Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We still have time to mess this up!

This fight is for everything.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Everybody saw this coming.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

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

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Battle won, war still ongoing.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / An Enabler Says What?

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    A good thing to remember as John Kelly tries to distance himself from his work is that it was his idea to steal immigrant children from their parents. The youngest child taken was 4 months old. Kelly is now on the board of a company that profited from that https://t.co/7kjEaJ6ZpY

    — Adam Rawnsley (@arawnsley) February 13, 2020

  2. 2.

    mapaghimagsik

    He had his chance. He thought he’d get his little racist policies in place and not get his precious reputation tarnished. We can add Marines with precious reputations to the list of “institutions” that didn’t protect the Constitution.

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    I’ve been waiting for this thread ALL morning. ;)

    Have at ’em, national snooze media!  John Bolton wouldn’t talk but it sure looks like John Kelly’s willing to!  Press those GOP Senators, cable news stars!

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: “The children will be put in foster care, or wherever….”

    And Silent Jim Mattis remains silent, giving at the very least tacit approval of the attacks on LTC Vindman and the pardon of Eddie Gallagher.

  7. 7.

    Jinchi

    The tl;dr is that Trump did bad things and if Kelly had been there, he would have stopped him.

    The way I read it is that Trump did things that even John Kelly found beyond the pale. The sad fact is that Kelly and others like him probably did stop Trump from some of his worst excesses. The surprise is all the things Trump did that didn’t cross over their red lines.

  8. 8.

    PeakVT

    An Enabler Coward Says What?

    I look forward to ignoring the tell-what-makes-me-look-good-in-hindsight book.

  9. 9.

    download my app in the app store mistermix

    I had to jump on a quick call so I posted this in a hurry.  I had originally titled it “A Criminal Says What?” but then I remembered he was one of the few in the Trump admin who hadn’t been formally accused of a crime.  It’s so hard to keep them straight.

  10. 10.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT Beautiful animated tribute to the women of Shaheen bagh in Delhi who have been protesting against the Hindu fundamentalist government since December 15th, an indefinite sit-in protest that has spawned many more across the nation. They have been ridiculed, and shot at.

    Hum Dekhenge : We shall See

    Azaadi : Freedom

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat:   You did, indeed.

    Were that you were writing in the national media.  (And why don’t you??  I can see them taking a real look at you.  Don’t leave the field to these “well, that’s 1000 words” careerists.)

  13. 13.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The lack of institutional support for courageous, ethical public servants like Amb. Yovanovitch and LTC Vindman speaks volumes.

    Justice would be a Presidential Medal of Freedom for those two and disbarment for Barr, but I am afraid I will not live to see either outcome.

  15. 15.

    the Conster

    I will never understand how so many *powerful* white men just laid down for this moron.  Have they all been blackmailed or paid off, or did they just de-nut themselves for free?  if they sacrificed their testicles for free, what do they get out of it?

  17. 17.

    Other MJS

    My fantasy is that some of these guys will panic and realize that if they don’t speak up soon, the nation is toast.

  20. 20.

    laura

    Not even a slow golf clap for this vile filth. Burn the lifeboat he’s attempting to build. He’ll go to his grave with the stench of baby terror-shit on his entire craven characterless corporeal form.

    He’s no hero. He’s an enabler -hell he’s an unindicted coconspirator in the kidnapping and terrorizing of god only knows how many babies and children in a policy that was designed to be unspeakably cruel, to result in misery and deaths as a warning to any person who has the temerity to seek asylum. I hope he chokes to death eating a bottomless bag of salted dicks.

  22. 22.

    SFAW

    @Other MJS:

    My fantasy is that some of these guys will panic and realize that if they don’t speak up soon, the nation is toast.

    I WARNED you to stay away from the brown acid.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @the Conster:

    if they sacrificed their testicles for free, what do they get out of it?

    They thought it would spare them from getting kicked in their figurative balls by the Traitor-in-Chief. Technically, they were right, but philosophically/existentially/whatever-ly, they were worng.

  24. 24.

    Barbara

    @Jinchi: These people, Bolton, Kelly, whoever, thought that that they could push their pet agenda in the vacuum of Trump’s ignorance and disinterest in “policy.”  Only to find that his brain is not quite the empty space they thought they could fill, but is instead filled by his own self-interest and his hatred of dark people.  Now it turns out that they harnessed themselves to his horror.  Each and every one of them can go fuck themselves.

  25. 25.

    artem1s

    @Other MJS:

    My fantasy is that some of these guys will panic and realize that if they don’t speak up soon, the nation is toast they are toast and will spend the rest of their lives in jail.

    they don’t give a shit about the nation.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    this is a man who put the body of his own son on the altar of trump to stop the media asking questions about trump’s disrespecting of an African-American Gold Star widow

    once he had effectively bullied the press into a crouch with his son’s corpse, he used the ensuing silence to lecture them on abortion, to retroactively strip the Khan family of their Gold Star, made a plea for women being held “sacred” even as he and trump were lamenting that poor Rob Porter was being hounded out of his WH job just because he had beat up two ex-wives, and brought his monologue to a close with a demented, racist attack on an African-American Congresswoman, an attack that all evidence suggests was not merely a smear, but a complete fantasy spun out of a resentment based on… gee I can’t even imagine what…?

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Barbara: They are essentially the same as the upper class German generals, politicians, and industrialists who thought they could ride the Nazis into power and then control them.  They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

  28. 28.

    Barbara

    @Omnes Omnibus: Pretty much, yes, that’s exactly what they are.  I would say that I don’t mind hearing them spill dirt, so long as they are unstintingly honest about how horrible it was.  I want a record of what happened and I want it to be as quick and accurate as it can be

    ETA:  Bolton has already failed the test of showing that he has any residual moral capacity.

  30. 30.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic:

    This is what wakes me up in the middle of the night. When you have a president and officials who lie without hesitation or compunction, it is a very, very bad situation. So every time a reporter asks Twitler or one of his minions about Vindman, they get to spew lies about him (the thing about “banana republic” really has me steaming). So the propaganda and falsehoods get out and create the impression that Vindman actually did something wrong, or that he and his brother were “banana republic colonels” plotting to overthrow the “president.” It is a very, very bad situation. Same goes for poor Biden.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    Read this about an hour ago.  I had only one thought:  “Jesus, what a self-serving asshole”.

    He fucked up.  He worked for the fucker to get some agenda of his enacted.  I’m sure it’s not a pretty agenda.  Now, somehow, he finally fucking realized that working for Trump is a career-killer and he very much wants to have a post-Trump career.

    Fuck that guy.

  35. 35.

    ByRookorbyCrook

    Kelly and the rest will never put country before self. Their oaths were shattered when they accepted the first of Trumps initiatives. For most, especially Kelly, they likely initiated Trump to the path to horrific policies. Bolton wanted to push his book and the impeachment trial was a great time for promotion. Does Kelly have a book in the pipeline? A Fox sinecure after the fall of Trump?

    None of the media will press the bad actors. They will chatter about it until the next tweet comes out. The soul of political debate is now between two elderly New Yorkers trading insults at 140 characters. Our democracy is gasping like a fish landed on the deck, no one is going to save us. Only We the People stand a chance, and too many are distracted by trivia like this.

    Sorry to be a ranting little black rain cloud. Get people registered. November is coming!

  36. 36.

    chris

    Speaking of enablers, Hope Hicks is returning to the scene of the crime to work for Jared Kushner.

    No words.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They are essentially the same as the upper class German generals, politicians, and industrialists who thought they could ride the Nazis into power and then control them.  They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

    Yup.

    Ja.

    We could learn from history.  But — $$$!  Power!!

  42. 42.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Elizabelle: Thanks I will try. I am also waiting to become a Balloon Juice front pager. I asked, JGC said yes but asked me to wait. I am guessing because of the website redo/upgrade.

    There are many people here and in the national media who write better than me and have more to say about national politics but I think the story about what is happening in India is not being told as it should be.

  44. 44.

    Kent

    Trump is essentially a mirror that gets held up to the face of everyone around him in positions of power in this country.  If the person has core integrity, that gets reflected back.  If not, all we see reflected back is Trump.  He is actually doing us a service in a sense, because he is exposing how much moral rot already existed in our institutions.

    Very few in Trump’s circle actually pass the test.  Comey, maybe.  Some half pass it like Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, also Romney who I give half a pass as he has enabled all of Trump’s actions until now including Kavanaugh.  And a few pass with flying colors like those who testified at the House Hearings.

    We have known who Trump is since day 1 with the Comey firing.  None of these people can claim to be surprised.

  45. 45.

    Mandalay

    Thank dog our president is giving top priority to this vital issue. From 10 minutes ago:

    When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut,.

  48. 48.

    Gravenstone

    @Mandalay: If Kelly sees himself as an ‘honorable man’ then Trump has basically just laid down the gauntlet in challenge of that honor and Kelly should respond by laying out chapter and verse what he witnessed while CoS. But who are we kidding? He’ll at best mutter bitterly into his beer, all while remaining complicit in his silence.

  51. 51.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mandalay: so now he’s comparing all the people who went to work for him as needy ex-girlfriends?

    What a creep. Seriously, I think someday he (and his top republican supporters) are going to gaslight everyone so much that there will be violence – especially if they cheat their way to victory in November.

  52. 52.

    Mike in NC

    Unlike Kelly and Mattis and McMaster, lots of retired general and admirals wouldn’t touch Trump with the proverbial 10-foot pole. Like most sentient people, they recognized he wanted to crown himself dictator for life. Republicans in Congress were perfectly happy to go along with that since they could get him to sign off on their agendas (abortion, guns, tax cuts, etc.).

  53. 53.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Also, notice how Fox hosts always call it “The” Ukraine?

    Isn’t that the style book from RT? Russia Today?  Seems like the obvious reason to me!!

  54. 54.

    Wapiti

    @Mike in NC: I’d offer in McMaster’s case, he was still on active duty and was assigned to NSC.* The others were retired and climbed in of their own voalition.

    *He had written a book condemning the political generals of the Vietnam War. I think he was assigned to the NSC as retribution or comeuppance.

  55. 55.

    cckids

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     

    They are essentially the same as the upper class German generals, politicians, and industrialists who thought they could ride the Nazis into power and then control them. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

    Excellent comparison. I was reminded of Henry VIII’s advisors, like Cromwell or Wolsey. I’m remembering some movie or play when Wolsey (who was on his way out) tells Cromwell that he has made a critical error: “You’ve told the king not what he should do, but what he CAN do”

    I’m pretty sure Kelly , Mattis, et al, were the Wolseys in the administration, and Stephen Miller was Cromwell, telling Trump that he can do anything and everything until he’s stopped.

    Maybe I like this analogy because so many of Henry’s advisors lost their heads. If only.

  56. 56.

    trnc

    @germy:

    “Prosecutors across the United States, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, …”

    kinda says it all. t.co/UDsyXzLDHi

    — southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 13, 2020

    Mr. RETTIE: I have heard that somebody had stood up while Khrushchev was listing the torture systems and the murderings that had gone on and shouted well if he was so bad, why didn’t you get rid of him? And Khrushchev stopped and said, Who said that? And there was silence in the hall. So he repeated himself. Who said that? And there was still silence, and he said, Well, now you understand why we didn’t do anything.

    https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5233399

  57. 57.

    Zinsky

    Democrats should really tweak Trump’s tiny manhood by calling for the death penalty for Roger Stone!

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