Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) would like the public to know that she’s apparently relishing in the backlash over her conspiracy-ridden remarks that have spurred calls for her expulsion from Congress as well as the revocation of her House committee assignments. Continue reading “QAnon Rep Basks In Controversy: All This Uproar Is Awesome For Me!”
What A ‘Forever War’ Against COVID Would Mean
I wrote today about the prospect of COVID-19 becoming a “forever war,” with the response looking something more like a constant battle against a highly deadly flu virus, without its seasonal weaknesses.
It’s a grim but very real prospect.
Continue reading “What A ‘Forever War’ Against COVID Would Mean”
Jordan Complains Taking Action Against Greene Will — Gasp! — Hold Politicians Accountable
Out of all the reasons to decry Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) inflammatory and conspiracy-ridden remarks, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is instead shaking in his boots over … taking disciplinary action against Greene supposedly setting up a slippery slope for “cancel culture”? Continue reading “Jordan Complains Taking Action Against Greene Will — Gasp! — Hold Politicians Accountable”
House GOPers Coalesce Behind Nonsensical ‘Precedent’ Argument To Avoid Voting Greene Off Committees
House Republicans are tipping their cards on how they’ll avoid voting Rep. Marjorie Greene (R-GA) off of her committees, notwithstanding the startling bloodlust of her social media comments.
McCarthy Reveals That He’s Going To Do…Nothing To Punish Greene
After days of caginess, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released a statement Wednesday afternoon revealing that he intends to do nothing to punish Rep. Marjorie Greene (R-GA) for approving of calls for the execution of Democratic officials online.
Continue reading “McCarthy Reveals That He’s Going To Do…Nothing To Punish Greene”
House Vote Will Show, For A Second Time, Just How Much QAnon The GOP Can Stomach
On Thursday, the House will vote on stripping Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her assignments on the Education and Budget committees over her endorsement of violence against Democrats and support for extreme far-right conspiracy theories. One of those conspiracy theories includes QAnon, which alleges, among a slew of other wild things, that (now-ex) President Donald Trump was secretly battling a Satanic cabal of pedophiles in Hollywood and the Democratic Party.
It’ll be the second time Republicans will be forced to reveal on the record how much they will tolerate QAnon in their ranks.
Continue reading “House Vote Will Show, For A Second Time, Just How Much QAnon The GOP Can Stomach”
Christian Nationalism’s Role In The Insurrection Was Four Decades In The Making
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
While federal investigations into the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol will no doubt continue for months, next week’s Senate trial in the second impeachment of Donald Trump brings into focus the question of who is accountable for the recent assault on American democracy. While the vote last week on the constitutionality of the trial signaled how Republican senators may vote on conviction, one thing is clear: Trump did not act alone in inciting the insurrection. Without a network of organizations, allies, politicians and devoted conspiracy theorists willing to encourage and spread his lies about voter fraud, Trump’s protest would have been silenced by his campaign’s losses in court following his defeat at the ballot box. Trump’s mendacity was possible because millions of people were led to believe they could trust his word as a matter of faith. Continue reading “Christian Nationalism’s Role In The Insurrection Was Four Decades In The Making”
Your De-Trumping Stories #8
From TPM Reader WL …
My own feelings on this relate to experiences I’ve had in my past living with alcoholics. When you live with a drinker, you just never know what you’re going to wake up to every morning, you’re not sure what that phone call you have coming in really means, and you become very sensitized to nuances in behavior that in normal situations pass unnoticed. This was much like my experience with the Trump presidency; every morning you would wake up and while still in bed wonder what news lay waiting on your feeds to shock or amaze you, More importantly, given the erratic nature of his behavior, what was waiting for you could be very extreme, life-changing events that couldn’t have been predicted, Certainly nothing like living under Biden, whose evenness of temper and rationality would give fair warning of any sort of upheaval.
It’s a good thing he was such a coward. We could have had things far worse if he had guts.
Your De-Trumping Stories #7
From TPM Reader JRM …
Like you, I and my family have been largely unaffected in direct ways by the past 4 years. I’m white, straight, cis, and am retired with plenty of money. I haven’t had to deal with the cruelty and utter lack of concern for anyone not devoted to Trumpism in any direct way.
As a political junkie, the Trump years have been a long and painful shit-show, occsionally uplifted by his administration’s ham-handedness and general lack of skill causing more grandiose plans to crater spectacularly or, more commonly, just wither away as some new obsession took hold. But all that ability of mine to soldier on was predicated on his eventual loss in the 2020 election. And I followed every twist and turn of the election nearly obsessively.
Your De-Trumping Stories #6
From TPM Reader SR …
In the late summer of 1991, I was at the beach with my best friend from law school and another friend in the midst of an exhausted drunken bender following the bar exam. People who go through any kind of professional licensure or credentialing exam after a course of instruction, or, I suspect, a dissertation defense know the sense of complete mental exhaustion, the feeling of recovering from having one’s mind and body completely drained, that follows weeks and weeks of grueling, high-intensity cramming for a high-stakes, high-pressure, high-difficulty test. What follows isn’t so much celebratory as an almost sullen lassitude and very inward directed focus because the exhaustion is the herald of uncertainty about the immediate fugure (“did I pass?”) and momentous life changes ahead regardless.
Into this stew dropped the news of the coup by old-school Soviet hardliners against Gorbachev.