Kevin McCarthy is no Tony Soprano. (He's also not Hadleyville Marshall Will Kane.)

 

By Hal Brown

Update: These two images also illustrate my point.

As a Sopranos fan I had a reaction to the Raw Story article below:

House GOP near 'the Godfather II stage' where 'the whole family kills each other': Republican lawmaker

Excerpt (my bold added):

Infighting among House Republicans has gotten so intense that some members are drawing analogies from classic mobster movies to describe it.

One unnamed congressional Republican told Semafor this week that relations among his colleagues may have reached "the Godfather II stage” where “the whole family kills each other.”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), meanwhile, explicitly compared House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to TV mob boss Tony Soprano, in that "everybody thinks they’re going to kill him and he comes out alive."

Somehow I don't see McCarthy as a Tony Soprano taking care of family business, but who knows, maybe everything will turn out ducky for him. If you watched the Sopranos you know about Tony and the ducks in his swimming pool, and his killing member of his Mafia crew Fabian Petrulio.

You can watch a four minute video of Tony taking delight in the mama duck and ducklings which took up residents in his pool and his wife and children reacting to this here.

You can also watch Tony dispatching gang member Fabian Petrulo in the "good morning rat" scene here:

Click above to watch final High Noon scene

I just don't see McCarthy coming out the victor, even if he puts on his best "don't piss me off" Mafioso face, can throttle the life force out of those who dare cross him, or shoots it out with his enemies at high noon

He's not Tony Soprano and he's not Marshall Kane. He can't even be sure he'll be Marshall of the House next week.

As far as I know McCarthy doesn't smoke cigars, but now that the GOP has allowed smoking in the House maybe if he wants to instill fear in his caucus he should take it up in Tony Soprano style.

Update from NY Post:

Just because he can talk like a gangsta doesn't make him a gangsta.

Of course inchwormy House Republicans inching towards Biden impeachments will impeach him.

 

Click above to read article

By Hal Brown

Today's blog includes musical interludes and entomology.

Of course the House Republicans will impeach President Biden. 

Matt Gaetz  is candid about the reasons.

Matt Gaetz Says Biden Impeachment A ‘Platform’ To Tarnish President Before 2024

“The purpose of that impeachment, from my standpoint, is not to force a vote that loses ― it’s to put on a trial in the Senate, and by the way, not for the sake of conviction,” the Florida Republican said.

It matters not that there's no there there while there were many theres there in Trump's two impeachments the Republicans can call Biden the once impeached president. This is weak sauce compared to how Trump is often referred to as the four times indicted and twice impeached former president being charged with 91 felonies, but weak or not at least for them is is sauce.

The cases against Trump are Sriracha compared to the watered down tomato sauce of any case against Joe Biden.

The chair of the committee that would conduct the impeachment inquiry or hearing or whatever they decide to call it is the decidely uncharismatic James Comer:

Click above to read New Republic article

Moving gradually towards opening the impeachment show, "inching" towards the premier,  McCarthy has a chance to both guage public opinion and hype the main event. By teasing the prospect of impeachment he can try to provide counterprogramming to compete with coverage of the MAGA trials.

Inch worms (or inchworms) are the larvae or caterpillars of the geometer moth and there are thiousands of species (article). They are called inchworms obiovusly because they are about an inch in length and move in small increments. They eventually turn into moths like these:

The Republicans know that there's no way that their inchworms will actually turn into moths which can fly their their way into a Senate conviction of President Biden.

This blog comes with a song inspired by the title of the HUFFPOST story from the top of this page. Perhaps it will be played prior to every meeting of the House impeachment committee by wishful thinking Republicans.

Read more about the song here, and then listen to the famous Danny Kaye version from the 1952 musical Hans Christain Andersen. It is a lovely song which is quite the contrast to what I the hearings will be.

Lyrics:

Refrain]
Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

[Chorus]
Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
You and your arithmetic
You'll probably go far
Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
Seems to me you'd stop and see
How beautiful they are

David Bowie said the song was the inspiration behind his 1980 song "Ashes to Ashes" which you can hear him sing here:

Ashes To Ashes wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t have been for Inchworm. There’s a nursery rhyme element in it, and there’s something so sad and mournful and poignant about it. It kept bringing me back to the feelings of those pure thoughts of sadness that you have as a child, and how they’re so identifiable even when you’re an adult.

I think the best theme song for the House Republicans is Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy":

The New York Post included it on their list of the 20 worst songs ever written:

From The NY Post: Righteously blasted in the lyrics of “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy, McFerrin’s whimsical a cappella hit also attracted withering criticism by reader Dave Richard, who regarded it as a “real steaming pile of crap.”

Indeed, this Republican show will also be a real steaming pile of crap. 

He's a Republican, a vet who was a flight surgeon, is the chair of the House Security Committee and he shot Marjorie Taylor Greene down.

 By Hal Brown

This is a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and other subjects. My posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky. I'm a retired MSW clinical social worker/psychotherapist and mental health center director who was also a cranberry farmer. Scroll archives on bottom of page to see previous blog stories. There are new ones added almost every day, although if I don't have anything original to say I try not to say anything at all.

If this is difficult to read on your device because of margins click here to read.

Former Flight Surgeon Cut Marjorie Tayler Greene Off

I thought it fitting that Raw Story used a photo of Marjorie Taylor Green holding a big gun to illustrate the article 

GOP enraged over Marjorie Taylor Greene's committee outburst — and are threatening to boot her: report 

I added the subtitle and the airplane going down in flames.

The article describes how the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, a West Point Graduate, war vet, and former flight surgeon, shot her down.

Excerpt:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) blew up a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday when she called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a "liar" and blaming him for fentanyl deaths around the country — an outburst that violates House rules about impugning the character of a witness. The tirade forced Chairman Mark Green, a Republican of Tennessee, to shut down her questioning and bar her from speaking for the rest of the hearing.

According to CNN reporter Melanie Zanona, Republicans behind the scenes are furious with her, and are considering punishments — even including a threat of booting her off the committee for future disruptions.

"GOP tensions flaring over MTG's committee hearing outburst today," tweeted Zanona. "Source close to Chairman Mark Green said he was furious w/ MTG's behavior and planned to privately reprimand her, and also said he'd encourage McCarthy to remove her from the committee if she did that again. But MTG doubled down on her rhetoric, accusing her GOP colleagues of 'doing the bidding' of Dems. She told me went to [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy’s office to talk about it & said to him: 'I don’t know how we’re ever going to accomplish anything when we can’t call people a liar when they’re lying.

You may not have heard of Mark Green prior to this incident. I hadn't. Unlike the politicians who get lots of media coverage, my bet is that most news junkies couldn't pick him out of a lineup.

I knew nothing about him until now. He's no shining light for liberals. For one example, this is what a brief web search of his name came up with from 2017 when Trump floated his name to be Secretary of the Army: 

Excerpt: Army secretary nominee Mark Green's past statements and legislative record make him "a danger to every LGBTQ soldier," human rights groups claim.

LGBT advocates decried President Trump's Friday announcement floating the Army surgeon turned Tennessee state senator — who has called being transgender a "disease" and supported what critics branded a "license to discriminate" bill — to succeed the country's first openly gay Army secretary, Eric Fanning.

Green is "one of most extreme anti-LGBT politicians in the country," Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Stephen Peters, a former Marine discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law, told reporters in a call on Monday.

His politics are about as far-right as those of Rep. Greene's (from Wikipedia):

Abortion

Green opposes abortion. In a 2019 op-ed, he wrote, "modern science has revealed that mother and baby are, in fact, two separate persons—long before the baby is born" and argued that "a child becomes a child at conception".

Climate change

Green rejects the scientific consensus that human activity plays a key role in climate change.

Creationism

Green rejects the theory of evolution, which is consensus in biology; in a 2015 lecture he used creationist reasoning such as "irreducible complexity".

2020 election

In December 2019, Green voted against the articles of impeachment in the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

In December 2020, Green was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Vaccines

In 2018, as a congressman-elect, Green said at a constituent meeting, "there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines", a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by scientific studies and rejected by medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I can imagine that someone who was an Army major who graduated from West Point and was a flight surgeon would be a stickler for following the rules and wouldn't tolerate the behavior demonstrated by Marjorie Taylor Greene coming from one of the soldiers under him.

Considering his politics, I think it is particularly significant that he shot Marjorie Taylor Greene down. In the military you could describe this as an officer dressing someone down. If she was a soldier such behavior could get her demoted. 

It is typical of Greene that she doesn't care and is doubling down. That someone would dare to diss her obviously was beyond the pale for her. She apparently hustled off to complain her House husband, Kevin McCarthy, about not being able to call a liar a liar when she thinks they're lying.

It represents cockeyed optimism to think that Kevin's House honey is going to face any consequences for this behavior.

Update: This moved up to be the No. 1 trending story on Raw Story.

 

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Click above to enlarge image

Trump should have interpreter to tell us that what he says isn't what he means

 By Hal Brown

When someone posts on social medias in all caps it is considered to be the same thing as shouting. Trump's call to his followers to protest if he's arrested made the news and not, for him, in a good way. This was interpreted as his instructing his followers to engage in violent protests. 

Anyone with any common sense wanting to help Trump weather the coming storm of legal entanglements knows that violent protests on his behalf will turn at least some sentiment among his less zealous supporters against him.

Considering what occurred after his January 6th speech there's no way he couldn't have known the power he has to incite violence with his words.

Not long after the media pointed this out the walk-back from others in the GOP and ardent Trump supporters began. Pence told Jonathan Karl that the American people know they should protest in a peaceful and lawful manner. 

McCarthy echoed this. So did Alex Jones:

Ali Alexander, who as an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement staged rallies to promote Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him, warned Trump supporters that they would be "jailed or worse” if they protested in New York City.

“You have no liberty or rights there,” he tweeted.

One of Alexander’s allies in the “Stop the Steal” campaign was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who amplified the election fraud claims on his Infowars show. Alexander posted that he had spoken to Jones and said that neither of them would be protesting this time around. Reference

None of these interpretations of what a call to protest means comes from Trump, the one person who could have influenced the very people who could assure that protests, if any, were peaceful. 

Here's one reply posted to Trump's Truth Social post (clicking below will enlarge but not go to Trump Social):

.

The simple fact, as shown in the post above, is that there are people who may want to express their support of him in a violent manner. These are a group of people who don't look at Jan. 6th as a total failure. Rather they look at it as a success even though it was a failed coup that they think but for the traitor Mike Pence almost succeeded. 

Trump never apologizes, never reverses a position that may disadvantage him, never admits he was wrong about anything. It's been pointed out the he could have urged supporters to peacefully protest in his posts, but really, can you see him even considering that? There no way he'd go back and post "ops, I really meant to use the word peacefully".

On MSNBC Ali Vitali said they are trying to put Trump's comments through a filter that doesn't actually exist. She made my point. I see the filter as really being an interpretation device. What comes out of Trump's screaming mouth (shown in DonkeyHotey's often reposted caricature) for his own sake should be filtered. 

Trump's worst enemy is his unfiltered brain. That brain is our friend. It's also a friend to Ron DeSantis who would be a more difficult candidate to defeat if he wins the GOP primary.

Update:

On the other hand you have stories like this:

Right-wing broadcaster calls for Barack Obama and others to be executed if Trump is arrested

Please scroll down to the comments link and let readers know what you think. Sharing on social media, also through the links below, is appreciated. New to the blog, note that the archives are on the very bottom of the screen.

Mocking Scream'n Greene: Like shooting fish in a barrel

Mocking Scream'n Greene: Like shooting fish in a barrel

By Hal Brown

I couldn't resist adding her shoes to my illustration:

Link to above article, click here

I was not the first to make the comparison between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Cruella de Vil', not by a long shot. The jabs had to do with what she wore to the State of the Union address where she also screamed, not to her vocal outburst at the spy balloon briefing.

Here's an excerpt from the Raw Story article:

“When she got to ask questions, she was yelling out saying ‘bulls---’ and, you know, ‘I don’t believe you,’” said that lawmaker. “Just screaming and yelling, irrational in my estimation.”

I haven't read anything about what she wore to this. Since this was a confidential meeting and the media wouldn't be covering it she might not have bothered to wear her version of an attention grabbing clown suit or brought her I-spy-with-my-egotistical-eye balloon.

I use DuckDuckGo but of course you can use your preferred search engine.

Rather than provide links you can just do a web search and pick any stories you want to read. 

As far as I'm concerned this was the best article:

Excerpt:

The Walt Disney Company is suing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for copyright infringement. The multi-media and theme park giant charges that the conservative politician knowingly infringed on their intellectual property, Cruella de Vil, and is suing for $150 million in damages.

That Disney might sue isn't as far-fetched as it may seem since the company is well known for taking trademark infringement very seriously. I haven't heard whether they are going after all those who used the Cruella DeVil images. Perhaps I will get nailed for using her in my blog illustration.

OnlySky Media's political pundit Andrew Canard posited an interesting speculation:

“I’m just waiting for the conspiracy theory that Greene is a plant funded by George Soros to destroy the GOP,” he said.

The State of the Union ranting led to people tweeting side by side images of her with this baboon.

There are numerous images of this particular not too distant relative of Marjorie Taylor Greene one could use for such comparisons:

   Here's another comparison. 

The person on the left is going to jail. Majorie Taylor Greene, as far as I know, has not requested conjugal visits. 

Below is Greene's idea of funny. What won't she do to get attention?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene carried a white balloon ahead of the State of the Union (article)

You can watch the video she posted on Twitter here. Note that she was having someone make the video so she knew damn well it would be picked up by the media.

Her balloon stunt triggered Lauren Boebert, her rival for the lunatic spotlight, into a reaction (reported on MSNBC)

I wonder how many Republicans are expressing of feeling the same sentiment as the one reported in this article:

According to one disgruntled GOP staffer, "I don’t think someone who looks and acts like a cartoon supervillain heckling the president on national television is the best representative of the Republican Party."

Anybody think Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want to be president?

 Anybody think Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want to be president?

By Hal Brown

Two days ago I also wrote about Marjorie Taylor Greene: 

Kevin and Marjorie, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G

Newsweek article shown above 

Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy Share Love-In After 'Crazy' Speaker Race

NBC News article shown above

Marjorie Taylor Greene aims to be Trump's VP pick in 2024 -- "She sees herself on the short list for Trump's VP," said former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who has spoken with Greene.

What a no-brainer question my title is. 

I have no doubt that MT Greene aspires to higher office. In her dreams I think she sees herself;f as the first woman president.

She has only three options for higher office unless you count being appointed to be a Supreme Court Justice (one doesn't have to be a lawyer). 

She could run for governor. 

She could run for the Senate. 

She could be Trump's choice as his VP running mate, no inference meant by using the term "mate" intended. This would be her most likely ladder to the presidency since  Trump might not live to complete a term should he be elected. 

Considering her narcissism and need to be the center of attention I think if she had a choice she'd want to run with Trump. If Trump won or lost the primary  she would be thrust into the spotlight in ways that only ever happened when she was featured at a Trump rally.

If horror upon horror Trump won I have little doubt she would be even less in the news than Kamala Harris. Trump doesn't want anybody upstaging him.

Unless Greene has some plans to hasten his demise - not to say she'd take active steps - but stress can be a big factor in life expectancy, she would be advised to consider the fact that he, like Biden, may be what is called a super-ager. Research suggests that both of them are very likely to life our another term if they are elected.

The key findings of the study:

• Biden and Trump are likely to be "super-agers," a subgroup of people that maintain their mental and physical functioning and tend to live longer than the average person their age.
• Both candidates have a higher than average probability of surviving a four-year term in office, relative to other men their age. For Biden, the probability of surviving the next four years is 95.2% (vs. 82.2%). For Trump, this is 90.3% (vs. 86.2%).
• Biden is expected to outlive Trump, even though he is three years older. In the paper, the researchers note Biden's "nearly perfect health profile for a man his age," compared with Trump's "significant but modifiable" negative risk factors.
• While Trump is noted to have an elevated familial risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease, neither candidate is expected to have major cognitive functioning challenges now or during the next four years.

What she has to be careful of if she wants to be Trump's VP selection is that for the present she serves two masters, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump. If these two have a falling out she will have to chose sides. 

That might not be easy. McCarthy has the power to derail her ambitions to be the unofficial Speaker of the House calling the shots whenever she thinks it will accrue to her benefit. On the other hand if she crossed Trump he would never select her to run with him.

If Trump won and became president then Greene, like Harris, wouldn't be a particularly viable national presidential candidate, although I think Harris would be a much better candidate since, well, she's both very smart and sane.

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