Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“woke” is the new caravan.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

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

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

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

When we show up, we win.

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

This really is a full service blog.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

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

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

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Zooey Zephyr: Silenced for Speaking the Truth.

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Zooey Zephyr, the first openly transgender person to be elected to the state legislature in Montana, is being silenced in by the Montana Republican Party for speaking the truth, which is that gender-affirming medical care is a matter of life or death for trans youth. She’s a total badass.

From the AP:

On Tuesday as the House was debating Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s proposed amendments to a measure banning gender-affirming care for minors, Zephyr spoke up in reference to the body’s opening prayer.

“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” she said.

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton, a Republican, immediately called Zephyr’s comments inappropriate and disrespectful. That evening, a group of conservative lawmakers known as the Montana Freedom Caucus demanded her censure and deliberately referred to Zephyr using male pronouns in their letter and a Tweet. That’s known as misgendering — using pronouns that don’t match a person’s gender identity.

Zephyr had upset legislative leaders with emotional testimony previously this session.

She made a similar “blood on your hands” comment the first time the House heard the bill and has also given emotional testimony indicating bills that attack LGBTQ+ rights will lead to suicide.

“When there are bills targeting the LGBTQ community, I stand up to defend my community,” Zephyr told The Associated Press after she was silenced Thursday. “And I choose my words with clarity and precision, and I spoke to the real harms that these bills bring.”

Medical experts agree that gender affirming care saves lives. This has been backed up by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association.

Notice how her colleagues call for civility while misgendering Zooey:

On the one hand, the GOP doesn’t give a damn if trans kids kill themselves. On the other hand, someone hurt their feelings by saying that out loud. Both sides, right?

It is exhausting how the GOP continues to simply lie about the extensive research that has been done in regards to trans healthcare, and act like their actions are moral or rational. This takedown by Jon Stewart of Leslie Rutledge, the Arkansas Attorney General, remains one of the best I’ve seen if you haven’t had a chance to watch it.

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Election 2020 Open Thread: Steyer REALLY Needs to Go Away, Now

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Maybe Steyer had no idea what his top advisor was doing behind his back! Quite possibly he didn’t know his deputy SC state director was going to steal the Kamala Harris campaign’s volunteer data, either. Which means that Steyer isn’t sufficiently in charge of his own campaign to keep his paid employees honest… and that some of those employees are desperate enough to ‘cut corners’ even this early. TAKE THE HINT, Tom… Get out while you can still save your reputation, and spend your millions on something that might actually accomplish something more useful than getting your emu-oid face on TV.

… The overtures from Pat Murphy, a former state House speaker who is serving as a top adviser on Steyer’s Iowa campaign, aren’t illegal — though payments for endorsements would violate campaign finance laws if not disclosed. There’s no evidence that any Iowans accepted the offer or received contributions from Steyer’s campaign as compensation for their backing.

But the proposals could revive criticism that the billionaire Steyer is trying to buy his way into the White House. Several state lawmakers and political candidates said they were surprised Steyer’s campaign would think he could purchase their support…

As Steyer met with voters in Bluffton, South Carolina, on Thursday, the first question posed to him was about the AP report. He said that he learned about the allegations while driving to the event and that no payments had gone to officials in Iowa.

“We haven’t given any money to anyone in Iowa, nor are we planning to,” he said. “There’s no way we would ever do that.”…

Steyer has largely self-funded his presidential campaign, spending $47.6 million of his own money in the first three months since launching his bid, much of that on online fundraising and advertising. Steyer has qualified for the November debate, but he remains at the back of the pack in early-state and national polls…

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Thick Mick Mulvaney Knows What His President Likes

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… Pre-sorted Starbursts, free money, and the wholehearted defense of even his dumbest moves.

Problem is, the guy with this kind of single-minded dedication to Lord Smallgloves’ whims is not necessarily an intellectual heavyweight.

Everyone’s free to choose the name by which they’re known, but as I have been pointing out for some time, Mick is generally not the cognomen of someone renowned for his wisdom.

Voiceover: Later, that same day…

SRSLY?

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Rallying His Base Rallying Him

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Like any other addict, an adulation junkie needs to keep upping his dosage to get the same boost. Trump’s recent rallies just haven’t been doing the job for him — even the LameStream Media is bored watching the same MAGAt DeadBrainHeads yowl LAWKERUP like it was a prayer. So he’s flailing around, looking for that special attention-getting message that will make him feel alive again.

His handlers had him all set up for a good time in Minneapolis — where people vote for Muslim immigrants who are also Black, and even female! — but the natives didn’t take the bait:

Friday night, he was shipped to Louisiana to bath in some old-fashioned hardcore racist GOTV… but ended up spending most of the evening angrily defending himself against the morgue’s worth of still-rotting corpses falling out of various Trump closets.

So for his weekend retreat, he dropped in on the hardest of the hardcore — the “Values Voters Summit” evangelical beanfest / witch hunt, where those media representatives not of the body can be barred from spoiling the ‘where we go one, we go all’ happytimes…

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Repubs in Disarray!.. Open Thread: Peter Thiel, Would-Be Supervillain, Resurfaces in Kansas

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I’d seen rumors on multiple sites that the Permanent GOP Party was ‘encouraging’, or at least hoping, Mike Pompeo to run for the Senate in Kansas. Suddenly, a powerful counterinterest emerges… just as Mike Pompeo finds himself under the spotlight in DC. Brian Lowry, at the Kansas City Star:

Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who believes Google should be investigated for treason and once wrote that American democracy has been in decline since women won the right to vote, is investing heavily in two of the Kansas City region’s most ambitious political startups.

Thiel steered six figures into a dark money group that backed Republican Kris Kobach’s failed campaign for Kansas governor, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

And now that Kobach is running for U.S. Senate, the PayPal co-founder is upfront about his financial support. Last week at his New York City apartment, Thiel and conservative pundit Ann Coulter co-hosted a fundraiser for the former Kansas secretary of state…

One of Thiel’s companies, the data mining firm Palantir, has provided software supporting ICE’s case management system since 2014. The company has faced criticism from immigration activists because of the software’s reported use in deportations.

Two sources familiar with the inner workings of Kobach’s 2018 campaign said Thiel gave a contribution worth six figures to Per Aspera Policy, a 501(c)4 organization that paid for digital and television ads.

Both of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Thiel’s previously undisclosed contributions to the dark money group occurred after Kobach and Thiel discussed the race on the phone. One source said Kobach was giddy when Thiel agreed to spend money in the race.

Kobach did not consent to an interview about his relationship with Thiel. His campaign declined to answer any questions, including about whether Thiel and Kobach had discussed the race for governor.

Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, said at a minimum the situation “sounds like an illustration of the problems with dark money. Dark money is often only dark when it comes to the public’s knowledge—the candidates who benefit often know where the money is coming from.”…

It’s impossible to have any sympathy for Pompeo, who’s done his best to earn all the opprobrium now being aimed his way. Another interesting data point, however, that the other rightwing authoritarians see an opening to exploit in the flailing Trump 2020 campaign…

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: No-Neck Deep

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
.

And per CNN, the rest of the Republican party is less than thrilled:

What you most hear from congressional Republicans on impeachment this week is the sound of silence.

GOP sources tell CNN they have a good reason for that fear. They have no idea what else House Democrats’ investigation will uncover or what comes next.

Along with that fear is frustration with President Donald Trump: his ranting in performances full of false claims, like Wednesday in the Oval Office and White House East Room, and stream of consciousness rapid-fire tweets — curse words and all — are not exactly an anti-impeachment road map for his fellow Republicans…

And although phrases like “witch hunt” and “hoax” worked for the President politically during the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, concerned GOP sources — more than half a dozen, including some in leadership who are talking to and hearing from the rank and file — tell CNN that they worry the President isn’t comprehending what they believe to be true, that this is different…

Several congressional Republicans tell CNN that their concern is exacerbated by getting very little guidance from the White House. CNN reported last week that, despite an initial flirtation with setting up an impeachment war room in the mold of Bill Clinton’s White House during his impeachment, the Trump team is not going there now.

“There is no White House war room. Why are we the ones who have to defend him?” asked one congressional GOP source.

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Late Night Open Thread: A Moat, With Snakes & Possibly Alligators

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It was funny as a Simpsons gag, but coming from the Oval Office places this squarely in Caligula territory. The NYTimes chooses to file the story under ‘Decision Points’:

The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day…

Mr. Trump’s order to close the border was a decision point that touched off a frenzied week of presidential rages, round-the-clock staff panic and far more White House turmoil than was known at the time. By the end of the week, the seat-of-the-pants president had backed off his threat but had retaliated with the beginning of a purge of the aides who had tried to contain him.

Today, as Mr. Trump is surrounded by advisers less willing to stand up to him, his threat to seal off the country from a flood of immigrants remains active. “I have absolute power to shut down the border,” he said in an interview this summer with The New York Times.

This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen White House and administration officials directly involved in the events of that week in March. They were granted anonymity to describe sensitive conversations with the president and top officials in the government.

In the Oval Office that March afternoon, a 30-minute meeting extended to more than two hours as Mr. Trump’s team tried desperately to placate him.

“You are making me look like an idiot!” Mr. Trump shouted, adding in a profanity, as multiple officials in the room described it. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”

Among those in the room were Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time; Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state; Kevin K. McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection chief at the time; and Stephen Miller, the White House aide who, more than anyone, had orchestrated Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff was also there, along with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and other senior staff…

Mr. Trump had routinely berated Ms. Nielsen as ineffective and, worse — at least in his mind — not tough-looking enough. “Lou Dobbs hates you, Ann Coulter hates you, you’re making me look bad,” Mr. Trump would tell her, referring to the Fox Business Network host and the conservative commentator.

The happiest he had been with Ms. Nielsen was a few months earlier, when American border agents had fired tear gas into Mexico to try to stop migrants from crossing into the United States. Human rights organizations condemned the move, but Mr. Trump loved it. More often, though, she drew the president’s scorn…

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