It is not ok to be nice to Republicans.

The Republican party is filled with psychotic racists who hate America and they need to be crushed at every election down to dog catcher. They need to be social pariahs who relearn how to stay in hiding. When Coons continually attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of the Grand Old Party, even as their atrocities are unfolding, he isn't trying to be a good guy. He is propping up psychotic racists for some psychotic reason only he really knows.

Rep. Paul Gosar isn’t really a member of Congress, so Congressional Punishments don’t really matter

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to approve a resolution that censures Rep. Paul Gosar for posting a photoshopped anime video showing him murder Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The censure strips him of his two committee assignments. Gosar's response was more or less - "Big Whoop. I'm just here to fuck around and shit post anyway." CNN and others call the more "a major rebuke" but let's face it - Gosar is right abut his tenure. He is a hype-man. He can put his clown show on just as easily without committee assignments. I liked AOC's response:

Biden’s Dilemma

He ran as the sensible moderate who, even in the age of unbreakable, unreasonable, recalcitrant Republicanism,  could "bring people together."   The unreasonable, recalcitrant Republicans have called bullshit on that plan, so Biden can either renounce this key campaign promise, or make pretend that Susan Collins,  Mitt Romney, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski,  Shelley Moore Capito attending a White House signing ceremony means that he is "bring people together." I'd be the farm that the Biden braintrust goes with "let's make pretend" as a strategy. And I get it.   Calling out Republicans for what they are and charting a bold, aggressive new course of direct confrontation would be akin to admitting that his political life up until now is a bit of a scam.   You can't blame him for not having the guts to renounce his entire political identity, who could possibly do that? Sure.  That sucks for the country, but there you have it.

DL Open Thread Tuesday November 16th 2021

Everybody hates Joe Biden because gas is expensive, so he passed some gimmicky pork barrel bill to try and buy back some approval points.  That's what the very objective DC press corps is saying, so it must be true. Kevin Goff, the defendant's lawyer in the murder trial of Ahmaud Arbery keeps trying to make the trial about his own racism.  “How many ministers are there in the Arbury family?” Said Goff,  “The seats in the court’s public gallery are different from the courtside seats in the Lakers game.” Steven Bannon is a fine upstanding member of the Republican Party. Liz Cheney has been removed from the Wyoming GOP. In these days of glorious bipartisanship, I guess that means Coons will be reaching out to Bannon instead of Cheney going forward (?) The UK is still being haunted by its ill-conceived, Brexit vote.

Johnson Says It'd Be 'Legitimate' to Suspend Brexit Deal Over Northern Ireland

Boris Johnson said it would be “perfectly legitimate” for the U.K. to suspend part of the Brexit deal with the European Union, though his government still wants to negotiate a solution to their escalating trade spat. The U.K. is demanding a major overhaul of the divorce agreement it signed with the bloc, arguing that its implementation is causing significant harm to businesses and communities in Northern Ireland. Johnson has repeatedly threatened to suspend parts of it by using Article 16 of the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, if the bloc doesn’t agree to rewrite it.

Yet doing so carries the risk of severe retaliation from the EU. On Monday, the bloc’s top negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, told Irish lawmakers that any such move would call into question the EU’s broader trade deal with the U.K., signed at the end of 2020 to ensure tariff-free commerce.