Steps Toward Decency

I've thought for a long time that, short-term, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is running not for President but for the United States Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer's term is up in January of 2019, and Ocasio-Cortez proably would have a glide path to the nomination if the Minority Leader were to bow out gracefully. Schumer, a supporter of Israel but critic of Netanyahu, would be more likely to call it quits if he weren't being opposed for a fifth term by a strongly anti-Israel candidate. And so:

AOC: I personally do not trust somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene—a proven bigot and anti-semite—on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I don’t think it benefits our movement to align with white nationalists. pic.twitter.com/ufGwW6q6Mv

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 8, 2026

 An outraged Cenk Uygure of The Young Turks tweets

This is just terrible. She sounds just like the establishment. She's attacking an opponent of Israel as an antisemite. This is exactly what israeli supporters want- split the anti-war movement and the critics of Israel's genocide. Deeply counterproductive. And selfish.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an anti-Semite.  If a member of Congress came out and said "I hate Jews,"  Uygur would claim that he or she was talking only about Israelis. If the individual stated that Israel is no worse than Nazi Germany, he probably would agree. You know the type: Israel is nothing but evil and it doesn't matter whether it's the Prime Minister, one of Netanyahu's Cabinet members, a settler on the Wesst Bank, or a resident of Israel itself; they're all the same.

Ocasio-Cortez has herself accused Israel of genocide, a strange charge to level against a country whose military could wipe out Gazan Palestinians if it chose to do so, though it still would have to contend against Palestinians in Jordan and elsewhere, with whom it has no quarrel. In May of 2021, the New York congresswoman accused Israel of "apartheid," though Arabs and Muslims in Israel proper have rights exceeding those in several Arabic and Persian nations. Nine months later, she voted "present" on an amendment to provide funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, though evidently she opposed the outlay.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez has had a change of heart, at least outwardly, toward Israel, while remaining one of its critics. In July of 2024, she earned the scorn of Democratic Socialists of America when she hosted a panel on anti-semitism. (Oh, the humanity!) A year later, she voted against an amendment, co-sponsored by Greene, which would have cut drastically the funding for Iron Dome.

This may have been a conversion of convenience, behavior common among politicians and not unknown across the professions. And she still rejects funding from AIPAC, let alone not joining the Netanyahu Can Do No Wrong Caucus headed by President Donald Trump. 

Rejecting collaboration with Marjorie Taylor Greene may or may not prove wise in advancing Ocasio-Cortez's preference for a significan change in Israeli policy. Nor is it certain to last; the hostility toward "Zionism" and "Zionists" on the far left is gaining steam weekly and pressuring Democratic politicians. But the congresswoman appears to have learned from the fictional Martin Dooley of "trust everybody but count the cards".and from the Russian proverb,  "trust, but verify" And that not everything should be blamed on Jews.

Share |

Above the Law. Way Above the Law.

No one with any sense of decency would say the following. Therefore, I will: Marjorie Taylor Greene is right!

MTG on Sen Padilla: "If he's attacking police officers and he's aggressively attacking the Secretary of Homeland, yes he should be arrested. No one is above the law."

She's fúcking horrible! pic.twitter.com/TSnS542M1U

— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) June 12, 2025

If Senator Alex Padilla "is attacking police officers and he's aggressively attacking the Secretary of Homeland," he should be arrested. However, Padilla did not attack the officers at Kristi Noem's news conference on Thursday, nor did he attack the Homeland Security secretary, let alone do so aggressively. And if he did so- which he did not- it would be a case of the past tense: "if he attacked the individuals" rather than is attacking. Literally, Representative Greene is being fairly liberal here; her hypothetical posits that Padilla is doing so fairly regularly rather than only once. You might even say that she is soft on crime.

Ironically, Noem is incorrect only when she asserts "no one is above the law."

We know one person who is above the law. The Supreme Court told us so in Trump v. United States. You will recall

A federal grand jury indicted former President Donald J. Trump on four counts for conduct that occurred during his Presidency following the November 2020 election. The indictment alleged that after losing that election, Trump conspired to overturn it by spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the collecting, counting, and certifying of the election results. 

Trump moved to dismiss the indictment based on Presidential immunity, arguing that a President has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions performed within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities, and that the indictment’s allegations fell within the core of his official duties. 

The District Court denied Trump’s motion to dismiss, holding that former Presidents do not possess federal criminal immunity for any acts. The D. C. Circuit affirmed. Both the District Court and the D. C. Circuit declined to decide whether the indicted conduct involved official acts. Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Or as the ACLU explained eleven months ago

In Trump v. United States, the court’s Republican-appointed justices — including the three Trump appointees — announced a brand new constitutional immunity from criminal liability for presidents’ “official acts,” or anything a president may do using the powers of the office. The court’s decision ensures that future presidents — including Trump himself should he win reelection in November — will know that they can escape criminal accountability for blatantly criminal acts, no matter how corrupt. Even acts that strike at the heart of our democracy, like resisting the peaceful transition of power, could not be prosecuted.

The court tried to cast its opinion as restrained, emphasizing that it rejected former President Trump’s most extreme claim: that presidents can only be prosecuted for crimes for which they had already been impeached. But as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in a powerful dissent, there is nothing measured about the opinion or its consequences. The court grants absolute immunity against criminal prosecution for any of a president’s “core” executive acts, which the court went on to define as including any use of the Justice Department—an ostensibly and traditionally independent agency–for criminal investigation. And it grants “presumptive” immunity for any acts within the “outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” While the latter immunity is in theory rebuttable, the court set such a high standard for rebutting it that it may be effectively absolute as well.

It gets worse because

... the court also held that official acts cannot even be used as evidence to support a crime committed in the president’s personal capacity, making it even more difficult for prosecutors to indict a president even for purely private criminal acts. The court purports to leave much of the work of hashing out the details in Trump’s case to lower courts. But the standards it announced will make holding any president criminally accountable extraordinarily difficult.

In the case of one of those crimes Donald Trump might commit in a personal capacity, such as raping a woman or engaging in massive financial fraud, it might be nearly impossible to gain a conviction without referring to an official act as evidence of the personal crime committed.

In the most extreme- maybe- example of a crime arguably committed in an official capacity, President Trump orders Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent. (Just kidding- Trump lacks the courage to allow his fingerprints on anything, so he would simply give the boys a nod and a wink and send them on their way.} 

After the deed is done and there is clamor for prosecution, the President would claim it was an official act.  In response to recent anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, Trump complained "You know, if we didn't attack this one very strongly, you'd have them all over he country but I can inform the rest of the country, that when they do it, if they do it, they're going to be met with equal or greater force." If a political opponent who protested a foreign policy of the federal government is killed, President Trump would argue that the assassination was necessary to protect the troops.  He would call it a national security issue, that the morale of the "troops" was undermined, and dare courts to defy him.

"No one is above the law" is a myth. Ironically, the insistence of media personalities to repeat this shibboleth, commonly met with no pushback, increases the likelihood that when President Trump clearly and inarguably violates the la-, in an official or unofficial capacity- there will be widespread acceptance in the public.   And the courts might then be completely submissive to the man who alternately claims to be a king, and complains that he is not treated as one.

Share |

Mr. McGraw

Tweeter asks an important question, easily answered:

Why does anyone car what fucking Dr Phil thinks about anything? Am I taking crazy pills? What are we doing here?

— mike blair (@MikeyBlair) June 7, 2024

This tweeter, with a similar view of Dr. Phil McGraw, consciously or not is on to something:

Please stop interviewing these Republican shills and charlatans. Phil McGraw is not a lawyer and has no idea what he is talking about . Never has

— #JoeMama🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🌻 (@Mama4Obama1) June 7, 2024

The answer to "why does anyone care what Dr. Phil thinks about anything?" can be discerned by the antics of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose both malice and savviness are underappreciated.  When Greene's opportunity to question Dr. Anthony Fauci came around

 the Georgia Republican refused to call Fauci “doctor” and instead referred to him as “Mr. Fauci.”

 “Do you think that’s appropriate? Do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci, because you’re not ‘Dr.,’ you’re ‘Mr. Fauci’ in my few minutes,” she said, before adding, “No, I don’t need your answer."

                      

"You're not 'Dr.', you're "Mr. Fauci'" asserted the congresswoman, who understands how to undermine the credibility of a witness she loathes (and how to raise campaign cash). 

Fauci is a real-life, educated doctor who was testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. (Say that three times fast.). Before retiring, he was head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and was public health spokesman for the federal government under President Trump and chief medical adviser for President Biden.

Whatever controversies pertain to Fauci, he arguably is singularly qualified to speak of Covid-19 and was doing so as an expert in immunology and public health. Thus, he was legitimately referred to as "Dr. Fauci." Nonetheless, failure to show enhanced respect is not a felony, nor is characterizing him as "Mr. Fauci."

Greene's motivation was both to vent her hatred to him and to erode his cache. As a "doctor," Fauci is owed respect and the benefit of the doubt in his area of expertise. As "Mr.," he's merely the guy down the street, at the home improvement store on a Saturday morning, or at the end of the bar who always has an opinion about everything,. Think Cheers' Cliff Clavin without the postal uniform.

And yet, when it comes to Dr. Phil McGraw, tweeters on the left, as well as virtually everyone else, refers to the bloviator as "Dr. Phil,"  whatever he's opining about.  A trained psychologist and Biden hater, McGraw has no special knowledge of legal, political or cultural matters. In those contexts, he is best referred to as "Mr. McGraw" or "Phil," though he'd undoubtedly prefer the latter. 

Worse yet, McGraw has come to be known less as "Dr. McGraw" than as "Dr. Phil," a double gift. He is accorded not only the honorific of "Dr.," but the easy familiarity of "Phil." We're expected not only to respect the doctor but like him personally as the good friend Phil.

As with Anthony Fauci or anyone else, "Mr." is not an insult.  But in contrast to Dr. Fauci, Dr. McGraw does not confine his opinions to an area of his expertise. He has no particular insight into the Biden presidency or a future Trump presidency, which he would like to see. Whenever he speaks of matters outside of psychology, he should not be referred to as "Dr. Phil," an appellation he has not earned and does not deserve.

Share |

Serving Her Lord and Savior

During her rant below, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (emphasis hers) tells a reporter

Excuse me. Let me correct you and this is really important. I don't worship- I worship God. God- and Jesus is my savior. I don't worship President Trump and I'm really sick and tired of the bullshit antics I have to deal with constantly from the Democrats. So that's what we just went through in there. And then they're sitting there. They can't attack my character all day long. What's his face in there- whoever was talking last- was calling me insane but yet we can't say "oh, they're attacking my character."

I’m tired of Democrat antics claiming Republicans worship Donald Trump.

I worship God!

Democrats are still worshiping Convicted Felon George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/OVNQnZ71vP

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 3, 2024

How soon (over the course of maybe 62 days maybe 62 days) they forget.  

On April 2, 2024, Representative Greene stood outside of New York County Supreme Court to exalt Donald Trump soon before he was to be arraigned. by Judge Juan Merchan. She told Right Side Broadcasting host (also boyfriend) Brian Glenn "Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus- Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government."

It's possible that Marjorie Taylor Greene, despite her protestation to the country, is no admirer of Jesus Christ- and of Nelson Mandela, though that's less likely. More likely, she does like Jesus, in which case "I don't worship President Trump" is a brazen lie. And as Jesus is quoted as saying 

One way to demonstrate that she does not worship Donald Trump is to acknowledge that the latter is not "President Trump." (The media should correct or at least question Republicans who refer to Trump in the present tense as "the President" or "President Trump" but miracles are uncommon.) Of course, she won't do that because she does worship Donald Trump, referring to him as "President Trump," not because she's intimidated by him but because she deeply admires him.

She's not alone. There no longer are MAGA Republicans and "moderate Republicans." There are only Republicans who are afraid of a Trump-endorsed candidate opposing them, and Republicans who are all in on what they believe he is doing for their party. Unless she's an even better actor than her savior Donald Trump, Representative Greene is in the latter category. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is quoted as maintaining "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

Nor can one serve both God and Donald J. Trump. She can claim otherwise but Marjorie Taylor Greene has made her choice and it's not the one described in the Old and New Testaments.

 

Share |

A Harebrained, or Urinebrained, Scheme

As President Joseph R. Biden would put it, "This woman was a judge. Not kidding."

The individual respectfully referred to as "Judge Jeanine Pirro" is clearly apoplectic that there has been no determination that the bag of cocaine found in the West Wing of the White House belongs to Hunter Biden. Thus, no link has been made to President Biden. In character, the former judge rants

.... Where are the canines?  Why don't you know everyone who's gone through there? It's all hogwash. You vacated the building it was so dangerous when you saw that, what you thought might be anthrax. And now, you know I don't have anything to say about it.

Jeanine Pirro: "Finally, why is Hunter Biden always in our face?! Why is this guy at the White House? ... This guy is either a drug addict or a reformed drug addict. We shouldn’t have to deal with him constantly in our face!" @justinbaragona
pic.twitter.com/xaZs97Zk8E

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) July 13, 2023

And then she kept talking, in a high-pitched voice, appearing unhinged, as she periodically does.

It wasn't anthrax. It was an illegal drug. It was an illegal drug whose half-life is very short. According to American Addiction Centers, the detection time frame for cocaine if a urine test, the most common test, is used is "up to 3 days, but up to 2 weeks for heavy users." According to the same source, for marijuana it is "up to 30 days, depending upon the frequency of use.".

Consequently, if a urine test for drug use were administered to White House staffers, it could very well ferret out individuals who used marijuana two or three weeks ago- and completely miss persons who had used cocaine a mere four days earlier. Recreational marijuana is legally possessed is twenty-three states; cocaine in none. Those twenty-three states include Maryland and Virginia- which border the District of Columbia, in which marijuana also may be legally used (in Guam, also).

Yet, if it is determined that many members of the Biden Administration use marijuana- oh, the horror of it all!- the number of Republicans who acknowledge that its use is widespread among Americans and generally no more deleterious than alcohol may range from negative 1 to plus 1. "Drug use" or whatever phrase is dredged gup to exaggerate the situation would become the newest fashion in political attacks for the likes of Chris Christie, Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu and other right-wingers who qualify as "moderates" in the mainstream media because they don't despise members of the LGBTQIA community. (The bar is set very low.)

As a Fox News personality, Ms. Pirro can shoot her mouth off at will and as a judge, she possesses a little credibility, however undeserved that it for her and others who by hook or by crook have attained that distinction. However, GOP officials including US Representatives Pete Sessions of Texas and Lauren Boebert of Colorado also have recommended drug testing.  It is a policy proposal which in the recent past would have impelled mainstream media to herald individuals as "fiscal conservatives."

Additionally, of course, northwest Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Marjorie Taylor Greene wants the Secret Service to drug test 500 people because 1 of them potentially left cocaine at the White House. pic.twitter.com/OCeeYcX4eD

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 13, 2023

.

Jamie Raskin of Maryland points out that such testing would be "a massive disproportionate and overblown response that would violate people's civil liberties." Dangerously intrusive, ineffective, and costly but to Republicans, who were curiously silent on this topic during the Trump Administration, such would be an asset, not a bug. It also would give the GOP another cause du jour in the culture wars in the effort to secure complete political power.

Share |

"Conservatives Love Their Country"

This guy is very conservative. He is not being sarcastic.

Democrats are expressing the lowest patriotic sentiment this fourth of July. They hate the country. Most liberals hate the countries they live in. Conservatives love their country. This makes me hopeful that conservatives, if they take power, can steer the US back on course.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 4, 2023

Perhaps the conservative he pines for is Donald J. Trump, who a few months ago in Waco described the USA as

We are a failing nation.... a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, and faith. We are a nation whose economy has collapsed.. that no longer has a free and fair press... a nation that lost its confidence, willpower, and strength.

Delivering his inaugural address on January 20, 2017,  President Trump referred to an "American carnage (which) stops right here and stops right now.

  " 

Trump’s go-to insult for the USA is “Third World.” In the Oval Office in December, 2020, it was a “Third World Country” and in a Labor Day (9/5/22) tweet we were “rapidly becoming a Third World nation." In April of this year, hours before being arraigned in NYC, NY for the Stormy Daniels hush money case, it was an email asserting “our nation is becoming a Marxist Third World country" and at the infamous CNN town hall the following month, “in many ways, we’ve become a Third World nation.” For bonus points, he charged also “our country has gone to hell.”

Eight months ago, in the clearest indication of the “love” Cheong claims conservatives have for the USA, Trump on his social media platform wrote

The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!

An "evil" country. The only thing which can beat that is if a conservative were to call explicitly for breaking up the country. Oh, wait- we have that. In her own words:

We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.

Everyone I talk to says this.

From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are…

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 20, 2023

Nothing says "patriotism" like "secession."  Sarcasm aside, there is nothing like a tweeter boasting of his patriotism by substituting "fourth of July" for the name of the holiday, Independence Day.

Share |

And You Thought I Could Get Through This Without Mentioning Trump

You have to give this to Marjorie Taylor Greene: she can give as good as she gets. However, she still is a snowflake.

Representative Greene's argument with Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York and member of "The Squad," was captured on video.

   

So, too, was her press briefing, in which she claimed

I will tell you- what's on video is Jamaal Bowman shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible- calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to. That is like calling a person of color the "n word," which should never happen. Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that and that

is wrong.

              

 "Person of color?" Who would have expected Marjorie Taylor Greene to be woke? Of course, "person of color" can be black, Latino, Asian-American, or a native tribal individual but, hey, when you're woke you're woke.

The charge that Greene is a white supremacist is legitimate- reasonable- but unproven. However, unlike the "n-word," it is not a pejorative. It is not ridiculing someone's race, religion, or gender but the individual's ideas about racial superiority.

If the video accurately captures the argument, Greene and Bowman initially  stood face-to-face. Then the New Yorker took a step backward and a few seconds afterward, turned to the side. So Bowman, consciously or not, made an effort to avoid any more of a direct confrontation with the Georgian than already was taking place. The man may have been aware that the woman might feel intimidated and backed off slightly while the woman stood her ground.

There was, therefore, no need for Greene to feel threatened, even- maybe especially- after Bowman whipped out the race card.

Black men continue to be characterized as aggressive and threatening when we are passionate and outspoken.

They're not just using dogwhistles, they're using bullhorns. It's dangerous, but we must ALL continue to speak truth to power. https://t.co/6eLZf2F3Cm pic.twitter.com/O29uCdAehC

— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) May 18, 2023

. 

Confrontation is what Jamaal Bowman does, whether to a woman such as Greene or a man such as Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. It's his calling card, done whether to be performative, to draw in campaign donations, out of principle, or some combination thereof. Greene, for her part, probably would have hinted at a physical threat no matter the race of the man confronting her.

Thursday's action was a rather sordid, if barely consequential, affair. Marjorie Taylor Greene remains an extremist and bigot- if not a white supremacist, which is worse. Jamaal Bowman remains an in-your-face radical. He is periodically loathsome, yet a counterbalance to the overly cautious and moderate President Biden; she, merely loathsome.  Welcome to the America spawned by Donald J. Trump.

Share |

Everyone?

Phones can't ring off the hook.. The receiver can't jump off the hook on its own and if it did, someone would have to be there to put it back on promptly so that another call can come in, prompting the receiver to ring off the hook again. Also (unlike mine) most households no longer have a landline, hence have no hook to ring off of. "Here, let me get up and change the channel on the television" which, too, has gone by the wayside.

Of course, that's not Greene's point, which is far more significant than it appears to be. At first glance, this appears crazy to want "everyone" impeachment. At second glance, it appears way beyond the pale, even for the Republican Party.

But it's neither, and it's not only the Bidens (video below), anymore

The phones in my office have been ringing off the hook with support!!

We’ve heard from countless people today in support of my articles of impeachment against U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

They want to impeach everyone. It’s amazing.

More to…

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 16, 2023

.   

In 1988, right-wing activist Grover Norquist challenged both Bob Dole and George W Bush a Taxpayer Protection Pledge in which the signee agreed never to agree to any tax increases..  Bush signed it, Dole did not, Bush was nominated and elected, and lost re-election partly because he broke his foolish "no new taxes" pledge. Thirteen years later, Norquist quipped  "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." 

Presumably, "the not in favor of abolishing the government" was accompanied by a nod and a sink and now, virtually every GOP candidate for an elected position in the federal government signs the pledge.

Never voting for a tax increase, no matter the need or decrease in the value of money, would go a long way toward Norquist's goal, which he clarified in 2015 as

to reduce the size of government by half over 25 years, and then to do that again in 24 years, and eventually get it small enough that if you wanted you could drown it in the tub. That's doable over time. It's a long-term goal.

Norquist is getting support recently most significantly, and in the immediate, by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has implied that he will agree to raise the debt limit if spending for social services is significantly cut.  His preference, unstated but likely, is to send the USA into default but if it's avoided with spending decreases, he becomes  a hero to the right, anyway.

Nonetheless, shrinking government sufficiently to drown it in a bathtub requires something additional. Elimination of government officials would come in handy. That could be accomplished by impeachment of high-ranking officials, such as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, respectively.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's dream won't reach fruition. However, her extremist or hateful tweets at least move the Overton Window, wherein right-wingers don't appear so radical.  They're the same "moderates" who will rarely question Marjorie Taylor Greene or Donald Trump or their fellow travelers.

Share |

Unity Now a Four-Letter Word

This is the big, obvious, and immediate problem.

Watch what's happening in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Idaho & other red states that are rapidly becoming fascist dystopias--denying women, people of color, voters, retirees, families, and children their rights. This is America's nightmare now. It is much bigger than Trump.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) April 6, 2023

Nonetheless, there is another big problem, though far less obvious and immediate.

A survey conducted on a wide range of issues by Quinnipiac in March, 2023  found 73% of respondents believing abortion should be legal in "all" or "most cases (question #22). Only 25% believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, with a mere 2% undecided.

That's a great and liberal response! But curtail they eagerness or, as Larry David would put, curb your enthusiasm. The same survey disturbingly found

Americans are divided on a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. Forty-seven percent support a ban, while 48 percent oppose it. This compares to a Quinnipiac University poll in July 2022 when 49 percent supported a ban and 45 percent opposed it.

As the cliche has it, "let that sink in." More Americans oppose a nationwide ban on assault weapons- which are easily trafficked from one state to another- than who favor it. Assault weapons. That's a firearm which refers

to a semi-automatic gun designed for military use and quick, efficient killing. Assault weapons are uniquely lethal because of their rapid rate of fire and high muzzle velocity — coupled with large-capacity magazines, which attach to an assault weapon to allow dozens of gunshots without needing to reload. A large-capacity magazine is typically defined as any magazine or drum that is capable of holding more than either 10 or 15 rounds of ammunition.

Yet, respondents who on the whole overwhelmingly in favor of abortion rights were (albeit by a tiny margin) opposed to a nationwide ban on assault weapons. 

It's speculation, but perhaps quite a few individuals may have been stuck on the "nationwide." This would be odd because it is illogical.  Banning assault weapons is unlike some issues, such as marijuana legalization, which individuals may oppose nationwide on principle, but  be supportive because of the economic benefits to their own state. By contrast, people armed with assault weapons and bent on murder are not discouraged from crime if they'd have to cross state lines and there is no rational reason to oppose a ban nationwide while supporting it locally.

There may be an instinct in that which is present in a new abortion law in Idaho, where Republican governor Brad Little on Wednesday 

that bans minors from traveling out of state for abortions without parental consent. The law creates a new felony crime called “abortion trafficking,” which the legislation defines as an “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug” for the minor.

“Recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking,” according to the legislation. The crime of abortion trafficking carries a felony offense punishable by two to five years in prison.

The law criminalizes anyone transporting a pregnant minor without parental consent within Idaho to get an abortion or abortion pills, which means it could apply to a grandmother driving a pregnant minor to the post office to pick up a package holding medication abortion or target an older brother driving a pregnant minor to a friend’s house to self-manage an abortion at home...

Although the legislation does not specifically discuss crossing state lines, most pregnant people in Idaho are not traveling in the state to get an abortion. Most are traveling to get legal abortions in neighboring states like Washington or Oregon. This law criminalizes the act of anyone driving a minor without parental consent to the border of Idaho with the intent of crossing state lines to get an abortion outside the state...

State Rep. Barbara Ehardt (R), one of the sponsors of the abortion trafficking law, told HuffPost last month that the intent of the legislation is to limit minors’ ability to travel out of state without parental consent, despite the text of the bill only discussing intrastate travel.

“It’s already illegal to get an abortion here in the state of Idaho,” Ehardt said. “So, it would be taking that child across the border, and if that happens without the permission of the parent, that’s where we’ll be able to hold accountable those that would subvert a parent’s right."

Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene is onto something, a bad policy suggestion but in capturing a little of the mood of the country.

We need a national divorce.

We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.

Everyone I talk to says this.

From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are…

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 20, 2023

 

 We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Obviously, a nationwide ban on assault weapons, of which there are mixed opinions, would require an act of the federal government. Abortion legal "in all" or "in most" cases would not.  

And more: we once tried separating by red states/blue states or, rather, slave and non-slave, states. It did not work out well. Yet, the squeamish about a national assault weapons ban, Greene's advocacy of a separation of states from each other, and the travel ban upon (some) pregnant women in Idaho suggest  a weakening concept of union.  

There is a trend toward localism reflecting a growing preference for insularity.  Leave us alone, the sentiment runs, to implement a gun ban if we want; prohibiting the mobility of women; and, ultimately, carving out two countries from one. Even the support for the right to choose, a proper instinct, is one which has something in common with the other perspectives: leave us alone to do as we choose in response to our own values. 

The inclination is constructive when when applied to a right to do as she wishes, within reason, with her own body.  In most ways, however, it is damaging.  A dystopian future, indeed.

Share |

Authoritarian Allies

It's an interesting, not rhetorical question, asked by one tweeter: "why are we letting one man systematically destroy our nation right before our eyes?"

Among the many answers is that it's not only one man (or woman).  Note that

A group of lawmakers led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) visited the D.C. jail Friday where Donald Trump supporters have been held for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The delegation consisted of House Oversight Committee members investigating the supposed unequal treatment of Jan. 6 rioters Greene describes as “political prisoners"...

After touring the facility for about two hours with about a dozen colleagues, including two Democrats, Greene told reporters the visit confirmed her view that there’s a double standard.

“There’s a very different treatment for pretrial Jan. 6 defendants,” she said.

The two Democrats from the committee, Reps. Robert Garcia (Ca.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas), agreed that Jan. 6 defendants received different treatment ― except they said it was better treatment.

Meanwhile

A trio of House Republican committee chairs say the House of Representatives could soon take up legislation to strip state and local prosecutors of the authority to prosecute former presidents in response to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s potential indictment of former president Donald Trump.

In a letter to Mr Bragg, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, and House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil rejected arguments the Manhattan prosecutor gave in response to the trio’s demand that he give evidence before their panels about the ongoing investigation into Mr Trump.

Mr Bragg’s probe could result in the twice-impeached ex-president becoming the first former US chief executive to face criminal charges over hush money payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.

Last week, Mr Bragg’s office slammed the 20 March demand for his testimony as “an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution” which only arose “after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged [Congress] to intervene”.

“Your letter treads into territory very clearly reserved to the states. It suggests that Congress’s investigation is being ‘conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to ‘punish’ those investigated,’ and is, therefore, ‘indefensible,’” said Leslie Dubek, who is Mr Bragg’s general counsel, in a response sent to the chairmen on Thursday.

There is a story here beyond the obvious ones about criminality and the separation of powers.

Grossly lacking prescience, Politico on the day after last year's mid-term elections reported

As the night wore on, Republicans began to express concern that the results were not what they were expecting, or hoping for. Senior party officials vented that in too many contests, candidates had embraced positions adopted by Trump that were too far outside the mainstream.

With Trump poised to announce a 2024 bid, some said the party needed to have a post-election reckoning — and a discussion about whether the GOP needed to turn to someone else.

How times have changed- and in less than five months.  Tim Alberta in The Atlantic finds

Piety aside, raw political calculation was at work. Trump’s relationship with the evangelical movement—once seemingly shatterproof, then shaky after his violent departure from the White House—is now in pieces, thanks to his social-media tirade last fall blaming pro-lifers for the Republicans’ lackluster midterm performance.

And yet, as the perspective of white evangelicals has takes a slightly nuanced (not what they're know for) turn, House Republicans are fronting for Donald Trump's authoritarian schemes.

Only a few seconds into the video below, Michael Steele remarks "I need to start with a question for today's Republican Party. What the hell's wrong with you?

You will get the answer to that question from few pundits or journalists and from even fewer Democratic politicians. But the problem is that, whether they actually agree with Donald Trump- the jury is out- House Republicans really like what Donald Trump is doing. They really, really do like it, and want to make sure everyone knows it.

Share |

Two People, Two Ideas

As a presidential nominee, Joe Biden stated “America was an idea, an idea. We hold these truths to be self evident.’ We’ve never lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it before. And I just think we have to be more honest. Let our kids know, as we raise them, what actually did happen. Acknowledge our mistakes so we don’t repeat them."

On September 1, 2021 the President remarked "this is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal."  And on the first anniversary of the attempted coup, Biden declared

And with rights come responsibilities: the responsibility to see each other as neighbors – maybe we disagree with that neighbor, but they’re not an adversary; the responsibility to accept defeat then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your case; the responsibility to see that America is an idea – an idea that requires vigilant stewardship.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he "will never leave,"  has a competing idea. She won't accept defeat and won't compete in the arena of ideas and yearns for a land of exclusivity. Not surprisingly

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) resurrected her calls for a “national divorce” on Monday, arguing that Republican and Democratic states needed to be separated and the federal government needed to shrink, although it is unclear what prompted the thought.

“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” Greene said on Twitter on Monday. “From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”

Eight days ago, the Georgian previously most derided for believing in Jewish space lasers unloaded on "lazy and sorry" black people and white people. A week later, she would warn Democrats who move to a Republican state "you can live there, and you can work there, but you don’t get to bring your values that you basically created in the blue states you came from by voting for Democrat leaders and Democrat policies.”  Tuesdays are a busy day for Mrs. Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: "The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war ... but it's going that direction." pic.twitter.com/vqguBA58FZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 22, 2023

This past December, at the annual gala in New York City of the New York Young Republicans, Greene had given her full-throated support to the attempted coup of January 6, 2021. Moreover

It was not the first time that Greene has suggested the idea of a “national divorce.” In late 2021, Greene said voters who brought “ruin” to California shouldn’t be allowed to do the same to a state like Florida.

“I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I organized that, we would have won,” she said, as attendees erupted in cheers and applause. “Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

Biden conceives of the idea of the USA as "all men are created equal."  That idea in the Declaration of Independence did not include women; or blacks; or men who didn't own land. It would be more accurate to illuminate the idea of representative democracy or of a democratic republic; a self-governing people.

Nonetheless, Biden's is the vision of a country which can and- with two steps forward and one step backward- gradually move toward a more perfect union, which coincides with Biden's ongoing optimism about the country. 

Responding last May to Democratic concerns about white supremacy in the wake of the mass shooting at a Buffalo, NY supermarket, Green commented "we should go after criminals that break the law and not pursue people based on their skin color and how they vote. But that's what the Democrats want to do."

Alas, it turns out that pursuing people and purging them from the country because of how they vote is a fundamental belief for Marjorie Taylor Green. It's an idea of two nations, divisible, with liberty and justice for anyone registered as Republican. It's ideal for someone who believes this nation was not founded on an idea but on a people: Christian, economically comfortable, and white if at all possible. 

 

Share |

Pretend Christian

If you're a Bible-believing Christian, as Greene claims to be, you should know she's a fraud. If, as with most people, you're not a Bible-believing Christian, you should know she's a fraud.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is famous, or infamous, for many things, including in June declaring "We need to be the party of nationalism and I'm a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists." She claimed Christian nationalism would stop "crime in our streets," school shootings, and "sexual immorality" and "we should be most proud of Christianity. So if Christian nationalism is something to be scared of, they're lying to you."

This, then, should strike Bible-believing Christians as highly incongruous:

If you’re under 18 and people are telling you to cut off your breast or have a surgery that turns your penis inside out to make a “vagina” you’re a victim of child abuse.

Get away from those people and find safe people who tell you that you’re already perfect.

Grow up first.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 28, 2022

In a verse well-known even to some people not well-versed in Scripture, the apostle Paul told the Romans "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." If Marjorie were half as committed to Christianity as she purports to be, she'd be familiar with this fundamental principle of the faith.  

Those unfamiliar with Paul's admonition or skeptical of its authenticity themselves are aware that all are imperfect because, well, no one is perfect. Moreover, that young person who is confused or uncertain (or determined to transition) about his or her sexuality would soon find out that he or she is not perfect and then realize that the counselor, friend, or family member who said otherwise was lying. 

Greene's remark won't change the mind of a non-Christian or lukewarm Christian, nor that of devout Christians, most still supportive of an ex-President who was openly contemptuous of Christians and Christianity. Still, it's helpful to understand that as right-wing and nasty as Marjorie Taylor Greene is, she's also a fake, phony, and fraud.

 

Share |

Nuts to that

You may recall in May reading that

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy theory-peddling Georgia Republican, shouldn't be disqualified over her role in the January 6 insurrection, a judge said Friday in a significant legal blow to the voters and advocacy groups who tried to throw her off the ballot.

State Judge Charles Beaudrot said in a 19-page recommendation that even if it is assumed that the US Capitol riot was an insurrection, "challengers have produced insufficient evidence to show that Rep. Greene 'engaged' in that insurrection after she took the oath of office on January 3, 2021."

The recommendation was submitted to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, who accepted the decision later on Friday night and formally ruled that Greene will stay on the ballot. The anti-Greene challengers said in a statement that they'll appeal Raffensperger's decision in state courts....

Beaudrot's recommendation comes weeks after he presided over an unprecedented all-day disqualification hearing in Atlanta, where lawyers for the voters who challenged Greene's candidacy tried to connect her and her militant rhetoric to the violent attack on the Capitol.

She testified for more than three hours at the hearing, becoming the first member of Congress to answer questions under oath about January 6. She denied knowing about plans for violence and repeatedly said she couldn't remember key facts -- like what she discussed with White House officials about the transfer of power, and with whom she spoke as January 6 approached.

The congresswoman's bad behavior continues, and if you're concerned about your shins, never ask Marjorie Taylor Greene "how does the Second Amendment prevent gun violence?"

Why would she post this video where she kicks a woman? Whew. This lady is nuts. https://t.co/ng4ldhiS9S

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) September 15, 2022

Greene was re-nominated in May and will be re-elected in November. She is not "nuts," crazy, and probably not stupid. She knew enough months ago to plead amnesia in a court hearing when she conveniently was unable to remember much of anything so she'd neither be disqualified from running for office again nor subjected to possible charges of perjury.

The 44th President has been derided for several years for allegedly being nuts, crazy, or stupid. However, after Trump gained a favorable ruling on his extraordinary request for a special master- but before Aileen Cannon selected the Trump team's choice- the Washington Post's Philip Bump wrote

Trump, working with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), pushed hard to fill vacancies on the bench (often ones held open by McConnell). He campaigned on filling those seats with ideological allies and often offered up nominees who checked two boxes: young and conservative. Then, out of office and finding himself in need of a judge’s favorable opinion, he sought out Cannon in particular. On Monday, that paid off — leaving legal observers perplexed (or worse).

Donald Trump, after running a lawless Administration and displaying authoritarian preferences, is still a free man- and his party's favorite for the 2024 presidential nomination. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the current and future United States Representative from the 14th C.D. of Georgia, making outrageous comments, toting a rifle, encouraging an insurrection, and kicking a reporter. And having the time of her life.

These people are evil. But "nuts?" Nuts to that.

Share |

Tweet of the Day- Patronage

The good news is that Marjorie Taylor Greene has not recently encouraged the execution of Democratic politicians and FBI agents. The bad news is that what she is recommending is largely below the radar, more sinister, and is a glimpse into GOP plans for a totalitarian state.

And here comes the war on civil service, an essential bulwark against an authoritarian executive. With dumbass movie references. https://t.co/f3p0DjBe04

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 15, 2022

 

In late July, former President Donald J. Trump

seemed to endorse a recently unveiled plan by a cadre of his former staffers to strip tens of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections and fire them at will under the next Republican administration.

Trump spoke Tuesday at an event hosted by the America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded by former staffers in his administration. His speech came on the heels of an Axios report last week that former White House aides are planning to revive the controversial Schedule F, a job classification system that would take current federal workers in “policy-related” positions out of the competitive service, stripping them of civil service protections and making them effectively at-will employees.

Schedule F was authorized via executive order in October 2020, but the Trump administration failed to implement the measure before he left office in January 2021. One of President Biden’s first acts as president was to rescind the edict.

“We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or, at a minimum, just want to keep their jobs,” Trump said. “They want to hold onto their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent or unnecessary for the job can be told—did you ever hear this—‘You’re fired, get out, you’re fired.’ [You] have to do it. Deep state. Washington will be an entirely different place.”

Those involved in the effort to revive Schedule F told Government Executive last week that they have identified 50,000 federal employees that could be fired under the proposed new authority, although they hope to fire only a fraction of that total to create a “chilling effect” to keep the rest of them in line.

Schedule F was reviled by members of both parties, as well as good government groups, academics and federal employee unions, when it was unveiled in 2020. But lawmakers failed to act at the time to prevent its implementation, with Republicans and some members of Democratic leadership concluding that it would go away once Trump left office. Some experts warned it would return in some form with the next Republican administration.

Oh, it will, because if the next Republican administration begins in January of 2025. it very likely will be President Trump or President DeSantis, both would-be authoritarians. The employees will all be expected to think and act exactly as the head of state expects them to, under penalty of being fired- or worse.

It's not sexy or astonishing like an insurrection or threatening the life of FBI agents.  But implementation of the ideas held by Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene about the federal workforce would put the nation well on its way to autocracy.

 

Share |