Justin Jones is a fucking boss

congratulations, Republicans, you’ve accomplished the exact opposite of what you set out to do

yesterday, the Nashville city council voted unanimously to return Justin Jones to the legislature. the final tally was 36-0.

and once again, Republicans have taken careful aim and shot themselves squarely in both feet.

Justin Jones is a 27-year-old activist from Nashville who was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2022.

he’s a pretty good guy who probably would have gone on to have a pretty good — but pretty obscure — career as a Tennessee legislator.

enter Republicans.

Jones was one three Democrats who had the utter temerity to join a crowd protesting inside the state capitol building for gun safety regulations.

predictably, Republicans melted straight the fuck down and fell all the fuck over each other in a mad dash to throw a twenty-megaton overreaction.

oh, this guy has to pay for his misdeeds. and we’re going to make him pay. him and that other uppity black legislator, Justin Pearson. if they think we’re going to tolerate black people back-talking their betters, they’ve got another think coming.

and so in a perfectly futile show of clownshoes fucknuttery, Tennessee House Republicans quickly voted to expel our two Justins.

and then, just as quickly, the Nashville city council voted to reinstate Jones. yesterday afternoon, he victoriously strode back into the capitol building and was sworn back into office.

expelled on Friday, sworn back in on Monday. the guy didn’t even miss one day of work.

a vote to reinstate Justin Pearson is expected to happen in the new few days.

so good going there, Tennessee Republicans, bask in all that you’ve done:

• you’ve beclowned yourselves in front of the whole world and shown yourselves to be the small-minded bigots that you are.

• you’ve raised a shitload of money for Democrats.

• you’ve turned an unknown local legislator into a national celebrity with a future.

congratulations, Republicans, you’ve accomplished the exact fucking opposite of what you set out to do.

more like this, please.

folks, a word on a different subject before I let you go: we’re doing some quarterly fundraising at my other venture, The Smirking Chimp. I’m leery of even mentioning it because if you’re one of the people paying to support my own writing here, you’re already doing god’s work and you’re already doing more than enough to help out. but if you’ve got five dollars that you absolutely wouldn’t miss and you do feel like supporting the Chimp, well, that just makes you twice the hero. the donation link is here, or you can go straight to paypal if you need no further convincing. and if you don’t care to donate, that’s totally cool, too, and we will not speak of this again. in fact, we never had this conversation. thanks for listening and that’s it from me for now.