President Biden drinks shake through straw, Fox loses it, Jimmy Kimmel claps back

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

We’ve finally found a presidential scandal to rival Teapot Dome, Watergate, and the legion of horrors Donald Trump visited on our heads that somehow got memory-holed faster than Barack Obama’s tan suit. Sure, Trump may have ignored a deadly pandemic and tried to overthrow the U.S. government before spending the next three years working on a children’s version of “Mein Kampf” (and by “working on,” we of course mean “reading”), but at least he’d never drink a milkshake through a straw. Right?

Jesse Waters, who gets to keep his job because everyone at Fox loves his elfin whimsy and annual batch of fresh-baked Krampus cookies, has at least found the load-bearing Jenga piece that will end Joe Biden’s presidency once and for all. And late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is here to give you all the sweet and sticky details.

You see, Biden recently drank a milkshake through a straw. A straw! What real, red-blooded American drinks things through straws? What would the Founding Fathers think? Ben Franklin would have never used a straw! He was far too busy doing tequila body shots off French courtesans.

Watch:

YouTube Video

KIMMEL: “It’s like you can’t give your opponents an inch, and these guys are so desperate to smear Joe Biden, they are literally now grasping at straws.”

WATTERS (VOICEOVER): “DailyMail.com caught Biden sucking on what looks like a milkshake through a straw. Could be a smoothie. Looked like chocolate to me. Now, a little advice for grown men. If you want to enjoy a milkshake or anything with a straw, please do it in private. It’s not a good look. Men should never suck anything through a straw.”

KIMMEL: “Really? Is that a thing now? Anyone feel like Jesse Watters might be going through some sort of an identity crisis? Real men dump their milkshakes all over their nipples. They don’t use straws.”

SHOWS PHOTO OF TRUMP DRINKING THROUGH A STRAW

KIMMEL: “Oh, oh no. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesse, you better apologize to President Tastee-Freez right now.”

So that picture of Trump might make it look like Watters is just being a hypocritical arse, but you’re ignoring some key context. Biden was drinking a milkshake, and while we don’t know for certain what Trump had in his cup, preliminary analysis based on Trump’s uncharacteristic devotion to the task points to a 97.9% probability that it’s lard. And lard is a lot harder to suck than milkshakes, obvi. So suck on that, Joe Biden.

Of course, there’s also the inconvenient fact that Trump not only uses straws but also sold straws for a time to raise funds for whatever it is he raises funds for. (Mostly campaigning, defending himself against a raft of felony charges, and attempting to corner the global lard market.)

The Guardian, July 2019:

In the race to raise as much cash as possible ahead of the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s campaign has hit on a novel, and successful, idea: selling plastic straws.

Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said last week that his team has raked in almost $500,000 in one week from selling Trump branded, “laser engraved”, nine-inch long straws.

It’s a tidy sum and, given Trump’s six corporate bankruptcies, string of failed companies, and ability to lose more than $1bn between 1985 and 1994, the straw selling may rank as one of the president’s most successful business ventures.

But while Biden’s brazen flouting of well-established milkshake norms may not rise to the level of impeachment just yet, you shouldn’t rule anything out. Rep. James Comer, House Oversight Committee chairman, is on the hunt for silly accusations that appear more or less plausible to Jäger-besotted MAGAs who tune into Watters’ show every night because they think he’s Paul Harvey.

Then again, if we don’t hold the line at straws in milkshakes, what’s next? At some point, Biden might whip out a spoon. Or even a spork! And then where will we be? On the threshold of tyranny. Or Culver’s. Whichever. Either way, this is clearly bad for Joe Biden.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

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Sunday Four-Play: Zelenskyy seems skeptical that Trump will bring peace, and Mike Johnson lies

Posted on November 5, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

For a guy who’s supposedly a multibillionaire, Donald Trump sure spends a lot of his time scrounging for ha’pennies with which to stuff his gross, linty, panko breading–lined pockets. That reality was on lurid display this week as his real estate empire-cum-perpetual grift machine got flayed over and over during testimony meant to establish just how yuuuge a fraud he and his company really are—and always have been.

Would a really rich guy stiff his blue collar contractors? Would he sell tacky NFTs for $99 a pop to a heaving throng of marks who are still hoping their Beanie Babies recover their value? Would he sell mail-order steaks? And would he sell out his country and, by extension, the whole of Western democracy for the chance to build a big tower in a country led by a brutal, murderous war criminal?

Trick question! He’d sell out his country for a week-old Wetzel’s Pretzel, and toss in Eric in his official Team CCCP banana hammock mankini.

No, Trump has been pretending. All along. Do you think Warren Buffett lies awake at night trying to figure out how to squeeze ever-more filthy lucre from his fawning fanboys? Of course not. But Trump does—because he apparently has to. And thanks to Trump’s ever-skeevy ambitions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests are now reliably represented by a small-ish, but hugely significant, segment of the Republican Party.

In fact, while House Republicans have swiftly passed an aid package for Israel, whose military is already far superior to its enemy’s, it left out badly needed aid for Ukraine (while also offering a deficit-ballooning helping hand to America’s patriotic, hardly working tax cheats). New House Speaker Mike Johnson claims Ukraine aid is still on the agenda, but it’s hard to take him completely seriously given his recent skepticism on the issue, as well as his declaration that any bill authorizing new Ukraine aid should come with “conditions.”

So why are Republicans far more eager to help the ally that clearly needs less help than they are the largely overmatched ally that’s been bravely defending itself against a much larger imperialist aggressor, and doing so on behalf of the world’s liberal democracies? Because Donald Trump made loving Vladimir Putin fashionable. And why is that? Because he’s is a greedy, soulless prick who adores dictators.

How do you like that? I buried the lede.

And now, on to the usual nonsense.

1.

If this universe really is a simulation—and there’s a fair chance it is, frankly—I really regret buying the “Donald Trump is president” expansion pack. He’s ruined so many lives, after all.

Trump is fond of saying Russia would have never invaded Ukraine had he been president, but it seems far more likely that his lingering presence actually encouraged Pee Wee Putin’s Big Adventure—because Putin knew he had good friends in the USA to rely on if things started to go south. After all, Putin doesn’t need to defeat Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; he just needs to defeat Joe Biden. Then Trump will be able to pull the U.S. out of NATO, as he’d planned on doing all along, and end the war in 24 hours, as he’s promised. Of course, any “peace plan” would almost certainly be made on his good buddy Vlad’s terms. Putin would likely get all the territory he’s stolen from Ukraine, along with a 600-foot statue of Stalin peeing in the reflecting pool at the National Mall; Zelenskyy would get a some-expenses-paid weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago and double scoops of ice cream every night during his stay.

Zelenskyy appeared on “Meet the Press” with host Kristen Welker, and Welker asked him about a new NBC News report that U.S. and European officials have begun talking with Ukrainian officials about what peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia might look like.

WATCH: @NBCNews reports that U.S. and European officials have quietly begun talks around Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, but Zelenskyy says he is not ready to begin that dialogue with Putin.@ZelenskyyUa: "We can’t trust terrorists because terrorists always come back." pic.twitter.com/aHQXqcQtxJ
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

WELKER: “President Zelenskyy, NBC News is reporting that U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to your government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might look like to end this war. Have you personally been involved in these talks, and what’s the status of these talks?”

ZELENSKYY: “A lot of different voices around us, I’ve heard a lot of different voices and emotions and … a lot of different things, but as for me, I don’t have, for today, I don’t have any relations with Russia. And they know my position, that is the position of my country. That is the position of our people. We don’t want to make any dialogue with terrorists, and the president of the United States and Congress, bipartisan support, all of these people, they know that I’m not ready to speak with the terrorists, because their word is nothing. Nothing. We can’t trust terrorists, because terrorists always come back.”

Yeah, they do, don’t they? We’re learning that in this country, too:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Welker also asked Zelenskyy about Trump’s boast that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. At the very least, Zelenskyy seemed skeptical. Feel free to either stare at this picture until you attain satori or, if you don’t have that kind of time, watch the following clip. Either way, you’ll get the gist.

WATCH: Fmr. Pres. Trump — the GOP front-runner — has said he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Ukrainian President @ZelenskyyUa responds: “If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes … to explain … that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin.” pic.twitter.com/iykBUuH6hw
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

I won’t transcribe the entire clip, but Zelenskyy’s big takeaway is this: “If [Trump] is not ready to give [us] our independence, he can’t manage it.”

2.

Republicans want to pass aid to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack, but they also want to make sure wealthy tax cheats can go on cheatin’. What to do? Oh, here’s an idea! Take $14 billion away from IRS enforcement, then pretend that saves the country money, even though it will actually blow another $12.5 billion hole in our budget. But hey, that deal looks pretty sweet to people who don’t pay attention—which includes most voters, unfortunately. After all, it’s easy to scare Americans by shouting “IRS!” Though somehow this video isn’t quite enough to make them shit fluorescent green armadillos till the heat death of the universe:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” to discuss Republicans’ decision to play silly political games during a fraught moment in our nation’s—and the world’s—history.

After House GOP passes emergency aid package for Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer tells @GStephanopoulos the move is “without precedent in recent history.” https://t.co/Qnz5e41SgQ pic.twitter.com/KwnEAHtjA5
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 5, 2023

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Finally, the president’s request for aid to Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and others appears to be the victim of a stalemate right now. House Republicans have passed aid to Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement. We have the Republican Leader Steve Scalise on the program next. What’s the president’s message to House Republicans?”

FINER: “I think the message is pretty clear, that it is not good for the United States, good for the region, or good for Israel to tie emergency assistance to Israel to what we consider to be essentially a partisan request for a way to offset that spending. … That is basically without precedent in recent history, and we don’t support it, and are urging the members of our party and the members of Congress from any party not to support it either.”

Well, maybe this particular outrage is unprecedented, but remember, Republicans have long since decided that taking hostages and threatening the economy while a Democrat’s in the White House are acceptable governing tactics. So yeah, shocking but not surprising. Like most everything the GOP does these days.

3.

Ah, Mike Johnson. The new House speaker who’s basically just Mike Pence if you gave him a Howdy Doody wig and steeped him in beef broth for 20 minutes. Johnson appeared on “Fox News Sunday” with Shannon Bream and said some stuff. Spoiler alert: It was mostly lies and deflections. In other words, business as usual.

Wow. Mike Johnson on Fox News Sunday doesn't rule out voting against access to contraception but then says "I really don't remember any of those measures" when asked about his past votes against reproductive health care pic.twitter.com/4pDl3BGGD3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BREAM: “I want to talk about some social issues. You’ve got a lot of critics who say that you’re wildly out of step with the American people. Let’s talk abortion first. One of the groups opposing you [Emily’s list] says this: ‘He wants a total abortion ban with no exceptions. He supported bans that would not only criminalize abortion but ban IVF treatments and common forms of birth control,’ and that you voted against access to contraception. Where are you on these issues? Is that an accurate assessment of where you are, because that’s not in step with the American people.”

JOHNSON: “No, Shannon, look, I’m pro-life. I’ve said very clearly I’m a Bible-believing Christian. I believe in the sanctity of every single human life. So I come to Congress with deep, personally held convictions. But guess what, so do my 434 other colleagues in the House. Everyone comes to Congress with their deeply held convictions. But the process here is that you make law by consensus, and I have not brought forward any measure to address any of those issues. Right now our priorities are funding the government, handling these massive national security priorities that we have and crises around the globe, and taking care of changing and reforming how Congress works. That’s what we’re going to do. Listen, prior to the modern time—until recently, actually—almost all of our nation’s leaders openly acknowledged that they were also Bible-believing Christians. This is not something that should cause great unrest, okay? It’s just that Washington right now, what you’re seeing, Washington and the … press corps are engaging with a leader who openly acknowledges faith and the foundational principles of our country. I think this a healthy discussion, but it doesn’t affect how we run Congress.”

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

BREAM: “But do you oppose [crosstalk] IVF?”

JOHNSON: “No, no, of course not. No, that’s something that’s blessed a lot of families who have problems with fertility. Of course that’s a great thing. I would support that. But again, these are not issues that are on the front of the agenda, and we can come with our convictions and we can govern in an accountable, transparent manner for the American people, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Okay, while my admittedly limited Googling has failed to turn up much on Johnson’s voting record regarding fertility treatments, he does have a pretty well-established record on birth control. Uhh ... he doesn’t like it.

An Oct. 30 Rolling Stone article titled “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long Crusade Against Birth Control” laid out some of the gruesome details:

Johnson is known for being among the most anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress, and for railing against the use of “abortion as a form of birth control” before he was in office. But his statements and actions suggest he does not see much difference between abortion as a form of birth control and birth control as a form of birth control.

As a lawyer, Johnson worked on multiple cases representing plaintiffs who refused to dispense, counsel, or provide emergency contraception, which they considered to be abortion-inducing drugs. And as a congressman, Johnson has repeatedly voted against efforts to expand, fund, or protect access to birth control and other family planning services — including for members of the military.

While a certain, largely female segment of the Republican party has undertaken efforts to expand access to birth control in the wake of Dobbs, Johnson has not joined those efforts.

And—oh, lookee here—he joined 194 of his Republican House colleagues in voting against the Right to Contraception Act.

So let’s take another look at his answer, shall we?

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

Wait, so that was just a … lie? But Bible-believing Christians never lie! Because lies make Baby Jesus cry.

Ah, but don't worry about any of that. Johnson is focused on other priorities. And as we all know, people who’ve been on the job for less than two weeks never get around to doing anything else. The new bill requiring chastity belts for women living within a 500-mile radius of Jason Momoa will be taken up in late March at the earliest. So don’t worry your pretty little heads, ladies! Johnson won't get around to banning contraception until he’s finished screwing up a bunch of other stuff first.

4.

Wait, are Republicans still talking about impeaching President Biden? After that oily ferret orgy of a hearing they held in September? A hearing that was so bad, House Oversight Chair James Comer recently said they don’t want to hold any more hearings?

Comer appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo and tried to pretend that impeaching Biden is still a hot topic of conversation anywhere outside the musty pingpong room inside Marjorie Taylor Greene's head.

Comer tells Maria Bartiromo he thinks Biden should be impeached but is leaving it up to Mike Johnson pic.twitter.com/g2MI0PNiwh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Based on what you know today, Congressman, should Joe Biden be impeached?”

COMER: “I think he should, but that’s going to be left up to the speaker. You know, people ask me why I haven’t put someone in jail yet. All I can do is investigate. The House of Representatives can determine whether or not to impeach, but at the end of the day we’re going to need an attorney general who does the right thing and prosecutes people according to the law and doesn’t have a two-tier system of justice.”

Actually, we probably need more than two tiers in our justice system—if only to accommodate Trump’s dozens of felony charges. But hey, if Comer can find a grand jury to indict Biden based on the fact that he loaned money to his brother and his brother—gasp!—paid it back, he’s welcome to test out his theory that Trump is the most unjustly persecuted individual in the history of whiny little snowflake toddlers.

If nothing else, it should be interesting.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now! Hope you remembered to turn your clocks back and aren’t reading this one hour in the future. But if you are, please let the rest of us know if civilization survived.

Sunday Four-Play: Mike Johnson is a skilled (as in sociopathic) liar, and the GOP still loves Putin

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Remember “The Dating Game”? It was one of those shows that folks of a certain age would watch when we stayed home from school pretending to be bleeding from our eyeballs with hemorrhagic fever. Even as a kid it seemed odd to me that 1) anyone would go on a beach trip vacation alone with a stranger they’d just met, 2) they’d select their date, sight unseen, based on generic softball questions like “What’s your idea of a fun first date?” and 3) the woman would often look utterly stricken when she finally met her chosen suitor face to face, even though only one of the contestants ever turned out to be a serial killer. (That we know of, anyway.)

I couldn’t help but think of that show after Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson to lead the House for however long we have left until the rapture, when God finally calls Randy Quaid and his Igloo cooler full of squirrel heads home. The ordeal felt a bit like an episode of “The Dating Game” where Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and Johnson were the three eager bachelors and Republicans somehow decided Johnson was their least creepy option.

I can almost picture a beaming Johnson declaring how super hard-core he’s going to love America as soon as he gets it alone: “For our first date, I’d like to fly you to Idaho, force you into a covenant marriage, and stare at you for the rest of your natural life with the baleful mien of a Christmas elf who doesn’t like to make toys but does have an oddly specific penchant for unlicensed taxidermy.”

In other words, Republicans chose this guy with precious little forethought or vetting, and it sorta feels like it could backfire. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But we already know he’s all-in on forced birth, The Big Lie, criminalizing gay sex, and handing Ukraine over to Vladimir Putin, so naturally he’ll be an ideal brand ambassador for the GOP heading into the 2024 election cycle.

This week on the Sunday shows, Johnson’s name came up more than it ever has before. In addition, Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures” scored an exclusive interview with the man himself. I fully expected her to ask about Johnson’s plan for governing and whether it’s easier for a Christian dominionist weirdo and real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” character to keep a show on Fox News or be elected speaker of the House with the unanimous support of his party, but Johnson was too busy lying to get into too much detail on any of that.

He did have some important stuff to say, though. Mostly lies, but what else is new?

So let’s dive in, shall we?

1.

Normally if I were cueing up a Tim Kaine clip I’d warn you well in advance so you had time to order smelling salts and a home defibrillator on Amazon, but in this case he’s exactly what we need. He’s the man for the hour. And the one after that. And the next one, too. Aaaaand … oh, shit, he’s still going. Oh, no, did he just start in on the macroeconomic implications of corporate sorghum subsidies? Again? We could be here a while. Hope you brought a book.

So you didn’t want industrious, conscientious, and serious leaders like Tim Kaine, eh, America? Well, look what you got instead. Kaine may be as exciting as plain oatmeal, but at least he’s good for you. You went with the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and they turned out to be actual bombs.

Kaine joined “The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart” to discuss the yang to his yin, new House Speaker Mike Johnson—who’s also pretty boring, but in that lawful evil way Republicans have always loved.

"You outlined the positions [Rep. Mike Johnson] had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ and anti-women's reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now." @SenTimKaine discusses with @CapehartJ the extremism of Speaker Johnson #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/YUqiz7swTj
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) October 29, 2023

CAPEHART: “Before we get into the nitty-gritty, just generally your view of Speaker Mike Johnson, what he represents?”

KAINE: “Well, Jonathan, he is the most powerful Republican in America. He is the face of today’s GOP. He’s second in line to the president, and you outlined the positions he had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now, and remember, he received the vote of every member of the Republican caucus to be speaker. So that is obviously a very different vision than Virginians have, a very different vision than Senate Democrats or Republicans have, and so it sets up some challenging times ahead. But all that said, it’s better to have a speaker than not have a speaker, because we have important work to do for the American public.”

It is better to have a speaker than not to have a speaker. That is true. And it was better for the Titanic to have a captain, if only to tell the string quartet where to set up. But Kaine makes some great points, and even more importantly, he offers a living, breathing contrast to today’s GOP, which is exciting in the same way that buying Tylenol in October 1982 was exciting.

If you want sober, steady, and policy-focused, you’d do well to elect more Democrats like Kaine. If you want to have a child every 10 months and, seconds after giving birth, be forced to shout, “Thank you, Jesus, may I have another?!” then Mike Johnson is definitely your guy.

Moving on.

2.

As Kaine said, it is important to have a speaker. Who else is going to try to impeach Joe Biden for no reason? New Speaker Mike Johnson, newly hatched from the Republican-pol pod farm miles below Koch Industries, appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo to further gaslight a weary nation that’s had just about enough of this nonsense already.

Bartiromo asked the question that’s at the top of every American’s mind: Are you going to keep the Biden impeachment charade going through the 2024 election?

"We're the rule of law team," says one of the congressmen who led the effort to install Trump in power pic.twitter.com/wzwIVcCOhn
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BARTIROMO: “What about the investigations into the potential Biden family influence peddling, potential bribery? Are you going to allocate the financial resources and human capital needed to do an in-depth investigation? And will an impeachment inquiry turn into an official impeachment?”

JOHNSON: “We’ll see, Maria. I worked on the committees of jurisdiction, and Judiciary is one of those. I think our chairmen have done an exceptional job, you’ve spoken to all of them. Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, on Oversight and Judiciary and Ways and Means. They’ve continued those investigations. Even while we were going through the tumult of the speaker’s race, they were still working methodically through that. I’m encouraging that. I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads. We’re the rule-of-law team. We don’t use this for political partisan games like the Democrats have done and did against Donald Trump twice. We are going to follow the law and follow the Constitution, and you and I have a suspicion of where that may lead, but we’re going to let the evidence speak for itself, and I look forward to rolling that out over the coming days and weeks and letting the American people see exactly why we’re taking the next steps and where it’s headed.”

Okay, no one has time to fully parse all the lies and barmy nonsense Johnson packed into that short clip. Suffice to say, Republicans have no evidence against Biden. In fact, their one big hearing on the subject was so effing embarrassing, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer recently told reporters, “I don’t know that I wanna hold any more hearings, to be honest with you.” Which is a weird thing to say if, as Johnson claims, they just want to let “the American people see exactly why we’re talking those next steps and where it is headed.”

But flipping reality on its head is kind of the GOP’s brand now. Donald Trump may have extorted a foreign power in order to dig up dirt on Biden, and yes, he tried to illegally overturn the results of a free and fair election and was all-in when his feral mob decided it wanted to hang Mike Pence (he should have known Pence would hang himself eventually), but President Biden loaned some money to his brother. And his brother paid it back!

Rule-of-Law Party to the rescue!

Sadly, just based on the few clips we’ve seen, it’s clear that Johnson is the kind of liar who can lie straight to your face without flinching. And if I never watched anything on Sunday mornings besides Fox News and Alvin Styczynski’s Polka Palooza, I’d be pretty convinced by him, too. But I watch all the polka shows, and sample more than just one Sunday show, too. So I’m not fooled by him for a second, no matter how many outrageous fibs he tells for Jesus.

3.

Top Trump gadfly Chris Christie is back. He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper to help us ascertain the obvious: Murderous autocrat and war criminal Vladimir Putin’s best friend in America is Donald Trump. And if Trump returns to power, Putin will get pretty much everything he wants (including a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, though Christie didn't specifically mention that part), and Ukraine will be left twisting in a very foul wind.

Yes, Christie is still telling the truth about Donald Trump, which is a big reason why he’s stuck at roughly 3% in the polls. You can’t be a truth-teller and expect to win anything as a Republican.

Chris Christie on Trump calling for Israeli aid to be separated from Ukraine aid: "He wants to separate them to continue to coddle Putin." pic.twitter.com/g2qOjNCrbX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

TAPPER: “Let’s turn to the war in Israel. President Biden has proposed a $105 billion foreign aid package, which includes support to both Israel and Ukraine and some other priorities. Donald Trump said yesterday that Ukraine aid and Israel aid should be separate, it should be decoupled. What do you think?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, this is Donald Trump’s, you know, bad worldview. Look, he wants to do it and separate them because he wants to continue to coddle Putin, as he’s done from the minute he became president of the United States and going forward from there. This aid is connected because these attacks are connected. There’s no doubt that Russia, China and Iran, and North Korea are all working together to try to disrupt the world and create violence. We need to support Israel and support them strongly, and we need to support our friends in Ukraine as well. Remember, Jake, we made a promise to them in 1992 when they removed nuclear missiles and returned them to Russia that we would protect them if Russia attacked. We need to keep our promises.”

Wait, did anyone else notice what I noticed? Christie just admitted that Trump has been coddling Putin from the moment he became president. Is that why Christie risked his life to help Trump prepare for the debates against Biden? So Trump could continue coddling Putin for another four years?

Republicans. I tell ya, man. Even when they’re telling the truth they’re up to their eyeballs in horseshit.

4.

Of course, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who wants to coddle Putin. Enabling mass murderers is all the rage in the GOP these days. While they’re eager to send aid to Israel, which was attacked by a terrorist group with a small fraction of Israel’s resources, Ukraine was invaded by the No. 2 military in the world (by beet consumption, anyway), and it’s doing a great job curtailing Putin’s imperial ambitions. In other words, Ukraine is shedding its citizens’ blood for the sake of Europe’s and the world’s democracies, not just for its own interests. If you want to promote democracy and contain brutal autocracy, this is the fight you should be paying attention to.

But as the recent speaker battle proved, these jabronis take their orders from Donald Trump now, and Trump still wants to build a big tower in Moscow. Perhaps to live in, but that remains to be seen.

Sen. J.D. Vance joined host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” to throw our brave and loyal ally Ukraine under the busski.

"There's a difference between what should happen, and what can happen" -- JD Vance on his opposition to US aid to Ukraine pic.twitter.com/RZ0ByUFxJv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BRENNAN: “We just heard the new House Speaker, you have some similarities with him in terms of separating out Israel aid from Ukraine aid. He did say, though, ‘We can’t allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there. We’re not going to abandon them.’ What part of that statement is objectionable to you?”

VANCE: “Well, nothing is objectionable in the sense that if I could wave a magic wand and throw Putin out of Ukraine, I would, but what we have to accept is there’s a difference between what should happen and what can happen. America has limited capacity. Just in the Israeli conflict, for example, there are 300,000 artillery shells the Israelis would love to have access to. They don’t have access to them. Why? Because we sent them to Ukraine. We have a rising threat of China in East Asia. There are weapons the Taiwanese need that we can’t send because we sent them to Ukraine. We have to focus. That’s all I’m saying.”

Uh-huh. You know, when a guy who still supports Donald Trump claims “we have to focus,” it’s almost too much for a single human brain to process. I may have to hook into the Borg hive mind for a few while I try to make sense of it. We have to focus, so let’s make this googly-eyed Adderall golem president again. That sure would help!

Also, we can’t keep sending money to Ukraine. They might win, and where will we be then? So let’s get the Los Alamos National Laboratory started on that magic wand! We’ve got the bad guys on the run now!

These people. Sheesh.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for this week! Have a happy Halloween! It’s a frightening world out there these days, so maybe take some time to unwind with a few of those “Saw” movies and maybe an “Exorcist” or two.

Democrats sound the alarm about Jim Jordan’s potential interference in the 2024 election

Posted on October 14, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

If you need further proof that the GOP is not a serious party—apart from its continued fealty to a disgraced ex-pr*sident who’s roughly 20% evil and 80% Happy Meal—consider that they’re actually thinking about making Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a known insurrectionist, House speaker.

And no, he wasn’t just another of the cow-eyed and craven Republicans who stood by slack-jawed and mute as Donald Trump tried to smother American democracy with a lumpy MyPillow. He was elbows-deep in the shenanigans, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

Well, plenty of people have noticed the irony in potentially putting an America-hating coup plotter second in line to the presidency—and they’re not just Democrats. After all, giving this guy the power to finish what he and Custard Cream Caligula started in January 2021 is the height of irresponsibility for a party with any real pretensions of patriotism.

On Oct. 4, former House member Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who still thinks the person who won the most electoral votes should get to be president, even if that person is a Democrat, warned that a vote to elect Jordan speaker would be a vote for further undermining the increasingly vulnerable foundations of our democracy.

“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” she said during a speech in Minnesota. “Somebody needs to ask Jim Jordan, ‘Why didn't you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned?’”

Cheney also noted—correctly—that if Republicans elect Jordan speaker, it would be tantamount to abandoning the Constitution.

Jim Jordan was involved in Trump's conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) October 13, 2023

Well, Cheney’s not the only one who’s alarmed. In fact, Rep. Ted Lieu, an outspoken Democrat, is concerned that a Jordan speakership could grease the skids for Bumblin’ Coup 2.0 following next year’s presidential election.

"Jim Jordan is one of the leaders of not respecting the will of American people in elections, and he will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory,” said Lieu. “That's what he did before."

Lieu also noted that Jordan would be as much of a nightmare for reasonable (ha ha) Republicans as he is for the rest of the country.

"I think moderate Republicans should be freaked out with Jim Jordan as speaker," said Lieu, noting that Jordan would likely "push for a national abortion ban" and for the impeachment of President Biden.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Democrats’ one and only choice for speaker, echoed Lieu’s sentiments.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,” Jeffries said on Friday while gathered with other congressional Democrats outside the Capitol. “His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark has also weighed in, noting that Jordan is an “insurrectionist” who’s currently being blocked from the speaker's chair thanks to blanket opposition from Democrats.

“He was directly involved in the right-wing coup that sought to overturn the 2020 election,” she said. “Every Republican who cast their vote for him is siding with an insurrectionist against our democracy.”

Yes, Jordan was directly—and heavily—involved in Trump’s America-garroting schemes following the 2020 presidential election.

In case you need a refresher, Mother Jones has the deets:

Many Republicans endorsed Trump’s Big Lie about the election. But Jordan was one of only a handful of congressional Republicans who actively conspired with Trump to overturn the election results. As he runs for House speaker, Republicans appear eager to ignore that. Yet by embracing Jordan they tie themselves further to that attack on democracy and the Constitution.

Jordan was an early and enthusiastic recruit in Trump’s war on the republic and reality—in public and in private.

Days after the November election, he spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in front of the Pennsylvania state capitol. He spread election conspiracy theories within right-wing media. He endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell’s bogus claims that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic had robbed Trump of electoral victory. He called for a congressional investigation of electoral fraud for which there was no evidence and demanded a special counsel be appointed. He endorsed state legislatures canceling vote tallies and selecting their own presidential electors. He urged Trump not to concede. He demanded Congress not certify Joe Biden’s victory in the ceremony scheduled for January 6, 2021.

In other words, making Jordan speaker of the House would be a little like checking your local school bus driver’s pupils to make sure he is on drugs.

But Republicans, for the most part, don’t see it that way. For instance, profile in porridge Mike Pence, who actually did right by the Constitution on Jan. 6, 2021, is nevertheless supporting Jordan’s speaker bid. He was recently interviewed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who asked him a very rude question he didn’t want to answer. So he didn’t. Answer it, that is.

YouTube Video

COLLINS: “It’s interesting to me to hear you say that, that Jim Jordan would be a great speaker given he was someone who sent a text to the chief of staff on Jan. 5 that outlined for you to violate the Constitution and block the certification of the election. I mean, do you really believe that’s someone who should be third in line [sic] to the presidency?”

PENCE: “I have immense respect for Jim Jordan, he’s a man of integrity, and I’ve known him for many years. I was not aware of his opinion going into Jan. 6. My interaction with Congressman Jordan in December was simply over the legitimate objections that members of Congress were permitted to file under the law. But look, we may have a difference of opinion about my duties under the Constitution that day, but I’m very confident that if Jim Jordan becomes speaker of the House that he’ll lead with integrity.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bullshit Bot 9000, new from Ronco! I really wonder sometimes if Pence could pass the Turing test. Something tells me if Trump’s mob had actually succeeded in hanging him, he’d have sputtered his rehearsed talking points to his last breath: “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a purpling corpse—in that order!”

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing hard against the notion that Republicans’ demonstrated inability to get out of their own way is somehow the minority party’s fault.

“It’s really appalling that they can’t even own their mess,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “They’ve been unable to govern from the beginning of this Congress and unable to work with Democrats. All they seem focused on is fighting each other.”

“When I’ve gone through battleground districts across the country, folks want to see governance work,” DelBene added. “All they’ve seen from the Republican side is chaos and dysfunction.”

Uh huh. And that’s all they’re going to see, especially if Jordan gets his wish. Well, that and another big, steaming kettle of coup stew.

Sen. Fetterman zings GOP: ‘America is not sending their best and brightest to Washington’

Posted on October 12, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

While Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania may not boast the sartorial resplendence of, say, Jacketless Jim Jordan or disgraced former whatever-that-was Donald Trump—whose chichi Queen-meetin’ duds appeared to shrink in real time before our infinitely astonished eyes, threatening to pop his skull off his torso like a wonky Kirkland champagne cork—it’s fair to say he’s a more serious legislator than every current Republican member of Congress.

Granted, it’s not a high bar, but Fetterman’s style, such as it is, certainly must give Republicans fits. They’re continually getting owned by a guy who looks like he just spent the day bowling with Willie Nelson’s roadies. He may not be a sharp dresser, but he sure as shit has a sharp tongue. And that ample sass was on full display Wednesday night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

After praising Fetterman for his excellent meme game, Colbert asked if it can be awkward running into the resultant smoldering heaps in the halls of Congress. After all, he never had that problem with Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose proud New Jersey guts he left on the abattoir floor after unceremoniously dispatching him last fall.

Watch:

Senator @JohnFetterman is known for his devastating memes and after tonight, maybe his one liners!#Colbert pic.twitter.com/dRagmB1HXd
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) October 12, 2023

COLBERT: “Is it awkward to be in the Capitol and then run into people that you have put up a devastating meme about, because you’ve got excellent meme game. But then you have to see these people in the cafeteria.”

FETTERMAN: “Ah, no, it’s … you all need to know that America is not sending their best and brightest to Washington, D.C. Like, sometimes you literally just can’t believe these people are making the decisions that are determining the government here. It’s actually scary, too. And, you know, before the government almost shut down—I mean, it came down to a couple hours. I was in my office, and they finally came over from the House, and they’re like, okay, well, this has to be unanimous in the Senate, and out of 99 of us, if one single one of us would have said no, the whole government would have shut down. That’s how dangerous that is to put that kind of power in one tent, because you have some very ... less gifted kinds of people there that are willing to shut down the government just to score points on Fox.”

Of course, it’s somewhat ironic that the man who’s perhaps most responsible for Congress’ current dysfunction has gone out of his way to criticize Fetterman’s clothing. Last month, as Rep. Matt Gaetz was preparing to shove ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy out to sea on an ice floe, he joined convicted criminal and well-known fashion plate Steve Bannon to discuss Fetterman’s clothing choices.

Here’s how that went:

The evidence against Joe Biden is overwhelming. A first-year law student could win this case for impeachment before a fair jury. Unfortunately, the United States Senate isn’t a fair jury. It’s full of fashion icons like John Fetterman. While the Senate will be the platform,… pic.twitter.com/LsWyNrhsjW
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 13, 2023

BANNON: “Congressman Gaetz, I can tell you from my sources around Washington, D.C., they’re blaming you [for the impeachment inquiry]. They’re saying McCarthy was rattled by you. He knew you were going to make the speech today, he knew it was going to be powerful, he knew you would put him on notice, and put him on the clock, and this is why he ran out and made the hostage video. Your response and observations, sir.”

GAETZ: “First of all, that is the best dressed we have ever seen John Fetterman. His shirt had both buttons and the entire pant was not elastic. There were elastic features, but it was not exclusively elastic. And so, I don’t know what tent store he bought that muumuu at, but it appears to be new and I am grateful that he is really upping his game in that regard ...”

BANNON: [Giggles with glee while curb-stomping irony to death with his dandruff-mottled joggin’ Crocs.]

And then there’s the X (formerly known as Twitter) account of RNC Research, which represents the party of former Rep. Louie Gohmert—who once asked if the National Forest Service could change the moon’s orbit to fight climate change. (It can, of course, but it’ll run into miles of red tape and face fierce resistance from the powerful and entrenched original-moon-orbit lobby.) Those super-geniuses responded with this:

John Fetterman, completely unironically: "America is not sending their best and brightest, you know, to Washington, D.C." pic.twitter.com/9ExRRSBs3X
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 12, 2023

For the nontweeters:

John Fetterman, completely unironically: "America is not sending their best and brightest, you know, to Washington, D.C."

“Completely unironically?” Well, yeah. He can say such things entirely unironically. Did Fetterman force Fitch to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating? Did he bring us within a hair’s breadth of shutting the government down (yet again) for no good reason? Does he fight against urgently needed climate change legislation? Or support giving the already obscenely wealthy every tax break they ever wanted, and then some?

No? Then what the fuck is RNC Research even talking about? His hoodie?

Republicans have no ideas and nothing substantial to run on. They’ve replaced coherent policy with pointless chaos—and it shows. Fetterman is just stating the obvious, and doing so with an impish glint in his eye.

Maybe in 100 years or so, baggy shorts and hoodies will be de rigueur on the floor of the Senate, and then our government will be able to focus on the really important issues—like staying open. That said, it’s becoming ever-more obvious that good-faith Republicans will never come back into style.

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Sunday Four-Play: Matt Gaetz vows to shiv Kevin McCarthy, and AOC says she may help

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Wait, so Congress actually managed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open for another 45 days? And here two of the Sunday shows had already booked Matt Gaetz. This should be fun.

Will Gaetz 1) complain that this is brutally unfair to hardworking American taxpayers like Donald Trump and his next-door neighbor Vladimir, erm, Peterson, 2) introduce the world to his next wife, whose ultrasound photo he recently favorited on OkCupid, 3) slurp Jonathan Karl up like a hunk of Fazoli’s linguine while pugnaciously humming “Flight of the Valkyries,” or 4) promise to take another go at ruining the lives of millions of Americans who depend on government paychecks?

Or maybe he’ll be grilled about the Republicans’ fake impeachment of President Biden. In case you missed it, they held a hearing on Thursday that proved Joe Biden unconditionally loves his son. Republicans also called a witness who admitted there was no basis for impeachment. In other words, it was the shittiest shitshow you’ll ever see, even if you survive past the heat death of the universe. But hey, this is a resilient bunch. They can restart their impeachment crusade at another time. Maybe they’ll launch seven separate impeachment weeks before they eventually get bored and forget any of this ever happened.

Also, Kristen Welker is taking some time away from the 24/7 grind of undermining Western democracy. She’ll have to both-sides Donald Trump’s backyard orphans vs. puppies fight club some other time. “Meet the Press” has been preempted by NBC’s Ryder Cup coverage.

And as the House Judiciary GOP knows, if you can’t make up impeachable crimes, at the very least you can blame Joe Biden for our nation’s increasingly concerning golf gap.

Joe Biden's America. https://t.co/hceMGeqgoq
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) September 29, 2023

Finally, will any of the shows mention that Donald Trump gave a speech on Friday that made Ozzy Osborne biting the head off a bat look like Demosthenes' Third Philippic?

Oh, yeah. It was bonkers, yo. Here’s just one excerpt of the team coverage from “The Weekly What in the Ever-Living Fuck Is This Now, Gladys?”

“All the currently dry canals will be brimming and used to irrigate everything, including your own homes and bathrooms and everything,” Trump promised drought-beleaguered Californians as trillions of Filet-O-Fish particles from past lunches circled his head in a state of superposition waiting to be observed and become a sandwich. “You’re going to be happy, and I’m going to get it done fast.”

When asked for clarification, a Trump campaign spokesperson said the former president’s comprehensive 10-point plan for irrigating your bathroom will be released in two weeks.

And now on to the (un)usual nonsense.

1.

Speak of the devil! No, really. Please speak of the devil. Summoning Satan to feast on my steaming viscera as I claw my gobsmacked face off with my newly gargoylish Howard Hughes hands for the rest of eternity might be preferable to transcribing this clip.

Gaetz broke news on the Sunday shows this week, announcing that he plans to punish House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats to ensure that 1.5 million hardworking Americans don’t immediately lose their paychecks for no reason.

ABC News:

Hard-line Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz plans a vote this week to try and remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his role as punishment for McCarthy orchestrating a bipartisan stopgap government funding bill to stave off a shutdown, Gaetz said Sunday.

…

Removing McCarthy would essentially halt all legislative business in the House until a replacement is picked. It remains unclear if Gaetz currently has more than a handful of votes for such a dramatic move. McCarthy has dismissed the risk of a vacate motion.

"Bring it," he has said.

On Sunday, Gaetz responded, "Kevin McCarthy's going to get his wish."

Here’s Matt talking with Jonathan Karl of ABC’s “This Week” about his plans to shut down the House because Kevin didn’t agree to shut down the government:

“I am relentless and I will continue pursue this objective,” GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz tells @JonKarl of his push to vacate Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. https://t.co/KInxWHwCkT pic.twitter.com/NOWDqfFwvA
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 1, 2023

KARL: “So you’re not accomplishing anything here.”

GAETZ: “That’s not true.”

KARL: “Well, you don’t have the votes to remove him.”

GAETZ: “Well, I—by the way, I don’t know until we have him, and by the way, I might not have him the first time, but I might have him before the 15th ballot. That’s the number of ballots Kevin McCarthy needed.”

KARL: “So are you going to do this every day like you suggested? Are you going to go through this process of voting over and over and over again?”

GAETZ: “I am relentless, and I will continue to pursue this objective. And if all the American people see is that it is a uniparty that governs them and that it is always the Biden-McCarthy-Jeffries government that makes dispositive decisions on spending, then I am seeding the fields of future primary contests to get better Republicans in Washington who will actually tackle these deficits and debts.”

First of all, Matt Gaetz is pretty much the last person I want to hear say “seeding the fields.” Coming from him it just sounds gross. I can’t put my finger on it—it just does. It’s not the phrase itself necessarily. It’s his association with it. It might sound marginally less gross coming from a farmer, of course—even if that farmer was Ed Gein.

Secondly, accomplishing nothing is kind of the whole point of Republicans, isn’t it? Matt is determined to hold the line on deficits when a Democrat is in the White House so he can choke the life out of the economy and return Dear Leader to his gilded throne. If he has to create unprecedented chaos to do so, that’s just gravy.

2.

Speak of this other devil! House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared on “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan to respond to Gaetz’s perduring and performative Trump-humping. Brennan asked Evil Opie what he thought of Gaetz’s shoving-nerds-into-gym-lockers style of governing, and McCarthy did his best to project a sense of calm.

McCarthy: Gaetz is more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown… only because he wants to take this motion. Bring it on, let's get over with it pic.twitter.com/XtCxh2PKrO
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “There is a lot to get to with you. I want to start, though, on the news this morning from Congressman Matt Gaetz who says he is going to seek a motion to vacate. He’s going to try to oust you as speaker of the House.”

MCCARTHY: “That’s nothing new, he’s tried to do that from the moment I ran for office.”

BRENNAN: “Well, this time he says he’s going to keep going. May not get there before the 15th ballot, but it took 15 for Kevin McCarthy. He says he’s coming for you. Can you survive?”

MCCARTHY: “Yes, I’ll survive. This is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid, only because he wants to take this motion. So be it, bring it on, let’s get over with it [sic], and let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us in a shutdown and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.”

Oh, boy! This should be fun. I’m sure y’all remember January’s protracted House speaker vote. It was like watching two greased hippos trying to screw on an elevator. Well, now we get to watch two hippos trying to screw on an elevator in reverse!

BONUS CLIP!

McCarthy is still trying to blame Democrats for this 100% Republican-manufactured crisis.

McCARTHY: I wasn't sure it was gonna pass. You know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass. BRENNAN: Democrats were the ones who voted for this! pic.twitter.com/kCLKW9WSJK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “Were you confident we wouldn’t shut down?”

MCCARTHY: “I was confident I could get something on the floor to make sure the option that we would not ...”

BRENNAN: “But you weren’t sure it was going to pass.”

MCCARTHY: “Well, I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. You want to know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass.”

BRENNAN: “Democrats were the ones who voted for this in a larger number than Republicans to keep the continuing resolution alive.”

MCCARTHY: “Did you watch the floor yesterday?”

BRENNAN: “Oh, yes, 90 Republicans voted against it.”

And … scene.

Thanks, Speaker McCarthy, and good luck. You’ll need it because …

3.

Gee willikers, Aunt Bee! Looks like Kevin isn’t going to get much help from Democrats! At least without having to give them something in return.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” and said she absolutely would vote to vacate the speaker’s chair. Because, you know, McCarthy really, really sucks.

AOC on CNN says she'd "absolutely" vote to oust McCarthy as speaker pic.twitter.com/Cl2ECx99jt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

TAPPER: “So you just heard Congressman Matt Gaetz say he’s going to move to oust McCarthy as speaker this week. If a motion to vacate the chair comes to the floor, how would you vote?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Well, my vote beginning this term for speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries. And I do not intend on voting for a Republican speaker of the House, but I believe that it’s up to the Republican conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems. But it’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans—from themselves, especially.”

TAPPER: “Do you think that there will be any Democrats that might vote to save McCarthy?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “I mean, I certainly don’t think that we would expect to see that unless there’s a real conversation between Republican and Democratic caucuses and Republican and Democratic leadership about what that would mean, but I don’t think we’d give up votes for free.”

TAPPER: “But would you vote to vacate? Would you vote to get rid of McCarthy as speaker?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Would I cast that vote? Absolutely. I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension, so we’re going to be right back in this place in November. And, you know, I think that our main priority has to be the American people and we’re going to keep our governance in a cohesive and strong place, but unless Kevin McCarthy asks for a vote, again, I don’t think we give something away for free.”

McCarthy should have learned this universal maxim long ago: If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. And now everyone hates him. And he might lose his job. And likely go down as one of the worst and weakest House leaders in U.S. history.

But hey, at least he got to be speaker! Much like Anne Boleyn got to be queen and Eva Braun eventually managed to wrangle a marriage proposal out of Hitler.

4.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, whose show is roughly the journalistic equivalent of drinking from a firehose of curdled Yoo-hoo.

But even Fox News journalists are starting to wonder WTF Republicans are trying to accomplish with their Biden impeachment push, and so Bartiromo must have felt empowered to ask a legitimate question for once.

Of course, no matter how many different ways Republicans try to answer the question at the heart of their efforts—i.e., what did President Biden actually do that’s even remotely impeachable?—they still whiff every time.

BARTIROMO: Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions Joe Biden made that he was paid for? NANCY MACE: I have not had the ability to research that pic.twitter.com/HXnXNrGyNp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions that Joe Biden made that he was paid for?”

MACE: “I have not had the ability to research that. I’ve been looking more at the LLCs, the bank records, all of the lies that Joe Biden has told, and what evidence we have so far in meetings, dinners, appointments, White House records, etc., phone messages, text messages, emails, etc., connecting the dots with Joe Biden.”

Oh, look! More nothing! Wait, this is the same nothing we’ve already reported on. Let’s find a fresh angle on this old pile of nothing and reintroduce it as a new pile of nothing! But don't rush us! It took us more than two years to dig up all this nothing, and nothing doesn’t grow on trees. You’ll just have to be patient. Like Job, that nice man from the Bible who did nothing wrong but was relentlessly harassed by Satan anyway.

For some reason that Bible story seems relevant right now. Much like the one where Jesus cast a legion of demons out of Donald Trump and into a nearby herd of pigs. Or maybe it was the other way around. I forget. It’s been a while since I darkened the door of a church, to be completely honest with you.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now. Have a great, productive, and shutdown-free week!

Media buries the lede (again) on Biden’s urgent address on dangers of Trump, fascism

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

On Thursday, Joe Biden gave one of the most important speeches of his presidency. But because it didn’t include bitter complaints about low-flow toilets, his secret plan to avoid World War II, or stream-of-consciousness musings on perennial kitchen table issues like whale-murdering windmills, the legacy media largely gave it a pass.

And though the speech at times focused on the honor and heroism of Biden’s late friend, Arizona Sen. John McCain, at no point did Biden get confused and forget that he never ran against him.

What Biden did do was give a fierce defense of democracy, the Constitution, and American values—all while name-checking Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA movement that threatens the basic foundations of our republic. Unfortunately, he didn’t do it while falling over on his bike, so most Americans still don’t know about it.

You’d think the current president (rightly) calling out his top political rival for being a power-mad, wannabe tinpot dictator who disdains the Constitution would merit searing, front-page coverage across the legacy media. But you’d be wrong.

Biden’s speech failed to make the front page of either The Washington Post or The New York Times, proving once again that these venerable leading lights of our fourth estate—and the herds of pundits and reporters who follow their lead—are still not taking the clear and present danger a plainly fascist Trump poses seriously enough. On the bright side, there's nothing on the Times’ front page about Hillary's emails today.

Yes, @washingtonpost, “Democracy Dies in the Darkness.” You know where else it can wither? A3, inside, which is where you buried the fiercest, highest stakes pro-democracy speech I’ve heard from a president in my lifetime.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) September 29, 2023

So because American newspapers are tending to shoehorn Biden’s rhetorical triumphs somewhere between The Jumble and “Marmaduke”—if not in “Marmaduke”—these days, we in the non-legacy media are forced to take up the slack.

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You can watch the speech yourself or read the full transcript, but there are some takeaways that simply need to be repeated here verbatim, because to quote the guy who’s doing his level best to save democracy from a largely somnambulant media, “This is a big fucking deal.”

At one point, Biden lends some outside perspective to the MAGA stew we currently find ourselves swimming in. As frogs in boiling water, we may no longer experience the right’s resurgent fascism as the four-alarm fire it is, but the rest of the world sees what’s happening in America very clearly.

For centuries, the American Constitution has been a model for the world, with other countries adopting “We the People” as their North Star as well. But as we know, we know how damaged our institutions of democracy—the judiciary, the legislature, the executive—have become in the eyes of the American people, even the world, from attacks from within the past few years.

I know virtually every major world leader. That’s what I did when I was a senator, as vice president, and now. Everywhere I go in the world—I’ve met now with over a hundred heads of state of the nations of the world—everywhere I go, they look and they ask the question, “Is it going to be okay?”

Think about this: The first meeting I attended of the G7—the seven wealthiest nations in the world—in Europe, the NATO meeting, I sat down—it was in ... January, after being elected—so late January, early February—and it was in England. And I sat down, and I said, “America is back.” And Macron looked at me, and he said, “Mr. President, for how long—for how long?”

And then, the chancellor of Germany said, “Mr. President, what would you think if you picked up the paper tomorrow—tomorrow, the London Times—and it said a thousand people broke down the doors of Parliament, marched, and killed two bobbies in order to overthrow an election of the new prime minister? What would you think then? What would America think?”

What would America think? We’d think the fish and chip shops were using lead-based newsprint to wrap their wares again. But beyond that, we’d rightly be horrified.

But that wasn’t even the biggest takeaway from the speech. Our current president also directly confronted his predecessor—and, by extension, the entire MAGA movement—over his ongoing attempts to remake this country into something more like Vladimir Putin’s Russia than LBJ’s Great Society or Ronald Reagan’s shining city on a hill.

They’re pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him. And this is a dangerous notion: This president is above the law, with no limits on power.

Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, “the right to do whatever he wants as President,” end of quote. I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.

We see the headlines. Quote, “sweeping expansion of presidential power.” Their goal to, quote, “alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government,” end of quote.

What do they intend to do once they erode the constitutional order of checks and balances and separation of powers? Limit the independence of federal agencies and put them under the thumb of a president? Give the President the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated if he doesn’t like what it’s being spent for? ... Get rid of longstanding protections for civil servants?

[...]

Just consider these as actual quotes from MAGA—the MAGA movement. Quote, “I am your retribution.” “Slitting throats” of civil servants, replacing them with extreme political cronies. MAGA extremists proclaim support for law enforcement only to say, “We …”—quote, “We must destroy the FBI.”

It’s not one person. It’s the controlling element of the House Republican Party.

Whitewash attacks of Jan. 6 by calling the spearing and stomping of police a ... quote, a “legitimate political discourse.”

Did you ever think you’d hear leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that? Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.

This MAGA threat is the threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. But it’s also a threat to the character of our nation … that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans in common cause.

Biden also happened to notice another story that should have generated screaming front-page headlines in every major newspaper in the country as well as blanket condemnations from every sitting lawmaker, regardless of party:

Tomorrow, I have the honor of overseeing the change of responsibilities of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military from one genuine hero and patriot, Gen. Mark Milley, to another, Gen. CQ Brown—both defining leaders of our time.

And yet, here is what you hear from MAGA extremists about the retiring patriot general honoring his oath to the Constitution: quote, he’s “a traitor,” end of quote. “In times gone by, the punishment…”—quote, “In times gone by, the punishment would’ve been death,” end of quote.

This is the United States of America. This is the United States of America.

And although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening.

In case you somehow missed it (you could be forgiven, because the media didn’t cover it with nearly the urgency it deserved), the quote Biden references about Milley deserving the death penalty came from Trump, who was upset that Milley failed to show him the abject loyalty he thought he deserved.

Seems like a really important story, but then the nation’s biggest outlets can’t thoroughly cover all of a fascist presidential candidate’s fascist statements, can they? You need to balance them with horse race coverage about the advanced age of the man who stands as our sole remaining bulwark against the return of an avowedly authoritarian former president. It’s just basic fairness.

In short, Biden’s speech was clear, forceful, urgent, at times funny—Biden is a charming, witty guy, despite all the chatter about his age—and most importantly, grounded in the reality of our current fraught political climate. He also showed genuine emotion when talking about the cancer that claimed the lives of both his friend McCain and his son Beau. And he was funny and gracious when responding to a group of hecklers who tried to interrupt his speech, offering to speak with them after his address instead of, say, urging members of the audience to “knock the crap out of them.”

As Biden stated in his address, “We’re at an inflection point in our history. One of those moments that not only happens once every several generations, it happens once every eight or nine generations, where the decisions made in the short period of time we’re in now are going to determine the course of this country and the world for the next six or seven decades. So you, me, every American who is committed to preserving our democracy and our constitutional protections, we carry a special responsibility. We have to stand up for American values embedded in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, because we know the MAGA extremists have already proven they won’t.”

Clearly, Biden knows what time it is. If only legacy media—which stands to lose the most under a second Trump term—would take a side. It’s okay to take a side if that side is pro-democracy and anti-fascist. No, really. Preserving our ever-fragile democracy is actually that important.

BONUS!

This recent commentary from MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan on “Donald Trump’s Extremely Fascist Week” is a must-watch. Though maybe you’re not the one who needs to watch it—unless, of course, you happen to be one of the key decision-makers at The Washington Post or The New York Times.

YouTube Video

Sunday Four-Play: Auntie Maxine Waters scorches GOP, and Matt Gaetz makes a startling admission

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy almost certainly missed his calling. He should have been a middle-school teacher. That way, when his unruly charges inevitably shoved a chloroform-soaked rag in his mouth, buried him up to his neck in California clay loam, and slathered his gawping, cow-eyed melon in fruit bat pheromones and expired ghee, at least federal workers would have still gotten their paychecks on time.

But no, he had to go into politics, and now his phantasmagorical fecklessness is on lurid display for everyone to see. And we all get to suffer. So as McCarthy turns Congress into a well-oiled machine with a warning sign on it saying in no uncertain terms that you should never, ever put oil in, on, or anywhere near it, the world continues to turn. But you can rest assured that if Congress needed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the world turning and prevent Lindsey Graham from being flung at Mach 3 into the side of an Ikea, House Republicans would be unable to agree on a framework to do so.

In fact, Evil Opie is so useless, the government is almost certainly shutting down at the end of the month, and we’re all standing around like it was obvious all along that this would happen. Because while getting liberals on the same page is famously like herding cats, keeping Matt Gaetz, et al., in line is like trying to convince cats to stop licking their balls for 10 seconds and pass an appropriations bill. Nigh on impossible, in other words.

Then again, stranger things have happened. Stay tuned. Maybe the hardliners in the Freedom Caucus will accede to McCarthy’s demands in exchange for a signed and notarized promise to eat a bug on the playground after school. Though it’s marginally more likely that McCarthy will have a penis drawn on his face in permanent marker the next time you see him.

So as we steam toward yet another GOP-manufactured crisis, we can only hope that Americans are starting to understand who’s really fucking everything up. (Psst, it’s Republicans. It’s always been Republicans. The call is coming from inside the House!)

Meanwhile, the nattering nabobs keep on natterin’ and nabobbin’—particularly on the Sunday political shows. Which is why we’re all here, aina?

So let’s see what’s on tap this week, shall we?

1.

Of course, it’s hard to argue—or negotiate—with political terrorists, which is precisely what Republicans are. We all witnessed their debt ceiling brinkmanship earlier this year, and now they’re fixing to impeach Joe Biden and shut down the government, largely to appease the Malignant Smegma Golem of Mar-a-Lago.

It’s hard to fathom what they’re actually trying to accomplish, other than turning the country into an enormous kleptocratic Cracker Barrel. Luckily, though, some people in government still see things clearly. We call these people Democrats.

Rep. Maxine Waters appeared on “The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart,” and she made clear that she’s done with Republicans trying to claim patriotism as their exclusive bailiwick. Democrats may not go around waving—or wearing, or humping, or beating Capitol police officers’ heads in with—the flag, but they clearly love America (and, by extension, the people in it) more than the GOP does.

Don’t believe it? Auntie Maxine explains:

"[The GOP] are not patriots, they are basically, not only disrupting this country, they're destroying it, and they cannot claim patriotism anymore. We, who fight for the people, claim patriotism" @RepMaxineWaters reacts to the budget cuts the Republicans want to make #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/sFtzlaJBt8
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) September 24, 2023

CAPEHART: “Congressman [Brendan] Boyle, the ranking member on the Budget Committee, I think he said in one of the … Congressman Matt Gaetz is proposing cuts as high as 23%—budget cuts.”

WATERS: “Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. And when you take a look at what they’re doing it shows that—you know the Republicans who have claimed patriotism, claimed that they love this country, they don’t care. If they will allow seniors and veterans not to be able to get their disability checks, for example. They don’t care. If they were to allow education to be dismantled in this country—they don’t care. If they don’t care about the people sleeping on the streets, the homeless, and they’re cutting housing vouchers, they’re not patriots. They are basically not only disrupting this country, they’re destroying it. And they cannot claim patriotism anymore. We, who fight for the people, claim patriotism. We’re the patriots, not them. For the Republicans, patriotism is lost. It’s gone.”

Of course, Republicans’ reputation for dewy-eyed patriotism is as unearned as their reputation for growing the economy. Then again, if you define patriotism as lying us into disastrous wars while screwing over veterans and economic success as presiding over enormous job loss and recession, then the Republican Party is for you! If not, you might want to take a moment to listen to people like Congresswoman Waters who aren’t trying to shiv you in the kidneys the second your back is turned.

2.

I don’t know if Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg would have made a good president—though as the former mayor of a midsized Midwestern town he still has more relevant experience than Trump, who spent the bulk of his tenure shopping for Supreme Court justices who’d make abortion illegal except in the cases of rape, incest, or 468-month-old fetuses named Eric.

That said, Buttigieg is great on the teevee. If he ever gets tired of his transpo gig, he might want to think about advocating for Democrats and Democratic policies full time.

He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash and pointed out Republicans’ hypocrisy when it comes to … well, everything, really. But in this case, complaining about the dire repercussions of budget-slashing and deregulation when they’re the ones out on the wing ripping pieces off the engine.

Buttigieg on CNN: "Think about what this means for transportation ... Some of the very same House Republicans who were lining to try to make a partisan political issue of air travel disruptions are proposing cuts that would make it harder to modernize our systems." pic.twitter.com/4bEYSOplsM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2023

BUTTIGIEG: “And I would add, the shutdown is being used by some House Republicans as leverage to get budget cuts over and above the deal that was made, which would also have an incredibly negative effect on …

BASH: “They didn’t like the deal in the first place.”

BUTTIGIEG: “Yeah, but think about what this means for transportation again. Obviously, I’m speaking mostly to what’s in my lane, but some of the very same House Republicans who were lining up to try to make a partisan political issue of air travel disruptions are proposing cuts that would make it harder to modernize our systems. Some of the very same House Republicans who were lining up to try to make the pain of the people of East Palestine, Ohio, into a partisan political issue would cut railroad safety inspections. It makes no sense.”

Indeed, Republicans’ complaints make no sense. And at this point, neither does any vote for any Republican ever. They’re like the disruptive student who’s invited up to the chalkboard to teach the class. Well, now they’re teaching it, and so far all we’ve learned is how to write “BOOBIES” on our calculators and how a bill doesn’t become a law.

They’re not interested in governing. They just want to sow chaos and force John Fetterman to wear a suit. Because that’s what’s really important, isn’t it?

Breaking: Sen. John Fetterman to wear a suit to the Senate but it will be a TAN one.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 20, 2023

3.

Brand-new “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker took a break from undermining Western democracy this week to interview Chris Christie, one of Donald Trump’s principal detractors. I’d assumed Christie had entered the race merely to enfeeble Trump, but if you can believe anything he says in the following clip (hint: you can’t; he’s still a Republican, after all), he appears to think he can win, despite national polling that shows him just barely ahead of Azzza Hutchinzzzzzon and Doug Burgum, who is either a current GOP presidential candidate or a new, hearty strain of wheat. (Sorry. After briefly being reminded of the existence of Asa Hutchinson, I no longer have the energy to Google Doug Burgum. Or swallow liquid or soft foods, for that matter.)

The bottom line is, Republicans are making the same mistake they made in 2016. Instead of rallying around a marginally coherent, intermittently lucid candidate like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, they’re splitting the primary vote a dozen different ways, leaving Trump all alone as the prohibitive favorite.

Ah, but Christie doesn’t see it that way.

WATCH: GOP Presidential candidate Chris Christie reacts to the latest NBC News poll, which found him 55 points behind former President Trump. Fmr. @GovChristie (R-N.J.): “If we don’t have a national primary, I don’t spend more than three minutes thinking about it.” pic.twitter.com/HTz3KHgwuE
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 24, 2023

WELKER: “Former President Trump is solidifying his lead with GOP primary voters. You’ve been in this race since June, Governor. Why aren’t you gaining more traction?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, Kristen, look, I know you all spent a whole lot of money on national polls, so I don’t mean to go after the polling folks. But the fact is that national polls don’t matter. We don’t have a national primary. If you look at Donald Trump in the latest polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the two earliest states, he is barely at 40 in Iowa and he is under 40, at 34 and at 38, in New Hampshire. That means that between 60 and 65% of Republican voters in those two very important early states want an alternative. And in a place like New Hampshire, I’m in second place behind Donald Trump. So, you know, this whole race is going to change when people actually vote, Kristen. And no offense to any poll that comes out now, but if it’s a national poll, we don't have a national primary, and I don’t spend more than three minutes thinking about it.”

Oh, come on, Kristen. You already know the answer to your question. It’s because Republican voters love chaos, autocracy, and merciless revenge against their enemies, which Trump is offering in spades.

Sadly, tenacious truth-teller Chris Christie appears to be shading the truth here. Yes, Trump polls under 40% in some—but not all—recent New Hampshire primary surveys, and Christie is in second place in at least one of them. But you can be in second place and still be getting your ass kicked. Which Christie is … in the poll he appears to be citing ... by 20 points.

On the bright side, Welker seems marginally more dignified now that she’s not interviewing a venal tub of McNugget sauce.

4.

Oh, this is a fun one. Because watching conservatives at each other’s throats is always fun. You might even say these Republicans are in … disarray?

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, an IBS symptom forever in search of a colon to inflame, joined Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” to whine about Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He wants action! And he doesn’t want to have to Venmo anyone in order to get it!

But the best part about this clip? Bartiromo somehow gets Matt to admit the Republican-controlled House is completely useless. We all knew this, of course, but it’s nice to hear it straight from the horse’s arse.

BARTIROMO: To push now to blow up all of the wins that you have had-- GAETZ: Which wins?! Please enumerate them BARTIROMO: How about the fact that McCarthy set up a weaponization committee GAETZ: That's process! pic.twitter.com/3WAI2xpBze
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Well, [McCarthy’s] doing the four bills next week.”

GAETZ: “Because we’re making him! Because we’re making him!”

BARTIROMO: “But he’s doing it. So to push now, to blow up all of the wins that you all have had now ...”

GAETZ: “Which wins? Please enumerate them.”

BARTIROMO: “Well, okay, well how about the fact that he has set up a weaponization committee to investigate the DOJ, whether they’re involved in a coverup?”

GAETZ: “That’s process!”

BARTIROMO: “Hold on. How about the fact that he has set up the China Select Committee to keep China to account and, of course, he has launched this inquiry into impeachment, potentially, for President Biden. Is that not what you want?”

GAETZ: “None of those things are deliverables. Those are steps in a process. Setting up a committee is an end unto itself only in Washington, D.C. … These committees have done nothing to reduce inflation. They’ve done nothing to actually constrain the Biden government. We can set up committees and have hearings and yell at people, but at the end of the day if we still send the check to fund a weaponized government, having a weaponization subcommittee is little relief to the American people. And if any of this was serious, we would be sending out subpoenas and compelling process the way the Jan. 6 committee did. We should be operating like them. Instead, we’re playing patty-cake with the Bidens. We’re allowing them to get away with it. And we’re funding it. We’re sending the money. If we were serious, use the power of the purse.”

We’re letting the Bidens get away with … that thing we’re sure they did, have no evidence for, and will surely discover just as soon as we impeach the president for high crimes and coffee cup-saluting. Oh, and we’re also taking a hard line against the weaponization of government. And since we know most Republican voters can hold only one thought in their heads at a time—assuming that thought is at least tangentially related to cheesy fries—we're confident no one will notice the irony.

But the big takeaway here? This Republican-led House has been a colossal waste of time.

Thanks, Matt!

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for now! See you next week.

Sunday Four-Play: The elephant in the room plops down on ‘Meet the Press’

Posted on September 17, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

I just realized I’m the unwitting victim of one of the most fiendish long cons in the history of grifting. Here’s my story.

Several weeks ago, Jessica Sutherland, my wonderful editor here at Daily Kos, told me one of the muckety-mucks in the organization had suggested I write a fun and breezy weekly review of the Sunday morning political shows. What?! Hey, that sounds great. I love that idea, my wonderful editor! What an honor! I’m truly humbled.

And so I put together a formal proposal, the scheme plotters at Daily Kos accepted it with a scarcely audible cackle, and Sunday Four-Play debuted on July 30, just in time for a fresh wave of Donald Trump indictments.

Needless to say, I don’t have a crystal ball and didn’t know what was coming, but because I so eagerly accepted this plum assignment, I’m now essentially compelled to watch this unholy hippo fuck of a Trump interview on “Meet the Press” today instead of languidly pouring molten pig iron into my freshly voided eye sockets with a Hello Kitty glitter spoon like I’d originally planned on doing.

Thanks, guys! This column has been the opportunity of a lifetime. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to don my hastily jerry-rigged inside-the-shell Ronco Egg Scrambler helmet and beer-bong a pony keg full of Hibernol.

Delete my fucking memory, Kos!

Ironically, here was the second paragraph of my very first Sunday Four-Play column, in which I betrayed a naïveté and callowness of youth normally associated with 5-year-old kids who are wheedled into eating earthworm pasta on their first day of kindergarten:

But while [Chuck] Todd is being replaced in September by the far more palatable Kristen Welker, this column will soldier on indefinitely, assuming it doesn’t get pulled immediately after its first installment, like whatever this thing is.

And here I was just last week, Pollyanna that I am, welcoming the new regime with open arms:

The supremely capable Kristen Welker will replace Todd, and he graciously passed the baton to her on Sunday.

Good luck, Kristen. You’ve got some big, squishy shower sandals to fill. Something tells me you’re more than up to the challenge.

Of course, y’all know what happened next. After taking over the reins of the longest-running show in television history, Welker announced that her debut episode would feature an interview with … that guy. Him. The semi-ambulant tub of walrus butter who has never—not for one moment in the past 77 years—had anything interesting, coherent, or remotely truthful to say.

At first I thought, well, maybe she’ll utterly savage him. But even then her decision would be irresponsible, because it’s literally impossible to responsibly interview Trump. You’d have to fact-check him in real time, and if you did that, there’d be 10 times more fact-check than interview. Didn’t we learn that earlier this year from CNN’s ill-advised Trump town hall?

My hopes for a thorough dressing-down quickly faded, however, when the teaser clips started trickling in. For instance, there was this preview clip from NBCNews.com, which shows Trump bending Welker’s ear during a leisurely summer stroll as Welker demurely smiles and generally behaves as if she’s not standing next to a feral criminal who violently attempted to end American democracy. Yup, I pretty much knew this interview would suck from the drop when I didn’t see her wheeling him across the golf course on a dolly as Walt Nauta fed him Reese’s Pieces through the breathing hole in his ranch sauce-festooned Hannibal Lecter mask.

Then she asked him a question about the ringing endorsement he recently got from Vladimir Putin and—surprise, surprise—he lied through his teeth Kari Lake-esque filter of billowing brown meat sweats. For instance, Welker let him get away with saying nobody was tougher on Russia than he was. It’s a lie Trump repeats continually, even though Putin moved mountains to try to get him reelected and Trump planned to pull us out of NATO in his second term—which would have been the biggest gift Putin ever received. And Welker just sat there nodding her head.

Sigh.

I get it. Trump is running for president. He’s also an (alleged!) criminal who’s been indicted on 91 felony counts. Not that interviewing criminals is necessarily a journalistic no-no, but let’s face it, Charles Manson was a lot more interesting—and likely had no serious plans for invading Mexico.

So, yeah, I pretty much have to cover this, but I’m not happy about it. For those media leading lights who are still wondering how to effectively interview Trump, the correct answer is … don’t. It’s not worth it. After all, what can you really learn that we don’t already know? Do you think he has a fresh perspective on Kristen Stewart’s love life that he hasn’t yet shared? Because he sure as shit doesn’t have anything useful to say about domestic or foreign policy.

Seriously, why do we still have to pretend that Donald Trump is a real boy? Get a grip, media.

Okay, on to the barmy bullshit ...

1.

So, yeah, confirmed rapist and traitor to democracy Donald Trump was on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Let’s see how that went, shall we? One effing clip and then we’ll move on.

And it’s a doozy. Here Trump appears to acknowledge he lost the election before saying he won the election. Who knows? Maybe he has early-onset brain death. As it is, roughly 98% of his brain is devoted to digesting trans fats and screaming racial slurs at the brown people on “Sesame Street.” It wouldn’t take much to nudge it into oblivion.

WATCH: Former President Trump says he needed ’22,000 votes’ in each state to win in 2020, but falsely claims he still won KRISTEN WELKER: When you say you needed one-tenth of a point, you needed one-tenth of a point to win? FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: I needed a very small — I… pic.twitter.com/zcLrTvS993
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 17, 2023

WELKER: “When you say you needed one-tenth of a point, you needed one-tenth of a point to win?”

TRUMP: “I needed a very small—I think somebody said 22,000 votes.”

WELKER: “To win?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. If you divide it among the states, it was 22,000 votes, something to that effect ...”

WELKER: “To win the election?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. If I would’ve had another 22,000 votes over the whole—but, look. They rigged the election. If you look at Pennsylvania ...”

WELKER: “But Mr. President, you’re saying you needed more votes to win the election, are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”

TRUMP: “Excuse me. If you look at all of the statistics, all of the votes, they say 22,000 votes. Over millions and millions of votes, 22,000 votes. So when they do Twitter Files, or when they have 51 intelligence agents come out and lie that the laptop from hell was Russia disinformation, and now they find out it’s not, but they knew that at the time. They cheated on the election in that way, too.”

WELKER: “I just want to be clear, though. Are you saying you needed those votes in order to win? Are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”

TRUMP: “I’m not acknowledging. No. I say I won the election.”

Ooh, Welker really thought she had him trapped. But no. It’s likely Trump’s left brain lobe doesn’t know what his right lobe is doing. Like, ever. Also, the so-called “laptop from hell” likely was Russian disinfo.

Consider this December piece from Lindsay Beyerstein at The Editorial Board:

A largely genuine trove of stolen data is also the perfect place to hide forged or stolen elements, which enjoy unearned credibility because they’re packaged with real stuff. That’s why the victims of hack and leaks are advised never to confirm the authenticity of anything.

The attackers are counting on the public to draw the erroneous conclusion that, because some things are genuine, the whole package is real, and—most importantly—that it came from where the cover story says it came from, be that an imaginary collective of good-hearted “hacktivists” or a computer repair shop in Delaware. Anywhere but the GRU.

The GRU is notorious for hacking and leaking.

In other words, just because portions of Hunter’s laptop were real doesn’t mean all of them were.

But never mind that. Is Trump really trying to say an election win isn’t legitimate if one of the candidates or his surrogates lied prior to that election? Because that’s an extraordinary claim. The courts might have a real pickle of a time dealing with that one.

But hey, glad to see that the first president ever to know the difference between a lion and camel is still at the top of his game.

Unlike, say, on Friday night:

77-year-old Trump last night was so confused and incoherent that he suggested Obama was his opponent in 2024, also suggested he beat Obama in 2016, and seemed to think we were on the verge of Word War *2*. I can only imagine the headlines if 80-year-old Biden had said this. 🤷🏽‍♂️ https://t.co/8rP7qvqjFV
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 16, 2023

The rest of the interview was similar. He lied with every exhale; she didn’t push back nearly forcefully enough. He told “sir” stories. He talked over her while claiming she was talking over him. He claimed Democrats want to abort babies after they’re born. (She should have challenged him hard on that. She didn’t.) Of course, later, after saying Democrats want to abort born babies, he said they don’t want abortions in the seventh month and don’t want to be radical. He also confirmed he’d give Ukraine to murderous war criminal Vladimir Putin.

She kept calling him “Mr. President” instead of using the far more appropriate “traitor says what?” Halfway through she may have replaced him with a glazed ham. Still doing research on that one. I promise to release my findings in two weeks. You’ll know as soon as I do.

By the way, NBC News did a perfunctory fact-check of the interview. Online. Where you know simply everyone will see it.

Moving on! Whew!

2.

Let’s see if we can ratchet that rage down to 11, shall we? Here’s a nice palate cleanser. Nancy the Great joined Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC’s “The Saturday/Sunday Show” and made clear that Democrats stand behind the striking autoworkers—whereas Trump’s plan to help them is likely to cut their bosses’ taxes even more. It’s time for those proles, plebs, and peons to really feel that warm trickle down their necks, right?

But Rep. Pelosi sees it differently.

"One month pay for the CEO, a lifetime pay to the workers. It's just not fair" @SpeakerPelosi shares her thoughts on the historic United Auto Workers strike against GM, Ford, and Stellantis #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/4EtJa3Pspn
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) September 17, 2023

PELOSI: “Let me just say that as we are here we have workers on strike in a number of industries in our country, but right now you said you’re going to have a show on ...”

CAPEHART: “The UAW president ...”

PELOSI: “UAW president. This is really something so important to all of us in the country. These workers, just think of this. The CEOs of these companies make probably, in one month, what these workers make in a lifetime. That’s just unjust. Years ago it was 20 times, now it’s 10 times that—over 200 times as much for the CEO as it is for the worker. Those profits that they say they are rewarding would not happen without the workers. So let us pray that they will make some progress on this respectful of the workers. [Sen.] Sherrod Brown says it’s over 300 times as much. But whatever it is, one month pay for the CEO, a lifetime pay to the workers. It’s just not fair.”

Pelosi was riffing a bit, but her numbers are in the ballpark. And any way you slice it, the gap between worker and CEO pay has grown out of control since Ronald Reagan first put billionaires on the endangered species list.

Fortune, Aug. 4, 2023:

The average CEO of an S&P 500–listed company earned $16.7 million from their role in 2022, the AFL-CIO said—the second highest amount ever recorded in the organization’s annual Executive Paywatch report.

That’s 272 times the average salary of just under $62,000 for someone employed by an S&P 500 firm, according to the report.

Assuming an average career of around 45 years before retirement, that means an ordinary employee would have to work six lifetimes to earn the same as their CEO did last year.

So there you go. Pelosi may have been a bit off on her comparison of monthly vs. lifetime wages, but the actual numbers are still eye-popping. And it’s about time workers started clawing back some of the wealth that’s consistently been funneled upward for the past four decades.

Quite a chart from @McKinsey #economy #productivity #wages #growth pic.twitter.com/FDolwVBhix
— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) November 17, 2021

3.

Needless to say, Casper the Friendly Milquetoast (aka Mike Pence) had a somewhat different take on the UAW strike. He insists he stands with the working men and women of this country, and you can tell he’s sincere because he’s standing in front of two barns and isn’t wearing a tie.

The former vice president and one-time Trump colon polyp appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper. When asked about the autoworkers’ strike, he launched into his prepared talking points about Biden’s economy.

Pence on CNN on the fairness of the CEO of GM making 362 times what her employee makes: "I'm someone who believes in free enterprise" pic.twitter.com/9SXtEr75QH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2023

TAPPER: “On this issue of general fairness, in 1965, during this era of the great middle-class expansion in the United States, CEOs made about 20 times what their typical workers made, but as I noted to you, the CEO of GM makes 362 times what her typical employees make. I just want to make sure I get an answer from you. Is that okay? Do you think that’s fair?”

PENCE: “Well, I think that ought to be left to the shareholders of that company. I’m somebody that believes in free enterprise. I think those are decisions that can be made by shareholders and creating pressure, and I’ll fully support how these publicly traded companies operate. I’m not interested in government mandates or government bullying when it comes to those kinds of issues. And I don’t think it's about the usual fault lines of the difference in salaries between white collar and blue collar. I think it’s that everyday Americans out there working hard are living in the midst of the failed policies of Bidenomics.”

TAPPER: “Inflation’s been horrible, no question, but their wages haven't gone up since the auto bailout in 2008. Meanwhile, the CEOs, their wages have gone up 40% in the last five years. That’s what the union workers say as to why they’re striking. I guess, just a question here. Do you side with the CEOs or do you side with the union here?”

PENCE: “I side with American workers, I side with all American families, I side with the people of this country, Jake, that are living under the failed policies of the Biden administration.”

In other words, Pence wants a laissez-faire economic system that punishes American workers—the real wealth creators—decade after decade while continuing to create opportunities for hardworking CEOs and majority shareholders who, under Biden’s economy, struggle every day to locate private islands for sale. But hey, get a load of those two barns. And that open collar. Mother is so turned on right now she wants to join her husband in a three-way—which, for the Pences, simply means eating lunch at Olive Garden with a woman they just met in the lobby.

4.

Oh, yeah, Republicans want to impeach President Biden for—hmm, let’s see here—no reason at all!

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” where he discussed impeaching the president while acknowledging there’s exactly zero reason to do so.

"We don't have the evidence now, but we may find it later" -- McCaul is what passes for a "serious Republican" these days pic.twitter.com/bPMX1YPOec
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2023

MCCAUL: “Well first of all, I’ve been tasked by the speaker to assist the Oversight and Government Reform. With respect to foreign policy decisions the president made—or vice president, at that time—with respect to money coming in to try to tie the two. We don’t have the evidence now, but we may find it later.”

Okay, have fun with that, Mike. Sounds like a case for Columbo. Or Scooby-Doo. Or maybe Son of Sam. His neighbor’s dog has some really tantalizing new details about Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma.

If they keep digging, maybe they’ll find out Corn Pop wasn’t such a bad dude after all. And can we really trust a man who brutally defames Corn Pop? I say no.

But wait! There’s more!

Have a great one! See you next fall.

‘Do your job, bud’: There’s a lot to learn from Fetterman’s takedown of Gaetz

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

There are lots and lots of legitimate things to criticize Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz over, as the fashion-allergic Sen. John Fetterman clearly knows. So when Gaetz called Fetterman out over his seven (or more) thread-ly sins, Fetterman was prepared.

Haute couture isn’t for everyone, of course. Some people are Beau Brummells and Dapper Dans, while others are more than content to be Dumpster Dons. Gaetz’s own sartorial history suggests he’s keen on dressing for the ladies (and allegedly girls)—when he’s not busy dressing down teens.

And during a recent interview with convicted criminal Steve Bannon—who, ironically, looks like a pair of Kirkland sweatpants trying to screw a sack of mulch—Gaetz launched a few tepid bons mots in Fetterman’s direction. Fetterman responded with a bracing dose of reality for the Lilliputian across the aisle.

Gaetz, in a clearly prewritten monologue (he literally checks his notes about a minute and a half in), seems determined to take down the good senator from Pennsylvania after he mocked House Republicans and their revenge impeachment inquiry earlier in the week.

The evidence against Joe Biden is overwhelming. A first-year law student could win this case for impeachment before a fair jury. Unfortunately, the United States Senate isn’t a fair jury. It’s full of fashion icons like John Fetterman. While the Senate will be the platform,… pic.twitter.com/LsWyNrhsjW
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) September 13, 2023

In over two uninterrupted minutes, Gaetz doesn’t get around to answering Bannon’s question, so here’s a partial transcript, Why? Because I love you.

BANNON: “Congressman Gaetz, I can tell you from my sources around Washington, D.C., they’re blaming you [for the impeachment inquiry]. They’re saying McCarthy was rattled by you. He knew you were going to make the speech today, he knew it was going to be powerful, he knew you would put him on notice, and put him on the clock, and this is why he ran out and made the hostage video. Your response and observations, sir.”

GAETZ: “First of all, that is the best dressed we have ever seen John Fetterman. His shirt had both buttons and the entire pant was not elastic. There were elastic features, but it was not exclusively elastic. And so, I don’t know what tent store he bought that muumuu at, but it appears to be new and I am grateful that he is really upping his game in that regard ...”

BANNON: [Giggles with glee while curb-stomping irony to death with his dandruff-mottled joggin’ Crocs.]

Gaetz then waxes rhapsodic about Biden impeachment bullshit that hasn’t been remotely proven—according to these Republicans, anyway—and, in a weird detour for a Republican, goes after George W. Bush’s WMD lies. Then he doubles down on the fashion insults while predicting the failure of the GOP’s wholly made-up impeachment case: “This is not a hard story to tell. A first-year law student could win this case before a fair jury. Now, the United States Senate isn’t a fair jury. It’s full of great fashion icons like John Fetterman. But I think that the Senate will be the platform, and the American people will be the jury when we put that case on before them.”

Our fearless Fetty minced no words in his response.

Government shutdown in t-minus 16 days. Instead of crying about how I dress, how about you get your shit together and do your job, bud? https://t.co/97vQMURDZX
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 14, 2023

For the nontweeters:

FETTERMAN: “Government shutdown in t-minus 16 days. Instead of crying about how I dress, how about you get your shit together and do your job, bud?”

Now, if you need the lowdown on why Republicans’ entire impeachment case is naught but frothy horseshit, Daily Kos’ own Mark Sumner dropped his latest wonderful primer on the manufactured allegations on Thursday. Gaetz’s—and the GOP’s—strategy is clear: Muddy the waters among low-information (i.e., Republican) voters enough to make President Joe Biden look corrupt—all so they can shove the most corrupt human on the planet down our throats for another four years.

After all, if everyone’s dishonest, you might as well vote for the one with the most felony convictions.

So instead of getting down into the wonky weeds on this “issue” here, let’s take a cue from Sen. Fetterman, who’s treated the GOP’s disingenuous efforts with the dismissiveness they deserve.

Again, here was his response—which is also included in the above clip—to questions about the GOP’s fake impeachment push. And it was exactly as snarky and scornful as warranted.

LMAOOOO John Fetterman's reaction to impeachment for the WIN!!!🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/KDl1RSeclT
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) September 12, 2023

That’s really the only reaction anyone should bother to have over this impeachment nonsense, but even before House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry this week, Fetterman was being unusually blunt about the GOP’s upcoming, and no doubt soon-to-be-disastrous, Fyre Liar Festival.

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On Sept. 6, as Republicans were telegraphing plans for their latest waste of time, Fetterman literally dared them to go ahead with their half-baked schemes.

“Go ahead, do it. I dare you,” Fetterman said. “Your man has what, three or four indictments now? Trump has a mug shot, and he’s been impeached twice.”

Fetterman also correctly noted that the impeachment push “would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right” and “would diminish what impeachment really means.”

Well, yeah, that’s at least part of the reason they’re doing this. If impeachment no longer means anything, Trump’s long-demonstrated penchant for double-fisting big, frosty mugs o’ crime might not seem like such a deal-breaker. Nor will his (likely) upcoming felony convictions.

In fact, Democrats should think about letting Fetterman lead on this issue, if only because he’s a genuine human being who abhors political double-talk and can connect with ordinary voters on a host of real issues. When he says, “Sometimes you just gotta call their bullshit,” people will be more likely to listen than if, say, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says it.

And if we hit on the right messaging—with a combination of Fetterman-like bluntness and ordinary, workaday fact-checking—the GOP’s impeachment push might end up pushing them right off the table, as happened to the party following Newt & co.’s dogged pursuit of Bill Clinton in the ‘90s.

NBC News, Sept. 6:

Some vulnerable Republicans ... are skeptical about opening an impeachment inquiry.

Fetterman said impeachment would be a political "loser" for House Republicans, along with the looming threat of a government shutdown if they can't reach a funding deal before the end of the month.

“I’m just tired of a couple of them over there, talking like they’re hard a--es," Fetterman said. "They just keep pushing it.”

Yeah, they do, and they’re clearly not being honest about their motivations. Luckily Sen. Fetterman is here to push their lying faces in their own barmy bullshit. Let’s join him!

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