as political scientists say:
Partisanship is a helluva drug.      
The pull of partisanship repeatedly turns Republicans against their most deeply held commitments, demonstrating that their quest for power takes precedence over ideas and ideology.

There's an old line that partisanship stops at the water's edge...  
How are Republicans feeling about Putin these days? Is Putin now a common enemy of Republicans and Democrats or do Republicans stand firm with Putin against Democrats as a common enemy? (the enemy of my enemy is my friend)

There are Republicans who know full well that the nonsense being served up by members of their party is a clear and present danger to our Republic. Why won't they speak up?

I don't know who needs to read this, but West Virginia (Joe Manchin's state) is a state because its citizens broke away from Virginia during the Civil War and fought for freedom for former slaves, including the right to vote; and Kyrsten Sinema wouldn't have the right to vote, much less be a Senator, if people hadn't fought for the franchise for women.

One genius of the Constitution is that it provides the method for the peaceful transfer of power which implicitly expects losing with dignity and respecting the transfer of power.

For more than 200 years, the United States has strived to fulfill the idealistic preamble to the Constitution: "We the People, In Order to Form a More Perfect Union..."

Congress has consistently expanded the path to citizenship and political access. Voting eligibilty evolved from male property owners to all adult white males, to naturalized citizens, to former slaves, to women, and to those at least 18 years old.

Our nation's one retreat from expansion of the franchise was corrected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which rectified artificial restrictions imposed by state laws (poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and white primaries) with Supreme Court acquiescence that destroyed the Fifteenth amendment after the Compromise of 1877.

"No Celebration Without Legislation"

Today, the third Monday in January, is a federal holiday to honor the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, the third Monday in January, Alabama and Mississippi also observe Robert E Lee Day as a state holiday.

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."      
-- E B White

If we're always trying to save our kids or grandkids from intellectual discomfort, we're failing them; for that matter, we're failing ourselves.

Justice Breyer, while firmly on SCOTUS's left wing, was instrumental in that he "sought to diminish the role that ideological differences play in the court's decisions." The court is losing an "idealist pragmatist, with deep faith in the rule of law and the institutions of our constitutional democracy. He focused on making law practical, on how the law works in the real world for ordinary people." "In an era of anger and accusation, Justice Breyer was a model of respect, listening, and humility that points the way to a better democracy."

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you."      
-- Wendell Berry

Janis Kliphardt Emery wrote:

"- Never before had a state set out, as a matter of principle and policy, to annihilate every man, woman, and child belonging to a specific people.    
- Never before had an entire civilization conspired to kill.    
- Never before had mass killing become a matter of bureaucracy, technology, and industry.    
- Never before had a civilization killed with the wholesale involvement of its lawyers, its doctors, its business executives, its industrial leaders, its professors, its policemen, its engineers, its chemists, its railway designers, its civil servants."

"Never again!"

-- Jeffrey Salkin

     *** BREAKING NEWS ***  
    Due to the cold weather and  
    snow NO dairy farms will be    
    closed. Dairy farmers will be    
    out in the blistering cold and 
    blowing wind to tend their
    cattle.

"I have been treated very unfairly by the people who wrote the Constitution."   
-- DJT

I love it!      
Andy Borowitz has a way of focusing the lens on reality.    
He is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who writes the Borowitz Report for newyorker.com.

more from Andy Borowitz -

Former President Trump has reached out to Vladimir Putin to help Russia file for bankruptcy. As a result of Western sanctions, Trump says "quite frankly, bankruptcy is Putin's only option."        
"Bankruptcy is scary the first time you do it, but once you've done it five or six times it's the easiest and most beautiful thing in the world."      
Trump said, "First thing Putin should do is stop paying his bills, and that's something I can show him how to do."

"...without trust, there is no cooperation; without assuming others are telling the truth, there is no communication; and without accepting people for what they present to the world, there is no foundation on which to build a relationship."

When the devil wants to dance with you, steer clear -
a dance with the devil might last forever...
"If you dance with the devil, then you haven't got a clue, for you think you'll change the devil, but the devil changes you."    
-- JM Smith

Maybe it's time we walk away from a dance partner or two... who would they be?

If we've been dancing with partners who are strangers to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, it's time to walk away.

"This man (Putin) does not see; he has eyes, but does not see; or, if he does look, it's with an icy stare, devoid of all expression."    
-- Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Eerie words since "politics is about trying to see life through the eyes of another - a thing no dictator or tyrant can achieve."      
-- Mikhail Bakhtin

"Laughter is a weapon that is fatal to men of marble." -- Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"Comedy and democratic courage are the same thing seen at different moments, and what they have in common is the will to defy authority in the cause of humanity - to assert the desire of people, ridiculous and animal and imperfect as we are... "  
-- Adam Gopnik, "Volodymyr Zelensky's Comedic Courage"

"Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down."  
-- Constance Baker Motley

Ben Sasse, former college president, Nebraska Senator, member of Senate Judiciary Committee:      
In this time of political tribalism, you lament disunion and contention. Why not accept Judge Thomas Griffith's call for heroes of unity? Why not affirm your own call for Americans to moderate and unify? Now is the time to demonstrate your commitment to the idea that we can create a greater union.

How qualified does one have to be?

Senator Sasse, at least you refrained from speaking against Ketanji Brown Jackson's advancement from the Judiciary Committee for confirmation on the Senate floor.

Senators Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski answered your clarion call for Americans to moderate and unify. Time remains for you to add your vote to theirs to give Ketanji Brown Jackson bi-partisan confirmation.