Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
I remember the moment I saw Trump's tweet attacking Pence. We were in the chamber as aides were scrambling to bar the doors. Some were sobbing in fear. The mob was outside. Someone yelled out shots had been fired.
I turned to Tim Kaine and said, "Oh my god, he's egging them on."
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 12, 2021
title of some sort
From Ant Farmer’s Almanac:
Declares Itself Independent Principality:
No Extradition Treaty with New York, Georgia
– More –
From PZ Myers:
It went badly for the ol’ orange asshole, with the senate deciding that sure, they could go ahead and impeach him. That’s about it. Now the question is whether they’ll actually do it.
The Democrats are decisive (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write): yes, they will.
The Republicans are in a dither. What they do is not going to depend on their conscience, or an objective assessment of the evidence, but entirely on the basis of the polling, because they’re all amoral conniving cowards. A substantial number of Republican voters are still in the Cult of Trump, so they’re afraid that voting to impeach will trigger an angry backlash against them…but at the same time, they’re concerned that the ongoing prosecution is going to make such a strong public case that they’ll get a backlash if they don’t vote to impeach. Squirm, you creeps, squirm. I hope they’re all sweating profusely right now.
As for Trump himself, the reports are mixed. The New York Times says he’s furious.
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:
Trump laid a foundation. brick by brick, for his supporters to think “they” (the evil Democrats) were out to get Trump, and by extension, them.
Take the last impeachment as an example–Trump’s surrogates tried to assert that impeaching Trump was the same as impeaching his supporters. Even now, they are trying to claim such absurdities as Trump is being impeached not for what he did, but for who he is, or that somehow, by winning the election, the Democratic ticket has disenfranchised the 74 million Trump voters. (The latter strikes me as really rich considering my vote could have literally been thrown out as a Pennsylvanian if they had their way.)
What’s more, Trump et als, even though they frame their argument (such as the 60 plus cases that were lost/laughed at of court) in terms of “election integrity” now, the rhetoric was often more apocalyptic: “Fight or you won’t even have a country.” “Save America.” They were using a “Flight 93 election” narrative. Even if Trump didn’t have the votes (and he looked, and he asked others to look!), what he wanted, and wanted his followers to want, was that the election be overturned for him. By force if necessary.
And here’s how you know…
From Max’s Dad:
I dont give a rats ass about the politics of this disgusting incident when it comes to women like AOC hiding from a gang of brainwashed loser men taking out their repressed lives on other people. Whether it be cops or fellow nutjobs or Senators or Congressmen, these middle aged vandals didnt care who they hurt but seemed very intent on putting the uppity chicks in their place . The Nancy Pelosis and the Katie Porters and the Ilhan Omars or the Ayanna Presleys the Rashida Tlaibs and the AOC’s. This marauding mob of overgrown juveniles constantly demanded to know where these women were located to oh I dont know hate fuck them to death or whatever these neanderthals had in their lizard brains.
Its trauma. Its fearing for your life. These fuckers werent going to kill Ted Cruz, or Josh Hawley or Kevin McCarthy. They were out to kill women. Women in power. The bane of their miserable existence.
From Imani Gandy at Rewire News Group:
Prosecutors—with the help of doctors and nurses—are punishing pregnant people using laws intended to help them.
Purvi Patel was suffering from heavy vaginal bleeding when she walked into the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, Indiana. She insisted that the bleeding was not the result of pregnancy. After the doctors persisted, however, she admitted that she’d had a miscarriage, and, not knowing what to do, had placed the remains in a dumpster.
What came next is a cautionary tale about what can happen to Black and brown women when they face bias and betrayal by health-care workers who are supposed to help them, and the ways in which hospitals, which are supposed to be places of healing, can become carceral.
Patel likely believed she would get medical treatment and then be able go home to her family. But overzealous law enforcement and prosecutors—and a betrayal of trust by the medical staff who were supposed to treat her—left Patel facing 41 years in prison for an illegal self-induced abortion.
How could this have happened?
From Nan’s Notebook:
I’m So Tired …
From The Moderate Voice:
I’m weary of rural America being singled out as the “real” America.
Just as I’m weary of news orgs sending reporters “to the middle” of the country for ‘anthropologic’ stories.
Bruce Springsteen wanted to be “authentic” so he and his 1980 Jeep CJ-5 went to Kansas to film this in January. News reports make it clear that although the idea may have originated with Jeep’s ad agency, Springsteen was intimately involved with its production. That’s his music in the background. I believe it’s also his “long walk home,” as described in the Catholic Herald.
This ad wasn’t seasoned with religion. Religion was the main course. It ran during a controversial sporting event in the middle of a global pandemic, calling for political reunification using the metaphor of a small country church in middle America.
It panders to a minority of White America and evokes a wistful past that is a Hollywood sleight of hand.
From Earth-Bound Misfit:
That is really too rich. For as far back as I can recall, whenever a criminal defendant wins because the cops did an illegal search or failed to Mirandize the defendant or, at times, tortured or abused the defendant in order to obtain a confession, it has been the conservatives who have been screaming blue bloody murder at how that defendant got off on a technicality.
Which is exactly what they are doing now: Seizing on an imaginary technicality to avoid having to hold Trump accountable to unleashing a mob on the Capitol.
Never forget that, as the mob was going into the Capitol, Trump said that Mike Pence was a coward for doing his duty under the Constitution.
Never forget that, as the mob stormed the Capitol, Trump refused to issue orders to send in the D.C. National Guard, but he had no problem in using the National Guard to attack peaceful protesters so he could hold an upside-down Bible outside of a church.
Never forget that Trump watched the insurrection eagerly and delightedly on TV and dodged pleas from friends and allies to call off his mob.
Never forget that Trump waited until it was clear that his autogolpe had failed before he sent out a tepid tweet telling the Insurrectionists to go home…
From Andy Borowitz:
According to the poll, ninety per cent of Americans would forego food, clothing, and shelter if it means holding out for a relief package that has the support of such G.O.P. lawmakers as Senator Susan Collins, of Maine.
“Sure, I’d love to avoid being evicted at the end of the month,” one poll respondent said. “But if that means accepting a stimulus check that has less than bipartisan support, count me out.”