THE OWLS' NEST - Mostly U.S. Politics
I don't know if this story is apocryphal or not, but a reporter was talking to Michael Jordan:
REPORTER: Do you think your Chicago Bulls from the '90s could beat Lebron James and today's Lakers?
JORDAN: Yes, I do.
REPORTER: What do you think the score would be?
JORDAN: I think we'd win by two or three points.
REPORTER: Oh, so you think it would be close -- how come?
JORDAN: Well, most of us are in our 60s now.
Did you think QAnon was crazy? They're just getting started. What happens when your predictions about Trump bringing "The Storm" on Inauguration Day, sending the Clintons, the Obamas, Pelosi, Schumer, and numerous others to the gallows or Guantanamo Bay all turn out to be nonsense?
You double down on the nonsense, of course! More craziness from the wingnut crowd, discussed in Digby's article at Hullabaloo, "QAnon lives on."
Here's an excerpt:
According to a report from Vice, the latest theory being passed around by right-wing extremists is based upon writings from members of the fringe “sovereign citizen” movement and a unique interpretation of American history.
As the Vice report notes, “Sovereign citizens believe that a law enacted in 1871 secretly turned the U.S. into a corporation and did away with the American government of the founding fathers. The group also believes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt sold U.S. citizens out in 1933 when he ended the gold standard and replaced it by offering citizens as collateral to a group of shadowy foreign investors.”
“Over the weekend, QAnon groups on Gab and Telegram, where most QAnon supporters have found a home since they were kicked off Twitter and Parler was de-platformed, commenters have been sharing documents describing the 1871 act, claiming it proves that Trump will be sworn in on March 4,” the report states. “The source for this date is the fact that 1937 was also the year when inaugurations were changed from March 4 to Jan. 20 — to shorten the lame-duck period of outgoing presidents. QAnon followers believe that Trump will become the president of the original republic, and not the corporation that they believe the 1871 act created.”
Cults can live on, even when their predictions have not taken place; cultists' longing for their fantasies to come true is unquenchable:
In the early 19th century, New York farmer and Baptist preacher William Miller preached that the return of Jesus Christ was imminent. His prophecy was based largely on his study of the biblical book of Daniel. His interpretation led him to conclude, initially at least, that Christ would return sometime between March 1843 and 1844. When March 1844 passed without the appearance of Christ and his angels in the sky, Miller picked another date —April 18, 1844—which also slid by without cosmic incident or divine intervention. A follower of Miller’s, Samuel Snow, proposed a third date in October, but the Day of Judgment had still not arrived. The Millerites were understandably disillusioned. One member, Henry Emmons, wrote that he had to be helped to his bedroom, where he lay “sick with disappointment.”
You would think that three false prophecies, collectively known as the Great Disappointment, would be the end of the Millerites. To be sure, some members did leave to join the Shakers, but others began to reinterpret the prophecies about the end of days. One group began to argue that they were only partly wrong. The prophecies weren’t about the Second Coming and end of the world but, rather, about the cleansing of a heavenly sanctuary. It wasn’t an earthly event, it was a heavenly one, and this explained why, to us mere humans, it might appear that nothing had happened. It was out of this group that the Seventh Day Adventist Church arose. Today the Seventh Day Adventist Church has between 20-25 million members. They are, according to Christianity Today, “the fifth largest Christian communion worldwide.”
Where does Tucker Carlson fit into this narrative? Turns out our friend Tucker believes that Biden and his authoritarian friends are trying to turn Americans into slaves by controlling their minds -- telling them that the QAnon stuff is a pack of lies! There's the true enslavement, stifling free thought! QAnon devotees are entitled to their opinions!
Tucker claims that society is profoundly “changing right before our eyes” and the proof is in the denouncing of a batsh*t crazy Republican conspiracy theory movement.
“The threat is from an idea. It’s called Qanon,” Carlson said.
Tucker tells his rubes that if he doesn’t defend QAnon, then tyranny will prevail over our democracy.
Oh, and by the way, remember how QAnon people embraced the Seth Rich and the Pizzagate stories? Well, even worse, now they're believing Frazzledrip. (And if you don't know what that is, you're in luck -- you're better off not knowing. Don't look it up.)
Here's an excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter, posted on January 22, 2021. It's a concise description of the filibuster, with a short history and the situation facing the Senate today, when McConnell wants the Democrats to promise not to kill the filibuster. They won't, because they don't have the votes (West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is opposed), but they want to continue to threaten to do it to prevent Republicans from abusing the process: If the Democrats declare they won't kill it, the Republicans can filibuster to their hearts' content:
The other story from today with a long history behind it is that the Senate is currently unable to organize itself because Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is insisting that the Democrats commit to leaving the filibuster intact. The filibuster is peculiar to the Senate, and is a procedure designed to draw out the session to prevent a vote on a measure. It is an old system, but it is not exactly hallowed: it was a bit of a mistake.
The Constitution provides for the Senate to pass most measures by a simple majority. It also permits each house of Congress to write its own rules. According to historian Brian Bixby, the House discovered early on that it needed a procedure to stop debate and get on with a vote. The Senate, a much smaller body, did not.
In the 1830s, senators in the minority discovered they could prevent votes on issues they disliked simply by talking the issue to death. In 1917, when both President Woodrow Wilson and the American people turned against the filibuster after senators used it to stop Wilson from preparing for war, the Senate reluctantly adopted a procedure to end a filibuster using a process called “cloture,” but that process is slow and it takes a majority of three-fifths of all members. Today, that is 60 votes.
From 1917 to 1964, senators filibustered primarily to stop civil rights legislation. The process was grueling: a senator had to talk for hours, as South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond did in 1957, when he spoke for 24 hours straight to stand against a civil rights act. But the need to speed up Senate business meant that in the 1960s and 1970s, senators settled on procedural filibusters that enabled an individual senator to kill a measure simply by declaring opposition, rather than through the old-fashioned system of all-night speeches. The Senate also declared some measures, such as budget resolutions, immune to filibusters. Effectively, this means that it takes 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to get anything--other than absolutely imperative financial measures-- done.
In 2013, frustrated by the Republicans’ filibustering of President Obama’s judicial nominees and picks for a number of officials in the Executive Branch, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) prohibited filibusters on certain Executive Branch and judicial nominees. In 2017, when Democrats tried to filibuster the nomination of Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch, then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, as well.
The filibuster remains in place for legislation.
The Democrats currently have no plans to try to kill the filibuster altogether—they do not have the votes, as Joe Manchin (D-WV) has openly opposed the idea and others are leery—but they want to keep the threat of killing it to prevent McConnell and the Republicans from abusing it and stopping all Democratic legislation.
This impasse means that senators are not organizing the Senate. New senators have not been added to existing committees, which leaves Republicans in the majority in key committees. This is slowing down Biden’s ability to get his nominees confirmed.
What’s at stake here is actually quite an interesting question. While the new Senate is split evenly—50 Democrats, 50 Republicans—the 50 Democrats in the Senate represent over 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republicans represent. The filibuster means that no legislation can pass Congress without the support of 10 Republicans. Essentially, then, the fight over the filibuster is a fight not just about the ability of the Democrats to get laws passed, but about whether McConnell and the Republicans, who represent a minority of the American people, can kill legislation endorsed by lawmakers who represent quite a large majority.
We are in an uncomfortable period in our history in which the mechanics of our democracy are functionally anti-democratic. The fight over the filibuster might seem dull, but it’s actually a pretty significant struggle as our lawmakers try to make the rules of our system fit our changing nation.
Charlie Pierce, in an article at Esquire, gives the following quote from Politico:
Many Democrats argue that having the threat of targeting the filibuster will be key to forcing compromise with reluctant Republicans. They also believe it would show weakness to accede to McConnell’s demand as he’s relegated to minority leader. “Chuck Schumer is the majority leader and he should be treated like majority leader. We can get shit done around here and we ought to be focused on getting stuff done,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “If we don’t, the inmates are going to be running this ship.”
Shep Smith left Fox News on October 11, 2019 (he started with CNBC on July 8, 2020). He left Fox two weeks after an ugly incident with Tucker Carlson, who brought on a guest who said Fox’s Andrew Napolitano was a “fool” for analysis offered on Smith’s show. Smith said on the air that Carlson’s attack was repugnant.
According to Heather Cox Richardson:
On Tuesday, Shepard Smith, a reporter who worked at the Fox News Channel until 2019 and who now has a show at CNBC, explained to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour why he left his job at the FNC. " I believe that when people begin with a false premise and lead people astray, that's injurious to society," Smith continued, "and it's the antithesis of what we should be doing."
"I don't know how some people sleep at night,” Smith said, “because I know there are a lot of people who have propagated the lies and have pushed them forward over and over again, who are smart enough and educated enough to know better. And I hope that at some point, those who have done us harm as a nation — and I might even add as a world — will look around and realize what they've done. But I'm not holding my breath."
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
The famous "basket of deplorables" speech. Hillary Clinton said those words on September 9, 2016. Jason Miller, senior communications adviser for Trump’s campaign, responded “Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans."
I knew Hillary had opened a can of worms, and at the time I thought she had been a bit too extreme. Around that time, there was controversy swirling around David Duke's support for Trump -- Trump denied knowing who David Duke was, which was a lie. Trump for years had been flirting with the idea of running for president. On February 13, 2000, in an interview by Matt Lauer of NBC, he declared he would not accept the nomination of the Reform Party for president. There was this exchange:
LAUER: “When you say the [Reform] party is self-destructing, what do you see as the biggest problem with the Reform Party right now?”
TRUMP: “Well, you’ve got David Duke just joined — a bigot, a racist, a problem. I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party.”On February 26, 2016, Trump was interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper:
TAPPER: “I want to ask you about the Anti-Defamation League, which this week called on you to publicly condemn unequivocally the racism of former KKK grand wizard David Duke, who recently said that voting against you at this point would be ‘treason to your heritage.’ Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?”
TRUMP: “Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.”
Later in that same interview came the following exchange:
TAPPER: “Okay. I mean, I’m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but --
TRUMP: “I don’t know any — honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”
Anyway, back to Hillary's "basket": As I said, I thought at the time that Hillary's comments were too extreme, and that she could have deflected a lot of the barrage of criticism directed toward her by simply acknowledging that "half of Trump’s supporters" was an overstatement, and that she meant that a smaller number, including the David Duke supporters and their ilk, were to be included in the basket.
I was wrong. Looking back, I realize now that Hillary had nailed it, and that indeed half of Trump's supporters were a "basket of deplorables." Trump got 74 million votes in 2020 (Biden got 81 million). If half of those votes were from the "basket of deplorables," then Trump got around 37 million votes from Republicans who could be considered more or less decent people. If you exclude the "deplorables," Trump got 37 million votes, compared to Biden's 81 million.
Click here for an article by Jennifer Senior, NYT opinion columnist, entitled "Good Riddance, Leader McConnell." It starts out:
So tell me, Mitch, in these, your final hours as Senate majority leader: Were the judges and the tax cuts worth it?
Were they worth the sacking of the Capitol? The annexation of the Republican Party by the paranoiacs and the delusional? The degradation, possibly irremediable, of democracy itself?
Those close to him say that Mitch McConnell has his eye on his legacy, now more than ever. But I wonder whether he already understands, in some back bay of his brain where the gears haven’t been ground to nubs, that history will not treat him well.
Here's another quote:
He’s methodical in his scheming, awaiting his spoils with the patience of a cat. So if hitching his wagon to a sub-literate mob boss with a fondness for white supremacists and a penchant for conspiracy theories and a sociopath’s smirking disregard for the truth meant getting those tax cuts and those conservative judges … hey, that’s the cost of doing business, right?
It's well worth the time it takes to read it. It's a ferocious take-down of McConnell and what's left of the once-proud Republican party.
Here's a quote from The Independent:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the deadly mob attacks on the Capitol earlier this month and said the riots were “provoked” by President Donald Trump during a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon.
“The last time the Senate convened, we had just reclaimed the Capitol from violent criminals,” Mr McConnell said. "The mob was fed lies, they were provoked by the president and other powerful people...But we pressed on. We stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation, not even for one night."
McConnell has been reported as being apoplectic with rage at the desecration of his beloved Capitol building, where he has worked for the last 40 years. He's been distancing himself from Trump, and this latest episode could indicate that he might vote against Trump in the impeachment hearing. If he does, you can bet he's not doing it as a lone wolf: He will have spoken with Senate colleagues to influence them to vote the same way.
Trump could get convicted in the Senate -- hope springs eternal!
Click here for an article by Digby at Hullabaloo entitled "Bill Barr tries to save his reputation."
On December 15, 2020, Barr published his resignation letter, A Salon article characterized the letter this way: "The letter itself was over-the-top in its obsequiousness, lavishing the president with praise for everything he takes pride in and lashing out at his favorite targets, such as the Russia investigation."
Here's most of the letter:
Your record is all the more historic because you accomplished it in the face of relentless, implacable resistance. Your 2016 victory speech in which you reached out to your opponents and called for working together for the benefit of the American people was immediately met by a partisan onslaught against you in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds. The nadir of this campaign was the effort to cripple, if not oust, your Administration with frenzied and baseless accusations of collusion with Russia.
Few could have, weathered these attacks, much less forge ahead with a positive program for the country. You built the strongest and most resilient economy in American history — one that has brought unprecedented progress to those previously left out. You have restored American military strength. By brokering historic peace deals in the Mideast you have achieved what most thought impossible. You have curbed illegal immigration and enhanced the security of our nation's borders. You have advanced the rule of law by appointing a record number of judges committed to constitutional principles. With Operation Warp Speed, you delivered a vaccine for coronavirus on a schedule no one thought conceivable — a feat that will undoubtedly save millions of lives.
Digby's Hullabaloo post reminds us of just how terrible Barr's term as attorney-general was, and how obsequious he was to his boss.
Here's a graph of Trump's TV interviews as president -- 0 for CNN; what looks like around 150 for Fox -- something like 10 times the number of all other network interviews in total:
Click here for an excellent collection of articles (linked to podcasts) of how the election unfolded -- before, during, and after -- as seen from inside the Trump campaign.
Beginning on election night 2020 and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol with two weeks left in his term. This Axios series takes you inside the collapse of a president.
Episode 1: A premeditated lie lit the fire.
Trump’s refusal to believe the election results was premeditated. He had heard about the “red mirage” — the likelihood that early vote counts would tip more Republican than the final tallies — and he decided to exploit it.
Episode 2: Barbarians at the Oval.
Trump stops buying what his professional staff are telling him, and increasingly turns to radical voices telling him what he wants to hear.Episode 3: Descent into madness ... Trump: 'Sometimes you need a little crazy.'
The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.
Episode 4: Off the Rails: Behind Trump's post-election meltdown.
The linked podcasts will add to the series as events progress; episodes will be released each Monday, beginning on Jan. 18.
Click here for an article by Daniel Dale, Toronto Star/CNN journalist who has emerged as an untiring chronicler of Trump's lies, entitled "The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump's presidency."
Here's a Steve Schmidt interview on Frontline -- an hour and 17 minutes, and well worth the time spent.
(I finally found out how to embed a video into my blog! Hooray!)
Click here for Trump's hectic schedule. Guess what?
President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.
Jack Holmes wrote in Esquire on January 19, 2021:
For the last 16 days now, the public schedules issued by his White House have read as follows: "President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings." For a week before that, it read: "During the Holiday season, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls."
From Digby at Hullabaloo:
Adam Schiff said this in his closing arguments in the Impeachment trial in the senate:
“We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.”
Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager, who has since repudiated his membership in the Republican party, made a harsh attack today against the Republicans planning their palace coup on January 6, with their shock troops, the Proud Boys, leading the attempted putsch outside the Capitol. Here's what Steve has to say about it, in a multi-tweet blast:
2021 will be a hard year in the life of the American nation. There is a great struggle that lies before us, and our disbelief at its arrival must not blind us to the lethal danger it poses to the American experiment.
The poisonous bounty of Trump’s catastrophic presidency is ready for harvest, and the whole world will get to watch his seditious antics play out during a joint session of Congress on January 6th. It will play out as a farce and it will fail. Nearly 100 years on, America will have its version of the Beer Hall Putsch.
The danger lies in the act, not the outcome. We are in a dangerous moment, and I’d like to try my best to explain how I see it.
Before I start, there is an important matter of fact which unfortunately needs restating. Joe Biden won the presidential election decisively. The election was free, fair, and legitimate. There is no evidence of any widespread fraud. Allegations of fraud are premeditated lies being made by a rancid assortment of Trump’s stooges and propagandists. With the exception of a few of the more addled House GOP members like Louis Gohmert, every single House Member and every US Senator that participates in denying this reality, and thus the legitimacy of our election, does so as a cynical act which they know for certain has no legitimate basis.
Such actions are a grievous sin against American democracy and a brutal betrayal of their oaths of office and duty. They will be desecrating the blood sacrifices of 13 generations of American patriots of all creeds and origins who died so that our children could be free. They are fighting to maintain the power of a defeated president against the sovereign will of the American people as lawfully exercised under the Constitution of the United States.
They are fighting to establish a tyranny. They are deliberately poisoning faith and belief in American democracy. Democratic republics cannot survive such a collapse. The system is rooted in the willingness of one side to cede power to another at the will of the people. There are no other systems of government that are free except for this type.
The legitimacy of that system is being strangled by Trump's lies and the lies of his movement. That movement is an autocratic one with fascistic markers. It is hostile to the American Constitution, the rule of law, and the highest ideas and ideals of American liberty.
January 6 will be a historic day in America. The battle lines will be drawn. The autocrats will step forward into the light. They will include a majority of the House GOP Conference. After the 6th, Kevin McCarthy will be the leader of House Autocrats and Liz_Cheney will be the Leader of House Conservatives. They will include a substantial number of GOP Senators and almost all of the known GOP Presidential aspirants.
The Rubicon will be crossed on the 6th. The ruthless and amoral cynicism of Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator James Lankford, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator John Kennedy, Senator Mike Braun, and Senator Josh Hawley will be on appalling display.
It must be opposed fiercely. It must be recognized for what it is. Another storm is gathering in the constant struggle between liberty and her enemies. Trump has unleashed the furies and has found his following. It will be a long fight. At the hour of his defeat and defenestration, Trump has done his greatest damage. This is a movement that is fueled by lies, conspiracies, corruption, greed, extremism, racism, grievance, resentment, cynicism, and a profound absence of love for America.
It is right to feel anger and contempt towards its leaders and enablers. There is only one proposition that America’s pro-democracy coalition can offer to these people: “We win - you lose.” It’s that simple. Sedition is the precise word and the right word to describe what we have been witnessing. Never before have so many American leaders betrayed their country. We will watch their eternal disgrace on live TV. The evidence of their ignominy will exist forever as will the memory of their monumental betrayal. Shame on them all.
Click here for a post entitled "Third-graders write letters to God with some very important questions, and they're adorably innocent."
