AOC, Bernie, Warren, Markey, the rest of the squad, including the ones just elected. They need to aggressivley get in power and leave the Schumers, Pelosis, and Clyburns playing golf with the other retirees.
That, and they remember McGovern and Mondale. They internalised the lesson that to "win" they need a Clinton/Obama/Biden moderate, and even though that Dukakis/Gore/Kerry/Hillary moderate loses half the time, it's by a polite and respectable amount. And they don't care if they lose by a small amount.
Remember when someone asked McCain why he chose an unqualified idiot who knew nothing about basic US civics to be a heartbeat from the Presidency? And he said he'd rather take a big swing and risk losing big that be respectable and lose small. He was wrong about Palin but right about that.
Pelosi is leaving. But, you will miss her when she is gone. She lost her speakership to give us the public option. She fought for M4A in the 90s. She has allowed the voices voices of the future like Ocasio-Cortez to flourish. She has acted the foil to her and Omar and Tlaib.
The speaker is a job that needs a strong person. One that can allow the members to flourish. Speakers like her or O'neil are ones that lead by steering, not dictating. Speakers like Gingrich that try to command 200 members ultimately fail.
She is a great speaker. She has good politics. She has great instincts.
We agree that Speaker Pelosi is more tolerant of interests of monied forces than you or I would be as members. We disagree that Member Pelosi would be a staunch advocate for progressive causes as she clearly was in the 90s.
She does campaign against people who I think would be better, but I she does that as Speaker Pelosi. It's politics that may not be "good" but it's the politics that we have. I appreciate the Speaker not living in a Bernie world "if we just tell people our plans they will vote for us" fantasy.
We are also going to disagree about the effectiveness of her role. The challenges of governing can't be wished away. there was the reagan revolution, there was extreme gerrymandering in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010. There are limited things minority parties can accomplish without strong local apparatuses.
I also think it's way better to have Reps like Ocasio-Cortez in positions outside of leadership. A position to initiate ideas and start debates without having to produce results. Pelosi is better equipped to deliver legislation by herding all the different factions.
Regarding Babbit, I can’t help but think of the scene from The Godfather, Part II:
“I saw an interesting thing happen today. A rebel was being arrested by the military police,” he tells his fellow gangsters. And rather than being taken alive, he exploded a grenade he had hidden in his jacket,” he continues.
“He killed himself and he took a captain of the command with him.”
The mobsters mutter that the rebels are lunatics.
“Maybe so,” says Corleone. “But it occurred to me: The soldiers are paid to fight. The rebels aren’t.”
I discussed on Twitter whether I should change the focus of my Substack fiction blog to cover yesterday's events. I decided not to stray from fiction. You handled it flawlessly.
Violence was a totally predictable outcome for how this would end for the supporters of a malignant narcissist and sociopath. It's likely to continue. There was no excuse for the Capitol Police to be unprepared (I'm guessing more than a small handful supported the insurrection).
What's truly scary is the vote totals were close. What's even scarier is for awhile the GOP thought they could us bureaucracy and nonsense lawsuits to legally steal the election.
President Trump has been diagnosed by multiple mental health professionals, albeit from a distance, with narcissistic personality disorder. Now, just because a person has a mental health disorder does not mean they cannot be a functioning member of society, though it’s certainly not desirable in a president. Despite this condition, his presidential policies have largely followed the Republican playbook and might not have been that different had another Republican been elected to office.
Then came the November elections, and the notion that he lost was incompatible with his narcissistic personality disorder. So his subconscious had to come up with a way to reconcile that disparity, and what he came up with was that the election was fraudulent and rigged, despite no evidence to support that idea. In other words, he is suffering from a delusion.
All his subsequent actions, most notably those of yesterday, were reactions to that delusion. (If you were president, and you were sure in your mind the nation was threatened, democracy had been compromised, and an election rigged, would you have fought back?) This delusion has resulted in a greatly diminished ability to be functional member of society, much less president. He should therefore be removed from office under the 25th Amendment. And his cabinet is actually discussing that, apparently.
It’s not that he’s evil, or at least, no more evil than the typical conservative Republican. It’s just that he’s suffering from mental illness. His co-conspirators in Congress have no such excuse for their behavior however.
I suspect you're quite correct, Cur -- he was planning most of this bullshit before the election even took place because he knew there was a good chance he was going to lose. That's not the behavior of a delusional person. That's belligerent behavior of someone specifically planning to cause as much of a problem as he can.
I agree that Trump's unfit to serve, for all of the reasons you listed. Unfortunately, the 25th is dead in the House when over 100 Republicans supported Trump's delusion. Impeachment may have a chance in the Senate. Both should be tried, outcomes be damned.
Yeah, but as Craig says it'll probably go the "Well, it' only for 13 more days" route and nothing will be done aside from some congressional Democrats fruitlessly calling for him to be removed.
On 2nd reading of the 25th Amendment, my interpretation is that Congress has 21 days to take up the vote if the President declares himself fit. So the Veep and Cabinet should go for it.
Not sure that I believe that Trump is truly delusional. He’s just a glaring asshole, a man-baby who can’t stand to lose or be disliked. He isn’t walking around in a state of genuine confusion driven by a true delusion — he knows he lost, just look at the dozens of purposeful actions he’s taken to throw wrenches in the works. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
You think he knows he lost? If he does, you're right, he's just a jerk. But I'm not convinced. I think he truly believes it. I was on the fence but his phone call with Georgia's Secretary of State convinced me that it wasn't just a calculated political ploy on his part.
Agreed. He started peddling conspiracy theories and then became addicted to his own product via a combination of narcissism, motivated reasoning, and a complete lack of critical thinking.
My hope is that Trump's support largely comes from truly being one of them (a raving idiot), and that those supporters would see through the faux-idiocy of competent wannabes like Cotton or Cruz. Wishful thinking to help me sleep at night.
You might be right. The entire GOP power structure is clearly hoping they can appropriate Trump into being a good little party soldier. But I think it's possible his power doesn't come from his (normal for a Republican) ideology, but that he acts like a mob boss who only cares for himself.
The problem is liberals like us value intelligence and competence so much, we only ever fight things by trying to out-argue people like we're in a courtroom, and hope some judgelike authority figure gives us the win. As soon as someone fights another way, we're useless.
I don't think it makes a damn bit of different. And it's not about mental state. Lots of very smart people are capable of talking themselves into absolute nonsense, of avoiding reality.
Intelligence has never been about the ability to see the world for what it really is. Nor morality.
There won't be any consequences for yesterday's events. None. The Seditious 13 will probably come out of this better off than before - tons of donations, more supporters, etc. I don't anticipate any expulsions, impeachments, disbarments, or discipline of any kind. I'm willing to bet there were a lot more people watching at home and enjoying the hell out of what they were seeing than we'd think, people we'd classify as "normal" and not QAnon supporters. Everything sucks. I hope my extreme cynicism wears off as I finish drinking my first Cup of Coffee (TM) here.
Great recap Craig, even if I expected you to (appropriately) come out much harsher. I guess seditious acts speak for themselves?
As significant as yesterday was in our nation’s history, I think today is even more important. What is our government’s response? Does it come out with a strong message that this is not acceptable, going after those responsible (both within and outside the government)? Or does it all get brushed aside with nobody being held accountable, giving a signal that it’s ok to do things like this setting up an even worse insurrection in the near future?
Yeah, didn’t say I was too hopeful for an appropriate response
I suppose inserting the “Rafael Palmiero waving his finger” meme might also be appropriate (and also provide some additional baseball-related content to today’s CoC)
Forget his name, but before they had even finished mopping up the blood, the one Senator from Delaware was all “looking forward,” and “turning the page.”
If they want this to happen again in four years, they could hardly fashion a better response.
WTF is a "strong message"? Using swear words as they wag their useless fingers. Stripped of office and real prison time is a strong message and literally nothing else. Blagojevich went to jail? Remember that? It's possible.
+1 to On the Beach as an inner-circle all time great album and Revolution Blues as one of the highlights. (Like Tonight's the Night too, but it's more outer-circle great for me.) Did you listen to Homegrown when it was unearthed last year? Curious to hear how it rates for you.
As for how it happened, it's covered in this Daily Beast article, but I have seen it elsewhere: The FBI and law enforcement apparatus have spent years brushing off far right violence because they are absolutely obsessed with "black identity extremists," which are basically what remains of the Black Panthers and weirdos like the Black Hebrew Israelites, and chasing the shadows of antifa. The fact that they haven't found antifa (in the sense of a large, organized leftist insurrectionist organization) just convinces them that antifa is really good at opsec.
I have friends in the local lefty organizations and it seems like every week a dude with close-cropped hair and cargo shorts (sometimes it's a woman, but it's usually a dude) shows up like "Okay fellow radical leftists, let's blow up city hall. I brought some blueprints I found...uh, on the internet. When exactly should we strike and who all is in?"
And of course the crossover between cops and the dudes invading the Capitol is Spiderman pointing at Spiderman. Why did it take the police so long to show up? They had to go home and change.
But it's been a long-standing right-wing project to infiltrate the military and police for access to weapons and training, and we've shrugged it off because we just don't take organized right-wing violence as seriously as we take 12 black bloc leftists in hoodies ready to fight the fash.
I want to feel something over the death of that woman yesterday, but I don’t. She declared war on my country. In that way she’s no different from the 19 9/11 hijackers.
That she was a veteran who was taken in by a series of lies complicates things. But she was an adult with full agency over her actions, and she chose to believe a series of plain and obvious lies because they confirmed her existing biases.
Predictably, within hours of yesterday's events I was already seeing "where was the outrage when BLM was burning down cities over the summer!" and "it was actually Antifa infiltrators causing all the destruction and violence in the Capitol!". Including, as always, from some "Libertarians" (one of whom participated in those stupid Trump boat parades) I am acquainted with who are always the first to be outraged by stuff like BLM "riots" (they act like every city in America was entirely burned to the ground over the summer) but can only manage, at best, disingenuous whataboutism and BOTH SIDES! after events like yesterday.
I know there are real Libertarians who don't like the Trumpism stuff, but I always only seem to come across ones who like to pretend that they think both sides suck, yet have shown nothing to believe they are anything but Trump and GOP bootlickers.
Regarding Steve Cohen, the accusations against him are not surprising when you consider his brother, Michael, was willing to be Trump's right-hand goon for so many years. Steve got a lot of good press for putting food on the table for Michael's family while Michael was in jail by buying the Mets so he could offer them discounted tickets to Mets games, where in turn they could then eat free hot dogs and not starve to death. It was a noble act to find a way to feed his brother's hungry family while Michael served jail time and faced financial woes from his legal troubles. However, at the end of the day, it's not surprising that an accused sexist would share blood with Grabembythepussy's top goon.
From what I understand, Gary is in a bitter feud with his brothers and he cut off relations with them completely after feeling like Steve one-upped him in the eyes of their dead dad Leonard by buying the Mets and thereby jumping above him on the organization's totem pole. The fact that Steve didn't even offer Gary's family any of those free hot dogs, despite having an extra supply because of empty stadiums due to Covid, but gave them all to the family of his criminal brother Michael, added extra salt to the wound.
And I don't know if it's been verified, but I remember reading somewhere that as kids Steve and Michael once tied Gary to a kitchen chair, broke his throne and cut his hair. Apparently after that incident, Leonard thought of him as the weak son, which contributed to Gary's lingering bitterness towards his brothers over the years.
Impeach, convict, remove from office. Who cares how much time is left? Rep Ilhan Omar has introduced articles, I believe, or is about to. At this point you might find 16-17 GOP senators. There need to be other prosecutions too. I'll go so far as to say that people like Reps Brooks and Gosar should potentially face jail time for their actions, if not every single person who challenged the results yesterday.
It is sedition, it fits word for word with both the part of US code Craig cited and also 52 section 20511.
I never thought I'd see a day like this in my life. The shock is only comparable to 9/11/2001 for me. There MUST be consequences for the traitors who stormed the Capitol... and their enablers too!
Sure, but recognise that even on the 0.0000001% chance this works, Trump won't care. He has zero interest in people wagging their fingers at him. He lost already. Impeachment is largely symbolic and he doesn't give a shit about symbols, which is why Democrats (who only care about symbols) have been unable to stop him.
I think the push to use the 25th Amendment is because it's a swifter, more unilateral action than impeachment or the US code; both of those are procedural moves that take time. Trump is literally unfit for office at this point; this seems like the time to invoke the 25th and do the other stuff afterwards.
Frankly, it doesn't matter how it happens - but it HAS to happen. To allow yesterday's events to unfold without any sort of repercussion would be the worst outcome and, as I pointed out elsewhere, only invite it to happen again. This sort of action must be repudiated or we are simply encouraging more of it, and subsequent attempts will only get more intense.
I'm less hopeful about the seditious senators being punished, although they should be, as well - but striking at the figurehead, at least, must be done, given how directly Trump influenced events. There HAS to be a repercussion.
There needs to be a vote barring him from running again, too. I forget if that flows from impeachment in the House, but I do know the Senate can vote to do that with a simple majority.
Craig, thank you yet again for creating cup of coffee. Your writing on days like today help digest events.
I am still in shock over what happened yesterday, but I am unsurprised by the Republican responses I saw to the violence.
It was the typical "we don't know" bull shit. "We don't know who those people are, we don't know, it could be BLM, it could be the IRA, it could be you or me, we just don't know and that's what's so scary, we just don't know anything. We're all infantile morons who have no knowledge of the world around us. Who are these people in maga hats? Must be antifa."
This whole "we don't know anything" is simply feeding into their alternative reality in which facts are what they say, and lies are disagreements. We ain't don't know so how can you say anything against what you don't know?
It's garbage cyclical thinking and I am so damn tired of people lending it an ear.
They said it about birtherism. They said it about the Access Hollywood tape. They said it about the GA SoS tape. And they'll keep saying because 90% of journalists and 99% of Democrats are useless cowards.
The cowardice is not relegated to the Democrats. Plenty of Republicans didn’t have the stones to denounce Trump. They were busy ignoring or defending behaviors that would have sent them through the fucking roof if a Democrat had done the same things. Hypocrisy is the worst kind of cowardice.
Could you translate that for the pop-culture impaired?
Got it. Thanks.
under that plan, the senators from georgia change.
AOC, Bernie, Warren, Markey, the rest of the squad, including the ones just elected. They need to aggressivley get in power and leave the Schumers, Pelosis, and Clyburns playing golf with the other retirees.
That, and they remember McGovern and Mondale. They internalised the lesson that to "win" they need a Clinton/Obama/Biden moderate, and even though that Dukakis/Gore/Kerry/Hillary moderate loses half the time, it's by a polite and respectable amount. And they don't care if they lose by a small amount.
Remember when someone asked McCain why he chose an unqualified idiot who knew nothing about basic US civics to be a heartbeat from the Presidency? And he said he'd rather take a big swing and risk losing big that be respectable and lose small. He was wrong about Palin but right about that.
Pelosi is leaving. But, you will miss her when she is gone. She lost her speakership to give us the public option. She fought for M4A in the 90s. She has allowed the voices voices of the future like Ocasio-Cortez to flourish. She has acted the foil to her and Omar and Tlaib.
The speaker is a job that needs a strong person. One that can allow the members to flourish. Speakers like her or O'neil are ones that lead by steering, not dictating. Speakers like Gingrich that try to command 200 members ultimately fail.
She is a great speaker. She has good politics. She has great instincts.
We agree that Speaker Pelosi is more tolerant of interests of monied forces than you or I would be as members. We disagree that Member Pelosi would be a staunch advocate for progressive causes as she clearly was in the 90s.
She does campaign against people who I think would be better, but I she does that as Speaker Pelosi. It's politics that may not be "good" but it's the politics that we have. I appreciate the Speaker not living in a Bernie world "if we just tell people our plans they will vote for us" fantasy.
We are also going to disagree about the effectiveness of her role. The challenges of governing can't be wished away. there was the reagan revolution, there was extreme gerrymandering in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010. There are limited things minority parties can accomplish without strong local apparatuses.
I also think it's way better to have Reps like Ocasio-Cortez in positions outside of leadership. A position to initiate ideas and start debates without having to produce results. Pelosi is better equipped to deliver legislation by herding all the different factions.
Regarding Babbit, I can’t help but think of the scene from The Godfather, Part II:
“I saw an interesting thing happen today. A rebel was being arrested by the military police,” he tells his fellow gangsters. And rather than being taken alive, he exploded a grenade he had hidden in his jacket,” he continues.
“He killed himself and he took a captain of the command with him.”
The mobsters mutter that the rebels are lunatics.
“Maybe so,” says Corleone. “But it occurred to me: The soldiers are paid to fight. The rebels aren’t.”
“What does that tell you?”
“They could win,” Corleone says.
If anyone would like to read a parallel--but still different--take on yesterday's events:
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2021/Pres/Maps/Jan07.html#item-1
Thanks for that link. It summed up yesterday's events very clearly. Watching live on ABC and CNN left me mostly confused.l
I enjoyed that link and read. Thank you.
I discussed on Twitter whether I should change the focus of my Substack fiction blog to cover yesterday's events. I decided not to stray from fiction. You handled it flawlessly.
Violence was a totally predictable outcome for how this would end for the supporters of a malignant narcissist and sociopath. It's likely to continue. There was no excuse for the Capitol Police to be unprepared (I'm guessing more than a small handful supported the insurrection).
What's truly scary is the vote totals were close. What's even scarier is for awhile the GOP thought they could us bureaucracy and nonsense lawsuits to legally steal the election.
President Trump has been diagnosed by multiple mental health professionals, albeit from a distance, with narcissistic personality disorder. Now, just because a person has a mental health disorder does not mean they cannot be a functioning member of society, though it’s certainly not desirable in a president. Despite this condition, his presidential policies have largely followed the Republican playbook and might not have been that different had another Republican been elected to office.
Then came the November elections, and the notion that he lost was incompatible with his narcissistic personality disorder. So his subconscious had to come up with a way to reconcile that disparity, and what he came up with was that the election was fraudulent and rigged, despite no evidence to support that idea. In other words, he is suffering from a delusion.
All his subsequent actions, most notably those of yesterday, were reactions to that delusion. (If you were president, and you were sure in your mind the nation was threatened, democracy had been compromised, and an election rigged, would you have fought back?) This delusion has resulted in a greatly diminished ability to be functional member of society, much less president. He should therefore be removed from office under the 25th Amendment. And his cabinet is actually discussing that, apparently.
It’s not that he’s evil, or at least, no more evil than the typical conservative Republican. It’s just that he’s suffering from mental illness. His co-conspirators in Congress have no such excuse for their behavior however.
I suspect you're quite correct, Cur -- he was planning most of this bullshit before the election even took place because he knew there was a good chance he was going to lose. That's not the behavior of a delusional person. That's belligerent behavior of someone specifically planning to cause as much of a problem as he can.
I've been saying this too.
I agree that Trump's unfit to serve, for all of the reasons you listed. Unfortunately, the 25th is dead in the House when over 100 Republicans supported Trump's delusion. Impeachment may have a chance in the Senate. Both should be tried, outcomes be damned.
Yeah, but as Craig says it'll probably go the "Well, it' only for 13 more days" route and nothing will be done aside from some congressional Democrats fruitlessly calling for him to be removed.
On 2nd reading of the 25th Amendment, my interpretation is that Congress has 21 days to take up the vote if the President declares himself fit. So the Veep and Cabinet should go for it.
Maybe he'll just admit he is not fit and save us the trouble.
(OK, that wasn't at all realistic)
Not sure that I believe that Trump is truly delusional. He’s just a glaring asshole, a man-baby who can’t stand to lose or be disliked. He isn’t walking around in a state of genuine confusion driven by a true delusion — he knows he lost, just look at the dozens of purposeful actions he’s taken to throw wrenches in the works. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
You think he knows he lost? If he does, you're right, he's just a jerk. But I'm not convinced. I think he truly believes it. I was on the fence but his phone call with Georgia's Secretary of State convinced me that it wasn't just a calculated political ploy on his part.
Agreed. He started peddling conspiracy theories and then became addicted to his own product via a combination of narcissism, motivated reasoning, and a complete lack of critical thinking.
My hope is that Trump's support largely comes from truly being one of them (a raving idiot), and that those supporters would see through the faux-idiocy of competent wannabes like Cotton or Cruz. Wishful thinking to help me sleep at night.
You might be right. The entire GOP power structure is clearly hoping they can appropriate Trump into being a good little party soldier. But I think it's possible his power doesn't come from his (normal for a Republican) ideology, but that he acts like a mob boss who only cares for himself.
The problem is liberals like us value intelligence and competence so much, we only ever fight things by trying to out-argue people like we're in a courtroom, and hope some judgelike authority figure gives us the win. As soon as someone fights another way, we're useless.
I don't think it makes a damn bit of different. And it's not about mental state. Lots of very smart people are capable of talking themselves into absolute nonsense, of avoiding reality.
Intelligence has never been about the ability to see the world for what it really is. Nor morality.
There won't be any consequences for yesterday's events. None. The Seditious 13 will probably come out of this better off than before - tons of donations, more supporters, etc. I don't anticipate any expulsions, impeachments, disbarments, or discipline of any kind. I'm willing to bet there were a lot more people watching at home and enjoying the hell out of what they were seeing than we'd think, people we'd classify as "normal" and not QAnon supporters. Everything sucks. I hope my extreme cynicism wears off as I finish drinking my first Cup of Coffee (TM) here.
Great recap Craig, even if I expected you to (appropriately) come out much harsher. I guess seditious acts speak for themselves?
As significant as yesterday was in our nation’s history, I think today is even more important. What is our government’s response? Does it come out with a strong message that this is not acceptable, going after those responsible (both within and outside the government)? Or does it all get brushed aside with nobody being held accountable, giving a signal that it’s ok to do things like this setting up an even worse insurrection in the near future?
Yeah, didn’t say I was too hopeful for an appropriate response
I suppose inserting the “Rafael Palmiero waving his finger” meme might also be appropriate (and also provide some additional baseball-related content to today’s CoC)
Forget his name, but before they had even finished mopping up the blood, the one Senator from Delaware was all “looking forward,” and “turning the page.”
If they want this to happen again in four years, they could hardly fashion a better response.
Tom Carper, and fuck that guy.
That was Obama's attitude after Wall Street caused a global recession. Remind me how that worked.
WTF is a "strong message"? Using swear words as they wag their useless fingers. Stripped of office and real prison time is a strong message and literally nothing else. Blagojevich went to jail? Remember that? It's possible.
+1 to On the Beach as an inner-circle all time great album and Revolution Blues as one of the highlights. (Like Tonight's the Night too, but it's more outer-circle great for me.) Did you listen to Homegrown when it was unearthed last year? Curious to hear how it rates for you.
I did. Liked it a lot. It definitely helps tell a different part of the story of Young's mid-70s detour into darkness.
As for how it happened, it's covered in this Daily Beast article, but I have seen it elsewhere: The FBI and law enforcement apparatus have spent years brushing off far right violence because they are absolutely obsessed with "black identity extremists," which are basically what remains of the Black Panthers and weirdos like the Black Hebrew Israelites, and chasing the shadows of antifa. The fact that they haven't found antifa (in the sense of a large, organized leftist insurrectionist organization) just convinces them that antifa is really good at opsec.
I have friends in the local lefty organizations and it seems like every week a dude with close-cropped hair and cargo shorts (sometimes it's a woman, but it's usually a dude) shows up like "Okay fellow radical leftists, let's blow up city hall. I brought some blueprints I found...uh, on the internet. When exactly should we strike and who all is in?"
https://www.thedailybeast.com/capitol-police-were-poorly-prepared-for-riots-by-pro-trump-mob
And of course the crossover between cops and the dudes invading the Capitol is Spiderman pointing at Spiderman. Why did it take the police so long to show up? They had to go home and change.
But it's been a long-standing right-wing project to infiltrate the military and police for access to weapons and training, and we've shrugged it off because we just don't take organized right-wing violence as seriously as we take 12 black bloc leftists in hoodies ready to fight the fash.
Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report
Reminds me of the old joke about an FBI agent going undercover at a Weather Underground meeting and all the members were undercover FBI agents.
I want to feel something over the death of that woman yesterday, but I don’t. She declared war on my country. In that way she’s no different from the 19 9/11 hijackers.
That she was a veteran who was taken in by a series of lies complicates things. But she was an adult with full agency over her actions, and she chose to believe a series of plain and obvious lies because they confirmed her existing biases.
Specifically, the people who hijacked Flight 93.
Predictably, within hours of yesterday's events I was already seeing "where was the outrage when BLM was burning down cities over the summer!" and "it was actually Antifa infiltrators causing all the destruction and violence in the Capitol!". Including, as always, from some "Libertarians" (one of whom participated in those stupid Trump boat parades) I am acquainted with who are always the first to be outraged by stuff like BLM "riots" (they act like every city in America was entirely burned to the ground over the summer) but can only manage, at best, disingenuous whataboutism and BOTH SIDES! after events like yesterday.
I know there are real Libertarians who don't like the Trumpism stuff, but I always only seem to come across ones who like to pretend that they think both sides suck, yet have shown nothing to believe they are anything but Trump and GOP bootlickers.
Regarding Steve Cohen, the accusations against him are not surprising when you consider his brother, Michael, was willing to be Trump's right-hand goon for so many years. Steve got a lot of good press for putting food on the table for Michael's family while Michael was in jail by buying the Mets so he could offer them discounted tickets to Mets games, where in turn they could then eat free hot dogs and not starve to death. It was a noble act to find a way to feed his brother's hungry family while Michael served jail time and faced financial woes from his legal troubles. However, at the end of the day, it's not surprising that an accused sexist would share blood with Grabembythepussy's top goon.
No points for you today. It’s criminal that you left their other brother Gary Cohen out of your final paragraph
From what I understand, Gary is in a bitter feud with his brothers and he cut off relations with them completely after feeling like Steve one-upped him in the eyes of their dead dad Leonard by buying the Mets and thereby jumping above him on the organization's totem pole. The fact that Steve didn't even offer Gary's family any of those free hot dogs, despite having an extra supply because of empty stadiums due to Covid, but gave them all to the family of his criminal brother Michael, added extra salt to the wound.
And I don't know if it's been verified, but I remember reading somewhere that as kids Steve and Michael once tied Gary to a kitchen chair, broke his throne and cut his hair. Apparently after that incident, Leonard thought of him as the weak son, which contributed to Gary's lingering bitterness towards his brothers over the years.
Joel and Ethan were so ashamed their family connection with a crooked hedge fund operator that they changed the spelling of their name.
Man, I hope Biden's Presidency is boring as hell.
My Representative, Ilhan Omar, said last night she's drawing up articles of impeachment. Hope that goes somewhere.
I hope it's exciting. Expanding the courts. The trials of the seditious congresspeople. DC statehood. Those would all be very exciting.
Impeach, convict, remove from office. Who cares how much time is left? Rep Ilhan Omar has introduced articles, I believe, or is about to. At this point you might find 16-17 GOP senators. There need to be other prosecutions too. I'll go so far as to say that people like Reps Brooks and Gosar should potentially face jail time for their actions, if not every single person who challenged the results yesterday.
It is sedition, it fits word for word with both the part of US code Craig cited and also 52 section 20511.
I never thought I'd see a day like this in my life. The shock is only comparable to 9/11/2001 for me. There MUST be consequences for the traitors who stormed the Capitol... and their enablers too!
Sure, but recognise that even on the 0.0000001% chance this works, Trump won't care. He has zero interest in people wagging their fingers at him. He lost already. Impeachment is largely symbolic and he doesn't give a shit about symbols, which is why Democrats (who only care about symbols) have been unable to stop him.
Disqualification matters. Otherwise the circus doesn’t end because he’s immediately campaigning for 2024.
Came here to say this. He can be disqualified from running again by a majority vote in the Senate. And he must be.
I think the push to use the 25th Amendment is because it's a swifter, more unilateral action than impeachment or the US code; both of those are procedural moves that take time. Trump is literally unfit for office at this point; this seems like the time to invoke the 25th and do the other stuff afterwards.
Frankly, it doesn't matter how it happens - but it HAS to happen. To allow yesterday's events to unfold without any sort of repercussion would be the worst outcome and, as I pointed out elsewhere, only invite it to happen again. This sort of action must be repudiated or we are simply encouraging more of it, and subsequent attempts will only get more intense.
I'm less hopeful about the seditious senators being punished, although they should be, as well - but striking at the figurehead, at least, must be done, given how directly Trump influenced events. There HAS to be a repercussion.
There needs to be a vote barring him from running again, too. I forget if that flows from impeachment in the House, but I do know the Senate can vote to do that with a simple majority.
Craig, thank you yet again for creating cup of coffee. Your writing on days like today help digest events.
I am still in shock over what happened yesterday, but I am unsurprised by the Republican responses I saw to the violence.
It was the typical "we don't know" bull shit. "We don't know who those people are, we don't know, it could be BLM, it could be the IRA, it could be you or me, we just don't know and that's what's so scary, we just don't know anything. We're all infantile morons who have no knowledge of the world around us. Who are these people in maga hats? Must be antifa."
This whole "we don't know anything" is simply feeding into their alternative reality in which facts are what they say, and lies are disagreements. We ain't don't know so how can you say anything against what you don't know?
It's garbage cyclical thinking and I am so damn tired of people lending it an ear.
They said it about birtherism. They said it about the Access Hollywood tape. They said it about the GA SoS tape. And they'll keep saying because 90% of journalists and 99% of Democrats are useless cowards.
The cowardice is not relegated to the Democrats. Plenty of Republicans didn’t have the stones to denounce Trump. They were busy ignoring or defending behaviors that would have sent them through the fucking roof if a Democrat had done the same things. Hypocrisy is the worst kind of cowardice.