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You are here: Home / Open Threads / You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss

You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss

by | 218 Comments

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After shitting the bed running the NRSC, Rick Scott decided to challenge Mitch McConnell. And Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, among others, said the leadership vote should be delayed. Here’s how that went:

I hate Mitch McConnell as much as anyone, but Scott, Cruz and Rubio are just such laughable morons. Arguably, the loss of the Senate was a folie à deux between Trump’s shit candidates and Scott’s waste of millions of dollars.

Edited to add: I hope McConnell makes Cruz the ranking member of the Go Fuck Yourself Subcommittee of the Learn How to Wipe Your Ass Committee.

Reader Interactions

218Comments

  1. 1.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    Never thought I’d live to see the day that Republicans foisting McConnell on the nation again would be a very minor relief.

    Also foist.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    King Nothing, that is

    Dig for gold

    Dig for fame

    You dig to make your name

    Are you pacified?

    All the wants you waste

    All the things you’ve chased

    Then it all crashes down

    And you break your crown

    And you point your finger

    But there’s no one around

    Just want one thing

    Just to play the king

    But the castle crumbled

    And you’re left with just a name

    Where’s your crown, King Nothing?

    Where’s your crown

  7. 7.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Fight! Fight! Fight! More! More! More! Also, Republicans in Disarray! I just hope they’re so busy fighting amongst themselves they don’t have time left over to do any damage.

  9. 9.

    HumboldtBlue

    The fucking media is already touting the awesome win DeSantis got in Florida with his 19-point smashing of Crist. No fucking mention of the gerrymandering and voter suppression that got him that win. What a fucked up world.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    Having been an involuntary observer of Scott for the past 12 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that in the service of his own power and greed, he’s relentless, smart and disciplined. But putting him in charge of a collective effort is like appointing the fox to guard the henhouse. Of course the NRSC money went bye-bye! LOL!

  11. 11.

    sdhays

    I don’t have anything to say about the shitty person the Senate Republicans chose as their leader, but apparently Elmu is offering Twitter employees an ultimatum: commit to working long hours at the same pay or take a 3 months severance package. He also says that the new Twitter will be “much more engineering-driven”, which, whatever the merits (as an engineer, I’m skeptical), is manifestly bullshit. The new Twitter is driven directly from Musk’s own ass hole, and it will continue to be until they turn out the lights.

    I wonder what number of people Elmu is expecting to stay. Whatever it is, I expect it’s higher than what he’ll get. Or else Twitter is populated mostly with masochists.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    I thought I saw something about various Rethugs asking for a forensic audit of the NRSC, apparently to see what happened to all that money.
    I hope that’s true, and I’m hoping for injuries (so to speak).

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Also, the media really, really, really needs to let go of the notion that Florida is a swing state. I get it — took a few clue-by-fours upside my head to learn that lesson too! But 2000 was a long time ago. And 1994 — the last time a Democrat was elected governor of Florida — was even longer ago.

  15. 15.

    Starfish

    @sdhays: Engineers working long hours are not using their best judgment. All your best engineers are going to go for a company that allows fully remote work because fully remote work has been a status marker for a while now.

  18. 18.

    sdhays

    @Starfish: He’s also just shit over everything they’ve been working on, and in the space of a few months transformed the company that they had just dragged into profitability into massive debt, hemorrhaging advertisers, driving users to find viable alternatives. And all of the “brilliant” ideas he’s spouted so far are so obviously stupid for anyone actually working at Twitter, that there really isn’t any basis for confidence that things will get better, unless you’re an Elmu cult fan.

    I don’t know how one remains motivated to work at a company like that.

  19. 19.

    zhena gogolia

    I just got around to watching Colbert on the Hobbs/Lake race. He calls Lake a “fascist hologram.” lol

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @Starfish: Yup.  One of the reasons the early pre-NASA US space program had so many spectacular failures was that too many people were working too hard.  Biology eventually imposes its reality.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    Tarragon

    @sdhays:

    He also says that the new Twitter will be “much more engineering-driven”, which, whatever the merits (as an engineer, I’m skeptical), is manifestly bullshit.

    As an engineer and having to interact with engineers on a daily basis I can say that an engineering driven social media company is the best idea, I mean funniest idea, I’ve heard in a long time.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @HumboldtBlue: It’s as though California rounded up and shipped all the Orange County Republicans there–two states heading in very different directions, since. If you factor out the Ahnold anomaly, we have not elected a Republican governor in a normal campaign cycle since the last millennium, when three of the final four were Republican. Improvement? I’d say yes.

  30. 30.

    Old School

    I suppose it is typical, but I’m a little surprised that the current Senate is voting for the leaders of the next Senate.

  31. 31.

    PaulB

    It’s not going to happen, but I would dearly love it if nobody clicked the link to sign up for Musk’s abuse. I honestly wonder what he’d do in that eventuality, to be so publicly humiliated by his employees.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @Old School: I was struck by that too.  Also, on the House GOP side.

    I’m not sure when the Dems hold their leadership vote.  I expect the only interesting thing there will be on the House side.

  33. 33.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: Agree. Skeletor as Minority Leader would give them an incompetent grifter. The Senitortise is many bad things, but incompetent is not one of them.

  35. 35.

    jonas

    Wait, Scott, who was basically in charge of retaking the Senate and fucked it up royally, thought it was a good time to stand for minority leader? A minority of his own making. And Cruz and Rubio thought they would be clever by backing him?

    Talk about stomping on your own dick. Well, we all know Cruz has no dick, but the others at least should have known better…

  37. 37.

    Baud

    McConnell won the leadership vote 37-10-1, according to two senators. One senator voted present.

    10!

    And when did Tulsi Gabbard become a Senator?

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @HumboldtBlue: Also, I think DeSantis had something like $200 million in his war chest. That must have had some effect on his vote total. Crist wasn’t even close money wise, and Florida has some expensive media markets.

  39. 39.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m sorry Scott didn’t succeed.  Schumer would have pantsed him every single day.  McConnell knows nothing but obstruction but that’s the skill the Minority Leader most needs.

  42. 42.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Paul in KY: Mitch is competent but I think his reputation for brilliance as a political operative is pretty overblown. I mean, he was the one who pushed for the total obstruction strategy when Obama was elected. The stated goal was to make Obama a one termer, which utterly failed. Since then the Senate Republican caucus has just stuck with it because, apparently, Mitch can’t think of any other approach I guess? A guy who has only one move is not a master strategist.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @MattF: Pence makes Mittens seem like a fun-loving fellow gifted with a common touch with people of all stripes and backgrounds. I have more interesting dryer lint

    ETA she works in murder wasp. God love you, Alexandra Petri.

  44. 44.

    HumboldtBlue

    @trollhattan:

    Good point, when I first arrived on the North Coast, California was still an evenly split state and the GOP had an impactful role in state government. I have had a front row seat watching it slowly and inexorably change, particularly the decline in registered Repubs, who, even in 2003 were outnumbered by Dems but not by the massive differences we see today where even Independents are more numerous.

    And that’s because they had nothing to offer other than tax cuts, cuts to social services, and even the Arnold interruption and the faux “centrist, reasonable” GOP elected official was just a sham, the rank and file were always Limbaugh first and fuck compromise with the commies.

    2010 was the height of the Tea Party, and we saw our share up here, but again, it failed in the harsh light of reality, people were just not that into hate as a core political principle.

    I believe it was by 2014 Dems first captured the super majority, and it’s only snowballed from there. Every GOP candidate who ran in this area, was a dipshit (I did sit-down interviews with every single one of them), and even Meg Whitman, who was the lipstick on the pig of the Cali GOP (I covered four of her local events, and she wasn’t a drooling hateful idiot and had enough sense to come across as reasonable even if her policies were shit) and other than a few districts in Orange County and the less-than-10,000 people-live-here rural inland areas, the state is solidly blue.

    Things can change rapidly, as we have seen in the years between 2010 and 2014, where the Tea Party was repudiated and Dems were handed the keys to the whole shebang, but they won’t change a dot with the current model of the GOP which was to double down on the ignorance and hate that got them so fired up when a black man was in the Oval Office.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    I notice people are no longer debating which Senator would be the best replacement for Majority Leader Schumer. He was very much disparaged back when he was Minority Leader. Then, Schumer was Hapless Charlie Brown. Now, he’s Clever Chuck.

  46. 46.

    Old School

    @Baud: “If elected, I will not vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker – chiefly because I will not get a vote on the topic.”

  47. 47.

    dnfree

    @Starfish: At my last job we had one guy who would make production-systems changes at 3am and then go home exhausted.  The rest of us would sometimes arrive in the morning to find chaos. Ours was the only department that didn’t have a lock-out system for production, and after a few rounds of that one was finally imposed.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @Old School: I’m not sure retiring Senators are voting for the next Congress’s Caucus leadership. It could be just members for the next Congress.

    I remember that in November 2018, when there was a Democratic Caucus vote to replace Joe Crowley as Caucus Chairman, it was members for the upcoming Congress who got to vote, and “lame ducks” like Crowley had no vote.

  52. 52.

    Ken

    @sdhays: Musk is also testifying in Delaware today, and claimed that the Tesla 2018 SEC consent decree that he signed (related to securities fraud) is void, because he signed it under duress.

    Legal observers are simultaneously not amused and highly amused.

  55. 55.

    Dangerman

    @sdhays: I don’t know about the H1B’s but anyone that isn’t in a running start for the door isn’t paying attention. Headhunters must be having a field day picking off the talent. Twitter won’t see 2025.

  56. 56.

    Captain C

    @sdhays:

    unless you’re an Elmu cult fan.

    I have a friend like that.  He’s also convinced he’ll have his own flying car any day now.  He’s convinced that he knows better than any astrophysicist or cosmologist–he basically believes* in Steady State theory (thinks he came up with it himself, it seems) and claims that red shifts are all wrong because cosmic dust obscures more blue than red light (yeah, I know, red shifts don’t work that way; I tried explaining it once and it really didn’t take, so I gave up) and that every professional scientist ever has not figured this out.

    Mind you, this is someone who once owned a discussion board that he didn’t bother to update for so long that eventually the old site was too obsolete to be ported into an updated one.  So, yeah, Musk fanboi really does make sense.

    *He claims science is his religion.  Seems to think it works like religion, and not like the skepticism system it is.

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @Dangerman: Twitter won’t see 2025.

    Optimist. I’m still expecting a major disruption at either end-of-month or end-of-quarter, when some important infrastructure job doesn’t get run.

  58. 58.

    cmorenc

    @Betty Cracker:

    @HumboldtBlue: Also, the media really, really, really needs to let go of the notion that Florida is a swing state. I get it — took a few clue-by-fours upside my head to learn that lesson too! But 2000 was a long time ago. And 1994 — the last time a Democrat was elected governor of Florida — was even longer ago.

    And when Charlie Crist was elected governor of Florida in 2007, Crist won as a Republican; he only left the party around 2010 and became for awhile an independent, ran for Senate against Marco Rubio in 2010 (and lost) instead of running for re-election as governor (and lost).

    Crist is a paradigm example of a political figure who switches parties, but really goes into political limbo-land because he’s become mutually alienated with the party he left, but whose transformation is too uninspiring to excite the party he joined, except somehow the notion that his candidacy might independents plus attract crossover support from other alienated members of his former party.  It’s like thinking that a nice photo of a flower might smell and look like a flower to a honeybee, and then being surprised that the honeybees don’t buy the notion any more than you think its a real flower rather than just a picture of one.

  60. 60.

    janesays

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: Nah… I would have preferred Rick Scott to have won. If he ran the GOP senate caucus as well as he ran the effort to increase the size of that caucus in the midterms, he’d be doing us a favor.

  61. 61.

    Cameron

    In the climax to 2022’s biggest sci-fi/horror offering, Gamera defeats Nosferatu.  Industry sources claim a sequel is already in the works.

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @sdhays:

    He also says that the new Twitter will be “much more engineering-driven”

    and @Ken:

    Musk is also testifying in Delaware today

    During today’s testimony, he claimed that his job in practice is chief engineer at Tesla and SpaceX and that all the engineering in those companies is basically his work.  Oh, and he changed his title to Technoking.

    Meanwhile, software engineers that haven’t left Twitter yet are saying it’s a company-wide joke about how utterly ignorant he is of how Twitter or any program works.

  64. 64.

    Ken

    Courtesy of the “Mrs. Betty Bowers” twitter account, Trump’s new campaign slogans:

    Losses obscene in 2018
    Losses a-plenty in 2020
    Lost a slew in 2022
    Lose some more in 2024

  65. 65.

    sempronia

    Musk is notorious for requiring unreasonable commitments from his employees (e.g., telling off an employee for taking a day off to be at the birth of his first child). But unlike at Space X or Tesla, I doubt there are a lot of Twitter employees who really BELIEVE in the mission and are willing to stay on despite the ridiculous time and productivity requirements.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    @Frankensteinbeck: Oh, and he changed his title to Technoking.

    Seriously? That’s getting into Caligula painting himself gold territory — while also sounding like a 1950s kitchen appliance.

  69. 69.

    Dangerman

    @Ken: I’m assuming Musk shovels truckloads of bucks into the furnace to keep the lights on into 2024. Gotta have that “Free Speech Town Square” for the election that they think will be Paradise but instead will be Hill Valley in Back To The Future 2.

  71. 71.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @sempronia: Musk literally sounds like the boss from hell. Top management at most places seems somewhat abusive, but he’s just so directly involved, like he goes out of his way to make a toxic environment. It goes beyond money-grubbing.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @cmorenc: Crist does seem like a hapless candidate if you look at his statewide races after 2007. But he did flip a red congressional district in 2016 and held it for three terms, and that’s not a small thing.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: One of the many wierd things I’ve read about Musk is how he inspected a Tesla factory and objected to the bright safety paint on various structures and sufaces,  which is a standard  feature of industrial safety practice. And he really didn’t like the obnoxious beeping sounds the forklifts made when they backed up!

  78. 78.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Elon Musk’s best friend, who is also heavily invested in Musk’s businesses, testifies that “Elon is a genius with the abiity to combine electrical, mechanical, and neuroscience engineering in a way that is extraordinary and I’ve never seen.” and also goes on and on about how hard Elon works.

    The Trump vibes are incredible.  Elon Musk must fellated at all times as the world’s greatest genius.  I know he has a record of firing anyone he catches criticizing him.

    @Qrop Non Sequitur:

    Christ as a cracker.

    I’m not saying Jesus Christ is a cracker, but the crackers think he is.

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @cmorenc: I guess the rationale for nominating Crist was that he could carve out a lane like Biden did vs. Trump — a known quantity who is not a scary fanatic. But it turns out the majority of Florida voters want a scary fanatic.

  81. 81.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Frankensteinbeck: People usually say “Christ on a cracker” but I choose “as a cracker” because it hearkens back to a practice I remember from when I attended mass, lo those 20 years ago

    And, yeah, white imagery of Jesus is absurd.

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Fight! Fight! Fight! More! More! More! Also, Republicans in Disarray! I just hope they’re so busy fighting amongst themselves they don’t have time left over to do any damage.

    The Republicans pretty much re-established their status quo. McConnell and McCarthy slapped down challengers.

    It will be interesting to see if Trump continues to play fight McConnell, who is all about maintaining GOP power in Congress, and how soon McCarthy starts kissing Trump’s behind.

  89. 89.

    ARoomWithAMoose

    @Betty Cracker: Have you seen any voter participation data for Florida yet?  The govenor’s race spread would indicate a horrible lack of voter turnout in what might be called the Dem strongholds. The Florida department of state website only has data up to 2020 currently.

  90. 90.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I saw another side-by-side of Trump vs. Trump, one from the wedding and one from last night. For the wedding he didn’t use either bronzer or hair color, and actually looked better.

  91. 91.

    C Stars

    @sdhays:

    The new Twitter is driven directly from Musk’s own ass hole, and it will continue to be until they turn out the lights.

    mic drop

  94. 94.

    Eolirin

    @Brachiator: McCarthy hasn’t slapped down his challengers yet, he still needs all of the Freedom Caucus to actually vote him in as speaker without losing any support from the moderate factions. It’s not entirely clear he can thread that needle. Winning the nomination doesn’t forgo defections on the actual vote and he’s not going to have many votes to spare.

  96. 96.

    Captain C

    @Geminid: “Brakes?!  Who needs brakes on cars?  Just a waste of time and money if you ask me.  Remove them all!”

    –Elon, probably

  97. 97.

    gvg

    @SFAW: I thought I saw something about various Rethugs asking for a forensic audit of the NRSC, apparently to see what happened to all that money.
    I hope that’s true, and I’m hoping for injuries (so to speak).

    I am going to speculate this is why batboy made a try for leader of the republicans. He is trying to derail an investigation of himself that if we are lucky could put him in jail or get him sued by the republican party. I suspect he embezzled. After all, he stole from medicare before he was elected governor.

  98. 98.

    jonas

    @Captain C: claims that red shifts are all wrong because cosmic dust obscures more blue than red light

    I guess that the astrophysics version of the old creationist “zinger” that “if we evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?”

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

     

    @Dangerman:

    I don’t know about the H1B’s but anyone that isn’t in a running start for the door isn’t paying attention. Headhunters must be having a field day picking off the talent. Twitter won’t see 2025.

    Twitter may not see much of 2023 if Musk keeps doing stupid stuff.

    The tech industry seems to be hitting a bump. I hope that people who flee Twitter find work elsewhere.

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    FIFTY ONE!

    Why do we need to help Warnock win!

    1) right now Senate Committees in the 50/50 Senate are organized with an equal number of Rs and Ds, although the Chairs are Ds. With 51, all committees will have one more D than Rs.

    2) VP Kamala Harris has better things to do than striding down to Congress to sort their shit for them.*

    Fun Fact — she is only 5’2″, which is the same height as Pablo Picasso (who was never called an asshole.)

  103. 103.

    pacem appellant

    @Ken: On my social media. I have been prognosticating the fall of Twitter since Musk announced he was going to buy it. My current EOL for Twitter is April 2023 (It was June of 2023, but I had to move it up in time due to Musk flailing even harder than I would have predicted based on his Tesla antics)

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @Eolirin:

    Winning the nomination doesn’t forgo defections on the actual vote and he’s not going to have many votes to spare.

    Thanks very much for this additional info.

    We will see what happens.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    In case it hasn’t already been mentioned, Herschel Walker is accusing Rev. Warnock of being neglectful dad.

    wtf

  112. 112.

    Avalune

    @JPL: If those guys aren’t being the biggest hypocrites in the universe, they aren’t being.

    I was just watching this convoluted recap of a movie about vampires that he was having at some kind of rally. Vampires are cool right! But I wanna be a werewolf. Hard hitting politics.

  114. 114.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @JPL: It’s a classic R move. Go on the attack against your opponent for stuff that you’re weakest on.

  119. 119.

    Captain C

    @jonas: Probably.  I guess it seems like a clever debate move if you have no clue what a red shift is or how it’s used to measure cosmic distances and velocities.  Once he ignored my explanation, I decided it was useless to try and educate him and moved on from that particular discussion thread.

    He’s one of those people who’s more concerned with winning the debate than getting it right, and if his insane troll logic plus stubbornness makes people leave in frustration and despair he counts that as a win.

    Overall, he’s not a bad guy, just extremely tedious to get into any sort of discussion with.

  121. 121.

    Captain C

    @JPL: Herschel:  “I mean, I didn’t even know about my kids.  How could I be there for them if I didn’t know they existed?”

  127. 127.

    Immanentize

    @HumboldtBlue: I said yes.

    I now think that a number of things Musk has done — including saying that the FTC is not the boss of him — were the direct result of him believing the red wave hype. Republicans and MAGAs would save him, he was certain, so he decided to FA. Now he is about to FO.

  128. 128.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator:It will be interesting to see if Trump continues to play fight McConnell, who is all about maintaining GOP power in Congress, and how soon McCarthy starts kissing Trump’s behind.

    McCarthy, just today, TWICE, declined to endorse the trumpov 2024 “campaign”

    Good luck with that, Kevin!  the Q-nuts in your caucus are going to eat you alive!

  130. 130.

    Geminid

    @Captain C: “Wait a minute! You’re telling me that the sharp edges on our Tesla pickup prototype might not meet safety standards because they’ll slice off pedestrians’ arms and legs? Is that really a problem?

    Sheesh! It’s like no one’s ever of  reattachment surgery. And those idiots shouldn’t be in the road anyway!”

  131. 131.

    Immanentize

    NEWS: Senate votes 62-37 to bypass a key procedural hurdle RE: the Respect for Marriage Act, putting it on glide path to (eventual) passage.GOP YES VOTES:1. Blunt 2. Burr 3. Capito 4. Collins 5. Ernst 6. Lummis 7. Murkowski 8. Portman 9. Sullivan 10. Romney 11. Tillis 12. Young

    — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) November 16, 2022

  132. 132.

    Ken

    @Eolirin: This must be severely testing the professionalism of some of our Democratic representatives. If I were someone like Pelosi or AOC*, I would find it hard to resist releasing a statement saying how pleased I was with the preliminary vote, as McCarthy was someone that Democrats could work with.

    * That is, one of the frequent targets of the Republicans’ daily Two Minutes Hate.

  133. 133.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @PaulB: Some of them have probably figured out that they aren’t that good at what they do, that they won’t be competitive as the labor market loosens (missed it by that much!), and that they are vastly overpaid. Among these, there’s probably a percentage that think they are hidden enough to not be found out, and so they’ll stay on. Besides, once everyone else quits, what’s Elmo gonna do, fire the last man standing?*

     

    *Yes, yes he will. But the slackers don’t understand that.

  135. 135.

    Calouste

    @Brachiator: There is still a lot of work for techies, just less so at the big brand tech names and startups. But banks, insurance companies, those kind of companies are still hiring.

  136. 136.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Geminid: Mmm. Maybe. I view him more as the guy who was lucky enough to be Senate Majority leader when Nancy Smash was House Majority leader. And minority leader.

  137. 137.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Immanentize:

    I said yes as well. On the Musk/Twitter front, is it more likely a new platform (i.e. Bouzy) emerges or do one of the big tech companies wait until Musk is desperate to take over Twitter and rebuild it?

  138. 138.

    catclub

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: ​
     

    apparently, Mitch can’t think of any other approach I guess? A guy who has only one move is not a master strategist.

    Mitch is an agent of the Senate GOP caucus. If they don’t like what he is doing they can throw him out. He has no control of GOP senators except to the extent they agree to it and the extent he is the best fundraiser in the party.

    Replace ‘Mitch’ in the boxed quote above with ‘the GOP senate caucus’

  139. 139.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Im actually kinda surprised. Happily! I didn’t think they could get 10 Rs to get past the debate (filibuster) rules.

    I just learned Ben Sasse did not vote — his wife had a stroke? Wonder if this will affect his Florida job decision.

  142. 142.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Paul in KY: Years ago I went to work when I was sick (fever, etc.) and ended up eventually out sick for almost a week,  When I came back and looked at the (computer programming) work I had done while sick, I couldn’t believe it.  I had to throw it all out and start over on that code.  Lesson learned.

  143. 143.

    Immanentize

    @HumboldtBlue: Unclear. Actually rather than a tech firm, I could see a media company (like Netflix?) deciding the synergies we’re right for the basement price it will sell for. It would be funny to drop a bid of say, 15 billion on the Board right now. They would have to vote on that. Musk could not block it outright.

  144. 144.

    Baud

    @Immanentize: Schumer was going to tee up the vote earlier as an election issue, but was persuaded that the bill would actually pass in the lame duck.  Looks like he counted the votes correctly.

  145. 145.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Geminid:

    And he really didn’t like the obnoxious beeping sounds the forklifts made when they backed up!

    Totally agree with him on that one. There are other sound choices available that are not migraine-inducing.

  146. 146.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: yes and I think getting so badly spanked on abortion extremism has made some Republicans look for more innocuous safe havens. It would be great to get the “protect contraception” bills passed now too.

  148. 148.

    Scout211

    I don’t know if this has been posted yet, but good news for the Respect for Marriage Act.  It was advanced in the Senate 62-37. Now all is needed is 51 votes to pass.

    ETA:  Reading up thread, I see others got there first.

    And in weird news, the LDS church now supports the Respect for Marriage Act while at the same time stating that gay sex is still a sin.

    The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

    . . .

    Support for the Respect for Marriage Act under consideration in Congress is the church’s latest step to stake out a more welcoming stance toward the LGBTQ community while holding firm to its belief that same-sex relationships are sinful. Still, its stance toward LGBTQ people — including those who grow up in the church — remains painful for many.

  150. 150.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @HumboldtBlue: I basically agree with your post, but I date the decline of Repubs in CA to Pete Wilson Gov (1991 – 1999) and his infamous Prop 187, found unconstitutional in 1998.  Downhill from there, and it’s been 20 years.

  151. 151.

    Geminid

    @Immanentize: “Lame Duck” sessions can produce important legislation that would not be passed before the election. One example is the law passed in the 2010 session that repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and cleared the way for gay people to serve openly in the military.

    The National Defense Authorization Act passed (over Trump’s veto) in the 2020 lame duck session included the Corporate Transparency Act, which cracks down on the use of shell companies to conceal ownership.

    I think another NDAA must be passed in this session. I’ll be interested to see what gets tacked on to this one.

  154. 154.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Ken: Oh yeah.  If Twitter is anything like the IT departments I’ve ever worked in, there are EOM and EOQ kludges required (usually manual) to keep all the systems happy.  Or as someone mentioned in an earlier post, someone needs to remember to manually empty out a crucial file, and I’ll bet that someone has been fired.

  159. 159.

    Ken

    @Scout211: I suppose if you read enough Supreme Court decisions invoking fifteenth-century theologians, or speeches by Justices to Opus Dei meetings celebrating the return of Catholic morality, you might start to wonder if the LDS church is on their TODO list.

  160. 160.

    Repatriated

    @Scout211:

    And in weird news, the LDS church now supports the Respect for Marriage Act while at the same time stating that gay sex is still a sin.

    Polygamy requires women to be married to other women (and one man, of course).

  163. 163.

    Served

    @Scout211: I am a bit wary of this compromise bill. Under it, if Obergfell is gutted by the court, then Utah can refuse to marry same sex couples once again. If I’m LDS, I’d place that bet too.

  165. 165.

    HumboldtBlue

    @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):

    I hear ya, I was paying little attention to serious politics at that point as I was just starting out as a sportswriter in those years, but 187 stands out to let us know the GOP was gonna let its racist freak flag fly.

    The GOP still had enough juice to force out Davis in 2003, but it’s been all downhill since then. And again, it wasn’t just one thing, one issue, one election, it was the drip-drip-drip of odious policy positions, lousy governance and the resurgence of Democrats of all stripes (as the GOP became nearly homogeneous, Dems have always been a large tent with a lot of varying constituencies) getting out and organizing that got the snowball rolling.

    It hasn’t stopped and even here, there is a growing local progressive political machine primarily led by Latinas that have made huge inroads politically.  I haven’t paid as close attention as I once did, but here in Eureka we have a new Latina as our Supervisor and the clerk/recorder position was won by a Latino man over an experienced and competent white woman whose name is associated with Humboldt County for generations.

    Talk about your kitchen table issues, they’ve built a coalition focused on food security, job security and access, education, civil rights and civic action. The old school all-white local GOP has no answers.

  167. 167.

    Old School

    @Immanentize:

    It would be funny to drop a bid of say, 15 billion on the Board right now. They would have to vote on that. Musk could not block it outright.

    I don’t believe Twitter has a Board currently.  Musk dissolved it when he bought Twitter.

  169. 169.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Served: Yes. Utah and Missouri will no doubt stop marrying people. They will have to cross state borders to get married. However, when they get home, their marriage is legal. That means everything in the world.

  170. 170.

    Citizen Alan

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:  Does anyone know if the proposed law addresses divorce? Because I seemed to recall that was an issue prior to obergafall in Mississippi.  A lesbian couple that got married in another state moved back to Mississippi, and a few years later they got divorced. IRC, the court eventually concluded that under Mississippi law it did not have the power to Grant a divorce in a marriage that was not recognized by the state. Entrenched bigotry makes for bad law I guess.

  173. 173.

    catclub

    @Baud: Also, 2024 is a tough map. Better to have that extra Senator there to get through 2025-26.

     

    In regards to Trump, more should be made of the huge house losses for the GOP  in 2018.

  174. 174.

    Kent

    @HumboldtBlue:The fucking media is already touting the awesome win DeSantis got in Florida with his 19-point smashing of Crist. No fucking mention of the gerrymandering and voter suppression that got him that win. What a fucked up world.

    Gerrymandering had nothing to do with it. And voter suppression might have accounted for maybe 1% of the total.

  175. 175.

    sab

    Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper ” Ohio Republicans aim to clarify ‘ heartbeat’abortion ban exceptions to preserve a woman’s life or health.”

    Maybe they should have considered that before they passed the fucking stupid dangerous bill.

    This isn’t rocket science. It is responsible legislating. Grownups do it every day. Ohio legislature didn’t bother, governor signed it anyway, and a court had to temporarily restrain it.

    And we reelected the clown car. I am so embarrassed to be an Ohioan.

  176. 176.

    Kent

    @Served:@Scout211: I am a bit wary of this compromise bill. Under it, if Obergfell is gutted by the court, then Utah can refuse to marry same sex couples once again. If I’m LDS, I’d place that bet too.

    Yes but under the proposed legislation they are required to fully recognize any same-sex marriage from any other state.  So you can get a mail-order marriage from another state, have your own ceremony in Utah with your friends and you are good to go.

    Compromises necessary to get the 10 GOP votes.  And the Mormon Church has actually endorsed this legislation.

  180. 180.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    Scam Alito and his merry band of Savonarola-Calvinist devotees will happily gut all previous decisions on gay marriage, decriminalization of sex beyond P in V missionary and any attempted statutory save with joyous citations to 16th century jurisprudence.

    His retirement or removal is the only potential solution, because he intends to be relentless in reversing all of 20th century jurisprudence past Lochner.

  181. 181.

    ian

    @Repatriated: That was not how polygamy worked in the 19th century.

    If you would like to learn more, I recommend The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America by Sarah Barringer Gordon, University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

    Most modern LDS members and theologians do not condone polygamy.  That is a historical aspect to their beliefs that people incorrectly assume to be part of their current worldview.

  182. 182.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Also, Republicans in Disarray! I just hope they’re so busy fighting amongst themselves they don’t have time left over to do any damage.

    The correct approach is to covertly arm them with shivs dipped in fecal matter.

  184. 184.

    A Ghost to Most

    Major Traitor Greene said she was appointed to the Oversight Committee. Actually, it was the Overly Bitey Committee.

  185. 185.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Kent:

    Yeah, I got schooled on that on Twitter. I think voter suppression had much more of an impact than 1%, but that’s just me musing.

  186. 186.

    Baud

    Relevant text of law

    “(a) In General.—No person acting under color of State law may deny—
    “(1) full faith and credit to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State pertaining to a marriage between 2 individuals, on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals; or

    “(2) a right or claim arising from such a marriage on the basis that such marriage would not be recognized under the law of that State on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.

  187. 187.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Kent: Florida just has a shitty electorate, mostly through in-migration of the shittiest people from the Midwest, the Rust Belt and the East Coast.

  188. 188.

    Jackie

    OT: This is great news! And, she’s MY Senator!

    ”U.S. Sen. Patty Murray will likely be the first woman to serve as Senate president pro tempore, a position that would place her third in line for the presidency. Murray will also likely chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, controlling the federal purse strings and directing billions of dollars of spending.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to nominate Murray, who was just elected to a sixth term, to the position, Murray’s office said Wednesday.”

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/patty-murray-to-be-first-female-senate-president-pro-tempore-third-in-line-for-presidency/

  189. 189.

    Fake Irishman

    @Immanentize:

    interesting group of GOP folks. Murkowski and Collins aren’t surprises. The NC senators, a lame duck from Missouri (Blunt is a bit of a surprise though) Portman from OH (lame duck and his son is gay). Other Senator from Alaska and one from WY (is a bit of libertarianism in those states. Young from Indiana is very conservative but actually cares about practical policy. Romney is no moderate but again recognizes reality and LDS backs this bill. Ernst is a bit of a surprise. Capito has a practical streak, or maybe she got tired of Cole yelling at her.

    Other Folks who I thought might vote yes: Graham (not making a joke here, he often is pragmatic on many issues and has quietly ensured many Dem judges get a floor vote without a hassle) and Cornyn, maybe Cassidy or Kennedy (both blowhards, but sometimes cross over)

    And Rand Paul and Mike Lee once again revealed to be incredible hypocrites.

    but this is really, really good news.

  190. 190.

    sab

    @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I had an accounting co-worker who came to work with scarlet fever, and told the client that he needed an end of the month bank statement because he couldn’t reconcile with a mid-month cut-off date, although he had been doing a mid-month cut-off reconciliations for five years.

  191. 191.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @JPL: I know and I’ll take the concessions needed to protect my marriage. MO isn’t exactly gay friendly. We were really worried about what would happen once the Supreme Court weighed in.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    @Jackie: What, not DiFi? I’m outraged!

    Not really. Congrats to Sen Murray, who I’m sure will do an admirable job. What a difference two seats make.

  193. 193.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Citizen Alan: As Obergefell was percolating up, I was litigating this very issue regarding a lesbian couple in Kentucky. The family court judge decided that she didn’t have jurisdiction to divorce them. Opposing counsel and I decided to not do a joint appeal (we both acknowledged that a divorce needed to happen) based on where Obergefell was postured at that time – it would have been a waste of money given that we were going to have a definitive answer shortly.

  194. 194.

    Geminid

    @Chief Oshkosh: Schumer’s done some heavy lifting this Congress, I think. A 50+1 Majority was a real challenge, and I expect it took real negotiating skill-and hard work too- to put through the major legislation that Biden has signed.

    I also think Schumer is a good communicator. When there is a story out of the Senate, radio and TV news networks typically give the two party leaders one “soundbite.” I hear the ones on radio and Schumer does well. And while radio and TV news are “old media,” they still have a large audience nationwide.

    I would add that Schumer seems to have advanced judicial nominees efficiently, and executive branch nominees as well.

  195. 195.

    sab

    @Citizen Alan: I see now. Mississippi has to recognize it but needn’t be involved in unwinding it. Interesting position for a state that didn’t believe in the marriage at all: Your hypothetical clients are still married.

    I remember a case in my domestic relations course: fault state, both parties had behaved atrociously. Judge decided there couldn’t be a divorce, because the parties had behaved so badly that he couldn’t decide who was more at fault. So the extremely toxic marriage continued

    ETA Let’s keep it going until someone gets killed school of jurisprudence.

  196. 196.

    Scout211

    It’s Politico, so who knows if this is accurate or not, but they report that Schiff declined a leadership position because he is planning to run for the Senate.

    That would be so sweet!

  197. 197.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Willard “Mitt” Romney issued a statement in which he says “while I believe in traditional marriage,” he will support this legislation.

    Every time I see the phrase “traditional marriage” I think of a father selling his daughter to a neighboring farmer for two goats and a cow, so his son can have a wife.

  198. 198.

    Kent

    @HumboldtBlue:Yeah, I got schooled on that on Twitter. I think voter suppression had much more of an impact than 1%, but that’s just me musing.

    Even if voter suppression in FL is more than 1% of the electorate, it will still have less than 1 percentage point effect on the results.  Because the disenfranchised aren’t 100% Democrats.

    For example, if disenfranchised felons were going to vote 60/40 for Democrats or 20 points in favor of Democrats, then they would have to be 5% of the entire electorate in order to affect a 1% change in the final result.

  202. 202.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: I think Patty Murray and Diane Feinstein were both elected Senators in 1992. There might have been another woman Senator elected that year. At least, I’ve read of people calling it “the Year of the Woman.”

  204. 204.

    Shalimar

    @Immanentize: Last I heard about Sasse’s future job, there was a massive backlash by faculty and students when it was officially announced.  This was weeks ago.  Not sure if anything has changed since then.

  205. 205.

    cain

    @Scout211: Activists are panning this bill which apparently protects current marriages but doesn’t say anything about new marriages. So I’m not sue how it’s going to gho once the SCOTUS kills gay marriage and anything else.

    Once again, as conservatives continue to isolate more and more communities – all those conservatives that interface with that cohort is going to find themselves at a crossroads. Especially if they are conservative and are in a non-straight marriage / relationship. Imagine no longer having the option to get married.

    This won’t be the end – the activist judges aren’t done yet. They will ensure that the stakes continue to go up and more people will vote against the GOP.

  207. 207.

    Shalimar

    @Geminid: Barbara Boxer was also first elected to the senate in 1992.  Feinstein assumed the seat vacated by Pete Wilson when he became governor.

    edit: Feinstein also has seniority because she was sworn in immediately after the election while everyone else had to wait for the new Congress.

  211. 211.

    Repatriated

    @ian: 

    That was not how polygamy worked in the 19th century.

    Hmmn. I would think that the female participants in a polygamous marriage would be married to each other, by definition.

    I suppose in a context where women are effectively chattel, the female participants may be denied sufficient agency to be considered to have a relationship between each other — but yikes if so.

  212. 212.

    TS

    @HumboldtBlue:

    109 Republicans voted to protect predators, while the other 100 voted with Democrats to protect victims

    These are the issues that republican voters never see – they find out what republicans do in congress when their lives are impacted – and probably blame democrats.

  214. 214.

    ian

    @Repatriated: The women in those relationships rarely considered themselves chattel.  That was how antipolygamist authors on the East Coast portrayed them.

    It is a very complicated subject, one which English common law (which bound husband and wife together as 1 person) was not equipped to handle.  The best examples are the ones that 19th Century polygamy was based on- biblical examples.  Sarah and Hagar did not consider themselves to be married to each other, they were both in subservient relationships to Abraham.

    Gordon’s book goes into more detail on this subject, so I do recommend it if you can find it at a library, but the women in these relationships often had to balance personal desire for a monogamous relationship with their spiritual belief that polygamy was the divine preferred method of marriage.  They entered into these marriages because they believed that humans should structure themselves into hierarchies established in religious texts.

    Early Utah had easier access to divorce than most Eastern states, which belies the image of these women as chattel to their husbands.

  215. 215.

    davecb

    @HumboldtBlue: Yikes!  In Canada, one always has privilege to report crimes, no-one can use an NDA for an unlawful purpose.  The accused can then petition the court to seal the record of indictment, but they need a really impressive reason (;-))

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