Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: The Repub Revanchists

by 2:34 am. It has 29 Comments.

No matter how grotesquely sexist / racist / classist the GOP as a whole devolves, Rep. ‘Pigmuck’ King will strive to be that little bit worse. From the Des Moines Register – “U.S. Rep. Steve King: If not for rape and incest, ‘would there be any population left?'” —

U.S. Rep. Steve King told the Westside Conservative Club on Wednesday that humanity might not exist if not for rape and incest.

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” he said at the event in Urbandale, Iowa…

The Kiron Republican was defending his position of not allowing exceptions for rape and incest in the anti-abortion legislation he tried to pass in Congress. Republican leadership had prevented the bills he sponsored on banning abortions from advancing through the House, despite GOP support for the measures, King said…

He actually said that, in front of the cameras — there’s video. Of course the whole forced-birth ‘But what if that aborted baby would’ve been the next Einstein?’ trope has been in use for at least the last forty years, but count on Rep. Pigmuck to bring his own personal touch. And he’s not sorry, either; he insists the outcry that’s greeted his flapmouth bigotry is nothing but a plot by his enemies…

… In the hours after his remarks to the breakfast meeting, condemnation of his comments poured in from Democrats, including those running for president, as well as some Republicans…

“People think it was an organic media feeding frenzy, but no, it was orchestrated from the beginning,” he said Wednesday. “They had told me, ‘Heads up before Christmas: They’re going to try to drive you out of office and get you to resign.’ Within 24 hours, you had people saying, ‘Resign, resign, resign.’ Why? Because the New York Times misquoted me?”
Read more





This post is in , , , , , , and has 29 Comments.

Election 2020 Open Thread: Brad Parscale Would Like to Be A Dangerous Person

by 1:18 am. It has 16 Comments.

He is dangerous, but only because — like his purported employer — he’s the idiot catspaw for at least one foreign power. If he were even halfway competent, he’d keep his head down and his mouth shut. But then, who would know what a Big Swingin’ D*ck he is?

… In their chilling new documentary, The Great Hack, Academy-Award-nominated filmmakers Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim follow the personal stories on both sides of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal that exposed the private data of 87 million Facebook users. Through the eyes of Professor David Carroll who sues Cambridge Analytica to release his personal data, Brittany Kaiser, a top Cambridge Analytica executive-turned-whistleblower, and investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, the film reveals how Cambridge Analytica used the same military-grade tactics of information warfare they employed against populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Eastern Europe to manipulate national political elections around the world, including the UK Brexit vote and the 2016 US presidential race. As one former Cambridge Analytica employee expressed, “It’s a grossly unethical experiment, playing with the psychology of an entire country without their consent or awareness.”…

Way to panic the rubes, dude. You’ll be lucky Zuckerberg doesn’t… er, that mysterious entities with tons of money and a strong interest in keeping Facebook profitable don’t find it in their interest to make your career go bye-bye, putz.





This post is in , , , , , , , and has 16 Comments.

Anti-American Open Thread: The GOP Wants to Make America Smaller

by 11:00 pm. It has 94 Comments.

Per Vox:

… This is not the first time the Trump administration’s effort to curtail legal immigration has brought it into public conflict with the Statue of Liberty. Back in August 2017, when the administration was pushing an ill-fated bill that would’ve restricted legal immigration while giving priority to fluent English speakers, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta grilled White House policy adviser Stephen Miller during a news conference about how “what the president is proposing here does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration. … The Statue of Liberty says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”

Miller replied by trying to make a distinction between the statute and Lazarus’s poem, which wasn’t placed on it until years after the statue was installed in New York Harbor.
Read more





This post is in , , , , , and has 94 Comments.

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: In One Voice…

by 6:40 am. It has 119 Comments.

(Jim Morin via GoComics.com)
.

Per USA Today, “Donald Trump to visit grief-stricken El Paso and Dayton even though some want him to stay away”:

President Donald Trump will travel to Texas and Ohio on Wednesday to meet with the victims of back-to-back shootings that have reopened a pointed debate over whether his own campaign trail rhetoric has contributed to the violence…

In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told SiriusXM on Tuesday said he would not join Trump on the Dayton visit. “I don’t have any interest because of what he’s done on this – total unwillingness to address the issue of guns, his racist rhetoric.”

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said she planned to tell him that his proposals on gun control as outlined in remarks Monday are inadequate…

Trump remained mostly out of sight Tuesday, even on Twitter. White House aides said the president spent the day meeting with staff and preparing for Wednesday’s travel…

White House officials declined to say where within El Paso and Dayton the president is traveling, citing security concerns. The president is expected to visit Dayton first…

******





This post is in , , , , , , , and has 119 Comments.

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Nope

by 4:51 am. It has 79 Comments.

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
.

You think you hate your job…

“He’s suffering too!”…

… A White House official confirmed Monday that Trump was postponing his trip to the sprawling retirement community, where he was scheduled to discuss Medicare at an invitation-only event Tuesday that was generating excitement in an area where Trump enjoys strong support.

…John Temple, chairman of the Sumter County Republican Party, said he received an email announcing the postponement shortly after Trump addressed the nation Monday about the shootings in Dayton and El Paso.

In the days leading up to event in The Villages, Temple and other GOP officials have been inundated with requests for tickets. State and local elected officials had planned to attend the event, which was scheduled to be held at a 1,000-seat theatre…

(Cruel snark: After the ‘Toledo’ fiasco, either his handlers are taking some private time to adjust his meds before letting him speak in public again… or they’re rewarding him with extra play-time for not adding his own ‘very fine people’ gloss. Maybe both!)

Proud to be a Democrat.





This post is in , , , , , , and has 79 Comments.