Alabama’s new GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. As Groucho Marx said in Duck Soup, “He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.” According to the Alabama site AL.com:
As a candidate, Tommy Tuberville was scared to debate incumbent U.S. Senator Doug Jones. He refused to talk with reporters throughout his campaign. The only thing the former Auburn football coach promised to do was ‘stand with Trump.’ And now we know why. Tubs is about as bright as a bucket of mud.
In the ADN interview, Tuberville said that the three branches of our government are “the House, the Senate and executive.” Football must not have been kind to him. Even his name looks like “tuber-ville”, which I guess means villagepotato, although he pronounces “tuber” like “TUBB-er”. He prefers to be called “coach”.
We probably could have had a swearing-in and inauguration later after we got this virus behind us a little bit. Again, we’re talking about Washington, D.C.
The TV station noted that it was not clear if Tuberville was aware that the Constitution requires the “inauguration and swearing-in” of a President to take place on January 20th.
Even more ironic is that the Constitution requires that if a new president is not sworn in at noon on that day, then the presidency devolves according to a strict line of succession. Which means that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become the new US President. I won’t even wonder whether Tubs is aware of that.
On Sunday I posted the video from former California governor (and movie Terminator) Arnold Schwartenegger. This video has totally gone viral.
The tweet has more than 1.1 million likes, which is better than Trump has ever done. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Trump did have one tweet that did better, with 1.9 million likes. However, that tweet was the announcement that he had contracted COVID-19, so we suspect that those likes weren’t coming from approving supporters.
This quote was published only a couple of hours ago, and as I write this, Schwartenegger’s tweet has already passed 1.2 million likes. Can we go for 2 million likes?
In addition, it was also posted by Schwartenegger to YouTube, and also posted by over a dozen news organizations, gaining millions of additional views and a third of a million likes (and that’s just the ones I could find).
I think the question that may be even more important is “Can the Media survive without Donald Trump?” Trump’s constant sowing of division and outrage has been a bonanza for media. Not just “are they able to survive”, but also “are they willing to give up talking non-stop about Donald Trump?”
It is ironic that the Times’ opinion piece also serves to keep Trump in the news. They just can’t quit. (Even more ironic, I’m now guilty of the same thing. Mea Culpa)
The media must stop giving attention to Donald Trump. Earlier in Trump’s term, I got so sick of talking about Trump that I stopped posting to this blog. I only started up again for the midterms, but after that the 2020 election was in full swing.
I’ll try harder now to ignore him. Wish me luck.
UPDATE: A reader sent this in a comment. It is definitely apropos.
Today, Twitter permanently suspended President Trump from its service “due to the risk of further incitement for violence,” effectively cutting him off from his favorite megaphone for reaching his supporters.
I say, it is about time!
And to anyone complaining that this is against the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights does not say that a private company (such as Twitter or Facebook) has to publish everything sent to it. They are free to publish whatever they want, and NOT publish whatever they want. And if you don’t like it, you can start your own company and publish whatever you want.
There are limits of course — the famous “you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater”. Or more germane to the current situation, you cannot incite people to violate the law, like Trump just did.
The main thing the First Amendment says about the freedom of speech is that the government cannot tell anyone (or any company) what they can or cannot say (within limits). And for a little less than two more weeks (unfortunately) Donald Trump basically is the government. Claiming that Twitter has to publish what he says or else they are in violation of the First Amendment is totally backwards and nonsensical.
In that spirit, I will publish this hilarious comment on Twitter’s decision:
Just a few minutes ago, Donald Trump went back to stoking violence (luckily, Twitter removed it and locked his account). Trump has also vowed that he will not leave the White House when his term is constitutionally over.
There are a number of ways this can happen. For example, the National Association of Manufacturers has called on Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. Next, Trump must be impeached (again) and convicted, and the punishment should be that he not be allowed to run for public office ever again. Even better (yes, in addition), convict him of some of his numerous crimes and throw him in jail. There is no excuse for his lies and sedition.
Finally, I’m not sure how to deal with all the people who enabled Trump. Pence and Mitch McConnell might have broken with Trump today, but they’ve been egging him on for 4 long years. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz are worse. I guess it is a good thing that we don’t tar and feather people anymore.
UPDATE: Many people have been wondering why it took so long for the order to be restored at the Capitol. Now we know. It turns out that Trump rebuffed the deployment of the National Guard for hours.
Once again, Republicans in Congress are too chickenshit to stand up to a delusional autocrat who is hell-bent on destroying their own party.
Instead, they are resorting to threatening violence. Or when Trump was exposed for bullying the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” additional votes to throw the election, Senator David Perdue attacked the Sec of State for recording the call (note that in Georgia, it is completely legal to record a phone call).
At the state level, Republicans are going completely rogue. In Pennsylvania, the GOP controlled state Senate refused to seat a new Democratic Senator, even though the state supreme court had ruled that the election was valid and the state had already certified the results.
When the (Democratic) Lt. Governor objected to this power play, the Senate removed him and replaced him with a Republican. Making this even worse, the Lt. Governor had already reached an agreement with the GOP to have the winner of the election seated provisionally, and if the courts ruled against him, he would step down. But the Republicans broke this agreement and refused to seat him anyway.
They aren’t a political party anymore. They are mobsters, obeying the illegal orders of their boss.
I love this comic by Clay Bennett. Stacey Abrams is a national hero! She was able to flip Georgia’s electoral votes for Biden, just by getting democrats out to vote, and with any luck she will do the same thing for the senate.
Well, today is the election in Georgia. Is everyone holding their breath like I am? Please please turn this country around before things get even worse!
I can only hope that Trump’s base is starting to figure out that his behavior after the election is that of a spoiled brat baby, a con-man, and a two-bit thug. If his temper tantrumps cause the Republicans to lose the senate and start to turn on Trump, that will be a two-fer.
The number one thing that Joe Biden can do is to put an end to the pandemic. This will mean not just getting the vaccine out there and get enough Americans inoculated to establish herd immunity, but also a comprehensive PR campaign to change attitudes — and even more importantly, behaviors — toward the pandemic. This war will be won not just with shots in the arm, but in the hearts and minds of everyone.
