Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

We still have time to mess this up!

Consistently wrong since 2002

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

The new temporary speaker of the house is a spiteful little shit.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickle?”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

I really should read my own blog.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence

by | 280 Comments

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This should be interesting (Le Post):

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, asked former president Donald Trump on Thursday to provide testimony under oath “either before or during” his Senate trial scheduled next week. In a letter, Raskin asked for testimony about Trump’s conduct Jan. 6 when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a deadly assault.

If the latest clown carload of lawyers carry the day, the reviled ex-POTUS will probably refuse on constitutional grounds. Is that something the Supreme Court could rule on? I have no idea.

Alternatively, Hair Furor could be deposed at his Disgraceland estate in Florida rather than appearing in person at the crime scene. I hope so. The sound of his silence has been so soothing that I dread the prospect of it ending. I was reflecting on the delights of The Beast’s abrupt muzzling earlier today on Twitter:

TPM is doing a “Your De-Trumping Story” series where readers write in about how they’re experiencing Trump’s absence. Some liken it to leaving an abusive home. Others compare it to completing an odious, stressful task. For me, it’s like an obnoxious noise ceased. Or maybe the relief of depositing a bag of dogshit in a garbage can at the end of a long dog walk. How about you?

Open thread!

ETA: Godspeed, Smartmatic!

Reader Interactions

280Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    A great weight has been lifted off my body and mind.

    I was so sick of being in fear of him and his minions. I’m still a bit afraid of them, but it’s an enormous difference.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    I suspect Raskin wants to put claims of voter fraud firmly on the record, and this is a sure-fire way to do that.

  4. 4.

    Barbara

    I am no longer afraid to read the morning paper. I am not compulsively doing crossword puzzles and reading mysteries, the things I do to block out stress that I can’t otherwise make go away. Relief doesn’t begin to describe it.

  5. 5.

    Lapassionara

    @zhena gogolia: Same here. I had forgotten how overwhelmed I felt when I learned he was going to be our president. To have a normal, functioning adult in the White House is just such a relief.

  6. 6.

    guachi

    I think Biden’s biggest “problem” will be how to portion out good ideas and policies over the next 18 months so that he doesn’t frontload everything now.

     

    Keep up the messaging. Hammer home the good results of your policies.

  7. 7.

    Miss Bianca

    I’m relieved, but now we have a bunch of conservatives in my county meeping about “conservative censorship” on social media, and some of them are getting our Board of County Commissioners to pass some sort of bs “Resolution” about it, and I tried to reason with one of these guys yesterday at my newspaper office and got screamed at by one of the owners of the paper for doing so – and I would tell her to cram it, but I want/need the gig – and now I’m just feeling tired and kind of sick.

  9. 9.

    RandomMonster

    Or maybe the relief of depositing a bag of dogshit in a garbage can at the end of a long dog walk. How about you?

    Unfair to dogshit.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    Just updated the post to include a link to the gargantuan lawsuit Smartmatic filed against Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

  11. 11.

    Josie

    It’s so strange. My brain is starting to work again the way it should have been for the last four years. I find myself back to editing my manuscript and solving problems that seemed insoluble before. Things are not perfect, but they are so much better – a vast relief.

  12. 12.

    LuciaMia

    Gotta admit, theres still a second’s worth of cringe when I hear the words, “The White House..” or “the President said today..” Then with a rush of relief remember reality.

  14. 14.

    JustRuss

    It definitely feels like a weight’s been lifted. Believing that things can get better instead of fearing they’ll keep getting worse is wonderful.

  16. 16.

    Fleeting Expletive

    @LuciaMia: Exactly. I was going to say I haven’t quite lost the automatic flinch when someone says “The President said…”

  17. 17.

    Garbo

    I second Betty’s characterization. The sensation of relief when a leaf blower or snow blower finally shuts off is the closest for me. Because the Trump “noise” was so inescapable, we had to carry on, despite it. It was constant. At best an irritant and at worst whipsawing between fight, flight, freeze, etc. I feel like my cells mutated to deal with it and it will take time to revert to health.

  19. 19.

    VeniceRiley

    Who? I LOVE how Biden is taking Harris with him on every single thing. Getting facetime with all the people and players is one of the most important benefits of “experience.” You get to know them. They get to know you.

    So Marjorie Q. Greene’s nutjob private bodyguards want Georgia to secede from the union.  That’ll be interesting because, to defeat that bloc from crazytown, the regular republicans left in GA would have NO incentive to suppress the Dem vote. It would be all-hands.

  21. 21.

    LuciaMia

    Because the Trump “noise” was so inescapable, we had to carry on, despite it.

    And part of that was always hoping that it might somehow get better. Talk about a characteristic of an abusive relationship.

  22. 22.

    germy

    I remember Raskin saying he’d had to lose his son, he was damned determined not to lose his democracy.

  25. 25.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @VeniceRiley:

    Wait, wtf?

    These people are living on another planet:

    The leader of a private paramilitary group that provided security for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said he has formed alliances with other far-right groups to advocate for Georgia’s secession from the union, following the arrests of participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

    “The way patriots are now being hunted down and arrested by fellow men and women who have taken the same oath has disheartened any faith I had in the redemption or reformation of the USA as one entity,” Justin Thayer, head of the Georgia III% Martyrs, said in a text exchange with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week.

  26. 26.

    Steeplejack

    @Barbara:

    LOL. I started doing the archived New York Times crosswords in chronological order, starting in 1993, and got up to about 2015 by Election Day. I thought I was going to run out. On some bad days I did a whole month of crosswords.

  27. 27.

    David Fud

    For me, it was more like being forced into a room with torturers doing their business.  I felt forced to be a bystander, because I am not a member of any group (except liberal) that he was trying to destroy.  I am done watching all of these groups be tortured for the first time in four years.  It is a massive relief.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I’ll echo others here and say that it is a tremendous relief that Trump is gone and we don’t really hear from him anymore. If only Greene and her ilk could just go away too

  29. 29.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker: ​

    …the gargantuan lawsuit Smartmatic filed against Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

    Why not Dumpster Trump? Just to make him miserable for having made up those lies and continued lying for months about his “landslide win” which was a pretty sweet loss~!!!~

    How do I feel now that Trump is outta here?

    Some years back I had a fit of vomiting, not quite constant, no idea why, wife had no problem, but I drank a glass of water between each fit, because dry heaves are the worst. Finally, after a very long time (seemed like hours, was probably only an hour or so!) it stopped, as suddenly as it started up.

    This is like that, sudden surcease from a horrible physical misery that also hurt my mind/brain. Over, suddenly, thankfully.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    One of the things I noticed was that Twitter became a lot more fun after the election.  Before the Age of Trump, people used Twitter for silly hashtag games and chain posts.  Those didn’t disappear completely when Trump was around, but they were much, much less prominent.  A huge part of the medium became devoted to responding to the latest crazy thing he had said or done.  Even when people were playing hashtag games, they were usually about Trump.  When it was obvious he had lost the election, those kinds of fun uses started to crop up again.  It’s not back to where it was in 2015, and it probably won’t ever get there, but it’s a much more fun and relaxed medium again.

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    When news comes on the radio, “Today, the president…” I still flinch. Gonna take a year, maybe more to stop doing that.

    LGM found this utter nugget of Pillow Guy on Newsmax getting shut down when he starts yapping about election fraud. They scared. Watch the whole two minutes, it’s worth it.

  36. 36.

    hitless

    @Miss Bianca:  I feel like all the complaining about censorship rather proves that it isn’t happening. Plus, also, as a private company Twitter isn’t censoring, it is expressing editorial policy.

    I’m sorry to hear that your workplace is difficult to navigate – I hope things improve.

  37. 37.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    For any lawyers: can Trump himself be sued for libel against Dominion? Or has he already been and I missed it?

  39. 39.

    Mike in NC

    So great to pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV and not cringe at seeing Putin’s puppet yelling about some stupid bullshit.

  40. 40.

    Miss Bianca

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No, she was freaked out because we were getting kind of loud in our back-and-forth and I think she thought he was going to pull a gun on me or shoot up the office or something. Which might be a legitimate fear in my neck of the woods, but it wasn’t going to happen, for one thing, and screaming in peoples’ faces is not the way to de-escalate that kind of situation, for another.

  41. 41.

    germy

    @trollhattan:

    MyPillow guy returned to the network not long after that segment.  He kept himself under control for the second appearance.

    And the interviewer who walked out during the first appearance, he was made to apologize to the audience.  Maybe his bosses looked at all the advertising revenue crappy pillows gave the station?

  46. 46.

    randy khan

    It is wonderful to wake up in the morning knowing that I don’t have to worry about what crazy thing will emanate from the White House that day.

    But by the same token, it would be an amazing spectacle if he did testify, although I think it’s safe to say that the cross-examination would devolve pretty quickly as he tries to bluster his way through.

  47. 47.

    trollhattan

    @germy:

    C.R.E.A.M. wins another round? Considering Newsmax is the Fox wannabe they can’t afford to lose any advertisers, I guess. They need Don Blankenship on board to advertise “Coal!”

  52. 52.

    patrick II

    @Betty Cracker:

    I am so glad to see this.  I wouldn’t mind if companies in other business areas learned from this.  How much have insurance companies lost from wind and rain damage due to climate change?  Harder to prove, I know, but a warning shot across the bow wouldn’t hurt a thing.  There should be a penalty for lies of this impact.  It seems with our constitution the government can’t do it, which leaves the only option as private civil law.

  53. 53.

    Dan B

    @guachi: Smartmatic is a separate company from Dominion.  There were RW’ers claiming that the two companies were the same and/or conspiring to secretly “steal@RWNJ” the election.  Dominion stated in their lawsuit against the RW’ers that Smartmatuc was a separate company because they wanted to reinforce that the RW’ers are making several meritless claims about conspiracies by Dominion to smear their reputation.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Miss Bianca: “People are getting loud? Maybe screaming will help!” Jeez!

    FL’s shitty governor had a big news conference to announce legislation to fine Twitter and FB for “censoring” Trump. 27K dead of the virus in the state, the vaccine rollout is a gigantic clusterfuck, and that clown held a press conference to whine about cancel culture. Honest to fuck…

  57. 57.

    Pennsylvanian

    I nearly lost my damn mind after Trump was elected. I started putting a massive emergency kit together because I was truly afraid he was going to nuke somebody. And that was before he even took office. I probably wound up spending $1000 on a bug out/survival/medical kit (complete with iodine pills for protect us from radiation; look at us! we will survive the radiation to stick around for the dystopian hellscape! yay?) for us and our pets. It was better than sitting paralyzed and feeling helpless. Lots of tears. Lots of anxiety.

    I started crocheting and did not stop for the next three years until my wrist practically gave out. Made blankets for the house, one for each of my 7 nieces and nephews, 5 for people having babies and a few other random ones. It was somewhat therapeutic, but mostly just keep me from clawing my own eyes out.

    I don’t know what I would have done without the posters here. I’ve mostly been a lurker since the time when John was a republican, but damn you have no idea how helpful it was to come and read a JC rant or a Betty Cracker or Anne Laurie takedown of the dumpster and his odious offspring. I would just read off the comments to the spouse and talk about how clever the jackals are. It really did help, so, thanks everybody!

  58. 58.

    patrick II

    @guachi:

    How is Smartmatic related to Dominion

    from wiki:

    Smartmatic was the subject of accusations of fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 United States presidential election, notably promoted by the personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, who asserted the company was founded by the former socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez and that it owned and provided software to a related company, Dominion Voting Systems. Giuliani asserted Dominion is a “radical-left” company with connections to Antifa that sent American voting data to foreign Smartmatic locations. Others falsely asserted that Smartmatic was owned by George Soros and that the company owned Dominion. Smartmatic voting machines were not used in any of the battleground states that determined Joe Biden’s election victory.

    Perhaps only in Giuliani’s fevered mind.

  59. 59.

    Cacti

    Unfortunately for me and mine, Trump’s Covid mismanagement, malice, and misinformation killed my Father in law.

    The pain of the Trump presidency will live with my family forever.

    Fuck him.

  60. 60.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: I’d never seen her like that before. It kind of freaked *me* out, to be honest. *And* pissed me off. Not quite sure what to do now.

    But yeah, the butt-hurt over “cancel culture” is strong among the conservatives all over right now.

  61. 61.

    FelonyGovt

    I no longer wake up at 3 AM wondering how in the world Donald Trump ever became President and worrying about what he will do next. (I still sometimes wake up at 3 AM, but not with worry about national or world matters.

    ETA and I no longer need to keep a pen on the dining room table to deface the multiple photos of Trump that appeared in my dead tree newspaper every morning. Most of the time there is little to no mention of him at all!

  62. 62.

    cope

    Now that he’s gone, the thing I have noticed most about my behavior and mood is that I don’t feel compelled to go online as soon as I get up to see what insanity he tweeted/did/said while I was sleeping. I am much less stressed now but certainly not stress free.

    On most rock climbs, there is usually one single section or pitch that is referred to as the “crux pitch”.  It is the hardest section of the climb.  A lot of times, getting past the crux pitch involves a single move or action called the “crux move”.  I feel that we have made the crux move but a difficult and dangerous climb still lies before us.  End of painfully extended metaphor.

  63. 63.

    VeniceRiley

    @Betty Cracker: A pilot friend got hers by checking every surrounding 3 counties and picking the one that was least busy booking up and targeting that, within a 2 hour drive circumference.  Publix. Ugh.

  64. 64.

    germy

    I had all these fantasies of these lawsuits putting an end to Fox, Newsmax, etc.

    But won’t they all just read prepared statements on-air?  “After a thorough investigation, we found no evidence of wrongdoing by the voting machine companies and regret our error” and then the whole thing goes away?

    Or is there more to the lawsuit?

  67. 67.

    cmorenc

    I will in a couple of weeks be visiting my older daughter in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is in Colorado’s Third Congressional district, now represented by Lauren Boebert, R-extreme gun not.  Mesa County (of which Grand Junction is the county seat) voted for both Trump and Boebert by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.  Grand Junction is in a spectacularly beautiful place in far-western Colorado (near the Utah border) that’s a paradise for lovers of outdoor activities, but the underlying traditional mountain-west culture is obvious from a visit to the local history museum, which contains an exhibit you would likely never find the likes of anywhere but the west intermountain region – there’s a large glass case displaying the personal revolver firearm of each person who’s ever been sheriff of Mesa County since its founding in the late 1800s.

    My daughter and son-in-law are relatively disengaged from day-to-day following of politics – I cannot recall ever watching either conventional or cable network news while visiting them.  So hopefully, I won’t be inundated during my visit by coverage of Boebert’s crazy nuttiness or MAGA-type crap, or any residual longings for Herr Trump.  But I’ll just have to hold my breath and see.

  69. 69.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat: “Just India” sounds like a sadly inadequate bit of relief.

    All we’ve got to worry about are Christianists, brutal local police, Climate crisis, local bazillionaires, Putin, Modi, etc.

    But not having the Orange nightmare in our feeds non-stop is a great relief.  Wish we could get timely and in depth reporting on India.

  70. 70.

    Gravenstone

    I saw this pop up on CNN and just started cackling at the prospect of this bundle of psychological disorders testifying in the Senate. You’re right that it likely won’t happen, either through obstruction of a remote deposition, but it still made me smile to consider.

  71. 71.

    RSA

    How about you?

    I’m still in recovery: When I read or hear “The President…” I automatically wince in anticipation, until I realize who they mean now, thank God.

    ETA: And Fleeting Expletive beat me to it @16.

  72. 72.

    Jeffro

    I’m glad to see Maria Bartiromo is included in this suit…she’s really gone off the deep end in “defense” of the orange moron.  Tough times for the ‘money honey’ (BLECH

  73. 73.

    Gin & Tonic

    The deputy head of the hospital in Omsk which treated Alexey Navalny, saving his life and allowing him to be extracted to Berlin, has died, at the age of 55.

  74. 74.

    cope

    @cmorenc: Have a nice visit.  All my brothers and sisters and their families live in GJ and have for 40 years or so.  Like me, they are at the progressive end of the liberal spectrum (mom raised us right)  and as such, live the way your kids do…largely uninvolved.

    My wife and I lived there a long time and our daughter was even born there.  Truth be told, even with the political situation there, I would move back from Florida in a picosecond if it were possible.

  77. 77.

    Mary G

    @Cacti: I’m so sorry for your loss. I keep wondering if the country will ever come to grips with how many people we have sacrificed to the monster that I refuse to name. It comes back to that old saying about one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

    My sleep cycle is gradually being restored to more like normal. AL’s Covid threads were a godsend for the wide awake at 4 a.m. me. Last night was the first time I can remember that I looked and said “Good, she put it up early, but I am too sleepy to read it.”

  78. 78.

    Geoduck

    Thank God he’s so stupid, lazy and cheap, because he was willing to make even a little effort, he could presumably find some way to start blurting out his brain-garbage to his followers again.

  79. 79.

    West of the Rockies

    We once moved into a new apartment.  Six days later across the street where there had been an orchard, new construction on a 200-unit apartment complex started.  It was a year of tractors, backup alarms, hammering, random boombox intrusions, shouting… it was HELL.  It took weeks to decompress after we moved (before the complex was even finished).

    Trump has been worse.  I hate his hand gestures, the way he grips the podium, his ugly facial expressions, and his wretched, whiny squeezebox voice.

  81. 81.

    ArchTeryx

    For me, Trump’s election meant death.  I fully expected them to repeal the ACA almost immediately and with it, my access to health care I needed to stay alive.  There was a period where it seemed half of BJ was talking me down from the ledge, quite literally.

    And they came within one vote of essentially terminating MY right to life.  They really, really, REALLY wanted their Aktion T4 and I was lined up to be “euthanized.”  It is not something I will ever forget, and it still gives me nightmares.

  83. 83.

    df

    I feel so much lighter, although it’ll take time for the fear to fully fade, if it ever does. The last four years were traumatic. Obviously more so for the folks who were targeted by the administration, but even for observers. I grew up in an unstable household, and therapy helped me realize that a lack of certainty and safety in childhood can cause anxiety as an adult. So waking up and checking to see if we nuked anyone overnight because some other world leader made the president upset on Twitter, or wondering if the Proud Boys were going to come knocking because I’m gay, really started to take a toll on me. I mean, every time the internet went out, friends and I would pull out the gallows humor: “Is this it? Is this the Big One?”

    We’ve started to remove the sources of trauma, though, and I’m happy about that. We have a long way to go with COVID and the Q Qaucus (the fear comes rushing back when I think about 2022), but for now, colors are a bit brighter and music sounds a bit sweeter.

    It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day… and I’m feelin’ good.

  85. 85.

    CaseyL

    I no longer wake up in the middle of the night with my heart jolting.  That’s a big something.  I’m still waiting for my energy levels to recover; they might not, ever, because I’m an Old now.

    I read that whole Smartmatic brief. It is a thing of beauty: they really drilled down, capturing every utterance, every graphic, every tweet.  They also have a whole section devoted to “established journalistic ethics,” and show how the Defendants repeatedly violated them, over and over again.

    Fox’s defense will most likely be that the Defendants, and their programs, are “opinion only,” not meant to be news, and therefore have no standards to violate.  Not sure how that will go over with a jury.

  86. 86.

    leeleeFL

    @LuciaMia: I, at least, did not have that happening.  I knew from before day one that it would only get worse.  Being a New Yorker for decades while he was in the spotlight all the time taught me to expect nothing different.

    It was still exhausting….I feel like I can never sleep enough to make up for that time!

  88. 88.

    janesays

    If the latest clown carload of lawyers carry the day, the reviled ex-POTUS will probably refuse on constitutional grounds. Is that something the Supreme Court could rule on? I have no idea.

    I think he refuses to testify, and I think SCOTUS punts and says that it’s not their place to dictate the rules of impeachment.

  89. 89.

    Martin

    USSC won’t go near this. It’s a separation of powers issue. If Trump refuses testimony, they simply add another count of impeachment for the Senate to consider. Congress has all the power they need to deal with a refusal to testify.

    That said, if the DC USA charges Trump with incitement here, Trump either pleads the 5th or will be compelled to testify. Judges and grand juries aren’t nearly so deferential as the Senate seems to be.

  90. 90.

    Dan B

    @Betty Cracker: The worst thing that DeSantis and his ilk have ever experienced is being criticized for being heartless.  They’ve never experienced existential threats, or constant existential threats like many minorities experience.

    We have wealthy relatives like that.  They equate their mild discomforts with our existential fears.  They believe that Marriage Equality means we have nothing to complain about.  They have no memory of Joe McCarthy or police entrapment or raids on gay bars or AIDS.  They do not have PTSD or anything close because they have: 1. Been sheltered, 2. Have been conditioned to equate “Law” with empathy and caring.  If there is “Law”  feelings are absurd, at best, and detrimental to the natural order, at worst.

    I believe they have zero neurons associated with walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

  91. 91.

    Mike in NC

    Nobody can be allowed to forget what an evil sadist Trump was. He had 13 people executed merely because he enjoyed doing so.

  93. 93.

    leeleeFL

    @JoyceH:   Since 9/11, 2001, I think!  Nothing has been completely normal since then……Even the eight years with Obama at the helm felt fraught, because of Mcconnell’s endless blocking of good things.

  95. 95.

    Steeplejack

    @germy:
    I think there is less to Liz Cheney than meets the eye. She moved from Virginia to the rotten borough of Wyoming and eased into office on name recognition and (no doubt) help from Dad’s influence network. She has had an undistinguished two terms in the House—she’s just starting her third—and stands out in the GQP caucus only because of its general dimness. She has an almost perfect “voting with Trump” record and probably voted for impeachment as part of some arcane post-Trump “positioning” plan.​

  96. 96.

    Martin

    @CaseyL: I’m not quite there yet. The GOP appears to be going full fascist with a coordinating paramilitary element, and 80% of the GOP is on board. A Garland confirmation can’t come soon enough.

    Don’t get me wrong, we’re on a vastly better trajectory, but we’re nowhere near out of the woods.

  98. 98.

    Dan B

    @Miss Bianca: Strong criticism is the worst thing these people have ever experienced, ever!  It wounds their belief in their dignity.  They are blind to the lived experience of people outside their bubble.

  99. 99.

    leeleeFL

    @trollhattan:  Sounds like she got a memo of some sort, and she is going to claim diminished capacity or undue influence by some nutcase on the internets?

  100. 100.

    Peale

    @Gravenstone: They don’t actually plan to die. Their idea is that martyrdom makes you more powerful ala Obi Wan Kenobi’s “If you strike me down, I’ll become more powerful than 1,000 suns” business. Which wasn’t really true even for Obi Wan, but it sounds cool and threatening so they run with it. They howl too much when spanked to by martyrs.

  103. 103.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Cardiologist cleared me for my quad tendon repair.

    Initial preoperative EKG indicated a prior heart attack, and was different from my 2019 strip. Today’s strip was similarly puzzling, so they had me do an echo with dye.

    The echo tech didn’t like her connections over my chest hair, so she shaved patches. Once that happened, all of my readings were in the green, my heart health is actually great, and I can get this gross procedure on my right leg.

  104. 104.

    mrmoshpotato

    filed today in state court in Manhattan against Fox, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell

    ? This is absolutely delicious.

    Nice to see these fuckers finally fucked with someone who could wallop them in their fascist fucking faces.

  108. 108.

    Van Buren

    @Steeplejack: The damn thing starts right after my wedding.

    I generally do Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays but I am working backwards.

    I find it fascinating that you just have to go back a few years before some clues seem very dated.

  109. 109.

    Betty Cracker

    @trollhattan: Video has surfaced of MTG setting up a life-sized cardboard Trump at a meeting and stroking its crotch. As Biden might say, “Not a joke!

    ETA: Oops — Matt got there first at #94.

  110. 110.

    JoyceH

    This may be a bit tangential, but I’ve been reading a book about Washington and Franklin. I’ve gotten to where the Constitutional Convention has just wrapped up and now they have to sell the Constitution to the states. We all remember that famous exchange where the woman asked Franklin what have you given us, and he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

    Well, as it turns out, Franklin really DIDN’T believe that we would keep it. He worried that the executive branch had been made too powerful. Everyone knew that Washington was going to be the first president, so he figured the US would be okay for a while, but would probably, eventually, devolve into an autocracy. And hey, look – we made it almost 2 1/2 centuries before an autocrat even tried. So that’s something to be proud of, I guess…

  111. 111.

    Peale

    @Martin: Dissolving the DoD advisory boards and standing down the troops to get at extremism does lead me to believe that Trump was and is further along in his plan to make the military his personal weapon than we want to contemplate.

  113. 113.

    Dan B

    @germy: Apparently Dominion has not accepted Newsmax ‘ disavowal.  We’ll see what they do next.  The images of their anchor walking off camera are going to be very sticky.  It’s their mark of shame, especially for people who know nothing about Newsmax.  Every comedian featured it yesterday.  The anchor’s apology to Pillow Scum Guy has proven invisible except to us nerds.

  114. 114.

    Martin

    @Steeplejack: Oh, certainly. But I think she’s smart enough to realize that the current GOP trajectory disfavors her, both in terms of likely diminishing the power of the party by relegating it to long-term minority status, and by elevating the craziest elements which isn’t her thing.

    I mean, she’s not backing off the deregulation, no taxes, bomb everyone platform that her dad handed her. It’s just that’s a more stable platform that at least in theory can return to majority status than where the GOP is headed now.

    She’s not an ally by any measure, but a return to the old GOP means that they won’t be actively seeking out paramilitary alliances and tasking Space Force with shooting down the Jew Lasers.

  115. 115.

    StringOnAStick

    I haven’t had a migraine since the election; I was doing every 2 – 3 weeks up to that point.  We moved to our retirement home/state at the same time.  I wasn’t particularly stressed about where we used to live, or at least I didn’t think so but the only 2 big changes in my life since Nov 3 is (1) we moved, and (2) I don’t wake up dreading the daily news anymore.

  117. 117.

    Redshift

    @MattF:

    I suspect Raskin wants to put claims of voter fraud firmly on the record, and this is a sure-fire way to do that. 

    Since his lawyers’ brief explicitly included the ludicrous argument that there’s just no way to know for sure if the election was legitimate, I suspect Raskin is trying to put Trump in the same “put up or shut up” position his campaign lawyers were repeatedly in. They’d make loud claims of fraud in public, but were careful to assert in court that they weren’t alleging fraud, because there are consequences to lying in court.

    You want to keep claiming you sincerely believe the election was stolen, that there’s evidence for it? Then say so under oath. Contrary to the common view that Trump believes all his own BS, there are many instances in his career where he knew enough not to assert false claims in sworn testimony that he’d repeated elsewhere.

    He won’t testify, of course, and I hope top Democrats are prepared to make hay of that.

  118. 118.

    dmsilev

    @Martin:

    Don’t get me wrong, we’re on a vastly better trajectory, but we’re nowhere near out of the woods.

    Thats pretty much where I am as well. I hope to Hell that the next year or so goes well, because we’re going to need that to keep Congress in 2022. The GOP needs a good long time frozen out of real power (or to wither away and die, but I’m not sure any plausible replacement party would be any better).

  119. 119.

    piratedan

    say that the GOP stays in line in total support of their colleague.  Makes me wish that the Dems would take the next step of if you all support someone who has literally threatened the life of the Speaker of the House, you all get the same.  No committee assignments for ANY of you.  You can sit in your offices and watch porn, in other words, no change in your normal daily lives.  You don’t like it? be GRATEFUL we don’t charge you with aiding and abetting.  Ms. Greene, here’s your indictment for attempted murder, please see the SGT of Arms and they will escort you into police custody.

     

    This session is adjourned until 4pm where we will take up the people’s business once again.

  120. 120.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    Nobody can be allowed to forget what an evil sadist Trump was. He had 13 people executed merely because he enjoyed doing so. 

    And all of those executions were post-election, weren’t they?

  123. 123.

    Martin

    @Peale: Yes, Trump was much closer than we want to recognize.  That memo from Christopher Miller on Jan 4 is chilling. He’s appointed a few days after the election for a reason.

    Plus the old joke – what do you call a failed coup? Practice.

    If we don’t put the coup organizers in prison, it’ll happen again the next time a GOP is in the White House. Dems may feel relieved to have Biden in, but they need to keep voting  like they did in 2020  until these people are either in prison or dead.

    McConnell wasn’t down with the big lie, but he’s willing to weaken institutions in order to make such an action more feasible.

  124. 124.

    Redshift

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I’m happy every day that we have our Rethuglican governor the boot in Illinois. 

    Things have been getting better and better here in Virginia since we progressively booted Republicans out of every branch of government. Just the latest – the state senate voted yesterday to abolish the death penalty, and the House and the governor will certainly follow through. (And point of pride, the state senator who introduced the bill is Scott Surovell, formerly chair of the Fairfax Democrats, who I helped get elected to the House of Delegates and then the senate.)

  126. 126.

    Jeffro

    @MattF: I just saw that courtesy of Rick Wilson…ordinarily I would be throwing up, but it’s just. so. awesome.

    Right, GQP?  Totally awesome!!  ;)

    Also awesome: trumpov resigned today from the Screen Actors Guild before they could expel him.  L to the OL

  127. 127.

    brantl

    The legal snark on the first page of that complaint is first cabin, I can’t believe how good that is; I larfed and larfed..

  128. 128.

    Subsole

    @Roger Moore: It really is unbelievable we spent damn near every single minute of the last 1800 days obsessing over that turd.

    Like, an entire planet poured its attention into that Godforsaken shell of a man.

    And it still wasn’t enough.

    And now we can just…not think about him.

    There is no better sign of how uttetly hollow that man and his family are, how uttetly bereft of worth, than just how completely they have vanished from the discourse once Silicon Valley stopped handing them a mic to bray into.

    I mean, it feels a tiny bit like the USSR falling. They were this big, scary world-ending monolith, and suddenly they were just…Russia.

  129. 129.

    dmsilev

    Call the Waaambulance:
    Facing expulsion, T**** resigns from the Screen Actors Guild: ‘You have done nothing for me’

    Former president D***** T**** has resigned from SAG-AFTRA after its national leadership voted to consider expelling him over his role in inciting the January mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
    In a resignation letter obtained Thursday afternoon by The Washington Post, and first reported by Fox News, T**** wrote to SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris “regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!”
    “While I am not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live, and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, The Apprentice — to name just a few,” he wrote in the letter sent Thursday, the same day the union announced nominees for this year’s SAG Awards.

    Narrator: He evidently cares quite a bit.

  133. 133.

    Roger Moore

    @Geoduck:

    I think a huge part of it is that the big social media companies have made it pretty clear they’ll stop any kind of attempt to bypass their bans.  Besides, it was also obvious that on Twitter, at least, Trump was only allowed on sufferance in the first place.  He ran afoul of many of their rules, and he was only allowed to continue posting because they made a public interest exception that let important politicians break rules that would get anyone else banned.  Anyone who tried broadcasting Trump’s stuff now would fall afoul of those rules in no time flat, even if they weren’t judged to be breaking the “no circumventing bans” rule.

  136. 136.

    dmsilev

    @germy: I have to admit, I liked the union’s response:

    In response to T****’s letter, SAG-AFTRA issued a concise statement: “Thank you.”

  138. 138.

    Peale

    I’m still having problems moving back into adult citizenry and paying attention to the news other than what you guys feed me here. I couldn’t listen to him. I couldn’t watch him. So I basically tuned out of the newspapers and TV for three years until COVID made me have to pay attention. Lots of reading science magazines, archeology, history, Asian TV. I’m completely behind on business news and out of new ideas to think about because of it.  I said that once he went away, I’d start trying to be an informed adult again. But its not working as planned.  I’m less informed about what is going on in my state, what’s trendy in culture, etc. than I’ve ever been.

  140. 140.

    WaterGirl

    @janesays: T**** won’t recognize their right to call him to testify, based on his premise that they couldn’t touch when he was president, and now they can’t touch him because he is no longer in office.

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev:

    “While I am not familiar with your work, I’m very proud of my work on movies such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; and television shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Saturday Night Live,

    oh my god

    I don’t know whether to laugh at his pathetic, petty, needy buffoonery or cry about the fact that 74M Americans wanted this ridiculous oaf to president.

    I think I’ll laugh, laugh, laugh.

  145. 145.

    Subsole

    @germy: Even if it does, it opens the door to other people they slime defending their reputation.

    Kind of like what’s happening with Alex Jones. If school shooting victims can sue his useless ass for siccing mobs of conspiracy theorists on them, why not every other group he badmouths?

    The prospect alone will make him a little more circumspect.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @Van Buren:

    I find it fascinating that you just have to go back a few years before some clues seem very dated.

    Yes! When I got to the early 2000s I would see clues for “most popular Web app,” etc., and it would turn out to be something I barely remembered. Ditto for TV and pop music stuff.

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @JoyceH: ​
     

    And hey, look – we made it almost 2 1/2 centuries before an autocrat even tried.

    Would-be autocrats tried before this, but the voters succeeded in keeping them away from the presidency until Trump. That’s the thing that’s scariest about Trump: the idiots who wanted him are still around.

  148. 148.

    Martin

    Reminder who we’re dealing with. Rebekah Mercer fired the CEO of Parler because he was going to moderate the fascists and their death threats. She’s going to fund fascists as long as she has the money to do so.

  151. 151.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Martin: A Garland confirmation can’t come soon enough.

    Garland is the root of my current post-Trump rollercoaster.
    “Yay, excellent choice for AG!”
    “Oh crap, Lindsay Graham is blocking it? How does he have that power?”
    “Yay, the new rules are agreed and Republicans no longer have that chair! Garland gets his hearing!”
    “Oh crap, Garland won’t get a hearing for weeks because we still need Graham to agree to it? How does he have that power?” Etc.​

    No, we’re not out of the woods yet.

  154. 154.

    Subsole

    @Dan B: Is there a good explainer of the farmers’ riots anywhere? All I’m finding is lots of people arguing back and forth with what sound to my non-native ear like slogans.

    I managed to gather Modi has been pretty much selling off whole industries to his cronies, but that’s about it?

  155. 155.

    Redshift

    @dmsilev:

    I hope to Hell that the next year or so goes well, because we’re going to need that to keep Congress in 2022. 

    And the Democratic Party campaign arms and grassroots groups need to spend the next year and a half reminding all of those new voters that the job isn’t done, and they need to vote in every election.

  156. 156.

    Peale

    @danielx: Yeah. Interesting party, here. Like she believes that nothing happened on 9/11? Because the alternative theory is that either 1) Israel planted the bombs that blew up the building or 2) Cheney and the CIA planted them. Those are the CPs that I’m aware of.

  159. 159.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rp: Liz Mair, one of the scariest human beings I have ever seen on television, posted a picture of the Cheneys yesterday with the “Fuck around and find out” caption, as if her survival for secret ballot were a triumph for the Dark Lord and his Lordette. Looks to me like more like she, and Kinzinger, have been scared back into line.

  163. 163.

    Mike in NC

    Oh, lickspittle Lindsay Graham came out this afternoon against his former golfing buddy testifying before the Senate. Obviously, Trumpov’s appearance would be a foaming-at-the-mouth rant worthy of Der Fuhrer himself.

  166. 166.

    Barbara

    @guachi: ​It’s not. They are competitors. Smartmatic is roped in because unlike Dominion, it has been involved in elections in a number of countries including Venezuela (last in 2011). It’s easier to demonize Smartmatic. Unfortunately for Fox and Friends, the only geography to use Smartmatic in the U.S. for the 2020 presidential election was Los Angeles County, California. Needless to say, there isn’t much controversy over the outcome there (which was also basically unchanged from 2016). Smartmatic was hoping to use the successful rollout of its product in LA to expand its operations in the U.S. Now it has to pay for bodyguards for half of its employees.

    And I just keep telling myself how Josh Hawley whimpered and whined about the threats his family faced when 20 unarmed, peaceful protesters stood outside his house. Violence is okay for the rest of us, but don’t you dare even get close to one of them.

  167. 167.

    Roger Moore

    @Martin: ​
     

    McConnell wasn’t down with the big lie, but he’s willing to weaken institutions in order to make such an action more feasible.

    McConnell wants to steal elections the old fashioned way: by disqualifying the kinds of people who vote for the Democrats. He would be very happy to complete the gutting of the VRA and have the states where Republicans are currently in charge warp their voting rules in ways that guarantee they stay in charge. It’s something they could do without presenting the Democrats with an easy and obvious target the way Trump did.

  169. 169.

    StringOnAStick

    @cope: I’m from there and still have a few family members (both very RW; we rarely communicate) there but most important to me are a couple of old friends.  Too hot for me, and I’ve noticed that it seems more RW there than it was when I left in the 80’s.  As a college student I had a summer job with the USGS doing field work and a big truck I referred to as the Fedmobile; I’d be afraid to be out in the woods with one now.

    I never thought I’d want to leave Colorado, but I’m happier in our new state than I ever was there.

  170. 170.

    Dan B

    @df: It’s good to hear that you had the fear of the Proud Boys attacking because you’re gay.  It’s not just me and my partner.  My partner’s brother, sister in law, and sister have screamed at us that we have nothing to fear because, “Marriage Equality is settled law!”

    They’d probably claim that our friends who lost jobs, were disowned, psychologically terrorized by religion, or worse, were just being unreasonable.

    It’s “the silence of good people” problem.  Shunning by denying one’s lived reality.

  171. 171.

    Peale

    @Martin: Yep. And because they Mercer’s are wealthy beyond shit, they get a pass from a lot of liberals who think that only the working classes have all these stupid ideas and people like the Mercers are just using them to get tax breaks. The Mercers and Devosss and Kochs aren’t that cynical. The reason they pollute is that they believe garbage things.

  172. 172.

    Steeplejack

    @Martin:
    I don’t disagree, but I don’t see how the GQP (God, I love typing that!) has a path back to the “old” GOP. A mass declaration of “Uh, we were allowed to believe things that weren’t true” is not going to cut it. Something something repacking Pandora’s box.​

  175. 175.

    Martin

    @Ksmiami: Well, they’re trying. There’s some resistance which I’m giving an outside chance of success. Given the degree to which the state parties are punishing the resistance, I’m thinking its a lost cause.

  176. 176.

    MisterForkbeard

    @danielx: Honestly, all the Dems need to do here is say “Look, if she says she’s sane and sort of responsible now, that’s great news! She just has to prove it. We can’t take that kind of thing on faith when she’s in a position as powerful as she is, and she just said she was tricked into thinking Democrats were eating babies.

    Maybe she can have her committee assignments back in a couple of years of no outbursts about Jewish Space Lasers, false flag murders of children, and making things up about stolen elections.”

  177. 177.

    Mike in NC

    @Peale:  Trump was seriously considering crazy General Flynn’s idea of imposing some degree of martial law to undo the election. I think the MyPillow moron might have been put in there as his second in command.

    If they could convince enough voters to switch their votes to Trump, they would get a coupon for a half price pillow,

  180. 180.

    Barbara

    @ArchTeryx: ​ I remember. I am so glad you and the ACA both survived. One of the few mercies of the last four years. When Election Day 2018 came around I nearly wept for joy because that meant they might wound the ACA, but they could no longer kill it.

  181. 181.

    Subsole

    @Mike in NC: That haunts me. Bill Barr actually sped up the executions during the lame duck.

    I am reminded viscerally of the Nazis, who kept their trains rolling into places like Dachau, even as Soviet soldiers pushed into Germany and the USAAF bombed their rifle factories into rubble.

    Just blood-drunk hatefulness. That’s all it ever was.

  186. 186.

    MattF

    The Smartmatic lawsuit begins:

    INTRODUCTION
    1. The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.
    2. Defendants have always known these facts. They knew Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 U.S. election. They knew the election was not stolen. They knew the election was not rigged or fixed. They knew these truths just as they knew the Earth is round and two plus two equals four.

  189. 189.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Oy. I’m usually the enemy of One Weird Trick proposals, but Acting AG Sally Yates, or Preet Bharara, or trumpist bogey number four, sound pretty good right about now.

  190. 190.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gin & Tonic: 
    Russian doctor who treated Navalny after poisoning has died (Matthew Chance, Anna Chernova, Zahra Ullah and Ivana Kottasová, February 4, 2021)

    Sergey Maximishin, who was the deputy chief physician of the Omsk emergency hospital, “suddenly” died at the age of 55, according to a statement released by the hospital.

    Fuck. That (limited description) sounds way too much like a “heart attack”, a Russian assassination specialty “cause of death”.

  191. 191.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara: ​
     

    Smartmatic was hoping to use the successful rollout of its product in LA to expand its operations in the U.S.

    I don’t think this is right. The interesting thing about Smartmatic in LA is that they worked for hire. LA County owns the designs and software for our new voting system, so other government that are interested need to talk to LA County rather than Smartmatic.

  192. 192.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev: the WWE or WWF or whatever is going to probably issue him the Order of the Folding Chair or something in response – take THAT, libs!

  193. 193.

    patrick II

    @trollhattan: 

    “I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true,”

    I guess she thinks we need a government agency the doesn’t allow people to believe things that aren’t true.

  195. 195.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: ​ Just quoting from their lawsuit. They were one of multiple vendors who contributed to LA County voting program — they don’t provide the entire system, and they don’t claim that they did, but they provided elements.

  197. 197.

    Barbara

    @Martin: ​ I read that Durbin is now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It’s hard to think they need a lot of committee time to investigate a sitting judge on the D.C. Circuit.

  198. 198.

    J R in WV

    @Pennsylvanian: 

    I don’t know what I would have done without the posters here. I’ve mostly been a lurker since the time when John was a republican, but damn you have no idea how helpful it was to come and read a JC rant or a Betty Cracker or Anne Laurie takedown of the dumpster and his odious offspring. I would just read off the comments to the spouse and talk about how clever the jackals are. It really did help, so, thanks everybody!

    Me too. Commenters as well, following up on Betty or Anne Laurie rants. Reading, and for me, commenting about comments and front page posts. A great relief to know other wise and well educated folks felt much the same as I felt. And the furry comments, too, also. ;~)

  199. 199.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Martin: I hope so, but the Globe editorial was written today. Updated 2 minutes ago. It looks like Graham refused a request to put the hearing on the schedule before giving up the gavel, and now for some reason they have the ability to keep it off the schedule until after the impeachment trial and the budget process.

  200. 200.

    df

    @Dan B: That’s frustrating, I’m sorry. I mean, clearly “don’t commit insurrection” is also settled law, and we all saw what the Q nuts thought about that on the 6th. I seriously doubt some Lesser Q Shaman is going to stop and consider the nuance of marriage jurisprudence when they decide whether or not to hate-crime me.

    I think it’s easy for people to let their guard down after big milestones like the marriage equality ruling. And even with precedent or law (which can change), it doesn’t mean the bigots go away. As we’ve seen, equality enshrined in law just seems to make them angrier.

  203. 203.

    randal m sexton

    @cope: I think the Trump era was more. like a sustained pumpy steep offwidth, topped off by a nasty squeeze chimney.   Say, Steck-Salathe of presidential terms.

  204. 204.

    Roger Moore

    @debbie: ​
     
    My impression is that writing in a way a normal person can understand is a sign of good lawyering. Yes, a legal brief will sometimes need to dip into professional jargon to deal with details, but that should be restricted to places where it’s actually necessary. Everything else should be written in plain English.

  206. 206.

    Barbara

    @Dan B: ​

    My partner’s brother, sister in law, and sister have screamed at us that we have nothing to fear because, “Marriage Equality is settled law!”

    Sort of like African Americans have nothing to fear from law enforcement because equal protection is settled law. I mean, it’s not the same, and everyone loses when they play the hardship Olympics, but surely affirming someone’s legal rights is just — if not the beginning — the midpoint, and certainly not the end of the quest for equality.​

  209. 209.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro: ​
     

    the WWE or WWF or whatever

    WWE. The World Wildlife Fund successfully forced the World Wrestling Federation to change their name to World Wrestling Entertainment so they wouldn’t have the same initials anymore.

  210. 210.

    Old Man Shadow

    If he had the sense Natural Selection has given a flea, he’d refuse to talk at all because once he opens his mouth, he’s going to perjure himself.

  211. 211.

    jackmac

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I shudder when I think of Bruce Rauner with a second term as Illinois governor and how he would have handled the COVID-19 crisis in Illinois. He’d give other GOP governors a run for their money as the nation’s worst.  Fortunately we elected J.B. Pritzker and he has — for the most part — performed well under very trying circumstances.

  212. 212.

    Steve in the ATL

    @rikyrah: I’ll be watching it closely, but do you know what percentage of elections unions win Alabama, and the south in general, and US overall?  It’s a very small number, sadly.

  214. 214.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: ​ In this case I think that Smartmatic, like Dominion in its complaint, are engaging in public relations and not just a lawsuit. They want people to understand that Giuliani, Powell, et al. were using the controversy to make false claims about them in order to make money for themselves. To do that, they want to tell a story that anyone could understand. I got so depressed reading it I had to stop. I did read the Dominion complaint all the way through.

  220. 220.

    Dan B

    @Subsole: Schroedinger’s Cat would know more detail about the Indian farmers’ protest but there are several elements.  Small farmers make up more than 40% of the population.  (Don’t quote my numbers.)  They are not well off but they were guaranteed modest prices for their products.  Modi wants to “introduce competition to lower the cost of food” (invisible hand is best).  Many farmers would be forced to sell out in bad years, losing their land and breaking rural communities, natch.  Agri-business would move in and prices would be unlikely to fall, but “the invisible hand of the market is great, efficient, and lifts everyone out of dependence and poverty”.

    Add to that that many farmers are Sikh and you have an “other”.  Modi turned Hindu nationalism and violent riots against Muslims in Gujarat Province (SE of Pakistan, blissful cuisine) into political ascendancy.  He seems to be using similar leverage against Sikhs to take total control over India.  He seems to be positioning the military in the Delhi suburbs.  Is this prelude to a bloodbath and/or a repression of opposition parties and the media, or is it stage for a couple and the dissolution of Parliament / democracy?

    SC has the details and the big picture.  This appears to be much more serious than Myanmar, Russia, and Turkey combined.  1.3 billion people in a vokatile region poised for what may be the biggest climate crisis on the planet.

  221. 221.

    brantl

    @Subsole:His mouth looked like someone shoved a can of alum up a rat’s  asshole. Sorry/not sorry.

     

    Now, THAT should be a rotating tag line!

  224. 224.

    MisterForkbeard

    Evidently Trump’s lawyers say “he has a winning case” and doesn’t need to engage in a “political stunt for the democrats”, so won’t be testifying.

    Fun to see where that goes.

  225. 225.

    MomSense

    I am greatly relieved to have such decent and competent people running our affairs.  I’m still in fight or flight quite a bit because the ongoing crises are still part of my daily life.  It’s going to be awhile before I truly  let down.

  226. 226.

    Subsole

    @Dan B: Lord, that sounds horrible. I assume Modi’s buddies would be handed land at firesale prices, and disposessed/unemployed farmers would likely become internal refugees, akin to Dust Bowl families here in the states?  Thanks for the rundown, regardless.

    I am curious, is there a racial component to all of this? Or is it mostly religion/caste?

  227. 227.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I find quitting COVID is like quitting Trump too. Today a friend and I were cautiously discussing whether after we’ve had our second shots, we’d be willing to have each other as a guest for drinks. We’ve spent to long learning to follow COVID restrictions religiously that we can’t even contemplate breaking them.

  230. 230.

    Barbara

    @MisterForkbeard: ​ It was smart for them to ask him, IMHO, because it deprives him of the right to claim that if they had only asked him to testify he would have been able to defend himself better.​ At this point, I think they just go forward without him since, again in my view, there is no point in trying to force a defendant to testify in his own behalf.

  231. 231.

    cope

    @randal m sexton: Hmmm, I was reminded of the hardest pitch I ever climbed, a wall of limestone that was as blank as anything I ever tried.  This was around 1970.  PAs and PBs were out of my price range and I was climbing in my REI medium weight mountaineering boots.  I spent a long time plastered to the face doing nothing but hoping I didn’t fall in front of the small crowd watching.  Sewing-machine leg compelled me to finally make a move that got me up to some decent projections in the rock.  There was much rejoicing, at least on my part.

    That’s how I felt for the last four years:  stuck on a blank wall.

  232. 232.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I heard a University of Chicago Hospital doctor on NPR last Wednesday. She says that usually they have 100 flu admissions per week during flu season. Thisyear they have had three for the whole season.

    So Covid precautions are useful for other things. I may never give up masks in winter.

  236. 236.

    Jeffro

    @Roger Moore: really?  I did not know that – just thought it was a result of “wrestling” leagues merging or something.

    WWE it is!  Here’s your Order of the Folding Chair, trumpov!!  Enjoy it while you can…eventually, even the WWE’s gonna want that back, too.

  237. 237.

    Bill Arnold

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    It looks like Graham refused a request to put the hearing on the schedule before giving up the gavel, and now for some reason they have the ability to keep it off the schedule until after the impeachment trial and the budget process.

    Graham is (apparently) hoping to get lucky with a sudden removal (quarantine, sickness, death) of one of the 50 D (or votes with D) senators and no balancing removal of a R senator. (The Rs should not be feeling lucky, but they’re stupid.)
    Graham is quite clearly scared, of something.
    Have all the Senators gotten SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations?

  238. 238.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Steeplejack:

     

    His vast oeuvre contains many 90-second cameos. Easy to forget one.

    “See that line in the credits: And all the rest. That’s me. I’m in there as an important part of the movie.”

    ETA:  Sally from a Peanuts comic strip.

  239. 239.

    Mathguy

    “…the relief of depositing a bag of dogshit in a garbage can at the end of a long dog walk. ”

     

    Nailed it.

  240. 240.

    Jeffro

    @sab:usually they have 100 flu admissions per week during flu season. This year they have had three for the whole season.

    One of the lessons that a smarter society might learn from this experience is that, planned for and executed well, a society-wide 3-4 week lockdown could rid us of quite a bit of illness.  Like, forever.

    Lemonade out of lemons, and all that.  Who knows?  Kind of far down the to-do list at this point, but still…

  242. 242.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara: ​
     
    I’m sure that part of what’s going on is that Dominion and Smartmatic are writing their suits with an eye toward public relations. But it’s also true that it’s better to stick to plain English as much as possible in lawsuits. I read a lot of legal stuff back in the day when I followed the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit on Groklaw, and this was a big take home message.
    It makes sense when you think about it. If the case goes all the way to trial, they’re going to have to explain the case to a jury of ordinary non-lawyers. If they can’t explain their arguments in a form ordinary people can understand in their initial filing, they’re not going to be able to do it for the jury, either.
    Also, writing is about more than putting ideas down for others. It’s a way of organizing your own thoughts. Clear writing is generally a sign of clear thinking, and convoluted, jargon-filled writing is often a way of hiding sloppy, illogical thinking. If you can’t understand a lawyer’s arguments, maybe that’s because they’re relying on abstruse legal principles, but more often it’s because they’re hiding a lousy case behind a cloud of ink.

  243. 243.

    Bill Arnold

    @cope:

    A lot of times, getting past the crux pitch involves a single move or action called the “crux move”. I feel that we have made the crux move but a difficult and dangerous climb still lies before us. End of painfully extended metaphor.

    This is accurate. The election and transition were a lot closer than most people are realizing. One upside is that the amped-up crazy is doing significant damage to the Republican party.

  245. 245.

    Dan B

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I looked up Garland’s record to see if there is some reason that Lindsey would be virulently opposed to Garland.  The worst I could find was his opposition to corruption and his support for anti-trust law.  He believes that Marijuana should remain Schedule 1 status.

    Is the GOP fearful of corruption investigations?

    Nevermind…  No need to answer that question.

  246. 246.

    Juju

    About ten or so years ago I flew with my mother to Midland Michigan by way of Detroit for a wedding. I had been through this trip before and was prepared for the annoying flight to come.  If you’ve never had the joy to fly from Detroit to Midland I’ll describe it for you. You board and wait for the plane to get ready for takeoff as you normally would, but in Detroit, I found out, there is usually a long cue that you wait in before the plane actually takes off, so you sit and wait and the plane finally moves and you think you’re going to takeoff, but no, you’ve just moved up one slot. This goes on for a number of times and when you finally get to the point where you are actually going to take off, the cruise to get to the point of takeoff is so long that I thought the plane was just going to drive us there without actually flying, but the plane took off and it was a half hour in the air, give or take.  On this flight, we had the pleasure of doing this with a family that had two teenage boys and mother and father in the row directly behind us. When the plane was ready  for takeoff, it started the process of moving through the cue.  We did the start and stop and wait for when we were actually going to take off eight times. The family behind us started getting getting bored and with that, louder and louder and rude and obnoxious. After a few minutes they all started chewing bubble gum, which is not a bad thing, but the way they did it was very annoying. They started by having a bubble blowing contest and that went went on to a gum snapping contest and on and on. Pop, pop,pop.  Snap, snap, snap.   The flight attendant walked by and glared and they were a bit more quiet, but that last only a few minutes. This family continued with the loud obnoxious behavior for the whole flight, while all the people around them including me and my mother, would take turns glaring at them to no avail. They were awful people to be on a flight with but we were stuck with them. The noise in the tight area and the discomfort that flying usually is for me, gave me a migraine and I hated every minute of the flight.  I knew the flight would end eventually and things would be better, but it would be Midland better, not normal better, but things would be normal better when we were finally home. This is how I feel about things. We’re in Midland better, but heading to normal better and I am relieved to be where we are now, and more relieved to be heading the direction we seem to be heading.

  247. 247.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    She says that usually they have 100 flu admissions per week during flu season. Thisyear they have had three for the whole season.

    I feel smart for having predicted this at the beginning of flu season.  I figured that the flu spreads less easily than COVID, and lots of people were getting vaccinated.  So if we took enough precautions to keep COVID from spreading out of control, the flu wouldn’t stand a chance.  In the actual event, we didn’t take enough precautions to stop COVID, but it does seem to have been enough to stop the flu.

  249. 249.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro: ​
     

    One of the lessons that a smarter society might learn from this experience is that, planned for and executed well, a society-wide 3-4 week lockdown could rid us of quite a bit of illness. Like, forever.

    We aren’t getting rid of the flu permanently no matter how long we lock down. Like many of our most persistent illnesses- including coronaviruses- it occurs in animals as well as humans. That’s why people talk about swine flu and bird flu; those are the animals that hosted the virus before it was transmitted to humans. Unless you can come up with a lockdown for migratory birds, you’re out of luck.

  251. 251.

    Dan B

    @Barbara: Yep.  My sister-in-law is a prominent family  law attorney in this state.  We did not respond to her screaming that Marriage Equality is settled law.  It is so narrowly focused to be several steps short of logic, or even a giant leap of logic.

    Civil rights, federal civil rights for LGBTQ people?  When?  And Marriage Equality is primed to be trumped by Religious Liberty.

    The screaming was a message, “You’ve got enough rights so shut up, you’re bothering my privilege.”

    They wanted us to come to Christmas this year.  My partner had been to their house in October.  There were no masks and zero social distancing.  We declined.

    There are other stories but we all have the denial / Fox / conspiracy tales of our own.  One involves taking three dozen people out on their charter boat, not just once.

  254. 254.

    Ruckus

    For some reason it doesn’t feel quite the same as walking off the ship with my discharge papers and walking out of the navy. Same amount of time, and I’m amazing even myself for saying this, the navy, while not as much fun as one might assume, didn’t not feel like 400 yrs rather than 4 yrs and while it doesn’t feel as personal, it did not feel like it would never end and it did not get worse every damn day. There was shore leave in delightful places, and even the ones that weren’t all that delightful were still away. The last 400 yrs of trump has truly been my worst time. And I’ve been hit head on by a truck, and was not in a vehicle. I liked that better than trump and – it was better than trump.

  256. 256.

    Dan B

    @Subsole: There is racism in India based upon dark skin being inferior but I believe caste is far more potent.

    Again, grain of salt for my understanding.  It’s an astoundingly complex country.  Cultures have roots thousands of years deep and some are thousands of miles wide.  The west coast stretches to England, Portugal, Jewish traders, etc.  Delhi stretches to Mongolia and Persia.

  258. 258.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy: Maybe his bosses looked at all the advertising revenue crappy pillows gave the station?

    Fux is at war with Noosemax and Only American Nazis Network for the COVIDED coveted dumb-as-dirt-I’ll-buy-anything demographic.

    Tl;dr – See stupid ads, buy stupid shit.

  259. 259.

    Roger Moore

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    The whole thing about selling stupid shit is a vastly underrated part of what makes the right wing media ecosystem work.  It’s not just a funny sidelight of networks like Fox that they sell all kinds of stupid crap.  The whole right wing media system has become a way of finding people with no bullshit filter.  If you believe the bullshit they sling in their news segments, you’ll also believe the bullshit they sell in their ads.  That makes it an incredibly valuable place for every kind of huckster and quack to hock their wares.

    I think this is why the liberal media ecosystems is nowhere near as viable as the conservative one.  For whatever reason, there just aren’t as many liberals willing to believe all kinds of crap, so there isn’t a long line of con artists willing to pay top dollar to advertise there.

  260. 260.

    J R in WV

    @Martin:

    … That memo from Christopher Miller on Jan 4 is chilling. He’s appointed a few days after the election for a reason….

    Do you have a link or source to search for on that? First I’ve heard of it, unless I’m just blocking the memory of it.

  261. 261.

    Steeplejack

    @df:

    I think it’s easy for people to let their guard down after big milestones like the marriage equality ruling.

    True. Everything is not suddenly fixed. Even after marriage equality became the law of the land, my brother and his husband encountered a lot of unusual red tape and slow-walking in adopting their two kids (one in Florida, one in Texas). ?

  262. 262.

    WaterGirl

    From the Washington Post just now:

    Former president Donald Trump is rejecting a request for his testimony at the Senate impeachment trial that begins next week.

    “The president will not testify in an unconstitutional proceeding,” spokesman Jason Miller said Thursday.

  263. 263.

    Richard

    @Steeplejack: i feel like the survivor of some terrible event. A friend grew up in Belfast during The Troubles. To this day she still jumps at any noise. Now i understand.

  265. 265.

    artem1s

    @WaterGirl:

    “The president will not testify in an unconstitutional proceeding,” spokesman Jason Miller said Thursday.

    I guess he wants to go to jail.  or does he not understand that the new AG isn’t going to let him ignore a subpoena from the Senate this time around.

  267. 267.

    Steeplejack

    @Richard:

    One thing I have gained is a greater appreciation of writers and artists who managed to continue working in repressive regimes where there was not even the prospect of an end in four years.

  269. 269.

    Ruckus

    @Dan B:

    The past major culture of the US is a selfish culture. Conservatives live in that culture. The actual current culture, the one we liberals live in, does have selfishness in it, it is a natural trait called survival, we just understand that and have decided that major selfishness is survival instinct turned in a crappy direction and needs to be turned down to a massively smaller degree. It’s part of the process, understanding that survival is enhanced by us working together for all of us, instead of screwing well over 90% of us for the selfish gain of a few.

    Our current survival does not turn on a few uber wealthy people giving the minimum amount possible to enhance their fortunes, as it has in the past, it turns on all of us working together in a way that helps everyone live to at least a minimum reasonable life, one where there will still be wealthy and far less than wealthy, just not to the extreme degrees currently on either end. We aren’t there yet. We are closer. We probably can never reach the ideal, we can however get far closer. Your point shows that we are making progress, slow, ragged progress, but progress. The last 4(00) yrs of shitforbrains is a step backwards. Let’s make the next 4 at least 2 steps forward. We are going to have to drag the disbelievers along, kicking and screaming, because they are conservatives in their dried up, tiny hearts and minds.

  270. 270.

    Aziz, light!

    @Roger Moore: An astute observation. The more unconstrained the channel (e.g., the conspiracy theory videos on BitChute), the more blatant the cons.

  271. 271.

    sab

    @Dan B: I live in Ohio and I disagree with almost everything Jon Husted believes in. But in the aughts when he was in the legislature and the Republican election culture war thing was to prevent gay couple adoption.

    Husted was very outspoken against. His point was that he himself was adopted, and no way was he going to prevent kids from getting getting adopted into loving homes.

  274. 274.

    Fair Economist

    @Bill Arnold: I saw a report just a few days ago tracking the Navalny assassination squad to the location of three Russian political dissidents who died unexpectedly and quite young due to heart attacks on three separate occasions.

  275. 275.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    I think this just gets back to one of my biggest complaints about conservatives: nothing is real unless it affects them or someone they care about.  Many of them have one or two issues where they take a more liberal attitude, and it’s always always always something where it affects them.  Maybe they have a LGBTQ relative so they’re not OK with discriminating against LGBTQ people.  Maybe they’re married to an immigrant so they don’t want to stop all immigration.  Or whatever.  They have empathy but not enough imagination to stretch it beyond the bounds of their personal experience.

  276. 276.

    Bill Arnold

    @Fair Economist:
    Yeah, bellingcat:
    Navalny Poison Squad Implicated in Murders of Three Russian Activists (Bellingcat, January 27, 2021)
    All three cases were declared to be heart failure (True! Their hearts did stop beating.); with two of them injection points were found in inspection of the bodies.

    As I’ve noted, there are a few ways to stop hearts that look like natural causes; it is still a little surprising to me that the FSB stoops to poison and compliant medical examiners. (There are earlier cases of dissidents and other enemies of the powerful dying with heart attacks, sometimes with associated blunt head trauma.)

  278. 278.

    Jean

    @Redshift:  I was happy to see that news in VA today! I remember you from one campaign or another in which you put me in contact with organizers for volunteer work –some years ago.

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