Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

People are complicated. Love is not.

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

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

We still have time to mess this up!

You cannot shame the shameless.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Let there be snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Depravity Open Thread: “Lynching” Is Not A Word to Use Lightly

Depravity Open Thread: “Lynching” Is Not A Word to Use Lightly

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I’d like to believe the Oval Office Occupant will be tonguelashed persuaded into ‘walking back’ his latest outbreak of self-pity before this posts. But even should that happen, he’ll no doubt walk back the walkback before the end of the week…


Informational thread from a historian:

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  2. 2.

    Mike in NC

    People need to take a page from Erick Erickson: Mail thousands of pacifiers to the crying orange man-baby at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

  4. 4.

    hells littlest angel

    Conducting hearings, issuing subpoenas, deposing witnesses — none of these things are done during lynchings.

  5. 5.

    JWR

    Chyron on NBC right now: “Awaiting Pres. Trump Statement On Syria”. He’s being fashionably late.

    eta, So is Turkey now allied with NATO and the the Russians?

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    I’m good with the tarring and feathering thing, provided that it’s followed by a long stay at the Supermax Hilton.

  9. 9.

    Barbara

    I don’t know how many news sources have unearthed the Democrats who used “lynching” in connection with Clinton’s impeachment. You know what? They shouldn’t have. Clinton’s impeachment was politically motivated and obscene, but it wasn’t a lynching. We just shouldn’t use the word lynch to cover instances of unfair prosecution. That’s not what it means. It should be reserved for those monstrous instances of extrajudicial mob murder that are later ratified by the community at large by failure to prosecute or acquittal of perpetrators, which is what lynching is. At the end of the day, however unfair the Clinton impeachment process was, he was able to plead his case, question his accusers, and ultimately acquitted. The Senate was controlled by Republicans and couldn’t get even 50 votes for any single charge.

  10. 10.

    sublime33

    So why do we and the media get sucked into his usage of the term “lynching” when it is obvious he is trying to change the subject? At most, 0.00001% of Trump supporters will change their minds because they think that he crossed the line using racially charged rhetoric. Meanwhile he will solidify his support because their information loop tells them “there they go again, injecting race into every issue…” When is the left going to start screaming “Quit changing the subject – you are selling out America to the Russians and all you want to do is bring up race!” Like the confederate flag debate, calling the flag racist changed zero minds. Only when the subject was changed to “they went to war against America and killed tens of thousands of American soldiers – you’re UnAmerican!” did the flags finally go down. Maybe the battle wasn’t won the way we wanted, but we won.

  11. 11.

    artem1s

    One step closer to throwing down the N word. You know he’s been itching to say it since forever. Blech. :P

  12. 12.

    Chyron HR

    Donald Trump isn’t so dumb that he can’t figure out that if he compares impeachment to lynching on the same day that Ambassador Bill Taylor confirms the quid pro quo, American media (twitter) will be dumb enough to chase the shiny object & bury the lead

    Ah, the old “piss your pants to distract them from when you shit your pants” gambit. Stable genius at work!

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    YESS

    clap clap clap

    Rep. Waters to Zuckerberg: “It appears you want to aggressively increase the size of your company and are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of color, your own users and even our democracy to get what you want.”

  14. 14.

    Barbara

    And for whatever it’s worth, I think Trump had a good idea not of what exactly Taylor would say, but that whatever he said would be damaging. His lawyers are at least keeping him that well-informed. He must have known Taylor was the guy who was supposed to do Trump’s bidding via Sondland. And to recapitulate, the very specific thing Trump wanted was to get Taylor or whoever else to pressure Zelensky to give a statement implicating the Bidens related to corruption in Ukraine on CNN, in exchange for security assistance.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    Follow the fiscal year: Diplomat’s testimony reveals why Trump is so mad at the whistleblower

    ……………………

    One thing I have not seen covered, however, is an aspect of the damning evidence which demonstrates that Trump wasn’t bluffing. He wasn’t just using the alure of the aid and a White House meeting to coax or persuade – or even coerce – Zelenskyy into committing to launch phony investigations into conspiracy theories and political opponents. Donald Trump was serious about getting his “favor” and was fully planned to zero out Ukraine’s aid if he did not. Trump, Giuliani, Pompeo and cult would have pulled it off, too, had the whistleblower not rudely interrupted.

    Doing damage control after his open bragging about the Ukrainian quid pro quo, Donald Trump’s Budget Director (the person who actually held up the money at Trump’s behest) and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said this weekend on Fox News Sunday that the fact that the aid was eventually released by the White House should serve as evidence that Trump did not condition the aid on phony Ukrainian dirt on Biden. That was kind of a “well our blackmail didn’t work, so we’re good, right?” argument to begin with, but now we have proof that it was also a lie.

    To explain, let’s back up a little bit and consider the timeline of the whistleblower complaint, the subsequent public reveal of the plot, and the ensuing impeachment inquiry.

  16. 16.

    sdhays

    Umm… Does Dump know that if you get lynched, there’s no winning left to be done? When you’re lynched, you’re dead. When you’re impeached, you…get a trial presided over by the Republican Chief Justice with your Republican majority as jurors.

  17. 17.

    rikyrah

    I said from the beginning that they were trying to kill these American Citizens.

    Team Trump admits holding back billions for Puerto Rico disaster recovery
    Published 2 hours ago
    October 23, 2019
    By Mc Nelly Torres, DCReport @ RawStory

    Trump administration officials have admitted that last summer they knowingly withheld billions of dollars Congress appropriated to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria. House Democrats say withholding the relief money violates the law.

    Federal law requires that our government help Americans hit by natural disasters. But two Housing and Urban Development officials acknowledged at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Oct. 17 that HUD blocked the Puerto Rico relief funds.

    The HUD delay meant the island missed a deadline to apply for billions of dollars in disaster relief funds, raising doubts about when, if ever, the money will flow to the island devasted in September 2017 by the Category 5 hurricane.

    The federal money is part of a $19 billion supplemental disaster relief bill that Congress passed in June. It came with stipulations requiring HUD to provide funding notices to nine states and two American territories, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    The agency published the required guidance in the federal register for 9 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Aug. 30, 2019. But HUD intentionally left Puerto Rico out of the notices, the HUD officials admitted.

  18. 18.

    zzyzx

    I don’t normally buy into the whole distraction idea, but this is his only strategy. Right now, Republicans are starting to leave him. The one plan Trump has for any crisis is to turn it into a us vs them game and then circle the wagons. If he can change the conversation to people attacking him for his word choice, that will rally his defenders. Talking about selling out US interests to pursue political gains is so much worse.

    It’s depressing that intentionally playing with racism is a winning strategy and the damage this causes to our society is horrible, but – on the other hand – Trump can make more money if he can serve again and some liberals will be irritated by this strategy, so it evens out really.

  19. 19.

    JWR

    Wow. Mr. T looks like a clown. Those white circles around his eye, then suddenly, that orange, faux Skin-Tone, greasy pancake makeup. (eta: Blech!)

    BTW, oh Gawd. He’s babbling on about the thousands and thousands of lives saved by his “new” policy.

  20. 20.

    Kent

    Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnlTHvJBeP0

    Southern trees bear a strange fruit
    Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
    Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
    Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

    Pastoral scene of the gallant South
    The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
    Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh
    Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

    Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
    For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
    For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
    Here is a strange and bitter crop

  21. 21.

    mrmoshpotato

    OT – Fuckerberg is on a spit in front of a House committee right now.

    Eric Garland has a commentary thread going here.

  22. 22.

    opiejeanne

    @rikyrah: Thank you for posting this. I’ve been yelling about it for several days. Their excuse was that they had concerns about possible corruption in Puerto Rico.

    They imagine corruption everywhere except right under their own noses, where it’s blatant.

  24. 24.

    delk

    lynch verb
    \ ˈlinch \
    lynched; lynching; lynches
    Definition of lynch
    transitive verb
    : to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission
    The accused killer was lynched by an angry mob.

  25. 25.

    scav

    @opiejeanne: Just to descend to the obvious, their objection to that sort of corruption is that the winning(s) ends up in other pockets.

    So tired, so tired, All the winnings.

  27. 27.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JWR:

    Trump says he fully expects us to walk up to him and say, thank you, sir!

    He’ll have to settle for a gloved punch in the face. I have a feeling millions of people would only walk up to him to deliver that.

  28. 28.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @opiejeanne: It’s not corruption if they do it, it’s “help yourself” “To the victors go the spoils; we won, nemmaen how; hep y’seff!”

  29. 29.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @JWR:

    So is Turkey now allied with NATO and the the Russians?

    From what we’ve been seeing over the past few years, it’s looking more and more like it’s just the Russians now.

  31. 31.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @rikyrah: @opiejeanne: It’s all political extortion. He’s trying to use this same tactic in California, if I recall, too.

    If he–or anyone from his Administration–is allowed to remain in office after he is run out on a rail they’ll likely do the same thing to any state or locality or country that stands in their way until we get significant legal reforms.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    @germy: Oh swell, now I have to worry about the idiot next door coming for us. He owns nothing, not even a vehicle, is supported by his former boss and Social Security and Medicare, lives in her house rent free, but dammit his taxes are too high. I think his income is so low he gets a full refund of anything withheld from his SS checks. . He’s undoubtedly armed. He’s our age, a Vietnam veteran, and the only thing I think is keeping him alive is pure, unfiltered spite.

  35. 35.

    JWR

    From CNN, on these Republican “rioters”

    Rep. Bradley Byrne yelled in committee Chair Adam Schiff’s face, but Schiff didn’t engage. Other Democrats, including Val Demings, screamed back at both Byrne and Rep. Louie Gohmert, who were yelling about the process.

    “”It was closest thing I’ve seen around here to mass civil unrest as a member of Congress,” according to a source in the room.”

    I’m really beginning to smell a whiff of desperation. /s

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    @Ella in New Mexico: I haven’t kept track of California’s lack of federal funding for recovery from the fires, but that sounds about right. Such a corrupt state it must be, too. (eye-roll)

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    @MattF:
    People keep saying “The Onion” is dead because Trump is beyond parody, but clearly he’s not. Those guys are good.

  38. 38.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    OT and may have already been mentioned but Rep Matt Gaetz and a couple dozen other Republicans invaded the SCIF where defense official Laura Cooper was testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, they also brought in and apparently used their cell phones which is forbidden in a SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility ) where classified information may be discussed…I guess the rules don’t apply to them.

  39. 39.

    cain

    There is apparently some crazy shit going on in Capital Hill with Gaetz leading Republicans to storm the SCHIF and I think they are supposedly even tweeting from there. I don’t know what the SCHIF is but I think it’s related to national security, eg a secure area. But it’s chaos there right now. Republicans have now decided to throw everything away and are now just trying to do physical intimidation by showing up at depositions.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @rikyrah: It seems clear that Donnie and his minions have no understanding and even less respect for the Constitution. The President’s job is to ” I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and the Constitution says “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”.

    Congress decides the spending levels and what money shall be spent on.

    Congress writes the laws.

    It’s the President’s job to Execute the will of Congress.

    It’s not his job to decide that Ukraine or Puerto Rico or California should not get funding that Congress appropriates.

    The fact that he does not understand this baseline principle shows that he’s unfit. He’s not a king. He’s not faithfully executing the laws. He needs to go.

    As we all know. Grr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @opiejeanne: Well, they do have all those icky homeless people and Jesus, why are they so lazy they don’t sweep their forests to prevent all those fires? ;-)

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    To the lynching statistics up top, IIRC most of the 1,000+ lynching victims who were not Black were Jewish, like Leo Frank. There’s a reason today’s Nazis march around saying things like, “Jews will not replace us.”

  48. 48.

    cain

    @germy:
    Silly people. They think liberals dont know how to fight. They are committing murder. That will be punished for it – unless of course the police decides to switch sides.

  49. 49.

    Barbara

    @germy: Seriously, one of the few times in the past month I went over to look at FB, and found one of my many first cousins spouting that the rest of us obviously “wanted a civil war” based on the way we were talking. Never mind that he was the only one who brought up the notion of a civil war, the reasoning is, basically, that if we keep saying things they don’t like they are going to have to kill us and it will be all our fault. He has also been wailing the “due process” aria over impeachment. It’s killing him that all these employees are complying with subpoenas. Not that any of these people actually know what due process actually means or entails.

  50. 50.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @cain – I agree. Who does security for this SCIF? If anyone had tried that at the one I was stationed at, a Marine React team would have them face down and in handcuffs so fast it would make your head spin. And your cell would be confiscated immediately. I guess being a Republican member of Congress mean the rules really don’t matter.

  51. 51.

    cain

    @Ella in New Mexico:
    The dems should just deputize them and kick the Republicans out of the chamber. :-)

    @opiejeanne:
    Yes, exactly. Schiff should ask Pelosi to call the Sargeant in Arms and remove them and put them in fucking jail. Then take pictures to share on social media.

  54. 54.

    cain

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
    My guess is that every action is weighed as “precedent” since they are all about law and order. So they are generally reluctant to act. Until the mental switch is flipped then usually there is grim commitment. Schiff hasn’t hit that yet as this is a brand new situation.
    The fact that he did not engage when being shouted at is a good. He’s in control. He needs to be in control. But he isn’t a wuss. He’ll pwn’d them soon enough. Those assholes are goddam scared of him, and he knows it.

  56. 56.

    Art

    From now on every event with Trump has to have someone show up with a rope. Not as a threat. Just a reminder that in saner times the word lynching had a very real weight and presence. That casually calling the righteous and necessary investigation and discharge of justice a lynching is to willfully conflate triviality with profundity and make the words meaningless. Lynchings were racially and economically motivated mob violence ending in the torture and murder of a human being usually followed by the desecration of the corpse. Impeachment is a civil procedure ending in the peaceful return to private life of a person deemed unsuitable for high office. Huge difference.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Barbara:

    the reasoning is, basically, that if we keep saying things they don’t like they are going to have to kill us and it will be all our fault

    So, basically, the same reasoning of every domestic abuser: I wouldn’t have had to beat you senseless if you had just done what I want! ?

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    @cain:

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
    They need to be arrested. The speaker has that power.. they are in the fucking capitol buliding. Arrest them, and hold them in contempt. Democrats need to project power right now.

    Clap clap clap

  59. 59.

    gvg

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It’s actually none of our business what Syria does with it’s oil. I think it just shows how stupid these people are. The think middle east = oil and also that they have the right to just take it. They are bandits, stupid ones.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Art:

    Sorry, but I can’t think of any gesture more likely to be misunderstood than showing up at a Trump rally with a noose. The crowd would applaud you and start pushing the “wrong” people present to the front of the line to be hanged.

  61. 61.

    Ladyraxterinok

    In 1911 Laura and LD Nelson were taken from jail in
    Okemah OK and lynched. She is believed to have been raped.

    It is believed by some that Woodie Guthrie’s father took part in the lynchings.

    Info from Wikipedia, at Laura and LD Nelson

  64. 64.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @mrmoshpotato: This reminds me of a Ceausescu joke told to me by my late friend Mile, who escaped from Romania in the early 1980s. It goes something like this:

    Ceausescu is told that he has an incurable disease, but that there is hope they’ll find a cure in a few years, so his doctors propose to put him into suspended animation until they can cure him.

    Before he goes off to “cold sleep,” the Conducatore revises his will to divide his estate between his 3 grown children. He leaves Nicu, the youngest & heir presumptive, his position as the ruler of Romania. To Zoia, his only daughter (who was rumored to be a woman of, shall we say, easy virtue), he leaves all the hotels in Romania, because “she likes to sleep in a different bed every night.”

    Valentin, his oldest son, he thinks of as a good for nothing: “He’ll probably forget what I look like ten minutes after I’m gone.” Ceausescu looks up at the wall where hangs a huge portrait of himself. “I’ll leave him that painting so he’ll remember.”

    Years pass; a cure is found; the Conducatore is revived and restored to health. He asks the doctors how his kids are doing. “How’s Nicu been running the country?”

    Ah, they tell him, he screwed things up so badly the people threw him out years ago, & he died in exile.

    “Ouch. Surely Zoia is prospering with her hotels?”

    She mismanaged them so badly she lost them all. Come to the window… You see that station wagon parked across the street, the one with the blinds drawn that’s bouncing up & down? That’s where she is right now, with an Albanian mafioso.

    Ceausescu hides his face. “I can only imagine how badly off Valentin is.”

    Him? He’s the richest man in Europe! And when the Conducatore expresses shocked surprise, they say, Get dressed & come with us.

    They drive down to Herastrau Park in the center of Bucharest. The huge space is packed with people standing in a spiral line. They push their way through to the center –

    – where sits Valentin with an easel holding the portrait of his father, & a sign: 1 LEI TO SPIT ON, 5 LEI TO PISS ON.

    Mile told me some of the nastiest & funniest political jokes I ever heard – which, astoundingly, were widely circulated in a time & a land where ever third person was a secret police informer.

  65. 65.

    Gravenstone

    @germy: These morons realize that if he is actually removed from office following impeachment, it will have been at the hands of a Republican controlled Senate, right? Yeah, didn’t think so…

  68. 68.

    Rick Taylor

    So Donald Trump who declared “Bring back the Death Penalty, Bring back our Police,” for the Central Park five says he’s the victim of a lynching. . .

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:
    Maxine Waters left all her fucks to give in the purse that she threw away 19 years ago.
    She hasn’t spent 10 seconds looking for it since. I know this because I’ve heard her speak in public 2 1/2 years ago and she wasn’t looking then.

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