Cheers and Jeers: Monday

Welcome to the Home Stretch

Happy Monday. Let’s get this party started.

Heading into 2021 like pic.twitter.com/hDchPKe9AO

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 22, 2020

In 23 days he’ll be lucky to find a job as assistant manager at the Muncie Ace Hardware.

Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 28, 2020

Note: If you didn’t get what you wanted for Hanukkah or Christmas, here's good news: today is the official observation of Boxing Day. That means you can take the crappy stuff you got on Friday up to Canada and exchange it for a mystery box that might contain something better. Of course, you'll first have to engage in with border officials to shoot your way into the country. But c'mon—you might end up swapping out that ugly sweater for the actual CN Tower or even Rick Moranis. Give it a whirl, eh.  —Mgt.

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By the Numbers:

4 days!!!

Days 'til 2021: 4

Percent of Americans polled by USA Today who already believe Trump is a failed president: 50%

Percent who said the same thing about Barack Obama at the end of his presidency: 23%

Percent of Americans polled by Vox/Data For Progress who support President-elect Joe Biden's 100-day mask mandate: 69%

Minimum number of Georgians who have already voted in the runoff election (voting ends January 5th): 2 million

Percent of Russians who say they trust the Sputnik V (yes, that’s its real name) coronavirus vaccine enough to take it, according to NPR: 38%

Andrew Yang's current position atop PPP's New York City mayoral election poll: #1

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Christmas morning WIN…

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CHEERS to blessed silence.  They've turned off the Christmas carols.  It's safe to come out now.  We hope you were as fortunate as we were by making it through another season without hearing the Kenny G version of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer or FIFA’s rendition of The Little Vuvuzela Boy.  But we’re not entirely out of the woods yet. Nothing but non-stop Auld Lang Syne for the next four days, and Grandpa’s still only on page 16 of his Festivus grievances. (This CHEER is sponsored by ACME earplugs. Remember: If you haven’t heard a thing about ACME Earplugs, you must already be using ACME earplugs.)

JEERS to keeping track of America’s fugliest numbers. The mighty Covid-19 Wurlitzer plays on with 81 million cases worldwide—over 20 percent of them in the U.S.  Our weekly tradition of maintaining a benchmark of the still-escalating awfulness for the C&J historical record continues, so let’s check the most depressing tote board in the world as our death toll now roughly equals the population of America’s 56th-largest city Honolulu, Hawaii:

6 months ago: 2.6 million confirmed cases. 128,000 deaths.

3 months ago: 7.3 million confirmed cases. 209,000 deaths

President-elect Biden gets his vaccine.

1 month ago: 13.6 million confirmed cases. 273,000 deaths

This morning: 20 million confirmed cases. 340,000 deaths

As for vaccine distribution: it's happening, but it's going slower than expected. Distributors at Pfizer and Moderna say they figured something was up when the White House changed the name of its emergency vaccine effort from Operation Warp Speed to Project Palm Beach Tee Time.

CHEERS to America's new Principal Skinner. While Betsy DeVos was busy fighting off grizzly bears and telling employees at the Department of Education to mutiny against the next president, our next president Joe Biden was announcing her replacement. Dr. Miguel Cardona is the superintendent of Connecticut's school system, and unlike DeVos, Dr. Cardona is—oh, what's the word—competent. Some of his particulars:

»  Born in Connecticut to Puerto Rican parents during the ruthless Gerald Ford dictatorship. His first language: Spanish.

Dr. Miguel Cardona

»  Got his B.A. from Central Connecticut State and his MS and EdD from the University of Connecticut.

»  Started out as a fourth-grade public school teacher, then became the youngest principal in the state and, later, an assistant superintendent of schools in his hometown of Meriden, Connecticut.

»  Appointed Connecticut's Commissioner of Education by Gov. Ned Lamont last year, the first Latino in the state to hold the position.

»  Married with two kids.

His #1 job: getting a majority of students safely back in schools within President Biden's first 100 days. Right after he requisitions the Army Corps of Engineers to bulldoze the pile of DeVos's Amway shit out of his office.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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Here’s a Christmas present to all those who asked me what it’s like to hang out with Baby Yoda on the set of #TheMandalorian #TheTragedy. Check out #DisneyGallery for more behind the scenes! pic.twitter.com/6ShINBxJAN

— Robert Rodriguez (@Rodriguez) December 25, 2020

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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JEERS to rude holiday surprises. Shock and outrage last week as some idiot with obvious brain damage and a short fuse decided to drop a bomb right in the middle of the holiday season. It was a scene of chaos and carnage, leaving several outraged victims to wonder what the hell happened. And as the evildoers scampered away, laughing, back to their Christmas parties, the justice system was left having to deal with the fallout and trying to make sense of it . But enough about Trump's pardons. Did you hear about the RV explosion in Tennessee?

CHEERS to keeping things in focus. Happy 449th birthday, technically yesterday, to Johannes Kepler, the "founder of modern optics." Among many other accomplishments, he designed the first lenses to help farsightedness and nearsightedness. Sadly for our current political class, there was nothing in his bag of tricks to help shortsightedness.

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Ten years ago in C&J: December 28, 2010

CHEERS to news from the world of medicine.  Here's the latest from the land of lab coats and clipboards: Echinacea doesn’t seem to help if you have a cold. But taking sugar pills from a bottle marked "Placebo"—as wild as that sounds—seems to help if you have irritable bowel syndrome.  Thanks for visiting Dr. Billeh for all your health needs.  That'll be three chickens, please.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to the do-gooders who walk among us. As we trudge, brain-numb and frozen-toed, toward the finish line of this sorry-ass year, C&J is filling our "Just one more…" feature this week with a reminder that there were heroes and sheroes aplenty in 2020. Every Friday our poll asks, "Who won the week?" and we offer up several candidates who remind us that all is not lost just yet on planet Earth. Powered by your smarts and good sense, a winner is singled out for induction in the Kiddie Pool Hall of Fame. Here are the winners from the first quarter of the year, during which the impeachment hearings were in full swing, Joe Biden's campaign was still on the rocks, and the coronavirus didn’t start seeping into our consciousness until late. (But when it did, it was here for the duration, as we'll see in future installments.) The envelopes, please:

January 3 Anybody who's glad to see 2019 in the rear-view mirror

January 10 The Australian and international firefighters battling the historic bushfires, and the army of professionals and volunteers helping rescue people and animals from the blazes

January 17 Rachel Maddow and former Giuliani "fixer" Lev Parnas, for riveting interviews during which a cascade of new revelations brought the Trump Ukraine scandal into horrifying new perspective

January 24 The Democratic impeachment managers: Jeffries, Demings, Garcia, Nadler, Crow, Lofgren, and especially Adam Schiff, for winning raves as they made their case against Trump

January 31 The House impeachment managers, led by Adam Schiff, for fighting mightily during Trump's trial to protect and defend the Constitution as Trump's lawyers were busy shredding it

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February 7 Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who tore up her copy of the SOTU when Captain Adderall was finally done gaslighting America...and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for a fine Democratic rebuttal

February 14 Michael Marando, Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis, and Adam Jed, the federal prosecutors on the Roger Stone case who resigned after AG Bill Barr interfered for political reasons

February 21 Senator Elizabeth Warren, who treated eye-rolling billionaire Michael Bloomberg to a rhetorical knuckle sandwich at Wednesday's debate in Las Vegas (the highest rated Dem debate in history)

February 28 The war against "very fine people," as confederate symbols are banned from Marine Corps bases, and the FBI nabs 5 American Nazi terrorists for targeting government leaders, churches, and journalists

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March 6 Joe Biden, whose endorsement by Rep. Jim Clyburn in South Carolina resulted in a groundswell of support that propelled him to 11 primary wins in four days and a substantial lead in delegates

March 13 “All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)

March 20 ”All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)

March 27 ”All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)

Tomorrow: the winners of the second quarter. Based on the last three weeks above, you can probably guess where this is headed.

Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial

What is “Cheers and Jeers”? Is it that feeling you get when you tap into the flow between emotion and expression, the spiritual and the physical? Is it something personal percolating within you, waiting to be unleashed? Is it the essence of humanity in a nutshell? Defining the concept is like aiming at a constantly skittering target. You sense it when you sense it.

David Fear, Rolling Stone

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A breakdown of all 126 seditious Republicans who signed on for a coup d’état

When Texas sued to overturn four other states’ election results in the hopes of installing illegitimate, two-time popular vote loser, and white supremacist mediocrity Donald Trump into a second presidential term, they exposed how many elected officials are straight-up wannabe oligarchs. The fact that even in the upside-down world we are living in, with the hijacked ultra conservative Supreme Court in place, most everybody knew there was little chance of the Supreme Court stepping in and hearing the case, which should tip one off to how far afield this maneuver is. It’s the kind of thing that most people would rather not put their name on since it is the sort of thing people should go to jail for—if laws concerning sedition and treason are real laws.

Many of the people on this list came into office during the tea party wave of 2010. If you don’t remember what the tea party is, it’s sort of like if you looked at the American Revolution for independence and democracy and your takeaway was … being a racist asshole. Another way to look at it is if you looked at the Civil War in the United States and boiled it down to … being a racist asshole. Let’s make sure we remember the 126 fascists who signed on for this attack on American democracy, and maybe even learn a smidgen more about them and their histories of being terrible people. A tip of the hat goes to community members republicinsanity and Carmeninvermont—republicinsanity for the Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day series that is frequently sourced here, and Carmeninvermont for the easy-to-read and understand list of GOP anti-democracy Republicans who want to overthrow our elections process in order to hoist up the most mediocre man in American history.

Here is a nice list of the 126 Republican officials who whether charged with sedition and treason or not, are guilty of trying to, at the very least, thwart the will of the American people and overturn our democratically elected president:

Mike Johnson of Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District made small headlines this past summer when his attempts to “gotcha” assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland Aaron Zelinsky for not appearing in person during a pandemic blew up in his face. Zelinsky, who had a newborn at home, explained that he had spoken with his family’s doctor and they thought potentially exposing the newborn to a pandemic wasn’t a good move.

Gary Palmer of Alabama’s 6th Congressional District is one of those conservative think tankers whose big ideas include: attacking same sex marriage and nonbinary public restrooms. Big thinker.

Steve Scalise of Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District is a storied hypocrite and swamp creature of epic proportions.

Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4th Congressional District is a person, so cowardly and so craven, he has built a career on his ability to ignore some of the most heinous crimes happening under his watch. Jordan’s act of sedition comes down lower on his list of sins than most others on this list.

Ralph Abraham of Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District is a shoot from the hip bigot with ideas that were last considered fresh in 1770.

Rick W. Allen of Georgia’s 12th Congressional District has one truly great claim to fame, he “disgusted” some Republicans once upon a time by reading anti-LGBTQ passages from the Bible. Different times. Different times.

James R. Baird of Indiana’s 4th Congressional District was attacked with an insensitive and offensive mailer, by an out of state conservative super PAC in 2018, during his Republican primary. He seemed pretty offended at the time, but I guess he’s decided to let all of that go in order to overthrow the government.

Jim Banks of Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District spent the early weeks of the global pandemic to help pen a nonbonding resolution blaming China for COVID-19. That’s what he did to help Americans.

Jack Bergman of Michigan’s 1st Congressional District blamed the press for the domestic terrorist shooting that injured Rep. Steve Scalise.

Andy Biggs of Arizona’s 5th Congressional District didn't go so far as to call Democrats who didn’t applaud during Donald Trump’s State of the Union “treasonous” but did believe they were “disrespectful” and that they might have to answer to God. He’s also had to leave public events after being booed offstage for saying that climate change wasn’t settled science.

Gus Bilirakis of Florida’s 12th Congressional District came into the office he sort of inherited from his father. He’s been a good anti-women’s rights Republican since 2006 and pretty much does what he’s told to do. And he’s in Florida where Republicans tell you to do the real bottom of the barrel stuff.

Dan Bishop of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District came into office after actual election fraudster Republican Mark Harris had to step away due to controversy over … election fraud. Bishop is best known for writing North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill.”

Mike Bost of Illinois’s 12th Congressional District is famously prone to outrageous outbursts. He’s also known for cowering away from constituents when asked about his attempts to rip away millions of people’s health insurance. 

Kevin Brady of Texas’s 8th Congressional District was that diminutive bald white guy that got a nice grin going in the Rose garden for when the Republican Party gave away billions to the rich in their tax scam. That’s his great achievement.

Mo Brooks of Alabama’s 5th Congressional District read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf on the floor of the House in a twisted attempt to skewer the Democratic officials over their pursuit of an investigation into Trump’s campaign ties to Russia. He did this on the heels of calling for the National Guard to “be allowed to use whatever force is necessary to secure that border.”

Ken Buck of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District has faced questions over whether he pressured another party official to submit incorrect election results and then blew through some RNC money to make that fraud work. To call Buck a scumbag is offensive to bags filled with scum.

Ted Budd of North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District is one of the Republicans who signed on to this bit of treason while in quarantine, after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Tim Burchett of Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District believes in Bigfoot and eating roadkill instead of providing better social services.

Michael C. Burgess of Texas’s 26th Congressional District is the kind of guy that called for President Barack Obama to be impeached over Benghazi and then became suspiciously silent when Donald Trump was impeached for his law breaking and corruption-filled campaign.

Bradley Byrne of Alabama’s 1st Congressional District took time away from releasing racist attack ads to sign on for fascism!

Ken Calvert of California’s 42nd Congressional District is a famous “family values” hypocrite (see busted with pants around his ankles, with a sex worker who was not his wife).

Earl L. “Buddy” Carter of Georgia’s 1st Congressional District. I couldn’t find much on Buddy, but I do know that he doesn’t believe in democracy.

Ben Cline of Virginia’s 6th Congressional District was one of the dozen security threats with feet that breached national security for a hack partisan performance piece, led by Florida man Matt Gaetz.

Michael Cloud of Texas’s 27th Congressional District owes his seat to the fact that repeatedly disgraceful Blake Farenthold had to leave office, and Republicans have successfully repressed the vote in his district.

Mike Conaway of Texas’s 11th Congressional District knows a ton about stealing elections as he famously said, in 2017, that Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and other Democrats had enlisted “Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth. Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada.”

Rick Crawford of Arkansas’s 1st Congressional District is maybe best known for his opposition to taking down Confederate monuments saying it was akin to Holocaust denialism and would lead to the closure of Holocaust museums. There’s not much else to say about that.

Dan Crenshaw of Texas’s 2nd Congressional District is a dirtbag who lies and pretends he isn’t just a groveling McConnell follower.

Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida’s 25th Congressional District has the distinction of being the first member of Congress to test positive for COVID-19. He will also be remembered as one of those Republicans who refused to speak to Donald Trump’s describing countries as “shitholes.” Courage is something these men do not have.

Jeff Duncan of South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District has enjoyed trying, and failing, to do away with important census data, by attempting to have it legislated out of being collected. Too much thinking for Mr. Duncan, I guess.

Neal P. Dunn of Florida’s 2nd Congressional District has made sure to tell news outlets how worried he was and is for children separated from their loved ones due to Trump and the Republican Party’s zero tolerance immigration policies. Not surprisingly, he’s done absolutely nothing to fix this inhumane practice.

Tom Emmer of Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District has complained about constituents wanting stuff like healthcare protections and he’s tried in vain to weaken the Endangered Species Act. He’s never been particularly interested in a Democracy and doesn’t plan on starting now.

Ron Estes of Kansas’s 4th Congressional District literally walked in a swamp in the hopes of riding his way through a tight election. Sadly, Estes never left that swamp, he seems to have just grown gills.

Drew Ferguson of Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District has a social media team that can’t tell the difference between World War II American soldiers and Nazis. True story!

Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District is the kind of guy that takes a question about the many outrageous attacks made publicly by Donald Trump and answers it by blaming Nancy Pelosi for being mean. But in Fleischmann’s defense, he’s been peddling the election fraud fantasy publicly, with zero evidence, since his lord and liege Trump told him to.

Bill Flores of Texas’s 17th Congressional District has made sure to point out that he would ignore the calls from his constituents in regards to Trump’s problematic relationship with Russia and instead make claims that same sex marriage led to civil unrest in Baltimore. The civil unrest in Baltimore connected to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and the lack of justice he ultimately received.

Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District got off his high horse to finally openly expose himself as the right-wing, batshit bananas hack that he’s always been and pretended not to be.

Virginia Foxx of North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District took time away from analogizing the regulation of for-profit colleges with the Holocaust to practice some good old Nazi fascism and overthrow our Democracy. She also once tried to argue that the murder of Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime. In fact, she said the premise was a “hoax.”

Russ Fulcher of Idaho’s 1st Congressional District is a climate denier … as of 2018. He also claims that God wants Idahoians to mine the ground and log away the trees in the state.

Matt Gaetz of Florida’s 1st Congressional District is this guy. What can be said about Matt Gaetz that hasn’t been written in excrement on the soles of Donald Trump and Sean Hannity’s tiny shoes

Greg Gianforte, governor-elect of Montana, assaulted a reporter for asking tough questions and then lied about it to police.

Bob Gibbs of Ohio’s 7th Congressional District is the classic overly emotional conservative white male politician that uses hyperbole but demands that people take that incongruous hyperbole as fact.

Louie Gohmert of Texas’s 1st Congressional District is an unintelligent person but he is also a relatively powerful and disturbingly racist and unintelligent person.

Lance Gooden of Texas’s 5th Congressional District has been in the pocket of a Texas hotelier for years and owes most of his financial support to him. In fact, Gooden is in business with millionaire Monty Bennett and it seems that Bennett is the only person in the state of Texas that Gooden feels he needs to answer to. Gooden’s one claim to fame over the past couple of years was coming up with a plan to DNA test all new immigrants at the border, something that is problematic for about 1 million reasons.

Sam Graves of Missouri’s 6th Congressional District is the kind of guy that runs on homophobia.

Mark Green of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District is also a homophobe with a history of trying to create laws that would allow for the wholesale discrimination of LGBTQ folks in businesses throughout the Volunteer State.

Michael Guest of Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District is on the House Committee on Ethics. Drink that in: a guy that signed on for a coup d’etat represents Republican ethics in the House. Guest is also a supporter of Confederate fashion-lover and general old-timey racist Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Andy Harris of Maryland’s 1st Congressional District is a person who ran on a campaign against the Affordable Healthcare Act and then demanded to know why his government-sponsored healthcare didn’t take effect until after one month in office. And his dad was a Nazi-supporter—not like a neo-Nazi supporter, but an actual Germany during World War II Nazi supporter. Hubris is too nice a word for what Andy Harris is about.

Vicky Hartzler of Missouri’s 4th Congressional District is really most famous for being an anti-gay activist. Imagine if that was your claim to fame?

Kevin Hern of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District is directly connected to arguably the single most corrupt official in recent Oklahoma history, Scott Pruitt. He’s also been a big promoter of superspreader COVID-19 events.

Clay Higgins of Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District is a former Louisiana police officer who lost his job for what would be considered criminal behavior if he hadn’t been on the unjust side of the thin blue line. He’s also a scary racist fascist who believes in authoritarian rule.

Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana’s 9th Congressional District believes that the hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from COVID-19 are the “lesser of these two evils.” The other evil in that sentence is “our way of life as Americans.”

Richard Hudson of North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District is your run-of-the-mill, anti-women’s rights, Obama birther conspiracy theorist, demands drug testing in exchange for food assistance Republican. 

Bill Huizenga of Michigans 2nd Congressional District has been investigated for corruption and has gone so far as to try and get rid of corruption laws that might conflict with his … corruption.

Bill Johnson of Ohio’s 6th Congressional District is a big Islamophobe GOP official. That seems to be his main strength. Like many of the people on this list, Johnson came into office on the ultra-conservative tea party wave of 2010. 

John Joyce of Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District is new to the scene, but we now know one thing about his political ideology.

Fred Keller of Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District barely understands his own elections, let alone national ones.

Mike Kelly of Pennsylvanias 16th Congressional District has been on board this election fraud train since suing to have Black people’s votes in Pennsylvania nullified.

Trent Kelly of Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District gave his in-person seal of approval on the Trump administration’s family separation practices.

Steve King of Iowa’s 4th Congressional District is a lame duck racist who would sign anything so long as the devil told him to.

David Kustoff of Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District’s biggest claim to fame is being a sort of poor man’s Tom Cotton.

Darin LaHood of Illinois’s 18th Congressional District took time away from trying to govern women’s bodies with his Bible to sign off on treason!

Doug LaMalfa of California’s 1st Congressional District has been promoting doubt about the Democratic process, with zero evidence, since the beginning of November. LaMalfa is a mixture of painfully pathetic xenophobia along with quoting the bible to deny climate science.

Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s 5th Congressional District is the guy that continued to force his staff to work in the close proximity of his office during the current pandemic, and then reportedly told his staff not to tell their roommates about COVID-19 symptoms they were having after coming into contact with someone with COVID-19. Think about that.

Robert E. Latta of Ohio’s 5th Congressional District has magically increased his wealth while in Washington by a reported 238%, and while he isn’t the wealthiest Ohio Republican, he’s made the biggest jump in wealth since entering office. Strange!

Debbie Lesko of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District once said that the dozens of sexual assaults alleged against Donald Trump should be investigated and then promptly forgot all about that as she co-sponsored a bill that would require women to prove to their employers that they took birth control for reasons other than … birth control. 

Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District’s main function in the Republican Party is to figure out ways to allow payday lenders to launder their money. 

Kenny Marchant of Texas’s 24th Congressional District is retiring and throwing democracy under the bus as he walks out the door.

Roger Marshall of Kansas’s 1st Congressional District is the kind of guy that runs away from answering questions and participating in debates while also plagiarizing other people’s campaigns, because he has no ethical standards.

Tom McClintock of California’s 4th Congressional District is the kind of guy that was still hanging out with right-wing criminal and strange lying machine Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza is one of those guys that almost makes you feel bad for being a human being.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington’s 5th Congressional District is a person that literally said she had made "protecting those with pre-existing conditions” a “priority” during her time in office. She voted to repeal those very protections nine times—as in one less than 10 times.

Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District has called the Postal Service’s dismantling by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy a “fabricated problem being pushed by Democrats.”

Carol D. Miller of West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District has the distinction of being the only new woman Republican congressional member in the 2018 blue wave election cycle. Miller wants to make sure the other fascists in her party know that she, too, can be a fascist!

John Moolenaar of Michigan’s 4th Congressional District’s only claim to fame has been to vote against calling Donald Trump’s racist statement against “the Squad” racist. This makes John Moolenaar a racist.

Alex X. Mooney of West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District was one of the dunderheaded crew of Matt Gaetz-led legislators breaking the law and threatening the country’s national security in the hopes of being on camera

Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District doesn’t know how many branches of government there are, nor does he understand how government works. He’s clearly not alone in this.

Gregory Murphy of North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District told the public that the only reason Sen. Kamala Harris was chosen to be Joe Biden’s running mate was because of “her color and her race.” He finished that thought by wondering aloud if this was “how we pick our leaders now in America??” I guess Murphy is hoping that we just pick a white pseudo-billionaire to make important decisions for a majority of people that do not want him to?

Dan Newhouse of Washington’s 4th Congressional District is one of the many Republican officials that recently contracted COVID-19.

Ralph Norman of South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District brandished a loaded weapon during a constituent breakfast and placed it on the table in front of people discussing gun safety.

Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District once argued that God, as in the Judeo-Christian deity of the Bible, was an environmental polluter like, say, Duke Energy.

Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District believes that the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police means that taxpayers should invest more money into police departments. He’s also a guy that wrote a forward for an incredibly hate-filled book, and then said he hadn’t read the book, even though his forward was about reading the writer’s hate-filled work. U-S-A!

Tom Rice of South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District spent weeks in the state legislature refusing to wear a mask indoors and then announced that he and his wife and his son had all tested positive for COVID-19.  

John Rose of Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District’s big claim to fame was being one of the many Republicans, at different times, to block disaster relief help for Puerto Rico.

David Rouzer of North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District is a Trump defender with all of the general Republican bonafides we have come to expect: tax breaks for the rich, voting against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and being a part of the Gaetz impeachment crash party.

John Rutherford of Florida’s 4th Congressional District has frequently been dragged on Twitter for the most racist and idiotic attacks on Democratic women of color.

Austin Scott of Georgia’s 8th Congressional District recently tested positive for COVID-19.

Mike Simpson of Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District took his head from out of his own ass long enough to sign on for fascism.

Adrian Smith of Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District sort of disappeared on his constituents, just  like the rest of the Republican Party during this year’s pandemic.

Jason Smith of Missouri’s 8th Congressional District’s great moment of cleverness was when he attacked the ACA for taxing tanning salons, saying Democrats might as well “tax the sun.” He also spun it as a tax on women. Of course, Smith had a long history of attacking women in the legislature by trying to defund Planned Parenthood, as well as attacking children by voting against Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program funds.

Ross Spano of Florida’s 15th Congressional District took time away from his campaign finance scandal, and losing his primary, to support another one-term corrupt politician.

Elise Stefanik of New York’s 21st Congressional District is something of an easily verifiable liar. Let’s all look forward to the day, likely a few weeks from now, when Stefanik tells a local news reporter that she never supported the wholesale destruction of the democratic process.

Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District is a big Second Amendment fella who has said things in the past like “You know, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It’s about safety. If someone is coming into my house in the middle of the night to hurt my family, I want as many bullets as possible.” I guess he needs all the bullets to shoot holes in Democratically casted votes?

Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District knows lots about election fraud and election law violations as he has been tied to all kinds of under-the-table, dirty, and likely illegal tricks to win his position in Wisconsin’s legislature.

William Timmons of South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District is most recently remembered for defending Trump’s racism by saying everybody is being called racist and so nobody is racist. Trying to get rid of Black Americans’ votes wholesale is a great example of an attempt at systemizing racism. Just a thought.

Ann Wagner of Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District is one of the legislators in Congress with the least amount of votes on actual legislation. I guess she’s lazy? She was one of the first Republican officials to stand in front of microphones and tell Americans that based on her high level of knowledge, from “multiple, multiple briefings at the federal level,” she knew—as of March 7—that the United States was at a very “low risk” of having a COVID-19 pandemic. Ann Wagner should be disqualified from doing anything but eating oatmeal.

Tim Walberg of Michigan’s 7th Congressional District is one of those “family values” Republicans who wants to take away everyone else’s rights using the federal government. 

Michael Waltz of Florida’s 6th Congressional District is already having newspapers who endorsed him apologize for supporting sedition. This is one of those “never Trumpers” who very quickly began licking the boots of Donald Trump the moment Trump came into power.

Randy Weber of Texas’s 14th Congressional District replaced Ron Paul in Congress. There’s not much more that needs to be said. A second-rate version of Ron Paul, while better than the fifth-rate version of Paul that is Rand, is still worse than having an old can of Tab sitting in a seat and being your representative.

Daniel Webster of Florida’s 11th Congressional District is … so much Florida!

Brad Wenstrup of Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District just followed in the footsteps of Jim “I-turn-the-other-way-when-being-told-about-the-wholesale-molestation-of-young-people-I’m-supposed-to-be-in-charge-of” Jordan.

Bruce Westerman of Arkansas’s 4th Congressional District has sat on top of a pile of logging industry money for years and shockingly (read: “not shockingly”) has been a lead sponsor on some super anti-climate, pro-logging bits of legislation that attempt to hand our trees over to private industry for profit.

Roger Williams of Texas’ 25th Congressional District is the guy that tried to pressure a bank to help out his flailing oil investor donor. Swamp stuff.

Joe Wilson of South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District loves to vote for American wars but not for healthcare funding for American veterans of said wars. He’s almost a perfect Republican! He’s also in a district that’s drawn deeply red and acts like the petty little emperor he wants to be.

Rob Wittman of Virginia’s 1st Congressional District was able to fly mostly under the radar for his attempts at profiteering off of the COVID-19 pandemic when he bought into a pharmaceutical company which was producing an antiviral drug that hoped to help with COVID-19 treatments, and at the exact same time emailing his constituents that there was no coronavirus pandemic in the United States, and you didn’t need to worry about it. You know, like a real piece of shit.

Ron Wright of Texas’s 6th Congressional District is a relatively new congressman, whose views on school mass shootings include calling for public hangings as a solution. Not working on the gun thing, just hanging people.

Ted S. Yoho of Florida’s 3rd Congressional District is the soon-to-be retiring congressman from Florida who famously “didn’t attend one single deposition” as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Congress was investigating Trump’s Ukrainian bribery. He’s also the sweetie pie who, in a confrontation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez resorted to calling her a “fucking bitch,” because his ability to debate matches the size of his courage.

Lee Zeldin of New York’s 1st Congressional District is best known for his intense Islamophobia and his unerring and idiotic support of the Trump administration from Day One.

Remember these (mostly white) men (and a couple of white women). They are the people who hope to be a middle-management fascistic vanguard in an oligarchy for the rich. Share your own stories about any of the people listed above down below in the comments.

Happy New Year!

You’re fired! The People ousted Donald Trump because Senate Republicans were too corrupt to do it

One of the biggest political stories of 2020—and really Donald Trump’s entire tenure—was what a bunch of traitorous sellouts the entire Senate Republican caucus turned out to be. Sure, we knew these GOP senators were no profiles in courage as Trump took the reins in 2017, but their constant kowtowing and, particularly, their hasty acquittal of Trump against a mountain of evidence that he abused his power to extort a foreign government in order to win reelection was an actual attack on U.S. democracy itself. 

"It was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security and our fundamental values,” Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said in early February shortly before he became the sole GOP senator to vote against clearing Trump of wrongdoing. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine."
The other 52 Republican senators banded together to shield Trump from accountability and suffering the just consequences of his defilement of the republic slid from claims that there was no quid pro quo to “So what if there was?” Ultimately, every Senate Republican but Romney proved content to play Trump’s stooge regardless of the blight on democracy it represented.
Unfortunately, that craven political calculation worked out for too many vulnerable GOP senators in November. While Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona suffered the consequences of abetting Trump’s corruption, others such as Maine’s Susan Collins, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis all escaped accountability for their complicity in Trump’s crime. And, at least for now, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell—who led the charge to acquit Trump without hearing from a single witness (including Trump’s former national security adviser and stalwart conservative John Bolton)—is still the presumed leader of the Senate Majority for the upcoming Congress.
But that doesn’t have to be. On January 5, we still have one last chance to exact a price for McConnell’s treachery by relegating him to minority status in the upper chamber and putting Democrats in charge. At the same time, we can send a powerful message that the seditious acts of Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in backing Trump’s fascist power grab to overturn the election will not stand.
But regardless of what happens in those two critical Senate races, the American people did band together to save our democracy from a would-be dictator and an entire major-American party that eagerly helped him undercut this centuries-old experiment in democracy.

You're fired, Donald Trump. The People have spoken.

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Maxine Waters Whines About The ‘Missed Opportunity’ Congress Had To Impeach Trump ‘For Treason’

Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) had yet another meltdown against President Donald Trump on Sunday, this time complaining about the “missed opportunity” she claims that Congress had to impeach him “for treason.”

Waters Thinks Trump Should Have Been Impeached ‘For Treason’

“On my 3/2017 pinned tweet one can see [Paul] Manafort, [Michael] Flynn, [Roger] Stone, all of whom have been pardoned [and] more of them to come. They know the criminal [and] illegal relationship [between] Trump [and] Putin! They’re part of it! We missed our opportunity to impeach him for treason. [New York] can make up for it!” Waters tweeted.

Waters Has Previously Called For Trump’s Arrest And Impeachment

Waters has long been one of Trump’s harshest critics, frequently calling for him to be impeached and even to be arrested.

“I’m calling on the GOP to stop Trump’s filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed,” she tweeted back in October. “Impeachment is not good enough for Trump. He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement. But for now, impeachment is the imperative.”

Related: Maxine Waters Says She’ll ‘Never, Ever Forgive’ Black Voters Who Chose Trump

Immediately after last month’s presidential election, Waters was quick to say that the “door is closed” on Trump’s presidency as she also called for him to be investigated.

“So let him keep going as far as he wants to go even though the door is closed on him now,” she said. “There’s nowhere for him to go. If he wants to try and keep going to the Supreme Court, let him try. It’s over.”

Waters Wants Trump To Be Investigated

Waters also said that she would “certainly would be in support of investigating the president of the United States.”

“What he has done in the four years that he has served as president is simply unconscionable, I think criminal in some cases,” Waters said of Trump. 

“He’s placed this country in danger,” she said. “And the president of the United States is supposed to be about making sure that the country is safe and secure, and he has done everything possible to undermine our democracy. I don’t think that can be overlooked.”

Related: Maxine Waters Declares That Trump’s Presidency Is ‘Over’ – Calls For Him To Be Investigated

“We should send a message across the world that we will not tolerate the undermining of our democracy in the way this president has done,” Waters added. “So again, I don’t know what President-elect Biden would do, but I certainly would support investigating the president.”

This piece was written by James Samson on December 23, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Rachel Maddow Stuns Fans By Defending Former Colleague Tucker Carlson – ‘He’s Not Faking It’
Fauci Backtracks – Says We Don’t Need To Cancel Christmas After Calling For Us To Do Just That
Dem Senator Claims Republicans Challenging Election Results Are ‘Bordering On’ Treason, Which Is Punishable By Death

The post Maxine Waters Whines About The ‘Missed Opportunity’ Congress Had To Impeach Trump ‘For Treason’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Can House Intel move beyond the Trump wars?

The Donald Trump show will end its four-year Washington run next month, but the Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes production is due to live on.

The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee have been the faces of some of Capitol Hill’s most public partisan brawls of Trump’s presidency, including two investigations into Russian election interference and the third impeachment in U.S. history. Now they’re widely expected to be reappointed by House leaders to their respective roles in the 117th Congress.

Schiff, at least, expressed optimism about a return to above-the-fray bipartisan spirit during the upcoming Biden administration, telling POLITICO that “I think the overall climate will be more conducive to a sense of comity.” But on the GOP side, some current and former lawmakers think both parties could use a new standard-bearer on the panel to restore its one-time reputation as a sanctuary from Congress’ partisan warfare.

“We've got bad habits that accumulated over the last four years,” said retiring Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who led the panel’s first Russia investigation after Nunes, then the chair, recused himself. Conaway added: “On both sides.”

A spokesman for Nunes did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Democrats built up a long list of complaints about Nunes’ leadership of the panel during Trump’s first two years, including his efforts to absolve the president of collusion with Russian election interference and promote accusations of anti-Trump bias among federal law enforcement officials. Republicans argue that Democrats contributed to the panel’s rancorous atmosphere, citing what they consider a stream of leaks, Trump’s impeachment and Schiff’s regular presence on TV — though some acknowledge that GOP members kept stirring the pot, for example with their unanimous call for Schiff to resign as chair.

Neither Schiff or Nunes is expected to go anywhere, however, in a panel that will be more evenly divided next year thanks to Democratic losses in November’s elections. Both remain close allies of their party's respective leaders and incredibly popular among their colleagues.

But Trump will be gone after Jan. 20. And Schiff said he hoped that would bring a change of tone for the committee, which will wrap up a months-long review of the U.S. clandestine community’s response and handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel may also launch its own investigation of the SolarWinds hack, suspected to be the work of Russian intelligence, which has breached multiple federal agencies and an untold number of private companies.

“We just have too much important work to do,” Schiff said. He added, “All I can say is I'm going to make every effort and I hope it'll be reciprocated.”

He added that he had a similar conversation with his GOP colleagues at the beginning of this Congress “that was not successful. But I intend to again and invite all of them to reset and see if we can get to ‘yes.’”

Intelligence panel or ‘political instrument’?

Current and former Republicans on the committee were less hopeful for a return to the panel’s reputation as a quiet, bipartisan protector of the nation’s most closely held secrets.

“The focus has to shift from partisan issues to true national security issues,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said about the committee’s future. But on the other hand, he said, “I don't think Adam Schiff can go 15 minutes without attacking someone in the Capitol or in the Trump world.”

Former panel Chair Mike Rogers of Michigan, who retired from Congress in 2014, said he sees at least one way to restore civility: Replace both Schiff and Nunes.

“Both of them are leading fundraisers because of the notoriety they get in the very public political fights off of the committee, using the committee as that platform,” Rogers told POLITICO. “That is really destructive to good and proper oversight of the intelligence community, more than they will admit it, more than people will know.”

Dismissing both Schiff and Nunes would also “send a message that you don't get a membership on the committee by using it as a political instrument,” Rogers said.

Intelligence is the only permanent committee in Congress whose members are appointed unilaterally by the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House, instead of being recommended by steering committees and voted on by their full caucus or conference. That means leadership retains tight control over the committee's business and tend to appoint allies to it.

If leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are serious about reversing the partisanship that's wracked the panel during the Trump era, committee veterans say it will be most evident in next year’s appointments, including the choices of chair and ranking Republican.

Losses in the November elections have left Democrats with a razor-thin majority in the House. That means Republicans could gain a seat on the 21-person committee, whose appointments are usually announced last, after Pelosi and McCarthy finish negotiating the new ratio and all the other congressional panel rosters are finished.

McCarthy will have the chance to name at least three new Republicans to the panel, following the retirements of Conaway and Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a former CIA officer, and the departure earlier this year of John Ratcliffe, now the director of national intelligence.

Compared with the changes coming for the GOP, the committee’s Democratic side will largely remain the same. Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut and Terri Sewell of Alabama are term-limited off the committee but are expected to seek waivers to remain on the panel. Only Rep. Denny Heck of Washington state is retiring.

Despite the four years of bickering, Intelligence “is the most coveted committee on our side,” said Conaway, adding that McCarthy “will have more than enough rock-solid people to put in these slots, to take up the reins. … He'll have to disappoint some really good, qualified people.”

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who is the favorite to get the top GOP slot if Nunes somehow doesn’t, noted that the committee has had a reputation for attracting lawmakers who are workhorses and don’t mind that much of the panel’s work takes place behind closed doors.

“If you're on HPSCI, it should be the most important committee you sit on,” said Stewart, who also serves on the Appropriations and Budget panels. “Sometimes you have to choose. And when I have to choose, I always have to choose Intel and I would hope other members would make it their priority too, not something they do casually.”

Recent developments on Capitol Hill don’t exactly bode well for a restoring an atmosphere of cooperation any time soon.

Earlier this year the GOP unofficially boycotted the panel's proceedings for months at the start of the pandemic over what they said were security concerns, though Democrats argued it was partisan politics.

Objections by Nunes almost scuttled the passage of an annual intelligence authorization bill — which passed out of committee in a rare, party-line vote — even though Schiff and the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee had agreed to it. Nunes had objected to moving forward on the measure because he believed that provisions on election security and protecting whistleblowers and inspectors general amounted to partisan attacks on the White House.

A compromise version of the proposal, which authorizes billions of dollars in spending and provides policy guardrails to the country’s 17 intelligence agencies, was eventually hitched to the $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill and Covid-19 relief package that the House and Senate passed on Monday — but not before the provisions Nunes objected to were jettisoned.

“Regrettably” those provisions were cut from the compromise bill, Schiff said in a statement.

"We will continue to press for those necessary reforms, and others, in the next Congress through the [Intelligence Authorization Act] and other legislative vehicles," the California Democrat said.

Meanwhile, some Republican members openly skewered Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and called for Pelosi to remove him from the committee after an Axios report accused him of having had dealings with an alleged Chinese spy. But Pelosi has stood by Swallwell, who has said he broke off contact with the woman after getting an alert from the FBI in 2015.

“I'm not taking anything personally,” Swalwell said when asked about GOP calls for him to step down from the panel.

“I'm going into the next Congress putting aside what's happened in the past and wanting to try and get some of the friendships back that I had across the aisle before Donald Trump became president,” he added. “All you can do is try.”

‘Find something that you can do with Devin’

Rogers suggested that one way to restore comity post-Trump would be to bring back a practice employed during his time helming the panel: Have Republican and Democratic staff brief members together, because “sometimes the staff fighting is as bad as anything that you'll see from the members.” As a result of the joint briefings, he said, “people started realizing we're on the same page for the same mission.”

Still, Rogers remains dubious that Schiff and Nunes can lead the panel back from the brink of dysfunction.

“The fact that they are nationally known for going after Trump, or supporting Trump, that is an aphrodisiac that's hard to get over,” he told POLITICO.

For some members, it’s too late.

When he announced his retirement last year, Heck said the “countless hours I have spent in the investigation of Russian election interference and the impeachment inquiry have rendered my soul weary” — and the memories of the committee’s heated clashes may not disappear soon.

Heck said that “our best opportunity for a reset” would have been to give Nunes the top GOP spot on the Ways and Means Committee, which the California Republican has long coveted. But that slot will remain with Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), McCarthy announced earlier this month.

“If I had 30 seconds with Kevin, and I thought he listened to me, I'd say: Find something that you can do with Devin,” Heck said. But, he added, “That's not going to happen.”

Posted in Uncategorized

Pelosi ‘Plans’ To Pull Trump Out Of The White House “By His Hair, His Little Hands And Feet”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to pull President Trump out of the White House “by his hair, his little hands and feet.”

According to Politico, Pelosi made the remarks about the President on the weekend, during strategy talks regarding how the Democrats can pass the new 5,000+ page coronavirus relief bill that is currently going through Congress.

Pelosi: “I’m Counting Down The Hours ‘Til He’s Gone”

“I’m counting down the hours ’til he’s gone,” Pelosi told her leadership team during a strategizing session saying that she plans to pull Trump out of the White House “by his hair, his little hands and his feet.”

President Trump and Nancy Pelosi haven’t spoken since October last year, when she tried to get him out of the White House for the first time.

That was when she helped launch the impeachment effort against him, and ripped up his State of the Union speech live on television.

RELATED: Pelosi Forced To Cancel Lavish Dinner For New Dem Members Of Congress After Photo Sparks Backlash

A Challenge For Pelosi Within Her Own Party?

Pelosi has been having a tough year.

It seems that time may be running out for Pelosi with her position as Speaker coming under fire by many, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who told The Intercept that they need “new leadership in the Democratic Party.”

Pelosi, a proponent of many stringent coronavirus measures, was caught out earlier in the year attending a hair salon in San Francisco, inside, without a mask, in what many decried as a stunning display of hypocrisy.

She later preposterously claimed that she had been “set up” by the salon.

The House Speaker in October also claimed that CNN, of all networks, serve as “apologists” and propagandists for the Republican Party, in a stunning display of a lack of self-awareness.

RELATED: Congress To Approve Over $1 Billion For Southern Border Wall Along With Coronavirus Relief Bill

Coronavirus Bill Slammed For Including Unnecessary Funding

The coronavirus stimulus bill that Pelosi is trying to pass has come under fire from many across the political spectrum.

Conservatives have pointed out that the spending in the bill is packed chock full of foreign aid projects, while Americans line up for free food.

$10 million will go to fund “gender programs” in Pakistan, Sudan will received $700 million in economic assistance, and $453 million will be provided for assistance for Ukraine.

Similar ridiculous priorities include a condemnation of the CCP’s involvement in the selection of the next Dalai Lama, the building of two new museums for Latinos and women on the National Mall, and a ban on e-cigarettes being delivered by the USPS.

While the rest of the world gets billions of dollars, Americans will only receive $600.

Democrat Senate candidate Jon Ossoff called the payments “a joke,” in another display of serious cracks forming between Democrat leadership and the rest of the party.

The post Pelosi ‘Plans’ To Pull Trump Out Of The White House “By His Hair, His Little Hands And Feet” appeared first on The Political Insider.

From Trump’s impeachment trial to Hunter Biden: The biggest political scandals of 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, the news has been dominated by a global pandemic, statewide lockdowns and a presidential election. Amid all that, it’s easy to forget about political events, including scandals and controversies, that otherwise would have been more in the spotlight.