Pelosi’s response to hearing Trump might march to the Capitol is definitely worth watching pic.twitter.com/wpUlvKoqwT
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 14, 2022
Our Democracy is on the ballot. Our economic security is on the ballot.
We know what extreme Republicans are doing across America to undermine our elections.
With YOU, our Volunteers in Politics, we will win. 25 days left — make every day count! -NP
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) October 14, 2022
Speaker Pelosi with all-female secret service – This photo is BADASS. pic.twitter.com/s1SRjv2HYJ
— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) October 13, 2022
I pulled pieces from today’s hearing and information from past hearings and other reporting to put together a comprehensive look at how and why Trump is culpable for Jan. 6.
No paywall. https://t.co/DkLBoiCxFX
— Philip Bump (@pbump) October 14, 2022
i’ve frequently been annoyed with schumer, but he comes across as just as competent as pelosi in all of these behind closed doors videos
— 🎃GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE🎃 (@golikehellmachi) October 13, 2022
I mostly agree with Popehat here…
You can watch the videos from January 6 and say "wow, we came really close to awful things." You can also watch them and think "we're still close to those awful things and they may happen in 2022 or 2024." They still want blood.
— HatOrganizationII (@Popehat) October 13, 2022
… but I can understand the counterargument, too:
Even coming that close triggered a backlash I haven't witnessed since 9/11. Credit card companies blocked people from donating to Republicans. Trump was banned from the internet. Now imagine they had succeeded in killing people.
— Millard Fillmore's porcelain zither (@agraybee) October 13, 2022
SiubhanDuinne
FTFY, @Acyn
Baud
We must lose our democracy in order to save it!
Alternatively, we could just proceed directly to saving it.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Today show aired it!
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Did they air it to demonstrate what a total badass she is, or was it more “OMG! Violent threats against the Preznit!! Both sides!!!”?
Eolirin
That counter argument ignores the uncertainty around the potential for emergency declarations that would have been being made without a congress able to resist and a Supreme Court likely to be permissive. Biden at minimum would not legally have been certified to have won the presidential election on Jan 6th.
It’s completely impossible to know how any of that would have played out.
japa21
We definitely came close to losing democracy. If the insurrection had been successful democracy as we know it would be gone.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
I didn’t detect much spin in that segment, either way.
zhena gogolia
@Eolirin: That counter argument is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen.
Sanjeevs
Liz Truss has just sacked her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng after just 6 weeks in office.
Awkward given they are widely rumoured to have had an affair in the past.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Agreed. Which is why all speculation about alternative histories is largely a waste of time and mental energy.
Eolirin
@Sanjeevs: Somehow I don’t think this will improve her standing much. Maybe she can sack herself next. That might actually work in terms of improving public opinion.
geg6
@Sanjeevs:
I’m not any sort of expert on British politics, but I don’t think will save her.
OzarkHillbilly
I got my bivalent and flu vaccines a week ago Wednesday, no side effects. Then on Tuesday my nose started running. “Allergies.” I said. Then yesterday something hit me like a ton of bricks, Uncontrolled coughing all day, lots of phlegm in many colors, nose running constantly. I felt like hammered shit. Self tested for covid twice with “Invalid” results both times. It finally alleviated last night and with the help of NyQuil I managed to get some sleep.
It’s not too bad now, limited coughing (some phlegm), my nose has stopped running but my diaphragm is sore as all fck.
WTF, who knows.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: The only illness I’ve had since Covid started has been “allergies” which got worse (never tested positive for Covid). I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it from people because I have been social distancing and masking.
Betty Cracker
Popehat is correct, though. Stolen election liars are on the ballot, and some will probably win. The outrage against the coup attempt on the part of corporate America was almost as short-lived as the elected Republicans’ temporary sobriety before they crawled back to the bloated orange meat-sack.
A proper response to what happened on January 6th would be overwhelming national outrage that consigned the Republican Party to the political wilderness until they regrouped, had an internal reckoning and kicked out all the crazies. Republican pols strongly associated with Trump would be dead meat politically.
Instead of any of that, Republicans were allegedly on track to retake both chambers until the corrupt SCOTUS reclassified half the population as second-class citizens and Trump picked a bunch of crackpots to run for senate seats. So the consequence is they’re less favored to win in 2022 than the out-party usual is.
This wouldn’t be the case in a healthy democracy. Not saying we’re doomed, but yes, we did come really close to losing our democracy, and yes, that danger is still acute.
Eolirin
@zhena gogolia: Hey, it’s dumb, but we live in a world that has Ron Johnson in it. It’s not that bad.
Wag
@OzarkHillbilly: You need a definitive PCR test. Get tested both for COViD and for influenza if you can
Math Guy
And now the media will subject us to countless hours of handwringing over Speaker Pelosi’s “lack of civility “. Hours of precious airtime will be devoted to panels of reporters interviewing each other about reactions to her reaction to the enraged mob that tfg unleashed. Lunatic republican representatives will call for investigations and Pelosi’s expulsion from the House. All of this will be forgotten in a week – another week when we could have had a serious discussion of – oh, I don’t know; maybe something important like the real threats to Democracy, or the climate, or . . .. And maybe that’s the point: to avoid having to deal with genuine issues.
It is really hard some days not to get discouraged.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
“Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.”
-MP&HG Møøse credits
OzarkHillbilly
One Tory MP:
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Truth.
sdhays
Umm…”if we lost 100 Senators” the formalization of inaugurating the new President would have been disrupted and Trump would have filled that void – ending democracy in America. Maybe it still wouldn’t have worked, but asserting that it definitely wouldn’t have has no evidence backing it.
“We’d have more elections” misses the entire point.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
While I agree, but I also try to keep in mind that the Civil War did not come close to killing off the Democratic Party (which at the time occupied the place the Republican Party has today).
Sadly, it also seems to me there are a lot of Dems and libs over the last two years who have continued to ask things of Democrats other beyond not being seditionists and anti-democracy as a condition of continued support. If we haven’t been unified, it hurts our ability to persuade normies and non-Dems to unify with us IMHO.
Betty Cracker
More Smash appreciation on Twitter:
Baud
@Math Guy:
Our media sucks, but I prefer to be discouraged by things that actually happen, not my own predictions about things that will happen. YMMV.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: Hey, it’s a very cunning plan; on one hand she’d still be Liz Truss, but on the other, she’d be the person who made Liz Truss go away. I figure those should roughly cancel out to neutral.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: That ton of bricks feeling sure sounds like COVID. I took mucinex D, and that alleviated the running nose, etc, but the fatigue hung around. I started feeling better day 5. I still don’t have the same appetite I had before COVID, and my taste is still affected.
I had lots and lots of chicken noodle soup. Hope you feel better soon.
Baud
@Eolirin: Ah yes, the “Hitler killed Hitler” gambit. It just might work.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
rikyrah
Nancy Smash is A BOSS 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
RepubAnon
Add a few income tax brackets and boost the maximum marginal rate to 90% for incomes of all types over $10 million. This will help drain the money from the Billionaire Dark Money swamp. Without seed money, the astroturf groups will disappear, and hate radio will need to rely on advertising again.
It won’t solve the problem completely, but it’ll help get it under control.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
kalakal
From a (very) competent individual to a complete clown here’s the UK’s new Home Secretary* being greeted by her Labour counterpart at her first parliamentary session in the role. Yvette Cooper nails her to the floor, it’s great
https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1580602933623676928?s=20&t=xa4YyYaUYvzNPf6L4-kgNw
As for her boss The Economist came up with an insult I have to steal
*Braverman inexplicably was Attorney General for the last 2 years, she’s allegedly a lawyer but in her time in office showed less knowledge of UK law than a sardine. She is also a real piece of work, in her speech at the Tory party conference she waned lyrical on the prospect of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda
TaMara
In my fantasies, I often wonder how things would be different if the insurrectionists had broken through and got to Pence. How much bloodshed would have happened as the USSS fought to protect him. Would that have changed the dynamic? Would the House and Senate have made serious changes to address it? Would the Republicans have abandoned the trump train (although they’d still be on the fascist route, I’m sure)
It was bad enough as it was…but what if it had been worse?
And Nancy Pelosi is bad ass. But those of us paying attention already knew that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RepubAnon: In my dream world, that happens.
Eolirin
@RepubAnon: I don’t think that works, not that I’m against income tax increases and not that I don’t think we need to break the ability for billionaires to dominate our media.
But I don’t think we can succeed at accomplishing the latter just by doing the former. It’s going to be a lot harder than that.
TaMara
@Betty Cracker: Love
Quiltingfool
New cat update: She is still under the bed in the guest room. She has food, water and the litter box in the room and I go in there every so often to talk to her.
I’m pretty sure she prowled around last night, though. The catnip stuffed fish toy was on the floor, not on the coffee table and I think she walked around on the sofa. Baby steps!
terraformer
@Betty Cracker:
This is what keeps me up at night – how *close* things came then and apparently will be next month.
For the former, I believe that had T***p not completely fcked up COVID, he’d be in office right now.
For the latter, I believe that had SCOTUS not ruled against abortion, Republicans would be doing much better in the polls (even though we know polls suck).
Just a couple of tweaks and we’d be in a much darker place right now. This is why I fear the so-called “competent authoritarian” pol.
kalakal
@Sanjeevs: Liz Truss, the self basting Prime Minister
stinger
@Eolirin: I saw of clip of Truss being received by the King.
Charles: “Back again, eh? Oh dear, oh dear. Anyway….”
TaMara
@Quiltingfool: In a week she’ll be in your lap. Can’t wait for photos.
Nicole
“I’m going to punch him out; I’m going to go to jail; I’m going to be happy.”
I want that on a T-shirt.
It’s cool to think we’ve been here to see one of the best Speakers in the history of the nation. She is extraordinary.
Amir Khalid
@Sanjeevs:
Looks to me like Kwarteng is being scapegoated for the wildly unpopular “mini-budget” announced a few days ago. But I’m doubtful that throwing her Chancellor under the bus is going to help keep Truss in her own job for much longer. She’s been an absolute train wreck as PM.
Geminid
Senate debates don’t seem to be high profile events nationally, but tonight’s Walker/Warnock debate was previewed in the CBS radio hourly news this morning. One of their reporters was in Georgia, interviewing Peach State voters. She said a commonly expressed desire regarding the debate was “the truth,” about both policy and personal matters.
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: She’ll come around. It took my last batch about a week to come out from behind the books on the bookshelf. (Better than behind the washing machine, where they spent the first day.)
Amir Khalid
@stinger:
Can you blame the King? The mere sight of Truss killed his poor mother.
JWR
@Betty Cracker:
If any of these election liars win, and find themselves in a position to actually know better, will they still pull a TFG stunt? I know they say they’ll do it, and say they would have done it the last time around, but will they really stick their necks out, especially if TFG isn’t on the ballot? I say no, but only if TFG and assorted others are held to account.
sab
@Quiltingfool: We had baby steps with our Dobby. He started out hiding in the basement for months. A year and a half later he sleeps in my bed every night and frolics on the carpeted steps every day. And comes when I call his name.
Baud
Alaska is paying for its history of voting GOP.
Tom Levenson
Who could have predicted that leaving the choice of PM of the UK to ~160,000 people willing to pay money at regular intervals to the Tories and whose last choice was BoJo would end in bathetic disaster?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Gee… Where ever could they have gone???
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia: Are you still watching Servant of the People? How are you liking it?
The Moar You Know
@OzarkHillbilly: I never tested positive a couple of months ago; but when four different doctors tell you that you have COVID, in spite of your test results, well, you have COVID. And yeah, it fucking hits like a hammer.
Kristine
@kalakal: Cooper’s constituents got themselves a good one.
zhena gogolia
@Layer8Problem: I suspended my watching of it. He is very good, but it was just too depressing to watch a comedy show about Ukraine right now. I’ll resume watching when/if things get better.
stinger
@Amir Khalid: Like his mother, he does his job, even when he’d rather not. It was pretty clear he’d rather not have been doing it then. Just before the door opens to admit Truss, an aide is saying to the King, “No, just this one, Sir.” Or possibly, “Just this once.”
To your comment, I’m thinking we’d better check on the King’s health toot sweet.
lowtechcyclist
@Nicole:
With a pic of Pelosi of course.
Yeah, I’d wear that tee. I’d alternate it with my “Dark Brandon Rising” tee.
Burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
Not going to happen. The crazies hold all the levers of power in the Republican Party. And David Corn, in his new book, posits that it has been thus since at least the 1930s, if not the 1890s.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: The potential trainwreck factor probably explains the heightened interest.
lowtechcyclist
@JWR:
Oh come on. It’s tribalism uber alles with this gang. Doesn’t matter if their 2024 candidate is Trump or DeSantis or whoever, they’ll use the powers of their offices to put as big a thumb on the scales as they possibly can.
catclub
Still avoiding that experience 2.7 years in.
Tony G
Ha! With the exception of my wife, all of the women in my family are Italian-American. I’ve heard that tone of voice many times in my life. The weapon of choice when my mother had “had it up to here” used to be a wooden spoon. That tone means: “Back the hell off, and do what you’re supposed to do!”.
RAM
Trump should be in jail right now awaiting trial, with no bail set, as a danger to the nation for his actions on 1/6 as well as for theft of sensitive government documents, obstruction of justice, and suspected espionage.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Yes, and more Georgia voters will tune in because of this factor. Senator Warnock can benefit from a larger audience even if Walker doesn’t blow his own campaign up. Warnock is an accomplished communicator, with decades of public speaking under his belt.
Betty Cracker
@Tony G: My husband’s mom is Italian American — sweetest lady I’ve ever met and barely over five feet tall. But everyone instinctively knows not to piss her off. According to my husband, it never ends well.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And the Republicans were impeaching their own president before most of the war dead were buried.
Wakeshift
@lowtechcyclist:
You know, of course, what comes next:
Completing the job in a completely different style and at great expense…
Fleeting Expletive
@OzarkHillbilly:I did the same last Saturday. The Covid vaccination in my left arm was a little sore, the flu shot in my right felt like I’d been hit with a bat, all hot and red and sore. I’d never had much of a reaction to either kind before. It all went away in a couple of days and I’m feeling relieved that I won’t get the flu because I know how much worse that could be.
worth it!
NotMax
FYI.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m nervous that this won’t link properly, but I hope it does. It’s an excellent campaign ad for Beto.
OzarkHillbilly
“I know you are but what am I???”
He is a manchild.
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia: I know what you mean. My partner and I recently finished watching it. He’s intelligent, funny, and works well with the ensemble, Kvartal 95 people I think. We liked it. It had its slapstick, over-the-top situation comedy stuff but you really get a sense of a different place and a man who loves his country and has a sense of humor about its day-to-day life and corruption and wants better for it. The heartbreaking part is laughing with him and his cast, watching them in a peaceful environment that’s gone, and then turning off an episode, getting online, and seeing in the present moment a grimly serious war president in a army green t-shirt talk about his country and its fight and knowing what horror is going on and what the Ukrainian people are suffering and enduring. Having laughed with these people is painful.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: Powerful.
sab
When I lived in California we got mail packet laying out the ballot with issues and candidates.
Ohio we have crickets. Two big statewide issues on the ballot with no discussion at all in the press. Thanks media guys.
One issue is whether to block all the bail reforms. Of course it is not presented that way.
The other issue is whether to allow municipalities to allow green card holders to vote on local issues. Who even knew this was a problem? Ohio Sec of State Frank LaRose thought it was serious enough to amend our state constitution. Local ballot issues are usually only local income tax and local property tax.
ETA My takeaway has always been if you don’t understand a ballot issue vote NO. A no vote changes nothing. The status quo still stands.
zhena gogolia
@Layer8Problem: Yes, I just can’t do it right now.
Tony G
@Geminid: That’s right.
Geminid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Andrew Johnson was not really a Republican. Lincoln chose the Tennessee War Democrat to run with him 1864. This was one of Lincoln’s few political mistakes, but it was a very consequential one.
Johnson actually started his presidency advocating a vengeful policy towards the South.”Treason must be made odious” he warned. By some accounts only Grant’s threat of resignation prevented Johnson from putting Lee and other officers on trial.
Johnson soon realized that he had no future with the Republican party, and swung towards a lenient Reconstruction. His conflict with Congressional Republicans over this led to his Impeachment.
Paul in KY
@TaMara: I think the Secret Service would have had to break out their automatic weapons and shoot a bunch of insurrectionists. Would they have had to expend all their ammo? Hopefully no.
Amir Khalid
Kwasi Kwarteng’s replacement as Chancellor of the Exchequer has been announced: Jeremy Hunt. I know nothing about the man, except that a BBC radio interviewer once had an on-air slip of the tongue and introduced him to her listeners as Jeremy C***.
Betty Cracker
@Layer8Problem: And what an inspiring leader Zelensky turned out to be. I can’t think of another person in recent history who’s risen to the occasion like he has.
Paul in KY
@Quiltingfool: If you look under the bed & coo to her, what does she do? Does she hiss or just look at you? Can you handle her in any way right now?
sab
@Paul in KY: Don’t force handling. That just reinforces their fearful expectations.
Betty Cracker
@stinger: Here it is in all its glory.
I thought maybe it was edited, but apparently not.
Paul in KY
@sab: If she can easily handle her, then it’s not ‘forced handling’. Will she allow you to pick her up? If not, then don’t pick her up.
TS
@Sanjeevs:
Scout211
I enjoyed reading this analysis on CNN.com that catalogued TFG’s very bad, no good day yesterday.
If you have a few minutes, it’s a satisfying read
Eunicecycle
@OzarkHillbilly: I am just getting over the worst cold I have ever had. Fully boosted and tested negative for Covid. But it sounds like what you had.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Paul in KY: They did shoot one. I don’t know if that made any difference.
The footage of the insurrection is always shocking, no matter how many times I see it. The insurrectionists are so filled with hate and violence, and so sure they’re untouchable.
MazeDancer
Send the Speaker the House she needs. Write PostCards!
We got Elaine Luria addresses for those that enjoyed her on J6. And Wiley Nickel in NC, which gets a potential Beasley voter to the polls as well.
PostCards increase turnout. And turnout is what we need.
Head to PostCardPatriots.com or click on my nym.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: This might have been payback. The King planned to give a speech at the COP27 climate change conference in Egypt next month. But on October 3, British media reported that “on advice” from Prime Minister Truss, Charles would stay home.
The British political system makes the PM’s “advice” more or less mandatory in such matters, but nothing prevents Charles from flipping Truss the figurative bird.
Eunicecycle
@JWR: I was wondering that too. If they are the ones running to elections, are they going to admit it was fraudulent?
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: Yep. A comedian! That’s almost certainly what Putin thought. No, it turns out he’s much more than that, and always has been.
And in passing, thank you for the pointer to Bad Sisters!
Paul in KY
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If they had actually got within grabbing distance of Pence, they’d have had to shoot a bunch more or let them have him.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: I’m not convinced that the Secret Service would have protected Pence at all under those circumstances.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
From one news agency…
Neither man has any particular expertise in economics or finance. They appear to be safe choices, from the perspective of Conservative Party officials. They don’t ruffle feathers, but are not hardliners.
Liz Truss is still on shaky ground.
Frankensteinbeck
@Scout211:
Yes, I enjoyed hearing yesterday that the Supreme Court flatly rejected his appeal about the stolen documents investigation. Not even an explanation or vote list, just “No.”
LibraryGuy
@Baud: Maybe this has something to do with it? :-(
69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970, says new WWF report
https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/69-average-decline-in-wildlife-populations-since-1970-says-new-wwf-report
Old School
@MazeDancer: Mrs. School just received her postcard in the mail this week. She was going to vote anyway, but it was appreciated that Cait from Oakland took the time for a handwritten message.
Eunicecycle
@sab: my reaction, too. My husband and I voted yesterday and voted No on both those issues.
Matt McIrvin
@JWR: Reality is infinitely malleable for these people. A lot of the state legislators who were gunning to declare election fraud in 2020 got reelected on the same ballot. They all had some kind of reason why Biden’s election was fake but their simultaneous election wasn’t. It was only the Biden ballots with downballot undervotes that were fake, etc., etc. There’s always something.
zhena gogolia
@Paul in KY: He himself didn’t trust the SS driver who was trying to take him away.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: My impression was that the Secret Service was actively trying to prevent Pence from stopping the coup. If it had come down to the mob actually coming for him, maybe they’d have just figured the mob was winning, turned around and shot him.
I do think that the Secret Service plotting to assassinate the President and/or VP is a thing we have to at least plan for. As funny as it would have been for the case of Nancy Pelosi becoming Acting President, I think having the Speaker of the House as third in line of succession is a terrible idea and needs to be changed, for that specific reason. There shouldn’t be any possibility of the White House changing party control through violence.
Tony Jay
A BILLET-DOUX FROM BREXITANIA
“You Were Only Supposed To Blow Their Bloody Doors Off!”
Given my advancing age and geographical location on the Island of Lost Souls, I’ve already put far too much thought into what I’d prefer as a soundtrack for my last boxed-up journey.
I don’t really like the idea of people being sad on my account, so as three half-naked Bolivian strippers carry the coffin into the Chapel of ‘I Told You So’, I’d like it to be to the theme tune from ‘Red Dwarf’. It’s a happy, bouncy little number that should put people in mind of sandy beaches and cocktails rather than the sad, silent gap they now have in their otherwise meaningless lives. During the service itself, preferably carried out by a violently drunk atheist preacher eager to seize this unexpected opportunity to rain thunderbolts of doubt upon the faith of captive well-wishers, I think a barely audible cover version of “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” by K. T. Tunstall should add needed pathos to the proceedings. Then, as they lower the flower-strewn casket into the pit, a booming performance of Monty Python’s “Sit On My Face (And Tell Me That You Love Me)” by a choir of local schoolchildren will drown out the noise of my panicked screams and frantic scratching as the mix of edibles and absinthe wears off, really bringing the big day to a fitting conclusion. After which everyone goes back to the community centre and wipes away the memory of the last few hours with cheap wine and tequila slammers.
It’ll be nice.
Anyway, here in rainy old Anglo-Saxonia, the Truss Government is hovering around the last chorus of Julio Iglesias’ mammoth hit and moments away from noticing that it’s very dark in here and all the plush velvet padding has left them feeling a bit cramped.
You’ll have no doubt heard that Kwasi ‘It’s not pronounced Quasi’ Kwarteng, Liz Truss’ hand-picked Chancellor and author of the worst received budget since James Cameron pitched “Titanic meets Waterworld – on ice!” has been unceremoniously gifted a first-hand view of the exhaust pipe beneath the Tory Party’s Big Blue Bus.
This has happened for a number of reasons.
This all happened on a day when Kwarteng himself was supposed to be in Washington DC receiving acknowledgment of his fealty to the High Table attending an IMF meeting but was instead instructed to jump on a jet back to London so he could be humiliated on his native soil. Apparently, it was one of the most tracked civilian flights in the air today, mainly so that British journalists (who become ever so brave when they know someone is on the outs) could make jokes about it performing u-turns before landing.
Because that’s what’s going to happen now. The non-Glibertarian/Crude Right factions of the Tory Party have clearly agreed to bury their mutual hatreds for as long as it takes to finally – FINALLY – swat a rolled-up copy of the Will to Power across the collective noses of Truss and the 100+ MPs who foisted her on them. The noxious (but officially ‘centre-right’ in the eyes of our awful News Media) failure Jeremy Hunt has been installed as Kwarteng’s replacement, which looks like a holding manoeuvre until they can agree on what happens next week. There have been constant rumours of MPs being despondent about their chances of winning the next election (no shit, Sherlock) and Party grandees laying plans to present Truss with an ultimatum, and while this is that start of that, just levering Kwarteng out of Number 11 Downing Street isn’t going to do it.
If the Tory Party is going to be able to face the voters with a plausible (not credible, just plausible) argument about Truss & Co being an accidental mindfart that is now consigned to the past, and more crucially, bring their Media co-rulers along for the ride with them, they’re going to have to break the power of the whole ERG/Brextremist/Tufton St Lobbyist wing of the Party and settle for two years of grey, non-chaotic mundanity.
They either do that loudly, by forcing Truss to resign (risking a spiteful announcement of a General Election, maybe) and waging open civil-war in which all Tory MPs and their donors and the Media have to take sides, which won’t look good at this time of economic and social collapse, but has the advantage of getting the whole shitshow over with quickly and possibly leaving enough time to drive a narrative of “at least now the adults are in charge” through the Press.
Or they do it quietly, by allowing Truss to stay on in the manner of a Japanese Emperor, with a Cabinet reshuffle to turf out the completely unacceptable lunatics (looking at you Braverman, Coffey, etc) and leave a coalition of MPs who’d actually quite like to stand a chance of not being buried under a 2024 Election landslide to run the country while Truss functions as an obviously neutered figurehead. She can then step down more or less gracefully a year before the next Election top give time for a whole ‘new’ Conservative Party to campaign as the solution to all the problems they’ve created and maybe – just maybe – squeak out a very narrow majority or a hung parliament.
As Old Big-Ears said, dear oh dear.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: This 100%.
Also, no polity is perfect. I think we do quite well given our sheer size and diversity.
scav
@Tony Jay: One does somehow begin to wonder the number of rapid u-turns it would take to self-underbus — or would that more properly be auto-underbus??— and, given a proper burst of speed, how many complete layers of simultaneous auto-underbusment might yet be achieved. Stay tuned to Political Bake-Off I guess and meet the latest soggy bottems.
Eta. Under-Trussment!?
Citizen Alan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I wish they had impeached the racist SOB. Andrew Johnson’s chief claim to fame as president was protecting the nascent KKK so the Union Army couldn’t wipe it out before it got established.
R-Jud
@Tony Jay: I hope someone, somewhere is pitching a deep-dive documentary about the inner workings of this clusterfuck parfait–one that will be hosted by a Labour MP. Working title: “CHAOS! with Ed Miliband.”
Frank Wilhoit
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, we had that. It’s exactly like a cold except worse and slower. The only thing that helps is to take it very easy. Figure 7 — 10 days.
ellenr
@OzarkHillbilly:
I watch a lot of medical/clinical/education webinars on covid. The clinical people report that many of their patients allergies seem to have been exacerbated recently, presumably by Covid. Seems to be the case whether or not one has been ill enough to know that they’ve had Covid at all. Lots of increase in allergy symptoms in 2021 and 2022.
The Lodger
@Tony Jay: Best soundtrack ever.
Citizen Alan
The tweet from Millard Filmore’s Whatsisnuts is disingenuous bullshit. They didn’t need to kill anything close to 100 senators. They just needed to kill enough Dem Congress members to swing the House and enough Dem Senators to produce a filibuster-proof majority. Then, they’d have reappointed Shitgibbon and run the country via junta until “the special elections,” whenever those happened under whatever new Calvinball rules the junta would have put in place.
Bear in mind, SCOTUS will soon be deciding whether state legislatures (most of which are GOP controlled) will be able to ignore their own state constitutions in setting election laws and procedures.
dnfree
@Wag:
@OzarkHillbilly: Get officially tested for both flu and Covid, as Wag says. My husband had flu last November, and that’s what the urgent care place did. He had flu and they gave him Tamiflu, which helped. Don’t delay—go now. The time limit for Tamiflu being effective is limited. Neither of your shots would have been fully effective yet.
My husband thinks he got the flu in the very same urgent care center. He was originally there for the mandatory Covid test before cataract surgery.
smedley the uncertain
@Eolirin: Let our reversible SCOTUS reverse Citizens United.
Tony Jay
@R-Jud:
Somewhere out there in the multiverse there are whole clusters of universes where Ed Milliband didn’t listen to the Church of Divine Triangulation in 2015 amd swept to power campaigning against austerity and the Coalition’s destructive priorities.
No Referendum. No Brexit. No Flobalob. No Truss.
Also, no deep-throating of Gulf dictatorships, Qatar pulls its billions out of Man City, Liverpool have won the last four Premier League titles by a mile.
Better world, man. Better world.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: So could Truss order a General Election on her own? Like a political suicide bomber?
Eolirin
@smedley the uncertain: Antitrust enforcement on media companies would help too. We may need grant funds for local reporting. Lots of things need to happen, all of which will be very very heavy lifts.
R-Jud
@Tony Jay: Triangulation? Pfft. Obviously his campaign failed because he ate that bacon sandwich weirdly.
Eolirin
@Citizen Alan: I think this has the potential to be a massive self own, if they do it and I’m not convinced they will, as it would free NY and CA to engage in red state like gerrymanders that would make it much easier for us to take the house back. They have more state legislatures but we have more seats.
Baud
@Eolirin: I agree. Red states have maximized their gerrymandering potential. Blue states largely have not.
Warblewarble
Hung , Drawn and Kwartenged.
Mike in NC
As long as Trump is breathing our democracy is in danger. He has dreamed for 20 years of being the American Putin.
Paul in KY
@zhena gogolia: I’m sure they wouldn’t like shooting fellow travelers in wackoland, but they couldn’t just hand him over. Think that would look bad when you are trying to get promoted, etc.
RaflW
@Sanjeevs: Also awkward because he was simply implementing her stated policies.
Geminid
@Eolirin: Had New York’s court of appeals upheld Albany Democrats’ gerrymander, Democrats were on a path to a pickup of five seats. Instead they might only hold their own in November, maybe even lose a seat.
Illinois succeeded in gerrymandering the state’s congressional districts as effectively as did New York’s, maybe more. But a different court reviewed their map, and their relevent law may be different too.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: Unless they were betting on a “none dare call it treason” situation. Of course that would also require trusting in Donald Trump’s willingness to reward his loyal lackeys instead of throwing them under the bus, but that’s a mistake people do keep making over and over.
The Moar You Know
@Burnspbesq: hard to refute. If you take a look at the GOP’s response to the Great Depression and especially to WW2, their actions have been indefensible. No other words will suit. Indefensible.
I can’t speak to their voters but their leadership – as shown by words and deeds – has been batshit for over a century.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Technically, yes. The PM ‘asks’ the monarch to dissolve Parliament and off we go.
In the real world its supposed to be something that at least the Cabinet supports, but let’s not disregard the awful optics of a Tory Party desperately trying to row back from a General Election announcement if Truss were to call one out of spite.
This is the story of the last decade of British politics. Tory Party internal feuds translated into shitty national catastrophes.
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: This requires Democrats to shed all the good-government impulses that have led the fight against gerrymandering and other antidemocratic measures in the first place, and meet tyranny with tyranny. I’m not convinced we will do it even if we should do it.
artem1s
The best part of Nancy Smash voicing her frustrations over TFG’s plan to crash the Capitol with his mob of insurrectionists was her up front acknowledgement that reacting with violence would come with a price. It was never an “I was kidding” excuse to avoid consequences should her exclamations be taken out of context by someone else who decided she was giving permission to behave badly.
Strong leaders take responsibility. TFG never would and never will because he’s a coward who couldn’t imagine confronting Pence and Congress without an armed mob behind him. He always has a mob of lawyers doing his lying and dirty work for him. Coward.Period.
lee
@TaMara:
I’m not so sure that would have happened.
The Moar You Know
@Tony Jay: I gotta, say, watching Charles give her the exact same treatment – both manner and verbiage – that an exasperated retail manager gives a spoiled-rotten Karen who’s complained one too many times really has given me a soft spot for the guy. He’s not afraid to let her know she is an utterly insignificant, transient annoyance in his life.
If more people had treated her like that earlier in her life perhaps she wouldn’t be such an asshole.
jonas
@Citizen Alan:
Michael Luttig, probably the most eminent conservative jurist in the country, published an op-ed the other day explaining why this “sovereign legislature” notion is completely batshit insane. No idea if it will sway any of the crazier SCOTUS members, but it might peel off Roberts and Kavanaugh.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Sorta big match on Sunday, Tony…I’ll be happy if we can get out of there with a tie. Anfield is so tough to play at.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Thank God it didn’t come to that, Matt.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: I’m thinking ahead more than behind, here.
hueyplong
@lee: We know how this would have worked. They’d have killed some Dems with the plan being to have cowardly GOPers fall into line and vote in favor of Trump’s will in order to avoid their own deaths once the number of Dem dead made the vote outcome a winner. Before Pence could be cowed into going along with what he’d see as a fait accompli, the crowd would have hanged him or otherwise sent him off to the choir invisible.
Oops. But from Trump’s perspective, no harm no foul.
Trump could then send in the previously withheld forces, blame it all on Antifa and the deep state, and voila, it’s done. The subsequently “learned” details of the day would have been whatever he wanted them to be, and the most egregious actor among the GOP politicians would be the new VP (so long as he was obsequious enough while accepting the offer). That particular race to the bottom would have turned the strongest stomachs.
Little wonder there is some impatience to see people punished for actively advancing the above scenario.
jonas
@Matt McIrvin:
I think one of the big unanswered questions about the insurrection is what Pence’s SS detail knew about what was going down that day and whether forcibly removing Pence from the building was discussed with any of the participants in the insurrection, anyone in the WH, or other members of Congress. Hopefully an answer is in that communications trove the commission recently recovered.
ian
@Baud:
The Democratic party only won 4 out of the 15 presidential elections after the civil war, with Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson being the only 2 democratic nominees elected until FDR.
They did not take control of Congress Between 1865-1932.
That is pretty dead.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: If that had happened, then we would be in a corrupt dystopian dictatorship. Might as well get ready for Purge Legislation to be passed.
jonas
@hueyplong:
I think Trump’s plan was to let the mob ransack the Capitol, kill Pence and as many Dem reps as possible, then use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law, send in military forces to clear the building and stop any further vote count, cancel the Inauguration and suspend all other power transfer processes.
We know Trump admires Hitler. He surely knows what the Reichstag Fire was and how it worked.
hueyplong
@ian: This “dead or alive” analysis depends on how you look at it. The Democrats had an iron, one-party grip on what used to be the Confederacy after 1877. So long as the “former” Confederates ran their own lives just as completely as they had before the 1861-1865 unpleasantness, their complaints were few.
hueyplong
@jonas: Totally agree, and was saying that while watching. Today I just added some detail and talk of a different outcome on the vote that in fact took place re the GOPer’s attempt to create investigative commissions about vote fraud.
Regardless of whether the plan was actually to kill Pence, he’d have been killed by the mob.
Baud
@ian: Wikipedia disputes your numbers about Congress, especially one house of Congress, but sometimes both.
Party divisions of United States Congresses – Wikipedi
ETA: I reluctantly point out that, as bad as Trump was, the Civil War was worse.
Chetan Murthy
@Tom Levenson: Oooh, bathetic. Bathos. Good word. Good word.
Tony Jay
@The Moar You Know:
His mum started her reign with a visit from Winston Churchill who, while a pretty shitty human being on a majority of levels, was a Pretty Big Deal in retrospect.
Chuckie the Pen Chucker gets Liz Truss. He must be wondering how many of these transient nobodies he’ll have to be vaguely civil to before he even gets officially coronated.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I liked Pelosi’s snapped suggestion that the DoD pretend this was the Pentagon or the WH (iow, someplace you care about)
The Moar You Know
@Tony Jay: He knows the next decade in the somewhat United Kingdom is going to be an utter shitshow, but then again his mom had to deal with plenty of that herself.
When you’re in a position where you don’t HAVE to be nice to anyone, oddly enough it helps a lot in being able to stay polite to most everyone who crosses your path. Truss strikes me as the kind of person who can burn through even that level of goodwill in about five seconds or so. Smarmy. That’s the word for her. Kisses up, punches down.
Tony Jay
@The Moar You Know:
That’s, like, totally my Balloon Juice experience, too.
Truss is about a week away from potentially being greeted at the Buckingham St gate like Elrond at the door to Khazad Dum
Burnspbesq
@OzarkHillbilly:
Spiro, Elon’s lawyer, is a flaming asshole. I’m surprised he doesn’t also represent Trump.
Bupalos
@japa21: The mistake here is treating “democracy” as a kind of binary.
We have been becoming formally and for the most part actually less democratic for a decade at least. The response to 1-6 was a slight acceleration of that, as Republicans moved on their attacks under the weakened VRA, and moved on their “election security” nonsense which actually means making it harder to vote and making it easier for less representative forces to substitute their will for the will of the voters.
Democracy is a direction.
kalakal
New advert on the Tory website
For Sale: Red briefcase, never held
BC in Illinois
On Jeremy Hunt.
I know of him only from the lyrics of a 2013 Fascinating Aida song about OFSTED (Office of Standards in Education). At one point, they needed an insult that rhymed with “stunt” :
If you’re not familiar with Fascinating Aida, here is their Brexit song, “So sorry, Scotland.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Bupalos: Citizens United was a disaster for democracy
Tony Jay
@kalakal:
Haaaaaaa!
Heidi Mom
I don’t know if anyone’s still reading this thread, but anyway here’s my Covid story: Last Sat. I woke up with what I thought was a cold, and it quickly became a pretty bad cold. On Mon. I went to the nearest Urgent Care for a test, thinking that although it seemed like every bad cold I’d ever had, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t Covid. Result: It was Covid. I started Paxlovid on Tues. and am now feeling much better–tired, but about 75% normal. My point: At no time did this ever feel like anything but a bad cold. I kept waiting for the Covid moment (heaviness in chest, etc.) but it never happened. And I’d had every booster available and had been wearing a KN95 mask in public, so the test result really was unexpected. Moral: You never know, without a test.
Jay
@LibraryGuy:
there is almost and entire “age class” of King Crabs and Snow Crabs “missing”. Not only are they the preferred catch, but they are also the prime breeders. The problem is probably slot limit harvests in excess of what the population can bear, plus global warming. (it has been observed that both Snow and King Crabs have moves significantly further north).
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yes, I detected a strong degree of sarcasm in her wording, which I approved of heartily.
The Lodger
@BC in Illinois: Isn’t that song a perfect example of Cockney rhyming slang? “Don’t be a complete Jeremy about this, mate.”
Ref. that famous sign from Scotland: TRUMP IS A JEREMY.
Layer8Problem
@kalakal: That was a cold one there.
ETA: jesus, almost said old one.
Ramalama
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe you need to up your swab game? I’d been doing it wrong. This CBC article clarifies:
Also, it does sound like you’ve got it. Any chance to get some meds to treat your COVID? One of my siblings got a Z-pack, which helped a lot.
+1 on the Mucinex recommendation. I keep bleating on about melatonin, which was a game-changer for me. And I didn’t have any problem sleeping. An article in the Atlantic convinced me to try. Shit la rue, it was great.
apocalipstick
@OzarkHillbilly: I know that you’re not so far from me, and there’s been some sort of low-level bug running through here like crazy.
lowtechcyclist
Dead thread, but just had to respond to this:
Oh sure, but what set Pelosi apart was her total coolness under pressure. Just saw this clip of her on the phone with Mike Pence that day. If that just isn’t the best thing ever! I might’ve been competent in a situation like that, but there’s no way I could have been that calm. Love the bit with the Slim Jim, too.
Scout211
@Ramalama: I had a PCR test last month prior to my colonoscopy and the hospital that did the test swabbed the back of my throat only. I would agree that nasal swabs may be insufficient with these current versions of variants. All the jackals here with recent cases of COVID complain a lot of throat pain. The next time I have to do a rapid test at home I will make sure I include a throat swab.
cain
@OzarkHillbilly: Russia? Hell they take everything else.
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: NY state already made the attempt. Several other blue states have succeeded. There’s the will to do it.
Look, if we have majorities we pass a national anti-gerrymandering law and everyone’s back on a level playing field. But we can’t allow asymmetrical gerrymandering without giving up democracy and everyone is getting that now.
Ruckus
@RAM:
How well do you think the riots would go if they threw SFB in jail without a trial? They can riot, they did on the 6th. It’s never as easy as bing, bang boom. We as a nation are on two widely divergent paths. One is actual democracy and the other is actual subservient drones with the rich totally in charge. IOW we have to be precise, accurate and yes take our time here. We have a nation as split as it ever gets, with one side thinking that the only way is to survive is on crumbs scraped off the ground and the other knowing that no one deserves only crumbs or having to scrap the ground for them. Even those willing to settle. Many of the wealthy have run this country into the ground and deserve to be hung by their toes from lamp posts, and they spend a tad bit of money to insure that they have enough backing to make it far harder to have an actual democracy because not having one benefits their bank accounts. The real damage/danger is that enough of the wealthy have and are attempting to damage this country so that they can be richer, and it’s just for bragging rights because after your first billion you really don’t need more, it’s just lust for more. The rich are spending money to buy the government so that they can get even richer with far less risk. The issue then becomes that we end up a lawless, nothing of a country, owned by banks and the wealthy, and that is not even close to a democracy, like not in the same solar system.
evodevo
@Paul in KY:
Yep… that was shown pretty clearly with the Ashley Babbitt incident. The choads with her first announced it was just a “flash-bang” grenade and kept pushing, but when it became clear she was actually shot, they fell back pretty quick. I don’t think it would have taken much firepower to push them all out of the Capitol and back to the margins…in a big hurry.
misterpuff
@ian: You are correct sir. But the Confedadems were a regional power and a legislative block to any civil rights advancement. So the lack of their demise (as an entity) retarded our growth as a nation for about 90 to 100 years (and arguably to the present, if you count the costume change from D to R)
Ruckus
@Scout211:
What I like about SFB is that every single one of his problems is self made and has been his entire life. He has failed at every single thing he tried to do and every single time it was his fault. He won the rethuglican presidential race because he’s a failure and that is what the rethuglican party was looking for, because the wealthy members want a non working government so they can have everything. They hire people like Mitch to be as big a road block to a better government as possible. Their only problem was that SFB is so bad and there is still a too large segment of the population that recognizes that rethuglicans are shit that they failed in being able to steal everything because SFB is all ego and has the intellect of a week old dog turd.
rikyrah
@Quiltingfool:
Baby steps :)
topclimber
@Ruckus: Some translations have Jesus say that LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Because (since I know at all times what Jesus meant) acquisition becomes just an obsession, not a means to satisfy more human needs.
Eyeroller
@topclimber: All translations say that because it’s the correct translation. Also it was from Paul, not directly from Jesus, but that hardly matters. It’s quite clear in the Greek New Testament and the Latin Vulgate. I don’t know how it got shortened into “money is the root of all evil” in popular culture, but it changes the meaning considerably.