Beto has had it with reporters.
Beto O’Rourke on his way to his car was asked if there’s anything Trump can do now to make this better.
“What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck?” pic.twitter.com/zjLYf4mzBr
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) August 5, 2019
Also, Nebraska State Senator John McCollister has had it with his silent Republican colleagues:
What I am saying though is that the Republican Party is COMPLICIT to obvious racist and immoral activity inside our party.
— Senator McCollister (@SenMcCollister) August 5, 2019
We have Republican senators and representatives who look the other way and say nothing for fear that it will negatively affect their elections.
No more.
When the history books are written, I refuse to be someone who said nothing.
— Senator McCollister (@SenMcCollister) August 5, 2019
We all like to cite Abraham Lincoln’s Republican lineage when it is politically expedient but NOW is the time to ACT like Lincoln and take a stand. pic.twitter.com/Yk32capM4C
— Senator McCollister (@SenMcCollister) August 5, 2019
A majority of House Democrats now favor impeachment.
Majority of House Democrats favor starting impeachment proceedings https://t.co/B2TGW5Gf7B pic.twitter.com/Ck5Ns7HbCl
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 3, 2019
Cloudflare has left 8chan on its own, and reports are that it’s down already.
We just sent notice we are terminating service for 8chan. There comes a time when enough is enough. But this isn't the end. We need to have a broader conversation about addressing the root causes of hate online. https://t.co/ZsctDpswM5
— Matthew Prince ? (@eastdakota) August 5, 2019
It’s so easy to soften what we say, to be polite. We’re taught to do that from childhood. But it’s time to say things clearly and simply, to take a stand.
Jeffro
Go Dems go!
Ask the hard questions.
Pin the GOP down.
They can own this or not but either way their own intraparty civil war is calling.
We would be remiss in holding back from choosing sides.
Mary G
Nebraskans should replace Ben Sasse with Senator McCollister.
trollhattan
One hell of a weekend. Am not able to meaningfully process everything that just happened, and whichever of our leaders take an unambiguous stance against the forces abetting the hate and slaughter have my support. The rest get my EF Goldman proxy: “fuckem.”
The Dayton murderer had 100-round magazines. How the hell is that remotely legal? Were Stephen Paddock’s bump stocks not a sufficient wakeup call?
Mnemosyne
Someone posted this in one of the threads below: a crowd in Dayton chanting, “Do something!” as Gov. DeWine spouts weasel words:
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/08/04/dayton-shooting-ohio-governor-mike-dewine-shouted-down-during-vigil/1918227001/
chopper
@Mary G:
nebraskans should replace sasse with a democrat.
West of the Rockies
Perhaps, at long last, the tide is turning…
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Sasse is a special kind of fraud–a younger, more folksy Willard Romney with the same depth (measured best in angstroms).
Rich Gardner
“We need to have a broader conversation about addressing the root causes of hate online.”
Hmm, sounds like the job the FLOTUS signed up for, to fight online hate speech.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
#MassacreMitch is trending
dmsilev
Sure, Trump can receive visits from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and come to realize that he’s done everything all wrong. Short of that, however, I’m going to go with ‘no’.
chris
@trollhattan:
Haha, you made a funny.
dmsilev
@West of the Rockies: Well, since we’re talking about dealing with literal Nazis all over again,
Villago Delenda Est
@Mary G: Sasse is an utter waste of skin.
lollipopguild
@dmsilev: Trump is aware enough that if he had a “Christmas Carol” conversion into a actual human being that his base would drop him like a radioactive potato, he would be done as president and he knows this. I think he was hoping to start a race war in this country because he thinks that it would help him get reelected.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev: Scrooge had a tiny bit of a conscience left. Donald has none, and never has.
joel hanes
Senator McCollister, I’m sorry to have to tell you that the Republican Party, as currently constituted, is not better than this, and has not been so for a couple decades at least. You and some other well-intentioned people have been closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge ever since Mr. Reagan was President, a situation that became painfully obvious to the rest of us when Gingrich was Speaker.
I’m glad you’ve awakened from your partisan stupor. Your party is past redeeming. Go independent if you must, as Justin Amash has done, but if you want to actually help fix what’s been broken, become a member of the Democratic Party.
Cheryl Rofer
@trollhattan:
debbie
Sadly, this country is such that the only takeaway from Beto’s remarks will be his naughty words.
Chetan Murthy
@joel hanes:
damn straight. You’re a GrOPer, you’re a traitor, or giving aid and comfort to traitors. You want to keep your reputation? Do as Jen Rubin did. Do as Joe Scarborough did. Ditch the GrOPers. And don’t pretend that not doing so leaves you even a shred of moral dignity: It. Does. Not.
MomSense
Good for Beto!
Jay
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
I heard Rob Portman’s statement. He was even more mealy-mouthed than usual.
Mike J
@Cheryl Rofer: And voted for by Sanders.
Dr Ronnie James DO
With any luck, #MassacreMitch will spur Beto (and Steve Bullock) to leave their doomed efforts in the Presidential race and run for Senate. In Beto’s case, he also could save face even if he loses for the Senate bc his run was inspired by the massacre in his hometown.
Jay
Jeffro
@debbie: it’s AMAZING that they can’t defy their donors, even for a second, on this most common-sense of issues. Weapons of war and massive amounts of ammunition are somehow something that, oh well, we’ll just have to keep living with from now until the heat death of the universe.
Sci-fi/political science parody bestselling novel just sitting there, waiting to be written. Unfortunately we are also just waiting for someone, anyone, to bust #MassacreMitch ‘s chops and get basic protections re-written into law
Mathguy
McCollister is my state senator. He is the only Republican I have voted for in the past three decades. There are still a few sane ones out there in office, though they are am endangered species. Guvn’r Cueball, Pete “I wish he had” Ricketts, will undoubtably target him in the next election.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Seems so prosaic until one considers what the brass circles actually are. Thanks for the education, regardless.
Jay Noble
@Cheryl Rofer: And he had spareS – as in more than 1. Crazy person? Was wearing ear protection, as was the El Paso shooter. The main argument for suppressors (read SILENCERS) is to protect the shooter’s hearing – on the range.
joel hanes
One of Trump’s first acts as president was blocking an Obama rule that would have prevented 75,000 people with mental disorders from buying a gun.
h/t hilzoy’s twitter feed
trollhattan
@Jay:
The right to a well-regulated playground shall not be infringed. But wear a helmet.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
It’s about time somebody said it. I guess it had to be one of the also-rans. If it were up to me, he’d stay in the race as long as he keeps saying shit like this. It needs saying.
The Moar You Know
@trollhattan: if it makes you feel any better, and it doesn’t make me feel any better, that’s a magazine designed to do one thing; relieve lunatics of their money, which somehow they always seem to have. Think they call it a “beta”. They always jam. The military, which likes the ability to kill as many people as needed, doesn’t use anything with a higher capacity than 20 rounds, because they jam.
If the guy in Dayton had been using smaller magazines he might have killed a lot more people. Conversely, had he not been able to get a goddamn battle rifle, he might not have killed anyone. Which really is the only solution; ban them all. And no, I may know a few things about guns, but I don’t know how you’d even start disarming the United States.
Suzanne
Can President Warren (or President Harris, I’m not choosy) appoint Beto to be a gun violence czar? Comments like this are reminding me of what about Beto I find so appealing: he is really engaging and effective when he speaks his mind.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: @chris: @Cheryl Rofer: Fortunately they tend to be unreliable and lead to misfeeds and jams. They also wrongly balance the rifle or carbine and make it harder to aim and shoot properly. The people that buy these things are morons.
joel hanes
If the guy in Dayton had been using smaller magazines he might have killed a lot more people.
Dayton cops are now claiming they were firing at him within 30 seconds, and that he was dead within a minute. Given how many rounds he got off, I suspects that he didn’t have a magazine jam.
Not that you’re wrong in anything you said.
\
There’s a reason that “ammosexual” is a useful term for men who the customers for such things; there’s a connection between the exaggerated weapon-fetish styling of much of this gear and the kind of exaggerated female sexual characteristics one used to see in the kind of cartoons formerly found on napkins in sleazy bars. It’s deliberate hyperstimulus.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cheryl Rofer: How about calling the MF who sold that to the kid and suggest he finally do the decent thing and eat a bullet?
Adam L Silverman
@joel hanes: He killed 9 and 27 were injured. He was in a crowded space where people where out and about to have a good time. And two of those, his first two victims, were his sister and her boyfriend in a parked car. While it didn’t jam, had he just had conventional sized magazines – whether 5, 10, 20, or 30 round magazines – given the physical geography of the area he was shooting in and how people were moving around, he most likely would have killed and wounded about the same amount before the police got to him.
TXSwede
News says that the FOURTH Texas Republican, Kenny Marchant, TX24, will retire tomorrow.
Spare a thought, and maybe a dollar, for Col Kim Olson as we turn this sucker blue.
https://kimforcongress.org/
Aleta
RE @Cheryl Rofer:
FWIW: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/bernie-sanders-vote-gun-immunity-black-market/
eta As Mike J said above.
Jay
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Brian is an old friend of mine. We’ve known each other since the mid 90s. Even collaborated on occasion.
Jay
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Haven’t done my homework in a couple of decades but I seem to recall that is a rather small measurement. Are you sure it’s small enough?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@TXSwede: I’m in. This is really winnable. the current republican held on by a mere 3 pts after winning in 2014 by 33 pts. She only held on because of incumbency. This open seat is ripe for turnover.
Aleta
jeannedalbret
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Caution: some good folks have expressed concern that those two words will be twisted to sound like an imperative rather than descriptor. Plays into “Both sides do it…”
SectionH
@Suzanne: I sure wouldn’t mind a Harris/O’Rourke ticket (yes, or Warren/O’Rourke). Beto seems to be pretty good at “cut the BS” extemp speaking. Mr S and I were in suburban Dallas on election night last Nov., and our hotel was basically occupied by mostly young Democrats who were prepping for GOTV the next day. It was very cool. They were organized, they were ready to go. If he can bring most of his workers on board for 2020, esp. for a Presidential race, we might see Texas be a positive for Dems even if we don’t carry it for the Presidency. Both in downticket races and in how much $ the Rses will have to spend.
Eric K
@joel hanes: yeah, I did something I rarely do and tweeted a reply to him, I said Lincoln left his Party and helped found a new one, when will the non racist right do the same now?
Fair Economist
@TXSwede: Something is up, in a good way, in Texas. Texas is pretty urban and a majority minority state, and that it has been solid Republican is something of an anomaly. One thing that’s been showing up lately is a “normalization” of Texas in that its cities, which have been Republican or at least swing, have been moving fairly decisively to become Democratic, like urban areas throughout the country, even in very red states. Maybe that process is picking up and these representatives are seeing it in their internals.
TS (the original)
He could resign and take every last one of his horrific family & go live in Russia for the remainder of his days. Alternatively they could all plead guilty for crimes against humanity.
Omnes Omnibus
@SectionH:
This is one of the reasons that the debates – especially ones with crowded stages like we have right now – should not be the be all, end all for our assessment of a candidate.
Eric K
@Dr Ronnie James DO: or since Texas Dems already have a good candidate when is the next gubernatorial election?
joel hanes
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I’m in
I’m in (again).
Jay
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Aleta:
Such bullshit. At the time, BOTH Vermont Senators (Pat Leahy and Jim Jeffords) voted against NRA immunity. The mom and pop shit is a cover story to disguise his partnership with the NRA.
Less than 2 years ago, Wilmer’s idiot son wrote NRAtv has “a very sophisticated message which taps into the anger and frustration so many feel in working class America.” Gee, who gave him that idea.
oldgold
@TXSwede:
Texodus!
Yarrow
@SectionH: Heard on the radio that Republicans are already planning to put a lot more paid workers in Texas. They gave the numbers and it was a massive increase. They had something like 15 in 2018 and they’re going up to 123 or something like that in 2020. Then they said that was the plan now and that number could go up. Figured it meant they were having to spend a lot more money defending Texas.
Yarrow
@Eric K:
Not until 2022. Abbott was reelected in 2018.
SectionH
@Omnes Omnibus: I have nothing good to say about the current debates.
H.E.Wolf
Got a phone call tonight – smack in the middle of the dinner hour – from a hail-fellow-well-met type who greeted me by my name, identified himself as Rob [Somebody Or Other] of the Republican National Committee, and asked how I thought T*mp was doing as President and was he doing a better job than Obama.
Using my best Telephone Voice, I said clearly and pleasantly, “I think he is a psychopath who has no business being in the office he is holding.”
There was about a 3-beat pause, and then Mr. RNC said, “Okay well then I’ll take you off our call list, have a good evening.”
Bless his heart. :-)
CaseyL
@H.E.Wolf: Howinhell did you get ON their call list??
Good for you, keeping your composure and saying something coherent. I don’t know if I could have managed more than a “I’m not a Gooper” or, alternatively, telling him I consider the entire GOP to be traitors, from Trump all down the line to Precinct Captains.
Chetan Murthy
@CaseyL: or (again alternatively) “hey Rob [what’s-his-face], I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, but first, I’ve always wondered … and since you have firsthand knowledge, how does Putin’s buttcrack taste?”
mrmoshpotato
@H.E.Wolf: I had similar fun with a Wilmer 2020 texter. “Wilmer 2020? I thought after losing an election, you were supposed to fuck off to the forest and take up knitting.”
H.E.Wolf
@CaseyL:
Clearly they took a wrong turn somewhere….
H.E.Wolf
@mrmoshpotato:
Bless all their hearts. (They come at the moshpotato, they best not miss.)
joel hanes
Today in the mail I received from Judicial Watch a thick envelope containing an RWNJ propaganda newsletter, a petition for me to circulate, and fundraising appeal with a return envelope.
I have no idea how my name got on one of their prospect lists, but I’m going to have fun writing the reply. It’ll be worth the four bits for a stamp.
Inventor
@H.E.Wolf: I’m hoping for the call. I got a couple ready to go: “I think the President’s message might be better understood if he would take Putin’s cock out of his mouth”; and, “What’s the best way to tell the good Nazis from the regular Nazis?”.
cain
@joel hanes:
How come the press never asks these questions to Trump? Can we send Jim Acosta back there again? Ugh. The white house press are the biggest bunch of idiots I have ever witnessed.
prostratedragon
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): It’s about time somebody said it. I guess it had to be one of the also-rans. I’ve been thinking that the large field gives just that opportunity and for that reason could be a good thing at least through the end of the autumn.
Yarrow
@cain: The press doesn’t ask those questions because they do what they’re told to do by their bosses. They may be idiots but they’re smart enough to keep their jobs.
mrmoshpotato
@H.E.Wolf: LMAO
West of the Rockies
Guessing there won’t be a WH press briefing anytime soon. Is SHS (the white she-devil) still there?
JoeyJoeJoe
@Mary G: trivia: there was a Representative McCollister from Omaha in the early to mid 70s (may be a relative of this McCollister. He did run for senate in 1976 and lost to a Democrat
Uncle Jeffy
@joel hanes: better yet, if they send you a prepaid-postage envelope, stuff it with as much junk mail as possible and send it back. I believe the USPS charges by weight for those things
Mandalay
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Yep. In fact I think it’s an immutable law of the universe that anyone who uses the phrase “mom and pop…” is lying about something.
“Thoughts and prayers…” has thankfully become a toxic phrase that can no longer be used without inviting ridicule and contempt. The use of “Mom and pop…” should invite contempt as well.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
Had fun with the carpetbagger rethuglican running for CA gov last time.
Answered his first email, a few swear words but basically go the fuck away.
Second email reply, a lot of swear words, descriptions of his character and political leaning.
Third email was from his wife, scolding people for sending back such nasty replies to her lovely husband. By now I’d had enough of this smug family and let them know it in no uncertain terms. Felt good that enough people had responded to his first emails to piss off his lovely bride.
Never got #4.
Ruckus
@Uncle Jeffy:
I’m rather crass with my prepaid return rethuglican mail.
Usually a red Sharpie that spells out fuck off assholes repeatedly. Wouldn’t want them to get the wrong message. I guess I could print out that nice message in pretty script. But it’s just a waste of paper and ink.
Suzanne
I was at our local mall yesterday with Mr. Suzanne and the younger two Spawns (the Elder is too cool to be observed at the mall with parents), and I was thinking about the shootings nonstop. Kept looking for the nearest exits and plotting escape routes. Now, I don’t really like shopping and I typically try to avoid malls as a rule, so perhaps I am not representative. But I was wondering how many other people may start avoiding going to malls, big stores, public events, etc. due to fear…. and how much money will be lost if this happens. At some point, it would seem likely that retail developers would push for gun control measures since fear may affect their bottom line. I wonder if this is already the case.
different-church-lady
@lollipopguild:
Not at all. He’s starting a race war in this country for kicks.
JDM
Good for Cloudflare. Also, about time, Cloudflare; what took you so long? And also, good for you anyway, Cloudflare.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mathguy:
They’re dwindling fast in the age of Trump, as in they are the last trickles in the swirling vortex of a flushed toilet in that party.
Living in this rural state for 35 years, I have witnessed-even voted for– a few state and/or local-level Republicans to have been sane and decent. Republicans here used to be mostly middle of the road, moderate fiscal conservatives who were more about improving the state’s economy and business outlook, not imposing a nutty RW agenda on everybody. Former NM Governor Gary Carruthers is an excellent example-moderate, later taught at and ran the College of Business at NMSU, then became chancellor. Sane, trying to make good long-term decisions for the U and the community. For example, he got tons of pressure to rescind his decision to offer in-state tuition to illegals and Mexican citizens living within a certain radius of the school by the up and coming “Stephen Miller Wing”.
I voted for our “later to be found to be a complete, corrupt Republican political whore” ex-governor Susanna Martinez in her first campaign as DA against a guy who’s Dad and brother were were literally dealing drugs and who was caught making deals with the cops to keep himself and his family out of jail. In order to do it she changed her party from Democrat to Republican, because the local Dems were corrupt enough to keep him on as a candidate. We sat across the table from each other in local and state domestic violence task force and victims rights meetings for years, and she was one of our biggest ally’s in the fight to stop family violence.
As time went on, I saw her morph into a slime ball by her last term as DA and first run for governor. (She won because her opponent was a bit of an unispiring milqtoast so of a former Dem gov, and because we have this ridiculous habit of voting in the other party every 8 years in the governorship.)
Foolishly, lots of people thought she’d be a hybrid Conservadem–tough on budgets and supportive of gun laws, but kinda socialist when it came to helping the people with education, social welfare, etc. At first, she tried. And hey, she was smart enough to buy into the Medicaid expansion early on, knowing the huge numbers of people in our state who would benefit. But shortly after she swore in, she got herself a “Turd Blossom 2.0” political advisor of her own who led her down the path to Republican corruption and greed. Over her term she nearly destroyed the State’s departments and long standing institutions–most notably the state’s community based mental health programs–because of her incompetence, her moral weakness and inability to kick Turd Blossom 2.0 and his grifted dark money interests to the curb. The “palace intrigue” stories that came out over her terms pretty much confirmed that she went bad, really bad, trying to be a “good Republican” and cash in on some kind of future career in the party.
From what I’ve witnessed, the further away from local or state politics they get, the harder it is for them to act on what their previous statements and beliefs were. Anything with even the least national exposure shuts down their ability to be a person of character. I don’t know much about Ben Sasse’s past career, but I’m guessing that when he became Senator, someone whispered in his ear that like working for the Cartel or the Mob, you better not cross those lines and say or do anything wavering outside of exactly what they tell him he can do. I’m waiting for him to change his tune or at least become really quiet about the Jeffery Epstein debacle because it’s gonna be verboten pretty soon to continue to push for the truth in that case, like he seemed to do a few months ago.
At this point in time, all decent R’s, those unwilling to put up with this shit, are being run out of their party by the nut-crushing thugs of the Republican Trump Machine at the top. I’m not sure how long they’ve got left. Good news is that with them gone, the Host Party can finally die a terrible, agonizing, wretched death and only those that truly deserve that fate will go down with it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ella in New Mexico:
Not nearly. Completely. Completely destroyed mental health programs in the state, along with many other programs. It will take years to rebuild and the time and lives lost are not recoverable. Ms O works with multiple state social service agencies across NM and they’re ALL decimated and demoralized. There are good folks doing their best, but the systematic, deliberate depletion of resources is overwhelming. Otherwise I agree with everything you said and appreciate the historic context. :)
Ella in New Mexico
@O. Felix Culpa: Thanks! We’re a interesting bunch, we New Mexicans. I hope to get to go to one of those Meet Ups with you and all of our compadres here someday :-)