Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Militantly superior in their own minds…

Yes we did.

It’s not even safe to go out and pick up 2 days worth of poop anymore.

Everybody saw this coming.

They are all Michael Cohen now.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

There will be lawyers.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Reality always wins in the end.

I’m only here for the duck photos.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

We still have time to mess this up!

There’s some extremely good trouble headed their way.

Good luck with your asparagus.

Are you … from the future?

… makes me wish i had hoarded more linguine

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I can’t take this shit today. I just can’t.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Here Comes The Sun

Here Comes The Sun

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Here Comes The Sun.

Start at the beginning and watch the whole thing.  Here Comes The Sun starts at 16:12.

If Amanda Gorman doesn’t give you hope for the future, nothing will.  She’s amazing.

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    Thanks for the link WG.

    I’m off to bed…but ya’ll really should check out the interview with Amanda Gorman on CNN with Anderson Cooper was so good!

    Anderson and the entire panel were awestruck by her.

    Anderson literally was like…”wow…you’re awesome”

    She was great!

  4. 4.

    mvr

    The whole thing was more produced than I like, even with the restricted Covid production values, but I liked it nonetheless. And the communal aspect plus the relief made it all pretty good.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    Today was a good day. I could watch it all again, tomorrow.

    Will look forward to catching the Amanda Gorman interview. Impressive young woman. Exciting to know there are people like that in the world.

  7. 7.

    mali muso

    Just finished watching it in a bit of a delay. So many smiles and tears. A beautiful day it has been. Thanks for being a great group to celebrate it with!

  8. 8.

    Honus

    Here Comes the Sun is great.  I’ve also been singing Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now all day today.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    I enjoyed it a great deal.

    I especially enjoyed thinking about how Trump was likely eaten alive with jealousy.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: I especially enjoyed thinking about how Trump was likely eaten alive with jealousy.

    Do you think he watched any of the inauguration or celebrations, or even allowed anyone to speak of them in his presence?

    EDIT. On second thought, cancel that. Who cares what he did?

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Matt Oswalt @MattOswaltVA 1h
    so rude of Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Jon Bon Jovi, Tom Hanks, Kerry Washington, Tim McGraw, Justin Timberlake, Ant Clemons, the cast of Rent, Yolanda Adams, Eva Longoria, Lin Manuel Miranda, John Legend, Ozuna, and Katy Perry to hog the stage during 3 Doors Down’s se

    Did the New Radicals (“You only get what you give”) not show, or did I miss it?

  19. 19.

    Martin

    This should be the new format for inaugurations, rather than ending with last inauguration + 1 balls for them to attend, requiring 11 wardrobe changes for the women, and so on. They should have retired the balls no later than the Civil War.

  21. 21.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Few songs better capture how I felt today than Here Comes the Sun.

    I can’t wait till the sequel: Here Come the Indictments for Trump, his disgusting, puke stain kids plus Prince Jared, and Rudy Nosferatu Ghouliani.

  24. 24.

    Anya

    I am seriously obsessed with Amanda Gorman. She is too awesome for words. But as someone said on the Twitter machine, all the schools we classify as low performing are full of Amanda Gormans who are never getting their chance. We should do better as a nation for the future Amanda Gormans.

  25. 25.

    Kelly

    Bringing this up from below since it fits here: Amanda Gorman now has 1 million twitter followers and the top two books on Amazon

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    We made it thru.  We made it thru.  I know some of us were stricken, and we all have to remember them, never forget whose fault it was that they were taken from us.  But we made it thru.

    It’s like some giant weight is gone.  I felt that way on 4 Nov, and then …. it came back on 6 Jan.  And now it’s gone for good.  Or as long as we’re given ….

    More than anything, I feel thankful.  Thankful for all the people who risked their lives to vote, to stand in lines for a day to vote, to make sure that others got a chance to vote.  For all the work that so many people did.  For all the candidates who worked so hard to turn this around.  For America’s people of color, esp. our fellow Black Americans, who so clearly saved our Republic (don’t take my word for it: Dubya said so too) for us all.

     

    Thankful doesn’t begin to describe how I feel tonight.

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Honus: I just added that song up top.  Perfect for today/

    Four years of living abuse wears you out, and sometimes you feel it the most once you start to feel even just a little bit safe.

    We did good, you guys.  Once an autocrat is in place, it’s really tough to claw back democracy.  We did it.  This time.  Time for us to rest for a bit, build ourselves back up, in every way, and then get to work organizing for some more Georgias to rescue democracy again next time.  But for now, we can take a breath and celebrate!

  29. 29.

    Ken

    @Kelly: Good for her! And all without activating a Russian botnet of fake twitter followers, or diverting money from donors to bulk-buy her books.  Just being genuinely talented and interesting.

  32. 32.

    randy khan

    @Martin:

    Inaugural balls are big fundraisers, which is why there are so many of them.  But having been to one, I have to say that they mostly are extremely boring (which is why I’ve only been to one).

  33. 33.

    Kent

    @Anya:I am seriously obsessed with Amanda Gorman. She is too awesome for words. But as someone said on the Twitter machine, all the schools we classify as low performing are full of Amanda Gormans who are never getting their chance. We should do better as a nation for the future Amanda Gormans.

    Yes, this.  Very much this.  I teach in the public schools and they are full of such talent and hope.  Honestly, they are so much better than we were back in the day.

    In my mind, Obama’s biggest policy failure wasn’t TARP or any of that.  It was fucking Arne Duncan and all the rush to standardized testing and coddling of the charter school grifter industry.  He was basically the continuation of Bush.  The damage and lost opportunity was immense.  I’m hopeful that Miguel Cardona will chart a different path towards actually supporting public education in this country.

  34. 34.

    MoCA Ace

    So I just knew I would not be able to get anything done at work today so I took the day off.  For some reason watching the inauguration in real time was also too stressful so I unplugged and spent the day in the woods cutting down trees (for a timber frame project).  I came in for a late lunch, hopped online and the first thing I came across was Ms. Gorman’s poem.  I don’t remember at what point I lost it but by the end I was crying like a baby.  My God, I can’t believe how much stress I was holding in.

  36. 36.

    Kent

    @randy khan:Inaugural balls are big fundraisers, which is why there are so many of them.  But having been to one, I have to say that they mostly are extremely boring (which is why I’ve only been to one).

    They always looked like prom for old people.  And having chaperoned about 15 consecutive proms over the years as a teacher, I can’t think of something less interesting.

  40. 40.

    Anya

    @Kent: I try to pretend Arne Duncan never existed. Obama had some blind spots and that fucker was the worst of them. What a wasted opportunity.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    I so did not want them to hold a public ceremony, let alone a big ceremony outside today at the Capitol.  But it was absolutely the right thing to do.  Easy to say now that it came off safely.  My hat is off for the people who knew that was important, in spite of the risk, and had the courage to do it anyway.

  47. 47.

    LeftCoastYankee

    I think what was so awesome about watching Amanda is the usual expectation that the poet laureate is some old timer (I half expected the ghost of Seamus Heaney to be summoned) who is assumed to have earned gravitas through time.  She commanded that gravitas from the setting, the moment, and her confidence in herself.  Only after a few pans of the camera around her, did “damn, she’s kind of young” briefly pop into my head between the unabashed joy and admiration in hearing her words.

    Tremendous in every way.

  51. 51.

    Anya

    @WaterGirl: It was really important. I was looking at trending topics on twitter in various countries and it was amazing how almost universally people were celebrating. There was so much “America is back”. I hope we never go back to that insane period ever again. What a relieve. Everything was perfect. The organizers did an amazing job.

  52. 52.

    Doc Sardonic

    Just watched Here Comes The Sun, Jon and company did a good job with it, but I must say the woman signing it was spectacular.

  56. 56.

    mrmoshpotato

    I would’ve had a video message from President Carter instead of having George War-criminal Bush in person with Presidents (Bill) Clinton and Obama.

  57. 57.

    patrick II

    The class of people that were on TV today, intelligent, thoughtful, knowledgable, and compassionate, (and Kamala especially, joyful) were such a change from the dour, resentful, insipid liars I have been watching for the last four years.  Thank God.

  58. 58.

    West of the Cascades

    @Doc Sardonic:  I noticed that, too! I re-watched it with the sound off, and her facial expressions and way she moved looked like the song makes me feel when I hear it – so perfect for communicating its beauty to those who can’t.

  59. 59.

    Kent

    @mrmoshpotato:I would’ve had a video message from President Carter instead of having George War-criminal Bush in person with Presidents (Bill) Clinton and Obama.

    Of course, but to be fair. Bush’s contribution was reasonably good.  You realize how absolutely bad Trump was when he makes Bush look good by comparison.  It is impossible to even imagine Trump standing up with those 3 in any context.  He can’t even manage the bare minimum of the job, the parts that should be easy.

  61. 61.

    JoyceH

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I would’ve had a video message from President Carter instead of having George War-criminal Bush in person with Presidents (Bill) Clinton and Obama.

    I don’t think I agree – yeah, Bush is all those things, but without him there, then the presentation can take on an appearance of Democratic triumphalism. They might have said the same words, but as an all Democratic cast, it could be seen as ‘we won, you lost, nyah nyah’. Bush’s presence turned it into a demonstration that all of America rejects Trumpism. Which is not of course technically true, but I think it is the case that MOST of America rejects Trumpism, and you know – fake it till you make it. I think Bush taking part in the ceremonies helps with that.

  62. 62.

    Ms. Deranged in AZ

    I was too busy with work and kids to watch anything in real time but was able to see clips of Pres and VP taking oath.  I smiled during Biden’s but found myself weeping with joy during Harris’ oath.

  63. 63.

    JoyceH

    I’ve just felt so weird since noon. I think it’s the absence of anxiety and rage. It’s going to take some getting used to.

  64. 64.

    Chetan Murthy

    @SectionH: I’m not such a great fan of poetry, by and large.  But I just -read- her poem.  It’s some great stuff.  That woman will go far.  [narrator: she already did go far.]

  65. 65.

    West of the Cascades

    @Kent: One thing Bush deserves credit for: a seamless transition to the Obama administration and trying to facilitate President Obama’s ability to hit the ground running on Day One (in the midst of the financial crisis) – and also generally doing things during the lame duck period to try to mitigate, rather than exacerbate, crises. For that reason alone (and its contrast to the last occupant of the White House), having him at these proceedings at this time is really important.

  66. 66.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JoyceH: I agree, I don’t know what Bush’s approval ratings are these days, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re over fifty percent, and even the people who don’t like him probably don’t hate him. Biden needs the normies. We need the normies. We have to persuade the normies that our ideas will help them.

  67. 67.

    bluefoot

    @WaterGirl: To be honest, the entire time Biden and Harris were outside, I was half-expecting a sniper bullet from some insurrectionist.  I was nervous the entire time, even with all the National Guardsmen and law enforcement, barriers, etc.

    I had expected the same with Obama for each of his inaugurations, actually.  I was amazed that neither him nor his family were ever the victim of an assassination attempt.

    Wish I had been in DC to see all the fireworks.  It looks like they were amazing.  Massive pyrotechnics instead of an Inaugural ball is a good trade.  :)

  68. 68.

    Yutsano

    @West of the Cascades: Dubya was not and never will be the smartest President, but I think the one thing he could truly appreciate was a smooth transition. It’s not like Clinton intentionally made his difficult. But the 37 day delay while Bush v Gore (spits on the eternal soul of Sandra Day O’Connor*) was being decided did stall intelligence information being shared fully. Since the election of Obama was never in dispute, Bush making things easy for 44 was about the best courtesy he could offer.

    *She’s not dead yet, so I have to do something. 2020 you had one job…

  70. 70.

    JoyceH

    @bluefoot:

    Massive pyrotechnics instead of an Inaugural ball is a good trade. :)

    The problem with the inaugural ball is that it isn’t A inaugural ball, it’s a whole bunch of inaugural balls. My sister and I went to one back in 1993, and basically it was a bunch of old people milling around an armory all dressed up. We saw Nelson Mandela, and of course Bill and Hillary came in for a dance. Then as we walked to the Metro to get back to where we parked the car, we saw the presidential motorcade zooming by to yet another inaugural ball. Some years there are nine, some years eleven, one year there was fourteen. They need to severely curtail the number of ‘official’ inaugural balls, or not expect the new president to attend all of them. It’s GRUELING.

  71. 71.

    piratedan

    caught a brief blurb on Rachel tonight….

    Remember when the Capitol members called the Pentagon to send the National Guard to help with the insurrection?  They were told no… not once but up to five times before someone relented.

    Apparently one of the top hats in the Pentagon at the time, “helping” with the decision to assist the Capitol was a General Flynn…. yeah, Michael Flynn’s brother.  When the Capitol and other investigative staff repeatedly asked if General Flynn was involved (given his brother’s sympathies (no doubt)), the Pentagon denied he was involved…..

    Up to today, when they admitted that General Flynn was indeed there and supposedly involved in the decision making…

    Tomorrow’s forecast is a 100% chance of shoes….

  72. 72.

    Kent

    @West of the Cascades:@Kent: One thing Bush deserves credit for: a seamless transition to the Obama administration and trying to facilitate President Obama’s ability to hit the ground running on Day One (in the midst of the financial crisis) – and also generally doing things during the lame duck period to try to mitigate, rather than exacerbate, crises. For that reason alone (and its contrast to the last occupant of the White House), having him at these proceedings at this time is really important.

    I agree.  I honestly think the trajectory of his presidency would have been somewhat different if he had picked someone other than Cheney as VP.  That was the worst VP pick in history.   If you are going to be an inattentive president, you better fucking pick a good VP.  If he had picked someone like Colin Powell or Mitt Romney or John McCain I think his presidency looks a bit different.

  73. 73.

    Mary G

    Welcome to competence USA:

    Breaking: The Biden administration on Wednesday unfroze $27.4 billion in government funding that former President Trump locked up before leaving office.Biden is up working late, at this rate 90% of Trump's legacy will be gone by Friday.— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) January 21, 2021

  74. 74.

    JoyceH

    @Kent:

    I honestly think the trajectory of his presidency would have been somewhat different if he had picked someone other than Cheney as VP.

    Oh, I so agree. But I think the notion of taking on Saddam was always there, just looking for an excuse. But the thing that struck me at the time about the Bush administration is that they seemed to genuinely believe it was going to be a cakewalk – they’d waltz in, be welcomed as liberators, install a Jeffersonian democracy, and voila, transform the middle east. I suspect if they’d had a court wizard who could see the future and tell them what a shitstorm that was going to turn into, they wouldn’t have done it.

  75. 75.

    Kent

    My wife bought me the Doonesbury 3-volume set on Trump for Christmas.  I’ve been ploughing through it and Damn….Gary Trudeau had Trump nailed dead to rights 30 years ago.  Seriously.  It is so dead on.  I look at the dates of the cartoons and can’t believe they are from the 90s.  He nailed the essence of Trump better than I think any other writer.

    I haven’t really been reading Doonesbury for a long long time because I don’t read paper newspapers anymore.  but wow.

  76. 76.

    Amir Khalid

    @randy khan:

    As I uderstand, this is a true story: in 1961, there were two inaugural balls in DC for John Kennedy. That evening,  a radio presenter informed his listeners that both the President’s balls were in full swing.

  77. 77.

    Kent

    @JoyceH:Oh, I so agree. But I think the notion of taking on Saddam was always there, just looking for an excuse. But the thing that struck me at the time about the Bush administration is that they seemed to genuinely believe it was going to be a cakewalk – they’d waltz in, be welcomed as liberators, install a Jeffersonian democracy, and voila, transform the middle east. I suspect if they’d had a court wizard who could see the future and tell them what a shitstorm that was going to turn into, they wouldn’t have done it.

    Remember, Cheney was the VP from Haliburton.  They made billions on the Iraq war.  Most of the hard core neocons in the government were his people not Bush’s.  I mean, you have to blame Bush too, of course,  He was the fucking president.    But Cheney actually made the war happen.  Bush was a governor with no foreign policy experience.  He left that to Cheney.  Especially the staffing.  Left to his own devices I don’t see Bush doing the immense lift that it took to sell that war and make it happen.    Especially if he had more cautious people around him who knew what war really was.   A lot of it is also on Colin Powell who fucking did know better.  If he had been VP and not Cheney I think the trajectory would have been completely different.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    I needed today.

    All the pomp

    All the ceremony.

    The American Experiment continues

    And, I 😢😢😢😢 with joy and relief as I write that.

    Despite it all, I have always loved being an American.

    Even being Black in America, I have always been proud to be an American.

    My ancestors paid for my passport with their blood.

  80. 80.

    Kent

    @Mary G:

    Welcome to competence USA:

    Breaking: The Biden administration on Wednesday unfroze $27.4 billion in government funding that former President Trump locked up before leaving office.Biden is up working late, at this rate 90% of Trump’s legacy will be gone by Friday.— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) January 21, 2021

    This is what happens when you have experienced folks who can hit the ground running, and not a bunch of performative leftists who would be off building community gardens and installing solar panels in the Bronx right now in Instagram. The executive branch is immensely powerful. But you gotta know where the levers are hidden and how to pull them.

  81. 81.

    JoyceH

    @Kent: Thing is, for what is it now, four or five decades? – pundits have claimed that our foreign policy has been warped by Vietnam, which made us too ‘cautious’ about using military power.

    I don’t agree. I think it has always been warped by WWII and its aftermath. All through the second half of the 20th century, Americans have thought it was NORMAL to fight a war and come out the other side with your former enemies now your valued allies and friends. Well, it’s not normal! What’s been normal throughout history has been that the best you could expect from a war was to push your neighbors out of your vineyards and maybe they wouldn’t try again for decade or so.

    WWII was different because we MADE it different, and it wasn’t easy, it was HARD! After WWII, we decided that hey, we’ve had two enormous global wars in two decades and we can’t keep doing this! So we made the investment, and it took years and years and boatloads of money.

    But these days you have people like Bush and Cheney who think they can get that WWII aftermath result without doing the work. That you could send Federalist Society interns overseas to stand up a foreign government. Well, you can’t.

  82. 82.

    Kent

    @rikyrah: For sure.  I think this is going to be your century.  And the century of young people like Amanda Gorman.

    White America is becoming a spent force.  At least the White rural America of Trump Caravans and all that shit.  I’m related to a ton of them.  And a more pathetic bunch you aren’t going to find anywhere.  The lack of initiative and sense of self-pity is just astonishing.

  83. 83.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: Now you made me cry again. Just finished crying over the show that looks like our America with the president holding baby Beau Biden and rocking to Katy Perry. So freaking normal.

  86. 86.

    cain

    @Kelly:

    Shit, Hillary and Bill were fanboying HER.. she moved through that crowd of power brokers as if she was the one who got elected President. She awstruck them all.

  87. 87.

    Kent

    @JoyceH: The other thing that made WW2 different was the Soviets.  The conquered Axis powers had a stark choice.  Go with Truman and Churchill, or cast your lot with Stalin.  Make life too difficult for the occupying American forces and they are just going to turn the keys over to the Soviets and go home.  That clarifies the mind right quick.   Yes, the Atomic Bomb lit a fire under the Japanese government.  But so did seven separate Soviet armies rolling across the border in Manchuria and cutting through the Japanese forces like butter.    A joint US-Russian invasion of Japan with the Russians coming down from the north and the Americans up from the south resulting in a divided country was not an inconceivable outcome for the Japanese.

    It was a unique moment in history for a whole lot of reasons.

  88. 88.

    danielx

    @Fair Economist:

    Not to be a donnie downer…

    Life feels better, less of a gray haze of despair. But death still stalks among us a lot more than usual. I’m still in quarantine, though if I get negative results from my second test tomorrow I’m good. At this point fuck concerts, I just want to be able to go to the grocery, and that’s something I never thought I’d write.

    But things go up from here. I’m feeling more hopeful than I have in a long time, after four years of wondering “what fresh hell is this” every damn day.

  89. 89.

    Kent

    Going to make a prediction right here.  I don’t think an impeachment trial in the Senate is going to happen.  I think they will farm it off to some sort of joint investigative committee with a report on Impeachment to be made at some undetermined time.  There is honestly so much we don’t even yet know about 1/6/2021 and I’d like to see some serious damn hearings with a lot of the principals hauled up by their asses to testify in front of Congress.

    I feel like we turned a corner and Trump is going to rapidly fade into the rear view mirror.

    But what the hell do I know.

  91. 91.

    mvr

    @Kent: My wife bought me the Doonesbury 3-volume set on Trump for Christmas. I’ve been ploughing through it and Damn….Gary Trudeau had Trump nailed dead to rights 30 years ago.

    Another thing I must buy. Trudeau and Steve Earl and Balloon Juice kept me half functioning through the oughts. I have hated Trump since the 1980s as has Trudeau. I wish that guy still wrote daily . . .

  92. 92.

    HumboldtBlue

    @JoyceH:

    WWII was different because we MADE it different, and it wasn’t easy, it was HARD! After WWII, we decided that hey, we’ve had two enormous global wars in two decades and we can’t keep doing this! So we made the investment, and it took years and years and boatloads of money.

    Preach.

  93. 93.

    Geoduck

    @Kent: As already noted, Doonesbury is Sunday-only these days, and can be read online. And yes, he’s still savagely tearing into the Shiatgibbon.

     

    @Kent: Don’t expect much of anything from Colin Powell. The man walked into the UN and lied his head off to help start the Iraqi War.

  94. 94.

    JoyceH

    @Kent:

    I don’t think an impeachment trial in the Senate is going to happen. I think they will farm it off to some sort of joint investigative committee with a report on Impeachment to be made at some undetermined time.

    I hope you’re wrong! For one thing, if they held the trial and convicted quickly, then the Secret Service won’t have to spend the next six months protecting Jarvanka, Uda and Qusay, and Steven Bleeping Mnuchin!

  95. 95.

    RobertDSC-iPhone 8

    /petty

    I hate that Bernie became a meme with his shitty attire. Can’t he look professional or at the very least competent for five minutes?

     

    /petty

  96. 96.

    Kent

    @JoyceH:I hope you’re wrong! For one thing, if they held the trial and convicted quickly, then the Secret Service won’t have to spend the next six months protecting Jarvanka, Uda and Qusay, and Steven Bleeping Mnuchin!

    That’s going to cramp their style I predict.   Every damn person they meet is going to be logged for perpetuity.  Going to be hard to get back to the crime when government agents are standing around watching.

    “I never met that Russian mobster or did a deal with him”

    “Secret Service logs show you met him for private meetings on 5 different occasions”

    “Ummmmm……”

    And they aren’t going to be able to get all pissy about it anymore.  They aren’t in charge.  Biden is.

  97. 97.

    smike

    @rikyrah:

    I needed today.

    All the pomp

    All the ceremony.

    I enjoyed the shade thrown on tRump by the emphasis on freedom, a new day, light dawning after a long night, ad infinitum. All done with a genuine, heartfelt smile.

  98. 98.

    Kent

    @RobertDSC-iPhone 8:I hate that Bernie became a meme with his shitty attire. Can’t he look professional or at the very least competent for five minutes?

    At least it is Bernie who is getting the shit and not a woman, who are the usual targets for that sort of snide shit.

    Like Janet Yellen was pretty damn casual and comfortable too:  https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/nation/story/2021-01-20/yellen-taps-obama-administration-vets-for-key-treasury-roles

    But it is all bullshit.  Now that Trump is gone we are back to the tan suit bullshit.  Bernie was dressed fine.  He had no role in the inauguration and isn’t part of the incoming administration.  What the hell is is supposed to wear on a cold winter day?  He usually dresses just fine in the Senate.  His normal Senate attire is a dark suit and tie like everyone else.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    I feel like we turned a corner and Trump is going to rapidly fade into the rear view mirror.

    But what the hell do I know.

    You know about the same as the rest of us. No one can predict the future.

    Trump may well fade away. Maybe a lot of Republicans and Democrats both think this. But I think that Trump should be convicted and prohibited from holding office because of his cynical and callous fucking with the Constitution. Otherwise, some other asswipe will try the same thing. And why not? The precedent will have been established that attempts to subvert democracy are no big deal.

    You should also be firm with those who assaulted the Capitol.

    What is the point of prosecuting the mob if you let the man who incited the mob get away with it.

    I would also expel every member of Congress who supported the conspiracy which led to the insurrection.

    But I don’t think that this will happen. The GOP is only concerned about what may hurt them politically. And the Democrats are all too willing to oblige.

    But Trump might fade away and things will more or less settle down. And if another would be autocrat tries something like this again, we will be ready with a strongly worded rebuke.

  100. 100.

    VOR

    @Kent: Bernie dressed like Bernie. He’s an old man with no role in today’s ceremonies. He was going to be sitting outside in January for an extended period of time so he dressed warm. I’m totally fine with it.

    Remember when Dick Cheney went to a diplomatic event wearing an enormous parka?

  101. 101.

    Kent

    @Brachiator: I agree he SHOULD be convicted.  But unless the Dems are ROCK SOLID that they have 17 GOP votes to convict I think it is a strategic error to proceed and wind up with a “not guilty” vote.  That takes the winds out of any subsequent Trump investigations.  And it makes it harder to convict the lemmings when the leader has gotten off scot free.  I honestly don’t want another fucking week of the Trump show on TV which is what a Senate trial would be.

    I’d rather see the Senate and FBI pull on every damn string and convict every MAGAt who entered the capitol.  And then put Trump up in an ordinary sedition trial in front of an ordinary jury.  That will ban him from running again as well as a impeachment conviction.  And I trust a jury of Washington DC citizens more than I do 17 members of the GOP Senate.

  102. 102.

    Kent

    @Brachiator: I also think the Feds should seize his $250 million slush fund PAC since it was obtained through the fraudulent claim that the election was stolen.  That will leave a bigger mark on Trump than a second impeachment vote.  Take away his twitter and take away his opportunity for grift and all that is left is a pathetic sack of shit.  The MAGAts are already turning on him as we speak.  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/technology/proud-boys-trump.htm

    These folks weren’t really Republicans in the first place.  They were Trumpers and now that Trump is weakened they are turning on him.

    The Proud Boys’ anger toward Mr. Trump has heightened after he did nothing to help those in the group who face legal action for the Capitol violence. On Wednesday, a Proud Boy leader, Joseph Biggs, 37, was arrested in Florida and charged with unlawful entry and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding in the riot. At least four other members of the group also face charges stemming from the attack.

    “When Trump told them that if he left office, America would fall into an abyss, they believed him,” Arieh Kovler, a political consultant and independent researcher in Israel who studies the far right, said of the Proud Boys. “Now that he has left office, they believe he has both surrendered and failed to do his patriotic duty.”

    The shift raises questions about the strength of the support for Mr. Trump and suggests that pockets of his fan base are fracturing. Many of Mr. Trump’s fans still falsely believe he was deprived of office, but other far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers, America First and the Three Percenters have also started criticizing him in private Telegram channels, according to a review of messages.

    Last week, Nicholas Fuentes, the leader of America First, wrote in his Telegram channel that Mr. Trump’s response to the Capitol rampage was “very weak and flaccid” and added, “Not the same guy that ran in 2015.”

    On Wednesday, the Proud Boys Telegram group welcomed President Biden to office. “At least the incoming administration is honest about their intentions,” the group wrote.

    Mr. Kovler said the activity showed that groups that had coalesced around Mr. Trump were now trying to figure out their future direction. By losing his ability to post on Twitter and Facebook, Mr. Trump had also become less useful to the far-right groups, who counted on him to raise their profile on a national stage, Mr. Kovler said.

  103. 103.

    bluefish

    I will go upthread and read all the comments and read the front page for a fifth time more carefully too. Just want to post something because today was a lot and posting on here, my beloved Balloon Juice, might just help me sleep though I’ll wake up tomorrow and be ashamed that I lashed out. The last five and a half years of these folk have been a lot. As a creature of both Brazilian and American background, I’ve found this period excruciating every day, day after day, several times a day. For years. I feel a weird thing. It’s relief, anger, and sorrow. Mainly relief. What is the word for that feeling?

    I guess you’d call me a Latina. I suppose I’d call myself that were I pressed. I’d only be pressed if I felt pressed. Not a feeling I enjoy. I hardly know what I feel. I am so grateful to the United States of America. I hope and pray that more people come to sanity after all this. And that folks get to crying because crying, when you mean it, is one of life’s great cures.

    Bring back love, sanity, and competence to our relationship with Latin America. We share a hemisphere. And what was done to those families was a crime worthy of the Hague. To include Kirsten what’s her name and Nikki Hailey. Did I spell that right? A crime. Just a crime.

    Thank the Virgin we made it through to this point. And, oh yeah, I want to live in America.

  104. 104.

    smike

    @Kent:

    …By losing his ability to post on Twitter and Facebook, Mr. Trump had also become less useful to the far-right groups, who counted on him to raise their profile on a national stage, Mr. Kovler said.

    Sweet. So sweet. My schadenfreudestein runneth over.

  106. 106.

    FelonyGovt

    I enjoyed the implicit shade in the three ex-Presidents’ remarks. It’s normal for the outgoing president to facilitate the transition, not resist it.

  108. 108.

    David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch

    Man, Bernie sold out.

    I was expecting him to go streaking, like he did in the 70s, instead he’s dressed all corporate.

    You never saw Mao or Chou En-lai wearing a running dog capitalist tie.

  110. 110.

    Amir Khalid

    @VOR:

    As I recall, he was representing the US at a state funeral, while apparently dressed for duck hunting.

  111. 111.

    TS (the original)

    James Comey trying to redeem himself.  He who did more than most to get trump elected

    Former director of the FBI James Comey has labelled Donald Trump a “demagogue president” and “sociopath” whose lies contributed to the erosion of trust in America’s institutions.

  114. 114.

    Chyron HR

    @Kent:

    But Cheney actually made the war happen.

    Progressives assure me that Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton actually forced the poor innocent GOP to invade Iraq.

  115. 115.

    sab

    I don’t usually follow country music, but almost every inauguration I get reminded that I actually like it a lot. I should listen more.

  117. 117.

    evodevo

    @Kent: It might happen that way under ordinary circumstances (see: Bush/Cheney aftermath), BUT the Repubs REALLY don’t want his Orange ass able to run for office again in a few years, OR collecting sweet fake campaign cash to that effect.  They really want to spike his guns, and the only way to do that effectively is to convict him and pass that memo that he can never hold federal office.  We’ll see which impulse governs them in the next couple weeks…

  119. 119.

    janesays

    @Kent:

    I honestly think the trajectory of his presidency would have been somewhat different if he Cheney had picked someone other than Cheney as VP.

    FTFY.

    (remember that Cheney was chosen to run Bush’s search committee for a running mate, and wound up choosing himself).

  120. 120.

    janesays

    @Kent: There’s only one vote that will matter – Mitch McConnell’s.

    McConnell singularly has control over Donald Trump’s political fate right now – if he decides to convict, he’ll be able to get 16 of his Republican colleagues to join him in that vote. If he doesn’t decide to convict, there’s zero chance the Democrats will find 17 votes on the GOP side.

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