Robyn E

Native Texan. Retired college professor. Democrat. BBQ is always beef.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) faked a phone call for roughly 90 seconds after being asked about Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments regarding potential Social Security cuts.

The phone's screen remained visible, with his cheek inadvertently tapping different parts of the display.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Robert Mueller died last night.

He was 81 years old. He had a wife who loved him for sixty years. He had two daughters, one of whom he met for the first time in Hawaii, in 1969, on a few hours of military leave, before he got back on the plane and returned to Vietnam. He had grandchildren. He had a faith he practiced quietly, without performance. He had, in the way of men who have seen real things and survived them, a quality that is increasingly rare and increasingly mocked in the country he spent his life serving.

He had integrity.

And tonight the President of the United States said good!

I have been sitting with that word for hours now. Good. One syllable. The thing you say when the coffee is hot or the traffic is moving. The thing a man who has never had to bury anyone, never had to sit in the specific silence of a room where someone is newly absent, reaches for when he wants the world to know he is satisfied. Good. The daughters are crying and the wife is alone in the house and good.

I want to speak directly to the Americans reading this. Not the political Americans. Just the human ones. The ones who have lost a father. The ones who know what it is to be in that first hour, when you keep forgetting and then remembering again, when ordinary objects become unbearable, when the world outside the window seems obscene in its indifference. I want to ask you, simply, to hold that feeling for a moment, and then to understand that the man you elected looked at it and typed a single word.

Good.

This is not a country having a bad day. I need you to understand that. Countries have bad days. Elections go wrong. Leaders disappoint. Institutions bend. But there is a different thing, a rarer and more terrible thing, that happens when the moral center of a place simply gives way. Not dramatically. Not with a single catastrophic event. But quietly, in increments, until one evening a president celebrates the death of an old man whose family is still warm with grief, and enough people find it acceptable that it becomes the weather. Just the weather.

That is what is happening. That is what has happened.

The world knows. From Tokyo to Oslo, from London to Buenos Aires, people are not angry at America tonight. Anger would mean there was still something to fight for, some remaining faith to be betrayed. What I see, in the reactions from everywhere that is not here, is something older and sadder than anger. It is the look people get when they have waited a long time for someone they love to find their way back, and have finally understood that they are not coming.

America is being grieved. Past tense, almost. The idea of it. The thing it represented to people who had nothing else to believe in, who came here with everything they owned in a single bag because they had heard, somehow, across an ocean, that this was the place where decency was written into the walls. That idea is not resting. It is not suspended. It is being buried, in real time, with 7,450 likes before dinner.

And the church said nothing.

Seventy million people have decided that this man, this specific man who has cheated everyone he has ever made a promise to, who has mocked the disabled and the dead and the grieving, who celebrated tonight while a family wept, is an instrument of God. The pastors who made that bargain did not just trade away their credibility. They traded away the thing that made them worth listening to in the first place. The cross they carry now is a costume. The faith they preach is a loyalty oath with scripture attached. When the history of American Christianity is written, this will be the chapter they skip at seminary.

Now I want to talk about the men who stand next to him.

Because this is the part that actually breaks my heart.

JD Vance is not a bad man. I have to say that, because it is true, and because the truth matters even now, especially now. Marco Rubio is not a bad man. Lindsey Graham is not a bad man. They are idiots, but not bad, as in BAD! These are men with mothers who raised them and children who love them and friends who remember who they were before all of this. They are not monsters. Monsters are simple. Monsters do not cost you anything emotionally because there is nothing in them to mourn.

These men are something more painful than monsters.

They are men who knew better, and know better still, and will get up tomorrow and do it again.

Every small compromise they made had a reason. Every moment they looked the other way had a justification that sounded, at the time, almost reasonable. And now they have arrived here, at a place where a president celebrates the death of an old man and they will find a way, on television, to say nothing that means anything, and they will go home to houses where children who carry their name are waiting, and they will say goodnight, and they will say nothing.

Their oldest friends are watching. The ones who knew Rubio when he still believed in something. Who knew Graham when he said, out loud, on the record, that this exact man would destroy the Republican Party and deserve it. Who sat next to Vance and thought here is someone worth knowing. Those friends are not angry tonight. They moved through anger a long time ago. What they feel now is the quiet, irrecoverable sadness of watching someone disappear while still being present. Of watching a person they loved choose, again and again, to become less.

That is what cowardice costs. Not the coward. The people who loved him.

And in the comments tonight, the followers celebrate. People who ten years ago brought casseroles to grieving neighbours. Who stood in the rain at gravesides and meant the words they said. Who told their children that we do not speak ill of the dead because the dead were someone's beloved. Those people are tonight typing gleeful things about a man whose daughters are not yet done crying. And they feel clean doing it. Righteous. Because somewhere along the way the thing they were given in exchange for their decency was the feeling of belonging to something, and that feeling is very hard to give up even when you can no longer remember what you gave for it.

When Trump is gone, they will still be here.

Standing in the silence where the noise used to be. Without the permission the crowd gave them. Without the pastor who told them their cruelty was holy. They will be alone with what they said and what they cheered and what they chose to become, and there will be no one left to tell them it was righteous.

That morning is coming.

Robert Mueller flew across the Pacific on military leave to hold his newborn daughter for a few hours before returning to the war. He came home. He buried his dead with honour. He served presidents of both parties because he understood that the institution was larger than any one man. He told his grandchildren that a lie is the worst thing a person can do, that a reputation once lost cannot be recovered, and he lived that, every day, in the quiet and unglamorous way of people who actually believe what they say.

He was the kind of American the world used to point to when it needed to believe the story was true.

He died last night. His wife is alone in their house in Georgetown. His daughters are learning what the world is without him in it. And somewhere in the particular hush that falls over a family in the first hours of loss, the most powerful man and the biggest loser on earth sent a message to say he was glad.

The world that loved what America was supposed to be is grieving tonight. Not for Robert Mueller only. For the country that produced him and then became this. For the distance between what was promised and what was delivered. For the suspicion, growing quieter and more certain with each passing month, that the America people believed in was always partly a story, and the story is over now, and there is nothing yet to replace it.

That is all it needed to be.

A man died. His family is broken open with grief.

That is all it needed to be.

Instead the President said good.

And the country that once stood for something looked away 🇺🇸

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

RETWEET if you stand with Stephen Colbert against Donald Trump and CBS!

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

Compare and contrast scenes from yesterday in America.

On the one hand, Trump's low-energy Dear Leader parade (that cost you $45 million).

On the other, millions of people across the country gathering peacefully to say:

Here, we have no kings.

[Colin Allred @ColinAllredTX]

My heart goes out to Representative Hortman and her family. Her assassination is a chilling indictment on the state our politics today. Today, we grieve the Hortman family’s loss and pray for the recovery of Senator Hoffman and his wife. Tomorrow, we have to start the work of building a country where this never happens again.

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

RETWEET if you stand with Judge Hannah Dugan!

[Robyn E @EoffRobyn]

Tide Against Tyranny https://t.co/4pbawkGnTi via @Change

[Gwen Walz @GwenWalz]

This is deeply upsetting, especially coming from our nation’s highest-ranking health official.

Individuals with autism are family, neighbors, students, and coworkers and they contribute more to this nation than this man ever will.

[Rep. Eric Swalwell @RepSwalwell]

If Trump resigns now, I’m willing to pay him until September.

[Robyn E @EoffRobyn]

Elon Musk reportedly spent $40M on #Superbowl ads calling #USAID wasteful. Here’s how
we would’ve spent that $$:
🏈Slowed the flow of migrants to our borders by providing job training to 50K people in
Central America https://t.co/mcZRMCNUCZ #saveforeignaid #standwithUSAID

[Robyn E @EoffRobyn]

Elon Musk reportedly spent $40M on #Superbowl ads calling #USAID wasteful. Here’s how
we would’ve spent that $$:
🏈Bought 29K tons of produce and vegetable oil from American farmers to feed people,
reducing mass migration https://t.co/mcZRMCNUCZ #saveforeignaid

[Robyn E @EoffRobyn]

Musk reportedly spent $40M on #Superbowl ads calling #USAID wasteful. Here’s how we
would’ve spent that $$:
🏈Purchased HIV treatment from U.S. pharma companies to keep 1M pp alive for 1 year.
Tell Congress to https://t.co/mcZRMCNUCZ #saveforeignaid and #standwithUSAID

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

On Wednesday, there were some false claims posted about my family and the Clinton Foundation. The post was deleted, but it’s important to correct the record.

We’re very proud the foundation and our CGI partners have helped millions of people across America and around the world while earning top ratings from charity watchdogs. And it’s important people know our family doesn’t earn anything from this work, as fact checkers have repeatedly shown.

The foundation doesn’t depend on federal grants, but we also know many nonprofits do. At this moment, our primary concern is for all the people those critical programs serve.

[Mark Warner @MarkWarner]

BREAKING UPDATE: All week long we’ve raised the alarm and rallied with workers, and it’s working… a judge has frozen Elon’s efforts to fire thousands of Americans.

This fight is far from over. We’ll keep standing up for federal workers.

[Robyn E @EoffRobyn]

This. https://t.co/wUipzoNXeA

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger on MAGA supporters: "I often wonder how weak you must feel to look at Donald Trump and see strength.”

RETWEET if you stand with @AdamKinzinger against the GOP!

[Sen. Lisa Murkowski @lisamurkowski]

Since Mr. Hegseth’s nomination last November, I have met with him and carefully reviewed his writings, various reports, and other pertinent materials. I closely followed his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee and gathered substantial feedback from organizations, veterans, and Alaskans. After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for Secretary of Defense. I did not make this decision lightly; I take my constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent with the utmost seriousness.

I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination. Managing the Department of Defense requires vast experience and expertise as the department is one of the most complex and powerful organizations in the world, and Mr. Hegseth’s prior roles in his career do not demonstrate to me that he is prepared for such immense responsibility. His leadership of two veteran organizations was marked with accusations of financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.

Although he has recently revised his statements on women in combat since being nominated, I remain concerned about the message that confirming Mr. Hegseth sends to women currently serving and those aspiring to join. Women have served our nation with distinction, overcoming immense obstacles to excel in combat and leadership roles, and they deserve to know that their leader honors and values their commitment to our nation.

While the allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking do nothing to quiet my concerns, the past behaviors Mr. Hegseth has admitted to, including infidelity on multiple occasions, demonstrate a lack of judgment that is unbecoming of someone who would lead our armed forces. These behaviors starkly contrast the values and discipline expected of servicemembers. Men and women in uniform are held accountable for such actions, and they deserve leaders who uphold these same standards.

Above all, I believe that character is the defining trait required of the Secretary of Defense, and must be prioritized without compromise. The leader of the Department of Defense must demonstrate and model the standards of behavior and character we expect of all servicemembers, and Mr. Hegseth’s nomination to the role poses significant concerns that I cannot overlook. Given the global security environment we’re operating in, it is critical that we confirm a Secretary of Defense, however, I regret that I am unable to support Mr. Hegseth.

[Tim Kaine @timkaine]

Trump opposes bipartisan budget deal thus flirting with shutdown. He’s demanding that Congress lift the debt ceiling.
Why? Because he’s planning on blowing a hole in the deficit with tax giveaways to the rich next year! https://t.co/cxgD5wbtSc

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

BREAKING: Hunter Biden just released a statement after being pardoned by President Joe Biden and it’s worth a read. Very well written and the right decision!