OCTOBER 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Sen. Tommy Tuberville. The Tub strikes again. He’s now accusing Air Force general and former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden of “calling for a politically motivated assassination.” Tuberville seemed to insinuate that certain GOP senators would be targeted. While the CIA has a rich history of assassinations as well as some laughable attempts against foreign leaders out of American favor (see Church Committee report), senators have not been in the cross hairs--- at least not until now according to Tommy T.

As Tuberville continues his blockade on military promotions, Hayden responded to a tweet asking if Tuberville should be removed from his committee assignments with a suggestion of his own: “How about the human race?”

Tuberville did not take this as the glib statement about his own worthiness to be considered human as Hayden obviously intended. No, the Alabama Republican decided to read it as an assassination threat and reported it to the Capitol Police, saying, in a statement, “If we still have a nonpolitical justice system in this country, then General Hayden will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Gosh, what a sneaky setup for insisting it was politically motivated when Hayden does not get prosecuted.

"This morning, my office was made aware of a statement made by General Michael Hayden calling for a politically motivated assassination. This statement is disgusting, and it is repugnant to everything we believe in as Americans," Tuberville said in the statement. "Given General Hayden’s long career in Washington, he must have known that, by making such a statement, he was committing a serious crime. His own efforts today to reinterpret what he said are only a tacit admission of guilt.”

Here’s Hayden’s alleged effort to “reinterpret” what he said:

Hayden spent four years as a vocal critic of Donald Trump, with Trump threatening to revoke his security clearance. Tuberville and his followers are extremely small potatoes by contrast, and Hayden is doubtless fully aware of what actual death threats look like and what constitutes protected speech.

This isn’t the first time Hayden has publicly criticized Tuberville for his military promotion blockade, which Tuberville is waging in a temper tantrum over Defense Department policy covering travel for service members or their families to obtain reproductive health care, including abortion. And the previous time, he did have to explain his meaning: Hayden initially answered “Absolutely” to the question “Is it wrong to call Sen. Tommy Tuberville a racist?” He then clarified: “I have aphasia. Sometimes my meaning isn’t clear. What I meant to say is Tuberville absolutely is a racist. Or, in other words, it is not wrong to say he is a racist.” By contrast, saying “I stand by” the “suggestion that ‘Coach’ Tuberville not be considered a member of the human race” is repeating the insult, which was never a threat.

The humorless Tuberville sure is working hard to make himself a victim in a week when he’s under increased pressure to allow military promotions to pass amid the war in Israel.

2. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley). This month Hawley tweeted a truly useless idea: “Israel is facing existential threat. Any funding for Ukraine should be redirected to Israel immediately.” Hawley’s penchant for ignorantly spewing nonsense was quickly undercut by his own leadership. Not long after his tweet, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal pushing for tying together Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan emergency foreign aid spending.

Hawley’s tweet received a fierce backlash. But it wasn’t all reminders of the kind of bluster and cowardice Hawley has come to represent. Maybe I misled you a touch.

Here’s something a little more lighthearted.

It looks like Hawley’s foreign policy idea has found some purchase in … Russia!

Former Marine Lucas Kunce is challenging Hawley for his Missouri Senate seat in 2024. Nothing against Kunce, who seems like an excellent alternative to Hawley, but a sack of old cracked and molded bricks would be an upgrade for Missourians.

3. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Hours before Rep. Mike Johnson was announced as the next Speaker of the House, Greene had some revealing words for where the MAGA-wing ring leaders stand. Referring to the previous candidate, Rep. Tom Emmer, who unceremoniously dropped out of the running, Greene expressed their consensus position as to why Emmer was unworthy.

In an interview on Fox Business with host Larry Kudlow, Greene broke the news to the Fox audience by saying so many of the quiet things out loud that it is hard to imagine a clearer presentation of the Republican Party’s embrace of authoritarian politics. Calling Emmer’s decision to drop out “good news,” Greene explained that while she thought Emmer “was a nice guy. I like him as a person,” she also thought his shows of support for human rights, civil rights, and voting rights disqualified him from leading the Republican Party:

“His voting record, he voted against President Trump's transgender ban in the military. He voted for the Democrats’ gay marriage bill that allows churches to be sued if they don't support gay marriages. He also, you know, once had supported the voting rights, the national voting movement that was completely against what we stand for [sic] so that we can't have that for a Speaker of the House.

So, although Emmer had some notable far right accomplishments, supporting Trump’s inhumane “family separation” immigration policy, voting against the American Rescue Plan in 2021, and signing on for trying to overturn the election in 2020, this wasn’t enough. His support for protecting children and voting rights was too much for Greene, Gaetz, and other congressional pillars of fascistic virtue. Need more to understand how beholden to Trump and the MAGA wing the GOP has become?

4. New Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. With his recent election as Speaker, it’s appropriate to note some of the terrifying things Johnson believes in.

Johnson has packaged himself as a seemingly thoughtful person. However, Johnson’s thoughts concern the same failed small-government policy ideas that have harmed Americans since Ronald Reagan was president. When Johnson and fellow Republicans held a theatrical production of a press conference after his election, they made it clear they had no time to answer questions about policies or what actual work they, as the House majority, might be interested in.

But what exactly does Johnson stand for? Well, he’s been pretty open about his beliefs, and there’s a lot of video and audio tape of him telling us exactly what he thinks and feels.

First up: Cuts! Cuts to “entitlements.” Sadly, conservatives have been relatively successful in getting people across the media to discuss social safety net programs, which are paid for by American citizens in order to serve American citizens, as “entitlements.” Here’s Johnson on this topic:

“We have to get back to [entitlement reform] as a No. 1 priority. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] says that entitlement spending, which they define as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt—those four obligations, we’ve eclipsed GDP in, what, a dozen years or something? I mean, this is not— this can no longer be kicked down the road. You can't wait eight years to address this. It has to happen yesterday. So, we have to have our hand at the wheel and do this. We are completely derelict in our duty. We're rearranging furniture on the Titanic if we don't get this problem under control.”

Here’s some more concrete information about Johnson’s “entitlements” policies.

As chair of the RSC, Johnson spearheaded budget resolutions that called for $2 trillion cuts in Medicare, $3 trillion cuts to Medicaid+ACA, and $750 billion cuts to Social Security.

About a week after the 2020 election, we have Johnson saying the “election fraud” allegations have “a lot of merit,” and that he could give “example after example” of proof that the election was “rigged.” “You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that. They know that in Georgia it really was rigged.”

As for reproductive rights, Johnson is against a person’s right to choose what to do with their body. He spoke about it during a committee hearing, lamenting the loss of “able-bodied workers” … to abortion, it seems.

If you believed Johnson’s well-parted, howdy-doody haircut and glasses and smug demeanor means he is above the petty squabbling seen by the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, you would be wrong. Showcasing his pettiness, he told Tucker Carlson he thinks then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke the law by ripping up a copy of Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Lock her up!

And with all of that said, if there were any questions about how House Republicans feel about the attempted Jan. 6 coup d'etat by Trump et al., this moment during Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar’s speech on the House floor before the speaker vote should put any questions to rest.

When Aguilar nominated Rep. Jeffries, he got jeered when he said that Republicans had been looking for a candidate who supports “overturning a free and fair election. “This has been about one thing—who can appease Donald Trump.” A Republican yelled “damn right” when Aguilar noted that Johnson was an architect of the effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss.

Rep. Elise Stefanik nominated Johnson on the House floor, saying that fellow Republicans would “humbly look in our hearts.” It seems they did and decided that an anti-abortion, pro-insurgency, anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare, and anti-Medicaid extremist was the perfect fit to lead them into the future.

_______________________

And the October IGGY winner is:

It may be a bit early to conclude that Mike Johnson is evil enough to merit the ignominious title, but all signs are pointing in that direction. He clearly has the requisite cold enough heart. With Tuberville and Greene previously having been feted, and Hawley destined to join the IGGY club, I’m therefore giving the October IGGY to Mike Johnson.