Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

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

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You cannot shame the shameless.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

No one could have predicted…

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The willow is too close to the house.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Everybody saw this coming.

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

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republicans in disarray!

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Suing the Rabble-Rouser-in-Chief

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Suing the Rabble-Rouser-in-Chief

by | 243 Comments

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Didn’t think this news would get the attention it deserves, yesterday…

The House Homeland Security chairman accused Donald Trump in a federal lawsuit Tuesday of inciting the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and conspiring with his lawyer and extremist groups to try to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

The lawsuit from Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is part of an expected wave of litigation over the Jan. 6 riot and is believed to be the first filed by a member of Congress. It seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages. It also names as defendants Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, extremist organizations that have had members charged by the Justice Department with taking part in the siege…

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington under a Reconstruction-era law called the Ku Klux Klan Act, comes three days after Trump was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial that centered on allegations that he incited the riot, in which five people died. That acquittal is likely to open the door to fresh legal scrutiny over Trump’s actions before and during the siege. Additional suits could be brought by other members of Congress or by law enforcement officers injured while responding to the riot.

The suit traces the drawn-out effort by Trump and Giuliani to cast doubt on the election results even though courts across the country and state election officials repeatedly rejected their baseless allegations of fraud. Despite evidence to the contrary, the suit says, the men portrayed the election as stolen while Trump “endorsed rather than discouraged” threats of violence from his angry supporters in the weeks leading up to the assault on the Capitol.

“The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence,” the suit says. “It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.”…

The case against Trump was brought under a provision of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was passed in response to KKK violence and prohibits violence or intimidation meant to prevent Congress or other federal officials from carrying out their constitutional duties.

“Fortunately, this hasn’t been used very much,” Sellers said. “But what we see here is so unprecedented that it’s really reminiscent of what gave rise to the enactment of this legislation right after the Civil War.”…

Reader Interactions

243Comments

  3. 3.

    sab

    Birthdaay today. Spouse’s Zoom was hilarious. They think I am so young.

    Baby sister did nada, which is usual. She is too young to notice our birthdays. This has been her position since she was born. i  respect that.

    Oldest ssister noticed Mars Rover but not my birthday. Ok.

  4. 4.

    debbie

    @Delk:

    I can’t stand that no one challenges Trump on that lie. “At 10:30 we were way ahead. In fact, you could even say we had won.” Asshole, California polls didn’t close until 11pm!

  10. 10.

    debbie

    I just signed up!

    Millions Join Class-Action Suit Against Trump Demanding Past Four Years Back

    PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump’s legal woes deepened on Wednesday as millions of Americans joined a class-action lawsuit demanding the past four years back.

    Although Trump is already being sued for his actions on January 6th of this year, this latest suit broadens his legal exposure to the other fourteen hundred and sixty days of his Presidency.

  17. 17.

    BruceFromOhio

    The case against Trump was brought under a provision of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was passed in response to KKK violence and prohibits violence or intimidation meant to prevent Congress or other federal officials from carrying out their constitutional duties.

    Irony is alive and well, chilling on the beach, letting all calls roll to voicemail.

  24. 24.

    Ken

    I don’t think people have taken the time to actually read the NAACP lawsuit and realize how fucking insane it is there’s a lawsuit charging the President with violating an anti-lynching statue where he’s listed as a co-defendant with the Bundy Ranch people

    Insane in absolute terms, yes.  On the scale we all got used to over the past four years, about a 6.5.

  25. 25.

    Fleeting Expletive

    Just think, this precise Constituional  stiletto has been sitting there for a century, an exquisite tool when needed.

    I’m with Barbara Jordan, always: My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total.

     

    I have a bit of bemused suspicion that ol’ Mitch is enjoying the great human, or inhuman, emotion of Revenge, a dish best served cold, as they say. If the Senate had convicted they wouldv’e said that’s enough, it’s over, move on, he’s suffered enough, whatever.  But now, there’s prosecutions coming as far as the eye can see.and it will never be over. And Mitch leaves no fingerprints.

    But I’m going to enjoy my own schadenfreude at whatever happens to the lot of them, within the law and in history.

  26. 26.

    Poe Larity

    Angry young Matthew Barad does the maths to show centrism makes Democrats losers

    However, with a 20-40 percent win rate in presidential elections since 1999 (depending on whether you count Obama’s re-election as a centrist campaign), and with recent data​ showing that progressive Democrats did better than centrists in swing districts during the 2020 elections, the doctrine that running as a centrist is the most reliable way to win elections has not borne itself out in reality.

  28. 28.

    LurkerNoLonger

    Glad to hear about this civil suit. Has there been anymore talk about the 14th(?) amendment? I hear that only requires a majority vote which would prevent Turnip from running again.

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    In a word — blech.

    Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is asking Gov. Tony Evers to lower flags to half-staff in Wisconsin to honor the late Rush Limbaugh, who died on Wednesday. Source

  38. 38.

    Baud

    @Poe Larity:

    with recent data​ showing that progressive Democrats did better than centrists in swing districts during the 2020 elections,

    Could you point me to where this analysis is in the article? I didn’t see it.

  45. 45.

    Chyron HR

    @Poe Larity: ​
     

    There there, I’m sure once Bernie sheds another 25% of his supporters he’ll handily win his inevitable 2024 primary challenge against our sitting president.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: Her being married just makes it safer for me. I just like being in the same file as cute people, because that is so very rare.

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @sab: @Baud: Where the fuck is my puppy!!!!?

    Didn’t you read the small print on that fundraising letter?  “Statements made by the Baud!2020 campaign should not be considered promises of future behavior.”

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    Looks like the trumpov-Ghouliani-Stone-Proud Boys-Oath Keepers-Three Percenters have some ‘splaining to do .  Good!

    I don’t know about you all, but I am feeling somewhat slightly relieved that legal processes will take their course, get a fair amount of the truth about this conspiracy out there (including, unfortunately, the very small % of Capitol Police who were in on it), and result in jail time for a host of bad people as well as weigh on many GQP officials’ prospects due to their impeachment acquittal votes.

    ‘moral arc of the universe’ and all that  ;)

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Poe Larity:

    Meanwhile, Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement commissioned an analysis of Democrats in swing districts who won and lost races, and it found that, in fact, supporters of Medicare for All did just fine relative to centrists. In fact, Democratic vote share declined for candidates the further they moved to the right.

    I’d prefer to see a more independent analysis.

  61. 61.

    germy

    Photos of Mr. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, boarding the flight ricocheted quickly across social media and left both his political allies and rivals aghast at a tropical trip as a disaster unfolded at home. The blowback only intensified after Mr. Cruz, a Republican, released a statement saying he had flown to Mexico “to be a good dad” and accompany his daughters and their friends; he noted he was flying back Thursday afternoon, though he did not disclose how long he had originally intended to stay.

    Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was “FREEZING,” as Ms. Cruz put it — and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed “many times,” noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-storm-cancun.htm

    I was led to believe this international vacation was planned by and for children.

    — Nick Amadeus (@NickAmadeus) February 18, 2021

  62. 62.

    J R in WV

    @sab:

    Happy Birthday, sab.

    I haven’t been commenting, our power went off Sunday evening, and even tho we have a whole house generator, our internet link is via our neighbors who live above us on the ridge top, and the sat dishes are there. Their gen set wont fire up, so this afternoon T came down and helped get our portable gen set working. Lots of rehab to get it to fire up.

    Lots of freezing drizzle and snow, one night was 15 degrees, not way cold, but…

    Earlier yesterday day we got a phone call from the primary health care clinic in the county seat, asking if we were still interested in Covid-19 vaccinations? YES!! so if the freezing drizzle and snow overnight isn’t too bad, tomorrow Wife and I will get out first vaccinations, and appointments for our second shot next month!

    Was startled at how relaxing that news made me feel, after months at home, masks, sanitizing hands, keeping our distance…

    Will notify the B-J crowd on how it goes… will also try to buy bottled water in gallon+ sized, our well in 800 horizontal feet from the house, and it has its own APCO power drop at the well head, so unless we take a generator down there… no fresh water.

    Just about out of water in the pressure tank in the basement. I do have 300 gallons of back-up water — so I’ll fire that up tomorrow afternoon for flushing and the dish washer. It’s several years in the tank, so not really fresh, but…

    Good news, not so good news… so what else is new?

  63. 63.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Jeffro: ​
     (including, unfortunately, the very small % of Capitol Police who were in on it),

    How does it feel to be a Capitol Police officer who was putting your life on the line on Jan 6, knowing that over a hundred of your fellow officers were injured, and then read today that 6 Capitol Police officers were suspended and another 29 are under investigation for their roles in the riot?

  66. 66.

    japa21

    @Baud: ​
      There isn’t any. Besides, Hillary ran as a progressive and lost. Obama didn’t run a centrist campaign either time and Biden certainly didn’t run a centrist campaign. I’ll give you Gore and Kerry as somewhat centrist.

  68. 68.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @germy: ​
      I’m reading that the dog was left behind in the freezing house, but not hearing any details about what care arrangements were made, if any.

  72. 72.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: here’s the video of Cruz speaking in front his house…smh

    @notcapnamerica

    You can hear protesters chanting “Resign” in the background as @tedcruz now says it was “obviously a mistake” to go to Cancun.

    https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1362555659611496449?s=20

    Oh and what really is going to piss folks off more, apparently the family also left their dog home alone without light or heat..smh

    https://twitter.com/TheOvalPawffice/status/1362521610540883968?s=20

  74. 74.

    tokyokie

    @debbie:

    I can’t stand that no one challenges Trump on that lie. “At 10:30 we were way ahead. In fact, you could even say we had won.” Asshole, California polls didn’t close until 11pm!

    By the same reasoning, as the Braves led the Dodgers, 3-2, after five innings of last season’s National League Championship Series, they should have advanced to the World Series.

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    @sab:

    Happy birthday, Sab!!

    I ordered a new wood stove today.  It’s going to be a couple of weeks before it will be installed, but I’m excited to have a bigger stove.

  81. 81.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: even their friends snitchin’

    Like seriously folks dropping group text screencaps to NYT…proving the common known fact that NOBODY like Ted Cruz…smh

  83. 83.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Ted Cruz was putting on the Ritz at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun.  Hope the Dems run an ad against Cruz in tops and tails like an old timey Mr. Potter.

  87. 87.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: seriously…chile…like how hated are you if your “friends” ratting you out to the press…like wow!

     

    @kylegriffin1

    “Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” Heidi Cruz wrote. “We may go to Cancún.” She teased a “direct flight” and “hotels w capacity. Seriously.: Cruz promptly shared details for a Wednesday departure, a Sunday return trip and a luxurious stay at the oceanfront Ritz Carlton.
    https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1362548720449908738

  88. 88.

    Roger Moore

    @Fleeting Expletive:

    I’m with Barbara Jordan, always: My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total.

    I have no faith in the Constitution; it’s just a bunch of words engrossed on velum.  It has no force or power without people willing to devote themselves to protecting and enforcing it.

  90. 90.

    germy

    ATLANTA (AP) – Republican lawmakers in Georgia’s state House on Thursday introduced a sweeping election bill that would place restrictions on absentee voting and ban counties from holding early voting on Sundays, a popular day for Black churchgoers who vote during “Souls to the Polls” events.

    The bill comes after Black voters and a surge in absentee ballots helped Democrats win the presidential election and two U.S. Senate runoffs in the once reliably red state.

    House Bill 531 would require a photo ID for absentee voting, limit the time when an absentee ballot could be requested, restrict where ballot drop boxes could be placed, ban counties from holding early voting on Sundays and restrict the use of mobile voting units, among many other changes.

    https://wnyt.com/politics/georgia-house-republicans-push-to-ban-sunday-early-voting/6017430/?cat=661

  91. 91.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @germy: his daughters looked like kindeegartner/grade school age during the ’16 campaign which means they’re tweens/teens now. Not an age where mom needs dad’s help on a plane flight .

  94. 94.

    CaseyL

    @lamh36: Widely loathed?  Roundly despised?

    Sounds like Trump’s “friends” – near as I can tell, none of them like him, either.

  99. 99.

    Quiltingfool

    @germy: No, she is incredibly stupid.  No serious gun owner displays guns out in the open (unless it is a historical, non functioning gun).  My first husband owned a little gun/hunting supply store; his customers mainly bought hunting rifles and shotguns, reload supplies, traps and fishing gear.  We had guns in the house (because he hunted)and they were NOT scattered about the house – they were in their own special closet.  You keep quiet about your guns because you really don’t want every meth asshole in the county breaking in to steal them.

    She made theft of her guns very easy – no search needed.  What a moron.

  102. 102.

    Gravenstone

    @NotMax: My response to that, is there a way to raise the flags to staff and a half to celebrate his overdue assumption of ambient temperature?

  103. 103.

    Ksmiami

    Sorry I’m sitting in my Dallas home with my husky who is recovering from surgery and I had to cut my New Mexico stay short to get him to the vet surgery center and I bathe his leg and apply antibacterial ointment to his fixator 3x a day and it’s been challenging and this cretin leaves the dog? Omfg

  111. 111.

    Elizabelle

    Blame Your Daughter at Work Week not going so good for Cancruz.  More breaking news from the NY Times:

    Ted Cruz’s Cancún Trip: Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder

    The Texas senator faced fierce blowback for fleeing his state as a disaster unfolded. Text messages sent by his wife revealed a hastily planned trip away from their “FREEZING” family home.

    Like millions of his constituents across Texas, Senator Ted Cruz had a frigid home without electricity this week amid the state’s power crisis. But unlike most, Mr. Cruz got out, fleeing Houston and hopping a Wednesday afternoon flight to Cancún with his family for a respite at a luxury resort.

    Photos of Mr. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, boarding the flight ricocheted quickly across social media and left both his political allies and rivals aghast at a tropical trip as a disaster unfolded at home. The blowback only intensified after Mr. Cruz, a Republican, released a statement saying he had flown to Mexico “to be a good dad” and accompany his daughters and their friends; he noted he was flying back Thursday afternoon, though he did not disclose how long he had originally intended to stay.

    Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was “FREEZING,” as Ms. Cruz put it — and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed “many times,” noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts.

    … If Mr. Cruz intended to leave the impression that he meant to stay for only a day, his large suitcase and the group text messages Ms. Cruz had sent planning a longer itinerary suggested he had cut his trip short. NBC reported separately that Mr. Cruz had rebooked his return ticket on Thursday morning.

    …  In his statement, Mr. Cruz noted that the private school his daughters attend in Houston was closed this week. But some other parents at the school were incensed when they heard about his international trip because of the pandemic and school policies that have discouraged such travel abroad.

    Two parents provided a copy of the written school policy for students not to return to classrooms for seven days after international travel, or to take a Covid test three to five days after returning, which would keep the Cruz children out of school for the following week. (Separately, an aide to Mr. Cruz said he had taken a virus test before his return flight on Thursday; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires a negative result.)

    When Ms. Cruz wrote to the group text chain of neighbors trying to weather the extreme conditions early Wednesday, she said the family had been staying with friends to keep warm, but quickly pivoted to offering an invitation to get away.

    “Anyone can or want to leave for the week?” she wrote. “We may go to Cancún.” She teased a “direct flight” and “hotels w capacity. Seriously.” Ms. Cruz promptly shared details for a Wednesday afternoon departure, a Sunday return trip and a luxurious stay at the oceanfront Ritz-Carlton in the meantime.

    No one appeared to bite, but Ms. Cruz did extend a more practical offer. “We have gas stove so at least we can heat water little that there is happy to help anyone we can too,” she wrote.

    The Times shared the contents of the messages with Mr. Cruz’s Senate office, but his aides did not comment. Ms. Cruz did not return a call seeking comment.

    Mr. Cruz has long rankled members of both parties as a self-promoter since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013. …

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Republican lawmakers in Georgia’s state House on Thursday introduced a sweeping election bill that would place restrictions on absentee voting and ban counties from holding early voting on Sundays

    And I am sure that these Republican Georgia shits will all declare that they are protecting the integrity of the voting process by doing all they can to restrict the ability of people to vote.

  118. 118.

    germy

    @NotMax:

    The dog texted Maggie Haberman.  The rest is history, as they say.

     

    “According to a source close to the Cruz family, the dog is a very good boy, and would have loved a trip to Cancun.”

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    Civil suits may be a good means to take down the organizers of the January 6 insurrection. After the disastrous August 11, 2017 Charlottesville rally, survivors of the car attack that killed Heather Heyer, sued the event’s organizers. The lawsuit, Simes vs. Kessler, is finally scheduled for trial this fall, but it has already put severe financial pressure on organizations like The League of the South and Richard Spencer’s Indentity Evropa. Simes could provide a template for action by the many officers injured in the insurrection.

    The lead plaintiffs’ attorney in Simes is Roberta Kaplan, who represented Edith Windsor in her successful challenge of the federal “Defense of Marriage Act,” titled Windsor vs. U.S.

  120. 120.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    So I guess this potentially means that Georgia’s status as a swing state will be delayed and Warnock/Ossof will have their re-elections in 2022 cut out for them. There has to be something the Biden Admin can do.

    How much longer can this bullshit keep working? Surely the demographics will continue to shift to the point that voter suppression will no longer work. Educated, suburban whites are increasingly voting Democratic. How do they think disenfranchising educated whites is going to go down?

  121. 121.

    germy

    @sab:

    It was Ted and his wife’s idea.

    The fact that he blamed his daughters is just more proof of his… what’s the word?  Assholishness?

  130. 130.

    Benw

    Cruz is so thirsty for T****’s base and can’t even get page 1 of the T**** playbook right. What a clown

  131. 131.

    Roger Moore

    @Quiltingfool: ​
     
    I sincerely doubt she keeps her guns like that regularly. She’s using them as props for her political appearance, just as she uses them as props for commercial purposes at her business. Of course real guns should not be used as props; that’s why they make prop guns.

  132. 132.

    Elizabelle

    The Cruz family dog is named Snowflake.

    Someone on the twitter thread suggested it should be renamed “Ice Cube.”

  133. 133.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Of course, civil action is not a substitute for aggressive criminal prosecutions and severe sentences. I especially want to see the feds nail Roger Stone. I think he was the conduit between trump and groups like Oathkeepers and the Proudboys.

    And the FBI is circulating a picture of a man in a distinctive red and white motorcycle jacket, who can be seen in another horrible picture gouging the eyes of a police officer who’d been knocked to the ground. That guy needs to be buried under the jail.

  137. 137.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    I guess. It pisses me off that these POS are doing this. They want to pick their own electorate instead of running on what people want. They’re fascist autocrats

    So much for the “Shining City On A Hill” rhetoric of the Reagan Era. I guess democracy is ok when surrounding society agrees with your values and it’s convenient to use as a cudgel against the Soviets. Not so much when society has become more liberal and you can’t win popular elections anymore on your shitty right-wing platform

  138. 138.

    lamh36

    @kylegriffin1
    Breaking: Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta just announced on
    @thereidout
    his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Pat Toomey.
    7:00 PM · Feb 18, 2021·Twitter Web App

    yes… I like Rep Kenyatta!

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Roger Moore: I wonder how much she actually fires guns. Hunters who saw Sarah Palin’s “reality” show episode in which she went hunting said she handles a gun like somebody with no training and no experience. I wouldn’t know

    ETA: if Dr Mary Trump wants to branch out from being the Renegade Niece, the whole ammosexual phenomenon could use a skeptical analysis by someone with training

  142. 142.

    Elizabelle

    @Roger Moore:   Case out of Cornelius, NC [NW of Charlotte, on Lake Norman]:  A 25-year old mother appears to have been shot dead by one of her five children, when they apparently found a loaded semiautomatic gun in her purse.  The youngest was wounded too, although not life-threatening.

    Reports said the police arrived to find 4 children in the bedroom with the dead mother and the oldest child in the living room.

    CNN article.

    What a horror.  Some of those children are going to remember that incident.  How old could they be??

  143. 143.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Shall add the although Ossoff is the youngest person elected to the Senate in decades, by the arcane protocol of the place he is now the senior senator from Georgia.

  148. 148.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Warnock/Ossof will have their re-elections in 2022

    Just Warnock — his was the special election to fill the rest of Johnny Isakson’s term (Isakson retired a year ago; Kelly Loeffler was appointed to serve until the new term began in January). So Warnock will run in 2022 for a full six-year term.

    Ossoff is part of the normal cycle. In the runoff, he won a full six-year term and won’t run for re-election until 2026.

  154. 154.

    Immanentize

    More on poor snowflake:

    Where was Snowflake their dog? A different tweet thread dog was left alone at home in a cold, dark house being cared for by security guard sitting in suburban in the driveway. Would like to know where the dog was being physical kept. In the house by himself or in car w/ guard?— Jennie Lou Leeder (@JennieLouLeeder) February 18, 2021

  158. 158.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: One of the six gun safety laws passed in Virginia last year makes it a crime to have unsecured firearms in a house with children. That won’t solve this problem, but it’s a start.

    When there was the prospect of new gun safety measures being passed in last year’s General Assemby session, rural counties like my own declared themselves “Second Amendment Sanctuaries,” and over 10,000 armed gun rights advocates descended on Richmond to protest on Lobby Day. But when these laws went into effect last July, I did not read or hear of any protests.

  160. 160.

    Jeffro

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I kinda don’t want to know, but my heart breaks for them, and I hope we get to the bottom of this white supremacist fifth column inside the Capitol Police (and law enforcement organizations everywhere).

    I especially feel for the families of those two CP officers who killed themselves right afterwards.  Whether they witnessed betrayal by their fellow officers, or were in on the plot, it’s just a horrific thing for the ones left behind to have to deal with.

  161. 161.

    NotMax

    Why I like this place, #11, 117 (approximately).

    Can slip in a reference to archie and mehitabel and not see a raft of “Huh? Wuzzat?” comments afterward.

    ;)

  162. 162.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

     

    @lamh36:

    I think there were folks in an earlier thread saying Cruz was gonna survive this, no problem.  I’ll be happy to take their nickels now and save us all some trouble.  ;)

  167. 167.

    Jeffro

    @germy: Beto’s response or the response of any sensible GQP primary challenger: “Um okay…given the urgency…maybe you could have just dropped them off at the airport and said ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I’m able…people are dying’?”

    To say nothing of the police escort, and the two packed suitcases he was toting.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @Jeffro: They talked about at least one of them in the impeachment, at least I think that’s where I saw it.  The one they talked about was fighting for hours in the insurrection, was hit in the head, injured, waited to get treated until it was over. So he definitely was not part of the insurrection.

  173. 173.

    Jeffro

    @germy: “I am ready with the quick quips on Twitter, in order to deflect from my gun-poseur persona!  Actual legislating/governing…not so much” – Lauren Barbie

  174. 174.

    counterfactual

    @WaterGirl: The security guard was supposed to check in on the dog, I understand.

    I shouldn’t make any further comment about this, or I’ll get in trouble

  176. 176.

    Jeffro

    @zhena gogolia: I’m pretty sure it wasn’t your nickel I was thinking of…you’re not really going to make me go back through threads, are you?

    There were two other folks who really thought I was being naive about how this will all play out.  Which is often true in general…just not this time.  ;)

  181. 181.

    Patricia Kayden

    Ted Cruz is getting so much criticism and is under so much stress he could probably really use a vacation right about now.— Frank Conniff (@FrankConniff) February 19, 2021

  183. 183.

    Jeffro

    @WaterGirl: yes – I know he’s been going full steam ever since the freeze hit.  I was referring to what he (or any GQP primary opponent) could easily note to the press and/or public in regards to Cruz’s lame excuses?  Kind of in line with my earlier comments about Cruz now being open to (well-deserved) attacks from the left and right.

    Beto has been rocking it, no doubt.

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36:

    and they don’t blame their daughters for it if they do..

    ouch!  no sympathy though, well deserved

    Republicans would rather be talking about this than their cowardly impeachment votes.

  187. 187.

    Jeffro

    @Suzanne: or as Twitter Dick Nixon put it (paraphrasing):  “at least some of the neighbors on that chat chose to stay in the dark and cold rather than accompany Cruz & family to Cancun”

    LOL

    I sure as hell would stay.

  188. 188.

    H.E.Wolf

    @NotMax:
    Why I like this place, #11, 117 (approximately).
    Can slip in a reference to archie and mehitabel and not see a raft of “Huh? Wuzzat?” comments afterward.
    ;)

    mehitabel has a superb derangement of epitaphs for her (many) ex-lovers; this is one of my favorites:
    i will can you first and kill you afterwards and then I will ignore you​

  190. 190.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: you clearly got an advance look at her legislative agenda for 21-22  ;)

    The GQP can only deliver on things like calling French fries “freedom fries” (and in their own cafeteria, at that): beyond that…don’t expect too much, America!

    I mean literally, what. do. they. do. for their constituents, to make their lives better?  NO-thing.

  192. 192.

    lamh36

    @Suzanne: lol…folks already saying Heidi leaked the group texts to the NYT…cause she’s tired of his azz throwing and/or them kids under the bus…LOL

  193. 193.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: Chris Hayes is pointing out this very thing…”bathroom bills”…making Texas a “second amendment sanctuary state”…weighing in on Colin Kapernick.

    Um, you can do that from the comfort of some post in society, GQP! You don’t need to be taking up space in the TX (or any!) legislature.

  194. 194.

    Geminid

    @Roger Moore: Today Roll Call had an article about another potential Democratic Senate candidate: Impeachment manager Madeleine Dean, who represents a suburban district outside Philadelphia. Although Biden’s winning margin last November was less than 200,000 votes, Senator Bob Casey won reelection in 2018 by 650,000 votes, so this is a very winnable seat.

  195. 195.

    Jeffro

    OT but I see that even Barbara ‘bible nut’ Comstock is pushing for ways to prevent trumpov from running again, like calling for full tax/business disclosures from candidates.  Barbara, you’re a little (lot) late but thanks for your support!

  196. 196.

    NotMax

    @Jeffro

    you clearly got an advance look at her legislative agenda for 21-22

    Pretty confident got it verbatim, although the crayon is smudged.

    :)

  199. 199.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    I mean literally, what. do. they. do. for their constituents, to make their lives better? NO-thing.

    GOP supporters believe that Trump and McConnell delivered on tax cuts and job growth. They don’t want much else for themselves.

    However, GOP supporters believe that their lives are better if other people are hurting.

    So, they want to make sure that they have their guns, deaths don’t matter. They want to make sure that poor women cannot have abortions, that gay and transgender people are pushed to the margins of society, that Muslims are demonized, that black people cower in fear, and that undocumented people are hounded, rounded up and excluded.  For extra fun they want to see China kicked in the nuts and Palestinians slapped down hard.

  202. 202.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    As it’s open thread, a Russian query.

    There’s a place there named, on Anglicized maps, Kyyy (Кыйы). How might pronouncing that nearest to correctly be attempted in Americanish?

  204. 204.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    Okay, I see there is such a place! That’s not a Russian name, it’s Yakut, I guess. Your guess is as good as mine about how to pronounce it. I’m guessing “kih-yih.”

  205. 205.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax:

    Funnily enough, one of the cardinal spelling rules of Russian is that you can’t put that second letter after the first one.

  209. 209.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: great point.

    GQP politicians don’t really have to deliver for their constituents, as long as they’re hurting other not-really-Americans ‘constituents’ and especially foreigners.

  213. 213.

    lamh36

    Interview w/KKKLannity and he’s STILL blaming his girls…smh

    “a lot of their friends were over”…dude…in the middle of a pandera…smh

    https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1362591855909761024?s=20

    Oh and Don Jr on a cocaine binge I’d guess..

    Abbott is a Republican you dumb FUQ!

    @DonaldJTrumpJr
    The hypocrisy of those trying to cancel Ted Cruz who have been totally silent on their Democrat Governor’s incompetence is telling. My thoughts on the Cancún Cruz fauxoutrage! #Cruz #CancunGate is fake.
    https://twitter.com/donaldjtrumpjr/status/1362539576963837952

  214. 214.

    Immanentize

    @lamh36: He is complaining about Cuomo.  Who really has been fucking up badly.  See?  I’m complaining about a Dem. Governor.  My Mom is in a transitional care facility in Upstate NY.  He sold out all the most vulnerable.

  219. 219.

    Jeffro

    @lamh36:

     

    @Immanentize: it’s a little funny, though…all someone has to do is ask Cokehead Jr how he’d feel if it was a Democratic senator who took off for Cancun in the middle of this kind of disaster.

  220. 220.

    lamh36

    @Immanentize: is that what he’s talking about…smh…he’s so stupid or coked out to realize by not mentioning Cuomo it reads like he talking solely about Texas…smh…dumb

  221. 221.

    Immanentize

    @lamh36: I know.  But they are all trying to hit Cuomo on the head right now, so you have to speak Republican Q to get the whole meaning.

    He needs an intervention.  But I suspect he has no friends or family who cares for him.

  223. 223.

    Jeffro

    @Immanentize: Yup.

    I wish there was a media outlet (or hell, just an AI on a website) that cranked out “Republican official X said/did Y…how do you feel about that, America?  How would you feel it it was a Democratic official?”

    Something along those lines, to snap a few % out of their GQP trance.

    FSM knows, it’s been the one thing that shuts up my RWNJ relatives faster than anything else.

  226. 226.

    Kent

    I’ve been in and out and way from the computer today. But have we talked about this yet?

    Breaking: 35 Capitol Police officers are under investigation for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.35.— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) February 18, 2021

  227. 227.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    OTOH, what the hell could dipshit ted do without making things worse? He is one of the most useless human beings, what has he ever done that was in any way positive for any one else?

  229. 229.

    sdhays

    I can’t help but be reminded of the video from the 2016 campaign where Cruz tried to kiss his daughter and she ducked away from him like he was the stereotypical stepfather who wants to send the children to boarding school.

  231. 231.

    Shalimar

    @Geminid: I read a few weeks ago that Cy Vance is retiring.  So no primary to worry about, and no accountability if he decides not to prosecute.  I don’t have much faith in him given his prior history, but hope to be surprised.   It is a good chance for him to make sure prosecuting Trump is what he’s remembered for.

  235. 235.

    debbie

    Has this been shared? A photo of a spot in Texarkana where Texas and Arkansas roads run parallel. Excellence in infrastructure!

    One state has snow plows. The other doesn’t.

    One side of this street is Texarkana, Arkansas.

    The other side is Texarkana, Texas.

    “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

    There is a leadership failure in Texas…pic.twitter.com/EJ2QtLudXK
    — Rex Chapman?? (@RexChapman) February 17, 2021

  237. 237.

    catclub

    @Geminid: ​
     

    Manhattan DA Vance faces a primary this June, so he needs to deliver some indictments before too long if he wants to keep his job.

    Good luck with that. Supreme court is stalling any action on his subpeona of trump tax records.

  239. 239.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @AnotherBruce: Better news would be Moscow Mitch suddenly suffering that fate. At the moment he’s the greater threat to America.

    Hypothetically, if you gave me a gun with two bullets and put me in an elevator with Trump, Cruz, and McConnell, both Trump and Cruz would walk out without a scratch.

  241. 241.

    matt the somewhat reasonable

    @Poe Larity:  Uh, the’ recent data’ showing that progressives won more often than centrists in 2020 is a Ryan Grim twitter thread.

    Grim is a lying sack of shit.

  242. 242.

    Geminid

    @Shalimar: Manhattan DA Vance may well be retiring. At least, he hasn’t announced he is running for reelection, and has raised little money for a campaign. On the other hand, he is a well known incumbent, and there are nine other candidates already, so he probably could announce May 1 and still win.

  243. 243.

    Geminid

    @catclub: News reports are that Manhattan DA Vance has obtained some of trump’s tax returns from sources other than the accounting company involved in the Supreme Court case. And the hiring of Mark Pomerantz indicates the Vance has got a case against trump going. Pomerantz was head of the criminal division the U.S. Attorney for Southern District of New York 1997-99. He did a lot of work in the area of financial crimes since then, mainly on the defense side, and he is credited with a thorough understanding of this area of criminal law. The trump Seven Springs property in Westchester County is thought to be one focus of Vances efforts, but there are others. Vance’s office has had trump henchman Michael Cohen in for several interviews, one last week.

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