Val Demings Rakes Marco Rubio through the Smoldering Embers of his Career

[mcar]

It has been quite a week for the women of Congress. And it's only Wednesday.

By Charles P. Pierce

Let us now speak of the women of the House of Representatives. Madame Speaker is a demonstrably brilliant legislative leader and a thoroughgoing badass. I mean, we have video. Let’s just take all that as a given and move on to some of her colleagues who were in the news this week.

Have you ever seen a broken man? Have you ever seen the personification of gloom and doom and grim metaphorical death? Have you ever seen anyone leave the debate stage in an emotional body bag? Let me introduce you to Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida.

On Tuesday night, he got tangled up with Rep. Val Demings, his Democratic opponent, and Demings fed him into a wood chipper. Time and again, she brought the righteous fire, and time and again Rubio just stood there, caught in a kind of vacant sadness in which he seemed to be flashing back to the night in 2012 when he came to Tampa and delivered a well-received keynote address at what may turn out to be the last marginally sane Republican National Convention. That was enough to mark him as The Future—or, as Time put it on the cover, "The Republican Savior"....

So here was Demings, cranking the blades up to 11 and summoning all the old monsters of memory, including a clear view of the ruins of his once-promising career. Small wonder Rubio looked throughout as though he was attending his own sentencing hearing. He still may win. In fact, that’s the way to bet at the moment. But his politics have become bitter, soulless, and, yes, small. There’s no coming back from that.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41712603/val-demings-marco-rubio-debate/

[pwb]

1. He looked like he demands laughter

I didn't find him funny or clever. He talks the played puke message. Tell us how awful it is to live in the State you represent. You represent. I hope he looses.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Read the article! Pierce also praises Porter and ridicules the MT one.

Link to tweet

[mcar]

6. Yes!

[sheshe2]

3. She was on fire.

I hope she will fire Marco on November 8th.

What is the voting situation down there? Will people be able to get to the polls after Ian?

[mcar]

8. I can't imagine it'll be easy, she

Our dear gov DeathSentence (R- ) loosened some of his voter suppression laws, but only for the Republican counties in SW Florida. Orange County, which saw heavy flooding, got bupkis.

Still, if my home was destroyed, I was at risk of contracting a flesh-eating bacteria (report I saw today), and I had no job, voting would be one of the last things on my mind.

[sheshe2]

10. Yes, just read about that.

I hear ya hon. Hope for the best for you all.

[mcar]

11. Thanks.

I want Val and Charlie to win - and I'm doing what I can to help make that happen!

[spanone]

5. She was Great!

[Cha]

7. KIck FOR Val Demmings💕🤷‍♂️!

TY

[mcar]

9. She is awesome!

[BobTheSubgenius]

12. Everything about that slimy little weasel is bitter, soulless and small.

[Hekate]

13. Charlie Pierce rocks -- more on Women of the House

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Rep. Katie Porter came armed with visual aids, which is never a good sign for purveyors of stuff and nonsense. Her continuing topic is the corporate greed that’s driving the inflationary situation in the national economy.

This little lesson in How To Talk About Things was aimed not only at voters, but also at the elite political media, which generally use inflation as a conjuring word from which they can summon up the grim ghost of Bipartisan Cooperation. It also was aimed at timid Democratic candidates who would rather talk about anything else.

In the current Democratic majorities in the national legislature enthusiasm is rising to take on corporate consolidation and to bring new life—and new legislation—to the nation’s antitrust law. Sen. Amy Klobuchar spent all summer trying to get a Big Tech antitrust bill, that has bipartisan support, through the Senate. (Her co-sponsor was Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.) This, too, is a target-rich political environment for Democratic campaigns. Corporate money, alas, is far more bipartisan than any attempt to rein in corporate power.

Which brings us to Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Republican of Georgia, an embattled crusader against something called “anti-white racism.” The other day, she visited a famous Civil War monument associated with the Battle of Chickamauga, which is located in her congressional district. She shared her impressions with the gang on the landfill website Truth Social.

"Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, Georgia, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade," Greene posted. "I will always defend our nation’s history!”
Snip
In her eagerness to defend “our” history of Treason in Defense of Slavery, Marge visited a monument dedicated to…the forces of the Union. I hope nobody tells the people of Indiana about this!

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41712603/val-demings-marco-rubio-debate/

[jaxexpat]

14. You know that under Rubio's vest pocket, near his hole where....

normal people have hearts, there's a slot where his donors tear off a paper receipt. Part of his convenience. Many of his donors are low tech types, so paper's good. Still, they they never pay taxes so why the receipt? Mysterious is the way of the Cuban American enclave.

[Joinfortmill]

15. It was a thing of beauty to behold.

[Joinfortmill]

16. He deserves to lose and I hope he does, stunningly, hugely, and completely.

[UTUSN]

17. K&R