I thought we could use a fresh open thread. I embedded the complete remarks from Vice President Harris and President Biden above for those who may have missed it. I woke up to this, but because of the early hour, I couldn’t listen live, as the animals all needed attention first. One does not delay getting the puppy outside first thing in the morning and it was 1 degree F this a.m. so the ducks needed some TLC. I watched with my first cup of coffee and it was sweet!
How many times could President Biden call TFFG a looooser without actually saying his name? Let me count the times! Let’s Go Biden, indeed.
the best part: nobody saw this Biden speech coming.
not this kind of ferocity
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 6, 2022
We put up monuments to the patriots who fought against America on January 6th. Please don't tear them down, because history.
23rd St. and Broadway. Today only until 11pm. #DailyShowMonuments pic.twitter.com/AYhjCwv0mI
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 6, 2022
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 6, 2022
Amy was on fire last night:
.@JamesMartinSJ: An alarming number of Catholic clergy contributed to an environment that led to the fatal riots at the U.S. Capitol.https://t.co/P9zPfBwxDs
— America Magazine (@americamag) January 6, 2022
I remember when they breached the Capitol…my first text was to Adam because he’s our guy on security. I don’t remember if we texted back and forth much, I think I was too stunned.
What I remember vividly was the next day – my writing partner came over to work and our rule is, no distractions – tv, internet, or phones, unless we need to look something up in regards to what we are doing. But she walked into the house and MSNBC was on and I said, “I can’t turn it off, I’m afraid. I’m afraid for our Democracy.” She agreed and we let it play in the background. I don’t remember how much work we actually got done.
This is an open thread…
C Stars
I woke up to it this morning too. I heard a fiery voice coming from the kitchen where my spouse was feeding the kids breakfast. It was surprising because he usually doesn’t listen to news radio in the morning. Then as I woke up and listened harder I realized it was Biden, using a voice and tone that seemed unfamiliar, and excoriating the traitors. It was a great way to wake up to be honest.
lowtechcyclist
Basically, they were doing the old ‘you can’t be a Catholic and vote for Biden because abortion’ bit.
I know Protestant evangelicals were so ‘pro-life’ that they shrugged as hundreds of thousands of Americans died of Covid-19. I’m curious as to where the right-wing Catholic priests were on this. Gotta admit they’re largely off my radar.
cope
The glacial pace at which the guilty have been brought to justice or even accountability has frustrated me no end, probably because I am old. However, it does seem that the wheels are grinding forward, however slowly. I don’t think it’s intentionally dragging on so as to be on the front burner coincident with the 2022 elections but it will be a good thing that it is.
Parfigliano
The Catholic Clergy backing fascism or staying silent in its face. Im shocked!
debbie
@lowtechcyclist:
Wait, not the Evangelicals? They’re the ones crowding around and laying hands on Trump in the Oval Office.
patroclus
The Senate just did a moment of silence and the House is about to. I don’t often watch C-SPAN or C-SPAN2, but today has been riveting with excellent speeches by many. (No Republicans in sight).
p.a.
I watched, but the memory is dim, like seen through a red screen of rage.
Kent
@lowtechcyclist: That is complete bullshit. The Catholic Church has had a seriously revanchist and anti-democratic conservative wing since basically forever. Abortion is just the current excuse they give for their right wing leanings because they know most people won’t question it. These are the same people who spirited Nazi war criminals out of Germany and protected them from justice. Who fell in with the very worst and most brutal Latin American dictators throughout the 20th Century. My wife is Chilean. Ask her about the role of the Catholic Church and Opus Dei in Pinochet’s Coup. When I was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala in the 1980s the right win oligarchic Cardinal Casariego of Guatemala famous blessed with holy water the army tanks of the dictatorship that were conducting genocide against the native Mayan populations because “anticommunism” and Pope John Paul endorsed it. None of that had anything to do with abortion.
topclimber
I don’t recall my initial thoughts but at some point I found a silver lining: “At least we don’t have to put up with Republicans telling us how much MORE they love America that anyone else.”
It was kind of a followup to my thoughts on the day of 9/11. “G.D. Jihadists just gave the GOP a free pass to start another Middle Eastern war.” Which is kind of what bin Ladin wanted.
Yarrow
Definitely agree with this. Loved seeing this Biden back. Need more of it.
Leto
I was out most of the morning running errands so didn’t get to catch Biden/Harris’ speeches. I was beyond stunned as the events transpired that day. Avalune and I were watching it on the couch, and like people said in the thread below, it was like 9/11. She eventually had to go back to her computer to work, but I watched the entire coverage and it’s still rage inducing a year later. I understand the methodical process that has to go into this work (If you go for the king…), but I also agree with the federal judges who have questioned the leniency of most of the sentences.
topclimber
@patroclus:
Don’t be too hard of them. Many of them may have a date soon with the select committee or the DOJ. Best to stay mum.
VOR
@lowtechcyclist: There have been a number of local right-wing Catholic priests making pronouncements on COVID. For example, a priest in La Crosse, WI. The Pope is officially in favor of the COVID vaccines, calling getting vaccinated “an act of love”.
I put a TV into my home office during the start of the Iraq War. But now you can just stream things over the internet.
Kay
Just a reminder that if every state did what Massachusetts does with public schools we’d be a better country and save fucking BILLIONS on consultants. When you have a working model you should use it! Don’t complicate this! Follow them. Mimic it. Only ego is getting in your way :)
Public schools started there. They invented them. No brainer.
TaMara (HFG)
I know, I KNOW, that these folks are not really pro-democracy, at least not the way I see democracy, but we have to acknowledge that they are at least not MAGAs when the rest of the repugs are:
TaMara (HFG)
@TaMara (HFG):
germy
@Kent:
Biden is Catholic. There’s another wing of the church that he’s part of. It isn’t the reactionaries.
It seems it’s the priests in the confederate states who went crazy. Maybe they just wanted to blend in with their surroundings.
bluegirlfromwyo
If the members of the Knights of Columbus my spouse once frequented are an indicator, the right wing priests are as pro-life as their evangelical counterparts.
TaMara (HFG)
Okay…I’ve got to stop avoiding my day. I just finished shoveling…again…and now I need to get some actual work done. But one last tweet:
germy
Leto
@Kay: and then you remember Massachusetts is a “liebruhl” state and no “liebruhls” are gonna tell good God fearing people what to do!!!! Argle blargle noise parents rights!!!!!
It’s the same as looking at other countries, what they’re doing right, and trying to integrate that here. Except that it’s a fellow state. It’s the same opposition, same mentality. We’re not asking you (royal you) to adopt this proposal to a T, but to take it and adapt it to your community/situation. Just try to make your area better. Nope, too much of an ask.
schrodingers_cat
Me from a year ago after the Capitol was breached
germy
@TaMara (HFG):
Their goal is to transform the party of trump into the party of cheney.
I wish them luck, but I’ll only ride half of the journey with them (the anti-trump part).
Yarrow
@TaMara (HFG): Very glad to see what the Cheneys are doing. Have any of the Bush clan spoken out? W? Jeb? Someone else?
germy
@TaMara (HFG):
Now it’s “Look at all those people testifying about me.”
Kent
Of course. There is a whole other social justice wing of the Catholic church.
What I am calling bullshit on is all these right wing priests who feel that they “sadly” have to support the GOP because of abortion. That is what is utter bullshit. They are all right-wingers through and through and abortion is just the latest excuse they pull out of their asses. Before the 1970s it was anti-communism.
The point I am making is that they are LYING to you when they say it is all about abortion. That is just the fig leaf for their fascism. They would be just as right wing if abortion didn’t even exist as an issue
This also isn’t some new Trump-oriented MAGA development. There has always been a giant right-wing conservative/fascist wing of the Catholic Church going all the way back to the Inquisition, the Thirty Years War, the Reformation, and before.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Sort of OT – I know you have spoken at length about how damaging WhatsApp has been in India to fuel Hindu nationalism (is that the right description?) and Modi’s rise. How have you handled using WhatsApp? Have you kept it and tried to fight back or deleted it? Struggling with this issue in a different area with some folks. Appreciate your thoughts.
Mike in NC
Many of us thought that the so-called “Battle of Lafayette Park” — when peaceful protesters were violently driven away so the Fat Orange Clown could pose for a ridiculous photo-op holding a bible — was the beginning of the end for Trump. (Apparently his idiot daughter’s not so bright idea.) The religious right in this country is obsessed with shoving their deranged beliefs down our throats, and have been for decades. Trump was their god-emperor despite the fact that he never prayed a day in his life.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: I don’t participate in WA groups. If someone sends me a lie, I debunk it. Hindu Nationalism is the right description.
germy
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Do you use the app?
Kent
@Mike in NC: I think the beginning of the end was Covid. Which exposed the utter incompetence and venality of Trump in a new way, just like Katrina did for Bush. Take away Covid and I think Trump wins re-election in 2020. Seriously.
Kay
@Leto:
Schools are the worst because it’s just nonsensical. In what world are there “Ohio math standards”? What does that even mean? Can you use that math in… Michigan? Why or why not?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: They have to preserve their credibility with the howler monkeys for the sake of George P’s career, in the hope of treating the nation to yet another generation of the Bush family oedipal loop-de-loop: “I’ve got to suck up to the people who pantsed Daddy to prove to the world (and to Daddy) that I have a bigger dick than Daddy by defeating those people pantsed and mocked him”
germy
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: I do. I mainly use it to text with my Indian relatives and friends.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I wish they’d nipped grandpa in the bud back in the 1930s. Would have saved the country and the world from a lot of damage.
trollhattan
Pope Frank says “Get the jab, everybody” then Just to remind everybody he’s still Catholic, scolds you damn childless pet owners for being selfish and not spawning.
Guilt, it’s what’s for dinner.
Kent
Teacher here. Standards are not really the issue. They are just a list of topics you are supposed to cover and what grades you are supposed to cover them in. It is really about funding and governance and a whole bunch of other issues much more than curriculum standards.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: I am being pressured to use it but not really willing bc it’s owned by Faceborg. Do not trust their privacy/data harvesting claims.
CaseyL
I was at work on 1/6/21, and didn’t know anything was happening until a colleague came by and exclaimed that the Capitol was overrun. I went to news sites, and of course came here, and remember being mostly gobsmacked. “What the everlasting fuck?”
The rage didn’t set in until I knew more about how close so many Congresspersons came to being physically attacked/killed, about the police being beaten, about the desecration of the Chamber.
And the rage has been with me ever since. Every GOPer in Congress is a traitor, excepting the House members who voted to impeach Trump. But every Senator, yeah. The GOP is the Party of traitors, of treason. I’d love to see them all up on charges, convicted, and imprisoned.
Trump was the catalyst, the symptom. But the GOP is the disease.
Betty Cracker
TaMara, thanks for posting the clip of Klobuchar on Colbert. That was really good.
VOR
@Yarrow: John Oliver did a show about use of Whats App and other tools to spread misinformation. I found it eye opening.
Kay
I knew they were delaying conceding and accepting hoping to actually overturn, so it was horrible, but not shocking, to watch.
trollhattan
@germy:
I wish the NYC cops had clubbed Fred Trump Sr. to death at that klan riot he was ticketed at.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
I ? me some Amy. You just know those Republican dude senators know better than to tangle with her.
germy
@trollhattan:
Mary Anne would have remarried some other monster and spawned some other monster.
Kay
@Kent:
Thanks. I don’t mean to be so flippant- I know it’s complicated- but if you have one state that is a clear leader it just seems practical to follow them. Even under “the laboratory of the states” ideology.
Yarrow
@VOR: Yep. It can be really toxic. And Faceborg wants to integrate it with their other messaging platforms. They got a lot of pushback on that last year, which (I’m guessing) is part of why they’re running those soft focus “privacy is so important to us”
PR spotsads all over the place.dc
I want to thank everyone on this blog because that’s how I survived last January 6. I was too upset to watch anything live, so I got through the day reading comments on this blog and constantly refreshing the pages. I would have been a much worse basket case without all of you.
JWR
Perhaps already mentioned, but yep, Amy K really was on fire last night. So were Kathleen Belew and Bill Moyers on last night’s Amanpour & Co, not to mention Aaron Rupar in an excellent interview on yesterday’s Background Briefing:
PS. Dagnabbit! What a great couple of days to fall six (count ’em, 6!) threads behind. (C’mon you guys, don’t write so fast, cause I’m a slow reader.)
;)
Kay
@Kent:
And obviously they’re well funded- double Ohio’s- but what if that’s what it costs? Could it maybe just cost that much?
C Stars
@CaseyL: I didn’t know about it until after the fact either. Just didn’t check the news that afternoon. I had seen a picture of the Qanon shaman guy at the initial rally and just dismissed the whole thing outright as a freak-show. But at some point my spouse (who is somewhat unflappable) said “This is scaring me,” and I was shocked to find out that the GOP (which is usually so skilled at messaging) had let those weirdos wreak havoc for hours on end. I don’t think my rage even began until a few days later, when I realized the RWers were actually going to try to pretend that it was all Antifa and make up their own “facts” out of whole cloth. I’m not sure how well that has worked for them though. (I mean for the 70% of the population who are not drooling morons–obviously there are a lot of Qweirdos out there who still believe all sorts of outlandish shit.)
realbtl
I wonder how many people who say Joe Biden is a boring speaker have ever actually attended one of his speeches. I saw him in 2008 here in my ~100k pop. typically conservative Montana county. He filled the HS auditorium (biggest venue in the co.) and was absolutely in charge of his audience. It may be a live vs video thing but Joe can bring it.
Kay
Boebert tweeted “this is 1776”
That’s what I think Liz Cheney is after- I think she knows she’ll get it. For her to be the leader of the post-Trump Party they have to be post Trump.
debbie
Rep. Raskin is on NPR’s On Point discussing his book about his son, but he’s also discussing 1/6 and being just as blunt about Trump as Biden was this morning. This is a day of gifts!
Yarrow
@germy: Same here. I’m very appreciative of the Republican anti-Trumpers but it only goes so far. Glad they’re here now, though.
@Kay:
Yep. And she’s working hard at it. Dick Cheney there today. Karl Rove wrote an editorial in the WSJ. Bill Kristol’s group is running that commercial on Fox News.
scuffletuffle
@trollhattan: Lol, no shit, but being a white dude dedicated to “celibacy” is apparently A-OK.
WTF???
MattF
Karl Rove, of all people, has come down on the side of truth telling. See WSJ opinion piece and item in USA Today. Quite disorienting, but he’s unambiguous about it.
ETA: #57 beat me to it.
trollhattan
@germy:
But her monster spawn would have inherited zero Trump dollars, given Fred was just 21 at the time.
Kent
My only point is that it isn’t about standards. And frankly has very little to do with standards. Both Massachusetts and Mississippi have adopted the same Common Core standards. Yet both are clearly at different points on the education spectrum. It is about all the difficult things related to school funding and management, not a list of topics to cover by subject and grade.
Kay
@Yarrow:
They have all those senate candidates though! Trumpy as hell. He’s burrowing in. It’s going to take more than getting rid of some crazies in the House.
Kent
Yes, it is about dollars. And more importantly, spending them well. But also about community support for public education, parental support, poverty, race, and a hundred other things.
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
If a Cheneyfied Republican Party is our booby prize for de-Trumpifying the party, I’ll grudgingly accept. At least we’ll know who and what we’re dealing with, not the nazi flavor-of-the-day.
Four years of Trump absolutely exhausted me.
Baud
@Kent:
There are a few Republicans who understand that any success by Trumpists in overthrowing democracy will be short lived and the aftermath will be brutal for the party.
Kelly
Oddly I have no recollection of last January 6. I see I exchanged emails with friends so I was following events as they enfolded. Between the pandemic, the Beachie Fire and the overall political chaos my brain was kinda on overload for a lot of last winter. Worth noting that we had a similar attack on the Oregon Capitol Dec 21 2020. Cops were holding the mob off until a Republican legislator opened a back door for them.
Yarrow
@Kay: For sure. I don’t know if the non-Trumpers will win. Cheney is being primaried in Wyoming.
I do like the new tone coming from Biden and Dems today, plus what Garland said yesterday. Klobuchar last night. Maybe the beginning of a harder push against them. Who knows.
Yarrow
@trollhattan: Yep. It’s so disorienting that Cheney looks like a sane, reasonable, centrist Republican now. Ugh. Nixon is practically a communist by those standards.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: Yeah I don’t see there being much of a party, call it what you will, for Cheney to lead. The convention could be held, if not in a phone booth, then in one of the smaller dining rooms of the Cheney or Romney family ski ‘chalets’
VeniceRiley
It’s going to be impossible to turn this indoctrination tide:
https://www.mediaite.com/daily-ratings/cable-news-ratings-tuesday-january-4th-the-five-tops-the-charts-as-rachel-maddow-eclipses-laura-ingraham/
Kent
As a science teacher I used to just tell my HS students that my generation “broke” the planet and it is going to be up to their generation to fix it.
Now I also have to tell them that my generation “broke democracy” and it is also up to their generation to fix that.
As if the first task wasn’t big enough….
I’m generally an optimist and I think long-term we will end up OK. But it is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride and with a lot of collateral damage.
Cermet
Just as in Fort Sumter in 1860, the first shoots of the American second civil war were fired in 2020; strangely, this time it was in defense of liberty.
If we lose the next major battle – 2024, then our democracy will be destroyed just as the Sothern Slavers dreamed.
Make no mistake, the very survival of our country is at stake and it looks like – thanks to our slave based constitution – that the odds are stacked against liberty.
Geminid
@Yarrow: Cheney’s Wyoming primary will be one test of trump’s strength within the Republican party, although it will be a relatively small sample of voters. The Georgia Governor primary between Brian Kemp and David Perdue, and the North Carolina Senate primary between Pat McCrory and Ted Budd are two others to watch.
Kent
@VeniceRiley: We don’t have to really turn it. That’s just a couple of million mostly older white people who were mostly never going to do anything but vote GOP anyway. According to those ratings numbers, only about 1% of the American population is actually watching Fox News. The top two news shows on your list, the Five and Tucker Carleson both only got about 3 million viewers. And a bunch of those are people like my MAGA aunt and uncle who just leave Fox News on all day long in their retirement condo whether they are watching or not. By contrast, Walter Cronkite got nearly 30 million viewers nightly back when the population was much smaller and there were less TVS. We need to focus on the other 99%.
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: Timing is everything.
This is the anniversary, that means something. January is a quiet period when there’s not a lot happening and people are catching their collective breath after the rush of the holidays, so there’s space for them to pay attention.
The committee has caught some good threads to pursue, so the dog is on the hunt. Plus they are trying to catch everyone’s attention on the voting issue while there’s still time to pass a bill and have it make a difference.
Someone (or multiple someones) is very much paying attention to timing.
WaterGirl
@Cermet: Our next major battle is 2022.
Kent
@Kelly: I was teaching remotely on 1/6 and remember turning on the TV after I saw mention of what was happening on the blogs. But I don’t think it really sunk in how severe the situation was until afterwards. And the extent to which it was an orchestrated coup attempt and not just a bunch of delusional MAGA filth getting predictably violent.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): Credit where credit is due and all. Also “insert appropriate Stalin analogy here”.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Even if Cheney’s side ends up on top of the Republican party after a few more cycles, I think Cheney herself could never win the Presidential nomination. Less polarizing Republicans will win it instead: people like Glenn Youngkin and George P. Bush; or Paul Ryan, who stepped away at a good time.
zhena gogolia
@dc: It’s the only way.
Kent
@Geminid: Perhaps a Hispanic candidate (male of course) so they can seal up Texas and Arizona and Florida. George P. Bush is kind of that. But it could just as easily be someone we haven’t heard of. No one heard of Barak Obama until the 2004 convention keynote speech and he was elected four short years later.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I’m not sure what the endgame is for them. Cheney is smart and understands there’s no place for her in Trump’s party. She either wins or she’s done. What happens after that, who knows.
@Geminid: Wyoming is an interesting case to watch. It’s such a small population state, mostly white people. It’s like a little microcosm of the Republican party.
Scout211
Okay, now I am laughing. Trump lashes out at Biden.
Hmmm. So I guess that means he didn’t actually listen to the President’s speech? ?
Ken
If the Republicans aren’t showing up, perhaps they should be represented by video footage from last year? Lindsay Graham sweating and pleading for normalcy, for example. Or that representative who was screaming for the capitol police to shoot the insurrectionists — I think he was the one who later called them tourists?
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Maybe he should have said “Brandon.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Peter Bogdonavich has died. Reminds me I’ve had The Last Picture Show on my DVR for a while now.
zhena gogolia
@Ken: Yep. Andy Clyde.
Yarrow
@Kent: George P is running for TX AG against Paxton. I’m not sure he can get elected. I think Eva Guzman has a better chance. And Gohmert is running as well. Comedy. We’ll see, I guess. George P wants to walk the line between establishment R and Trump R. I’m not sure it can be done or if so he can do it.
Betty
@Yarrow: I read that Jeb was happy about some school voucher news the other day. Priorities.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not terribly important, but I’m curious about the protocol. Is there as a guest of his MoC daughter? As a former MoC? former Veep?
Kay
@Scout211:
Donald Trump should admit he lost. It matters. Be a big, grown up candidate. Admit you lost.
Trump can still end this. All he has to do is concede like every other losing candidate has. His cult members are followers. Without him leading the big lie they will collapse.
Geminid
@Yarrow: Wyoming also has a fairly open primary; I believe any registered voter can reregister Republican on primary day and vote in the primary. Cheney will get some votes from Independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans.
Harriet Hageman(sp?), Cheney’s trump-endorsed opponent, lags in fundraising. She hopes to pick up ground later this month with a fundraising event at Mar-a-Loco.
NotMax
@Yarrow – @Kent
No such person. It’s George P. G.
Stop validating Republican framing, puh-leeze.
Geminid
@Kent: This is true. And Cheney and Roves side of the party might not come out on top of the Republican party. The radicals could maintain control even if they get their asses kicked for two or three general election cycles. Or worse for us all, the radicals might steal the 2024 Presidential election, and control the party and the nation for years.
MagdaInBlack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All the empty seats on the Republican side are pretty disgusting. As if i needed more proof.
VeniceRiley
@Kent: Thanks for talking me down.
Kent
@Yarrow: Yes, but running in a Texas GOP primary is an entirely different thing than running in a national election. Texans would be all over him if it was a national race between George P. Bush and someone like say Kamala Harris.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh man, one of my favorite directors. :-(
MJS
@Kay: I think it’s too late for that. If he were to finally concede, the nuttiest of his followers (i.e., all of them) would simply see it as a sign of some grand event to follow in 2 weeks, or one month, or tomorrow.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
I legit would rather it be Liz than Paul Ryan (Christ, what a choice).
Yarrow
@Kent: Yes, but he would have to win the Republican primary first. I’m not sure running for President with his highest elected office having been Texas Land Commissioner would get him there. I think people like DeSantis would eat him for lunch.
His best shot is to run for a higher office in Texas first. I don’t know if he’s got what it takes to win the AG primary. We’ll see.
Baud
@trollhattan: I don’t think Ryan was really all that popular except with the Village crowd.
Kent
Cable TV is disappearing as fast as telephone land lines. And the people who still watch it are mostly those who still have a land line phone in their kitchens that mostly gets slammed by telemarketers. The percentage of people under 60 who watch actual live TV on cable is shrinking fast every year. None of my kids have even watched an actual live cable or network TV show in years except for very specific news events like the inauguration. I set up a TV in my 23 year old daughter’s bedroom when she moved back during the pandemic. And she didn’t even want a cable box, just an Apple TV for Netflix and Prime. And often they aren’t even watching that stuff but just casting YouTube shows to the big screen off their phones.
Now the internet is a whole different issue and enormously problematic. But it isn’t Tucker Carlson.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@lowtechcyclist:
I note that one commenter says the the politicization was Drinan’s fault.
First, how many people actually remember Drinan’s antiwar activism? And why didn’t that tweeter remember Fr. Coughlin, the Hays Code, the Office of the Inquisition, etc.?
Kent
@Yarrow: As a former Texan I don’t think he is actually going anywhere. He is just a convenient example of a non MAGA and sort of Hispanic politician for lack of a better one.
Gravenstone
Ya know, if we had the previous definition for cloture/filibuster (2/3 of the Senators present), we could get a whole boatload of effective legislation passed under such conditions. No obstruction expected if the obstructionists voluntarily absent themselves.
Cacti
Wherever fascist political movements were found, the RCC was there walking hand in hand with them. No surprise that it would be true the second time around also.
Benw
I think the angriest I got was watching those fucking assholes chase officer Goodman up the stairs. I was deeply delighted when we found out he was toying with them!
Leto
@trollhattan: unexpected Sophie’s Choice.
Kent
Trump has NEVER been a leader. He’s always been a follower. His entire political career is to just wet his finger, put it up to the wind, and follow wherever the worst instincts of the white racist wing of the party lead.
Look what happens when he tries to get out in front of them on any topic like say Covid vaccinations. They don’t listen.
The GOP election fraudsters have been building this machinery for years. People like Kris Kobach. Trump just jumped aboard for the ride. The rot is much deeper than Trump.
Nelle
@Kay: Every mention of Trump needs to be prefaced as Sore Loser Trump. Make that stink stick through endless repetition, even to the choir here. Never know who is lurking. We all remember that kid who argued every loss. Make the nation ring with “Sore Loser Trump.”
Cacti
I would say Bleeding Kansas was the start of the American Civil War.
Lyrebird
@TaMara (HFG): I agree with you completely, and I am a person who thinks Mr. Cheney should have faced war crimes charges at the Hague.
I think to what I have read about the Civil War, how some of the white abolitionists were devoted to equality and human rights, while some were racist as can be and wanted non-white people to go away, and both types made a difference in the fight to eradicate slavery.
Doesn’t mean I am going to become some big fan of any of the Cheneys. Just means I am glad that any R is willing to stand up for truth or democracy right now.
James E Powell
I turned on MSNBC just to see what the Village is saying about Our President’s speech and the very first thing was Chuck Fucking Todd making complete sense, then Andrea Mitchell agreeing with him.
I had to shut if off because I don’t know how to handle this.
Cacti
@Benw: It’s both darkly humorous and tragically sad that Goodman knew as a black man, even in 2021, he could use himself as bait to distract a redneck mob.
Kay
@MJS:
I think it’s important in the sense of accountability. That people slide on these things – “norms”- and that destroys the norm. There’s all kinds of accountability and they’re all important. Legal or actionable accountability is just one part. Trump lowered the bar to “actionable and proveable illegality”. That’s a VERY low standard. To raise it up again will take more than one or another legal action against him. That just gets us to “criminal”.
laura
Man, that Project for a New American Century has gone off the rails…
@trollhattan: You may find this interesting- I was mesmerized: http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2020/7/pollyplattarchive28
Patricia Kayden
Yarrow
@Kay:
He won’t and to a certain extent can’t. Narcissists don’t ever. He knows he lost but his response was to hide until he figured out some way of explaining to himself and others that he really won. He’ll never admit it. It would destroy him.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I’d rather have Cheney also. But I think she will always be regarded as a traitor by a big chunk of the party, and someone with less baggage will beat her.
Gravenstone
@Kay: His cult members will turn on him in the blink of an eye if he actually concedes. They’ve already shown this the handful of times he’s made relatively anodyne remarks in support of vaccination. They’re too committed to the ideal of Republican supremacy to actually support the human that spawned that ideal.
Yarrow
@Kay: As I said above, he won’t ever admit he lost. It will be a lot easier to get other Republicans to admit it. Push that issue. Get them on record. Make them admit he lost. It’ll isolate him.
Ken
As a sometimes fan of 1776, I would nominate the removal of the anti-slavery passage from Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence.
mrmoshpotato
Correct.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Was FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech to Congress too divisive? /media
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: You can use it with your Google Voice # on a computer instead of a cell phone.
Leto
@Baud: and here we see the beginning of the BaudPoliticoPitchbot account.
Barbara
@Kent: This is probably a bit late. I used to follow the church more than I do now, and the history here is that the “Jesus Christ Liberator” wing of the church was real, epitomized by Archbishop Oscar Romero. Basically, JPII was blinded by anti-communism, believing that anyone who was an enemy of communism was better and to be preferred — and he took many actions to squelch the efforts of priests and others in Latin America to pursue social justice in behalf of desperately poor and oppressed followers. JPII was apparently stunned when Romero was assassinated, while conducting a church service no less. But it was too late. He picked a side and whatever good might have accrued from church action to pursue the rights and interests of people in Latin America was more or less killed. It is no mystery why so many Latinos have left the Catholic Church, but among them include freedom of conscience and access to ministers — because priests who favored liberal reform are fewer and fewer and not many people are going to devote their lives to an organization that works so actively against the interests of those they love.
ETA: I also love that one of these yoyos used the term “immigrationism” as a slur. The Catholic Church would be decimated in many areas were it not for its immigrant adherents.
The Thin Black Duke
@Geminid: If there’s no place for Liz in the GOP anymore, would she switch parties? It’d be an intriguing political play.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks for the tip
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Spain in the ‘30s.
Baud
@Leto: Heh. Michael Beschloss should team up with DougJ to do historical pitchbot tweets.
topclimber
@Yarrow: Well, as Joe Manchin has shown us, being President isn’t the only game in town.
If Cheney wins her Congressional seat she can just as easily win one in the Senate, since Wyoming is just one large CD.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Apparently, lifetime floor privileges. A good thing most former Congresscritters don’t take advantage — it could get awfully crowded.
sherparick
I figured we could use a break on all the toxic people in the United States right now. Here is a story about a very, very good dog.
Link
smith
@The Thin Black Duke: Our tent is pretty big, but probably not big enough to embrace a Cheney, especially as those tent poles have been steadily moving left. I could see Cheney and Murkowski and ? forming a right-leaning independent bloc, though being different chambers I don’t know if they could work together for any meaningful effect.
topclimber
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Pope JPII had the perfect excuse to sideline Drinan because he ran and won for political office.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, I believe that loophole once allowed former GOP reps to lobby and make “donations” on the House floor. It was a bit of a scandal when the GOP was still capable of being scandalized.
Chris
@Barbara:
I had a friend in college who majored in Latin American studies, and did a paper once comparing the Catholic Church’s influence and the level of social conservatism in various countries. Her observation was that one of the biggest predictors was how tightly the national clergy had been tied to the military regime (there almost always had been one) of the bad old days. If you had Oscar Romero types who genuinely tried to push back against regime oppression, the country was typically much more socially conservative and deferential to the Catholic Church. But the more the clergy had been in bed with the regime back then, the weaker their hold on society is today.
Leto
@smith: part of the reason our party won’t accept the Cheney’s is because they refuse to acknowledge their hand in creating this absolute horrific shitshow. Were they alone responsible? No. Did help continue the Republican party down the path that led to this? Sure as fuck did. I’m glad they’re acknowledging the rot and speaking out about it. But that’s like… the absolute bare minimum. Which in terms of “sane” Republican actions is about all that we can expect.
TriassicSands
What a breath of fresh air. I may have been more satisfied that Biden explicitly called out “Republicans” than I was at his repeated pitch-perfect condemnations of TFG. (That stands for That Fascist Goon, right?) However, his words about the fascist-in-chief were historic and vitally necessary.
I think it is fair to say that Joe Biden must now be impeached and removed from office for being mean to his predecessor. How rude.
I doubt there has ever been a presidential speech in which one president so starkly condemned his predecessor. If only we can go beyond these important and necessary words to actual action and accountability.
Baud
@Chris:
Not Latin America obviously, but that same dynamic happened in France, which is now almost stridently secular in its politics.
Barbara
@Chris: Right, beginning with the mothership of Spain.
scav
@trollhattan: The man has no pets, no children, no family life to speak of, is theoretically celibate but definitely has an entire city-state tending to his household support. Why again is he such an authority on human relationships / experience?
I hope St Francis kicks him.
sixthdoctor
@James E Powell: By the same token, right-wing columnist Matt Lewis wrote this column praising Biden without any whataboutism and I wasn’t sure how to react.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-the-day-that-joe-biden-became-president?ref=home
Yarrow
@TriassicSands:
Republicans are already planning to impeach Biden when (if, but more likely when) they win the House back this year.
Doing so is essential. Accountability and consequences are the only things that will stop this current march of fascism in America. A lot of these people are cowards and when they see they’ll pay a price for their actions they’ll back off.
Chris
@Baud:
Yeah. The nineteenth and even much of the twentieth century in France is one long grueling culture war in which the Church just can not fucking let go, and as a result, church attendance now is under 10% of the population.
And by contrast, Catholicism in Europe was never stronger than… when non-Catholic, preferably anti-Catholic, outsiders were in charge. Like Protestants (Ireland) or Communists (Poland, some other parts of Eastern Europe).
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Benw: Officer Goodman may have been toying with them but he knew if they caught up to him they might very well have killed or maimed him, and he did it anyway to try to keep them away from the chambers. That’s an actual patriot.
James E Powell
@Kent:
How big is that wing? Why do we never see or hear from them?
sdhays
As others have said, what stunned me was the ludicrous lack of preparation on the part of law enforcement. I couldn’t comprehend how unprepared they were. There were arrests in the days leading up to January 6 Proud Boys with guns illegally bringing in firearms into DC. That suggested to me that law enforcement knew that it could be pretty bad. But then I saw on the day that they were expecting a carnival rather than a riot or insurrection.
We don’t have a sufficient accounting of how that happened. There’s been a lot of finger-pointing, but not enough accountability.
Baud
James E Powell
@TaMara (HFG):
Speaker Pelosi is, in so many ways, a much better person than I will ever be.
Miss Bianca
Holy shit, those were great speeches.
That is all, please and thank you.
Geminid
@James E Powell: Well, Joe Biden is Catholic. So are Tim Ryan, Conor Lamb, and Nancy Pelosi, among others.
Leto
@Yarrow:
(WaPo) Sen. Ted Cruz says Republicans are likely to impeach Biden if they retake House
As always, I hope an anvil lands on his ballsack
Edit: as always, it just falls back on them to do a “retribution” style response. Nixon –> Clinton. Bork–> Garland (maybe there’s another person before that). Doesn’t matter that the criminal conduct, or the unfitness for office, it’s always “gotta do the same to them!”
Ken
@Baud: I hadn’t realized the JWST would be a source of heat pollution.
sdhays
@The Thin Black Duke: The Connecticut for Lieberman Party doesn’t have anyone running in Wyoming yet.
bluegirlfromwyo
I’ve thought this since Nov. 2016. The last year, I’ve had my doubts but still end up here. But my damage estimate has gone way up.
TriassicSands
@Yarrow:
What better way to bring legislature to a halt, when you have no interest in actually governing, than to spend all your time on investigations and impeachment? As we all know, facts will not enter into the picture.
If ever one could label something a “show trial” it will be the impeachment trial(s) of President Joseph Biden. It (or they) will even give Joe Manchin a chance to be truly “bi-partisan” and vote to convict.
I’m assuming that the main charge against Biden will be “tyranny.” However, I’m sure Mitch and Co. will be able to fabricate all kinds of bizarre charges against Biden. Why we may even hear testimony about Biden’s alleged activities in the basement of a pizza parlor.
Probably the most interesting aspect of any such trial will be whether there will be any Republicans who vote to acquit.
Old School
@James E Powell:
There’s a link to an article by Father James Martin in the post.
topclimber
@James E Powell: Troll must say 10 Our Fathers, 10 Hail Mary’s and go on a retreat so he can get up to speed on welfare legislation and immigrant rights.
True, the many Catholics who push such issues and the many lapsed such who join them don’t get the media attention of the fetus fanatics. But then neither do those among them that are pro-choice.
Leto
@TriassicSands: Benghazi 2.0 but with more deregulation and tax cuts. Wonder if our people will just refuse to acknowledge the subpoenas and run out the clock. New playbook and all. (I know they won’t.)
Chris
@Leto:
They literally impeached a President for lying about his consensual sex life. This was after years and years of desperately, obsessively investigating his private life because surely there just had to be something more substantive.
Ksmiami
@Kent: No one expects the Spanish Inquisition- but hey I’m a member of the largest religious group- The ex-Catholics now atheists…
Miki
Yup – 100% agree. TFG has never had an original thought about anything.
trollhattan
@sdhays:
This. A hugely important question is why security was so light that morning compared to what was deployed during anti-Trump rallies, with full riot gear, more personnel and stouter physical barriers. I saw cutaways to the Capitol while Trump and the other terror cell leaders were speaking and had a full-on Collins Grand Canyon Furrow Alert reaction. Could not believe the lack of preparation*.
*Used ironically, because it was most probably a series of decisions made with full knowledge of what was to come.
trollhattan
@Chris: Ken Starr’s lasting gift to the nation was his lurid fascination for the sex lives of others. Which had jack all to do with Whitewater but whatevs, amirite?
It would have been amusing to have the same level of scrutiny applied to one Newt Gingrich.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Really?
The Dickens you say!
Did they trot out Peter Baker to restore both sides and Susan Glasser to explain how Biden had overreached and what about Afghanistan?
bluegirlfromwyo
@Leto: But what about Bill Clinton? (said every gooper voter ever)
Edit: must. read. before. commenting.
Chris
@trollhattan:
Nah. They’d just have been hypocrites about it, there’d have been endless tedious arguments about how it’s different, and it would’ve led nowhere in the end. Even then, SoCons didn’t actually give a shit about these things in and of themselves.
(I’m too young to remember this, but I’m told that there was a time when social conservatives insisted that they would never vote for a President who’d been divorced. Then Reagan ran for office, and that “principle” was never heard from again. Presumably they assumed the horny bastard in question would be some JFK type liberal).
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Based on continuing interviews with the Afghan diaspora on BBC, I get the feeling the Brits are still butthurt over our leaving the place. Bojo of course was free to replace our troops if he felt that strongly.
Ksmiami
@James E Powell: it’s official the Powers that Be now see that Trumpism is a road to chaos and death and not good for business. Republican trailer trash just isn’t a good demographic for capitalists
James E Powell
@Geminid:
I know that, but I’m wondering, ¿Où sont les frères Berrigan d’antan?
The public face of the Catholic Church is anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, and protecting pedophiles.
Gravenstone
Well, they expected the protestors cum rioters cum insurrectionists to be white, as a starting point.
trollhattan
@Chris:
You’re not wrong. One of the things they held against Rockefeller was his divorce, I think even carrying over to his being Ford’s VP.
Then comes Trump with his hat trick of wives, and not a word.
Chris
@trollhattan:
“It’s pathetic. That you British still believe you have the right to police the world.”
James E Powell
@topclimber:
I’m not talking about Catholic people, but the bishops & priests. That they are not outspoken enough to get media attention is my point. I don’t think that makes me a troll.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@VeniceRiley: That Carlson is so popular among middle aged people means we are in for a long difficult fight.
Subsole
@Kent:
For that matter, go look up the Carlist Requetes and the Church during the Spanish Civil War.
Mother Church was very good to Papa Franco.
Subsole
@bluegirlfromwyo: The pro-life movement is really just a HOA with an impregnation fetish.
trollhattan
@Subsole:
Heh!
I will never think of lawncare regulations in the same light, again.
Chris
@James E Powell:
A lot smaller than it was a generation ago.
Catholicism used to be the religion of immigrants who were largely poor, widely despised, and questionably white. As a result, Catholics practically had to embrace messages that were pro-poor, pro-social-justice, and at least to some extent pro-diversity as a simple matter of self-preservation. Not unlike black Protestant churches today.
As many of those Catholics “became white” and integrated into society, and as Catholicism in general stopped being a stigma, the imperative for those kinds of politics lessened. This happened around the same time as the post-Vatican-II conservative backlash that was happening throughout the church as a whole. So the result is that the clergy of today is far more right-wing than it was in the sixties, maybe even the eighties.
Well, in addition to what I said above, there’s also the fact that people who care about this shit nowadays are far more likely to just leave the church, either by not letting their attendance drop or by actually leaving altogether. That’s a side effect of the overall secularization of society. People who in earlier generations might have continued to push for liberal policies from within the Catholic Church are now happy to just do it themselves as part of other groups. Right-wingers, meanwhile, redoubled their efforts to control the institution. The result… is what stands before us today. There are still tons of good Catholics and many of them in positions of power throughout society. But the religious institution itself is right-wing as hell.
J R in WV
@Chris:
The one time we got to be in Paris, and visited Notre Dame, the church staff were mean-spirited and almost wicked old people. It was such a contrast to the beauty of the building we were astounded — how could one work all day in such a beautiful space and be such a sour, mean person?
But they managed.
Somehow.
Perhaps they were abused as children by priests? Still a lot of that going on, 60 or 70 years ago it had to be more common than it is today. France is a strange country, we loved our visit, mostly in the country around the mountains and caves of the SE region. I liked Paris for the one full day and two nights we were there.
OT: Still snowing hard here, 3 inches so far, looks to be several more to come; dogs are astounded, forgot all about snow since last winter.
Hard to believe we still have an intertubes connection! First snow this winter. We had a hard freeze last winter, the county-seat was shut down when we got out first Covid shots, no power, the clinic was on their own giant diesel generators burning natural gas.
Chris
@trollhattan:
“Who has a power complex over flowers? It’s dictatorship for inadequates! Put another way: it’s dictatorship!”
gvg
@sdhays: To me it was perfectly obvious that responsible people in charge of the police, armed forces and National Guard, thought having too many official armed people around would just be used by Trump to steal the election, or create some kind of bloody incident. I happen to think they were right. If there had been more guards around, Trump might have succeeded not failed. Remember, he was the actual Commander and Chief. He is also stupid about thinking violent solutions always work.
I am not sure about the DC police, but even the capital police I think obey him theoretically. The military was obviously trying not to be available to him. I don’t think there was a way for them to plan to help Congress while he was in office. When Governors sent National Guards in, it was quick at the last minute, but if they had been in place ahead of time, I think Trump could take over the command….
I have insufficient real knowledge if these legalities, but that incident in Lafayette square was only a few months previous and the military clearly didn’t like the way it made them look.
Annie
@germy:
not quite. Archbishop Cordileone in San Francisco, a leftover from Benedict XVI, has said publicly he’s not vaccinated IIRC wants to hold in person church services last year, pre-vaccine.
Chris
@J R in WV:
I’m from there, on my mother’s side. Went to French schools for all of K12 education, and still go to the embassy to vote in every election.
The funny thing religiously is that as a kid, the American ideal of religious pluralism always appealed to me more than either side of the French culture war. Let people enjoy their damn religions already, but don’t promote any of them above the others (or above non-religion), either.
Of course, it’s easier to do that when your main reference for “America” is the suburban East Coast at the turn of the millennium, where religious diversity was the norm and already people were starting to come around on abortion and gay rights. Wasn’t until I went to American college that I really got the full blast of red state religion, where “pluralism” means having a Baptist and a Methodist church, and “religious freedom” means you’re not allowed to oppress Christian children by not having the Pledge of Allegiance.
Matt McIrvin
Did you catch the reference to Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech? “Rule or ruin”…
sdhays
@gvg: I would like someone to say, unequivocally that, “yes, we knew it was likely to be violent and overwhelming, but we were afraid that bringing in the National Guard risked putting resources in place that the Former President would attempt to abuse in an effort to effect a coup.” If that’s true, then we should talk about that.
Until then, I don’t subscribe such lofty notions to these people. But you might be right that it was a least part of it.
Uncle Cosmo
he says, watching Tricky Dick morph into Trotsky Dick…;^D
sab
@Chris: I know nothing about French schooling, except that whoever they and wherever their parents came from they seem to turn out extremely patriotically French. Parents were North African immigrants, but they grew up in France and are French. Sort of American that way.
Having read Fionna Hill’s book about childhood in the UK, I was wondering at what level the government in France cuts kids off from educational oqpportunities. Do you have any idea?
ETA Also that bit about Napolean wanting to look at his watch and know what any French kid in the world was studying at that point, but that seems apopchryphal and probably also out of date even if true.
topclimber
@James E Powell: My apologies for a cheap shot then. Jesus knows there is a better way to make my point (not that we two have talked in a long while). The Devil just tempted me with the penance line.
I agree that anyone north of parish priest or especially nun in the institutional Church tends to lose sight of core concepts like aiding the poor and homeless because they are busy defending an establishment they think they run.
@Chris: Perhaps the Hispanic and Haitian connection can tap some of that new immigrant fervor of yesterday’s Irish, Italians and Poles.
debbie
@Yarrow:
I believe there are going to be big issues this winter with the power grid and that it will end Abbott’s and Paxton’s political careers.
debbie
@Kent:
Trump will never, EVER admit he’s lost ANYTHING. Period.
debbie
@Baud:
My apartment could use that Radiator. It never gets warm here.
artem1s
@MattF:
Karl Marley Rove has a lot of chains he forged in life to carry around. But I doubt that’s what he’s concerned about. He just wants back on the campaign ad-buy gravy train. As soon as the Bush Crime family is back in control of the GOP he will gladly turn on the Southern Strategy Voter Suppression fire hose. Fuck that guy forever for what he did in 2000 and 2004 elections.
sab
Isn’t Ireland about 3% church attending anymore? Time to stop scolding the congrgants and start doing your pastoral job.
Good friend of my husband, very devout Catholic, was sitting in church right before pandemic. New priest launched a diatribe about inappropriate dress for church. Friend piped up ” At least they are here in Church this morning.” Priest launched into a full bore rant, and friend got up and walked out. Not their fathers’ church.
sab
@artem1s: I am on your side against Rove. Not vindictive, just realistic about who and what he is and that is no compatible with us.
Clintons learned that in a much milder form with Mark Rudd. He was a political hot shot but he was not actually a Democrat.
sab
@sab: Their fathers’ church didn’t have to worry about attendance. This one does. Big change. Priest should note.
J R in WV
@James E Powell:
That would be the wing President Biden belongs to, perhaps. They also work for racial justice, environmental causes, etc. You don’t hear that much about them because they don’t get promoted to Bishop very often, although Pope Frank might do that more often than Pope Benedict or similar Nazi supporters did.
Look up Catholic Workers Party, for one group. Not as big now as they were back when socialism wasn’t a dirty word, but still around.
The Lodger
@gvg: Yup. People were anticipating a military riot control presence would be used to crush lefty protestors a la Lafayette Square, not go up against Trumpy insurrectionists. When the lefty protestors failed to show up, there was no advance planning to effectively use the military against the people who actually invaded the Capitol. Lack of readiness implies a slow response from the DOD.
Another Scott
@artem1s: Yup.
TheWeek –
Thanks for that “reality”, Karl. Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
The Lodger
@debbie: Blatant incompetence hasn’t done anything to harm Abbott’s and Paxton’s political careers. Why should it start now?
debbie
@The Lodger:
No heat or hot water in the winter two years in a row will do that to people.
Mark Kauai
@Kent: great post. Keep it coming.
Geminid
@James E Powell: Biden and Pelosi may not preach the gospel of liberal Catholicism, but they demonstrate it, which is a more powerful witness.