Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“They all knew.”

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

The willow is too close to the house.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

The National Guard is not Batman.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Let there be snark.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment / Impeach the Motherfucker! / Lobbest thou thy human hand grenade in the direction of thine foe…

Lobbest thou thy human hand grenade in the direction of thine foe…

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Here’s the stuff I’ve looked forward to the most: House Manager Schiff rubbing the assembled Republican senators’ noses in Trump and Giuliani’s Ukraine/DNC/Soros crackpottery:

I think Trump sincerely believes this bullshit since he’s dumb and aggrieved and he admires Putin. The Ukraine conspiracy theory is therefore irresistible since it suggests that Trump did TOO win fair and square without a boost from Putin and conveniently exculpates the latter so maybe they can hang out and swap tales of crushing underlings and bond over their shared impulse to aggressively bend scowling women to their iron will or whatever.

Giuliani may be a believer too, or perhaps he merely sensed the massive opportunities for graft in the Ukraine shakedown scheme. Regardless, most Senate Republicans know it’s all a load of bullshit. So the least they can do is sit there and squirm through every agonizing and embarrassing account of how Russia-driven propaganda informs U.S. foreign policy thanks to their party’s idiot president.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    jl

    I think that using the phrase ‘Trump sincerely believes’ with any implied connection to the common sense meaning of ‘believe’ is a category error. No connection between to two.

    Edit: Trump is probably vaguely aware that he is about to tell a bald faced, vicious, and outrageous lie. What happens in his head afterwards is a mystery. I still go with Larry Wilmore’s crack that Trump is the kind of person who believes something because he just heard himself say it.

  3. 3.

    zhena gogolia

    And Jennifer Rubin is doing sterling work, turning out several columns a day on the proceedings.

  5. 5.

    zhena gogolia

    Neither Trump nor Giuliani believes the bullshit about Ukraine. They know exactly what happened in 2016.

  6. 6.

    MJS

    I fundamentally disagree with the idea that Trump believes that bullshit. He may comfort himself by lying about things, but he is capable of comprehending exactly what happened.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    The Goopers believe whatever they need to believe in order to maintain power.  That means believing things that aren’t true, believing things that are vile, believing things that can be proved demonstrably false to their face…to which the response is always to a) look away, b) “both sides!”, or c) “Libs are worse/whataboutXYZ?!?”

    They are the opposite of critical thinking, and the opposite of justice.  One moment of either and the entire party would simply cease to exist.

  15. 15.

    Kraux Pas

    @lgerard:

    He blames trump’s legislative affairs director Eric Ueland for the diss.

    Per Gaetz:

    “I asked the president what Eric meant. The president didn’t immediately know who Eric was,”

    Never met the guy, huh? That’s usually the response when one of his underlings is caught up in something unethical. He hasn’t been accused yet, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    Oscar Wilde-level tweet:

    trump could shoot someone in the senate and still get acquitted 53-47. unless he shot a republican, then it would be 52-47.— m i t h (@ManlnTheHoody) January 23, 2020

  19. 19.

    Captain C

    @zhena gogolia: Unless Trump’s apparent dementia has progressed to the point that he doesn’t actually remember anything from 2016.  I’m not sure which is worse.

  24. 24.

    zhena gogolia

    @Immanentize:

    I assume revenge on the press after Trump is “exonerated.”

    I never heard of Eric Ueland before today, so I was struck by his appearing in the comment above after I saw that tweet.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    @MJS:

    I think this is the hardest thing for normal people who’ve never had to deal with a narcissist to understand. As far as Trump is concerned, there is no such thing as objective truth. It’s all about his feelings and his perceptions. He lies easily about stupid things because he’s saying the things that mean something to him at the moment that he says them, and immediately forgets what he said because he’s already moved on to his next emotion.

    Narcissists are very simple machines. They will do ANYTHING to protect their empty core from public shame. That’s it. There is literally no “there” there, so trying to figure out their hidden motives is pointless. They do what feels good in the moment and that’s it.

  30. 30.

    Bill Arnold

    @zhena gogolia:

    Neither Trump nor Giuliani believes the bullshit about Ukraine. They know exactly what happened in 2016.

    These are people who can simultaneously believe two or more contradictory things. This is not a bad skill to have, if one can handle it, but they cannot.
    They also have trouble with causal explanations, and time.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    @Mnemosyne: truth

     

    I’m surprised the Dems are running ads and/or adding into their presentations: “Hey GOP Senators…he’ll sell you out, too…”

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    Barely OT but: I cannot imagine the cognitive dissonance that RWNJs are going through right now, after subsisting on a mental diet of Fox News “commentary” and trumpov tweets.

    No wonder my dad is fleeing to “both sides” and my brother has fled to “I’m bored”.  What else can they say?  The truth is slapping them mercilessly in the face every 30 seconds.

  36. 36.

    James E Powell

    @Jeffro:

    The Goopers believe whatever they need to believe in order to maintain power.  That means believing things that aren’t true, believing things that are vile, believing things that can be proved demonstrably false to their face

    The best path to understanding them may be to read the literature from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Bloc. The Joke, by Kundera, Children of the Arbat, by Rybakov, Sofia Petrovna, by Chukovskaya.

  37. 37.

    hitchhiker

    I read that Marsha Blackburn (R, Tennessee Home Ec Major) was passing the impeachment trial time reading Kim Strassel’s book about how mean everyone has been to trump. Just so unfair. Picking on him all day long.

    Meanwhile John Roberts sits up on the dais taking notes from Susan Collins about how terrible it was when that guy from the House said it was treachery to refuse to look at evidence, and takes her comment to heart. He has yet to mention the issue of trump’s lawyer openly lying to the world’s greatest deliberative body, but I suppose it doesn’t matter if they’re busy reading WSJ books that attack the “fringe left” anyway.

    Republicans bet themselves that the House managers would do a bad job of presenting their case, and that nobody out in the country would care enough to insist on hearing the firsthand witnesses or seeing the documentation of what happened.

    Now they’re stuck. If they say, “Okay, fine, witnesses it is!” they have to face what will happen when those witnesses speak — more evidence against trump. Then they’ll have to find a reason to acquit him (which will be, there’s an election pretty soon).

    If they still refuse to hear the firsthand information, they’re starting to realize the voters are going to be unhappy about that. They have to hope the voters forget all about this before next fall, but they also know that there are many, many ways this firsthand information can get in front of the voters without their cooperation.

    They really are stuck. I hope it dawns on them that when there are no options that come out with you smelling like roses and keeping your job, the best course is to choose the plan where you don’t feel ashamed of yourself for ignoring every ideal you ever claimed to hold dear.

  38. 38.

    Jeffro

    @hitchhiker: We often forget that GOP Senators and Reps are also living full-time in the FoxBubble (and therefore think they can just blow this off)… but now the impeachment proceedings are playing out live, all day, over multiple days, in a strategically repetitive fashion for all Americans.

    No wonder Faux dot com is no longer carrying the live feed.

    No wonder trumpov’s numbers are slowly, but surely, getting worse.

    Assuming he even makes it to November, trumpov is toast.  Personally, I’m having fun taunting RWNJs and asking them how they think this will rebound to their benefit.  They do, of course, but it’s fun asking them what part of the Dems’ case might make Independents so outraged as to vote for Mr. Innocent.  LOLOL

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    The House managers are just AMAZING at weaving this ‘story’ together with the video clips…holy cow…

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @zhena gogolia:

    All must kneel before Zod kind of revenge? 2X the Tweet count revenge? Take ball and bat and go home revenge? Appoint Eric to some post revenge?

    So many options.

  41. 41.

    Aziz, light!

    @Jeffro: Assuming he even makes it to November, trumpov is toast.

    I’ll believe it when I see it, post November. He has a number of credible paths to re-election. Overconfidence is never what we need.

  42. 42.

    Ryan

    He may want to believe he won without Putin, but it doesn’t square with his active efforts to enlist Ukrainian interference to win once again.  Wouldn’t it put Trump in the same position, as a preznit with an asterisk, because he was hopped up on election interference?

  43. 43.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Primarily, Dump wants to pin this on Ukraine so he can lift sanctions on his banker Putin.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ryan:

    Let me try to channel the narcissist brain for a minute here:

    It doesn’t matter that Putin helped Trump cheat to win because the Democrats are corrupt and were cheating, too, so all that happened was that Trump beat them at their own game and that’s why they’re mad.

    The Democrats are going to cheat again in 2020, so it’s fine for Trump to pressure Ukraine to help him cheat. He’s just doing what everyone else does, and it’s not his fault they never get caught!

    This is why all of the “rigged election” and “corrupt DNC” and “crooked Hillary” stuff was so damaging in 2016. It basically gave the Republicans an excuse to openly cheat and know that nobody was going to call them on it because Hillary was a cheater, too. 

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @Ryan:

    I’m inclined to agree with Mnemosyne: Trump is happy to believe whatever makes him feel good at any particular moment.  So he can believe Russia did nothing to help him when it’s presented as a question of the legitimacy of his election but act as if he desperately needs their help when it would protect him from feeling rejected by losing the 2020 election.  He has no need to be consistent.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    Oh, no Oklahoma, don’t do it, please, we’ll be RUINED [pronounced “roond”]!

    Another day, another Red state massacree. With one teeny tiny exemption.

    Oklahoma became the first state to strike back at California’s bans on state-funded travel on Thursday, when the state’s governor announced a retaliatory ban on travel here.

    California has banned state-funded travel to 11 states that it considers to have laws discriminating against gay and transgender people.

    Oklahoma was added to the list in 2018 after it put in place a policy to allow private foster and adoption agencies to deny placing children with certain families based on religious or moral grounds. The City of San Francisco put in place its own ban on travel to Oklahoma this fall.

    Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a Thursday news release that his announcement was timed around the March for Life, an anti-abortion rally that will take place Friday in Washington, D.C.

    “California and its elected officials over the past few years have banned travel to the state of Oklahoma in an effort to politically threaten and intimidate Oklahomans for their personal values,” Stitt said in a statement. “Enough is enough. If California’s elected officials don’t want public employees traveling to Oklahoma, I am eager to return the gesture on behalf of Oklahoma’s pro-life stance. I am proud to be governor of a state that fights for the most vulnerable among us, the unborn.”

    Stitt’s executive order bans all “non-essential travel,” with the exception of recruiters trying to get businesses to relocate to Oklahoma, according to a news release.

    California passed Assembly Bill 1887 in 2016 requiring the Attorney General’s Office to enforce a ban on state-funded travel to states that pass laws removing protections for LGBT people or authorizing or requiring discrimination against them.

  48. 48.

    jl

    Rasputin may be a better characterization for Giuliani than Svengali. I think Rasputin went stark raving insane towards his end of days. And Trump is incompetent to conceive of, or follow any coherent long range goal that would allow him to cooperate with a Svengali, or any species of manipulative genius.

    They are two nearly mindless nutcases orbiting each other by mutual attraction of their mutual vanity and desperation, about to spin out of control and tear up everything near and far.

  50. 50.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Mnemosyne:

    I think this is the hardest thing for normal people who’ve never had to deal with a narcissist to understand. As far as Trump is concerned, there is no such thing as objective truth.

    This 100%. He doesn’t need to believe this bullshit, he’s just got to make the best use of it as if it were true. Cheating and deceit are merely his most powerful personal tools to accomplish the job. Using the powers of his office follow logically after that, as far as he’s concerned.

  53. 53.

    patrick II

    @MJS: @zhena gogolia:

    I think you are both right.  He knows the Russians were helping him in his election, and he believes the Ukrainians were helping Hillary by stealing DNC emails, using those for people to feel sorry for Hillary and blame Trump and hiding the server in a Ukrainian billionaire’s basement.

    You know he believes the server story because he asked Zelensky for it on a phone call he never thought would be made public.  He believed it was there.

    Trump is not a functionally sane person.

  54. 54.

    Joy in FL

    @Mnemosyne: I think what you’ve written is the most realistic description of narcissism that I’ve seen. I wish that more reporters and commenters would have that understanding and include it in how they analyze all things Trump.

  55. 55.

    brantl

    @Jeffro: And unfortunately, they are sitting there saying: “Can I have some more?” , instead of finally getting mad and saying , “I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!”, and voting the shitheels out.

  56. 56.

    debbie

    Sigh. Still analyzing narcissists when we should instead be preparing to fight back against Trump’s latest dissembling:

    Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security. I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 23, 2020

    There he goes again, with three lies in one sentence.

  58. 58.

    John Revolta

    @hitchhiker: @Jeffro: 69% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats think that the trial “should allow witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the impeachment charges to testify,” according to a Reuters poll. People are not liking this bullshit “trial”.

  60. 60.

    mrmoshpotato

    OT – Shaggy just clocked this phantom dude with the bell of a sousaphone.  (Yes, you needed to know.)

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @MJS:

    l’m not sure he is all that capable mentally. He may have been a while ago but his neurosis, his age and his dementia level all work against that. This of course is no excuse, and really, does it make one bit of difference? Does it excuse him? As in “It’s OK all the bullshit he does and says because the president doesn’t have to be sane!”

  62. 62.

    JGabriel

    @jl: I think that using the phrase ‘Trump sincerely believes’ with any implied connection to the common sense meaning of ‘believe’ is a category error.

    Plus, Trump and sincere in the sentence? Ouch …

  64. 64.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ruckus: The past 3 years of the Trump trash administration are an insult to the word “vile.”. “Vile” did nothing to deserve the association.

  65. 65.

    MomSense

    @MJS:

    I’m with you.  I don’t think he believes it.  I don’t think he believes anything.  He is transactional and will say or do anything if he perceives it benefits him to do so.

    He’s also a Russian agent who reports to Putin.  I have no doubt there are other countries who pay for intel and other favors.

    For the fucking record, that John Roberts is a Supreme Court Justice, let alone Chief Justice, is a fucking travesty. Every single person who said there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans and voted for Nader, didn’t vote in protest, or voted for Bush can suck it.  There’s no excuse for that kind of stupidity.

    And with that I move to adjourn my rant.

  66. 66.

    zhena gogolia

    This may sound like a facile comparison, but. I vividly remember on 9/11 saying to my husband (not my husband yet), “There are people in the world who will send airplanes full of people into buildings full of people. And there are people in the world who will go UP the stairs into a building about to collapse. Both facts are incredible.”

    I feel something like that now, looking at the Republican congresspeople on the one hand and the Democrats on the other. I had no idea they were so bad. I had no idea our people were so good.

  67. 67.

    hitchhiker

    We have Adam Schiff and they have Devin Nunes.

    I’m having another moment of gratitude for everyone who helped elect a Democrat to the congress in 2018. If we hadn’t taken the house, today we’d be watching public hearings about the corruption of Joe Biden in Ukraine. Nunes would be running them. Schiff would barely get a chance to speak.

    That’s what the agenda was for Biden. It’s more than a little scary to see how eager the right wing press is for a Sanders candidacy; I really don’t want to know what they have planned for him, should he manage to become the nominee.

  72. 72.

    mrmoshpotato

    @hitchhiker: You can start with the two-foot-thick file of oppo research that Kurt Eichenwald reported on.

    ETA – Or maybe the GrOPers would promote a Wilmer administration – bankrupt the country with free puppies for all and research into unicorn butlers!

  73. 73.

    Kraux Pas

    @hitchhike If we hadn’t taken the house, today we’d be watching public hearings about the corruption of Joe Biden in Ukraine

    Couldn’t the Senate be doing that? And the executive branch has its fair share of fruitless investigations based on RW conspiracy stories

  77. 77.

    Mart

    Trump (maybe Miller) is fully in the wingnutosphere bubble – well beyond Fox propaganda. He retweets nazi (white nationalist), anti Jewish, anti Muslim screeds from the worst of the Infowars type sites. His convicted former National Security Adviser and son were all in on Pizzagate for fucks sake. And when you try to talk to Trumpets, you are never going to win, because they are all in on this horseshit as well. Think the US democratic model is toast. Ain’t no going back from 40% of the populace being completely unhinged.

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    Thanks for asking.  I have a miserable cold with all the symptoms.  I powered through my day, though,  and just have to get through tomorrow so I can rest all weekend.

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @debbie: That’s so weird…he’s ALSO protecting those with pre-existing conditions AND giving tax breaks to American families instead of the rich.

    Except…

    Wait…

    Keep tweetin’, Mr. Innocent.  Just keep tweetin’…

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    @John Revolta: Yup.  And the Dems are teeing that desire to hear from witnesses up PERFECTLY, again and again, no matter how much it “bores” GOP Senators or look-away GOP apologists.

    KEEP BANGING, HOUSE MANAGERS!  You’re doing totally awesome!!

  82. 82.

    oatler.

    @jl:

    Ra ra Rasputin
    Lover of the Russian queen
    There was a cat that really was gone
    Ra ra Rasputin
    Russia’s greatest love machine
    It was a shame how he carried on

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: Colds are definitely sucky.  On the plus side, they are better than the flu!  :-)  That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway, when I got sick again after I got over having strep.  At least it’s not the flu.  At least it’s not the flu…

  85. 85.

    JGabriel

    @Ruckus: As in “It’s OK all the bullshit he does and says because the president doesn’t have to be sane!”

    To be fair, that seems to be a common belief among people who voted for Reagan.

  86. 86.

    smintheus

    I think Trump sincerely believes this bullshit since he’s dumb and aggrieved and he admires Putin.

    Trump is owned by Putin. Remember the beaten look on Trump’s face after they exited from their first (secret) meeting? And for that matter, Trump wouldn’t be ensuring all their meetings are kept secret if he didn’t know that what he was doing with Putin was illicit and/or humiliating for him.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro:

    No wonder trumpov’s numbers are slowly, but surely, getting worse.

    I see no evidence of this. His numbers are constant.

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