Yoga For Complete Beginners

Here's a 23-minute yoga workout:

Non-Representation In The U.S. Senate

It's pretty commonly known that Democrats have owned the popular vote in presidential elections for decades. If the president had been elected by popular vote rather than through the byzantine electoral college system, there would have been exactly one Republican administration since 1988. That's right: Democrats won the popular vote in every presidential election since then -- 32 years -- except for 2004, when W. defeated John Kerry, taking 50.7% of the popular vote (and 286 votes to 251 in the electoral college, the 7th smallest margin in U.S. electoral history -- and one of the tighter elections was in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but W. squeaked through in the electoral college, 271 to 266). 

It's not so commonly known that Democrats have also dominated the Senate -- Republican senators haven’t represented a majority of the U.S. population since 1996 and haven’t together won a majority of Senate votes since 1998. In 2016, the Republicans hit the trifecta, winning the presidency and both the House and the Senate -- and the 52 Republican senators represented 44.7% of the population, while the 48 Democratic senators represented 55.3%.

Click here for an article in New York magazine by Ed Kilgore, entitled "Republican Senators Haven't Represented a Majority of Voters Since 1996."

Daily Kos Elections has come up with a chart displaying the percentage of the population represented by senators from each party since 1990, along with the percentage of Senate votes each party captured (displayed in three-cycle averages, since only one-third of the Senate is up for reelection every two years):

Republican senators haven’t represented a majority of the U.S. population since 1996 and haven’t together won a majority of Senate votes since 1998. Yet the GOP controlled the Senate from 1995 through 2007 (with a brief interregnum in 2001–02 after a party switch by Jim Jeffords) and again from 2015 until 2021.

As Stephen Wolf observed in his write-up of the results, there have been consequences for this disconnect:

Five Supreme Court justices (and many more lower court judges) were confirmed by senates where the GOP majority was elected with less popular support than Democrats. Those right-wing hardliners are now poised to use their control over the court to attack voting rights and preserve Republican gerrymanders while striking down progressive policies. This same minority rule has also paved the way for massive tax cuts for the rich under George W. Bush and Donald Trump that have facilitated an explosion in economic inequality.

Thanks to the filibuster, of course, on many key measures, the 43.5 percent of voters represented by a Republican minority in the Senate have as much clout as the 44.7 percent represented by a Republican majority when the GOP won a trifecta four years ago. That’s why Democrats are trying to cram as much legislation as they can into a budget-reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered and why the parliamentarian’s ruling on the scope of that bill is such a big deal for Americans trying to survive on minimum wage.

Understanding the realities of our constitutional system means recognizing its injustices, too — along with injustices like the filibuster, which cannot be attributed to the Founders.

Congressional Medal Of Honor Recipient Rush Limbaugh, One Year Ago Today - Coronavirus Hoax

Click here for an article at Crooks & Liars by Frances Langum (Blue Gal), entitled "Throwback Thursday: Rush Says Covid Is Plot Against Trump."

"It probably is a ChiCom laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized," said Limbaugh. "All superpower nations weaponize bioweapons. They experiment with them. The Russians, for example, have weaponized fentanyl. Now, fentanyl is also not what it is represented to be."

And:

"I think the coronavirus is an effort to get Trump," he concluded. "It’s one of the latest in a long line of efforts that the drive-by media is making to somehow say that Trump and capitalism are destroying America and destroying the world."

And:

It came from a country that Bernie Sanders wants to turn the United States into a mirror image of: Communist China. That’s where it came from. It didn’t come from an American lab. It didn’t escape from an American research lab. It hasn’t been spread by Americans. It starts out in a communist country. Its tentacles spread all across the world in numbers that are not big and not huge, but they’re being reported as just the opposite. Just trying to keep it all in perspective.

Click here for Tom Sullivan's take, on Digby's Hullabaloo, on Rush Limbaugh's arrival in the afterworld. Satan figures there must be some mistake, but Peter sets him straight.

Heather Cox Richardson, February 25, 2021

Click here for Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter. Stories covered:

1. Trump tax returns and underlying documents -- millions of pages -- have been turned over from Trump's tax firm, Mazars, to Cyrus Vance, District Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Wall Street).  

2. Testimony in the House hearings into the January 6 insurrection, including discussion of the deployment of the National Guard. Also, 35 officers of the Capitol police are under investigation for their behavior on the 6th; six have been suspended. Predictably, the police union is fighting back. Security videos of Capitol tours have been turned over for investigation, to see if some congresscritters were providing reconnaisance tours for insurrectionists (or they may have been innocent tours, showing family and friends around the Capitol). 

3. Passage of the  Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill passed by a vote of 224 to 206, with three Republicans joining the Democrats.

4. The U.S. launched missile attacks against Iranian facilities in Syria. This is in retaliation for Iranian missile strikes against the Green Zone in Baghdad earlier this month. It's an indication to the Iranians that although the U.S. wants a new nuclear deal, they will not put up with Iranian military activity in the region.

5. Finally, the portion I like best:

Another development that has staying power is the attempt of Democrats to guarantee the right to vote. In the face of voter suppression legislation in Republican legislatures around the country, Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a law, called the For the People Act, to stop partisan gerrymandering, limit money in politics, and expand voting access.

This is huge.  She goes on:

The For the People Act, numbered in Congress as H.R. 1 and S. 1, would provide for automatic voter registration across the country and would require paper ballots. It would require that early voting be made available, and would expand mail-in voting. It would authorize $1 billion for upgrades to state voting systems.

Polling by Data for Progress and Vote Save America shows that the principles in H.R. 1 are very popular, across parties. Sixty-eight percent of Americans approve of the reforms in the bill. Sixteen percent oppose the measure. The items within the bill are also popular. Eighty-six percent of Americans support a plan to prevent foreign interference in our elections; 7% oppose it. Eighty-five percent of us want to limit the amount of politics; 8% oppose that idea. Eighty-four percent of us want more election security; 8 percent do not.

Seventy-four percent of us want to see nonpartisan redistricting; 11% do not. Sixty-eight percent want to see 15 days of early voting; 19% do not. Sixty percent want same-day voter registration; 29% do not. Fifty-nine percent want automatic voter registration; 29% do not. Even with the Republican attacks on mail-in voting, fifty-eight percent of us want to be able to vote by mail; 35% do not.

Democrats passed a version of H.R. 1 in the previous Congress, but then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to take it up. Now, every House Democrat supports the bill, while Republican lawmakers oppose it.

To try to stop the bill from becoming law, Republicans are launching a full-throated defense of the filibuster, a tradition that enables a minority in the Senate to stop legislation unless it can command 60 votes. Republican objections to this popular, and seemingly vital, measure will test whether the Senate will protect the filibuster or continue to chip away at it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cavalcade Of Wingnuts - CPAC Schedule

It's quite a collection, culminating with Big Orange as the final speaker on Sunday:

FRIDAY
- Florida governor Ron DeSantis
- Senator Mike Lee
- Former governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker
- Senator James Lankford
- Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi
- Senator Ted Cruz
- Rep. Mo Brooks
- Rep. Madison Cawthorn
- Senator Tom Cotton
- Sen. Marsha Blackburn
- Rep. Matt Gaetz
- Sen. Rick Scott
- Sen. Josh Hawley
- Donald Trump Jr.

SATURDAY
- Texas attorney general Ken Paxton
- Former acting director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell
- Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
- Senator Bill Hagerty
- Trade representative Robert Lighthizer
- Rep. Devin Nunes
- Senator Cynthia Lummis
- Rep. Burgess Owens
- Rep. Darrell Issa
- Rep. Andy Biggs
- Rep. Lauren Boebert
- House minority leader Kevin McCarthy
- South Dakota governor Kristi Noem

SUNDAY
- Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
- Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee
- Former National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow
- Big Orange: Trump  

Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, and Liz Cheney were not invited. Mike Pence declined; Nikki Haley says she can't make it because of a scheduling conflict.

I Like Ike! (Well, Sometimes.)

Here's a quote from a speech delivered by President Eisenhower at the Fourth Annual Republican Women’s National Conference on March 6, 1956:

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Remind you of anyone today?

Another thing I like about Ike: During the eight years of his presidency, from 1953 to 1961, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent. (It was 92 percent the year he came into office -- so I sometimes like Harry, too.)

Tucker Carlson Can't Find QAnon - I Guess It Doesn't Exist?

Click here for an article by Digby at Hullabaloo entitled "Get ready for some epic gaslighting." Tucker Carlson and his staff apparently spent a whole day looking for the elusive QAnon, and just couldn't find it:

“We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which, in the end, we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it,” Carlson said, insisting that “cable news” and “politicians talking on TV” are “the ones spreading disinformation to Americans” by talking about the existence of QAnon.

Or, as Digby opens her article:

The malignant Tucker Carlson went on TV last night and said that the QAnon conspiracy theory doesn’t exist. To be clear, he didn’t say that the conspiracy itself is nonsense and doesn’t exist. He said there is no QAnon conspiracy theory at all. In other words, it’s a liberal hoax to make right wingers look bad. The term gaslighting is thrown around too much, but there has never been a better example than that. 

There's a lot in the article. She quotes liberal blogger Amanda Marcotte concerning Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson's disgraceful performance at a Senate hearing:

During a Tuesday hearing about the security failures that led to the Capitol riot, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin unleashed a bunch of conspiracy theories denying that all those people waving Trump flags while chanting “no Trump, no peace” were, in fact, there for Trump.

Marcotte also quotes well-known felon and liar Dinesh D'Souza:

“There was no insurrection, there was no coup,” said Dinesh D’Souza, a fake historian, convicted criminal, and conservative pundit still in good standing enough to appear on Laura Ingraham’s show Fox News Tuesday night. Instead, he insisted the heavily videoed and photographed insurrection is “a false narrative” invented by liberals who want to say “Trump was presiding over all the social unrest so they could then try to blame on him.”

In case you're not familiar with the term "gaslighting":

The word “gaslighting” gets thrown around a lot, but this is very much the definition of the word. It comes from the psychology of abuse, and refers to the way an abuser might, for instance, beat his wife and then pretend the next day it didn’t happen, calling her hysterical if she insists it did. Gaslighting isn’t just lying. It’s denying an obvious truth, and insisting that anyone who disagrees is crazy or is making stuff up. It was a favorite tactic of Trump’s, who kicked off his presidency by gaslighting the nation about the size of his inauguration crowd. And now it’s being used by his allies, to argue that the evidence of our own eyes and ears isn’t real.

The MAGA crowd don't deny it was Trumpers who stormed the Capitol:

QAnon conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine was on the ground when MAGA activists stormed the Capitol. She blasts conservatives for trying to blame it on antifa, declaring she's immensely proud of what happened: "We need more of it, not less."

 

Ron Marshall Thinks A $7.25 Minimum Wage Is Just Fine

Click here for a tweet with attached video showing the junior senator from Kansas, Ron Marshall, speaking against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, claiming that he had a minimum-wage job in college that paid for his entire tuition.

The year he graduated from Kansas State University, tuition was $898 a year; now it's $10,000.

The year he graduated from KSU, the minimum wage was $3.35 an hour; now it's $7.25.

Rush Limbaugh In The Afterlife: May He Get What He Deserves

Click here for Charlie Pierce's take on the death of Rush Limbaugh, entitled "Rush Limbaugh Was a Blight on America," subtitled "The talk-radio titan was responsible more than any other non-politician for the spread of the prion disease from movement conservatism to the Republican Party. He ranks with Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy among the country’s most destructive demagogues."

Don't sugarcoat it, Charlie -- tell 'em straight.

He followed with an apt quote from Clarence Darrow: "I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

Despairing of finding anything neutral to say, Charlie declares: "I have given up and decided to stand with Voltaire: "to the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."

The truth is that Limbaugh was a titan of American broadcasting who saw the potential of deregulated talk-radio as a profit center and conservative vandalism as a hyper-sellable product. That’s it. That’s all of it. Outside of those things, he was a blight, responsible more than any other non-politician for the spread of the prion disease from movement conservatism to the Republican Party, and the index patient for Trumpism before any of us even knew what it was. He ranks with Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, and very few others among the country’s most destructive demagogues.

Click here for comments on Limbaugh's death by the redoubtable Digby at Hullabaloo, in an article she wrote for Salon entitled "Limbaugh created our world. We just live in it."

His radio show almost single-handedly created the culture war narrative that has come to define conservative politics. It’s not that Limbaugh came up with every element on his own. There were plenty of racists, xenophobes, sexists, religious hypocrites and violent extremists long before he came along. But he found a way to synthesize their point of view into one over-arching worldview: coastal elites, Black people, immigrants, gays, feminazis and environmentalists are your enemy and they want to destroy America.

Seeing its organizing potential back in the early 90s, backbench congressman Newt Gingrich turned Limbaugh’s narrative into a partisan weapon, launching a program designed to teach fledgling, right-wing politicians how to talk about themselves as heroic warriors for the American way and portray their political opponents as depraved savages bent on destroying everything Real Americans hold dear. When the Republicans won the House majority for the first time in decades in 1994, Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the freshman class. The new House Speaker said he couldn’t have done it without him.

Gingrich was right. And there would have been no Donald Trump without Limbaugh either because there would have been no Trump base without him. Gingrich may have turned partisan, electoral politics into a blood sport but it was Rush Limbaugh who brought in the fans.

She goes on to say:

But if there’s one thing the entire country, regardless of party or ideology, can agree upon it’s that Rush Limbaugh is one of the most influential political figures of our time. His mean-spirited, crude “guy at the end of the bar” routine was the template for all of right-wing media and remains so today.

And she concludes:

Rush Limbaugh’s legacy will, unfortunately, live on in the Republican politicians who grew up listening to his derisive, contemptuous rhetoric and then watched as Donald Trump used it to wield power. He created a monster and we’ll, unfortunately, be living with it for a long time to come.

 

Two Guys Catching A Flight

Video: Porsche 911 GT3 At Nurburgring

This video is the Porsche 911 GT3 going around the course Jackie Stewart dubbed The Green Hell. It's 7 minutes and 33 seconds of a view from the cockpit, and it's pretty amazing. What gets me is the light: You're doing 280 kph through a forest with the road in deep shadow, when suddenly you're blinded by the glare of the sun as you have to slow to 95 for a tight curve.

The driver obviously knows the track very, very well -- the way I used to know my favorite ski runs, like The Ridge at Tod Mountain at Kamloops (now Sun Peaks). Sun, shadow, sun, shadow -- very challenging. Nurburgring -- beautiful course!

 

Trump's Brainwashed Followers

This shows the effectiveness of Trump's lies on average (sadly uninformed) Americans.

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois, received a letter signed by 11 family members blasting him for voting to impeach Trump:

Adam,

Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God! We were once so proud of your accomplishments! Instead, you go against your Christian principals (sic) and join the “devil’s army.” (Democrats and the fake news media). How do you call yourself a Christian when you join the “devils army believing in abortion! We thought you were “smart” enough to see how the left is brainwashing so many “so called good people” including yourself and many other GOP members. You have even fallen for their socialism ideals! So, so, sad!

President Trump is not perfect, but neither are you or any of us for that matter! It is not for us to judge or be judged! But he is a Christian! (If God can forgive and use King David in the Bible, He can do the same with President Trump.) Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, to just name a few, of many Pastors, who mentor President Trump, know that he is a believer! Obviously, you did not hear President Trump’s “Christmas Message” to the American people (fake news media did not cover his message) where he actually gave the plan of salvation, instructing people how to repent and ask the Savior into their heart to be “Born Again”! (To believe in John 3:16). When was the last time you proclaimed your faith Adam? (Oh, we forgot you now belong to the “devils army.”). You won’t convince us otherwise with your horrible, rude accusations of President Trump! (To embrace a party that believes in abortion and socialism is the ultimate sin.) We should list even more grievances against you, but decided you ae not worth more of our time to list them. We have said enough!

You should be very proud that you have lost the respect of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Greg Kelly, etc. and most importantly in our book, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh and us!

It is now most embarrassing to us that we are related to you. You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name. We are not judging you. This letter is our opinion of you !

Oh, by the way, good luck in your fund raising endeavors. We are sure we know there are many others good GOP and Christian supporters, that feel the same way we do. Also very disappointed with the many other GOP have sided with the Democrats. (We should demand our money back!)

The following Kinzinger family members have asked that their names be added to this letter:

Signed

P.S. For your information, many more family members, feel the same as we do. They just didn’t have the courage to sign our letter or write their own letter! Not us, we are throughly (sic) disgusted with you!! And, oh by the way, we are calling for your removal from office! I have received numerous calls concerning your actions and egregious behavior towards our President of the United States, Donald J. Trump!

CC: Many conservative Republicans.

*President Trump has done more for the American people in four years, than you, the Rino’s, and Democrates (sic) have done in years!!

Biden Administration To Bring Back "Earmarks"?

Heather Cox Richardson explains why the Democrats will return to the practice of congressional earmarks:

Today, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced they would back the return of a new version of so-called “earmarks,” more formally known as “member-directed spending,” in legislation.

These “Community-Focused Grants,” as the new lingo calls them, are funds that individual congress members can direct toward their districts. In the past, earmarks were made by lawmakers and were occasionally havens for corruption—which is what people remember—but even at their worst, they made up less than 1.1% of federal spending and tended to actually produce things that districts needed.

Democrats cleaned the system up before then-House Speaker John Boehner declared a moratorium on it in 2011. After the ban, the government still targeted federal money to get votes, but the power to make those calls shifted to the executive branch rather than Congress. For much federal spending, Congress appropriates the amounts but the executive branch decides where to spend it. A 2020 congressional study established that presidents use that money “to influence policy and support their preferred projects without receiving approval from Congress.” To that, we can add that a president targeted federal money to try to buy reelection.  

In the past, congressional earmarks were a key feature in bipartisanship: they gave reluctant lawmakers a reason to support legislation they might otherwise hesitate about. The new rules will likely be different than the old ones in that they apparently will be targeted to public entities that ask for a grant. They will provide a challenge for Republicans—who actually like these grants, normally—because they will undercut Republicans’ stance against appropriation bills. They might also swing some Republicans behind the coronavirus bill.

Tidbits

In the impeachment trial:

- 57 senators voted to convict Trump  - they represent 61.6% of the population (202 million)
- 43 senators voted to acquit Trump    - they represent 38.2% of the population (125 million)

*****

- Mitch McConnell: biggest hypocrite in American politics:
    - refused to recall the senate to hold a trial on impeachment, then voted to acquit because Trump was no longer in office (and after voting to acquit, ripped Trump because he was "practically and morally responsible" for the January 6 attack on the Capitol)
    - blocked Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court 237 days before the 2016 election, confirmed Amy Coney Barrett 8 days before the 2020 election, when 65 million had already voted

*****

Biden seems to be coming up with a new definition of "bipartisanship": Instead of needing 10 votes from a recalcitrant, obstructionist senate to defeat a filibuster, Biden is relying on support from Republican (as well as Democratic) governors and mayors, and from polls of the American public. Heather Cox Richardson says:

Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly stand against the bill, in part because it calls for $350 billion to provide aid to states and cities. But Republican governors and mayors are desperate for the assistance. Republican voters like it, too.

Lisa Murkowski's Explanation Of Her Vote To Convict Trump In Senate Trial

Seven Republican senators voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial -- Mitt Romney (Utah), Richard Burr (North Carolina), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Susan Collins (Maine), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). 

Two of them -- Burr and Toomey -- are retiring and will not run again; four of the remaining five are not facing reelection in November 2022. Only Murkowski is up for reelection in the next cycle, and Trump is popular in Alaska. So it took political courage for Murkowski to vote as she did. (She may face censure from her state Republican party, and there are rumors that Sarah Palin will run against her.) Cassidy has been censured by the Louisiana state party, and it's expected that the censures of Burr and Sasse by their state Republican parties are imminent.

Here is the full text of her statement:

“On January 13, when the U.S. House of Representatives impeached former President Donald J. Trump for a second time, I committed to upholding my oath as a U.S. Senator—to listen to each side impartially, review all the facts, and then decide how I would vote. I have done that and after listening to the trial this past week, I have reached the conclusion that President Trump’s actions were an impeachable offense and his course of conduct amounts to incitement of insurrection as set out in the Article of Impeachment.  

“The facts make clear that the violence and desecration of the Capitol that we saw on January 6 was not a spontaneous uprising. President Trump had set the stage months before the 2020 election by stating repeatedly that the election was rigged, casting doubt into the minds of the American people about the fairness of the election. After the election, when he lost by 7 million votes, he repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen and subjected to widespread fraud. At the same time, election challenges were filed in dozens of courts. Sixty-one different courts – including many judges nominated by President Trump himself – ruled against him.

“President Trump did everything in his power to stay in power. When the court challenges failed, he turned up the pressure on state officials and his own Department of Justice. And when these efforts failed, he turned to his supporters. He urged his supporters to come to Washington, D.C. on January 6 to ‘Stop the Steal’ of an election that had not been stolen. The speech he gave on that day was intended to stoke passions in a crowd that the President had been rallying for months. They were prepared to march on the Capitol and he gave them explicit instructions to do so.

“When President Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol, breached both chambers of Congress, and interrupted the certification of Electoral College votes, he took no action for hours. The evidence presented at the trial was clear: President Trump was watching events unfold live, just as the entire country was. Even after the violence had started, as protestors chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’ inside the Capitol, President Trump, aware of what was happening, tweeted that the Vice President had failed the country. Vice President Pence was attempting to fulfill his oath and his constitutional duty with the certification of Electoral College votes. 

“After the storm had calmed, the President endorsed the actions of the mob by tweeting, ‘These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!’ This message, in defense of only himself, came nearly four hours after the attack on the Capitol began. President Trump allowing the violence to go on for hours without any clear directive or demand for peace – his intentional silence – cost Americans their lives. President Trump was not concerned about the Vice President; he was not concerned about members of Congress; he was not concerned about the Capitol Police. He was concerned about his election and retaining power. While I supported subpoenaing witnesses to help elucidate for the American people President Trump’s state of mind during the riot, both his actions and lack thereof establish that.

“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is. By inciting the insurrection and violent events that culminated on January 6, President Trump’s actions and words were not protected free speech. I honor our constitutional rights and consider the freedom of speech as one of the most paramount freedoms, but that right does not extend to the President of the United States inciting violence.

“Before someone assumes the office of the presidency, they are required to swear to faithfully execute the office of the President and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. President Trump – the nation’s elected leader, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces – swore an oath to defend America and all that we hold sacred. He failed to uphold that oath.

“One positive outcome of the horrible events on January 6, was that hours after the Capitol was secured, on January 7, at 4:00 a.m., Congress fulfilled our responsibility to the U.S. Constitution and certified the Electoral College results. We were able to do that because of brave men and women who fulfilled their oath to protect and defend Congress. I regret that Donald Trump was not one of them.”

Donie O'Sullivan's Battle With Depression

Click here for an article in The Irish Times by CNN's Donie O'Sullivan entitled "The Chaos I've had in my mind is more terrifying than the riot at the Capitol." O'Sullivan discusses his battle with depression:

His hardest questions have not been ones he has asked of others at the end of his microphone boom but the questions he has had to ask and continues to ask of himself as he manages his illness, through therapy, medication and spotting the warning signs of when it could come back. And there are many questions he is still hoping to answer.

He talks about the stigma of depression, how mental illness is a taboo subject among young Irishmen, and how important it is to get help.

 

 

 

Tidbits

 

- a Q d'état, if you will

- can there be a successful coup by people who spell it c-o-o?

- Randy Rainbow v. Marjorie Taylor Greene:

- Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump reported between $172 million and $640 million in outside income while working in the White House, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington).

- Anthony Scaramucci to Chris Cuomo: "He couldn't take an hour of questioning from you -- he'd melt like an orange candle." 

- Trump's legal team quit en masse a week before his second impeachment trial. A lawyer commented: "There are three reasons lawyers quit.1: The client won't do what you tell him. 2: The client wants you to do something unethical or illegal. 3: The client doesn't pay. Looks like we hit the trifecta!"

- Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin quoted Voltaire: "Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

- The Trump defense team were so bad on their first day that after Raskin and the Democrats had made their case, that evening Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Lindsey Graham met with the defense team to discuss strategy for the next day. That's like the jurors working with the defense team. (We can't get too worked up about that: It's not a trial, it's a political process, and Democrats have stretched that, too, in the past.) Anyway, here's a tweet about that:

If I ever commit a major crime, I really hope the jury is made up of the people who helped me do it.

Trump Tweet Attacking Pence, 2:24 PM, January 6, 2021

Several of Trump's tweets on January 6 -- which were instantly read by tens of thousands in the mob -- were mealy-mouthed weasel words, incitements to violence expressing love for and understanding of the howling mob, which, as a kind of postscript, included a few pious words urging peace, but the thrust of the message was clear.

But there was one tweet, at 2:24 p.m., which included no such pious words. It was this one:

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!

When I saw that, I wondered, what was going on at the Capitol at 2:24 p.m.? Had the building's security perimeter been breached by that time? 

Yes. Yes, it had. Here's a tweet just today from U.S. Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy:

I remember the moment I saw Trump's tweet attacking Pence. We were in the chamber as aides were scrambling to bar the doors. Some were sobbing in fear. The mob was outside. Someone yelled out shots had been fired.

I turned to Tim Kaine and said, 'Oh my god, he's egging them on.'"

Trump's tweet carried no attempt to damp down the passions of the mob: It was straight-up encouragement for them to put into action their words: "Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!"

That's what five years of utter subjugation and sycophancy gets you from this guy, Mike. Savor it.

Impeachment Trial Diary - Day 1

Click here for an article at Lawfare by Benjamin Wittes entitled "Impeachment Trial Diary: Daily Thoughts on the Senate's Proceedings."

It was riveting initially, because the House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and with an especially impressive performance by Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), put on an exceptional presentation—one that skillfully used the jurisdictional dispute at issue to talk about the magnitude of Trump’s wrongdoing and the resulting stakes in the Senate trial. And it was riveting later in the afternoon because the former president’s legal team put on a true train-wreck of an argument, one that highlighted both the rather obvious lack of preparation of a team that had only been on the job for a few days and the relative weakness of that team’s substantive position. 

The Most North Korean Broadcaster - Farewell To Lou Dobbs

This is a video mashup from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah:

Fascist Video Played At Trump's 1/6 Rally

Click here for an article at Just Security.org entitled "Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda."

It wasn't until about a month after the January 6 riot and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that I became aware that during the rally, just after Rudy Giuliani had left the stage, having made his "Let's have trial by combat!" exhortation to the mob, that the adoring Trump crowd were played a video, two minutes and nine seconds long, that was pure Trump propaganda -- a video that Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's propagandist, would surely have recognized and appreciated.

To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable.

The article, as it says, "discusses the structure of fascist ideology and how it can mobilize its most strident supporters to take violent actions."

Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss – the figures who control democracy itself, the elite; Nazi ideology is a species of fascism in which this global elite are Jews.

The future promised by the fascist leader is one in which there are plentiful blue collar jobs, reflecting the manly ideals of hard work and strength. In Nazi propaganda, many white collar jobs, the domain of Jews – running department stores, banking – were for the idle. And the fascist nation’s heart and soul is the military – as Hitler writes, “[w]hat the German people owes to the army can be briefly summed up in a single word, to wit: everything.” The fascist future is a kind of restoration of a glorious past, but a modern version – replete with awesome technology that glorifies the nation to the world. The German V-2 rocket was a characteristic representation of Nazi might.

The article says:

Fascism is not an ideology consigned to Europe. Black American intellectuals from W.E.B. Du Bois to Toni Morrison have spoken of American fascism. America has a long history of anti-Semitism similar to Nazi anti-Semitism, central to the ideology not just of the Ku Klux Klan, but to Henry Ford’s “The International Jew.” In its American version, communist Jews supposedly use Black liberation movements, control of Hollywood, and labor unions to destroy the nation in the service of a global elite. We should not be surprised at all by the rise of a fascist movement in the United States. And if it does arise, it would be no surprise if it did so in the party that keeps alive the “lost cause” myths of the American South.

 It says of the video, "Trump is repeatedly represented as the nation’s father figure. It is laced through with images of masculinity, and mournful loss at the hands of traitors, clearly justifying a violent restoration of recent glory."

A description of the video follows, where in six paragraphs the author summarizes the content of the video, and says:

The message of the video is clear. America’s glory has been betrayed by treachery and division sown by politicians seeking to undermine and destroy the nation. To save the nation, one must restore Trump’s rule.

Before ending with a paragraph that warns of the success of past fascist movements, especially in Germany, the article says:

Each of us can decide what moral responsibility Trump personally has for a video to rouse his supporters at the rally. How much of a role the White House or Trump himself may have played in deciding to show the video and sequencing it immediately after Giuliani’s speech, we don’t know. But it is worth noting that the New York Times recently reported that by early January, “the rally would now effectively become a White House production” and, with his eye ever on media production, Trump micromanaged the details. “The president discussed the speaking lineup, as well as the music to be played, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations. For Mr. Trump, the rally was to be the percussion line in the symphony of subversion he was composing from the Oval Office,” the Times reported.

 

 

She Seems Nice

 Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA):

 

 

This is the photo on a Facebook page for which our friend Marjorie was a moderator. It was posted with the comment, “Start with Hillary and Obama!” 

 

 

GOP's Long History Of Cooperation With The Radical Right Fringe

Click here for an excellent article by Digby, at Hulabaloo, about the development of the Republican party and their connection with the radical right since post-WWII days: the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, and “'Newt Gingrich’s conversion of GOP politics into nationalized scorched earth warfare,'” the latter of which was the first step to openly marrying extremist rhetoric and tactics to the party itself."

Norm Ornstein, who has written a number of books on the radicalization of the modern GOP noted recently that it was Gingrich who turned the Republican Party into a cult, saying Gingrich “very deliberately generated tribalism” creating a “situation where people could view Democrats as evil, trying to destroy their way of life.” Of course, it wasn’t just Gingrich. He came to prominence at the same time that talk radio became a toxic hatefest creating star propagandists like Rush Limbaugh. Roger Ailes then joined up with Rupert Murdoch to create a TV and print empire to similarly stoke the partisan acrimony. The Clinton years were a dumpster fire of partisan rancor.

Then came Bush's Big Lie, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and played a part in 9/11, as justification for the catastrophic invasion of Iraq. Then the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus -- leading to the mess the GOP is in today.