Two Face-Palm Stories From This Week
Photo by Alex E. Proimos, CC BY 2.0
The Tennessee Three became the Tennessee Two last week on April 7 when two of the three embattled Democratic lawmakers were expelled by the Tennessee House. The Two became Zero on Wednesday of this week when both of the expelled legislators were returned to the House by their county commissions.
So what the heck was the point?
First, here’s an explanation of how the Two were returned to office. When a seat is vacant in the Tennessee House, the state constitution stipulates that the local government can appoint a temporary successor if there is less than a year left on the term. If there is more than a year remaining, a special election is held, but the local government can still appoint a representative in the interim. The constitution also does not preclude reappointing an expelled member, requiring only that the replacement be a “qualified voter of the district.”
There was initially some talk that the Republican majority might defund projects in the Memphis and Nashville if the Tennessee Two were reappointed, but those voices have quieted in recent days. This may have something to do with a USA Today poll that found three-fourths of respondents and more than six in 10 Republicans opposed the expulsions.
So what was the point?
As it turns out, there wasn’t one. If the goal was to punish the Democrats for their bad behavior and flouting of House rules, the attempt backfired. Rather than shaming the Tennessee Three (or Two, but who’s counting?), Republicans turned them into rock stars. I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of the trio get speaking slots at the Democratic convention next year.
The Tennessee House Republicans made a big strategic error with the expulsions, but it won’t hurt them too badly. Tennessee is deep red and any Republicans upset over the incident will quickly forgive and forget as soon as their local Republican comes up against another “Soros-backed socialist” next year.
I’d say that the best thing about the disastrous outcome for the GOP is that it will discourage other states with effective one-party control from trying similar tactics. After all, it’s easier to do the right thing when doing the wrong thing blows up in your face.
And now for something completely different…
“Spy” may be giving him too much credit, but if you haven’t heard, the source of the leaked classified documents turned out to allegedly be a 21-year-old Air National Guard airman from Massachusetts. A more apt description seems to be Red Forman’s catchphrase from “That 70s Show.”
Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira allegedly posted leaked documents on video game servers such as Discord and Minecraft. Per the Washington Post, he comes from a patriotic military family and supposedly posted the documents to educate his friends about world affairs. Teixeira reportedly has libertarian leanings.
In one memorable anecdote, Teixeira allegedly posted “Here, have some leaked documents” as he gave them to friends on Discord.
The case was finally cracked by tracking down internet user names and matching items in the pictures of classified documents with items in pictures of the Teixeira home on social media. An example was posted on Twitter.
There are several disturbing aspects to the story. Aside from the heinous security breach, it seems that the military was unaware that the documents were circulating online for several weeks. That’s a pretty good indication that government surveillance of the internet is not nearly as complete as is commonly assumed. Further, the media seems to have beaten the federal investigators to the culprit.
The story did inspire a light moment for my family. As you may recall, my 19-year-old son is in the Air Force as well. What you may not know is that he has loved Minecraft for years and talks to his friends on Discord.
When the news broke, I texted him, “When I heard an airman was arrested for posting classified documents on Discord and Minecraft, I worried about you.”
It’s sometimes hard to get a laugh out of a teenager, but that got one.
We will soon see what happens to people who mishandle classified documents, intentionally in this case, when they are not politically connected.
So he was showing off. Really, really amazing.Report
He didn’t even try to hide his Discord server or credit card info. He is just an idiot and or at most a dumb tool of someone smarter.Report
I’m with the OP on Tiexiera: Red Forman said it best.Report
Tennessee and DeSantis signing the 6 week abortion ban into law, but doing it quietly in hopes no one will notice, both illustrate what I’m calling the “doom loop” that the GOP is in.
The term comes from a strategy used by revolutionaries where they stage attacks on things like utilities and public squares, causing the repressive government to install draconian restrictions in an effort to crush the insurgency, which then fuels anti-government sentiment and alienation among the population, recruiting more people into the insurgency, leading to more attacks, leading to more crackdowns in a loop until the government topples.
The government doesn’t necessarily want to react with draconian restrictions on freedom, but being repressive by nature and thinks only in terms of hierarchy dominance and control, believes it has no other options, and no experience with the long slow work of building trust and solidarity with the people. So even if sober voices in the government warn of slow walking into disaster, they aren’t able to imagine any other course.
The GOP is in a similar position. Voices in the party are warning that the abortion bans and trans hatred are politically unpopular and could cost them votes, and they knew that expelling the lawmakers wouldn’t result in a political victory, but their institutional makeup, the very fabric of the Republican ethos of hierarchy dominance and control leaves them unable to imagine any other course of action.Report
What’s popular with the activists who control the primaries is unpopular in the general election. The GOP needs to lose some elections to convince itself that it needs to put a leash on it’s anti-abortion wing.
RE: Expelling the lawmakers
I doubt a lot of political calculus went into it.Report
After five decades of mainlining moral absolutism it’s hard to see how the GOP could pump the brakes on abortion bans without an assist from either the Democrats or the courts or both.
Now, having done what was within their power during those five decades to pack the courts with intellectual clones bred using FedSoc(tm) Juice, the courts are not likely to provide that assist. (A few days ago I offered my poetic analysis of this facet of the situation).
Having applied their very clever but very contra-democracy Red States Initiative to gerrymander state legislatures so as to lock in minority government forever (best exemplified in Wisconsin) there may not be enough Democrats in many of these states to negotiate some kind of compromise.
Finally, term limits, where they apply, operate to make sure that not even the leadership of the GOP in these state houses have the experience and wisdom to be able to talk a good game to the anti-abortion crowd button actually do anything to actually move the ball (See: Reagan, Ronald W.).
Whatever chickens haven’t made it home to the roost yet are on their way.Report
I have so many questions about the Texiera story.
How does a a 21-year old in the Massachusetts Air National Guard have such access to sensitive communications? The fact that he is an “IT guy” doesn’t explain it, especially post-Snowden.
How sensitive were these documents really? Is this a case of the over classification of anything intelligence related?
I get the sense that this is an opportunity to make an example of some low-level schlub than anything else.Report
After the 20 year mis-adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan, having relatively low level Guard and Reserve with clearances to handle classified materials is way more the norm then not. Its what DoD has had to do for Ops Tempo.Report
Assuming that’s true, that sounds like a real problem, no?
We’re worried about former Presidents, VPs, etc keeping classified files after being in office, while just out of high school weekend warriors have access to critical intelligence anyway?
What a way to run a superpower.Report
Well we’ve chewed through the senior enlisted ranks and not really replaced them, and we don’t want to admit how many contractors we have doing this stuff . . . so I’m not what else anyone expected . . .Report
I heard this on a news broadcast tonight and couldn’t believe it. But apparently true:
“The total number of individuals with eligibility to access classified information in 2019 (the last year the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report) was 4.2 million. Within that figure are 1.3 million individuals with a Top Secret security clearance.”
1.3 million. What could possibly go wrong?
https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/08/16/how-many-people-have-a-top-secret-security-clearance/Report
In articles and conversations I’ve read a single theme recurs frequently: The 9/11 plotters were successful partially because the various US services information was siloed and unavailable to other US security services. I get the vibe that the correction to that may be what opened the window this idiot went through.Report
My experience is that the hardest vulnerability to control for and mitigate is the human one. Add to it that we now have technology with immense amounts of information at our fingertips and this is what happens.Report
From various twitter threads it doesn’t sound that far out. He had done some time at Fr Bragg so he was close to where info is kept. He saw more then just some Mass NG dope. Low ranking enlisted do all the grunt clerical work. E-3’s put together briefing books for officers. That kind of thing.Report
So, can we make the reasonable assumption that these leaks are probably happening across security silos?
And if so, knowing that they can’t possibly plug these leaks one-by-one, it’s a fair assumption that they will put this kid’s head on a pike as warning to others.Report
I think there’s a good policy argument to be made to make an example of him, yeah. That argument would be the same if he was a granola munching leftist as well.Report
Yeah, I don’t think his political leanings have anything to do with the motivation to go medieval on him.Report
“The Tennessee House Republicans made a big strategic error with the expulsions, but it won’t hurt them too badly. Tennessee is deep red and any Republicans upset over the incident will quickly forgive and forget as soon as their local Republican comes up against another “Soros-backed socialist” next year.”
What was the point? Well, this is more or less it.
The point was to punish Democrats. But… it backfired. And the GOP was woefully unprepared for that because (give credit where credit is due) the GOP has made very few strategic errors lately (at least when evaluating short term effectiveness). And because of that second sentence there, how much of an error it really was is in question. They didn’t achieve what they wanted so, technically, they failed but they’ll suffer little to no consequence. So… no risk but potential reward. Fail to realize the reward? Oh well.
It’s a free lottery ticket. No harm in scratching!Report
If they’re only engaged in short-term thinking and can win re-election with performative but meaningless maneuvers, I say they succeeded. This probably plays well to deep-Red crowds. We can’t see it here because most of the conservative types who hang out with us on these pages are the increasingly-rare “Reasonable Republican” breed. We can agree or disagree with them, have conversations on the meritsof an issue, and back off the heat of disagreements when the conversation is done.
That’s not how you win election in a deep red district. It seems you win election in those places by grandstanding on social issues, cutting spending on things like libraries and schools, distributing pictures of your grinning children in their pajamas holding AR-15’s on Christmas morning, making public displays of your shallow patriotism and even shallower piety, and throwing darkly-worded, reality-deficient, and (((barely-coded))) intimations about your “Democrat” opponent. The sort of stuff that I for one would love to dismiss as fringe stuff that gets highlighted on social media by the lefty types who try to outrage us not-so-far left Democrats with outrageous things but doesn’t really exemplify what Republicans are actually all about.
I’d love to think that’s fringe stuff. But there’s a lot of it. And the brakes on it have become disabled over time. I fear there aren’t enough David Thorntons in the GOP anymore to constitute effective adult oversight.Report
It’s like DeSantis’ war against Disney.
There isn’t any big idea other than “Respect Mah Authoriteh!!” but they don’t have the institutional ability to approach outside entities as equals so they can only resort to all-or-nothing displays of dominance.Report
What would approaching the pro-choice movement “as equals” look like?Report
Offering policy concessions from the Pro-life side in exchange for policy concessions from the Pro-choice side. In contrast to the current Pro-life (and, really, the right at large) policy of demanding policy concessions in exchange for nothing.Report
And what policy concessions from the pro-choice side do you think they’d be willing to make?
And for that matter, the pro-life side is trying to establish a moral equiv to murder. What “concessions” should/would they make?
There probably is a golden middle here somewhere, but the two sides aren’t even slightly close to agreeing where it should be.Report
For starters how about no state gets to regulate access in another state? Or use the federal courts to impose its will on others? Or prevent its citizens freedom of movement to seek abortions? And maybe make contraception low cost/free across the board? With useful sex education so that unwanted pregnancy rates go down? Like Colorado pre-Dobbs?Report
For starters how about no state gets to regulate access in another state?
The gun nuts are already all over this. They want this law passed and passed yesterday.Report
And what is the pro-choice movement going to give up in exchange for this? Will you not oppose state laws in those states? BTW that would probably include outlawing the shipping of home abortion drugs to those states.Report
So much for the Commerce Clause then.
What I proposed is simply a return to status quo ante regarding general regulations. You know, all that Federalism you were on about a day or two ago. None of that is about actually regulating abortion access, or how many weeks etc. And the contraception stuff has always been a pro-choice position, because it tends to significantly blunt the need for abortions.
So if lowering the rate of abortion were the goal, that proposal gets there. Demonstrably so. If that’s not the goal – and all the 6 week bans being passed and signed into law seem to indicate its not – then for negotiations to happen the anti-choice side needs to start being clear about what they want and why.Report
Compromise:
Abortion on demand in the first trimester; Some regulations in the second, and only by medical necessity in the third;
All insurance plans must cover all forms of reproductive services;
All hospitals must offer all forms of reproductive care
Also, free contraception for anyone of any age;
Mandatory sex education in all schools.
In exchange, we will allow them to keep the Hyde amendment and not have government funded abortions.Report
The pro-life movement viewed the status quo so unacceptable that they got 6 Supremes elected.
“Lowering the rate” of school shootings doesn’t lower the distress on the ones that exist.
Abortion is murder. A fetus is human. No abortions except for rape, and when the mother’s life is in danger.
The problem isn’t that they’re not clear about what they want. The problem is in order to do this women have to massively lose rights.Report
Which means the pro-choice side can’t really offer them anything can we?Report
That’s my point. The two sides are further apart than the pro/anti gun groups. They correctly view themselves in a zero sum game. One is trying to keep women pregnant and the other is trying to let them choose not to be.
The gun debate has common ground because the pro-gun groups don’t want murder or mass shootings. So after the Virginia Tech shooting they passed laws to prevent the mentally ill from getting guns.Report
I mean, the obvious compromise was on the so called “Partial birth abortion” issue wherein pro-choicers generally said “Fine, you agree to stop going after abortion in the first trimester and we’ll compromise with pro-lifers on later term abortions” and the pro-lifers counter was “outlaw late term abortions and we’ll pocket that and go after the rest.”Report
The problem with outlawing late term abortions is we’re getting to medical horror cases here. By the third trimester the woman clearly knows she’s pregnant and has decided to have a baby.
Something has to be really wrong to have an abortion at this point, and by definition it’s going to be an extreme corner case. A law that pretends everything will work out fine because there can’t be medical problems at this point isn’t going to intersect well with reality.Report
Hey, sure, you know and I know that it would be a dumpster fire but we’re both pro-choice. In the aughts that deal was there for the pro-lifers taking and they wanted it- but didn’t want to “pay” for it by conceding early term abortions. Pro-choicers have never been about forcing peeps to have abortions and pro-lifers have never made many bones about the fact that any concession they got they’d simply use to try and go after the whole banana.Report
I remember the stuff you guys used to fight us on. Suspension of free speech rights in front of a clinic. Born-alive protection. RU-486 before it was tested. Parental notification. The Mexico City policy. You guys were fighting for every inch of ground in support of your cause and your voters, the same as us.Report
Well of course. Why would the pro-choicers give ground on any of that when nothing was being offered in exchange? As your boy W would say “better ta fight em over there than over here.”Report
That’s one possible analysis, but it’s the exact opposite of the position you took at the beginning of this subthread.Report
ETA: OK, you didn’t actually take the position that pro-choicers offered compromises, I’ll give you that much.Report
Glad you noticed before I had to point it out.Report
I looked up “The Mexico city policy” because I didn’t recognize it. It’s the gag rule. Since it became policy when Team Red has been running the show and not when Blue was we can figure out it’s effects.
It increases the number of abortions. Not by a small amount either. Basically with less information there are more unintended pregnancies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy#Impact
It might be a place for “common ground”.Report
From a purely practical perspective the most pro life policy possible is and always has been to have contraception easily available everywhere and people educated on how to use it.Report
The Venn Diagram of anti-abortionists and pro-contraception advocates doesn’t overlap all that much.Report
But the Venn Diagram of anti-abortionists and anti-contraception advocates suffers from having an absolutely dinky circle as one of the two.
Like, there are pictures of Venus in transit that have more overlap.Report
And yet we still have “The Mexico City Policy” enacted whenever there’s a Team Red President. Even though this actually increases the number of abortions and the issue has been well studied.
The Virtue Signaling for this issue is way more important than the outcomes or the reality of this issue.Report
I think there’s a very small number of true believers for anti-contraception as public policy taped to a much more significant number of people opposed to paying for the larger public health initiatives that would make it available where it needs to be for maximum effect.Report
I think you vote to throw someone out if it’s the right thing to do, whether or not it sticks. As I’ve said, I never deep-dove into the original protest, but I have no problem with the Republicans making a statement if it was justified.Report
The thing that stands out of what they did is I would be instantly fired if I did it… but it’s represented in the media as “protesting outside” which I wouldn’t be.Report
If the CEO of your company was giving a speech and you shouted “You Lie!” you would also get fired.
But see, this is why I say Republicans don’t have the institutional ability to see governance as equal citizens interacting, but see everything in terms of dominance and submission, hierarchy and obedience.
The President is not the CEO of America and the Congressmen aren’t his employees. The Tennessee legislators are not hirelings to be dismissed when they displease El Jefe.Report
Expanding “Tennessee legislators” dealing with an in House protest to “all of the GOP, all of the time” seems excessive.
My strong expectation is the people who run the state pretty much always feel (with some justification) that they’re more important and more powerful than others.Report
Funny how when you want to run for national office, you have to play on a national stage, where enacting draconian abortion restrictions back home might not go so well:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/politics/ron-desantis-abortion-florida-ban/index.htmlReport
I have… very conflicted feelings about Richard Hanania, and find some of his positions and analysis to be racist so be forewarned (nothing like that in the post linked to below but ymmv on other posts of his you may find at his substack). Anyway Andrew Sullivan linked to his post making a pretty convincing case from the right that this will be a serious albatross for the GOP that may be if interest.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-women-rebel-against-pro-lifeReport
HIs is a very interesting take, but it continues down the path of the GOP is filled with currently silent moderates who can get the horse back into the barn. Day after day we find this not to be the case.Report
Hanania’s pretty damn racist, but he’s not a total idiot, which makes it funny whenever he writes something reasonable (like the media is largely trustworthy, abortion bans are a bad idea, or vaccines work), the people who bought his Substack for the scientific racism go a bit nuts in the comments.
Kind of the same thing w/ ole’ Freddie – people pay for his Substack for him to rant about the woke elite, then get upset when he doesn’t get fully on the anti-trans or continues to be left-wing on other issues unlike other “anti-woke” crusaders supposedly on the Left.Report
Yep. That.
And they may not even play well back home.Report
In my news feed, three cops screw up and kill someone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkCAj_pKtXY
It won’t go viral because the racial line up isn’t correct.Report
I saw that. “Whoopsie”, says the police chief. “Help yourself to some taxpayer money for our mistake.”Report