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Hot air and ill-informed banter

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Infrastructure week. at last.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Peak wingnut was a lie.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Everybody saw this coming.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

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

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

You are here: Home / Jan 6: Hearings / Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Shut Up, Pence

Repub Stupidity Open Thread: Shut Up, Pence

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(Spoiler: Count the candles.)

 
Mr. Pierce, at Esquire — “All Mike Pence Wants for Christmas Is No Charges Against His Old Boss”:

… The primary reason Pence will not be president is that nobody wants to vote for him. There are a number of reasons for this. The dedicated Trumpists won’t vote for him because he refused to commit sedition on January 6, 2021. Other people will not vote for him because he accepted the vice presidency from a president* who defiled the office. Other people will not vote for him because they live in Indiana, and they remember how much they didn’t like Pence as their governor. Still more people will not vote for him because he is a god-struck empty suit, who if he ever had an original idea, it died of loneliness and despair.

For example, here he is on Fox News, arguing against any criminal action aimed at his former boss because…Christmas.

“I hope the Justice Department understands the magnitude of the very idea of indicting a former president of the United States. I think that would be terribly divisive in the country at a time when the American people want to see us heal. At this time of year, we’re all thinking about the most important things in our lives: our faith, our family. And my hope is, the Justice Department think very carefully before proceeding.” …


The late, great blogger Doghouse Riley warned us about Pence: His greatest talent is loyalty, which is a bit of a handicap for someone so ambitious:

… The core of Pence’s identity has always been loyalty — to his friends, his wife, his faith, his party, his country. Then came the day he had to choose between his boss — the leader of his party — and the Constitution. And he chose the latter. Suddenly, Pence found himself in unfamiliar territory — politically isolated. Reviled by former President Donald Trump’s supporters who saw him as a coward but not completely embraced by Trump’s critics who saw him as permanently tainted for having stood by the former president, he had no natural constituency upon which to build the last act of his political project. Now, as Pence peddles a new memoir and ponders his own run for president, he’s struggling to demonstrate where his loyalties really lie — to the former president whose White House record he proudly touts as a shared legacy, or to a wing of the party that is debating whether to unshackle itself from a conspiracy-laden cult of personality. At a moment when Pence most needs to clearly identify himself to a party that is beginning to audition alternatives to its divisive de facto leader, Pence seems stuck in some muddled attempt to be multiple things simultaneously. And nothing expresses that strained compromise quite like his tortured rationale about whom to support on the campaign trail this fall.

I asked one of his longest-serving advisers what to make of the disconnect between Pence’s frustration over Jan. 6 and his decision to campaign for election deniers. The aide pointed out that Pence had not campaigned for Kari Lake in her bid for governor in Arizona, “I think he’s drawing a line in some respects,” the aide said. But no one, not his aides and not Pence, can explain what or where the line is that distinguishes Lake and Masters — both of whom were endorsed by Trump and both of whom have propagated conspiracy theories about Jan. 6.

A week after the midterms, after Masters and Lake had lost and the Republicans’ red wave had collapsed, I spoke with Pence by phone as he sat in the Simon & Schuster offices during a New York City publicity swing for his new book, So Help Me God. I asked him directly about this seeming contradiction, to help me understand the line he was drawing but also to define the kind of candidate Pence himself wants to be and the kind of party he aspires to lead. He answered with another contradiction. “Those that sought to relitigate the past did not fare as well,” he answered. But he also said he was “pleased” to campaign with those candidates.

“Didn’t mean I agreed on everything they ever said, or every position they ever took,” he told me. “I just was convinced that at a time of great challenges for America, at home and abroad, that we needed new leadership. … I’ve often said I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order. But I’m a proud Republican, and I was proud to campaign with those Republicans across the country.”…

Those who know Pence best say he is wrestling with how to recalibrate himself to a Republican base that hasn’t yet forgiven him for refusing Trump’s pressure to overturn the election results — and maybe never will. When you’ve buried your true self for four years in service to someone who happens to be the most divisive and unpopular former president since Richard Nixon, it’s not so easy to excavate yourself again. Pence, who describes himself as a “conservative, but not in a bad mood about it,” likes to be liked. “He would love to be reconciled to the president,” a confidant told me. “My sense is he’s seen that window close.” But neither is Pence willing to take the other path, reject the base who held his life in such low regard, and full-throatedly present himself as the man who saved democracy. “He’s not,” the confidant told me, “going to go Liz Cheney.”

“I think he’s got to decide whether he wants to be a Jim-Baker-like statesman that can just always be principled and speak the truth for the rest of his life, with no calculation of political cost,” this person told me. “Or do you want to get the nomination?”

Rather than choose, Pence seems to want both, offering himself as a bridge to nowhere between two increasingly incompatible wings of the party: traditional, center-right Republicans who want to move past Trump and Trump loyalists. “That’s the issue with Mike Pence, and that’s why he makes people so angry because he gets out there and half says the right thing, and then he cowers, and I get it,” Olivia Troye, his former national security adviser, told me. “It’s because of his political ambition.”…

(Also, Pence is none too bright, not that that’s ever deterred Republican voters before.)

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur
    News: Ways & Means Committee votes 24-16 to release Trump’s tax information to the full House.

    Chairman Richard Neal authorizes staff to redact “sensitive personal identifiable information” like Social Security numbers and street addresses so that those aren’t made public.

  2. 2.

    HumboldtBlue

    Fuck Mike Pence.

    The longest darkest night of the year is gonna be longer and darker tonight here behind the Redwood Curtain. Power slowly being restored but still dark in downtown. Pretty much everyone is amazed at the small scale of the damage related to the viciousness of the quake and my guess is it was a slip quake at the fault line of the Cascadia plate and not a thrust quake which bounces you up and down if I recall my quake lessons from Dr Lori Dengler correctly

  4. 4.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Mike Dense aka Pence is the biggest goddamn pussy in the history of American politics. For this scumbag to think that he can win over support from  Jan 6 insurrectionists by continuing to grovel at the altar of Trump is despicable. Pence can take his phony, nauseating Christian piety and shove it up his theocratic motherfucking ass.

    Anyone who labels Pence a hero for breaking with Trump on Jan 6 is either a liar or a moron.  The record clearly shows that he wanted to comply with Trump’s wishes and only broke with him at the 11th hour after Michael Luttig and Dan Quayle told him there were no legal loopholes for him to do what Trump wanted.

  6. 6.

    HumboldtBlue

    @eclare:

    He came in about 130 pm and we laid down for a nap but at about 215 we got rocked by a nasty temblor and after some deliberations at the doorway to the kitchen and some glances at the open window he went back out. Poor guy

  9. 9.

    NutmegAgain

    speaking as a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, it’s just not that hard to find out how many candles on a Menorah, including the shamash. Dense!

  10. 10.

    HumboldtBlue

    @zhena gogolia:

    I am very well, thank you, and considering the magnitude, only damage a big scratch on back of my hand from Salad and a small bookshelf that holds my O’Brian series came down. Much better off than neighbor who lost a ton of glass after two.cabinrst came down. He was in the shower when ot struck. I will say this, you can’t get used to this, it only gets worse, each aftershock is literally a shock to.the system, its almost ptsd like. This one at 6.4 for some reason felt much worse than the 6.8 in 2014.  Battery’s going so signing off but let all know all is well, if dark and cold

  11. 11.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I think Pence knows he’s going to ultimately be ordered/compelled to testify against Trump and is panicking because he knows that will be the end of whatever is left of his political career.  Executive Privilege claims are not gonna give him the Get Out of Jail Testifying card that he wants.  He’s not a bright man, but he’s bright enough to see DOJ closing in on Trump and likely demanding he go on record against the Orange Godhead of the GOP.

  12. 12.

    Geminid

    F*cking Pence. He’s trying to thread the needle between a fifth and a sixth place finish in the 2024 nomination race.

  14. 14.

    Alison Rose

    Some random company had posted a Hanukkah message on FB, and they also used the 7-candle menorah instead of a 9-candle Hanukiah. I commented, “Dang, inflation’s so bad we had to ditch two candles?”

    And jeez, Pence is just so pathetic. In addition to all the other bad things he is, he’s just pathetic. People literally wanted to murder him and he’s still wanting to go to their parties and be buddies with them. What an absolute sad sack of shit.

  17. 17.

    Alison Rose

    @HumboldtBlue: Glad you’re okay!! Ferndale is about 200 miles from me, so we didn’t feel it here, but Lordy, that must have been a LOT. The one we had a couple months ago, which was centered just two miles from my apartment building, was about a 4.5 I think, and it was wild.

  19. 19.

    HumboldtBlue

    If you want local news updates check North coast journal blog, lost coast outpost, rand redheaded blackbelt. I may check in later, but phone dying

  20. 20.

    eclare

    @Alison Rose:   It is amazing how all of these Republican men can walk upright seeing as how they are invertebrates.

    It makes me want to scream:  don’t you have any fucking pride???

  21. 21.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Oh hey listen up Northern Hemisphere! Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice and you know what that means — it’s time for the women to hunt the Year King through the woods and tear him apart, followed by a communal feast to select the new Year King.

    If this doesn’t get done the sun won’t come back and darkness will reign forever and the fields and herds will go fallow so everyone is expected to do their part.

    Parking is expected to be extra spacious this year but that doesn’t mean you can skip car-pooling to the site.

    Also please take careful note of the side or dessert you’ve signed up to bring. We don’t want a repeat of the 43 casseroles situation. As always the men will be providing entrées but the rest is up to the community. Dishes should have ingredient labels!

    Women should arrive two hours prior to sunrise to hydrate, stretch, and plan the hunt. Using your bare hands to tear apart the year king is traditional but this year we’re able to provide barbecue claws to those that need them. We also have a supply of tracked wheelchairs!

    Non-binary community members of all genders who are choosing to croak ominous portents in the trees should report no later than 1 hour before sunrise. Scissor lifts are available this year to help lift you into the trees or raise you to canopy level if need be.

    Men must report by midnight tonight to ensure set up is completed and breakfast prepared by the time the women arrive and to start preparation of entrées for the feast. Men are also responsible for community child care while the hunt is on.

    This year is super special as Alice, Timmy, and Megan have completed their initial classes and will be inducted as druidic novitiates! In addition, Nancy and Martha inform me they will be inducting two new crones!

    Thank you for your attention and I look forward to seeing you all for the festivities.

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Looking for an alternative to Die Hard for an action/suspense/thriller set on Christmas?  Check out the Korean film The Tower.  It’s a disaster movie that will have your heart in your throat (especially if you have any fear of heights) for much of the running time.  It stars Son Ye-jin, who K-drama fans will know from Crash Landing Onto You.  We really enjoyed it.  Although there is definitely some imagery very reminiscent of 9/11 so just be warned.

  24. 24.

    Alison Rose

    @eclare: Seriously. I mean, I suppose Pence doesn’t like pride because it’s a “sin” and, you know, teh gay. But you’d think he could at least find a modicum of it not to bow and scrape before his would-be murderers.

  28. 28.

    Ken

    Dude… THEY. TRIED. TO. FUCKING. HANG. YOU.

    And he refused to get in the limo with the Secret Service agents that Trump sent to get him. So it’s not like he doesn’t know, or didn’t take the Trump threat seriously.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Fuck Mike Pence. 

    I think Dense can go fuck himself.

    Power slowly being restored but still dark in downtown. Pretty much everyone is amazed at the small scale of the damage related to the viciousness of the quake

    Glad it wasn’t worse.  And it sounds like you’re doing ok based on what you’ve written today.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    Pence is a monster.  He would promise to throw us all in a gulag if he thought it would give him the presidency.  When a RWNJ is too unpopular for Indiana, it shows that something out of the ordinary is terribly wrong with him.

    Meanwhile, … BBCNews.com:

    Elon Musk has said Twitter will only allow accounts with a blue tick to vote on changes to policy after a majority of users voted for him to quit.

    [ womp, womp ]

    If he loses the next poll, he’ll say that only super-duper blue checks can vote in policy polls. Super-duper blue checks cost $100k/mo.

    If he loses that poll,…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @NutmegAgain: It’s also not that hard to type “hanukkah” (in any of its dozen spellings) into Google image search, and take any of the first hundred images. Though I suppose Pence wouldn’t want the one with the Obamas.

  33. 33.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Mike Dense aka Pence is the biggest goddamn pussy in the history of American politics. For this scumbag to think that he can win over support from Jan 6 insurrectionists by continuing to grovel at the altar of Trump is despicable. Pence can take his phony, nauseating Christian piety and shove it up his theocratic motherfucking ass. 

    It’s also pathetic that he continues to suck Dump’s ass.  As a tweet above said about the Trump trash, “Dude… THEY. TRIED. TO. FUCKING. HANG. YOU.”

  34. 34.

    sdhays

    It’s funny how many Republicans think not directly engaging Trump is a winning plan after watching all of his other rivals (cough Jeb!, Ted, etc) embarrassingly fail with this same “plan”. Sure, it’s risky, but if you can’t forcefully make the case that people shouldn’t vote Trump, why should they vote for you?

  37. 37.

    stacib

    @HumboldtBlue: I moved to Southern CA in March of 1992.  In June, there was the Rodney King riots followed pretty closely by the Landers quake.  What I hated most was not only the aftershocks, and the feeling that goes through your body, constantly, it’s the sound.  For me, there is no description for it other than you KNOW it’s unidentifiable and you can’t find another sound to compare it to.

  38. 38.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    Congressman Richie Neal, Chairman of the House tax committee, reveals Trump’s tax returns show he was never under IRS audit as he long claimed.

    It was a fabrication from day 1

  41. 41.

    sdhays

    @Ken: According to this, a menorah has 7 candles, while the 9 candle thing is a Hanukkiah.

    Either they did do a google search and just grabbed a nice image without bothering to know anything about Hanukkah, or there is some stupid Kristian fundamentalist signaling that I don’t care to understand.

  42. 42.

    Ruckus

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Earthquakes are not a lot of fun, big ones less so. My biggest so far was Northridge in 1994. My buddy that lived a mile away had his house burn down because one 6 houses away caught fire, set off the natural gas and that spread fast, and in about 1/2 hr his house was a pile of ash – aluminum stuff was melted. Our house was OK, my business destroyed.

    Glad to hear most things and people are OK.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    He doesn’t deserve 6th place. He’s a useless wind sock, and that’s not a good look for someone in any place of actual power.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid:

    He’s trying to thread the needle between a fifth and a sixth place finish in the 2024 nomination race.

    Is that a five way tie for second place?

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    @stacib: Living in SF, I’m surrounded by multistory dwellings.  And there are a decent number of apartment towers in the city, too.  I cannot imagine how it must feel to wake up inside one of those and feel the earth shaking [even if you know your building is properly remediated].  I rent a 1BR detached “little” house, so ….. well, it doesn’t feel great, but at least I know the only thing that’ll come crashing down on me is the roof.

  56. 56.

    frosty

    @UncleEbeneezer: Another alternative to Die Hard: Long Kiss Goodnight. Geena Davis as a badass action hero! Samuel L. Jackson! Carolers singing at gunpoint! What’s not to like?

  58. 58.

    karen marie

    “a Jim-Baker-like statesman that can just always be principled and speak the truth for the rest of his life, with no calculation of political cost”

    The author of that sentence is out of their everloving mind.

    I’m sorry, WHAT?

    This shit makes me want to break things.

    Jim Baker is anything BUT a “statesman that can just always be principled and speak the truth.”

    Where’s the author?  I want to slap the fucking shit out of them.

    Baker served as chief legal adviser for motherfucking George W. Bush and “oversaw” the Florida recount.  He also “advised” fucking George W. Bush on his invasion of Iraq.

    Yeah, a real fucking “statesman.”

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: I don’t recognize them either, except for one at the bottom.  I was going on the chyrons at the bottom of the 3 screen captures.  ;-)

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    But no one, not his aides and not Pence, can explain what or where the line is that distinguishes Lake and Masters — both of whom were endorsed by Trump and both of whom have propagated conspiracy theories about Jan. 6.

    No more than one X chromosome per Governor. It wouldn’t be fair to the other governors…

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Hearing that Elmo has resigned as CEO of the Dead Bird.

    ETA: Never mind. Highly qualified and speculative.

  63. 63.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    President Kamala’s Hand (Again) @myronjclifton 7h

    President Biden invited the gay nephew of that congresswoman who was “crying” as she begged peers to vote against the marriage equality act .. to the signing event. My man Biden don’t play

  67. 67.

    Redshift

    It seems like authoritarian movements always have problems with succession, because the strongman demands that his underlings be utterly subservient, but supporters are looking for another strongman. The weird thing is how many of the underlings are, like Pence, stupid enough to believe that the loyalty the boss demands will be enough to somehow make them popular.

  68. 68.

    James E Powell

    @karen marie:

    The Village loves people like Jim Baker just as they love every other establishment Republican. For the Village, people like that in power is exactly as it should be.

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    @karen marie: I need a cigarette, and I don’t smoke.

    ETA – and Old Scratch has yet to turn in the claim tickets for Dick, W, Condi, Baker, and definitely more of those “Bomb the shit out of Iraq” fuckers.

  71. 71.

    frosty

    I started reading the Politico article and it kept going on so finally I looked at how much was left and OMG. I don’t ever want to read that many words about Mike Pence. I quit and went back to something more agreeable.

  75. 75.

    El Muneco

    @UncleEbeneezer: At this point, he should go all-in on “destroy TFG and his coalition and fight DeSantis in the ruins”. It’s not a _good_ plan, but if he really wants to be President, it’s the only legitimate shot he has left.

  77. 77.

    HumboldtBlue

    Power is restored, damn fine job by PGE, and to be honest, if the power is going to be out, a 16-hour window between 2 am and 6 pm isn’t all that bad. It sure as hell beats sitting in the dark as the night marches on, and you repeatedly reach for light switches when you enter a room only to be frustrated at every turn.

    That at the moment the world was violently shaking you would have told me some books would come down, and the power would be out for some hours I would have laughed at you, well, not laughed, I would have cursed.

    A lot.

    I’ve been in a 6.5 (Northridge), a 6.8 here in 2014, today’s 6.4 that felt like a goddamn 11, a 6.0 and numerous fours and fives. Hell, the aftershock at 2:05 today was a 4.5, and it doesn’t get any easier, and one can never become inured, but they are part of your life and even if we can’t track them like a storm on a prairie or in the Atlantic, they happen and are expected.

    The fact that the terror, the awe — for they are truly awesome in power — the powerlessness still strike you each and every time, the duration is thankfully brief (unless you’re in Japan in 2011 when the quake lasted for nine minutes and was followed by massive 7, 8, and 9 aftershocks) and once your shaking stops and your breathing returns to normal, you take stock.

    Thankfully, taking stock was easy today, and bar the inconvenience of no power, it has passed. This quake will be remembered because the local reaction is universal — THAT WAS A STRONG MOTHERFUCKING QUAKE — and at the next tremor — could be next month, could be in 2026 — your body will react with that flash of terror, and then you’ll ride it out, wait for the shaking to stop, breathe and take stock once again.

    Thanks again for the all well-wishes and concern, it is most heartily felt and more than welcome.

  82. 82.

    LeftCoastYankee

    Boss:  We have this great idea and well thought out plan to execute it.

    Assistant:  We’ve gathered a talented and capable to team to make it happen!

     

    Boss:  We have a dubious ill-conceived idea and a sketchy dangerous plan.

    Asst.:  We have some really loyal people!

  84. 84.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Ken:

    Yeah, my buddy and I chuckled at that one.

    On another note, just now catching up with local news and the small former lumber company town of Rio Dell got hit very badly. Numerous houses suffered severe damage, were knocked from foundations, etc. As per usual, the stores got hit badly too, no better news video clip or photo than from a liquor store where the damage is considerable due to the nature of the product, and plenty of folks in outlying areas are gonna be hit with buckled roadways and delays in power restoration.

    So some context from my city-borne ass where it’s back to normal, for many it’ll be a day or two for that to happen and for many, months if not years to recover.

  87. 87.

    ...now I try to be amused

    The core of Pence’s identity has always been loyalty…

    Statements like that always remind me of the motto of the Nazi SS: “Meine Ehre heisst Treue” (My Honor is Loyalty). If your highest value is loyalty then you’d best be damn careful who you pledge your loyalty to. A leader who feels he can’t possibly forfeit his followers’ loyalty is dangerous.

  88. 88.

    different-church-lady

    @Wyatt Salamanca: ​

    Mike Dense aka Pence is the biggest goddamn pussy in the history of American politics.

    Could we please refrain from using sexist insults even if… Oh, wait, it’s Mike Pence. Carry on.

  89. 89.

    The Moar You Know

    I loathe Pence in many ways, but I am simply not cruel enough to want to see the outcome of a Pence attempt at the presidency.  He will be beaten quickly and viciously.

    Any junkie can tell you every detail about their first hit.   The GOP got what they’ve been looking for in 2016.   Pence is not what they want.

    To pile on, also, he could never be president as he is too short.

  90. 90.

    The Moar You Know

    I will say this, you can’t get used to this, it only gets worse, each aftershock is literally a shock to.the system, its almost ptsd like.

    @HumboldtBlue:  I was about four miles from the epicenter of the 89 Loma Prieta earthquake and I had some PTSD for years after.  I slept outside for two nights.  After that it wasn’t traumatizing anymore, just one inconvenience after another for a few weeks because the town was broken, we had no power and no water and the roads were fucked.  Couldn’t even leave, all three roads out of Santa Cruz were blocked by landslides.

  92. 92.

    West of the Rockies

    I remain stunned by how wildly ignorant Pence remains about his essential lack of a personality (if you don’t count self-righteous, sexless, and stupid).

    He’s so fucking boring, judgmental, and clueless.  He has zero chance to become president.

    Also, too, so glad you’re okay, Humboldt Blue!

  98. 98.

    LiminalOwl

    @The Moar You Know: I was in a brick building South of Market during Loma Prieta. We ran out getting pelted with chunks of brick, then walked up to USF to sleep on a friend’s floor (because I lived in Berkeley and BART was already shut down).

    And yeah, back in my wood-frame apartment in Berkeley, it was weeks before I stopped getting anxious when the building shook because someone was walking up the stairs.

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