In one sense, everyone got basically what they wanted out of the Tennessee embrogalo. From a partisan strategic vantage point, the Republican supermajority could have been smarter — censure, strip A committee assignment or two — but trying to think this through — I have no idea one way or the other if it would result about the same martry status.

From their point, the two expelled legislators would have had zero legislative power in even a theoretical not super-gerrymandered Tennessee. The gun control is a no-go in this state. Like, it is worth pointing out on “Do something” — the Tennessee State legislator has done somethings — they shortened the response time for first responders and eliminated the hesitancy that plagued earlier school shootings. As a result, deaths here by a… Disgruntled adult Non-student *… are in the single digits instead of the double digits. Now what the neck was this adult non student doing on this elementary school where, strictly speaking, in a classic school shooting scenario at an elementary school the youngster would have likely been inept enough and not fully committed and stopped by a non strained adult to limit the shootings to a mere wounding or two?

Of course, that is not what gets sold as “do something”. It ends and starts at banning a gun or two. Which, if you want to get Tennessee to do, you have to circumvent the state legislature. You have the loud opinionated minority in the galleys shouting for something, insisting ” This is what democracy looks like”. And by bumping aside the rules, knowing you won’t accomplish anything in the rules, you can become a national figure — a power source from a different place. Would they have achieved this status from a mere censor and committee stripping? I do not know, but I could give two rats about the Tennessee Republican and Democratic parties — it does happen to be the correct principled punishment regardless. In that hypothetical world, I guess it would be interesting to observe what happens at the next strategic breaching of disruption of legislative processes.

• * I have to point that out because I sees headline for remedies that would have its drawbacks and weaknesses even if it were a go, that has it with “Children killing Children”. No such thing happened here.

I am trying to find something neutral in the way of podcasts which relate the going ons in the Tennessee chamber. My bias going in before I hash out details is that no one is playing with a full deck oh honesty — the to be expelled would be less than honest in assessing their disruption of the chambers for the fact that they can’t get their way — the expulsers to be apt to take a wide berth on their crimes. And maybe the fact that two have been expelled and another not suggests the middle, such as it is, can detect nuances on merely obnoxious behavior versus actionable ones. Unless it is a bias on what race acts beyond unruly and ring leads the disruption.

As it were, I am stuck needing to push Democracy Now aside and the Tennessee MAGA blogger out. Maybe I can return to them after reading a few AP articles. The comments section to various magazines of political opinion are also useless, as we skip to a “What about the Jan 6ers” and “Republican heckling at the SOTU!”. As if… They don’t suck too? That is not what I want to know details about when looking for the details of state legislators leading an angry protest during a legislative session.

So… nteresting political fight in Tennessee.

We had a child molester on the floor for years, they helped him get reelected and did nothing to expel him,” Johnson said. “We’ve had members pee in each other’s chairs. We’ve had members illegally prescribe drugs to their cousin-mistress, and nothing happened. But talk on the floor without permission, and you’ll get expelled.”

Due process. Also it’s kind of that thing on why Pete Rose may not be in the Baseball Hall of Fame and, say, OJ Simpson is in the Football Hall of Fame — the integrity of the game as opposed to outside crimes. Maybe you object to the procedural niceties, or think they should be scuttled because you think you are just in the right and they are just that much in the wrong on the issue — but some disagree.

A famous old drag performer passed away, a local celebrity who has done her act for decades and decades. Limited hearsay tells me it is nothing I want to see — report from a straight woman who watched once and left at an intermission had a kind of Insult act feeling it at her expense for the guffaws of the gay male crowd — do with it what you will. What I wonder is if their business is going to have a sign, along the lines of Mary’s Club for its strip club owner at his passing, the years of her life on the current sign and r.i.p. and all that — something on the “industry pioneer”, dates of birth some ninety years ago and then death in 2023 — which, if it were like how Mary’s Club had its sign, will still be up there in 2033 long past all memorials.

I assume he takes off his make up. Puts on different clothing. That still leaves those strange horns he has.

The Atlantic Magazine sure can be funny sometimes.

I can not think of an industry, conceptually, more deserving of an existential crisis than a self named “influencer” industry, existence of conceptual basis a sign of misused technology — somewhat.

Yeah, well. Who cares? Why did you love it in the first place? It strikes me as a tool still useful if you choose to use it right. But today I learned about the existence of a thing called “neocities”, which is a 90s Internet throwback designed to capture something of that website experience. The person I backtracked with this ” neocities” website, I don’t quite find the age on but she would at best have been in diapers at its time. So. For this person, one Veronica Heffernan — wait twenty years and you should have twatter.

Weird take of the day:

If Trump’s mugshot is made public it would cement him as an ‘outlaw’ and could make him a folk hero like Al Capone, presidential historian says.

When, not if, Trump’s mugshot is public — it will be emblazoned on pro Trump and anti-Trump merchandise. If by some miniscule fluke it is not released, people will mock one up for such purposes.

More to the point, his All Capine-ness or Poncho Villa or Bonnie and Clyde -ity is there regardless. Probably worse so, frankly — Yes, it is fine movie, Bonnie and Clyde, but on some level I knew the fictional representation masked the real ugliness and was fiction. Trump? His supporters don’t land there.

This is the weirdest take on things.

And it could be just the jolt his so-far-lackluster 2024 presidential campaign needs.

By any metric, Trump was the Republican front-runner, pacing ahead of DeSantis with anyone else being someone you have to squint to figure out how they might win. This lands on a concern trolling.

That is Reason. National Review gives its readers, more Trump favorable than they, something of a concern troll. Sure, this indictment is bs, but it does not lend to any credence for Trump and at any rate will lose him support amongst swing voters. Though it does have a counter-veiling opinion in sheer political terms that hits at something.

In sheer political terms, Trump will benefit, at least in the short and medium term, from the attention and Republican sympathy that will come with the indictment. Any further indictments, whatever the merits, will inevitably be discredited to some extent or other by Bragg going first with these dubious charges. There will surely be other, unforeseen consequences, none of which are likely to be good.

The problem is someone will charge forth the same with the other more merit-ful and substantial cases pending against Trump.

The headline for the Nation does its best to de-personalize the crime — Manhattan Court Pursues Florida Man for White-Collar Crime, subline of Donald Trump’s indictment is less a matter of politics than of ruling-class impunity. But his worst crimes won’t be prosecuted in court. Better, and oddly you can couple it with National Review’s sentiment on relative meaning of this in itself.

So. New Republic, addressing the isdue. “Did Trump do worse things? Sure…”. I hasten to suggest this then fails a blind name test — insert other politician and discretion and we get the ” politicized” item. I think it is they, or maybe the Washington Monthly, who also posit the democracy element in this — the people voted for the prosecutor. At least I saw there somewhere in the political opining machinery. Interesting. Again –double blind that one and on that one even if it does pass I would ask what is wrong with you.

The creepy thing is I see conservative commentary to the effect that the Media is quasi-apologizing for the transgendered ex-student shooting up a Christian elementary school, and dumping on the Christian homophobes, and somewhere adjacent some commentary of the looming Hell to Pay with the Trump indictment.

Yeah. Well. They can tie one to one. For that is worth. Though we do get some commentary that is a tad out of whack in lumping every “left” or liberal thing into a stewey vortex — the riots that came in the High Covid Shutdown era after Floyd’s death — much transgender there? This guy seems to think so.

To be sure, there was one piece of graffiti in this city out of that that could be used if I wanted to force her point.

And look. Someone who wants to read a manifesto.

Memo was eventually received. Kullers kill to get this published. Publishing it tells future killers that this works. You can’t squelch it cimpletely, but I tend to be tone deaf on the topic anyway — no matter what your maladies — legitimate or not — someone is out there with the same ready and willing. Upon this falls A trap in making political commentary — hope that they are “on the other side” to make political profit out of.

There it is. Boomers and Zoomers unite. I never associated with Generation X — for most of its media spotlight heyday I was placed in a nebulous “Generation Y” until such time as they defined the parameters of the Millennials which left me out of it — but I guess such a thing does not matter any more now that The Nation magazine is leading the charge for a Boomer – Zoomer alliance. Whatever misgivings Generation X has with the Millennials and vice versa, since it is we that they are ganging up on, we need to put them aside to form a United front against the generational enemies who have declared war against us.

Much is made of where Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign — the site of an infamous lynching. There he talked the game of federalism, a thing everyone agrees with but then gets exposed as a as a tactic as that which is federated is pursued nationally, and which here gets smoked into historic ugliness of upholding segregation. Be that as it may, he aimed at symbolism or just danced with the devil.

It occurs to me that in the talk of where Donald Trump has blasted his latest frothed message — come the retribution! — No one is backing up on just where he is speaking it. Waco, Texas. Sometimes it must be painful to be a place-mat of history.