CSotD: The National IQ Test
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If mockery could solve our problems, we’d have no problems at all. And then the political cartoonists would all be out of business.
I suppose this Rob Rogers piece won’t change the minds of the nincompoops who nod along with Rep. Andrew Clyde’s claim that the January 6 rioters were simply a group of peaceful tourists.
But wotthehell, if we can’t ask for miracles, we can at least share a few laffs.
Mind you, one of the attorneys for the rioters is offering a Stupidity Defense, powered by the notion that, when really stupid people watch Fox News, you can’t hold them responsible for whatever happens next.
So far, more than 400 tourists have been charged with criminal stupidity, and I have to admit that, when you brag about breaking the law and circulate pictures of yourself doing it, you may be setting yourself up for a successful stupidity defense.
Particularly if you remembered to exit through the gift shop, as noted by Pat Byrnes (Cagle), who offers an array of things we all saw on television that day.
Or, as Bruce Plante suggests, perhaps we only imagined it. It depends on whether you believe the people who are telling you what you saw, or simply relying on what you saw yourself.
Granted, NPR Reporter Dina Temple Raston was on 1A yesterday and cautioned people about believing what they saw on their television screens.
It was, she said, worse and went deeper and we haven’t begun to explore even the part the intelligence community has already figured out.
While, as Ann Telnaes says, if Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy have their way, we never will.
It would be nice to know, for instance, if accusations are true that some rightwing GOP congressional members conducted tours for potential rioters January 5.
That’s an interesting question, because it wouldn’t be outside probability for visitors to request a meeting with their representative, though I’m not sure how often that goes beyond a handshake, a selfie and an autograph.
But, in a slack moment, there could be an innocent “Let me show you around” moment, particularly if you had a group show up on your doorstep.
The open question is why, in that case, you wouldn’t want to get it all out in the open and relieve the suspicions?
And that’s simply for the people accused of providing the tours; for the GOP as a group, their reluctance suggests that they have no intention of mounting an “A Few Bad Apples” defense, letting a couple of fringe members hang in the wind for the good of the party.
The only logical explanation is that they don’t think they can limit the damages to a few bad apples.
As Steve Breen (Creators) points out, the GOP’s determination to avoid an in-depth examination suggests their own insurrection against logic, good government and common sense.
Or, y’know, daylight.
It is bizarre that the people who, it seems, are always first to defend surveillance and police searches by saying that, if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t object to it, are now on the ramparts demanding that their own actions be shrouded in secrecy.
“Bizarre” being distinct from “inexplicable.” It’s explicable.
GOP Whip John Thune is perfectly willing to explain why any hearings now would be unfair: Learning the truth might prejudice voters in the upcoming midterm elections.
Which reminds me of Abbie Hoffman’s reaction to having former Attorney General Ramsey Clark denied the chance to testify at the Chicago Seven Trial on the grounds that it might tend to prejudice the jury in favor of the defendants.
Abbie said he thought that was kind of the point of having a defense.
The larger point, of course, being that Nixon’s government didn’t want the defendants to be defended, just as is, in this case, McConnell’s GOP doesn’t want voters to go into the booth prejudiced by facts.
And, Marc Murphy points out, he’s is perfectly willing to step over the body of a dead police officer to guarantee that political expediency remains ahead of truth, justice and the American way.
The GOP being adamant that you must not defund the police, mind you.
Assault them, yes. But don’t defund them.
Elsewhere in the Stupidverse
In Ed Hall’s place, I’d have simply drawn the courthouse without the dialogue, because it is brilliant by itself.
And I think he gives Trump credit that Mitch McConnell deserves, since groundwork for the first of the three relevant pillars was started before Trump came to power.
I kind of feel as though Trump was let fly mostly to see how much crazy the American people would tolerate. Having squelched Merrick Garland, the question was whether the GOP would have to roll the dice with another moderate Roberts type or could push a little with a Gorsuch, and if nobody rioted over that, could they try a drunken frat boy and, if that got through, how about a full-blown rightwing fringe-dweller?
Maybe that was a step too far, because Trump lost, but three Scotus picks ain’t bad and, depending on the results of our ongoing National IQ Test, we might get Dear Leader back in the big chair again.
But we haven’t seen those test results yet, and Jimmy Margulies (KFS) suggests that there may be some pushback over the Court’s decision to take up Roe v Wade for a little post-Trump nip-and-tuck.
I’m willing to believe that the looney-tune misogynistic laws coming out of the Red States were enacted simply to lay Roe v Wade in front of the court, knowing the likely outcome with several justices openly contemptuous of the original ruling and the court, as a whole, having demonstrated little regard for legal precedent.
But let’s not forget that stripping women’s rights at the federal level only kicks it back to state legislatures.
Nor should we forget that the states are also where rightwing legislatures are working to repress votes and allow themselves to overturn election results. A little kick in the ass there wouldn’t be so bad.
Thing is, when the curtain closes, even a woman from a domineering marriage and a domineering church votes in private.
Roll those dice, Mitch.
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