna College pointed out that China will be celebrating its 70th anniversary on Oct 1. (same as me, yikes) They are likely to quash the Hong Kong protests before then since they abhor embarrassment.

    And we’ll have blanket tarrifs a month before then.

  39. 39.

    joel hanes

    @bemused:

    GOP Senators laughing. They aren’t even human.

    Do you remember W?
    Changing the place and time of committee meetings, and not informing Democratic members.
    Turning out the lights and turning off the microphones after the Republican members were done speaking.
    Openly offering a bribe on the floor of the House
    Breaking the rules of the full House to keep a vote open for many hours.
    “You lie!”
    Cheney to Leahy, on the floor of the Senate: “Fuck you.”

    The Republicans have been what they are today for the last twenty five years. They’re emboldened these days, yes, but they’re not different.

  40. 40.

    dr. bloor

    @Adam L Silverman: Are you suggesting that “waking up to this earlier” might have led to either (a) Dems should be prepared to shit on Senate rules, and/or (b) there’s something that Dems could have done to sidetrack Lindsey today? Because the latter was not possible, and I don’t want to be a member of the party who is ready to do the former.

  41. 41.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I think they understand. I have blind faith they can’t be that stupid.

    I just think they cannot figure out a way to counter it without becoming, what they are trying to oppose.

    If win at all costs becomes our new political norm, then when will it end? At some point, if both sides play the win at all costs game, someone will start using assassination as a way to discourage opposing party candidates for standing for elections. it’s what happens in other countries, when no one wants to share power, with the losing side.

    There are a fuck ton of Republican supporters, who would eagerly jump at the chance to kill Democratic politicians, without consequences, and maybe ignite the race war they have been dreaming about for 40 years.

    We may have the numbers, the education, and the money, but they have the guns and a fuck ton of psychopaths, who are eager to use their guns on their enemies.

  42. 42.

    James E Powell

    @SFAW:

    I completely agree with you. The voters who enjoyed that ad are already going to vote against Collins. I don’t know a thing about Maine, but my sense is that the key is to convince voters that Collins is not who she says she is. I thought Sara Gideon’s announcement video hit the right notes.

  43. 43.

    TenguPhule

    @gene108:

    If win at all costs becomes our new political norm, then when will it end?

    When one side completely destroys the other. And I really prefer that if one side must go extinct, its not us.

  44. 44.

    chris

    Pfft! He must have misspoken.

    As I suspected, the position of “Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Secuirity,” which John Ratcliffe’s bio claims he was “appointed to by President George W. Bush” — and which is getting cited to pad out his paltry intel resume — doesn’t actually exist. https://t.co/xIg7hPCCCu— Julian Sanchez (@normative) August 1, 2019

  46. 46.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman:
    They find comfort in the rules because they don’t know how to fight any other way. So removing the rules puts them in free fall. Meanwhile, McConnell doesn’t give a shit about anything and is plowing through with his entire caucus behind him. Only a wave election with veto proof majorities in all branches are we going to fix this. Time to take our country back.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: If you’re Congressman Cummings, as well as his Capitol Police detail, an 8 or higher. Given that you are not Congressman Cummings, I think you and your home are probably safe from threats directed at him.

  48. 48.

    PsiFighter37

    OT, but it looks like Beto’s BFF Will Hurd is hanging them up. Gina Ortiz Jones still needs to put pedal to the metal, but methinks she’s got to be a clear favorite to pick up the seat now.

  49. 49.

    gene108

    @chris:

    Am I crazy to wonder if some of these retiring rethugs might vote to impeach before they leave?

    Too much wingnut welfare is waiting for them, as long as they don’t break the Republican code of Omerta*.

    * Not much different, than the mob’s, but right now Republicans aren’t emboldened to actually kill dissenters.

  50. 50.

    Buckeye

    Teh Google tells me that Ben Orlebeke is from Grand Rapids, where Marcy lives. And that since May he’s been a law clerk for Sen. Leahy.
    As for Leningrad Lindsey, he really and truly has become thoroughly corrupted. Not that he was ever good, but now he’s beyond awful.

  51. 51.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dr. bloor: Recognizing the problem earlier doesn’t immediately translate to “shitting on the rules”. Recognizing these changes for what they were at the time, however, would have allowed for the development of very different strategies and tactics for serving in either and both chambers of Congress regardless of whether in the majority or the minority, as well as for campaigning against what the Republicans had remade themselves into. It doesn’t matter how good one’s policies and policy proposals are if you have no way of implementing them.

  53. 53.

    joel hanes

    @dr. bloor:

    As noted above, the Dems didn’t need to re-institute the blue-slip rule when they regained control of the Senate. That was an unforced error.

    There have been others, e.g. the budget sequestration deal.
    Most of these mistakes, I think, made in the vain hope that if nihilist scorched-earth Republicans were treated as if they were good-faith actors, they would begin to act responsibly.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

  54. 54.

    James E Powell

    @joel hanes:

    I’m getting “Nothing Found” when I go to the website. I got back here through my browser history.

    I assume patient waiting is called for.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gene108:

    If win at all costs becomes our new political norm, then when will it end? At some point, if both sides play the win at all costs game, someone will start using assassination as a way to discourage opposing party candidates for standing for elections.

    We’ve had two actual attempts to assassinate members of Congress, one by a mentally unstable right wing extremist and one by a mentally unstable Bernie Bros, since 2010 that led to Congresswoman Giffords injuries in the former and Congressman Scalise’s in the latter. We’ve also had, in just the past year or so, had an attempted assassination by mail bombing by a supporter of the President and significant threats made to members of Congress by other supporters of the President or those who think the President is both giving them permission to take action at the same time that he’s not going far enough fast enough. And none of this had to do with the rules of the House or the Senate.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @James E Powell: The apparently database gets scrambled sometimes, especially when a post is put up briefly then taken down (e.g. Tom’s ‘Sasquatch’ post earlier today).

    That’s my guess anyway.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    SFAW

    @Another Scott:

    Sure, voters who aren’t plugged in won’t know about it and won’t care.

    Yeah, that’s kind of my take on it. The problem is, “inside baseball” ads don’t really move the needle, and re-purposing a Collins-sympathetic PAC’s vids is going to leave most people with the same “WTF was THAT shit?” response as the original Jonathan-Pryce-narrated Infiniti “Zen” ads did. “Susan Collins is disappointed”?

    I don’t know if the money for that ad came out of the funds Ady Barkan raised after the Kavanaugh vote, but if it is, I want my money back.

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    @chris: Here’s the detailed explanation:

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    A reminder: Twitter:

    LOLGOP @LOLGOP

    Two dozen Democrats have come out for impeachment since Mueller testified. A half dozen House Republicans have retired.

    We have a strong hand but we need to keep fighting for every point/vote/seat.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    dr. bloor

    @joel hanes: Let’s concede your point, although I don’t agree. What would you have advocated for at that time, that wouldn’t have resulted in a shitstorm of negative press?

    The point is this: The Democrats aren’t only fighting the Republicans, they’re fighting the media. And to say “fuck it, act on principle,” ignores the fact that due to the two-per-state structure of the Senate and fillibustering in the House, D majorities frequently rest on not repulsing the soft, utterly ignorant and impulse-ridden 5% of the electorate that are fetishized as “independents” or “undecideds” by teevee punditubbies.

    We’re not sending idiots or cowards to Congress. We’re by and large sending smart, civic-minded people into a no-win matrix.

  71. 71.

    gene108

    @TenguPhule:

    When one side completely destroys the other. And I really prefer that if one side must go extinct, its not us.

    But that’s not happening.

    We aren’t being crushed.

    Trump’s election got our people off their asses. I’m one of those guys. I voted regularly, but never volunteered for a campaign. That changed in 2018.

    The real issue is how hard is it going to be to undo Republican damage, as all ways, and how much blame will the Democrats get for not fixing the Republican mess on day one.

    Anyway, if 2018 is any indicator, we should be fine in 2020. I don’t think the seething rage from Trump’s election has ebbed. There’s always a new atrocity to keep the rage alive and well.

  75. 75.

    joel hanes

    @dr. bloor:

    What would you have advocated for at that time?

    Priority given to getting judges nominated and approved during the short time we had the Senate.
    Quiet but very serious attention paid to the integrity of elections (after Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, our hair should have been on fire)

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    @dr. bloor:

    We’re not sending idiots or cowards to Congress. We’re by and large sending smart, civic-minded people into a no-win matrix.

    On this, you and I agree.
    I wish I thought that Leahy and Hoyer clearly saw their opponents and their own position. Reid did, I think.

  78. 78.

    jl

    @Baud: I’m mot supporting any candidate for any office in the primaries who blathers about trying to go back to the gold old days. Setting aside whether the good old days were really so good, fact is the GOP beat the good old days to death with a club and then kept hammering away at the body.

    We need to elect people who have the vision and guts to forge ahead and create a new system. And if we can win Senate, revamp it, and the GOP sits in a corner and shuts the F up. Don’t let them to a damn thing except show up to vote on bills.

    Another reason I support Warren is that she shows signs she is willing to make some major changes, and do them in a smart and sensible way. As president, the Senate isn’t something she can do anything about directly, but I hope a Warren type can run a Democratic Senate soon.

  79. 79.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud: The Senate will likely be in Republican hands until the next millenium. Seems like kind of a bad idea to me.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Steve in the ATL: My nephew used that phrase the day after the 2016 election. Some kid told a latinx kid to back to Mexico or some such. The nephew overheard and told racist kid to go fuck himself. The whole family was very proud.

  83. 83.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    My cousin lives in north Baltimore. He’s had his home broken into. There have been various rashes of thefts, such as home burglaries, cars, with good lying visible in them being broken into at night, and packages stolen from doorsteps.

    Baltimore isn’t a terrible city, but it isn’t a perfect city either.

    I’m holding off that this is political, given how nice neighborhoods get burglarized.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I find it so interesting that Will Hurd is retiring.

    He was the one non-ridiculous Republican during the Mueller hearings. Intelligence committee. Hurd is a former CIA officer.

    Wonder if there’s any chance he could end up as DNI? Although he is not a Trump man (albeit he says he would vote for Trump if Trump is the nominee in 2020).

    I am hoping Ratcliffe’s nomination will go down in flames. He is (a) not qualified and (b) crazy pants.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Another Scott: When you’re trying to indefinitely cage brown children, you get to break silly rules.

    I so wish that Graham could lose an election but that probably won’t happen soon. Hence his decision to fasten himself to Trump’s behind.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Mike DeBonis @ mikedebonis
    Hard to overstate how much GOP leaders sought to elevate Hurd, protect him and make him the future of the caucus. Not just as the now-only black House R, but as a former CIA operative interested in tech policy and expanding the party’s appeal. Just a devasting loss for them.

    Josh Kraushaar @ HotlineJosh
    Hearing that many top Rs had no idea Hurd was leaving. Total bombshell.

    @Elizabelle: albeit he says he would vote for Trump if Trump is the nominee in 2020).

    So this is a pure act of self-preservation. My guess, fill up the old coffers and wait for Cornyn to retire

  93. 93.

    Wileybud

    Lackey Lindsey is pretty good, Lickspittle Lindsey is even better. One just knows that when Jimi asked “Are You Experienced?” Lickspittle Lindsey’s tongue proclaimed “Oh, yeah man!” He’s just more white trash that deserves to be kicked to the curb in November.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ah, he broadsided the GOP leadership. That’s wonderful.

    Maybe he had enough, sitting through the Mueller hearings. I got the impression he actually cared about election security.

  96. 96.

    jl

    @Patricia Kayden: It was interesting to me that after all the speculation about what made Lindsay Graham act in such absurd and repellent ways, he just went ahead and outed himself in an interview recently. He just out and out said that he is a miserable schmuck who latches on to whoever is convenient who has more talent, power, prominence, in order to stay in the spotlight, because he has nothing to offer himself that will allow him to earn a place in it on his own. So much for his ‘friendship’ with McCain.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: Maybe he had enough, sitting through the Mueller hearings. I got the impression he actually cared about election security.

    Me, too, but I think speaking up on Ratcliffe will be a test in that regard.

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    Breaking, in the NY Times:

    BOSTON — A granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy died on Thursday afternoon after suffering an apparent overdose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., according to two people close to the family.

    The young woman, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, 22, was the daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill. She was at the compound where her grandmother, Ethel Kennedy, 91, lives when emergency responders were called on Thursday afternoon, the family friends said. She was taken to Cape Code Hospital in Hyannis, where she was pronounced dead.

    So sad. They have some addictive chemistry in that family.

    ETA: Reading farther, Saoirse also disclosed a longtime battle with serious depression. Uh oh. Sad, however it came about.

  101. 101.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What I was thinking about is if, both parties go so far down the road of “win at all costs, no matter what”, where will it lead?

    I really wasn’t relating this to changes in Congressional rules.

    At what point, if both parties go down the “win at all costs” mindset, does it lead to coordinated political violence by one side or the other, and not just random acts of violence? That was more, where my speculation was heading.

  103. 103.

    BruceFromOhio

    Tire irons and anthrax.

    Until its made abundantly clear that doing the dumpster fire’s bidding results in ridicule, pain, and death, nothing changes.

    Get used to it.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Steve in the ATL: One thing I like about The Economist is that they’re not prudes about the old Anglo-Saxonisms, and they quoted our Dick verbatim, where every other print publication apparently had the vapors.

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    more funny

    Hanna Trudo @ HCTrudo
    Scoop: Several people in the Trump administration are directly pressuring Corey Lewandowski to challenge Jeanne Shaheen for #NHSen.

    But there’s one problem: New Hampshire Republicans want him to stay away from the Senate.

  111. 111.

    joel hanes

    @Steve in the ATL:

    I am here to serve.

    In that case, bring us chips, guacamole, two Modelo Negra, two orders of the chiles rellenos, and one carnitas taco, picante por favor.

    [hungry]

  113. 113.

    Gin & Tonic

    @gene108: Targeted assassinations have been a tool of politics and statecraft since time immemorial. Why so squeamish all of a sudden?

  115. 115.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    The JAG prosecutors who in doing their duty in the trial of deranged mass murderer Seal, Eddie Gallagher were stripped of their medals, by an order given by Great Leader and Dotard Trump Don IL. I guess the purge of our military will begin soon. Who in the Pentagon will emerge as Trump’s Voroshilov?

  118. 118.

    James E Powell

    @Elizabelle:

    Last night I watched a documentary series on Bobby Kennedy. The first part was about JFK’s presidential campaign and the early days of his administration. Quite a bit of film of the clan. I thought about what the future must have looked like for that family at that time and then you think about how it all worked out.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Saw that. It’s the action of a dictator wanna be, and, on the bright side, might actually separate some service members from Trump. Service members being held to a far stricter standard of conduct than our Cheater in Chief.

  120. 120.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: they’re dropping like flies. at least 6 of them have fled for the exits in the past week. the Broderites tell me Dump’s racism is great politics, yet they’re cutting and running.

  121. 121.

    BruceFromOhio

    @gene108:

    At what point, if both parties go down the “win at all costs” mindset, does it lead to coordinated political violence by one side or the other, and not just random acts of violence?

    Well, there is one party that’s doing a pretty good job of inciting violence, or creating the environment for violence to occur. On this date, the death squads are lurking behind badges and the authority connoted by law. One need look no further than the skin color of the dead to see the connection. Escalation is imminent when traditionally civilized people do what Senator Graham has done, in a traditionally civilized institution that has now allowed it to happen without recrimination or retribution. Now everyone else has to decide how to engage – vote, march in the streets, or pick up a weapon. Americans have done all of these.

    Senator Leahy’s words and actions are a prescient inkling of what is happening everywhere, right now, and what is yet to come.

  123. 123.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Elizabelle: no way. Will Hurd hasn’t been complimentary enough to Trumpov to get a job in the admin. His win was close enough last time that he figured there’s a good chance he will lose this time around. Also hes somewhat qualified for the nomination so there’s no way Trumpov’s boss Putin would allow that. I am kind of serious about this last sentence.

  124. 124.

    Ken

    @gene108:

    where will it lead?

    A nice tzompantli on the National Mall?

    (Idea stolen from Charles Stross, who also introduced me to the word.)

  127. 127.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Elizabelle: oh shit.

    A couple of nights ago I had dinner with a friend who’s on the board of Tennessee Riverkeepers with Robert Kennedy, and he had just spent a few days at the Hyannis Port compound with the clan. The pictures were great, but now seem depressing.

  129. 129.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @BruceFromOhio: Anyone remember when 4 Puerto Ricans wanting independence from US shot up the House in March 1954?

    It was a major shock at the time but seems to be largely forgotten.

  130. 130.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I don’t know if I was the first one to use #LeningradLindsey on the Twitter machine(probably not since ‘great minds think alike etc) but I used it a few days ago after #MoscowMitch started trending. Kinda fun seeing it catch on. I am pretty sure Putin et al have some very compromising pics and video of Lindsey so he’ll do whatever they want him to do.

  135. 135.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne: putain de merde—I should have sucked it up and gone!

    I’m back at the lake now but there will other opportunities I’m sure.

  136. 136.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    @gene108: it actually happened once. In 1998, Republican state senate candidate (TN) Byron Low Tax Looper had Democratic state Senator Tommy Burks murdered. The widow ran as a write in and was endorsed by the entire Republican establishment including the governor at the time, and won with 96% of the vote

  138. 138.

    Aleta

    Ms. Kennedy Hill spent part of her childhood in Ireland, and often said she was proud of her Irish heritage and her Gaelic given name, which means freedom. Her father, Paul Michael Hill, is one of the Guildford Four, who were falsely accused of involvement in Irish Republican Army bombings; he was imprisoned for 15 years before his conviction was overturned. He and Ms. Kennedy Hill’s mother married shortly after his release in 1993, and separated in 2006.
    Ms. Kennedy Hill marched in Cape Cod with her mother in March 2018 as part of a nationwide protest against gun violence, according to The Barnstable Patriot.

    NYT

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @gene108:

    I’m holding off that this is political, given how nice neighborhoods get burglarized.

    The timing (after E. Cummings being slammed by the POTUS-led right) makes it more probable that it was political. We don’t have good probability estimates for politics-driven break-ins, true.
    I wonder if any local cameras recorded anything.

  141. 141.

    JDM

    When we manage to retake the Senate, please, let’s be Butch Cassidy. They say “Rules? in a knife fight?”; we take them at their word.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @dr. bloor:

    …Are you suggesting that “waking up to this earlier” might have led to either (a) Dems should be prepared to shit on Senate rules, and/or (b) there’s something that Dems could have done to sidetrack Lindsey today? …

    It is possible to actually change Senate rules without shitting on the Senate floor. Actually.

    But no, nothing can be done to sidetrack Lubyanka Lindsey today. Tomorrow, perhaps, we’ll find out what someone has on Lindsey to make him suck Trump’s ass in public the way he has recently. Then we can sidetrack him into the hillside.

  144. 144.

    Ken

    @J R in WV: I’m imaging the President calling Graham on January 28, 2020 and saying, “Lindsay? Elizabeth here. Would you believe Trump was stupid enough to leave copies of the tapes in the Resolute desk?”

  146. 146.

    Bill Arnold

    @MisterForkbeard:

    So, not a direct cause.

    You appeared to mean before, so looked it up, here’s a link, thanks for the correction:
    Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore Home Burglarized, Police Say (August 1, 2019)

    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore Police are investigating after the home of Rep. Elijah Cummings was broken into early Saturday morning.
    The burglary occurred around 3:40 a.m. at his Baltimore home in the 2000 block of Madison Avenue.
    …
    This was several hours before President Donald Trump tweeted criticizing Cummings and his district including Baltimore.

  148. 148.

    joel hanes

    @Jay:

    Tried to donate; site would not accept a one-time donation, insisted on monthly.

    I’ll try again in a day or so, but I’m disappointed — I can’t give big bucks so I try to donate as early as possible.

  149. 149.

    Peale

    @Adam L Silverman: yep. Leahy was one of the big time dems who sat on his committee chairmanship during the Obama administration hoping, hoping, that if he followed the old comity rules, the GOP he long for would come back. Jerk.

  150. 150.

    sralloway

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: As a former Mainer, I recall covering Margaret Chase Smith’s campaign for a college paper in 1972. She was stunned to lose that election, and she was a mythological figure in the Pine Tree State. Collins has no such stature, and may well fall because of her mealy-mouthed apologies next year. Mainers are short tempered on hypocrites. May it be so.

  152. 152.

    Vkane

    I disagree, I think the Leningrad in LeningradLindsey is absolutely relevant since the Russian disinformation campaign is based upon similar KGB methods used in Europe during the 80s. Besides having lived in the former Leningrad the city (now St Petersburg) is located in the Leningrad Oblast.

  156. 156.

    J R in WV

    @dr. bloor:

    The point is this: The Democrats aren’t only fighting the Republicans, they’re fighting the media. And to say “fuck it, act on principle,” ignores the fact that due to the two-per-state structure of the Senate and fillibustering (sic) in the House, D majorities frequently rest on not repulsing the soft, utterly ignorant and impulse-ridden 5% of the electorate that are fetishized as “independents” or “undecideds” by teevee punditubbies.

    There are no filibusters in the House any more, since the rule was changed in 1842 to limit the duration of debate. I certainly agree that Democracy is fighting against the media in a battle for — well, the survival of Democracy.

    Google “filibuster in the House of Representatives” and spel filibuster correctly for that to work.

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