QAnon conspiracy theorists, praying for years that Trump would flush Satan-worshipping pedophile elites out of Washington, tore apart any scrap of data from the [Trump concession] video to prove that he was playing one final trick. They subjected the time stamps to numerology, thinking that there was a secret message encoded.
Because TWITTER JUST BANNED FUCKFACE PERMANENTLY!!!!
I wrote about it here.
Even so, he has gone back to work, writing up articles of impeachment, suffering with members of his family through the violent takeover of the Capitol, and now describing with heartbreaking eloquence and restraint what he went through on January 6.
I’ll tell you what was truly terrifying for me. I was okay. My son, whom we lost a week ago, was very politically engaged, and I felt him with me the whole time, so I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. But my youngest daughter asked me not to go in. I told her I had to because the stakes were so huge, and I invited her to come with me. So she was with me on the Hill Wednesday, as was my son-in-law, who is married to my other daughter. They were at the Capitol for seven harrowing hours and spent at least an hour hiding under a desk in Steny Hoyer’s office with my chief of staff while I was on the floor and this violent, rampaging mob was banging on doors and trying to get in and take over that office the way they took over and trashed Nancy Pelosi’s office. Offices were being stormed and people were being killed. While Donald Trump and his family threw a party to support this violent, seditious mob, my kids were hiding under a desk.
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And on the matter of Fuckface’s removal from office:
We have a president who is egging on violent, armed insurrection against the Congress of the United States in order to block the peaceful transfer of power. This president is either unable or unwilling to faithfully execute the laws and to uphold the Constitution. Therefore he cannot successfully discharge the powers and duties of office for the next 12 days. The public has no confidence, but more importantly here, the Congress, which is charged with making sure we are secure, has no confidence that this president can do it. Those Trump die-hard sycophants still out there will say this is some kind of partisan thing, but there is broad bipartisan consensus now that Donald Trump is a lethal danger to our republic. The only person who gets new power out of this is Vice President Pence, with whom I disagree about pretty much everything. But I do think that he is a sane person and has that basic respect for the Constitution.
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So proud I voted for this man. So proud he represents me.
The guys were carrying flex cuffs, the plastic double restraints often used by police in mass arrest situations. They walked through the Senate chamber with a sense of purpose. They were not dressed in silly costumes but kitted out in full paramilitary regalia: helmets, armor, camo, holsters with sidearms. At least one had a semi-automatic rifle and 11 Molotov cocktails. At least one, unlike nearly every other right-wing rioter photographed that day, wore a mask that obscured his face.
These are the same guys who, when the windows of the Capitol were broken and entry secured, went in first with what I’d call military-ish precision. They moved with purpose, to the offices of major figures like Nancy Pelosi and then to the Senate floor. What was that purpose? It wasn’t to pose for photos. It was to use those flex cuffs on someone.
Change name of Smoot-Hawley Act to Smoot-XXXXXX Act.
Musical background here.
Erin Hawley, the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), was listed as of counsel to the appellate practice of Kirkland & Ellis LLP as recently as January 6, 2021, the day the Capitol coup took place. Hawley’s bio associating her with the firm has since been scrubbed from the internet.
Maybe go back to your maiden name?
Maybe leave the son of a bitch?
UD‘s kind of the same. You know – you’re watching a film and the end credits come on and you’re looking for Jewish last names… Merrick Garland gets nominated for Attorney General and you race to Wikipedia to see whether, despite the unpromising name, he’s one of us (yes)… So UD was of course intrigued (though, since she follows the subject of Orthodox Jews, not surprised) that busloads of Orthodox Jews came to Fuckface’s pre-insurrection rally, and of those more than a few stormed and ransacked the Capitol building.
If you follow the subject of right-wing Orthodox Jews, you know that en masse they LOVE Fuckface. They vote for him in droves. In fact they are his most consistent and enthusiastic voting bloc. 80%, 85% of them vote for him every time.
They love him because he’s just like them: They are a cult. He leads a cult. He hates and despises science and therefore has no trouble with their refusal to vaccinate their children, and of course with their refusal to educate their children. He loves a con, and therefore has no trouble with many of their communities’ decades of welfare fraud. A significant minority of them love to riot and they do it at the drop of a hat – and Fuckface too adores violence. Fuckface loves authoritarianism, so their worship of grand rabbis sits very well with him – benighted old guys should tell you what to do (most importantly, they should tell you to vote for Fuckface), and you should (and do) unquestioningly obey them. Ff is a white supremacist, and they are too – white ultra-Orthodox supremacists. They are a rogue mob unto themselves – in Israel and in the United States – and in Ff they have correctly identified a president who doesn’t give a fuck what they do. Cheers them on. On the very simplest level, many of the men among the ultra-Orthodox are obnoxious (consider their routine vile behavior on planes, buses, and city streets in regard to women) and obnoxiousness is just … constitutive of Ff.
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A number of people seem surprised by the coincidence, inside the desecrated Capitol building, of Israeli flags and Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts. Of fervently pious Jews, and neo-Nazis. How the hell can both…??? But that’s because they’re not thinking. Let us think about how this can be, about how American fascists who HATE HATE HATE Jews, and Orthodox American Jews, gathered together at the Capitol building on Wednesday to try to destroy American democracy.
First point: This is not the comic/pathetic thing Andrew Higgins describes having seen in post-communist violent demonstrations – demonstrations that remind him of the sick circus we saw on Wednesday. Higgins describes a confusion of lost-cause flags:
In Donetsk, these included not just the Red Flag of the defunct Soviet Union and the black-yellow-white tricolor of the long-gone Tsarist empire, but at times also the emblem of an even more distant, failed venture, the Confederate States of America.
Same seemingly irresolvable contradiction, right? Everyone gathered in solidarity to riot, some fervently hoping to bring back Stalin, others worshipful in regard to the people Stalin slaughtered, and yet others – what the hell – hoisting the Confederate flag. Amusing, ain’t it? Call it the Undifferentiated Resentment Carnivalesque.
Wednesday’s attempted coup was more organized, under the banner you better fucking look at me and let me do what I want.
Details? The ultra-Orthodox Jewish side of this is the easy one to figure. The people on those Trump rally buses represent a small incredibly tightly-knit cult which positively cultivates ignorance of any world outside itself. Abstractions like “the Israeli state” or “the American government” come to life for them primarily as impediments – via universal education mandates and the like – to their self-enclosed way of life. They are things against which you riot because you want to do what you want. Note, for instance, the wonderfully cooperative attitude toward state covid mandates we continue to witness among the ultra-Orthodox. Their appalling behavior is not really in defense of anything spiritual – they just want to do what they want.
If you ask them what about those Nazi flags waving around you at the Capitol? They will respond: What Nazi flags? And if they’re under a certain age they will respond: What’s a Nazi?
As for the neo-Nazis: They might not like Jews, but they love them some Israel. “[T]here’s a real affinity here … Far-right nationalists often see Israel, particularly its current far-right government, as an ally. When far-right extremists like [Richard] Spencer look at Israel, they claim to see more than a hint of their own vision for society.” Obviously the American fascist view of Israel is wacky; nonetheless, it inspires and animates white nationalists at the highest levels.
Most broadly, you saw ultra-Orthodox Jews and neo-Nazis at the Capitol because violent anti-democratic extremists/cultists recognize one another; they recognize that much more unites than divides them.
UD is a firm believer in not listening to, not using the name of, not acknowledging, evil-doers. She is totally on board with the famous Monty Python sketch in which we encounter, in a nice post-war British hotel, a curious group of German gentlemen, one of whom is “Mr Hilter.” You can very lightly manipulate the name and use that, but you must try very hard never again to use the name itself, and you must contort yourself in all sorts of ways (turn off the radio, as I just did, when a comment by Dead Cruz is forthcoming) to avoid granting actual ongoing empirical social existence to evil-doers. UD takes shunning way seriously.
Yet she has all this time kept the name Fuckface off this blog – rather surprising, you might say, given UD‘s … pahnshah for bad words. But since we’re now in a real fight with him and his fellow fascists (Round One at the Capitol goes to them) it’s time to get explicitly down and dirty. Fuckface it is.
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UD was just listening to an interview with Sen. Pat Toomey, who referred to Ff as “this person.” Brilliant. Family-friendly – unlike Fuckface – and profoundly contemptuous.
Brilliant. Like: Who is this person? Does anyone know who this person is? What this person is?
If you’re Nazi and you’re fired it’s your fault
If you’re Nazi and you’re fired it’s your fault
When you’re spotted in the mob and you lose your fucking job
If you’re Nazi and you’re fired it’s your fault
If you’re fascist and you’re maced that’s on you
If you’re fascist and you’re maced that’s on you
When you try to stage a coup
But you haven’t got a clue
If you’re fascist and you’re maced that’s on you
Since the moment when first
Like a rocket you burst
In our hitherto tranquil skies,
We’ve been startled to find
You are firmly aligned
With evil and treason and lies.
Therefore please do not take me to task
If the following favor I ask:
Allez-vous-en, allez-vous-en, monsieur,
Allez-vous-en, go away.
Allez-vous-en, allez-vous-en, monsieur,
I have no time for you today.
Do be a dear, just disappear, monsieur,
Bid me goodbye, do, do, do.
Allez-vous-en, please go away, monsieur,
We all are disgusted with you.
Cruz and Hawley, Cruz and Hawley
They’re a couple little shits, by golly!
Any vile endeavor, Cruz and Hawley go together.
Try, try, try to separate them, it’s an illusion
Try, try, try and you will only come to this conclusion:
Cruz and Hawley, Cruz and Hawley
Tracking Trump along his route unlawly
Josh and Ted are lusting
After anything disgusting
Josh Hawley is a very bad boy, and he’s gotten into a lot of very bad trouble and made a lot of adults very mad. Little Josh likes to run around pumping his fist at proto-fascist rallies; he likes to destroy democratic institutions; he likes to lie about his house having been attacked by evil left-wingers.
People die because of his rabble-rousing, but it’s not Josh’s fault. He is not a disreputable person, beneath contempt; he is a well-groomed, well-educated, highly promising young statesman.
But because it certainly looks as though people die because of Josh, publishers cancel his book contracts. But the publishers are bad evil left-wingers and he is going to sue them! He is going to sue them on behalf of all of those innocent people who are cancelled merely because they are mob-inciting, proto-fascist, traitors. Who among us is not a mob-inciting, proto-fascist, traitor? Why should Josh Hawley be singled out?
Because he is a white man, that’s why. If he were one of millions of mob-inciting, proto-fascist, black women, he would be celebrated, not condemned.
Betsy DeVos resigns. At this rate, there won’t be any Cabinet left to invoke the 25th Amendment.