We Have a Winner in the GOP Senatorial Runoff in Alabama

This was one election where there really wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference.

Wheel guns don’t jam. OTOH, if he is going with an pistol of that size a Bat Masterson-type bowler would have been a better hat choice.

Sometimes people get the representation they ask for and deserve.

Fuckem

@Wag:

A guy can hallucinate, can’t he?

Given the right chemicals…

@Adam L Silverman: Pedant.

@Omnes Omnibus: Speak for yourself.

I wonder if this theocratic fascist criminal is a bridge to far, even for Goatfuckistan?

Meanwhile in NH, the Democrat just flipped the 4th most Republican seat in the NH House in a special election. Dems have won the 3 special elections so farZ

@Adam L Silverman:
Or you could have a Colt Diamondback which had just a tad too much head space and while slightly harder to jam because of it, made shooting the thing a lot less fun.

@Omnes Omnibus:
I beg your pardon…….

@Ruckus: As well you should.

@Adam L Silverman:
No this was late 60s.
It wasn’t horrible, just could have been better. Not all that cheap either.

@Omnes Omnibus:
You might have gathered that I was being fucking sarcastic. After all this time it should have been fucking obvious.

@Adam L Silverman: What you need is a Lefever 12 ga.

@Ruckus: Agreed.

@Adam L Silverman:
It was the operator not the tool. Both of my friends who became cops could not shoot anywhere near a well as I could, with my weapon or theirs. It used to cause me no end of merriment. Now I can’t even remember who I sold that to.

@Gin & Tonic:
Seventy Five if I’m not mistaken. BTW I didn’t look to verify.

@Mike J:
I looked at used sailboats on line yesterday. Lot of 80s stuff still out there and not all that expensive either. The new stuff though…….

@Frankensteinbeck: I’m waiting for Turtle to attempt to pass bills through the Senate by plurality vote.

@Cheryl Rofer: Loverly. Why wasn’t she dispatched days ago? Oh, right, Teh Browns What Are In Debt and all.

@Brachiator: Yes.

Next question?

SRSLY, I gave up on “sane Republicans” when Cohen retired.

@boatboy_srq: Remember Terri Schiavo? If anyone can pass a bill by emergency unanimous consent without a quorum and still call it the will of the American people with a straight face, McConnell can.

@Ruckus: I’ve had a sinus condition for the last few days, I’ll use that as an excuse.

Shocked, just shocked, I say, that a racist asshole gets elected in fucking Alabama.

@Cheryl Rofer: She’s sucking out all the oxygen! She needs to shut up and go away!!

@Mike in NC:

shocked, I say, that a racist asshole gets elected in fucking Alabama.

It is, after all, the seat formerly held by one Jefferson Beaueregard Sessions, the Evil Leprechaun. Once a racist scum, always a racist scum.

@Cheryl Rofer: Trump has one thumb in his mouth and the other up his ass, and waited for General Kelly to tell him when to switch, as a high school teacher once said.

I know I’m dreaming but Moore winning what is effectively the real election for senator should convince the tote-baggers, the wanna get along independents, and the allergic to partisanship dickheads that there is no talking to, no compromising with, and no accepting of the RW supremacists who are the 21st century Republican Party.

He looks like he’s selling a quack remedy with that tiny silver thing in his hand. What a goober.

@Ruckus: We bought a 80s vintage Catalina 27 for club members to take cruising in Puget Sound (Friday Harbor and back with two or three stops along the way is popular.) Paid about 10k, and of course the outboard died on the way from the owner’s slip to the dock.where we got the bottom done. She’s very roomy for her size, but kind of a pig in anything less than 10. Doesn’t really handle great then either, but at least she’ll move.

Our Ranger 24′ feels half as big below deck, but she handles waves a lot better and weighs 3000lbs less, so it doesn’t take a gale to get her going. We also have a symetrical and an asym spinnaker for the 24, where the 27 doesn’t even have the fittings.

Old boats might not have the bells and whistles, but they can still be fun.

The Democrats don’t always come up with inspiring candidates for office, but it is the Republicans who are uniquely able to find the scum under the sludge at the bottom of the barrel. In Alabama, they have now gone at least two strata deeper in nominating Roy Moore. No matter who your choice for worst candidate ever — and that includes Trump — Roy Moore could at least give all of them a credible run for the title. This is a man who will be effectively perjuring himself when he swears to protect and defend the Constitution. “God’s Law” always supersedes the Constitution and other human-made laws. The Ten Commandments take precedence over the Bill of Rights (except perhaps the Second Amendment, which probably has equal status with Biblical rules) and Moore, if given the chance, will undoubtedly violate his oath of office repeatedly should he become the newest senator from Alabama.

With Trump in the White House and Moore headed for the senate (?), we will have the two worst elected federal officials in our history.

@Ruckus: I heard something about boats wanna be doing something, too…

/s

Honestly, this pResidential moment makes Shrub’s “how many is a Brazilian?” comment look positively intelligent and informed.

@boatboy_srq:

But that was more on HEB?’s head than Turtles, and Shrub lobbied for it as a favor for Big Bro

Wasn’t Big Brave Wonder boy Marco part of that mess, too, in the Florida leg?

@Omnes Omnibus: Nice….

@Brachiator:

he also appears to be seriously, deeply anti-gay.

Not “appears”. He’s anti anything that is’t white, fake christofascist, “straight”, gun totin’ hypocrite.
He did, after all, let himself get bounced off the state supreme court bench in Alabama, rather than acknowledge the primacy of the constitution.

@James Powell: It’s Alabama. That will let the totebaggers easily avoid learning that lesson.

@Redshift:

It’s Alabama. That will let the totebaggers easily avoid learning that lesson.

How many totebaggers are there in Alabama? A couple dozen? A few hundred?

@Mike J:
Owned a 1980 O’Day 30. A lot of room, sailed pretty nice, some details on the cheap side. Lots of fun till you get a poleless spinnaker wrapped just before lowering, while single handing and heading for the beach.

Mark-Anthony Bailey‏ @MostMuscle
Replying to @TheRickWilson @thedailybeast

Rick, do you not believe that the Southern Strategy is a big deal, setting the stage for present day? Surely more than “hyperventilation”.

Rick Wilson is another asshole, not an ally, who can not be trusted about any damn thing.

@efgoldman: I believe they call them gunnysackers.

@CaseyL: Mitch’s only aspiration was to be Maj Leader. I honestly can’t see him giving that up for anything.

@Adam L Silverman: He’s one of Bannon’s groupies, isn’t he? Not exactly a disinterested observer (and I note you didn’t say he was).

WaPo from 9/16:

To counter the onslaught against Moore, the conservative advocacy group Great America Alliance, which is now overseen by Bannon protege and former deputy White House political strategist Andy Surabian, released a digital ad Tuesday featuring a montage of grainy photos of McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) that argues over a rock-n-roll score that Strange was “appointed by the swamp.”

The group and its allies do not intend to match the volume of anti-Moore ads on television, but there are plans for a bus tour of the state by conservative activists in the next couple of weeks to support the Moore campaign, culminating in a major rally before the election. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has endorsed Moore, is expected to travel to Alabama to appear as part of the tour.

And Moore allies have hope that their side will see an infusion of big money, too. Great America and its sister super PAC have new links to Bannon and his political patrons, the wealthy Mercer family. The former White House strategist does not have a formal role with the organizations, but he helped install Surabian as the top strategist at the advocacy group, according to a person familiar with his role.

Ed Rollins, the veteran GOP strategist who leads Great America PAC, said he has recently “exchanged some ideas” with Bannon, for whom he said he has “great respect.” And he has also been in talks with the Mercers, influential but idiosyncratic donors who often buck the GOP party establishment.

“We are having discussions but no formal ties at this point,” Rollins said of the family. “The more we can get going in the same direction, the better. We certainly have had some conversations.”

If they decide to put serious sums into groups taking on establishment candidates, hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer and his middle daughter, Rebekah, could help fuel the GOP’s latest internecine battles. Before supporting Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, they gave $13.5 million to a super PAC that backed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump’s longest-lasting challenger for the nomination.

Etc.

I saw somewhere today that the Mercers want control over the GOP even if it’s a much smaller party than it is right now. They’re perfectly fine with fratricide if it helps them get control.

They’re dangerous – the whole lot of them. We have to fight them every single day.

Cheers,
Scott.

Why is some Easterner pretending to be a cowboy? Alabama is no more the West than New York City.

@efgoldman: Granny Starver was actually able to get his Trumpcare abomination passed with very little difficulty.

@No Drought No More: White Evangelicals believe America was founded as a Christian nation (David Barton is their favored historian). For decades, they believe, America has been turning away from God; ‘we’ must turn back to God – 10 commandments, traditional defination of marriage, etc. And Moore is the ‘poster child’ for that view.

@Adam L Silverman: He calls Trump a lot of funny curse words and that’s fine. But his stream is mainly a lot of chest thumping, “I’m with you brother!” type machismo bullshit. “Oh, ho, ho! Come visit me anytime for a beating!”
The second Trump is out of office. The fucking micro-second, Wilson will be race baiting again for a Republican candidate. Wilson also does alot of that very mysterious, “Very Bad Things Are Coming” and I am warning you about them but I refuse to tell anyone what they are or how they might appear because now I can claim credit for any fucking scandal or misstep the Trump admin makes but don’t have to say how I played a part in it.
His analysis is garbage. You want an analysis on the current state of the Republican Party? They are all fucking racists.
Done.

@JaneSays:

Granny Starver was actually able to get his Trumpcare abomination passed with very little difficulty.

It unexpectedly failed the first time because his leadership team is apparently incapable of counting votes, and it passed with 217 votes out of 240 Republicans after an arm-twisting campaign that relied heavily on the argument that it didn’t matter what was in it because the Senate was going to rewrite it. If the House and Senate had gone in reverse order, I’m not convinced ZEGS would have gotten it passed, and certainly not easily.

@Cheryl Rofer:

Oh God, now that this story is on the Washington Post, shitgibbon will probably order. the ship to turn around.

@Another Scott:

I saw somewhere today that the Mercers want control over the GOP even if it’s a much smaller party than it is right now. They’re perfectly fine with fratricide if it helps them get control.

Think in terms of a blocking coalition.
Since the alliance of wealthy GOP donors couldn’t advance their agenda of tax cuts and ACA repeal (which are largely the same thing), they may be retrenching to a holding action. Owning the GOP means that if the Dems get back into power, the Mercers might be able to ensure that they’re the ox left un-gored when it comes time to raise taxes (steering the increases toward the oil and real estate sectors, and away from hedge fund exemptions).

@JaneSays:
Like @Redshift says, I don’t recall ‘very little difficulty.’ I recall ‘just barely managed to get enough votes to pass a bill that everybody knew would be completely rewritten by the Senate, specifically by stressing that it was a meaningless sheet of paper whose only purpose was to pass the buck.’ Ryan is a shitty, shitty Speaker. Granted he’s slightly better at the job than Boehner.

EDIT – Interestingly, McConnell ended up having to try the exact same thing, and failed largely because not all of his senators believed Skinny Repeal would be rewritten.

@Brachiator:

So, is Moore the crazy Republican, or is the other guy the crazy Republican?

Strange is the crazy Republican.

Moore is the crazier Republican. Moore crazy, you might say.

The Alabama Cowboy is an American icon. Like the California cranberry farmer and the Maine Hollywood starlet.
I’d think twice about makin’ fun of ol’ Roy, in his cowboy duds.

Edit: Yeesh. I guess I need to check the internet on every little thing before I comment on anything. Looks like there is an Alabama cowboy reality show of some kind on. Is it still on? Has anyone heard about it? Called ‘The Cowboy Way’.

@🌷 Martin: Estranged Lutherans?

@Ruckus:

I blame myself.

@Repatriated: The Mercers should be confiscatory taxed into penury.

@Repatriated: … mind you, it never made sense to me that capital is taxed at a preferential rate relative to labor in the first place.

@Repatriated: Emoulments no longer mean shit, why should they be alone?

@Repatriated: Is it still a bill of attainder if it applies to all billionaires?

@Amir Khalid:
I thought she had more leadership ability in a toenail clipping than drumpf has in his whole body. That toenail clipping is for sure smarter than he is.

@Gin & Tonic: Think “colour ramp” between “Impressed” and “Shocked”. I’d put ‘er about half way in between.