Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s finish the job.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

This blog will pay for itself.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

He really is that stupid.

We still have time to mess this up!

Everybody saw this coming.

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

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124Comments

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    My involvement in that poor fellow’s murder only lasted a few seconds (these fancy rifles have quick triggers).

  4. 4.

    Anonymous At Work

    With this perfect alignment of farce and reality, am I the only one who thinks that Hollywood screenwriters should be able to sue politicians for copyright infringement?  Ron “A little light treason” Johnson follows Donnie “Don’t look up” Trump in a long list of politicians that mock the Screenwriter’s Guild’s best efforts at parody.

  8. 8.

    bbleh

    And let’s be honest, who hasn’t involved himself personally in a plot to subvert the Constitution at least once or twice, amirite?  Sorta like not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, y’know? No biggie …

  10. 10.

    cain

    and Clinton said he only inhaled ONCE and immediately exhaled cannabis!

    I had no idea that the constitution supported the 30 second rule.

  12. 12.

    Scout211

    I was wondering, when I saw that interview yesterday, what the heck he thought he could possibly gain from making it seem as though a few seconds of participating in a crime just voids the crime altogether. I guess a only a few seconds of mass murder with an assault rifle makes the murder now void?

    So maddening these Republicans who find all kinds of excuses to deny their own crimes but recklessly accuse others of crimes that they didn’t commit, like grooming. 🤬

  13. 13.

    Kay

    @HeartlandSignal :Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) tells WISN-TV that a bill to protect same-sex marriage is “completely unnecessary” because “the decision on gay marriage will never be overturned” and precedent is “decisive.” He says it differs from Dobbs because “it would impact millions of people.”

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    If I didn’t know he was lying about all of that, I would be offended.

    Step 1:  It’s not needed.

    Step 2: Hoocoodanode?

    Step 3: We need to respect the court’s decision.

  17. 17.

    Ken

    @bbleh: Sorta like not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, y’know?

    Maybe Tesla will add a “Treasonous” setting to their autopilot in the 2023 model year.

  18. 18.

    Kay

    “Stare decisis would be decisive in this case” (of gay marriage)

    Actual quote. Good Lord. They just make it up as they go along.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    “Its just Democrats”

    Much like the sensible, well-founded and ultimately true warnings on Roe.

    The worst case scenario is never even a “scenario” – it’s always “in the works”

  21. 21.

    RaflW

    In RonJon’s defense, he’s so freaking stupid, his brain probably shuts down for a re-boot every few seconds so he’s accidentally telling the truth.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not responsible, I was only driving the getaway car!

    I only gave my friend a ride, I didn’t know where we were going.

    I didn’t know he had a gun.

    How many people are serving life sentences after making statements like that?

  24. 24.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    The reassurances worked with a lot of women before Dobbs.  Johnson hopes it still has some juice with the gays.

  26. 26.

    Jeffro

    Ron would look good in tar & feathers.  He’d look especially good tarred, feathered, and marched across the length of Wisconsin at the point of a pitchfork.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @WaterGirl:

    Well, not important people. Not people who should be able to rely on 50 years of precedent. Disposable voters- “extra” – nice to have but white men are probably enough, right?

  28. 28.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Gee, Senator, then it is perfectly reasonable for you to tell the committee, under oath, who it was that had such stature that you honored their request to receive the false elector file and to whom you then passed it to.

  30. 30.

    Calouste

    I guess that also how Ron Johnson would try to get out of paying child support: “I was only involved for a few seconds”

  32. 32.

    Kay

    Many employers are shrinking the number of paid weeks of maternity and paternity leave they will offer.
    New data show that the share of employers offering paid maternity leave beyond what is required by law dropped to 35% this year, down from 53% in 2020, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, a trade association for HR professionals that surveyed 3,000 employers.

    Just running backward on progress for women now. Speeding back to 1950.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    New data show that the share of employers offering paid maternity leave beyond what is required by law dropped to 35% this year, down from 53% in 2020,

    Is that because the law is requiring more in more states?

  36. 36.

    Quiltingfool

    @Kay: Jesus, Joseph and Mary.  Ron Johnson is such an asshole.

    They really do discount women, don’t they?  I’ve known that for years, but to see them casually discard women out loud and proud? Sickening.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s companies that had offered more leave “trimming benefits”. Or “benefit”, really. Just that benefit.

  38. 38.

    RedDirtGirl

    @Kay: I’m kind of surprised he is saying this at all. Does he have a big gay constituency that he is trying to appease?

  48. 48.

    RaflW

    @Kay: If that were a British interviewer, asking to move on would signal the time to move in for repeated probing. I wish more US journos would catch on.

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    @Steeplejack:   ProPublica seems to be on the same story.
    How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts
    In the largest known political advocacy donation in U.S. history, industrialist Barre Seid funded a new group run by Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, who guided Trump’s Supreme Court picks and helped end federal abortion rights.

    An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court.
    Through a series of opaque transactions over the past two years, Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing magnate, gave the massive sum to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the conservative legal group the Federalist Society.
    The donation was first reported by The New York Times on Monday. The Lever and ProPublica confirmed the information from documents received independently by the news organizations.
    Our reporting sheds additional light on how the two men, one a judicial kingmaker and the other a mysterious but prolific donor to conservative causes, came together to create a political war chest that will likely supercharge efforts to further shift American politics to the right.

    This is just so disgusting.  It should not be legal.  How do citizens have a voice when money is speaking, and buying, and bribing like that?

    Expand the court.  To lucky 13, or even more.

  52. 52.

    Scout211

    Some good news (hopefully) out of Idaho today.  Link.

    A federal judge suggested Monday he’s likely to grant the Justice Department’s request to temporarily block an Idaho abortion lawthat is set to go into effect this week.
    Judge B. Lynn Winmill heard arguments on the DOJ’s request for a preliminary injunction Monday and said he will issue a written order no later than Wednesday. The Idaho law, a near total ban on abortion in the state, is set to take effect on Thursday.

    U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the lawsuit against Idaho at the beginning of August, saying that the state’s law conflicted with a federal statute known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. That law requires doctors to provide the emergency medical treatment necessary to stabilize anyone who comes into an emergency room. “This includes abortion, when that is the necessary treatment,” Garland said at the time.

    The lawsuit was the Biden administration’s first legal action to protect abortion access since June’s Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which reversed the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that held there was a constitutional right to abortion.
     

  53. 53.

    RaflW

    @RedDirtGirl: He’s dumb. But he’s aware that freedom to marry whom you love polls well. Even among Republicans it’s net positive.

    US News 7/28/22: A record-high 71% of Americans now support same-sex marriage, according to the most recent Gallup poll, including 55% of Republicans.

    Now, many of those 55% of R’s won’t vote out GOPers just on same sex marriage. But it creates a wedge point for Dems to exploit. And Dems should!

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   re Arrested Development.  We may have to find DVDs in the library, and catch up on it.

    I will start on The Wire, in a month or two.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @RaflW:

    You really get a sense of what a bubble far Right wingers live in – he can barely talk. It’s all sweaty denials, as if none of this occurred to him before. He understands senate seats can’t be gerrymandered, right? It’s actually competitive?

  58. 58.

    Van Buren

    He says that people are paying too much attention to this story and I just want to know what he thinks is the proper amount of attention to pay to an attempted coup.

  60. 60.

    RaflW

    @Steeplejack: Political money in this country is an absolute debacle. The radicals on the Supreme Court announcing that money is speech and basically unregulatable (and yet books can be banned?!?) is the toxic stew within which all this fascism is brewing.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack: but…but both me and Leonard Leo still have free speech, so all is well here in our democracy. //

    If anything, it’s on me to go find my own $1.6B and keep up with the Joneses er Leos, as it were.

  63. 63.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: The reassurances worked with a lot of women before Dobbs.  Johnson hopes it still has some juice with the gays.

    I know one woman the reassurance worked on and it hasn’t moved her, still supporting Republicans vehemently.

    I don’t understand gay Republicans. Can’t even pretend to.  How can any gay woman or man look at these shitheads and see people with their best interests at heart.

    I see guys on the online dating explicitly stating “no Republicans.”  Gay Republicans will often use that space to bemoan their lack of dating options or pushing some propaganda.

    I get credentials first.  I don’t want to show up at someone’s house and see an unread copy of “Clinton Cash” on the bookshelf.

  64. 64.

    cain

    @Steeplejack: All I see is huge grift operation – where 1.6 billion dollars will disappear down a lot of pockets. Just remember that these people are lazy as fuck. Sure some of that might go.

    Also, it’s all projection isn’t it? Literally these are like soros checks.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    @Steeplejack:   I know.

    That story just absolutely ruined my day.  Gutted me.

    BUT: better that we know about it.  Perhaps the coming Democratic majority in Congress can take an axe to Citizens Money Speaks Only United?

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    @Jeffro:

    Yes, the law in its infinite majesty allows both plutocrats and paupers an equal opportunity to fund tax-exempt PACs. Democracy in action!

  68. 68.

    moops

    his trip to Russia on July 4 lasted a whole lot longer than a few seconds.

     

    Also, too, This idiot tweeted on July 5th, a whole day before, that *he* would be certifying the election and not VP Pence.   This was not a crime of passion.  This was planned.   He was all in on sedition up to the moment that Pence said “nope” and then he scuttled back into a crouch ready to sedition again.

  69. 69.

    RaflW

    @Kay: Senators used to actually make unscripted public appearances in their home states and face normal voters. It helped them hone their skills and know how to speak about things.

    Now that it’s all (or at least mostly) friendly TV hits in remote video hookups for Fox, etc, they’re clueless how to speak like normal people, or think on their feet.

    I still see Dems out and about. Granted it was still a friendly crowd, but I was able to attend a Dean Phillips – Amy Klobuchar event in a park where we all stood around an ice cream truck and the candidates made rootbeer floats and talked to people. Like, “Hi, I’m a normal person and let’s eat a treat and talk about stuff.” It was fun and they seem like they’re not in such a bubble.

  73. 73.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  what happened to DeSantis’s head?

    The skull has to be expanded so there’s room to implant the Grey Reptiloid control device.

    UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

  75. 75.

    cmorenc

    I seem to have missed the part of the criminal procedure class in law school about the shot-clock for criminal intent violations.  I know I was there when they taught about statute of limitations, but that’s like years, not seconds.  So maybe I partied that night after they taught statute of limitations and missed the next day’s class where they went into the shot-clock stuff?  Also, I don’t recall a shot-clock criminal intent question on any of the two different state’s bar exams I passed on the first try.  However, I do seem to remember from criminal law class that an instant intent is enough when you have a gun in your hand and it goes off.  Don’t recall any shot-clock exceptions for intent in that class, either.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @RaflW: If they can repeal the 19th Amendment, then yes.

    Nonsense. Action by Congress to protect the 19th is “completely unnecessary” because “the decision on women voting will never be overturned” and precedent is “decisive.”

    (Echo in here….)

  77. 77.

    RaflW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve barely heard him speak. Is Ron DeSantorum from Jersey? I know a lot of Floridians are. His accent seems very pronounced there, more than I’ve noticed in his few excerpts I’ve seen.

  78. 78.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @RaflW: And look at Beto going into the belly of beast, having sincere discussions with wackaloons (well, sincere on Beto’s side) at (gasp!) totally open campaign stops!

  79. 79.

    JaySinWA

    Through a series of opaque transactions over the past two years, Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing magnate, gave the massive sum to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the conservative legal group the Federalist Society.

    I admit that I haven’t read the articles yet about the $1.6B donation, but if they were in the last 2 years then they are after the fact of the bulk of the damage done by Leo. This would appear to be funding the next generation of FedSoc agenda setting and maintenance

    ETA If this is correct this is less about where we are now and more about what’s ahead.

  82. 82.

    cain

    @Chief Oshkosh: Also, if you’re out there and making connections – guess the one thing they have to concede? Their candidate isn’t showing up and meeting with any of them. They are out there on their ivory tower – they couldn’t even show up when there was a tragedy.

  83. 83.

    GoBlueInOak

    @Steeplejack: Thanks.  Looks like a large part of drop could be the time period surveyed – 2020 vs 2022.   Classic rate of change bias based on how you pick the baseline year.  Lot of employers provided temporary expanded benefits during the pandemic and now are looking to re-set back to closer to what they had in place in 2019.

    Its not great – our country’s parental leave benefits outside a few states like California are abysmal – but its not as shocking as the topline numbers would make it seem.

  86. 86.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ken: There is a big difference between Roe and the 19th Amendment.  One was a Supreme Court decision which they can chose to overturn.  The other is an actual Amendment to the Constitution, something they cannot overturn.*

    *Yes, I understand that this Court is nuts.  I do think that overturning the Constitution by fiat is a few steps too far.

  90. 90.

    artem1s

    @Kay: ​
     

    He says it differs from Dobbs because “it would impact millions of people.”

    well that just about says it all doesn’t it. nice to know Johnson doesn’t consider women people.

  95. 95.

    moops

    This idiot was already announcing on twitter the day before his intention to participate in the coup.

     

    Lazy reporters aren’t nailing him with that.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy shoemangler: I thought of that, but if it was, he’d probably tell us, so he could play the victim. Christina Pushaw may be trolling this comment section looking for ideas

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Sister Golden Bear:  @Kropacetic:  Again, overturning a law or a prior decision by the Court is something that the Supreme Court does, however specious its reasoning.  Declaring a part of the Constitution to be invalid is something else entirely.

  100. 100.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ken: Okay.  The Court is completely out of control.  They will do whatever with no limits and Gilead is the inevitable result.  Everyone happy now?

  102. 102.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kropacetic:

    Only if someone’s willing to do something to stop them.

    According to Justice Scalia and 4 other Republican (inc Kennedy) SCOTUS justices, the Second Amendment is for all Americans, not just Republican Patriots In Name Only. (We as a country do not want to go down that path. Everyone loses.)

  104. 104.

    Kropacetic

    @Bill Arnold: There are plenty of non-violent means that can be employed to stop them overriding our Constitution.  Stopping them does not mean violence.

  105. 105.

    jonas

    @Kay: He says it differs from Dobbs because “it would impact millions of people.”

    *stares into void, blinking slowly

  106. 106.

    Ken

    @Kropacetic: I am intrigued by a couple of observations I came across on twitter (so more than a grain of salt, but still).

    Article III says that justices “shall hold their offices during good behavior” but nowhere defines that, so it’s something Congress could define by law.

    And, Article III does not state that impeachment is required to remove a justice from office. However they may be covered by Article II section 4 which requires impeachment to remove “civil officers of the United States”. (Though that doesn’t seem to prevent the President from removing any cabinet officers or other persons requiring Senate approval.)

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @Ken:

    Article III says that justices “shall hold their offices during good behavior”

    I think any “justice” who voted to remove a constitutional right from 50% of the nation has exhibited BAD behavior, and congress should make that clear by passing a law that makes this behavior unacceptable. Fire them for bad behavior, in other words.

    Also, lying in their confirmation hearings on the part of newly seated justices is not good behavior. Fire them, revoke their law licenses, kill off their pension, if any is owed, make them seek a job at Burger King’s drive thru. Don’t give them a job, make them seek a job.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @Elizabelle:

    “How do citizens have a voice when money is speaking, and buying, and bribing like that?”

    Well he’s probably a citizen…..

    But your point is absolutely on point, this should never be allowed, to “donate” this much money, because obviously very few people have that kind of clout and therefore it isn’t in any way a reasonably democratic situation. Now as this money is not donated to a particular candidate I’m not sure how to regulate this. But there damn sure should be some way.

  110. 110.

    Kropacetic

    @J R in WV: I think any “justice” who voted to remove a constitutional right from 50% of the nation has exhibited BAD behavior, and congress should make that clear by passing a law that makes this behavior unacceptable. Fire them for bad behavior, in other words.

    But who says what rights the Constitution protects? Either this would be toothless as any radicalized Supreme Court could rule on itself or, if it were up to legislators, Supreme Court justices would only hold their jobs as long as they had a friendly Congress.

    Also, lying in their confirmation hearings on the part of newly seated justices is not good behavior. Fire them, revoke their law licenses, kill off their pension, if any is owed, make them seek a job at Burger King’s drive thru. Don’t give them a job, make them seek a job.

    Problem is, did they lie? Or did they make a profoundly misleading implication that failed to inform anyone on their actual position?

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’d say his head has shrunk. I mean there is almost zero functioning brain inside there, it’s been replaced with some creature’s shit, possibly his own, he does seem to be full of it.

  112. 112.

    Haroldo

    @RaflW:

    It was guaranteed that at every Green Bay Packers home game (well, at a lot of ’em) you’d find Sen. William Proxmire pressing the flesh.

  113. 113.

    Daoud bin Daoud

    My name is Ron Johnson
    I come from Wisconsin
    The land of the curds & the whey.
    I spew out deceit
    As I trip on my feet
    And do it again the next day!

  114. 114.

    scott (the other one)

    Not counting any chickens…but…replacing this jamoke with Mandela Barnes would be such an upgrade it’s almost unreal.

  118. 118.

    Kropacetic

    @Daoud bin Daoud: They said it was settled law.  They never the fact that it had been settled means they couldn’t revisit it.  They misled, but what they said was “true” in the barest sense of the word.

    Suppose a couple is fighting because one is cheating on a diet.  Partner A demands “Promise me you won’t sneak any more pizza.” Partner B says “I promise not to sneak any pizza.”

    Then Partner B proceeds to openly, brazenly eat pizza directly in front of Partner A.  Partner B didn’t lie, they mislead then proceeded to do what they wanted.  Sure, there are problems there to be addressed.  But if you’re looking for the truth value of “I promise not to sneak pizza,” they didn’t “sneak,” so the promise holds true.

    Yes, I recognize this as severely abusive, perhaps even more pernicious than lying.  But we’re dealing with a party whose whole political reason for being is to find weasel words to excuse bad behavior.

    When mushy middle types are watching a debate between D and R and the D says “they lied,” the R can point to the literal text and assert what they said was true.  And it was, in  a trivial way, but I don’t want to have to rely on a large percentage of people making that distinction.

    There’s a salient issue here, I’m only suggesting that we tighten up the language around it a little bit.

  120. 120.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kropacetic:

    They said it was settled law. They never the fact that it had been settled means they couldn’t revisit it.

    They deliberate mouthed political cover for those in the Senate who were mildly uncomfortable with voting for nominees who clearly had a Christian Supremacist agenda that they would make real when opportunity struck. This lying misleading on their part was a political move to reduce electoral damage from irate non-Christian Supremacist voters. The Republicans were fully aware that their Christian Supremacist voters understood the lies misleading statements for exactly what they were.
    Clear intent to mislead with partial truths.

  121. 121.

    Kropacetic

    @Bill Arnold: Clear intent to mislead with partial truths.

    Their mantra right there.

    In the time since I wrote that, I spent some time considering the futility of trying to cross every t and dot every i alongside the fact that this is to debate the most shameless liars known to (this) man.

    Even if we all declare as one we’re going to free ourselves of rhetorical shackles, will the media allow it?

  122. 122.

    Kropacetic

    @Kropacetic: This gave me a little thought experiment, can one be a liar in the habitual sense without having ever explicitly lied*? I don’t see any word in chronic use for constant misleading.  Misleader? Odd, cumbersome.

    Liar it is.

    *For the thought experiment.  I’m sure the subjects previously under discussion have lied plenty, just not technically this time.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Kropacetic:

    I’m going to have to disagree with you here. These people committed perjury openly the day they voted to overturn Roe in their Dobbs decision. Perhaps excepting Angry Sam Alito, I don’t recall his confirmation hearings as well as Beer Boy’s and Amy Godbotherer’s and Neal Gorsuch’s hearings.

    They have no leg to stand upon and should be put out of their high office and sent away to seek gainful employment available without a law license. Perhaps cleaning toilets at a stadium?

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