All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Amadeus Arkham]

[InformationGeek]

Jordan Klepper was on the scene for insurrection.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Oh, yes, let’s blame the victim. C’mon, man, that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Well that's where Mets starts. He eventually gets somewhere above a quarter up from the bottom.

Anyway, if Mets was smart enough to pick a video he could have picked this interview where Rep. Jayapal explains exactly the full situation and context:
https://www.thecut.com/2021/01/prami...tol-riots.html

JAYAPAL: The Capitol police with us seemed very confused about who had the key to the doors. They were closed, but we weren’t sure if they were locked, and we were yelling, “Lock the doors! Lock the doors!” We heard shots being fired, presumably into the chamber.

They told us to take off our masks to put on the gas masks that were under our seats. I just got a knee replaced five weeks ago, and I had a cane. My concern was would I be able to get up and down quickly enough if we needed to get out. Capitol police had barricades up against the doors, and the police were in a half-circle around those barricades with their guns drawn. We were kind of waving and saying, “Hey, how about us? How do we get out of here?” I don’t know how long it was, maybe an hour and a half, until we were finally ushered out and taken down the stairs to a secure location — which was another challenge with my knee. I basically had to hang on to Mikie Sherrill to get down six flights of stairs.

I’m quarantining now because I am convinced that where we ended up, in the secured room — where there were over 100 people and many were Republicans not wearing masks — was a superspreader event.
[...]
I know my friend Ilhan [Omar] has dealt with so much, in particular, because she is not only an immigrant, not only a woman, not only highly visible progressive, but also Muslim. One of the things I looked for immediately when this started was to see if any members of the Squad were on the floor, and I didn’t see any of them. And I was really relieved that they weren’t. I was just hoping that they were tightly locked away in their offices.

But I had another realization: One of my colleagues was talking about how she had instructed her staff to wear just regular casual clothes in case they needed to blend in with the crowd at any point, and she herself was wearing black pants and a black turtleneck because she wanted to fit in if she needed to. And when I saw that description, I thought to myself … that’s not an option for me. That’s not an option …

[Jayapal briefly chokes up]

We have a Congresswoman, who had a cane after a recent surgery...which means by the way she can't simply run and bolt at a moment's notice like everyone else making her uniquely vulnerable. She wore a mask and then capitol police told her to get on the floor (which again because of her cane meant that it was hard for her to bend down and then get back again) and use the special gasmasks they have at the Capitol for gas attacks...and then she goes and finds herself in a special anteroom where she has no choice to walk away from (physically and situationally). While also dealing with the notion that as a South Asian woman, she can't blend in and will stick out and would probably be a target for the mob.

Not to mention by the way that Republicans in the room not only refused a mask when offered but basically gloated and sneered at the offer by the Dem Represenative from Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester. Including among those Republicans is that Qanon Clown Marjorie Greene, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, Texas Rep. Michael Cloud, and Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who can be heard rebuffing Rochester’s proffered mask by telling her, “I’m not trying to get political here.”



Anyway, that's that. It's kind of infuriating that when you have posters who have proven themselves to argue in bad faith multiple times, sloppy in their reasoning and citations, that you have to go out of your way to be thorough. It's an extension of "work twice as hard to be half as good". You need to read far more extensively, and post longer to refute this, then these figures have to about their posting. It's exhausting frankly. And I wish there was a ranking of "good faith" about posters on CBR and elsewhere. In academics, when you have people do sloppy citations or work, there's a mark against that and it goes in the record. We need to introduce that to online discourse.

People who leave the party aren't able to vote in primaries and change the party.

That gives even more power to the crazies.

What gives power to the crazies is the non-crazy conservatives deciding to get in bed with them because they care more about tax cuts and stacking the judiciary than any long-term plan to reform their ideology. Numerically, the MAGAs would not have been a national level movement, and would not find themselves in power. Yet the Republicans despite your own party condemning Trump during the primaries in strongest of terms decided to get in bed with them because you guys wanted to own the libs far more than own yourself.

The Republican party should do what Lyndon B. Johnson did when he backed the Civil Rights Movement knowing that doing so would cost the Dems the South. Johnson believed that losing the South might cost the Dems in the short term but would ultimately benefit them. If any Republican had real principle, they would take stock regroup and redo the party aware that it might cost them short term but ultimately reform into a more viable party later on. But you guys want power...and I mean all of the power. It's not gonna stop with 6-3, it's gonna go till it's 9-0, it's going to continue until NYC is gerrymandered, isn't it? The Democrats can praise Republican presidents and senators and representatives and build on their policies and works but no Republican now or in the past can bring themselves to credit the Dems with anything, nor can they admit that Dems in power isn't really so bad.

What else is there to say? Republicans want us to agree that voting for HRC over Trump was a "bridge too far". No it wasn't. It was an easy choice, just as voting for Biden over Trump was easy...or voting for Sanders over Trump would have been easy.

[Amadeus Arkham]

We hate you too, Mitch. Probably not as much as Trump, but we hate you too.


Tons of hate to go around!

[Revolutionary_Jack]

We hate you too, Mitch. Probably not as much as Trump, but we hate you too.


Tons of hate to go around!

It doesn't surprise me that McConnell personally dislikes and hates Trump and merely held on for as long as he did because he's a power-hungry scumbag who wants party domination no matter how dubious and spurious the source of that power.

Remember that conservatives once in power are not averse to fighting or coming to blows with each other. The various monarchs and authoritarian states of Europe went to war in World War 1 against each other after all, even if politically a lot of these governments -- British Empire, French Third Republic, Imperial Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romanov Russia, Ottoman Turkey -- were politically not so different.

[babyblob]

He hates Trump so much that he kissed his ass and did his Bidding. he kind of reminds me of The Toad from early Xmen in the 60's the way he just shamelessly fawns of magneto. Mitch has for four years backed this man and his agenda. Even after the election he still paid lip service. And blocked a stimulus so he could set up an election fraud committee.

Mitch does not hate Trump because Trump is human garbage. he hates Trump because he srees the way the winds are blowing and knows that he has to say something. if Trump had succeeded on the 6th Mitch would still be kissing his ass.

Fuck you Mitch and Fuck you GOP!

[Tami]

Satire

Column: I took part in a pro-Trump attack on the US Capitol and now I have to face consequences? That’s tyranny!

Hello, I am a patriotic supporter of President Donald Trump who broke into the U.S. Capitol and attacked police officers because I believed the election was stolen and it was my duty to overthrow the government using only a flagpole I picked up along the way and the horns on the cool viking helmet I wore.

I am now being told I have lost my job and might go to prison. This is an absurd, Orwellian trampling of my First Amendment rights, according to a person I follow on Twitter.

What kind of country are we if an outstanding citizen like myself can be fired, arrested and charged with domestic terrorism just because I livestreamed myself joining hundreds of other freedom fighters in attempting to crush a screaming law enforcement officer before defecating in the offices of Democratic lawmakers?

That seems both unfair and tyrannical. I have never once had to face consequences before, so clearly there’s a problem.

Fortunately, I have a highly paid lawyer on retainer who joined me in Washington, D.C., and he will be representing me in this matter as soon as he posts bail on charges of domestic terrorism and fights back at the employer who fired him.

And now, I turn the microphone over to a Republican lawmaker from my district.

[Hypestyle]

Michigan update- former Michigan governor Rick Snyder will be charged later in the week by state prosecutors there, relating to the handling of the Flint water poisoning crisis:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...is/6642755002/

This should have happened long ago, but we'll see how it evolves. Snyder always promoted himself as a moderate from the "fiscal" wing of Republicans, but largely co-signed on Tea-Party based sentiments in most of his policy decisions; one of the few instances when he didn't involved the expansion of Medicaid for low-income residents in 2012... I hope he goes to jail, but it's likely going to be a steep climb.

[Gray Lensman]

That depends on whether your state uses open primaries or not.

Mets lives in New York, which has closed primaries. I have been away for 6 years, but NY was one of the last Democratic run states to expand voting in any way, and even then I think they did about as little as possible. They even had districts under the "check with the Feds first" provision of the Voting Rights Act for some antisemitic voting rules (elections were always on the Jewish Sabbath or Jewish holidays for a while).

[BeastieRunner]

He hates Trump so much that he kissed his ass and did his Bidding. he kind of reminds me of The Toad from early Xmen in the 60's the way he just shamelessly fawns of magneto. Mitch has for four years backed this man and his agenda. Even after the election he still paid lip service. And blocked a stimulus so he could set up an election fraud committee.

Mitch does not hate Trump because Trump is human garbage. he hates Trump because he srees the way the winds are blowing and knows that he has to say something. if Trump had succeeded on the 6th Mitch would still be kissing his ass.

Fuck you Mitch and Fuck you GOP!

That fact that you say this using a Blob avatar, makes me happy.

[DrNewGod]

I'll believe that McConnell really wants Trump impeached when I hear he's calling the Senate back to work this Thursday.

[Amadeus Arkham]

It’s been confirmed that Liz Cheney will vote to impeach Trump.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That fact that you say this using a Blob avatar, makes me happy.

Blob's in a good spot in the X-Men comics these days. He's running a very popular tiki bar on Krakoa that's a hangout for everyone.

It’s been confirmed that Liz Cheney will vote to impeach Trump.

Would be the first time any Cheney in history has been of use.

[BeastieRunner]

It’s been confirmed that Liz Cheney will vote to impeach Trump.

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Tami]

I'll believe it when I see it.

With McConnell publicly saying he supports Impeachment, that has given cover to many Republicans in both houses.