Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The revolution will be supervised.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

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

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Monday Morning Open Thread: You Can’t Scare Me, I’ve Seen The GOP Death Cultists in Action

Monday Morning Open Thread: You Can’t Scare Me, I’ve Seen The GOP Death Cultists in Action

by | 79 Comments

This post is in: , , ,


 
You wanna see creepy?...


 
Monday Morning Open Thread: You Can't Scare Me, I've Seen The GOP Death Cultists in Action 1


 
Palate cleanser!

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    mrmoshpotato

    Hello, The Hill.

    That statement from the pasty-faced, traitorous, Saudi-humping pile of shit is so, so fucking stupid that our eyes didn’t need to be assaulted with a picture of his pasty, traitorous, Saudi-humping, disgusting face too.

    Fuck you for adding insult to injury.

  2. 2.

    Princess

    I can’t stand Bill Barr. He’s a Christian fascist and an antisemite. But he REALLY gets Trump’s goat whenever he mentions him and I like that. Tell us more, Bill.

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    Brandon Johnson possibly crafts the creepiest Halloween costume, using old clothes, stilts and papier-mâché

    Don’t even wanna know.

  7. 7.

    MisterDancer

    What’s absolutely infuriating about Jared’s statement is that the Ottomans did, in fact, ensure the (relative) safety of the Jews in their lands:

    [..]in the wake of the expulsion from Spain (1492) and the forced conversion in Portugal (1497), tens of thousands of Iberian Jews arrived in Ottoman territories. As all that was required of them was the payment of a poll‑tax and acknowledgement of’ the superiority of Islam, the empire became a haven for these refugees.

    From early in the 16th century, the Jewish community in the Ottoman Empire became the largest in the world.

    But he doesn’t know that. He just wants to attack Western Liberalism, by way of the collegiate experience in America.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Jews are “safer in Saudi Arabia” than on a college campus

    True. Less likely to get shot by an AR-15.

  9. 9.

    sdhays

    It seems like Trump is going to go through some stuff today, right? Courts act on gag order violations pretty quickly, I imagine.

  11. 11.

    CliosFanBoy

    That’s a great costume. Have we seen that type of monster in a movie? It seems familiar. It’s reminiscent of a Wheelie in Oz, but I know that’s not it.

  12. 12.

    BellyCat

    Had dinner with a new gun enthusiast last night (old friend turned MAGA, to my dismay) and was regaled with the tale of his going to his liberal Jewish friend’s gun range, as a guest of the Jewish member, to play with his new folding rifle. (Lots in this sentence makes little sense to me).

    Apparently, gun play went fine but afterwards politics were discussed and the liberal gun toting Jew has retracted his offer of future shooting opportunities at his club (and seemingly his friendship).  My old friend now is grousing that he can’t join any gun clubs to play with his new toy because he keeps being told that their “quota has been met and they are not accepting new members.”

    This got my friend to wondering if the Evil Liberal Jews ™ may have launched a new (devious) business empire of gun ranges to exclude non-Jews from exercising their guns?

    Further highlights include a growing interest in Kennedy’s bid for President and guidance that Tucker Carlson and Matt Gaetz are the only people brave enough to speak truth to power today.

    Can’t make this shit up… Very sad to lose an old and very good friend to the MAGATS.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    I’m so far down the rabbit hole w/ politics these days that it took me a minute to realize “Brandon Johnson” wasn’t some riff on either Dark Brandon or Mike Johnson.  (Although if they had a love child, it just might look like that thing)

    Somebody send me back to normie-ville, stat!!!

  15. 15.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oof. I started watching “Lessons in Chemistry” this weekend, and, on top of that, that article is adding to the anxiety. (I’ve been liking a lot about LiC, but I am having a hard time suspending disbelief; there are way too many things that just would not have happened that way.)

  18. 18.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Sometimes I wonder if I work with people who believe stuff like that, only they never talk about it at work. I make it a practice not to be Facebook friends with people I work with, because I don’t want to know about their personal stuff and I don’t want them to know about mine. They all know how I feel about TFG, so I doubt they would talk about their conspiracy theory beliefs with me.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sdhays: My impression is that they are understandably skittish about doing anything that might be within a light-year of violating Trump’s rights to the point that they’re giving him more leeway than a normal defendant would have. We’ll see.

  23. 23.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Kind of like how you really don’t want to know much about celebrities you like. Harlan Ellison once said in an essay that it’s a bad idea to actually meet your heroes, and I think for the most part that’s true.

    I found myself wondering what his take on TFG’s presidency would be, as well as Molly Ivins. These are two people whose writing I miss.

  24. 24.

    MisterDancer

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: That is a really great and painful article, and we should all read it.

    The acts of self-violence it takes to even stand in those toxic spaces…there’s a thing there, that I think we forget. Hell, I forget, and have had to be reminded.

    It’s easy to say “we” need to push into those spaces, into those conversations. But I used to analogy of the Pharaoh of Exodus, the one who God “hardened the heart” of a couple of days ago here…and that’s the difference.

    Going into a space filled with messages of hate with love and empathy is an act of sacrifice. It’s an act that needs a community to support those going in, people who get what you’re doing, and support the trauma you’re enduring. It’s a situation I fear we, as a movement, don’t have the resources to sustain.

    And when opposed by people who have been told to close their hearts, their ears, and to yell and shout in utter assurance of their “rightness” and “righteousness”? We do fight with one hand tied behind our backs.

  25. 25.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I like the series so far (I’d wanted to read the book but hadn’t gotten around to it), but part of my brain is screaming, “That would NOT have happened in the early 1950s!!11!” She doesn’t have the cooking show yet (trying to avoid spoilers for others), but . . . a lot is elided. It’s not just meanie men in power–though there was/is plenty of that–there were also so many structural barriers (low pay; inability to get credit in one’s own name; expectations about propriety that would not have been forgiven). I’ll keep watching, it though.

  26. 26.

    Anyway

    @Soprano2:

    Sometimes I wonder if I work with people who believe stuff like that, only they never talk about it at work.

    most of the guys in the break room at work are 2A devotees – 2A and NRA bumper stickers and cubicle decorations; weekend hunting trips (though that in itself is not a signifier) — they’re my buds but make it a point to never discuss politics at work.

  27. 27.

    Anyway

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  re LiC

    I haven’t seen the series. I liked the book, particularly once she gets rolling on her cooking show.

    I liked the beginning of the book but the last third lost me.

  28. 28.

    Soprano2

    @Anyway: Same here, I work in the sewer department. All of my co-workers who aren’t in the office (even many who are) are white men, TFG’s most supportive demographic. I know the ones who think the way I do, because they come by my office and sometimes talk politics.  There’s one guy who I talked to the other day who I like – he’s smart and a hard worker – but he’s also extremely religious and conservative. I asked him what he thought about the debacle in the House leadership, and he surprised me by telling me he doesn’t pay that much attention to politics anymore, so he only had a vague idea of what had happened. This man used to be extremely dialed in to all of it. I didn’t ask him why he quit following politics, next time maybe I will.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @Raven: ​

    I’d check with Miss Manners first, but I believe the socially-appropriate response to that type of situation is something along the lines of “Shut the fuck UP, you moron! If I want to be deluged by insane rantings that bear no resemblance to reality and make me stupider for hearing them, I’ll watch Fox, or maybe 10 seconds of Trump’s verbal diarrhea.”
    Note: if you’re so inclined, you can substitute something else for the F-bomb.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @MisterDancer:

    God, this:

    “Not all women are good,” he explains.

    I always want to say “really? No shit. See, no one knew that before you have the bravery to say it.”

  31. 31.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SFAW: One of my friends here told me about answering an old guy who told her that what this country needs is someone strong like Trump. She laughed and said she and the guy would just have to stick to talking about the Bears because she couldn’t agree with him on that one. She was apparently way more tolerant than I would be.

  32. 32.

    Raven

    @SFAW: I have no problem with it but, at this point, I am not prepared to fight someone over shit like this and I’m pretty sure that’s where it would have gone.

  34. 34.

    Soprano2

    @MisterDancer: I agree, I read the article and mostly it didn’t surprise me. It’s similar to those videos Jordan Klepper does where people contradict themselves without even knowing it. That thing about feminism is classic – conservatives believe all feminists are man-hating lesbians, and that no “real woman” would be one. They have no idea what feminism actually is.

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MisterDancer: You cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. I don’t engage with RSS zealots or their sympathizers online and off.

    If they come at me with their bullshit glorious Indian history of elebenty thousand years and poor widdle upper caste Hindus being harrassed by  Muslims, Christians and lower caste people.  I give them the facts and tell them to fuck off. They don’t typically bother me again.

    I also deal with  Modi bhakts telling me he is an incarnation of god and other countries are respecting India only since 2014 in the same manner.

  36. 36.

    Soprano2

    @BellyCat: Oh, online when I talk with people like this I hear “educate yourself” a lot. They rarely provide sources for “education” when you ask, though.

  37. 37.

    wjca

    @schrodingers_cat:  I give them the facts and tell them to fuck off. They don’t typically bother me again. [Emphasis added]

    You do see what the problem is there, don’t you?  Reactionaries typically have an aversion to facts.  Too many inconvenient ones that contradict their preferred narrative.

  38. 38.

    BellyCat

    @Soprano2: Bingo. I ask for citations to support his (outlandish) claims and his response is: “It’s EVERYWHERE. Go look it up. But it’s not on mainstream media because of cancel culture.”

  39. 39.

    Cameron

    @Soprano2: “Feminism” is just one of their conjure words like “woke.”  It’s something scary and bad and evil and Jesus and Donald Trump both hate it, so there!  Pwned again, libtard!

  40. 40.

    NickM

    @BellyCat: I’m sorry to hear about your friend.  I always wonder in these situations what has changed.  Did your friend get a divorce? Did he retire and start watching a lot of Fox News?  Do you have any theories about why they became a chud late in life?

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    @BellyCat: There’s one guy I see online who is completely subsumed into this world. He’s absolutely convinced that there is overwhelming proof that Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe from Ukraine to protect his son from being prosecuted. He believes all the crazy conspiracy theories. I only poke at him, I never try to actually engage because it’s useless.

  42. 42.

    oldster

    I didn’t get the joke about the cat-drawing sideways on the pumpkin.

    Help a slow-witted brother?

  44. 44.

    Soprano2

    Just saw a story on my news feed that the UAW has come to an agreement with GM. That’s great news – good for workers, and good for the economy.

    Seems slow this morning, is everyone still snug in bed because of the cold? If you are, lucky you! I had ice on my windshield this morning – ugh.

  46. 46.

    Ken

    @oldster: @Soprano2: I assumed it was because it shows the cat’s asshole.

    To answer the guy’s question, even if this isn’t a dig at any particular asshole in HR (over what sounds like a “mandatory pumpkin fun!” policy) it is likely to violate workplace standards.

  47. 47.

    Layer8Problem

    @narya: We’ve been watching Lessons in Chemistry here and you’ve nailed some of the things irritating me about it.  There would have been a pile of societal/cultural pushback on some of her choices.  Some of her experiences so far have been painful to watch since similar things have happened to people I’ve liked and cared for.  Still, overall I’m liking it.

    Now for entertaining historical inaccuracy you can’t beat Our Flag Means Death.  Last night I saw a pirate singing “La Vie en rose”.

  50. 50.

    Torrey

    Many thanks for the palate cleanser. I’m almost at that point with my elderly beagle. He can still use his back legs, but he doesn’t have much control. I’ll be taking him to the veterinary orthopedic and sports medicine (sports medicine for dogs?) people as soon as I can get an appointment to see if there’s any kind of therapy that’s on offer (and that I can afford). Wheelchair is a possibility. Don’t know if it will work for us, but the video was timely and much appreciated.

  51. 51.

    Jackie

    @Soprano2: Between Israel and Hamas, and TIFG’s trials, the UAW strike and negotiations aren’t getting the attention deserved.

    “General Motors became the last of the Detroit automakers to reach a new tentative labor deal with the United Auto Workers union Monday to end a strike that has spanned more than six weeks,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Haha, I had the same thought while reading the article: “Thanks for that profound insight, random asshole!”

    Bless those curricula developers for trying. I do not believe I would have the patience for that sort of work.

  53. 53.

    BellyCat

    @NickM: Did he retire and start watching a lot of Fox News?

    Prezactly.  That and FB and online forums. Now Fox is too liberal.

    ETA: He also marveled that he thought I was the one who would get into politics, because he never cared before, and never voted in his life. But now he is totally up on everything [sic] and I appear to be completely misled and uninformed. 😂

  54. 54.

    Other MJS

    One could say Trump is the biggest RINO, but then again, “L’Parti Républicain, c’est moi.”

  55. 55.

    JML

    @Jackie: UAW has done a great job representing their members and taking on the Big Three through this strike. They got their messaging right, they were organized as hell, and they got a good contract for their members. Having the right to strike if their are plant closures or management not living up to their investment promises is pretty big. they were also smart in tying in battery production facilities as they shift away from gas-powered cars. Did they get everything they wanted? No, but you never do in a contract negotiation. They did very well and their members are going to get an immediate impact.

    I love seeing Labor pushing like this. Still more to be done in making it easier to join a union, in letting a union organize, and punishing the union-busters with the brutality they so richly deserve…but it’s good to see the revitalization of Labor. And Biden gets it.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: ​
    I understand there are Jewish women. Let some drive around Saudi unaccompanied by a man, heads uncovered, and see how safe they are.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    @BellyCat: That’s just so very weird, all of it.

    Republican prion disease, as coined by Charlie Pierce, remains my go-to explanation of the phenomenon and it’s equally not reversible.

  60. 60.

    catclub

    @Ken: I think I heard on the radio there is a cartoon? version of cats that DOES have cat’s assholes, but the more official version blurred them out.

     

    Wait, Wait, don’t tell me.

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    @JML: I have a friend who is a Teamster, and he hates Biden! I don’t get it, how they can hate the most pro-union president of our lifetimes. I guess fear of “the gay” and scary brown people overcomes your paycheck getting bigger.

  63. 63.

    JML

    @Soprano2: I’m a Teamster myself and it’s an issue we have to be cautious of. When we talk about politics in the union we have to be careful to try and keep the issues focused around Labor because there are serious numbers (particularly in the more rural parts of the state) where the social issues in politics will take precedence for them. Our leadership is pretty smart about the language, but sometimes it really does get down to: “we endorse candidate that support unions, that believe in Labor rights, and we’re going to support the candidates that think you deserve a raise over the candidate that thinks you shouldn’t have a job.”

    It’s an important reminder of the value of organizing and contact not just during a drive to form a union or during a contract push, but every day. When members see and hear from their union consistently, their business agents and stewards know who they are on a personal level, it builds the kind of trust that you need to help them understand who is looking out for them and who is using them. people struggle to believe that the politician who says the things they kinda like on issues like immigration or social issues will actually take their job, cut their pay, and steal their pension. And they won’t believe you when you tell them that politician is coming for them unless you’ve established trust.

    I worked in politics for a long time and it drove me crazy that facts mattered less and less, but it’s not about that. It’s really about whether or not you establish yourself as a trustworthy source of information (which is damn hard with FauxNews blaring in someone’s ear all the time…but it’s what matters).

  65. 65.

    Eolirin

    @JML: This is the key to all of our struggles and why I’m hoping we have success with the relational organizing push the Dems are trying.

    We don’t have a lot of social connective spaces, and politics has gotten emotional and divisive to the point where the few that are more universal, like work, can be complicated places to engage with people. It enables media, and even worse social media to fill that gap and propoganda can go mostly unchallenged.

  66. 66.

    MisterDancer

    @schrodingers_cat: You cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

    I’m not talking person-to-person, precisely. Rather: There are spaces and areas “we” have ceded to The Right. Those spaces have become more and more overtly toxic and hateful — both to push us out AND to make the space toxic for us.

    But there are also people who are forced to engage in those spaces, and who cannot hide their political leanings when they do so, for a variety of reasons. There are also people who see the ceded of these spaces as a risk, and act to hold space for Progressive values, even indirectly as the author of that piece does, in those spaces.

    We cannot tell them to stop selling at Homeschooling conventions, no moreso than — in an inverse — the Teamsters can just stop advocating to the Right-leaning members in their spaces. (Thanks for the ref. JML!) But we, as a movement, don’t give much support for those interactions, which are rough and also usually necessary.

    So your experiences (which, in fairness, mirror the contours of my evolution on how I personally engage) aren’t quite applicable in these situations. Telling them to stop engaging isn’t really an option.

  67. 67.

    patrick II

    If you are a wealthy Jew who has made much of his money by selling secrets to Saudi Arabia, then yes, you are safe in Saudi Arabia. Try being an anonymous conservative Jew wearing traditional clothing while walking down the street and see how far you get.

    I actually kind of wonder. Are Saudis anti-semitic enough that it would be safe?  Or would he be taking a risk?

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @JML:  people struggle to believe that the politician who says the things they kinda like on issues like immigration or social issues will actually take their job, cut their pay, and steal their pension. And they won’t believe you when you tell them that politician is coming for them unless you’ve established trust.

    Especially when that person belongs to a party where the press lets them portray themselves as the true champion of the “working man” even though they aren’t! It makes me kind of crazy that Biden is the one who championed shoring up the UAW pension system, yet people like my friend give him zero credit for it, while the politicians he likes are against that. It truly does show you like nothing else that politics are a lot more about feelings than they are about pocketbook issues, no matter how much pundits might try to tell you otherwise.

    I listened to one of Bill Maher’s shows with Paul Begala and Bret Stephens where one thing they said was that Democrats focus too much on race when it’s actually about class, which is just insane to me because if it were only about class and money all the poor white people would support Democrats! You’d think Maher of all people would understand this with his obsession on how Democrats are killing themselves by focusing on all things “woke”, but he doesn’t. I know they don’t want to see it because it’s an indictment of people who are like them, but still it makes no sense. I always wish there were someone knowledgeable on the panel who could challenge their bullshit, but there rarely is in spite of Maher’s boasting that he has on people of all political persuasions. He doesn’t, not anymore.

  70. 70.

    StringOnAStick

    I suspect the new speaker would add banning Halloween to his ban list once he gets going, southern Baptist types hate that stuff.  My oldest half sister the southern Baptist even banned the Smurfs when her kids were little and don’t even mention Harry Potter.  All fall into a very large category of satanic as far as they’re concerned.

  71. 71.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @narya: My wife pointed out that the main actress’ only way of expressing emotion seems to be darting her eyes around and blinking.  Now I can’t unsee it and it drives me bonkers, lol.

  72. 72.

    wjca

    @trollhattan: Let some drive around Saudi unaccompanied by a man, heads uncovered, and see how safe they are.

    It’s been quite a few years.  But when I was in Riyadh (briefly! Consulting contract.) earlier this century the standard seemed to be that Saudi women had to be totally covered.  Non-Saudi Muslim women could be bare faced, but had to have their hair conered.  Other women had to have ankle length skirts, long sleeves, and a high neckline (think men’s T-shirts).  But could run around bare headed, no problem.

    So the only issue a Jewish woman might have would be being mistaken for an Arab woman.  Speak to even the religious police in a language other than Arabic (better yet, Arabic with an obvious accent) and she’d probably be good to go.

  73. 73.

    MisterDancer

    @wjca: Right. As someone trying to follow the fight against the mandatory hijab in Iran (not the same, I know! just bear with me), it’s easy for us here in America to not understand some of the nuance. Hell, it’s easy to forget that women can now drive in Saudi Arabia, although implementation is still repressive.

    But the nuance and complexities of living as a Jew in these areas? So far as I’m aware, it’s  there, just as it was when Jews lived in the also-brutally restrictive Ottoman Empire of the 1500s that I studied for a while. With Jared opening his mouth,it’s hard to find sources, but here’s one article from 2022 on the topic, and certainly one person’s opinion:

    According to Herzog’s assessment, some 3,000 Jews employed by international firms and with roots in places like the US, Canada, France, and South Africa currently reside in the kingdom. He says some stay for a few months, while others have been in Saudi Arabia for over a decade.

    I hesitate to say more; this is certainly a point that someone who has either studied, or has first-hand knowledge, should opine upon.

  78. 78.

    Subsole

     

     

    @schrodingers_cat: I am curious, do they seem to be evangelizing, or do they just assume you will be a kindred spirit?

    Because I get to hear a lot of batshit lunacy from people who assume that the fact I look like them automagically predisposes me to agree with them.

  79. 79.

    Geminid

    @MisterDancer: I ran into an interesting story today: that in 1492, the Ottoman Sultan sent ships to Spain to evacuate Sephardic Jews being expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella.

    A few months ago I read a story that in the 1930s, Albert Einstein sent a letter to Kemal Ataturk asking him to provide refuge to Jewish scientists who were losing their jobs at German Universities. Turkiye welcomed them, and these scientists made real contributions to Ataturk’s program to modernize his country through education.

Comments are closed.