Pardon Me for Being Petty

 

Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and "multiple other Republican congressmen" sought pardons from then-President Donald Trump after January 6, House January 6 committee vice chair Liz Cheney says https://t.co/URqBKmLY5T

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 10, 2022

This is just a very brief and indulgent post where I point out that for some reason, multiple human barnacles attached themselves to the rotting luxury yacht Donald Trump as if he would be the safest port in a storm, or some such nautical thing. I dunno. I'm a landlubber. Anyhow. They stuck their necks out to get this man a second term and wanted pardons because? Because they necessarily broke the law to try and keep him in office?

Well, maybe? But the funny thing about Trump is you have to understand that every day was opposite day. He wasn't out to make America Great. He didn't really build the wall (he let that be a scam for his good friend Steve Bannon, who really needs to serve time for that). He didn't really set out to drain the swamp--he just fed red meat to the gators. So some of the swampiest and most grifting folks, like Ryan Zinke or Scott Pruitt, would just go on to be more grifting elsewhere. Take Ronny Jackson--someone, anyone, he shouldn't be driving. People associated with Trump are corrupt because that is who he attracts. So maybe people surrounding Trump aren't asking for pardons because of something they did concerning 1/6.

No! My word! It's just that unlike any other president in history, he had people like Roger Stone and Jared Kushner fronting access and making the prices legible for the folks who want to play. So I wouldn't necessarily assume pardons were a sign of assisting in the coup attempt. No. I just would think they were signs that someone wanted to get washed while the washing was accessible. 

I take it as a given that Trump held his "friends" more to account being an autocrat than Democrats ever would have, and that files exist. Buttons to be pushed. Maybe this is why so many were willing to immure themselves for him. It's a goddamn unpatriotic shame. Was it really leverage?

I feel like it's irresponsible not to speculate. 

Not Shockingly, Trump is Still a Bigot

 

The news that Trump gave an interview where, in a very short space, he managed to cover several extraordinarily anti-Semitic stereotypes shouldn't be surprising. Trump's entire being is basically being the posterchild for cultural insensitivity. His attitude is of disdain is, in part, contempt that American Jews didn't appreciate what he did for Israel. How much more could he do for those people?

I mean, besides not sympathize with the people who chanted "Jews will not replace us" because they are his people. Besides not trying to ban people from entering this country because they are religious minorities here, or demonizing immigrants? Besides not behaving in ways and saying things that are too familiar to people with any memory of history? 

I'm not going to pretend this would negatively affect Trump fans at this point, because culturally, his fans seem to be of more or less the same mind. Like the Qanon-related folks who listened while Mike Flynn suggested that America should be one nation under one God. Or the folks at Prager U--who seem very fond of Nazi commentary.  Or Turning Point USA. 

Recently, America First Congressman Paul Gosar suggested the Al Aqsa Mosque (like, 1300 years old) is an affront to all religions. Which is weird, since Islam is a religion. And also, should I call the Hagia Sophia an affront to all religions for having been Christian and Muslim, but possibly built over a temple to Artemis? 

He might be saying this because he is just stupid beyond belief, but the idea that the Temple Mount is a part of End Times theology is not unimportant. Because the theocrats who would make the best culture war soldiers wouldn't care about the here and now, they would rather perform for the big finale. The final war, the last fandango, the immanentization of the eschaton, and whatnot. 

Look, I'm not trying to be glib; far from it. But there's a throughline from Trump's Archie Bunker kind of suburban prejudice, as Allen Ginsburg related Ezra Pound's antisemitic reverie, to the fascist would-be renaissance. It only requires a dressing-up of the naked truth about the origin and prevalence of the lies and conspiracy theories used so often--the blood libels and warnings about minorities with great supposed power to actual bloodshed, which we have already seen. 

This grubby game of stereotyping and blaming people for political reasons is a horror. This man must never creep near political relevance again. 

Trying to Shame the Shameless

The problem with things like a censure vote against Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ, Repulsive) is that, while necessary, it also served to give the similarly-shameless, violent-minded and dishonest people in the GOP caucus something to grandstand about. And that is starting to feel like most of them, these days.

If ever an example of defense through "whataboutism" was ever mounted, it was on display here. The craven Rep, McCarthy displayed the permissiveness of a man led by his party rather than the other way around. Rep. Lauren Boebert used the opportunity to spread lies and hate. 

They were who we thought they were.

There really isn't any shaming the shameless. They wouldn't censure President Trump when he said malicious things about "the Squad", so why should Gosar's video be any different? They've already made their peace with an actual insurrection where a violent mob attacked their "house". Some of these members are already, themselves, receiving death threats because of one vote that displeased the mob--and find themselves incapable of even politely requesting the temperature be brought down.

It isn't for them--it's for those who are watching and understand: these are performers, not statemen. And very bad actors, at that.  Also, if they ever want to cry about civility again, this is what should be thrown in their shameless faces. 

UPDATE: Needless to say, after many GOP members cited his taking the video down from Twitter as a sign of good faith, Gosar re-tweeted it. The thing with people who do things for attention is, if they don't get quite the attention they want, in kind or in quantity, they will escalate. That's why people like him and Marjorie Taylor Greene should not be in Congress. We will just keep seeing these conflicts and this degradation of office on repeat.

Fascists Like Gosar Don't Really Joke

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Republican Paul Gosar will probably "face no consequences" for his disgusting tweet in which he's depicted, in an altered, animated video, killing her because Kevin McCarthy "cheers him on with excuses."https://t.co/v0v6gAKqbU

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 9, 2021

Of course, we've seen another political figure Tweet a video with figurative violence for the LULZ: remember Trump pointing us to an "amusing" video of mass violence against liberal politicians? Why, that was just Trump being Trump, after all! Joking! Why, how was that different from the photoshopped CNN-logo video he posted just a couple years ago?

Well, it was no different, and they were both incitement. One of Trump's merry little fan club sent apparent pipe bombs to multiple public figures, including CNN on-air journalists and politicians. And then, of course, January 6th happened. But that wasn't at all the entire story of the violence wrought in the wake of Trump's apparent endorsement of it--not at all! It is still in fact, ongoing. Quite ordinary people have become motivated to issuing death threats to people just doing their jobs for perceived slights or infractions against the MAGA cult. 

Thirteen Republican representatives voted for the infrastructure bill. Rep. Fred Upton, who was one of them, shared a death threat he had received. Death threats for votes one disagrees with should simply not be acceptable in a free and democratic society. But I drive past a house in the suburbs of PA which has, over the past year, had signs posted up: "Trump Won", "Biden Lied", "Save our Schools". And this week: "Fitzgerald = Traitor". Rep. Fitzgerald was considering the needs of Bucks County residents with his vote, not handing Joe Biden a "win"--who the hell thinks like this? A congressional vote isn't about "wins" for a President, it's about making laws--the actual business of doing a job in congress. (I definitely wonder how the neighbors feel about this house.)

And yet, it's the thirteen GOP House members who decided that childcare and drinking water and transportation and high-speed internet might actually benefit their constituents, who are in actual threat of some kind of censure. For doing what they reckoned to be their actual jobs in Congress, as opposed to just being partisan signifiers. 

TWGB: Wild at the Willard

 

The fantastic Washington Post story regarding the "war room" at the Willard Hotel is a great start for the public recognizing that several organizations, and members of congress and close Trump associates, clearly were together before the 1/6 riot planning an insurrection. The Willard was a who's who of who's insurrectionist. It was a Trumplandian Woodstock. Flynn, Stone, Bannon, Giuliani, Eastman. Bernie Kerik was there. OAN's Christina Bobb was there, like a whole pretend journalist wearing her campaign lawyer hat. There was activity working on state legislators to see what they could do to overturn the results in their states. They were working on US Members of congress to see that they would reject certain states' electors.

(I think there have been folks who also need to be pointed out for having seen the connection to the Willard Hotel, like Sandi Bachom, and Seth Abramson. Follow them on Twitter, you guys, I do.)

Anyway, activists who were in the loop have been talking, and it sure seems like GOP members of congress and folks from the White House were all over the events of 1/6, according to Rolling Stone's reporting. 

Now, this doesn't really strike me as much more than Ali Alexander has been saying all this time: there was coordination all over the GOP. The more interesting details to me are things like Rep. Gosar actually holding out the idea of a blanket pardon to potential malefactors (which never materialized) as if to magnify on Trump's one-time promise to pay the legal fees of people who "knock the crap out of" protesters. The assurances that Mark Meadows was 100% in the loop, demonstrating that the White House would have been aware of the rough edges of what could happen (or were they even more aware than roughly? Which makes the delay of the DC National Guard being called in really suspect, no?) 

Straight as a Plumb Bob

 

pic.twitter.com/4BdOaktzqU

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) August 30, 2021

I genuinely don't know what this is, and because Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS, is likely to get Tweet-yeeted eventually for insurrection stuff, I will screen cap it:

 It's a picture of himself, hand in pocket, apparently using an arrow to demonstrate that he is standing very straight. It reminded me at once of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, when the protagonist, Mary, advises her cousin Colin that he hasn't a hump at all and she thinks he's ridiculous. His back is as "strong and straight as any boy in Yorkshire" it is! 

Gosar also Tweets some other pics, which leads me to wonder if this is a game--I think I've got this right:

Of course, this is ableist crap and I don't want to play anymore--I have a touch of scoliosis myself (which causes my traps to look peculiarly pronounced and tilts my head forward a smidge, not that you'd know if I never said since few have seen me IRL), and Gosar is so healthy (like a horse, he says!) he doesn't even need ivermectin. And everyone bends at some point, or leans or changes position, so long as one doesn't have rigor mortis!

Without much more context, I'm at a loss to determine if this is a commentary on his health, his manhood, his "virtue", or whether he's trying to convince us all that his fingers are not at all long enough to be poking the bulge the arrow is pointing to through his pocket.

I think regardless of the picture, there's something very twisted about Gosar, and his family seems to think so, too. And he might not like to be called a white supremacist, but why are all these white supremacists right the hell with him? 

Many people can stand up physically straight. But that doesn't mean they aren't standing for crookedness, deceit and lies over and over again. 

UPDATE: And is this weirdo actually being like: "also I am straighter than these cactus", because my stars and garters I am not a Freudian analyst but really?

UPDATE 2: Wow! Okay, following on what commenter Eddie Blake said about the incel thing, I looked about and huh! So, a grown-ass man and actual elected representative of the people is going in for the goofy-ass aesthetic rantings of a shitposter? And yet, no, that's exactly where I think we are on the whole Republican decline deal. Clown shoes, shitposting, snake oil sales and Christianist Daesh.

TWGB: A Little Help From His Friends?

 

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because he was incompetent at everything, including rigging an election in favor of himself. He tried to damage his opponent's reputation with a spurious investigation in Ukraine even before the man had even won his primary (and because Trump is Trump, he was lousy at that, too, got caught and was impeached). The basis of the investigation didn't have to be real--the appearance of a problem would have been enough for Trump, and he would have been getting people to say "Lock him up!" at rallies. 

I mean, the more or less mundane Wikileaks drops from hacked Democrat emails were enough to get people chanting "Lock her up!" about Hillary Clinton, and who knows what he could have done if he actually got hold of her own emails? (Notwithstanding that too, was kind of stupid, since he ended up with the Mueller investigation.)

So why wouldn't asking the DOJ to declare that the election was corrupted have the same effect? Tell the Big Lie, have some official cover for the Big Lie, and let the fun and games begin for politicians like himself and the "R.Congressmen" referred to in the notes kept by deputy AG Richard Donoghue.

After all, it's not like his little fan club wasn't prepped to believe that there would be voter fraud--he told them so every chance he could, and his campaign even deputized the little devils to think of themselves as his "Army" of poll watchers (and freelance voter intimidation thugs). He certainly railed against the mail-in ballots enough. (Although it is strange, isn't it, that having been certain that things were going to be rigged against himself since before the 2016 election, he never worked with congress to do anything concrete about election security?)