I’m glad Michael and Jamie wrote about Dipshit Insurrection related stuff this morning so I don’t have to. Besides, I’ve written a lot over the last year about that dark day.
Jamie worked the morning shift because I had to straighten out a dispute with the utility company and pay a visit to the King Cake Hub, which is owned by some dear friends. It *is* Twelfth Night, after all. It is now “legal” to eat King Cake.
Mitch McConnell is nervous about changes to the filibuster. He only wants them to happen when he proposes them and they’re in the best interests of the GOP. So what if there are many exceptions to the rule of 60? If it’s not his idea, he wants nothing to do with it.
The Turtle’s new proposal is a trap:
The Electoral Count Act, a 19th century law that governs the counting of Electoral College votes, has been the topic of discussion — at least among scholars and elected Democrats — for much of the past year, after Donald Trump tried to game its vague language by pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject certain states’ Electoral College votes for Joe Biden.
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The Senate’s first- and second-ranking Republicans, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Thune (R-SD) broached the topic for the first time this week.
“It obviously has some flaws. And it is worth, I think, discussing,” McConnell told Politico of the 1887 law. Thune told Axios that, in contrast with Democrats’ other bills to reform election laws and add voting rights protections, “with the Electoral Count Act, as we saw last time around, there are some things there that, I think, could be corrected.”
The change *should* be made but only in conjunction with broader voting rights measures. The only reason for setting this Turtle Trap is that McConnell thinks there *could* be the votes for a voting rights exception to the filibuster rule.
Democrats should only agree to this if Republican senators agree to let pending voting legislation come to a substantive floor vote. Otherwise, it’s another diversionary tactic from the wily Kentuckian known as Old Crow to the Impeached Insult Comedian. He should demand to be called Maker’s Mark instead. Teetotalers know nothing about Bourbon.
The good news is that Chuck Schumer refuses to fall into the Turtle Trap:
Schumer just took aim at recent chatter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans hinting that they may be open to reforming the Electoral Count Act, the 19th-century law that governs the counting of Electoral College votes — without supporting Democrats’ more expansive voting rights and election reform packages. (We wrote about this dynamic yesterday.)
“What good is it to accurately count a result that’s compromised from the start?” Schumer said. McConnell’s focus only on the ECA, Schumer said, is “cynical.”
“I call on all Americans — Democrats, Republicans, independents — to rise to the occasion and assure that the mob, the violence, the lies do not win the day,” he said near the end of his remarks.
Pass the Turtle Soup, avoid the Turtle Trap.
The last word goes to the Turtles with a song that predates the Dipshit Insurrection but feels ripped from the headlines: