Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

You are here: Home / Domestic Terrorism / Sunday Evening Open Thread: What Does Chuck Grassley Know About the Attempted Insurrection, And When Did He Know It?

Sunday Evening Open Thread: What Does Chuck Grassley Know About the Attempted Insurrection, And When Did He Know It?

by | 97 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Grassley’s worked his ‘kindly, if slightly addled, Grandpa Simpson’ cosplay to great effect for almost as long as I’ve been paying close attention to Republican political maneuvering… but all great performances must eventually be ended, by audience demand if not the wishes of the performer.

Would Grassley throw himself into plotting a coup against a Democratic president? Probably not — if only because he and/or the powerful Iowa family dynasty he heads, wouldn’t get much of a return for that risk. Would he happily accede to a coup, if there was enough of a reward offered to Chuck Grassley? IMO: Does a CAFO pig dump produce sh*t lagoons?

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday he was not involved in any conversations with Trump allies about the possibility of him presiding over the Jan. 6, 2021 joint session of Congress.

“We were talking about presiding over the Senate but a lot of people get that mixed up with some idea that I was going to preside over the joint session,” Grassley said as he got out of the Senate subway for the first votes of the day. “You know that’s not what I ever intended to do. I was never involved in any conversations on that or anything.”

When pressed about how the mix up happened, Grassley was led away by a staffer and reporters were told the senator’s office could send out a statement to elaborate.

Questions around Trump allies’ discussions about Grassley presiding over Congress instead of then former Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 resurfaced on Tuesday when Trump lawyer John Eastman was asked about those conversations during his disbarment trial in California.

Eastman evaded the question and claimed conversations on that topic were protected by attorney-client privilege, according to Politico. When pressed further about which client he was referring to Eastman said, “President Trump.”…

How long are you cruel reporters gonna keep harrying a poor old man whose memory might not be what it once was?…

… There’s no real evidence of Grassley’s involvement. But that doesn’t preclude the possibility that some people in Trump’s orbit were angling for that outcome, as evidence suggests they did.

Grassley set off a momentary controversy on Jan. 5 by saying: “If the vice president isn’t there — and we don’t expect him to be there — I will be presiding over the Senate.” Roll Call initially cast this as Grassley saying he personally expected to preside over the certification of electoral votes. (In the absence of the vice president, that duty falls to the Senate president pro tempore, which was Grassley.)

But Grassley’s actual comments appeared to refer to a separate session of the Senate rather than the crucial joint session of Congress, something his office clarified then and Grassley himself reiterated Thursday. His office said he would fill in for Pence in the Senate only if Pence stepped out for a period of time.

(Grassley on Jan. 6 would indeed wind up briefly presiding over the Senate, after Pence was evacuated amid the growing unrest at the Capitol. But Grassley, too, was soon removed from the chamber.)

Grassley and his office have repeatedly denied that anybody approached him about presiding over the joint session so he could decline to certify the results on Jan. 6.

But other evidence makes clear that some Trump allies entertained the idea of Pence stepping aside — and that even Pence at one point at least discussed the possibility…

Naow, naow — let’s not argue and bicker about ‘oo kilt ‘oo!…

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  1. 1.

    piratedan

    start with the staffers.  They all work and talk among themselves, gotta believe that the Senators that were contesting slates of electors would have to be in on it, so I would suggest seeing/looking for interconnections between those of Sen Grassley and those of Sen Cruz, Hawley and Lee.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    Grassley’s comment on January 5 was hinky as heck, at least as reported at the time:

    During an exchange with reporters on Tuesday, Grassley was asked how he plans to vote.

    “Well, first of all, I will be — if the Vice President isn’t there and we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate,” according to a transcript of his remarks sent by a spokesperson.

    (Emphasis added.)

    The context seems pretty clear – it was about the EC vote, not about some other Senate session.

    Who is “we”? Why was there the expectation that he would not be there?

    People should keep pressing him, and his staff, and anyone he talked to before that press discussion. Don’t let him play confused grandpa about this.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Jeffro

    Agreed – PRESS HARD ON THIS, DEMS!

    OT but it’s funny to see Fox News central office pressing hard on Biden saying (at the end of a presser) that he was ‘going to bed’…AFTER a 5-day, round-the-world trip.

    (they’re trying to cover for Pete Doocy essentially saying the same thing live on camera, LOL.  “President Biden has literally been up around the clock pulling an all-nighter…”)

    WHICH IS IT, GOP?  Exhausted and feeble dementia patient, or sinister double-plus evil mastermind?

  11. 11.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jeffro: I know people get sick of thinking about the NYT, but they’ve topped themselves. The front-page headline this morning was basically saying that Biden needs to cut his own son loose for the sake of political advantage. Their moral bankruptcy is complete.

  12. 12.

    sdhays

    @Another Scott: Thanks, that’s what I remembered too and I was starting to doubt myself based on excerpt from the WP article.

    Between the actual context and Eastman’s weird attorney-client privilege dodge about this topic, it’s clear Grassley is lying.

  13. 13.

    BlueGuitarist

    Excellent title, AL!

    WaPo downplaying fascist coup again:

    “Grassley set off a momentary controversy on Jan. 5” — dude, [Aaron Blake] if you’re writing an article about this 2 and a half years later it is an ongoing, years-long controversy, stop trying to minimize it by calling it momentary, and in so many other ways.

    Also downplaying, with “wayward comments Grassley made” and “no real evidence of Grassley’s involvement” —

    At least they quote the moment when he gave it away:

    “If the vice president isn’t there, and we don’t expect him to be there”

    but again with the downplaying, very credulously insisting that we have to defer to later comments by Grassley and his staff about some bs alternate interpretation rather than seriously evaluate whether this was Grassley letting slip a key part of the fascist coup plot.

    ETA i see lots of folks got there first. i’m slow and paused to read part of the WaPo linked Des Moines Register article, which reported that when debating the issue Grassley didn’t want to talk about January 6 but about inflationborder.

    love all y’all

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    Exactly this. They are retroactively trying to becloud the context, which was pretty clear at the time. Grassley was asked about, and was talking about, the joint session, not some hypothetical Senate session.

  15. 15.

    TriassicSands

    @Mike in NC:

    Mike, Iowa’s governor is Kim Reynolds and the junior senator is Joni Ernst. Why would they get rid of Chuck Grassley?

    This list of senators who are at least as bad as Grassley is a very long one, and their voters aren’t getting rid of them. I understand your exasperation, but the problem, as I’m sure you know, extends far beyond Grassley. It’s called the Republican electorate.

  17. 17.

    piratedan

    @TriassicSands: for me it’s not a case of Iowans not doing the right thing (although that would be nice), for me its a case of conspiring against the duly elected ticket that had just won a national election.  I want all of those asshats arrested and to do time, I don’t give a fuck if they’re old men or young naive staffers, THESE people, above anyone else should know how illegal these actions were and if they were involved, I want them punished and removed from not just public office but public service., if its proven that there was involvement (planning and execution).

    I don’t want a repeat of Iran-Contra where so many got to crawl back under the rocks only to surface again.

  18. 18.

    tobie

    @BlueGuitarist: I suspected Aaron Blake was the author. Emptywheel has noted his consistent GOP bias. Trying to frame Grassley’s very troubling comment on Jan 5 as utterly innocuous is yet.more evidence of this tilt.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Wanna bet they had the fingers of their left hand crossed behind their back when they took it. You know first rule of being in any way responsible for anything while shoveling a minimum of 4 tons of manure a day is fingers crossed that you don’t get caught.

  20. 20.

    piratedan

    @tobie: It’s kinda their go to deflection/reflection tactic.  They tell us not to believe that everything is a conspiracy theory and that some statements are just slips of the tongue; yet when examined and investigated we find out that yeah… it really WAS a conspiracy and giving the GOP the defacto benefit of the doubt when they’ve exhausted all of their good faith and have a huge deficit at the bank of integrity seems a bit too glib at this point.

    With the actions of that caucus and the public statements that have followed J6, I can’t believe that anything put forth by any GOP politician should ever be taken at face value.

  21. 21.

    Jackie

    @Jeffro: Steve Doocy has also defended Biden at times recently… are the Doocy’s secretly on Biden’s side vs TIFG? A LOT OF REPUGS DON’T WANT TIFG TO EVER STEP FOOT INTO THE WH AGAIN. 

  25. 25.

    Jackie

    @Steeplejack: Grassley fully expected to preside over the Senate J6. The question is why? And why wouldn’t Pence be available? A kidnapping or illness that didn’t happen?

  26. 26.

    Mousebumples

    If I recall correctly, it’s an open secret in Iowa that Grassley will resign (*or die in office) and the Gov will nominate his grandson (currently in the Iowa statehouse) to replace him.

    Kinda surprised that hasn’t already happened. I’m guessing the GOP, hardline stance on Feinstein/Judiciary committee means Grassley wouldn’t be replaced on his Committees. Which is probably keeping another old Senator in office.

  27. 27.

    RaflW

    @TriassicSands: A friend of ours, who lived in Des Moines for years and was a solid “D” voter and active public voice for progressive issues recently joined the liberal/queer/Dem flotilla of Iowa-leavers.

    It sucks that Iowa will get redder, but this is correct: Iowa has lost its freakin’ political mind and isn’t coming back off the ledge any time soon.

    I don’t know how America recovers from the accelerating great sorting that is happening. It’s a very serious problem. And we have a lot of those right now.

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    Grassley Says He Was ‘Never Involved In Any Conversations’ About Him Presiding Over Congress On Jan. 6 

    That’s a rather specific way of stating that he knew nothing. Even for someone trying to not get caught in the wringer. He didn’t say he didn’t know anything, he’s being very UN – specific about it clarifying what he didn’t know and leaves a massive hole to hide everything he did know. IOW that is not a realistic answer to the concept of what did he know and when did he know it.

  30. 30.

    tobie

    @piratedan: Blake’s twisting himself into pretzels in trying to claim that Grassley meant that the VP would not be present for another session of Congress besides the one foe certifying the Electoral College vote, which was the session everyone was talking about. Eastman’s communications with other Trump staff regarding Pence being replaced by Grassley is icing on the cake.

    Blake had no hesitation in a recent article talking about the clouds of suspicion surrounding Joe Biden as a result of Hunter.

  31. 31.

    TriassicSands

    @zhena gogolia “…Biden needs to cut his own son loose for the sake of political advantage.”

    I think it is a bullshit piece, but…

    I read that article and didn’t get that impression. It is undeniable that Hunter Biden’s troubles are not good for the president, but Joe won’t “cut him loose” even if it costs him the election next year. The article points out that, so far, Hunter’s difficulties don’t seem to be a real problem for Biden’s re-election. And they shouldn’t be, especially since there is nothing unusual about president’s children trying to cash in on the father-child relationship. It sucks, but we’ve seen it all before. And very recently in the case of the Trump mob.

    It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Joe hasn’t always done the “best” thing with regard to Hunter. What parent always does? However, I think the vast majority of people open to voting for Biden next year won’t let a father’s love for his child, even when it might be enabling, affect their vote. Unconditional love, which we expect of parents for their children, can cloud judgment. That’s completely understandable. It is also not surprising, to me at least, if some of Biden’s political advisors would prefer he cut Hunter loose. They’re wasting their time.

    I don’t personally view Hunter Biden as either a drag or an asset for the president or on my willingness to vote for him. Hunter’s problems are his own and his very troubled life shouldn’t cause his father to abandon him, especially not for political purposes. On the other hand, I don’t see Joe’s unconditional love as an asset, because my interest in Joe is as president, not as how good or bad a father he is, something I can never know for certain.

    The Times has huge problems with its political coverage. I actually have more of a problem with the fact that they published this article than with its content. I really don’t think there was any reason to write or publish yet another story on Hunter Biden AND his father. In that, I think we probably agree.

    As always, I do have a problem with MSM language. The journalist (gossip columnist?) writes there is “no hard evidence” showing that Joe has done anything wrong. Accusations are not evidence. So, as far as I can tell there simply is NO EVIDENCE, let alone “hard,” that the president has done anything illegal. However, that kind of language is extremely common in the MSM.

  32. 32.

    mvr

    @TriassicSands: Having just traversed Iowa by car in 5 hours  (and seen the various signage posted along the way) I basically agree. Not that my state is any better.  Both Grassley and Iowa used to be somewhat better, but that is a low bar.

  33. 33.

    TriassicSands

    @RaflW:

    Agreed, I’m always amazed when good people remain in states that have gone off the deep end. (And it’s even harder to believe when people move there.) However, I also recognize that the states will never turn around politically if all the good/sane people leave. If they stay and put up a fight, I have nothing but admiration for them.

    That said, I understand why people don’t stay. Today, that is especially true of women of child-bearing age. No one should have to flee to another state to get appropriate basic medical care. And it’s even worse since at least some states are now trying to find ways to punish those women who do.

    Perhaps the biggest problem with setting the current state political reality in stone is that will mean that Republicans will always have an advantage in the Senate. They may not always have the majority, but they will always have the power to obstruct. That could apply to the House as well, unless voters abandoning Red states move to Red districts where they have a chance to tilt the vote to the left.

  34. 34.

    Kent

    @TriassicSands: The utter stupidity of this NYT article is how exactly is Joe Biden supposed to cut Hunter loose?

    Try to game out how that would actually work.   All he would actually be doing by trying to abandon Hunter is underscore that the Republicans are CORRECT to be obsessing with Hunter Biden.

    For that matter, this has never been about Hunter Biden anyway.  The whole point of the Hunter Biden thing is to hang corruption charges around Joe Biden’s neck.  And abandoning or rejecting Hunter isn’t going to make any of that go away.  It would just make it worse.

    “See, we TOLD you that Hunter Biden was corrupt and the “Biden Crime Family” is implicated in his corruption.  Even President Biden admits it now.  And the President can’t run away from this”

    is the drumbeat you would hear on FOX 24/7.

    Joe Biden is doing exactly the right thing.

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    What did Chuck Grassley know about the attempted insurrection, and when did he know it?

    Considering what he said and how he said it, I’d say a lot or all, and before Jan 6.

  36. 36.

    TriassicSands

    @Kent:

    I think I covered your objections by saying a) that it’s a bullshit piece and b) that it should never have been published. I simply didn’t get the impression that the gossip columnist who wrote the article was actually calling for Joe to abandon support from Hunter.

  37. 37.

    TriassicSands

    @Ruckus:

    Yes, Ruckus, but did he remember any of that ten minutes later? Watching him in recent hearings, it was clear that he is unable to ask questions without reading from a prepared script. He seems only marginally more “with it” than Feinstein. Based on our earlier exchange, I think we agree that both should retire…yesterday.

  38. 38.

    Nelle

    Urbandale, Iowa report: I was out in the neighborhood on our Neighbor to Neighbor get out the vote drive for the upcoming local (city council and school board) elections this afternoon.  A couple of households have young, newly eligible registered voters where they are the only Democrats in the household.  But at least two of those households, the mom has volunteered that, while they are registered republicans, they just haven’t changed their registrations.  They won’t be voting for republicans anymore.  I take hope where I can find it.

    I’m open to being chatty if they are.  One woman said she was more against abortion until she had three kids.  She said, “I didn’t think I should make decisions for others before, but now that I know how hard pregnancy is on the body, I’m definitely pro-choice.  No one should be forced to go through that.”  Her big fear is that the republicans are coming for contraception.

  40. 40.

    TriassicSands

    @Kent: For that matter, this has never been about Hunter Biden anyway.  The whole point of the Hunter Biden thing is to hang corruption charges around Joe Biden’s neck.  And abandoning or rejecting Hunter isn’t going to make any of that go away.  It would just make it worse.

    On that, I couldn’t agree more.

    However, the idea that Joe Biden would ever cut his son loose is ridiculous. That just isn’t who he is. With the death of Beau, I would be shocked if Joe didn’t pour even more love and support into Hunter. Biden has suffered the loss of multiple family members, something few could even imagine.

    The Republicans are well known for their cruelty, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they would try to use it in the most depraved ways imaginable. Maybe the Times should write an article about that. Without all the weak, equivocal language that always characterizes their writing about the GOP.

  41. 41.

    Captain C

    @TriassicSands:

    NYT Pitchbot pitch:  “Joe Biden loves and supports his wayward son. Trump wants to boink his daughter.  Do both candidates have problem relationships with their kids?”

  42. 42.

    Jackie

    @TriassicSands: More voters will support Biden’s unconditional love for Hunter than not. The majority of families have “been there” and are actually relieved to know even a president suffers from what they’ve been through or are going through. Drug addiction doesn’t discriminate.

  43. 43.

    Alison Rose

    @Nelle:

    She said, “I didn’t think I should make decisions for others before, but now that I know how hard pregnancy is on the body, I’m definitely pro-choice.  No one should be forced to go through that.”

    I mean, I’m glad she saw the light, but it’s a little weird that she didn’t realize “how hard pregnancy is on the body” until she herself was pregnant.

  44. 44.

    Nelle

    @Alison Rose: I think there are those who sail through (my daughter-in-law being one of those.  Three pregnancies in five years and she “loved it”).  So maybe she knew those types.  And there are a lot of rosy myths about it, too.  She said that she grew up I’m a conservative family and says she was pretty sheltered.

  46. 46.

    Jackie

    Off topic, but TIFG challenges Murdoch to the same mental acuity test he took. Sadly my nose is burning from the wine I inadvertently snorted while reading this:

    “Donald Trump threw down the gauntlet in a Sunday evening Truth Social rant, challenging a host of his perceived enemies—including Rupert Murdoch and the ‘heads’ of his Wall Street Journal newspaper—to the same mental acuity test that he supposedly ‘aced’ a few years back,” the Daily Beast reports.

    “Trump was apparently angry about a WSJ poll which asked voters about his age and mental fortitude. ‘Where did that come from?’”

  47. 47.

    RaflW

    @TriassicSands: I do worry about the people on the margins in states like Iowa who can ill-afford to leave, or who have familial connections that make leaving that much harder.

    But, that said, honestly f**k Iowa. As was noted upthread, the state elected Earnst and Reynolds. Republican leaders have made it clear they’re heading for Gilead. (I don’t know what happens to healthcare in a state like Iowa when, eventually, the only OB-GYNs are glassy-eyed MAGA doctors, but the state and it’s voters may just find out. Rich Iowans will come to Minnesota, unless that gets bounty-hunted.)

    Where I think id does matter is in getting people to tilt the balance in Texas, the Carolinas (North first, by a long shot), some of the other light-red & purple states with good economic prospects, even Virginia needs shoring up. And hello, Wisconsin! We could use several thousand more good “D” votes in the WOW counties.

  48. 48.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Nelle: ​ 

    Her big fear is that the republicans are coming for contraception.

    As real as that fear is and as shocking as it is, I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that in 2023 contraception has become a key and divisive political issue.

    It’s gobsmackingly insane, and then I glance at Poland and Hungary and I see the fascism of the dominant religious state and right-wing ideology rampant and can’t help but worry about this nation.

  49. 49.

    RaflW

    @Jackie: LOL!

    “Trump was apparently angry about a WSJ poll which asked voters about his age and mental fortitude. ‘Where did that come from?’”

    Uhhhh, Dingle-Donnie, it came from the GOP constantly attacking a man only three years older than you.

  50. 50.

    TriassicSands

    @Jackie:

    As I wrote in my original comment, I think that the vast majority of people open to voting for Biden will do so regardless of Hunter’s problems.

  51. 51.

    Jackie

    @Alison Rose: No one knows what their body goes through during pregnancy until they’ve gone through pregnancy. As a mom who had multiple kiddos, I can attest each pregnancy is a unique experience. One of mine was traumatic and life threatening. One just never knows.

  52. 52.

    TriassicSands

    @RaflW:

    My sister lives in Wisconsin, which has become, thanks to radical gerrymandering, perhaps the state with the least free and fair elections in the country. The balance is close now, but Democrats are at a severe disadvantage. They can receive a majority of votes and lose a majority of seats.

    Recent reports about the Republicans trying to impeach the recently elected supreme court justice reveal just how far gone the Wisconsin Republican Party is, but it is really just more of the same we’ve been seeing for years. However, there is some hope that enough Republicans won’t go along with the plan.

  53. 53.

    Alison Rose

    @Jackie: Of course, but most people at least understand that it has the potential to be difficult. I’ve never been pregnant, praise be, but I’m aware of what it can and often does entail. Morning sickness, back pain, needing to pee every half hour because the fetus is using your bladder as a pillow (my coworker at my former job told me that one), etc. I’m familiar with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome and other such frightening possibilities. Like I said, someone raised in a very conservative home probably doesn’t get any kind of sex ed or health ed aside from NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE AND PERIODS ARE SHAMEFUL or whatever, but it’s still hard to imagine being completely ignorant of the basic fact that pregnancy is a massive physical ordeal, even in the best cases.

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    Humanity has blind spots. One of the worst is thinking you’d always do whatever is “correct” until a terrible choice smacks you upside the head and when the upside of your head hurts bad enough you recognize that you were full of shit. Correct is almost always in these cases between a steep mountain and a very large boulder rolling down it, not a pebble and  beach sand fort.

  59. 59.

    Jackie

    @Alison Rose: Yes, but remarkably, the ones who are most strident against abortions are those who will never be able to go through pregnancy – as they have the wrong body parts.

  62. 62.

    LesGS

    @Nelle: I’m a trans guy in my 60s, and before I transitioned in my late 30s/early 40s, I gave birth to two kids. And I have to say, I really lucked out. I had non-complicated pregnancies and non-complicated drug-free births. I was just talking about this with my husband tonight, letting him know how lucky I felt, with what’s going on currently. I did, being hospital-phobic, do my best to put my pregnancies and labor in the most educated and least “medicalized” situation I could, and they both went beautifully. But I know I was lucky. Things could have could gone horribly wrong, as no one can absolutely control this process. And it would be terribly misleading to hold up my honestly “rosy” experiences as representative. So for any number of reasons, I’ve pretty much shut up about them. As wonderful as they were.

  63. 63.

    columbusqueen

    @TriassicSands: When I read Joe’s 2007 book & he described meeting his first wife, it was clearly love at first sight. Now all he has left of Neilia is Hunter. He can never sever the tie, because doing so would push away the last piece of his first great love. Why so many refuse to see that is beyond me.

  65. 65.

    Mel

    @TriassicSands: More people would likely leave if they weren’t trapped by financial circumstances. Moving as an adult, with dependents and debt, requires a lot more than just the desire to be in a better place. It requires the money to find new housing in a brutal seller’s market, the ability to travel to secure housing and seek work (all the while trying to maintain a current job),  a guarantee of reliable long-term employment in the new location, the ability to move dependents (like elderly relatives) along with you, the guarantee that a spouse or partner will be able to find gainful employment,  etc.

    For far too many people, such a move is well outside the realm of reality, no matter how much they might wish to be in s better, safer place.

  67. 67.

    Mel

    @Alison Rose: One of my first teaching jobs was in an all boys religious school.

    Mysteriously, the coaches who taught “Health” courses always seemed to become suddenly ill and call out sick on the week when female anatomy and puberty was (albeit very circuitously and euphemistically) supposed to be discussed.

    i had to sub, and it was shocking to realize just how little those kids knew about their own anatomy and physiology, much less that of people who are anatomically female.

    This was in the late 1980s / very early 1990s when a major maxi-pad and tampon brand had a commercial showing water (dyed blue) being poured on their products and the competitor’s products to show which absorbed more liquid.

    It took the boys a couple of days to work up the nerve to ask why a woman “bled like a normal person” (i.e. red blood) if, for example, they cut their finger, but “had weird blue stuff  DOWN THERE?”.

    I kid you not. Suffice it to say that the ensuing classes were an eye opening conversation for the lads. It was like “Myth-busters: Puberty Edition” all damn week. Those poor kiddos.

  68. 68.

    Gretchen

    The Republican impulse to cancel elections that don’t turn out the way they like has come to my little suburb of Kansas City. The 1950s tract homes are being torn down and replaced with lot-line-to-lot-line McMansions. Meanwhile, there’s a push to rezone some old church property to build affordable housing, which is angering the McMansion types. They want to keep the « Character of the neighborhood » that they have completely changed, and are more angry at being called racist NIMBYs. So they have a petition to put Stop Rezoning, a petition to recall the mayor who was elected unopposed last year who favors rezoning, and remove the half of the city council that was elected last year, halving the size of the council for « reasons », probably because the other half opposes rezoning. It looks like their petitions are dead for now, but they’re very angry that those stupid elections are getting in the way of doing what they want.

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    @Mel:

    Of course, you’re right. Moving is expensive, time consuming, and difficult. The best time to move may be when one is young and relatively unencumbered. And it was undoubtedly easier in the past as rent now becomes unaffordable in many places especially for many young people.

  70. 70.

    TriassicSands

    @Gretchen:

    McMansions suck, as do their owners. Mostly, they are tacky and in very poor taste. I once lived near Saddle River, NJ where the minimum lot size was 2 acres. My girlfriend at the time lived on a beautiful street with lots of trees and large (for the time), very nice houses. Then came the McMansion craze. People bought 3,500 sq.ft. homes and razed them to build trashy, pseudo-castles that virtually filled the lots. My girlfriend’s parents, who had lived there for many decades, moved out of disgust.

  71. 71.

    Gretchen

    @TriassicSands: they think we’re the ones bringing dow the tone of the neighborhood. And building a few apartments and townhomes so police and teachers can live near work? Oh, my!

  75. 75.

    Dangerman

    Grassley is in this up to his second chin. He’s one of many.

    I keep going back to what was so fucking important about 2020 that they couldn’t accept a loss (beyond Trump being a narcissistic piece of shit). And there’s really only one answer. Ukraine.

    Putin owns a bunch if them.

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    A while back, the snowbirds who owned the property next door to us sold the place to a couple from the Puget Sound area. The new people arrived about a week or so ago, but I haven’t met them since the only walks I take this time of the year are with the dogs very early in the morning before it gets oppressively hot.

    Well, my husband met them yesterday and reported that the man was wearing a Trump-DeSantis 2024 tee. FUCK! Fortunately, we don’t just run into the neighbors around here — you have to make an effort, which I will not. But hubby also learned that these people are snowbirds too and fond of RV travel, so it sounds like they’ll be gone a lot.

    I’m used to MAGA nitwits since they far outnumber liberals in this neck of the woods. But it sucks to have new ones added to the mix. I was hoping for apolitical bluegrass musicians with a weed habit.

  77. 77.

    Tony Jay

    There is no way to hear the exchange in question –

      During an exchange with reporters on Tuesday, Grassley was asked how he plans to vote.

    “Well, first of all, I will be — if the Vice President isn’t there and we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate,” according to a transcript of his remarks sent by a spokesperson.

    – without concluding that Grassley is obviously talking about him replacing Pence for the EC vote. There just isn’t. That was the context, that’s what he was responding to. Up until this very week and Eastman’s illuminating decision to take the fifth, that was how everyone understood it. That statement, after all, was put out by Grassley’s own people. It’s their version of what was asked and how it was answered, and it’s damning.

    The fact that a bought-and-paid-for GOP whisperer has been instructed to pretend that Grassley was actually talking about other Senate votes doesn’t change a single thing. Or rather, the only thing it changes is the suspicion that Grassley was in on the coup attempt into a certainty, because otherwise his people wouldn’t have felt the need to start expelling chaff decoys via their friends in the Press.

    Grassley expected to be presiding over that vote and he told reporters that he did. So he has to explain why he thought that, who the other GOP figures who expected Pence to be elsewhere were, why they thought Pence would be elsewhere, where ‘elsewhere’ was in this context, and who this entire strategy was agreed with prior to J6.

    And if he can’t explain…

  78. 78.

    TriassicSands

    @Betty Cracker:

    Well, Betty, I’m really sorry they moved in next to you, but from my selfish perspective that is one less MAGAt in WA and one more in DeSatanland.

    The only answer is for that bloated POS shit to just die already. Maybe then his worshippers will lose interest in American politics altogether and move somewhere they will feel at home. Like Russia.

    I imagine Putin is regularly having all his organs replaced with those of “volunteer” twenty-year-olds so he can continue to rule forever. An immortal god is just what the MAGAts need.

    I’d have some suggestions for you about your new neighbors, but I don’t want to discuss felonies on the Internet. I learned that from the Proud Boys (chuckle).

    It seems likely your neighbors decided they’d had enough of that communist jay Inslee and moved to a nice, cruel, fascist state with a dictator they can rely on. I guess you’re tied to Florida, but you’d be welcome in WA. It’s beautiful, liberal, and although we’re seeing some unfortunate weather changes, it is, in my opinion, far better than Florida’s.

    PS: I suggest you continue to take your walks very, very early in the morning or very, very late at night.

  79. 79.

    TriassicSands

    @Tony Jay:

    Maybe, Jack Smith will get indictments for all the GOP House and Senate collaborators. I doubt there has ever been a criminal trial with that many defendants.

  80. 80.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Mel: In contrast, our kids had the Unitarian “Our Whole Lives” sex ed curriculum in 8th grade which was pretty explicit. In fact we knew one of the developers. A basic principle was that you could ask anything.

    Then there are people like Ben Shapiro who are married, presumably intimate, but still probably think women bleed blue stuff down there.

  81. 81.

    Betty Cracker

    @TriassicSands: As long as they mind their own business (which people who choose to live in the woods generally do), their presence won’t affect me. If they do find ways to get on my nerves, I’ll hone my evil swamp witch skills on them. ;-)

  83. 83.

    Central Planning

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Unitarian “Our Whole Lives” sex ed curriculum in 8th grade which was pretty explicit.

    Holy shit, I remember going to that. Explicit is no joke. And with a bunch of horny teenagers there, that was crazy. I do remember a quiz about anatomy and IIRC (probably 40 years ago) the girls got more answers about the boys right, and vice versa.

  88. 88.

    evodevo

    @Nelle: ​
      If she grew up in a talibangelical family, you are raised with the idea that NOTHING is more important than maintaining their borg-type “happiness” about having children, and that includes the impossibility that pregnancy could be anything other than either a cakewalk or the only thing of value that a woman can do with her life…reality be damned…

  89. 89.

    trnc

    Grassley set off a momentary controversy on Jan. 5 by saying: “If the vice president isn’t there — and we don’t expect him to be there — I will be presiding over the Senate.” Roll Call initially cast this as Grassley saying he personally expected to preside over the certification of electoral votes. (In the absence of the vice president, that duty falls to the Senate president pro tempore, which was Grassley.)

    I got into a bit with someone over at TPM over Grassley’s statement. I think Grassley is pretty corrupt BUT I can’t get worked up over this statement because I don’t interpret it the way some do. I think a second “if” is implied and that the actual thought was “If the vice president isn’t there — and IF we don’t expect him to be there — I will be presiding over the Senate.” It’s the kind of shortcut people take speaking modern English all the time, and I really doubt anything substantial changed between when he said it and when the aide clarified the statement.

    Obviously, if there’s some other evidence that he was aware of a specific plot against Pence, then that’s a different story. Otherwise, I think it’s noise and not nearly as clear an example of his dickishness as some other statements and actions.

  90. 90.

    TriassicSands

    @Tony Jay:

    I believe there were 24 original defendents with 22 being sentenced. In the case of GOP collaborators, we’re talking well over a hundred.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    @trnc: “Mr. Smith, what do you have planned for your wife’s birthday party tomorrow?”

    “Well, first of all, if she gets attacked by a hitman and can’t make it, I’ll be there as the host making sure all the guests have plenty to drink…”

    The whole construction seems very hinky to me.

    Maybe he uses future conditionals like that all the time, but…

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    AM in NC

    @Alison Rose:  I sure didn’t realize how hard pregnancy is on the body until I was pregnant.  Media almost never treat pregnancy realistically. Most pregnancies are portrayed as a mild inconvenience (at most) unless something goes drastically wrong.

    The reality is that I don’t know a single person who has been pregnant and given birth who doesn’t have some permanent damage/alterations to their bodies. The process of growing, birthing, and feeding babies is hard labor. And we don’t accurately describe this in our cultural productions for general consumption.

    I even remember my husband asking when I was complaining one day about some pain or other “why does this seem so hard when literally billions of women have done this?”. I looked at him hard and said, “and up until about 50 years ago THIS was the leading cause of death for women”.  It pulled him up right short and he never made a comment like that again.

    If you are not steeped in pregnancy info (and most people aren’t until pregnant themselves), you generally think it’s a gauzy, fun-filled trip, because popular culture overwhelmingly presents it that way.

  93. 93.

    Bill Arnold

    @trnc:
    Nope. If VP pence wasn’t there for some random unexpected reason, Grassley would have presided; this is automatic. There is absolutely no reason for the “we don’t expect him to be there” unless they didn’t expect Pence to be there.

    we don’t expect him to be there

    This line of analysis leads to three things:
    (1) Grassley didn’t expect him to be there
    (2) Grassley was coordinating with other entities who also believed that Pence would not be there.
    (3) Grassley s;lipped up, old brain and addled, and blurted it out, and he and his staff have had to “clarify”. And appeal to “you know i am not seditious trash who should be in prison”.

  95. 95.

    Bill Arnold

    @Alison Rose:

    I was never involved in any conversations on that or anything.

    One way (of many) this could have worked (a hypothetical) – a key person on Grassley’s staff got a Signal message on their phone from some Jan 6 sedition plotter, maybe in the White House, saying that Pence was not expected to be present, and they communicated it to their boss. Impossible to physically prove without a device seizure and retention of messages, unless said staffer was willing to testify truthfully under oath
    Or if we’re lucky, Grassley himself or one of his staffers got a unencrypted text message, recorded by one or more telecommunications providers.
    This way, there is no “conversation” but there is a clear communication between conspirators.

  96. 96.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: So true. Ohio by itself is as big as Scotland, with twice the population. And we are just one midwestern state that everyone laughs at because we are midwestern but not Great Plains

    ETA I will grant that most of Scotland is more gorgeous than much of Ohio.

  97. 97.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jackie:

    TIFG challenges Murdoch to the same mental acuity test he took.

    Back in GWB’s second term, I was on a field trip with my father, and he lost balance on some scree and fell and hit his forehead on a rock and cut it open. The EMT’s stock question was “who is president?” A stream of curses and a diatribe were quite sufficient. (Cut to the bone; stitched up, healed without a scar in a month, age early 80’s.)
    So in that spirit, I suggest asking Mr. D.J. Trump who is president. :-)

Comments are closed.