The right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy”

I finished the book Following the Equator by Mark Twain. Through more than 700 pages and with lots of photos and drawings he describes his year-long trip around the world. The trip may have started in Southampton, England, which he doesn’t mention until the end and doesn’t include the trip across the Atlantic and across America. Most of the book is his visits of several months each to Australia, India, and South Africa. He also describes visits to Fiji, New Zealand, and Mauritius. He couldn’t go ashore in Hawaii because of a cholera outbreak. He took this trip in 1895-96 to give lectures, which was a major source of income. In the book he rarely mentions the lectures and doesn’t describe what he said. At the beginning of the book he mentions the date but not the year. He does mention seeing a lunar eclipse on September 4, and an online NASA catalog showed an eclipse on that date in 1895. In each place he describes his travels by train and ship and includes encounters with locals and descriptions of local customs and history. A regular travel book. When an incident jars his memory he’ll tell a story about something that happened in England or America. Along with that he includes much praise of the indigenous people and some condemnation of the European colonizers. Some of the highlights of the story: His condemnation of the Queensland, Australia slave trade. South Pacific islands were raided to supply workers for the sugar cane fields of Queensland. This is brutal work. The only good thing is the slavery was for three years rather than life. Twain says the Australians claim the experience “civilized” those they enslaved, but such “civilization” didn’t last long. That doesn’t mean the freed men returned to savagery, but that the definition of civilized was meaningless. Twain tells the story of Cecil Rhodes in Australia finding a newspaper clipping in a shark that told of impending war. The shark had come from England a lot faster than a ship could. Rhodes used the information to make himself rich. In South Africa he talks again of Rhodes, texplaining about how much he ruled over the country, both in and out of the government. So I looked up Rhodes in Wikipedia. It talks about how much Rhodes was involved in the formation of the De Beers diamond company, which became close to a worldwide monopoly. The man created Rhodesia and is buried there, though modern locals aren’t too happy about that. Wikipedia also says there is evidence to say Rhodes was gay. The page mentions Twain writing about Rhodes in this book then adds a footnote saying the story of the shark was not true. Yup, not all of the stories and incidents Twain tells are true (a shark that visits both England and Sydney in a week?). And that’s not really a surprise, though it leaves one wondering which stories were not true. In India Twain describes over many pages the Thuggees, a group that worshiped a god that demanded they murder. They committed many (tens of thousands?) in the early 1800s. Twain credits the British for stopping the Thuggees, and goes on to say that’s why the British rule of India was a benefit. He takes a train trip into the Himalayas. That was nice. What was better was the trip down. It was by handcar where the only control was the brake. The 35 mile downward ride was the delight of the year. I enjoyed the book, though by the end I felt it was too long. It does have a lot of Twain’s dry humor and I’m pleased at his support for indigenous people, who in his telling don’t seem so backward and inferior as the white people justifying colonization claimed at the time. During 2025 I read 44 books. Lake Superior State University released its annual list of words that should be banished for “mis-, mal-, over-use, or general uselessness.” 2026 marks the golden anniversary of the list. This year’s offenders: 6-7, that popular phrase that has no meaning. Massive, for incorrect use and overuse. Incentivize, where motivate should be enough. Full stop, where a period should be enough. My bad, an infantile way to apologize. And for general overuse: Demure, Cooked, Gifted, Perfect, and Reach out. This year LSSU included a list of repeat offenders, words that refused to stay banished. Banished three times is the phrase, At the End of the Day. Words and phrases banished twice are: Absolutely, Awesome, Game Changer, and Hot Water Heater (water already hot doesn’t need to be heated, it’s just a water heater). At the start of last week Jacob Wendler of Politico reported that a dozen staffers of the Heritage Foundation, the people who created Project 2025, left that group and went to Advancing American Freedom, which was founded by former vice nasty Mike Pence. Those that left were the heads of the legal, economic, and data analysis teams and several members of their teams. The reason for their departure stems from Tucker Carlson airing a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes in October. Fuentes is a strong antisemite. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation stood by Carlson’s decision to interview Fuentes. Several conservative voices rebuked Roberts. That turned into an internal squabble at HF, with some saying antisemitism has no place there and others saying only so much dissent is permitted at HF. Some reports imply those who left HF were terminated, others say the departures were voluntary. Even so, an HF spokesman seems glad they’re gone and replacements will make them stronger. However, the infighting is reverberating through the Republican Party. Kate Plummer of Newsweek explains the situation in more detail and used the headline “The Heritage Foundation is Imploding.” I would be delighted if the Heritage Foundation fell apart. But I’m skeptical it will happen soon. Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Republican strategist Marc Short, who is also described as the chairman of AAF. Short described the HF story from the AAF viewpoint. He went on to describe general conservative goals. As a part of those goals Short complained about the government “picking winners and losers.” They want “a limited role of government in the economy and allowing the marketplace to thrive.” My first reaction to that is they want limited government because government protects the little guy. And I guess “thrive” now has a definition of making money any way they can, including fleecing customers and polluting the environment. My second reaction goes back to a post in November where I discussed late-stage capitalism. Democracy and capitalism exist together only when democracy tightly controls capitalism. Short is saying an important part of conservatism is rejecting those tight controls and letting capitalism continue to its end stage where billionaires control everything. Alas, conservatives have a few key phrases they repeat whenever they can and media, including NPR, don’t delve into what is meant by that. The way conservatives say it limited government is a good thing. But, as we’ve seen in the last year, limited government in practice means no consumer protections (goodbye CFPB), no environmental protections (goodbye EPA), and no safety net for the poor (goodbye affordable care act premium support). And Inskeep didn’t delve into that. This seems to fit right in. Two weeks ago Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series of Explaining the Right wrote about Why Republican scandals and misdeeds get a pass. I’m sure I’ve written many times of something the nasty guy or Republicans did and note that if Biden or Obama had done them they would have been quickly impeached and convicted, while Republicans remain unscathed. Willis gives other examples of other Democrats who faced tough scrutiny that sometimes ended their careers for things that were much less severe than what Republicans now commit seemingly daily.

Why does this happen, and with such regularity? The mainstream media has an institutional bias towards both-sidesism, which is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties and the related liberal and conservative movements engage in outrages at the same pace. This simply isn’t true by any objective measure.

Another reason is that for over six decades the right has relentlessly been “working the refs,” hitting the media with false allegations of bias. The media now consistently rolls over for the right – yet still gets attacked for bias. A third reason is the right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy.” They remained outraged over liberal misdeeds with more noise and for a longer time than the left can maintain over conservative misdeeds. I’ll add a fourth reason – many mainstream media outlets are owned by billionaires or others who have a large stake in conservative goals. So they’re inherently biased. Willis wrote that media companies can take things only so far. They fail when Americans can see the truth with their own eyes. Right now no amount of spin can mask the problems in the economy. At the top of today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included a photo of the midnight swearing in of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City. It was done a subway station that’s no longer used that leads directly into City Hall. It’s a pretty location. Mamdani had a second swearing in, this time during the day, on City Hall steps, and with the public able to attend. Kev quoted Hayes Brown of MSNOW discussing the many artists who have canceled gigs at the Kennedy Center, especially after the nasty guy added his nasty name to the building. Ric Grenell, president of the Center, called these artists “far-left political activists.” Brown wrote:

Grenell essentially accusing performers of being performative illustrates an utter lack of understanding about the arts and audience. It’s as though his mind cannot fathom why an artist might decide to withhold their work from certain audiences at certain venues. And as though there is not a rich tradition of art as protest in this country, either in boldly staging performances calling out injustice or in shunning stages that demanded segregated audiences.

Then Brown discussed Grenell’s focus on “sound fiscal policy.” He wants arts that actually sell tickets and make a profit. That misses the point of arts. It is why most arts institutions, including the Kennedy Center, are non-profit. Arts are important whether or not they make a profit. The Nation magazine reposted a 2015 essay from Toni Morrison that gives another reason for what Grenell is really up to.

Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists. 3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.

In the comments is a tweet by Prof. Peter Hotez:

Year One MAHA: 1. Measles returns to America 2. Pertussis returns to America 3. Chronic hepatitis liver cancer returns 4. Pandemic preparedness gone 5. Swung & missed on autism 6. CDC disassembled 7. Biotech industry shutting down 8. Brain drain underway.

I see that as more oppression by the wealthy. Those near the top of the social hierarchy and most invested in their position make their lives appear better by making the lives of others worse. Killing others off through unrestrained disease is one way to accomplish that goal. That tweet was followed by one by Dan Diamond. It includes a link to a Washington Post article that is the source and includes a way for a person to look up the stats of their own county. Diamond wrote:

5 million-plus kindergartners now live in counties where schools don’t have “herd immunity” for measles, Washington Post reporters found.

A comment by pelagicray lamented the destruction of the federal executive branch, which included...

That came with significant deaths, many infant and children deaths, from USAID shutdown so chaotic medicine and food went bad in warehouses rather than into a final distribution. That is on us. We let it happen. While many of us voted for the good, collectively it is on all of us. A piece in the U.S. Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health notes

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

After all that something light and sweet. Rund Abdelfatah, host of NPR’s Throughline brought to All Things Considered and 8-minute segment on the history of chocolate. The link also has a transcript.

Yeah, he knew it was illegal

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated Wednesday. I get the data here. The current status chart on that page includes current totals. Through the full course of the pandemic (since cases started showing up in March 2020), over 2.5 million people have tested positive. The state’s population is 10 million. So a quarter of the state has tested positive (yeah, I know this ignores the people who have tested positive from two or more different infections). The number who have died is over 36,600. The peaks in new cases per day might be reaching a plateau. For the last few weeks the peaks are 3398, 3046, 2198, and 2331. Many numbers likely adjusted from previous reports. Deaths per day is not getting posted quickly. The data for last week shows deaths in single digits. But the week before is now in the range of 9-14. Thankfully, the ten weeks before then the deaths per day have been 22 or fewer. Brandi Buchman of Daily Kos liveblogged Thursday’s hearing of the January 6 Committee in two posts, here and here. The primary focus of this day of testimony was to show the pressure placed on the vice nasty to overturn the Electoral College vote counting. In late December and early January several people, lawyers, legal scholars, and lawmakers, told the vice nasty his role in the EC vote counting was a formality. He could not interfere in the counting. Some of the Committee’s proceedings documented who said that to the vice nasty. The proceedings also showed how much pressure the vice nasty was getting from the nasty guy and those supporting the insurrection. John Eastman was a lawyer for the nasty guy. In some of the photos of the speeches at the Ellipse before the march to the Capitol Eastman is standing to the side of the podium wearing a tan overcoat (an example here). There are also photos of him speaking at the event. On January 4th Eastman was one of those telling the nasty guy he could not recommend rejecting electors. On January 5th Eastman told the vice nasty about his plan to reject certain electors. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported a couple days after the Capitol attack Eastman asked to be put on the list of those seeking a pardon from the nasty guy. Yeah, he knew it was illegal. In a third post Buchman summarized the day. This included a discussion of how close – only 40 feet – the rioters were to the vice nasty as he was taken to safety and if the rioters were not distracted by a Capitol Policeman they would have killed him. This summary also includes a photo of the vice nasty at a place of safety talking on a phone while looking at another phone showing a tweet from the nasty guy praising the hordes as they chant “Hang Mike Pence!” Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Eastman claimed there was a “heated fight” among the justices of the Supreme Court about getting enough of them to hear one of the claims of election fraud. Eastman claimed insider knowledge (he had clerked for Clarence Thomas). Was this bragging? Threatening violence on the Capitol if the Supremes did nothing? Was he succeeding in getting some of them to join his plan? Another part of this is the revelation that the insider knowledge was coming from Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence. We knew she was pressuring Arizona legislatures to submit a nasty guy slate of electors. We also knew she had sent a series of texts to nasty guy Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. And now we know there were a series of emails between her and Eastman about what’s going on with the Supremes. If Ginni was talking to justices to get their support for this scheme the resignation of Clarence should be only the first. Sumner also reported the January 6 Committee would like Ginni to come for a little chat. She agreed to come to “clear up misconceptions.” Joan McCarter of Kos reported that with these revelations the Supremes are now in the middle of the insurrection mess.

Eastman knew what he was pushing—with help from Ginni Thomas—was illegal. Following that to its logical conclusion, with the revelations of the last 24 hours, how does the committee not subpoena Ginni Thomas? Furthermore, how do President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer not demand that Clarence Thomas resign? How do the House and Senate Judiciary Committees not turn their attention to Clarence Thomas and investigating just what Clarence and Ginni Thomas were cooking up together? ... It’s time to begin the investigations leading to an impeachment of Clarence Thomas. No, this Senate would not convict with 50 Republicans, but after the work of the Jan. 6 committee and all of these revelations, they need to be forced to vote to protect him. They need to be making the case against Clarence Thomas, and then they need to start real work of reforming and expanding the Supreme Court.

Paul Waldman, opinion writer for the Washington Post, tweeted:

Whenever I see a news story that starts "A man with connections to a violent extremist group..." it's an even bet whether the next line is "was convicted in federal court today" or "won the Republican primary today"

Leah McElrath tweeted:

Trump is not done with his destruction. He will never stop on his own. He is fueled by envy, grievances, and a desire for revenge of what he perceives as ways he was betrayed. He will never stop on his own. Instead, he must be stopped by those with greater power.

So will these proceedings prompt someone with greater power actually stop him? Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included an excerpt from Molly Ivins:

As an American living today, your one vote means you have more political power than 99 percent of all the people who ever lived on this planet. Think about it: Who ever had this much power? A peasant in ancient Egypt? A Roman slave? A medieval shoemaker? A French farmer? Your grandfather? Why throw power away? Use it. Leverage it. —November 2004

Actually, both my grandfathers were born in the US and voted quite consistently. As I was writing this the power went out – the third time this month. It likely happened because today has been windy. Fortunately, it was out for only a half minute. But that’s long enough for the computer to be shut down. So I rebooted the modem, then the computer. In the middle of rebooting the power went out again. And again for a short period – perhaps ten seconds. But this time the computer didn’t boot. Something about needing repairs, which it would attempt to do. So I let it repair. Ten minutes later it finished and said I should reboot. I did. Everything looks fine. Thankfully. I’m not ready to buy a new computer.

The reason they lie so obviously is simple: It works

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, has a couple interesting quotes. First, he quoted the title and key phrase from Perry Bacon of FiveThirtyEight”

Why Republicans Don’t Fear An Electoral Backlash For Opposing Really Popular Parts Of Biden’s Agenda Put another way: The opposition party can guarantee a lack of bipartisan support — and then criticize the president for lacking bipartisan support.

Then from Kurt Bardella of USA Today:

There is no “Civil War” brewing within the Republican Party. Sure, there are a few, and I mean a few, folks who happen to still be in the Republican Party, who oppose what Donald Trump has done to the GOP, but let’s be very clear here: They are outliers. They are the fringe. They are the exception, not the rule. For all of the talk and headlines about there being some kind of GOP “Civil War” playing out in front of our eyes, the functional reality is that this so-called war was fought and decided five years ago, when Donald Trump insulted his way to the Republican nomination.

David Neiwert of Kos wrote:

The reason MAGA-loving Republicans lie so obviously and remorselessly is really pretty simple: It works. The two most brazen falsehoods they keep repeating to justify the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection—“the election was stolen” and “antifa did it”—are in fact widely believed by Republican Donald Trump voters, over 70% of whom ardently believe the first claim, and some 58% of whom lap up the latter lie as well. And as far as they’re concerned, that’s all that matters: They have a narrative for Trump supporters to tell themselves and each other. Because that’s really the only audience for their lies that matters to them. Who cares if the rest of the world knows it’s all bulls---? ... Indeed, the two lies contradict each other narratively speaking: If the election was stolen, why would antifa want to invade the Capitol? But logical consistency is meaningless in their alternative universe. What matters most is muddying the waters so they can evade consequences for their innate violence... Conservatives—and their supposed ideology of “personal responsibility”—in fact have a long and colorful history of gaslighting the media and the public with narratives that turn reality on its head, bullies into victims, and victims into bullies. It’s how they can look the public in the eye and tell them without blinking that last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests were much worse than the Capitol siege. As Laura [Clawson of Kos] says, Republicans’ lies are all easily disproved: The reason they need so many of them is just to keep the public discourse flooded with them.

Susan Davis of NPR discussed the difficulties in the House of having 139 Republicans support objections to the Electoral College certification. That has eroded trust and affected lawmakers ability to work together. For example, Sean Casten voted no on a symbolic vote because an insurrectionist Republican introduced it. Casten said:

I have taken a decision that I'm not going to vote for things that are sponsored by anybody who gained their power through a democratic election and then voted to overturn our democracy.

Jim Jordan of Ohio accused Democrats of politicizing the Postal Service (!). That prompted Gerry Connolly to snap:

I didn't vote to overturn an election. And I will not be lectured by people who did about partisanship.

The Natural Resources Committee has banned guns in their meeting room because members don’t feel safe. Republicans accuse Democrats of installing metal detectors based on “wild conspiracy accusations.” All this during discussions of the makeup of a possible commission to investigate what happened leading up to and during the Capitol attack. It’s not going well. Pete Aguilar said Democrats see the only path to a more congenial atmosphere is for those 139 to acknowledge that Joe Biden won. Susan Davis doesn’t mention another way out of the mess: expel all 139 of the known GOP traitors. Steven Dennis, a Bloomberg reporter at the Senate, tweeted a link to a Washington Post article about how the Democrats could gut the filibuster if they’re too reluctant to end it. I can’t read the article without subscribing. But Dennis and commenters reported what’s in the article or offered other suggestions. * Instead of 60 votes to end a filibuster (where 39 of those senators could be in Cancún), require 41 votes to keep the filibuster going and require those votes daily. * Require an actual filibuster – being on the Senate floor talking, even if reading from a phone book. Ian Millhiser of Vox discussed the history of the filibuster, how frequently the rules for it change (five times in the last ten years), and offers a few other ways to reform it. One of these is to make fewer bills subject to the filibuster, as is now done for budget reconciliation bills. In a post from a couple days ago Joan McCarter of Kos discussed a voting rights suit before the Supremes. Oral arguments before the court were actually yesterday. McCarter reviewed what the suit is about. The Voting Rights Act of 1964 had five sections and two of them are the important ones. Section 5 required states with a history of voter suppression (such as the South) had to get clearance from the Department of Justice for any changes they made to their voting laws. That included such things as where and how many polling places there would be. The Supreme Court overturned Section 5 back in 2013. The Court said the important part, Section 2, is still intact, so everything is cool. Along the way Chief Justice John Roberts listed ways something similar to section 5 could be passed by Congress and please the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sharply dissented, saying it is one thing to prevent voter suppression from happening, quite another to elect people to office while building up proof that there is voter suppression going on. Section 2 is the core of the law. A voting procedure cannot deny or abridge the right of a citizen to vote based on race. If a voting law impacts one racial group more than another it is illegal. And that is what is before the Court. Arizona passed a couple voter suppression laws. The 9th Circuit Court struck them down. Arizona appealed to the Supremes. And there are 250 voter suppression laws in 43 states waiting to see how this case goes – to see how this conservative court will handle it. Democrats are pushing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It would reinforce the original VRA, supply a replacement for Section 5 (following what Roberts had written), and do several other things to strengthen democracy. But to get it passed, Democrats will have to reform or eliminate the filibuster. The GOP will not contribute any votes to the JLVRAA. Then they would have to implement Supreme Court reform to prevent the Court from overturning it (we know the GOP will get it before the Court). Will Democrats do it? After the Supremes heard the case (ruling to happen by the end of June) Tyler Bishop tweeted:

This literally just happened at the Supreme Court: Justice Barrett: What is the interest of the GOP in keeping (laws that suppress minority voters) on the books? Republican Lawyer: It puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game.

Leah McElrath responded:

Saying the quiet part out loud on voter disenfranchisement.

Replying to McElrath Lost In Thought added:

And they’ve said it before, many times! What is wrong with Dems’ messaging that Republican atrocities don’t seem to reach the public?

And RO97 wrote:

Remember, any time you see one of these "quiet part" tweets, there is no quiet part anymore. There doesn't need to be, unless and until Dems hold Republicans accountable for their conduct and statements.

Yeah, I’m back to using “vice nasty” because he seems to have gotten over having been the target of the mob wanting his head and is back to saying dangerous stuff. He wrote an op-ed about the John Lewis voting law and lied about the Constitution along the way. Leah Litman tweeted:

On some level, it's like "lol. Sir ... can I introduce you to the elections clause and the 15th, 19th, 24th, & 26th Amendment???" But on another level, this underscores that ANY democratic-led efforts to protect the right to vote at the federal level will be immediately challenged in federal court on constitutional grounds -- and have the backing of GOP political elites. That creates the real possibility that federal courts would invalidate democratic-led efforts to protect the right to vote, and it's something that dems need to be taking seriously.

Kno, whose Twitter bio says producer & songwriter, tweeted a response to the news of the Texas governor ending the mask mandate:

Can't imagine how unvaccinated retail, service etc. workers in Texas feel right now. Their jobs are about to be packed to the gills with maskless s---heads breathing on them solely to make a point -- when we're mere months away from vaccinating anyone who wants it. "wHAt AbouT thE BusinESSes" -- if the Texas government simply took care of their own we wouldn't be having this conversation. If you push two people in the water you don't get a pat on the back for simultaneously tossing one life jacket and one metal anchor on their heads.

Kno ended the thread with an image of dinosaurs watching the approaching comet and saying, “Oh, s---! The economy!!”

The Republican Party likes the direction it’s heading

I tend to do a lot of news reading while on my exercise bike (at least when it is too cold to exercise outside – high today was 22F). A lot of what I read this morning was news from yesterday. So I’ll summarize based mostly on yesterday’s news. Mark Sumner, Laura Clawson, and Joan McCarter of Daily Kos are liveblogging the impeachment trial proceedings, posting a few sentences when something important is said. For the last few days they created four posts a day this way. Yesterday was the first half of the prosecution making their case. Here are some of the major points they made. They talked about the series of ways the nasty guy summoned and incited the Capitol attackers. They documented the provocation. That’s the Big Lie that the election was stolen, the “stop the steal” campaign, and the command “fight like hell.” That last part included where, how, and when. The provocation began last May. There were the words of the attackers, saying they were there because the nasty guy commanded them to be there. There were videos of protests against election counting in various states, all linked to nasty guy tweets and statements. They showed how the nasty guy rhetoric escalated over time. They talked about the various methods the nasty guy tried to overturn the election results by legal means. They talked about him calling the Georgia Secretary of State to demand he find more votes. They talked about Mike Pence doing his job in defiance of the nasty guy – here’s an example of a Republican defying the nasty guy so you can too. They reminded senators that the nasty had attacked fellow Republicans for being “weak.” He isn’t interested in them beyond what they do for him. Reporter Ben Collins tweeted a top post on TheDonald on January 5th. It shows a member of Congress with two choices: “Certify Trump” and “Get Lynched by Patriots.” Click on the image for a full view. They showed videos with Capitol floor plans to show how close attackers got to members of Congress, especially Pence, and how Capitol Police diverted Sen. Mitt Romney from the attackers. They showed the narrow timing between when the nasty guy tweeting about Mike Pence and when the attackers took up the chant to hang Pence. They talked about multiple Republicans pleading with the nasty guy to call off the attack because they knew he was the only one the attackers would listen to. If you don’t want to wade through all that Mark Sumner provided a summary of the day. A phone call from the nasty guy to Sen. Tuberville puts a timestamp of 2:15 on Pence being taken from the Senate chamber. Implying the Capitol had been breached. By 2:24 the nasty guy had tweeted that Pence was a coward, urging the attackers to go after him. That tweet was read in real time over a bullhorn, prompting the crowd to take up the chant “Hang Mike Pence.” At 2:26 Pence was hustled down the stairs and to safety. Hunter of Kos reported on research from OpenSecrets showing the nasty guy campaign paid at least $3.5 million to those organizing the attack. At least $50 million was spent on the “Stop the steal” campaign. We don’t know the full amount because the nasty guy campaign used shell companies to hide how it was spending money. Case Michel tweeted that there are plenty of questions about who financed the attack. Where there people besides the nasty guy campaign who were giving money? Because of finance secrecy rules we may never find out. Even with all that evidence from the first half of the prosecution’s arguments Laura Clawson reported the GOP senators are still working hard to come up with excuses. Such as: Yeah, the attack was horrific, but you didn’t really show the nasty guy was behind it. Or: Yeah, he did it, but he’s already out of office. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported another reason why GOP senators are looking for excuses is GOP legislators in statehouses are standing by to punish any senator from their state who doesn’t vote for acquittal. The example is Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who became the 6th GOP vote to approve the Senate can try a president who has already left office. Cassidy isn’t worried – he just started a six year term and this vote will hopefully be forgotten in 2026. Another reason why these GOP senators are looking for excuses: They want to be able to finish the job the nasty guy started. John Stoehr and his effort to explain politics to the rest of us tweeted a thread about the excuses the GOP senators are giving:

Turns out, the Senate Republicans saw the truth before the Republican National Committee later issued “talking points” telling them no, they do not see the truth. Nothing the president did that day was inciting, the RNC said, according to [Aaron] Blake [of the Post]. That raises an interesting question for a democratic republic such as ours. If the Republicans have gone blind to the truth because they want to go blind to the truth, how on earth are Democratic impeachment managers supposed to get them to see? The Democrats presented and will continue to present a pretty damning political case demanding Trump’s disqualification from holding public office. How do you beat a pretty damning political case? You say, actually, I don’t see it that way at all. You lie.

Leah McElrath tweeted something similar:

This #ImpeachmentTrial is providing the @GOP with an off-ramp from Trumpism, white supremacy, and fascism. It’s an OPPORTUNITY for them, and they appear to have NO plans to take advantage of it. The Republican Party likes the direction it’s heading. Pay attention to that fact.

Murshed Zaheed tweeted:

Unless the Ds bring in the arrested insurrectionists as witnesses who are on record that Trump incite them, they are not conducting a serious trial giving them a chance 4 conviction. Videos, socmed posts are not enough. Folks are desensitized by now. If the leadership of Democratic Party - on both ends of Penn Ave - want to maintain their credibility wrt their words of holding the lead perpetrator 1/6 insurrection vs US accountable- they need to call for witnesses. Otherwise, they are complicit in letting Trump get away w it.

The vote for whether to call witnesses won’t be until next week. GOP senators of course don’t want witnesses. As for Dems, I’ve heard why drag this out any longer if enough GOP senators are going to acquit anyway. The answer to that is the need to be thorough in documenting what the nasty guy did. Anthea Butler tweeted:

For all the rancor in this country surrounding white supremacy, racism, covid, etc, there is a spirit of the age that says "let's move on" without dealing deeply with the broken trust and dereliction of responsibility of lawmakers, and others in leadership. No one wants to take responsibility or be held accountable for their words or actions that have spawned violence, conspiracy theories and lies. Even when those actions imperil lives. This refusal to take responsibility, to own up to faults and actions, is going to haunt us in so many ways and creates the conditions for all of these things to happen again. It's as if the ugliness that was spawned can just be swept under the rug until it burst forth again. This country is trying to emerge from something akin to domestic violence. We're being shown the violence by the House Managers in Graphic detail, but Republicans would have you think that nothing happened, and "we'll never do it again", while protecting the perp.

Another story on how the GOP is sinking in public opinion. This one is by Eleveld of Kos. Those having a favorable view of the GOP is down by six percentage points since November. That is due to GOP voters leaving the party. The favorable view of Dems has gained a couple points, mostly from independents. Wrote Eleveld:

Historically, the party that initiates impeachment proceedings takes a political hit. But Trump and his flagrant efforts to subvert the will of the people have proven to be historically unpopular, and Democrats are actually gaining in popularity due to their efforts to hold Trump accountable and safeguard American democracy. Republicans, on the other hand, are sticking with Trump no matter the consequences because they simply can't imagine a world in which they have to appeal to anything beyond white identity to win elections.

An opening salvo

The assault on the Capitol had a happy ending. The attackers were cleared out and Congress resumed business. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed how close this were to turning out much worse. Some of the things Sumner noticed: Senate staffers had started to evacuate, then went back for the box containing the Electoral College votes. What if, in their desire to flee, they hadn’t? Even if the attackers made a bonfire of the box and its contents, there are duplicates at the National Archives. And all fifty of them would have been challenged as not the “real” votes. Some members were still sheltering in place when attackers tried to smash through doors of the House. Capitol police got everyone out. But what if there still a few stragglers? They could have become hostages. There were plenty of zip ties at the ready. Or if they were part of the Democratic leadership – or the vice nasty, now seen as a traitor to their cause – they might have been dragged to the gallows that had been erected outside. Three explosive devices were found outside the Capitol. What if one had been inside and not found in time? When the nasty guy began to summon his mob to the Capitol a popular hashtag was #CrossTheRubicon. Sumner concluded:

That statement represents the understanding that Trump’s supporters had even before they left for Washington, D.C.—the understanding that what they were doing was attempting not to save the republic, but to end it. To replace the idea of a democratically elected leader with a self-justified dictator. America should not be complacent that they did not succeed. This time.

Leah McElrath linked to a thread by Faine Greenwood:

just gonna reiterate how *possible* it was yesterday that we’d have had to watch Pelosi and Schumer get murdered by a mob on a Twitch stream.

The McElrath responded:

VERY possible. They brought massive quantities of zip ties—you do that when you’re planning on forcibly restraining people. They were armed. They targeted the offices of the people they hated the most. They urinated, defecated, vandalized, and stole for purpose of defilement.

Greenwood included a quote by House Majority Whip James Clyburn in a radio interview:

My office, if you don’t know where it is, you ain’t going to find it my accident. And the one place where my name is on the door, that office is right on Statuary Hall. They didn’t touch that door, but they went into that other place where I do most of my work, they showed up there harassing my staff. How did they know to go there? … So something else was going on untoward here.

The nasty guy tweeted that he won’t attend the inauguration. It was one of his last tweets because Twitter has now banned him, as has Facebook and Instagram. McElrath quoted that tweet, then turned to a tweet from j.d. durkin:

Trump supporters continue to harass Sen. Graham at Reagan airport this morning — horrifying new reality in our country.

I’m sure that harassment was because Graham recently said that it is time to move on and accept Biden as president. McElrath responded:

Do these sound like people who think it’s over? Do they sound like people who have received a cease and desist message from their cult leader? Or do they sound like people who think they’re just getting warmed up?

In another thread she quoted Dr. Kate Antonova who wonders if the attack this week was “practice for the 20th when Biden & Harris are the targets.” McElrath added:

Exactly. One of my big concerns is the possibility (I would suggest likelihood) that the attack on the Capitol was an opening salvo, not a main event.

Then she wonders if the nasty guy won’t be at the inauguration because he knows something is planned and is avoiding the danger. Jonathan Ladd, a professor of Public Policy and Government, tweeted:

One thing political scientists have found is that failed coups are often followed by successful coups. Sometimes by the same person, sometimes by someone else.

David Cay Johnston responded:

Right and Trump wrote yesterday "this is just the beginning."

Never Again Action, Jews and immigrants acting to abolish ICE, tweeted:

1923: Hitler’s failed coup No real consequences No fundamental changes 1933: Hitler takes power. Consequences Now: 1. Impeach and convict Trump 2. Expel the coup participants 3. Abolish the Electoral College

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called on the vice nasty to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the nasty guy. If not, she will move forward with impeachment. She declared justice will be done. Soon to be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has issued a similar statement. Joan McCarter of Kos added:

With Schumer set to be majority leader in a few weeks, the threat of an impeachment has real teeth now that he's in a position to make it happen. Because Trump can still be impeached and convicted after he's left office on Jan. 20. Not only can he be impeached, he should be. He wants to run again in 2024, he wants to continue to lead an insurrectionist mob into a second civil war. He must be barred by conviction from having any future in public life.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the nasty guy is seething because some White House aides are weighing resigning. Some have, though they are mostly inconsequential. One that is of consequence is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose resignation was reported on Michigan Radio. Invoking the 25th Amendment depends, of course, on the vice nasty. Hunter of Kos described the 25th Amendment, then reported:

All of this, then, relies on Vice President Mike Pence agreeing that fomenting acts of sedition amounts to unfitness for office. Though widely described to be upset at Trump's actions, perhaps in largest part due to the physical danger it put Pence's own family in during the breach of the U.S. Capitol, Pence has made no indication he does not stand by Trump even now. He is allegedly refusing calls from House and Senate leaders asking him to consider the matter. At this moment, Pence continues not just to protect Trump, but to enable further acts by Trump to stoke violence. If that does not change then all further talk of removing Trump via the 25th Amendment procedure is irrelevant.

Those cabinet members who can vote to approve the nasty guy’s removal are the ones who have received Senate confirmation. Many of the existing crowd are merely acting secretaries. DeVos has resigned, as has Elaine Cho, wife of Moscow Mitch. I haven’t heard of others. McElrath tweeted:

Cabinet members resigning now are cowards, escaping to avoid invoking the 25th Amendment. By their leaving, they’re further endangering us. We’re going to be left with Trump wandering the WH halls with the nuclear football surrounded only by family and lacking ALL constraints.

Lori Brass added:

So. The solution for this most dire and urgent crisis we’re currently in, is to look to the sycophantic cowards who’ve done nothing but enable a sociopath for 4 years, and wait for them to grow a spine, a clue and a conscience and remove said sociopath?

Yesterday I noted the Senate is in recess, and did so in a way that is not easy to call them back. Then I didn’t notice why it was strange. I heard today that the House is also adjourned. Here’s the strange bit: Why does it make sense to adjourn the day after a coup attempt? How can they impeach when they’re adjourned? Brittney Cooper tweeted:

I am tired of liberal white complicity with this bulls---. Why didn’t y’all expel the fools who protested the vote? Why didn’t the house impeach the president? Why are you recessing when their was a coup attempt yesterday? Why are you leaving a madman in power?!

Versha Sharma responded:

Yesterday should have shaken all members of Congress to the core - I know it did for some - but how is it possible that they are adjourning right now? At this moment in time? The House doesn’t have to follow Mitch McConnell’s lead. I am absolutely gobsmacked at this. If you are a member of Congress pushing for action - like Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar did immediately yesterday - please update the public on why nothing is happening today. It’s shocking. I’d assume Dems would be in absolute organized uproar over this; it’s the least they can offer.

Sarah Kendzior tweeted about the adjourned Congress:

What are they going to do when another attack happens? What are they doing to hold the perpetrators and enablers accountable? What are they doing for the people of the United States, who are not only dealing with domestic terrorists but mass death in a pandemic?

I’ve again heard that Pelosi is doing just enough to make us think she’s on our side. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that nasty guy supporters gathered at a few state capitols while the attack in Washington was going on. There were protests in Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Olympia, and Lansing. Capitols in Santa Fe and Austin were closed. There were threats in these places. But since they weren’t actually attacked, the media seemed to think these were no big deal. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the FBI is asking for help in identifying those who attacked the Capitol. Einenkel is one of many online who have identified several. When one is anti-mask, one doesn’t wear a mask, meaning the whole face is visible and recognizable in the many selfies and videos posted to social media (“Look at what I did!”). Posting to their own account is also a clue. Most of Einenkel’s post is naming perpetrators. William C. tweeted:

Lives have been neglected and lost to the tune of countless dead. It will take studies to actually count how many people have died as a result of this pandemic. But it took things getting to the point of an attack on the Capitol to make some people say 'enough.' How can you have any respect for a country that tells you your life amounts to nothing?

1 in 1,000

Meteor Blades of Daily Kos quoted Elimy Cochrane of the New York Times who reported that the nasty guy signed the spending bill that provides some virus relief and funds the government through September. The signing was described as “abrupt” and “sudden.” Nobody expected him to sign and then he did. Blades went on to report the nasty guy demanded a list of changes to the bills, including raising the $600 relief checks to $2000. These demands will go nowhere – the Senate GOP isn’t going to raise the relief checks and we’re in the last week of this Congress. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, also quoted the NYT:

But [the nasty guy’s signing] also came after two critical unemployment programs lapsed, guaranteeing a delay in benefits for millions of unemployed Americans.

The states have to rework their computer systems to account for the lapse and restart, which could take a couple weeks. In some states recipients will have to reapply. Also, there was a date given for the end of federal benefits, which is now ten weeks instead of eleven. Joan McCarter of Kos has an overview. Ryan Struyk of CNN tweeted:

1 in 1,000 people in the United States have now died from coronavirus. US population: 330,752,923 US deaths: 330,844

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweeted about the day the Electoral College votes will be accepted by Congress and the possibility that some GOP members will try to challenge the tally:

If Trump has anything resembling "a plan" right now, it's to cause massive political chaos and violence on January 6, as a pretense for God knows what. Not signing the relief bill, and jacking up anguish and despair, would fit right into that evil scheme, unfortunately. To be clear about the Jan. 6 date, I think there's zero chance Trump could get a positive result in Congress. What I'm worried about is violence in the streets of D.C. (which he's encouraging) as a pretext for his 11th-hour Pentagon lackeys to try and send in troops.

Then a series of threads by Ben Franklin. First, responding to New York Magazine that tweeted “It’s not going to succeed.”

A little early to declare that it hasn't succeeded until Biden is in office. If January 6th passes without any major incident the chances of that happening go up. But Trump himself calling his followers to DC for that date is not a great sign.

Then, in response to a nasty guy tweet of that call, he tweeted:

I think it's an effort to intimidate Congress, I think the previous rallies were building momentum and infrastructure for January 6th. Does he intend for them to do something beyond merely showing up? We don't know yet. Seems to be a coordinated effort to get people there:

That last bit quoted a map of someone organizing caravans of “patriots” from Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, and Boston and points along each route. And a third thread:

There will definitely be some violence in DC. It’s normal for people to get stabbed at these rallies now. What we want to avoid is lots of people getting hurt, which will only inflame the general situation. I’m worried that the bad guys need this to happen. The worst case scenario IMO is some sort of false flag attack on the Trump supporters attending, to blamed on antifa of course. That would send the whole situation into dangerous territory. Given that Trump et al are perfectly willing to use their own supporters as a vector to worsen the pandemic, I’m not under the impression that these guys are pro life enough to not hurt their own for political gain.

Mark Felt replied:

There’s too many people on both sides that think standing in the streets taunting and blind siding each other is the way to solve the years of deceit AND the left WILL lose when you have the DC police backing the right.

Hunter of Kos reported that while COVID cases soar and the nasty guy is causing chaos in national politics and inviting chaos to come to Washington … the vice nasty, head of the COVID response team, is on an extended ski vacation with his family. He’ll appear in Washington to preside over the acceptance of the Electoral College vote on January 6. That same day he is scheduled to leave the country for a tour of the Middle East and Europe. In other words: hiding. We found something he’s good at.

The most secure election in American history

Jessica Sutherland of Daily Kos reported that the members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee and members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council issued a joint statement saying:

The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. … There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

The bold font was in the statement. And all of five GOP senators reluctantly admit the nasty guy lost. Jane Mayer tweeted a photo of a sign montage put up on the White House fence. The three largest parts say “Loser,” “Failure,” and “You’re fired!” That statement by the GCC hasn’t yet stopped the lawsuits. Joan McCarter of Kos reported one was filed in Georgia to stop the certification of the vote in certain counties. It claims there is “evidence that sufficient illegal ballots were included in the results to change or place in doubt the results of the November 3, 2020 presidential election.” Those “certain counties” are, we’re not surprised, predominantly black counties. Can’t keep black people from voting? Figure out how to not count their votes. Hunter of Kos wrote the joke is now on the vice nasty guy. He has been the loyal second banana of the nasty guy, heaping praise, staying oblivious of crimes and incompetence, chaired the coronavirus task force to make sure nothing got done. He did it because the VP frequently gets the party’s nomination when his boss leaves the scene. Except the boss is now contemplating a comeback in 2024 (even while he refuses to concede in 2020). The vice may be loyal to the end, but the boss never was. Hunter wrote:

Whether he follows through with [running in 2024] or not, that means every Republican who has devoted themselves to Trump for the last four years now has their own presidential ambitions on hold, full stop—or they will be considered an enemy of Trump and Trump's base. Mike Pence can't run for president until Donald Trump gets out of the way, and nobody has ever, in history, been able to pry Donald Trump out of the way when Donald didn't want to go.

Does this mean the nasty guy will eventually go quietly, lick his wounds, and try again rather than attempting a coup? Various sources don’t trust that idea. Dr. Tom Frieden tweeted:

From first case reported in US, took 96 days to reach 1 million. Then 1 to 2 million-44 days 2 to 3 million-27 days 3 to 4 million-15 days 4 to 5 million-17 days 5 to 6 million-22 days 6 to 7 million-25 days 7 to 8 million-21 days 8 to 9 million-14 days 9 to 10 million-10 days

The pastor of my church sent out an email this afternoon saying there will be no in-person service on this Sunday (two days from now). The virus case count has gotten too high. The service will only be livestreamed. I’ve been expecting this for a while and somewhat wondering why he didn’t do it a couple weeks ago. The email said he will be talking to church leadership on Tuesday about what to do about the following week and beyond. A member of my church bell choir called me. What about Monday rehearsal? Since there are only six of us and we’re masked and well spaced, might we continue anyway? We are planning to play for the morning service in a week. If the service is online what do we do? I will have to call the pastor for a long conversation. John Stoehr, who writes a newsletter about politics in plain English, tweeted a thread. Excerpts:

Trump won the white vote, and lost. Again, with feeling—he won the white vote, **and he still lost**. It wasn’t close either. The president won 58 percent of white voters, a demographic that constituted 67 percent of all voters, according to Edison Research exit polling for the Times and other news outlets. ... Bottom line: Donald Trump [bet] everything on racism, and he lost.

I compute 58% of 67% to be 39%. All those white people who voted for the nasty guy are only 39% of the total vote. He’d need to get 74% of the white vote to guarantee a win. Stoehr reviewed that racism is what got the nasty guy in power in 2016. He included a quote from Jamelle Bouie. Then he wrote:

Racism didn’t go away, of course, after the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s. It didn’t go away after the triumph of 2008. There was a sense, however, that a multiracial democratic republic had become a *permanent* fixture. “I thought this meant we had a consensus,” Bouie wrote, with a heavy heart. “It appears, instead, that we had a detente.” Perhaps it was, but the results of the 2020 election give us reason to reconsider. It’s true the president won the lion’s share of the white vote. But the other 41 percent of the white vote teamed up with huge majorities of Black voters and voters of color, overwhelming polling places, running up the popular vote to heights never before seen, making a statement that no one is seeing but should. Cosmopolitan America did assert its power and its influence in 2008. Having gotten its fill of the old weird racism, it did it again in 2020. It decided nothing was going to stop it from taking back the country. You don’t need a detente when you’ve demonstrated the power to continue winning.

From Bill in Portland, Maine’s Cheers and Jeers collection of late night commentary:

"You can tell things are already getting back to normal. This morning on my way to work I saw two New Yorkers giving each other the finger and it had nothing to do with politics. Isn't that great?" —Jimmy Fallon "Even Mother Nature got in on the fun. After the announcement there was actually a double rainbow over L.A. The Trump campaign is already trying to overturn at least one of those rainbows in court." —James Corden “So NOW Trump wants to quarantine in the White House.” —Conan O’Brien

I wish this had been available when I was a kid. It probably wouldn’t have fit in the room I shared with my brother. I was well grown before the original was a thing.

A condescending misogynist

There was a debate last night between Kamala Harris and the vice nasty guy. I didn’t watch. If you want a full recap Jessica Sutherland of Daily Kos has it for you. I skimmed through it for the quoted tweets. There was lots of talk about the fly that landed in the VNG’s white hair and stayed for a couple minutes. That prompted a tweet from the Biden campaign, which I’ll let you visit for the great photo of new campaign swag (NPR says they sold thousands). Laura Clawson of Kos wrote about Harris’s facial expressions during the debate. These are expressions that women know well, such as the one they use when they hear mansplaining. Joan McCarter of Kos summarized the debate by saying the VNG was a condescending misogynist and as big a liar as his boss. Wrote McCarter:

The morning after the vice presidential debate between current Veep Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, the lingering impression is of a patronizing and condescending Pence regularly talking over and ignoring the two accomplished women in the room. Pence repeatedly ignored questions, talked around them, and demanded that Harris not answer the questions given by the moderator, USA Today's Susan Page, but his questions. If the Trump/Biden team was hoping to make any inroads with the as-yet undecided "suburban housewives," Pence blew that all to hell. He was a more bottled-up Donald Trump, but still Trump, steamrolling the debate in a flurry of lies. He delivered them much more smoothly than Trump could, but the same blatant lies, exaggerations, and bulls*** were on full display. ... He was Trump, just a lot paler and able to speak in complete sentences.

Because the nasty guy has COVID-19 the debate commission said the next one would be virtual. The nasty guy said no. He’ll do another rally, otherwise known as a superspreader event. Biden will be there without him. It was to be a town hall event – the audience asking questions – so Biden will do that solo.

The vice, the prince, and the princess

I usually share the regular Gaslit Nation episodes and wait until the transcript is available a few days after the podcast is posted. If you want more you can follow the link. This time I am sharing one of their bonus episodes. They created this one in a hurry yesterday morning. Alas, a bonus episode is (1) behind a pay wall – one must be a Patreon/Gaslit Nation sustaining member to hear it – and (2) there is no transcript. While I prefer to work with the printed text, this won’t be too bad because it is only 23 minutes. Here’s the link anyway. This bonus episode is titled Trump has Covid! The hosts are Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. I don’t know which one is speaking when, so can’t contribute a particular idea to one or the other. First, this (whatever the outcome) will not save us. It will complicate things. So whatever you’re doing to get people to vote keep doing it. Keep to the Gaslit Nation Survival Guide (see below). Do not binge watch the demise of democracy. Keep active in protecting it. Stay grounded. If the nasty guy dies and the vice nasty takes over, the pandemic prince and princess will still be acting president. The vice nasty will remain subservient to them because he’s compromised, though we don’t know in what ways. These three are stuck with each other. The current White House is part of a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government (which Kendzior and Chalupa have mentioned several times). The nasty guy leaving the WH, by death or election loss, won’t change that (yeah, that’s saying a Biden White House won’t (can’t?) change it much). The nasty guy’s base doesn’t like the prince and they wonder how to justify him being there. All they have to go on is the princess likes him. It is the princess who has the ambition to take over this branch of the syndicate when her father leaves. She and the prince have the support of autocrats around the world. The national leader ill and in the hospital, creating a chaotic and frightening situation, is a great time for terrorists and rivals to attack. Is the nasty guy with COVID an elaborate act? Because he’s the president everyone around him – military, opponents, stock market, and many others – must act as if it was true. What a situation if we can’t trust the president to honestly tell us he is ill and who he exposed. That prompts all sorts of conspiracy theories. There are a billion ways this could go wrong. Some are taking this diagnosis as a sign of God – it will demonstrate the nasty guy is so strong he can whup the coronavirus! Don’t let the news cycle knock you around. Keep working towards the election. With an Advent Calendar of news, each door worse than the day before, people may believe the election is meaningless unless they hear from us. For those not Christian, an Advent Calendar is a decorated paper panel with little doors to be opened, one a day for each day of December leading to Christmas on the 25th. The doors reveal some sort of pleasant image appropriate for Advent and Christmas. Even if the nasty guy dies, there is still the GOP that enabled him. Vote them out too. Don’t be a spectator. Be active. There is a call to action on keeping Amy Coney Barrett off the Supreme Court. A block of six conservatives (nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote) can block any progressive initiatives. Democrats in the Senate should act like an attorney with a client on death row. They read the call to action (see below). The main point: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should lead the resistance and should act by asking what would Moscow Mitch do? Too many Democrats on the Hill are convinced that nothing can be done. They only need to delay until after the election when different dynamics will take over. Try stuff. Keep trying. Ask longtime Senate operatives what else might be done. Create legislation that takes priority. And for us: Call your senator. Call Schumer. Call Dick Durban too. In the comments Jennifer Yarrington offered some explanation of medical terms. When a doctor says an illness is “mild” it means the doctor didn’t have to intervene. One could be exhausted by putting on socks, but without a need for intervention that is still “mild.” Moderate means the doctor had to intervene. Severe means one needs a ventilator. So if the nasty guy’s case is called “mild” he could still be really sick. The Gaslit Nation Survival Guide is here. The call to action is by David Segal and Zephyr Teachout on New York Daily News. Union of Concerned Scientists offers a guide for calling senators and representatives.

His sycophants come out for blood

Mark Anderson of the Daily Kos community offers an explanation of why the nasty guy will probably not be removed from office. He answers the question: Why are Republicans defending him?

One reason congressional Republicans are defending Trump is that he is their useful idiot. Now, this worked better when they held both the House and the Senate. But the fact of the matter is that they just need him to push their agenda without question. Trump is not smart enough to know what he is signing, and he is easily manipulated. He is the perfect patsy to sign anything they put in front of him, and will push any agenda he is given: All it takes is to praise him and stroke his ego. Feed his narcissistic fire, and he will do whatever you wish.

They fear him. Look at how quickly Trump turns on anyone who speaks out against him; and when Trump turns on someone, his sycophants also come out for blood. Congressional Republicans fear this, as it could put them in the position of being primaried for their seats, or losing their seats to a Democrat in a general election. Looking at Trump’s polling numbers, I do question why they continue to fear him: He is increasingly unpopular across the country, and his lack of popularity is hurting Republicans more than it helps them.

Another example of why the GOP fears him – consider Rep. Justin Amash, when he called for impeachment, how quickly he was pushed out of the GOP. He’s now running as an independent with lots of GOP candidates running against him.

And another. Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida was troubled by the Mueller Report and even more troubled by the Ukraine scandal. Rooney talked about his feelings to colleagues. That prompted House GOP leaders to deputize fellow lawmakers to monitor Rooney, meaning they started spying on him. They also started a whispering campaign that made Florida GOP officials mad at him. That’s even though Rooney hasn’t said anything official about impeachment yet.

More from Anderson:

Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans are compromised by foreign actors just as badly as Trump is.

Anderson follows that with the news that Devin Nunes is compromised. Olga Lautman wonders why the mainstream media is surprised by the news that Nunes is dirty. Lautman concludes her Twitter thread with:

Bigger question is why Graham, McConnell, and others involved in protecting Trump/Putin have not been exposed. Peeling away Trumps loyalist layers would have left him vulnerable and defenseless to destroy America and democracy.

Sara Kendzior, responding to Devin Nunes being caught in the Ukraine scandal, tweeted:

They don't mind being caught, they mind being punished. Learn the difference. Trump and his backers have been committing crimes with impunity for decades. They get off on it.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat responded:

Exactly. Breaking the law openly is part of the thrill of holding power. It is a different mindset- the authoritarian ruler’s mindset.

Through it all what is the vice nasty guy doing? Hunter of Daily Kos has a colorful way of putting it. The VNG is “the master bootlicker” for the reelection campaign. He’s to be the opposite of the hate being spewed at nasty guy rallies. Hunter wrote:

Relax, Mike Pence is there to say. I am as holy as Jeebus Himself, and if I can put up with all Trump's criminal acts, grotesque public behavior, and lifetime of treating anyone and everyone with open, seething contempt, then you can swallow the jagged shards of your folksy pride, put on your best brown shirt, and vote for Team Asshole. He's rude, but he's racist. What more do you people want?

There’s another reason why the VNG be kept at a distance – in case the nasty guy really is removed, he is Plan B.

He's been there the whole time, but didn't see a thing and didn't know about any of the, you know, unpleasantness. He's spent the entire administration polishing himself as Plan B, should Plan B ever become needed.

Getting him out of Washington strengthens his bogus claim that he didn’t see a thing.

Core impeachment

Earlier this week Rachel Martin of NPR’s Morning Edition talked to Neal Katyal about his new book Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump. Katyal is a law professor at Georgetown University and a historian of the Constitution. The audio is 7 minutes or one can read the web story.

Back in 1787 when the Constitution was being debated some founders were concerned about having an impeachment clause. We have elections. That’s the way to check an abusive president.

James Madison responded: What if you have a president who gets help from a foreign power? What if you have a president who cheats and puts his own interests above the American people?

Madison’s argument changed minds and the impeachment clause was inserted.

Which means what the nasty guy has done and is doing is core impeachment.

So how to define what is impeachable? Some thought a president could be impeached for bad administration or bad policies. That was rejected for something much higher. The phrase actually in the Constitution is “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” We forget those first two words are there. And what happened in Ukraine is bribery, plain and simple. It is core bribery. It is an impeachable offense.

We even get help from the vice nasty guy, words he spoke when he was in Congress back in 2008. He laid it out clearly. He said a high crime is when the president puts his interest over the interests of the American people. Is the president acting in the nation’s interest or is he acting in his personal interest?

Very clear. And with this Ukraine story, very obvious.

So I wonder why the vice nasty guy now supports the nasty guy. Actually I do know why – his supremacist urges are really strong. He wants to inherit a supremacist organization when the nasty guy is no longer there.

False modesty, fraudulent piety, mendacious purity

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has noted a conflict in current progressive thinking.

On the one hand, lots of lefties imagine that Bob Mueller is going to save us by personally frog-marching Trump out of the White House, but, on the other hand, they're simultaneously anticipating that Trump will be the nominee in 2020.

And running against the nasty guy will be quite different than running against the vice nasty guy. For example, Bernie Sanders looks reasonable when running against the nasty guy. But the VNG will look reasonable compared to Bernie. McEwan expands:

Where Trump is all bombast and braggadocio, Pence is all affected humility and false modesty. Where Trump wears his malice on his sleeve, Pence conceals his malice behind a delicate veil of fraudulent piety. Where Trump blasts vulgarity, Pence softly transmits mendacious purity. Where Trump is a one-man-band of obscene self-congratulation, Pence is a snake quietly slithering through the grass, hoping to arrive unannounced at the seat of power.

McEwan says she doesn’t expect the nasty guy to be forced out of office. She can’t envision a scenario in which both the nasty guy and the VNG are forced out. So, even though the chance might be small, the Democrats can’t assume who their opponent will be.

Life after coal

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the likely collapse of the coal industry. Mark Sumner used to be a coal company executive and now writes for Daily Kos. He reviews the steps the nasty guy is taking in hopes of bringing back coal jobs. Sumner shows again why that isn’t going to happen – after a peak in 2007, coal consumption has dropped 40% and is at 1979 levels. Sumner includes a graph that shows this well.

In contrast, Arthur Nelson, writing for Huffington Post discusses the coal industry in Spain. The last of its mines will close later this month. Spain’s government is paying the equivalent of nearly 300 million dollars over a decade in compensation to miners, retrain the workers for low-carbon jobs, restore the environment.

But workers say that isn’t much money per worker per year. Workers are skeptical the government will actually come up with the money – it won’t start to appear for perhaps six months – and that it won’t make much difference.



Steven Dennis, a reporter for Bloomberg, tweeted that members of Congress are still seeking unpaid interns to work in their offices. He also notes there are zero apartments around Capitol Hill for less than $1000 a month. An unpaid intern can’t afford that – or the intern has another source of income, such as Mom and Dad. Meaning those that can afford to be interns don’t reflect the average American.

So incoming Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has announced she will be paying her interns at least $15 an hour. She has also started publicly shaming other lawmakers, as in most of them, to do the same. I don’t have actual numbers, but it seems lawmakers have the money to pay interns if they wanted to.



Yesterday I shared a scenario in which the GOP in Congress maneuver the nasty guy out of office to install the vice nasty guy, the one who will really help to keep their party in power.

But as the VNG makes his moves behind the scenes (such as angling to install his chief of staff as his boss’s chief of staff) some of the nasty guy’s minions are starting to whisper in his ear that perhaps the VNG is a political liability and should be dropped from the ticket in 2020. It seems the one doing the most whispering is his chief of staff John Kelly. That whispering, or at least the idea that the VNG’s job is in jeopardy, has made it into the news. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville explains:

It's a public shot over the bow at Pence, warning that if he keeps coming for Kelly's job, Kelly will keep coming for his.

These sorts of internecine politics are not something that Trump is capable of managing. So it will just keep getting more toxic, until Trump impetuously picks a side, for reasons that are significantly less than well considered.

And, at that moment, whomever he chooses — John Kelly or Mike Pence — is going to get a lot more powerful. Dangerously so.

Holding him accountable

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noticed that the witnesses that have been cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller – Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Michael Cohen – seem to be getting off quit easy. Mueller recommends Michael Flynn not receive any jail time, even though in normal times his actions would be considered treason.

Then McEwan wrote:

At this point, I suspect that the biggest role the Mueller investigation has to play is to create the public rationale for Senate Republicans to vote to impeach, so they can install Pence.

As I've previously speculated, when Trump isn't of use to them anymore, they'll just get rid of him in exchange for Pence. And then they'll claim to be heroes for holding their own president accountable.

It would really be something if House Democrats, newly the majority again, drafted articles of impeachment against Trump, and Senate Republicans "reluctantly" supported the measure, but assured their base it was the right thing to do, meanwhile garnering extraordinary headlines about being ethical patriots, as they move to install an authoritarian dominionist who was on his way to losing his reelection bid for the governorship of Indiana when Manafort plucked him from the precipice of obscurity to be second in line to a dude colluding with the Russians to capture the White House.

In a month and a half, Pence can assume the presidency and still run for two more full times. Let's see what happens then.

Perhaps that is why Nancy Pelosi is saying impeachment is off the table?

Defining transgender out of existence

Parker Molloy has a Twitter thread responding to this New York Times headline:

Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence.

Molloy assures us it isn’t an exaggeration.

In earlier stages of trans debates various government agencies (mostly at the state level) required trans people to have proof of sex reassignment surgery before allowing a person to switch gender markers on gov’t documents. Most of those rules have been relaxed, relying more on such things as being counseled by a doctor.

But the nasty guy (and we’re probably really talking about the vice nasty guy (VNG)) doesn’t want to acknowledge transgender people at all. Your gender is to be based on your original birth certificate and if there is a dispute a genetic test will clear that up.

This will overturn Obama administration rules that extended civil rights protections to an estimated 1.4 million Americans. These are people the VNG believes should not have rights. This effort will negate the humanity of people.

I say the policy is from the VNG because religious rights groups have laid out policies just like this. And the policy was rolled out just after these religious groups secured another seat on the Supreme Court.

Some people are tired of hearing about “Identity Politics.” That prompted Molloy to say:

I don’t ever want to hear another word about how it’s Democrats who are “too focused on ‘identity politics.’” THIS is identity politics. The sustained attack meant to get a bunch of bigots excited to vote IS identity politics.

Molloy responds to the MAGA crowd:

And hey, I get it. A bunch of the MAGA crowd that thrives on “owning the libs” will love this. They’ll laugh, they’ll cheer, they’ll mock my fear as being nothing more than saying “orange man bad.” They’re already in my mentions doing it. Their ideology is nothing more than “Ha! It made the libs mad so this is great!” What sad, sad people. Really. Honestly, if you see this and go “Yeah, but Trump voters were angry and we have to respect that” — when what they were angry about was the existence of others, screw off. Honestly.

Rinse and repeat

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noted back in July that the nasty guy tweeted that Russia is interfering in the midterm elections to the benefit of Democrats. Yeah, we know how much he cares about the truth. However, the claim made now is a way to “prove” that the midterm elections will be illegitimate. A couple weeks ago the nasty guy was at the United Nations and claimed that China is also interfering in our elections to benefit the Democrats. No evidence is offered, but many news outlets will repeat his claim without vetting it. McEwan explains:

It may even now seem implausible that Trump would or could reject out of hand the results of the midterm elections.

But electoral challenges end up before the Supreme Court, which, you may have heard, he's currently in the process of stacking with flunkies who will reflexively rule in his favor.

So this is no joke. This is a(nother) constitutional crisis in the making, care of our authoritarian president.

McEwan discusses a new policy from the State Department. Diplomats, both American and those coming to America, who are in same-sex relationships must be married to get family benefits and, for partners of those coming here, to get a diplomatic visa.

For a while the auto industry (where I used to work) offered domestic partner benefits. Those ended when same-sex marriage became legal. Want benefits? You can now marry in the same way your heterosexual colleagues can.

So same deal here, right? Diplomats coming here can get married here. No problem!

Big problem. That marriage is likely not recognized in their home country. Only 12% of United Nations countries recognize same-sex marriage. And in a great many other countries (I think I heard over 70%) homosexuality is still a crime and sometimes punished by death.

McEwan adds the nasty guy would be totally uninterested in this sort of policy. It has the “filthy, homophobic fingerprints” of the vice nasty guy all over it.



You may have heard that Canada, Mexico, and America signed a deal for an update of NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Act (except we can’t call it that anymore). This is McEwan’s take on it:

It's a truly remarkable encapsulation of Trump's presidency: He invented a crisis, centered it within a network of lies, screamed endlessly about it, made impossible promises to his base, threw international agreements into chaos, risked our global alliances, struck a deal that was barely significant except that it's worse, rebranded the policy, then bragged that it was the greatest thing that's ever happened.

Rinse and repeat.

In 2014 the National Rifle Association spent $16 on the election. In 2016 it was $31 million on just the presidential campaign.

In 2018 it is $1.6 million.

Why such the huge drop?

They were condemned as the force behind lax gun laws that played a part in the Parkland and Las Vegas mass shootings. They’re also under investigation as the recipient of foreign, especially Russian, money, as well as the general question of where did that $31 million come from. And a Russian gun advocate cozied up to the NRA leadership and is now accused of being a spy.

Their money is drying up. Which is good news.

Gay bunny

The vice nasty guy participated in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah, GA. There may have been a security bubble around him and loyalists around the bubble, but he and the city couldn’t stop the protest signs outside that zone. And a protest group made sure there was a visible rainbow flag every time the media took a picture.

The vice nasty guy had breakfast with the Prime Minister of Ireland, who is gay. This type of meeting has happened in previous years, but this time the press was barred. So leave it to a cartoonist to imagine what was said at the meeting.

The vice and his family created a children’s book about a bunny named Marlon Bundo. Last Week Tonight host John Oliver got together with friends to created a knock-off of the vice’s book. In this second version the bunny is gay. It is selling really well with proceeds going to the Trevor Project (helpline for gay teens). Daughter Charlotte Pence said about this second book, “I’m all for it.”



The nasty guy wants a military parade. The Homosexual Agenda Steering Cabal, now that we have representation in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, has a comment on that.



The nasty guy’s team has been pushing for a new question to be added to the 2020 census: Are you a citizen? This hasn’t been asked before because non-citizens would be fearful of answering. Would answering result in deportation? Never mind the Census says personal information is never revealed. The fear is real.

This question would mean cities (Democratic centers that they are) would be undercounted. That would shrink their representation when district boundaries are drawn.

The question of whether this is a political ploy is easily answered. The nasty guy’s reelection campaign (sheesh, already?) is using it as a talking point in their fundraising efforts.



The GOP led House has passed a bill to reauthorize Homeland Security. One little bit of that bill authorizes the president to send armed Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide, supposedly to ensure the safety of those they protect while they vote. I’m sure it’s because voting is so dangerous. William Galvin, Secretary of State in Massachusetts, notes “The potential for mischief here is enormous.”



Former VP Joe Biden, in a weird attempt to stand up for women, taunted the nasty guy. Biden says he’d win that fistfight. The nasty guy, as expected, taunted right back disputing who the winner would be.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville wrote:

Women don't need men to beat up other men to defend us. We do, however, need powerful legislators to hold abusive men to account and ensure they don't, for instance, get a lifetime appointment to a court which empowers them to make decisions about our lives.

That would be a reference to Justice Clarence Thomas, whose confirmation mess was handled by Biden.



Scroll down on the Daily Kos Cheers and Jeers to watch a pretty good explanation of the gun debate using good cats and bad cats.