Note on Democratic Groups Helping Trump Republicans Win Primaries: So?

In one of the great "tut-tut" pieces in a while, the Editorial Board of the New York Times (motto: "We're partly responsible for the Iraq War and Trump's election, but you'll still subscribe") wrote that it was appalled by the idea that "Democratic Party groups have been elevating Big Lie proponents over their moderate Republican opponents all year." They take great umbrage - umbrage, I say - that Democrats would dare attempt to give subversive support to the fucknuts and grifters who make coin and get votes by saying that Donald Trump really won the 2020 election and that a conspiracy involving at least a few hundred thousand people worked to keep him out of office. The idea, of course, is that in a general election, those fucknuts and grifters (and, to be fair, the fucknut grifters) will be easily defeated by a Democrat. And what's the big strategy here? Reminding voters who is endorsed by Trump because to some idiot voters, that's like getting oral from Jesus.

But the Times's reasoning is this: electing "moderate Republicans" is a good thing. And what makes you a "moderate" Republican these days? Pretty much if you're not hooting racism into a tin can because an internet ghost told you it will bring about the Great Googamoogle or something. 

One example the Times gives of a Big Lie-loving, Trump-endorsed fucknut is Maryland's Dan Cox. It should be pointed out at all times that his campaign website is "Cox for Freedom." No, I'm not lying. Anyways, yeah, Cox is huffing deeply of the fumes from Trump's taint, but in just about every other way, he's your average fucking mad Republican. He supports guns for babies (or something close - you really can't tell anymore), is a nutzoid on abortion, and hates him some critical race theory in schools.  You know who else supports all those things except is a little more distant from Trump's grundle stink? Cox's opponent, Kelly Schulz. Oh, and groups like the Democratic Governors' Association bought ads saying that Cox was endorsed by Trump. 

Here's the thing, though. No one forced those voters to go for Cox. They were adults making adult decisions. 

Look at the even more bugfuck mad Kari Lake in Arizona. She campaigned on shitting in the dried up Lake Mead and laughing while she did it. Yet she won her primary. So, clearly, Republican voters in Arizona are good with attacks on wokeness and anti-choice madness (by the way, one interesting thing about Lake? She's for making almost all birth control available over-the counter and having the government pay for it. Hmm). But other than her support of the Big Lie and her vows to change Arizona voting laws so that this thing that never happened never happens again, her defeated opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson believes pretty much the same damn thing. Again, the key difference is that Lake got the help of Democratic groups because they hope crazy will lose.

But the key point here is that they're all fucking crazy; nearly every Republican is nuts. And even the ones who aren't explicitly saying that the 2020 election was stolen are calling for election "reform" or support gerrymandering and other shit that will hinder voting and help the GOP undo democracy.  So maybe we need a little less garment-rending over the idea that Democrats' bet that the general election voters won't give a nod to the crazies will fail and a little more over the fact that it simply doesn't fucking matter which Republicans are elected. 

And also let's not pretend that the right doesn't do this shit all the time. As Judd Legum and Kyle Tharp reported, a Republican-linked group is attempting to influence liberal members of Congress to vote against the climate change legislation by pretending to be a liberal group. The motherfuckery is deep in our politics.

I Haven't Disappeared

I know shit's been non-existent the last couple of weeks, but I've been in the UK (and continue to be) for some personal time. I'll have something up in the next day or two. 

Until then, enjoy this Liverpool road warning.

An Observation on the Nature of Extremist Fucknuts at the January 6 Committee Hearing

One thing that jumped out at me while watching Tuesday's televised hearing from the January 6 Committee into the insurrection of fucking idiots, which came closer than we want to believe to actually working, is how the extremists coming to DC on that cold day didn't emerge from a vacuum. No, in fact, it was the action, or, really, the inaction of the federal government on another uprising that gave the idiot hordes the confidence to go full overthrow. Jason Van Tatenhove, former member of the Oath Keepers (motto: "If this whole beach was completely covered in dicks, and somebody said I had to eat every dick until the beach was clean for liberty, I would say, 'No problemo!'"), pointed very clearly to an event from 2014 that helped inspire motherfuckers to start fucking more mothers all the way to the Capitol. 

Van Tatenhove said, "My time with the Oath Keepers began back at Bundy Ranch with that first standoff when I went to cover them as an independent journalist." He was talking about the ludicrous standoff between a Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy, and the federal government over grazing fees on federal land that Bundy refused to pay for his cattle. So the government seized his cattle, and, with an assist from uber-fucknut Alex Jones, the Oath Keepers and hundreds, maybe thousands, of other armed dickheads showed up to "defend" Bundy.  

As things went on, "The standoff grew increasingly volatile over several days, with federal agents deploying dogs and stun guns, and rifle-carrying militia members taking sniper-like positions on an overpass overlooking the area. Fearing a bloodbath, federal authorities ultimately backed down and released the cattle." They also pulled out of the whole conflict, preferring to try to get the money from him through every fucking way they had already tried. 

That backing down gave these dickheads delusions of grandeur. In a press conference after, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, not wearing an eye patch, said, that the standoff was "a significant watershed moment" and praised the militias and the Bundy clan for an "armed effort" to face off against the federal government. The Oath Keepers released a video that said the standoff was "the first time in our country's recent history that good Americans stood up and said, 'We're not going to let this happen on our watch.'"

Elaborating on a statement about the country being "lucky" shit hasn't gotten more violent, Van Tatenhove told the congressional committee and the rest of the country, "I think as far as the luck goes, we've had the potential from Bundy Ranch on, I mean, being boots on the ground at these standoffs and they were standoffs where there were firearms pointed across lines at federal law enforcement agencies, you know, whatever it may be with that particular standoff. But I do -- I think we've gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential has been there from the start." 

Bundy and his shitty family and the assorted extremist dickheads refused to recognize the authority of the Bureau of Land Management and the federal government. He owed the country a million bucks in unpaid fees and penalties. When the BLM decided to say, "Fuck this shit," they let, as then-Nevada Senator Harry Reid said, "domestic terrorists" off the hook. "They had sniper rifles on the freeway. They had assault weapons. They had automatic weapons," Reid said, all in service of someone who didn't wanna pay for his shit. They were ready to murder BLM agents and others. They should have all been rounded up and dragged off to jail. But it was fear of violence and escalation that caused the retreat by the BLM. And the end result of that retreat was more violence and escalation, including at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge two years later. One could also argue that the failure to arrest the violent thugs in Nevada led directly to the Las Vegas mass shooting a month later. The shooter had been at Bundy's ranch, inspired by the way the dickheads faced down the feds and won. And, obviously, January 6 can be tied to the sense of empowerment the Bundy ranch "victory" gave the dickheads.

Tattooed, denim jacket and Descendants t-shirt-wearing Van Tatenhove said he fully believes that there will be violence in 2024: "I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring if a president that's willing to try to instill and encourage to whip up a Civil War amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil, regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again. All bets are off at that point. And that's a scary notion." Of course, he's talking about armed dickheads, but he's also talking about Trump and other leaders of this extremist bullshit. He offered clear advice: "I have three daughters. I have a granddaughter, and I fear for the world that they will inherit if we do not start holding these people to account."

When motherfuckers wanna fuck mothers, you gotta shut that shit down or motherfuckers will just think they can keep fucking mothers without consequences. They'll fuck more mothers because there is no price to pay for motherfucking. You don't coddle insurrectionists. 

We are long past time where those in charge need to be punished. We're running out of time to be able to do that. Don't walk away from the goddamn standoff again.

This Fucking Shirt (Updated)

I wanna talk about this fucking shirt I saw today. I was at the Jersey Shore (yeah, your jokes are right and wrong, depending on the beach) for a little sunshine and wandered into a local diner for lunch. Sitting at the counter was a dude in this fucking shirt: 

First off, fuck this guy. I don't know a goddamn thing about him except he was wearing this shirt and camo shorts. He might be a hero firefighter. He might be a saint to dogs and children. I don't fucking care. Fuck. This. Guy. Besides, he ended up talking to another guy who had an unlit big cock-sized cigar in his stupid round face. So I'm pretty sure they're both just wretched human beings. And even if not, fuck this guy. 

But I gotta talk about this fucking shirt. Look at it in detail there. Sure, you notice the words instantly: "I will not comply," obviously meaning, "I'll fight you if you try to take muh guns." What a pussy-ass thing to say because it's pretty fucking clear that no one is going to take away his guns. That's like saying, "I will drive-thru McDonald's" like you're defying God and the universe to stop you. No, motherfucker. No one is hindering you unless you fucking drive into the front door of the McDonald's. Then you might be shit out of luck on nuggets. Might be.

So, yeah, the words are bullshit. But it's the picture that pisses me off. That's a fucking skeleton version of the Statue of Liberty, one of the most non-violent symbols in this entire shabby, savage country. And not only that, but Liberty's eye sockets have sights or gun barrels coming out of them.

The fuck does that even mean? Does Skeleton Liberty scream in horrific pain whenever she fires eyeball bullets from the sockets? Jesus fuck, that's a nightmare. 

And then she's holding an assault rifle (fuck you, I don't care what the definition is) in her bone fingers. Is she gonna stone cold murder the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses, yearning to be free? Because it sure as shit seems like she is, and that means that the people who made this fucking shirt and the people who wear this fucking shirt know fuck-all about the Statue of Liberty or American history.

Wait, here's a better view:

It's from a company of cockscabs known as Shield Republic, and those cockscabs sell lots of merch so you can get your January 6 on all fuckin' year.  There's antivax shit, "Let's Go Brandon" shit, own-the-libs shit, and more gun-related shit than you can jack off to for the rest of the decade. 

But fuck all that. I want to talk about this fucking shirt. And the fucking tools who wear this fucking shirt, like our fucknut up top. What gets me is how fucking stupid they are. I could design a t-shirt with Jesus reaming his own ass with a crucifix made of dildos while jizzing on an American flag and have it say, "Your fake god can go fuck himself," but why? 

I'll say this: Jizzing dildo Jesus is a hell of a lot smarter image than this dumbfuckery. Skull Gunface is just goddamn stupid, to be sure. But on the left, we wouldn't bother with this kind of idiocy because it's just so masturbatory and worthless. It's so fucking smug, rubbing people's faces with something that you think is edgy but is really simply demonstrating that you probably gave a ton of your hard-earned money to alleged billionaire Donald Trump, and that makes you a complete dumb fuck. 

I mean, seriously, they put "Death List" on top of their death list. Was that so they wouldn't confuse it with the groceries? "Hmm, do I kill Nancy Pelosi or Rice Krispies?" It's embarrassing that these morons are actually a threat to the nation. We deserve a better quality of nemesis.

Mainly, though, fuck that fucking guy in this fucking shirt.

Not very important update/correction: Several people have pointed out those aren't gun barrels on Death Liberty. It's the optical tubes on night vision goggles (that apparently cost $40k to law enforcement agencies because freedom). As one reader tweets, "So, she's not only shooting the huddled masses...she's hunting them at night for sport," adding, correctly, "Fuck that guy."

The Supreme Court Tells the 21st Century to Go Fuck Itself

This session, the newly-ripened conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court of the United States decided it was time to lift up their robes and piss on the 21st century and reality. The half-dozen justices, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, looked out at a nation, no, a world that demands progress, that demands care, that demands a government that can act to help people, and said, "Nah. Fuck that." And their reasoning essentially came down to, in every case, "Because we can."

We have a gun crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that the only thing that mattered was that more people have easier access to guns. We have a policing crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that it's more important to protect cops from being sued or charged with crimes and that you don't need to worry about being told your Miranda rights anymore. We have an ongoing pandemic that has killed over a million people in this country. The Supreme Court said that public safety takes a back seat to whatever stupid bullshit makes people decide not to get a vaccine. We have an electoral crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that gerrymandering away fair representation is a-okay. 

And then the Court decided, in two cases, that the whole separation of church and state wasn't real because Christians need to have group prayers at school and schools that discriminate against LGBT people need to get our tax dollars. The former one there is where Gorsuch, lying about the facts of the case, told students who feel pressured into praying to suck it up, which would probably get him a cane up his ass from Benjamin Franklin, which would be some actual originalism.

And then the Court decided that a fetus has more rights than the woman it's attached to, and so fuck 50 years of Roe v. Wade. It's time to turn that motherfucking clock back to the 1950s. Alito insisted that Roe was the cause of chaos because anti-choicers were sad about it, and he used as an excuse, among others, that states had anti-abortion laws 150 years ago, which is so fucking dumb that it boggles the goddamn mind. It didn't matter that the Court, in throwing it back to the states, created two different legal statuses for women and girls in the country. It didn't matter that the Court created two different countries, essentially, if not 50 different ones. "We can do this, so we will," they said, "because fuck you, liberals." Which, to be fair, makes more sense than anything in the goddamn decision.

And then the Court decided that, despite a climate emergency that will wreck the earth, the Environmental Protection Agency really can't protect the environment, even though the statue that established it said that it explicitly could. In the case over setting standards for systems to reduce emissions at power plants and elsewhere, Roberts wrote, "Yeah, I don't like that so here's a thing I made up to overturn it and eat shit because these other five crazy pricks will go along with me. Just be grateful we didn't completely outlaw the EPA." So, yeah, enjoy that "air" and "water" while you can.

Hell, I haven't even mentioned the fucking over of tribal sovereignty for indigenous people or the cases that fucked over habeas rights. And this isn't getting into the fact that the Court has decided to hear a case that will essentially give state legislatures the right to overturn elections if they feel like it. In other words, yeah, you should totally vote to change things, but the Supreme Court is gonna make sure that your vote only matters if you're conservative, because, clearly, those are the only real Americans.

A lawyer friend of mine said to me after the Dobbs decision on abortion rights, "I'm fucking scared to death because those justices decided that precedent doesn't matter anymore. And if once you decide that, you can do whatever you want and justify it in whatever bullshit way you want." Which is as accurate a way to describe the damage that has been done. 

I have this image in my head that I can't get rid of. It's when the first woman dies because she attempted to give herself an abortion in one of the states that outlawed it, like Louisiana, and caused massive internal bleeding. I picture the corpse being delivered to the Supreme Court, to the chambers of Samuel Alito. When the corpse arrives, Alito invites the other four justices who voted with him on Dobbs to join him. And then they take turns fucking the corpse in front of each other, Alito first because he wrote the majority opinion and then Thomas because he wants to use this woman's corpse as a way to undermine the rest of modernity and then Gorsuch because he got onto the Court only through Mitch McConnell telling fairness and comity to get the fuck out of the Senate and then Kavanaugh gets sloppy fourths because he's still just a beer-drinking asshole who lied to senators faces about what he really believed about Roe. Finally, they all gather round and cheer on Barrett as she fucks the corpse's face until she orgasms, high-fiving one another when she's done. They're not ashamed of what they did, but they know they have to head to church to confess and be absolved of their sins, like good Catholics and pseudo-Catholics. And on the way out, Thomas places a single one of his pubic hairs on the woman's forehead.

That's really fucked up, yeah, but so is the nation that the Supreme Court wants us to live in. And Democrats need to recognize how much worse things are getting. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren have been leading on this by calling out the Court and not pretending that it is above political attack. That's the direction to go in. Make reforming the Court, whether through more justices or more regulations (which the Constitution allows Congress to do). Congress should act like it's co-equal.

Now is not the time for rational, calm responses that consider all sides. Fuck that. This is a five-alarm freakout because the cruelest states are already teeing up laws to prevent women from traveling to another state for an abortion, as well as outlawing abortion-inducing prescription drugs. They're even coming up with ways to make information about getting an abortion elsewhere illegal. And if you think for one fucking second that the Christian Taliban (which, yes, is a good messaging phrase) justices who shitcanned the Establishment Clause will all of a sudden uphold the First Amendment, you need to fucking get out of the political arena. 

This Court has put it all on the table, all that it wants to undermine in this country. We're heading into an Independence Day that feels sarcastically named in the no-longer United States. The time for fake moderation is over. The majority of the nation backs all the things the supposed "extreme left" wants (because it's not extreme at all). Now, Democrats need to back it fully, and with full voice, as we head towards the midterms with a desperate hope we can stop the country from being murdered by the right.

The Supreme Court vs. the United States, Part 1: Alito Loves Fetuses, Hates Women

You will never love anything as much as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito loves fetuses. That skeevy, creepy motherfucker is all about the fetuses; he loves fetuses so much that he doesn't give a fuck how many women must die in order for fetuses to live and become babies that he can then ignore and strip away their rights. Seriously, that savage cockscab must jack it to ultrasounds. You think I'm being hyperbolic? You think I'm just trying to be extra cruel to this ratcunt because he authored the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that specifically overturned Roe v. Wade and the guarantee of the right to an abortion in the entire country? You think it's because I fucking hate him and Thomas and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Barrett for ensuring that women in some of our biggest cities, like Houston, Dallas, Nashville, and New Orleans, with Indianapolis and Atlanta no doubt not far behind, can't get an abortion and women from small communities can't travel to those cities and that all the women in these savage states will have to travel hundreds, if not a thousand miles (no, really) to reach a state where abortion is legal and that if they can't, many of them will resort to methods that will harm if not kill them? 

Yeah, all that. But also because Alito can't fucking get enough of fetuses. Check out the decision. Seriously, this part will make your head fucking explode: "The dissent has much to say about the effects of pregnancy on women, the burdens of motherhood, and the difficulties faced by poor women. These are important concerns. However, the dissent evinces no similar regard for a State’s interest in protecting prenatal life." You got that? Hey, little ladies, your burdens, all your health effects, all your difficulties are important, says big white male Alito, but, really, a clump of cells that can't survive on its own is just as important as you. 

By the way, 93% of all abortions are in the first trimester. Yeah, it's a fucking clump of cells for most of that and still completely nonviable towards the end of 12 weeks.

That clump of cells is given far more rights than women by Alito as he considers the notion of "viability," as defined by the Roe and Casey decisions: "According to the dissent, the Constitution requires the States to regard a fetus as lacking even the most basic human right—to live—at least until an arbitrary point in a pregnancy has passed...If, as Roe held, a State’s interest in protecting prenatal life is compelling 'after viability,' why isn’t that interest 'equally compelling before viability'?" In other words, if a state thinks you should stay pregnant, bitch, you're staying pregnant. That fetus controls you. You only exist to protect the rights of the fetus. Your rights don't matter if you have a fetus.

Alito goes on, dickishly, "Due to the development of new equipment and improved practices, the viability line has changed over the years. In the 19th century, a fetus may not have been viable until the 32d or 33d week of pregnancy or even later. When Roe was decided, viability was gauged at roughly 28 weeks. Today, respondents draw the line at 23 or 24 weeks. So, according to Roe’s logic, States now have a compelling interest in protecting a fetus with a gestational age of, say, 26 weeks, but in 1973 States did not have an interest in protecting an identical fetus. How can that be?" Yes, it's so weird how things change with medical advances. C'mon, this is just making shit up to justify an obviously bullshit opinion. Or, you know, the conservative way.

You think that's mindbogglingly fucked up? Wait: "Viability also depends on the 'quality of the available medical facilities.' Thus, a 24-week-old fetus may be viable if a woman gives birth in a city with hospitals that provide advanced care for very premature babies, but if the woman travels to a remote area far from any such hospital, the fetus may no longer be viable. On what ground could the constitutional status of a fetus depend on the pregnant woman’s location? And if viability is meant to mark a line having universal moral significance, can it be that a fetus that is viable in a big city in the United States has a privileged moral status not enjoyed by an identical fetus in a remote area of a poor country?" Fuck Alito in every fucking hole he has and in a few that don't exist yet.

Alito and the rest of a cruel quintet who overruled Roe and Casey are quite literally splitting the country in two so that the quality of health care a woman receives will be dependent on which state she lives in. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that a fetus might live outside the womb if born prematurely a couple of weeks earlier in a city than in a village in the mountains of Ecuador? About 1% of all abortions happen after 21 weeks. How does that in any way justify a decision that will allow states to outlaw the 99% of abortions that clearly occur before the fetus can live on its own? Even John Roberts thought that was fucked. It's a fucking game to the majority. It's absolutely nonsensical, so much that it only makes sense if you say that Alito loves fetuses and hates women, which is part and parcel with a Christian extremist view of the sexes.

Because that's what this is, you know. It is a cabal of Christian extremists, radical Catholics and nutzoid fundamentalists, deciding that women have had enough freedom and those whores deserve whatever hell they have to go through. They are imposing their radical, extremist doctrine on the rest of us and pretending that it's freedom.

In my home state of Louisiana, the anti-choice Democratic governor signed an update to the state's trigger law on Monday that said abortion would be outlawed in the state the second Roe was overturned. And so it was. The three remaining clinics in the state, in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, stopped performing abortions. While the morning after pill remains legal, other drug-induced abortions are also outlawed, and there are no exceptions for pregnancies for rape and incest. With Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi also banning abortions, the closest place for a safe, legal abortion right now is in Pensacola, Florida, and who knows how long that will last with Ron DeSantis fascisting up the joint. Then women in Louisiana would have to travel to North Carolina or Illinois. Madness. And then states might pass laws that say you can't travel through them to get an abortion because of course they will.

Sorry. I'm not thinking completely rationally today. We've known this day was coming for a long time. We've been waiting for it since at least the 1990s, probably since Clarence Thomas was confirmed. Many of us have been waving our arms and screaming that this was coming, to stop trusting any motherfuckers who said not to worry, to stop pretending that anyone on the right was honorable. We knew it would happen. 

But that expectation doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't reduce the feeling of panic. It doesn't mitigate the despair for what a fucked beyond fucked nation we've become, what backwater we've turned into. We're not a shining city on a hill. We're a teetering shack on a pile of shit.

Mostly, though, it doesn't make me feel less sorrowful for women, from the preteen rape victim to the mother who doesn't want another child to any woman or girl who fucking wants to choose when she has children. If my nieces get pregnant, I will fly them anywhere they want to go if they want to get rid of the fetus. Fuck that fetus.

We failed. We fucked up and we failed. We let the worst fucking people keep winning. We can't let that keep happening. There's going to be a pile of women's corpses to remind us of that. 

The vile Christian pricks have tasted blood. They are completely unleashed, and they are heading for a feeding frenzy. We better be ready. It's about to get genuinely frightening out there. 

More on that coming up.

Call It What It Was: An Assassination Attempt on Mike Pence

I have despised Mike Pence longer than most of you, even before he was that fuckin' conservative prick in Congress from 2001-2012, even before he was that motherfucking governor who refused to allow a needle exchange program in a town with a high rate of HIV (until he prayed and partially gave in). Yeah, see, I was damned to live in Indiana in the late-1990s when Pence was a right-wing radio twatmite, advocating for laws against adultery and railing against the cartoon Mulan for daring to say that women could be in the military with men and hating on LGBT people with a fervor that could only be described as protesting way, way too much. When I say, "Fuck him in every hole from ass to eye," I mean it. 

So if I say anything that is perceived as a kind word about him, just know that I really think he's lower than worm shit. 

That said, yeah, Pence did one good thing with his sad, homophobic, nutzoid Christian life. He stood firm against a wave of spittle and being called a "pussy" and "wimp" from Donald Trump, as well as Trump's caricature of a mob boss threat that "I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this," and ratified the electoral count in the 2020 presidential election. I don't think he did that for honorable reasons. He consulted with, among others, former Vice President Dan Quayle, who told him, "I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That’s all you do. You have no power" when Pence sought his blessing in overturning a clean election, which would have thrown the country into dictatorship. Pence had spent the last five years being Trump's most loyal lickspittle, a remora suctioned onto Trump's ass so tightly that he may as well have been Trump's vestigial tail. Pence wasn't strong. Pence certainly wasn't a goddamn hero. He was scared that he'd break the law and end up in prison if it all went sideways. He didn't want to commit a crime. He didn't do the right thing so much as he didn't do the wrong thing. So, fuck it, may as well act like the great defender of the Constitution.

And what did Pence get for his trouble? As his chief of staff Marc Short told the January 6 committee, he was so worried "that the president would lash out in some way" over Pence's disloyalty that Short contacted the head of Pence's Secret Service detail to make sure they were ready in case shit went south. And south it went.

Let's stop beating around the goddamn bush with this shit. The January 6 attack on the Capitol was, among other things, a coordinated assassination attempt on Mike Pence, one that was cheered on, if not directed, by the President of the United States, who really was Donald Trump. 

In front of a mob that was there specifically to stage a coup (which is what it's called when a group tries to use force to throw out the results of a legal election and install their own people, whether that's as electors or president), Trump kept expressing how Pence "is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country." Trump didn't stop there, coming right up to the line of threat: "And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now." 

Of course, Trump didn't have to threaten. He had a horde of cretins who were slobbering all over each other to do his bidding. I mean, did no one remember what happened at Trump's Nazi rallies when he verbally attacked protesters and cheered on and encouraged physical violence against them? People fucking did it. They got violent on his order. Trump fucking well knew the powder keg was right in front of him, and that narcissistic cockscab wanted to see what would happen if he lit the fuse.  And when Trump had a chance to calm shit down, he threw fuel on the fuse by tweeting that "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done." That's insanity.

So what did Pence get to hear from the hooting cretins who were heading towards and into the Capitol? Chants of "Hang Mike Pence!" and "Bring out Pence!" His Secret Service team brought him to a secure location in the building, coming within 40 feet of Trump's zombie army that he could hear rampaging around, calling for murder of him and anyone who would betray their orange idol. And Pence refused to leave in a Secret Service vehicle, fearing, at the very least, that the president would order him driven away and kept away from the count. That is fucking insanity. That is fear of assassination by the mob, ordered or at least ordered-by-implication by Donald Trump.

You can say that Pence bravely stuck to ratifying the electoral vote count, but that fear of prison hung over him hard. And I think fear is why Pence will not testify before the January 6 Committee. Sure, I know he's delusional and craven enough to think that he might have a chance at a future in politics that will be shitcanned if he puts a stake in Trump's desiccated heart, not realizing his career is dead already, and I know that Liz Cheney and the committee are doing their damnedest to spin things as if there are decent Republicans, even if Pence helped the country get to the point where a goddamned coup was attempted by vigorously bobbing on Trump's knob for the entire term. 

But Trump's army is still out there. And they're armed. And they are violent and insane. And they want blood, specifically Pence's blood, for his betrayal. And you know that life has been one nonstop death threat for Pence and his family because that's how these motherfuckers roll. If we can call the non-attempt on Brett Kavanaugh's life an "assassination attempt," then this is an ongoing assassination plot to kill the former vice president.

So I'm gonna say the possibly kind words about Pence here: If this fear of being killed is figuring into Pence's silence and it's not just false hopes of a political future, I sympathize. That means he's capable of feeling trauma, as any normal person would, and it means he wants to protect his family. Again, he's despicable in every other way and, mostly, I don't give a shit if he lives or dies now, but I get it and it makes sense. 

But that also means he can't be a hero in this story. He's just the guy in the horror movie who walked away after the monster seemed to be defeated, not making sure that fucker can't rise again and kill even more people in the sequel.

(Note: I do hope the 1/6 Committee is going to look into the other assassination attempts on Nancy Pelosi and Democrats, and not just leave it at Pence.)