Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

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

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

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

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

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

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

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Hustling McConnell Off, Stage Right

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Hustling McConnell Off, Stage Right

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Because the modern GOP Death Cult is never happy unless it’s eating its own, some misfortunate ‘leader’ was bound to be targeted as the one non-Demoncrat individual responsible for Trump’s various indictments. The choice of Mitch McConnell as the scapegoat is neither surprising nor particularly saddening…

Wheeling out the big journamalistic guns, even in advance of the Georgia indictments:

Mitch McConnell has made it his practice to dodge questions about Donald Trump. Whether it be Trump’s bid to reclaim office, the mounting indictments leveled against the former president or even Trump’s racist mockery of McConnell’s wife, the Senate Republican leader avoids engaging a man he disdains.

Which is why it was so striking last month to sit in McConnell’s Capitol office and have him repeatedly steer our conversation toward Trump. I was there to discuss his forceful and out-of-vogue campaign to keep Republicans defending Ukraine and, more broadly, on the Reaganite path of projecting strength abroad. And at every turn, McConnell made plain it was his way of battling what Trump has done to the party…

From the Senate floor and Washington fundraisers to awards banquets and congressional delegation trips overseas, Addison Mitchell McConnell is on what could be his final political mission. And the results may illuminate what has become of his party.

After a relatively harmonious first half of this year, House and Senate Republicans are on a collision course this fall over four issues, three of which pertain to McConnell’s quest: spending, supporting the Ukrainians and Trump’s candidacy. (The fourth is impeaching President Joe Biden, which is intended as retribution for Trump’s impeachment over, well, spending and Ukraine.)

This confluence of issues will test who has the upper hand in the GOP, at least in the halls of Congress. Is it the McConnell-led Senate, which largely wants to spend more on defense, deliver additional aid to Ukraine and is not exactly enthused about Trump’s resurrection? Or is it the House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy is handcuffed to his party’s hardliners on spending and has little appetite to imperil his job by pushing through a supplemental package for Ukraine that Trump is sure to decry and perhaps pressure rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose amid demands that they, and McCarthy, endorse him?…

… [A]s somebody who’s covered McConnell for years, it’s jarring to see his decline. He told me at the end of our interview that, yes, he would be at the Fancy Farm picnic this month. The gathering is Kentucky’s annual political bacchanal, a 142-year-old church barbeque fundraiser in which pigs, lambs and politicians are all roasted in their own way to please an audience that descends by the thousands the first Saturday in August to a hamlet that’s anything but fancy.

Sure enough, there was McConnell, in his first major public appearance since his freeze-up, on stage gamely getting off zingers at Biden, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and other Democrats.

Yet his voice was diminished, he mostly read his lines without looking up and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had to help him up from his chair each time he stood…

As I reported this column over the summer, speaking to dozens of officials in European capitals and Washington, two recurring themes emerged.

One was the degree of McConnell’s focus, to borrow what may be his favorite word and practice. In public and private, he’s waging a determined campaign to defend Ukraine, protect NATO and bequeath a Republican Party that’s as committed to what he calls “peace through strength” as the one he found in Washington after he was elected to the Senate in 1984 thanks in part to Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection…

However, in many of my conversations, and usually not for attribution, another theme came up: how much McConnell has aged. Unlike with Biden, whose every gaffe and slip on the steps is caught on camera, McConnell’s difficulties have been largely out of view, or at least they were until late last month. In private, though, McConnell’s colleagues have grown more alarmed, with one lawmaker even talking to the leader’s staff about whether he should consider hearing implants.

“He was sitting there as the conversation went on around him,” said an attendee of a recent Senate Republican lunch, alluding to McConnell’s hearing loss.

This convergence of mission and moment — McConnell in the winter of his career attempting to thwart Trumpist isolationism — may have been less crucial had the leader shown more leadership in the last days and immediate aftermath of the former president’s term. McConnell’s assessment late on the night of Jan 6 that, with his conduct that day, Trump had “put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger” has proven wildly wrong or at least wholly dependent on the whims of a federal jury.

The party’s drift on foreign policy wouldn’t have been reversed, but Trump would not have the same authority on this, or any, issue had McConnell sought 10 more Senate Republicans to convict the former president of his second impeachment and barred him from seeking office again. He said at the time that he was convinced by constitutional arguments about impeaching a president no longer in office, but clearly his caucus’s lack of appetite for conviction weighed on him…

McConnell, ever cautious about turning himself into a lame duck, usually sniffs out and dismisses rearview-facing questions about his legacy. However, the man who set up his Senate institute and archives the year after his first reelection has long been consumed by history — and his place in it.

And at a time when he and his inner circle are all sitting down with and turning over old files to AP’s Michael Tackett, who’s writing a comprehensive McConnell biography, the leader was remarkably candid when I asked where his current crusade rates to him over the arc of his career.

“Well, I still believe in the Republican party of Ronald Reagan,” McConnell said…

GOP colleagues: A sad loss to us all… as long as he’s really dead.

Kill the traitor! Kill!

… After The New York Times recently resurfaced his response, which was quickly picked up by conservative media, several members of the House’s right flank took the opportunity to chide the Senate GOP leader as too cautious, or even too protective of a president he’s occasionally cut deals with.

What McConnell really said: When our bureau chief Burgess Everett asked whether a House inquiry into Biden had any merit, McConnell said that a constant flow of impeachment probes isn’t “good for the country.”

The Senate Republican leader also pointed a finger at Democrats for setting Congress down the path of normalizing impeachments, adding that he was “not surprised” to see the House GOP open the door on Biden after former President Donald Trump’s impeachments.

But the new media attention was fueled by his comments that trying to oust a president should be “rare” and that an impeachment competition wasn’t good for America — not his blame of Democrats. So conservatives hit back…

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    JustRuss

    Watching McTurtle get devoured by the monster he worked tirelessly to create is giving me some satisfaction, though not enough to offset the fear that it will devour us all.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Shaking down Ukraine to manufacture evidence against Biden and trying to overthrow democracy should also be rare.

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    I hope McConnell lives just long enough to see everything he has worked so hard for sold his soul for turn to ashes.

    (Leonard Leo too, btw )

  6. 6.

    Wag

    @Jeffro:   I disagree.  I hope that his ability to communicate and his hold on power both come to an abrupt end, but that his mental acuity remains.  And that he lives many years watching his every political dream crumble before him, powerless to stop it.

    To The Pain.

  7. 7.

    Another Scott

    Meh.

    The House doesn’t like the Senate, and vice-versa. There’s no bravery or consequences in them criticizing anyone in the “other body”. Politico might have a story when they get Senate GQPers screaming at how horrible McConnell is (rather than whispering that he’s losing his hearing).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    @Wag: And that he lives many years watching his every political dream crumble before him, powerless to stop it.

    Ashes…crumbling dreams…I think we’re talking about almost the same thing here.  You just want him to live longer in the aftermath; I want him off this mortal plane and down where he belongs a little faster.

  11. 11.

    RaflW

    “I was there to discuss his forceful and out-of-vogue campaign to keep Republicans defending Ukraine and, more broadly, on the Reaganite path of projecting strength abroad.”

    Ohhhhh, f**k that. McConnell has done nothing to reign in Rusky Tuberville and his one-man campaign to hollow out the senior ranks of the US military.

    What absolute, risible bullshit. And f**k Politico for mouthing that horse pucky.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud: ​
     
    I generally agree. Impeachments should be rare because public officials should behave themselves, not because Congress is afraid to impeach when they do something genuinely wrong.

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    Unlike with Biden, whose every gaffe and slip on the steps is caught on camera,

    What are all these “gaffes,” as opposed to his stutter? I haven’t heard him make any gaffes. Fuck Jonathan Martin.

  15. 15.

    zhena gogolia

    wholly dependent on the whims of a federal jury.

    Great respect for our justice system there.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    @SpaceUnit:

    Just remember that whoever replaces him will be worse.

    Worse how, though?  McConnell is especially bad because he’s both evil and competent.  I fully expect whoever replaces him to be even more evil, but I just don’t see anyone else who’s likely to be as competent.

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SpaceUnit:

    whoever replaces him will be worse.

    No.  They will likely be crazier.  They will be vastly less competent.  They will have less control over their caucus.  They won’t have McConnell’s decades-long long game focus.  They won’t have McConnell’s legendary fundraising ability.  Most importantly, they won’t have McConnell’s ability to be the first person to spot a useful norm to break and deliberately break it.  McConnell is a rare, special kind of evil.

  21. 21.

    JaneE

    McConnell has done incredible damage to the country and its institutions.  Whatever efforts he makes toward supporting the old Republican ideals, it is too little and way way too late.

    That said, anything he can and will do to oppose Trump and support the Ukraine, go for it Mitch.  I will even wish you luck in achieving something.

  22. 22.

    ColoradoGuy

    Thinking about Mitch’s “legacy” … three stolen Supreme Court seats, tax cut after tax cut, and bringing the Senate to a complete standstill. Yeah, that’ll go down in the history books, all right.

  23. 23.

    Nelle

    @RaflW: The Iowa senator, Joni Ernst, is totally on board with Tuberville because, in an email to me, she reminds me that she is “prolife.”

  24. 24.

    Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    he wore sneakers, (atheletic shoes) to climb some slippery metal stairs to board a plane once,

    he tripped over a sandbag once,

    he fell off his bike once,…………..

    It’s readily apparent that he is the Most Corrupt Evil Mastermind ever,

    and mentally incompentent and physically ill.

  30. 30.

    RaflW

    @SpaceUnit: Yes. But also whoever has the job next will likely be worse at internal caucus strategy, too. So while the next leader will hasten America’s crumbling, they may also hasten the GOP’s weakness in the upper (but not better) chamber.

  31. 31.

    H.E.Wolf

    “Whoever replaces McConnell” – well, that’s two separate items.

    Whoever takes his place as a (probably Republican) Senator from Kentucky will have zero seniority in the Senate.

    Whoever takes his place as the leader of the Republicans in the Senate will be unlikely to have the same constellation of skills that McConnell brought to that job.

    In either case, it won’t be quite as easy for Republicans to be effective in the Senate…which is not to say we’ll like what they do any better than we do now.

  32. 32.

    brantl

    How long has McConnell been (literally)  speaking out of one side of his mouth. The left side of his face (his left, our right) is noticeably drooping. A LOT.

  33. 33.

    RaflW

    @Frankensteinbeck: Politico (yeah, consider the source) last year posited that Thune, Cornyn and Barasso were the top three contenders. Thune isn’t wild eyed crazy, so who knows if the magatized GOP will tolerate him in the top slot.

    Cornyn seems very eager. He also seems like a petty shyte who probably would suck at the party-building components of being Leader.

    I honestly don’t know much about the third John. Not sure of the national political salience of elevating a guy representing Wyoming is. “Yeehaw, we’re nearly in Amon Bundy land!”

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    Open Thread?

    Questionable eats. Some new food entries at the Iowa state fair:

    The Iowa Twinkie: jalapeñ filled with pulled pork with corn and cream cheese, wrapped in bacon, smoked with swweet and sticky BBQ, finished eith ranch.

    Deep-Fried Bacon Brisket Mac-n-Cheese Grilled Cheese: American cheese grilled cheese sandwich on bacon-cheddar bread, layered with bacon brisket and macaroni and cheese, then deep fried and served with a raspberry chipotle BBQ sauce.

    Also too, this:

    Trump, DeSantis, and Tim Scott avoided the soap box [event], sparing themselves any heckling (which Mike Pence got) and an image of them in front of men holding a banner that read EAT A CORNDOG YOU COWARD. (The men refused to identify themselves.)
    [snip]
    While cameras were near — and they were always near — the candidates didn’t eat anything. They flipped “pork burgers” at the industry’s booth, avoiding the pork chop on a stick. They strolled past concession stands for more vigorous photo ops, at the games inside Thrillville. No one lingered too long in front of the massive “SWINE” sign above that particular barn. Source

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    #34:

    jalapeñ = jalapeño
    swweet = sweet
    eith ranch = with ranch

    ::NotMax flashes a stern look at fingertips::

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    I couldn’t get through the linked article. The excerpt was infuriating enough.

    And at every turn, McConnell made plain it was his way of battling what Trump has done to the party…

    McConnell is responsible for Trump. The GOP leadership rolled over for Trump. They sustained him and declined every opportunity to rein him end or to put a stop to his madness.

    House and Senate Republicans are on a collision course this fall over four issues… (The fourth is impeaching President Joe Biden, which is intended as retribution for Trump’s impeachment over, well, spending and Ukraine.)

    As always, the GOP has no interest in government. And fuck bipartisanship. They either are opposing the Democrats or plotting revenge against the Democrats.

    Or is it the House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy is handcuffed to his party’s hardliners on spending and has little appetite to imperil his job by pushing through a supplemental package for Ukraine that Trump is sure to decry…

    Why would McCarthy still defer to Trump? And why would the writer of this article find this blandly acceptable?

    … [A]s somebody who’s covered McConnell for years, it’s jarring to see his decline.

    And of course, Beltway journalists are too close to the politicians they cover and want to be their buddies.

    Yet his voice was diminished, he mostly read his lines without looking up and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had to help him up from his chair each time he stood…

    Look for more stories about frail and elderly political figures. And look for the inevitable bullshit questions about Biden’s age.

    I didn’t know who the author of this piece was.

    Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. … His reported column chronicles the inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.

    Once again, another pundit who is happy to be a Beltway insider, part of the popular crowd. They get access because they promise not to be too hard on their subjects. And God forbid if they actually had to work to get something that was real news.

  38. 38.

    evodevo

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yes. This. Whoever replaces Mitch (Comer? Massie? someone worse?) won’t have the experience or the knowledge of where the bodies are buried or what buttons to push, or how to exploit the arcane rules of the Senate to accomplish a goal, or the political/international connections he has.  He was a master at it, to our regret…but he knows what he is doing, and the other clowns have no idea.  It would be McCarthy time in the Senate…

  42. 42.

    VOR

    @pacem appellant:  True true. But they will be a rookie. McConnell’s evil is honed over many decades.

    True, any successor will be a hardcore MAGAt. But McConnell is effective at his craft, earning the title “Gravedigger of American Democracy”. A replacement Senator won’t have the seniority and won’t be a leader in the Senate.

  43. 43.

    bbleh

    McConnell’s colleagues have grown more alarmed, with one lawmaker even talking to the leader’s staff about whether he should consider hearing implants.

    “He was sitting there as the conversation went on around him,” said an attendee of a recent Senate Republican lunch, alluding to McConnell’s hearing loss.

    So, wild canids — wolves, wild dogs, etc. — when a leader becomes weak and lame, attack him and ultimately finish him off, no?  Starting with careful challenges — snarling, snapping and so on.  Sounds about right.

    But then they have to fight among each other to determine the new leader, right?  Viciously?  Lots of near-mortal wounding of contenders, lots of disarray in the pack? Please?

  44. 44.

    Ken

    If McConnell does leave the Senate, I understand that the Kentucky Republicans will nominate a list of three names for his replacement, and Gov. Beshear has to pick one of those. Does anyone have a line on how messy the nomination process will get? I could see infighting among ambitious Kentucky Republicans delaying the process for some considerable time.

    Probably doesn’t matter if McConnell decides to retire, since he can make it contingent on his replacement having been selected. But if he… exits abruptly we could be treated to one of those shitshows that seem to be the only thing the Republican party can currently accomplish.

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Guess you have never seen mine.

    Around here, the yutes tend to wear garish neon “NBA touted” court shoes. Nothing quite like seeing somebody in coordinated black, with neon green metallic low cut sneakers with baby socks.

    Those of us who have lived here for decades, tend to wear low cut hikers in summer and waterproof hikers in winter.

    It’s all about the tread, man.

    Even my dress shoes, (30 year old Florishine’s) have a hiking tread. Works fine on the dance floor, serious business meetings and steep muddy trails.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jay: I am not talking youth culture or whatever culture you claim, but POTUS could have done better.  He usually does.

  51. 51.

    Tony Jay

    I’m the event of McCondomneck ‘rapidly vacating’ his bony ass from that Senate seat, Governor Beshear should announce that as an homage to the great man, he’s holding the seat vacant until the electorate get to have their say. Sure, that’s in violation of every norm and probably a few laws, but damned if it isn’t the way Mitch would have wanted it.

    Howl all you like, MAGATs. That’s one of Manchin and Sinema made irrelevant for a bit.

    Seriously, though. Fuck about, slow walk, take every opportunity to delay. One less Republican vote in the Senate is an unalloyed good for however long it lasts.

  53. 53.

    Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    He should just get some Red Wings.

    Dressy, take a nice shine, great with a suit or tropical forest mud.

    You can even get them with a tungsten cleated sole for ice and snow, or composite sole and toe, CSA5 rated for kicking ass or working in a warehouse.

    And I don’t think Biden’s going to be working in a warehouse.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    File under “you’ve got to be sh*tting me.”

    The owners of Döner Haus a small fast casual German restaurant in the East Village renowned for its German-style kebabs is facing a trademark infringement battle with the parent company of Pornhub.com.

    Mindgeek, the shadowy parent company of the multi billion porn empire, said in a legal letter sent to the restaurant last month that the restaurant’s logo could cause Pornhub customers to be confused by the restaurant’s offerings because the restaurants name has “the same look and feel” as the colors Pornhub uses. Source

  57. 57.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    Boner Haus? I don’t think that’s a PornHub brand or channel, and I have done my research.

    Corps do this BS all the time, in the hopes that the little guy won’t fight back and the lawyer get’s paid, win or lose.

  60. 60.

    Hoppie

    “AP’s Michael Tackett, who’s writing a comprehensive McConnell biography”

    Doubt it will include the state trooper incident, which is well-enough known that Republican parents in Bourbon County advised  their (male) Senate page nominees to never be alone in a room with him.  Lived there many years ago, it was common knowledge… that entire party, top to bottom, even locally, is hypocrites, ALL the way down.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    I hope McConnell can hang on until next year, so Republicans have a leadership fight in the middle of election season.

  64. 64.

    SpaceUnit

    @wjca:

    Yeah, one can hope.  I don’t recall the circumstances now, but I seem to remember that Beshear got really lucky with the opponent he drew in that race.

    Maybe one of our Kentucky jackals can fill in the details.

  65. 65.

    Scout211

    In private, though, McConnell’s colleagues have grown more alarmed, with one lawmaker even talking to the leader’s staff about whether he should consider hearing implants.

    I wonder if McConnell’s colleagues are leaking to the press about his sudden hearing loss to cover his actual cognitive decline. They want the press to believe that he can’t hear when in fact, he doesn’t remember or comprehend.

  66. 66.

    Hoppie

    att@SpaceUnit: The incumbent, Matt Bevin, had pissed off the school teachers by trying to steal their pensions.  Not politically astute.  Also, the Beshear family goes waaaaay back in Eastern Kentucky.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    Kentucky Governor Beshear is leading this year’s Governor race. If he wins, Beshear will complete his second term at the end of 2027.  That will be right on time to launch a campaign for Rand Paul’s Senate seat.

  72. 72.

    Mike in NC

    Moscow Mitch, or as Adam Silverman dubbed him, “Gravedigger of American Democracy”.

  74. 74.

    bbleh

    @Scout211: as a cynic, I think they’re trying to look like they’re covering for him — such loyalty! such virtue! — while actually undermining him.  If they really supported him, they’d do what TFG’s people do and just deny, deny, deny, or at least refuse to comment.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @smith: Andy Beshear gives frequent radio addresses with the theme, “Team Kentucky.” Blue Grass State residents seem to like what they hear.

  76. 76.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    slab of uncut bacon, cooked low and slow like a brisket.

    It’s either that or a brisket wrapped in bacon,

    or a new street drug the meth heads have cooked up.

  79. 79.

    bbleh

    @RaflW: Thune and Barasso are currently leadership, so that’s a gimme for Politico.  But Barasso is in his first term — ain’t no way, except perhaps as a compromise candidate if things get really nasty, in which case he’d be McQarthy 2.  My money’d be on Cornyn.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    FOLKS: go read this whole thing.

    Former GA Lt Gov Duncan: Rather than history repeating itself on an endless loop, I am hopeful that this latest chapter can be a pivot point for the Republican Party. If it’s not, we only have ourselves to blame for our electoral losses.

    This is how the “enough of trump” wing starts to gather steam (and hopefully, goes to open warfare with the MAGAts)

    In the aftermath of the 2020 election, I earned Trump’s wrath for refusing to go along with his cockamamie schemes to overturn the election he lost because of his own lack of effort. Most of the GOP in my home state of Georgia went along for Trump’s now potentially felonious ride.

    Under Trump’s self-centered stewardship, we squandered control of the House in 2018, the White House in 2020 and the Senate in 2021. The loss of the Senate was especially galling, as it involved a pair of easily winnable runoffs in Georgia, where former senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue grounded their candidacies in Trump’s election lies.

    Once the bedrock of winning GOP coalitions, suburban voters abandoned our party. In 2020, Democratic candidate Joe Biden improved by 9 percentage points over Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent vote share four years earlier.

    Count me skeptical that 91 felony charges are going to win those voters back.

  83. 83.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @Mike in NC:

    Moscow Mitch, or as Adam Silverman dubbed him, “Gravedigger of American Democracy”.

    In previous threads, I’ve cited this excerpt from a 2018 New York Review of Books essay :

    If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.

    h/t https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:

    The Fulton County charges are poised to land with a louder thud than the previous three indictments. This case has always been viewed as the most serious of the bunch for multiple reasons. For one, it is the first time that senior members of Trump’s inner circle will face criminal charges beside him. For another, with the prospect of real prison time, the odds of cooperating witnesses that are no longer infatuated with being in the cool kids’ club increase.

    The court proceedings could also be televised. With explosive allegations involving false claims about ballot stuffing, these charges involve the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, more commonly known as RICO. This term is more often associated with crime shows such as “The Sopranos” than presidential politics.

  85. 85.

    Kayla Rudbek

    1. @Scout211: and he would not be a good candidate for a cochlear implant anyway. It’s done under general anesthesia for 1-3 hours per ear,  basically drilling a hole in the skull and then threading an electrode into the cochlea/inner ear. McConnell isn’t in shape to handle general anesthesia for that long.
  87. 87.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Just Russ:

    Watching McTurtle get devoured by the monster he worked tirelessly to create is giving me some satisfaction, though not enough to offset the fear that it will devour us all.

    The more of itself that beast devours, the smaller it becomes in comparison to all of the rest of us. And the less capable it becomes of devouring us.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kayla Rudbek: They could try drilling into his skull without it.  I am sure it would be fine.*

    *My medical credentials are a 45 year old First Aid merit badge and a more than 30 year old CPR course, so I clearly whereof I speak.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    Originally posted here back in March.

    To the tune of “Copacabana.”

    He’s charged with RICO
    He wears a long tie
    Now he haunts his gilded halls
    With their ketchup-splattered walls
    He almost blends right in
    With orange-tinted skin
    But Donald went a bit too far
    Thus he stands before the bar
    .

  92. 92.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I hear you.  It’s likely Duncan feels like ridding the party of trump is the more urgent threat.

    (and he’s mostly right.  they can probably get the anti-abortion nuts to chill for a cycle, but trump is a boil that must be lanced)

  94. 94.

    like a metaphor

    Look, can’t we just park Mitch in the shed out back, or wherever we keep all of those other unwanted Confederate statues?

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @Another Scott

    Painting a mural of Mickey & Donald is worlds removed from claiming infringement over alleged similarities in coloring and typeface (and zero similarity in wording). IMHO.

  97. 97.

    bbleh

    @Jeffro: definitely a few zingers, but the whole thing is kinda cringe.  looks like it was written by committee.  but whatever, it’s Out There.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    Then vs. Now.

    …the former president expressed similar delight in how the process was unfolding in Fulton County, as a grand jury considered the allegations and the evidence compiled by the special grand jury. “I have gained such respect for this grand jury [and] perhaps even the grand jury system as a whole,” Trump wrote in March, in all-caps rant. He added that members of the grand jury realized that prosecutors had “no case here,” and they were reluctant to “vote against a preponderance of evidence” that the Republican insisted was “overwhelmingly” in his favor.
    [snip]
    …Trump seemed far less pleased overnight. “So, the Witch Hunt continues!” he wrote around 1:30 a.m. eastern. “19 people Indicated [sic] tonight, including the former President of the United States, me.” Source

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @SpaceUnit:

    I seem to remember that Beshear got really lucky with the opponent he drew in that race.

    He got really lucky in that his opponent had a track record following Republican orthodoxy.  Maybe it was a bit worse than that- he got into a nasty fight with public school teachers over pay- but he wasn’t a Roy Moore or something.  There’s a reason Republican governors who want to get reelected tend to focus on competence.  The ones who try to act as partisan ideologues can lose even in solidly red states, e.g. Sam Brownback in Kansas.

  100. 100.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    The United States is not Weimar Germany and several recent election results are proving this. The GOP is getting killed right now because of their extreme stances on reproductive freedom and voting rights

  101. 101.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    Trump seemed far less pleased overnight. “So, the Witch Hunt continues!” he wrote around 1:30 a.m. eastern. “19 people Indicated [sic] tonight, including the former President of the United States, me.”

    He typed “indicated” again lol. Must be too busy furiously hitting send to do basic proofreading while sitting on his golden crapper at 1:30 in the morning

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Historical parallels are never perfect and, as result, any lessons taken from them must take that into consideration.  That doesn’t mean that historical parallels are bad though.

  104. 104.

    Jeffro

    Now he’s just trying to make everyone believe that he really, truly, honestly DID believe the election was stolen…

    …good luck with that Donnie!  I really, truly, honestly believe all the money in the bank is mine: I still don’t get to take it, try and get others to take it, etc etc.

     

     

    Hours after former President Donald J. Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges accusing him of a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, his aides and allies awoke to a social-media post from the Republican front-runner inviting people to a news conference on Monday.
    “A Large, Complex, Detailed but irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, just before 9 a.m.
    He added that it will be a “CONCLUSIVE Report” after which “all charges should be dropped against me & others.”
    The report in question, according to people familiar with the matter, is a document of more than 100 pages that was compiled at least in part by Liz Harrington, a Trump communications aide who is often described as among the true believers in his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.

    IRREFUTABLE, I say!

    oh okay

  105. 105.

    2liberal

    fani willis could cleanse the republican party of trumpism.  and i don’t think that georgia republican leaders will be sorry to see that happen

  109. 109.

    Jeffro

    Henry Olsen, getting in on the act: it’s unwise to jump to trump’s defense

    Many Republican voters who back Trump believe his false claims of election fraud, but no one with the resources that Trump’s prosecutors have has ever attempted to systematically undermine those claims. Even the House Jan. 6 committee spent most of its time detailing how Trump’s actions led to the riot instead of showing how no reasonable person could believe his claims. Prosecutors have a chance to correct that. If they do, do not be surprised if Trump’s GOP backing erodes as his own supporters realize he played them for chumps.

    This is why the rush to defend Trump rests on such shaky ground. Ultimately, Republicans who do so are implicitly condoning his heinous behavior. That could prove to be politically unwise.

    People will forgive partisan witch hunts if the facts prove the defendant is, in fact, a witch. Republicans should thus think twice before they risk drowning in Trump’s cauldron of deceit.

  110. 110.

    Subsole

    @RaflW:

    Yeah.

    “Unlike Biden, McConnell’s issues have mostly been off-camera,” the papers all say. Wonder whose fault that is, guy-o?

    Twerps. The entire Beltway press. All of them. Utter. Fucking. Twerps.

  114. 114.

    gene108

    The tongue bath Johnathan Martin gave McConnell as a “Russia hawk” is such bullshit.

    Moscow Mitch opposes Russia, unless they interfere in an American presidential election on behalf of the Republican candidate.

  115. 115.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    The report in question, according to people familiar with the matter,

    Who are these people, who enjoy being associated with Trump?

    … a document of more than 100 pages that was compiled at least in part by Liz Harrington, a Trump communications aide who is often described as among the true believers in his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.

    This is beginning to sound like Hitler in his Bunker. Trump and his weird circle of true believers.

    I guess this stuff must be for his base. I can’t imagine that his attorneys would let Trump include anything that might be part of his defense when his case goes to trial.

    Or maybe. Trump must believe that it is inconceivable that he would actually be prosecuted for his criminal acts. Could he really believe that all he has to do is hold a press conference, mumble some nonsense and then go get in a few rounds of golf?

    The equally delusional people he is surrounding himself with are doing him no favors.

  118. 118.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Brachiator:  “inconceivable”.  Ah, there’s that word again.

    The equally delusional people he is surrounding himself with are doing him no favors.

    It seems to me they’re doing themselves no favors. I mean, we have example after example of what happens to people who associate with Trump. How can it not be obvious at this point?

  119. 119.

    Alison Rose

    Fucking terrorists burned down an abortion clinic in the Imperial Valley in California

    It is with a heavy heart that we share that a major fire occurred at our Imperial Valley Homan Center in El Centro. The loss of our sole Imperial Valley health center will be felt throughout our communities and beyond. pic.twitter.com/jEsIirzoa6
    — Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest (@PPPSWHealth) August 15, 2023

    If you can’t see the tweet, the image adds more details, that firefighters responded promptly and there were no staff or patients on site at the time, and the cause is under investigation. I will be quite surprised if it was anything other than arson, but happy to be proven wrong.

    This was the only clinic in that area, and now patients will have to drive a couple of hours to San Diego. It was also seeing many patients coming from Arizona who were past 15 weeks. Fucking awful.

  121. 121.

    mrmoshpotato

    Mitch McConnell is booed, and drowned out by chants of “retire, retire, retire”, for five minutes straight as he tries to talk to his own constituents in Kentucky.

    Enough Kentuckians finally realized that McTurtleass hates them and only cares about his own power?

  123. 123.

    Jackie

    @wjca: But that Democratic Governor’s hands are tied re replacing McTurtle’s replacement. He has to choose from the three candidates selected by the state Republican senators.

  125. 125.

    Jackie

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Baahahahahaaaa!

    That’s something my daughter would have done – IF she’d thought of it. Or one of her friends had suggested the idea to her! 😂

  127. 127.

    Jackie

    OMG, I’ve FINALLY caught up with all the posts!

    Fani indicting TIFG a day early had me scrambling to do today what I planned to do yesterday.

    I’m exhausted; but I’m current (for the moment!😂)

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: Since Trump’s prosecutors have no need to prove that his claims of election fraud are lies, I doubt they will spend much time on them. The claims aren’t detailed, consistent or logical enough that they can be disproven, are they? It’s like proving the nonexistence of an invisible pink elephant on Pluto.

  130. 130.

    dirge

    @zhena gogolia: But what “gaffes” has he uttered?

    I recall observing the Biden Gaffe back in the 90’s, but don’t recall specific examples.  I had begun to see a pattern, but it didn’t really click until the archetypal example, when he got way out ahead of Obama on gay marriage.  He’s also had a few hot-mic moments in support of Ukraine, and on other issues.

    Surely I’m not the only one to figure this out.  It works like this:

    Biden:  Plainly states [very popular thing] nobody else will say.

    Press:  OMG! [very popular thing] is super divisive because assholes hate it!  I can’t believe Biden just came out and said it!

    Republicans:  Yeah! [very popular thing] is a huge problem for Biden!  We hate [very popular thing]!

    Everybody:  Actually, we like [very popular thing].  You Republicans sound like assholes.

    Press:  Clearly, [very popular thing], was yet another Biden Gaffe, but perhaps he’s accidentally hit on something.

    Biden: Yup. Totally an accident. Again. Anyway, since only assholes disagree with [very popular thing], I’d like to announce [extremely popular policy].

    Everybody:  Public pressure works!  We forced Biden to do [extremely popular policy]!

    Republicans:  WTF just happened?

  131. 131.

    zhena gogolia

    @dirge: Yes, that’s a good description of the gay marriage thing. But Martin seemed to be talking about some spate of recent “gaffes.” I haven’t seen it. Oh well.

  132. 132.

    dirge

    @zhena gogolia:

    🤷‍♂️ Biden stumbles over a word or mangles a sentence all the time.  Normal people take a second to figure out what he meant and move on.  Obsessive weirdos fixate on it as an example of… whatever their weird obsession is.  So I guess on some level it’s true that every Biden vocal glitch gets the slo-mo instant replay micro-analysis treatment by… well, mostly by people like Jonathan Martin.

    So yeah, Martin’s point is true enough, that people like Martin wouldn’t normally subject McConnell to the kind of treatment he’s getting in Martin’s piece, which treatment Martin usually reserves for Biden.  A bit odd though, that Martin seems unaware that he’s actually writing about himself here.  And telling that he can’t help but smuggle in his criticism of Biden, where it has little if any relevance.

    All that said, “gaffes” are very much part of Biden’s public persona, independent of whether any actual empirical examples exist (some do).  I actually think Biden encourages this, because it’s humanizing, it makes it easy to walk back trial balloons, and it’s the predicate for his signature “Biden Gaffe” rope-a-dope maneuver.

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