DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024

Right-wing radicals billing themselves the Army of God took to the road yesterday in a border-bound trucker convoy. They departed Virginia Beach and planned to attract participants along the way, claiming they’d arrive at the Rio Grande with 700,000 people. So far they’re about 699,900 short, partly because – cue Admiral Ackbar – IT’S A TRAP! Seems some of the goobers who got arrested on Jan. 6 have convinced themselves the FBI set the whole thing up specifically to arrest them, and the wily Deep State is at it again with this demonstration, trying to goad good American patriots into committing violence just so they can be arrested. Because it’s so, so hard to goad them to violence.

Republicans are in such disarray even the media is noticing. Just like Democrats, some are hawks and some are – not exactly doves, more like hibernating hedgehogs. These isolationists are quarreling with the hawks, who want Biden to smash someone, preferably Iran. These “isolationists” don’t want anyone to notice that, as usual, their position aligns perfectly with Russia’s.

Republicans aren’t the only ones in disarray. So are the Teamsters. President Sean O’Brien had dinner with Trump earlier this month, and a faction led by VP John Palmer isn’t happy about it. Lawyers, Gunds Some of America’s biggest unions have been playing footsie with Trump. Lawyers, Guns & Money got hold of a letter making the rounds that blisters O’Brien for his unilateral action. Teamsters are sensitive about meeting with known criminals, you see.

Thom Hartmann connects the dots leading from Robert Bork to the door falling out of that Boeing jet mid-flight. It takes fewer dots than you’d think.

It doesn’t pay to get upset about individual Republicans in the House, because they typically have a short shelf life. Lauren Boebert, for example, switched districts in Colorado because polls showed her constituents had tired of her antics, but it hasn’t improved her chances for re-election. Nine Republicans are vying for the nomination; in a recent straw poll Boebert finished fifth, meaning that rightside up or upside down, four of them are even more abject than she is.

The floor’s yours.