Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Infrastructure week. at last.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let there be snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Let’s finish the job.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

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

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Evening Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Repubs Are *Really* Flailing…

Friday Evening Schadenfreude Open Thread: The Repubs Are *Really* Flailing…

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GOP Pravda is airing its dirty laundry in public…

It’s gotten so wild over there, Utah Senator Mike ‘Not Very Bright’ Lee is nostalgic for the Great Depression!

Key difference between them and us: Biden could use He kept his promises as a campaign tagline without getting the hairy eyeball. (And watching the Wingnut Wurlitzer gnash its collective fangs would be… kinda fun!)

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  1. 1.

    UncleEbeneezer

    AI “reporters” spread disinformation about Ohio train derailment- Conspiratorial claims about chemical contamination can be traced back to “reporters” who aren’t real.

    The Ohio train derailment and subsequent chemical release has spawned a flurry of conspiratorial claims about the event being akin to “America’s Chernobyl,” with some users saying the accident has poisoned the water supply over a vast area and warning residents up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that they’re in danger if they drink the water.

    On Monday, I pointed out the beginning of what looked like a coordinated campaign on Twitter in which users were spreading conspiratorial claims about the Mississippi River being contaminated — despite its vast distance from the scene of the accident, and in contradiction to experts who say there’s “no chance” the contaminants from the accident scene would cause harm to those along the Mississippi River. All of these users were sharing the exact same map, which was unrelated to the current incident, and none provided a link or a source for their claims about how the contamination would spread, in what concentration, or how it would pose a danger to human and animal health. Generally, repetitive posting of outdated and out-of-context visuals as seen in these tweets is a sign of possible coordinated activity and/or disinformation campaigns.

  2. 2.

    gene108

    I really can’t understand people’s obsession that the past was somehow better than the present and the future will be worse than both.

    A very nihilistic worldview, which is disturbing coming from elected officials.

  3. 3.

    Jackie

    Mike Lee isn’t the only nut in the fruitcake:

    “Marianne Williamson (D), the self-help author who went viral during the 2020 Democratic primary for her debate moments before dropping out ahead of the Iowa caucuses, appears on the verge of announcing she’s running again, Politico reports.”

    Uncle Joe can practice his debating skills before the main event(s) vs TFG or Meatball Ron.

  7. 7.

    Major Major Major Major

    @UncleEbeneezer: ​

    AI “reporters” spread disinformation about Ohio train derailment- Conspiratorial claims about chemical contamination can be traced back to “reporters” who aren’t real.

    Not that this is necessary when some of the dumbest takes are coming from antivaxxers, the q crowd, and the left.

    And as the article notes, the disinformation is written by human hands–the fake reporters just use “this person does not exist” AI-generated portraits.

    I’m honestly less concerned than I used to be about AI polluting the information environment, it’s already completely fucked and AI filtering/search might even improve things.

    @Baud: They’re humans with fake portraits.

  11. 11.

    HumboldtBlue

    Murray Waas:

    In the closing days of his presidency— as President Donald J. Trump was preparing to declassify and make public almost a thousand pages of highly classified records pertaining to the FBI investigation into Russia’s covert interference in the 2016 presidential election to help elect him, and defeat Hillary Clinton — he turned to conservative columnist John Solomon for help.

    On Jan 14, 2021, less than a week before Trump was to leave office, Solomon excitedly declared on his podcast, “I am here to tell you that, just a little while ago, President Trump authorized the declassification of all remaining FBI documents of the Russia probe to be made public before he leaves office.” Solomon said that the records consisted of a “foot and a half stack tall of documents from the FBI and Justice Department,” which, Solomon promised, would, in turn, contain “bombshell after bombshell.”

  12. 12.

    Ken

    I see, when Sen. Scott said “all programs would sunset”, he was using a very specific meaning of “all”, which he’s now clarified means “not all”.

  13. 13.

    Jackie

    @gene108: Maybe Lee should talk to folks who actually lived during the Depression. My Dad was a young teen living in OK with his Dad and two younger brothers. They became part of the Grapes of Wrath, working for food and gas money on their way to California. They followed the harvest season up to WA and back to CA for several years until settling in Yakima county (central WA) picking apples, cherries and working odd jobs in between. Dad’s dad made the boys go to school when they could. Dad finally graduated from high school when he was 21.

    Maybe Lee should give up his worldly goods and walk lots of miles in Dad’s shoes.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Seeing all those texts gives me hope for the Smith investigation, and I reaaaalllly hope the Murdoch family has to write a huge check.

  19. 19.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    Related to Mike Lee, I’ll repeat my plea that our side learn to sell progress.

    It’s happening slowly, but it’s taken a couple of generations and terrible Republican presidents to undo whatever lessons were learned from the 1980’s, when Republicans seemed unbeatable as presidential candidates.

  20. 20.

    Mike in NC

    Getting a bit late on a Friday, and don’t know if it was already mentioned, but I got an email reminder that it was two years ago today that Rush Limbaugh took his dirt nap. I’ll drink to that!

  22. 22.

    West of the Rockies

    So, to the Fox “News” audience, you get a lie, you get a lie, everybody gets a lie!

  25. 25.

    randy khan

    The distinguished Senator from Florida also has changed the last main item in the plan to read:

    NOTE FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN: This plan cuts taxes. Nothing in this plan has ever, or will ever, advocate or propose, any tax increases, at all.
    Stop Congress from bankrupting America. The federal government is quickly bankrupting America. Congress must be stopped, read how.

    This, of course, is another lie, since his initial plan specifically called for making everyone, at every income level, pay income tax, which pretty clearly would increase taxes on a bunch of people.  I love the bold and all caps.  It just reeks of desperation.

  29. 29.

    cain

    I can see AI being used to spread disinformation – those Russians disinformation farms are gonna be replaced by AI – sucks to be them!

    Although not sure how they can afford the computing power – I suppose they’ll have to take over all the universities.

  31. 31.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue: I read that Waas substack yesterday and I couldn’t find anything in it that hadn’t already been talked about. The only thing that seemed new was the fact that Waas recently interviewed Solomon and got several different stories from Solomon as to why he was in possession of classified documents.

    The part where Trump ordered the Russia interference documents to be declassified and to be released to the public at the end of his term only to have Meadows countermand that order made me laugh again.

    Was there anything else that was new?

  32. 32.

    Anoniminous

    If Fox News won a lawsuit by saying they weren’t a News organization and then publicly stated they are a News organization …….. Why isn’t that perjury? Or something?

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @gene108: ​
     

    I really can’t understand people’s obsession that the past was somehow better than the present and the future will be worse than both.

    I can understand it, though I don’t agree with it. The key is the people who think that way are depending on their memories of the past, or sometimes on stories they’ve heard about the past from before they have memories, versus their experiences today. It’s not surprising that most people’s childhood memories are pretty rosy. They remember a relatively carefree world where someone else took care of the difficult stuff, often without them even knowing about it. Of course that’s going to seem like a paradise compared to being one of the responsible people today.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jackmac:

    Rush Limbaugh’s legacy is that no one will really remember Rush Limbaugh.

    I like to remember that he was Rush Limbaugh III, his father and grandfather were respected judges in Cape Girardeau, MO, small city elite. His father died thinking Rusty was a disappointment and I hope his ghost came to that deathbed to remind him that there was no IV. Also glad there was no IV.

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:

    I can’t either and I’ve been around for a few decades to see how far this country has come and how far back rethuglicans are trying to push it so that their wealthy benefactors can make their completely fucking useless lives a tiny, little better helping said wealthy benefactors get a lot wealthier, which the last time this was done we ended up in a depression. But then they don’t want to work or give a damn that we don’t end up in the same place again. Through out my over 7 decades I’ve only seen rethuglicans make the country worse by putting more money into their greedy sponsors palms and leaving the rest of us holding jack and shit.

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    I don’t think that is the real Mike Lee based on the Twitter handle and that the account has a blue check because they are a subscriber.  Mike Lee’s senate handle and campaign handle are different.

    He is still very much an asshole but I don’t think that’s his tweet.

  48. 48.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Baud:

    I thought that’s why you were here.

    Elsewhere, such as the White House press briefing room, your White House press corps, ladies and gents.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is asked about “this national conversation that was sparked” after CNN’s Don Lemon claim “that Nikki Haley is not in her prime because women hit their prime in their 20s, 30s, and 40s”

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @MomSense:

    I don’t think that is the real Mike Lee based on the Twitter handle and that the account has a blue check because they are a subscriber.

    Yeah, it sucks that Elmo has made it harder to recognize fake accounts.  That seems like a serious reason to dial back the number of Tweets used on the front page.

  56. 56.

    RSA

    @Delk:  You know you are a graphic designer when you keep wondering why Adobe Illustrator is in the news.

    There have been times when search engines ranked artificial insemination pages higher than artificial intelligence pages, depending on the query.

  57. 57.

    Dan B

    Breaking news: TFG called in to FOX News during the insurrection and they refused to put him on air.

     

    Gee, I wonder what message he wanted to blast out that spooked FOX?

  59. 59.

    FelonyGovt

    @zhena gogolia: So do I. My dad would have loved to be a teacher, but he had to drop out of college in the ‘30’s to support his mother and sisters. He and my mom were frugal to a fault, stemming from their Depression days.

  61. 61.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Until the mid-1930s, the federal government’s footprint didn’t extend much beyond the departments of state, defense, treasury, justice, and interior, along with the postal system. Are we better off with everything we’ve added since then?

    We also didn’t have an Airforce or any intelligence agencies.

  64. 64.

    patrick II

    The only entity capable of making FOX pay for its lies seems to be a large business with direct and provable financial loss.  I have been hoping against hope that there was some business somewhere that had a nexus of COVID cases that caused them financial harm and could show that people listening and believing FOX anti-vaccine lies was an important cause of why they suffered such a loss.  Maybe a large hospital chain.

    I know it’s difficult to show a direct cause like Dominion likely can.  But I would bet there is a strong statistical correlation between Tucker/Hannity fans and less vaccination and more illness.

    I know I am spitting into the wind.  But it is so hard to accept that they blithely cause so many deaths and there is no way that I know to legally hold them responsible.

  66. 66.

    Kent

    @gene108:

    I really can’t understand people’s obsession that the past was somehow better than the present and the future will be worse than both.

    A very nihilistic worldview, which is disturbing coming from elected officials.

    It is generally white males.  For whom the past in the 1950s or so might well have been better.  Professional job with a good salary, wife meets you at the door with a martini, etc.

    No one asks if life was better back then if you were a Black girl in Mississippi who wanted to become a doctor.  Or a Hispanic girl in California who wanted to be a pilot when she grew up.  Etc.

  68. 68.

    Bill Arnold

    @MomSense:
    I’m using the free “Eight Dollars” extension (chrome, plugin also works in Firefox) and it shows that account as $ Paid (with a real Verified showing up in replies.) Useful plugin/extension.
    That’s apparently his personal account:
    No cap, bussin, forreal, forreal: Sen. Mike Lee’s personal Twitter account is called ‘BasedMikeLee’ (MAKENA KELLY , Aug 10, 2022)

    The Salt Lake Tribune was the first to confirm that the account belonged to Lee on Tuesday. Lee Lonsberry, a Sen. Lee spokesperson, confirmed that it was the senator’s “personal Twitter account,” in a statement to The Verge on Wednesday.

  69. 69.

    WereBear

    @Baud: yes, since we’re also talking about the depression. The school lunch program started when the Great War draft found many were too malnourished to be accepted.

    Or like now, actually. From eating food with no nutrition. Up to a third can’t be boot camped into shape.

    We need a bigger school lunch program.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @dm:

    I think it shows the limits of anyone’s influence.  People bought the initial lie that COVID was a hoax so strongly they couldn’t be convinced otherwise later.  As hard as he tried- and I think he did honestly try- Trump couldn’t convince people they needed to get vaccinated.  I suspect the same thing would be true of trying to convince people today that the 2020 election was fair.  Once they’ve gone far enough, there’s no turning around.

  75. 75.

    oldgold

    I just do not understand how people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee get nominated for high office and then win elections. They are literally creeps. It oozes out of them for all to see.

    Not every pol needs to be charismatic, but you would think that being so palpably shuddersome  would be disqualifying.

  77. 77.

    Helen

    @gene108: In 1992, I thought Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran a campaign optimistic about the future. Both the music and the speeches were positive and uplifting. In contrast, the Republicans were doomsayers.  Biden is a cheerful and optimistic person. I think we forget how powerful optimism and hope and humor are.

  81. 81.

    Ken

    I feel we shouldn’t be dismissing Senator Scott’s proposal without trying an experiment first. Let’s pick one federal program — say, the one that provides coastal storm and flood insurance in areas that no sane capitalist company will touch — and sunset it. Then we’ll see if the Congress, in its wisdom, chooses to renew the program.

    (Though now that I say it, I find it bizarre that Sen. Scott’s proposal to “stop Congress from bankrupting America” is to… have Congress do it.)

  82. 82.

    Other MJS

    There is no sunset cannibalism in the British navy, absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount.

  83. 83.

    DrDaveChemist

    @Jackie: It’s pretty clear that 98.6 F isn’t even average. The original data were more than a century ago and were reported as 37 C, probably rounded off to the nearest whole number and using thermometers that might not even be all that well calibrated by modern standards. Plus, as you note, many factors, including ovulation, lead to variation in what constitutes “normal” for an individual.
    Probably better to say that a fever starts at around 100 F (or 38 C) and not worry until you cross that threshold.

  85. 85.

    smith

    Another factor in the general decline in body temperature is the increasing average age of the population. Body temp declines as you age, so with old people a greater percentage of the population, average temp will go down.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    Steering money the old-fashioned way.

    Two individuals were sentenced today to six years in prison for their roles in a cattle-trading Ponzi scheme that resulted in millions of dollars in victim losses.
    [snip]
    In addition to their terms of imprisonment, Stachniw was ordered to pay $14,597,335.80 in restitution and to forfeit $6,013,370. Throgmartin was ordered to pay $14,597,335.80 in restitution and to forfeit $1,004,904.83. The restitution was ordered jointly and severally between the two. Source

    That amounts are not rounded up or down to the nearest dollar tickles my fancy.

    Also too, is it just me or does Stachniw & Throgmartin sound like a name for a mortuary in Ankh-Morpork?

  87. 87.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Meanwhile Republicans are queuing up the Golden Oldies:

    • Marco Rubio introduces a bill to ban trans people from the military again.
    • Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, is openly calling for the lynching of trans people.
    • Missouri House Gen Laws committee passed a bill banning trans healthcare, which includes amendment removed the exception allowing healthcare for patients who are in imminent danger of death. Republicans passed it anyway. The bill’s sponsor said he’d rather a trans kid die than risk someone getting healthcare through a “loophole.”

    Also, Sam Smith gets called a pedophile and groomer while walking in the NYC, as anti-LGBT incidents have increased exponentially over the last two years.

    Johnathan Chiat doubles down on anti-trans hit piece the New Yorker, which both an editor and fact checker there say were never fact checked. But he’s “just asking questions.”

    Meanwhile editors at FTFNYT send out an internal memo that ‘will not tolerate’ its journalists protesting coverage of transgender people.

    And the Onion spares no mercy: It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible except:

    Good journalism is about finding those stories, even when they don’t exist. It’s about asking the tough questions and ignoring the answers you don’t like, then offering misleading evidence in service of preordained editorial conclusions. In our case, endangering trans people is the lodestar that shapes our coverage. Frankly, if our work isn’t putting trans people further at risk of trauma and violence, we consider it a failure.
    We stand behind our recent obsessed-seeming torrent of articles and essays on trans people, which we believe faithfully depicts their lived experiences as weird and gross. We remain dedicated to finding the angles that best frame the basic rights of the gender-nonconforming as up for debate, and we will use these same angles over and over again in hopes that this repetition makes them suffer. As journalists, it is our obligation to entertain any and all pseudoscience that gives bigotry an intellectual veneer. We must be diligent in laundering our vitriol through the posture of journalistic inquiry, and we must be allowed to fixate on the genitals.
    It is against free speech to stop us from fixating on the genitals.

    The whole thing is a work of art.

  89. 89.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Roger Moore: political nostalgia is the Petri dish of reactionary politics. The past whatever it was, was not good for women, minorities and people who had bacterial infections and toothache among other things.

    Whether the future can be a lot better depends on people putting their shoulder to the wheel to move everybody forward, not whinging about how good our grandparents had it. Things can move backwards. Try the overthrow of guaranteed rights for women’s reproductive freedom. How did that happen I wonder?
    Well I remember a bunch of US F wits saying they shouldn’t be ‘blackmailed by the threat of losing the Supreme Court’ into voting for Clinton in 2016.

    How did that work out?

    Absolute garbage. Anyone pining for the past is objectively reactionary. Anyone not working for a better future is a fool.

  90. 90.

    sab

    @Jackie: Judging by the Covid era sign in log at my dad’s nursing home, nobody over the age of 60 ( i.e. children of the residents) has a temperature as high as 98°.

  92. 92.

    Mike in NC

    @Sister Golden Bear: At least a dozen Republican psychos in the House have proposed bills to spend billions of dollars to build that goddamn wall that Mexico never agreed to pay for. Fat Bastard remains the greatest snake oil salesman that ever met a stupid American.

  94. 94.

    Princess

    @Aussie Sheila: The loudest ringleader of the “who cares about the court” disinformation campaign was actually an Australian, Caitlin Johnstone. I remembered her just today because I saw her, now caping for Putin.

  95. 95.

    Barry

    @Baud: “Agreed.  I don’t understand cultures that revel in their misery.”

     

    They are assuming that *they* would have the goodies and that people they like would not. In Lee’s case, he hates democracy, and there would be far less back then.

     

    Also, he’s ignorant.

  96. 96.

    Matt McIrvin

    The modern conservative-thought-bubble response to Hoover’s failure comes from Amity Shlaes: the reason for the Depression was that Hoover was too much of a tax-and-spend liberal, FDR’s spending just made it all worse, and Calvin Coolidge would have handled it fine. Their support for this assertion is to say it again, louder, with citations of Amity Shlaes saying it.

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @DrDaveChemist: Most people’s body temperatures seem to be a little lower than 37C, though it also tends to be lowest in the morning and increase throughout the day. I know that for me, 99 Fahrenheit is a mild fever–I had a day or two of that when I got COVID.

  98. 98.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore:

    I think it shows the limits of anyone’s influence.  People bought the initial lie that COVID was a hoax so strongly they couldn’t be convinced otherwise later.  As hard as he tried- and I think he did honestly try- Trump couldn’t convince people they needed to get vaccinated.

    Trump did not try at all when it counted, which was during his last couple of months in office as President. He was pissed off at the vaccine makers for not announcing they had something until after Election Day, and he was focused 100% on trying to mount a coup to stay in office.

    Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, and George Freaking Doubleyou Bush all made public announcements and PSAs promoting vaccination. Trump would not do it.

    What he did was to advocate vaccination many months later, after his anti-mask movement had already morphed into an adamant anti-vax movement–and he backed down instantly and started talking about your right to refuse whenever people booed him for it.

    So I give him zero credit for that.

  100. 100.

    trnc

    @randy khan: ​
     

    Nothing in this plan has ever, or will ever, advocate or propose, any tax increases, at all.
    Stop Congress from bankrupting America.

    That’s some gold medal cognitive dissonance right there.

  101. 101.

    J R in WV

    When I came home to the small coal town I grew up in after being discharged from the Navy, I took a job with a formal foreman in charge of the shop, named Charley Goode. He was an infantryman in Europe during WW II, and when he came from the Army he got a job with the Rural Electrification Agency, a federal program founded by FDR.

    In the late 1940s rural homes had no electricity, it was just like living on a farm in 1600, or 1700, before useful electricity was invented. Especially in rural West Virginia, there was no electric power outside prosperous cities or coal company towns prior to Rural Electrification projects successfully bringing power to farms and homes in the countryside.

    Now try to imagine Republican blow-hards trying to live without any electric power!?!? Amazing thought, isn’t it? Yet when you ask them what the federal government has ever done for them, they can’t tell you about Social Security, Rural Electrification, Medical care, hospitals, none of those federal programs exists for them~!!~

    Too stupid to breathe without help…

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