Here are some political odds and ends to ponder this afternoon — or not.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, highly liberal? According to Tucker Carlson, yes:
(Source: Washington Examiner) “Unless conservatives get their act together right away, Kevin McCarthy, or one of his highly liberal allies, like Elise Stefanik, is very likely to be speaker of the House in January. That would mean we will have a Republican Congress led by a puppet of the Democratic Party,” Carlson said on his show.
Rick Wilson’s take makes more sense to me:
If @EliseStefanik keeps leaking these tapes of @gopleader I don’t know where this is going to end.
He may not even hold on as Minority Leader for another month.
I guess she knows what she’s doing.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 27, 2022
I’m not sure what Carlson’s angle is here. Maybe he’s trying to maneuver Scalise into the GOP leader slot. Carlson would probably find “David Duke without the baggage” more of a kindred spirit than a back-slapping haircut like McCarthy or a [gasp!] woman like Stefanik.
Speaking of fascist cocksplats, Rep. MadCaw of NC is fucking up at such a furious clip that it’s inspired speculation he’s on a quest to amass the most scandals ever. Jon Chait:
No lawmaker in recent memory has inspired such fervent, bipartisan speculation as Madison Cawthorn. The young, right-wing first-term member of Congress has generated so many horrible news stories, ranging from the personal to the ideological, that observers have grown obsessed with locating the unifying thread that explains it all. Is he a secret Nazi? Some kind of sex weirdo? A compulsive liar?
These are all plausible theories. But I am increasingly drawn to a novel explanation of Cawthorn’s frenetic generation of terrible news stories: He has made a list of every major political scandal and is attempting to commit all of them.
I’ll go with the Occam’s Razor explanation here: Cawthorn constantly says and does dumb and/or illegal things because he’s irretrievably stupid. Cawthorn is so dumb and embarrassing that he might actually get primary-bounced out of a seat that a bedraggled potted fern could hold indefinitely if it had an “R” after its name (genus, species classification, etc.) on the ballot.
Chait warns that Cawthorn “has decades of misconduct ahead of him.” Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on that nor volunteer to underwrite the life insurance policy of such a blithering idiot. It’s just as likely he’ll bleed out next year after accidentally shooting himself in the dick.
Anyhoo, enough about the morons. Let’s see what are the good guys up to these days.
TPM notes that Rep. Raskin dropped some intriguing clues about the January 6th coup attempt, specifically around what Pence knew:
Despite the Secret Service’s urging, Pence told his top security detail after being taken to a parking garage below the Capitol building, “I’m not getting in the car.”
This is the full quote: “I’m not getting in the car, Tim,” Pence said, addressing Tim Giebels, the lead agent in charge of his protective detail. “I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car…”
“Those are six of the most chilling words in American history to me because they were trying to remove him from the situation and of course there had been this effort to try to get Trump just to invoke Martial Law under the Insurrection Act,” Raskin said during an interview on MSNBC on Monday night — the six words referring to when Pence told his top security agent he wasn’t going to get in the car.
“This was a marriage between an inside political coup at the highest levels of the administration, with street thugs and hooligans and neo-fascists.”
Well, hot damn! Looking forward to those hearings. I hope Republican-appointed retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig will be invited to testify. His opinion piece in CNN makes it clear he knows exactly what Republicans are up to with the Big Lie. Luttig also advised Pence’s chief counsel, Gregory Jacob, when he was trying to fend off the importuning Trumpers who wanted Pence to help them steal the election.
Also, this is unreservedly awesome:
I’m with the OG Tonight ‼️@DoloresHuerta @amazonlabor ✊? pic.twitter.com/nFNHrg8CgQ
— Christian Smalls (@Shut_downAmazon) April 26, 2022
Open thread.
germy
But Scalise was caught on tape agreeing with McCarthy about Gaetz and Cawthorn. Isn’t he a liberal traitor, too? (according to Tucker?)
Cacti
Cawthorn is Exhibit A for why important jobs generally aren’t given to anyone whose age starts with a 2.
HumboldtBlue
When you deliver something by car or truck, it’s called a shipment.
When you deliver something by ship, it’s called cargo.
Explain that, Juicers.
JoyceH
I don’t understand why everyone is so sure the tapes were leaked by Stefanik. For one thing, those tapes with Cheney speaking were conference calls among GOP House leadership. While Cheney was still there, I don’t think Stefanik was even in the leadership, so where would she get access to the tapes? My money is on Scalise; I think he’s planning to be Speaker.
Of course it could be a disillusioned staffer just wanting to cause general mischief.
Another Scott
Isn’t Tuckems just doing the No True Scotsman thing? I.e., No GQPer would do what she supposedly did, therefore she’s not a GQPer.
Dunno.
Bring on the hearings. Let’s get it all out in the open and move forward.
Cheers,
Scott.
HumboldtBlue
Interesting thread.
In 1981, Oregon Republican Senator Mark Hatfield, a moderate, warned of the danger that the rising New Right posed to the nation. There were 3 specific issues he highlighted that might sound familiar.
Captain C
I think Fucker’s only real values are sadism, talking shit, and enhancing his own bank accounts and prestige. He’ll say or do anything to achieve them, not unlike his current idol TFG.
germy
@JoyceH:
But why would Scalise leak a tape that has him agreeing with McCarthy about how dangerous other Republicans are?
germy
Even if she isn’t responsible, it’s fun to make her deny it.
Rick Wilson is a nasty Republican and he’s using his dirty tricks against another nasty Republican. It’s good to see.
Ruckus ??
The only thing I’m hoping for and don’t expect to get is that every single rethuglican in elected federal government was/is in on the January 6th good times. It seems that they all at least knew about it, I wonder how much they thought of the event was negative. I’m betting the number is a very low percentage, single digit low.
germy
@HumboldtBlue:
And when it’s delivered by Amazon Prime, it’s called “missing”
jonas
The thing with Pence is framed a little weirdly, both by Raskin and the TPM story, imho. The lede doesn’t appear to be what *Pence* knew, namely that the mob that had stormed the Capitol was out to get him and prevent the certification of the electoral votes, but what the *Secret Service* might have known. Were any of Pence’s detail privy to the plot and did they move to get Pence out of the Capitol not so much for his safety as in order to get him out of Washington and away from the certification process? The implication is he suspected what they were doing and refused to go along.
If I’m off base here, please enlighten me.
WaterGirl
I’m still not feeling great today, so surely not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I don’t understand the significance of this:
I get that Pence doesn’t want to get in the car. But why not?
In particular, I don’t get this:
So the head of Pence’s detail wouldn’t be in the vehicle with him if Pence got in the vehicle? And Pence didn’t trust the other agents?
Ruckus ??
@Captain C:
How many other leading conservatives are actually any different?
The common good? If you asked any of them, off the record what they thought of the common good, I’d bet their answer would be along the lines of “Fuck that.”
Martin
The story around Pence is terrifying. The suggestion here is that the Secret Service was working to forward Trump’s plot and if they took Pence from the building, he’d probably never be able to come back. They’d fly Air Force 2 off to god knows where and strand him.
I remember when Biden swapped out his detail for the folks that protected him as VP. That told me the Secret Service was compromised.
The Moar You Know
I will give Pence this much credit: he moved heaven and earth to get to a position in life, Trump’s chief bootlicker and probably never thought that he’d really be, as a result of doing so, put in a position where the two most likely outcomes are him being handed to a mob or shot in the head in an industrial park somewhere. But there he was, and so far as I can tell he did not shit his pants. I probably would have.
And frankly there’s a lot of people who would have just gotten in the car.
Ruckus ??
@germy:
And when it’s supposed to be delivered by Amazon Prime, it’s called “missing”
FIXIT for you.
JPL
@WaterGirl: He would not be in Congress to oversee the ballots.
.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Ah. So more “I trust you, Tim, but you won’t be in the car with me, and I don’t trust these other secret service guys.”
Really amazing that when it really mattered, this toady, Mike Pence, stood up and did the right thing, even at risk of his personal safety. That in itself is mind-boggling.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Pence’s concern was that once the Secret Service were calling the shots, he’d get yeeted off to Eielson, and nobody would see him until after 1/20. He’d never be allowed back to the Senate to oversee the certification of the electoral college vote, and as a result, the election would *never* get certified.
JPL
@Martin: geez I remember just a few weeks ago when several agents were being bribed with all kinds of goodies. What happened to that story.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl:
He didn’t trust that the Secret Service would let him come back to the Capitol any time soon. “Too dangerous”, “can’t guarantee your safety”, etc.
Really terrifying that the transition of power depended on Mike Pence growing a spine and doing the right thing.
MisterDancer
Given that he knew there was pressure on him to kill the process, and valid physical threats, I’ve read that the speculation is that Pence had heard that the Secret Service was compromised, and even if not could drive him to a location where he’d be “protected,” but unable to certify the count, thus playing into the coup planners’ overall plans.
It’s all still speculating, and it’s critical to underline that. Yet, given all we know, it’s pretty clear Pence knew, or at strongly suspected, something was very off.
And that said something would cause, at the very least, him direct harm.
Ruckus ??
@WaterGirl:
Maybe he didn’t know who to trust.
It’s not like SFB was giving out actual information, he speaks in a language known as BS.
germy
JPL
Why was it assumed that Grassley would take Pence’s spot and shut down the count? Is he compromised also?
narya
@Martin: This is what I’ve been seeing (Pierce had a piece about it the other day). The implication I’m getting is that they planned to whisk him off to somewhere, which would have prevented the vote certification. They didn’t even have to hurt him–they just had to prevent him from playing his part. And I, too, was chilled at Biden changing his SecSvc detail; in the realm of Wild Speculation, Biden knew more/knows more about the various plots than anyone is letting on in public.
MadCaw is just a dolt. A dangerous dolt, for sure, but really a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
I’m leaning strongly to the notion that not only is the shame of NC-11 a spoiled brat raised in a fundygelical forcing box without enough contact with consensus reality to develop any perspective on how his conduct would be judged by others, but that that car wreck gave him significant brain damage of the sort that’s not immediately evident—with effects on impulse control, executive function, and possibly whatever copies short-term memory into long-term memory, so that he doesn’t consistently recall what he’s been told to do or not do.
Plus, perhaps, a lot of generalized anger and resentment over going from strong & active to wheelchair bound.
I don’t know if the inability to tell the difference between what appears to be a rich and colorful fantasy life and the real world is the result of his upbringing, post-traumatic, or maybe both.
germy
And that Pence sought the advice of the wise old sage… Dan Quayle.
Spanky
I’m thinking MadCaw stands a good chance of an early death from choking on vomit.
You Spinal Tap aficionados know the punch line.
germy
@Spanky:
But whose vomit?
guachi
The insurrectionists will suffer no electoral consequences. That’s the scariest thing to me. American democracy is deeply broken and it makes me sad.
JoyceH
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: I tend toward the notion that he was always a spoiled, impulsive jackass. Remember that he was a homeschooled brat who’d already been turned down by the Naval Academy before the accident, so his conviction of Specialness had already been impacted by reality, so that chip on his shoulder was probably already firmly in place.
Betty
@JPL: He apparently made a comment stating that he would be in charge because Pence wouldn’t be there.
zhena gogolia
@jonas: I don’t get it either. ETA: I see several people have explained it.
WaterGirl
@germy: Even more shocking that the advice of Dan Quayle was good!
trollhattan
@HumboldtBlue:
Also, cargo pants: nautical wear?
catclub
This is just mindboggling to me, that Pence was that smart or well informed.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl: Not so shocking, IMO. Quayle was always just a rather dim country club Republican, not a revolutionary.
zhena gogolia
@germy: You can’t dust for vomit.
JoyceH
@catclub:
The way Trump and his cronies had been nagging him for weeks to do something that he wasn’t legally allowed to do, he didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.
debbie
@JPL:
Grassley said he would take Pence’s spot. No idea about his authority to do so, but I think they were all well past that by then.
catclub
@guachi:
But according to NPR Biden will suffer in the midterms from the lost youth vote. It sure does not follow for me that “Since Biden has not raised the national minimum wage to $15 AND abolished student debt, I’m voting for the fascists.” … but I am old.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Pence’s national security advisor, a former general, advised Pence to not trust the Secret Service because he was told by the lead agent in charge of the activities that day that the plan was to move Pence to Edwards, and Pence’s advisor understood how coups work.
Some Dem lawmakers also understood this and advised their colleagues to not leave the building. Once they were out of the building, Trump could order the National Guard or whoever to secure the building under the guise of protecting it from the crowd and not allow lawmakers back in. And if Pence was unable to return, the certification couldn’t happen, and it’s really unclear what happens then.
Technically, Trump and Pence stop being president and VP at noon on 1/20, and it gets pretty hazy who is president then. Technically it’s not Biden/Harris because the EC vote was never certified, and Congress now has no way to certify it. Maybe the rules of succession kick in. But there’s almost no way it doesn’t land in front of USSC, which had just been arranged very aggressively in Trumps favor.
But even if the outcome isn’t known, the coup benefits from the chaos. It buys them time and room to operate. They know the outcome without the coup. But the outcome with the coup at least has a chance to go their way.
germy
I think the problem is they just don’t bother voting
debbie
@jonas:
How many times had TFG pointed out Pence was the only solution to overturning the election results? I think he mentioned this every time he spoke to his supporters.
catclub
@JPL:
It is still grinding away.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I mean, having a bucket list of scandals is pretty ambitious and sounds like a lot of fun, if done right. I can respect that, if deliberate.
catclub
wow.
Martin
Don’t give Pence any credit for this decision. Give the credit to Gen Keith Kellogg. Kellogg is the one who told Pence to not get in the car. Kellogg is the one who saw the big picture.
Don’t think of him too much as a good guy. He fired Olivia Troye for criticizing Trumps Covid response. My guess is that either a line was finally crossed or that his loyalty to Pence won out the day. Regardless, Pence can scarcely formulate a strategy to get out of a room with only one door.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@germy:
Every time Scalise speaks, I find myself lamenting the poor state of training of certain marksmen and the clear lack of time spent on the range…..
Edmund Dantes
One consolation (if gop wins the house) I have is that McCarthy will never be speaker no matter how much he’s debased himself.
He never understood that he was minority speaker cause no one else wanted the job not because he was some amazing political mastermind that wrangled the gop caucus to his will.
once the role he is vying for is speaker of the house all those people will have the knives out for him. (Which has already begun)
trollhattan
@JoyceH:
Even the dumbest cat generally knows when the hell to get out when real danger presents itself. (The smart cats will be watching from somewhere and laughing, because cats.)
debbie
@germy:
Joe’s on it:
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@germy: Youth vote has been way up in the past few cycles.
While support for Biden specifically is down among younger voters, the Democratic brand is actually doing pretty well.
Biden won’t actually be on the ballot – down ticket Dems should be able to benefit from a continued uptick in young voter turnout and activism.
lowtechcyclist
Grassley was Senate President Pro Tempore, so he’d have presided over the Senate if Pence wasn’t able to.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Maybe you should watch it with the political assassination fantasies in public?
catclub
@Martin: Ah, that sounds more likely.
StringOnAStick
@germy: Maybe Tucker is trying to maneuver Tucker into the Speaker’s chair?
Just One More Canuck
@germy: thanks for the nightmare
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: It seems most plausible to me that the succession law would apply, in which case the Presidency and Vice-Presidency would be vacant but Nancy Pelosi would have become Acting President. If Pelosi could give executive orders and make them stick, she’d presumably un-block the situation at the Capitol posthaste.
But the most important question is who the military would have considered to have the powers of the presidency. And they probably would have gone with whatever the Supreme Court said, out of a (correctly) deeply-ingrained desire to not be the decider.
Captain C
@JPL:
Or possibly demented enough that he’d just do whatever he was told.
Martin
@catclub: I think Ruben Gallego was calling other Dems telling them they had to stay in the building no matter what. If Trumps mob had managed to take the building, then the coup has effectively succeeded. The as-written instructions on how to transition the government becomes nearly impossible to implement once the building has been taken, which creates an opening to argue that if Biden can’t be certified as the new president that Trump should remain until that can be done, all of which would be settled by USSC which Trump believed he had control of. I don’t think he did – I think he’d have lost 8-1 on that one, because despite ramming Barrett through in the last minute I think the only member who was down with the coup was Thomas.
But that doesn’t matter. The only goal of the day was denying the certification, and it seems pretty clear now that some members of the Secret Service were in on the plan. What we’re going to learn is that a LOT of different layers of government were in on the plan.
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
And what of Cole’s cargo shorts?
WaterGirl
@Martin: Nodding in agreement with everything you wrote.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@debbie:
And if he does it, he won’t lose a single vote that wasn’t lost to him already. What are the assholes going to do, not vote for him even harder? The money is already spent, and I’ assuming that collections are a drop in the bucket compared to the increase in incomes due to monetary velocity that the suspensions have caused.
The percentage of the population that is really into privation for the poors as a motivator (the Old Man Potter faction) isn’t known for support of liberal or progressive causes and politicians.
MattF
@JoyceH: The simplest explanation is that Stefanik is doing it openly. She wants to be Speaker and McCarthy is in the way.
And Cawthorn is simply feral.
Kent
He had been working next to Trump for 4 years. There is no one in government who knew more about what Trump and his people were capable of than Pence.
Dangerman
Careful with that tourniquet, Eugene.
trollhattan
@HumboldtBlue:
They’re both short and long, puzzling everyone, and pockets aplenty! All the better for shopping the farmers market.
ian
@HumboldtBlue:
The term cargo predates the term car by centuries. Shipments can be received by boat, car, or plane. Most of the time we talk about something in a shipping truck, we refer to it as cargo. The two terms are not reserved for their opposite named deliver system.
WaterGirl
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: That comment skates pretty close to the line, possibly even on the wrong side of the line. Not acceptable to be – no matter how cleverly worded – suggesting assassination of an elected official.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
There was a Trumpy SS agent who, for whatever reason, the SS allowed to work as an aide in the White House. Pence knew this guy and he also knew that the coup was in the mix. I think he thought they’d whisk him off to Andrews AFB, perhaps never to be seen again or perhaps long enough for the WH to get the fake electors into place, which was the conspiracy they were cooking up with people like Taylor-Greene, Gaetz, Biggs, etc.
Either way, Pence knew enough not to trust the SS detail driving the car or in charge of his motorcade. Says a lot that Pence was smarter than any of the rest of them. Because Pence is a well-know idiot.
lowtechcyclist
Sez you. Younger voters still don’t turn out in the numbers that us older folks do, but they’ve been closing the gap somewhat in the past couple of cycles. See the third chart here.
Ruckus ??
@WaterGirl:
There could be a number of answers.
Was he aware of the plot to overthrow? It seems he did have at least a passing knowledge.
Was he in on the plot? Seemingly not but it’s possible he was having cold (or freezing) feet.
I’m going he knew but on the edges, not in the know and not in the middle. For all his faults he seems like someone who thinks the system is good, not broken, just not going in the correct direction. I may be 100000% wrong about that.
RaflW
BTW, the only people dumber than Idiot45 appear to be the senior executives at Boeing.
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
Speaking of farmers markets, there’s a plan to make them more interesting.
In case there’s any confusion, this is not happening in either Florida or Texas.
Kent
Madison Cawthorn is a poster child for
I mean seriously, he is the perfect distillation of all of that.
Ruckus ??
@dmsilev:
He proved he had a spine, he needed to grow a pair.
He did the right thing, but he has never done the even better thing.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: It seems like something is missing from that quote? or at least I am missing some context? What makes that stupid
edit: Unless “Boeing took a $660 million charge” mean a $660 million LOSS. Is that what they are saying? To me, “charge” means payment or contract.
RaflW
@JPL: NPR A.T.C. covered it at least briefly yesterday. It’s certainly gone back burner, but one of the challenges of this environment is that the entire news industry is sort of like a gish gallop now.
Benw
Whoa whoa whoa. The person who saved US democracy that day was Nancy motherfucking Pelosi, even if Mike Pence decided to not chicken out for a second
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, though the goal was to make it not Congress’ decision. As soon as you break the normal process, you get all kinds of opportunities for shenanigans. Would a strict textualist Supreme Court respect the 25th amendment intent because the amendment says that succession is only in the case “if the incumbent dies, resigns or is removed from office”. None of those are happening here, so the 25th amendment (strictly speaking) doesn’t apply. Same with the 20th amendment.
The strict reading would probably result in a contingent election in the House, which would likely have led to Trump winning because of how that election is structured, and based on who we knew were in on the plot. That’s my guess. That also would have led to widespread violence.
WaterGirl
@Benw: I have never seen SMASH spelled that way, but I approve of the alternative spelling.
HumboldtBlue
@ian:
Well, well, well, Mr. Wet Blanket has arrived to dampen the fun with facts an’ stuff.
Cargo is a Spanish derivative of carcare, carricare, to load the carrus, a wheeled vehicle.
I am now going to load a plate with food and watch Liverpool.
WaterGirl
There are so many sentences to love in the post up top.
RaflW
@WaterGirl:
From 2018 “The White House is touting this as a saving of more than $1 billion from the original estimate of $5 billion.”
Boeing had a contract for the two highly modified 747-8s. Trump threatened to cancel them over the ‘high costs’ (but really he wanted them delivered sooner, so he could go vroom vroom in them in his expected second term).
I don’t know what sort of cancellation penalties Boeing waived in ‘renegotiating’ the deal, but lookee there, the $1.1Bn that TFG wrangled out = huge red ink for a company that hasn’t made a profit since the MAX crashes. Yeah he had them over a barrel, but I get the strong sense BA management didn’t even try to protect themselves from losses. Dumb! (IMO)
eta: Yes a ‘charge’ in accounting terms is short for charge-off aka LOSS. Generally if a business knows that a contract that is over a year in duration will result in a loss on delivery, they have to ‘book’ (take) the loss now as a charge. I shouldn’t assume that the business press is writing in lay terms.
eeta: If Boeing is losing $600M, and the contract price was lowered $1.1B (and it sounds like, BA also took on the cost risk of infation/delay, where I’d imagine the original contract was maybe “cost plus” which would put inflation/disruption expenses on the gov’t) BA would have been on track to make a 10% gross margin. Now they’ll be hit with a 15% loss. Oops.
Benw
@WaterGirl: word
NotMax
@Martin
“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”
– A Man for All Seasons
;)
eclare
Go Reds!
I know what Amir and Mo Salad are doing.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Moderately a step up from watching liver pool.
:)
StringOnAStick
@WaterGirl: “Taking a charge” means applying it to their profit/loss numbers, and then spreading that loss out over a span of time calculated to give them the best possible break on federal taxes. It’s more of the “socialism for me, but not for thee” in the corporate class. It’s how giant corporations like GE and Amazon end up with zero federal tax liability. The book “Perfectly Legal” describes how the tax law has been lobbied into an amazing system for making sure the largest corporations/wealthiest humans can avoid paying as much as they possibly can.
germy
@lowtechcyclist:
“Sez you”
I was responding to catclub’s comment about NPR saying that young people would vote for fascists if they didn’t get student loans cancelled. Talk to him.
StringOnAStick
@germy: Seems to me that our POTUS is planning in cancelling student loan debt at precisely the right time for it to be helpful in this year’s elections.
As I have seen noted elsewhere, if the youngs think the D’s suck, they’re really going to love how much loan forgiveness and climate change action they’re going to get out of the R’s.
Captain C
@Ruckus ??:
Honestly, it’s just a matter of the public veneer. David Brooks pretends to be more genteel than, say Sean Hannity or Alex Jones, but he’s just as much an authoritarian as they are. Fucker probably thinks he’s found the TFG sweet spot of classy rogue*, but he’s really just a sadistic dork with a trust fund.
*TFG is neither classy nor a rogue, though he plays one on certain Conservative media; he’s a garden variety mobbed-up white collar criminal with good media instincts and a (squandered) inheritance.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@debbie:
At that point, Grassley was President Pro Tem of the Senate, and who preside when the Vice President was unable to do. (Patrick Leahy is the current President Pro Tem; when VPKH is off Vice Presidenting, he makes sure they keep the lights on and a modicum of good order is observed.)
So if Mike Pence was off for a car tour of beautiful western Maryland, maybe along with a special dinner trip on the Western Maryland Scenic Railway with the family, the senior senator from Iowa could perfectly legally preside over Senate business.
Splitting Image
@WaterGirl:
Dan Quayle was a member of the Project for the New American Century, and I recall reading years ago that the real reason Bush picked him as a running mate is that he wanted all of the PNAC guys on his side and Quayle was the least dangerous member of that organization.
A lot of the PNAC have become never-Trumpers (founder Bill Kristol, for example), so it’s actually not as surprising as it sounds that Quayle wasn’t warm to a coup either.
But yeah, the idea that any members of the PNAC can be the voice of reason these days is frightening.
Captain C
@germy: Some of it’s the whole insipid “we’re not getting everything we want how we want, so we’ll punish the people who won’t get hurt, and allow those on whose behalf we claim to be speaking to suffer mightily, and it’ll be someone else’s fault than ours!” mentality that has somehow survived the 1968, 2000, and 2016 election debacles.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@JoyceH: No, we weren’t starting with great materials there. I’m just wondering whether it’s simple bratty entitlement or if there’s more.
NotMax
@Captain C
Tucker is a sycophant eternally in search of an idol to worship.
debbie
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio:
Every time someone cites Grassley’s statement, they then imply he was part of the plot, rather than stating his position of President Pro Tem. ??♀️
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: But a strict reading doesn’t support the contingent election either, since the 12th Amendment only describes this happening in the case where electors were certified, the count DID happen, but nobody got a majority of the counted votes. There’s nothing about being able to force one by preventing the count.
I recall a lot of speculation about contingent elections at the time that completely ignored that–they often imagined that the Constitution specified a contingent election if enough electoral votes were excluded from the count entirely to bring the majority below 270.
Comrade Colette
@Martin:
So an Indira Gandhi situation is no longer unthinkable. Jesus Christ, what country do I live in?
Ruckus ??
@WaterGirl:
I am not an accountant, I am an ex small business owner who did the accounting work so my accountant could do the taxes.
A charge is what you call the expenses side of the ledger. You have an amount of money – in the bank or on the books as a contract to be filled and that’s the positive side of the ledger, which is called something I can’t remember at the moment. But a charge is anything that comes out of that side, the electric bill, the rent, a loss. When something is called a charge, as in a charge off, it is the cost of business. A loss would mean that it’s not a normal business expense. Building two planes at less than cost is an obvious loss. However it might be a good thing in this case, it could be positive for Boeing in the long run. And currently any mfg other than Boeing would be a foreign company. Wouldn’t look good on them or the US.
NotMax
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
Grassley ceased being president pro tem on January 3rd.
The Truffle
@germy:
@Splitting Image:
I still have not forgiven Frum or Kristol for selling the Iraq war boondoggle and the PNAC crowd still deserve a side eye at best.
As for Quayle? I thought he was added to the ticket because he was reasonably young and good-looking.
kindness
I’m of the opinion that Pence knew what the cultists surrounding Trump were up to as those people can’t seem to keep their mouths shut. Pence knew nothing about it would make him look good and maybe he was just smart enough not to want to be a really ugly footnote in the history books.
NotMax
@The Truffle
Potato/potatoe.
//
catclub
@germy: ahem. NPR’s claim of same.
catclub
No love for Anwar Sadat. Sad.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Recall all the spooky bits, particularly that the Cabinet was made up nearly entirely of lapdog acting Secretaries, as none of the nuts that Trump wanted could get confirmed even in a McConnell-led Senate. Also remember the DOD changes, which were really spooky.
All the pieces were in place. Pence’s absence would have been the impetus for them to all move.
The guys who drafted the piece of shit we’re governed by weren’t particularly good at the job.
germy
@catclub:
“Ahem”
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@kindness:
Pence would have found himself replaced pretty quickly, too.
Martin
@germy: You’re going to be happy with what I do about student loan debt relief.
catclub
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Pence did have that advantage over all the Cabinet members that serve at the president’s pleasure. He was elected.
oatler
@HumboldtBlue:b
I like to think of myself as “precious cargo” though some Bad Actors have derogatorily referred to me as “supercargo”.
germy
@Martin:
And the GOP wants to stop him. What a grand old party.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@catclub:
True, but I could see him doing the thing for Trump, then resigning in remorse.
UncleEbeneezer
@Martin: Kellogg is also the one who has testified before the Jan 6 Committee and provided a lot of the inside info that has come out in the last few weeks.
JoyceH
@Martin: I recall on 1/6 one of the on camera reporters saying that their sources in the White House have been told that the rioters expect to occupy the building overnight. Would suuuure like to know who in the White House was in contact with the rioters while the riot was going on!
trollhattan
Oooh, cracks form within the cult.
Somebody didn’t get his coke-orgy invite.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Martin:
Its literally the smartest thing he can do. There is no downside, and all the critics can do is hate him harder.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@JoyceH:
I remember that, too.
Ruckus ??
@Comrade Colette:
Jesus Christ, what country do I live in?
I imagine that if you are asking this question, the US. Remember this is an unprecedented time we are living in. I imagine we’ve had times that might have been thought to come close to this but this was as close to us becoming a banana republic as I can remember. I mean we had the uncivil war and all but this was as close to an overthrow as we’ve ever been. Had SFB been successful, we would have ceased to be the United States and become Trumpland, home of racism, stupidity, ignorance and hate. It’s likely that the population would have had at least an attempt at reducing it’s entire democratic segment, permanently. Think current day Russia, with even stupider, more vile people in charge.
Ruckus ??
@Captain C:
So we agree……
coin operated
@Martin:
Wanted to drop this in. T. Greg Doucette runs a ConLaw shop out of NC and he went over the laws of succession with a fine-tooth comb. End result…Nancy SMASH had tools at her disposal to ensure Trump and Pence are out of office on 1/20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6sVow9l8H4
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick:
Thank you! So taking a charge is a term of art that I was totally unaware of.
gvg
@StringOnAStick: Some older people who either didn’t have loans or paid their off and don’t get the difference in time, are going to be really pissed and spiteful over ANY loan forgiveness. Quite a few I think. This won’t be a complete election plus and since olds vote at a higher rate it may be a net negative. doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do it, but does mean he should plan carefully and have a good add campaign to sell it to the public.
Raven
@gvg: I still owe $3K!
Geminid
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I’m not sure the Acting AG was a lapdog. He jammed Trump on pursuing election fraud charges. I think that Trump tried to replace him with Eastman before the coup.
The Defense Secretary wasn’t as compliant as Trump wanted either. I imagine Trump regretted appointing them. White House Counsel Anthony Pasquale “Pat” Cippoline was also a thorn in Trump’s side by the end. I think all three will testify in the upcoming January 6 hearings and I am looking forward to hearing what they say.
Pence may testify also, but his Presidential ambitions may inhibit candor. He has no chance for the 2024 nomination, but when I heard Pence interviewed the other day he sounded like he has hopes. Abraham Lincoln observed that once the worm of Presidential ambition starts gnawing, it gnaws deep.
gvg
@WaterGirl: Lots of people have replied with info about the election, but I took that no way from Pence as fear for his own life, that he would never be heard from again. Recall Trump and friends were angry with Pence and the violent crowd was building a gallows for him. It seems likely to me that some of Pence’s detail might be really pro Trump, not Pence, which Pence had not thought was a problem before then.
Craig
I met Dolores Huerta a few years ago. It was intense. Here was this frail looking little old woman sitting listening to people talk, and saying hello to people, but I could feel this incredible, powerful weight to her when she looked at me. Then when she got up to speak to the crowd, Holy Shit, she just lit up the room.
Matt McIrvin
It seemed like so much of the writing at the time was along the lines of, “if you squint at the Constitution a certain way, it actually allows One Weird Trick that implies that it authorizes a coup.” But of course it’s ridiculous to suppose, from a conservative “originalist” point of view, that the Founders wanted it to be possible to have a coup. That’s the #1 kind of thing they were trying to prevent! Usually the readings were just textually wrong.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
They slammed the pedal down on this when the Dubya administration publicly deemed the Constitution “a quaint document.”
Old Man Shadow
I have a climatologist in the family.
I keep wanting to ask them exactly how pessimistic I should be about the future, but I’m genuinely afraid to ask them.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: I mean, obviously, power comes from the barrel of a gun and if they managed to get enough guys with guns to shoot everyone and declare Trump king of the world, he’d win. But it seemed like the media was fascinated by the idea of legitimizing it with a Weird Trick.
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
My sister died at 66 owing student loans. I hope you live far longer and if I remember you are older than that by a few years now.
WaterGirl
@Craig: That sounds lovely. It reminds me of when I met Barack Obama in Iowa at the end of 2007 when I was there for 10 days before the caucus.
Just standing near him I felt his amazing presence, it was tangible, being in the presence of greatness. And this was before he had won the caucus in Iowa that allowed others to believe he even had a chance.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
It seems there’s a determination to misread the preamble as stating “In order to form a more perfect storm,” doesn’t it?
Kay
Matthew Yglesias, a full time paid political observer, believes that Twitter is (successfully) “policing Republican extremes”:
Republicans just nominated election conspiracy theorists for two statewide offices in MI. The top news stories for the past 2 weeks are- a GOP governor launched state sanctions against Disney because Disney publicly disagree with the governor and the release of texts showing Trump Administration members and congressional Republicans plotting how to carry out a coup.
In this wacky world the “hammer and sickle” crowd are running wild while Republicans are sober, good government moderates, thanks to Twitter moderation.
My fear is the Biden Administration listen to these people.
RaflW
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: But there was this, which always seemed ‘off’ somehow.
What did Grassley know about Pence’s whereabouts more than a day ahead?
Kay
More moderate, sober Republicans as compared to the “hammer and sickle crowd” who really run the world:
She’s proposing arresting all the Democrats because Donald Trump lost. As you can plainly see, the “extremes” on the Right are being “policed”.
NotMax
@RaflW
Will say it again. The reading of electoral votes was January 6th. Grassley was no longer president pro tem as of assembly of the new Congress on January 3rd.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
I think it could be what someone on MSNBC said last night (maybe Claire McCaskill?): it might be a staffer who was freaked out on January 6, started making a record, perhaps for historical purposes, and got even more freaked out by how the GQP leadership clearly saw the threat and then proceeded to sweep it all under the rug.
Raven
@Ruckus ??: 72 now. I just learned an old friend died from Lewy Body Dementia after a year long battle. He was 65.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Wikipedia says Patrick Leahy didn’t become president pro tem until January 20, 2021. Was the office simply vacant for 17 days?
ETA: Nope, Grassley held the office until January 20. Odd that the new Congress is in business as of the 3rd, but officers (at least Senate-side) aren’t sworn in until Inauguration Day.
RaflW
@trollhattan: I’m finna guess that Tillis did not say “insider trading by a member of Congress is a serious betrayal of their oath” in regards to the two Georgia R senators last term.
Kay
I heard a radio ad for JD Vance. They introduce Trump as “President Trump”. Their campaigns are centered around telling people Donald Trump is actually still the President.
It’s fucking unreal listening to this in the real world. You thought Trump was bad- wait until you’re barraged with ads by every GOP candidate – they’re all identical to Dear Leader now.
They don’t need to be extreme on Twitter. They are extreme, in real life, all over the country. They are more extreme real world than online.
debbie
@NotMax:
Maybe Grassley didn’t get the memo. ?
eclare
@Raven: Oh how sad. That’s why Robin Williams killed himself.
Raven
@eclare: Yea this hit really hard and fast and I don’t think he had much time to even consider it. His wife has had a really tough road.
SiubhanDuinne
@catclub:
Or Caligula. Even sadder.
RaflW
@Kay: I unfollowed Matt Yglesias years ago. His endless contrarianism is some of the most tedious trolling on that twitty crapsite.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The wild hammer-and-sickle types hate Democrats anyway and in fact tend to prefer if Republicans win elections, so Yglesias may be right that all this benefits Rs but not in the way he’s imagining. To the extent that they’re out there, they’re pretty much functionally the same as the extreme right.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Yuppers. His term of duty is ineluctably connected to the duration of any Congress. No different, to give another case, than if someone dies while holding that largely ceremonial position.
In the hypothetical instance of Pence being a no-show, the proceedings could have been temporarily suspended, allowing the Senate to convene to vote on a new president pro tem. In an extreme further hypothetical, the sergeant-at-arms could be dispatched to compel Pence’s attendance as president of the Senate.
RaflW
@NotMax: The United States Senate’s own web site disagrees with you. I don’t know why Hatch’s time ended on Jan 3, 2019, but Grassley’s ended on Jan 20, 2021, but it’s there on the government-run page.
So far looking for info about why it was delayed 17 days I haven’t learned the reason, but an IA radio station did report the transfer of power on 1/20/21 as well.
lowtechcyclist
That wasn’t addressed to me, but I also made the mistake of saying Grassley was Senate president pro tem on January 6th. Ouch.
Steeplejack
I’ve just started reading the comments, but I wanted to throw this in before I forget it.
Re Pence and certification, the Secret Service was already compromised, because Trump had moved a serving Secret Service manager into the White House as a “political adviser.” That should never have been allowed, but, hey, who ever stopped Trump from doing anything, right?
Also, Chuck Grassley made a remark on January 5 that he would be certifying the results {in case | because} Pence would be absent. At the time it was dismissed as trademark Grassley incoherence, but it seemed more sinister later.
Too tired/lazy to run down the links for this at the moment.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Apparently not so. See my #146.
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
Ok, we’re within months of the same age, I thought we were close to the same age. I’ll be 73 in a short bit.
lowtechcyclist
@germy:
Yes, it was right there, and I read it.
So you weren’t saying what it certainly appeared to me that you were saying, that we didn’t need to worry about them voting for fascists because they wouldn’t vote in the first place?
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
That’s a nasty one. I’m so sorry.
(IIRC, Lewy’s Body Dementia is what Robin Williams had, although the public didn’t know that when he took his life.)
Jeffro
@Kay: Carter’s and Bush Sr’s voters didn’t lose their minds or call for mass arrests of the opposition after their guy lost. Why’s trumpov different, Q-people? Why are you letting your side talk like this, “normal” Republican officials?
There is a simpler explanation than mass voting conspiracy/fraud, Q-people: your guy lost. He’s a 1-term loser. He sucked at his job and had to go. Raise your standards and y’all might do better next time.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Even so, nothing aside from tradition preventing the Senate from voting on it earlier.
Old School
@RaflW:
My guess would be because Hatch was no longer in the Senate after Jan 3, 2019.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Probably because Hatch was retiring from the Senate entirely, so his term would have ended on Jan. 3 when the Congress changed.
The president pro tempore is elected by the Senate. I’d guess that if there’s a new Vice-President coming in and a vacancy in the office is not an issue, they figure it makes sense to have the president pro tem turn over at the same time as the VP (President of the Senate)
edit: it does appear that it’s more common historically for the turnover to happen when the Congress changes, though. Other people in this thread supplied the real answer, that the Dems didn’t control the Senate until Jan. 20 because of Warnock and Ossoff (and Kamala Harris as tiebreaker).
NotMax
@Jeffro
Nor did Al Gore summarily disqualify certified electoral votes.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
“[Pence] didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
Plus, like all of them, Pence is surrounded by a cadre of advisers and handlers, not all of whom could possibly be as stupid as he is. Somebody in his entourage knew or suspected what was going on.
PAM Dirac
@NotMax: Wornock and Ossoff weren’t sworn in until Jan 20, so the Ds didn’t control the senate until then
ETA – for all the people wondering why the change was Jan 20, this is why. The Ga runoff was Jan 5 and the certification wasn’t until only a day or so before the swearing in of the Ga senators.
Kim Walker
These may be unprecedented times, but it wasn’t that long ago that the business class were working out a coup attempt against FDR.
piratedan
@gvg: gee…. they could have had a tragically convenient accident in which his life was lost, or a sudden massive MI that he was not able to recover from…. and in the chaos of the day, it might have been a blip. We’ve all seen how dogged the media can be about following up on GOP shenanigans, I could see this being lost in the chaff, rather easily.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think they are incapable of writing 3 sentences in a row without returning to their favorite subject, which is “the illiberal Left”. All of their articles return to their “cancel culture” thesis. It’s the prism thru which they view everything.
I know they all live in blue areas, but have they heard any of the GOP ads online? They are INSANE in Ohio. They are in a race to out Trump each other. Not “online”. On the radio. On tv. Every day.
Josh Mandel and one of the other nutjobs nearly had a fistfight during a televised senate debate in Ohio. Now, I don’t know what was happening on Twitter that evening, but that’s what everyone in Ohio saw. In real life.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I’m wondering — but can’t be arsed to look it up — if it shifts from January 3 to January 20 based on whether or not it’s a Presidential inauguration year.
My larger point, though, is that YOU WERE WRONG, and since that hardly ever happens, I felt it my bounden duty to point it out.
:-)
SiubhanDuinne
@PAM Dirac:
AH. Duh. Of course you are right!! Thank you!
NotMax
@PAM Dirac
That is so but I still maintain the position doesn’t carry over absent a new vote.
Kay
@Kim Walker:
Trump was really good for wealthy people. They’re insulated from the risks he brought for normal people and he gave them an annual, giant windfall break on taxes.
I think their quiet support of putting these people back in power is underplayed as a factor. It’s better for them financially.
Matt McIrvin
deleted
Raven
@Ruckus ??: 73 on the USMC birthday!
RaflW
@Old School: It’s the converse that’s the question. Looking back, Bird-Stevens, Stevens-Bird, and Leheay-Hatch — the three relatively recent party-flip handovers — happened on or very near Jan 3. Only Grassley-Leahey is Jan 20. (eta: Thank you @PAM Dirac!)
And to what matters here, Grassley was indeed the pro tempore leader of the Senate when Pence said he wasn’t getting in the secret service car. Why he didn’t expect Pence to attend is — I believe — an open question.
lowtechcyclist
@lowtechcyclist:
And now it appears I was quite accidentally right to begin with, for all the wrong reasons. Sheesh. And WTF.
ETA: Thank you, @PAM Dirac, for explaining everything. Warnock and Ossoff. Of course. [headslap]
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
:·)
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
As to the Lewy Body Dementia, that does not seem to be a way one would want to go. Sorry about your friend. It is one of those things that make getting old less than fun. Hell much of getting old is less than fun. My dad died from Alzheimers. Having your body torn apart besides just slowing down sucks donkey balls.
MattF
@Kay: These days, Yglesias goes immediately for the contrarian, liberal-trolling take on just about any subject.
Timill
@lowtechcyclist: Even if Warnock and Ossoff had been in place from Jan 3rd, it would still have been a 50-50 Senate with an R VP.
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
If you were born on that day why didn’t you enlist in the Marines???
Just giving you a hard time, as you very likely realize. Keep up the keeping on, you old fart. And remember I’d like to met in DC at the wall, I think that would be fitting.
Captain C
@germy: With luck, that of his latest mail-order bride.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Would you believe that was the mirror universe NotMax from season two?
Nah, I didn’t think so.
;)
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@SiubhanDuinne: @NotMax: @RaflW: I think the reason that Grassley remained the President Pro Tem was that the senate was a 50-50 tie until Kamala Harris became V.P..
Raven
@Ruckus ??: They were drafting in the Corps in Chicago then. My cousin was 2/26 and had landed in August, 66, not a great time. My old man was a Navy Mustang and had the idea that I would get some kind of training in the Army that would benefit me after I got out since the squids we’re not taking dumbs 17 year old dropouts at that time.
Captain C
@RaflW: Perhaps due to the runoffs in Georgia? The Dems didn’t have an actual majority until they were sworn in and Kamala Harris became Veep.
PAM Dirac
@NotMax:
Doesn’t seem like it. The Constitution just says the Senate has to chose a president pro tempore, it doesn’t put any other restrictions, including term length. That would have to come in the resolution that names the person to the office. For Grassley in 2019 the resolution does not have an expiration, it just names him to the position, so the position is his until there is a resolution that names someone else.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@debbie: It’s odd, isn’t it? Unless they’re assuming we’re all inside baseball enough to realize he was President Pro Tem. I had to look it up and see if he was PTP at that point.
Of course, I’m now assuming that Meadows or whoever had made sure Grassley was on board because he was PPT and could fill in for Pence, but i needed that piece of information to make that connection.
I think most of us don’t keep close track of who’s filling all those legislative positions—whips, caucus leaders, and so on.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@RaflW: Well, that’s what happens when you line up your fellow members of Team Coup in advance and one of them is an old fart who tends to open his mouth and say things he should not.
This was not an impromptu operation, and if they couldn’t count on Pence to play along, or if he might get cold feet, having the PTP lined up & ready to go to work was vital. If Grassley wasn’t inclined to run his mouth no one would have known he was ready to play along.
We were very lucky.
lowtechcyclist
@Timill: Tru dat! So many moving parts this time…
JoyceH
Off-topic and really really shallow and petty, but —- I can’t see a picture of Empty Gee without wanting to tell her that her arms are not the advertisement for CrossFit that she seems to believe they are and that sleeves would not come amiss.
Ruckus ??
@Jeffro:
If they raised their standards they wouldn’t get the government they want.
mrmoshpotato
@Captain C:
I just call the “I’m not gonna vote!” crowd a bunch of stupid, selfish brats.
debbie
@JoyceH:
And just as petty, agreed. Those are definitely the arms of a bomb-planter.
mrmoshpotato
@JoyceH:
MTG? I guess banging everyone at your local gym burns a lot of calories.
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
I didn’t know that about the navy. I remembered that you were 17 when you went in, I didn’t enlist until I was 20. 2 yrs of waiting for that letter to be in the mailbox when I got home got to me. I just couldn’t take another day. Very shortly after I enlisted – they told me I’d go in 4 months later – the drawing by birthdate was announced. Then they had the drawing. My date was drawn 15th. I would have been going no matter what and as we know have too great a chance to be drafted into the Marines as bait, the roll too many Marine draftees played. I believe the average life expectancy of a Marine draftee in Vietnam was 2 weeks at the time. Of course we had a fella on this blog who joined the Navy and 4 months later was a forward machine gunner on an RPB – Higgs Boson’s Mate. And you did a tour in country. I got lucky, even if it didn’t especially feel like it at the time. I’ve seen the results, during a 2 month stay in a Navy hospital and at the VA. War isn’t pretty. Ever.
sab
@Ruckus ??: My husband enlisted in the Coast Guard. He said his bus went everywhere. Army. Coast Guard. Marines. The recruiters came in and just reassigned people. You picked Army? We don’t care. Back of the bus will be Marines.
My Dad was Navy in WWII. Afterwards he thought they would draft again for Korea so he enlisted in the AirForce before the Army could get him for a MASH unit.
burnspbesq
@debbie:
No doubt about his authority. The 12th Amendment says “the President of the Senate” presides over the joint session. If Pence had gotten disappeared, that would have been Grassley.
Raven
@Ruckus ??: PBR, I wonder if he was in the Delta, most of the brown water squids were.
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: The agitators are clever. They don’t say “I’m not gonna vote.” Rather, like tearful crocodiles they warn that this group or that group won’t come out and vote because the feckless Democrats haven’t done this or won’t do that. @eclecticbrotha, aka Ragnarok Lobster, keeps his response to them simple in the pinned tweet that heads his Twitter account:
Ragnarok Lobster is your neighbor, sort of. He works at a Chicagoland police station as a civilian employee. Hopefully you won’t meet while he’s on the job.
japa21
@Raven: Best friend in HS was on the river boats. One of his mates got killed standing next to him. He considered himself very lucky to come home.
Ruckus ??
@sab:
I know that the situation was rather fluid at the time I tried to enlist in the Air Force and was told that I had to have a 4 yr college degree to do so. Which would have been somewhat difficult as I was out of HS only 2 yrs. Never thought of the Coast Guard as I figured that if the Air Force was not accepting then the CG likely wouldn’t be. A friend joined the National Guard and didn’t get activated, a kid I worked with during the middle east debacle joined the NG and did get activated and sent there. Now an interesting tidbit was that when you enlisted you could be sent to an Armed Forces Enlistment Station, the same place you took your draft physical at 18 on the day you reported. I was. At the end of the day we got on a bus and were taken to the closest recruit training center. For me that was about 2-3 hrs away in San Diego, as we stopped along the way to pick up a few others. Everyone was sent, as best as I could tell, to the rtc that belonged to which service you had joined. At the AFES they took us to different rooms to take the oath. Which I saw them do when I took my draft physical as well. Different rooms for different branches. There was a navy boot camp and a marine recruit camp separated by a chain link fence in San Diego. We used to go out the back door when we got up, to watch the marines double timing in formation over rough ground with full packs and rifles at the ready. They’d been up, slurped up breakfast and marched about 2 miles before we were getting up. Yeah the navy wasn’t all that bad. I made a good decision. At least once in my life….
Scout211
@Ruckus ??:
I didn’t meet Mr. Scout until he was in the Navy Reserve. But he tells the story that he went to sign up for Marine ROTC and found his university only had Navy. That was his best “decision” because on the Vietnamese junk he was assigned to as an advisor and then the MSO he was assigned to as a junior officer, he could see that being on a boat or a ship in the Navy was very, very different than being a marine on the ground in Vietnam. Best decision that was actually made for him.
Ruckus ??
@Raven:
Yes he was.
On the Mary G post, I recalled that I spoke with Higgs quite a bit. I think we were the only two armed forces ex or current members at the meet up. That’s where he told me that he ended up brown water navy 4 months to the day after his bus ride. We didn’t get into a lot of stories or specifics, it was obvious that he had PTSD, which I saw a lot of in my 2 months of hospital – remember the Marines are part of the navy. Most of the people I met at hospital were Marines, many physically wounded, many mentally wounded. PTSD didn’t come into use until later but that’s what most of the marines had. On top of their physical wounds. It was rare to find one that didn’t. I think I met 2 that didn’t show signs or didn’t have PTSD. I imagine a lot of army folks had it as well, I see many of them at the VA.
From my vantage point I can easily state that war isn’t hell, because it has a beginning and and end. But other than that hell is as good of description of combat as I can imagine. I don’t recommend it to anyone.
Ruckus ??
@Scout211:
I’ve met quite a few people having been in other branches of the military during the time Raven and I were in and I can pretty much guarantee that it was extremely easy to have a less than fun time in the Marines, especially in Vietnam. I’ve met a gentleman who has 2 Superbowl rings and was a Marine pilot in Vietnam who also got to be a forward spotter with on the ground troops. Now that man has stories.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus ??: My father-in-law got a draft notice though, under the rules at the time, he should have qualified for an academic exemption. He went to complain and was told that he could pursue it, but he’d be deep in country before anything came of it.
So he went and enlisted in the Navy to make (what he saw as) the best of it. The next day, he got a letter informing him of his academic exemption. Oh well. He spent the war serving in the belly of a destroyer tender.
(My father, on the other hand, got his draft notice, was preparing to go with his usual uncomplaining optimism, then was informed that his job had been deemed essential to national defense, so he was still in St. Louis when I was born. It seems like there was a pattern of letters about draft exemptions arriving late.)
gene108
@SiubhanDuinne:
Even with Warnock and Osoff sworn in the Senate was still 50/50, with Republicans holding the Vice Presidency. Since Pence was still VP until 12:01 pm, EST on 1/20/2021, Republicans maintained control until then.
Ruckus ??
@Matt McIrvin:
I heard the same stories about exemptions. Being allergic to bees was an exemption. Had a friend who’s dad knew/found this out and hired a lawyer to fight his son’s being drafted. Took 2 or 3 yrs as I remember and cost a bit of money but he got his exemption. I found this out years later and didn’t have the money anyway so my being allergic to bees didn’t help me. The government at the time wanted to be at war so us peons did what peons do, our part. That over 58K died doing our part seems to have been of little consequence to those that want war.
Juju
@HumboldtBlue: Only if you explain why flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
Jinchi
He didn’t call it the “Democrat” party?
Tucker is clearly a leftwing plant.
Zelma
@SiubhanDuinne:
Dead thread but the reason Leahy’s term started 1/20 is that the Democrats couldn’t organize the Senate until Kamala was seated. McTurtle prevented them from doing so. Lovely guy, that McTurtle.
thisismyonlinenym
@HumboldtBlue: For the same reason no doubt that one can find bees in an apiary and apes in a bestiary.
Gvg
@Matt McIrvin: Family lore is that my dad got his draft notice the day my mom told him she was pregnant (with me). We were poor, the timing would have been bad, except for that draft.
grumbles
It used to be that when I saw a picture of young Maddy, I saw a 45 year-old angry, miserable drunk in the making. But now I’m pretty sure you’re right, he’s too dumb to make it that far.
The older generation tried to clue him in to how to exploit his position without stepping on his (or anyone else’s) dicks, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t figure it out, bless his little heart. So now I’m not sure if “dead in a ditch” or “shivved in minimum security lockup for being an insufferable shitweasel after obstinately refusing sweetheart deal” is more likely.