*Another* thread on the insurrection…
CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert didn’t wait long Monday night to discuss the bizarre topic that everyone was waiting for him to address: the fact that multiple members of his production team, including the voice behind one very famous puppet, were arrested last week in Washington at the Longworth House Office Building and charged with unlawful entry…
“Democratic and Republican congresspeople agreed to talk to Triumph. He’s a bipartisan puppy. He’s so neutral, he’s neutered,” Colbert said. “Triumph and my folks shot for two days in congressional offices across the street from the Capitol building. They went through security clearance, shot all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, invited into the offices of the congresspeople they were interviewing.”
Thursday evening, the group was doing some “last-minute puppetry” in a hallway, Colbert said, when they were approached and detained by Capitol Police…
“The Capitol Police are much more cautious than they were, say, 18 months ago — and for a very good reason,” Colbert said. “If you don’t know what that reason is, I know what news network you watch.”…
“My staffers were detained, processed, and released. A very unpleasant experience for my staff, a lot of paperwork for the Capitol Police. But a fairly simple story,” he said.
“Until the next night,” Colbert continued. “When a couple of the TV people started claiming that my puppet squad had ‘committed insurrection’ at the U.S. Capitol building.” Colbert did not name names, but that quote came from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.
“First of all, what? Second of all, huh? Third of all, they weren’t in the Capitol building,” Colbert said. “Fourth of all — and I’m shocked I have to explain the difference — but an insurrection involves disrupting the lawful actions of Congress and howling for the blood of elected leaders, all to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.”…
“They want to talk about something other than the January 6th hearings on the actual seditionist insurrection that led to the deaths of multiple people, and the injury of over 140 police officers,” he said. “But drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died. And it obscenely trivializes the service and the courage the Capitol Police showed on that terrible day.”…
“But in this case, our puppet was just a puppet doing puppet stuff. And sad to say, so much has changed in Washington that the Capitol Police do have to stay at high alert all the time because of the attack on January 6th,” he said. “And as the hearings prove more clearly every day, the blame for that actual insurrection all goes to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s puppet.”
debbie
Tuck’s desperate to change the subject.
Baud
Anonymous At Work
Triumph talks about poop.
Carlson just spews shit.
That’s the difference.
BigJimSlade
Colbert’s response is great – totally owns Tuckface. Not that it will get recognized on his seditionist, fascist “news” channel.
Elizabelle
Aha. From the linked story in The Hill:
Elizabelle
First, no surprise The Hill removed its comment section, because it was always a cesspool of rightwing trolls.
Second, Tucker Carlson sounds desperate. This backfired bigtime, and now Colbert has called Trump Putin’s puppet on air. To a bigger audience. And we know Tucker is a puppet, too. Think on that a bit.
Geminid
@BigJimSlade: Colbert should stage a mock trial of the puppet. Maybe the Muppets people would lend out Kermit as the prosecutor. Big Bird would look good in judge’s robes.
James E Powell
Why did the Democratic Party big shots fight so hard to keep Cuellar?
Were they convinced that Cisneros would lose the general?
Cook has it as a D+5, but lists it as a Democratic toss-up.
UncleEbeneezer
So it’s just like Jan 6, except that they didn’t destroy property, threaten public officials, smear feces on the walls, try to overthrow the govt and kill Capitol Police…
debbie
@UncleEbeneezer:
Oh, no, worse. They cracked jokes.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@James E Powell: I haven’t read the article, but isn’t the answer simply “because he’s the incumbent”?
I thought incumbent protection was standard operating practice for party big-shots… This was not unusual. I don’t agree with it, but it’s how the party infrastructure operates, isn’t it?
Geminid
@James E Powell: Cuellar had his own loyalists in the 28th CD, but I would not be surprised if he won with the votes of Democrats who just thought that Cisneros was too far left to win that district. Republicans have made inroads into the formerly solidly Democratic Rio Grande Valley recently, and they will go all out to flip the 28th this November.
Also, Cisneros’ association with the Justice Democrats may have turned some people off. Some Democrats see that as a red flag.
OzarkHillbilly
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: In general, unless the incombant gets caught with a dead girl or a live boy, they have a leg up on the opposition. So the party throws their weight behind them.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Bingo.
Geminid
@Geminid: Also, Cuellar has been very supportive of his Caucus. His only “bad” vote was when he was the sole Democrat to oppose codifying Roe. The measure passed anyway. His votes on other bills in this area have brought his ratings from NARAL and Planned Parenthood up considerably.
Much has been made of Cisneros’ “A” rating from the NRA, but it’s actually a “C” now. He voted with his caucus on expanding background checks and two other gun safety measures. On the most recent package of gun safety measures, Cisneros was a yes on every provision except the assault weapons ban.
Baud
@Geminid:
I’d imagine Cisneros would have been even better though.
Agree with others that it’s standard procedure to support incumbents.
Kay
@Geminid:
Doesn’t support agency and autonomy for women- sorry – deal breaker.
I think it’s a shame he narrowly eked out another primary win in his district. Why isn’t he more popular there? Why do they have to keep dragging him over the finish line?
gwangung
Justice Democrats are pretty much the embodiment of coastal elites. And Texas, understandably, claims an identity very much at odds with them.
BigJimSlade
@Geminid: I like it!
Steeplejack
Before anyone decides to erect a statue to today’s super witness Rusty Bowers:
(Graphic in tweet.)
Kay
@Steeplejack:
I just love how these people want endless credit for not breaking the law.
Most people don’t break the law. In conservative circles not violating laws puts you in the top tier, ethically? LOW standards.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
@Kay:
I’ve never overthrown the government. Where are my accolades?
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t like the sanctimonious, weepy conservatives. Oh, boo hoo. Such a dilemma. Oveturn an election or get yelled at by Donald Trump? Whatever will I do?
I put Rusty Bowers and Pence’s smarmy legal advisor in that category.
The best are the elections process people, and of course Ms. Moss.
Baud
@Kay:
Anyone who went to high school understands the power of peer pressure, Kay. Have a heart. These people never matured past the awkward years.
Geminid
@Baud: I live 1600 miles away and my knowledge of the TX 28th CD is second hand, but I think Cisneros might have been too left to carry the district. She backed off on some of the positions she took in 2020 regarding immigration and energy policy, but those positions were still out there to be used against her. So would her association with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders, who both campaigned with her.
There was also a personal matter that the Daily Mail sensationalized right after the first round, and that the New York Post amplified. The Post had e-mails to back up some of the allegations. Cuellar’s side used this matter late in the runoff, and Republican Cassie Garcia would have pounded it in the general election.
Kay
@Baud:
It is true that Bower’s adult daughter was dying as the sleazy Trump hires haragued him though– she died the January following the election so that’s the context of some of his emotionalism, I think.
Baud
@Geminid:
I have no idea about electability. Just saying that she would have been a better vote for the Dem agenda than Cuellar.
Delk
Speaking of dogs, puppet or real, today marks four years I said bye to Gav.
Steeplejack
* Steep’s random shopping notes *
Good Amazon deal on this Anker 735 Nano II charger. It’s currently $59.99; usually it’s $65.99 or $69.99. Dunno how long this will last.
It has two USB-C ports and one USB-A port. Key point: the first USB-C port is powerful enough to charge a MacBook or other notebook computer (in my case a ThinkPad 480). It is a very nice, small replacement for the big power brick and heavy cord that came with my computer. And of course it can charge your other devices—phone, tablet, Kindle, etc.—with the right cords, of course. (I like Anker for those, too.) This could be your one do-everything charger.
Kay
@Geminid:
Well, Cuellar barely carries his own district in a primary so I don’t know that I would rush to any conclusions that she would have lost due to Justice Democrats cooties.
He’s got his own problems. Maybe he should work harder? Try to be more popular?
I’m just afraid he’s going to do something embarrassing like support some of the tracking systems for pregnant women these freaks are planning. Good God. THAT will be some egg on the face of the Democrats, huh?
Steeplejack
@Baud:
You need a better press secretary! Didn’t someone here—WaterGirl?—volunteer?
Steeplejack
@Delk:
He was a good guy—friendly!
Geminid
@Baud: It would appear that way, depending on the actions of “the Squad” in the next Congress. I think Cisneros would have joined that crew.
We’ll never know about Cisneros’ electability because barring an unusual outcome of the recount Cuellar will go on to the general. There is some talk of Cisneros running in a more favorable district in 2024, but that’s a ways off. But Cisneros is young and has a political future ahead of her if she wants. She has a national reputation now.
I’ve seen people assert that the Democratic party would be better off losing the district than having Cuellar represent it. I guess that’s a defensible position, but I don’t share it.
Kay
@Geminid:
I love how the analysis always is “the more progressive candidate likely would have lost”
Oh okay. It’s a coin flip. It’s 177 votes. Shouldn’t this massive rejection of progressives have shown up some in the primary, which is an actual election?
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, I don’t believe in winning by losing.
Geminid
@Kay: Hasn’t happened yet, so no reason to gloat in advance.
Anyway
@Kay:
And he’s ethically-challenged. He was busted by the Feds. Find it hard to support an anti-choice Dem candidate.
Kay
@Anyway:
I don’t think he was “busted”. I think he’s somehow involved in an investigation, but yeah, that’s super great too. Love to have the candidate who had to let the FBI into his (very fancy) house to carry out boxes.
MisterForkbeard
@schrodingers_cat: That would have been my big concern. Cuellar is a awful, but I’m extremely leery of Justice Democrats as arsonists-inside-the-tent.
Not all of them. But the organization is just bad faith assholes all the way down, and they’re very open about it.
Geminid
@Kay: I did not say there was a “massive rejection of progressives,” and you know it. I’m saying that the 28th is not a very liberal district, and Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders are not so popular there, even among some of its Democrats.
I bet Marcy Kaptur isn’t going to ask them to come to her district and campaign. And you have said that the abortion issue will be a headwind in Kaptur’s reelection, and there are even more conservative Catholics in the Rio Grand Valley than in Northern Ohio..
Also, Cuellar’s final margin was 281 votes, not 177.
Kay
@Anyway:
It was a mistake not because Bush was such a disaster but because Cuellar almost lost over it, because “people took it personal”. He was just trying to be bipartisan! Is that a crime?
Kay
@Geminid:
They wouldn’t primary Kaptur. She’s strong, not weak. They gave her a shitty new district and she’ll pull it out, because she works her ass off. He’s weak so he continues to get challenges and national Democrats keep rescuing him.
Let him lose! He’ll land on his feet, if that raid on his house is any indication.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good lord.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I believe Baud promised that I would be his Valerie Jarrett. Not press secretary.
James E Powell
@Kay:
I don’t see how Cuellar is any different than Lipinski. We are better off without them. And as you say, if he was that big of a force in the district he’s represented since 2005 he would have won by a lot more than 289 votes.
Geminid
Recent ratings of Rep. Henry Cuellar from ratings aggregator VoteSmart, all 2022:
Heritage Action Committee: 0% (1/21)
Susan B.Anthony List: 0% (5/24)
National Right to Life Commitee: 7% (6/15)
Planned Parenthood Action: 80% (2/03)
NARAL Pro-Choice: 100% *
*Sorry, I forgot to write down the date, but it’s recent.
James E Powell
@MisterForkbeard:
Justice Democrats have not stood in the way of or damaged the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents like “centrists” have.
Geminid
@Kay: I meant that Kaptur would not bring them into her district to campaign in the general election. I think this is clear if my comment is read without prejudice.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Post Roe is going to be bad. It’s going to be very, very bad for women. No one has even begun to look at the ramifications because it’s a woman’s issue so why bother?
And the national Democratic Party just went out of their way to prop up this weak, anti-choice incumbent again. Haul his ass over the finish line again!
What’s the appeal? Other than “beating Justice Democrats” what did they accomplish here? What are they celebrating? That they triumphed over slightly less than half the Democrats in that district?
Kay
@Geminid:
But it’s not relevant. Kaptur has no connection to them and would not “bring them into her district” anymore than she has the last ten times she ran. I know your thesis here is that Justice Democrats lose races for Democrats but this attentuated hypothetical involving …Marcy Kaptur really doesn’t advance it.
Marcy Kaptur, who had no serious primary challenge and is an old fashioned Catholic populist, will not be bringing the squad into her district which proves… Justice Democrats lose elections for Democrats? Tim Ryan won’t be bringing them in either because Ryan is a centrist- further proof?
Fetterman was supposedly too far Left – how’s that going? I can pick and choose too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
I hope you didn’t injure yourself running so fast and so far with such a heavy goalpost on your back.
You must be in fantastic shape.
Josie
I live in Texas and used to be in Cuellar’s district. Geminid is exactly right. Cisneros would have lost in the general. Cuellar will have a hard time, but he might be able to pull it out, due to his personal popularity and conservative leanings. The republicans knew what they were doing when they drew those ridiculous south Texas districts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Can’t speak for Geminid, but for myself, my objection to Fetterman wasn’t that he was “too far Left”. It was 1) I find his affect rather affected and even more so 2) when I later learned he had chased a Black jogger with a shotgun in what looks very much to me like an act of racist vigilantism.
Kay
@Josie:
Well, if he loses it’ll be a double loss, because the Democratic Party will have done the wrong thing and they’ll lose anyway.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But perhaps the “black jogger analysis” was not actually that central to black people? He won by a mile and if he stays healthy enough he will pick up a seat.
Does the deal breaker black jogger analysis need some post election tweaking? Since it was wrong?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My opinion isn’t based on the outcome of the vote. I find the incident troubling, and find it troubling that more people didn’t
Geminid
@Kay: Sure, I made a hypothetical. It was about Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, not the Justice Democrats, who have a much lower profile. The JDs wouldn’t lift a finger for Kaptur anyway, because she’s not one of theirs. Their loyalty to the Democratic Party is conditional.
But Kaptur wouldn’t invite the two politicians I mentioned to campaign for her because they would hurt her chances, just like they would have hurt Cisneros’ chances.
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In the ten or twelve discussions we’ve had on this blog regarding Fetterman & that incident, I think pretty much everybody found it to be troubling, concerning, embarrassing, etc. I do not think anyone thought it was a reason we should have another right-wing senator from Pennsylvania.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Geminid: Statler and Waldorf for defense. Sam the Eagle as judge.
Kay
@Geminid:
Geminid, do you hear yourself? Cuellar endorsed George W Bush in 2000. He made a deal with Rick Perry that he wouldn’t endorse IF Perry wouldn’t run against Cuellar in Cuellar’s district.
He’s a horrible team player. It just isn’t true that centrist and Right wing Democrats are better Democrats than progressives. Centrists and Righties screw the Party constantly and when they do we’re told this is acceptable BECAUSE they are centrists and Right wing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
well, Kay here seems pretty sneeringly and cynically dismissive of
(snark quotes? really?) and I certainly don’t want a Republican to win that seat (unless you meant that Conor Lamb is right-wing, which opinion would not surprise me on twitter, or from a handful of people here). I think it’s a good thing for Dems that Oz won the R primary, cause I think Fetterman would’ve lost to a more normie business-friendly Republican like McCormick
Kay
@Geminid:
You can say “progressive and Right wing Democrats support of the Democratic Party is conditional” and I wouldn’t agree with it but at least it acknowleges the reality of Right wing Democrats, who are most assuredly and proudly NOT team players.
But to say “progressives support is conditional” and use that to defend Right wing Democrats as a contrast?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think there was too much focus on it and it was used in the most horrible way, with threats that “Republicans would use it”.
The focus may have helped him, oddly enough. Everyone knows about it and apparently not a lot thought it was career defining so he’s past it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell:
and beyond the incident itself, there was Fetterman’s refusal to address it in any meaningful way
Geminid
@Kay: I hear myself talking about the coming election And I hear you talking about what Henry Cuellar did 20 fucking years ago.
If you want a Republican to win that seat just be honest and say it. But don’t try to browbeat me for wanting a Democrat to win it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Yes, Fetterman was the real victim that time he chased down an innocent Black jogger with a shotgun he was illegally transporting in his car because he was concerned about a school shooting on a Saturday afternoon.
Geminid
@Kay: I did not say the that progressive Democrats have conditional loyalty to the party. I said that the Justice Democrats’ support of the Democratic Party is conditional. I do not think the Justice Democrats represent the progressive wing of the party, although they pretend to.
But the Justice Democrats will be around for a while, and you will have your chances to see them in action, and form your own conclusions as to their good faith..