From anarchy to no malarkey

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that Liz Cheney, third highest Republican in the House is facing a vote of removal from her leadership role for voting to impeach the nasty guy. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who subscribes to every conspiracy theory and making a nuisance of herself in the House is getting a lot of praise. In a more responsible party the reverse would be true. Jared Yates Sexton tweeted:

The entire reason we have rules to expel members of Congress is to expel members of Congress who have openly endorsed the murder of their colleagues, traffic in racist, virulent conspiracy theories, and have worked to overthrow the government. Also, just so we're clear, Taylor Greene has staked her entire career on being an open and proud extremist. That's how she got elected. On the first day of this administration she filed impeachment charges. This isn't going to tamper down. She's only going to push the envelope.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported several examples of GOP members of Congress who were tied to the insurrection, some even meeting with violent white militias and encouraging violence. Their standing in the party has risen since the Capitol attack and they are using their standing to bully those in their party who aren’t on board. One of these is Matt Gaetz, who has attended events popular with the Proud Boys. A few days ago Gaetz visited Wyoming, the state Liz Cheney represents, to hold a rally against her. This was a warning to all other GOP members that they no longer belong to a normal political party. Wrote Sumner:

The Republican Party of 2016 no longer exists. It’s not even clear that the party of Jan. 5 is still in sight. Gaetz and Co. aren’t cowed by their close association with a murderous mob. They are empowered by it. Now they’re relishing the role of enforcer, bringing the message of extremism or else to every Republican who dares think about stepping back from the brink. [Paul] Gosar isn’t in trouble for declaring that a second Civil War was underway. [Lauren] Boebert’s not in trouble for coordinating with insurgents from the House chamber. The core group of the worst in Congress are not just raising money off their calls for violence, they’re rising in the ranks.

Ben Franklin tweeted:

The focus on the antics of Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene consumes so much oxygen, I worry what is not being noticed while everyone is gawking at the dumpster fire raging inside the Republican party. Reminds me of Trump's daily outrages hiding more serious crimes. The Infowarsification of the Republican party is an important story to take note of, I just think that being transfixed by it is a waste of time and only serves to elevate the worst elements of the GOP and build their followings.

Dartagnan of the Kos community noted a few things that didn’t happen this week. First, the GOP has said very little about Joe Biden’s flurry of executive orders nullifying the orders of their hero. It is hard to object to a president governing through EO because their hero did the same thing. Second, because the nasty guy has been banned from Twitter we’ve had “a full week without hysterical edicts, missives, or barbs” from that account. Because of that silence the GOP doesn’t know how to respond to Biden. Third, because of that silence, Biden can talk uninterrupted about policy ideas based on evidence. Dartagnan wrote:

And that’s why Republicans are now at a loss. They don’t do “evidence,” and they can’t do “policy ideas.” They gave up on those things long ago.

Laura Clawson of Kos listed several things that have happened in Congress recently – the insurrection aided by Republicans. The attempt to block the EC certification by Republicans. The antics of Greene. Democrats trying to add some level of accountability. And a few more. Yet, the news media seems to still want to Both Sides the story. Clawson put out a nice rant:

Republicans have pushed and pushed and pushed the extremes that led to Donald Trump and to the refusal to accept the results of the election and to the attack on the Capitol. Republicans embrace Marjorie Taylor Greene and her violent rhetoric and harassment of teenagers. Republicans are trying to bring guns into Congress. Republicans are trying to block the COVID-19 aid that voters support. It is not on Democrats to unify with people who want them dead. Pelosi offering some real talk about what’s happening with guns in the House, or Ocasio-Cortez doing likewise with Cruz’s participation in an insurrection that threatened her life, are not some breach of decorum that deserves a both-sides treatment.

Kos of Kos commented on what he sees in Washington and it’s wonderful:

Republicans have long gotten big mileage from playing to historical Democratic desperation for “bipartisanship.” Obama made countless concessions on legislation like the Affordable Care Act trying to win Republican support, only to see those Republicans keep moving the goalposts … then providing zero support in the end. The Beltway media loves to sit on the sideline and bleat about Democratic “failures” to reach “consensus.” No one every bothered asking Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell about bipartisanship, and certainly not Donald Trump. But Democrats? They’re expected to win elections, then do what Republicans want anyway in the name of “unity” and “bipartisanship.” But Democrats aren’t playing that game anymore.

Democrats are focused on doing what the country needs to get done. If the GOP joins them, great! If not, they’re going to work around the GOP. After an atrocity a day it’s good to wake up to good news. Sarah Kendzior tweeted:

I wrote years ago that Kushner being held accountable is my litmus test for US national security and elite criminal impunity, and that is still the case. Even more so than Trump -- esp now that we can add his covid crimes to the long list.

So why hasn’t he been arrested yet? Michael Harriot, who describes himself as a master race-baiter, tweeted a thread. He first described “bright baby season” which tended to happen 5-6 months after the wife of a plantation (forced labor camp) owner (who called himself a gentleman) gave birth. While his wife was pregnant he would sexually assault his human property. That means the Confederate flag is more than a racist flag, it is a flag for legal rapists. Then he discussed Fort Pillow and what happened there on April 12, 1864. The Union soldiers holding the fort had to surrender. And the Confederates slaughtered all 350 black people. But Lincoln didn’t retaliate as he could have. Instead, he pardoned the perpetrators in the name of unity. The leader of the Fort Pillow massacre was Nathan Bedford Forrest. He went on to become the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. So white people got their unity.

But Black people had to endure a terror campaign. When they said "unity" they mean "white people united with other white people" They mean "we get to keep doing what we were doing the whole time." They mean "white people don't EVER EVER EVER have to face the consequences." It means "f--- Black Lives"

Douglas Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, tweeted:

Well, now it's official. @MerriamWebster just added "Second Gentleman" to the dictionary. I might be the first, but I won't be the last.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, collected some late night commentary. Here’s a bit:

We are officially one week into Joe Biden's presidency, and for the first time in awhile, a week actually felt like a week. In one week we've gone from insurrection to cool-and-collected, from anarchy to no malarkey, from drinking bleach to boring speech. It's been a ride. —Jimmy Fallon

The Late Show included a picture with this caption:

12 year-old Champ Biden, seen here waiting patiently for the most powerful man in the world to pick up his poop.

The enemy is within the House

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reviewed the many steps the nasty guy took leading up to the attack on the Capitol on January 6. He then discussed the current state of the GOP:

In the immediate wake of the insurgency, Republicans seemed aghast to find the barbarians weren’t just at the gates, but inside the building. Calls to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment didn’t just come from Democrats. The idea that impeachment might clear the two-thirds hurdle in the Senate were taken seriously. But all it took was the merest glimmer of disapproval from Trump to bring Republicans back in line. … Republican leaders had every opportunity over the last three weeks to finally pry their party away from Trump, and to do so in a way that might have left both them, and the nation, stronger. Instead, they fainted at the first mention of the dreaded “third party.” As with every other Trump outrage, Republicans voiced momentary outrage. Then they backed away just long enough to catch the next hand signal from Trump and from Fox. Reassured, they then stepped forward again to pretend—as they always do—that whatever Trump did was no big deal, not worth raising a fuss about, and after all didn’t Hillary Clinton once something something email? Now we’re at the point where they’re declaring that the real outrage isn’t that armed insurgents broke into the Capitol, spread blood and excrement along the walls, ransacked congressional offices, and went looking for hostages to send to the gallows waiting outside. The real outrage is that anyone is raising a fuss. The next step is the one where Republicans demand an official Trump Bridge to commemorate that patriotic Rubicon crossing. And a Jan. 6 federal holiday for celebrating his triumph. When the next violent assault goes even further, expect Republicans to be momentarily scandalized. But only momentarily.

Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote that since the GOP is not likely to convict the nasty guy the impeachment trial should also present the general GOP complicity.

These people not only supported this lie, they campaigned on it in their own elections. The rot runs right down into the state legislators who wanted to get in on the action. Local party organizations are supporting Trump’s insurrection efforts in state after state, from Wyoming to Arizona. … The cancer cuts down to the bone. It isn’t just Trump, but a culture of Republican-abetted sedition that needs to be presented to the American people on Feb. 8. Call some witnesses from those state legislatures who met with Trump as he hemmed, hawed and threatened them. Call Hawley as a witness and obtain all his contacts and communications with the administration before the insurrection. Same with Cruz. There’s no privilege attached, not when you’re trying to commit a crime, boys. Americans really need to see the big picture. Let’s give it to them. And let Hawley and Cruz—and Trump—squeal their seditious little asses off.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is new to the House. She campaigned on being a QAnon supporter, believing all the stuff about the nasty guy saving the world from child molesters. She has talked about political figures who should be assassinated. She has harassed the teenagers who survived the mass shootings at a Florida high school. She has been generally vile. Laura Clawson of Kos reported the GOP appointed her to the Education Committee. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was appalled with Greene’s appointment (see above about harassing teenage shooting survivors). Pelosi ranted at Republicans, saying Greene is their problem and added Congress …

will probably need a supplemental for more security for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives, a threat that members are concerned about in addition to what is happening outside. … It means that we have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress.

Nice rant, Ms. Speaker, but what are you doing about it? You and your caucus could expel Greene for sedition. And while you’re at it you could expel all those other enemies within the House. John Stoehr and his Editorial Board reminds us why the GOP is not going to do anything about Greene. So if something is to be done the Democrats will have to do it. And so far they’ve been mighty wimpy about the enemies in their midst.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised a talking-to. Steve Scalise, the whip, denounced her remarks. Liz Cheney, the conference chair, did too. But unlike King, who was stripped of his committee appointments, Greene has so far gotten off scot-free. The takeaway? Though Trump is gone, his grip on the Republicans remains iron. This takeaway, however, presumes something true about the Republicans that’s false. What presumption? That the Republicans would participate in the governing if they didn’t fear the wrath of Trump, his minions in the Congress, and his network of white-power vigilantes prepared to take the law into their own hands. That totally misunderstands the point of being a Republican. The point of being a Republican is not accomplishing things for the greater good of the country. The point is creating conditions in which accomplishing things for the greater good is impossible. … The Republicans can’t come out and say sabotage is their reason for being. So they became adept at wrapping it in respectable mantles with which to convince the press corps that no, they don’t *intend* to starve poor people to death; they just have a difference of opinion over the responsible use of government funding. Doing all that work surely took the fun out of hurting people. The difference Trump made in the Republican Party is that he took the party’s inherent sadism and went public. Now hurting people is fun! Not only that, it’s rewarding! Greene built a following out of saying the most hurtful things she could, for instance, telling David Hogg, who witnessed the murder of his classmates, that his real motive in seeking gun reform is *canceling* her Second Amendment rights, that his suffering is a fraud intended to *replace* her, that his presence in the world *endangers* her. Sadism is the ability some have of seeing suffering—of recognizing it—but adding to it by denying it. Greene isn’t facing punishment because why should she? She’s doing what she’s supposed to do.

Republicans don’t fear the nasty guy. They have been doing his bidding because they want the same thing, which is power and white supremacy. Pam Keith, a Democratic nominee for Florida’s 18th Congressional district, tweeted a question to Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa (both of Gaslit Nation), and Malcolm Nance:

Guys, back me up here. My view is that Trump needs to be indicted & arrested NOW! He is posturing himself to claim an “alternative presidency” from Mar-a-Lago and at least half the GOP will go along with it. We have to contain him NOW and make it clear that what he has done is CRIMINAL, not political. What say you?

Chalupa and many others agreed with this assessment. Joan McCarter of Kos reported President Biden has created a commission to reform the Supreme Court. A lot of us progressives are eager for an expansion of the court to counteract the current 6-3 conservative majority. The co-chairs have been named. There is even a token conservative. They are to give recommendations of what to do in six months. Progressives wonder whether this is a commission where great ideas go to die while the boss can say, “See, I’m doing something!” They also say six months gives the current members of the court plenty of time for some horribly regressive decisions, including blocking what Biden is doing. Hunter of Kos wrote that after four years of the news media fawning over the nasty guy, normalizing the crimes he committed, and not having much bad to say about the insurrection, it took them a while to figure out how to treat Biden. Yeah … about a week. There are now editorials out saying Biden is moving too fast or too slow or too … something. Besides, both sides did it. After listing some of the nasty guy and GOP corruption Hunter wrote:

But none of that is quite as important as the press getting back to the routine of pretending that none of that, really, is important or should take precedence over ephemeral notions that if the supporters of fascist coups and the supporters of competent technocracy can just find a middle ground, we can all shake hands and decide to cap things off at perhaps 2 million dead, and only some regions and states rendered unlivable, and a new arrangement that allows for democracy within limits, and assassinations or state-by-state coups here and there. Just wait. It'll get worse. Our American press has largely decided to deal with the radicalization of the Republican Party and the propagation of hoaxes not simply as a fringe propaganda tool but a party propaganda tool by pretending that it does not exist.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported that Sen. Tom Carper introduced a bill to grant statehood to the District of Columbia. It was introduced with 38 cosponsors and 46 senators have now indicated support. Yeah, they’re all Democrats. The GOP knows that the two DC senators will be Democrats. And they wouldn’t want that. This is important because (other than giving Dems a slightly better position in the Senate) the 700,000 residents of DC do not have representation in Congress, even though it has more people than Vermont and Wyoming. So this is taxation without representation. Meteor Blades, in his night owl column for Kos, quoted Ciara Nugent of Time who discussed the true price initiative in Amsterdam. Grocery price tags now include such things as a few cents for the toll farming takes on the land and a few cents to fairly pay workers. This, and several other initiatives, is a way to reassess capitalism. It’s being done in the city that was the origin of the first stock exchange in 1602. Nugent then discussed the theory of doughnut economics as laid out by Kate Raworth in a 2017 book. I’ve heard about it (probably on NPR) but didn’t remember it to blog about it. Raworth said we should not judge an economy by its Gross Domestic Product and whether that is growing. Instead, an economy should be judged by how close it gets to the sweet spot between a social foundation and the environmental ceiling. This space in between is the doughnut. People in rich countries live above the environmental ceiling. Their lifestyle damages the environment and is not sustainable. People in poor countries live below the social foundation. Citizens don’t have enough food, clothing, and shelter. Some, like the US miss both. We need to do better. This doughnut is a way to describe how.

Treason’s okie-dokie if you’re a Republican

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a policy issue (which would take me a while to explain and not a part of my story). Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that he fully agreed. AOC had a few things to say to him:

I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out. Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign. While you conveniently talk about “moving on,” a second Capitol police officer lost their life yesterday in the still-raging aftermath of the attacks you had a role in. This isn’t a joke. We need accountability, and that includes a new Senator from Texas. You haven’t even apologized for the serious physical + mental harm you contributed to from Capitol Police & custodial workers to your own fellow members of Congress. In the meantime, you can get off my timeline & stop clout-chasing. Thanks. Happy to work with other GOP on this.

After Cruz commented on the “partisan anger and rage on the Democratic side” AOC tweeted back:

Oh, there’s anger? Now why would there be anger that Cruz amplified known lies about our election that fueled an insurrection that cost ppl’s lives? What does he think the logical response to his lies should be? A hug? Maybe there’s anger bc his actions deserve accountability. “We need healing + unity, but I will not take any responsibility for my actions, nor will I acknowledge the contributions my lies made to the violence or the harm that it caused, nor do I believe anyone should be held accountable. But if you’re mad at that you’re divisive.” - GOP

Last Monday I mentioned that Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote an insurrection timeline with 60 events from election day to inauguration that show the nasty guy was plotting sedition. Sumner has posted an expanded version of the timeline both with more events (I didn’t count this time) and more explanation of each event. He included a timeline of the January 6 storming of the Capitol. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Moscow Mitch is again threatening the Senate over “minority rights” such as the right to filibuster. His threat this time is to require a quorum for everything. McCarter explained how disruptive that would be. In the meantime Mitch, though he caved on the requirement the filibuster never be overturned, is still dragging his heels on the power sharing agreement. That means the GOP is still in control of the committees. David Nir of Kos added that forcing a quorum on everything could backfire on Mitch. When a quorum call is issued, members have to appear. Capitol police can be sent to haul in missing senators. The last time that happened (in 1988) a senator was carried into the chamber by three police officers: Nir wrote:

But forcing this kind of spectacle would only highlight Republican obstructionism in the worst possible way, and it would only further radicalize Democrats in favor of curtailing the very thing McConnell is most desperate to protect: the filibuster. That would be McConnell’s true nightmare, and one of his own doing.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported that Moscow Mitch is very good at manipulating the media. The latest evidence is he made a big deal of saying he might maybe vote to convict in the second impeachment trial. At the same time he prevented the Senate from returning before the inauguration, guaranteeing the trial would be after. Then he voted against holding a retroactive trial that is only retroactive because of his actions. And he gets the headlines of being the “Very Serious Reasonable Person.” About that vote about the retroactive trial – one GOP senator (I forget which one) demanded a vote on whether it was proper to hold a trial when the perpetrator had already left office. That this is constitutional is verified by scholars and actually used by Congress a couple decades ago (though not against a sitting president). Five GOP senators voted to say the trial is constitutional. Mary Trump tweeted:

Tonight 45 Senate republicans declared their contempt for the Constitution they swore to defend and protect. This gives the Democrats the green light to do what they must to preserve our democracy: Expand the Supreme Court, double the federal judiciary, end the filibuster NOW.

As a reminder of what happened during the insurrection Mangy Jay tweeted (and included the source):

~140 officers were injured in the Capitol attack. Some specifics: -1 officer beaten to death -multiple officers w/ traumatic brain injury -1 officer w/ smashed spinal discs & cracked ribs -1 officer who will lose his eye -1 officer who was stabbed w/ a stake -2 died by suicide "Blue Lives Matter" has always just been code for "Black Lives Don't."

We’ve seen when blue lives get in the way they don’t matter either. Back in December when Joe Biden proposed a national mask mandate Rep. Chip Roy of Texas responded with “Kiss my a--.” John Stoehr, whose Editorial Board newsletter tries to explain politics in plain English, explained what is going on and linked it to the impeachment trial. Here’s part of it:

It’s tempting to say Roy is a phony. However, we’d be missing something important if we left it at that. What if he means it? He says he’s a patriot, as do the 200 other House Republicans who voted against indicting Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection against the US. Ditto for the 45 Rs senators who voted against moving forward w/ Trump’s trial. (They lost.) Let’s assume they mean it when they say they’re fighting for the love of country. The question becomes: what kind of country do they love? What kind of country do they protect? When framed this way, it’s clear the difference between Biden and Roy isn’t a one of “real” patriotism versus “fake” patriotism but one of competing patriotisms. For Biden, it’s love of the whole nation, the actual America, the one we can see and touch and smell. For Roy? If I were to guess, I’d say, as I have many times before (sorry!), that he’s fighting for an wholly imagined “nation” inside the real nation, a place where “real Americans” believe they are ordained by God to rule the country in His name. The difference between these patriotisms was hard to see as long as democracy lent itself to these confederate ends. But democracy and its institutions over the last two decades, especially, has gotten in the way. It has given rights, privileges & power to people the confederates believe are undeserving of them. Democracy, in giving rights, privileges and political power to undeserving people, is taking something away. To defend democracy now is to be complicit in one’s own mugging. The difference between these patriotisms was also hard to see as long as the Democrats trusted the Republicans to act in good faith. Before Trump ascended to power (before the Republicans looked away while a foreign government sabotaged his Democratic rival), the Democrats believed it was important to work w/ the Rs in order to serve the whole country, not just its constituent parts. They appear to have learned their lesson from the era of the first Black president. They appear ready to do what's right, regardless of what the GOP thinks. More importantly, I think, they have maneuvered the Republicans into a position in which they are forced to declare their true loyalties—not loyalty to the real America for which we should all stand but but loyalty to a white confederacy dedicated to creating a nation by which the in-group is protected but unbound by law while the out-group is bound but unprotected. The Rs worked to convict a Dem president for lying to a grand jury (Clinton), but they are poised to acquit a R president for treason. This is *separate and unequal* writ large. Yet this might not be obvious had the Dems decided to move on “for the sake of the country.” Even if acquitted, impeaching Trump is meaningful for another reason. Two hundred and forty-six out of 261 Republicans say, in effect, that treason’s okie-dokie if you’re a Republican. So the Democrats can safely ignore their demands, because there’s nothing but downside to negotiating with terrorists and their confederate enablers.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine suggested if the GOP was going to unite in acquitting the nasty guy of the impeachment charge, perhaps the Senate should try censure instead. Hunter of Kos explained why that’s a really bad idea. There needs to be more than a stern finger-wagging.

It was an insurrection against the government, and if there is no stomach among Republican lawmakers for punishing it as such, it is because they were themselves allied with those efforts. They remain allied in a unified attempt to dodge repercussions for attempting to overturn an election that did not go their way. ... If Republican senators are going to vote to immunize Trump even from an attempt to overthrow the government, oblige them to cast that vote. There needs to be a list. There needs to be a record. Fortunately, there appears to be little to no support for allowing Republicans to dodge a trial; this "censure" nonsense is likely to be over before it begins. We're going to get a list of which top Republicans truly believe, even now, that Donald Trump's actions were within the bounds of what America should allow. It will be a long list, and everyone on it will be senators who have betrayed their nation countless times before in their bid to normalize abject corruption in service to Republican power.

Andrew Wortman tweeted:

A Nazi loving 25 year old who can’t spell his name; a woman in a domestic terrorist cult that believes Trump was anointed to take down satanic democratic pedophiles; & a gun-toting lunatic who worked with the terrorists to have @SpeakerPelosi killed are all still in Congress. If this is the future of the GOP, and I don’t doubt that it is, fine. You’ll never hold majorities in either chamber again. But right now, these 3 individuals are a direct threat to our national security. If Pelosi won’t move to expel them, we must call for their resignation.

McCarter reported that now the nasty guy is gone and Moscow Mitch is no longer leading the Senate, a few federal judges are now saying maybe it is time to retire. They waited until now because the one thing Mitch was good at was confirming ultra-conservative judges. And now Biden can nominate and the Senate confirm (no filibuster allowed) progressive judges. Since many district courts and appeals courts are overworked and understaffed it is a good time to expand the number of judges. Biden won’t be so slow in nominating judges to fill those seats as his former boss Obama was (and many of the ones he did nominate were blocked by Mitch). There’s a Senate tradition of “blue slips” – that when a judge is nominated the senator from the judge’s state can agree with or slow down the confirmation process. But this isn’t law and it’s about time the Judiciary Committee drop the practice.

America isn’t recovering from fascism

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported Democrats are moving ahead on the COVID relief package. They will be using the budget reconciliation process to do it so it can’t be filibustered. McCarter explained how that works. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that Biden has issued an executive order to overturn the nasty guy’s ban of transgender people serving in the military. Alas, it may take a while for the military to settle all the details. Good things are coming. Moscow Mitch tweeted:

Today, I made clear that if Democrats ever attack the key Senate rules, it would drain the consent and comity out of the institution. A scorched-earth Senate would hardly be able to function. It wouldn’t be a progressive’s dream. It would be a nightmare. I guarantee it.

Heather Cox Richardson, who studies the contrast between image and reality in American politics, responded:

Surely I can't be the only one who reads this as the threat of an abuser desperate to keep power over his victims?

A few replies assure her they read it the same way. Eleveld reported that the nasty guy is still doing all he can to meddle in GOP politics. I mentioned yesterday that the Arizona GOP censured three of its more responsible members. That may have been the nasty guy’s doing. He’s out to punish anyone that didn’t fully support him. No matter what that does to the ability of the party to nominate candidates who can please suburban voters. Don Winslow tweeted about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former nasty guy spokesperson:

Tragically, Sarah Sanders has a good chance of winning in Arkansas and being the next Governor there. This is WHY it is so critical to deal with the Trump enablers/surrogates NOW so that they do NOT blossom and seek political office. Failure to do so NOW spreads Trumps seeds.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the news outlet Just Security has created a ten minute compilation of videos the insurrectionists posted to social media. The video starts with the nasty guy’s incitement speech and the crowd’s responses. The two parts are damning evidence that the storming of the Capitol, with the calls to execute Mike Pence and other leaders, happened because the nasty guy incited the crowd. The makers of the video, Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix, hope it will be used in the impeachment trial as the last bit of evidence. Or maybe the first bit. Einenkel included the video at the end of his post, if you feel you really need to watch it. Umair Haque of Eudaimonia has an article on how to recover from fascism. He starts with a basic problem – nobody is saying anything about needing to recover from fascism. Yeah, the GOP is unrepentant and hasn’t learned a thing. But has America? Signs are not good. There are three necessary and collective actions to recover from fascism. The first is justice. Not just justice for crimes against individuals (though is many cases we’re pretty bad even at that), but justice for higher crimes, those against humanity.

These are the most repellent and shocking kinds of actions — truly depraved ones, which threaten democracy in the deepest way: by taking away humanity, personhood, dignity, decency, from all of us. Those things were done in the name of every American, because they were done by the state. And so a special kind of justice is necessary. … Without a process of special justice like the Nuremberg Trials, America will never recover from fascism — because the fascists will have gotten away with it. … And when fascists get away with it, they’re not punished, and when they’re not punished, they’re not deterred, and when they’re not deterred, …it happens all over again.

Why did it happen the first time? There are economic roots. There is sharp downward mobility. Old racial hatreds resurface. This happened in Weimar Germany and in America. I think that is too much in the passive voice – The sharp downward mobility was because the rich were no longer sharing with the poor. The old racial hatreds resurfaced because the rich were using the targets of the old animosities as scapegoats to deflect blame. But, yeah, the America middle class began to implode in 2010 (actually in 2008, though the roots of inequality are 35 years older). The average American lives from one paycheck to the next and couldn’t pay for emergencies. From other things I’ve read and discussed here, the fascists aren’t the poor. But they do use the vast wealth inequality and the scapegoating to get the poor to install them in power. To solve this problem America needs a Marshall Plan. This is the second item of the three. After WWII the Marshall Plan was America’s seed money for Europe to allow it to rebuild the public infrastructure that benefited everyone and stabilized the middle class. America needs schools, hospitals, transportation links, and more. Building that will provide jobs. A large and stable middle class will take away the poverty that rebreeds ancient hatreds (more accurately removes the desperation that allows the rich to scapegoat others). The third item is a transformation of cultural and social norms.

Racism and bigotry and hate must become not OK. Not in some abstract sense, but in a real one. People who have led hate must be punished — they must be sanctioned. They must become cultural outcasts. They must occupy the lowest rungs on the social ladder, that of dunces and criminals and scoundrels. They must be ejected from every last space where civilized people gather, whether the restaurant, bar, nightclub, library, or, especially, Congress. They must be held in contempt, ridicule, shame, and scorn.

How is America doing on these three efforts? Justice: Democrats are talking too much about healing, which in the past has meant let’s forgive and forget. A Marshall Plan: the Democrat relief package is way too small (and doesn’t tax the rich to bring down inequality). Social norms: Stephen Miller, the man who oversaw the torture of kids, is now a Fox News pundit. Which means America isn’t recovering from fascism. And the fascists are waiting for another chance. Now a bit of fun. Bernie Sanders showed up at the inauguration wearing a parka instead of an overcoat. He put on pattered mittens, ready for the cold. A photo was taken of him sitting on a folding chair by himself (properly distanced) with mask, his legs crossed, and arms across his chest with the mittens in full display. That prompted an outpouring from Twitter as people inserted an image of Sanders with parka and mittens into whatever scene they could think of for comic or ironic effect. I saw a few collections of these and laughed at a few, but decided not to share. Then I found one especially funny, though I’m aware I’ll have to explain it to you, lessening the humor. Beside Sanders is a tuba and in front of him is a music score for “Dvořák 9, From the New World” Yes, this is the famous symphony by the Czech composer. The tune of the second movement is known as “Coming Home,” though that’s not the name the composer gave. This image is funny because in the whole symphony the tuba has only 14 notes. Seven are in the slow chords that open the movement and the other seven are in similar chords towards the end of that movement. For much of this movement and for all of the other three movements the tuba player just sits there. Like Sanders was doing. The detail of the 14 notes came up in my orchestration class for my master of music. I had said that I would have given those 14 notes to the bass trombone.

Unity means doing what Americans need to get done

Moscow Mitch has been stalling the start of the new Senate by filibustering to protect the filibuster. His preventing the Democrats from taking over Senate leadership has been going on for almost a week. Today, as reported by Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, he decided that recent statements by Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema met his demand that the filibuster will be preserved (though what they said is what they’ve been saying), and he will allow the organizing resolution to pass. Mitch has been taunting the Dems to kill the filibuster on something arcane, which would allow him to declare it was a partisan choice. If Mitch and the rest of his caucus keep using it to block necessary legislation, such as virus relief (and they will), the Dems now have the edge, able to label the GOP as obstructionist. Laura Clawson of Kos reported there are still threats against members of Congress. The greatest threats will be during the upcoming impeachment trial and include plans to attack members as they travel to and from the Capitol complex. It is to the point that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a supporter of the insurrection, has told his caucus to not name other members when making public statements, especially if those statements are attacks. A couple of Kos cartoons. The first is by Nick Anderson and is about the Arizona Republican Party who censured three members for not being sufficiently radical in their support of the nasty guy. One of the Doug Ducey, the state governor, for trying to actually do something about the high COVID caseload in his state (after such a long time of not). Another is Cindy McCain, the widow of John McCain. The third is former senator Jeff Flake. The second is by Jen Sorensen and is titled Freedom vs. Freedom. She contrasts such things the freedom to carry guns into state capitols against the freedom from intimidation. David Neiwert of Kos reported that while leaders around the globe were shocked and horrified by the attack on the Capitol, leaders of the global radical right were watching with glee and taking notes. The German right was delighted because they had attacked the Parliament building in Berlin last August and failed. That our Capitol was breached gave them hope. The global far right is growing in many countries around the world. No surprise it’s a white supremacist movement. Adherents believe they face a “white genocide” – what Neiwert calls a “hysterically fallacious belief” that black and brown people will infiltrate and overthrow white culture. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that because Republicans have been trying to redefine “unity” to mean they should not be held accountable for their crimes, President Biden gave his definition. It does not mean bipartisan, though if bills are passed with bipartisan votes that’s great. Unity means getting done what a majority of Americans of either or no party think needs to get done to make their lives and the lives of Americans better. Whether or not Biden gets GOP votes he intends to deliver what he promised. Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday talked with reporter Miles Parks about voting rights. When Democrats took power in the House they passed HR 1 with has a series of voting related measures. It, of course, gathered dust in Moscow Mitch’s office for two years. HR 1 is ready for another run in the House and a corresponding bill is being readied in the Senate. Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice said that elections should not be about the rules of voting, they should be about the candidates. That Senate bill could pass if the filibuster is eliminated (though it hasn’t been yet). However, Parks warns of consequences. One is that a change in which party is in power could lead to changes in voting laws. Another is if Democrats make changes without GOP support they could be seen as rigging future elections. There are people who think this last one was stolen. If Dems make the rules they’ll think the next one is also stolen. I’ve got a few thoughts on this piece. First, how legit are these opinions? I ask because there are a lot of people (some in media, though I don’t know about NPR) who make a big noise and toss out reasons saying that the Dems shouldn’t try to do too much or it will piss off Republicans (they’re pissed off anyway) and voters will turn against them. I’ve also heard lots of voices that say what will piss off voters are Democrats who don’t accomplish anything because they’re too afraid of the GOP. If Democrats are wimps Americans could end up in 2022 and 2024 not any better than they are now. Second, if Democrats change the law make access to voting more universal it would indeed benefit Democrats, for the simple reason the GOP platform (when they have one) is sufficiently unpopular they can’t win without rigging the vote through gerrymandering and various types of suppression. We, of course, think that’s a good thing because if your platform doesn’t appeal to a majority of citizens you shouldn’t get elected. That’s what democracy means. Under Democrat (democracy) rules the GOP may never get back in power. In the same way, if the GOP does get in power they’ll change the rules (heavy on keeping those people from voting) and Democrats may never get back in power. However, in this case we would be ruled by people who are in favor of the recent insurrection. Ruled, not governed, because they’re not interested in governing. Jared Yates Sexton has comments similar to my first point:

A lot of the members of the "LIBERAL MEDIA" are only really good at saying the things that sound inclusive to shield themselves but are alarmingly conservative in that they've benefited from incredible privilege and wealth and aren't interested in anything actually changing. I know this is SHOCKING considering how correct and innovative and thought-provoking a lot of pundits and writers are, but media is not exactly a meritocracy and is actually lousy with privilege. So much of what is now considered "liberal" is actually just a kinder, gentler face put on corporatism and brutal hierarchical thinking that hides behind numbers, figures, and the "hand of the market." A lot of media reports only within the scope of what maintains status quo.

I would unite with nobody to do wrong

Wally Sierk tweeted a thread about chronically ill patients such as himself.

In areas where critical care is being rationed, I.e Lombardy, [Italy], comorbidities like diabetes and transplant are being used as reason to exclude patients from critical care. This means all critical care, not just CoVid19, so if I, or other people need care for another issue, we will still be triaged away from care. How bad the triage will get, I don’t know, but many non ICU hospital beds will be converted to ICU units, or post ICU care. So, a dialysis patient has 1-2 hospitalizations/ yr on average, either with infection, hyperkalemia, cardiac issues, and their hospital stay includes in- hospital dialysis. It’s not unreasonable to assume some portion of those routine hospitalizations will be disrupted and people will be excluded from care, because their aren’t enough rooms. This means that if you, or someone you love is chronically ill, with diabetes, kidney disease, or a transplant, this pandemic can kill them, even if they don’t get infected.

Rev. Magdalen tweeted:

Remember in the lead-up to J6, people said that Republicans' formal acts for the Big Lie "weren't sedition" because they weren't advocating violent overthrow? Yeah, that whole time violence was def being planned, by the people who later carried it out, for the same Big Lie. It's unbelievable that people who participated in the sedition will be allowed to sit on the jury of the man who incited it. This is not the reaction of a country that understands what just happened. Barring the one strongman for life isn't enough if the seditious org remains. The reason we don't let seditionists keep sitting after a failed insurrection is that they will try again, and this time when they give the insurrectionists tours, they might let them hide weapons in their offices, too.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos created a timeline of events aiming to overturn the election. He didn’t include most of the 62 lawsuits filed by the nasty guy legal team, because they had little consequence. He did list the important cases and the rest – signature challenges, efforts to get state officials to lie, using government to defy election results, and actual calls to violence. I counted 60 events in the list between November 4 and January 15 when the My Pillow guy urged the nasty guy to invoke martial law. And 14 of those were calls to violence. Sumner also reported on the evidence for the upcoming impeachment trial. The actual articles of impeachment are just five pages and the first of those is taken up with the names of the sponsors. Only four pages? There are also detailed supporting documents with all the evidence, a more detailed version of Sumner’s timeline. Sumner wrote:

But there is more than enough in the provided documents to show that the crowd that pushed through police to hunt hostages in the halls of Congress wasn’t just inflamed by a few offhand words Trump delivered on that Wednesday morning. The insurgency was the result of weeks of incitement and of planning by both Trump and other members of his team. It was neither spontaneous nor an accident. It was an attempted coup.

Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted a thread. He’s hounding Biden on government ethics, but not because he wants Biden to fail.

Presidential administrations don't get more ethical over time. They get less ethical, not because they're necessarily filled with bad people. They are filled with people who learn just how hard governing is, and those people get frustrated. They start looking for shortcuts. So whatever we get at the beginning of an administration is ALL we are going to get. And, trust me, whatever we don't get at the start of an administration is a conscious choice on the part of the administration --especially an administration like this one, filled with experts. Biden's team knows what it's doing. They had all the best people advising them. They KNOW what the watchdog groups want. They gave what they were willing to give. Anything lacking from the ethics executive order is lacking because a decision was made not to include it. … We need reform because the fascist movement won't die with Trump's presidency. The foreign AND domestic enemies of the republic are still out there. They will win some victories. They may win big ones. The future is not guaranteed. We have only a limited window of time in which to strengthen the republic and its anticorruption mechanisms. After that, whatever we have accomplished will have to be strong enough to withstand the next fascist onslaught.

Sahil Kapur of NBC News tweeted about what Elizabeth Warren said to Republicans who say unity is incompatible with impeachment:

How about if we're unified against insurrection? How about if we're unified for accountability? Unity starts with accountability. … Unity is about doing things the American people want to see us do: like a $15 an hour minimum wage, like canceling student loan debt, like expanding Social Security, like giving us more universal childcare and universal pre-K—things that are popular across this country.

Amazing Douglass added:

“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.” Frederick Douglass Republicans fear uniting against insurrectionist because members the GOP Senate and House incited the insurrection — and they vaguely remember that a House / Senate divided cannot stand.

A geode is a rock that looks ordinary on the outside and is filled with crystals on the inside. Dr. Jacqueline Antonovich tweeted that she cut open a geode and found it looks like Cookie Monster of Sesame Street. She’s got pictures. I didn’t post last night because I took a break from blogging to watch the film IKARIE-XB1 offered by the Detroit Film Theater. It is a Czech film that came out in 1963 and is now considered a Cannes Classic. It is the story of a spaceship traveling from earth to planets around the star Alpha Centauri in the year 2163 and about what happens along the way. The actors spoke Czech and there were subtitles in English. DFT is offering online through the end of the month. Part of the admission price benefits DFT. Some thoughts about the film: This is an Eastern Bloc Cold War movie. One of the things they encountered along the way is another spaceship that left earth around 1987 in which some passengers got greedy and they all died. The style of the sets is very much 1960s projected into the future. The art on the image screens when they’re not showing something useful (like video from another part of the ship) was a style I remember from the 60s, though I don’t have a name for it to show examples. The crew consoles around the bridge did not have computers or computer screens. I was a little surprised how few controls there were at any one station. Several times the image screens show output from an oscilloscope. The special effects were very much limited to what was possible in 1963. This was three years before Star Trek on TV and five years before 2001: A Space Odyssey. The promos for Ikarie say this movie influenced Stanley Kubrick as he designed A Space Odyssey. Star Trek is known for various characters having to crawl through the “jeffries tubes” to secretly get from one part of the Enterprise to another. Yup, Ikarie had that first. The crew is shown doing their exercises to keep in shape. In these scenes the men are wearing only a 22nd Century version of the speedo and the women are wearing bikinis. This wasn’t great drama (though it wasn’t boring). It was more of an interesting cultural artifact.

Unifying against the mob should be the easiest decision of your life

Last night I finished the book The Starless Sea by Erin Morganstern. I’m pretty sure I bought it because of a glowing review of a story about a gay guy in a world of stories. Within the first few pages I was entranced by the fine descriptive writing of the stories. The Starless Sea is without stars because it is underground. It is a major feature in a world in which stories are gathered, archived, and guarded. Zachary is a grad student in new media (storytelling through computer games). He encounters a book which seems to describe an incident in his childhood, though the book seems much older than he is. In trying to find out how that happened he enters that underground world. I enjoyed the way the author described characters so at a later time the author could mention one small detail and I knew which character was meant. I enjoyed many of the stories told between chapters of Zachary’s story. That enjoyment lasted to about page 300 of the almost 500 pages. It is only then that Zachary being gay had any consequences in the story and the lovers were soon parted. However, what sapped my enjoyment was why I tend to avoid fantasy novels – the fantasy elements tend to feel arbitrary and in this case not well explained. As the story progressed they tended to become stranger and go on for much too long. I’m sure someone more attuned to Literature might revel in the Symbolism, Metaphor, and Allegory, but all of that went over my head – even the parts where the author makes it explicit. The novel begins this way:

There is a pirate in the basement. (The pirate is a metaphor but also still a person.)

And the symbolism of that underground sea actually made of honey is a mystery to me. If it isn’t symbolism it’s another reason why fantasy seems so arbitrary. After all that ranting about fantasy there is a fantasy world I very much enjoyed, that of Harry Potter. Rather than feeling arbitrary that world felt incredibly well thought out and complete. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data this morning. Since Michigan assigns cases to the onset of symptoms rather than the day recorded the numbers can be in flux for a couple weeks back. That means the data for the first week of January is just now firming up. That is suggesting that after a dip at Christmas the cases per day isn’t dropping, but starting a plateau. The numbers are certainly much (about a third) lower than the peak in early November but also more than three times higher than the plateau in July, August, and half of September. The cases per day for those couple of weeks averages about 3000 a day with spikes above 4500 a day. During that same time deaths per day has hovered at about 75 a day. I get my data here. In Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s virus update yesterday she announced that limited indoor dining may resume on February 1st. I suspect cases will go up again, threatening her desire for schools to resume in-person learning in March 1. Part of the announcement of indoor dining Whitmer stressed that those in high risk categories should stick to takeout. So I will. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos discussed the filibuster, including Adam Jentleson’s new book Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. Jentleson had been chief of staff for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, so he saw how the filibuster was wielded against his boss. The filibuster was very much not what the founding fathers intended. There had been the requirement of supermajorities in the Articles of Confederation. Those were abandoned when the Constitution was written. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton wrote against requiring a supermajority. The filibuster came from the South demanding a way to veto any legislation that might lead to overturning slavery. Jentleson wrote:

Southerners inflated the minority’s right to unlimited debate with soaring oratory backed by intimidation from their monopoly of the Senate’s all-powerful committees which controlled the prospects for legislation as well as senators' careers.

In the Jim Crow era it killed civil rights bills, and only those bills. It’s use expanded significantly in the modern era as a way for Republicans to prevent Democrats from getting anything done. It is time to get rid of this racist legacy. BorderingOrder tweeted:

Democrats have feared eliminating the filibuster because Republicans could turn the table on them. News Alert: Republicans turn the table anyway. You either have a plan for the future or you don't. Fulfill your promises. Take charge of the Senate and move us forward.

Alexandra Erin added:

If Democrats refuse to use power out of fear that Republicans will take it away from them, they've already thrown it away of their own free will. That's not "keeping your powder dry". It's surrendering without firing a shot.

Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa tweeted:

Pres Biden is preaching unity & healing while Dem leadership is focused on impeachment of a former president. Does Pres Biden not hv control of congressional Democrats as leader of party??? This move will surely slow up Biden cabinet confirmations/agenda + increase division

Sarah Kendzior replied:

Why don't you unify against enablers of the mob who threatened to kill your colleagues, including the vice-president? This is not complicated. Unifying against people who encouraged a mob to kill your coworkers and destroy our Capitol should be the easiest decision of your life.

A response to that was an image of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown (reply if you don’t get the reference) with Lucy saying:

If you don’t impeach, we will unify with you and work with Biden for the good of the country.

Alexander McCoy, a veteran involved in progressive veteran organizations, tweeted:

Just an observation about the media: We’ve gotten dozens of request from political reporters asking to be connected with veterans who became right-wing extremists. But we’ve gotten zero interest in the perspective of POC troops who had to cope with extremists in their units. Right-wing white nationalists do not always have to be the Main Character!

On the morning of inauguration and the news of the pardons the nasty guy issued on the way out the door day Kendzior linked to a thread from a year ago about presidential pardons. That prompted C. Stucker to tweet:

So if a person received a pardon from Trump now, does that mean that person can commit another crime in the future and not pay any consequence? Please tell me that isn't the case.

Wally Sierk replied:

No, but it sets up a system of incentives that encourage breaking the law to win the presidency. You can do anything you want as long as you have the presidential pardon power.

Kendzior designed a new postcard to send to lawmakers that says ‘There will be no unity without accountability, and there will be no accountability without the truth.” You can contact Indivisible St. Louis to get some (though they may send them out in packets of 100, or share an image file). Related to that Kendzior tweeted:

Trump admin crimes that need rigorous investigation and prosecution: 1) Handling of covid and profiteering off death 2) Attack on Capitol 3) Trump admin ties to Kremlin and organized crime 4) Abuse of migrants at the border Way more where that came from. This is only to start.

Replies quickly added: Kids taken from parents. Russian bounties on American troops. Whatever the prince has been doing. Rose Lerner tweeted:

so my friend and i were out for a walk and he spotted this gravestone and wanted to read the music. it's some quarter-notes and then four rests, and underneath it says "only resting" ME: what's the tune? HIM: i'm not sure...it's D-E-A-D ME: ....WHAT

See the tweet for a picture. Read the rest of the thread for more sly details. As a composer I noticed some notation difficulties, but I won’t let that spoil the fun. Alix Harrow tweeted:

having been told that it's rude to call dinner "gross," our 4yo is finding increasingly creative ways to express himself "this tastes.......unlucky to me" "this sends my mouth into outer space. (that's bad)" "cauliflower is"--[pinches fingers together]--"this much delicious"

Unity for me but not for thee

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Speaker Nancy Pelosi will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday. That means the nasty guy’s second trial begins Monday (or maybe Tuesday). The House impeachment managers plan to play videos of the Capitol assault to emphasize that this was a mob intent on killing – and on killing the people who now sit in this room. Several GOP senators have changed their tune from what they said the day of the insurrection. For example, Lindsay Graham is now saying, “There’s no way to be a successful Republican Party without having President Trump working with all of us and all of us working with him.” Sure. Since the Senate still hasn’t passed its organizing resolution (because Moscow Mitch is blocking it) committee chairs are still in GOP hands even though Democrats should be. McCarter reported that while that is sorted out with the filibuster in the balance Democrats are working on the COVID relief package. They can bring the package to the Senate floor and avoid the filibuster if they can present the whole thing as a budget bill with each committee declaring how much of a budget increase they want to handle Biden’s request. But they can’t officially do that while committees are still in GOP hands. There are some issues of passing the relief package that way. It is difficult to declare a raise in the minimum wage as a budget item. And the GOP will call that one out. On the GOP side Moscow Mitch’s leadership position is being threatened. McCarter reported the threat is coming from nasty guy loyalists who consider Mitch to be insufficiently loyal. Their evidence is Mitch declaring the insurrection was because of the nasty guy’s lies. So some of us are delighted that Mitch is in a squeeze between some of his members and businesses (and their donations) that want nothing to do with the nasty guy and fellow seditionists. Kos of Kos analyzed the news that the nasty guy wants to start his own political party – the Patriot Party. Kos very much doubts it will ever happen because the nasty guy only does things for the nasty guy (and maybe Ivanka). So unless he can get it to line his pocket, it ain’t gonna happen. In addition, there is no party platform (he and the GOP didn’t have one this year). So all a new party would do is pull votes from the GOP, cementing a bigger Dem majority. The other way to go is for the GOP to excise the nasty guy cancer and take a couple presidential cycles to rebrand and rebuild. They they could be a national party again. It seems this is where Moscow Mitch is headed. It is where the donors are headed. Kos wrote:

For Republicans, it’s an existential question: Do they cut the Trump cancer out, wander in the wilderness for a few cycles, then rebuild in the image of today’s America (more diverse, more educated, more secular), or do they keep going down the same path that cost them the House, the Senate, the White House, and the critical support of key growth demographics (not to mention, Arizona, Georgia, and soon, Texas), while at the same time remaining beholden to the whims of an egotistical madman?

Hunter of Kos discussed that President Joe Biden has been in power for less than 2½ days and already some Republicans are complaining that for a guy who wants unity he’s being terribly divisive. Hunter wrote:

They would like us to know that Joe Biden's speech was divisive, because it called out white supremacists and racists and liars and whoa, talk about rude. They would like us to know that Joe Biden firing the incompetent toadies who have failed catastrophically in responding to the deadly pandemic, the nation's economic crisis, or anything else is divisive, because if this nation is ever going to heal from its current traumas the new administration should clearly keep all of Trump's malevolent and sometimes-criminal conservative D-listers in their current posts rather than divisively have the new president choose new appointees. And it's all very insincere and nonsensical and is most aggressively being shouted by traitors and allies of traitors, so they can all go pound sand, the end. … The purpose of these "unity" demands are to evade consequences, every single one, so that the most prolific enablers of anti-democratic attacks can continue to mount those same attacks without repercussion. But nobody should want "unity" with seditionists. Or with liars. Or with racists. Or with white nationalists. All of those people should face widespread public scorn, everywhere they go, forever. The American fascist version of "unity" demands purges of immigrants, the isolation of LGBT Americans, the widespread curbing of American civil rights, and the nullification of political opposition through fraud or by force. It is a "unity" that demands the nation abide by all their own bigotries, and harm all those Americans who they believe need harming. It will not happen. And "unity" now demands consequences for those who would go so far as to endanger democracy itself, either through fraud or by force, in their attempts to pursue those things.

Bill in Portland, Maine quotes a bit from Molly Ivens every Thursday. Here’s a bit of what he quoted this week from a column she wrote in 2006 (alas, only a few words would need to change to apply to today).

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

We know who they’re afraid of – their corporate overlords who fund their campaigns. But it isn’t all fear. A great many believe as their overlords do that to make their own lives look better they must make the lower classes suffer. Bill in Portland, Maine also offered up a few opinions from late night commentary.

The Trump presidency officially ended today as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. And, uh…wow. So that's what it feels like when you're not grinding your teeth. I'd forgotten. And I can see colors again. —Seth Meyers Unsurprisingly, Republicans are 'furious' that Joe Biden chose to divide America by becoming president. And if that weren't divisive enough, he's openly plotting to 'do stuff.' Nice try, Joe, but according to Republicans a real unifier would have handed the office back to Trump, given him a McRib, and happily walked off to prison. —Samantha Bee

Another 40 to be signed in the next week

As an avid genealogist this resonated with me: Jon Ossof, new senator from Georgia, tweeted (with pictures):

Today, as I was sworn in, I held in my jacket pocket copies of the ships’ manifests recorded at Ellis Island when my Great Grandfather Israel arrived in 1911 and my Great Grandmother Annie arrived in 1913. A century later, their great grandson was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported President Biden (I and lots of other people love saying that) signed a stack of Executive Orders yesterday and today. Many of them undoing EOs of the nasty guy. One of them was a sweeping order proclaiming LGBTQ people should have equal treatment under the law in employment, housing, and education. This builds on the Supreme Court ruling from last year that declared the term “sex” in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also means sexual orientation and gender identity. This overturns orders from the nasty guy which tried to oppress LGBTQ people every way possible. Mark Sumner of Kos listed seventeen actions – Stop building the wall on the southern border. Rejoin the World Health Organization. Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. Cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. End the Muslim travel ban. Defend the “Dreamers” program. Create an executive branch ethics doctrine. And several more. And another 40 to be signed in the next week. Disappointed, though not at all surprised: Sumner reported that in spite of the nasty guy’s claims there were no policy or plans for the vaccine distribution. So the Biden administration is starting from “square one” to create and implement a plan. Fortunately, the Biden team knew that as they took office yesterday. At the start of each new Congress (this is the 117th) the Senate passes an organizing resolution to set the rules on how the Senate will function. Moscow Mitch is being his usual obstructionist self when the Democrats try to do anything. He’s demanding the resolution contain a promise that the Democrats will not end the filibuster. With the filibuster and a thin Dem majority every bit of legislation would need ten GOP votes to end debate. Without it the simple majority (with VP Harris as tiebreaker) can get stuff done. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that several Democratic senators have rather pithy replies to Mitch. McCarter described a way the Democrats could force through ending the filibuster in this organizing resolution if Mitch keeps obstructing. Leah McElrath had a reply to Mitch’s tweet trying to assert minority rights.

Cry harder you traitorous, hypocritical sack of gelatinous lies encased in human skin. (Trying to go forward into 2021 with fewer F bombs, because, you know, unity and all that.)

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas didn’t like that Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement:

By rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden indicates he’s more interested in the views of the citizens of Paris than in the jobs of the citizens of Pittsburgh. This agreement will do little to affect the climate and will harm the livelihoods of Americans.

Greta Thunberg, the one-teen force of climate advocacy, fired back:

So happy that USA has finally rejoined the Pittsburgh Agreement. Welcome back!

Mark Lippman of the Kos community, who included both tweets, added:

Yes, he’s worried about the citizens of Pittsburgh two weeks after he tried to disenfranchise 6.9 million voters in the state of Pennsylvania by throwing out their electoral votes.

After the great success on January 6 the insurrectionists planned a round 2 for Sunday the 17th. David Neiwert of Kos reported on the attendance of the Washington Million Militia March: nobody. They had also proclaimed they would try to storm various statehouses, prompting Michigan and several others to erect fences and board up windows. Neiwert reported on attendance at some of those capitols: Columbus: maybe a dozen (but we have nothing to do with that insurrection in Washington). Lansing: “a smattering.” Salem: protesters outnumbered 3-1 by the media covering them. Olympia: deserted. Trenton: one. Neiwert wrote:

The decidedly low energy for these events is reflective of the disarray that has descended on American radical-right circles ever since the January 6 riots. As Alexander Reid Ross described at Daily Beast, alt-right white supremacists have engaged in extensive bickering over the mess, accusing each other of being federal informants and traitors to the cause, as well as con artists.

Kerry Eleveld reported what’s going on with the QAnon conspiracy folks.

Here's what QAnon-ers expected to happen, according to NBC News reporter Ben Collins: Trump would use the Emergency Broadcasting System to announce the The Storm had arrived; Democrats would be rounded up and arrested; and Trump would be declared president. Q supporters had apparently bought CB radios for the blackout. "I don't think this is supposed to happen?" wrote one follower. "How long does it take the fed to run up the stairs and arrest him?" Apparently, a very very long time—otherwise known as never. No emergency announcement from Trump. No mass arrests. Just the continuation of American democracy as regularly scheduled every four years at 12:01 PM on Jan. 20. ... At the end of the day, a conspiracy theory that was so certain of its ability to predict the future, left its followers deeply disillusioned.

Be sparing with your schadenfreude. This isn’t over yet. Gwen Snyder tweeted (with screen captures):

The terror Nazis are on @telegram literally telling us their strategy to radicalize QAnon and MAGA, now.

Max Berger tweeted:

You ever think about how the last two Republican presidents left office in the midst of a global crisis they didn't prepare for and an economic collapse they did too little to fix? Weird coincidence! … Republicans said they wanted to shrink government until it was "small enough to drown in the bathtub." It worked: that's why our government wasn't prepared to respond to Katrina, the financial crisis of 2007-2008, or the Coronavirus "hoax" that killed 400,000 people.

The reason why Republicans want to shrink government is so it can’t help people. Because then it would help those people. And they can’t have that. Now for some fun stuff. Kai Ryssdal of the NPR program Marketplace reported many times about Janet Yellen when she was chair of the Federal Reserve. She is now nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury. Since Alexander Hamilton was the first Sec. of the Treasury and got his own musical, Ryssdal wanted a way to honor the first female Sec. of the Treasury. Not knowing Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the rap based musical) Ryssdal asked rapper Dessa to come up with something. Ryssdal is delighted with the result. Listen here to Ryssdal’s conversation with Dessa and the rap she came up with. Jimmy Kimmel tweeted a video (under 2 minutes) of the reaction of various federal monuments hearing the news that the nasty guy was gone and Biden is president.

Many blessings

I watched the inauguration today. Yay! We as individuals and the nation together survived the nasty guy years! He’s outta there! I’d be happy to never write about him again (beyond noting his funeral). Alas, there’s still an impeachment trial to get through and write about. I am very aware that 400,000 of us didn’t survive. I’m also aware the danger is not over and we should not be complacent. I appreciated the message Joe Biden gave today. He did a fine mix of remembering those who did not survive, stressing what needs to be done, the importance of doing this together, and trying to urge us to do so. I was quite impressed with poet laureate Amanda Gorman, who presented a wonderful poem for the occasion with an amazing amount of poise for someone so young. A video of her recitation and a few more details about her are here. And Lady Gaga had quite the gown. Others mentioned she turned and gestured to the dome at the words “and the flag was still there” as a reminder that the attack two weeks ago did not succeed. I watched the livestream through NPR (no commercials! though the commentary could be a bit lame). After a break for lunch and at the start of the parade (“President Biden heads to the White House”) I turned NPR back on. They had no commentary and seemed to have found the worst possible camera angles. For a long time they looked up the street to the bands waiting there with a fat traffic pole in the middle of the shot with the pedestrian walk/wait signal. They still looked up the street as the band passed by. So I tried C-SPAN. After the commercial they showed the vehicles of the parade and their stopped position in some drive and not only no commentary, but no sound. Back to NPR. As before bad camera angles (what should I expect from a radio network?), though we could see Biden was walking down the street and not in any of the cars stopped in whatever drive C-SPAN was showing. They got to the White House and repeatedly passed behind big shrubs (from the camera’s view). When the Bidens got to the front door of the White House and turned to the crowd Joe was hidden behind some other network’s cameraman. I wanted the NPR camera person to take a few steps to the right. NPR paused for a while so I went back to C-SPAN. They were showing the nationwide virtual Parade Across America. But again, no sound (yes, I checked my browser settings, and the sound was plenty loud during the commercials). So on to CNN. The bottom quarter of the screen is filled with their banner. Then nattering commentary as I watched Harris walk down the street in front of the White House to her office in the neighboring building. Back to NPR. I think they’re showing the common feed from the virtual parade. The camera work is much better. I enjoyed this Parade Across America, little moments with groups across the country doing their thing. I enjoyed the diversity of people and the diversity of talents they offer. And I enjoyed the hope and enthusiasm they shared. The Parade did a few highlights of heroes. My favorite is the history teacher in Austin. Back in July, when she knew the fall semester would be online, she hit the road. She conducted class from historic sites, explaining why the site was important. For example, she talked about the end of the Revolutionary war by saying it was in the bay right behind her where the French landed to cut off the British. I was back on NPR for most of the evening celebration. Again, this was the common feed. The advantage of NPR was during the commercials the show went to another act, so I saw more of the program than those who watched NBC. Though I usually don’t care for popular music I enjoyed (most) of this one. Most of the songs were about togetherness and hope. I especially liked the lyrics to the song Tug McGraw and friends sang from Nashville. The image of Joe holding (who I’m assuming is) his great grandson was nice to see, as were the fireworks at the end. Though I’m quite aware this evening’s show (and much of the day) was designed to evoke particular feelings, I feel a lot more hopeful tonight than I did in the last four years. Many blessings on Joe and Kamala. I have hope you’ll be able to meet our dire needs. News of the day (and from those still open browser tabs)… Dr. Rachel Levine has been named to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. Her list of accomplishments make her sound like a wonderful choice. There another big plus: She’s transgender. She’ll bring an important LGBTQ voice to discussions on health. But will that cause confirmation problems? A GOP controlled Senate has already confirmed her for three previous jobs. Two years ago the House quickly passed HR 1, a comprehensive package to protect voting rights, shed some light on dark money, and add a few ethics reforms for public servants. When it went to the Senate Moscow Mitch made sure it only gathered dust. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported HR 1 is back and with it is S 1. The top name on the bill is Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It will get a vote. It will also force GOP senators to vote for or against democracy. And if too many of those senators still want to vote against it, this could be the issue that ends the filibuster. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported a likely reason why Moscow Mitch is no longer defending the nasty guy and has been saying his vote for conviction is undecided. The reason is big donors are demanding a break with the nasty guy. Eleveld wrote:

McConnell, who has never really liked Trump, may be legitimately angry over the violent mob Trump sicced on congressional lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike. But he's also sure gotten some monetary help in getting there. And given the choice between continuing to endear himself to Trump and securing the cash to help him win back the Senate majority? Sorry Trump, you lose.

While I’m pleased with this extra pressure for the nasty guy’s accountability, it was this donor cash that got the nasty guy installed. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed virus mutations and does a pretty good job of explaining how they happen. I’ve already heard of a new strain from Britain that is more infectious, though maybe not more deadly. I’ve already heard that strain has shown up in Michigan, one county to the west of me. There is yet another variant ravaging Manaus, Brazil, already a COVID hotspot. And this one is a bigger concern. That’s because the variation is a difference in the spike protein. This protein is what allows the virus to enter a cell and subvert it to making more copies of it. This is also the protein the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines mimic to prompt the body to produce antibodies that can disable the real virus if it ever shows up. But if this variant is different enough that antibodies don’t fit the new spike protein, the vaccine no longer works. A virus that has time to mutate is a consequence of not getting it under control. If America, Brazil, and a few other countries had taken care that their citizens didn’t spread the virus it wouldn’t have time to mutate and perhaps make the vaccine useless in the time it took to develop and test it.

Looking at the kooks and missing the danger

I spent two evenings writing my commentary on the latest episode of Gaslit Nation then took an evening off. And the browser tabs kept opening with interesting articles. I’ve closed a few of them but have more than a dozen I’d like to mention. I didn’t get to them all and will face whether to close them or save them for a future day. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported the National Rifle Association has filed for bankruptcy. It has also announced it will move to Texas to be “free from the toxic political environment of New York” and where the rent for office space is cheaper. Hunter of Kos discussed police who allied themselves with the insurrection.

Law enforcement agencies around this country are dens of racism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, and fascism. This has been true, and has been known, forever. The duties of the job naturally attract not just those individuals who most want to protect their communities, but those who salivate over the prospects of using violence under cover of law, either for personal pleasure or to enact an agenda that requires violence to maintain. If you're an American fascist, there's no better place to be than in a position where you are allowed to brutalize your enemies with the nearly assured backing of peers and some of the most powerful organizations in the nation. And so they flock in, often in such numbers as to drive those with integrity out. At least 28 sworn members of law enforcement have now been identified among those who attacked Capitol Police and offices, and this number is likely to grow. … The department's own history of enabling racism raises legitimate questions as to whether some officers allied themselves with the invading fascists. The installation of dozens upon dozens of Trump-loyal authoritarian incompetents raises more. We are likely to learn a great deal about the true fragility of our government in coming months, and it is likely to be horrifying.

Mark Sumner of Kos told the stories of some of the particularly heroic cops and what they did during the insurrection, such as the black cop who led rioters away from the open Senate door, giving them time to close and lock it. Sumner contrasted those heroes with the cops within the ranks of insurrectionists. He then concluded:

The insurgents didn’t need to fire a shot. Thanks to some of the assistance they received, they barely broke a sweat. And at the same time, other officers were fighting, being injured, and even dying to hold the same line that white supremacist cops were willingly surrendering. That’s not something that can be solved with sensitivity training. That’s something that demands a purge—and indictments. There is no greater threat to the life of a police officer, white or Black, than racist police officers within their own ranks.

Sulome Anderson, a journalist, quoted a Buzzfeed article:

The officer said that many of the widely spread images of smiling marauders, wandering the halls dressed in absurd costumes, had the effect of downplaying how well prepared some of the rioters were to overtake the building, and even to capture and kill Congress members.

Anderson added commentary:

Shaman and his band of weirdos were 100% a distraction from the trained militia terrorists, who were not in costume. Please stop letting this furry neo-Nazi make you take what's happening less seriously. … The real terrorists were much less visible, obviously, but still--everyone was looking at the kooks and missing the danger. Shows how these people understand and effectively manipulate the media. Please, journos, don't fall for this s--- again.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that many businesses and, more importantly, the US Chamber of Commerce are pulling away for GOP lawmakers who supported the insurrection. And a Republican who has lost the Chamber is in a deep hole, even though there is a lot of dark money flowing into GOP coffers. Let’s hope this squeeze of the seditious members lasts long enough to make a difference. Joan McCarter of Kos reported on a few legal scholars that studied the Constitution and say a person can be impeached and convicted after leaving office and disqualified from running again. One reason is to handle the case of the president committing a crime, resigning before impeachment, and then running again. Meteor Blades, in his night owl column for Kos quoted Fred Wertheimer at Medium:

Among other fundamental problems Trump has caused is the grave damage he has done to our democracy and the legitimacy of our elections, Trump has conned tens of millions of Americans into believing, through his blatantly false claims and lies, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through massive voter fraud. Some Republican state officials already are using Trump’s Big Lie as cover to pursue new laws to make it harder to vote—in other words, new voter suppression laws.

There are 25,000 National Guard troops in Washington right now. The area they are protecting has been closed. That means no nearby restaurants. So how are they being fed? Jessica Sutherland of Kos reported that Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen have taken on the job. To do that he has been paying local restaurants that are open to make the meals. A lot of winning all around. Sutherland included photos and videos. Yeah, Andrés and his Kitchen are the ones who keep popping up at disasters with tasty food. His first big story was a few years ago in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria. Laura Clawson of Kos wrote it is hard to fix our democracy if we don’t understand the problems. Clawson turned to political scientist Douglas Amy and his website Second Rate Democracy. It lists 17 ways America lags behind other major Western democracies. Clawson noted a few things in Amy’s introduction. Some of those are: * Demnark is the only one that appoints Supreme Court justices for life. * None have anything like an Electoral College that allows the minority of voters to win. * They use different voting systems that make gerrymandering impossible. * None have a Senate like ours where the 40 million voters in 22 states get 44 Senate seats while the 40 million Californians get two seats. * They all rely much more on public money for campaigns, not private money. A thread from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg:

A guy came to the sage Hillel & (obnoxiously) asked him to teach all of Torah on one foot. Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to others: this is Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn.” If you wouldn’t like it if a policy was applied to you, don’t pass it. It’s so straightforward and yet US policy has been propagating this other thing for... well, centuries. Definitely decades. Most certainly the last four years. Don’t want a mass shooter in your office? Don’t want to be placed in horrific detention because you’re trying to keep your family safe? Don’t want to lose everything just because you get sick and can’t afford the healthcare bills? Huh. No, I’m not done feeling fury at those who were perfectly fine as long as the leopard was eating everyone else’s faces, just as long as the leopard never ate theirs. … Notably Hillel’s formulation is negative—don’t do what you wouldn’t want. Does not presume (as the Golden Rule does) that you know exactly what another person DOES want (how to find out? Ask them!) but rather that you have a basic understanding of harm and how not to cause it.

David Rothkopf tweeted:

The death toll from Trump's biggest lie (COVID) & from Bush 43's big lie (Iraq) are the same. Let's not forget that the lies, terrible policies & inhumanity of the last 2 GOP administrations cost so much & let's not think Bush's is any less because his admin cost us Iraqi lives.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held a 13 minute COVID memorial service between the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial. Already, he has done something sorely needed his predecessor refused to do. I didn’t watch it live. Most news sources have videos of just a couple minutes of the service. Here’s a site with the whole thing.