Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Bark louder, little dog.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Everybody saw this coming.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

T R E 4 5 O N

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

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Saturday Night Soft Targets Open Thread: Kevin McCarthy’s Increasingly Narrow Niche

Saturday Night Soft Targets Open Thread: Kevin McCarthy’s Increasingly Narrow Niche

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When even Chris Cillizza tells the world Kevin is angling to get back in TFG’s good graces…


California resident:

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  1. 1.

    Tom Levenson

    Bakersfield.

    That’s it. That’s the whole comment.

    (There’s a backstory, but I’m not going to discuss my high school senior year choir tour. I’m just not.)

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    McCarthy is probably going to be kicked out of the leadership position no matter how much he kowtows to extremists in his party (including Herr Trump)

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m so glad everyone knows the results of the Nov 2022 election already. They must have a crystal ball or something.

  8. 8.

    Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia: nah. It’s a pretty easy prediction that come the next congress McCarthy will not be speaker. Either because the Dems retained the majority or the GOP won and he’s not getting the spot. The only reason he has the spot now is minority leader is a thankless job in the GOP.

  9. 9.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Time to repeat: Boehner retired. He got his Papal visit and said ‘so long, fuckers.’ Boehner is responsible for the so-called Hastert Rule, which was much worse than the actual Hastert rule Hastert was hesitant about touching. Boehner could have passed center-right legislation from here to Sunday and laughed at the crazy caucus, but that would require something other than total asshole war against Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. He passed nothing but symbolic ‘repeal Obamacare’ bills and got pantsed in budget negotiations over and over. The crazy caucus never had the votes to remove him. Boehner had to hunt to find his own replacement and convince everyone that Ryan was asshole enough for the crazies and able to discuss crushing the poor in clear enough grammar for the moderates.

    Fuck the claim that the crazies took down Boehner. Boehner was one of the biggest extremists we’ve seen yet, and he coddled the crazies and gave them all the power they wielded for obstruction, and successfully blamed them for his own evil.

  10. 10.

    Mike in NC

    McCarthy, Nunes, Issa, etc. The Republicans grow some real dim bulbs in California. Must be the drought conditions.

  11. 11.

    Kent

    @Frankensteinbeck: Exactly.  The last legitimate GOP moderate who held real power in this country was probably Eisenhower.  After that they went all “southern strategy”, embraced racism and the southern version of crazy.  And have ever since.

  13. 13.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Wonder if Henry Louis Gates can do a finding my roots episode on Kevin and find a familial connection between Joe McCarthy and Kevin. 4th removed cousins or whatever.

  17. 17.

    John Revolta

    I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what McCarthy’s point was in going all Jimmy Stewart in the wee hours when the bill was going to pass regardless but when I woke up the next morning and saw he had spoken for eight and a half hours I knew. The previous record for longest speech in the House was just over eight hours. Held by one Nancy Pelosi.
    Because that’s just how these fuckers roll.

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    @Kent: There were a few more good Republicans. In Virginia the late Linwood Holton was a very good Governor from 1969 to 1973. His daughter, a Richmond judge, is married to Senator Tim Kaine. Senator John Warner was also good. I almost voted for him once, but Democrats were taking it on the chin that year so I voted for Mark Warner. He lost, but won a Senate seat a few years later.

    But it’s pretty slim pickings when it comes to any other good Virginia Republican polticians after Eisenhower.

  28. 28.

    James E Powell

    But he’s Kevin McCarthy, so this is reminiscent of some channer doing something for the lulz when in reality no one outside that very specific echo chamber cares or even knows

    74 million people in that very specific echo chamber

    And there is no doubt that excerpts from this are flying around social media with “McCarthy totally owns the libs!” type messages.

  29. 29.

    JPL

    @zhena gogolia: I have two blue Senators, and both are doing an outstanding job.   There is no way, I would have predicted that outcome.   So you are right.

    There is a good change that I’ll lose my representative, Lucy McBath, because they took away some strongholds, and included an area that was 85 percent trump.

  30. 30.

    Kent

    @Geminid: Well yes.  You can find the occasional respectable GOP governor and senator from blue states.  There were some from OR and WA as well.

    I was talking about NATIONAL leaders.  President, Speaker, Majority Leader, etc.   The last NATIONAL Republican leader who wasn’t a complete tool was Eisenhower.  The first Bush was probably the next least horrible.  And he was pretty bad.

  31. 31.

    The Dangerman

    Good grief. I’ve never paid attention. McCarthy is Bakersfield? Nunes is Visalia. I sat across from him about a decade ago. He has to be one of the 5 dumbest fucks in the House. What does the Republican Party have against the Central Valley?

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Buck himself, to continue the Bakersfield theme.

    Footnote: That guitarist, Don Rich, was a key part of the Bakersfield sound. When he died in a motorcycle accident in 1974 at age 32 it devastated Owens and sent him into a career decline. Owens didn’t have another #1 song until “Streets of Bakersfield” with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.

  33. 33.

    CaseyL

    When a political party decides it’s uninterested in policy and is simply going to wring as much money as it can out of whoever is willing to fork $$ over in astronomical amounts, it conditions its voters not to expect anything like governing (and, further, that governing isn’t a legitimate enterprise of politics).

    The GQP has spent 40 years grinding down its voters to shitty lives with no prospects, pocketing for themselves whatever otherwise might have gone to improving their constituents’ lives and communities.  The GQP tells them the fault lies with Democrats and Democratic voters (“those people”).

    Instead of policies that might improve their lives, or their childrens’ lives, the GQP gives them bigotry-and-ignorance asshole theater.

    Their voters, who can’t remember a time when “government” did anything positive for them, believe the GQP, and embrace the asshole theater.

  34. 34.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: @Omnes Omnibus: FWIW I agree with the two of you. There are too many uncertainties. Not to get too technical but  working with probability distributions and predicting the most likely outcome was my area of research expertise. The election results have too many interacting parts for any one to predict them with accuracy,  especially elections that are one year in the future.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    That 1st Mike Black tweet sums it all up: they stand for nothing.  Nothing but shitposting…nothing to offer that will actually make Americans’ lives better.

    We really oughta hammer that home, Dems.  “What do R voters get?  Nothing.  Your reps are all on Fox News 24/7, saying crazy shit and hoping for a paid gig”

  38. 38.

    Jackie

    @Patricia Kayden: Should the repugs win the House next year (spit,) Trump will throw McCarthy under the bus. If we prevail and keep the House, Trump will label McCarthy a loser throw him under the bus.

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @Jackie:

    There’s Parler talk about making TFG the Speaker of the House. How they think this could happen, I have no idea, but they think it’s a wonderful, gotcha kind of move.

  40. 40.

    eclare

    @schrodingers_cat:   Politically, there is an *eternity* between now and next November.  Just like in sports, you play the game because the team who should win on paper doesn’t always win.

  42. 42.

    Jim Appleton

    Just two weeks ago I said here that rwnutjobs don’t have numbers or will to effect violent insurrection at a scale likely to overturn more than 200 years of democratic republic.

    Today, not so sure.

    Rittenhouse lights a fuse.  Yokels who previously felt despondent are now supercharged.

    Intransigence and what needs to be seen as willful insurrection among lawmakers, combined with increasing likelihood that Rs will take both House and Senate next year, paints a very bleak future.

  43. 43.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jim Appleton:

    with increasing likelihood that Rs will take both House and Senate next year, paints a very bleak future

    What are you basing this on?

  44. 44.

    Edmund Dantes

    @debbie: cause legally anyone that gets voted into the role can be speaker (note Pelosi is speaker and Hoyer is majority leader). It doesn’t require you even be a member of congress. Kind of like any catholic man in good standing is technically eligible to be the Pope. It’s never going to happen but it is possible.

  45. 45.

    Jackie

    @debbie: Technically he could, but he’d have to actually WORK. No executive nap/tv time, no golfing every weekend. Trump wouldn’t/couldn’t do it.

  47. 47.

    Bill Arnold

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Agreed. We have nearly a full year and a shitload of accomplishments to tout. The future is unwritten.

    The future is written by all of us.
    I’d add,: some (much) attacking in a very target rich environment to do. And even some careful/deniable ratfucking.
    The worst of the Republicans need to learn some genuine respect (and fear, if it’s required) for their opposition.
    And they shouldn’t expect much respect in return; a party that deliberately commits mass homicide for potential political gain should be disrespected.

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’ve been thinking of getting one of those “trail cameras” – a weatherproof camera you mount outside that’s motion-activated, so if an orc walks by in the middle of the night it will take a picture. There are varyine degrees of sophistication, automation and price. But looking at the offerings on Amazon, what strikes me is that every single one is made by some unknown company with a made-up name like WOSODA, with the item’s device copy composed in a language close to, but not quite, English. The cheapo no-name crap has completely driven out the alternative, as far as I can tell. This is of course not the only item category that this suffers from, but it was really striking to me for some reason.

  49. 49.

    Jim Appleton

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):   Shenanigans.

    Redistricting and state laws allowing overturning of legitimate election results make it likely that key states will turn the midterms.

    There may be a following battle, but the damage will have been done.

    ETA Adam has covered this much better than I can.  He’s right, despite what some of us think.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I will be interested to see if this “trump as Speaker” idea becomes a litmus test in Republican primaries next year. It definitely  excites some Republicans. It may be a fantasy at this point, but it’s a powerful one.

  51. 51.

    James E Powell

    @CaseyL:

    Instead of policies that might improve their lives, or their childrens’ lives, the GQP gives them bigotry-and-ignorance asshole theater.

    And that theater is sold out every night, filled with ignorant, hateful bigots.

  53. 53.

    RaflW

    @Jackie: There you go expecting work product from a GOP House.

    If they did this stunt speakership (assuming, and I will only for arguments sake, they win in ’22), then they’d prop him up long enough to pass a huge debt limit increase, CR the last budget twice, and then he can fly back to FL & extract money from his grift while they all hold circus Committee hearings and do dozens of Fox hits a day.

    Based on the political donations from corporate America, this is the bleak future the C Suites want.

  54. 54.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @Gin & Tonic: I watched 6 1/2 minutes of footage from a beaver dam trail cam in the middle of Minnesota last night on Twitter.  It spliced clips for an entire year.  Bears, deer, wolves, beavers, birds, etc….I was struck by all if it. Especially the sounds at night.  It was calming after yesterday’s shitty trial news.

  55. 55.

    eclare

    @Gin & Tonic:  A guy I used to work with who hunts also loves to just track wildlife in his yard and had one.  When another coworker thought about getting one his biggest recommendation was to get one that spits out corn on a random schedule.

  56. 56.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Jackie: Exactly. It’s a lose lose for McCarthy no matter which party wins the House next year. Hence his dog and pony show.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: OTOH, lots of the name brand stuff is made in Chinese factories, also too.

    We got a Bushnell 8 MB Trail Cam quite a few years ago. It was Ok, but man it eats batteries. I would hope that things have advanced some since 2013, but there’s only so much one can do with limited light.

    J got me a cheap birdfeeder camera a couple of years ago. That was horrible – we couldn’t even get it to work once to take a picture inside the house. :-/

    Happy hunting, er, photography!! :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Should the GQp manage to win control of the House, that little shit Gym Jordan will shiv Qevin in the back so fast it will make Ronald Reagan signing the Mulford Act in ’67 look like molasses in January.​

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I noticed this same thing last week when I was looking for a cheap inexpensive one-ear headset to use with my cell phone. Lots of companies with odd, not quite English-sounding names. I assume they’re all in China or environs. Hard to find anything made in America. The phenomenon is spreading to more and more categories.

  66. 66.

    JoyceH

    @Geminid: what’s interesting is that the whole point of Speaker Trump is to “own the libs” and make people angry. They don’t seem to grasp or care that the Speaker needs to KNOW things and DO things or it all falls apart.

  68. 68.

    eclare

    @JoyceH:  IF Republicans take the House, I am fine with TFG being Speaker so that it does fall apart and nothing the R’s concoct can be voted on and passed.

  71. 71.

    Frankensteinbeck

    A thing going on on Twitter is some German said that as a German he finds Rittenhouse being allowed to walk around with an AR15 baffling.  The conservatives piled on him in a huge storm, of course.  The interesting part is, they have so utterly swallowed the delusion that more guns in the German population would have stopped the Nazis, they think it’s obvious and indisputable.  They think they’re owning him by mocking a German having this opinion, for that specific reason.  To anyone outside their echo chamber, it’s a mystery what they’re going on about, or it seems like a declaration of hypocrisy.  Conservatives live in a fantasy world.

  73. 73.

    eddie blake

    @Frankensteinbeck:  dead thread, but…

    the entire armed might of several industrialized nations hadda fight tooth-and-claw to bring down the thousand year reich, but those fuckfaces think a few dudes with bolt action rifles and pistols were gonna stop the regime?

    yeah. fucking fantasy world.

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