Last Call For The Classically Trained

 If you've got 15 minutes and you're waiting around the vaccine clinic anyway, might as well make efficient and effective use of your time and skills.

After Yo-Yo Ma received his second jab of a COVID-19 vaccine at Berkshire Community College Saturday, he transformed his 15-minute observation period into a concert for the newly inoculated.

The world-famous cellist and part-time Berkshires resident completed his vaccination course at the field house clinic, and he "wanted to give something back," Richard Hall of the Berkshire COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative told The Eagle.

Yo-Yo Ma took a seat along the wall of the observation area, masked and socially distanced away from the others. He went on to pass 15 minutes in observation playing cello for an applauding audience, in what Hall called a "very special" concert that capped the day's vaccination event.

"What a way to end the clinic," wrote Hall in an email.

Berkshire Community College shared news of Yo-Yo Ma’s informal performance on social media, and state Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli commended the musician for “bringing hope and optimism through his beautiful music.” The college shared snippets of the concert on Facebook.

 

A rather nice thing to do.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

House Democrats are making life difficult for the 132 GOP insurrectionist terrorists in the House who voted for Trump's coup, freezing them out of meetings, committee discussions, and relevance.

Freshman Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Democrat, has begun turning to an unusual source when trying to decide whether he wants to work with a Republican he thinks makes a good point during committee hearings: Google.

The Massachusetts lawmaker says he knows his constituents want him to work across the aisle, but he's drawing “a sharp red line” at working with Republicans who voted not to certify the Electoral College results as part of then-President Donald Trump's failed bid to overturn his election defeat.

If a quick search produces evidence that one of his Republican colleagues refused to acknowledge President Joe Biden's win, he said, “I kind of throw cold water on the whole thing,” adding that while he doesn't like political litmus tests, "insurrection against the United States government qualifies.”

Auchincloss is not alone. 

Democratic lawmakers are each drawing their own lines, and some are finding that it means there are colleagues whom they once worked with to craft bipartisan legislation but with whom they now are unable, or unwilling, to collaborate.

The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol set off an impeachment proceeding and hundreds of criminal cases, but it's also having a lasting impact on Congress to get even some of the most basic and mundane tasks completed.

The public tends to pay close attention when Congress does things like pass $2 trillion spending bills. But it's the day-to-day activities that get little attention and keep the place buzzing.

Democrats say, for the time being, it's about Republicans not sharing a fundamental belief in democracy and elections.

Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., objected to a routine House task of naming a post office because it was proposed by Republican Rep. Trent Kelly, R-Miss., whom Democrats accuse of supporting the protest Jan. 6 and who also voted to overturn the Electoral College vote in two states.

Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., has a basic requirement before he can work with a Republican: “At the fundamental level, I need an affirmative statement that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States and the 2020 election was an honest and fair election.”

Schneider, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that is known for reaching across the aisle, said that in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, he has had to cut off previous working relationships.

He and Republican Rep. Jody Hice, of Georgia, were working together on a task force the two co-founded on ethylene oxide, a toxic carcinogen that is particularly problematic in the Chicago and the Atlanta areas.

But he told Hice he couldn't work with him after the Republican continued to claim the election was affected by fraud, most recently saying at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, that Trump only lost Georgia because of “the horrible” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican.

“It’s hard to envision going into an administration with a partner who doesn’t acknowledge the legitimacy of that administration or is showing a commitment to the truth,” Schneider said. 

Schneider also told Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., that he could no longer sponsor a bill that the two have worked on together since 2017 that provides Family and Medical Leave Act protections to parents who lost a child. Gosar has been one of the most vocal supporters of false claims that the election was stolen.

I don't have a problem this this at all. It's literally the least House Democrats can do as far as punishing the Trump cultists insurrectionist terrorists in their midst. 

Because if the insurrectionists would have won, every single House Democrat would be dead.

Sunday Long Read: Ace Adventure, Pet Detectives

This week's Sunday Long read comes to us from The Atavist Magazine, where writer Phil Hoad gives us the story of two amateur sleuths in south London who follow a trail of missing pets that starts to look more and more like the work of a serial killer. Warning: this gets gruesome from the get-go, so if true crime violence isn't your thing, you may want to skip SLR this week.

It was the body on the south London doorstep that got everyone’s attention. On the bright morning of September 23, 2015, a woman walked outside her home to find a cream-and-coffee-colored pelt, like a small furry Pierrot. It had dark forelegs, and its face was a smoky blot. It was a cat, slit throat to belly; its intestines were gone.

The woman rang the authorities, who came and disposed of the body. Three days later, she looked at a leaflet that had come through her mail slot, asking whether anyone had seen Ukiyo, a four-year-old ragdoll mix whose coat matched that of the dead cat. The woman broke the bad news to Ukiyo’s owner, Penny Beeson, who lived just down Dalmally Road, a nearly unbroken strip of poky, pebble-dashed row houses in the Addiscombe area of Croydon.

Beeson was inconsolable. “I shook for the whole day,” she later told The Independent.

“R.I.P ukiyo I feel devastated,” her son, Richard, posted on Facebook. “Hacked to death and left on someone’s doorstep. Some people are so sick!”

A few days later, Addiscombe’s letter boxes clacked again as another leaflet was delivered. This one warned that Ukiyo’s demise wasn’t an isolated incident—there had been a troubling spate of cat deaths in the area. The leaflet was printed by a local group called South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty, or SNARL.



Tony Jenkins, one of SNARL’s founders, had recently become his own master. At 51, with a reassuring, yeomanly face and a golden tinge at the very tip of his long, gray ponytail, Jenkins was laid off after 25 years working for a nearby government council. He hadn’t gotten along with his boss, so getting sacked came as something of a relief. With a year’s severance in his pocket, “I was enjoying my downtime,” Jenkins said. That included being with his girlfriend, a 44-year-old South African who went by the name Boudicca Rising, after the first-century Celtic warrior queen who fought the Romans to save the Britons. Among other things, Rising and Jenkins shared feelings of guardianship toward animals. Their homes at one point housed 34 cats, a dog, two gerbils, and a cockatoo between them. The couple had formed SNARL together.

Scanning Facebook one day in September 2015, about a week before Ukiyo was found dead, Jenkins stumbled upon a post from the nearby branch of the United Kingdom’s largest veterinarian chain, Vets4Pets, that described four gruesome local incidents in the past few weeks: a cat with its throat cut, one with a severed tail, another decapitated, and a fourth with a slashed stomach. Only the final cat had survived. Jenkins told Rising about the post. “That doesn’t sound right,” she said. “We need to do some digging.”

Digging was her forte. Always impeccably dressed, with an ornate gothic kick, and unfailingly in heels, Rising was a multitasking demon on a laptop. By day she worked for an office management company. By night she was part of the global alliance of animal rights activists. She was one of many people who used small details in online videos of a man torturing felines to identify the culprit, a Canadian man named Luka Magnotta. He was reported to police, who didn’t take the allegations seriously, and Magnotta went on to murder and chop up his lover in 2012—a crime recounted in the Netflix documentary Don’t F**k with Cats.

On the heels of Ukiyo’s death, Rising and Jenkins distributed SNARL’s leaflets throughout Addiscombe, warning of the threat to local felines. While to an uninterested eye some of the attacks might have appeared to be the indiscriminate cruelty of nature—the work of a hungry predator, say—SNARL believed they might be a series of linked and deliberate killings. Whether the crimes were perpetrated by an individual or a group SNARL wasn’t sure. It hoped the leaflets would help turn up more information.

SNARL soon had reports of more incidents in the area, for a total of seven: one cat missing, two with what SNARL subsequently described as “serious injuries,” and four dead. Rising said that vets who saw the deceased cats’ bodies told her the mutilations had been made with a knife. On September 29, SNARL sent out an alert on its Facebook page saying as much. The cats’ wounds, the group insisted, “could only have been inflicted by a human. Their bodies have been displayed in such a way as to cause maximum distress.”

That was SNARL’s official line. On Rising’s personal page she went further, emphasizing her belief that Addiscombe was dealing with a serial killer. “This is a psychopath,” she wrote.

What follows is a hell of a ride, and a test or morality for everyone who reads the tale, but it's a fine read.

Oh and be extra nice to your pets this week. 

The Republican Mask Slips Again...

 ...And Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin accidentally tells the truth.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is facing accusations of racism after saying the supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January didn't worry him but that he might have been concerned if they had been supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"I knew those were people who love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn't concerned," Johnson said about the predominantly white crowd that marched to the U.S. Capitol to overturn a presidential election and triggered an assault that left five people dead, 140 police officers injured and windows smashed.

"Now, had the tables been turned, and Joe — this is going to get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said during an interview with syndicated radio show host Joe "Pags" Pagliarulo.

 

In the end, what white supremacist Republicans are terrified of the most is Black people having power, and using that power to do to white supremacist Republicans what they have been doing to us for 400 years.

 

Nothing scares them more.

 

Nothing.

"What, white people love this country and Black people don’t? That’s exactly what he’s saying," state Sen. LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat from Milwaukee who is Black, said.

Johnson, who is not related to Ron Johnson, said it wasn't Black Lives Matter protesters who triggered an insurrection that left five people dead, including a police officer.

"For him to say something as racist as that — it’s ridiculous," she said. "It’s a totally racist comment and the insult to injury is he didn’t mind saying it in the position that he holds because for some reason that’s just deemed as acceptable behavior for people who live in and are elected officials in this state."

Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he made the comment because, out of about 10,000 protests that took place last summer in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, 570 turned violent and caused billions of dollars worth of property damage. 

 

Sure, that excuses the racism.

 

Black Lives Matter, Ron.

It's About Suppression, Con't

 ...And the racist, vote-suppressing GOP accidentally tells the truth about their "election integrity" bills across the nation, in states like Arizona, where state GOP legislators are busy stopping those people from ever being allowed to vote.

SB 1485, which has already passed the state Senate and now heads to the full House, would have the state send notices to people who are on the permanent early voting list but have not participated in the last four elections -- so, the 2018 primaries and midterm election and the 2020 primaries and election -- asking if they want to continue to receive ballots. Those who do not respond would be removed. 

Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, the Scottsdale Republican who sponsored the measure, said it is a "clean-up bill" to ensure ballots are not being created for and mailed to those who have moved, died or don't want them. 

"On its face, it would make sense that you would want to reduce opportunities for fraud, undo influence, manipulation. That should be something that we all agree on, right?" she said. "Allowing voters to sign up in perpetuity does increase the opportunity for things to go wrong." 

Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the Government and Elections Committee that advanced Ugenti-Rita's measure on a party-line vote Wednesday, said GOP lawmakers are concerned about what happens to ballots automatically sent to people who have moved or have died. 

He acknowledged that the concerns about those ballots being cast fraudulently are "anecdotal, because obviously if nobody's there and they throw it away, you wouldn't know. And if nobody's there and they vote it and do a good duplicate of the signature, you wouldn't know." 

"There's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans," Kavanagh said. "Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote -- but everybody shouldn't be voting." 

He pointed to Democrats' emphasis on registering voters and pursuing those who have not returned ballots -- tactics that Republicans have successfully implemented in other swing states -- and said doing so means that "you can greatly influence the outcome of the election if one side pays people to actively and aggressively go out and retrieve those ballots." 

"Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues," Kavanagh said. "Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well."

 

They're not even bothering to hide the fact that their bills are about stopping those voters who lack "quality" from ever voting, or their votes being counted when they do jump through all the hoops.

It's always been reconstituting Jim Crow.

 

Batboy Versus Captain COVID, Round One

Resident Florida Senate GOP Medicare fraudster Rick Scott wants America's governors to return the $360 billion in aid to local and state governments in the Biden American Rescue Plan signed into law yesterday, and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is actually blaming Scott for not getting the Sunshine State more of the Democrats' filthy lucre.

 

In an open letter to governors and mayors, sent moments after the U.S. House on Wednesday approved the $1.9 trillion bill, Scott called it “massive, wasteful and non-targeted," urging states to follow his lead and send a message to Congress to “quit recklessly spending other people’s money.”

“By rejecting and returning any unneeded funds, as well as funds unrelated to COVID-19, you would be taking responsible action to avoid wasting scarce tax dollars,” he wrote. “After all, every dollar in this package is borrowed.”

Scott, a former governor of Florida, called his request “simple and common sense,” adding that money slated for state and local governments is “wholly unrelated to responding to the pandemic.”

Scott has a history of bucking federal funds. As governor, he refused to allow Florida to accept Obamacare-related money to expand Medicaid health care coverage.

His letter comes as polls show the legislation is extremely popular. A Morning Consult/Politico poll found 69% of U.S. voters said the "package is the right amount" or "doesn’t go far enough," including 54% of Republicans.

The latter includes, apparently, Scott's successor, Gov. DeSantis, who complained Florida should be getting a bigger piece of the pie.

While Scott was calling for rejection of the assistance, DeSantis announced he has big plans for the stimulus money. And he may well be blaming Scott, at least partly, for not getting Florida more of it.

“The Senate didn’t correct the fact that Florida is getting a lot less than what we would be entitled to on a per capita basis,” DeSantis, in an apparent jab at Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, said Monday at a press conference.

The polarization on spending comes amid rumors that both DeSantis and Scott have eyes on the White House in 2024. At odds on numerous issues, DeSantis has for almost a year blamed Scott for the massive failures of the state's unemployment system, which was developed and implemented when Scott served as governor.

 

Now this is a fight I want to see more of. Rick Scott made billions in austerity cuts to the state's budget, including billions in health care system cuts (as a former hospital chain CEO, no less) and Ron DeSantis presided over 2 million COVID-19 cases and 32,000 dead.  These two villains actually make Jeb Bush look like a competent politician.

Floridians are of course the big loser, no matter who wins.

Cuomo's #MeToo Moment, Con't

New York Dem. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's days appear to be sharply numbered in office, now facing a possible criminal investigation related to sexual harassment accusations.

Albany Police Department officials said on Thursday that they had been notified by the New York State Police and the governor’s office about an alleged incident at the Executive Mansion involving Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a female aide that may have risen “to the level of a crime.” 

Steve Smith, a spokesman for the Albany police, said that the department had not received a formal complaint from the woman, who has not been identified, but that it had reached out to a lawyer for her.

This does not mean, Mr. Smith said, that the department has opened a criminal investigation, but it has offered its services to the alleged victim, “as we would do with any other report or incident.”

Albany police officials said they heard from the state police on Wednesday night after the publication of an article in The Times Union of Albany that detailed accusations leveled by an unidentified aide to the governor who accused Mr. Cuomo of groping her at the governor’s mansion, where he lives, late last year.

William Duffy, a spokesman for the State Police, confirmed the contact with the Albany department, saying it was “to facilitate a contact with the executive chamber regarding the alleged incident.”

Mr. Smith said that the deputy chief of police, Edward Donohue, who oversees the department’s criminal investigation unit, then spoke to the governor’s counsel.

The governor’s acting counsel, Beth Garvey, confirmed the conversation, saying that she had initiated the call and reported the allegations, after a lawyer for the female aide told the governor’s office that the aide did not want to file a report.

“As a matter of state policy, when allegations of physical contact are made, the agency informs the complainant that they should contact their local police department,” Ms. Garvey said in a statement. “If they decline, the agency has an obligation to reach out themselves and inform the department of the allegation.”

“In this case, the person is represented by counsel and when counsel confirmed the client did not want to make a report, the state notified the police department and gave them the attorney’s information,” Ms. Garvey added.

While the police department’s actions are part of standard procedure, the situation underscored the potential criminal exposure Mr. Cuomo faces if the aide decided to pursue charges for unwanted touching.

The aide, who is younger than Mr. Cuomo, was summoned to the governor’s private residence on the second floor to assist him with a technical issue when Mr. Cuomo reached under her blouse and began touching her, The Times Union said.

On Wednesday, the governor denied any wrongdoing.

“I have never done anything like this,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement, adding that the report was “gut-wrenching.”

Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said that he would not “speak to the specifics of this or any other allegation,” citing an ongoing investigation overseen by the state attorney general, Letitia James.

“I am confident in the result of the attorney general’s report,” Mr. Cuomo said.

 

Politically, I just don't see how Cuomo survives, with now a majority of NY state Democratic lawmakers calling for Cuomo's resignation.

Earlier Thursday, a group of 59 Democratic state legislators demanded Cuomo’s resignation in the wake of the allegation at the Executive Mansion.

The top Democrat in the state Assembly, Speaker Carl Heastie, said he would caucus with members Thursday to discuss “potential paths forward” in light of mounting allegations.

In New York, the Assembly is the legislative house that could move to impeach Cuomo, who has faced multiple allegations that he made the workplace an uncomfortable place for young women with sexually suggestive remarks and behavior, including unwanted touching and a kiss.

Nineteen senators and 40 Assembly members said in a letter Thursday that it was time for Cuomo to go.

“In light of the Governor’s admission of inappropriate behavior and the findings of altered data on nursing home COVID-19 deaths he has lost the confidence of the public and the state legislature, rendering him ineffective in this time of most urgent need,” the letter said. “It is time for Governor Cuomo to resign.”

 

At this point, you can start the clock on his resignation decision.  Over/under is end of the month, and I'll take the under.

StupidiNews!

• President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law on Thursday and called on Americans to help on COVID-19 in a primetime speech.
  
• That's it, that's the story.
• Joe Biden is awesome.

Last Call For The Blue Dogs Bite Back

It's not just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who understand that they can exercise all the demands they want to when all 50 Democratic senators have to vote, and need 10 Republicans to pass a filibuster. There are plenty of Blue Dog Dem senators waiting in the wings with agendas of their own on upcoming spending bills...and how to pay for them.

“At some point we’ve got to start paying for things,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats and is worried higher interest rates could become an albatross on the economy. “It’s got to be paid for. It’s just a question of who pays. Are we going to pay or our kids going to pay?”

Democrats — and Republicans, at least until Donald Trump left office — have shrugged off oceans of red ink over the past year as the U.S. confronted its worst public health crisis in a century. In just 12 months, Congress will have spent nearly $6 trillion fighting the virus and staving off economic free fall.

With an endpoint potentially coming into view, however, some moderate Democrats say it’s time for Congress to recover some semblance of fiscal pragmatism. That means Biden’s next major legislative priority can’t simply rack up more debt in a bid to remodel America’s crumbling physical infrastructure. And that could make things a lot tougher for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Some of it needs to be paid for,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who suggested an “all of the above” strategy for paying for an infrastructure package that includes spending cuts and raising new revenues.

“You’re going to remind me of this [later] when none of it’s paid for,” he deadpanned, “but I do think some of it needs to be paid for.”

Generating new revenue for infrastructure typically involves a debate about raising the federal gas tax, an idea so politically toxic that it’s been stagnant since 1993 and already repudiated by the Biden administration. Other ideas include charging fees based on the number of miles traveled, which raises privacy concerns with some politicians, or perhaps embracing unrelated tax increases on the wealthy to raise money for roads, rails and public transportation.

House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said Democrats are working under the “assumption” they’ll pay for at least some of an infrastructure measure, but he dismissed the idea that they could cover the entire cost.

“I think that’s unrealistic, given what everyone assumes the size of this is going to be,” Yarmuth said, noting that talks are ongoing.

Biden and top Democrats say they are committed to bringing Republicans on board for their plan. That bipartisan coordination would ensure the GOP helps carry the bill and sell it with the public.

But many senior Democrats are skeptical after such fierce opposition to Biden's coronavirus plan. They don’t trust GOP leaders to be serious in the process, and they're already in discussions about again using the budget reconciliation process to muscle through Biden’s next big bill on a party-line vote, sidestepping the risk of a Republican filibuster.

 

If even Jon Tester, Angus King, and Kentucky's only Democrat, John Yarmuth are sounding straight-up like Republican spending scolds, it's going to be a grim journey ahead for badly needed infrastructure spending, even if things do go to budget reconciliation and around the GOP roadblock.

Don't expect much from this as far as becoming law.

Have A Merrick New Year

For all the sturn und drang, 20 Republican senators voted to confirm Merrick Garland as the next Attorney General.

The Senate has confirmed President Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, by a vote of 70-30.

The victory for Garland, 68, came almost five years after his failed nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2016. The Senate, then under Republican control, denied Garland a hearing or vote.

Garland, who has been a judge on the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1997, received the support of every Democrat and 20 Republicans. Several potential GOP presidential hopefuls voted against Garland’s confirmation, including Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

Garland encountered little resistance at his confirmation hearing last month, although Republicans pressed him to promise that he would not interfere with an ongoing special counsel investigation into the origins of the FBI probe of alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Garland said he saw no reason to disturb former Attorney General William Barr’s appointment of longtime federal prosecutor John Durham to oversee that review, but the nominee declined to explicitly commit to allowing Durham to complete his work. Republicans also urged Garland to ensure no political intervention in an ongoing inquiry that the U.S. attorney in Delaware is conducting into the tax and business affairs of Biden’s son, Hunter.

While Republicans were generally friendly to Garland at his hearing and insisted their resistance to his confirmation to the Supreme Court was based on concerns unrelated to him personally, some later indicated that he had been too vague and evasive in his answers.

On immigration policy, for instance, Garland was essentially mum. He said he wasn’t familiar with questions about whether illegal border-crossing should remain a crime, even though it was an issue debated at some length during last year’s Democratic presidential primary.

Despite some GOP skepticism, Garland won support from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

 

Yep. Even Mitch voted for him after denying even a vote for his Supreme Court nomination.  After all, Garland will only stick around for several years, not a lifetime on SCOTUS. Mitch got his win. He can afford to give Garland the silver medal here, just to remind everyone who's really in charge of Washington right now as long as the filibuster remains.

 

The Greene Bad Deal

House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, leader of the Q-Nutjob Caucus of the GOP, keeps calling for votes to adjourn the House for the day and doing it on a near daily basis in order to purely disrupt the process of Nancy Pelosi and the Dems doing the business of the people. 

It was cute the first few times when she kept constantly bringing up resolutions to impeach Joe Biden, but now her Republican colleagues are getting sick and tired of the motions since Greene has been kicked off all committee assignments for, you know, being a racist conspiracy theory terrorist white supremacist seditionist and essentially has nothing to do but to cast votes, and they're increasingly voting against her to make the point she needs to shut the hell up and go away.

 

Forty House Republicans on Wednesday voted against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest motion to adjourn, yet another sign her party is growing increasingly frustrated with the Georgia Republican’s procedural delay tactics.

That figure was more than double the 18 Republicans who voted against her motion last week to end House business for the day.

Some of those Republicans who have bucked Greene and GOP leaders have correctly predicted that the number of “no” votes will only grow as Greene continues to force more of these votes.

They’ve complained that these unexpected votes, which do not appear on the House schedule, have disrupted constituent meetings and congressional hearings and have no purpose other than gumming up the floor.

“I’m just tired of it. We’re doing this every day, and there’s no point. So I’m just done playing,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a Greene critic, told The Hill last week.

Like the other futile Greene votes, Wednesday’s motion to adjourn failed, by a roll call of 149-235.

But most Republicans — nearly 150 on this vote — still stuck with Greene, who began deploying these procedural tactics after Democrats voted last month to strip her of her two committee assignments over offensive social media posts.

Greene on Wednesday said she was trying to stop Congress from passing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, a “massive woke progressive Democrat wish list.” And she issued a warning that Republicans who crossed her would be seen as siding with the Democratic stimulus.

"We should do everything to stop it. Pay attention if Rs vote to adjourn. Or with the Dems,” Greene tweeted. 

At this point, Greene only exists in Congress to stop it from doing anything, and threatening her caucus if they don't obey her.

She is the Republican party. And House Rules Committee chair David Cicilline has had enough.

After Greene, a Georgia Republican, tried Wednesday to stall the lower chamber's final vote on President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package by forcing a motion to adjourn, Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said he will propose a rule change to ensure it doesn't happen again.

"I'm dead serious," he told reporters.

The rule would mean a member can do a motion to adjourn only if the representative is a member of a committee. Greene was stripped of her committee assignments by House Democrats last month after some of her controversial social media posts resurfaced. In them, she promoted QAnon and other conspiracy theories and advocated violence against Democratic leaders.

"He's trying to come up with a solution for the repeated attempts made by one of his colleagues to go home early from work and disrupt the important work Congress has to do. He plans to discuss this further with leadership and the Rules Committee," said Cicilline's press secretary, Matt Handverger.

Asked about Cicilline's proposal, Greene told Newsweek: "Do you mean Rep. Mussolini? Not only did Democrats unilaterally strip away my committees, now they want to remove any powers I have to represent my district. The Democrats run the House of Hypocrites with tyrannical control."

 

Mussolini! Boy, what a kneeslapper!

Seriously, all this cartoon villain has is outrage. It's all performative nonsense, and she is all the GOP has right now.

Last Call For Look For The Union Label

The House just passed major legislation designed to expand and empower unions, and yes, it got several Republican votes.

With no major labor reform since the 1930s, Democrats are seizing on the opportunity to strengthen workers' rights -- including their ability to unionize.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act, the most pro-worker labor reform in decades, according to the bill’s sponsors, by a vote of 225-206. Though it faces an uphill battle in the 50/50 split Senate, President Joe Biden has said that labor reform is one of his administration’s top priorities.

As a Presidential candidate, Biden stressed that he’d be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” Last week, while Amazon workers gathered in Alabama to vote to unionize, Biden called it “a vitally important choice.”

"As America grapples with the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis and the reckoning on race — what it reveals is the deep disparities that still exist in our country,” Biden said on Twitter. “I urge Congress to send [the PRO Act] to my desk so we can summon a new wave of worker power and create an economy that works for everyone.”

The PRO Act would strengthen workers’ right to strike for better wages and working conditions, strengthen safeguards to ensure that workers can hold fair union elections, and allow the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to impose fines against bosses who violate workers’ rights.

The House passed a version of the bill last year, but it was dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. This time, Republicans are all but certain to filibuster the legislation that many major business groups oppose. The Chamber of Commerce says it would “destabilize America’s workplaces and impose a long list of dangerous changes to labor law.”

The PRO Act will never survive the filibuster, but the point is to bury the lie that Republicans are the party of the "working class" or even the white working class by making Senate Republicans vote to kill the strongest labor union laws since the New Deal.

Ideally of course it's supposed to make Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema flip on getting rid of the filibuster, too.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The terrorist attack on the US Capitol on January 6th was just that: a terrorist attack. The Justice Department under Joe Biden is treating it as such, with the gravity of accusing white supremacist domestic terrorist militia Oath Keepers and founder Stewart Rhodes of directing an attempted insurrection to slaughter Congress in order to install Donald Trump into power.

U.S. prosecutors alleged Monday that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was in direct contact before, during and immediately after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach with members since charged with plotting to prevent Congress from confirming the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In a late-night court filing, prosecutors alleged that Rhodes directed the right-wing anti-government group to rally during the riot to the southeast steps of the Capitol, after which several members forcibly entered the east side of the building.

Prosecutors said they had recovered a chat called “DC OP: Jan 6 21” on the encrypted Signal messaging app that “shows that individuals, including those alleged to have conspired with [others], were actively planning to use force and violence.”

Prosecutors said chat participants included Rhodes — identified only as “Person One” in the filing but whom prosecutors named in earlier court papers — and two charged Oath Keepers members: Jessica Watkins, 38, an Ohio leader, and Kelly Meggs, 52, of Florida.

U.S. authorities have charged Watkins, Meggs and eight other people who appear to be members or associates of the Oath Keepers, alleging a wider conspiracy to obstruct Congress amid rioting that led to five deaths and assaults on about 140 police officers. Charges have been brought against more than 300 defendants, but prosecutors led by the U.S. attorney’s office for Washington have not publicly charged anyone other than alleged rioters.

In the court filing, prosecutors said Rhodes, Watkins, Meggs and “regional Oath Keeper leaders from multiple states across the country” discussed plans in the chat for members and affiliates to come to Washington for events on Jan. 5 and 6 to “provide security to speakers and VIPs.”

Prosecutors said they found “no discussion of forcibly entering the Capitol until January 6.”

But they said the chat messages, combined with Rhodes’s previous statements, “all show that the co-conspirators joined together to stop Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote, and they were prepared to use violence, if necessary, to effect this purpose.

Who knows if they will be able to get convictions, but god I hope these assholes go to prison for a long damn time.

Retribution Execution, Con't

State GOP party machines are purging the insufficiently loyal to their golden calf Trump, as Idaho GOP lawmakers are set to run Republican Attorney General Lawrence Wasden out of Boise on a rail and claim the powers -- and funding -- of his office for themselves.

When the Texas attorney general sued to invalidate Joe Biden’s presidential victory in some states despite no evidence of widespread fraud, many said it had no chance.

But among Republicans, particularly in ultra-conservative Idaho, it was a fealty test to Donald Trump, and nearly every top-level Republican in Idaho indicated their support. The exception? Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, who declined to join 17 other GOP attorneys general in the legal action in December. He cited his respect for states rights and said he wouldn’t appreciate others meddling in Idaho elections.

It was the last straw for a Republican-dominated Legislature long frustrated by Wasden. Now, lawmakers are trying to significantly defund his office by removing the attorney general as the primary defender of state agencies. If the effort succeeds, opponents say, it would essentially create a slush fund for political allies and Republican lawyers, costing the state millions of dollars in legal fees and possibly more if it loses in court.

It’s another example of the GOP turning on its own elected officials deemed not sufficiently pro-Trump or who are seen as straying from conservative orthodoxy.

In Georgia, the Legislature is considering election legislation that could restrict the role of the GOP secretary of state, who angered many Republicans by certifying Biden’s win. And Republican lawmakers in states like Ohio and Idaho have tried to blunt the emergency power of a GOP governor over COVID-19 restrictions.

But the conservative anger at Wasden had been building before Trump and the pandemic.

“What strikes me is that Wasden seems less partisan in his actions than what we see from other state attorneys general,” said Jaclyn Kettler, a Boise State University political scientist. “It can be a challenge if you’re not perceived as a strong party player.”

Wasden, who was elected Idaho’s top lawyer in 2003, has called some legislation from conservative lawmakers unconstitutional. The state has paid over $3 million in legal fees since 1995 — some of it after ignoring his advice and losing court challenges.

He warned that a proposed fetal pain abortion law would likely be found unconstitutional 2011. Lawmakers passed it anyway and lost a lawsuit in 2013, forcing the state to pay out $137,000.

Last year, Wasden said a law preventing transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificates wouldn’t hold up. Lawmakers still pushed forward, and a few months later, a judge rejected it.

He’s also angered Republicans by defending state-owned land and a constitutional mandate to maximize profit from logging, grazing and mining leases on that land to benefit schoolchildren. That can mean higher prices for those industries in mostly rural Idaho.

Legislation that passed the House on Monday would prevent Wasden from representing Idaho’s interest in state lands. Another bill allows agencies to hire private attorneys.

A third bill would prevent Wasden from investigating price gouging at the gas pump. It follows a $1.5 million settlement he reached with gas retailers in November after determining they gouged customers early in the pandemic.

The House also rejected Wasden’s $28 million budget request last week, so it will likely be cut before another vote.

Wasden, who is serving his fifth term, declined to comment on the legislation.

 

Republicans would rather destroy a member of their own party and the office they hold than be seen as insufficiently loyal to the false god they worship. 

They are all cultists, and dangerous ones at that.

StupidiNews!

• House Democrats are expected to vote today on and pass the Senate version of the American Rescue Plan and get it to President Biden's desk to be signed into law this week.
• GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is leading a bipartisan effort to make Daylights Savings Time permanent, avoiding clock changes and making the time from March through November the default.
• The United Nations Security Council is considering various measures against Myanmar's military junta as diplomats continue talks over what action the global community should take.
• White House picks for the Federal Trade Commission and National Council of Economic Advisors, are being seen as a strong signal to expand antitrust actions against Google, Amazon and Facebook.
• The COVID-19 pandemic cut US traffic congestion by 73% in 2020, Americans spent on average the equivalent of three entire days less in the car last year.