Three-Point Shots, Vol. 3, No. 1: January 24, 2025
Cruelty and a lack of seriousness have become the defining characteristics of our federal and state governments.
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Friday, January 24, 2025
Pete Hegseth is now the Secretary of Defense. He was confirmed on a 50-50 vote with V.P. JD Vance as the tie-breaker. Not exactly a rousing endorsement, but he doesn’t care – nor does his patron, Donald Trump.
Other Cabinet nominees seem destined for approval as well, pending a sudden outbreak of courage among Senate Republicans: Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, RFK, Jr. Only Tulsi Gabbard seems to be in any danger; given her open flirtation with tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, it’s amazing she’s being considered for the role of Director of National Intelligence, but there you have it: in the Bizarro world of Trump 47, incompetence, unpreparedness, and even sympathy with the enemy are résumé highlights, not career stumbling blocks.
That’s because, for the time being, the biggest enemy of the Trump Administration is its fellow Americans, from “woke” generals to trans athletes to California wildfire victims to people born in this country of undocumented parents.
Here are three vignettes from the new and nastier America.
1. Uhhh, Wait, Don’t Subpoena Cassidy Hutchinson
This takes a while to tell, so please bear with me.
You may recall that the previous Congress, let by a narrow Democratic majority, created the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, aka the House J6 Committee. The Committee heard hundreds of hours of testimony, reviewed thousands of hours of video from that day, and produced a report that a) condemned the lawlessness of the J6 rioters, and b) placed the blame for inciting it squarely on you-know-who.
After that, the House majority shifted to the Republicans who, because their Dear Leader made it an article of faith that “it wasn’t his fault,” were bound and determined to re-investigate January 6th and, just as important, the original investigation into J6. To chair this second investigation, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Burning Bush) tapped Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Short Bus).
As quickly as a man of his limitations could, Rep. Loudermilk found what he thought was a “smoking gun.” Cassidy Hutchinson, who turned out to be the star witness in the first investigation, had conveniently been represented by lawyers provided by Donald Trump, but decided to seek other counsel in order to save her immortal soul from all the lying. During that process, she may have had lawyer-free conversations with then-Rep. Liz Cheney who, as we all know, is the Great Satan.
(Cassidy Hutchinson testifying to the J6 Committee.)
Loudermilk thought he could drag Hutchinson back into the limelight, publicly interrogate her about her insidious conversations with Cheney, and reveal to all that the whole J6 investigation was a House of Lies.
(Barry Loudermilk mansplains about conspiracies.)
But nothing ever happened. Loudermilk’s “reinvestigation” went silent. And now, thanks to the Washington Post, we know why.
According to an article published Thursday, Loudermilk was told by aides to Speaker Johnson that subpoenaing Hutchinson … might not be a good idea.
Before that meeting, a Johnson aide told Loudermilk’s staff that multiple colleagues had raised concerns with the speaker’s office about the potential for public disclosure of “sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors” with Hutchinson, according to correspondence produced at the time that detailed the conversation.
… a Johnson aide told Loudermilk’s staff that multiple colleagues had raised concerns with the speaker’s office about the potential for public disclosure of “sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors” with Hutchinson.
Lemme see if I’ve got this right: the best chance to discredit the whole J6 investigation, and thus retcon January 6th itself, was blown up because pervy Republican House members were too busy sexting Cassidy Hutchinson.
Some people do not know when to quit:
Loudermilk has been jockeying to lead a reconstituted investigation this year. On Wednesday, Johnson appointed him to chair a new select subcommittee that would continue the probe.
Your tax dollars at work, folks.
2. Making Our Border Safe Again, Again
You may recall the twists and turns of our immigration and border security policies over the last decade, but here is a quick refresher:
1) Pre-2017 – Godless Democrats let everyone into the country, including terrorists, rapists and criminals (even though more people were deported under the Obama Administration than the Trump Administration.)
2) 2017-2021 – President Trump issues in a golden era of kicking people we don’t like out of the country, investing billions in a wall to be paid for by Mexico and outright banning people from Muslim nations.
3) 2021-2025 – a) President Biden undoes all the good Trump has done, throwing open the borders and even baking cookies for all the mugs, pugs, thugs, insane people and criminals (including Hannibal Lecter) he can feed.
b) Governor Greg Abbott, eager to protect the citizenry from the deluge of unwashed, cookie-fed illegal immigrants, creates Operation Lone Star, at which the Lege obediently throws $12 billion dollars. Over the first couple years, the OLS metrics specialize in mothers and children drowned, people injured on razor wire, and photo ops for Abbott and assorted sordid state and national officials.
(Another border photo op.)
4) 2025 – a) Trump 47 brings sanity and concentration camps back to immigration policy, completely solving the problem of people wanting to come to our country with H1-B visas. People without STEM backgrounds in prized skills are not so lucky, however.
b) Inexplicably, although all the state’s immigration problems have been solved, Abbott still asks for $6.5 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars to prop up Operation Lone Star.
And, in all probability, he’ll get it.
3. We’re For Freedom of Speech, Except When We Aren’t
Texas has the most draconian abortion restrictions in the country. Every time a legislator from, say, Georgia or Idaho gets self-satisfied with that state’s abortion restrictions, he reads up on the Texas laws and feels, once again, insufficient.
But the Texas Legislature is not resting on its laurels. Representative Steve Toth (R-8th Circle of Hell) has filed the “Texas Woman and Child Safety Act.” Under the bill, “internet service providers would be forced to block any site that contains information about how to obtain abortions or abortion medication. That means the websites of pro-choice organizations and abortion funds would be banned… The bill even includes a list of specific websites that would be banned in the state, including: Aid Access, Hey Jane, Plan C Pills, Just the Pill, and Carafem.”
So much for freedom of speech. Toth argues, circularly, that cracking down on pro-choice websites is OK because abortion is a crime and spreading information about medical options for women is therefore a criminal enterprise.
And, of course, in the cowardly way of the Texas Legislature, the bill calls for private enforcement of the proposed law, allowing citizens to file lawsuits against pro-choice websites even if they have never used or been injured by anything they find on those websites. We wouldn’t want to have the State’s fingerprints all over restrictions on free speech, would we?
Perverts in the U.S. House GOP Caucus. Wasteful spending on Operation Lone Star. Violating the First Amendment to punish pro-choice activism. These people operate in a negative space not to “promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” but to use their power to score points against their fellow citizens.
And, unfortunately, they get elected and re-elected to do that. At a minimum, their voters tolerate the misbehavior while their representatives do … whatever it is the voters think they’re supposed to do.
And thus do great nations fail from the inside and become history’s losers.
It is our job to counter this nonsense. To remind our fellow Americans that many of their leaders are cruel and bigoted and injust; but mostly silly and unserious.
This is not the work of a week or a month. In fact, it is not even the work of just the next four years. Recovering our sense of purpose as a people will take a lot longer.
Let’s get to work.
"Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Short Bus)"🤣
The high ground is where we point out the government's failures that prevent the majority of folks to share the pie with the rich folks. The low ground is where we storm the offices of government, rid ourselves of the fascists, aka Republicans, and reassemble what’s left of our democracy. I’m beginning to lean toward the latter.