Agreed, and thanks. It’s nice to be backed up in my defense of Slotkin’s Dem response.
And RE: this:
@Rebo posted this in the other ‘Address to Congress’ thread (full post contains a link to a Rolling Stone article):
We are truly living in bizarro-world right now.
So true. My cousin and I used to have discussions about how bad DJT is. Long talks. But now, there is just no where to even start.
How do you even discuss or approach such absolute stupidity?
“Dipshittery paralysis.”
I know. Experiencing this second term, like watching the Zelenskyy ambush, or listening to the absolute batshit-crazy or just plain stupid shit trump said in his address to Congress and seeing Repubs clap, cheer and chant “USA! USA!” in response, leaves me dumbfounded.
The old things we used to say in his first term to express the dichotomy between the adulation of trump vs. the venality and absolute ignorance he displays, like “the Emperor has no clothes” seem too mild and inaccurate to convey the absolute bugfuckery of it all this time around.
If video captures Republicans not appearing sufficiently enthusiastic and adoring during a Trump speech, it can be used by primary opponents in the next election as evidence that they don’t sufficiently worship the Dear Leader.
That short-term effect is all that GOPers think about. Plenty of time to make feeble attempts at restoring their reputations later on.
Fuck me! Nearly half of Congress stays sitting, doesn’t clap, and holds up signs calling the president* a liar and his remarks false during a presidential* address. There’s no precedent for that. I’ve seen SOTU and other Presidential addresses over the years, and everybody stood and clapped, though one side often clapped a lot less enthusiastically than the other for certain things. One person yelling “you lie!” got major attention one year.
But every Dem sitting in unison and waving heckling signs is milquetoast worthy by itself of being primaried!? Fuck that noise!
First, the “should’ve stayed home” critique. It’s Congress, a joint session of Congress! It’s their floor, their chamber, their fucking workplace! Not showing up is like the parties who sit out elections they claim are irregular or improper, which ends up with the party they’re opposing getting even more seats. 
They feel pure, but the outcome is at best no better.
How do you know Trump wouldn’t have taken advantage of a joint session of Congress with network television cameras running (not just the usual CSPAN) to put forward shitty Project 2025 legislation that, with every GOPer present and no Dem present, a bare quorum would have passed unanimously? I wouldn’t put it past him and his sycophants in Congress, who’ve played similar stunts (no vote tonight, you can go home/snap vote tonight) in this session.
Also, if the Dems simply didn’t show up, the GOP would’ve just spread its members across the chamber and it would look full enough for the television cameras. Would Fox have told its viewers that no Dems were present and all the people clapping and cheering for Trump were GOPers, or would they have omitted that tidbit?
Everybody leaves? First, even leaving’s not enough for Smapti, because he wants us to primary everyone but Al Green. Second, does anyone really think Trump would stop if Dems had walked out in larger numbers? He would have rolled with it, ad-libbing that they were afraid of the truths he was telling. He’s not the smartest tool in the shed, but “what to do if all the Dems walk out” is right up his rhetorical alley.
Never mind, I must’ve gotten it wrong. The problem in that chamber that night wasn’t the sycophantic party standing to give frequent ovations for idiotic and lying remarks, it was the party that protested that idiocy in unison but simply not hard enough. 
It would have been funny if, after trump told an especially big lie, one of the Dems laughed, then another, until the whole side is laughing at him, and MAGA Mike furiously pounding his gavel. I can dream.
They acted like this pep rally was some sort of solemn occasion. Catcalls should have been the order of the day.
And the throwing of things. Rolls of paper towels. Shoes, perhaps.
I would have preferred everyone muttering “bullshit”, gradually getting louder and more in unison with each repetition.
We need to do it Parliament/Knesset-style. Let the benches heckle and ask mocking questions.
I remember someone saying that the cane guy’s outburst was unprecedented in the history of democracy. They obviously never watched Prime Minister’s Questions on CSPAN.
I don’t know if UK Parliament has any event where the opposition parties have two choices: sit and listen quietly to a two hour speech by the PM (I know there are some rare occasions the King might show up) or get up and leave.
If Keir Starmer called Nigel Farage and all 5MPs of the Reform UK party “lunatics” they could and would certainly get up and leave. It probably would be way outside of decorum and Starmer would likely be admonished by the Speaker, yet let’s say it happens since he’d be correct in this case. If he then went on to call all 200 Tories “Idiotic morons” you can be sure - again outside of any speaker intervention and if their only other choice is to leave, they are out the door. And the Lib Dems and the rest of Labour would ask Keir, “Would the gentleman Prime Minister please tell the remainder of this house if he has lost his mind” and so would the next, and the next person. The papers would have the field-iest field day ever and the King might actually dissolve Parliament.
My point is, the dems massing on the Capitol steps - 259 congressman and senators give or take 2 independents, the story would be more about them than how they were cowed and berated in their Congress by a lunatic.
Great headline from Wonkette:
Democrats Don Hairshirts To Punish Themselves For Lack Of Civility As Trump…
A plea to stop being polite and start getting ANGRY.
Whole headline:
Democrats Don Hairshirts To Punish Themselves For Lack Of Civility As Trump Tears Down Entire Government
A lot late for that.
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
And now we have a troll here very concerned about it.
“There’s no precedent for that. I’ve seen SOTU and other Presidential addresses over the years, and everybody stood and clapped”–where were you, John, when Boebert and Greene shouted “liar” during Biden’s speech without censure? Shows what sanctimonious hypocrites the GOPers are
That would be 4 MPs. They had a spat yesterday and removed the whip from Rupert Lowe.
And that other guy who shouted “you lie!” at Obama during the SOTU.
What does it matter if there’s a quorum? It just means more than half so if Trump chose so, he could have all kinds of crazy laws (not that that would be unusual) passed - even if every Democrat was there.
It would be highly unusual, esp. with SCOTUS present, yet merely a historical footnote in Trump’s first and to-be-extended second indefinite term.
The TV press would likely have a split-screen view of the nearly half of congress outside on the Capitol steps. What does a good “pimp cane” go for. Let’s buy one for all the Dems. Rep. Brooks caned Senator Sumner nearly to death in the Senate chamber in 1868 and was not arrested or jailed.
It is near time - certainly when Trump doesn’t relinquish the White House in 2029 - for secession and Civil War. There, I said it.
You can get a decent looking one for about $50 on-line.