Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Infrastructure week. at last.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Monday Morning Open Thread: Friday the 13th Falls…

Monday Morning Open Thread: Friday the 13th Falls…

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Let’s hope that Churchy Lafemme’s most famous quote only applies, this month, to Republicans and other domestic terrorists.

Knowledge (being seen) is power:

======

WaterGirl has a post set up for the livestream, later this morning.

I’m thinking, after the opening salvos last week, today’s daytime hearing will reach most viewers after the fact, probably in snippets on social media or the local news. It’ll be interesting to see what filters through!

Excellent questions, from Jennifer Rubin:

======

Not even the beginning of the end for our gun-obssessed culture, but if Fred Guttenberg approves, I’m willing to hope it’s the end of the beginning:

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Trump will probably regard him even appearing as a betrayal, so that will offer a bit of amusement as a side note.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    Thanks for the reminder.

     

    Happy birthday, WaterGirl. ♥️

     

    We wouldn’t be here without you.

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    Good thing the hearing is during the day, otherwise there would have been an “issue” here once the Celtics game begins tonight.

  11. 11.

    Ohio Mom

    The Rude Pundit had an interesting post. To his eye, Liz “Cheney was trying to save the party that her father built, one that she worked on, too. The MAGA right has turned away from the beliefs and projects of Cheney and daddy Dick, the former Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and member of Congress. Among other things, that GOP was pro-business no matter what (none of this bullshit condemning a corporation for an internal policy) and pro-intelligence community. Cheney constructed a GOP that was for a strong interventionist military, especially with the goal of “spreading democracy” at the end of a gun, which was incredible for profits for companies aligned (mostly but not exclusively) with the GOP. Trump mocked that and turned the party more isolationist, and he attacked IC for its perceived disloyalty to him.”

    In other words, she’s not trying to save Democracy, she’s trying to save a version of the Republican Party that’s equally poisonous in its own way.

    So put away any admiration for her courage, use her for now but don’t be fooled.

    I can do that.

  13. 13.

    Ohio Mom

    I just figured something out. I go into Private mode when I’m looking at Twitter, then I go to Balloon Juice and have to type in my nym and address (because still in Private mode), I make my usual typos and get put in moderation.

    I may have to join Twitter to save our lovely FP’s from having to dig me out of moderation all tne time.

    Happy Biryhday WG, may today and the coming year be everything you hope they will be.

  14. 14.

    germy shoemangler

    A Michigan man is in critical condition after losing both his arms in a house explosion

    Dozens of firearms, loaded AR-style magazines, small explosive devices and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found inside

    https://t.co/554nrDL29y pic.twitter.com/iONSv21eZw

    — philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 12, 2022

    Losing your arms practicing your right to bear arms is funny as shit. https://t.co/Rs4c1j6rzr

    — Eric, Amateur Steve (@AssBoss80085) June 12, 2022

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: I think at least some of the leftists who have gone anti-anti-Trump are motivated by that–they regard Dick and Liz Cheney’s version of the Republican Party as more dangerous globally than Trump’s, and they don’t want it back and think it’s terrible that Democrats are (sort of) collaborating with people who want it back. They see Trump primarily as the man who ended neoconservatism.

    I’m haunted by something I saw one commenter post on a forum thread during the Bush years, that he realized Ron Paul would completely destroy American society if he were in control, but that American empire had been such a destructive force that he was–just maybe–willing to pay that price to end it. That’s basically what Trump gave us.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ohio Mom: I think it’s possible to see Liz Cheney for exactly who she is and still admire the courage and integrity it takes for her to willingly sacrifice her political career to uphold the constitution. If at any earlier point she believed she and fellow old-school Republicans could purge the Trumpists and reassert control over their (objectively terrible for decades) party, she’s surely been disabused of that notion now. And yet she continues to be one of the strongest and most effective voices on a committee that is trying to nail Trump to the wall.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @Baud: It could be that Stepian wanted to testify, but wanted that subpoena first as a sort of figleaf to cover his disloyalty to his old client.

  19. 19.

    germy shoemangler

    CDC's determination, that pre-departure COVID testing for inbound international air travel will no longer be required, is welcome news for travelers and for millions of American workers whose jobs are supported by international travel.

    — Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) June 11, 2022

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I don’t disagree that there are people who think like that.  But realistically, Trump only split with the neoconservatives in that he wasn’t as militaristic as the Bushes, but he did use the military abroad.   The only other big difference is trade.

  24. 24.

    lee

    Happy Birthday WaterGirl!!!!

    I think today’s live audience will be different than Thursdays (still smaller). It is much easier for me to put up a live stream on my second monitor and have it play in the background while I work than sit down at 7pm and watch it. By 7pm I’m eating dinner or working around the house or playing with the dogs or reading or gaming.

  26. 26.

    Butch

    Sorry for the trivial, fairly irrelevant post – I didn’t even realize that Drag Race was playing.  I’m actually pretty ambivalent about the show but would have like to see Pelosi there.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @Butch:

    Sorry for the trivial, fairly irrelevant post

     
    Just don’t let it happen again. We have standards here.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @Spanky: I’m not sure what you mean. Perhaps you think I was making a faulty estimation of Stepian’s moral character. But I was speculating as to his motivation because of it’s practical effect on how forthcoming he will be.

    This raises the same question as does the back and forth about Liz Cheney: how central should the moral character of Republicans be to our discussions of them? A lot of people center their moral condemnation and want others to do so also when they discuss practical consequences. I can understand this.

    But we’re all different, and while I also make moral judgements about people I tend to center their practical actions in my analysis. For example, the question of whether people overdo their appreciation of Liz Cheney is a popular topic here, but it does not matter to me at all. I don’t like the way Chairman Thomson’s contribution to last Thursday’s hearing was given short shrift, but that’s a different story.

    I don’t think this makes me a less moral person, just a different one.

  36. 36.

    Butch

    @Baud: I have tried to live my life serving as a bad example to others.  I will attempt to meet these high standards!

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    Rolling Stone has a story about Trump wanting to launch a 2024 presidential campaign near the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee to step on the ungrateful upstart DeSantis. The article also says advisors are begging Trump not to launch a 2024 campaign before the midterms (for financial reasons) but that he’s itching to do so because he feels control of the party slipping away.

    Here’s hoping Tangerine Baal ignores his advisors and picks a fight with DeSantis BEFORE the midterms.

  39. 39.

    oldgold

    @Baud:

    Questioning a hostile witness effectively is an art form. It will be interesting to see how the Committee handles this. Hopefully they use one skilled and experience individual to do the questioning.

  43. 43.

    germy shoemangler

    @oldgold: 

    One thing I’m curious about: How seriously do these hostile witnesses take their oath to “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth” before their testimony?

    We’ve all seen people in the trump orbit blatantly commit perjury. Jefferson Sessions comes to mind but he wasn’t the only one.

    So I wonder if we’ll just see more lying at the Jan. 6 hearings. If so, i expect the committee to push back.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Trump’s a drag on the ticket in purple states and districts. Virginia’s 12 point swing from the 2020 Presidential election to Youngkin’s election a year later shows this. There were other factors for sure, but a lot of potential Republican voters just did not like trump.

  45. 45.

    MisterDancer

    @Geminid: while I also make moral judgements about people I tend to center their practical actions in my analysis.

    Yes. I’ve talked a few times about how I navigate racism; that survival in racist societies means you have to first look at someone’s actions. That means the usual “you don’t know if they are racist in their hearts” bullshit is just that — it’s horrific to expect me and mine to absorb actions oft-aligned to racism on the oft-chance that person might just be a General Asshole, or something.

    I think — but of course, cannot know for certain — something of the like animates the anger around the #NotAllMen approach that puts far too much of the burden on Women in all kinds of interactions.

    There’s a place and time for the “what’s in their hearts” conversation; I’d argue that’s a key issue around how to dismantle a lot of these topics, long term. But yeah Geminid, you have to start with what protects the people and groups being attacked, and that’s about practical actions.

    And to that end — look, I’m the first to criticize a lot of the “working with The Right” projects some Left-of-Center groups have done, especially around “Culture War” bollicks. But I think having Cheney in our camp, and people who know the game better than, frankly, you or I, riding along and keeping a steady eye on her, is far more of a benefit than a liability.

  47. 47.

    Layer8Problem

    @JPL:  That puts me in mind of a sick joke I saw once, probably on Reddit, involving people in the Soviet Union digging up old World War II items on battlefields on their weekends, presented in a Yakov Smirnoff/”In America you do this, in Soviet Russia this does you” manner.  In this particular joke the ending was “In Soviet Russia, bomb disarms you.”

  48. 48.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @germy shoemangler: I’m hopeful that the witnesses have to wonder what evidence the committee already has at their fingertips that would disprove an outright lie. I expect hostility and emotional vibes that signal to the R watchers what the witness really thinks

  49. 49.

    Old School

    @Betty Cracker:

    To give credit where due, the Muppet Show intro was the beginning of Late Night With Stephen Colbert in their live show after last Thursday’s first hearing.

    And Happy Birthday WaterGirl!

  53. 53.

    geg6

    @germy shoemangler:

    I have to believe that these guys’ testimony has already been vetted and there are most likely transcripts of earlier interviews with the committee or staff that will keep them on the same story they originally told.  I don’t believe that even that asshole Stepian wants to have a perjury charge.

  54. 54.

    geg6

    I think — but of course, cannot know for certain — something of the like animates the anger around the #NotAllMen approach that puts far too much of the burden on Women in all kinds of interactions.

    And I can’t say for sure because I am a white woman, but I totally agree that it’s a similar, if not identical, thing.

  56. 56.

    japa21

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:  This is a key point. One thing from last week’s hearing is that the committee frequently used phrases like “we know” or “we have been told”, etc. So new witnesses don’t really have an idea how what they say may line up against what the committee already knows. Another reasons why playing testimony from Trump’s people last week was so important. Those testimonies lasted far loner than the clips we saw.

  57. 57.

    germy shoemangler

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:I’m hopeful that the witnesses have to wonder what evidence the committee already has at their fingertips that would disprove an outright lie.

    Yes, that’s what I was thinking.  I hope if any hostile witnesses try to lie, Bennie Thompson can clear his throat and then immediately read aloud a text message or email that contradicts the testimony.

    There might be some moments dramatic enough even for the network news programs to lead with tonight, rather than the latest “failure” of the Biden administration.

  59. 59.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m trying again to comment — my comments keep going to spam. I’m not sure what speech you listened to, but in the May 25 appeal speech, he says “Ukraina” at least twice. It’s in the transcript I linked to.

  60. 60.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Just in: Former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien is no longer appearing at the second Jan. 6 committee hearing this morning due to a family emergency — and hearing has been delayed to around 10:30a ET— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 13, 2022

  62. 62.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I can applaud what Cheney is doing now, regardless of her reasons. It takes courage and it ultimately is good for our country and our Democracy. I can simultaneously remember all the ways she sucks and how I’d never want to see her as President. I can also prefer the GOP being a party of Cheney’s rather than a party of Trump’s. I understand why people say Trump is just a symptom and just another more extreme version of what the Republicans have always been. I get it. And to some extent I agree. But I also think he’s a significant step worse and is pushing things in a much more dangerous direction. It’s a matter of Dogwhistles vs. Bullhorns. And while both come from the same place, the latter is worse (as we are seeing with terrorist threats against Pride events, anti-Asian hate crimes etc.). Neocons suck, but they historically accepted election results. That’s a very important difference.

  63. 63.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I’ll be driving for the second hour of today’s hearings.  Does anyone know if they will be on radio?  NPR looks like it will only be streaming it (which is tough for me to do while driving).

  64. 64.

    sdhays

    @Ohio Mom: Among other things, that GOP was pro-business no matter what (none of this bullshit condemning a corporation for an internal policy) and pro-intelligence community.

    That’s funny. Has any single individual done more to discredit the intelligence community in the last 40 years? I know it wasn’t intentional, but…

  67. 67.

    sdhays

    @germy shoemangler: In general, this is where Tramp and his House Minority Toady McCarthy fucked themselves. Any other committee in Congress would have a bunch of Republicans there to eat up time and help hostile witnesses put out their own message. They could have had that if they’d just been willing to avoid trying to put people like Gym Jordan on the committee.

    Instead, the committee is united in purpose, so there will be no safe haven during testimony. And the committee will be set up to counter and uncover lies.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Fascinating. I hope his absence doesn’t throw the committee’s programming off too much.

    Just read a piece by Chris Stirewalt, the former Fox News editor who called the election for Biden and was subsequently driven out of the propaganda outlet for telling the truth. He’s testifying today and wrote a very both-sidesy opinion piece that did not disclose anything about the planned testimony. But reading between the lines, I get the feeling it will not be helpful to the Trump side.

  70. 70.

    germy shoemangler

    @UncleEbeneezer:   Neocons suck, but they historically accepted election results.

    With one notable exception  (cue up video of Bush/Gore brooks brothers riot).

  72. 72.

    germy shoemangler

    Stepien’s counsel will make a statement on the record.

    I would have preferred Stepien’s testimony, but “family emergency” after all.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @germy shoemangler: I’m sure many thousands of people across the nation, facing a scheduled appearance to give testimony, are checking with their lawyers to see if they can use this “family emergency” exemption and not show up.

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Happiest of all birthdays, WaterGirl! Thanks for all you do — may you be rewarded with all the cake you can eat, and a day on Balloon Juice free of technical and housekeeping glitches!

  81. 81.

    Matt McIrvin

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Neocons suck, but they historically accepted election results. That’s a very important difference.

    The Brooks Brothers Riot, and the plans to challenge Gore if he’d come out on top, say otherwise. Of course, that was to some extent the work of Roger Stone who went right over to the Trump camp. I see a lot of continuity there–the Bush/Cheney Republican Party already saw itself as the only legitimate ruler of the US. Trump has made it more brazen.

  82. 82.

    germy shoemangler

    @geg6:

    Apparently, Stepian’s wife is in labor, so I give him a pass on this.

    Induced?

    Mrs. Stepian [screaming while being pushed on gurney to delivery room]:  “But I’m only in my fourth month!!”

  87. 87.

    eversor

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I deal with a lot of these people and it boils down to a few things.

    • As long as the middle class and upper middle class Democrats are comfortable they will never ever give up anything for the working class or poor.   Rather they will make lip service about it and then hold the gun of social issues to everyone’s head and tell them to vote.
    • Corporations have utterly corrupted liberal social issues (see Goldman Sachs being the major backer of the Human Rights Campaign, or all the Pride stuff going on now) liberals are incapable of dealing with corporate power and utterly captured.
    • Due to both of the above liberals are as much of an obstacle to reform as conservatives are.   So any vote for a liberal is voting for more destruction of the working class and poor.   Explaining “I did it for the social issues” is not an excuse for killing yourself.
    • Because of all this the only rational thing to do is burn the whole damn thing to the ground in the hopes something better can rise from the wreckage because the system cannot be saved and liberals are a huge part of the problem.

    The thing is, they aren’t entirely wrong.  While I don’t agree that enabling a Nazi takeover of the US is the way to go, they are entirely correct in their assessment of liberalism and the Democratic party and corporations as they exist today.  I also somewhat agree with the logic that the system is too far gone to be fixed and short of razing it to the ground and coming up with something better will fix it.  Though razing can mean a lot of things in this case.   Getting rid of the electoral college and abolishing the senate would be razing part of it to the ground.

    The other part of the anti-anti-Trump is to keep in mind that the right hates their establishment and loved that Trump gave them stomach ulcers.   The left may not have liked Trump but a ton of them got a chuckle out of watching him give the liberal establishment ulcers.

    We’re at a point where huge swath of the nation is of the mind set from the movie Aliens of “shit’s fucked nuke it from orbit”, and yeah it is all across the political spectrum.   The thing is it’s obvious that the press, the people who are doing OK, and others do not realize this.   Or, as is often the case, refuse to realize this or think that by not admitting it the issue will go away and things will carry on as normal.  But I get the feeling we are in one of those Road Runner cartoons where the Coyote has already gone over the cliff but not realized it, and the moment we all look down and realize where we actually are things are going to hit hard and fast.

  88. 88.

    CaseyL

    Happy Birthday, WaterGirl! Hippo birdies two ewe!

    Hearings being moved to 10:30 ETA mean they’ll start as I’m supposed to be on my way to the office. Happily, I should be able to catch up once I’m there.

  89. 89.

    VOR

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m haunted by something I saw one commenter post on a forum thread during the Bush years, that he realized Ron Paul would completely destroy American society if he were in control, but that American empire had been such a destructive force that he was–just maybe–willing to pay that price to end it. That’s basically what Trump gave us.

    Back in October 2016 I had a conversation with a Trump supporter. He thought Trump did not understand Washington at all and would be a horrible President. But he thought Washington was so corrupt that being unable to manage things was a plus. I sarcastically said “So a pox on all their houses and burn it all down?” And he said yes, destroy it all. I don’t remember if he wanted to build from the ashes or just dance in the rubble.

  91. 91.

    Matt McIrvin

    @eversor: A lot of these sorts of leftists are super duper white and cishet too, which colors all of this analysis. Easier to say social issue advocacy is a corporatist distraction when it’s not your butt on the line. And some have an anti-immigrant streak perhaps coming from labor advocacy calculations.

    That’s before even getting to the Bruenig types who are really out-and-out social conservatives with a “leftist” gloss.

  92. 92.

    Baud

    @eversor:

    While I don’t agree that enabling a Nazi takeover of the US is the way to go

     

    Then IMHO you need to oppose those leftists, because fascism is the only force that is capable of burning it all down, and my guess is that those leftists understand and have made their peace with that.

  94. 94.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m not saying that there’s no continuity, but can we agree that this tendency to ignore election results (complete and open violation of laws) has gotten much, much worse since Trump?  There are valid reasons why way more articles about threats to Democracy were written about Trump than W.

  95. 95.

    germy shoemangler

    So Stepian, the guy who helped delay traffic on the George Washington Bridge, is now delaying the Jan. 6 hearings?

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    DeSantis is in NYC for a speaking gig and is guest-starring on Fox & Friends. The Fox peeps showed a clip of maybe a dozen or people milling around outside the Supreme Court building (in front of the giant fences), and DeSantis accused Democrats of perpetrating “insurrections” by protesting SCOTUS decisions. First Amendment? We don’t need no stinking First Amendment!

  98. 98.

    VOR

    @UncleEbeneezer: They used to use dogwhistles but TFG showed them they could use a bullhorn. The 2006 Bush US Attorney purge was due to lack of prosecution of voter fraud, but it was quiet. There was always a belief the Democrats were cheating. TFG showed them that lack of evidence was not a barrier to promoting an idea. He said out loud what they were thinking.

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @UncleEbeneezer: One difference was that the 2000 election was genuinely extremely close even in the popular vote. 2020 wasn’t; there were enough states that were close that a world where Trump straight-up won the EV wasn’t an absurd counterfactual, but even there, it was crystal clear that he didn’t legitimately win within a few days of Election Night, which was not the case in 2000.

  101. 101.

    WereBear

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m haunted by something I saw one commenter post on a forum thread during the Bush years, that he realized Ron Paul would completely destroy American society if he were in control, but that American empire had been such a destructive force that he was–just maybe–willing to pay that price to end it. That’s basically what Trump gave us.

     
    And what first world country would they be able to live in, instead? We’re already second tier of industrialized countries.

    I point out they are Hitler in the bunker. Then I’m gotten angry at.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin: 

    The Brooks Brothers Riot, and the plans to challenge Gore if he’d come out on top, say otherwise.

    I wonder what this timeline would be like if Gore had lost the popular vote but had won more Electoral College votes on Election Night.

    We know, because the papers reported it in the run-up to the election, that Team Bush would have tried to get Dem electors to ‘do the right thing’ and change their votes so that the popular vote winner would become President.

    Regardless of the outcome of that effort, we just might have been able to get a Constitutional amendment through to abolish the EC in the wake of that election, if things had gone that way. But there’s no way it’ll happen now.

  106. 106.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: DeSantis is in NYC for a speaking gig and is guest-starring on Fox & Friends.

    So this morning it was a blonde with three boobs? ;)

     

    ETA: Happy birthday, WaterGirl!  Thanks for all you do for this hotbed of lunacy! :D

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: Republican reverence for the Electoral College has always been highly conditional on results. In 2012, Donald Trump falsely believed that Mitt Romney had won the popular vote (it was an idea that was going around, I think because California’s final vote count is always late) and called for a revolution to overthrow Obama on those grounds. In the Clinton era, the fact that (thanks to the Perot third-party phenomenon) Bill Clinton never won a popular-vote majority was taken by conservatives as a sign he was illegitimate.

  108. 108.

    BigJimSlade

    @geg6: Apparently, Stepian’s wife is in labor, so I give him a pass on this.

    First time he’s ever been pro-labor.

  109. 109.

    pluky

    @eversor: 

    The problem with this theory is the historical record. What tends to rise out of the burnt-over rubble is pretty nasty in its own special way.

Comments are closed.