Filmmaker Michael Moore↱: The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just 2 yrs later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice. Call it what you want; poetic justice is of entirely subjective value. Certes, it is one thing to watch the conservative humiliation and performative denigration of Congress; last night was the first time in a hundred years the Clerk was left in charge of the House, like that. The problem with Moore's two bits is that dysfunctional clownery is what conservative voters wanted. That is, the political party that spent three quarters of my life complaining that government just doesn't work has spent the last decade or so fulfilling the promise. The inability to perform the most basic duties of governance, such as calling the House of Representatives to order, is actually a feature of conservative politics, not a bug. They've told us, for years, that they want to murder the government. This is what it looks like. If voters responded to these episodes by punishing, or, at least, not rewarding Republicans, that would be one thing. Moore's sweet justice is entirely internalized; Republicans will likely go unpunished for this, and just like 2010, 2014, and 2016, voters in 2022 rewarded Republicans for their dishonesty. The McCarthy debacle only strengthens conservative resolve, while the so-called moderates and would-be crossovers try to find new ways to express this as a problem for both sides in order to clear themselves a path to rewarding Republicans. This has always been a particlar American challenge: "Liberty and Justice for All" is just a cheap slogan for nearly half the society, and negotiable to a significant enough "independent" bloc to consistently just say no to what we place our hands on our hearts and pledge allegiance to. There is, indeed, a certain low-key satisfaction, or perhaps relief, that the conservative danger is also so extraordinarily incompetent. But incompetence or noncompetency are not any guarantee against danger. Yes, it is a strangely encouraging—or, perhaps, strangely not discouraging—suggestion that the GOP is not capable of bringing its greatest dangers to bear, but when one seeks to inflict harm, they can achieve it simply by disrupting rescue and relief, or even disrupting basic function. Call it what you want, but as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA20) loses his seventh vote for Speaker, remember how many people voted for this excremental show because what they really want is a pageant of crime and tyranny. And for the rest of us, this is what all those years of equivocating and making excuses were for. It's what all those wannabe middle-ground excuses were actually advocating. While there is some scrap of comfort to be found in knowing how stupid and incompetent Congressional Republicans actually are, calling the mess some manner of justice would seem to pretend the GOP will experience some sort of significant consequence for their behavior, and that aspect has not been in evidence for the most part of the twenty-first century. ____________________ Notes: @MMFlint. "The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just 2 yrs later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice. The Clown Show in Congress resumes today at 12pmET." Twitter. 4 January 2022. Twitter.com. 4 January 2022. https://bit.ly/3QheZ7i
The Bathtub Chronicles Eleven. Radley Balko↱ suggests: Prediction: McCarthy wins over the holdouts on the 43rd vote by finally agreeing to hang Mike Pence.
The Obvious Question While I never really had much respect for House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, that fourteenth vote ought to have made something clear to him. Last time, when House Republicans fell back to Ryan, what did they fail to learn? How is it not obvious that the decades of anti-government hyperbole now has its own House caucus? Are there any Republicans who are actually surprised at this excremental show?
Because Freedom Erin Reed↱ observes: Drag bans are now pushing beyond "sexualization" and are now explicitly targeting drag queen story hours. Oklahoma HB2186 will be heard tomorrow. It explicitly spells out drag queen story hour and says they would be banned. It bans "reading to kids in flamboyant makeup." That's right, the folks who say government doesn't work, and who worry about SJW snowflakes, oh, right, and in a place where they got so upset at marriage equality they filed two separate bills to call off marriage, they're now down to policing your makeup when you reading to children. And that's just the thing: This isn't new; they've been this way the whole time. It's one thing if the conservative condition is dishonest, but as conservatives chatter toward civil war, they're kind of proving that they really are so low, and have been lying for decades: To describe the actions we see today to even some of the same people twenty or even ten years ago would have offended them, but what they might find offensive is also what they have brought, and it becomes harder and harder to pretend they didn't know. Think back over thirty years, to around 1992: Imagine listening to your conservative neighbor and saying, "Yeah, but you're a wannabe fascist itching for civil war because you're offended that you aren't granted the right to decide who else deserves rights, and would overthrow the government if your supremacist candidate loses the election." Those would have been fighting words; history also shows they would have been true. The problem, here, might just be conservatives; the error was to suppress our own words, to self-censor, on behalf of a basic human dignity that conservatives do not actually believe in. Remember what we're not supposed to say about some people, and then consider the prospect that it happens to be true and has been the whole time. Bad makeup when reading to children? Let me guess, that won't apply to evangelicals in churches. It would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. American conservatives, folks. The party of small government is terrified of flamboyant makeup. We don't necessarily recognize the bleeding-heart conservatives because what spills out is so corrosive. We should probably revise the prior formulation↗: Say what we will about poverty¹, but voters in conservative states are far too worried about censoring education, fiddling with election laws, and policing menstrual cycles and makeup. Conservative priorities have remained somewhat consistent over the years. Say what they will about whatever, but we see what they actually do. ____________________ Notes: ¹ Or health care, crime, public debt, unemployment, &c.; the original point referred to a question about the federal minimum wage and a question of priorities.
Conservative Priorities Florida man introduces new legislation: Representative Alex Andrade has introduced a new bill, HB991, which could chill freedom of speech nationally. The bill rolls back defamation protections in many ways, but most relevant is a section that states if you accuse somebody of transphobic discrimination, they can sue you for $35,000. Furthermore, the bill prohibits the use of "constitutionally protected" beliefs as evidence to establish the truth of the allegation. The bill is specifically targeted towards a large range of defamation protections and seeks to roll them back. One part of the bill seeks to protect people who go viral for doing something racist or transphobic - it states that a person is not a public figure for defamation purposes if their fame or notoriety stems from “a video uploaded to the internet that reaches a large audience.” The fact that they are being racist, homophobic, or transphobic in the video may not be a defense in most circumstances according to this law. It also protects people who give interviews or who are “defending themselves” against claims of racism, homophobia, or transphobia. (Reed↱) Apparently the people who accuse political dissent of being child groomers think they might need some new legislation to protect them from having to answer for their defamatory words and behavior. So, yeah, say what we will↗ about inflation, crime, or public health, but conservatives in Florida are far too worried about being able to defame certain people and denying them redress against defamation. And censoring schools. And, oh right, that whole thing with registering youth menstrual cycles fell apart, so they'll have to get it together and try again. You know how it goes. It's what is most important to conservatives. ____________________ Notes: Reed, Erin. "FL Bill Makes Transphobia Accusations Defamation, $35k Penalty". Erin In The Morning. 22 February 2023. ErinInTheMorn.Substack.com. 23 February 2023. http://bit.ly/3kqxYRA
