Prepare yourselves.
The Senate comes back into session, with Trump’s trial ahead of it and who knows what from Mitch McConnell. Maybe he has a few more judges to slam into the system.
Trump will issue pardons to 100-200 loathsome people, so we will hear their names and relive their crimes.
But at 5:30 Eastern, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will host a memorial to remember and honor the lives lost to COVID-19. As much as we need a light at the end of the tunnel, we need to mourn and observe the lives of so many who have been lost to the pandemic, exacerbated by the US government.
Here’s how you can participate:
- Light a candle in your window and join fellow Americans for this national moment of remembrance.
- Light up city buildings at 5:30 local time in a light amber color.
- Ring a bell at 5:30pm ET on January 19 during the national ceremony to join us in a collective moment of remembrance.
You can tune in at 5:30pm ET for the ceremony featuring the first-ever lighting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to honor those who have died. Also on Facebook and other usual suspects.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Spanky
Forty four hours.
lapassionara
Thank you, Cheryl. I had not seen any of the plans for this. I will have a candle in our window for sure.
JoyceH
I’ll light my Dr Fauci prayer candle.
debbie
That is great counter-programming to the final ugly gasps of the worst mistake this country has ever made.
EriktheRed
Honestly, at this point, all I really care about is President Biden being inaugurated the day AFTER tomorrow…
…without getting shot at.
Ajabu
@Spanky:
Thanks. Just seeing the number 44 makes me feel better (and nostalgic).
45 has become our national bad luck number…
Another Scott
@lapassionara: +1
Thanks Cheryl.
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@Spanky: Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Also, while noon is the formal inauguration time, Trump is checking out a few hours early so he can abscond to Florida while still President. Presumably he didn’t want to ask his successor for the traditional courtesy of one final flight home; classless to the end.
Edit: Hope he fucks up the timing, and is being driven from the airport to Mar-a-Lago when all of sudden all of the escorts in the motorcade peel away and he gets held up at every red light along the way.
BruceFromOhio
So the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
Got it.
dmsilev
@BruceFromOhio: An oncoming train? Clearly that’s Joe Biden’s fault.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: I know Ann Laurie covered this last night, but as a night owl/morning-hater myself, I am loving this detail.
“must wear mask”… we’ll see. A farewell super-spreader.
Baud
Pardons tomorrow, subpoenas on Wednesday.
Baud
Ohio Mom
In a slightly different timeline, we’d be snarkily comparing notes on who we’d think was in line for a pardon, making bets—but the last week has sobered us up way past that.
I’ll be watching the ceremony tomorrow night. When you live on a suburban cul-de-sac, there’s no one to notice a candle in a window.
Baud
Nicole
I’m glad Biden and Harris are recognizing that it’s important we grieve.
I’m in isolation for Covid right now, so I can’t do anything other than maybe find an image of a candle flame on my iPhone and put that in the window (well, and watch the ceremony). My husband tested positive on the 4th and went into isolation, and I tested positive 9 days later. That said, I think I was actually sick with Covid right before New Year’s, and the PCR test that came back positive this week picked up dead virus. I had 4 negative tests between Dec 28 and Jan 11 (I tested positive on the 13th), and I find it hard to believe none of those tests would come back positive, but I am also skeptical, that what with my consistent mask-wearing and hand-washing and getting the flu shot in October that I’d pick up a flu-like illness right before New Years’ and then follow immediately up with a completely asymptomatic case of Covid. I bet, years from now, when the tests are better, we’ll hear about how inaccurate the tests from the first couple of years were.
But, rules are rules, so I’m isolating in a very nice hotel and watching all the terrible true crime documentaries I can’t watch when my kid is around. And feeling lucky for a mild case; I know plenty of people, including some jackals here, have not been. My stepmom called me to check in yesterday and told me a friend of hers just lost her 32-year-old son to Covid. So yeah, as a nation we really need space and time to grieve.
Baud
Betty Cracker
I hope the Palm Beach town council keeps up their effort to kick Trump out of Mar-a-Lago. Evidently he signed an agreement years ago NOT to live there when he obtained permission to turn what had been a private residence into a club.
On the other hand, maybe he’ll be miserable at M-a-L, in which case, I hope he rots there!
I read somewhere the residence at M-a-L is something like 3,500 square feet, which would certainly seem huge to most normal people but may seem tiny as a primary “home” to someone who’s been squatting in the White House for four years after living in that tacky-ass but cavernous NYC penthouse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’ve been saying the only thing trump could do that would actually surprise me is not pardon himself. I’m sure every lawyer in the White House has quoted him chapter and verse about the complications he’ll create, but I don’t think he’ll be able to resist the last exercise of unconditional power, because he can, because no one’s ever done it before, and precisely because (I assume) they’re telling him not to.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: and he hates Melanie’s recent redecoration. I think he already owns a home, or half a home, in Palm Beach. I read something not long ago that he either bought it or bought half of it from his ghost-like sister Elizabeth (in Mary Trump’s book, the TV in Fred’s ‘library’– where there were no books– features more prominently).
rikyrah
Dear Dr. Jill,
Please replant the Rose Garden.
Invite Caroline Kennedy and her children
Forever FLOTUS ??
Laura Bush( the Bushes actually own a tree farm-tell her to bring some plants)
Hillary Clinton
Rosalyn Carter
Have a good luncheon and photo op
Signed,
Be as Petty as you want to be Rikyrah ?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Why the hell would we do power sharing with an obstructionist like McConnell who already declared that he would obstruct everything when he thought they would win Georgia!!!?!?!
WTF?
edit: just reading what you wrote and looking at the headline on that article made my pulse and I’m sure my blood pressure go up. What is Schumer thinking???
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@dmsilev: Trump is cutting out early to get to Mar-a-largo because after noon the 20th he can’t helicopter in anymore.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Did you read the article?
BR
I stand by the prediction that some, many, or even all of the insurrectionists will be pardoned. Whatever the worst thing is, he’ll do it. I just can’t figure out what the worst thing is yet.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I added this edit above:
edit: just reading what you wrote and looking at the headline on that article made my pulse and I’m sure my blood pressure go up. What is Schumer thinking???
So, no, I did not read the article. Is it less bad than it seems?
MisterForkbeard
Don’t know if anyone saw this already, but Pelosi is telling Acting Secretary Miller to pull the NSA Counsel appointment. Basically, public reporting shows this has improper political interference all over it, which WILL be investigated and so on. No reason to push this person in now unless it’s political, because if it really wasn’t political then it would go ahead normally in the new administration.
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1351219144952336390
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It seems like it’s mostly based on the rules that were in place last time the Senate was 50-50.
laura
@rikyrah: Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I’m baking an inaugural celebration cake and using the Royal Wedding cake theme – Meyer Lemon and Elderflower. My beautiful former Senator is going to be an historic Vice President and I’m just so thrilled and wildly optimistic for the future.
zhena gogolia
@BR:
I’m just FUCKING SICK of, oh, what’s he going to do now? I DON’T FUCKING CARE.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
Only one more day…
MisterForkbeard
@WaterGirl:
The agreement is really anodyne:
”
Schumer and McConnell aides are discussing allowing bills and nominations to advance to the Senate floor even if they are tied during committee votes, something that could become common given that each party is expected to have the same number of seats on committees.
Democrats will hold the chairmanships of the committees, giving them power to set the agenda, and Schumer will be granted the title of majority leader since Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will cast tiebreaking votes on the floor.”
Basically, Dems retain control of the committees. Even if Republicans do everything they can to tie a vote in committee, Dems can still advance it to the floor. And if Republicans do the same thing, Schumer can choose to just not schedule a vote on it.
The headline sucks, but I don’t see much objectionable here.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl:
Obligatory, and reflective of the numbers. We’ll be doing lots for Romney, Murkowski and Sasse in the near future.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I had a similar reaction until I read the article. It’s definitely not as bad as it seems. Dems will chair the committees, so they’ll set the agenda. When committee votes to move forward are tied, the proposals will move forward, meaning Reps can’t obstruct every little thing without getting a Dem to help them kill initiatives.
zhena gogolia
@BR:
I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF HAVING THAT FUCKER IN MY MIND ALL THE TIME WHY DOESN’T HE GO AWAY, FAR AWAY, I NEVER WANT TO HEAR HIS NAME OR HIS HORRIBLE VOICE OR ANYTHING ABOUT HIM EVER EVER AGAIN
Raven
@Betty Cracker: I had the same reaction when I read the title of this thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: also, and I have a feeling I’m gonna be screaming this into the wind a lot over the next couple of years, Democrats do not have fifty votes in the Senate. We (will) have forty-eight plus Sanders plus Angus King. And as much I personally hate Bernie and kinda like King, the latter is probably gonna be a frequent stick in the spokes over the next two years
@Raven: gotta say, I assumed there was some new FBI warning or something when I saw that
catclub
Frederick Douglas would like a word. Also, WT Sherman.
MisterForkbeard
@zhena gogolia: I had a great moment this morning, when I read an article about how Trump decided to start calling the election a lie immediately after he lost. There were quotes in the article, and I realized I couldn’t picture Trump’s voice actually saying them.
It’d been long enough that I’ve mostly forgotten what his voice sounds like. It was lovely, and as time goes on we’ll forget more and more about him and he’ll be less present.
leeleeFL
@Ohio Mom: I live on a well traveled street on which there are several schools. There will be a candle. I’d love to have bonfire! I think we should have done it tonight, being MLK’s Birthday has become a day of service. It could also be a day of remembrance for all the Americans we’ve lost to so many selfish decisions made by feckless politicians. The pathetic covid response is probably the worst in terms of numbers lost….but there are multitudes we have lost to other bad choices.
CarolPW
@Ohio Mom: You will notice. That matters.
Baud
@dmsilev:
I can totally see his happening.
Isua
The title of this post makes me want to go read The Dark Is Rising. “Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond all imagining.” At least the day after tomorrow, the light will start coming back….
Betty Cracker
@BR: Wouldn’t pardoning the insurrectionists strengthen the incitement case against Trump himself? You’re correct that he always does the worst things, but the caveat is it has to benefit himself in some way.
Barbara
@Nicole: I hope it stays mild. I can’t wait for Wednesday. I dread tomorrow.
BR
@MisterForkbeard:
Yeah, these days I can only imagine Colbert or Trever Noah doing his voice, not the actual thing. And soon that’ll be a distant memory.
catclub
Morals tomorrow, comedy tonight.
jl
I think it’s good to remember that Madison explicitly described an example of a corrupt presidential pardon, and said it was worthy of impeachment, conviction at trial, and removal from office.
What was Madison’s example of such a corrupt presidential pardon? A pardon intended to protect the president himself or any associate from the consequences of wrong-doing or to conceal it.
Some of the reactionaries who have been BSing about ‘what the founders intended’ and ‘what the text says’ should have that thrown into their faces every time they bloviate in the cause of protecting the massive criminal activity in the Trump administration, and now, after January 6, those outside who were inspired by it.
I hope the Democratic leadership advises every one of their members lead with that whenever corporate media hacks like Todd of Sahl drivel on about excusing criminal behavior under the cover of empty slogans about unity in interviews.
In the usage of the founders, in their more delicate moments, calls for unity without accountability are ‘interested. ‘ But, sometimes they were vulgar and uncivil as we are today and called them criminal and corrupt
Edit: and mid-night or early morning corrupt pardons should be on of the main justifications for impeachment if the president issues them, and aggressive legal action should be taken to void them. IANAL, but I also suggest that Congress use its power to strip jurisdiction over that from SCOTUS.
BR
@Betty Cracker:
I think he probably (rightly) sees himself as immune or unlikely to be prosecuted. Not because of the law, but just that it seems unlikely for a former president to ever get prosecuted for things they say in a speech. (As opposed to the Georgia recordings or the NY tax stuff, which might actually catch up to him.)
Ken
Or delays enough that when he gets to the airport, he’s told that he’s on the no-fly list.
catclub
leeleeFL
@rikyrah: Luv this idea! I teared up a bit. All those great women….invite the Johnson Daughters, the Bush twins, Sacha and Malia. Exorcise the place!
satby
@WaterGirl: The article makes it obvious this is not Schumer’s idea, for starters, but a plan for how to move legislation out of committees when those committee votes are almost guaranteed to be evenly divided by party.
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: I never devoted more than 2 brain cells to Ivanka Trump and none at all to the other family members and I am so looking forward to returning to the status quo ante.
Mike in NC
@zhena gogolia: Just imagine turning on a TV or picking up a newspaper and not seeing his bloated, ugly, orange puss.
jl
@jl: And if any BJ lawyer comes along with self-defeating angles to forestall such an attempt, my IANAL but very acute legal analysis is STFU.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s always talk about Republicans trying to lure Manchin into switching parties, but I rarely hear any talk about Dems trying to pick off someone like Murkowski or Collins. I wonder if any efforts like that are underway? Maybe Claire McCaskill* could host a girl’s weekend in Branson and ply them with edibles and talk of potential committee chairs and legacy defining boondoggles? Wouldn’t hurt to try!
*I know she’s an ex-senator, which makes her perfect for a broker role. Also, she frequently refers to Collins as a “dear friend.”
leeleeFL
@catclub: yes, this is the worst mistake in modern times. Thought that, didn’t write it.
Yutsano
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Earmarks. Please for the love of frak Schumer please allow earmarks!
WaterGirl
@Baud: What I head read is that the previous 50-50 arrangement was based on the requirement that the Dems not contest the election results.
Since McConnell plans to obstruct fucking everything, and they certain contested the election results x1 million, it wouldn’t seem that this was a similar situation at all.
Seems like we are handing our power away. You know that next time the shoe is on the other foot, there is no way the Rs would do power sharing.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The only one of those in blue state is Collins and she now knows she’s unbeatable as a Republican there.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’m not aware of that condition in the prior agreement. I’m also not sure of all the details in this one beyond what has been reported.
rikyrah
@Nicole:
??????
rikyrah
@BR:
One day more???
jl
@Betty Cracker: I think Murkowski is officially an independent who caucuses with the GOP. She’s also the most promising prospect in terms of doing things in good faith often enough (even if ‘just’) to be a useful convert.
She should be top priority.
Then maybe Romney if he can spine himself up a notch. To help him with his seat, he could go independent and not officially caucus with the Dems. But he should be advised he really has to ‘spine up’ a noticeable notch in order to take advantage of the Dem’s generous, gracious, and merciful offer to deal.
catclub
@leeleeFL: In modern times, a million dead iraqis would also like a word. Also two million dead Vietnamese.
Given the pandemic, that is a less clear call.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Hence the need to offer her attractive incentives. It probably wouldn’t work, but I hope they’re working every possible angle. The Republicans always do, and sometimes it pans out
@jl: Good points.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’ll know we’re in trouble if he takes off on the “doomsday command post” 747 instead of the normal Air Force One model.
jl
@Baud: I think it is clear that Collins is a cynical operator, a wolf in disintegrating sheep’s clothing. Not a person you want to deal with.
She’s no BaudXXXX!, that’s for sure. Some bars are just too low.
artem1s
best thing that ever happened was Dolt45 and his followers losing access to social media. it was obvious he lived only for instant gratification. but I didn’t realize how much he relied on them as an outlet until.he.was.gone. I can’t but notice how all the news about Trump is now coming from other people, not his awful pie hole.
yes, tomorrow will be bad, but maybe not so much. he has no way to boast about his awfulness and wallow in the twitter storm he creates. so why bother. I think he can’t get motivated to do anything unless he gets his twitter release afterward. press conferences just don’t give him the same high. if no one can retweet your tweets, do they make a sound?
Scout211
Ugh. Another proclamation of pandering.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-national-sanctity-human-life-day-2021/
There is no end to the hypocrisy of this administration.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: On her official web page, under her signature it says “R-Alaska.” She ran as a write-in in the last election, because the official R candidate was a nutjob, but she certainly self-identifies as R.
Raven
@catclub:
In figures released in 1995, Vietnam claimed 2 million civilians died on both sides, while 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives in the war.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t think they’ll be romancing Manchin any time in the immediate future, being that he’s calling for Cruz and Hawley to be expelled.
WaterGirl
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: @Betty Cracker:
Thanks. I just couldn’t bring myself to read it, but that doesn’t sound terrible.
I kind of started to tune everything out yesterday after the whole “we’ll be vetting the zillion armed national guard members” who are coming to DC for protection.
If they haven’t found one single person yet, then they are not looking hard enough. With as many white supremacists as there are in the military and police, it’s not possible that there aren’t any in the guard.
It makes me sick to my stomach to think of Biden and Harris and Pelosi and so many people all in one place and all outdoors. “Protected” by the national guard. All it takes is one person who is willing to be a martyr.
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211: Sanctity of Human Life, who during his term executed three times as many prisoners as had been executed in the prior 60 years.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
FUCK HIM FUCK HIM FUCK HIM
Citizen Alan
@catclub:
Actually, the thought that keeps me up at night is this: How would the election of 1860 and the Civil War have played out if Buchanan had flatly and loudly denied that Lincoln had won, to the point of claiming that the Republicans cheated, and then, invited the Maryland and Virginia militias in to D.C. to prevent the electoral votes from being counted.
C Stars
@Nicole: I hope you are back at 100% soon. Sounds as though it’s been a solemn and grinding end of year/new year time for you.
My god though, I feel like just getting a two day break from my kiddos to isolate in a hotel room and watch trash TV (well, probably it would be mainly Star Trek TNG for me) would do my body and soul good.
Of course, not under such scary circumstances.
But still. Little bit jealous over here. My kids have gotten progressively needier as the pandemic has worn on. They pretty much have to have skin to skin contact with me whenever I’m in the house. It’s endearing and also totally suffocating.
Raven
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think these people who were there blaming it on him and whining for a pardon is going to help them.
Sure Lurkalot
@MisterForkbeard: @zhena gogolia:
I’m with you, I want all trace of him gone, never to resurface. But as much as I want that, I also want to see him pay for his malfeasance, incompetence and indifference (and many more -ance -ence words), as unlikely as I realize that is.
WaterGirl
@C Stars: That’s a bit like telling someone without a job that they should enjoy their time off work. That’s only possible if you know you for sure have a job in x period of time, otherwise, the time can be endless and unbearable.
jl
@artem1s: I saw a link, I think in a Josh Marshall tweet, to some Trump fanatics and Q fellow-travelers admitting to themselves that they’ve been played.
I think it is important to try to salvage ordinary people who got caught up in Trumpster and QAnon madness who are willing to face their grave mistakes. Like ordinary Confederate soldiers in the Civil War, they should be paroled and they have to demonstrate that they are willing to engage in honest good faith conversation with normal people, while still holding their cynical leaders to strict account.
Even if that segment is only 5 or 10 percent of the Trumpsters and QAnon crowd, separating them from the unsalvageable bigots, insane, and affluent feral greedheads will make a huge difference in future elections.
Sure Lurkalot
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Don’t forget Mr. Manchin.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
This right here is why you’re one of my very favourite commenters.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Probably would have led to Civil War.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: OK, thanks for the correction. I thought she officially ran as an independent, but actually she was a GOP write-in candidate.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: Biden, Harris and Pelosi shouldn’t be anywhere near each other. If all three get eliminated simultaneously in the interval before a new president pro tempore of the Senate can be elected (which I imagine won’t be for days), the next in line is Chuck Grassley and we have four more years of Republican government. You know somebody is already thinking about that.
I am not going to be able to relax until this ceremony is over with nobody dying.
Raven
@Matt McIrvin: quit that shit
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl: To me, it looks perfectly reasonable for a 50-50 Senate.
dmsilev
@Scout211: Doesn’t that proclamation expire on noon on the 20th anyway, so not only is it pandering it’s completely empty pandering?
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Oh, fuck no. McConnell needs to be shot out of a cannon.
ETA: OK, fine, I’ll read the article.
jl
@Baud: Too bad the winning side was not more cautious and didn’t go out of their way to explain that the South could keep slavery, just not make everyone tolerate its reach on slaveholder terms all over the whole nation.
Otherwise the Civil War that didn’t happen could have been avoided.
JMG
@WaterGirl: It’s an agreement on things like committee memberships. Dems and Rs had one in 2001 that began with a 50-50 Senate. Schumer will be Majority Leader, will decide what is brought to the floor, etc. Committees will split 50-50, but a tie vote on legislation in committee (or for a nominee for office) will NOT mean it fails. At least, that’s the way it worked back then.
artem1s
@BR:
that may be what he tells himself. but he’d underbus everyone one of the seditionist if he thought he could get away with it. he can’t because he needs them sending him donations for his crappy leftover merchandise (how much you want to bet he’s got a warehouse full of hats and t-shirts with 46 on them?). and he needs those email lists from the GOP so he can keep up with the illusion he’s going to run again – or the traitor tots need those lists for whatever grift they have going. once the shock of not having access to all the cool stuff has passed, he’s going to go right back to being the star of his own reality show. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s leaving early so he can bigfoot the oath with an interview on AF1 with some OAN or Fox News asshat.
Baud
@jl:
In terms of alternative history, I wonder what would have happened with slavery if the South had given up on expanding it beyond the South.
Nicole
@C Stars:
I’m feeling 100% now, honest (other than doing something to my knee while I was doing some cardio in the living area yesterday, but I think that’s less Covid and more being almost 50). And yeah, I’m not going to pretend that the time alone isn’t pretty lovely right now. I wonder if this generation of Covid kids are going to grow up with tighter relationships with their parents, due to all the time together, which I bet will be lovely years from now, but while we’re in the thick of it, it can get exhausting.
The best part is, the living area’s windows are higher up than any of the buildings nearby and I can see for miles, which is super cool. I haven’t had a view from a window in ages.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: And Manchin never budges. He may not be your kind of Dem but he is a Dem.
jl
@Baud: US Grant had an acute analysis of the result in his memoirs, which I think has held up since then. The North would have had to deal with what would be the result a violent chaotic failed state, full of internal dissention and repeated splinter sub-secessions to its south.
Edit: I don’t think Grant thought there would be any difference whether the South was officially independent or not. It would be the inevitable fate of that kind of society built on chattel slavery.
OTOH, it could have been worse. What if the issue had been football?
Philbert
President Grant revoked 2 pardons issues by Johnson. It seemed to depend if the person had received it and been released or not. One got out quick, the second hadn’t got the letter and served his time.
George W also rescinded a pardon.
We would have to have slow/stupid action by Trump, and fast action for Biden to do this, maybe sign the rescission on the podium. Unlikely, but we can dream!
Baud
@jl:
Was Grant talking about if the South won?
I’m asking about the history if the South never tried secession.
zhena gogolia
Is this our Valdivia?
Nicole
@Betty Cracker:
And what is that about? Rick Wilson was yammering about that on his podcast, and I thought, see, this is exactly why I don’t usually listen to these things; this guy is talking nonsense. Manchin could be guaranteed his seat for life if he switched parties, but he’s continued to do the heavier lift and run as a Democrat in WV. And he’s never cast the deciding vote that would torpedo Democratic legislation. Because… maybe he’s a Democrat! (James Carville was on the same podcast later and pointed out Manchin isn’t even the most conservative Democrat in the Senate.)
I agree with you, more attention should be given to who on the GOP side the Democrats could pick off. With Alaska’s new ranked choice voting, I think Murkowski might be the best target for the Democrats. Unlikely they could get her to put a D after her name, but maybe an I.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
There’s a not at all unreasonable, albeit gray area, legal school of thought that in such a case, once the House elects a new Speaker that person takes over in place of the elevated president pro tem. Obviously never been tested in practice.
As for the three of them not being anywhere near each other, that’s not standing up against fear, that’s giving in to it. Rectitude in the face of implied threat by the custodians of power has much to be said for it.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: No.
Patricia Kayden
jl
@Baud: I clarified above. I need to go back and read the passage. I think you are right that mainly Grant was talking about what would happen if the South was allowed to secede, but he thought it didn’t make much difference. The slaveholder social and political order would disintegrate into a dangerous mess whether they were officially independent or not.
Sorry for the confusion.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
This is important, shitforbrains never, ever does anything that he does not think helps him in some way. Now that said, his brain does not function, so looking at a situation and deciding what is good for him really is not the same as most humans would see it. He’s looking at 2024, when a majority votes for him again. Yes, yes I know there are a number of roadblocks for him, everyone of which he created, but he will stumble over, or more likely into them, the same as he’s always done, because his brain, for lack of a better word, really, really is broken. So I’m not predicting what he might do, other than it will be stupid, and wrong.
Uncle Cosmo
@zhena gogolia: Your Caps Lock key is stuck. Please unstick it.
(You really do not want to LOSE IT with <43 hrs left before B-Day/H-Hour,)
@catclub: FREDERICK DOUGLASS, goddamnittohell!
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: I think they need to be there and it needs to be public because fuck the fucking insurrectionists that’s why.
MisterForkbeard
@Scout211: Well, time for Biden to declare a National Republicans Are Traitors day.
Seriously though, what an ASS. He’s trying to put Biden in a bind by making it happen two days into his Presidency. I think Biden should just declare that while he personally opposes abortion, it’s a matter of choice and this declaration was completely inappropriate to over half of the country, so he’s declaring it’s not a thing. And he’ll replace it with a “National Day of Remembrance”, in which we remember everyone that has passed in the last year. If only there hadn’t been so many in the last year of the Trump Presidency, and so on.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks. Somebody said she was active on twitter, so when I saw that tweet I wondered.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: Murkowski perhaps but I don’t see Collins budging from being a staunch Republican. Collins fumes and fusses but mostly falls in line when voting with her fellow Republican Senators.
satby
@zhena gogolia: Don’t think so, ours tweets under Valdivia@TheCorollary
N/m Omnes got there first
zhena gogolia
@Uncle Cosmo:
PETER STRZOK
Patricia Kayden
@Scout211: “so every child can have a loving home.”
Has Trump forgotten how he cruelly separated migrant families and threw children into cages while deporting their parents?
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: AKA we don’t negotiate / surrender to terrorists.
MisterForkbeard
@JMG: Yes. The agreement doesn’t appear to give up any power at all. It’s basically just an agreement that Dems own the Senate and that Republicans can’t block votes at the committee level.
It’s an amendment to ‘normal’ rules in that normally, a vote has to WIN in committee, not be tied.
Ruckus
@Ken:
Only after the cars have left the property and he has to rent a car and driver. And no one will actually drive the car. Because he sure can’t.
LuciaMia
Same way on any story about Melania. Who spends a second thinking about this women?
jl
@Nicole: I’m not sure it is clear how well Manchin would fare in the GOP. He’d have to survive the GOP primaries.
I think that if he’s smart, he’ll talk his same GOP-lite crap, but stick with Dems enough to deliver enough goods to WV to max the chances of keeping his seat.
What can Caputo offer except BS and pandering? It works for her in the GOP world.
MisterForkbeard
@Nicole: Murkowski has already said she’ll never join the Democratic Party. She had to do a walkback after her “If this is the party of Trump it might not have a place for me” statement.
But getting her as an Independent who caucuses with the Dems because they actually believe in honest government is possible.
@Patricia Kayden: I’m really hopeful that we get a Feinstein retirement (with some dignity) and a replacement appointment with a black woman.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: Melania will be too busy divorcing Donnie in an ugly divorce to participate in all that fun. Plus, she’s not invited.
BR
Can Biden sign a simple executive order that says “all executive orders signed in the last X months are hereby recinded”? Easier than dealing with each one by one. Any that are still needed, and there probably aren’t many, can be dealt with one by one after that.
C Stars
@Nicole: That sounds great. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
It’s an interesting point, that this time will affect our future relationships with our kids. It’s strange to think that without this pandemic (which my kids call “the global P”) they’d be getting on with their own business (without me) for most of the day, almost every day. Instead we are a constant feature in one another’s environment. I wonder if this generation of children will be slower (or faster!) to leave home after high school.
MisterForkbeard
@BR: No, he can’t. Some of them have to be unwound carefully, might need ‘review’ periods, etc.
The Congressional Review Act can get some of them, though.
Aziz, light!
@Baud: Even better, at noon Trump’s motorcade pulls into the parking lot of a paycheck loan shop and a nail parlor and his driver tells him to get the fuck out.
BR
@MisterForkbeard:
Weird — I didn’t realize that. I thought only regulations done by departments had review periods, not executive orders.
zhena gogolia
@LuciaMia:
The NYT had another fucking think piece by Vanessa Friedman about her “style.” Vomit.
satby
@Patricia Kayden: So every child can have a loving home?!?
I hate that the most about the anti-choice forced birthers: the pretense that all the zygotes will always end up in a stable, happy, two parent family and will never, ever face abuse, poverty, hunger, or homelessness. Complete fairy tale thinking.
H.E.Wolf
You are quite right. However, there’s not much new about this particular piece of hypocrisy.
Jan. 22nd – the date on which Roe v Wade was decided, 7-2 in favor of a woman’s Constitutional right to privacy – has long been a day of anti-abortion/forced-birth activities.
This is just more of that garbage; and a reminder that anti-abortion activists/domestic abusers/white supremacists are often the same people… and that they’re losing the long game.
AliceBlue
@Baud: For what it’s worth–in the 1830’s Roswell King, a prominent Georgia slaveholder, predicted that farming would become more mechanized, and slavery would die a natural death and be gone by the 1880’s.
jl
@Aziz, light!: A BaudXXXX! would have the grace to smile, wave, and make a quip about how it’s the first time he’s had to pick out his own junk snacks and beer in years, as he ducked into the convenience mart.
Aziz, light!
@Patricia Kayden: Collins will be busy keeping her eye on those pesky Iranians.
MisterForkbeard
@H.E.Wolf: I’m trying to think what Biden could replace this with that would sound unifying but actually be a big Fuck You to Trump and the Religious Right.
Something like “This particular celebration is highly divisive and inappropriate to more than half the country, so I’m instead I’m withdrawing it and replacing it with a “National Freedom to Worship Whomever You Want” Day – whether Muslim, Jew, Christian, Wiccan, or Atheist, you have a right to worship as you please and you are all welcome here.”
Baud
@jl:
Fixed.
jl
@MisterForkbeard: Maybe remind people that one of MLK’s themes was economic justice and peace for all races. Please the progressive wing, some of which are gradually and grudgingly showing signs of willingness to work with Biden. Also, directly counter the dishonest use of King’s message by racist GOPers swindlers and thieves using MLK as a cover to steal all social and public capital, all good will.
NotMax
@BR
Strictly hypothetically, it would set an terrible precedent. Short-term gain, long-term loss. More than enough norms have been upended; re-right those rather than continue the chaos inflicted on what has been demonstrated to be a less sturdy edifice than complacent confidence supposed.
sralloway
@zhena gogolia: C’mon. I wanna read about the family in Police Gazette.
Ken
@Scout211: @Gin & Tonic: @zhena gogolia: @MisterForkbeard: If only Democrats were more into pwning the RWNJs, Biden could on the 22nd release something like:
“I, JOSEPH BIDEN, 46th President of the United States, am pleased to affirm and extend this National Sanctity of Life Day by ordering an immediate moratorium on all Federal executions, and commuting all current Federal death sentences to life imprisonment.
“I join with the call of other world leaders, including that of the Holy Father Pope Francis, spiritual leader of all Catholics, to do away with the death penalty in all jurisdictions.
“I cannot more eloquently express the moral bankruptcy, spiritual evil, and legal dubiousness of this policy than did Justice Sotomayor in her dissent in the most recent case in which the Trump administration, reversing a longstanding US policy, executed a living human being. <insert long quote from Sotomayor>”
jl
@Baud: “the Four Seasons convenience mart”
That species of high class may be the one and only beneficial legacy of the disastrous and criminal Trump maladministration.
jl
@NotMax: I think that is a very good point. I think also, astonishingly, Trump signed a few good measures that were sneaked past him. He had no clue about what was going on due to mind boggling ignorance and bigotry, didn’t give a shit anyway, was incredibly gullible, and some long departed Trump officials had a couple of good ideas.
The salvage operation will be immense, and really need to shift through the dross to find any lever to get good results quickly.
I think your approach restores integrity, sets a good example, good politics and good policy.
Nicole
I dunno. Our fearless blog leader can speak to this more than I can, but Manchin seems to be very popular in WV because of him as an individual. He could have left the Dems years ago, when the GOP was not yet infected with QAnon, but he didn’t. And even now, I think he’d win a GOP primary. I think he’s really just a Democrat. Even that thing he was getting attacked for a couple of weeks ago- saying he opposed $2K checks was a misquote; he said he objected to anything taking priority over dealing with the Covid pandemic, which to him is Task #1.
The Democrats are a big-tent party. There’s room for all sorts (except not white supremacists).
Frankensteinbeck
@Ken:
There aren’t any. Trump killed them all. Seriously. That is part of the outrage and disgust. Nobody else went through with it for decades, but Trump and Barr rushed through executing the entire pending list in Trump’s lame duck period, to make sure they were all dead before Biden could go back to status quo.
EDIT – And it’s not like there’s any political advantage, or it puts Biden in any difficult position, or even fulfills any particular ideology. It’s pure evil, going out of their way to kill.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@WaterGirl: I’m going to make a suggestion here: BREATHE. The whole world saw what happened on 1/6. The whole world is watching now. NONE of those commanders want to be the one responsible for a vetting failure that leads to tragedy and almost certain Civil War.
Plenty to be nervous about? Yes. BUT THERE ALWAYS IS, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN.
Just a thought.
Another Scott
@jl: Made me look.
Brookings (from 2018):
Hmm…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Subsole
@Baud: It wasn’t really economically viable, even then.
Speaking entirely from my ass, the south would have been a good 70 years behind functioning civilizations up until at least the 50s. Just from lack of infrastructure, development, investment and social capital.
Eventually, the aristocrats capable of seeing past the tips of their danglies would probably attempt a gradual phase-out of chattel slavery, as in slaves are slaves, but their children are indentured or even free, depending. Followed by an exceptionally brutal apartheid worse than jim crow. Think mass sterilizations, secret police, pogroms.
The real pivot point depends on how terrified the planters and overseers are when the tsar loses his crown. Socialist uprisings on top of the existing fear of slave rebellions…I could see the confederacy going hard fascist, mighty fast.
I could also see the Union telling them to knock that shit off toot sweet after Japan bombs us. Probably justify it on national security grounds.
Dunno, just my thoughts.
Mel
@Ohio Mom: I’ll light my candle here in Southern Ohio, you light yours, and we’ll know that it matters to at least two people in our hot mess of a state.
Three people I know lost to this awful disease, one kind young father left with lifelong disabilities, and my brother coming through it by the skin of his teeth.
Let’s light a candle for the people we love, and for all the people lost who don’t have someone to hold up their memory.
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard: This.
Also a memorial day for the officer who lost his life defending the capitol from a foaming lunatic mob.
We always pick at our wounds on 9/11, why not 1/6 as well.
Since, y’know, life is so sacred and shit. We can all come together and celebrate our sense of shared identity and national healing on the day our democracy held firm.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Sure beat the alternative.
Subsole
@Ken: oooooooo
I like dat.
jl
@Subsole: I think some hypotheticals are just impossible to figure out. IMHO, the slave society in the US was kind of like Broadway, you could make a killing but you couldn’t make a living (sorry for grim reference to killing there).
One of the reasons that any tentative discussion of abolishing slavery was acceptable at all in the late 18th century US was that it was hard to see it expanding beyond some relative small niche agricultural crops. The slaveholders were always looking for a good crop to take advantage of the humans they had enslaved, and had ripped through quite a few trial crops. I think slavery was surviving on indigo, sugar cane, cotton, and rice. I forget all the crops the slaveholders tried to establish.
Cotton was viewed as a limited niche crop in the US because the expense of processing it was just too high to scale up. The cotton gin changed that, after it was improved. Cotton became a gold mine. Profit motive and mindless greed spurred a reversion to an even more adamant, toxic and vicious racism in an already racist society.
Subsole
@Frankensteinbeck: I am not a religious man, but if there be antichrists on this earth, Trump is one such.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: TEXAS ORGANIZING PROJECT
[Hehe.]
Cheers,
Scott.
Subsole
@jl: Yeah. It would never have been viable. My estimate of 70 years was generous, likely most southerners would have lived much as they did 100 years before.
But here’s the thing: never underestimate the southron ability to stagger gutshot through tomorrow for the sake of yesteryear’s spite.
Ironically, I can see herrenvolk socialism taking off like wildfire much earlier in the south, as a means of propping up the “Contentious Institution”, while minorities are scourged like helots as a hedge against the menace of “Negro Socialist agitators”.
NotMax
@jl
Also too, tobacky. And to some extent, hemp (sailing ships used a lot of rope).
Fair Economist
@Baud: The slave states of 1860 would still be a blocking minority for a Constitutional amendment. My guess if the slave states hadn’t seceeded is that slavery would have eventually been banned around 1900 in the shame of being the last country with slavery after Brazil banned it. No Reconstruction amendments, ever, so no birthright citizenship. Jim Crow even worse after abolition, probably still partially in force today.
Ruckus
@satby:
Well, complete fairy tale thinking seems to be their core concept of life, that if we follow their not at all thought out, nothing bad happens to us concepts, every thing will magically work out fine. Even though it never does, for them or their victims.
Subsole
@Fair Economist: That latter part seems right.
America would functionally be similar to East and West Germany. It might get to the point where the North seceded, to be rid of the drain on its economy and prestige. Sort of how the Czech Republic split off from Slovakia post USSR.
karen marie
@Baud: I nominate Schumer to be shot into the sun.
jl
@NotMax: Thanks for the reminder. The slaveholders found enough crops to make it economically viable, but I don’t think any of the crops were capable at that time at supporting a large industry that would spread outside relative small regions in the South.
And the slaveholders were always had to survive in the world of ‘price competition hell’ of agricultural commodity cash crops. They had this problem even when cotton was king, with repeated cash flow problems, need to go into massive debt on a regular basis. It was even worse before cotton became a gold mine, and one that could thrive outside the south, given the technology of the time.
Always follow the money, I guess. When slavery found a use in a very profitable industry that could become dominant in large parts of the US, the slaveholders became more entrenched, evil and vicious in their attitudes, and so did much of US society. The northerners were certainly willing to make money off Southern slavery, at a distance, with a thin cover, and with some plausible deniability.
NotMax
@Subsole
IIRC, there was also passing mention of slaves having become unionized.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@karen marie: Why?
Matt McIrvin
@Subsole: In 1776, it looked like slavery was a fading institution that was not economically viable, long-term. Once the cotton gin appeared… suddenly it WAS viable. Hugely profitable again.
And there was a huge amount of market value directly bound up in the enslavement of people. Abolishing slavery meant instantly destroying a huge amount of wealth for the slaveholders. That in itself was a source of inertia.
I think an independent CSA, or a South in which the US backed down and compromised in some way, probably would have found ways to keep slavery going for a very long time. Maybe not to the present day, but I could see the conflict that ended it being something along the lines of World War II. Of course, in that counterfactual history so much is different that World War II probably doesn’t happen in the same way.
Kathleen
@Nicole: I wish you swift healing. I’m addicted to Dateline and Dateline: Secrets Uncovered but I really don’t know the difference between the two. The danger with Dateline (or Dateline Secrets Uncovered) is that you have a spouse and by the time you get back home you will want to cancel your life insurance policy, obsessively check his phone and eye him warily.
zhena gogolia
Hahaha, Scaramucci got invited (along with 5 guests) to see Trump off, and he’s inviting the Lincoln Project.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Betty, the image of Trump “squatting” brings a very disgusting image to mind.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Cochineal was a bust, and it killed a lot of Native American and African slaves. The semi tropical climate of some of the south prompted them to try spices, vanilla, and such like. A lot of busts. They found some profitable crops, but nothing to serve as a basis a large dominant economy over a large territory.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne:
fixed that!
Matt McIrvin
(Then again, I like to troll fans of “CSA wins” or “Nazis win” counterfactuals by coming up with histories that start out that way but end with the Soviet Union conquering the world)
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Always need to work in the Nazis and WWII. Essential. Maybe some Cold War subplot, but that is a little too boring to be the main show.
NotMax
@jl
Trivia: Before it was outlawed there (which did not so much stamp it out as accelerate its extinction through attrition) the largest population of slaves, by far, above the Mason-Dixon line was in … Brooklyn.
MoCA Ace
In a perfect world I would never have to think of that piece of shit again. If not for the value as an object lesson in failed leadership (and humanity) I would gladly purge him from our national memory hole.
Out of spite, I propose that we retire the number 45 from the numerical system. Kind of like they do with football players, but for obviously different reasons. When we teach our children to count to one hundred we can just have them spit…. 42, 43, 44, spit, 46…
LadySuzy
@Philbert: Well, there are at least the four pardons of soldiers who killed Iraqi civilians. I’ve read that those pardons could be contested, because the conduct of those soldiers is against the Geneva Convention and the USA has officially adhered to the Convention.
I hope to see President Biden rescind those pardons. Quickly. It’s important on so many levels: respect of the military code of conduct, international credibility, and national security.
zhena gogolia
@LadySuzy:
Yeah.
jl
@NotMax: It is shocking to read how many of the Founders and Framers had a connection to slavery in their personal or business lives, I think six or so out of dozens. Even Alexander Hamilton was willing to help with legal details of slave transactions for his super wealthy in-laws.
I think there was exactly one and only one Founder from the South who completely separated himself from the institution of slavery, but I forget who.
Edit: at one time Benjamin Franklin had two slaves he used as household servants. I don’t think anyone knows what happened to them before he converted to an anti-slavery anti-racist world view. Edit: point being is that no one knows whether he freed them, or sold them down some river to a ghastly fate.
NotMax
@jl
“Hold this kite string for a minute, would you? I need to use the privy.”
//
jl
@NotMax: IIRC, that was his son. BF was not altogether a nice guy.
karen marie
@Omnes Omnibus: He’s historically been useless. The agreement seems fine, calling it “power sharing” is rank bullshit that only benefits Republicans.
zhena gogolia
debbie
Now we know who the real victims of the insurrection are.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie:
Give it a rest. For 10 goddamn minutes.
Geminid
@jl: Another factor was access to the rich forestlands of what are now Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, available to white settlers after 1820. Andrew Jackson and company had driven out the native tribes. Virginia and Kentucky both came close to sunsetting slavery in 1799, and the institution was not just morally repugnant but also economically marginal in the early 19th century. The cotton gin and the newly available cropland of the southeast changed this.
The wealth generated by Cotton contributed to the reckless secession movement. Southerners believed that “Cotten is King,” and the European powers would accordingly recognize the Confederate nation. In the event, all secession did was foster cotton production in Egypt and India. Ullysses Grant predicted as much to his Missouri father-in-law in the months before the Civil War.
Matt McIrvin
@jl: Franklin once wrote an essay about his worries that the pure Anglo-Saxon whiteness of America was going to be corrupted by the admixture of immigrants of inferior, swarthy races… like the Swedes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Is there any legal mechanism for “rescinding” pardons? I’ve never heard of one.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Foreign travelers of the time wrote that you could tell when you went into Chickasaw livestock areas, or Choctaw and Cherokee farm land because things looked more neat and prosperous.
Sad but true, they used African slaves too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@karen marie: who do you think would do a better job and caucus leader, and how would they do it?
Any answer that includes or hints at “Tell the people Republicans are assholes!” will be immediately disqualified.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Subsole:
Other way around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_National_Council%27s_Declaration_of_Independence_of_the_Slovak_Nation
Betsy
@Frankensteinbeck: Someone observed a few days ago that he’s found a legal way to be a serial killer.
No One You Know
@Barbara: