Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Infrastructure week. at last.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Truth, *Then* Reconciliation

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Truth, *Then* Reconciliation

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… The House took an unprecedented step Tuesday night, voting to levy hefty fines against colleagues who bypass the recently installed metal detectors that surround the chamber. The reason is simple but speaks to the new reality: lawmakers are afraid of being injured, or worse, by colleagues trying to sneak weapons on to the House floor.

The fines — $5,000 for the first violation, $10,000 for any thereafter — are just the latest security measure to be implemented in an attempt to reassure members and their staff that the House is safe. But that remains an elusive goal, lawmakers said Tuesday as they returned to a Capitol still surrounded by concrete barricades and barbed wire…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken multiple steps to boost protection, including appointing a task force to conduct an immediate security review of the Capitol complex. The speaker received her first briefing on that last week with the full review to be wrapped up by March 5.

Pelosi has also held discussions with her leadership team recently — including during private calls on Sunday and Tuesday — about drafting outside legislation to form a commission to investigate the events leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection…

The independent commission could also examine some of the more contentious questions about Jan. 6, including what role GOP members had, if any, in the day’s events, according to Democrats familiar with the planning discussions. The possibility of Republican involvement has continued to rattle Democrats — including Pelosi, who notably said last week that the “enemy is within the House.”…

Side note: Of course, the usual suspects are already trying to fundraise on the OUTRAGE of being forced to go through metal detectors, like they were common school children / airport travellers / Capital tourists. But it wouldn’t completely surprise me if either Gunnybunny Wannabe (Boebert) or Strangelove Junior (Cawthorn) use this as an opportunity to drop all pretense of attending to the boring mundane role of ‘legislator’, one of 438 other strivers, if they spot a more profitable niche in the Wingnut Wurlitzer media circuit, crying about being cancelled.

And just watching which directions individual Repubs choose to protest any kind of an investigation is gonna be useful, IMO…


Let’s not bicker & fight about ‘oo killed ‘oo!

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  2. 2.

    debbie

    I don’t see Marjorie parting with a single nickel, let alone the thousands of dollars’ worth of fines she’s already incurred.

  5. 5.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Well, that’s a help. Is there any information about the fines being retroactive?

    ETA: Major better be nice to the baby!

  7. 7.

    John S.

    @Baud: Dock that kook a day’s pay for being crazy on the job!

    Up next: The GOP sit around the campfire eating beans and farting while trying to figure out what to do with Mongo.

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie: I don’t see Marjorie parting with a single nickel, let alone the thousands of dollars’ worth of fines she’s already incurred.

    Lauren Boebert.  Marjorie T-G is the really dangerous, widely-popular-with-fellow-Qultist nutter.  And MTG is a millionaire — her family business let her district-shop for a legislative megaphone, rather than just ranting at rallies like her kindred spirits.  Boebert’s gonna run out of cash fast, assuming she doesn’t quietly choose to leave her deadly fashion accessory in her office now that the personal cost will be more than the social media ‘clout’ for waving it around on the floor.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    If Ginni Thomas was concerned about discourse, she’d delete her social media accounts.    Has she drunk dialed anyone lately?

  11. 11.

    Baud

    She was stunned by Biden’s inauguration. How this South Carolina mom escaped QAnon
    …..
    And so some QAnon adherents concocted a new conspiracy theory in the hours after inauguration. President Joe Biden’s inauguration itself was a key part of the plan, the new theory held, and Trump would return as President in the coming few weeks. Then, certainly, all the deep-state arrests would happen.
    That was a step too far for Vanderbilt. She began to realize that she had bought into a lie with an almost religious fervor. Over the past two weeks she has been posting on TikTok, the platform that dragged her into the conspiracy theory, sharing her story in the hope that it might help or inspire others to see the light

     

  13. 13.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    She’s just hurt because all that money she spent on buses for the insurrectionists accomplished less than she’d hoped. Backsies!

  14. 14.

    geg6

    Maybe I’m missing something, but why does Lindsay Graham think it’s some kind of threat to Dems to say that if they call any witnesses at the impeachment trial, the GOP will be calling the FBI to testify about the planning of the insurrection? Personally, I’m fine with that. Bring Wray in and have him lay it out. I think the GOP might want to avoid that at all costs.

  15. 15.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: for her to write that email suggests there is pressure at the Court on Thomas, J.  She is lost to shame otherwise.

  18. 18.

    John S.

    @debbie: She prefers Q-chic which consists of truckers caps adorned with the Gadsden flag and using the American flag as an accessory.

  20. 20.

    Immanentize

    @geg6: I don’t get it either, but I think the Fox theory is that if the Proud Boys planned the attack days/weeks before the event, then Trump couldn’t have invited insurrection?  Remember, the FBI wrapped up their informant two days before the Capitol attack, so they know more than we do about the planning.

    But it can both be true that the Proud Boys (stand back and stand by) planned and the President incited.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    Scanning the headlines lately, it seems as if the Villages favorite word de jour is “complicate,” as in “X complicates Biden’s plan for Y.”

  23. 23.

    Geminid

    Some good news: Vice President Harris will swear in new Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this morning at 9:30am.

  28. 28.

    Dopey-o

    Ginni Thomas is the voice from behind the curtain when the Great And Mighty Clarence speaks in thunderous tones from the bench!

    <crickets>

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The times, they are a changing:

    They took Donald Trump to task. Now they’re ready to reshape the justice department

    On her last day at the justice department in 2017, Vanita Gupta considered taking a picture as she left the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But she decided against it. Gupta, the outgoing head of the department’s civil rights division, once described as the “crown jewel” of the agency, didn’t really want to remember the moment, she told a reporter who was shadowing her for the day.
    …………………..
    Gupta took a job as the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups across the country, where she became one of the leading figures pushing back on the Trump administration.

    Joining Gupta in that effort was Kristen Clarke, a 47-year-old former justice department lawyer who leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, founded in 1963 to help attorneys in private practice enforce civil rights. As her group filed voting rights and anti-discrimination lawsuits across the country over the last few years, Clarke spent hours nearly every election day briefing journalists on reports of incoming voting problems. Reports of long lines, voting machine malfunctions, translator issues – no problem was too small. The monitoring sent a message that civil rights groups would move swiftly against any whiff of voter suppression.

    Now, after years of leading the fight for civil rights from outside the justice department, both women are poised to return to its top levels, where they can deploy the unmatchable resources of the federal government. Last month, Joe Biden tapped Gupta to serve as his associate attorney general, the No 3 official at the department, and Clarke to lead the civil rights division. If confirmed by the Senate, Gupta would be the first woman of color to be the associate attorney general; Clarke would be the first Black woman in her role.

    “They are both independently legit civil rights champions with a long deep history,” said Justin Levitt, who worked with Gupta at the justice department and knows both women well. “They’re going to make a really spectacular, really powerful team.”

    Picking two career civil rights lawyers for two of the top positions at the justice department sends an unmistakable signal that civil rights enforcement will be a top priority for the agency over the next four years. Civil rights leaders said they could not remember a prior administration in which two of the department’s highest positions were filled by civil rights attorneys, especially two such as Clarke and Gupta.

    Nice profiles, I knew of Gupta, but Clarke was a blank spot.

  38. 38.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: That would be too much trolling.  And Anita is out of the law business and is quite happy, I think, at Brandeis

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Ginni Thomas needs to be hauled before a House committee and sweated for a few hours with an invitation to come back for a longer session two weeks later.

    The invitation can be rescinded with the announcement of the immediate retirement of Clarence Thomas.

  43. 43.

    Chyron HR

    @Baud: 

    “By killing cops instead of honoring them, the GOP once again proves themselves to be to the left of the neoliberal corporatists.” – Some Twitter asshole, probably

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Immanentize:

    I had thought that the retirement invite could be extended to Scam Alito, but wondered if that wouldn’t be a step further than would be acceptable.

  46. 46.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Chyron HR:

    Greenwald and Michael Tracey hit their “like” buttons on that. Greenwald retweets it. Tracey expands on it.

  47. 47.

    mrmoshpotato

    @geg6:

    Maybe I’m missing something, but why does Lindsay Graham think it’s some kind of threat to Dems to say that if they call any witnesses at the impeachment trial, the GOP will be calling the FBI to testify about the planning of the insurrection? 

    Calling the FBI to own the libs themselves!

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: “I’ve always been someone that, you tell me what to do and I do it. I grew up being told we were Republican so I always voted that straight red ticket.”

    I despair for our country. I mean, I’m glad she finally woke up, but too many others share her innate lack of curiosity and will never wake up.

  53. 53.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: yes it would because he was confirmed to a specific seat on the court –. Maybe seat six or seven?  So his retirement meant he ended that appointment.  It is the same reason that even associate justices must again go through confirmation to become the chief justice (which is seat number 1).  The constitution only requires one justice on one court (SCOTUS) and nothing else.  The rest is up to Congress.

  58. 58.

    Kristine

    @NotMax: I wonder if being comatose interfered with/weakened his body’s ability to fight Covid the first time, so his antibody response was weak.

  60. 60.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Put a pin in this one.

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/trump-organisation-accuses-scottish-politicians-pursuing-personal-agenda-3121842

    In a sternly worded statement on the eve of the debate in the Scottish Parliament, the former US president’s firm dismissed the MSP spearheading the calls for the Scottish Government to pursue an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) as a “national embarrassment.”

    The statement, issued by Eric Trump, executive vice president of his father’s company, accused elected representatives of investigating Mr Trump’s companies at the expense of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    …

    But in the statement, Eric Trump hit back: “At a critical time when politicians should be focused on saving lives and reopening businesses in Scotland, they are focused on advancing their personal agendas.

    “Patrick Harvie is nothing more than a national embarrassment with his pathetic antics that only serve himself and his political agenda.

    I’m thinking we also need a pandemic response failure commission to figure out what efforts the Orange Mediocrity was making toward response and relief.

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: Well I never thought of you as “someone who is told to do something and does it” like she described herself.  I am right about your contrarian nature, am I not?

  64. 64.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    ”Wearing shorts, knee socks with tassels and hush puppies, Eric Trump jumped up and down while tearfully screaming ‘you guys, stop abusing me! It isn’t funny’.

    The urine-soaked front of his shorts was quite evident at the time.”

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @Immanentize

    Thanks. was vaguely under the impression that Chief Justice as a separate and unqique portion and the Associate Justices were fungible.

    Another legal query. Rarely used but there is precedent for declaring someone a “vexatious litigant,” barring their further application to file suit.

    A certain Rudy comes to mind as being eligible, among others.

  69. 69.

    satby

    @Baud: You know what got me watching that clip? The sad shake of President Biden’s head after he and the First Lady walked over to view the floral tributes. I bet it was a wreath from the family.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: yes, courts can sanction people and direct the clerk not to file further pleadings from that person.  As you can imagine, this power is almost never used against anyone except inmates.

  73. 73.

    gvg

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      Yeah, but her mom told her, elections happen all the time and control changes all the time, etc and also told her not to pull her daughter out of school. I think that mom really saved her. In her case I also think being laid off with too much time on her hands played a role. She probably was also depressed. The pandemic side effects probably increased the number of people who got into this. stuff.

    Firefox is acting wonky for me. 73.0.1. Work, where we don’t always update because it screws up other things that work. Mac desktop, not sure of model.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: People by and large don’t like individuals that don’t fit in. Those who don’t fit in either commit suicide or make peace with the fact accepting the slings and arrows and grow a thick skin.

    My skin is so thick that they have *shoe cobblers* on standby whenever I have surgery.

    ** actually had a nurse utter those exact words when she was trying to sew me back together after a surgery. I think she forgot that I was awake.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @gvg: In her case I also think being laid off with too much time on her hands played a role. She probably was also depressed.

    She says as much, but I am quoting her exact words, “tell me what to do and I do it.” Blind obedience outside of the military, is bad no matter which side one is on.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    People by and large don’t like individuals that don’t fit in. Those who don’t fit in either commit suicide or make peace with the fact accepting the slings and arrows and grow a thick skin spend all their time on Balloon Juice.

    Fixed for a friend.

  79. 79.

    Ken

    I thought we’d agreed on a Truth and Retribution Commission?  This is making me rethink my vote for Biden.

  80. 80.

    Jeffro

    @Immanentize:But it can both be true that the Proud Boys (stand back and stand by) planned and the President incited.

    the last president* has been inciting violence since he started his run for office.

  81. 81.

    jonas

    @Baud: ​
     

    I’m sure for every 10 grand she’s fined, she raises $250k for her grift/slush fund, so it’s all good.

  83. 83.

    Leto

    Sen Manchin (Imaginary Party- WV) is on Morning Blow continuing to call for a bi-partisan approach on anything. Saying he still believes in the Byrd Rule and won’t get rid of the filibuster. I guess the message from the WH wasn’t received on his end

    Edit: “I want to make sure that both Democrats and Republicans have a voice in this.” What party do you belong to? Do you even remember anymore? I know all the arguments about he’s the best we can ever hope for from WV but ffs, make DC a state so he can go join the party he continually helps.

  86. 86.

    Josie

    @Baud:

    This is so true.  I remember saying to my son years ago that I was so overjoyed to find a community of people out there that were like me.  I had thought I was destined to be different from everyone else for the rest of my life after my husband died.

  88. 88.

    satby

    Polar vortex and the lowest temperatures this winter are heading my way, and eastward. Will last a week. Fucking woodchuck.

  89. 89.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Immanentize: Well, that makes no sense.

    Trump can be inciting for months while the proud boys also planned for months. Not every insurrectionist was a Proud Boy – far from it. But then, nothing Fox says makes any real sense.

  92. 92.

    mrmoshpotato

    @satby: 7F/-2F forecast for Superb Owl Sunday in my neck of the greatest city on Earth.

    Time to start thawing the pork shoulder.

  93. 93.

    germy

    “I would ask those of you on the contrary side to have grace and mercy on those on my side of the polarized world, and feel free to call and talk to me individually about where I failed you as a friend here. I probably need more tutoring,” she wrote.

    Right out of the conservative playbook.  Stomp heads when you win, beg for mercy when you lose.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    Oh here we go: You Can Disavow trumpov Without Apologizing For His Presidency

    nice try and F U, Gary Abernathy

    (warning: monitor your blood pressure and consider having a spotter nearby)

    “…Trump’s adversaries feel endlessly compelled to demand, from their imagined thrones of judgment, that Trump supporters not only turn away but also disavow their previous association with him. Their dogged insistence on the latter is a reason the former doesn’t happen.

    Consider this: I’m glad that Richard M. Nixon was president. He normalized relations with China, helped thaw the Cold War by signing nuclear arms treaties with the Soviets, established the Environmental Protection Agency and signed Title IX legislation to bring gender equality to collegiate sports, among many other historic accomplishments. There is no contradiction in being glad Nixon was president while also agreeing it was right to force him from office because of the Watergate affair.

    Likewise, from my perspective, I’ll always be glad Trump was president. He transformed the GOP from a blue-blood country club into a home for blue-collar Americans. He built one of the best job-producingeconomies in our history. He strengthened our Southern border, lifted job-killing regulations to achieve energy independence and oversaw the record-breaking delivery of a coronavirus vaccine. His “America First” agenda spoke to millions of Americans who previously felt sidelined.”

    Got it, everyone?  trumpov did just simply amazing things and in no way rode the economic recovery that Obama/Biden brought about, until fucking it up spectacularly with his non-response to the pandemic.  Also, racists felt ‘sidelined’

    If patriotism isn’t enough, there’s also a practical political reason for Republicans to let Trump go — to preserve his movement. Trumpism is a cause worth fighting for, but Trump’s endless personal detours and outrages hindered its success. Biden is working expediently to undo what Trump managed, in spite of himself, to accomplish, enacting policies and programs that are much more liberal than advertised(to no one’s real surprise). For Republicans, salvaging Trumpism depends on winning the House and Senate in 2022, then retaking the White House in 2024. They are goals well within reach, if Trump himself can be shunted aside.

    Millions of Americans will continue to love Trump, and that’s okay. Love is a complicated emotion, seldom based on reason. But moving on is sometimes the healthiest course of action — and rest assured, no apologies will be necessary.

    “Love is a complicated emotion”.  Oh my.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @gvg: I have a customer whose pandemic isolation probably was detrimental to her political outlook. She was a Republican before, of what I would call the Wall Street Journal type. After six months of isolation, she had become an Epoch Times Republican.

  98. 98.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @satby:

    Fucking Woodchuck

    Ooh, another good band name! Stay warm. I wish more snow had dropped on us on its way eastward.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    @rikyrah:

    And he needs to be IMPEACHED

    “But he’s no longer president!* Let the people decide at the ballot box! The Senate has no standing! VEEBLEFETZER!!!”

    * Yes, I know that’s not who you’re talking about.

  101. 101.

    germy

    A woman accused of participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol asked a federal judge for permission to leave the country on vacation later this month – and got it.

    In a Monday court filing, lawyers for Jenny Louise Cudd requested the court’s blessing to travel to Mexico’s Riviera Maya from Feb. 18-21 for a prepaid “work-related bonding retreat” with her employees and their spouses.

    Cudd, a small business owner in Midland, Texas, is currently on pretrial release after being charged with two misdemeanor offenses, including entering a federal building without permission and engaging in disorderly conduct.

    The filing, obtained by USA TODAY, noted that Cudd has no prior criminal history and has remained in contact with her attorney and pretrial service officer, who had no objection to her proposed travel plan. Prosecutors took “no position” on the request.

    A U.S. magistrate approved the request, ordering that her pretrial travel restrictions to be amended to allow the four-day trip

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/02/02/capitol-rioter-wants-go-mexican-vacation-and-court-lets-her/4358889001/

  102. 102.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    Because Lindsey’s going to have Wray testify about Hitlary’s e-mails, and her QAnon membership, as well as her kidnapping and (presumed) murder of Judge Crater.

    Game, set, and checkmate, libtards!

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    That ad is pre-1963. No ZIP Code or two-letter state abbreviation. Wonder if anyone will see it now and try to order…

  108. 108.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    for a prepaid “work-related bonding retreat” with her employees and their spouses. 

    “So are any of you also going on trial when we get back home for storming the Capitol building on January 6?”

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: I don’t disagree with you very often, but on this, I do.

    T**** started talking about the election being stolen even before Nov 3.  He set the stage, and told the big lie often enough – for months and months – that the rubes believed it, and they were a necessary part of what they hoped would be a successful coup.

    T**** gave the big talk and riled the “troops” before the actual battle on Jan 6.

    So I would absolutely say the the President incited, regardless of when the Proud Boys started their actual planning.

  110. 110.

    topclimber

    @Jeffro: I do not demand rejection of Trump by GOPers. I demand they agree that he was lying about Biden stealing the election, with predictable consequences. They can hang onto their illusions about his “accomplishments” but they don’t get to endorse the “Yuuge Lie” and be treated as anything but pariahs.

  113. 113.

    germy

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    He was the first person I was reminded of.

    I remember after his release when Rosie O’Donnell had taken up his cause.  She raised some money for him, and he was a guest on some show.  Everyone else was talking and laughing it up, and he sat there looking shellshocked.  It was obvious he was profoundly depressed, no matter how much they tried to cheer him up.

  114. 114.

    Zinsky

    I would be fine with a 9-11 style commission to investigate the January 6th Insurrection, as long as it was part of a broader and more expansive Truth and Reconciliation Commission, much like was done in post-apartheid South Africa.  There was so much criminality and corruption in the Trump Administration that it is going to take years to unravel and prosecute it all!  Also, don’t get too gauzy-eyed about the 9-11 Commission and it’s righteousness or comprehensiveness.  As Phillip Shenon lays out so brilliantly in his book, The Commission, that investigative body was corrupted from the git-go by Bush loyalist Phillip Zelikow, who downplayed the multiple warnings Bush/Cheney received prior to Sept. 11th, allowed Bush to testify only with Cheney present and ignored multiple bureaucratic missteps to really call out the massive intelligence and leadership failure of Bush et al.

    That being written, I say its time to call Trump’s treason – treason – and push for conviction and disqualification of this reptile from ever holding any public office again!

  115. 115.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @WaterGirl:

    He also chose the timing of his participation (only a couple of hours before the ceremony was to start) and included an exhortation to go to the Capitol.

    Would have been different if it were another day or even later on 1/6.

  116. 116.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax: ​ I’m amazed that a cut of meat from the pig’s shoulder is called a pork butt. Mysterious are the ways of pork eaters.

  119. 119.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: That’s “butt” as in “barrel”, from the way meat used to be stored.  Why it got attached to just the pork shoulder cut, I don’t know.  Similarly “larder” is because stored meat used to be coated with fat to help preserve it.

  120. 120.

    Barbara

    @Anne Laurie: ​
    Maybe I don’t hang out in the right forums but Boebert seems to have been relatively quiet compared to Greene, although she is definitely one of the crew who would like to carry on the floor of the House. Millionaire conspiracy theorists like Greene give the game away. No way is her lunacy the product of economic anxiety.

  121. 121.

    WaterGirl

    @Barbara: I imagine she is keeping her head down until things blow over.  I think she is probably legally culpable for some choices she made before and after Jan 6, so this is her effort at “nothing to see here”.

    Hope she is not successful in that effort.

    She hasn’t changed, and neither have her goals.  She is still a disgusting creature who should be expelled.

  122. 122.

    Minstrel Michael

    As a Masshole, I would like to suggest that any legislation that comes out of any such commission’s work be called “The Preston Brooks Security Act.”

     

    It’ll have to include some dedicated funding for an internet rapid response team to defend the Wikipedia entry whenever some loon wants to rewrite history about exactly what Preston Brooks is famous for, and why.

  123. 123.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    “Balloon Juice: Come for the snark, stay for the pedantry.

    Then leave, because who wants to hang (figuratively) around with so many know-it-alls? “

  126. 126.

    JanieM

    @Immanentize: It made me curious about who Thomas’s clerks have been, this dear family of loved ones that she doesn’t want to be seen as dividing with her rhetoric.

    The list includes Laura Ingram and John Yoo, I don’t recognize the rest.

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Boebert may or may not be expelled. But unlike Greene, she represents a purplish district, and has to worry about reelection. Boebert won the CO 3rd by six points, not a comfortable margin. Since Greene’s GA 14th district was created in 2012, no Democrat has won more than 30% there.

    Redistricting could complicate Boebert’s prospects. Colorado will gain an eighth congressional seat for 2022. While the redistricting commission is supposed to act neutrally, they may happen to tilt the balance in the 3rd away from Boebert. Publically, commission members may justify this result by citing various legitimate factors. Privately, they may say, “yeah, we fixed Boebert a slider she’ll choke on!”

  130. 130.

    Miss Bianca

    @Geminid: Meanwhile, we have people lining up to take a crack at Boebert on the Dem side including, astonishingly *and* worryingly, for me, a semi-local named Gregg Smith, who is ex-military and worked for Erik Prince for 20 years. I don’t know how sincere he is about his conversion to the Democrats (allegedly he switched parties in 2016), but I wish to God he’d run for local office instead – he might pose a real challenge to the PTBs here, which we need.

  131. 131.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: It is an embarrassment to the U.S. justice system that Ginni Thomas’ activities had to become basically insurrectionist to raise alarms at the Court.  Spare me the pleas of the aggrieved spouse who should have a right to continue in their career of choice even if their spouse is appointed to some position in government or the judiciary.  No one would listen twice to Ginni Thomas were she not married to a Supreme Court justice, and the fact that she is the one who is active in outreach to his former law clerks says it all about her role and influence.

  132. 132.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: I’ve read that some potentially strong Democratic candidates have expresed interest in running in the CO 3rd, including a State Senator from Vail. Some might have run last election, but at the time incumbent Scott Tipton was expected to be the Republican candidate, and it was thought that Tipton would be hard to beat. Now, everyone seems to be waiting to see the new district boundaries. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will have a ton of money dropped on them.

  133. 133.

    VOR

    @NotMax:  As our illustrious blog leader said it years ago:

    I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

  135. 135.

    artem1s

    @Baud:

    Biden pays respects to Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick as he lies in honor at Rotunda

    did His Excellency ever offer condolences to his family?  or was he too busy twitting about what a loser he was?

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I’m thinking we also need a pandemic response failure commission to figure out what efforts the Orange Mediocrity was making toward response and relief.

    Really?

    Because I thought the answer was pretty simple. Worse than none. He was basically trying to kill us all.

  139. 139.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: Wayull, shoot, ah thot “unqique” wuz jess “you-neek” with an extra scoop of Q….
    (O/t visual tab working in Farfawks 85. [Now watch it go the way of SN9’s second Raptor…] And sho’nuff, edit comment window comes up blank in visual, must switch to text…grrr…..)​

  140. 140.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ken: ​ I thought we’d agreed on a Truth and Retribution Commission?

    Um, no, that would be the juvenile caucus here trying their damnedest to incite Civil War 2.0 when the other side has most of the guns and all of the cops.

    You know…morons…

  141. 141.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Leto: ​ I know all the arguments about he’s the best we can ever hope for from WV but –

    But then why do you keep posting stupid shit like this?

    You say you know, you know – then immediately demonstrate you don’t know at all.

    Gesummariagiuseppe.

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