Representative Lauren Boebert posts several tweets revealing location of Speaker Nancy Pelosi during Trump riot [Image from Denver7 – The Denver Channel]
I thought of the incident when I read years ago about Texas Governor Rick Perry. He had been too lazy to glance through a report proving the innocence of a man on death row. He allowed that innocent man to be executed. He blocked a later report about the fatal miscarriage of justice.
I thought about it again after President Obama, in a ceremony with the Prime Minister of Japan, made a few innocuous remarks about respect for human diversity. Donald Trump, just elected, not yet President, reacted with anger at what he called Obama’s “inflammatory comments.” Trump apologists were apoplectic. How dare he attack the incoming President!
As the scheduled January 6 Capitol riot was preceded by the election, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene explained on video to hesitant right-wingers, that they had to vote, because if they lose the election they will need to join with her in political violence: The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.
SCOOP: In a pre-election video just uncovered by Mother Jones, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is seen endorsing political violence. “The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood," she says. More here: https://t.co/GcXZQY0K30pic.twitter.com/lSA6JUeWjM
Best headline of the week goes to Steve Benen at MSNBC. Steve reports that Republicans are furious that they are not allowed to veto a COVID economic relief package desperately needed by the nation. That fury might strike a reasonable person as weird. The headline is perfect: Republicans outraged by Dems’ willingness to govern without them.
Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks through the polls. Seems the public, by an overwhelming margin is optimistic about President Biden. Also interesting is the approach they would like the Republican Party to take.
John Scalzi at Whatever stomps all over The New York Times for their criticism of too many executive orders by our new President. He points out that most of those orders have simply revoked the harmful meanderings of the bigoted mind (guess whose) that disguised themselves as executive orders in the previous administration.
Having brutalized the Times he offers a mitigation of sorts that reminds me of Eugene McCarthy a couple of generations back. McCarthy noted news columns were, by design, rash statements. He suggested that two to three rash statements every week were too much to require from any columnist.
Well, maybe. Off-year election and all. But there are some national trends just starting.
M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is no fan, nor should we be, of the vile Majorie Taylor Greene. Does she really chase after and harass high school shooting survivors? Well, yes she does. Does she endorse right-wing political violence? Video says uh huh.
To those preparing for a civil war within the Republican Party, Infidel753 says forget about it. The war is already over. This does give me the opportunity to boast, a sad boast to be sure, about my own observation over a decade ago that the Republican Party was doomed even then.
CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests that the January 6 Trump-riot that killed several police, injured a couple hundred more, took the lives of a few participants, and involved the attempted mass assassination of lawmakers should be more than a flashbulb memory.
Reporter Meredith Aldis of local NBC station WRCB was threatened with arrest and ejected from a town hall for asking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) about recently-reported social media posts showing approval for the assassinations of prominent Democrats, as well as videos of the congresswoman harassing Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg following that attack.
Aldis and hew crew covered Greene’s Wednesday night town hall in Dalton, Georgia. In a Twitter thread, Aldis noted that she was told beforehand that the press would not be allowed to ask questions of Greene, or “anyone in the building.”
For the last four years good people told ourselves a necessary story.
Because we wanted to believe the best about humanity, many of us clung to a false narrative of otherwise decent people hopelessly swept up in the fervor of the moment: good human beings intoxicated in the bloody water of a feeding frenzy power-grab, eyes rolled back and unable to do anything but consume.
We wanted to believe it was a temporary condition.
We imagined that if he were gone, that once this messianic monster was removed and severed from them, that those around him would begin to come to their senses and the thick haze of their sycophantic adoration would lift and they would slowly but certainly revert to their better natures.
But now we’re realizing the most painful truth of all the lessons of these years: this is simply who they are.
During the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on 1/6/21, a man later identified as Robert Keith Packer was photographed wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt. The front also said “Work brings freedom,” one translation of the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” slogan atop the entrance to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The back of the shirt said “Staff.”
Packer, a resident of Newport News, VA, who apparently has a history of extremism, was arrested, but later released without criminal charges or paying any fines. He was merely ordered to stay away from D.C. unless summoned there.
Whatever they say, however they make their lips move to mouth the right ritual phrases for public consumption, we will know that in their hearts, until they day they die, Republicans from the very top of the party right down to the street where you live will always be American-hating fascists.
Right now everyone is talking about the covid vaccine, and I think that’s awesome. Cultivating a culture of enthusiasm for this life-saving vaccination is so important, but with the flame of vaccine fervor running hot, I can’t help but worry: Is this public safety excitement built to last, or destined to burn out? And specifically, by the time I get vaccinated, will it even be cool anymore?
When I figured out that the modern filibuster is first cousin to the three-fifths clause and the Electoral College, its use by the 21st century GOP and Mitch McConnell made so much sense.
Follow along; I’ll show you how I got here. And in the process, how I evolved from someone who has historically honored norms to someone who sees clearly how the contemporary Senators have debased them. Trump was the culmination, not the initiation, of the Republican Party’s rejection of history.
First, the Constitution is predicated on majority votes, not the supermajority required by a filibuster. The Articles of Confederation (remember them? they failed) required a supermajority. Each state had one vote, and 9 of 13 states were needed to pass any law of substance. Based on personal experience, the framers crafted a Constitution that has limited requirements for a supermajority. For example, a two-thirds majority is needed to override a presidential veto, to expel a member of the Senate, or to convict a federal officer of an impeachable offense.
Nor was the filibuster part of the original Senate. The framers knew it could/would be abused. It did not come to life until they had all died.
“Originally, Senate rules included a provision allowing a majority to end debate, and an early manual written by Thomas Jefferson established procedures for silencing senators who debated ‘superfluous, or tediously.’ Obstruction was considered beneath them.”
But John C. Calhoun (SC) — the man who started the Civil War — wanted a Senate where the minority could block the majority. James Madison (VA, the “father of the Constitution”) believed majority rule was the “republican principle.”
Finally, a president who will actually work from early in the morning until late in the evening and make many calls and have many meetings #InaugurationDay
Sarah Huckabee Sanders [Image from WPRI]
From The Onion:
LITTLE ROCK, AR—Announcing her official bid for governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders vowed Monday to protect the good people of Arkansas from any questions. “As governor, I promise to do everything in my power to ensure Arkansans never have to answer another heinous question again,” said Sanders, who explained she was compelled to run for office after witnessing firsthand the destructive effects of questions in Washington.
