Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

This blog will pay for itself.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Help Me Out Here, Which One Is the Piece of Shit?

Help Me Out Here, Which One Is the Piece of Shit?

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Trick question.  They both are!

I really don’t get it. Have the Russians bought bought the Republcan party, lock stock and barrel? Or nearly so?

If you’re on social media, think about how we can help spread the word, using McConnell’s own words against him.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    trollhattan

    Now now, everybody gets a piece, there’s enough shit for every Republican. Or is that from every Republican?

  3. 3.

    sab

    Life in a bubble makes people weird. And Republicans have spent the last two or three decades blocking themselves into a bubble.

  6. 6.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    When push comes to shove whatever he’s said, the bottom line with him is party before country, always.

  7. 7.

    Bupalos

    It’s both flattery and misunderatanding of domestic politics to think this is a product of Russian interference and bribery. This is both homegrown and due to massive forces of history and economics operating around the globe. I wish it were as simple as Russian ratfucking.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    The switcheroo makes sense if you are 100% focused on amassing and retaining power to achieve whatever nefarious ends you favor, which in McConnell’s case are enacting the plutocrat agenda, i.e., deregulation and favorable tax treatment for the wealthy. There’s no depth to which he won’t sink, and the same is true of Nikki Haley, who in on her third renunciation of Trump by my count. She’ll crawl back to lick his tiny wingtips yet again if that’s what it takes. In today’s GOP, that is what it takes.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    McConnell cares, deeply, about appointing Federalist Society hacks to judgeships so they can dismantle the past 160 or so years worth of progress. Trump will do that, and Biden most certainly will not. QED.

  12. 12.

    West of the Rockies

    I don’t get it either.  No one is perfect.   Most of us are generally somewhere between pretty good and adequate, with stretches of excellence and grace, and spells of should-have-done-better and kind of crummy.

    But Republicans (who seem to always think they’re amazing) are without self-insight.  They consistently choose poorly, do poorly, and exercise meanness.

    It’s stupefying.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: +1

    He, and Susan “Trump has learned his lesson” Collins, and all the rest of his enablers assume that the norms of our system are self-executing (when they’re not breaking them for their own ends).  Trump failed on January 6, so of course he was going to slink off into ignominy and never be heard from again.  No need to impeach and convict him, and damage the party for years.  He’ll go off and do the honorable thing and save them from bloodying their own hands.  They won’t have primary challengers, they’ll get re-elected easily.  Everybody (who matters) wins.

    But, as we’ve know for years and years and years, “That’s not how it works.  That’s not how any of this works.”

    They failed to uphold their oaths.  They’re monsters and we cannot be rid of them soon enough.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Anyway

    OT- I am hoping the crazypants bigoted holocaust-denying pastor that won the GQP nomination for NC governor will turn off independents and moderates and put NC into the blue column in November. Not that farfetched a theory, is it?

  16. 16.

    Bupalos

    @West of the Rockies: it’s a simple, timeless political equation. It’s an age of fear, confusion, inequality, and polarization against a backdrop of looming climate catastrophe. Many of us had a hand in helping create that backdrop and very few of us accept that responsibility or meaningfully change behaviors that have fed it.

    It really isn’t about how unnaturally bad these people are, and all the energy spent here talking ourselves into that state of mind is worse than wasted.

    They’re people. Incredibly disappointing, cowardly people…as usual. This happens almost like math or physics. We’d do well to think about the math and physics that helps get us out of this over the coming decades.

  19. 19.

    Geminid

    I think of McConnell as a party man. If he thought spurning Trump would help the party, he would. But at this point it would hurt the part’s down-ballot candidates, so he won’t.

    One could argue that the party would be better off in the long run if McConnell took a stand on principle, but McConnell isn’t thinking long term; he’s thinking about November and he wants to win the Senate. A divided party could frustrate that effort.

    McConnell is a realist and likely thinks Trump will lose in November, but this way he’s also prepared for a Trump win.

  21. 21.

    sab

    “All of them, Katie.”

    Which really urks me to say because my mom was named Katie and was a Republican and would have been appalled by the party now. She happily voted for Obama in her last Presidential election. She also voted for Jimmy Carter twice.

  22. 22.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Anyway: NC is already going to be a battleground state. Having (another) crazy extremist at the top of the ticket couldn’t hurt our chances, right?

    It certainly helps reinforce the Biden message for normies (i.e. they’re dangerous and deranged busybodies, while we’re quietly competent and will stay out of your business).

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    Next time you encounter an antivaxx relative, lay some German on them.

    German researchers have examined a “hypervaccinated” man they say received more than 200 coronavirus shots without any noticeable side effects or harm to his immune system.

    Their findings, published Monday in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, a medical journal, indicate that coronavirus vaccines have a “good degree of tolerability,” the researchers said, although they noted this was an isolated case of “extraordinary hypervaccination.”

    The 62-year-old man came to researchers’ attention when German prosecutors opened up a fraud investigation, gathering evidence that he had obtained 130 coronavirus shots in a nine-month period – far more than recommended by health authorities.

    “We learned about his case via newspaper articles,” Kilian Schober, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. “We then contacted him and invited him to undergo various tests. … He was very interested in doing so.”

    The man agreed to provide blood samples, including new samples, the results from past blood tests and blood samples that had been frozen in recent years.

    The man said he had received 217 vaccinations for “private reasons.” German authorities did not file criminal charges.

    Going into the study, the researchers had speculated that having so many shots could cause his immune system to become fatigued. Vaccines create immune memory cells that are on standby, ready to rapidly activate the body’s defenses in the event of an infection.

    But in fact, the researchers found that the man had more of these immune cells – known as T-cells – than a control group that had received the standard three-dose vaccine regimen. They also did not detect any fatigue in these cells, which they said were just as effective as those of people who had received a typical number of coronavirus shots.

    “Overall, we did not find any indication for a weaker immune response, rather the contrary,” said Katharina Kocher, one of the lead authors of the study.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/happened-man-got-217-coronavirus-053202508.html

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    @trollhattan: The obvious answer is that McConnell felt comfortable saying the truth about Trump when it looked like Trump probably wouldn’t be the next Republican Nominee.

    And then McCarthy and Fox News reformed ranks around him and started lying again. Now that Trump is likely to be the nominee again, McConnell will be nice to him again.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @sab: Yeah, mom came from a Republican household, could have been described as a “Rockefeller Republican” and stuck with them I suppose through Bush 1, even though Nixon and Reagan had her scratching her noggin.

    But that was the end of it.

  29. 29.

    lollipopguild

    @WaterGirl: The Senator was honest because he felt that trump was done with. If he had seen the next 3 years coming down the road he would have been much less honest.

  30. 30.

    JPL

    So to the guy who said that Nikki didn’t have balls to scratch, guess what neither does Mitch.   What a coward.

  31. 31.

    frosty

    @Anyway: The more I hear of the Republican NC Governor candidate, the more I think your hope that he turns the state blue isn’t completely farfetched.

  32. 32.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud:

    He wants to be a black man in pre-1919 America?

    In the GOP worldview, The Good Old Days.

  36. 36.

    WaterGirl

    @West of the Rockies: Your whole comment is filled with truth.

    But wow, this in particular is a great description of the human condition, at least for those of us who are trying to be good people.

    Most of us are generally somewhere between pretty good and adequate, with stretches of excellence and grace, and spells of should-have-done-better and kind of crummy.

  38. 38.

    Hoodie

    @Geminid: I think it says a lot about how pessimistic McConnell may be about the future of the GOP.  I originally had trouble understanding why he didn’t give Trump the coup de grace after the second impeachment.  It would have been an easy way to dispose of him and move on since he arguably had outlived his usefulness.   After all, a mere handful of years after Nixon resigned in disgrace, the GOP rebounded back to power with Reagan.   Sure, the GOP would have gone down to defeat in 2020 due to unhappiness amongst the Trumpers if he had been convicted, but a loss was likely to happen anyway with Trump running in 2020.

    The only way this makes sense to me is that McConnell is convinced that Trump is the only vessel for keeping the GOP intact, as it has gradually lost any coherent ideological basis  to generate similar electoral weight.  In other words, it’s the cult or nothing.  There is some evidence to support that given the chaos that allowed Trump to take over the race in 2016.

    Thus, McConnell may view everything as a desperate rear guard action to prevent a Dem takeover and resulting horrors like a Dem president and Senate doing away with the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court and undoing all his life’s work.   He’ll suck up to Trump to prevent that, no matter how distasteful.  It’s his only option.

  40. 40.

    Chris Johnson

    @rikyrah: His sister-in-law died VERY recently, less than a month ago, in weird circumstances. Drowned in her Tesla in a pool in Texas. It is possible there is a reason Mitch is running away and caving to Trump: he has been very, very hostile to Trumpworld and those they represent. I had assumed he would get away with it, but I had thought it was awfully brazen of him.

    I’ve been thinking the guy has incredible cojones to brazenly side against Russia, but his wife’s sister is now dead

  42. 42.

    Chris

    I really don’t get it. Have the Russians bought bought the Republcan party, lock stock and barrel? Or nearly so?

    Literally every political issue that will ever be put in front of Republicans can be answered with the following two questions:

    1) Are the people to my right for it.

    2) Are the people to my left against it.

    If the answer to either of these questions is “yes,” odds are they’re for it too.  If the answer to both those questions is “yes,” no odds involved.  They’re for it.  Occasionally they need a little time to come around, but come around they will.

    I cannot possibly overemphasize how much the word “literally” here is meant in its original meaning, and not just as an adjective for emphasis.  There is no norm, law, or principle to which this doesn’t apply.  Openly sell out the country and its entire position as the dominant power in the world?  OK.  Try to overthrow the government?  OK.  Literally sic a mob on us that’s very likely to assault and even kill us along with the Democrats while you laugh at our increasingly panicked phone calls for police assistance?  Still OK!  I very literally believe that if Trump showed up on the doorstep of his average male voter and said “hi, I’m here to fuck your wife, whether you like it or not and whether she likes it or not,” a sizable portion would say yes on the spot, and a majority might initially say no but would end up saying yes if he persisted.  They’d initially be shocked, but they’d eventually retcon some bullshit about how they were always okay with it, in fact, they invited him to do it, because it’s just an honor.  And they’d probably end up convincing themselves, too.

  45. 45.

    Chris Johnson

    @Jay: I wouldn’t own a Tesla for anything. They auto-update, and Musk is a total freak, God only knows what he is up to, and furthermore very openly Russia-friendly.

  46. 46.

    Chris Johnson

    I also don’t think we are seeing the full extent that Trumpworld and MAGAs are prepared to threaten Republicans. There’s hints of it in caucuses, with the Haley caucus berated and threatened. All these guys are being groomed to carry out a civil war, starting with their own side, and escalating into open conflict.

    That is not to say it’s a natural inevitable thing: they are being groomed to do it, and have the easiest time attacking their fellow Republicans as they’re fellow authoritarian followers, easier to fight.

    I suspect they’re going to have a much harder time openly attacking America.

  47. 47.

    Chris

    @West of the Rockies:

    But Republicans (who seem to always think they’re amazing) are without self-insight.  They consistently choose poorly, do poorly, and exercise meanness.

    I figured it out about a decade ago, but it makes perfect sense: they’ve spent half a century at least consistently appealing to the very worst of human nature, so not surprisingly, they’ve ended up with a voter base made up of the very worst humans in the country.

  51. 51.

    TBone

    This oughta be making a bigger splash.

    “You try working for him and not chasing pills with alcohol,” one former Trump staffer said.”

    “…Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to sources that spoke to the magazine.”

    https://newrepublic.com/post/179531/trump-white-house-awash-drugs

  54. 54.

    Hoodie

    @Chris:  Scarborough (of all people) talked to that this morning, noting how Trump and the GOP are constantly ranting about how bad America is but not recognizing how divorced from reality that sounds.  This is probably a characteristic shared by political movements that subconsciously feel they’re failing ideologically.  They don’t have much faith that they have anything positive to offer.

  55. 55.

    Chris

    @trollhattan:

    @sab: Yeah, mom came from a Republican household, could have been described as a “Rockefeller Republican” and stuck with them I suppose through Bush 1, even though Nixon and Reagan had her scratching her noggin.

    But that was the end of it.

    The problem is that at this point, pretty much all the fruit that could be picked from that tree has already been picked.  If you’re a Republican with enough principles or enough respect for reality that Trump was a bridge too far for you, you almost certainly left the Republican Party long, long ago.  And what you left behind was already a bunch of fascists just waiting for a Fuhrer.

    If, on the other hand, you stuck with the Republican Party long enough to have made excuses for Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin, the odds that you’re suddenly going to decide that Trump is suddenly a bridge too far are vanishingly small.  The mental and emotional muscles you would’ve needed to push back against something like Trump had atrophied to the point of uselessness, and whatever your coping mechanisms for it are (“but liberals are worse!” “he’s not that bad, it’s all the liberal media making it up!” “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DEAD BABIES?”) are so firmly in place that they’ll easily see you through to supporting Trump, too.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    Headline/sub at the top of the NYT site:

    How Trump’s Crushing Primary Triumph Masked Quiet Weaknesses

    Even though he easily defeated Nikki Haley, the primary results suggested that he still has long-term problems with suburban voters, moderates and independents.

    Huh. Maybe they’ll notice the brain worms next.

  59. 59.

    gene108

    @Anyway:

    OT- I am hoping the crazypants bigoted holocaust-denying pastor Lieutenant Governor that won the GQP nomination for NC governor will turn off independents and moderates and put NC into the blue column in November. Not that farfetched a theory, is it?

    Fixed it for you.

  60. 60.

    RAM

    In answer to your question, yes, it seems pretty clear Putin has bought control of the GOP. It’s got to be the biggest news story of the last half-century and no news organization seems interested in covering it. Which makes a person wonder what else the Ruskies have bought.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Chris Johnson: Made me look…

    Statesman.com (from 2/21):

    On Feb. 11, EMS responders were called to the 100 block of Schneider Lane in Johnson City at 12:03 a.m. for a reported water rescue. Upon arrival, about nine minutes later, responders discovered a vehicle underwater with one occupant, said Benjamin Oakley, the EMS chief for Blanco County Emergency Services District No. 1, in a statement Monday.

    EMS responders extracted the sole occupant — a 50-year-old woman — and delivered “advanced life support” and resuscitative measures for 43 minutes, Oakley said. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

    Whether an autopsy was ordered is unclear. The official responsible for making that decision, Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Randy Brodbeck, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    Google Maps tells me that JW Ranch is at 101 Schneider Lane. Looks like a fancy spread. Zillow says it’s worth about $8.4M. Big creek/pond too.

    I would be shocked, shocked if Texas officials were trying to keep the details out of the news as a favor to someone powerful. Shocked.

    Just my $0.02 – I know nothing more than anyone else.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  66. 66.

    BruceJ

    Have the Russians bought bought the Republcan party, lock stock and barrel? Or nearly so?

    Bought? Hell, he got them for free!

  67. 67.

    brantl

    @West of the Rockies: What you have just described is the Grinch, as a political party. And the HUUUUGE Grinch that is that party is made up of a bunch of mini-Grinches, all of them assholes, it’s not that mysterious.

  68. 68.

    Miss Bianca

    @Chris:

    I figured it out about a decade ago, but it makes perfect sense: they’ve spent half a century at least consistently appealing to the very worst of human nature, so not surprisingly, they’ve ended up with a voter base made up of the very worst humans in the country.

    QFT

  69. 69.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Russians hacked emails of the RNC (maybe others) in 2016, was publicized a little bit but HILLARY/EMAILS!!! stomped all over it. Been essentially ignored since. Then we have the Granny-eyed Starver laughing with other Repubs about who the Russians own and to ‘keep it in the family’.

    IMO there is little doubt that the Russians have compromised the Republican party and I have absolutely no doubt that some Republicans are selling out Ukraine to cover their corrupt asses.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: these are the kind of quotes we’ll see in Virginia if our blessed Lt Gov tries to mount a run for Gov in 2025.

    She and the AG are nuuuuuuuuts

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    @Hoodie:

    I originally had trouble understanding why he didn’t give Trump the coup de grace after the second impeachment. [. . .] Sure, the GOP would have gone down to defeat in 2020 due to unhappiness amongst the Trumpers if he had been convicted, but a loss was likely to happen anyway with Trump running in 2020.

    Maybe you mean the first impeachment (December 2019)? The second one was in January 2021.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: The GQP hacking was discussed some in the Mueller Report, vol 1 (448 page .pdf) –

    Footnote in p41-42

    140 See, e.g., Internet Archive, “https://dcleaks.com/” (archive date Nov. 10, 2016). Additionally, DCLeaks released documents relating to [Personal Privacy], emails belonging to [Personal Privacy], and emails from 2015 relating to Republican Party employees (under the portfolio name “The United States Republican Party”). “The United States Republican Party” portfolio contained approximately 300 emails from a variety of GOP members, PACs, campaigns, state parties, and businesses dated between May and October 2015. According to open-source reporting, these victims shared the same Tennessee-based web-hosting company, called Smartech Corporation. William Bastone, RNC E-Mail Was, In Fact, Hacked By Russians, The Smoking Gun (Dec. 13, 2016).

    Here’s TSG link.

    I don’t quickly see any non-open-source reporting about an actual RNC hack, but TSG tries to connect the dots, and it would be natural to assume that that happened as well.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker: I’m almost glad that they (both the GOP and the snooze media) made it this far before they started to realize they might be in trouble this year with trump at the top of the Republican ticket.

    It’s not like he’s going to get better, find ways to be more appealing*, or (per Nikki Haley’s line) “earn the votes of those who have yet to support him”

    *I mean the guy came out against funding any school division anywhere that has vaccine mandates?!??  That ALONE, properly played, is going to cost him suburban voters everywhere.

  74. 74.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Another Scott:

    Late reply but thanks for the info! It sure would be nice if our speculative presstitutes (is Biden too old?) would speculate a bit about this possibility. The Democrats sure as hell should.

    As LBJ said, “Make them deny it.”

  75. 75.

    Citizen Alan

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    Minor nitpick. I believe “the Granny-eyed Starver” should say “Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver,” Charles Pierce’s famous and deadly-accurate description.

  76. 76.

    Paul in KY

    @rikyrah: He sure as Hell wouldn’t be running for governor in that era. Be shining the shoes of a white guy who was running for governor…

    That’s just got to hurt him with women who might otherwise (because they are GQPers) be inclined to vote for him.

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