Republicans for the Rule of Law (it’s also on Twitter)
Meidas Touch
John Pavlovitz – he doesn’t use the phrase “the bottom line” but that’s a fair description.
Trae on the Republican Terrorism Boogaloo
From Crooks & Liars – the brother of a woman killed in insurrection wants 25th Amendment
Not a video but a stunning Tweet to Hawley
It's Orwellian, just not in the way you think. George Orwell took a bullet in the neck fighting fascists in Spain because he hated them so much. Canceling fascists was his thing. So yeah, this is Orwellian. https://t.co/3b6oBWp4V2
This video is not political, but it is an example of what can be done wirh AI and photoshop, and is thus worth seeing. It’s 10+ minutes,but you don’t need to get all the way through to get creeped out by watching someone almpst 2000 years dead blinking.
It’s another tired painful day here in the CatBox. I slept poorly again due to a midnight throne run. Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update, as it’s a WWWendy Day. Pardon my pit-stop, have a fine weekend, and pray Trump’s next crime isn’t more violent than this last.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:26 (average 6:57). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From Crooks and Liars: Presidential Medal of Honor recipient Rush Limbaugh (just wanted to start you off with vomit in your mouth) isn’t satisfied with yesterday’s violence on Capitol Hill – he wants MORE! Indeed, he mocked the notion that we might be horrified by the MAGA crowd’s insurrection, and tried to compare these vile seditionists to colonists Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams, saying how happy he was that THOSE dudes didn’t hold back.
I named this Republican Limbarf and identified him as a leader in the Republican Reich long before the Republicans had ever heard of Trump*. The Republican Reich has not changed. RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich! RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!
From NY Times: In Washington, Republicans were dealing with a burgeoning crisis in their ranks, with high-profile resignations and bitter infighting over how to deal with an erratic and isolated president. But at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting on Friday, most party members were operating in a parallel universe.
In a chandelier-adorned ballroom at the seaside Ritz-Carlton here, there was no mention of President Trump’s disruption of the coronavirus relief package or his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state demanding that he help steal the election, both of which contributed to Republicans’ losing control of the Senate.
And while the R.N.C. chair, Ronna McDaniel, condemned the attack on the Capitol, neither she nor any other speaker so much as publicly hinted at Mr. Trump’s role in inciting a mob assault on America’s seat of government.
Even as the president faces a possible second impeachment proceeding, this collective exercise in gaze aversion was not the most striking part of the meeting. More revealing was the reason for the silence from the stage: Party members, one after another, said in interviews that the president did not bear any blame for the violence at the Capitol and indicated that they wanted him to continue to play a leading role in the party.
“I surely embrace President Trump,” said Michele Fiore, the committeewoman from Nevada, where Republicans have lost two Senate races and the governorship since 2016. Ms. Fiore, who was sporting a Trump-emblazoned vest, said the president was “absolutely” a positive force in the party.
The RNC could not have made it more clear that they chose Trump* as Fuhrer, because he represents the values and policies of the Republican Party. This was true before and during Trump’s* Residency and will continue indefinitely. RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!
From YouTube ( blast from the past): Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers (with Lyric)
Ah… the memories! RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I’ve been doing these for a long time – closing in on five years – and, at least for me, it has not been difficult to hang on to outrage. In fact, I’ve often found it a challenge to hang on to anything else. But, as this article points out, the events of this week have created an environment in which, going forward, it will be at least equally necessary to hold on to our vigilance – to our vision, to or “nose,” to our gut feelings, or however you perceive danger. We are not out of the woods yet.
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‘Once you engage in political violence, it becomes easier to do it again’ – an expert on political violence reflects on events at the Capitol
Editor’s note: Ore Koren is a scholar of civil conflict and political violence. Before the November 2020 election, he wrote a story for The Conversation about the likelihood of election-related violence in the U.S. So we went back to him on Wednesday, while what some are calling an insurrection unfolded at the U.S. Capitol, to ask him for some perspective on the event. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You’re a scholar of political violence. What were you thinking as you watched what’s happened at the U.S. Capitol?
Koren: First of all, I felt pretty stunned. I think that’s a natural response to this. This is a new situation; it shows the power of misinformation and stuff that we’re not really good at dealing with.
My research focuses on organized political violence, which often happens in places where the state does not have much power to prevent violence, where the economy is underdeveloped, where democratic institutions are weak, and where there is a history of organized violence. And usually when we see events at this magnitude, they are accompanied by many casualties, which thankfully was not the case today.
What happened at the Capitol, from what I can tell, was a messy riot where people lashed out at the heart of American democracy, but it remains unclear how organized an effort this was.
Still, it is kind of shocking. We have the biggest economy in the world. Based on what we see in the research, weak economic performance is a strong predictor of organized political violence. The people marching on the Capitol have much more to lose than to gain from this, and to me that’s puzzling.
With an incumbent who has been advocating for a strong law-and-order agenda, many people did not expect this. In a country with a strong domestic security apparatus, militias and vigilantes hurt rather than help in promoting the rule of law.
What separates the U.S. and other advanced and militarily capable democracies from other countries where deadly election violence happens is the ability to wage an effective state response and very quickly implement the rule of law, cracking down on both the perpetrators and any groups they might be affiliated with.
One example of a very effective state response was in Michigan, where the militias plotting to kidnap the state’s governor were quickly apprehended by federal authorities.
U.S. Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House chamber during a joint session of Congress on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer/Getty Images News via Getty Images
Q: How does this compare with political violence in countries you’ve studied?
Koren: Compared to other countries, I’m hoping it won’t get to that threshold of being more extreme. A lot of violence actually happens when a party refuses to give away power or a party blames the other for cheating. Well, that’s kind of what we saw happening here, right, one party was blaming the other for cheating. Only here, we had lots of evidence to the contrary, and we had legal and institutional ways of verifying any cheating or lack thereof.
In the U.S., most of the election challenges happened through formal legal channels. The main problem in places where we see violence happen is because they don’t have these kinds of institutions to deal with this, courts, all those things that our legal system can handle. But in countries where such institutions are weak, the state can’t handle that, and can’t address election challenges through a peaceful process. In this case, we see many political leaders, and not only angry citizens, saying those political institutions are not valid.
Also, in other countries, those engaging in such violence are often pro-government militias, but these are not pro-government militias we’re seeing here; as we saw today, they are actively opposing the police.
Q: But what you’ve got in the U.S. is a group of people who actually don’t believe that those institutions handled this, that it’s all corrupt, that it’s all fake and not real and cheating and plots happened. And we’ve had a president saying that.
Koren: Well, you have the president saying he was cheated, but going through the legal channels. The president didn’t just go and say, “OK, let’s go charge the Capitol,” although Wednesday morning’s speech could definitely be interpreted as instigating something like this. Until now, his rhetoric could be considered more about mobilizing support, and trying to create enough reasonable doubt that could then be used to pressure the results through formal channels.
But we do have a very unpredictable incumbent pushing the legal envelope during the worst pandemic in a century. What we’re seeing today, I think, has a lot more to do with his unpredictability and things we can’t account for in models we use to study political violence events. It’s been more than two months since the election and we didn’t see any serious violence until now, but as the legal options closed, the situation became more problematic. We don’t often see election-related violence months after an election.
Q: What do you think this means for the stability of the U.S. government or U.S. elections?
Koren: I’m not an election expert, but it’s a bad precedent. We don’t have a recent history of election violence and, now we can say we do have it, and that’s not a good thing.
What hugely contributed to all of this is misinformation. People mobilized based on a conspiracy with no evidence. I think this is a major problem that has to be addressed – I don’t know how. But it is really crucial to address the underlying problem – that people believe in what they feel is real, not what is real.
Once you engage in political violence, it becomes easier to do it again. But if there’s an effective state response to these events, then it can help strengthen those institutions.
So, I think a lot of people will be saying, look, this is all going to have long-term negative implications. But there’s also a possibility that this can actually help in the long run by showing the grave consequences of manipulating democratic institutions for political gain. Again, it depends on how the state and politicians and security and everybody responds to this. But having a history of political violence is a pretty strong predictor of future violence.
I think it’s really important for federal authorities to show their ability to tackle this. When it comes down to it, the government must show that it can protect American democracy, through force if necessary.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, Professor Koren says, “In a country with a strong domestic security apparatus, militias and vigilantes hurt rather than help in promoting the rule of law.” this article does not back that up with evidence, but if someone who has studied this subject as he has says this, you can bet he’s able to back it up. And, if that’s the case, what does that say about the Second Amendment? I do not believe that even the dumbest of out Founders was dumb enough not to realize that as true once there was sufficient evidence.
Interestingly, as you may already have heard from “The Petition Site” (formerly Care2), my old college is doing study on guns and people’s opinions about them. Anyone can participate. Here’s the link.
This is more or less a spur of the moment decision to change direction and share a couple of letters that I’ve sent to my senator, Sen. Joshua Hawley. I’m hoping that it will provide me some catharsis, because I am absolutely livid with that A-Hole.
It all began when I came across an article in the Washington Post where Hawley (turns out mendaciously) claims in a Tweet that “Antifa scumbags” came to his house in Vienna, VA to threaten his wife, screamed threats, vandalized and tried to pound open the door. (That house in Vienna is currently the only home he has. He used his sister’s address in the Ozarks to claim Missouri residence.)
Here’s Hawley’s lying Tweet:
Tonight while I was in Missouri, Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel. They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door. Let me be clear: My family & I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence
Tonight while I was in Missouri, Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel. They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door. Let me be clear: My family & I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence
But if you read the WaPo article, you’ll learn it was a peaceful vigil. In fact the group (with NO ties to Antifa) fortunately took a 50+ minute video of their visit:
They don’t arrive at Hawley’s house on Desale St. until around the 24:00 mark. As near as I can make out (the CC isn’t the best) their peaceful vigil consisted of lighting votive candles, chanting, singing, praying and leaving a copy of our Constitution on the front porch.
Most of their peaceful vigil was monitored by the local police. Officer Juan Vazquez told the Associated Press that when police arrived, they found that the “people were peaceful. Officers are only allowed to put in the report what they see,” Vazquez told The Washington Post. “We can’t get warrants on something we didn’t see.”
On Wednesday when Hawley continued to say he was going to object to the Pennsylvania Electoral College vote count – even after Trumpkin rioters had stormed and vandalized our Capitol – I had enough. I sat down and wrote him a “sternly worded letter”. And I followed up on Thursday with another after Hawley was roundly rebuked for his actions – even by fellow Republicans.
(It took a couple times to FAX the letters to his DC office because it kept getting a busy signal – but mine eventually made it through. And I included CCs to his Kansas City office. Those went through easy-peasy.)
Here are my letters – the first on Wednesday evening (although I’m compressing the formatting for space considerations):
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Senator Joshua David Hawley
United States Senator for Missouri
212 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
RE: SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON YOU!
Sen. Joshua David Hawley:
Unlike your recent entirely mendacious claim that:
“Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC and threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel. They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door. Let me be clear: My family & I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence” …
Today your compatriots – Proud Boys, White Supremacists, Boogaloo Bois, Neo-Nazis and other radical right-wing terrorists – actually did commit violence against the People’s House – our nation’s Capitol.
Fortunately, as former FBI Director James Comey said: “Lordy, I hope there are tapes” – there ARE tapes documenting the peaceful vigil at your Vienna, VA home. The peaceful vigil consisted of a small group who lit votive candles, sang songs, chanted, prayed and left a copy of our Constitution on your doorstep. All actions protected by our First Amendment rights!
Unlike your Proud Boys, White Supremacists, Boogaloo Bois, Neo-Nazis and other radical right-wing terrorist cohorts who quite literally, to use your very own words: “Screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open the door” of our nation’s Capitol.
To use your very own words again: Let me be clear, true American Patriots will NOT be intimidated by right-wing violence.
This sad and frightening display of Trumpkin scumbags was the product of Trump’s four-years of hate-mongering efforts to create chaos, divide our nation and incite violence. (Again, let me be clear: LORDY, THERE ARE PLENTY of TAPES DOCUMENTING Trump DOING JUST THAT!)
And yet you, in hopes of hitching your wagon to these Trumpkin scumbags in an effort to promote your own hope of launching a presidential bid, have openly announced your intention to contest the results of our free, fair, secure election administered according to the United States Constitution.
Given that there was no irregularity or evidence of election fraud that would justify such an action, it becomes clear that you are simply pandering to the republican party’s right-wing base, which has obviously lost touch with reality and fealty to our Constitution.
Your engagement in the attempted literal subversion of our democracy – whether called sedition, coup, anti-democratic putsch or something else – simply because you did not like the results clearly violates your oath of office. You should, at the minimum, face ethics charges and expulsion.
Our national elections of 2020 have occurred. The people have spoken. Multiple recounts and audits of recounts have been conducted. Legal challenges have been addressed by the courts. Trump et al have lost at least 60 of those lawsuits. And in those legal challenges over 90 judges – appointed by both Democrats and republicans – have ruled against Trump’s unfounded lawsuits. Governors have certified the results. And the Electoral College has voted.
The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the Electoral College votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.
It was a free, fair, secure election administered according to the United States Constitution. It’s well past time for you to do your constitutional duty and standdown.
In Deep Sorrow for Our Country, Aided & Abetted by Your Shameful Actions,
[Real Name]
Actual Missouri Citizen
PS: If you wonder why my salutation is not formatted, as I usually do for other Senators, as:
“The Honorable …”
It’s simply because I find NONE of your actions in this matter to be “Honorable”.
Here’s my second letter sent on Thursday after Hawley is widely chastised for his actions:
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Senator Joshua David Hawley
United States Senator for Missouri
212 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
RE: Your Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Rotten Day
Sen. Joshua David Hawley:
Josh (I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your Christian name – I like to call ALL my employees by their given first name) sorry to learn you have had such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, rotten day. (Not that you haven’t earned it – you surely have!)
The dilemma is where to start listing all the events of the day that your seditious actions have produced.
Let’s begin with Missouri’s former Senator, John C. Danforth, assessment of you:
“Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”
It’s clear you backed the wrong horse given that Trump’s lawyer for the Pennsylvania Electoral College vote case (Attorney Jerome M. Marcus for the state of Pennsylvania, the same one YOU used to object to the Electoral College certification) resigned today with these words:
“The undersigned respectfully requests leave of this court to withdraw as counsel … inasmuch as the client has used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime and the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant and with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”
We learned today that the publisher Simon & Schuster, based on your seditious actions, has cancelled your lucrative book deal:
“We did not come to this decision lightly. As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom.”
Why even your old Rockhurst High School debate partner calls you the:
“WORST PERSON HE’S EVER MET”
my husband was briefly Josh Hawley’s debate partner in high school and has long, since Hawley first ran for Missouri AG, described him as the worst person he’s ever met.
It’s a very tired day here in the CatBox. Unpacking and putting away groceries took over 90 minutes yesterday. Also, I slept poorly last night, as I wondered how our nation can survive another week and a half. I expect to be in the saddle tomorrow. Tomorrow and Sunday are High Holy Days in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but my Portland gave a bye in the Wild Card Week of the playoffs! TGIF!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:45 (average 5:05). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From Crooks and Liars: Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) has been a Congresswoman for approximately 9 minutes, and saw fit to make herself famous by quoting Adolf Hitler in her speech supporting Trump’s attempted coup to overturn Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
It America survives, Trump* will be out office on or before the 20th, but He would never have become Fuhrer, if he did not represent the beliefs of the Republican Party, the Nazi Party of America. RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Two Days After Riots, Trump Reverses His Stance On Election Loss
The Republican Reich will parrot Trump’s* teleprompter speech and act like everything else never happened. It’s time for Trump* to become Trump** and for him and the rest of the crew to inmates. RESIST!!
From YouTube (a blast from the past): Barry McGuire – Eve Of Destruction
Rev. Warnock was Congressman John Lewis’s pastor. Ossoff was Lewis’s intern. And somewhere, somehow both near and far, I have to think that Rep. Lewis is saying, “Well done.”
Katie Couric’s personal channel – interview with Mary Trump – who warned us about today and is now warning us again.
long – but profound.
Not actually a video (rather, a podcast) but it’s Al Frenken on electing Presidents.
Beau did an almost-an-hour-and-a-half podcast on the coup (and forgot to set up CC for it,) I’m not going to post anything that long, but here’s the link
The questions being asked were coming in so fast he could not keep up with them, to this podcast is very much less organized than his usual.
Keith – Had he not posted yesterday, I would be worried he had dropped dead.
It’s an outrageous day here in the CatBox. Yesterday when the Republican Reich attacked the US, I was so upset that I swallowed an unprocessed mouthful of food and rushed to the computer without thinking. Needless to say, that plugged my stent and I was sick all afternoon. A couple days ago I opined that this was the wrong time to impeach Trump* and throw him the attention he craves. I take that back. Now a state of war exists between the Republican Reich and the US. We must fight back with every legal weapon at our disposal. These dates shall live in infamy, as long as there is a USA to remember: Dec. 7, 1941, Sep. 11, 2001, and Jan. 6, 2021. I am waiting for Store to Door to bring my grocery order, and WWWendy is coming late this afternoon. I hope to be in the saddle tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:23 (average 4:35). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos (Hat-Tip Mitch [ours]): This is too, too much. The schadenfreude! The sheer, sheer joy!
President-elect Joe Biden has decided to nominate Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, a long-awaited decision that was moved toward completion Wednesday as it became apparent that Democrats were on the brink of winning control of the Senate.
The announcement of the attorney general, along with other senior leaders of the Justice Department, is expected to be made as soon as Thursday as Biden moves closer to filling the remaining seats in his Cabinet before assuming power on January 20.
While Garland has been a top contender for weeks, concerns about the vacancy his selection would create on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia raised alarm bells among Biden and many advisers who believed Senate Republicans would block any nomination to that seat. But with Democrats poised to control the Senate after two Georgia runoff races, those concerns were allayed.
I have to love this! And Beat Bitch Baby Bawling Mitch can’t stop it! RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): U.S. Capitol Ransacked After Massive Security Failure
These are some of the same questions I have. It appeared to me that some of the police were in cahoots with Trump’s* terrorists who tried to repeat the Reichstag Fire. I agree with Mika that they would have slaughtered BLM demonstrators. I hear people saying this is the time to stay cool. My answer? BULLSHIT! RESIST!!
From YouTube: Live: NBC News NOW – Jan. 7 | Special Coverage On The Riot At The U.S. Capitol
I put this here to give you a chance to keep up with any freaking developments, should they occur. RESIST!!
From YouTube (a blast from yesterday): The Beatles-Revolution Protest Music Video
Given the Republican attack on America, this is all too appropriate! RESIST!!
