Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

After roe, women are no longer free.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Come on, man.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You cannot shame the shameless.

No one could have predicted…

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Respite redux: Now THIS Is How You F**k Republicans

Respite redux: Now THIS Is How You F**k Republicans

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Via The Boston Globe:

The first thing Aria DiMezzo wants to make clear about the giant phallic hieroglyph that someone spray-painted on the side of her car on Saturday night — along with a homophobic slur — was that it was poorly drawn.

The second thing she wants to make clear about the graffiti, which appeared just hours after FoxNews.com ran a story about DiMezzo headlined “ ‘Transsexual Satanist anarchist’ wins GOP nomination for sheriff in NH county,” is that she thought it was hilarious.

“It’s not a hate crime,” DiMezzo said with a smirk. “It’s a gender reveal!”

DiMezzo’s journey to political stardom [Is that the word–ed?] is a tribute to the fine discernment of the GOP primary voter:

DiMezzo, who is a Libertarian, said she was unable to get on the ballot for her party, so instead she registered as a Republican for the primary. She did it mostly to be a pest, but she was also wondering if she might lure voters into a trap that would prove a point about a problem with our political system — namely, that people will blindly vote for any candidate on their party’s ticket.

“I ran unopposed, but if people were paying attention, I should have gotten 25 votes and lost to a write-in candidate,” said DiMezzo.

Respite: THIS Is How You F**k Republicans
Ferneley II, John; Two Racehorses, Called ‘The Sheriff’ and ‘Bensh’; National Trust, Clandon Park; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/two-racehorses-called-the-sheriff-and-bensh-216875

Also of note: the epithets Fox News used to describe DiMezzo’s political identification weren’t just right-wing hyperbole:

DiMezzo — who campaigned on a platform of “F the Police” and does indeed identify as a transsexual Satanist anarchist…[deployed] lawn signs [that] clearly feature the anarchist symbol of an “A” inside a circle, as well as the phrase “F the Police.” (Her campaign website is effpolice.com.)

She adds:

“Plus I’m a 6-foot-tall tranny with bright red hair and tattoos who drives around town in a red convertible,” she said. “I’m very hard to forget.”

I am not usually a fan of either libertarians or joke candidates, but DiMezzo walks the walk…and I hope that she is just one mote (spectacular as she may be) of the havoc that needs to rain down on the entire plague that is the GOP.

Image: John Fernley, Two racehorses, called Sheriff and Bensh, 1835.

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Respite thread? Open thread? Politics thread? I always thought “Respite thread” meant “no politics”? I’m not complaining. I miss the days when every thread was an open thread after 25 comments. too many restricted threads lately for my taste

  5. 5.

    FlyingToaster

    I’d vote for her before I’d vote for “Doctor Shiva” and the ShivaBus.

    I spent today surveying the broadcast channels for ads.  There were 0 Trump ads.  0 ads for Corky Messner.  0 thinly veiled Koch Brothers pro-Republican ads.

    There were a few local (to the Hub) referendum ads.  There were a huge number of PSAs and filler travel ads (“Visit Myrtle Beach!” Really‽  South Carolina:  too small for a country, too large for an insane asylum — during a global pandemic‽‽‽)

    Welcome to the election season of 1860 2020, folks.

    Edited to remove references to voting.  Nobody needs that reminder.

  7. 7.

    Sab

    Puppy brigade just went by. A bunch of very young kids with 10 to 12 week old puppies. Big puppies. Weimeraners and pitbulls and such. So cute.

    Delilah would have gone nuts. Heartening. That’s how these kids are spending their lockdown. Training dogs to be good dogs

    ETA Deliliah was my dog who died this week at age 10. Lovely girl but not well trained. She barked a lot and was rude on walks.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    Is DeMezzo a member of the Church of Satan, or a freelance self-styled Satanist?

    The Satanists have been shockingly good on issues like separation of church and state, and gender rights.  Well, the Church of Satan has.

    I say “shockingly” because I previously thought of them as a sort of joke, “a bunch of hedonists who created a ‘church’ to shock the squares” kind of thing. I don’t remember if they were ever affiliated with Anton LeVay, or if his was a separate group, or what.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    Warning – Politico – https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/19/dem-donors-smash-record-ginsburgs-death-418355

    Donors gave more than $42 million to candidates and groups Saturday via ActBlue, the digital fundraising platform widely used by Democratic candidates and political committees, with more than eight hours to go in the day, according to the ticker on the front page of ActBlue’s website. The service’s previous record was only months old, set when donors flooded money to candidates, bail funds, racial justice causes and other groups on June 2, during the height of the protests over police brutality after George Floyd was killed by an officer in Minneapolis.

    ActBlue’s ticker also showed online givers sending more than $21 million through the platform on Friday night in the hours after Ginsburg’s death was announced. The pace picked up significantly after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would hold a vote for Trump’s nominee despite the presidential election being less than two months away.

    […]

    ActBlue donors also broke the site’s one-hour fundraising record multiple times Friday night, between 9 and 11 p.m. During the 10 p.m. hour, contributions topped $6.3 million. The previous one-hour record was set at $4.3 million just a few weeks ago, when Joe Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.

    Money continued to flow through ActBlue at a breakneck pace Saturday, averaging well over $1 million every 15 minutes for large portions of the day.

    I don’t see the daily ticker on ActBlue’s web page (they show a $6+B grand total number).

    Good, good.

    It’s unfortunate, but the candidates that raise the most money usually win the general election.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Benw

    If Ms DiMezzo doesn’t win the general, she should start her own investigation business. A “six-foot-tall tranny with bright red hair” driving around in her red convertible is… MADAM P.I.!!

    Also F the police!

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    I am liking Ms. DiMezzo’s style.  More from the Boston Globe article:

    Since moving to Keene from Mississippi two years ago, drawn by a loose collective of Libertarian activists known as Free Keene, DiMezzo has been hard to miss. She ran for sheriff as a Libertarian two years ago, and for City Council last year with a platform to legalize magic mushrooms and “Eat the rich.”

    …  She said she has avoided the temptation to read the 14,000-plus comments on the FoxNews story — “I don’t hate myself enough to do that” — but that the reaction in Keene, a college town that leans left, has been mostly positive.
    … For those who are unhappy to discover that they voted for a troll, she said they have only themselves to blame. “This is the consequence of your actions,” she said. “I gave you the rope and you hung yourself. Four thousand people put me into the highest law enforcement position in the county without knowing a thing about me, which is ultimately an argument for anarchism.”
    Marilyn Huston, the Cheshire County GOP chair, did not respond to a call seeking comment. But in an article in the NH Journal, Huston was quoted as saying DiMezzo “does not fall in with the Republican message” during an interview where Huston reportedly referred to DiMezzo as “he” repeatedly.
    DiMezzo shrugs her shoulders at all such things. “A trans person should be able to run for office without ruffling feathers, but whatever,” she said.
    Now that she’s won the nomination, DiMezzo insists that this is more than just a stunt, that she does, in fact, want the job, and is planning to actively campaign against the incumbent sheriff, Democrat Eli Rivera, who is seeking a fifth term in November.
    “I don’t expect to win. And if I do, I suspect that the deputies will quit as soon as I’m sworn in,” she said. “If not, I’m going to give them three options. You can stay at the station and play Xbox. You can go out and police the police. Or you can go home.”

  18. 18.

    Stuart Frasier

    @CaseyL: It’s the Satanic Temple that uses their status as a “religion” to fight for separation of church and state.  They are officially nontheistic and not affiliated with the Church of Satan.  There is a great documentary about them called Hail Satan?  They seem like a pretty fun bunch.

  20. 20.

    tk

    Is it ok in this twitterous age to call someone (even yourself) a transvestite?

    Isn’t that now some kind of hate speech?

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    The NH Journal article.
    Transsexual Satanist Anarchist Is GOP Nominee for Cheshire County Sheriff

    KEENE — New Hampshire’s first trans, anarchist, Satanic candidate for county sheriff says she’s not getting a lot of support from the Republican Party.

    “I can’t imagine they’re happy about this,” said Aria DiMezzo.

    DiMezzo, who is running as a Republican with the campaign slogan “F*** the Police,” said Friday she hasn’t had any help or support for the county or state GOP.

    …. There was an effort in Rindge [NH] to write [longtime GOP candidate Earl] Nelson in as a candidate after concerns were raised on social media about DiMezzo’s gender, religious beliefs, and politics. Nelson got more than 200 write-in votes on Rindge on Tuesday night.

    “People of Rindge did a phenomenal job. Very well done,” DiMezzo said.

    …. DiMezzo said the GOP in Cheshire County has only itself to blame for her candidacy. She ran in 2018 as a Libertarian and got around three percent of the vote.

    “I shouldn’t have won this freaking primary. I should have gotten crushed,” DiMezzo said.

    DiMezzo wants to end the prosecution of drug crimes, sex work, illegal immigration, and anything else that she says do not have an actual victim. She said in a lot of ways, she’s to the left of [Democratic incumbent Eli] Rivera.

    “I’m more liberal than he is,” DiMezzo said. “There’s tons of things people get fined for, arrested for, that don’t actually have any victims.”

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @FlyingToaster: Myrtle Beach is a big mess, but Huntington Beach State Park is 20 miles south and it is great. If I can clear out time before an October 13 start on a project, I’m going camping where water’s warm and the waves are low. My kind of place.

  26. 26.

    Sab

    @MomSense: House is very quiet. Turns out she was our door bell. Also she was very loud and obnoxious and I hated every second of her being loud and obnoxious, but she was insanely affectionate, and my hisband misses that a lot. And now no one is being loudly affectionate. Did not know I would miss that until it isn’t there anymore. Bark bark bark I love you please notice me.+

  27. 27.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Alison Rose:
     

    Susan Collins looked at her polling and decided to pretend to be a slightly decent person again?

    If she loses, as a lame duck she can still help get a Republican stinker on the SC.

  28. 28.

    Chris Johnson

    Heh. I’ve spent a lot of time in Keene: before COVID, all my 12-step meetings were there.

    She should restart the Pumpkin Festival except it’s the SATAN!!!1! Festival. Would definitely get all the college kid votes :)

    It looks like Laconia Bike Week was much less lethal than Sturgis, and much more locked down. I’m keeping an eye on how COVID-tastic NH is, but I might be able to go back to Keene at some stage, at least for shopping.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    Word that the gender reveal fire has reached my wifes church camp. No persons in harms way, but they’re expecting to have to rebuild.

  31. 31.

    dmsilev

    @Alison Rose: She desperately wants to avoid a vote before the election, because if she votes yes it craters her carefully build facade of moderateness and if she votes no the conservative base call her a traitor and write in Pennywise or something. After the election, who knows.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: Satanists are almost universally just atheists that enjoy fucking with the religious right.

    Laws aren’t written around that whole ‘freedom from religion’ part so you kind of have to pick one to fight in court, and that’s one that the christians won’t unexpectedly throw support behind (unlike Jedi, as I think the brits prefer to use).

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    The Lincoln Project folks waited 24 hours after their condolences tweet for this longer message.

    Under no circumstances should a nomination go forward in the United States Senate.

    Our full statement: pic.twitter.com/OP9qhP4IeS

    — The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 19, 2020

    It’s a graphic, so no cut and paste from me. It’s well worth clicking over. (Note the 2nd page).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: Yeah, thankfully nobody I know. We have family friends that are firefighters in the Banning/Beaumont area.

    But the host of that party will almost certainly face criminal negligent homicide charges, and the hosts and guests of the party are likely to be on the hook for the cost of the fire – both fighting it and loss of structures, etc.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    Democrats to-do list late January:

    1. Expand Supreme Court
    2. Add DC & Puerto Rico as states
    3. Open investigations into Trump & Kushner families
    4. Incarcerate anyone who says over dinner “Actually, I’m a vegan”
    5. Sell Florida. Throw in Indiana as a gift with purchase.

    — TBogg (@tbogg) September 20, 2020

    Sorry Betty and Adam.

    Hehe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  48. 48.

    Calouste

    @Another Scott: The idea of a gift with a purchase is that it makes the deal more enticing. I’m not sure Indiana qualifies for that. Than again, I’m not sure you can actually sell Florida for more than $1.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: Wow, they threw down a marker with that one, didn’t they?  Laid out just how unforgivable that choice would be, then acknowledge that McConnell will do it all anyway, and that everyone who participates will be stained from this.

    Nicely done.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    She may be a proclaimed libertarian, and running as a Rethug, but “eat the rich” is not in the wheelhouse of either group.  More like “worship the rich, and beg for their leavings.”

  52. 52.

    FlyingToaster

    @Calouste: Florida is worth plenty.  They’re a net contributor (pay more in taxes than they get back).

    When I was at IU, we had a Socialist-Realist poster on our fridge: “Stop US Authoritarianism!  Get us out of Indiana!”

  53. 53.

    Baud

    @Another Scott:

    I’m not sure why people were worried about them. They surely knew that the next president was going to replace RBG, even if she didn’t die before the inauguration.

  54. 54.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Sab: Your Delilah was my Cato the cat. 12 years of incessant meowing, whenever wherever. He spent many hours of his life in the garage, which he liked, but you could still hear him.

    On the other hand, he was the sweetest boy ever. Loved for me to pick him up and hug him. Wanted to be friends with dogs and was “out” for every party I threw to greet the guests.

    Who knew that a lot of his strange behavior…scratching his head until it bled, which the vet thought was an allergy, was likely a brain tumor. He started having seizures one evening when he was 12 and we said goodbye the next day.

    His sister Clio missed him not one bit and lived 7 more years in quiet bliss.

  55. 55.

    Jinchi

    I am not usually a fan of either libertarians or joke candidates, but DiMezzo walks the walk

    Sounds a lot better than the QAnon wingers winning primaries around the country.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    trump is putting on quite a show in North Carolina this evening, including bragging that he extorted $5B out of Larry Ellison and the Waltons so that he’d let them buy tik-tok for a government-sanctioned education program for to make good patriots in history. Trump didn’t know Abraham Lincoln was a Republican until after he was elected president.

    Aaron Rupar @atrupar· 1h
    Holy shit. Trump says that as a condition of TikTok’s sale, he tried to shake down Oracle to put $5 billion into a fund “so we can educate people as to the real history of our country — the real history, not the fake.”

    he’s also got his howler monkeys chanting “Fill the seat!” barely twenty-four hours after RBG’s death.

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    I noticed that RBG had died on Rosh Hashanah.  Wondered if she hung on for it.  Interesting how terminal patients sometimes hold out for a holiday, or a special date (a birthday or anniversary).  Perhaps that is just chance, but maybe not.

    ====

    Also remembering how GHWBush replaced Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas.  I remember the stricken faces of the wealthy ladies at the house tour when the news broke on that.

    Of course the pundits said that Bush lost because of the economy.  (Just as the economically anxious voted in Trump.  Not.)  I saw those women realizing that they were being thrown overboard to appease the party’s conservatives for the upcoming election.  They couldn’t believe it.

    This could blow back really badly on McConnell and Trump.

    You cannot replace RBG with another lady parts.  You just cannot.

  58. 58.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s quite possible that Tom is using Respite Thread to indicate that there’s nothing in here to make you want to scream with rage or slit your wrists. 

    LOL!

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @Stuart Frasier: @Martin: When a state or town allows religious symbols to be placed on government land, claiming they’re being “religiously neutral”, the Satanic Temple often shows up with their own symbol to be neutrally displayed next to the others.  The tactic often works – either the government backs down, or refuses and the Temple has grounds to take them to court.

  61. 61.

    Zelma

    I’ve been thinking about the constitutional implications of this situation.  The fact is that Trump has every right, indeed perhaps a responsibility, to make a nomination on RBG’s death.  He could choose not to so close to the election, but he really can’t be faulted for making the nomination.  Likewise, the Senate has every right, indeed perhaps the responsibility, to begin the process of voting on the nomination – which would mean a full and fair examination of the candidate’s credentials including the usual security checks or whatever this is called.  This procedure certainly should not be rushed or short-circuited a la Cavanaugh.  Should such a procedure be followed, the Senate would have every right to vote on the nomination and the Senators could choose, based on the results of the election (because this can’t be done in 44 days) to say aye or nay.

    But, of course, this can’t happen because the Republicans chose in 2016 to ignore the proper procedure for nominating and approving a Supreme Court justice.  In fact, the whole process of judicial appointments was overturned when McConnell refused, using the filibuster, to allow President Obama to make any judicial appointments, which led to the Democrats ending the filibuster for judicial appointments, which led to the Republicans’s ending it for Supreme Court appointments which means that the Democrats have no choice but to end the filibuster should they gain the Senate majority.

    Which means that, should the Democrats win the presidency and both houses, they can enact their program which will be very popular which means that the Republicans will lose even more support, which means…it’s the butterfly effect.

  62. 62.

    Quiltingfool

    Huh.  5 billion for educating our youth to be proper patriots.  I’m gonna bet that most of that will go into Trump’s pocket, one way or the other.  My second bet is that whatever educational materials do get sent to schools will be crap.  My third bet will be that after a year or so, those materials will get stuffed into a storage room, never to see the light of day.  You see, in order to make sure teachers are using this program, you have to have someone oversee that; or, you have to develop a nationwide test to see if the kiddos learned anything.  My principals rarely ventured into my classroom to observe, nor did they ever seemed too interested in examining my curriculum or lesson plans.  I think they didn’t do that because they weren’t smart enough to understand science (I had several stupid principals – one truly believed the earth was flat and tried to get into arguments with me re evolution.  Sigh.)

    I can tell you from my experience as a teacher, a cursory nod towards “patriotic” lessons will happen, and then in a year or so, it will go away.  I cannot tell you how much money was sunk into crappy educational products (that were bought because it would “fix” whatever learning deficit existed) and those products were discarded as casually as one would discard a used tissue.  Oh, and will there be money for teacher training?  Lord, no.

    I swear, Trump could fuck up WalMart, so don’t expect too much out of this new educational push.   He ain’t gonna give up one dime of this bribe.

  63. 63.

    Dan B

    The Act Blue money haul is oner $67 million.

    An ad campaign that explains that a Trump Supreme Court could end abortion and then birth control plus the ACA targeted at young people and women would be great. There are plenty of other groups I’m not thinking of at the moment.  Most every minority would be on trouble.

  64. 64.

    J R in WV

    @Sab:

    Sorry to hear about your loss of pupper Deliliah — we too have lost wonderful critters over the years. I won’t go into all of them, but we feel for your loss. I hope that memories of Deliliah will keep you warm for many years.

    Next door neighbors had a really big dog named Deliliah she was interesting to know. Aged out not long ago…

  65. 65.

    Ian

    @Alison Rose:

    She and Gardner will make those promises all day.  I do not expect their votes in the lame duck session. It would be hard, but not impossible for McConnell to schedule a vote for the election.  It would also be politically unsound, whereas the lame duck session is always full of the controversial votes they didn’t want to make pre-election.

    Murkowski is the only republican senator I believe so far.  The best hope I think we have of holding the supreme court seat is for them to pick someone so awful that one or two more republicans just cant vote for them.  If this can occur Schumer and company can hopefully run out the clock until January 20th.

  66. 66.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Ian: At the end of the impeachment trial this past February, I remember that the Republicans were hoping to wind it up on a Saturday, but Schumer and friends were able to delay the final vote till the next Wednesday, after trump’s state of the union address. Schumer knew how to work the Senate rules, but he couldn’t delay a vote indefinitely.      But in a lame duck session, all bets are off. There will be defeated republican incumbents, hopefully a lot, who will owe Trump nothing but a middle finger. And if Trump nloses, and causes a republican wipeout, some of the 20 or so senators up for reelection in 2022 may calculate that voting for trump’s pick may hurt them and their party more than it helps. So I’m  hoping this nomination gets delayed past the November election.

  67. 67.

    Nutmeg again (formerly MoxieM)

    The comments on the original Globe article are fab. Lots of New Hampshirites crabbing that this is why the Democrats/Liberals are are “wrecking the country”. Lefties responding with belly laugh. 4,000 New Hampshire Repubs in one rural county voted for her!

  68. 68.

    bmoak

    Sorry, but it looks like she’s part of the Free State/Free Keene Project, which was the big libertarian plan to flood towns in New Hampshire with incoming residents and take over local governments.  They may say F*ck The Police, but they really mean F*ck Anyone Who  Works in The Public Sector and like to harass and be a dick to anyone employed by local government.

    Free Keene also believes that mask laws and social distancing requirements are tyrannical.

  69. 69.

    Groucho48

    @dmsilev:

     

    Yep. Her whole statement kind of makes that clear…She is fine with Trump nominating a candidate and for the Senate to do all the vetting, immediately, but, there shouldn’t be a vote until after the election. She says the person elected on Nov. 3 should make the pick, but, who believes she means that?

  70. 70.

    David Evans

    @Martin: The Satanic Temple often look to me like agents provocateurs.

    1 Do something that looks like allegiance to (the evil) Satan, possibly involving a statue of Baphomet.

    2 Wait for Christians to attack you because you are (evil) Satan-worshippers.

    3 Laugh at stupid Christians who should have known that you meant the good Satan (whom most people haven’t heard of)

    4 Success!

    It sometimes feels like a version of triggering the libs.

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