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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Dispatch From The Clown Show

Published by digby on March 23, 2024

Has it ever been this bad before? Nope:

House Republicans have skipped town for Easter recess with their base enraged, their majority in tatters — and their speaker facing the prospect of a humiliating ouster at the hands of his own MAGA allies.

 Dysfunction doesn’t even begin to cover it. The Senate’s passage of a $1.2 trillion spending bill at 2 am ET — narrowly averting a government shutdown — was perhaps the least dramatic development in a historic day on Capitol Hill.

In a matter of hours:

The Republican-led House passed the spending bill just before noon Friday and sent it to the Senate — with more than half the House GOP conference, including many furious hardliners, voting against it.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — one of those hardliners angry at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for helping push the bill — introduced a motion to vacate the chair, calling for Johnson’s removal. Her move threatens to trigger the same type of vote that ended the career of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), retiring chair of the House China Select Committee, announced suddenly he’ll leave Congress next month — leaving Republicans with an astonishing majority of just one seat.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who also is retiring early, departed for the final time — but not before signing a Democratic petition to force a vote on Ukraine aid, dealing one last blow to the GOP leadership he detested.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) — who helped make impeaching President Biden one of the GOP majority’s top priorities — indicated his fizzling inquiry will end without a vote.

 Republicans were left fuming over the early resignations of Gallagher and Buck, with some suggesting it’s now within the realm of possibility for the House majority to flip to Democrats mid-Congress.

-Just last week, Johnson had said in response to Buck’s departure: “I think, I hope and believe that that’s the end of the exits for now.”
-One conservative told Axios: “Coming on the heels of the speaker’s cave on the [spending bills], Gallagher’s abandonment of his colleagues mid-fight is a real gut punch.”
-Another Republican said: “I think it’s extremely unfortunate. But this is also why you don’t vote to remove the speaker of the House and create chaos.”

: Frustrated lawmakers told Axios that burnout from the historically chaotic 118th Congress — which has featured multiple speaker’s races, derailed spending bills and constant infighting — is very real.

“Normally they’re trying to talk people out of retirement,” one member said. “Now we’re at a point where we’re trying to talk them out of leaving early.”

The other side: House Democrats relished the discord on the other side of the aisle. “I’m glad to be a Democrat in Congress,” one told Axios.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) noted that Gallagher timed his resignation to ensure his seat would go unfilled until November: “Another sharp rebuke to the chaos-and-cannibalism caucus of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

Amid Friday’s chaos, disgraced former Rep. George Santos announced he’s leaving the Republican Party to run for Congress in New York as an independent — saying the GOP was too “embarrassing.”

I know many of you will remember that not so long ago the media would perennially describe the Democrats as being in “disarray.” On their worst day they were never even 1/100th as messed up as these clowns. It just gets worse and worse.

Are people paying attention? God, I hope so…

Rebuilding A Common-Good Society

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 23, 2024

Truthiness doesn’t care about your prescription drug plan

“We are not a common-good society any longer.”

People feel what they feel. They cannot be reasoned out of them. But feelings can be manipulated, preyed upon. Con men know this. Too often, the American left kids itself that the truth will set people free, and that our own feelings do not influence our book-learnin’. They do.

In a post titled, “Fascism will not be defeated by logic,” Anand Giridharadas considers “the role of emotion in the fraught political life of America in 2024.” Change by the boatload has left Americans anxious. The Ink talked to Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) for his seeming ability “to be both in the arena and up in the stands, observing the whole scene.”

Giridharadas writes:

We talked to him just after he’d finished work on the 2024 edition of the World Happiness Report, a process that got him to recognize how the country’s democratic crisis is rooted in deep emotional distress.

We believe Democratic leaders have failed to help Americans cope with the crisis of anxiety and unhappiness they face in a transformed world — and this failure of change management has had dire political consequences.

When we see people unsettled by it, discombobulated, a lot of them are just trying to get their heads around all that a new era is asking of them. And the authoritarians are getting to them earlier and more effectively than pro-democratic movements. And so people who start out as merely disoriented by change are radicalized into fanatics.

Murphy says that Democrats simply cannot leave emotion to the Republicans — it just plays directly into a classic authoritarian strategy. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat has told us:

Autocrats are very, very good at tapping into people’s innermost fears. On the one hand, they make themselves the carriers of those fears, but they also make themselves the solution. So when Trump said, The American dream is dead, he made himself the vessel of the forgotten, the people who felt downtrodden. Of course, his regard for them is fake. He just wants to use them. But he simulated care and inhabited those emotions, and then provided a solution: “I alone can fix it.” And people felt safe with him. .

They weren’t. Neither was the country (or the world).

“You don’t solve a crisis of meaning and purpose by just giving people a little bit bigger tax credit,” Murphy told The Ink (subscription required):

I want to start with what you’ve said about happiness. Can you expand on your notion that the government you are part of is culpable for inhibiting people’s happiness, or at least for not making happiness probable?

It’s important to remember that the government’s responsibility to protect your right to happiness is in our founding document. So this is a legitimate conversation — our founders thought this was an essential conversation. Government stays out of what you’re passionate about, who you connect with, where your purpose and meaning come from. But we are responsible for setting the rules of society and culture and economy that give you a chance at happiness.

The studies on what brings happiness don’t surprise anybody. What people want is connection and positive relationships and agency and power over their lives. They feel like they have less chance of connection today, and they certainly feel like they have much less agency over their economic lives. And there are public policy choices we’ve made that have robbed people of connection and power.

I’ve admitted before that I do what I do not as much from a deep love of country as much as a for a restored sense of power and agency. Being on the field and in the game (rather than a heckling spectator) means that, even if you get politically run over sometimes, you don’t feel like road kill. I dislike feeling like political road kill. People overwhelemed by rapid change dislike it too. Many others just find more hurtful outlets for their feelings.

There is also community in being together in the fight, even in an online community.

Murphy: “You can’t be happy if you don’t have friends and connections. You can’t be happy if you don’t feel like you have control over your life. And to the extent people feel more isolated and less in control of their lives today, there are direct lines from government policies to the ways that people feel like happiness is further away.”

[…]

I think we’ve reached a tipping point of exhaustion with an American society that has become hyper-focused on individual success and treats human beings as consumers instead of citizens. We are not a common-good society any longer. We are a kill-and-eat-what-you-can society. It’s been a gradual process, but I think we have reached a point where folks want something different.

Don’t you? Take control. Show initiative. Be more than keyboard warriors.

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Stranger Danger

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 23, 2024

What’s a little scaremongering among Republicans?

Migrant invaders are coming for your Social Security and Medicare, Trump warns.

Donald “91 Counts” Trump is feeling especially vulnerable these days. For good reason. He sees his “empire” under threat on Monday of being seized to cover his half-billion-dollar bond in the New York financial fraud case. If he does not win the presidency, conviction in his other four pending cases could mean he spends the rest of his days in prison. The harshest cut of all is the damage to an ego so fragile it requires constant media and fan attention to keep from melting down.

So he and his campaign are in damage-control mode after his big mouth spit out words to the effect of his threatening Social Security and Medicare if reelected. In Trumpian “I know what you are, but what am I?” fashion, Trump issued a panicked “Truth” accusing Democrats of being the party threatening the safety net.

Big “tell,” Greg Sargent observes:

Plainly, what triggered this rage-rant was the news that a group of House Republicans has proposed a budget that would raise the retirement age for Social Security and restructure Medicare along lines that Paul Ryan–esque Republicans have long sought. Democrats have seized on this to bludgeon the GOP for threatening to cut the program.

Trump and his advisers know how big a problem this is for them. After Trump recently opened the door to Social Security and Medicare cuts, his campaign rushed to clean up his remarks. His eruption Thursday was clearly an effort to stanch the bleeding, now that House Republicans have opened that wound once again.

But here’s the thing: There is no particular reason to listen to what Trump says he’ll do on Social Security and Medicare. What really matters is that a large bloc of his party remains committed to the underlying principles of Paul Ryan–style economics and that when Trump is sitting in the Oval Office, he tends to hand control over to them.

True, Trump is no policy wonk. But as much as what was the GOP is Himself now, its zombified version still has vestigial reflexes and responds to basic stimuli. Despite Trump’s gee-hawing, Republicans will keep doing what Republicans do should he get reelected.

The fundamental difference here between the parties is that Biden and Democrats think we should raise taxes on the rich and corporations, fortify Social Security and Medicare without serious cuts to benefits, and expand the safety net and invest in other programs for reducing inequality. By contrast, Trump and Republicans oppose higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and want to cut entitlements and the safety net pretty much wherever they can.

Trump’s INVASION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY SNATCHERS warning reflects a Republican reflex as deep as catering to the rich and keeping peasants in their places: hyping “stranger danger.” Conservatives know their marks, and they reflect their own anxieties onto them.

After the strangulation homicide of Jordan Neely, a Michael Jackson impersonator, on a New York City subway, I wrote:

Since the 1980s and earlier, unreasoning fear of the “other” has been cultivated and marketed. There was the moral panic over rumors of ritual Satanic abuse at day care centers. There was the repressed memory syndrome fad. There was “stranger danger.” The response of parents fearful of their children being abducted was to have them photographed and fingerprinted at mall clinics designed more for identifying bodies than for preventing rare abductions. There were ubiquitous “Baby on Board” signs in car windows. Danger lurked around every corner.

Stranger danger sells zombie movies and QAnon merch and MAGA candidates and the Big Lie. It feeds Trump’s anxieties that burble out in social media posts. Still, Trump thinks he’s the shmaht one. Everyone else is a sucker, and there’s one born every minute. What sells? Stranger danger. So with his ego fracturing and his empire under threat and his dreams tortured by images of jail cells, he’s selling it and selling hard. His zombie army shambles along behind.

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Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

Opossum’s are not pests, they are our friends. Support them!

They are North America’s only marsupials:

It’s true that wombats, wallabies, kangaroos and koalas are regular sights in national parks — if you happen to be in Australia. Australia boasts the most diverse population of marsupials in the world, with more than 200 different species roaming, climbing and hopping about the continent, out of about 334 such species worldwide.

In the United States, it’s a different story. The only marsupial anywhere in the country is the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana). These two- to three-foot-long mammals are the only animals north of Mexico that carry their young in pouches, a characteristic of marsupials that allows their babies to more fully grow and develop before living independently from their mothers. All other mammals have placentas, which nourish the young while still in the womb. After an opossum’s babies are developed enough to live outside its pouch, the mother will continue to carry the young on her back for another month or two while they nurse.

Though the opossum is the only animal of its kind in this part of the world, it has a wide range and a robust population. It is most strongly associated with the Southeast, where it appears in folklore and even traditional recipes, but it is common throughout the country east of the Rockies. It also lives along the Pacific Coast, is widespread in Central America and has been expanding its range northward into parts of Canada. Thus, national park visitors can find them everywhere from Cuyahoga Valley to the Everglades to Olympic — and many, many places in-between.

Although opossums prefer forested habitats, part of their success comes from their ability to adapt to urban and suburban environments. These natural omnivores will feed on everything from worms and eggs to fruits and grains, and the shy, nocturnal creatures can often be found rummaging through trash bins in search of their next meals. They have a particular fondness for persimmons when the fruit is in season. Although sometimes viewed as pests, opossums voraciously feed on ticks, slowing the spread of Lyme disease.

A Virginia opossum photo captured by a camera trap at Petersburg National Battlefield in April 2018.    Photo by Ryan Valdez/NPCA.

How did the Virginia opossum evolve to be the only creature of its kind in the United States, when so many similar species live on the other side of the world?

Scientists believe that modern marsupials, including the opossum, may have actually descended from ancestors that originated in North America. Around 65 million to 68 million years ago, many of these ancestor species went extinct and some migrated to South America, a continent that is now home to about 100 different marsupial species. At that time, South America, Antarctica and Australia were connected as one large landmass; all of Australia’s marsupials may have evolved from a single species that crossed over from South America, whereas the Virginia opossum is believed to have migrated north much later, roughly 3 million years ago. The Virginia opossum is one of the oldest surviving mammals on the planet, having existed for about 65 million years or more, since around the time the dinosaurs went extinct.

Fun fact: Opossums are one of very few mammals with prehensile tails, meaning they can independently grasp objects with them. This helps the animals gather nesting materials and keep their balance by holding on to tree branches and other objects as they climb.

Viral Excellence

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

It was a crime syndicate

This has been making the rounds all week and for good reason:

Trump is a criminal. His associates are criminals. It’s obvious and yet his followers are convinced that every last one of these people is an innocent man being railroaded by “the deep state.” No wonder they are happy to send a professed billionaire their social security checks. They are the most gullible people on the planet.

Shadow Speaker MTG Makes Her Move

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

Let’s just make her the Queen Of All Maga and get it over with

Of course she finally did it:

On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to formally boot Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the office.

Greene’s move, which came amid conservative outrage over Johnson’s deal on a spending package to avert a government shutdown that passed Friday, threatens to throw the chamber into chaos just months after a hard-right faction ousted Kevin McCarthy from the top job.

Due to the procedural details of the so-called motion to vacate the chair, it was unclear when exactly the vote on Johnson’s fate would be held—or if it would be held at all.

Greene did not notice the resolution as privileged, a special designation that forces a vote. If and when she does, it would give House leadership two legislative days to hold a vote on the measure.

However, the chamber was scheduled to leave for a two-week recess on Friday, so any vote on a motion to vacate would happen at the earliest on April 9.

Speaking to reporters after filing the resolution, Greene said it was time to find a new Speaker of the House.

“We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” Greene told reporters after filing the motion to vacate. “I’m giving my conference time. I’m being respectful to my conference. But many members in my conference agree, even though it’s uncomfortable, it’s a process none of us want to go through, it has to happen.”

[…]

Standing on the House steps Friday afternoon, shaking his head at a press scrum around Greene, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) called the motion to vacate Johnson “idiotic.”

“I think it does nothing to actually further the conservative agenda, and in fact, once again actually undermines the conference,” Lawler told reporters.

“The American people elected a House Republican majority to serve as a check and balance to govern,” he continued, “and unfortunately, what we’re seeing is a continuation of what occurred last year, where some members of the conference would rather grandstand and create chaos than actually govern.”

Apparently the hardliners are up in arms because Johnson had to keep the government open with the help of Democrats. Boo hoo hoo.

That alone is a black mark for GOP hardliners; making matters worse, the spending bill vote represented the first time this Congress that GOP leadership has failed to win a majority of Republicans on a vote.

Greene’s play is similar to what then-Rep. Mark Meadows did in 2015 to then-Speaker John Boehner. Meadows filed a motion to vacate the chair but never noticed it as privileged, so no vote happened—though Boehner eventually stepped down from the job.

In October of last year, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed the motion to vacate McCarthy as privileged, resulting in his ouster swiftly afterward.

Gaetz’s motion passed with the backing of seven other Republican defectors and unanimous Democratic support. This time around, Democrats are less likely to align against Johnson.

This guy jumped the gun already marking himself as a useful idiot:

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY)—who recently replaced former Rep. George Santos—called Greene’s motion “stupid.” He said that if a vote to remove Johnson materializes, he would protect the speaker.

That may happen of course. But you don’t just announce it before you get something in return!

Other Democrats signaled they are open to bailing out Johnson if conservatives move forward with a vote, but their backing might have strings attached. Support from many Democrats could depend on Johnson advancing a foreign aid package with funding for Ukraine.

Exactly. I’m not sold on the idea of bailing out this theocratic wierdo anyway but if they do it they’d better get something for it because the voters don’t have a clue about the details of this insanity and they won’t be rewarded for being “the grown-ups.” They have to get something tangible for it.

Some of the Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud:

Short List

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

The beltway press is very excited about the possibility that Marco Rubio might be tapped for VP (which he has said he’d be honored to accept.) Obviously Trump thinks this is going to boost his standing with Latinos and maybe he’s right. Blue collar Americans, including blue collar Latinos, do seem to like him more than they used to even though all he really did during his first term was give vast sums to rich people like himself.

Anyway, maybe it will happen. Rubio is showing real talent for energetic boot licking so he may be the perfect choice. But I think this guy, who is on the short list for Attorney General could be a bit of a problem. To say the least:

If the Republicans take the Senate this nut could be confirmed. Sound good?

They Still Won’t Leave Her Alone

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

I’m already seeing commentary that says this wasn’t good enough. They demand to know ALL the details and what exactly they are doing for her and what the kids said when they told them and how William feels and blah, blah, blah.

Leave them the fuck alone.

A Little Hopium From An Unlikely Source

Published by digby on March 22, 2024

I would not characterize Brian Beutler as a super optimistic fellow and certainly not one to blow smoke about the Democrats. But in today’s newsletter he shares a little bit of good news which, coming from him, is reassuring.

The short version is that over the past couple weeks President Biden has caught up with Donald Trump, as depicted in the Economist’s polling average above.  

Now that’s not the whole story, or even an entirely good story, as I’ll detail momentarily. But deeper in the tea leaves, most recent developments are also pretty favorable to Biden and (thus) bad for Trump. 

Consistent with the head-to-head polls, Biden’s approval ratings have ticked up (or, for copium abstainers, his disapproval rating has ticked down) while Trump, who has been more popular of late than in many years, has seen his numbers fall.

But to me, the best case for optimism lies outside the realm of survey data. It’s better for Biden to be slightly ahead than slightly behind, but what he needs more than anything is upside potential to open a large lead. And as mainstream-media fixation on his age has faded, his real long-run advantages have become clearer.

Since American elections are zero-sum, you can spot Biden’s upside potential in two buckets. Anything that’s good news for Biden is good news for Biden (QED); but anything that’s bad news for Trump is also good news for Biden.

There’s good news for Biden in both buckets. 

-The economy is bullish and charging, with growth driven by productivity while inflation falls—a recipe for election-year interest-rate cuts, which should keep the economy humming and improve economic sentiment. 

-Because this boom really is, to a large extent, a product of Biden’s economic policies, it feeds dream retail-politics coups like this: announcing an $8.5 billion grant to build an Intel microchip plant in Arizona. 

-Relatedly, we’ve reached the point where “are you better off than you were four years ago” comparisons are insanely favorable to Biden. Congratulations, you’ve made it four years since Trump lied about and (thus) exacerbated the COVID-19 pandemic.

-Biden and Democratic leaders have detached themselves from Bibi Netanyahu, even making clear they believe Israelis should oust him. 

-He and the party are on sound financial footing.

The good news for Biden in Trump’s misfortune is much less theoretical. 

-Trump’s small-dollar fundraising numbers suck.

-His desperation for cash is driving him into the arms of Republican billionaires who expect him to deliver (and thus not pretend to oppose) toxically unpopular policies. 

-The money he and the RNC raise will cover Trump’s legal and campaign bills before the party as a whole gets a cut, driving dissension and deprivation through his already fractured party.Share Off Message

-Barring an act of unexpected mercy, he’s also about to either lose tons of marquee properties—a consequence of committing serial financial fraud—or receive some kind of politically toxic bailout. 

-To the extent he’s campaigning at all, rather than simply trying to dodge accountability under the law, Trump’s campaigning on insurrection, and inviting known crooks back into his inner circle.

-Relatedly, a critical number of Republican and independent voters still don’t want Trump to be the GOP nominee, including the almost 20 percent of Arizona GOP primary voters who cast ballots for Nikki Haley, a candidate who suspended her campaign weeks ago. 

-This is all before factoring in the electoral consequences Trump will face for raping E. Jean Carroll, overturning Roe v. Wade, losing the endorsements of his former vice president, former national security adviser, and former chief of staff among others, and possibly facing multiple felony convictions before election day.

There’s plenty to quibble with here. I personally wish Biden et al would simply assert that people are better off than they were four years ago instead of relying on wry implication. We in the media have become so focused on whether Trump will secure a bailout that we’ve lost sight of the outrageous fraud he actually committed—something voters deserve to know more about. But if a campaign is like a construction project, Biden’s got real brick and mortar, while Trump’s got a water-warped set of Jenga blocks.

He goes on to lay out some of the obstacles as well but I’ll let you subscribe to his great newsletter to see them. He reminds us that Biden has to win the popular vote by a big margin just to eke out a close win in the electoral college (once again putting the lie to the idea that our vaunted democracy is all that democratic.) And he warns about dirty tricks, Russian interference, Elon Musk and the whole array of corrupt actors who are aligned with Trump. It’s a lot. But around the political sphere the upside is what’s starting to get traction and I think it’s important to be aware of that too.