My Week Was Better Than Jim Jordan's
Also: Open the Strategic Lawyer Reserve!
A friendly reminder that Rant! is a reader-supported publication. Help me keep doing what I do by subscribing and sharing. Thank you!
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Folks, I had more tortellini this week than Jim Jordan had votes for Speaker of the House. While Jordan and his Republican frenemies were hashing it out behind closed doors, I was in Bologna, Italy, City of Lunch Meats, eating my weight in mortadella, pasta, and parmesan cheese.
Twice (maybe more by the time you read this), Jordan failed to garner enough votes for the coveted Speaker position. This, despite his supporters issuing threats and trying to blackmail representatives who refused to back Jordan’s bid. According to Axios, one representative said his local sheriff has had to post security at his daughter’s school and at his house because of death threats coming from far-right supporters (that is, supporters of his own party!). The wife of another representative said she had received threatening texts blackmailing her husband in an effort to force him to support Jordan. Using threats of violence to win support demonstrates just how much you are loved. Also, it’s always a sign of a healthy democracy (and a healthy mind!).
The only threats I heard this week were when my husband tried to order risotto and the waiter threatened to throw him out for ordering a dish from Treviso when we were in Emilia Romagna (So embarrassing! To be fair: risotto was on the menu! But the waiter refused to let him order it).
Soon enough, a number of Republicans were floating a deal to make acting speaker Patrick McHenry interim speaker until the party could get its shit together, which they think they can do by January because that is when Hell will freeze over apparently. That deal was dead in the water, though. Even Representative Lauren Boebert took a breather from giving public handjobs to tweet her discontent with the idea.
Let’s pause a moment to think about how McHenry must feel. Everyone around him is screaming about needing a new speaker, but no one is considering him for the post, even though he currently occupies it! I imagine him standing in the middle of a Republican scrum, raising his hand and quietly saying, “Um, I could do it,” while everyone shouts over him and trades insults (including, probably, about him). It’s a very funny image, until you realize it’s killing democracy, at which point it becomes an image evoking just nervous laughter, like, please make it all stop.
Open the Strategic Lawyer Reserve
Donald Trump’s lawyers are faring just as well as his buddies in Congress. I think he has single-handedly assured every lawyer in America is employed, since every lawyer he hires soon needs his or her own team of lawyers, who then also need lawyers, and so on and so on. Trump’s lawyers have pleaded guilty to felonies, gone to prison, are on the brink of bankruptcy, have been disbarred, or some combination of these.
Sidney Powell is the latest Trump lawyer to find herself on the edge of being totally fucked and making a deal to avoid prison. (It’s possible another lawyer struck a plea deal as I was publishing this). Powell pushed the lie the 2020 election was stolen. She concocted an elaborate conspiracy that included Italian satellites changing votes in American voting machines in Barcelona. Or something like that. I can’t imagine the Italians taking time away from their tortellini to redirect their satellites for an American election, but then again, I’ve been drinking Italian wine all week and maybe that’s exactly what they want me to think.
Anyway, Powell pleaded guilty in the Georgia racketeering case (no plea—yet!—in her federal insurrection case). For her cooperation, she faces six years of probation, has to pay a tiny fine, and has to write a letter of apology to the people of Georgia.
I personally don’t think this is punishment enough for trying really hard to overturn an entire state’s electoral votes and disenfranchise that state’s voters. At a minimum, she should have to write a personalized letter to every individual Georgian. At least make her put in as much effort as a bride does after receiving wedding gifts.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of stories you should be reading
UNITED STATES
Trump Lawyer Acknowledged Political Agenda in Election Suit, Emails Show (NY Times)
RUSSIA
Russia Detains a U.S. Journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva (NY Times)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
