• Nancy LeTourneau takes “A Walk Down Memory Lane on Republican Obstruction.” Gobsmacked by the sheer chutzpah of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s sudden pleas for compromise and collegiality in Washington, LeTourneau looks back at the GOP’s strategy of sabotage and stonewalling over the past two decades. Starting in 1993, with Bill Kristol’s — omigod how do you call a pass play there? Second and goal with under a minute left, what the heck was Pete Carroll thinking?
• Republican senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul all spoke last week at a big-donor event hosted by the Koch brothers. All three men warned about the danger of Iranian nuclear weapons striking New York City, which is a bit odd, given that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons. You would think that three U.S. senators with presidential ambitions would — seriously just give the damn ball to Marshawn Lynch and let him run it in. Maybe they stop him once, but nobody’s going to stop him three times in a row, and nobody’s going to intercept a handoff. What in the name of Joe Pisarcik were Carroll and Wilson thinking?
• Virginia delegates from both parties introduced several bills in their state legislature aimed at protecting consumers from some of the most predatory, exploitative practices of payday lenders and auto title lenders. But not enough of their colleagues agreed that protecting consumers from exploitation was a proper function of the state government, so the bills were killed in committee — andforgoodnesssake, even the shark on the left knew enough to just run the damn ball.
• Article VI, paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution reads as follows:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Tea partiers and other members of the religious right seem either not to know the Constitution says that, or else not to like that the Constitution says that. In the case of South Carolina state Rep. Jonathon Hill, it seems to be a little bit of both. For Hill and his ilk, Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution is as useless as a frickin’ slant pattern on second-and-goal at the 1.
• “Bill Would Allow Texas Teachers to Kill Students Threatening School Property.” That’s not a joke and it’s not an exaggeration. It’s just Texas bein’ Texas, where the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of schoolchildren.
But, to be fair, not everyone from Texas is a gun-addled maniac. Consider Emmitt Smith, for example, who correctly said “That was the worst play call I’ve seen in the history of football.”
• In retrospect, I probably should’ve waited a little longer after that disappointing end of the Super Bowl before trying to write this post.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In