Institutions

Hey, anyone remember “Travelgate,” the nothingburger Clinton-era “controversy” over Bill Clinton’s firing of seven people in the White House travel office? There was a special prosecutor assigned to the case and a House investigation. Travel Office Director Billy Dale was indicted for embezzlement but acquitted. The Clintons were cleared of wrongdoing, but it was the first big smear against the Clinton Administration and Hillary Clinton.

This was about firing people in the travel office. The fucking travel office. Fast forward to today and we have Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey who is investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia and all we hear from Republicans is that they are “concerned.”

Oh.

“Concerned.”

I wonder what that means:

I wonder which definition of “concerned” applies to Congressional Republicans? I’m starting to think it’s #3.

Look, I keep hearing from people that our institutions are strong enough to survive a Trump regime. With each day unleashing a fresh new hell on our democratic institutions — Twitter threats, cancelling press briefings, a new voter suppression scheme — it seems I must remind Republicans in Congress that you are the institution!

If you are an elected member of Congress, YOU’RE THE DANG INSTITUTION. Stop acting like our “institutions” are some building somewhere that you have no connection to. The U.S. Senate is an institution. The House of Representatives is an institution.

Stop sitting around with your finger in the air waiting to see which way the wind will blow. The wind is going to blow your ass out of office if you don’t step up and do something.

Jim Cooper FAIL #2

I’m done with you, buddy. Seriously. You either lied to the Nashville Scene or were utterly clueless about this SAFE Act vote; either way, you don’t belong in Congress anymore.

Okay, Mary Mancini, Chris Moth, Jeff Yarbro … either of you want to move to Washington D.C.? Anyone have any other ideas?

Is There A KKK Member In Congress? UPDATE: PROBABLY NOT!

[UPDATE]: 2

And there you have it:

Starting to think this was an attempt to discredit the pending real release.

[UPDATE]:

In vetting the list, several people have found some rather unusual names, including openly gay Lexington KY mayor Jim Gray and Knoxville, TN Mayor Madeline Rogero, a gay rights advocate. Both have vigorously denied any KKK connections (Gray here, and Rogero here.)

Many others whose names appear on the list have also denied any connection to the hate group. That the list contains the names of Latinos and GLBT advocates has called into question the veracity of the list and its sourcing.

Meanwhile, Anonymous is on Twitter, still naming names and defending the list itself. So I am very curious to see how this all shakes out.

Is this a hoax? An attempt to discredit Anonymous? Or just some really bad hacktivism?

——————————————————–

Anonymous has begun outting members of the Ku Klux Klan and the first list of names has appeared here.

Notice any familiar names? How about this one:

Well slap the dog and spit in the fire, this appears to be Congressman Joe “You Lie!” Wilson! I always knew he was an asshole; I don’t recall hearing he was in the Klan.

I don’t know how Anonymous came by its information or how it’s been verified. I eagerly await a response from the Congressman from South Carolina’s 2nd District, who ran unopposed in 2012 and received 96% of the vote. Is he going to say it’s not true? Probably. Or, who knows, maybe not. Since Rep. Wilson’s most notorious act thus far has been to call the first African American president of the United States a liar to his face, on national television, I think our national news media should at the very least get a response from his office.

And a question for Reince Priebus: will the RNC disavow Rep. Wilson? It will be very interesting to see how the party handles this news, seeing as how they keep telling us that minority outreach is so important.

Is the Republican Party palling around with domestic terrorists? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!

Grab The Popcorn

[UPDATE]:

Boehner’s Communications Director, yesterday:

“He’s not going anywhere,” said Boehner’s communications director Kevin Smith. “If there’s a small crew of members who think that he’s just going to pick up and resign in the middle of his term, they are going to be sadly mistaken.”

Nobody really saw this coming. Wow.

—————————————————————

Bye, bye Boehner and boy it’s gonna be fun to see who the Teanuts rally behind. Personally, I hope they pick the craziest Wackaloon in the Tea Party caucus. Louie Gohmert? Marsha Blackburn? Steve King? Scott DesJarlais?

As we march into an election year, with the House of Representatives in the hands of the craziest of the crazy, whose only reason to exist is to grandstand and pout and tamp their widdew feet over Obamacare and abortion, I think a Speaker Gohmert or Blackburn would effectively kill off the Republican brand for good.

Good riddance.

What We Don’t Know Is Hurting Us

So, this just happened today:

A GOP-led panel blocked a proposal Wednesday that would have reversed a nearly 20-year-old ban on funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to research on gun violence.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 32-19 against ranking member Rep. Nita Lowey’s (D-N.Y.) amendment to a bill that would fund health, education and labor programs in the next fiscal year.

Wonder what they’re afraid of. The truth, perhaps? That they’ve been spreading bullshit NRA propaganda? Probably. See my May 27 post, The Last Time Science Looked At Gun Violence. I think it’s pretty crystal clear what they’re afraid of.

Well, we all know who owns the Republican Party now.

But Maybe That’s Who Runs For Office

Is the new Congress a reflection of America? Not even close:

Much like America, Congress–which tomorrow returns to whatever it is they do–is a picture of racial progress. Just kidding! It’s still mostly run by a bunch of white, Jesus-loving men in bad suits. According to data from the Post, the 114th Congress is “80 percent white, 80 percent male, and 92 percent Christian.”

No, that’s not a reflection of America. It’s not even a reflection of who votes in America. It’s simply a reflection of who runs for office in America. It’s a reflection who gets the support of our party system, the money people and the consultant class. It’s a reflection of who is deemed “electable.”

Which, if I were to place bets, probably looks an awful lot like that same consultant class. Just a thought.

Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Asshole

Buh-bye, Eric Cantor. Lost his primary to a completely off-the-rails Teanut named David Brat.

I heard Brat on Chuck Toad Todd’s show this morning and he dished up some word salad that never had a coherent point. Chuck patted him on the head and told him to run along. So excuse me if I can relish in the delicious comeuppance of both the hated Chuck Todd and the wretched Eric Cantor.

Seriously, I have to wonder: it’s not like Cantor is some hippie. You don’t get much further to the right. Yet nobody saw this coming? How did this upset happen? Virginia has open primaries: did Democrats cross over and skew the results? (Yes, I still hate open primaries, always and forever. Pick a side. If you can’t, then wait for the general and you get to pick your candidate then. You do not get to pick my candidate if you aren’t in my party).

I just find that really hard to believe. My understanding is that the Democratic candidate, Mike Dickinson, is not endorsed by the Virginia Democratic Party and is something of a weirdo. In fact, he apparently missed the filing deadline to be on the Democratic ticket. So if he runs at all, it will have to be as an independent.

Cantor basically engineered the gridlock which has ground all of the peoples’ business to a halt. If Eric fucking Cantor is too liberal for Virginia Republicans, you just gotta wonder … It’s hard to see this as anything other than a big victory for the Tea Party. For a movement which has seen precious few of them of late, it’s a good reminder that there are still hotbeds of knuckle-dragging Know-nothings out there.

And Republicans: you have only yourselves to blame for this one. You gerrymandered yourselves into a Tea Party conundrum. Congratulations.

[UPDATE]:

So evidently the candidate is Jack Trammel.

Crazy

[UPDATE]:

The latest is here.

So, this happened:

As the House finished their vote to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling, a House stenographer decided it was a good time to let everyone know her feelings about God, Congress, and the Freemasons.

“He [God] will not be mocked,” the stenographer, apparently named Molly, yelled into the microphone as she was dragged off by security. “The greatest deception here is that this is not one nation under God. It never was. It would not have been. The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God. Praise be to Jesus.”

You can hear the rant here.

Definitely doesn’t do much to dispel the notion that we are ruled by religious nuts. Apparently the woman was taken for a mental evaluation.

Fun With Polls

This is cute:

Americans like Witches, the IRS, and even Hemorrhoids better than Congress

Raleigh, N.C. – While Congress remains divided amidst the government shutdown, Americans are united in their disapproval of the legislating body. Of registered voters polled, 85% disapprove of the job Congress is doing. Only 8% approve- Democrats, Republicans and Independents are almost equally united in their distaste for Congress, with only 7%, 10% and 8% approving respectively. Very conservative voters differed slightly with a support of 15%.

[…]

Americans currently have a higher opinion of witches (46/32), jury duty (73/18) and hemorrhoids (53/31) than Congress. Republicans seem much more accepting of Congress over hemorrhoids compared to other voters — 41% favored Congress more than the diseases, as oppose to only 25% of Democrats and 27% of Independents.

Wow. Republicans like Congress more than hemorrhoids? There’s a joke in there somewhere.

Still, it’s not all bad news for Congress:

Half of registered voters have a higher opinion of Congress than of Anthony Weiner right now (50/23). In fact, public figures are some of the only people that registered voters dislike more than the legislature. Americans thought higher of Congress when asked about Vladimir Putin (49/28), Charles Manson (56/18), Honey Boo Boo (42/33) and Miley Cyrus (36/31) – with ‘twerking’ also four points below Congress at 37/33.

Poor Miley Cyrus. She gets such a bum rap.

Meanwhile, Dave Weigel debunks Fox News’ “Obama is tanking in the polls” meme. This is your right wing information bubble at work, folks. You’d think they’d have figured out that it’s not working for them.

Essential

I don’t think “essential” means what Congress thinks it means:

A House aide confirmed to ThinkProgress that the House member’s gym is open. The House gym features a swimming pool, basketball courts, paddleball courts, a sauna, a steam room and flat screen TVs. While towel service is unavailable, taxpayers remain on the hook for cleaning and maintenance, which has been performed daily throughout the shutdown. There are also costs associated with the power required to heat the pools and keep the lights on.

According to the aide, the decision to keep the gym open — even while other critical government services were shelved — came directly from Speaker Boehner’s office. Meanwhile, the staff gym available to Congressional staff has been closed.

It appears that the members gym in the Senate remains open on similar terms. Yesterday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) complained to a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald that the members gym was getting “rank.”

Meanwhile:

The government has told about 60 home owners in southern Nevada, for instance, that they need to leave their property for the duration of the shutdown, because their homes sit on federal land in the Lake Mead Recreational Area. Since Lake Mead is managed by the feds, anybody who happens to own a home within its boundaries is technically a “visitor” subject to the same lockout that applies to tourists, hikers, campers or sportsmen seeking access to federal land.

The rules governing Lake Mead say that the only homes allowed there must be vacation homes, with the owners having a primary residence someplace else, so they’re not considered full-time, year-round residents of the park. But some home owners apparently got into the habit of spending most of their time at Lake Mead, anyway. Joyce Spencer, 77, said she and her husband Ralph, who is 80, had to move in with nearby family after a park ranger told them they had 24 hours to evacuate the Lake Mead home they’ve owned since the 1970s. “I had to buy Ralph undershirts and jeans because I forgot his pants,” Joyce Spencer told TV station KTNV. “I had to be sure and get his walker and his scooter.”

I suggest these people climb aboard the nearest Greyhound headed to Washington D.C. and take up residence in the House gym.