Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

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

It’s the corruption, stupid.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Let there be snark.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

He really is that stupid.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

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

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Late Night Open Thread: Just Tithing Their God-King

Late Night Open Thread: Just Tithing Their God-King

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The ‘Democrat’ (not Democratic) is a signifier, of course: They don’t want to risk being mistaken for actual Democrats, but they do want to pretend that their animosity towards Biden has a basis beyond DEM MAN BAD.

… Democrat Voters Against Joe Biden is a project of an existing nonprofit advocacy group called Americans for Responsible Government, meaning it can engage in limited politicking and is not required to disclose its donors. Curiously, though it is not explicitly political, the group’s online donation page includes disclaimer language required only of registered political committees advising donors that they can only donate $2,800 per election. No such donation limits exist for nonprofits.

DVAJB set up a website in July and began running Facebook ads this month attacking Biden. The former vice president’s “mental state is slipping and we can’t let him become the most powerful man on Earth,” one of the ads declares…

Crossover partisan appeal, or the appearance of it, is an asset that presidential campaigns and their supporters frequently seek. And DVAJB’s formation comes as a pro-Biden counterpart, Republican Voters Against Trump, gathers and publishes its own video testimonials of GOP voters who say they won’t back the president’s re-election bid. DVAJB appears to have been created as an explicit answer to that group. Language on its website is copied nearly verbatim from the RVAT website, with some minor stylistic changes and Biden’s name switched out for Trump’s…

In Trumpworld, parasitism is the sincerest form of flattery.

…[DVAJB founder Steve] Nickolas said the group hopes to begin gathering testimonials that it can then use to produce ads knocking the Democratic presidential nominee. He said he also hopes to recruit like-minded individuals from across the aisle to serve in leadership roles for the group. “We don’t have Democrats right now serving in a board capacity,” he said. “But we certainly will invite that type of input as soon as we possibly can.”

As for funding, Nickolas said he’ll be relying largely on grassroots donations. One of his most prominent political projects, an advocacy group called Americans for Responsible Leadership, “had some support from the Koch Brothers, but this one is totally on our shoulders here in Scottsdale.”

Nickolas founded Americans for Responsible Leadership in 2011 along with a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. And it soon found itself at the center of a major campaign finance scandal. In 2013, ARL and an affiliated group paid a $1 million fine to California authorities to settle allegations that they illegally laundered $11 million in contributions to a political group in the state.

Nickolas said his experience being targeted during that ordeal by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Biden’s running mate and at the time California’s attorney general, has given him “a personal stake in this election.” Harris, he said, “ran us through the wringer… Her tactics were appalling and I was very upset with how it was handled.”…

I’m sure he was, yes.

Over on the ‘intellectual’ side of the anti-Democrat movement, former unrepentant Jesse Helms staffer Danielle Pletka scored a Washington Post op-ed complaining that she could not possibly vote for Joe Biden, because he was entirely too friendly with… a dark-skinned outside agitator woman! The horror!


(Petri’s satire of Pletkin is, of course, hilarious.)

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    Ian

    From the wiki-

    A neoconservative, Pletka staunchly supported the Iraq War, holds hawkish views on Iran, defends the use of torture, and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.

  2. 2.

    West of the Rockies

    @Ian:

    So, clearly a guy who leans Blue…//

    My take is that this Dems Who Hate Joe group is trying to be The Lincoln Project for Republicans.  It ain’t working.  They’re lazy and incompetent.

  3. 3.

    Jay

    It’s astounding that after a massive family separation operation, mass sexual assault of detainees, trapping immigrants in COVID-infected detention centers, and now reports of mass hysterectomies (which the US has done before), abolishing ICE is controversial.Where’s the line?— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 16, 2020

    Abolish ICE.— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) September 15, 2020

    I was in touch today with someone who was at Irwin; she reached out to me and is part of a broad network of sources that are necessary for my work as an immigration reporter. Trust me when I say there's more to come.— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) September 16, 2020

  4. 4.

    Marmot

    I’m usually not a fan of Petri’s schtick. But ohmygod is it perfect this time. I just want to shake her hand.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    @West of the Rockies:

    My take is that this Dems Who Hate Joe group is trying to be The Lincoln Project for Republicans. It ain’t working. They’re lazy and incompetent.

    The laziness and incompetence aren’t the most important factor.  The most important factor is that there is a group of prominent disaffected Republicans who despise Trump to the point they have been willing to turn on their party in order to stop him.  Those people formed the Lincoln Project organically, as far as I can tell without prompting from, or even consulting with, the Democrats.  There simply isn’t a corresponding group of prominent Democrats who see Biden as so far beyond the pale that they’ll break with their party and support Trump, and no degree of effort and cleverness on the Republicans’ part could conjure one.

  8. 8.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Jay: Brian Cates (my brother sent me a link to his Twitter about 6 months ago) is scoffing at the idea that there are hysterectomies going on.

    Hysterectomies leave women bedridden for weeks afterwards.

    Have the victims been allowed to see outside doctors?  Have these operations been confirmed by more than accusations?

  9. 9.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Mallard Filmore: IIUC, the concentration camp inmates are not allowed visits from third-party organizations with sufficient frequency and safety that such questions could be definitively answered by those third-party organizations.  Clearly we can’t trust the government that runs concentration camps, to tell us all is well inside.

    If Cates fails to understand this sort of simple point, really, what’s the point in engaging with him?  Or with anybody who parrots his line?

  11. 11.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Mallard Filmore:

    Hysterectomies leave women bedridden for weeks afterwards.

    Interesting. That’s not how I remember mine, but who am I to argue with Brian Cates about what women experience?

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    @Mallard Filmore:

    Hysterectomies leave women bedridden for weeks afterwards.

    This appears to be bullshit.

    Abdominal hysterectomy. Most women go home 2-3 days after this surgery, but complete recovery takes from six to eight weeks. During this time, you need to rest at home. You should not be doing housework until you talk with your doctor about restrictions. There should be no lifting for the first two weeks. Walking is encouraged, but not heavy lifting.

    Vaginal or laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH). A vaginal hysterectomy is less surgically invasive than an abdominal procedure, and recovery can be as short as two weeks. Most women come home the same day or the next. Walking is encouraged, but not heavy lifting.

    I have not read what type of hysterectomy these women had. Also, I’m sure there are some Balloon Juice readers who have had a hysterectomy and might be willing to weigh in.

  15. 15.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Mallard Filmore: My evident … ire … wasn’t meant at you.  Idunno, it’s very, very hard to remain even slightly hinged, with news like this about the hysterectomies.  Or the ripping of infants from their mothers.  It ….. makes it difficult to see straight for the red-tinged haze of anger.

  16. 16.

    Darkrose

    Hysterectomies leave women bedridden for weeks afterwards.

    That was true when my mother had hers in 1982, but I’m pretty sure medical science has advanced a lot since then.

  19. 19.

    Mary G

    I went to check Cates out and found I’d blocked him. Read part of one thread he retweeted and it was bonkers. That’s two minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

  20. 20.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Darkrose:

     

    That was true when my mother had hers in 1982, but I’m pretty sure medical science has advanced a lot since then.

    I did a quick peek at what Google has to say, and when it mentioned a recent advancement using robots I gave up.

    Robots assist? Sounds expensive. What doctors would have that equipment? If this is like an MRI monster, could a doctor do these hysterectomies on the sly, nobody else in the office knows?

    I’ve been too healthy all my life to pick up on what doctors can do in the privacy of their own offices.

  21. 21.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Mary G: Yeah, my brother sent me a link to Brian’s tweet back in January, when he claimed that Rudy would come to Trump’s impeachment rescue with evidence from Ukraine.

  25. 25.

    Chris T.

    @Mallard Filmore: Robots assist? Sounds expensive.

    The machines are expensive, but the assist ends up lowering the cost overall provided one gets to use them often. A big hospital with a lot of procedures will spend a couple of million on these things, then make it back within months (not even years).

    (Surgery is big money.  A heart bypass is easily $40k.)

  28. 28.

    Aleta

    (NYT) Sept. 16, 2020

    Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

    The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who described Mr. Barr’s comments on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

    The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish a police-free protest zone near the city’s downtown for weeks this summer, according to two people briefed on those discussions. Late Wednesday, a department spokesman said that Mr. Barr did not direct the civil rights division to explore this idea.

     

    During a speech on Wednesday night, Mr. Barr noted that the Supreme Court had determined that the executive branch had “virtually unchecked discretion” in deciding whether to prosecute cases. He did not mention Ms. Durkan or the sedition statute.

    “The power to execute and enforce the law is an executive function altogether,” Mr. Barr said in remarks at an event in suburban Washington celebrating the Constitution. “That means discretion is invested in the executive to determine when to exercise the prosecutorial power.”

    The disclosures came as Mr. Barr directly inserted himself into the presidential race in recent days to warn that the United States would be on the brink of destruction if Mr. Trump lost. He told a Chicago Tribune columnist that the nation could find itself “irrevocably committed to the socialist path” if Mr. Trump lost and that the country faced “a clear fork in the road.”

  34. 34.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Heh.  Obviously TR, not FDR.  But even TR is problematic: he was a bit of an environmentalist, was he not?  And wasn’t he a bit of a Progressive, back in the day?

    If we expand the list to vice-presidents, the obvious choice is Calhoun (*grin*)

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    @Aleta: Barr is such an appalling theocrat. Federal prosecution being an executive branch function doesn’t mean the AG gets to decide what the law is. And his other appalling comments that federal prosecutors are “agents of the attorney general” (direct quote) and as underlings, shouldn’t expect to have a say in what’s legal or appropriate or anything.

  37. 37.

    greenergood

    Totally OT: BBC Radio 4 news this am @6:45 reported that the Trump administration was investigating reports that Iran was plotting to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa. Since then, nothing … any ideas why this little news snippet was aired?

  38. 38.

    smike

    @Amir Khalid: 

    if you wanted a presidential namesake for an anti-Biden version of The Lincoln Project, whom would you pick?

    Let’s see… nothing but lies, full of bullshit…

    The Trump Project (in big gold letters).

  41. 41.

    prostratedragon

    @Steeplejack:  Haven’t had one but know someone who did several years ago. Her job was physically somewhat demanding, but she was back at work within a few days, though restricted in heavy lifting (25lb or more, say) for a couple of weeks. Definitely was not bedridden for more than several hours.

  42. 42.

    opiejeanne

    @Mallard Filmore: Hysterectomies do not usually leave women bedridden for weeks. When I had mine in the early 80s I watched other women being discharged within 24 to 48 hours. I was stuck there for five days because, stupid me, I hemorrhaged and needed a trip back to the OR, but I felt pretty good within a day or two of discharge. No idea why I’d feel good after I scared the nurses and the surgeon so badly.

    A friend took about two weeks before she felt recovered, but she wasn’t bed-ridden, just moved slowly and was uncomfortable for a couple of weeks.

  44. 44.

    greenergood

    @Jay: so is this the beginning of an October Surprise type campaign, or just a balloon sent up to see if Anyone will run with it?

  45. 45.

    opiejeanne

     

     

    @Darkrose: My hysterectomy was in 83 or 84 at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana, CA, It was vaginal, which is less invasive which may have made a big difference, and even though I had a complication that kept me in the hospital for 5 days I felt really great within a couple of days after I was discharged. Other women who were smart enough not to have a complication that required more surgery were discharged the next day.

  46. 46.

    Mary G

    I’m sick of politics. Here’s a story from the Cut about the discovery of ancient giant sperm.

    Huge sperm news: Scientists have just discovered the oldest sample of animal ejaculate in the history of the Earth, dating back 100 million years. But far more interesting than the record-breaking nature of the fossil is the sperm’s literal size, which is — to use the actual scientific term — “giant.”

    According to the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the sperm came from a previously undiscovered species of ostracod, which Live Science describes evocatively as “a crustacean that looks a shrimp dressing up as a clam for Halloween.” But the remarkable sample was not discovered inside the male creator’s body, as one might’ve assumed. Instead, it was found inside a female ostracod, who scientists believe got railed immediately before she was tragically entombed by tree resin in modern-day Myanmar.

    Ostracods — a subclass of crustaceans, also known as “seed shrimp” — are exceptionally small, known to grow no more than a few tenths of an inch long. But the size of their loads? Giant. Although the scientists struggled to get a full measurement of any of the 50 full sperm cells stored in the lover’s body, they know the sperm cells to be at least 200 microns long. That’s at least a third of the ostracod’s body length and several times bigger than what human men have to offer.

    Now apparently, it’s not unheard of for creatures to produce sperm that exceed the length of their bodies. While most animals produce an abundance of tiny swimmers, according to Vice, certain creatures — notably, modern ostracods — expend a great deal of energy to make a smaller number of absolutely gigantic sperm. In fact, some modern ostracods can shoot out sperm more than four times the length of the male’s body, which would be like a dude busting a 24-foot-long sperm cell. Bravo to ostracods, impressive well-hung kings, but no thank you!

  47. 47.

    Jay

    @greenergood:

    it’s illegal for the US IC et al, to push ajitprop to US Media.

    so what they do is farm it out to offshore Media, and wait for the FNYT to repeat the story citing Foreign Press.

    That’s how they pushed all the Afghanistan, Iraq lies.

    So this is a “move” by somebody who hasn’t kept up to speed,

    Now adays, one can just get the POSUS to retweet QAnon bullshit.

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    @greenergood:

    … reports that Iran was plotting to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa.

    If there really is an Iranian scheme to assassinate a US ambassador, why the one in South Africa?

  50. 50.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Back in the day, this was called the “Puke Funnel” IIRC.  RW groups in the US would plant stories in compliant UK press, which eventually got reported in mainstream UK press, and then US news outlets would cover it, b/c hey, it’s news in the UK, there’s gotta be something to it, riiiiight?  Sigh.

  53. 53.

    greenergood

    Thanks for this didn’t know this was a standard MO. So now we wait for the FNYT to write a story? It’s sort of the journalistic equivalent of Trump’s ‘Some people are saying …’@Jay:

  55. 55.

    Chetan Murthy

    @opiejeanne: https://za.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/our-ambassador/#:~:text=Ambassador%20Lana%20Marks%20was%20sworn,South%20Africa%20on%20October%204.

    Ambassador Lana Marks was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa on October 4.  Prior to her appointment, Ambassador Marks served as the Chief Executive Officer of the LANA MARKS fashion brand, which she founded in 1987.  Over the course of 30 years, she developed the label into an international brand, opening stores and boutiques across the world.  Ambassador Marks is a member of the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America.

    Born in SA, so that’s something.  Speaks Afrikaans and Xhosa.  Overall, compared to some of Shitler’s more (ahem) controversial picks, she seems …. perhaps solid.

  61. 61.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: I *didn’t* give any money to McGrath b/c (1) she seemed very well-funded and (2) it seems unlikely she’ll beat Yertle.  I also didn’t give money to Doug Jones, even though I really wanted to, b/c …. doesn’t seem likely he’ll win.  I wonder if I should revisit that latter decision ….. but it seems like that money could be better-used in GA/NC/SC/TX/AK/etc.

  62. 62.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Something else that really angers me about this time of Kaiser Quisling, is that I used to donate money to various charitable causes (mostly to Planned Parenthood).  Since 2016, I haven’t, b/c I figure that if we don’t get rid of him, abortion’s gone anyway.  I hate that I have to make such a decision, discarding the needs of women right now who need reproductive health services, in favor of spending that money on ensuring that those rights don’t go away permanently.

    It’s really, really angering.

  63. 63.

    Jay

    This NY Times article is a good reminder that The NY Times is just completely unwilling to speak the truth forcefully. It’s full of timid descriptions like “unusual” and completely omits the extremely relevant fact that *Donald Trump encourages his supporters to be violent.* pic.twitter.com/pH3cNQEp1M— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) September 17, 2020

  65. 65.

    Jay

    Breaking WaPo: Hours before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square, federal officials began to stockpile ammunition and seek devices that could emit deafening sounds and make anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire. https://t.co/ylREadj25V— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 17, 2020

  70. 70.

    rikyrah

    Last night when I was in the ER, I asked the absolutely wonderful doctor taking care of me if, five weeks into #COVID19, I were still contagious. He said he didn't know, adding, "The CDC has guidelines for this, but I don't trust the CDC anymore."That's where we are, folks.— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) September 15, 2020

  71. 71.

    Gvg

    @Darkrose: it was true with mine 6 years ago. Very serious surgery. However there probably are multiple kinds. Mine was pretty invasive because they were getting rid of cancer and could not risk cutting up the pieces smaller inside me to remove from small incisions. That would risk releasing cells to colonize cancer elsewhere in my body. If that restriction hadn’t been in place, they told me it would have been a less invasive surgery. They had to cut me way open to remove whole organs.

    i also want to wait for more info on this story. I suspect it’s one doctor but unsupervised because all of them don’t see immigrants as having rights or humanness.

    ICE needs to go to jail. Disbanding sure, but I want prison sentences.

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @rikyrah: And, what’s Trump’s point? Trump would be president of a  third world version of Canada if all the Blue States left the union. The population of a midwest barely equals that of New York City.  The Maths be hard for the Conservative Man.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    greenergood

    any ideas why this little news snippet was aired?

    Because dead air is abhorrent to broadcasters. There’s as a matter of course some sort of filler foolscap marking time in the wings in case the program runs short, a remote goes technically awry, and so on.

  74. 74.

    Chris T.

    @Gvg: Yes, the slice-it-up, take-it-out-through-small-hole trick is called morcellation and they used to do it with laparoscopic cancer surgery and then realized, oops, not a good idea. (And from the descriptions related on the Maddow show the other night, it occurs to me that this particular doctor is almost certainly using a morcellator, and is not as skilled with it as he thinks he is. I assume it’s a “he” as they usually are in these cases.)

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    From the NYT article. These numbers are extraordinary.

    The 768-page book, “A Promised Land,” will be the first of two volumes, this one encompassing parts of his early political life, his presidential campaign in 2008 and ending with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. It will be released around the world on Nov. 17 in 25 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Czech, Finnish and Vietnamese.

    Demand for the book is expected to be extraordinary, and Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, has ordered a first printing for the U.S. edition of 3 million copies. To accommodate such an enormous order, Crown plans to print about 1 million of those books in Germany and has arranged for three ships, outfitted with 112 shipping containers, to bring those copies to the United States.

    I have placed my pre-order — the news was still so fresh a few minutes ago that when I entered “A Promised Land” into Amazon search, it came up as “Untitled Book” (although once I placed the order, it showed under the real title).

  77. 77.

    evodevo

    @Chris T.: Yeah…I knew women who had hysterectomies back in the ’80’s, and you WERE confined to bed/low activity level for a LONG time, supposedly because of the danger of hemorrhage.  I don’t know if the danger is the same with the new procedures they have now or not…the medical literature is inconclusive…

  78. 78.

    evodevo

    @Mallard Filmore: Yes, “robots” are a thing nowadays…I had a “robot-assisted” hernia operation a couple years ago at a small local hospital…I guess it’s all the rage among surgeons nowadays…

  80. 80.

    Chris Johnson

    @SiubhanDuinne: Cue Trump trying to get the US Navy to sink those ships…

    The tragic thing is, he might very well be so insane that he tries to do that, or at least asks about it…

  81. 81.

    Humanities Prof

    @Mallard Filmore:   Lots of others have already weighed in on this, but let me add another 2 rubles.

    I am NOT an OB/Gyn.  I’m as far away from being one as it’s possible to be.  But my wife is an OB/Gyn, and she’s performed many hysterectomies throughout the years.

    The overwhelming majority of hysterectomy patients do not require weeks of hospitalization.  Most go home 2-3 days post-surgery, as has been noted by lots of other BJers in this thread.  There can be complications that require longer hospitalization  post-surgery, but they’re rare.

  82. 82.

    thalarctosMaritimus

     

    @opiejeanne: <3 .

    I promise I’ll be back in the land of the living very soon <3 . Things are getting slowly and steadily better.

    I love and miss you, too.

  85. 85.

    StringOnAStick

    @Humanities Prof: I was in my early  50’s when I had mine, and spent just one night in the hospital.  I’m assuming ICE has had these done on relatively young women, so out of hospital quickly.

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