Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

This blog will pay for itself.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Our Failed Horserace Media

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Our Failed Horserace Media

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  1. 1.

    germy

    The Oath Keepers are known as a violent extremist group. You can see some members here in tactical gear moving up the Capitol steps on Jan. 6. pic.twitter.com/jrB1e6WmmH

    We got a membership list from an anonymous hacker.

    It included 10 sitting state lawmakers, all GOP.

    THREAD

    — Isaac Arnsdorf (@iarnsdorf) October 21, 2021

  2. 2.

    zhena gogolia

    It’s all so depressing. Are people incapable of remembering what it was like one year ago?

  4. 4.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @zhena gogolia: They do seem to have less memory than goldfish. I also suspect the memory-holing is deliberate. The dominant media framing–so different from the TFG years–is a choice.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    @zhena gogolia: hey that whole ‘good governance’ thing is SO boring…

    Yeah, they literally could take any subject they want and do an apples-to-apples comparison, and I can’t think of anything where trumpov would come out looking better, with the exception of eyeball/clickbait value to the snooze media.  By that metric, sure.  Anything else and you’ve gotta be f’n kidding me.

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    @WaterGirl: why not?  We have insurrectionists in the House.  Heck, we might have a couple who actually tried to give away their ‘safe location’ to the rioters.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Jeffro: I know.  I hope those people are identified as part of the commission process.

    But actually on the membership rolls of the Oath Keepers?  Those people are not just evil, but also stupid.

  13. 13.

    germy

    “Upstate, NY—in much of it you CAN drink the water”

    — Lauren Oyler (@laurenoyler) September 17, 2021

    We just watched local news, and there’s more stories about PFOA in tap water.

  15. 15.

    germy

    New: The Justice Department has added two top prosecutors from Washington to the child sex trafficking investigation of Republican Matt Gaetz, according to two people briefed on the matter. t.co/15z8RGipGg

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 21, 2021

    This explains why Gaetz was grilling Garland abt past backgrounds of prosecutors in today’s hearing, meaning he was using his position on the committee to pursue his own interest. t.co/TddCrwvhkF

    — emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 21, 2021

  16. 16.

    Geminid

    Axios listed the nine House Republicans who voted to hold Bannon in contempt. Besides Cheney and Kinzinger, fellow Impeachers Meijar, Upton, Katko, Gonzalez and Herrera-Butler voted with the Democrats. Nancy Mace (SC) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA) also voted to hold Bannon in contempt.

    Axios also had a short article about the spat on the House floor between Greene, Raskin and Cheney. I had to laugh at the picture heading the article: Boebert, Gaetz and Green standing next to each other. The new Three Stooges.

  17. 17.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @mrmoshpotato: In the past, I would have agreed with you. However, given that they are still doing bogus horse race framing at a time when our democracy is in grave peril, with many credible voices raising the alarm, I wonder if the problem goes beyond the media’s tried and true [sic] methods. It’s almost as if they want to obscure the truth

    ETA: So either they are too criminally stupid to learn or they (and/or their paymasters) are venally vested in the downfall of our democracy. Or, of course, both.

  23. 23.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @germy:  The Oathkeepers were formed during Obama’s administration because a bunch of white supremasist current and former law enforcement people claimed that Obama was going to take their guns.  Their entire premise was that if Obama tried to take their guns or in other words put in place laws that they felt were against their “Oath” then they would rise up.  They have stuck around like a nasty rash ever since.  Strange that they never threaten to “rise” up when a republican is in power.  I know this due to my extensive studying of the birther movement of which the Oathkeepers were part of.  Just my two pennorth.

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    @germy: I read that the reason prosecutors asked the judge for more time before sentencing Gaetz’s former pal Greenberg was that they had developed new lines of investigation and possible prosecution. It looks like they have.

  25. 25.

    JML

    The Beltway media pretended to not like Trump and his administration and acted all offended at the rampant cronyism, corruption, and incompetence…but the reality is they loved it. It was super easy to write stories about all that junk and the WH leaked like a sieve. Writing stories about actual policy is work. Dealing with a competent administration requires actual commitment.

    If there’s a less relevant group in more need of a total restart it’s the beltway media.

  26. 26.

    SpaceUnit

    The horserace / sportsball model of mainstream political coverage isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.  It evolved as a way for corporate media to tilt the playing field ( or racetrack, if you prefer that metaphor ) in favor of republicans.  The emphasis is always on scorekeeping instead of actual issues.  Zingers win debates.  Chest-beating and hot air is equal to logic.

    I had hoped that they’d learn something from the last five years.  Some have but many have not.  And yeah, a lot of them are drooling for that next big horserace and the ratings /money it will bring.  God help us all.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Gaetz’s dad has the money to hire the best criminal defense attorneys available. I want prosecutors to bring as many heavy charges as they can, and the charges have to stick.

    So I can wait. I’ll have to; Greenberg’s prosecutors asked for a sentencing hearing next March.

  31. 31.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT non-political news.

    I finally got my first artist grade pencil set in the mail today!! I got it from Ebay about $20 less than Amazon! My brushes and watercolors are coming tomorrow. All the nice comments you guys left me when I shared my art work inspired me to go on a mini art shopping spree.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @SpaceUnit: At first glance, I thought Ms. Laurie had titled this post “the Horseradish Press.” But I looked again and realized that this wasn’t a midweek Garden thread.

  40. 40.

    Geminid

    @SpaceUnit: At first glance, I thought Ms. Laurie had titled this post “the Horseradish Press.” But I looked again and realized that this wasn’t a midweek Garden thread.

  42. 42.

    geg6

    OT, but I hope Cole has gotten himself and the menagerie into the basement.  My local tv news tells me a tornado is heading to Bethany, WV.  Be safe, Cole!

    That’s just south of me and there is another just north in Butler, PA.  If any Juicers live near there, you be safe, too!

  51. 51.

    Kay

    OMG, this has to be the best voter fraud fraudster ever:

    A man who once described a ballot being cast in his dead wife’s name as “sickening” and was cited by the Nevada Republican Party last November as evidence that massive voter fraud swayed the results of the 2020 presidential election has been charged by prosecutors with voter fraud.
    According to a lawsuit filed in the Las Vegas Justice Court this month, the man, Donald Kirk Hartle, voted his deceased wife Rosemarie Hartle’s ballot.
    At a November press conference, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Consevative Union, named Rosemarie Hartle as one example of the “hundreds of dead people” he said had voted in the election in Clark County. The Nevada Republican Party also cited Hartle’s interview with KLAS Channel 8 in their voter fraud allegations.
    Hartle told the TV station, which first reported the lawsuit, that his wife died at 52 from breast cancer in 2017 and that no ballot ever came to his house, despite a ballot for her being issued and received by the county.
    “That is pretty sickening to me to be honest with you,” Kirk told the TV station at the time.
    Hartle is the senior chief financial officer and treasurer for the Ahern Family of Companies, according to his LinkedIn page. The company’s owner, Don Ahern, is a major supporter of former President Donald Trump, whose rally the company hosted at one of their manufacturing facilities in September in violation of COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

  53. 53.

    Another Scott

    Good for the House.  Standing up for their institutional responsibilities and obligations is important.

    Good speeches by Biden and Harris today.  The struggle is never over, but progress is happening and much more is possible.

    In other news, in Guantanamo, … AlJazeera:

    A United States judge has ruled the United States has no legal basis for holding an Afghan man at the notorious US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, setting the stage for his potential release, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.

    Asadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan national, has been held at Guantanamo since June 2007 after he was captured in the eastern city of Jalalabad by Afghan forces and turned over to the US military.

    US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, ruling on a petition of habeas corpus, has rejected the US government’s arguments for continuing to hold Gul in detention at Guantanamo.

    “The outcome of the petition was that it was granted,” said Tara Plochocki, Gul’s lawyer who said she was “delighted” by the judge’s ruling.

    Gul was held for 14 years at Guantanamo without charge and denied access to a lawyer for the first nine years of his detention, according to Reprieve, a US legal advocacy group. In 2016, his lawyers filed a petition in federal court in Washington, DC, arguing his detention was unlawful.

    […]

    Gul had been member of a group called Hezb-e-Islami, or the Islamic Party of Afghanistan, which reached a peace agreement with the Western-backed Afghan government in Kabul in 2016.

    His lawyers had argued that because US hostilities in Afghanistan had ceased, he should be released but the judge rejected those arguments.

    Gul was never part of the Taliban, or al-Qaeda or any al-Qaeda affiliated group and did not fight against the US. He asserted in court documents that he had been on a business trip to Afghanistan from the refugee camp in Pakistan, where he was living with his family, when he was captured.

    […]

    Haroon Gul is one of 39 men still being held at Guantanamo and now one of 13 who have been cleared by the military review board for release. Some men have had clearances for years and still languish in the prison.

    President Joe Biden has promised to close Guantanamo, where more than 740 men were detained between 2002 and 2017 — often without any formal charges, and in some cases, subjected to torture.

    Horrible.

    It’s long past time that the place was closed. It’s good that the process for doing so is continuing.

    Get it done, Joe!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: All I see on FB is griping about high gas prices and shortages. No, people cannot remember how bad it was this time last year. The Trumpies think everything was wonderful this time last year.

  62. 62.

    satby

    Doing a drive by posting for the gardeners who liked hardy hibiscus. Brecks has them on sale for $12 less than the sale price I paid only two weeks ago. The ones I ordered then arrived today, and they’re very large gallon size root balls.

  65. 65.

    MagdaInBlack

    So I’m listening to Matt Gaetz on Bannons “War Room” and Gaetz just let loose that Bannons old producer now produces Gaetz pod cast, AND some of Gaetz congressional staff are old Bannon employees………isn’t that interesting.

    Gosh, no wonder Gaetz is so opposed to Bannon testifying.

  66. 66.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @Soprano2: Every Trump supporter was conversation, the minute Biden took office, that everything including the economy immediately went to shit. So Fox News keeps telling everyone the economy has gone to shit. All the other media explore the theme because”people are expressing concern.” Facts don’t matter at all – they can’t see the silver lining or blue sky, just the few clouds, which is all they can talk about.

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us: Remember that when *Trump* took office, the economy instantly healed. It wasn’t as if the numbers changed much from the end of Obama’s term. It was that all of Trump’s supporters went overnight from believing the numbers were fake to being told to believe they were real. Trump explicitly said this in his rallies! “We used to say those numbers were fake but now we believe they’re real, right?” Statements like that about what the new version of reality was

    I do not think the majority of people even know what exactly they’re talking about when they say “the economy” is good or bad. Sometimes it’s a synonym for “the deficit”. Sometimes it’s unemployment, sometimes it’s gasoline prices. Mostly it’s their impression from headlines of whether “the economy” is doing well.

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty:

    I don’t think it’s that government is boring to them. They see government, or at least government without them in charge, as the enemy.  It all gets back to the same thing: they don’t want the government to help Those People.  Most of them would be perfectly happy with socialism, as long as it could be made Whites-Only.  But as long as the government is required to help Those People just as much as it helps People Like Us, they’re going to fight it tooth and nail.  The more we enshrine government needing to help everyone as a principle, the more they hate it and fight to shrink it.  Only the parts that can still be used to hurt other people- mostly the military and police- will be allowed to continue.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    @Soprano2: my mom is like this…she acts like her grocery bill doubled then doubled again in the past few months.

    Um, mom, I hate to tell you, but it didn’t, and this ain’t the 70s.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    @Matt McIrvin: it’s directly related to “is my guy in the White House”?

    If so, everything’s great; if not, everything sucks.

    My stepmom tried to tell me in 2017 that trumpov had “really turned around our lousy Obama economy”.  No amount of stats, news articles, etc, would convince her that the mango menace had inherited a nice steady recovery from President Obama.

  77. 77.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: I remember seeing a graph showing that Trump supporters thought the economy got better almost immediately after Trump was elected but before he took office! It was crazy. To them the act of him being elected made things better; he didn’t have to actually do anything.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: There was a stock-market rally that happened at that moment, I assume because stock traders are primarily Republicans and when they’re happy it does have effects.

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