Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Books are my comfort food!

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

In after Baud. Damn.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

This blog will pay for itself.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

The lights are all blinking red.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let me file that under fuck it.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

How stupid are these people?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / GOP Venality Open Thread: When the Hellmouth Opened

GOP Venality Open Thread: When the Hellmouth Opened

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Palin’s hardly the person behind the current corruption of the never-that-Grand Old Party — a healthy party doesn’t succumb to such a malignant outlier, any more than a healthy person succumbs to Kawasaki’s Kaposi’s sarcoma — but she’s certainly a tire fire lighting the more recent steps in its descent.

Its current mouthpieces, with no little assistance from the Media Village Idiots, are trying to elide all the monsters preceding Trump’s takeover of the party, in hopes that once the rest of us slay the dragon they’ll be able to pass for fellow victims of a one-off abberation…

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  3. 3.

    schrodingers_cat

    Rs have been stoking anti-immigrant fires since the 1920s and even before that. Reid-Johnson Act that restricted immigration and discrimination against Irish and Italian immigrants before that.

  5. 5.

    laura

    @Baud: Word on the street is her dad was a POW. Hey Megan, about your husband and his job at The Federalist – who funds it and pays his salary?

    And what does it say about character when you back a party that made up a racist lie against your dad and still you use your few occasional and brief forays in the media to continue to back your party and its man of the hour as he runs against a known, well regarded fellow Senator?

  7. 7.

    Emma from FL

    @Baud: Daddy’s Girl McCain? I don’t think she’s ever done anything other than be Daddy’s Girl. She knows it and it makes her bitter and mean.

  10. 10.

    FelonyGovt

    I remember that when Palin was first announced as the VP candidate I got a little nervous, because it sounded like a clever move- a  sitting Governor, a woman, and a rather pretty one. But obviously that was before I knew what a loose cannon dingbat nutcase she was.

  12. 12.

    West of the Rockies

    I think there is no Trump without Palin, no Palin without Fox, no Fox without Gingrich, no Gingrich without Limbaugh, no Limbaugh without Reagan, no Reagan…

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Megan Mccain and Sarah Palin have more in common than either, I suspect, would care to admit. They’re both ignorant, mean and stupid. The first one could be fixed, the other two can’t. The main difference between them (besides the Ivy League degree and a trust fund valued at IIRC $8M when old man McCain ran in ’08) is, I have no idea who Sarah Palin’s daddy is. And Meghan McCain is probably too stupid to know what I mean by that. Palin would get it.

  16. 16.

    Ruckus

    The republican party has been like this for over 100 yrs. Harding and Coolidge didn’t do the country any favors, Herbert Hoover was a disaster, and Joseph  McCarthy sucked donkey balls and created the open use of hate and it has gotten worse with every republican maladministration every year since.

    It took modern communications to allow it to get substantially worse in the last 30 yrs.

    But never think that the republican party had the best interests of the people of this country over the last 125 yrs as a goal. They haven’t. Self interest, bigotry, survival of the wealthiest, that’s been their mantra, their guiding light, their rational for existence for longer than anyone alive today.

  17. 17.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @West of the Rockies:

    I think there is no Trump without Palin, no Palin without Fox, no Fox without Gingrich, no Gingrich without Limbaugh, no Limbaugh without Reagan, no Reagan…

    I think the opposite.  That you can draw a line like this of people all heading in the same direction means that they are results, not causes.  The cause is the demographic timer ticking closer to a brown America, and how more than half of whites have gotten more and more afraid and thus extreme as they watch it happen.

  19. 19.

    Cacti

    Stated more simply:

    Palin turned the GOP into the party of white trash pride.

    I disagree though.  Bush had already started them down that road.

  20. 20.

    Ruckus

    @West of the Rockies:

    Absolutely. All the steps lead to the ability to sell shit as shinola easier. It’s that they have finally tried to sell someone who is so repulsively shitty that it is obvious to all but those completely impervious to reality.

  21. 21.

    Juju

    That’s the first and only time I have heard her singing. She does that about as well as she seems to do anything else.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I see these pictures and I honest-to-gods don’t know whether I’m looking at Sarah Palin or Tina Fey.

  23. 23.

    Martin

    I don’t think Palin herself transformed the party, but her choice to the VP slot sure as fuck signaled to the rank and file that this level of ignorance in the service of winning was an acceptable strategy. It was effectively a move to throw the concept of conservative intellectual into the garbage and then set it on fire. Party of ideas died at that moment. It was fine at that point to carry the party with reactionary populism, and rely on the followers to rationalize the idiocy. The NYTimes in particular validated that strategy by giving a voice and credibility to the growing cognitive dissonance.

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    @lamh36:

    I like HER.

    Joe done good when he hired her.

    I was not all that sold on Joe at first. I was for sure going to vote for him if he ended up where he is now, but I was not sold up front.  I’m coming around rather rapidly that he could be a very good president, because he knows the issues, he knows how to hire talented and smart people and he gives the same damn about all of us.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    @FelonyGovt: It was a clever move. McCain was going to lose badly. Any traditional VP pick wasn’t going to change that. It was a hail-mary, and it failed, and it did long-term damage that the party couldn’t see at the time. I think Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt are fully aware of the damage they did.

    To the extent that the GOP has always been a win at all costs party, the pick makes sense. A few Republicans seem to regret that strategy, but not many. Certainly not enough to matter.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: okay, something happened today and every tweet i try to click on fast forwards thru the whole thing in a flash.  any idea of what happened?  what I need to change?

    and now it’s fine.

    edit: was Chuck Todd speechless??

  29. 29.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Our breakfast conversation this morning was “how must it feel to be a Republican and know your party was on the wrong side of every issue since maybe Teddy Roosevelt?” Medicare, Civil Rights, The New Deal, ACA, the list goes on and on and on.

    I can’t imagine how people can call themselves Republicans and be proud of it, given that history.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    @Ruckus: I never had a doubt he’d be a good president. But we need turnout in November like never before and old white guy vs old white guy is not the way to bring that energy.

    A lot is going to hang on the VP pick and how badly Trump shoots himself in the dick. I have a feeling Obama is going to drop in here like Hulk, though, and I am here for that.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: She gave them no chance to interrupt.  Isn’t she the person who physically blocked the guy who rushed Harris’s stage?

  32. 32.

    germy

    @WaterGirl:  I think Todd is very clever combing his hair forward in short bangs.  It’s the perfect way to conceal male pattern baldness.

    /

  33. 33.

    tam1MI

    @Martin: On paper, the idea of a female VP for a Republican candidate to try and appeal to the numerous Democratic women who were angry and hurt over Hillary losing to Obama was a sound idea.  And the Republicans had female politicians that would have made an excellent choice and could conceivably have lifted McCain over the finish line.

    But he ended up picking Palin to appease the part of his party that found him too “centrist”.  With disastrous results.

    It’s a lesson Biden should take to heart.

  34. 34.

    Delk

    If Sarah went for the hard graft instead of the easy grift there’s a good chance she’d be the inept impeached embarrassment ruining the country.

  36. 36.

    James E Powell

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The cause is the demographic timer ticking closer to a brown America, and how more than half of whites have gotten more and more afraid and thus extreme as they watch it happen.

    Basically agree, but those whites are getting more and more afraid because their fears are constantly stoked by racist propaganda from FOX, right wing radio, and right wing preachers.

  39. 39.

    tam1MI

    I will never forget or forgive the way the MSM just swooned at Palin’s feet until the nut-jobbery got too obvious to be ignored.

  40. 40.

    Slim from MA

    Little known fact: LBJ phocked pigs and Lee Atwater has his sloppy (slightly ripe probably) seconds. Maybe. Just throwing that out there. Some good people are saying it. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not.

    Did I say LBJ? I might’ve meant W. Those Texican hillbillies all look the same to me.

  41. 41.

    germy

    Fox News Dana Perino asked Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders to name one lie from Trump on Covid-19 and she got more than she bargained for pic.twitter.com/Md9PQ9X88n— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) May 20, 2020

    Stupid white lady on FOX demands Symone Sanders name examples of lies the White House has told about COVID-19. Then as soon as Symone starts unraveling the receipts sis wants to change the topic.pic.twitter.com/KgASntXwkh— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) May 20, 2020

  43. 43.

    Martin

    @tam1MI: I disagree. The GOP have always lacked electoral energy until they pull stunts like this. I don’t think there was a single female Republican that could have lifted that campaign against Obama, who was pulling in 6 figure crowds well before the conventions. Ultimately that’s why they backed Trump –  he excited voters, and that was all that mattered.

    Remember, Democrats don’t carry white women as a demographic, only women of color (by a massive margin). The GOP carries white men, and marginally white women. If they pick a female candidate it needs to be one that appeals to white men, and they did that.  This is why women in the GOP go nowhere – they can only maintain their fuckability for so long.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    ETA:

    In June, at a MoveOn forum, a demonstrator stormed the stage as Jean-Pierre was speaking with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), then running for president. The man took the mic from Harris, but Jean-Pierre put herself between him and the candidate before security escorted him out.

    “It was a scary moment,” Jean-Pierre said afterward. “At the time I wasn’t thinking that.” She said that she was thinking of the Virginia Beach shooting massacre and the increase in white supremacy hate crimes. “I was thinking, what is going on? And I just acted,” she said.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    @Martin:

    Oh I agree fully. Joe was not my first or second or ____ choice.

    But I’m far more impressed with him now than I ever expected. This is a big country, it’s not anywhere near the concept of the person at the top but what they bring to the job. One of the problems with all republicans is that they think the man at the top is the MAN, (always the man) that everything comes from the MAN. But it’s bullshit of the highest order to think that any one person can run everything. It can not be done. Make informed decisions, yes, Set the tone of the organization, yes. Push people to do their best, absolutely. Be the end all/be all of everything? No Fucking Way. Which is why we are so fucked right now, republicans don’t get that this is a democracy, not in any way, shape or form. It depends on that we work, together, to make it better for all of us, not to make shitforbrains richer. Being haters of anyone other than their selfish asshole selves they see everyone else as useless, worthless baggage. And that’s the message that they have been sold over the last century at least. It’s wrong, it doesn’t reflect well on our country, it sure as fuck isn’t why I volunteered for military service rather than move to Canada or declare as a conscientious objector.

  55. 55.

    James E Powell

    @tam1MI:

    I will never forget or forgive the way the MSM just swooned at Palin’s feet until the nut-jobbery got too obvious to be ignored.

    I recall somebody in the Village, right after her RNC speech, declaring that the Republicans had found their Obama. Can you imagine?

  56. 56.

    FelonyGovt

    @lamh36: She’s great. His selecting people like her speaks volumes to his ability to find and hire intelligent, capable people

  59. 59.

    low-tech cyclist

    Let’s be clear: the GOP has been stoking these culture wars as a means of winning election since at least the days of Ronald Reagan and his presidency.

    Let’s not forget Nixon and Agnew.

  61. 61.

    Albatrossity

    Maybe this can’t be edited once it is published, but it’s not “Kawasaki’s sarcoma”. I think you were thinking of Kaposi’s Sarcoma.

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: oh shoot…I misread which incident you were talking about.

     

    I was thinking of the dairy protestort thing.  That was Symone and Jill Biden.

     

    Karine was the one who stopped the dude when Harris was on stage

  63. 63.

    Anya

    I’m just a a corporate shill (or a trust fund baby as my Bernie loving friend who’s parents own a private jet keeps telling) trying to understand Rose Twitter so can someone explain to me, Bernie Bros/Rose Twitter’s obsession with Neera Tanden? She’s their Valerie Jared and I don’t understand why.

  64. 64.

    HumboldtBlue

    Couldn’t have happened to a shittier person.

    Chechnya’s strongman leader has been reportedly hospitalized for the coronavirus after calling for the killings of anyone who tests positive for COVID-19.

    Ramzan Kadyrov, installed by Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2007, has not been seen publicly in 24 hours since Russian state media reported that he’d been taken to Moscow for treatment of coronavirus symptoms, reported The Guardian.

  68. 68.

    Anya

    @Morzer: I wonder if Megyn Kelly’s Insta interview will still go on and if so, I wonder if she’ll cover the new evidence?

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: It was Karine Jean-Pierre who blocked a man-bun hipster who tired to disrupt an event with Harris. Symone Sanders got between a couple of anti-dairy (IIRC) vegan activists who got too close to (again, IIRC) Jill Biden. She later tweeted out simply, “I broke a nail.”

  70. 70.

    Emma

    @lamh36: if Biden hires and appoints all the powerful women from the various campaigns and just does whatever they say from now until November (and FSM willing, the next 4 years), I can die happy. And I was someone who had Biden as my, like, #6 choice

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya: I don’t follow her that closely, but I think part of it is she makes no effort to appease and sooth their precious, precious feelings

    She gave Ryan Grim a virtual left hook on twitter last night, so of course he blocked her

  77. 77.

    Emma

    *sotto voce* not to derail the discussion from awesome women, but people who have played Divinity OS 2 in its entirety, which are the best couples (funniest/cutest dialogue)? I’m restarting a run for the 2nd time, having never actually completed a campaign, and at this point, I just want to know which are the best romances so I don’t sink 20 hours into building a less than interesting relationship…

  80. 80.

    bluehill

    @HumboldtBlue: Russia’s COVID numbers are interesting. 3rd highest infections @ 326k (Brazil just overtook them), but only 3250 deaths. They’ve got a problem there, but nobody wants to get thrown out of window, so I guess there are a lot more deaths by natural causes than normal.

  82. 82.

    HumboldtBlue

    @bluehill:

    You know the true numbers are going to be catastrophic in Russia.

    Elsewhere:

    DOH!

    The White House likes pointing out that Trump donates his salary to worthy government purposes. But this time it displayed his actual check, including the account and routing numbers. ⁦
    @anniekarni

    ⁩

  91. 91.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bluehill: The other country with a weirdly low CFR is Singapore. But there, at least, there’s a plausible theory: their big outbreak is mostly among foreign guest workers, who are relatively young and live in dorms. If they’ve managed to keep old people from catching it through testing and isolation, the low fatality rate might not be so inexplicable.

  92. 92.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bluehill: (IF we supposed that Russia was actually finding and reporting every single infected person, that’s a CFR of about 1%, which is not so far from the true infection fatality rate that many have estimated. But you know they’re not.)

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: You know, I watched the video but I didn’t notice their expressions.  Not exactly happy, which makes me very happy!

    thanks for the pic!

    P.S.  Have you seen my email message asking for your address for the peeps who want to send you something?

  95. 95.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: When TR was picked as McKinley’s running mate, Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio – the boss of the GOP in all but name – famously recoiled in horror:

    Don’t any of you realize that there’s only one life between that madman and the Presidency?

  96. 96.

    lamh36

    @WaterGirl: Oh shoot.  I totally did.  Meant to responsd back but I completely forgot.

    And now that I looked I have no idea where the email is.  I might have deleted it when I was cleaning up my email files.

    Please send it again…

  99. 99.

    bluehill

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I hadn’t been paying attention until I noticed Russia moving up the charts. They could be testing a lot more than we did and locked down sooner and more quickly, but that would require a pretty massive, coordinated logistics effort. My possibly outdated impression of Russia is that’s not one of their strengths. Even China has a higher number of deaths and that’s highly likely to be underreported.

  101. 101.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Anya: She is the daughter of Indian immigrants, Rose Twitter are second to none when it comes to hating (or patronizing) immigrants and other minorities. like their patron saint from Vt.

    DSA roses have delusions of grandeur of becoming the Tea party of Ds but they don’t vote or win elections in the same numbers.

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    @schrodingers_cat

    And no sooner is the name invoked…

    :)

    Been holding off mentioning this until I saw your nym as it might be of interest to you (if you’re not already aware of it). Everything I’ve come across about is lauds it as a gritty but not unrealistic portrayal of a slice of India: Paatal Lok, new this month on Prime.

    From one native review:

    It’s not every day that Anurag Kashyap takes to Twitter to talk about something he’s so loved. But then it is also not every day that a show like Paatal Lok drops.

    Amazon Prime Video’s latest web series, Paatal Lok, starring Jaideep Ahlawat, Neeraj Kabi, Abhishek Banerjee, Gul Panag and Swastika Mukherjee in the lead, has left the director completely awestruck. In a series of tweets, Anurag heaped praises on the show for its writing and performances delivered by the cast. Source

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    Maddow is going over the history of. COVID-19 breakouts from churches that have been contact traced??

     

    Black Jesus has given you the science.

    The science says STAY HOME ???

  108. 108.

    lamh36

    This mofo gonna kill us all, and some folks are outraged over Joe Biden on the fuq’n Breakfast Club! Fuq Charlamagne and the Breakfast Club.

    keep ya damn outrage!

    @John_Hudson

    More

    SCOOP: In a meeting last week, the Trump administration discussed conducting the first U.S. nuclear test explosion since 1992 in a move that would have far-reaching consequences and reverse a decades-long moratorium. 1/
     

    https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1263999634575417345

     

     

     

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Tdjr: I’m not alone in not having bone spurs, at least in my feet.

    I have had them removed from my shoulder after having been immobilized for too long with a torn rotator cuff. That was fun…….

  116. 116.

    Kent

    This “Reopen the Churches” crusade that Trump is currently on is going to be a compete disaster.

    I look at my parents who are in their 80s and loyal members of their local Mennonite church that is probably split about 50/50 between conservative Trump types and more liberal Democratic types.  Like most churches it trends older.  They have been very conscientious about social distancing, doing zoom church meetings, all of that.  My parents volunteer for meals on wheels and are super careful with masks, and such. They knock on the door then leave and wave from their car without interacting closely with the seniors they are delivering meals to.

    I expect there are thousands of churches around the country that are similarly doing their best to be good citizens in a pandemic.  If there is too much pressure to re-open then a lot of them might start doing it against their better judgement because a vocal minority of members demand it. And then those like my parents who want to be more conscientious are going to be in a bind.  ESPECIALLY if re-opening the churches means that the virtual churches and zoom meeting and such gets abandoned.

    It’s not going to end well and this is going to cause a major rift in a lot of mainstream churches that are not on the evangelical MAGA fringe.

    Not that I really really care as my wife and I aren’t religious.  But I expect there are going to be a lot of churches that split apart on this between the Trumpers who want to follow Trump’s lead and re-open and the more cautious intelligent older folks who are serious Christians but still have common sense.  Many of whom are Democrats.

  117. 117.

    Searcher

    @Ruckus: Last year Joe was running against Warren, Harris, Gillibrand, and a couple of other guys.

    Now Joe is running against Trump.

  118. 118.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Recall that William Kristol pushed this dizzy broad on McCain.  Kristol has been involved in the creation of the monster his entire life, and now he’s shocked, shocked that the monster cannot be controlled.

  120. 120.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lamh36: Wait. a classified briefing on how well she’ll do into he election? What the fresh hell is that?

  121. 121.

    Jeffro

    @Ruckus: Make informed decisions, yes, Set the tone of the organization, yes. Push people to do their best, absolutely. Be the end all/be all of everything? No

     

    Exactly.  We need a serious team effort here, with qualified people.  The presidential candidate/president is a decision-maker, sure, but s/he’s also a figurehead for a coalition of interests AND perhaps the ultimate HR director.

    This is why Repub administrations fail due to patronage, graft, grift, and not taking their responsibilities seriously.  They have been on a 4-5 decade long degenerative spiral where their only solutions to literally any and every problem are either tax cuts or racism or both.

    Reality always end up biting them (and therefore, us) in the ass.

  122. 122.

    Raoul

    That WaPo columnist f’kwad comparing Stacey Abrams to Sarah Palin was bad enough the other day. Now I’m even more enraged.

  124. 124.

    Keith P.

    @Kent: I was actually taught in theology classes (I had about 9 years of Catholic) schools that churches are *not* essential.  It’s based on a line in the New Testament where Jesus says “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”  In fact, my recollection was that multiple priests told us that priests themselves are not essential for worship.  You just need multiple people gathered in the name of God.

  127. 127.

    Original Lee

    @tam1MI: Me, neither. Plus the collective decision not to look into any of her financial shenanigans from before she was picked, or the whole weird business about flying from Texas to Alaska while in labor with child #5. (Not a Trig-Truther, BTW, just found it a very odd story that might have saved us a lot of grief is someone had looked into it at all.)

  128. 128.

    Davebo

    Long time since I’ve made a comment on BJ though I did too many years ago.

    In the midst of this damned pandemic and facing the loss of so many of my family, father, mother and sister all at once it’s pretty pathetic to return now.  But at one time I got some comfort and camaraderie here.

  129. 129.

    Davebo

    I had an odd dream last night.  I was with my Scottish girl and two English friends travelling and came upon a house.  Immediately I decided it was John’s place in WV and tried to explain to those three how I knew his name.

    Freud would have a field day with that.

  130. 130.

    TriassicSands

    A thread about Sarah Palin, who in many ways was the key figure in the transformation of the Republican Party into the know-nothing, anti-science, conspiracy-theory-loving, cultishly authoritarian Party of Trump it is today.

    That’s just nonsense. Palin was simply an extremely visible example of what had become of the GOP over the previous decades. Since Palin, the transformation from political party to authoritarian cult has continued and culminated in the outrageous, undemocratic behavior of McConnell and the elevation of the unbelievably stupid and corrupt Trump to party leader.

    But Palin was not really a key figure in that transformation. In fact, the most significant thing about Palin as VP nominee was what it said about John McCain, the supposed “maverick” and party luminaries like Bloody Billy Kristol, one of Palin’s champions and ironically, a major never-Trumper today.

  132. 132.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Frankly, I think that Gingrich and the GOPAC memo are more toxic than Palin.

    I’m sure most of you know it, but, if anyone doesn’t: the memo basically says differentiate yourself from your Democratic opponents with words. For example, if a Democrat does something, call it anti-family, or anti-religion or job destroying. If a Republican do it, say it’s pro-family, pro-religion, job creating, etc..

    In short, it said “we don’t care what the Democrats *do* – we need to say they’re all terrible people, all the time. Similarly, we don’t care what Republicans *do* – we need to say they’re good people, all the time.” So, the idea was “be as nasty as right wing talk radio, only, you know, be a bit more civil.”

    I believe – and I’m not a political historian, so take it with a grain of salt – that is when we rapidly started shooting toward the “post-truth society” we’re in now. For example, when the GOP tried to turn Terri Schiavo into their mascot to make horrible accusations (that liberals wanted her to die, some going so far as to say “because she is (now “was”) disabled”)… think about that.

    How much do you need to totally dehumanize your opponents to make such an accusation? How can you have any sense of honor or integrity, if you can’t admit “there are good people who will make strong arguments both ways”?

    At that point, the Republican Party had crossed a threshold: there was no lie so outlandish, so horrible, that they wouldn’t tell the lie, if they thought it would help people:

    a) elect Republicans, and
    b) think that Democrats were bad people.

    Palin was bad, but I think that the Schiavo case in particular, and the general rule  “always tell the American people that a lot of their friends and neighbors and family members are horrible, hateful, people, if they are Democrats”, are what made her possible.

  133. 133.

    Davebo

    Obviously the pressure has melted my brain.  Maybe hydroxychloroquine will solve the problem.

  134. 134.

    Original Lee

    @Davebo: I am so sorry to hear about your losses. You must be feeling devastated. Please continue to let us know how you’re doing.

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @Martin: What?  No way!  ;)

    Tax cuts fund the policies and messaging and organizing that keep the racism going that keeps the upward redistribution going.

    Let’s break the cycle: tax the well-off, bigly.

  137. 137.

    Jeffro

    @TriassicSands:Palin was not really a key figure in that transformation. In fact, the most significant thing about Palin as VP nominee was what it said about John McCain, the supposed “maverick” and party luminaries like Bloody Billy Kristol, one of Palin’s champions and ironically, a major never-Trumper today.

     

    Yes.  This is when they caved to the monster of their own creation.

    Not Palin specifically…just the stupid, reactionary, racist, Limbaugh-ian base that they had cultivated for decades.

    See also: giving up on the various immigration reform proposals that died.  So much easier to just do racism and xenophobia.

  138. 138.

    Davebo

    @Original Lee:   That’s kind of you but I’m in limbo.  Mom in ICU with non Covid related heart attack, Dad in hospital with another heart attack caused by her condition coupled with the tornado that blew through and Sister in Hospice with stage 4 cancer.  Hardest part is I can’t visit any of them.

    Can you believe it?  Not enough to have 3 of my 4 direct family members in critical care but God decided we need a freaking tornado to destroy the home of my one mostly healthy sibling’s home just to add a cherry to the float.

  139. 139.

    different-church-lady

    I’ve been saying it for the past four years: back then who thought the problem with Palin was that she wasn’t crazy enough?

  140. 140.

    Davebo

    I’m sorry guys.  Just needed to vent a bit and I really didn’t want to on FB or twitter.

  142. 142.

    Davebo

    Luckily Mom and Dad have Platinum Medicare add on insurance and we were able to get them into the same room at an LTAC facility for a while but Mom had a setback and had to be moved to ICU.  Sixty three years married they are pathetic apart.

    I shudder to think what would have happened had they only had Medicare.

    All of my friends from the UK complain about the NHS but none of them would change it for the mess we have here.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    @Searcher:

    What is your point?

    BTW I’m not brain dead, I know what month it is and who I voted for in the primary. I also know who has won all the democratic primaries so far and who is an actual human being and who he’s running against. I’ve known about shitforbrains for decades and what kind of shitty human he’s always been.

    So once again, what’s your point?

  146. 146.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    So, apparently, Stephanie Grisholm, the WH Press Sec, held up a check worth $100,000 from a Mar-a-Largo org bank account with the account and routing numbers clearly visible. Hopefully, the account was cleaned out. These people are fucking idiots

  149. 149.

    frosty

    @Davebo: Venting is fine here. I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s medical issues, especially now when you can’t be with them. That’s a terrible burden to bear. And like you said, the tornado is just the capper.

  150. 150.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Davebo: I’m so sorry for your losses. Welcome back, and I hope the jackals can help you regain some of that camaraderie.

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @Davebo:

    Sorry that so much is going on at the same time. Makes it really difficult to deal, when so much is going on at once. Many of us have been in situations where everything is turn up to 11 on the shit meter. Don’t feel bad about asking for a shoulder.

    Vent away. Sounds like you need it. And that you really deserve it.

  153. 153.

    Davebo

    I can remember bitching at John here back when he was still a Republican.   I’m itching for a fight now but sadly, or happily, we all are mostly like minds.

    VOTE BERNIE!!!

    Nah..  My hearts just not in it.

    And honestly, am I the only one who’s given up on trying to change minds on the internet using facts?  These people who complain simultaneously about open up the economy and no, I refuse to wear a mask are impervious to facts.

  154. 154.

    different-church-lady

    @Davebo: Aw, Dave big ((((hugs)))).

    I say never apologize for looking for comfort here. I have quite a few times. And my guess is the blog host is quite happy to have people do that.

  156. 156.

    Davebo

    @Ruckus: I was married for 25 years and lost my wife overnight to a brain aneurysm.  That was hard but having my parents slowly slide and not being able to see them is probably even harder.  We had to fight with the state to get my sister Medicaid for her cancer even though she qualified.  By the time the finally approved it, it was only good for hospice as it had progressed too far.  She should have been at MD Anderson 3  months ago.

    Even if we were willing to pay out of pocket and we considered it the chemo and radio would have been 300k minimum.

  160. 160.

    JWR

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Agreed. They are f*cking idiots:

    In a statement, White House spokesperson Judd Deere told the Times, “Today his salary went to help advance new therapies to treat this virus, but leave it to the media to find a shameful reason not to simply report the facts, focusing instead on whether the check is real or not.”

    No, you f*cking idiot, the press wasn’t questioning whether or not the damn check was real, just pointing out that Trump’s account and routing numbers had just been exposed.

  162. 162.

    Another Scott

    @Davebo: I’m sorry.  You’re going through a lot, and this is an especially bad time to be doing so.

    Hang in there.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  163. 163.

    Jay

    @Davebo:

    {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}

    vent away. It’s a sucky time, conditions are not good for in person comfort, grief, sadness.

  164. 164.

    Davebo

    Goodnight all and thanks.

    With Euro vacations cancelled this year (pissed about missing France and Southern Turkey)  we are thinking of a road trip to Santa Fe.  We still have hotel reservations for the cancelled Santa Fe Opera trip we’d planned for August.

    Maybe if I’m really sweet I can convince Cherly Rofer to let me treat her to high tea.

    Thanks for putting up with an old BJ commenters whining.

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    @Davebo:

    Both my parents are gone, dad to Alzheimer’s, mom just got rather old and it was her time. Just so you know, I found out in August that I also have a brain aneurysm, and that it was also on an MRI that I had taken 2 yrs prior and no one said shit. I take every day as what it is, another day. Also had cancer. So the last few years have been a bit of a struggle for me as well. Some days it can get to be a bit much but then I remember that breath still goes in, still goes out. And I’m 70 and am looking for another 24+ yrs just for the satisfaction of lasting longer than mom and making all her effort when I was sick a lot as a kid worthwhile.

    For all the pain I realize that most of us go through a lot of that in our lives. I’ve been hit head on by a truck, and I wasn’t in a car. It was 3 days after a major earthquake shut down my business and cost me $1,100 a second, just in lost work, let alone the rebuilding. Not to mention a relationship. That was a good year.

    I’m not trying to compare, there is no comparison to any single person’s life, I’m just letting you know that many have been in shit before and expect it again. To me life is getting through the tough times and putting one foot in front of the other, breath in, breath out, enjoying at least the memories and that not every day is horrible.

  169. 169.

    Kent

    @Keith P.:@Kent: I was actually taught in theology classes (I had about 9 years of Catholic) schools that churches are *not* essential.  It’s based on a line in the New Testament where Jesus says “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”  In fact, my recollection was that multiple priests told us that priests themselves are not essential for worship.  You just need multiple people gathered in the name of God.

    Of course, I agree with you completely.  I’m just commenting on the reality of how it is actually going to play out in real life.  Especially with so many churches that are trying to do the right thing and are now going to be under pressure from their loudmouth MAGA minorities (or majorities).  It is not going to be pretty and I expect some churches are going to blow apart over this.

    Not that I really care as an atheist with a long history of church in my life.  Just a comment on what I see happening.

  170. 170.

    Kent

    @LongHairedWeirdo:Frankly, I think that Gingrich and the GOPAC memo are more toxic than Palin.

    Palin was basically a wind-up doll.  She didn’t actually do much aggressively conservative shit in Alaska along the lines of say a Brownback, Ginrich, or the current wingnut governor of Alaska.  She was actually a reasonably decent GOP governor by Alaska standards and I say this having lived in Alaska for over a decade.  She put through a big tax increase on the oil companies, for example.

    All the wingnut shit came later when she wasn’t in office and decided to become a reality star instead of politician.  She was toxic as hell as a GOP reality star, but her actual political legacy as a governor is pretty mainstream and inoffensive:  https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/us/politics/democrats-see-a-palin-legacy-they-can-like.html

  171. 171.

    James E Powell

    @Kent:

    I recall this coming up at some point in Catholic school, probably around Confirmation. Somebody asked the priest what about guys in Nazi prison camps? If there was no priest, how could they do their Easter Duty or go to confession. And I think there was some mention of Matthew 18:20 and maybe some clause in the requirements that let those guys off the hook.

  173. 173.

    Lyrebird

    @lamh36: Agreed on the Press Sec. nomination!

     

    Just also sick to my stomach about the current Press Sec. and the squatter in the Oval Office.

     

    But Symone Sanders has been bringing truth and joy.  Did you see her response to Perino?  Asking for an example of a single lie from the monster in the WHite House?

  174. 174.

    SWMBO

    @Davebo: Welcome back.  I recognize your nym.

    I am so sorry you are facing such losses.  Are you alone now?  Or do you still have friends/family near you?

    Is there any way we can help you?

  175. 175.

    Kent

    @James E Powell: @Kent:

    I recall this coming up at some point in Catholic school, probably around Confirmation. Somebody asked the priest what about guys in Nazi prison camps? If there was no priest, how could they do their Easter Duty or go to confession. And I think there was some mention of Matthew 18:20 and maybe some clause in the requirements that let those guys off the hook.

    Yes, of course. Christianity is so unbelievably far from its roots as to be utterly unrecognizable. In the early church as reflected in the New Testament epistles there were no actual churches. Christians just met in small groups in their houses. There were also no denominations. That all came centuries later.

  176. 176.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kent:

    There were also no denominations.

    There were many different groups of Christians in the first century that differed in doctrine.  The Syrian church, Egyptian Coptic Church…

  178. 178.

    cokane

    Yeah, saw that thread too. Really wish he had written it as an article instead, I think it has a very compelling argument at its core, and the need to fit it into the square hole of twitter kind of mangles it a bit.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    Failure by some in media to properly vet people along with the speed of social media is why every enemy of US is successful in their disinfo campaigns against us— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) May 22, 2020

  182. 182.

    Mary G

    No honor among thieves:

    .@realdonaldtrump Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you're damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration. Your personal feelings don't dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do. https://t.co/QQKHNAgmiE— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) May 23, 2020

  183. 183.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Mary G: I believe the correct term is “acquittal” – Trump was never “exonerated”. He wasn’t found innocent – he was found “not guilty”.

    Of course, any time a Republican says anything, it’s best to count your change, check your account balances, count your fingers, toes, teeth, and relatives, before you even get *down* to parsing what particular lie they’re going to tell you this time, and what the ‘tell’ is.

  184. 184.

    JWR

    @Mary G:

    “Your personal feelings don’t dictate who Alabama picks as their senator,”

    Oh yeah, lil’ Beauregard? Here, hold Trump’s beer.

  185. 185.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @MisterForkbeard, @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    The linked Times article makes no mention of a “classified briefing.” It says:

    President Trump’s advisers are increasingly concerned about Senator Kelly Loeffler’s campaign in Georgia, a newly competitive state where the president’s own poll numbers have tightened against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to people briefed on the discussions.

    It appears that @notcapnamerica used poor phrasing. ?

  187. 187.

    Amir Khalid

    Popped out to the shops on the eve of Eid. Stocked up on essential snacks. Exchanged Eid greetings with a Grab driver, and reminded him to celebrate safely.

    I hear that Hertz has filed for Chapter 11 because their business has totally dried up.

  196. 196.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Steeplejack (phone): Kelly Loeffler: “I knew I would be attacked for my success.”                                                        I hope she hangs in there. The contest to fill her seat will be decided in a “jungle primary” on November 3, with the two top candidates facing a runoff in early January. Stacey Abrams persuaded Raphael Warnock to run. He’s head pastor at Ebenezer Baptist, Martin Luther King’s church. A prolonged, nasty red on red brawl between Loeffler and Doug Collins (Idiot-Ga) would help Warnock.

  198. 198.

    scribbler

    @Davebo: Let me add my support for you in your suffering.  You have an incredibly hard burden to bear.  I hope you find some comfort here.

  199. 199.

    Aleta

    @Davebo:  Heartbreaking.  Going through so much takes a serious toll.  For myself at such a time, I now wish I’d reached out more,  but all the stress made that seem too hard.  At the time I thought I didn’t have enough energy left for  it.  Take care.  It’s OK to ask here for what you need.

  200. 200.

    Amir Khalid

    @Davebo:

    You can still count on your fellow jackals for these things. At Balloon Juice, you’ll never walk alone.

  202. 202.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Martin: The tax cuts are just an abstract way to do racism, btw.

    IMO you have it exactly bass-ackwards: The Global Oligarchs’ encouragement and protection of racist behavior is the Far Wrong’s payoff for acquiescence in cutting taxes on the superrich.

     

    @Martin:

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @Keith P.:

    I was actually taught in theology classes (I had about 9 years of Catholic) schools that churches are *not* essential.  It’s based on a line in the New Testament where Jesus says “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”  In fact, my recollection was that multiple priests told us that priests themselves are not essential for worship.  You just need multiple people gathered in the name of God.

    In Matthew 6:6 Jesus tells us to pray in secret, go into your closet so that you will not look like the hypocrites shouting their prayers on the street corner is the gist of what he says. I will hear you, which is all that counts.

    I haven’t ever used that small set of verses against a holy roller, I’m too polite, but I keep it in my back pocket just in case.

  206. 206.

    Woodrow/asim

    @J R in WV: I quoted that verse last night!

    An old high school pal turned preacher man was talking about this issue (in a good way!), around how to take care of his parishioners. I had to hit with the verse ’cause he has people on his Facebook who love to make noise, so I prelabeled them, for everyone’s convenience!

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