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Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Marshall Law (Open Thread)

Marshall Law (Open Thread)

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TPM’s Josh Marshall was on “All In” with Chris Hayes last night to talk about the Meadows Texts story, which you can find here.

As Marshall notes, TPM got its mitts on the texts that were shared with the J6 committee, so these were the ones Meadows and/or his attorneys thought were fit for company viewing. Yowza! TPM is reporting that Meadows texted with 34 members of Congress who were trying to overturn the 2020 election (that we know of!). That’s a lot! Stephen Colbert described them thusly:

“These members of Congress communicating with Meadows were — and it’s not my place to editorialize — stupid, evil traitors who were trying to do crimes against democracy, for which they should be punished with decades of jail time.”

Well said, good sir. Sadly, that’s unlikely, and many of those self-same choads will get elevated positions in the next Congress via the GOP’s anemic House majority. Speaking of the coming GOP House majority, I wonder how planning for that is going?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says a group of Republicans called “the five families” meets every week to discuss strategy and policy in Kevin McCarthy’s office…

“What we’ve been doing, and it’s really interesting, people are arguing, people are clashing, people are also starting to agree,” said Greene. “And there’s a meeting happening every week, and we meet in Kevin McCarthy’s office.”

“And it’s called the five families. And the five families, you know my reference, the five families are parts of our conference, all the different parts,” she continued. “And we are coming together and having discussions on how we are going to govern in the majority.”

Oh.

This has got to be a waking nightmare for none-too-bright Kevin McCarthy, dealing with feral popinjays like Greene and rancid unitards like Jim Jordan, so there’s a small dollop of justice as an appetizer while we wait to see if the main course will be served.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  1. 1.

    Ken

    I totally understand how Greene is surprised and entranced by this idea that politicians can get together and talk and come to agreements, but I would have thought McCarthy had experienced it once or twice in his long career.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “And it’s called the five families. And the five families, you know my reference, the five families are parts of our conference, all the different parts,” she continued. “And we are coming together and having discussions on how we are going to govern in the majority.”

    Even with that second sentence, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Marge does not, in fact, grok her own reference. I wonder if that drifted up from some staffer.

    I will count no chickens before they’re hatched, but I continue to think that this crew might well prove to be a big gift to Democrats. Newt Gingrich was far and away the most ludicrous member of his own gang, and I suspect even he side-eyes these kooks. If there’s a Tom DeLay type lurking behind the scenes who can enforce discipline, and is willing to do it from behind the throne, I don’t see it. I’ve heard a few times in the last couple days that Marge is the third biggest fund-raiser in the caucus, being Kevin (they call him “Cave In”) MacCarthy and Steve “David Duke Without the Baggage” (I think he says he doesn’t remember ever describing himself that way) Scalise

  4. 4.

    Anoniminous

    I haven’t given up hope the Republicans will fracture during the Speaker election letting the Democrat win.

    I’d laugh.

  7. 7.

    Jerry

    All I have to say to these heads of the five families is to beware baptisms. I swear to Allah, none of these idjits think beyond the cool sounding names that they give themselves.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says a group of Republicans called “the five families” meets every week to discuss strategy and policy in Kevin McCarthy’s office

    I bet sometimes they even let Kevin stay and listen to their little chats instead of sending him out for refreshments.  That said, anyone who refers to their conferences unironically as the five families deserves to be nowhere near the seat of power.  Our elected representatives should not be comparing themselves to Mafia dons.

  9. 9.

    SFAW

    “Five families” is certainly appropriate for the Rethug caucus. Shaking down America, criming the country, every effing day.

    ETA: Someone should ask MTG if Sal Tessio is her role model.

  11. 11.

    Alison Rose

    You know, I’ve seen a few people say that they don’t think the texts are all that explosive. I disagree with that premise on its own, but also, as Marshall points out in this clip, this is only a portion of all of the communication, and we don’t know how many more texts and emails and such there were…and based on what we do know and what the lawyers decided were necessary to turn over, just imagine what else there is. It’s like those images of an iceberg showing the bit of it we see above water and the massive rest of it beneath the surface.

    Also, kudos to him for making sure to shout out the reporters by name.

  12. 12.

    Old Man Shadow

    The main course won’t be served unless these assholes are all convicted of sedition and barred from holding elected office within the United States of America.

  13. 13.

    PAM Dirac

    @Anoniminous:

    I haven’t given up hope the Republicans will fracture during the Speaker election letting the Democrat win.

     
    I think that is unlikely to happen and I doubt it is even desirable. Whatever happens in January is going to be very fragile. Nancy SMASH is still around counting votes and I think there will be opportunities for the Ds to take advantage of the chaos to get some useful things done. I also think it is very likely that the environment for the Ds will get better as the year goes on. Not only will the orange fart cloud’s problems mount, but a lot of the benefits from 2022 bills like infrastructure money and insulin prices will kick in. Maybe by next summer enough semi-rational (or maybe self interested is the best we can hope for) Rs will see the writing on the wall and the Ds will be able to form a fairly stable governing group.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agree. I don’t see these idiots enforcing any sort of policy, because not enough votes. So, e.g., using the debt limit as a political weapon, which excites some of the mouth-breathers, isn’t going to happen because a few R congresscritters understand that it would be a catastrophe, and there would be zero doubt about who to blame. And similarly for just about anything else, such as impeaching Biden because his son is bad news.

  18. 18.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Alison Rose: It doesn’t just feel like it just happened: it feels like it’s happening again and again.  Every day it seems we read of another massacre.

  19. 19.

    PeakVT

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says a group of Republicans called “the five families” meets every week to discuss strategy and policy

    I like a good Mafia film as much as the next person but, in reality, the Mafia are the bad guys – unless you are pro-crime and anti-rule of law.
    I simply do not understand the MAGAt mentality, which apparently consists of memes 24/7.  Thank FSM for small favors, I guess.​

  20. 20.

    Ken

    Wait, “five families” isn’t a Kindred: the Embraced reference?

    (Or Vampire: the Masquerade for purists.)

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    I still don’t get how members of Congress, including some supposedly educated ones, can think that martial as in “martial law” is spelled Marshall as in Marshall Amplification. (Which, by the way, is the name of a famous British company.)

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    @SFAW: Look, Republicans love RUSSIA now because it hates Democrats, women and gay people.

    Loving the mafia because they kill (the right people), are hopelessly corrupt, and avoid taxes and laws isn’t exactly a reach.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    If there’s a Tom DeLay type lurking behind the scenes who can enforce discipline, and is willing to do it from behind the throne, I don’t see it.

    Of course there isn’t.  One of the key demands of the extreme right wing of the caucus has made in exchange for their cooperation has been the dismantling of all the means leadership has of exerting discipline on the rank-and-file.  That’s what their demands to end earmarks were really about, for instance.

    California went through something similar in the ’90s and ’00s, but with the state budget. At that time, we needed a 2/3 majority to pass a budget, and the Democrats weren’t quite there.  Every year, they had to go to the least crazy Republicans and buy them off with something just in order to get the budget passed.  Some of the demands made future budgets even harder to pass, so the struggle grew every year, and the budget was chronically late.  We tried various stupid gimmicks to get the state legislature to do their job, like withholding their pay if the budget was overdue, but nothing worked until A) the requirement was reduced to a simple majority and B) the Democrats achieved a 2/3 majority.  The Republican caucus in the House isn’t going to get any better until they reform their rules to let the leadership lead and keep the back benchers benched.

  30. 30.

    Poe Larity

    In other feral fascist news, Young Federalists have grown weary of Scalia’s impotent Originalism:

    The cornerstone of Vermeule’s theory is the claim that “the central aim of the constitutional order is to promote good rule, not to ‘protect liberty’ as an end in itself” — or, in layman’s terms, that the Constitution empowers the government to pursue conservative political ends, even when those ends conflict with individual rights as most Americans understand them.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/09/revolutionary-conservative-legal-philosophy-courts-00069201

  33. 33.

    piratedan

    it kind of feels like there are three circles to the GOP Congresscritter debacle…

    1. the unhinged loons that are fully embracing whatever evangelical/Q crossovers that they consume and are willing to call out minions to serve their anointed one….
    2. the fence-sitters, those who are sympathic and still pragmatic, willing to throw in… if the winds favor the coup attempt (especially contemptable because these are the people that should have known that this was going to fail and could have calculated a machiavellian windfall by sticking a shiv in this by clueing in anyone not already tainted, be they Democrats, Media, LEO
    3. Those in the inner-circle who thought this was a winning plan and a desired outcome.

     

    Those in groups 2 and 3 should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and those in group 1 should be barred from public service.

  36. 36.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @dm: No, no, no. We gotta put our good friend, Marshall, in charge. Then all our problems will be solved.

  37. 37.

    Fake Irishman

    “Rancid unitards like Jim Jordan”

    Ouch. It’s  going to take a couple of heavy duty cycles in the washer to get that to come out. Your snark game continues to inspire, Ms. Cracker.

  38. 38.

    ian

    Imagine the freak-out on Fox if the Democratic congressional members referred to themselves as “the five families”.

  40. 40.

    Captain C

    feral popinjays

    rancid unitards

    These are great band names.  The former sounds like more of a punky new wave band, perhaps with synthpop elements.  The latter is definitely a gutter punk band all the way through.  They also work as band names with the people they describe as part:

    MTG and the Feral Popinjays

    Gym Jordan and the Rancid Unitards

    I claim bari sax and bawdy songwriting duties (and vocals if we want to commit crimes against humanity against our fans) of the names without the horrid politicians attached.

  43. 43.

    emmyelle

    I must confess I had to look up five families, but I was pretty effin sure that it was either about organized crime (ding ding ding ding), some mid-century fascist regime, or some prophetic Biblical shit.

  44. 44.

    Captain C

    @SFAW:

    More like a combination of Phil Tattaglia and one of the loud incompetents from the GoodFellas version of the Lufthansa Heist.

  45. 45.

    Leslie

    Since this is an open thread: I’m pondering gifts for someone who’s hard to buy for but likes podcasts, and came across Luminary podcasts.

    Has anyone tried them? Are there some good offerings?

    Thanks for any comments / recommendations.

  47. 47.

    FastEdD

    @Roger Moore: You are correct, sir! I was working for CFT at the time and we helped write Prop 25, which got rid of the 2/3rds requirement. We lobbied and worked our butts off and it passed. Why would a teachers’ union be so interested in that? We could never budget for the next school year and it was a mess. After it passed, every budget has been on time with no drama. One of the bad deals made with the R’s resulted in the top two “Jungle Primary” system. It is funny how the wing nuts deride CA budgets as deficit spending. Nope, it is a surplus. The only things I fear from the next House majority are endless Hunter Biden nonsense amplified on all the media and blowing up the debt ceiling on purpose.

  48. 48.

    emmyelle

    Also, regarding “Marshall Law”, perhaps they were just foreshadowing the upcoming 50th anniversary tour of the Marshall Tucker Band.

  49. 49.

    Anonymous at Work

    @Poe Larity: it has its appeal but lacks any ability to decide anything not predetermined.  Originalism includes Strict Constructionist principles that could surprise.  It’ll fall apart once used by liberal justices.

  51. 51.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Love Colbert but I’m gonna wait until someone with Fed Prosecutor experience tells me whether these texts violate existing statutes enough to justify criminal charges.

  57. 57.

    The Moar You Know

    I still don’t get how members of Congress, including some supposedly educated ones, can think that martial as in “martial law” is spelled Marshall as in Marshall Amplification. (Which, by the way, is the name of a famous British company.)

    @Amir Khalid: as a lifelong musician and current Marshall owner (I’m mostly a bassist, but having a good guitar amp around comes in handy every now and then) this particular misspelling has always ground my hide but good.

    Love Colbert but I’m gonna wait until someone with Fed Prosecutor experience tells me whether these texts violate existing statutes enough to justify criminal charges.

    @UncleEbeneezer: Gonna have to tie those texts to specific illegal actions.  That’s going to be some hard work.

  60. 60.

    Miss Bianca

    @emmyelle: Yeah, not being a big mafia follower in art *or* life, I was leaning towards its being some obscure Biblical reference, myself.

  61. 61.

    gvg

    @dm: That and the last name of Marshall is not that uncommon in America including Thurgood Marshall and I suspect some of the nutty sovereign citizen views that place great significance on law enforcement by marshals has infected their minds.

    The actual word martial in connection with war is not used much here anymore among the general population.

  63. 63.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, Greene has exceeded the limits of Hanlon’s razor: stupidity is no longer adequate to explain her behavior.

  66. 66.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Moar You Know:

    Love Colbert but I’m gonna wait until someone with Fed Prosecutor experience tells me whether these texts violate existing statutes enough to justify criminal charges.

    @UncleEbeneezer: Gonna have to tie those texts to specific illegal actions.  That’s going to be some hard work.

    and then persuade a jury in the presence of a judge and defense lawyers of “meeting of the minds” and “criminal intent” and whatnot

    A lot of people seem stubbornly resistant to that part

  68. 68.

    gvg

    @Miss Bianca: I had to look it up. I knew it wasn’t good. On the bright side, the originals assassinated each other a lot and I don’t expect these idiots to be any more loyal.

  69. 69.

    Gravenstone

    @PAM Dirac: I think that is unlikely to happen and I doubt it is even desirable.

    I dunno. A Democratic Speaker can cockblock every Republican witch hunt into perpetuity if they desire. “Sorry Gym, no time this week to bring your articles of impeachment for *checks notes* Hunter Biden to the floor. Maybe try back in June?”

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    Okay, some of y’all are seriously “well-actuallying” a comedian’s monologue? In that case, I retract my lulz at #53, which were bestowed in the belief that the comment was ironic.

  79. 79.

    RevRick

    What are the chances that the contest for Speaker of the House will exceed the 133 ballots over a two-month span that it took to select Nathaniel Banks in 1855? Given the narrowness of the GOP majority, a good chunk of which is frothing at the mouth, there’s a real possibility that nobody will be able to cobble together a majority through GOP votes alone. Then what?
    Could the Democratic caucus work with at least five swing district Republicans to choose someone besides McCarthy?

  81. 81.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Moar You Know: Exactly.  Look I’d LOVE to see all these fuckers behind bars, but we also need to be realistic about how high the bar is for DOJ to bring charges.  A couple of the Oathkeepers who were in on group texts and at the Capitol etc., didn’t even get convicted for Conspiracy to Obstruct.  I think Meadows/Perry/Eastman/Clark are in a world of potential legal danger, but I could easily see how most of these Congress-critters would not be.  And I see a lot of people getting way ahead of themselves with “Lock Them Up” and “They should’ve been arrested months ago” talk that really isn’t helpful.

  82. 82.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Alison Rose: ​
      It’d be AWFUL for the families, but it might be helpful to actually publish the photos of what school shootings like this look like. I read an article recently that compared it to Emmit Till, where his Mom allowed photos of his mangled body to be published. Show people what an AR-15 does to bodies!!! Make the NRA own it!

  83. 83.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Sister Golden Bear: I’m sure all the Don’t Tread On Me people who violently oppose any sort of State/Federal gun-owner database will be very much against this.  Wait, let me come in again…

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sister Golden Bear: But what possible justification can this crook give for wanting or needing that information? They’re adults, so even if you want to wail “it’s all about saving the children!” – they’re not children! It’s none of his goddamn business!

  85. 85.

    Mike in NC

    Front page of USA Today: “Trump’s GOP Support Crumbles”

    Voters prefer DeSantis as 2024 nominee, poll shows.

    Don’t show that article to the Orange Ogre down at Mar-A-Lago, who might possibly suffer a stroke!

  86. 86.

    Danielx

    Governing, you say?

    MTG and he coconspirators have as much interest in “governing” as I do in attending a Liberace show, and he’s dead.

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Miss Bianca: The old laws against “transvestism” and such were usually framed as measures against fraud, which (by my understanding) made it hard to actually get a conviction, since you’d have to be using disguise with intent to deceive–but the police still used them as pretexts to harass and arrest trans people, sex workers and drag performers. The idea that you might be hiding your identity to perform some criminal act was the way they legitimized it, though.

  90. 90.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Miss Bianca: His excuse will be effectively that this is no different than maintaining a list of sex-offenders and is needed for public safety.  Disgusting, but I’d bet that’s gonna be the framing of the defenses.  Just more “Groomer” bullshit.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Scott:

    Ed Buckham, MTG’s Chief of Staff was Tom DeLay’s COS.

    that’s interesting… I wonder if The Hammer is advising the Dumb As A Box Of Hammers. Even if he’s not… Kevin McCarthy is so fucked

  93. 93.

    Chetan Murthy

    [eta: Matt McIrvin got there first]

    @Miss Bianca: Having grown up with his sort of mindset (sadly; I’m still atoning for it), I can put that tin-foil hat on: “they’re groomers; of course we need to know who they are, so we can eventually construct a registry, so that good [KKK]Christian folk can know that their children are safe from their evil ways.”

    You know, like the Nuremberg Laws:  isolate them from the rest of the citizenry, and then incrementally strip them of their rights.

  95. 95.

    trollhattan

    Republicans thrilled to learn of a path out of any consequences from Jan 6 insurrection, begin working on their declaration.

    The State Duma adopted in the first reading a draft law on the abolition of punishment for crimes committed in the occupied territories of Ukraine “in the interests of the Russian Federation”

    It states that the perpetrators of crimes are exempted from punishment if the criminal actions “were aimed at protecting the interests of the Russian Federation, “DPR”, “LPR” and organizations of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

    https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1603103697911033856?cxt=HHwWgMDRwbqUr78sAAAA

  96. 96.

    Sanjeevs

    @UncleEbeneezer: I guess the question is whether the revealed texts sparked the DoJ to investigate those Congress critters – seize all their devices etc

    Doesn’t seem like it.

  98. 98.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Miss Bianca: That’s why they’re also spreading the blood libel (and yes, I’m using that phrase deliberately*) that we’re “groomers” i.e. pedophiles.

    The next steps will be because we’re all supposed pedophiles that we need to be kept away from any possible contact children — with laws that make it a crime to a be a trans person out in public (there’s already pending bills in several states to do just that).

    Then it’ll be we need to be separated from society, concentrated in camps might. Then it’ll be there needs to a solution, a final one, to trans people existing period.

    I wish I was exaggerating, but we’ve already heard them start saying the quiet parts out loud.

    *I’m Jewish by lineage, even though I wasn’t raised in the faith, and there’s an entire side of my family that no longer exists. Though again, I don’t have personal experience with relatives who survived, because… well you know, they’re all dead.

  99. 99.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Sister Golden Bear: You’re not exaggerating, and your sequence is definitely where they want to take this.  Fascism needs internal enemies, and trans and LGBTQ people are the ones they’ve chosen for this iteration.  As they are wont to say, “pollution of the body politic”.

  101. 101.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Citizen Alan: wait, why  is that horrific?  I’d be happy to pay money to not watch it, but still have it filmed and distributed widely.  Surely there’d be a big audience for Qevin McCarthy humiliation clips.

    ETA: the video of his travails over the weekend, when nobody’s around to let him out to pee and poo, would be especially interesting for viewers, I’d think.  His self-pitying whining as he sits there in the dark, knowing that he’ll get no help until Monday, would probably give a lotta these MAGAts a stiffie.

  104. 104.

    artem1s

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

     

    it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Marge does not, in fact, grok her own reference.

    She might know it’s a reference to The Godfather, but it’s pretty clear she doesn’t remember or know what happened to the leaders of the four families or she wouldn’t be so pleased with it.

  106. 106.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: Yeah, I get you.  I wouldn’t want to watch it; I would simply want to know that it existed, that he’d suffered, and that the record of his suffering was out in the world, available to every person he meets, including all the waitstaff who bring him his cobb salad [obligatory shout-out to Action!]

  107. 107.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Sanjeevs: Unless the Congresscritters are targets of an investigation it is more likely that DOJ will ask nicely then subpoena them for their messages.  DOJ/FBI actually needs substantial and fresh intel that evidence of a crime is on somebody’s phone, in their desk etc., before it can justify a legal search/seizure (this is why it took so long before the MAL search).  That’s why it was a really big deal that they’ve already seized phones from Perry, Eastman, Clark, Rudy, Fuentes, etc.

  108. 108.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Chetan Murthy: I would simply want to know that it existed, that he’d suffered

    Cobbling together 218 votes from this particular group of Republicans is its own form of torture. It would be unconstitutional if it weren’t voluntary.

  109. 109.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Miss Bianca: Early-on in TFG’s Reign of Error, I started reading about the rise of the Nazis (all pre-WWII) and specifically about how they went about imposing their reign of terror on their targeted minorities.  Gellately’s _Backing Hitler_ has a lot of details, so does E.A. Johnson’s _What We Knew_.  It’s having read those books (and a few others) that when I see stuff like this, I immediately jump the same place that @Sister Golden Bear: and @Matt McIrvin: jumped to.

  110. 110.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    “These members of Congress communicating with Meadows were — and it’s not my place to editorialize — stupid, evil traitors who were trying to do crimes against democracy, for which they should be punished with decades of jail time.”

    Fixed:

    “These members of Congress communicating with Meadows were — and it’s not my place to editorialize — stupid, evil traitors who were trying to do crimes against democracy, for which they should be punished with 230gr of copper jacketed lead right between the eyes.”

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    @Anoniminous:

    I haven’t given up hope the Republicans will fracture during the Speaker election letting the Democrat win.

     

    I don’t think it will happen, but, I don’t think McCarthy will be Speaker either.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    His excuse will be effectively that this is no different than maintaining a list of sex-offenders and is needed for public safety.

    Except, of course, that the sex offender registry is only for people who have been convicted of a crime.  If he wants to put all trans people on a registry, he needs to first make it illegal to be trans and then secure convictions.

  114. 114.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Roger Moore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws

    Dr. Zindel of the Ministry of the Interior prepared a draft of a Reich “Gypsy Law” intended to supplement and accompany the Nuremberg Laws. According to Zindel, the “Gypsy problem” could not be dealt with by forced resettlement or imprisonment within Germany. He recommended identification and registration of all Roma, followed by sterilisation and deportation. In 1938, public health authorities were ordered to register all Roma and Roma Mischlinge.[27] Despite Himmler’s interest in enacting such legislation, which he said would prevent “further intermingling of blood, and which regulates all the most pressing questions which go together with the existences of Gypsies in the living space of the German nation”,[28] the regime never promulgated the “Gypsy Law”.[29] In December 1942, Himmler ordered that all Roma were to be sent to Nazi concentration camps.[24]

    There are no laws that Fascists are bound to respect.

  115. 115.

    rikyrah

    @FastEdD:

     

    The only things I fear from the next House majority are endless Hunter Biden nonsense amplified on all the media and blowing up the debt ceiling on purpose.

     

    This is why the Senate needs to take up the 1/6 investigation. Have a contrast to the lunacy of the House.

    There are 15 Republicans from Districts that Biden won. We need to keep our feet on their necks. Make them responsible for every vote they take for a GOP Speaker. There should already be a War Room at the DNC dedicated only to them.

  116. 116.

    Bill Arnold

    @Sister Golden Bear:
    The WaPo article says that Paxton’s office denies that it has records of any such request. Which apparently was verbal. And taken seriously enough to make a few employees spin wheels for a month or two.
    Mr. Paxton is one of those very rare people who would fail a “scorpion mom with babies on her back” vs “human person” anonymous-lever trolley problem. Life for the scorpion mom and her children!

  117. 117.

    RaflW

    @RevRick: Don Bacon was making some noises about this. But those five Reps would get quite the hammer-drop, wouldn’t they? And I don’t think there’s a single Republican that a) would want the job, even temporarily and even as a ‘bridge’ who could b) get support from the whole Dem caucus.

    So, yeah, either the GOP figures out which lunatic will run the House asylum, or they’ll deadlock. At which point, does literally nothing move through Congress? Messy!

  118. 118.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    @Qrop Non Sequitur:

    Just so long as the sentences are served in a “regular” Federal prison and not on an Air Force Base “Club Fed” in Florida, that’s OK with me.

     

    Though at the first instance of someone suggesting that they need to tend golf courses down in Florida, the Colt option is acceptable.

  120. 120.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: I think no one else wants the job… yet (meaning Scalise). And the big money (including their agents McConnell and again, Scalise will be looking to minimize drama (good luck to them on that)

  122. 122.

    Chetan Murthy

    @RaflW: Two thoughts:

    1. any GrOPer who crosses the aisle to vote w/Dems for leadership, is gonna get primaried in 2024, and death threats for him and his family until then.
    2. gridlock serves their interests: they have SCOTUS to legislate on their behalf already, and they are after all the party of “government does not work” so showing that daily is just a proof they are correct.
  128. 128.

    RaflW

    @Chetan Murthy: There needs to be intensive solidarity on this. It is more uneven in the gay & lesbian community that I’d want, but at least the LGBTQ orgs that I support seem to really get that we have to hold together. A number of my cis/straight Jewish friends & acquaintances also are understanding the linked risks & destiny in these dark times.

    My UU people are very much in the fight as co-religionists with decades of activism in queer spaces, too. (Ashley, on the home page at that link, is a personal friend and neighbor, too. I’m pretty sure I posted her Queer Prayer after Colorado Springs here right after she wrote it, and it’s still at the home page too).

  131. 131.

    RaflW

    @Chetan Murthy: Steven Dennis, a D.C. reporter who seems to be willing to have some viewpoints on Twitter (ie not a Beltway conventional wisdom slinger) said yesterday: Don’t plan any vacations or trips that involve National Parks or other Federal lands, services, etc for after Oct. 1st. He’s expecting gridlock and an extended, nasty GOP shutdown. 9.5 months from now. [forehead slap dot gif]

  132. 132.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I started reading about the rise of the Nazis (all pre-WWII) and specifically about how they went about imposing their reign of terror on their targeted minorities.

    Just a reminder to everyone that the most famous photo of Nazi book burning was them destroying the library of the Institute of Sexology in Berlin, a research center run by a gay man, and an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and the first gender clinic.

    Much invaluable research, some irreplaceable, went up in flames. For good measure the Nazis also killed a trans woman who worked there.

  134. 134.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Roger Moore:

    Except, of course, that the sex offender registry is only for people who have been convicted of a crime.  If he wants to put all trans people on a registry, he needs to first make it illegal to be trans and then secure convictions.

    That was actually the intent of the anti-trans “bathroom bills.”

  136. 136.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Sit down everyone, you’ll never believe this…:

    “Minneapolis police identified a suspect who they believe helped initiate the riots and destruction in the city following the killing of George Floyd. He is associated with the “Aryan Cowboys,” a White supremacist prison and street gang.”

    But I’ve been assured it was BLM/Antifa!

  137. 137.

    Nora

    @rikyrah: You’d better believe I’ll be keeping an eye on MY new Republican representative.  I’m going to be his worst nightmare.  He’s going to hear from me CONSTANTLY.

  139. 139.

    Roger Moore

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    But I’ve been assured it was BLM/Antifa!

    It shows the importance of getting your lies out in the public view as quickly as possible. They’ve had 2 years to sell people on the idea the riots were all about Black people overreacting.  It will be incredibly difficult to get people to get over what they’ve believed for 2 years and accept something different.

  144. 144.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Jackie: They’ve being making those attacks for years but 1) the MSM generally didn’t cover them, 2) Christopher Rufo, damn his non-existent soul, came up with “groomers” as a catchy euphemism that could traction in the MSM, and 3) TFG lost two years ago and that really caused them to tip over into overt violence against LGBTQ+. Eric Hoffer astutely observed, cults may not need gods, but they always need satans.

    Trust me, I only post a small fraction of what they’re doing, because I simply don’t have enough hours in the day to do so.

    Plus in prior years it would be like those focus groups where people simply didn’t believe that Republican policies could be so evil. So it didn’t get talked about much in normie circles, except to criticize us for being hysterical.

  145. 145.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Qrop Non Sequitur: This is exactly right: You can’t have a one-minute hate where each person directs their hate at whomever they choose: you have to have somebody organize it and select the target.  Before the 2020 election, it was those dirty brown and black people.  Now it’s groomers, other [ok, I can’t, you can insert your own epithets here for LGBTQ folks], and uppity baby-murderers.

  147. 147.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Chetan Murthy: insert your own epithets here for LGBTQ folks

    I prefer to keep those to the privacy of my bedroom with a guy inclined to do the same who performs bro-ey masculinity well.

    A gentleman in the streets, toxic in the sheets.

  150. 150.

    Bill Arnold

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    CPS investigators to were order to investigate families with trans kids were also ordered to keep no written records of their investigations.

    When dealing with people like that, one should have a voice recorder (smartphone apps work) running at all times. Legally, or not. (Texas appears to be a one-party consent state.)

  152. 152.

    rikyrah

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    That’s why they’re also spreading the blood libel (and yes, I’m using that phrase deliberately*) that we’re “groomers” i.e. pedophiles.

     

    This is true, and it’s nothing but projection, because THEY are the ones, every week, getting arrested.

  153. 153.

    rikyrah

    @Sister Golden Bear:

     I’ll point that Paxton compiling a list of adult trans Texans came not long after he illegally tried to get child protective services to take trans kids away from their parents.

     

    What, the phuck, does he need with a list of Trans ADULTS.

    What?

     

    Why?

     

    Nothing good.

  154. 154.

    Nettoyeur

    Back in the day, it was said that Newt Gingrich was a stupid person’s idea of a smart person. In a similar vein, it seems to me that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a smart person’s idea of a moron.

  156. 156.

    prostratedragon

    @Sister Golden Bear:  Mine are much like yours. And I recall reading about how persecution of gay etc. people got those evil fucks started years ago. (Don’t even like to say their stupid faux-clever name.)

  160. 160.

    Citizen Alan

    @Roger Moore: Not just that BLM was responsible. There are swaths of Red America that accepts as an article of faith that entire cities were burned down during those riots.

  162. 162.

    Citizen Alan

    My interview for a career clerkship was this morning went great. And I am heartsick and anxious that my dream job is in fucking Tallahassee.

  171. 171.

    Bill Arnold

    @Dan B:

    Paxton is on a roll.

    That man led a lawsuit to void the 2020 elections in other States. (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.)
    He is anti-American scum. (As are the State AGs who joined him.)

  172. 172.

    Roger Moore

    @Citizen Alan:

    There are swaths of Red America that accepts as an article of faith that entire cities were burned down during those riots.

    I wonder how much of this is that people from small towns just can’t comprehend how big cities are.  It’s the same thing as people assuming that because there are a few areas with a lot of homeless people living on the street that a typical city dweller spends a lot of time dealing with homeless people.  In practice, we can and do avoid those neighborhoods.

  175. 175.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Roger Moore:

    I wonder how much of this is that people from small towns just can’t comprehend how big cities are.

    Maybe that, but also definitely they believe what they want to believe. A former poster who lived in Cincinnati once shared how the locals just flat out refused to believe that Cincinnati actually had a higher crime rate than LA (or maybe it was SF).

  177. 177.

    Qrop Non Sequitur

    @Sister Golden Bear: I know. I grew up with that.

    The same people “falling” for the groomer/pedo line wouldn’t be bothered by the alternate terminology.

    They insist on plausible deniability, however.

  179. 179.

    trnc

    @PAM Dirac: ​
     

    a lot of the benefits from 2022 bills like infrastructure money and insulin prices will kick in.

    They sure will, and the repubs will take credit for the money and get very little pushback from the media. Hopefully, dems will still be able to make some public pronouncements if Chuck Todd ever invite any on again.

  181. 181.

    Another Scott

    Dying OpenThread:

    VOAnews.com:

    WASHINGTON —

    The top election official in the southern U.S. state of Georgia called Wednesday for the state legislature to eliminate general election runoffs when no candidate reaches the required 50% threshold in the first round of voting.

    Georgia has held three crucial runoff elections in the last two years, all of which have drawn national attention, and in each instance, determined the final political party makeup of the U.S. Senate.

    The election official, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said his state was one of only a few in the country where election rules call for a runoff if no candidate wins a majority in earlier voting.

    “We’re also one of the only states that always seems to have a runoff,” Raffensperger said of his politically divided state, with a recent history of close outcomes between Democratic and Republican opponents. He called on the state General Assembly when it convenes in January to visit the issue and consider reforms.

    “No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday,” Raffensperger said. “It’s even tougher on the counties who had a difficult time completing all of their deadlines [from the first round of voting], an election audit and executing a runoff in a four-week time period.”

    […]

    I’m sure it’s critical to address this right now because it’s only right.

    Not because a Democrat has won each of those runoff elections he’s so worried about… Not because a spoiler hasn’t been able to mess up a 2-person race.

    Grr…

    Runoffs do indeed have problems, and were instituted to prevent upstarts (of any kind) from upsetting the local power structures, but simply doing away with them without other reforms just invites spoilers to throw races to the RWNJs. Ranked-choice or instant-runoff or something similar can prevent that (or can let people like Adams win in NYC), but a thoughtful, fair solution is needed.

    No human system is game-proof (look at what happened in the Tom Cotton senate race (where the Democrat dropped out too late to get a replacement on the ballot…)), but we should try to minimize weaknesses.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  186. 186.

    WaterGirl

    @RaflW: One of the political podcasts I listened to last night said that Don Bacon is firmly in the McCarthy camp and his “if we can’t agree some of us might have to thrown in with some dems and bring in someone else” was intended as a warning that Rs need to vote for McCarthy.

  187. 187.

    sab

    @Sister Golden Bear: Diring Covid my husband and I have been watching ancient reruns. We aren’t especially alert. Just  a normal midwestern oldish couple. And we are frankly shocked on a daily basis.  Yikes. Westerns were okay, but detective and police procedurals were appalling.

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