this is not actually the commonly understood definition of the word. it refers to special ops personnel in the military and/or particularly hardcore members. It's also the name of the foundation established by Eddie Gallagher, accused war criminal pardoned by Trump. https://t.co/IhHUzCJoVF
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 15, 2021
So Brownshirts.
— Malaclypse (@Mal_A_Clypse) June 15, 2021
West Point graduate and global d*ck-swinger Pompeo feels entitled to a legion of his very own. And since he doesn’t have Eric Prince money, he wants *us* to pay for that army…
https://t.co/uRd9IRSU7w pic.twitter.com/mWWAhrlyRI
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 16, 2021
We really don't need political supporters imagining themselves as Delta Force right now, ok?
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 16, 2021
a thing that i find hysterically funny is that mike pompeo clearly still thinks he has a promising future in american electoral politics
— FREE THE WEREWOLF MACHINE (@golikehellmachi) June 15, 2021
When even Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza can see right through you, Mr. Pompeo… you’re pretty transparent!
The relentless ambition of Mike Pompeo
… The former Trump administration official — he served as secretary of state and head of the CIA — launched a super PAC on Tuesday torun for president in 2024support Republicans running for office in 2022.Known as CAVPAC (Champion American Values PAC), Pompeo debuted the new organization in an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt…
If there was a star made in the Trump administration — outside of Trump himself — it was Pompeo, who was plucked from the relative obscurity of the Kansas congressional delegation to head the CIA. So famously did he and Trump get along — all part of the Pompeo plan — that the then-President made him secretary of state, the nation’s top diplomat.
(In a lengthy 2019 profile of Pompeo by the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, Pompeo was referred to as a “heat-seeking missile” for Trump’s um, posterior, by an unnamed former ambassador.)…
New supplementary reading (I doubt the timing is coincidental):
State Dept staffers say Mike Pompeo was obsessed with his presidential prospects and showed a disregard for his staff and work—once, he expressed annoyance at having to facilitate the rescue of an American hostage because he wanted to nap. New @newyorker: https://t.co/sgv8JIMuit
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) June 17, 2021
MattF
I read somewhere that Pompeo always kept an open Bible on his desk. Cillizza (of all people) has the word for it: AMBITION.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Andrew Cuomo. Rudy & Andy Giuliani. Pompeo. Tancredo. Arpaio. Joey & Nick Bosa.
Credits to my Italian-American people.
Villago Delenda Est
Pompeo is a perma-knob. “Knob” is a Hudson High (AKA West Point) term for an incoming cadet, prior to graduating to “plebe” status for the rest of the term.
He’s also a dominionist. This means that his oath to the Constitution now can be seen as “purpose of evasion”.
Frankensteinbeck
Fantasy Brownshirts. They imagine themselves as Stormtroopers as they sit in their recliners and scream at their family to bring them the remote. Well deserved feelings of inadequacy and the resentment caused by those is a major element of the conservative movement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and his wife claiming prime office space in CIA HQ and calling herself “First Lady of the CIA”, then organizing the proto-fundraising Madison Dinners (I think they called them) in the State Department. Susan Pompeo is everything they always accused Hillary Clinton of.
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole!
trollhattan
Doesn’t Marshall mean convicted war criminal?
Pompeo seems comically over the top as a potential candidate which is why I fear his chances of sliding into the nomination if Trump doesn’t, are higher than folks want to believe. He is the Republican Party, down to each bad habit and vile personality trait. And he’s not as ignorant as Donny, either. Think Ted Cruz with a military background.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jerzy Russian:
Everything we know about Pompeo perfectly encapsulated in four words.
Just Chuck
Like I said before, “Pipehitter Pompeo” has a nice ring to it. Hang it around his neck.
trollhattan
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose:
Your people also gave us pizza and Barolo, so in sum you’re still ahead. But to be fair the good/bad gap could be wider (Alito).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s the thing, the Brownshirts and most of the Nazis leading them were actual vets of a really bad war and still in their physical prime in the 1920’s. Not a pack of middle age cosplayers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: I’m done trying to make predictions about their side– even pre-trump I thought McCain was done in late ’07 and they’d never nominate Romney– but I still think Pompeo can’t out-goon Hawley or Cotton or DeSantis, I think he’d wind up in a five-way tie for third place with Rubio and Christie and Haley and let’s say, Moe.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Pompeo doesn’t seem (to me) to stand out from the crowd, the way TFG did. Of course, he thinks he’s special.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@trollhattan: Yes, but Pompero doesn’t have the sense of theater like Trump had. Same problem Musk had with SNL; company meetings aren’t the same as public speaking.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: One reason I always say, keep your eye on Fucker Carlson.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Nobody has what Trump did. He’s a unique package of vile traits Republican voters love, who ran in unusual electoral circumstances both times. It’s very hard to use him to predict what will happen in the future. Certainly the base wants white supremacy, wants all the freaks and coloreds exterminated, and wants it now. But they also want their stupidity validated. And other stuff. I can’t predict 2024.
Parfigliano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Susan Pompeo is a modern day Marie Antoinette. Hope her and hubby meet the same fate. Literally.
MisterForkbeard
@MattF: Pompeo is the guy who thinks he’s smart, charismatic and sly, but is walking around wearing a “I’m with Stupid” shirt with the arrow pointing upwards.
Really though, Pompeo isn’t obviously racist like Trump. He’s not “rich”. He’s a bog-standard Republican that doesn’t seem to generate any kind of enthusiasm. I don’t think he’s going anywhere so long as people like Tucker Carlson are out there with bigger megaphones and bigger racism.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@MattF:
He had to keep it well aerated to prevent it from bursting into flame.
WhatsMyNym
Just another grifter. How many can the Right support on an ongoing basis?
James E Powell
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose:
As Senator Geary says, salt of the earth, backbones of this country.
trollhattan
Speaking of assholes.
Show-Me State takes on a whole other meaning.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@Jerzy Russian:
Quoted for Truth.
Frankensteinbeck
@MisterForkbeard:
Tucker Carlson’s biggest problem is that he can’t campaign and host his show simultaneously. The time, effort, and travel conflicts are unbridgeable. The moment he hits the campaign trail in the primaries, he has to trade in his megaphone for a much, much smaller one. Being a TV host is his biggest advantage, and he will lose it. He doesn’t have Trump’s ability to get the rest of the news industry to give him billions in free advertising by being a humorous clown, either.
Skepticat
I thought spitoons generally are kept on the floor.
trollhattan
@Frankensteinbeck:
Donny did enough “Apprentices” to not need the show running after his escalator ride. But, li’l Tucker’s audience is a much, much narrower demographic and I have a hunch he’s far less well known among the American not insane cohort.
Frankensteinbeck
@trollhattan:
Totally different situation. Trump had half a century of being a public caricature of a rich man, so much of an icon that movie characters were written to satirize him. He didn’t need or use the Apprentice to keep himself in the public eye electorally. He managed that by convincing every news network to come see what the clown is doing today. Carlson does not have that ‘cameras eagerly watching an empty podium’ power Trump had over the media. All he’s got is his show, and when he starts campaigning it, he trades that in for a roughly equal level of coverage as any other republican primary candidate. To magnify this problem, Carlson has only two advantages, his ability to spew red meat bigotry, and the show. He gets chopped in half the moment he starts campaigning.
He is by no means impossible. I don’t know what will happen in 2024. But his biggest strength now becomes a weakness then, and that’s important to keep in mind.
Frankensteinbeck
Pompeo is so uncharismatic that he is being forgotten in his own thread.
UncleEbeneezer
The thing about Tucker is, he’s perfectly fine as a messenger of White Supremacy/Grievance and totally the kind of douche that Trump supporters love because his show feeds them crude bigotry. But I’m not sure he would be someone that the pickup-truck MAGA set would be enthusiastic about actually voting for. He’s too much of a wimp in their view and we know that toxic masculinity/manliness is very important to them. I’m not sure they would come out in droves to vote for him the way they did for Trump. While he holds the same disgusting views, I’m not sure he’s enough “like us” to have the same appeal as TFG. I’m more worried about an Abbott or DeSantis, though I think even they would struggle to get the kind of crawl-over-broken-glass-to-support draw that Trump has with his disciples.
James E Powell
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not just the clown himself, but the freak show he attracted. Every news organization loves those assholes.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Another Scott
A day without Karens is a day that, um, …
Short thread.
I feel for him. And for everyone who has been there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl from Maryland
The 2016 election ended my confidence in my ability to predict the winning candidate of a parties’ primaries. Generally, based on a totally anecdotal and personal experience, I felt the candidate with the most presence, one who looked like a leader (as Biden did at the G-7 meeting and with Putin), had an edge. And so I look at Pompeo or De Santis, and I think, an ugly stupid person with bad oratorical skills, no way. But then Trump won the primary, so I no longer trust my instincts.
Villago Delenda Est
@James E Powell:
Because they’re great for ratings, and mercenary activity is what the MSM is all about.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl from Maryland:
When Trump said Mexicans were rapists, I knew he was the leading contender.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, at the White House… WH.gov:
Good, good. Especially glad to see XTS working in a prominent position. Team building is important, as is including people who aren’t as lefty as we are.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
Video captures Navy SEAL’s attack in Las Vegas (Jeanette Steele, Sep. 2, 2016)
Perhaps the SEAL took it literally, or as a “joke”.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: Title says “Open Thread” (even though the OT category isn’t included) so I’m running with it.
Pompeo is a stupid liar who couldn’t even handle a civil interview with Mary Louise Kelly of NPR.
He’s best forgotten – quickly.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
So sweet, written by a pro ~!!~
?BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer: The thing Tucker has that someone like Abbott or DeSantis doesn’t have, is he’s not a politician, they can’t really run as an outside, he can.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: The reply about this being a problem with white women since Laura Ashley stores folded in the US is priceless.
Tony Jay
Re: Pipehitter
Not being familiar with military slang, the only time I’ve heard anything like that word was in Pulp Fiction, specifically the scene where Marcellus Wallace has been rescued by Butch and is calling in ‘assistance’ to teach Zed a lesson. To be honest the context he says it in (and the fact that Tarantino wrote the line) made me think it was a euphemism for… gentlemen who are known to play the role of giver in prison relationships with great enthusiasm.
Was I wrong about that?
frosty
@Frankensteinbeck: Ouch! Perfect.
Hoodie
Never ceases to amuse that these dorks don’t get that normal people, if they don’t have special knowledge gained from a particular community, interpret phrases like “pipe hitter” based on common understandings of the constituent terms. When I first heard this, I immediately thought “crackhead” because I didn’t know about the idiosyncratic meaning of this phrase for special forces or it’s origin in some dialogue from Pulp Fiction (which, of course, ties it to crack smokers). I seem to recall a discussion about the prevalence of this kind of private language on the alt right, nice to see a supposedly mainstream GOP pol and presidential aspirant engaging in this gobbledygook.
SiubhanDuinne
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose:
Yeah, BUT: Vivaldi, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini. Caruso, Pavarotti, Bartoli. La Scala. Dante, Michelangelo, Leonardo. C’mon, man.
Another Scott
Somehow Politico is pushing this as news.
This is news now? Didn’t we hear that a year or more ago??
Maybe people will pay attention this time? Probably not. :-/
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
This was a good reminder too:
Mike Pompeo Is Trying to Bluff His Way to a Legacy – Even insurrection didn’t interrupt a tour de force of Twitter bragging. (Jeffrey Lewis, January 12, 2021)
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: West Pointers spent four years having the army tell them that the were elite. Some forget that the degree and the gold bar are just a starting point and that from those to whom much is given much os expected. Or RHIP but also its obligation.
laura
Dollar Store Oswald and Diana Moseley are pretty sure that assembling a war criminal designed, crack pipin’ patriots and personal assistant army of fascist black shirts is the best way to host themselves into the White House, as if Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, DeSantis e mas, wouldn’t shiv them at CPAC if given half a chance. Mike Pompeo – a man who’s ambition runs neck and neck with his entitlement and awfulness.
Kay
Wow. All those years of smarmy, groveling ass-kissing and he didn’t get anything out of it anyway.
Another Scott
Maybe there’s a bulldozer somewhere that they can borrow…?? :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Heh.
Heh heh.
mrmoshpotato
Awwww……:( Fuck ’em!
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
It’s a festooning of Karens!
I’ll put money on he accidentally stumbled onto an easement battle.
trollhattan
@Kay:
Were any of those fine folks toting nooses?
sdhays
@trollhattan: They left them in their other pants.
As one does…
sdhays
I posted this bit of good news in the dead thread below:
For those living in Ohio, apparently the Ohio State House has finally expelled its corrupt former Speaker.
Whatever you think of him, he certainly had the name for holding a seat in the House: Larry Householder.
trollhattan
R.I.P. Herb Tarlek.
Maybe the hardest task in acting is making a terrible character lovable, and Bonner did it with flair.
trollhattan
@sdhays: It was destiny.
Often wonder about Sheldon Whitehouse.
Hoodie
@trollhattan: Was just talking about that show with friends the other day, particularly the episode where they were throwing free domesticated turkeys out of a helicopter as a promotion and the essentially flightless birds splattered on the ground in front of onlookers. I think that might have been one of Herb’s marketing ideas.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Hoodie: “With God as my witness…”
J R in WV
While domestic turkeys can’t really fly very well, I don’t think they would actually splatter onto the ground, I would assume they can glide enough to make a survivable landing… but I could be wrong.
And that episode of the show was extremely funny, wife and I both broke up at the time it first aired, and still recall it like it was just the other day. Hilarious. No turkeys were harmed in the filming of that show, I trust.
ETA: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could Fly!!”
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan:
The judges would have also accepted “Amarone della Valpolicella”
...now I try to be amused
He thinks he’s Pompeius Magnus, but he’s really Pompeius Minimus.
Low Key Swagger
@J R in WV: For some reason, we’ve become Turkey Central here in our neck of the woods. Hundreds of toms and hens show up every morning, and if the dogs decide to chase them, I’ve seen them fly pretty high up in our trees. I don’t think they can maintain flight, but they have astonishingly quick take off capabilities.
Emma from Miami
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose: Marcello Mastrioanni, Sophia Loren, Federico Fellini, Alberto Sordi, Claudia Cardinale, Franco Nero, and aalways, always, the incomparable Anna Magnani. Your people done good.
Kent
@trollhattan: Exactly. If Trump can win then there is no depths to which GOP voters won’t sink to find their hero.
Kent
@Another Scott: Teacher here. It’s been my observation that the most toxic and authoritarian teachers also tend to be middle-aged white women. Not men or teachers of color.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It is always projection. ALWAYS.
The vast majority of them aren’t smart enough to figure out what they want, go after it in secret, and get it. They always project whatever it is they are thinking/doing, because they are fucking dumb. Not just stupid, that can often be cured by learning, dumb is just what they are.
Chris Johnson
@Tony Jay: I think it’s more likely to be crack pipe hittin’ gangland soldiers, guys under Wallace’s control and leadership who would do ANYTHING without so much as blinking, particularly to ‘homes’ who has offended their boss. From context, Marsellus Wallace’s organization isn’t likely to boast a lot of man/man lovin’s, even used as a punishment.
Bob7094
@Frankensteinbeck:
Like Magenta?
NorthO49
ChavPAC would’ve fit, too, and would’ve been much more appropriate. From Oxford Languages:
chav
noun
derogatory•informal
a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behavior (usually with connotations of a low social status).