I am seriously considering replacing my bones with adamantium and becoming wolverine https://t.co/W9i1YhJWU7
— the women of kilgore trout’s office (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 21, 2021
Imagine being as old as Mike Pompeo and lacking any comprehension of the word “friend.” https://t.co/ZzuhIWw5c5
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 19, 2021
The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has not been a fan of former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for quite some time. He was such a bad diplomat that he managed to dislodge Rex Tillerson for the title of Worst Secretary of State Ever. His displays of Tartuffery while in office were legion. He left Foggy Bottom with little to show for his nearly three years of service beyond leaving the State Department in pretty bad shape.
Despite all his bad behavior, however, I confess to feeling a small measure of pity for the man. Mike Pompeo is unloved by so many people. One U.S. ambassador described Pompeo to the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser as “like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.” Last year his hometown newspaper begged him to stop returning to Kansas during his time as secretary of state because his ambitious politicking was so unseemly. His 2021 efforts to go viral on social media have not worked out as planned. And after the latest inspector general report of Pompeo’s behavior as secretary of state, it is increasingly clear that this man has no real friends…
Here is the real tell: based on everything that has been reported, can anyone imagine Mike or Susan Pompeo going to a friend’s house on the weekend to help stuff and address envelopes? Take care of a friend’s pet? Pick someone up from the airport? I have had to read and write about Mike Pompeo for four years now. I have met him once. What comes through loud and clear is that he is someone who views public service primarily as a way to promote himself and live off the taxpayer’s largesse…
I'm against packing the Supreme Court. I'm probably pretty close to Pompeo in terms of what kind of Court I'd like to see. By my God, this takes a serious lack of self-awareness to say this, coming from the Trump Admin. https://t.co/GKJdwJCLd1
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) April 20, 2021
Now if Pompeo had objected to these things, he might have retained some standing to crticize "partisanship" towards the Supreme Court. He did not.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) April 20, 2021
the pollyanna from hell
Surveying the gqp field is hilarious and harrowing; which of these clowns will be most supernaturally dangerous and psychotic?
NotMax
Pompeo and derpenstance.
NotMax
@the pollyanna from hell
“We’re gonna need a bigger
busclown car.”Comrade Colette
@NotMax:
Smaller, to heighten the contradictions.
James E Powell
I know it’s not news to anyone here, but it is amazing that ever single one of these Republican big shots is a corrupt asshole. I can’t think of any exceptions. And the more recently they entered the scene, the worse they are.
None of them have any achievements or goals other than self-aggrandizement, making the rich richer, and making everyone else more miserable. In many cases, their own families can’t stand them. But the press/media treat them all as serious, talented, and principled. Why, oh why, won’t Joe Biden work with them?
eclare
@James E Powell: This 1000%. Cruz’s daughters hate him judging by video.
The Dangerman
My far too early guess would be Ivanka or Junior. I assume Daddy is either in jail or dead.
West of the Rockies
@eclare:
When your own daughters think you’re creepy, you might be a creepy.
Also, Piggy Pompeo’s bloated ego is something to behold. The man has all the appeal of a leftover tuna casserole from last October.
Mike G
What comes through loud and clear is that he is someone who views public service primarily as a way to promote himself and live off the taxpayer’s largesse…
So pretty much like every political appointee in the Trump or GW Bush assministrations.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
Why is it amazing that they are corrupt assholes?
Their political concepts are corrupt.
They are assholes, assholes deluxe in fact. That’s the bigger fancier model of asshole, the one announces their assholyness upon their arrival and any time they are in public.
They have no skills other than being corrupt assholes (deluxe). Of course they are going to be corrupt assholes. It is physically, morally, spiritually impossible for them to be anything but corrupt assholes.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
The amazing part is that it is all of them. Even the ones who are touted as decent, Romney, Collins, etc., are just assholes who say stupid things and do evil things.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
Tuna casserole that has been sitting under the window, in the sun or heat lamps when there is no sun, since last October. It’s ripe, it smells, it’s moldy, and very, very likely deadly disease ridden.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
I’m sorry, I don’t find it all that amazing.
This is who republican politicians have been my entire life. And I’m old(ish anyway). The only part is that it wasn’t a obvious 3-4 decades ago, they didn’t say the quiet parts out loud. The current crop is actually proud enough of their crappy political point of view of fuck over everyone, steal every thing possible, provide zero advancement of any kind to the human race that they say it out loud.
Mary G
Pompeo is useless. Also, in serious proof of the horseshoe theory, the Rose Twitter crowd is just as cray-cray:
I am not aware exactly what a polycule is and that’s all right with me.
smike
@Ruckus:
Well said.
opiejeanne
@Mary G:
I looked it up. It means they’re all connected sexually, in non-monagamous relationships. They are swingers.
rikyrah
?????
rikyrah
@opiejeanne:
??????
Mary G
He murdered Mayor George Moscone too. So Tucker has the gay panic AKA Twinkie addiction. The yearbook photo shows him wearing the world’s smallest bow tie, so bad taste too.
prostratedragon
@Mary G: Or maybe he’s just glommed onto the fact that that picture shows him to be the twittiest twit anyone has ever seen.
“Next up: New Horizons in Twitterdom, featuring Tucker Carlson.”
Keith P.
Fixed.
montanareddog
@West of the Rockies: Add Mitch McConnell and Paul Gosar to the list of prominent Rethugs who have been publicly disowned by children or siblings
montanareddog
@montanareddog: Oh, and Santa Monica’s very own Heydrich, Stephen Miller
Rusty
They are all corrupt. Yesterday the late night post mentioned our newest supreme court justice, Amy Barrett has a book deal. Turns out it’s a $2 million advance. She hasn’t done anything. It looks like a payoff. Kavanaugh had all his debt mysteriously disappear. It’s time to pack the court.
Cameron
DeSantis appears to be the flavor of the month for 2024. Chris Christie has long passed his expiration date (although that was a claim made about Joe Biden, too); “Hawley” spelled backwards is “Wanker:” and, as has been noted elsewhere, Ted Cruz’s face looks like all the Batman villains squashed into one. Pompeo? If Kansas is your home state, and its residents can’t stand you, I don’t see you going very far towards the Republican nomination.
debbie
@Mary G:
Ah, in whiteface then. ?
lowtechcyclist
Well, I all of a sudden feel unclean this morning. Tucker’s yearbook? I recognized the names of some of the orgs in other people’s blurbs there.
That fucker and I share an alma mater.
Even that tangential connection to him is making me feel like I have slugs crawling all over me. I’ll get over it, I know, but ick. Just ick.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Objectively, I don’t think someone who weights 350 pounds can run.
Moreover, he didn’t say president of which country.
lowtechcyclist
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
The country of the merely vile, hateful, and despicable, but not actually insane, Republicans.
Ken
The version I saw had “Dick Tracy villains” but this works too.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
“Ish”? Ri-i-i-i-ight.
I’m a few years younger than you (I think), and I’m an old fart. I don’t feel old mentally/psychologically, but mirrors don’t lie. [Frankly, I still have a tough time dealing with getting here so fast.]
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I was going to say that the amazing part was that TFG’s maladministration was competent to find so many of them, but then I realized that it ain’t that hard, when the entire pool of applicants is corrupt. So even Jared could handle it.
Morzer
Please tell me that Marco Rubio is going to try and run in 2024. I really would enjoy seeing him and Christie plunging off a cliff together locked in an embrace of utter mutual loathing – AGAIN! I suppose it’s too much to hope that JEB! might.. well, not exactly run, but maybe waddle … again…
J R in WV
@Rusty:
Maybe it’s actually time to impeach actually obviously crooked justices? Or even try them for their corruption in public court with a jury first?
Give them a chance to resign their position AND their law license or face trial and impeachment? Dig out the rot~!!~
planetjanet
@Mary G: Balloon-Juice really is a learning experience.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Every time I read about that, my first thought is that Tucker Carlson is likely attracted to men.
West of the Rockies
@lowtechcyclist:
So you’re cut from the same cloth then?//
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl: Wonkette reminds us that Carlson once bragged on air about beating up a gay man in college. Possibly not factual, but he obviously felt that telling such a story was important for his cred on Fox.
(An odd detail he added to that story was that he grabbed his victim by the genitals before slamming him into the wall.)
The Dan White thing is ugly, but what is he afraid of? Is there anyone in the Fox audience who would be bothered by that?
Poe Larity
@Ken: Not smart enough to be villians. More like villians incompetent minions.
Just Chuck
@opiejeanne: Not all polyamorous relationships are about swinging, partner-swapping, or as some poly circles call it, “polyfuckery”. To said non-swinger poly types, “polycule” has connotations more like an extended family that includes current and former partners, not necessarily active sexual relationships.
billcinsd
To be clear the Republicans have been packing the court since 2010. When in power at the legislative level they did not allow many of President Obama’s judicial choices to be approved, holding the spots open until Trump could fill them. The whole Garland and then Barret things also were clearly court packing, too.