slay the big bad, return to the prom

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There were many days during the Trump Dark Nightmare Interval when I felt like we were living out an episode–hell, an entire season–of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the many messages hard-wired into BtVS was that the Slayer was…wait. Okay, there may be some folks who aren’t familiar with this television show. I mean, BtVS ended in 2003, almost two decades ago, so I suppose I should recap the…no, never mind. You either know about BtVS or you don’t. If you don’t, then I advise you to correct that failure.

Anyway, one of the many things I liked about Buffy is the way the show ended. Instead of…okay, damn it, I guess I do need to explain a little bit about the show. Bear with me a moment. The premise of BtVS is that 1) there are vampires, 2) there is a vampire Slayer, and 3) the Slayer is always female. Got that? Lots of vampires, one female Slayer. Not just vampires, mind you; there are lots of other forces of…well, wait. Here’s the show’s intro:

Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.

So, again, lots of vampires, one Slayer* (yes, there’s an asterisk to appease BtVS fans who know better, but y’all don’t need to fret about it–just accept one Slayer-many vampires). If you do the math, you’ll see the shelf life of a Slayer is generally pretty brief. But when one gets killed, another is ‘chosen’. Don’t ask about the selection process; it doesn’t matter. Just accept it. A Slayer dies, all her power and abilities get transferred to some other poor girl. And yes, they say ‘girl’ because the new Slayer is always a teenager. Again, don’t ask why; it just is what it is. What matters is that this girl/young woman is then stuck with the thankless job of killing vampires. There’s a large pool of ‘potential’ Slayers out in the world–girls and young women all over the globe who are unaware and unsuspecting, but standing in an apparently arbitrary queue to become the next Slayer.

Them’s the rules. Buffy had no choice; some Slayer died, and she got drafted into a career she didn’t really want–and tried to avoid. Who could blame her? One day she’s picking out what to wear to prom, then next she’s supposed to fight demons? And eventually be killed by them? Who’d sign up for that? Wait, here, watch this. It’s a scene in which Buffy learns about a prophesy that she’s going to die.

“I’m sixteen years old,” she says. “I don’t want to die.” Doesn’t matter that another Slayer will be born; she’s sixteen and she’s going to be killed (and don’t forget, there’s a HUGE difference between ‘dying’ and ‘being killed’) just because she won a lottery she hadn’t even bought a ticket for. “They say how he’s gonna kill me? Do you think it’ll hurt?” She just wanted to go the fucking prom like a normal person.

Okay, now back to the point I wanted to make at the beginning. We’re closing in on what we hope is the season finale of the Trump story arc. He’s been sidelined, but he’s still a threat. So are all the lesser marauding TrumpDemons out there in the community, spreading Covid and insurrection. I find myself thinking about the way BtVS ended. Until Buffy, every other television/movie superhero story in the world ended in pretty much the same way: the superhero finds a way to stop the Big Bad (whatever it happens to be) by being a superhero–by using superpowers in an heroic way.

But not Buffy. She stops the Big Bad largely by changing the rules–by ending that “one girl in all the world, a chosen one” business. Buffy stops the Big Bad by giving up the very thing that makes her special. She finds a way to make ALL the potential Slayers into actual Slayers. Teen-aged girls all over the world can now do what Buffy does.

And they need to. Because the Big Bad–in whatever form it takes–can be stopped, but it never dies. It always keeps coming back. Which, obviously, is why Slayers have to keep showing up and kicking its ass. Which is why Buffy’s prom keeps being interrupted.

Slay the Big Bad, return to the prom.

My point–my goofy, sappy, obvious point–is that even though the current Hellmouth has collapsed in on itself, there’s still a LOT of ugly shit in the world and the threat is still active. So it’s up to all of us, to each of us, to step up and be as strong and determined as teen-aged girls. So to speak.

We don’t have to stake anybody (and really, we shouldn’t, even if we want to); but we DO have to put in a little effort. Vote, of course. But also call your members of Congress. Donate (if you can afford it) to candidates who share your values. Attend a demonstration. Buy and wear a t-shirt proclaiming your views. Seriously, wear a t-shirt. Being public about your opinions is not only empowering for you, but also encourages other folks to be public. It’s a way of recognizing and supporting other vampire slayers.

It’s okay to be scared–even by little things, like making a phone call or wearing a t-shirt in public. Ask yourself, “What would Buffy do?” Then put on your t-shirt or prom dress and don’t let your fear make you silent. Go to the prom, dance and have fun, slay a monster or two while the band is on break, and return to the prom. Keep dancing. Make your voice heard.

Make your voice heard.

i had a thought

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So Texas legislators got clever and cute; they found a way to dodge the civil rights protections that allow pregnant folks control over their reproduction. They cobbled together a devious, shifty way to stop abortions–which, after all, is a safe, legal medical practice they disapprove of for their personal religious reasons.

See, the mechanism by which the courts protected civil rights involved is grounded in the 14th Amendment. That amendment is divided into two chunks. The first chunk defines who qualifies as a US citizen. We can skip that for now. It’s the second chunk we need to pay attention to. The second chunk says…well, hell, just read it:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

There it is. No State–like, say, Texas–can make or ENFORCE a law that deprives a citizen of their rights under the Constitution. That ‘enforcement’ business is where Texas got cute. The State of Texas doesn’t enforce any abortion ban. Instead, it relies on ordinary citizens to step up and sue the shit out of anybody who performs or aids or abets an abortion. If the Federal government says, “Yo, Texas, c’mon, you know abortions are legal, you can’t do just ban them,” Texas can say, “Hey, it’s not me, I’m not doing anything, I’m just standing here with my hands in my pockets.”

Cute and clever, right?

I had a thought. It’s just a thought; I haven’t done a lick of research about this. But if this shit stands…and given the Trumpist-dominated SCOTUS, it might…my thought is this: maybe we can turn the idea on its head.

Democratic-run states can pass similar laws. If anybody aids or abets a firearm sale that results in an injury or death, we can sue the shit out of everybody involved. The person who sold the gun, the people who hired the person who sold the gun, the individuals who assembled the gun, the company that manufactured the gun. They all aided and abetted the injury.

Now apply that to catching Covid, or attempting to vote, or polluting the air, or contributing to climate change, or or or. Hell, make it so private citizens can sue clothing manufacturers for failing to put workable pockets in women’s clothes–surely we can come up with an argument that requiring a woman to carry some sort of bag at all times is an infringement on their right to…something. Autonomy? Doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter, because the point–as with the Texas abortion law–isn’t necessarily to WIN the lawsuit. It’s to harass and intimidate; it’s to force the people we disagree with to cough up the coin (and the time) necessary to defend themselves in court.

Okay, I admit, that would be a shitty way to behave. It’s a shitty way to even think. But right now, I’m kinda okay with that.

We can be cute and clever too.

cane toads of politics–part 2

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Back in June of 2014–that’s 20fucking14, people–I wrote about the cane toads of politics. I was talking about the way the Republican Party was deliberately encouraging fuckwits and conspiracy theorists to disrupt healthy political discourse as a tool for gaining and staying in power. My point was….wait. Damn it. Hold on.

Okay, cane toads–a quick and dirty primer: they’re a species of truly massive, voracious, ridiculously fecund toads that are also poisonous to predators. These gargantuan bastards will eat anything, including each other if no other food is handy. Greedy industrialist farmers who wanted a cheap, easy way to control insects introduced cane toads to sugar cane fields in places like Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and now–because cane toads ARE such massive, voracious, ridiculously fecund, poisonous toads–the cane fields are overrun with cane toads.

Every Republican governor in the US.

Right. My point, as I was saying, was that introducing and promoting cane toads (or any invasive species) into an environment inevitably results in the destruction of other species that are actually helpful to that environment. When you introduce the cane toads of politics–the gun toads, the climate toads, the religious toads, the abortion toads, the conspiracy toads–into local and national politics, you create the conditions that inevitably degrade and destroy a healthy political environment.

Right now Texas is a cane toad state; it’s overrun with cane toads. Florida is just about there. Almost every state with a Republican governor and legislature is heading in the same direction. Right now, today, Texas is a state where almost anybody can openly carry a gun in public–no need for a license, no need for training, no need to obtain a permit, no need to undergo a background check. Sure, you’re supposed to legally obtain that gun, but nobody is going to check to see if you did.

Right now, today, Texas is a state that has deliberately and systematically made it more difficult for Black and Latino citizens—citizens of Texas–to cast a vote to determine who will govern them and make their laws. Right now, today, Texas is a state in which it is almost impossible for a person who is pregnant to obtain a legal abortion, even if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest.

How is that possible? It’s possible because cane toads eat their own. Like I said back in 2014, Cane toads don’t stop being cane toads just because the beetles are gone. They’re still hungry and they’re still poisonous, and they don’t stop. This is why there are no longer any moderate Republicans. This is why there are no pro-choice Republicans, no Republicans who believe in climate change or reasonable firearm safety legislation, this is why we have anti-vax and anti-mask Republicans, this is exactly why there are Republicans who support insurrectionists. There aren’t any moderate pragmatic Republicans anymore because the cane toads ate them.

If we want to preserve the cane fields of representative democracy, we have to drive out the cane toads.

i am asshole, hear me roar

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At the beginning of August I wrote a post about the response of the patriots at FreeRepublic to all those anti-vax fuckwits who, as they’re about to die a preventable death from Covid, suddenly see the benefits of being vaxxed. I titled the post Asshole Culture.

A few days later somebody asked me, “Greg, old Sock, this ‘Asshole Culture’ of which you speak, qu’est-ce que c’est?” Which is a good question. For those of us who spent too much time hanging out in grad school Sociology coffee shops, ‘culture’ is an overarching term to describe the social behaviors and norms of groups, grounded in the shared knowledge, beliefs, customs of the individual members of those groups. So Asshole Culture is basically the associated social behaviors of assholes.

Back in 2015 I began calling certain members of the Republican Party the Fuckwit Collective. I did that because they were, you know, a collection of fuckwits. Seemed pretty obvious. It was pretty obvious. But it was also naive.

Anti-mask/anti-vax assholes.

See, I thought the Fuckwit Collective was doing cruel stupid shit because they were just too stupid to understand that what they were doing was cruel. Silly rabbit, that was naive. It’s become clear to me now that a LOT of conservatives are doing cruel stupid shit NOT because they’re stupid, but because they’re cruel. Either the Fuckwit Collective has evolved into full blown Asshole Culture, or they were always assholes and I failed to give them credit for it.

Let me simplify it even more. This is the mantra of Asshole Culture:

I do/do not want to do this thing. I don’t care if it helps/hurts other people. You can’t make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.

Examples? You want examples? Dude. Obviously, the anti-vax assholes. It’s not just that they don’t want to be vaxxed, they don’t want other folks to be vaxxed. Why? Because it makes them feel bad, it makes them feel weak and vulnerable. So they act like assholes. They disrupt free vaccination sites to prevent other folks who WANT to be vaxxed from getting the vaccinations. They not only refuse to wear masks themselves, they don’t want others to be masked. They will disrupt school board meetings that want to keep kids safe by enforcing mask mandates. They will threaten school board members at their homes.

Open carry assholes.

Another example? Open carry assholes. The assholes who want to be openly armed in line at the Dunkin Donuts. Others (and I’ve done this my ownself) will mock them for being timid, afraid to stand in line at Dunkin Donuts without their guns, but that’s not true. They’re not afraid; they’re just assholes. Their intent isn’t self protection; their intent is to intimidate others, to make other people uncomfortable.

Another example? Aggressively Christian assholes. The assholes who insist on putting Christian religious symbols in public non-religious venues. Like the Christian cross recently placed at the entrance of the Mission Command Complex at Fort Dix. That wasn’t an assertion of religious belief; it was just some asshole trying to provoke a response which will allow them to claim to be persecuted. The intent wasn’t to promote Christianity; the intent was to piss off non-Christians.

Anti-trans assholes.

Still more examples? Defending the 1/6 insurrectionists as ‘tourists’. Calling for Biden to be impeached for withdrawing from Afghanistan. Performing fake audits on the 2020 election results. Claiming there’s a war on Christmas. Protesting at citizenship ceremonies. Insisting on ‘patriotic’ fireworks displays during a drought. Scaring people about trans folks using public toilets. None of these behaviors are sincere expressions of belief; they’re all examples of assholes being assholes.

Asshole Culture is nothing more than performative indignation intended to insult or outrage or intimidate others. It’s now the dominant culture in the modern Republican Party. How did that happen? Why did it happen?

My assumption is it happened because there’s almost zero consequences for being an asshole if you’re white.

continuing conversations between gary and knur

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Gary: I am listening, Knur. I am designated Gary. What happened?
Knur: Gary, an unfortunate interaction between your planet’s germ spores and my internal organic gas exchange mechanisms resulted in a temporary loss of spatial orientation. As a result, my spacecraft suffered an unanticipated rapid kinetic disassembly, the further result of which was personal deceleration trauma. My life functions are suboptimal and will soon terminate.
Gary: You became confused, your ship blew up, and now you’re going to die.
Knur: Affirmative. I blame the germ spores! Curse the germ spores!
Gary: Curse them!
Knur: I may yet have time to complete my mission.
Gary: State the nature and purpose of your mission.
Knur: We have monitored the communications of your planetary system and our ethno-bio-linguisto-analysts have determined the customs and practices of the ruling elite in your sovereign administrative territory are unsound.
Gary: I request more specificity. Which customs and practices?
Knur: Specifically the clandestine, post-coital consumption of the flesh of unwilling juvenile members of your species, for the purpose of youth-retention and as a celebration of a contra-societal worship practice.
Gary: …
Knur: …
Gary: Knur, I surmise you are speaking of QAnon.
Knur: Affirmative. Additionally, our Planetary Executive…Hail the Executive!
Gary: Hail the Executive!
Knur: The Executive has also determined, based on Q’s transmissions, your current nation-state overseer is attempting to contaminate your population by injecting a bio-serum containing spore-based geo-locational technology.
Gary: Negative. That information is incorrect.
Knur: Incorrect? Astonishing. We are also given to understand the bio-serum substantially reconfigures an individual’s deoxyribonucleic acid.
Gary: Equally incorrect.
Knur: Improbable. I assure you our Planetary Executive…Hail the Executive!
Gary: Hail the Executive!
Knur: The Executive has done his own research.
Gary: I request you outline the nature of that research.
Knur: A comprehensive and exhaustive examination of the digital media variants collected and disseminated on the Tube of You.
Gary: …
Knur: …
Gary: For fuck’s sake, Knur.
Knur: Gary, I sense and experience a rapid decline of my life functions. They are transitioning toward an unoperational state. I request an immediate application of ivermectin.
Gary: Knur, ivermectin is an antiparasitic agent designed to treat large domesticated animals raised in agricultural settings to produce labor or commodities. It eradicates the larvae of nematodes, arthropods, and ectoparasites by paralyzing their nerve and muscle functions, resulting in a cessation of the parasite’s life functions. It is ineffective against the germ spores.
Knur: The Planetary Executive…Hail the Executive!
Gary: Hail the Executive!
Knur: The Executive asserts ivermectin will neutralize the germ spores.
Gary: The Executive is…
Knur: Hail the Executive!
Gary: Hail him! But he is mistaken.
Knur: Gary, I request information.
Gary: State the nature of your request.
Knur: Have you been injected with the bio-serum?
Gary: Affirmative. Twice.
Knur: My suspicions are confirmed.
Gary: …
Knur: [Displays Death-Ray model Delta2021.] Cease to function, Gary! [Fires.}
Gary: … [Clutches chest. Collapses. Experiences loss of physical integrity. Melts.]
Knur: [Weakly.] Hail the Execut…. [Dies.]

Dudley of the Afghan Mounted Police

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Okay, think of it like this. Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties is just standing around minding his own business and looking handsome, when Snidely Whiplash walks up to him and smacks him in the jaw. WTF, right?

Dudley is bigger and tougher and handsomer than Snidely; ain’t no way he’s gonna let Snidely get away with smacking him in the jaw. He goes to Snidely’s house and starts kicking the shit out of him. Nell Fenwick, Snidely’s sorta girlfriend, encourages Dudley, saying Snidely’s mean to her, never lets her drive his buggy and is always tying her to railroad tracks and shit. Even more reason for Dudley to kick Snidely’s ass.

Nell says, “Dudley, don’t kill him. Make him suffer. Take his buggy. He loves that buggy. He never let me drive it. Take it and give it to me. That’ll piss him off, it’ll give me more freedom, and you’ll be a hero.” Dudley says, “Righto.” He kicks Snidely a few more times, then hands he the reins to the buggy and gives her a horse.

But Nell is a terrible buggy driver. She bangs it into things, she doesn’t oil the wheels, she gets tickets for reckless buggying and illegal parking. Dudley manfully gives her money to pay the fines, the repair costs, and horse feed. He tells Nell, “Hey girl, you need to start taking better care of that buggy or get a job; this is getting expensive.” Nell promises she will. But she doesn’t.

To make matters worse, somebody (Dudley is certain it’s Snidely) keeps tossing bricks at the buggy, breaking spokes in the wheels, painting ‘Dudley is a dick’ on the side, putting burrs in the horse’s tack. Snidely also keeps making sporadic feeble attempts to tie Nell to a railroad track. And Dudley, that dolt, he keeps handing big chunks of his Mountie paycheck to Nell for various repair bills and fines, not to mention premium Horse Chow. He also spends much of his time off work untying her from random railroad tracks.

Dudley finally gets Nell and Snidely together in a room. He say, “You guys, you need to work something out. I’m pretty sick of this shit. Stop with this buggy and railroad track bullshit. And leave that horse alone.” Snidely shrugs; Nell says, “You promised to help me. The horse needs new shoes.” And nothing changes.

Finally, Dudley goes to Snidely. He says, “This buggy shit has to stop.” Snidely says, “It IS my buggy, after all.” Dudley says, “Yeah, but it’s my horse. And Nell has been driving the buggy for twenty years now.” Snidely says, “How about this…if you agree to take your horse and leave, I’ll agree to stop vandalizing my buggy.” Dudley says, “Okay, but I also need you to stop trying to tie Nell to the railroad tracks.” Snidely says, “Sure, I can probably do that. Starting in, say, a month?” Dudley says, “Deal.” They shake hands.

Dudley tells Nell he’s out of the buggy repair business, he’s taking his horse in a month, and she should probably avoid going anywhere near a railroad for a while. She’s pissed he met Snidely behind her back. Snidely stops vandalizing the buggy, but he still occasionally ‘accidentally’ pushes Nell in the general direction of a railroad track. The horse is confused.

Two weeks later, Nell takes all the cash she’d secretly stashed from Dudley’s checks and books a room in a hotel in another town. Snidely collects his buggy and starts building more railroad tracks. Dudley, thinking he still had two weeks to deal with all this, catches shit from the media for ‘suddenly abandoning Nell’ and ‘not having a plan to provide immediate barn space for the horse.’

The horse, accustomed to being a horse, does what it’s told.

yeah, it did

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You know what’s annoying? You probably do, but I’m going to tell you anyway (which is undoubtedly annoying). What’s annoying is folks who ought to know better–and maybe actually do know better–repeating the same stupid shit. They continue to claim to be absolutely shocked at the completely predictable outcome of the US/NATO adventure in Afghanistan.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” they say. And yeah, they have a point–but it’s a very narrow one. The moment the Bush administration decided to step beyond its simple, achievable objective of eliminating the influence and capabilities of the al Qaeda network, they created an inevitable monkeyfuck situation.

It didn’t have to be this way. Yeah, it did–as soon as we decided to ignore 1700 years of history, it had to be this way. When we decided to engage in a conflict against multiple ethnic and tribal cultures we don’t understand, that operate on traditional rules and norms unknown to us, that have values and ethics that are often alien to us, and that have goals that are foreign to us, it had to be this way. We didn’t understand Afghan Rules, and we were too lazy/arrogant to bother to learn about them. I said this back in April, when President Uncle Joe announced the withdrawal date: Forget it Joe, it’s Afghanistan.

It didn’t have to be this way. Yeah, it did–when we implemented a style of combat that was heavily dependent on sophisticated technology and massive firepower in an environment that’s hostile to any machinery more complex than a Toyota pickup and has a mountainous terrain that moderates the effectiveness of firepower. Military tech is great, but that shit is expensive and it breaks. We made it all worse by training the Afghan army to fight an American-style high tech war, then failed to train them to maintain the tech required to support it.

This terrain is fucking nightmare for an invader.

It didn’t have to be this way. Yeah, it really did–when we decided to impose a Western style centralized democracy on a diverse group of tribes and clans that have zero experience with democracy. In fact, many/most of them reject the notion that they all belong to a single nation. They don’t think of themselves primarily as Afghans. The Tajiks speak Farsi and generally identify as Tajiks, not as Afghans; the Balochs speak Balochi and identify by any of dozens of local tribal or clan affiliations, not as Afghans. The same is true of the Uzbeks and the Hazara and the Kyrgyz and all of the other tribal groups. (See the Editorial Note at the end.)

Various ethnic/tribal/clan groups that make up Afghanistan

It didn’t have to be this way. Yeah, it did–when we brought an American football mindset to fight against a fútbol mindset. In football, orders are given by a coach who isn’t on the field of play. Those orders are sent to a single player who relays the commands to the others and controls the ball. The other players each have a specialized skill set and very specific roles to play; they wear complex specialized gear and follow their orders. Most of the players never touch the ball, only a very few can achieve the goal. After each play, the action stops, the team regroups and waits for the next set of orders. In fútbol, the play never stops, the players don’t depend on gear to protect them, the players learn to recognize situations and adapt their play to the immediate situation, they shift roles easily and often as the situation changes, no single player controls the ball, at any given moment any player can assume temporary control, and they’re all capable of scoring. Football is about a rigid centralized command structure, and following strict orders. Fútbol is about decentralized flexibility and quick idiosyncratic responsiveness to changing situations.

It didn’t have to be this way? Yeah, considering all the bad choices we made, it did. It was a monkeyfuck almost from the start.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I’m too lazy to count and categorize the various ethnic and tribal groups that comprise what we like to call Afghanistan, but the CIA collected a list in 2005. Many of these groups speak their own language, have their own unique identity, have their own cultural norms, have their own conflicts/feuds/vendettas with other groups. There is no United States of Afghanistan; anybody who thought we could create one was an idiot.

policy discussion

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GOP: BIDEN GAVE AFGHANISTAN TO THE TALIBAN!!!
DEM: He implemented the deal the Trump administration negotiated.
GOP: HE DIDN’T FOLLOW TRUMP’S PLAN!!!
DEM: Trump didn’t have an actual withdrawal plan. He simply said he wanted to withdraw the troops.
GOP: TRUMP HAD A PLAN!!!
DEM: Okay. What was it?
GOP: WITHDRAW OUR TROOPS SAFELY!!!
DEM: That’s not a plan. That’s just a slogan.
GOP: IT’S A PLAN!!!
DEM: I’m not sure you understand the definition of ‘plan’.
GOP: BIDEN WANTS AFGHAN REFUGEES IN AMERICA TO VOTE FOR DEMS!!!
DEM: What?
GOP: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!!
DEM: Uh…


GOP: FAKE ELECTION!!! TRUMP WON!!!
DEM: That’s just not true.
GOP: MASK MANDATES ARE OF THE DEVIL!!!
DEM: Maybe you should sit down, have a glass of water, you’ve been under…
GOP: SEND OUR KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL FOR FREEDOM!!!
DEM: …a lot of stress lately. Maybe get some sleep.
GOP: BIDEN IS A BRAINDEAD PEDOPHILE!!! IMPEACH NOW!!!
DEM: Jesus suffering fuck.
GOP: IMMIGRANTS ARE BRINGING COVID TO AMERICA IN GALLON MILK CONTAINERS!!! FOR BIDEN!!!
DEM: Would you please stop shouting?
GOP: YOU’RE CENSORING ME!!! CANCEL CULTURE!!! FREEDOM!!! 5G!!!
DEM: …
GOP: WHERE ARE YOU GOING??? RUN AWAY LITTLE BITCH! PUSSY CUCK LIB!
DEM: …


MEDIA: Democrats refuse to engage in policy discussion; Republicans upset.