Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Please don’t feed the bears.

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

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

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

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Let’s finish the job.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

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

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

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Early Indicator

Late Night GOP Death Cult Open Thread: Early Indicator

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Warning — Return of the self-styled Grandma Killer!

Have most people who spend their time online complaining about 2020 actually had a bad year? Lost a job or loved one? Most folks I see basically missed out on a vacation.

If you, personally, have not suffered, does suffering actually exist? And if suffering does not actually exist, how can consequences be demanded?

Sure, some people whine about being laid off, or losing loved ones. Poor Bethany has been forced to spend 24/7 time with her ‘beloved’ kids and Darling Husband, without even the blessed balm of salon visits, upscale gym, spa days, or field trips. Talk about unspeakable misery!

To repeat what I said back in May:

Prominent RW ‘thoughtleader’ Bethany Mandel is married to Washington Examiner Executive Editor Seth Mandel. She has a full-time job raising their four kids, so she doesn’t need a second job (not even in the got-to-keep-my-networking-up-to-date sense), if she becomes too toxic for her usual media outlets to use her services for a few years.

This makes her, like Megan McArdle, the perfect spokesperson for marketing the latest ‘conservative’ arguments in favor of kakistocracy. It doesn’t hurt, IMO, that she’s a sloppy writer and quite possibly a stupid person; her defenders can claim She never meant it like that, and besides, only a horrible person would attack four little kids’ MOMMY!!!…

Today’s trial run, as I see it: The pandemic, at least here in the Most Blessed Country in the World(tm), was a minor inconvenience that Democrats will attempt to use as a legislative weapon in favor of Those People. Let us never forget that The Deficit is a monster, forever waiting to devour our precious upper-middle-class kiddies’ patrimony for the benefit of Those People! Such self-centered delusions…

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  8. 8.

    Ruckus

    OK, I didn’t know what to watch so I’ve got David Letterman, My Next Guest on, with President Obama.

    The concept of listening to a person who is comfortable with himself, doesn’t have to prove himself worthy of breathing, is smarter than my left sock, and isn’t a flaming racist ass as president is just so far and away different than the last 4 yrs that it is stunning to say the very least. It is amazing to find out that human beings do not have to be so fucking selfish that nothing else in the world is important to them besides how they look, how everyone has to think of them in order to be president, that it can be about the job, the country and the humanity of all of us.

    I have no idea where I’m going with this, but it is a theme of my entire life, of looking at people and wondering how they have the concept that they don’t fit into the same world as what I see all around me, in many countries, several continents, over decades, that humans are humans. Yes some of them seem to be less and some more but the reality is that so many see themselves as better because they have money or because they have a certain color of skin or both and those are not measures of humanity, of being human, they are constructs made to separate us and they are bullshit.

    I’m still listening/watching David Letterman and President Obama and thanking someone, anyone, everyone for the 8 yrs that this man was our president to tell us that there are real people who work in politics and want to make this country better, every day, minute, second of time and not be for just enriching themselves, to the detriment of all the rest of us.

  9. 9.

    Redshift

    As far as I can tell, Republicans’ propaganda goal has been to convince people the pandemic isn’t so bad so they can blame the economic devastation entirely on “Democratic” lockdowns and restrictions. I wish our people could have fought against that better, but there was so much bullshit.

  14. 14.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    The pro life party? One in one thousand Americans have died from Covid because Republicans not only chose to do nothing, they have actively attacked and sabotaged efforts to prevent the spread of the damned plague. There have to be consequences for a President who chose to let Americans die and sabotaged efforts to save lives. If he can waltz out of office without repercussions because it’s OK for the President to kill American citizens then our fucking Constitution isn’t fit to line a bird cage.

    The President is a murderer and the Republican party has aided and abetted his crimes.

  15. 15.

    No One You Know

    I just attended an EarthKeeper conference where Dr. Bruce Lipton said we may see empty oceans as early as 2048 if present trends continue. Other grim news about insect extinction in general and pollinators in particular followed. Cornell University Labs in collaboration with the Audubon Society found a billion birds fewer this year in North America.

    I remembered something about a huge tuna breeding ground off Japan targeted for some underwater development.

    • The scientist’s conclusion was that humanity must change or die in an evolutionary leap. The leap depends upon reconnecting with the nature we evolved from.

    The single step to start was take 11 minutes every day to reconnect with a reality bigger than the headlines used to divide and agitate us. Relax and meditate, IOW. Then act from calmness, not panic or fear. Those feelings are poor counselors.

    I’m still pondering all the info. It’s given me much to think about.

  16. 16.

    frosty

    @Ruckus: This is just a quick note to say that I really enjoy your comments.
    And you’ve had an interesting work life. Titanium bicycle frames??

  17. 17.

    smike

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    You just don’t understand, being in a measly 10 bedroom mansion is just like a prison.

    Worse than that. If you can’t have help in, it’s hell living in a dirty mansion. I mean, come on… Entertaining is out of the question.

  22. 22.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Heh heh.

    If she and her cleaners are careful she can have them in. She may need to just park her ass somewhere else, like poolside or in the cabana, while they clean.

  24. 24.

    Kent

    Never heard of Bethany Mandel before so I googled her.

    Right wing unhinged Jewish Trump supporter? Okay…..

    I guess that was an open niche that someone needed to fill. Nature abhors a vacuum.

    Doesn’t mean I have to listen to her.

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    @frosty:

    Steel and titanium. Owned a bike shop, seemed like a good idea at the time. Like a lot of others at the time though, while I knew that GWB was an idiot, I didn’t expect him to be near as big of one as he was. He wasn’t helped by his VP being from Mars. Ended up after that debacle with basically nothing. Couldn’t of course find a job, had to live with a friend, who saved my life, so now at 71 still working and trying to figure out how to retire as I’ve been working for 59 yrs now. Have finally had just about enough.

    Nice thunderstorm rolling through, rather windy and raining more than just a bit. NOAA warns winds may be up to 50mph, good times.

  27. 27.

    Luciamia

    “Thoughtleader”? Dear God, don’t tell me that’s a real word? ” Influencer” is bad enough!

  32. 32.

    Brachiator

    Have most people who spend their time online complaining about 2020 actually had a bad year? Lost a job or loved one? Most folks I see basically missed out on a vacation.

    This is one of the reasons that California hospitals are filling up and there practically no ICUs available.

    I don’t have to go far to encounter people who have been directly affected by the pandemic. And because I have some health issues that make me vulnerable, my caution is not an affectation.

    And because I can see and think past my own nose, I understand that if more people took this thing seriously, we would be better able to mitigate its affect on us.

    But I hear people on local radio and in some of the places I still have to physically visit insisting that the pandemic isn’t serious and should not be allowed to shut things down. They also expect hospitals to magically cope with more patients without it costing them anything, especially not a tax increase.

  33. 33.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Yep, rather strong for LA. I do remember I believe it was 1969 when it rained for so long and hard enough that the LA river was full as was every flood channel in the LA area. I remember driving over a small creek and the water was at the base of the bridge, splashing over it onto the bridge. And the mud slides were so strong that houses in Glendora were buried up to the eves. And that was nothing to the one storm I saw in OH, was driving home and there were lighting strikes all over the road. Didn’t see one hit a car but was expecting a strike any second. I recall seeing 7 lighting strikes at one time and I was driving into them. No one seemed at all concerned, of course there was nothing that we could do.

  34. 34.

    Elizabelle

    When I see something like that go viral, I wonder, “did Ellen actually say anything like that?” and — yeah, she did.

    Reuters:  8 April 2020:
    Quarantine like jail joke brings fierce backlash for Ellen DeGeneres

    … DeGeneres, whose daily television talk show had been off the air for three weeks because of a stay-at-home order, returned on Wednesday with a show filmed by her wife, actress Portia De Rossi, from one of their California homes.
    “One thing that I’ve learned from being in quarantine is that people – this is like being in jail, is what it is,” quipped DeGeneres, who was filmed in an armchair looking out on vast, grassy lawns and mountains.
    “It’s mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 10 days and everyone in here is gay,” she said, laughing at her own joke.
    While DeGeneres also praised health workers and other on the frontlines battling the coronavirus epidemic, the prison joke did not go down well.  ….

  36. 36.

    Gvg

    I am human enough that the fact that 300,000 Americans died of a disease this year makes it a bad year, even though no one in my immediate family has died. Several members of my extended family have had it and lived, even though they were all high risk. 2 of them are dying anyway of cancer and it’s surprising they survived COVID. 1 is in hospice, I think the other will be. A lot of people lost jobs and are threatened with losing their homes but I am not. It is still a bad year and I care.

    if it gets bad enough, things will affect myself or my immediate family. My parents are sad about their relatives so I am sad for them. Geez, I am just an ordinary human and not a selfish jerk.

  37. 37.

    raven

    @Gvg: We’ve said of often that we are lucky to live where we do. We can get out an walk around, most people are masking, our financial situation may have improved because we are not spending as much as we would have under normal circumstances. We’re giving money to as many causes as we can and no one we know had died. That doesn’t mean we don’t care we just feel fortunate.

  38. 38.

    ThresherK

    On a shopping trip in spring I was able to get t.p. (which was a big deal at the time) and everything on my ordinary list, but they were out of ranch Doritos (wife’s favorite, special request) and we had to settle for nacho flavor.

    The joker in me called my Dad and asked “Was this deprivation and want what it was like to grow up during WWII?”

    That is the limit of what I missed out on. My wife and I are lucky; our jobs are still full, and she’s a healthcare worker who will get the vaccine much more quickly than I.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    I’ve been pretty fortunate throughout the pandemic. A (minor) scare or two because my wife is a healthcare worker with daily potential exposure, as is my daughter. But other than lockdowns, no significant “stress.” [My wife’s minor scares ended up being negative, and now she’s had her first shot of vaccine, thank FSM. Not sure when my daughter gets it, probably February or March.] I hope I haven’t jinxed myself now.

    But as for Bethany Mandel: Christ, what an asshole.

  41. 41.

    germy

    was 2020 a “bad year” or are we simply approaching the inevitable conclusion of living under an economic system that is fundamentally incompatible with human dignity and happiness?

    — ☕️ Pumpkin Spice Lesbian ? (@zenalbatross) December 27, 2020

  44. 44.

    TerryC

    I’m 73 and staying safe! My wife and I have been lucky and 2020 hasn’t done much bad to us. We live 5 miles out of downtown Ann Arbor and have 19 acres of woods and meadows to isolate on. Friends come out, we stay 20’ away, and play my disc golf courses. (My son’s disc golf retail outlet increased its sales by 52% in 2020 over 2019.)

    My wife retired in May. I had retired 6 years ago. We know and know of many people with Covid but no one close, and no family. (One of her book club members spent 195 days in ICU.) We have suffered no economic loss. I’ve never once run out of hamburgers or vodka.

    Our tenants in our neighboring duplex are months behind in their rent but know they are safe. (And they were behind before Covid hit. That’s the way things are. The five of them have 7 cars, two of which run.) ?

  45. 45.

    NorthLeft12

    She presented an extremely strong argument for a wealth tax on rich and obnoxious folks.

    Just to be clear, a wealth tax on all of the rich, with a 10% surcharge for the obnoxious.
    I wonder if someone could develop an obnoxisity scale to penalize those people who are particularly publicly loathsome?

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