Maryland Representative Andy Harris walked through a magnetometer near the House chamber yesterday with a concealed gun. When he was confronted, he tried to get another Congressman to hold it for him—who wisely declined. Harris has been a House member since 2008; he was an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, and also chief of obstetric anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. (Being a Hopkins-trained physician apparently does not prevent one from being a total fucking crackpot). Among other things, he supported Trump’s claims that the election was unfair, alleging “large-scale voting irregularities,” including “secret, unobserved vote counting in the swing states.”
This barking asshat represents my district, and I’m embarrassed.
Destroying planets and using fear of this battle station to keep the local systems in line was my No. 1 passion until — about 30 seconds ago, weirdly! That was when I saw the X-wings that had evaded our turbo-lasers and were proceeding down a trench toward our vulnerable thermal exhaust port — and realized I had to speak up. I thought: What if remorselessly destroying planets isn’t my passion? What if my real passion is staying alive and avoiding the consequences of my actions?
This is from a couple of days ago but I’ve been crashing on a big project at work, and it still makes me laugh.
I haven’t written anything here about the events of the last 48 hours, probably because I’m still trying to process the footage of white supremacist insurrectionists invading the Capitol building holding a fucking confederate flag. If you’re a longtime reader of this here blog you know where my politics lie, but this shit goes beyond simple red-blue divisions. There was no plan, there was no endgame; these were people told to do something by a crackpot dictator who didn’t have the brains to understand what he was saying or the balls to own up to the damage he caused.
Meanwhile, the Capitol Police showed how white America gets to commit felonies on a live broadcast with absolutely no consequence while people of color routinely get rounded up in unmarked vans and teargassed for a photo opportunity. The cops knew this was coming for days and chose not to do anything about it. Black Lives Matter protestors got permits to assemble and were shot for exercising their constitutional rights. These maskless shitheads stormed a federal building, broke federal property, threatened state and federal legislators, and then got to walk back out the door and go home.
Nancy Pelosi is threatening impeachment if Trump doesn’t resign immediately. Twitter finally suspended his account, following Facebook, Twitch and Snapchat. Four years too late, you fuckwits.
Trump’s cabinet is bailing out on him; they don’t even have the decency to go down with the ship they’ve been helping steer into the rocks. Eat a bag of dicks, you worthless shits.
I want the new Attorney General to hit the ground running on Day 1 and prepare federal charges against Trump and his family. If Biden so much as whispers anything about not prosecuting him for all the obvious, illegal shit he’s pulled, my head is gonna explode. You have the house and senate, Joe. Grow a pair of fucking balls.
The President of the American Federation of Teachers issued a formal statement on Betsy DeVos’ resignation today.
Fast Company reports on a data viz designer who saw the a tweet showing the counties of the United States colored in by how they voted, and thought he could do a better job of displaying the truth. You’ve seen the GIF he created—it’s this one:
Measuring Land vs Measuring People https://t.co/Vju0kknYby#HowChartsLie #Elections2020 pic.twitter.com/EKhrJ4lBuo
— xan candal (@xancandal) November 6, 2020
At The Washington Post, Amy Siskind has been keeping a list of all the things the current administration has done differently than all of the previous administrations. Much of our current government has been a series of gentleman’s agreements and understood protocols; the current kakistocracy has pissed and shit all over every one of them. This is all the stuff a proper government is going to have to fix. Drain the swamp, indeed.
I got notification from the state that my ballot was received; next up is to be notified that it was counted.
The New York Times Editorial Board lays out the case against the Great Pumpkin: “Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.”. The whole thing is great, but I love this part:
In June, his administration tear-gassed and cleared peaceful protesters from a street in front of the White House so Mr. Trump could pose with a book he does not read in front of a church he does not attend.
I was patient and took advantage of some sales on Prime day to order a set of iPods Pro while they were $50 off; combined with the refund from my Anker earbuds and a $40 credit from Coinstar, the price was exactly right.