;)
March 25, 2022
Late Morning Update
Chris Megerian & Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Joe Biden \ visited U.S. troops stationed near Poland's border with Ukraine on Friday and was getting a first hand look at the growing humanitarian response to the millions of Ukrainians who are fleeing to Poland to escape Russia's assault on their homeland. Biden's first stop was with members of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, visiting a barber shop and dining facility set up for the troops, where he invited himself to sit down and share some pizza. The Americans are serving alongside Polish troops.... With the troops, he shared an anecdote about visiting his late son, Beau Biden, while he was deployed in Baghdad and going by his mother's maiden name so as not to draw attention to himself." ~~~
Nebi Qena & Andrea Rosa of the AP: "About 300 people were killed in the Russian airstrike last week that blasted open a Mariupol theater, Ukrainian authorities said Friday in what would make it the war's deadliest known attack on civilians yet. In a vain attempt to protect the hundreds of people taking cover inside the theater, 'CHILDREN' in Russian had been printed in huge white letters on the ground in two places outside the grand, columned building to make it visible from the air. For days, the government in the besieged and ruined city of Mariupol was unable to give a casualty count for the March 16 attack. In announcing the death toll on its Telegram channel Friday, it cited eyewitnesses. But it was not immediately clear whether emergency workers had finished excavating the ruins of the Mariupol Drama Theater or how witnesses arrived at the figure."
AP: "Justice Clarence Thomas was discharged from the hospital Friday after a stay of nearly a week, the Supreme Court said. Thomas, 73, had entered the hospital last Friday evening after experiencing 'flu-like symptoms.' He was treated for an infection with intravenous antibiotics, the court said Sunday in announcing his hospitalization. He had been expected to be released from the hospital Monday or Tuesday."
The Party That Hates Teenagers. Kimberly Kindy of the Washington Post: "Nationwide, GOP lawmakers have filed nearly two hundred state bills this year that seek to erode protections for transgender and gay youth or to restrict discussion of LGBTQ topics in public schools. The explosion of legislation is in part the culmination of efforts by a trio of conservative organizations, which are helping state legislators write and promote the bills. One of the most active -- the Alliance Defending Freedom -- has a decades-long history of fighting LGBTQ rights, including in battles to preserve state laws criminalizing consensual sex between gay adults, court records show. Today, at least 166 measures to restrict LGBTQ rights are still pending in state legislatures across the nation -- nearly quadruple the number of similar bills introduced just three years ago, according to data from Freedom for All Americans, an LGBTQ advocacy group." MB: From the Wingers' Approved Dictionary: "sex: a brief and occasional meeting between a married adult man and his adult wife poised in the missionary position for the purpose of procreation. Synonym: a woman's burden."
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Putin's War Crimes, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "After meeting with NATO allies and announcing a deal to help secure more liquefied natural gas for the European Union to reduce its dependency on Russian fossil fuels, President Biden is traveling to the Polish border with Ukraine on Friday to highlight the growing humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war and to underscore the moment of peril for Europe as it confronts Russian aggression."
Emily Rauhala, et al., of the Washington Post: "The United States and the European Commission announced Friday a joint task force to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian fossil fuels, as the West looks to further punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. As part of the partnership, the United States will seek to increase liquefied natural gas exports to Europe by at least 15 billion cubic meters this year with the aim of providing larger shipments in the future. President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the new agreement Friday in a joint appearance, stressing that the initiative will both reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy while keeping the countries on track to meet their climate goals."
Ashley Parker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The United States and its European allies reinforced their tough stand against Russia on Thursday, sharply warning Moscow against using chemical weapons in Ukraine and announcing new sanctions on Russians. The White House also announced the United States will accept 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine. The statement on chemical weapons issued by the Group of Seven nations reflects growing concern among the world's democracies that ... Vladimir Putin, facing setbacks on the battlefield and abroad, would resort to more extreme actions. The Biden administration, along with the G-7 and the European Union, also unveiled Thursday a new set of sanctions targeting more than 400 individuals and entities, including the Duma, or legislature, and its members; additional members of the Russian power elite; and state-owned defense companies.... The Biden administration announced Thursday that the United States will provide more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance for those affected by Russia's war with Ukraine, as well as more than $11 billion over the next five years to mitigate food security threats stemming from the crisis.... ~~~
"Speaking to reporters at a news conference before departing NATO for additional meetings at the E.U., President Biden said he supported removing Russia from the Group of 20, an assembly of the world's largest economies.... Putin is expected to attend a G-20 summit hosted by Indonesia in October, and Biden said the ultimate decision to exclude Russia would be up to the entire group. But, he added, if any nations object, one option would be 'basically Ukraine being able to attend the G-20 meeting to observe' -- an idea he said he broached with NATO leaders on Thursday."
Nebi Qena & Cara Anna of the AP: "Ukraine accused Moscow on Thursday of forcibly taking hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered Ukrainian cities to Russia, where some may be used as 'hostages' to pressure Kyiv to give up. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine's ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken to Russia. The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they wanted to go to Russia. Ukraine's rebel-controlled eastern regions are predominantly Russian-speaking, and many people there have supported close ties to Moscow."
The Kastus Kalinouski Battalion. Valerie Hopkins of the New York Times: "... hundreds of Belarusian dissidents ... have joined the Kastus Kalinouski battalion, a volunteer unit that is helping to defend Ukraine as part of the official army. Unlike the thousands of foreign fighters who have poured into Ukraine to fight against Russia..., thousands of Belarusians ... [had already] fled to Ukraine to avoid prison for their activism at home.... 'We have a common enemy, Putin and [Belarusian President Aleksandr] Lukashenko,' said Sergey Bespalov, a former journalist from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, who went into exile in Ukraine and then joined the battalion. 'These are the two people who unleashed this war.' Mr. Bespalov, speaking in a phone interview, said the fate of Ukraine and Belarus were intermingled."
Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: Vladimir "Putin's invasion of Ukraine has led some Russians who long worked for the government to cut ties with it, a sign of how the Kremlin is struggling to keep society fully unified behind the war. Thousands have been arrested protesting the invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands have fled the country, and on Wednesday, Mr. Putin's climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, became the first senior government official reported to have quit since the invasion began on Feb. 24. There have been at least four high-profile resignations at Russia's state television channels, a crucial pillar of Mr. Putin's dominance over the country's domestic politics.... All of Russia's national television networks are controlled by the Kremlin.... And most state television journalists have, for now, stayed in their jobs...."
Business More-or-Less as Usual. Liz Alderman of the New York Times: One of Europe's largest retail chains, "Leroy Merlin[, a home improvements store,] shut its six stores in Ukraine after the war started, and paid employees the equivalent of three months' salary. It has even helped workers and their families cross the border to Poland and Romania for safety. But in Russia, the company operates 112 stores, and has given no public signs that it plans to leave.... After Ukrainian employees ... posted messages on social media, Leroy Merlin shut down the Ukrainian unit's internal Gmail accounts... On Monday, a Russian rocket destroyed Leroy Merlin's store in Kyiv.... The Adeo Group [-- Leroy Merlin's French parent company --] is among a number of companies making a decision to stay [in Russia]." The French company that controls Adeo -- Association Familiale Mulliez, run by the multi-billionaire Mulliez family -- has more than 400 stores in Russia, including a supermarket company & sporting goods chain. "On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron said during a news conference that French companies should be 'free to decide for themselves' whether to stay in Russia.... Wednesday during a video address to the French Senate, [Volodymyr Zelensky called] on Leroy Merlin, Auchan and the French carmaker Renault to halt business and to 'stop being responsible for Russia's war machine.'... Hours later, Renault announced that it would immediately suspend the activities of its Moscow factory and review its Russia business."
Mystery Crew Members Quit Mystery Yacht. Gaia Pianigiani of the New York Times: "Russian crew members on a mysterious $700-million luxury yacht that U.S. officials say could be owned by ... Vladimir V. Putin of Russia abruptly left their jobs and the Tuscan coastal town where it is undergoing repairs a couple of weeks ago amid scrutiny of the vessel, local union leaders and workers say. The crew members had been fixtures in the small port of Marina di Carrara since the fall of 2020, when the 459-foot-long yacht, Scheherazade, arrived at a dry dock less than four months after being built. No owner has been publicly identified. 'They were replaced by a British crew,' said Paolo Gozzani, the local leader of Italy's General Confederation of Labor trade union, on Wednesday.... This week, the research team of Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, published a video in which it argued, based on a 2020 crew manifest, that a dozen of the Russian crew members of the Scheherazade either worked for or had a connection with Russia's Federal Protective Service."
Katie Benner & Kate Conger of the New York Times: "The Justice Department unsealed charges on Thursday accusing four Russian officials of carrying out a series of cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure in the United States, including a nuclear power plant in Kansas, and evidently compromising a petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia. The announcement covered hackings from 2012 to 2018, but served as yet another warning from the Biden administration of Russia's ability to conduct such operations.... The four officials, including three members of Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., are accused of breaching hundreds of energy companies around the world, showing the 'dark art of the possible,' a Justice Department official said at a briefing with reporters." Politico's report is here.
John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The fourth and final day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson concluded Thursday after the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from an array of outside witnesses, including representatives of the American Bar Association, who said President Biden's nominee would bring 'impeccable' credentials to the job." This is the Post's liveblog of Thursday's hearing.
Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "Democrats are on track to confirm President Joe Biden's pick, with a vote expected by [the] time senators leave for a scheduled spring recess April 8.... Much the way senators opposed to the first Black nominee to the court, Thurgood Marshall, a half-century ago portrayed the storied civil rights lawyer as soft on crime in his work defending Black people, Republicans have spotlighted Jackson's sentencings in criminal cases, they show too much 'empathy' for defendants. A witness for the Republican side, Attorney General Steven T. Marshall of Alabama, said he believes Jackson shows more deference to criminals appearing in her courtroom than she does victims. He said her views of law enforcement reforms are 'outside the mainstream.'" MB: And Marshall is such a consequential witness with such excellent creds. ~~~
~~ Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Day four of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing veered into conspiracy territory on Thursday when one of the GOP's witnesses, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, repeatedly refused to say that Joe Biden is the lawfully elected president. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressed Marshall on his ties to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Marshall runs the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a nonprofit under the Republican Attorneys General Association that helped organize the protests in support of ... Donald Trump that fed into the insurrection.... After some tense back-and-forth, Whitehouse then asked, 'Is Joseph R. Biden of Delaware the duly elected and lawfully serving president of the United States of America?' 'He is the president of this country,' replied Marshall." Whitehouse continued to press, & Marshall repeatedly refused to state that Biden was the"duly-elected & lawfully-serving president." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's hardly a surprise that Republicans chose a witness who "veered into conspiracy territory" because ~~~
~~~ It's the Party of Q. David Kirkpatrick & Stuart Thompson of the New York Times: "The online world of adherents to the QAnon conspiracy theory sprang into action almost as soon as Senator Josh Hawley tweeted his alarm: that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Biden administration's Supreme Court nominee, had handed down sentences below the minimum recommended in federal guidelines for possessing images of child sexual abuse.... By Wednesday..., claims that she was lenient toward people charged with possessing the illegal imagery had emerged as a recurring theme in her questioning by Republicans. 'Every judge who does what you are doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited,' said Senator Lindsey Graham.... In 2017 a believer [in 'Pizzagate'] armed with an assault rifle stormed in and fired his weapon. Judge Jackson, as a district court judge, sentenced him to four years in prison.... Slogans about protecting the children became catchphrases that QAnon adherents used to identify one another, and their bizarre fantasy ... appeared to spread widely among Trump supporters.... Polls suggest that QAnon supporters have continued to make up a significant portion of the Republican base...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I guess I should count myself naive, but it still astounds me that several U.S. senators have eagerly defamed a sitting federal Appeals Court judge and Supreme Court nominee for the purpose of appealing to believers in Pizzagate & other bizarro conspiracy theories. The question of a senator, "Have you no sense of decency, Sir?" need no longer be asked. We know the answer. Update: See also Akhilleus' commentary in two entries in today's thread. It's spot on. In the hearings, Rethuglicans didn't bring out one fact that sullied Jackson's excellent reputation & judicial record, yet they won't vote to confirm her. Because.
IOKIYAR. Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "Several Republican senators repeatedly and misleadingly suggested during this week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson had given uncommonly lenient sentences to felons convicted of child sex abuse crimes. But all of the Republican critics had previously voted to confirm judges [whom Donald Trump nominated] who had given out prison terms below prosecutor recommendations, the very bar they accused Judge Jackson of failing to clear." MB: Yeah but, in fairness to Hawley, Graham, Cruz & Cottonhead, none of those Trump appointees was a Black woman.
Bob Woodward of the Washington Post & Robert Costa of CBS News in the Washington Post: "Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. The messages -- 29 in all -- reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and ... Donald Trump's top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.... The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump's inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president's strategy to overturn the election results -- and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Among Thomas's stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election, to be 'the lead and the face' of Trump's legal team." CNN's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Barbara McQuade pointed out on CNBC that Clarence Thomas was the only Supreme to oppose the January 6 committee's acquisition of White House documents related to the insurrection & attempts to overturn the election results. Did Thomas believe that his wife's emails might be included among the docs the committee would receive, McQuade wondered. McQuade says this story is more evidence that the Supreme Court needs to expand its narrow recusal standards. ~~~
~~~ Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: Justice Clarence Thomas' critics say his sole vote to block release of Trump White House records "illustrates a gaping hole in the court's rules: Justices essentially decide for themselves whether they have a conflict of interest, and Thomas has rarely made such a choice in his three decades on the court.... Each justice can decide whether to recuse, and there is no way to appeal a Supreme Court member's failure to do so." MB: Unlike Caesar's wife, Ginni's husband does not have to be above reproach.
Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said on Thursday that it would consider contempt of Congress charges against two more allies of ... Donald J. Trump for refusing to comply with its subpoenas. The potential charges against Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser, and Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff, could result in jail time and a hefty fine, and must be approved by a vote of the House. The committee said it would hold a public vote on whether to recommend the charges on Monday."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that elected bodies do not violate the First Amendment when they censure their members. The case concerned David Wilson, a former elected trustee of the Houston Community College System and an energetic critic of its work.... In 2018, Mr. Wilson's fellow board members issued a formal verbal reprimand against him in a censure resolution.... He sued, saying the punishment violated the First Amendment by retaliating against him for things he had said.... The Supreme Court reversed a unanimous decision from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, which had allowed the case to proceed, ruling that punishing an elected official for his speech can run afoul of the Constitution."
Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman in a Washington Post op-ed: "Freedom of speech does not include a right to shout down others so they cannot be heard. Two recent incidents at law schools where protesting students sought to keep invited speakers from addressing their audiences are deeply troubling. In both cases, those defending the disruptive students have said their actions came under the constitutional protection of freedom of speech. That is wrong in terms of both the law and appropriate campus policy.... College campuses should be a place where all ideas and views can be expressed. A primary goal of higher education is to empower students to critically analyze ideas across a broad spectrum of disciplines.... [Shouting down speakers] is especially problematic when the students attempting to silence other viewpoints are lawyers in training." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Chemerinsky & Gillman are arguing in support of two events sponsored by the right-wing Federalist Society. While I have no objection to the principal they pose, I had been thinking earlier in the day about the efforts of universities in recent decades to appeal to a broad spectrum of political ideologies. What got me thinking about this were the performances of the asswipes on the Judiciary Committee who excoriated Judge Jackson for imaginary bad judgment, not to mention the Supreme confederates themselves, many of whom -- like Hawley & Cruz -- have Ivy League law degrees. The idea that students should choose from a "menu" of legal philosophies may be too ivory-towerish. Young people are not great critical thinkers, and employing right-wing law professors gives the students the impression that winger "philosophies" are just as palatable as those that promote Western liberal democracy. I think these university law schools need to get back to suffering the ignominy of being "liberal coastal elites." For all their faults, liberal coast elites seem to have done a better job of educating young people.
Trump Thinks Up "an Unthinkable Plot." Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump is suing ... Hillary Clinton in a sprawling case that accuses her of conspiring with dozens of other actors -- frequent targets of Trump's conspiracy theories and rage -- to topple his presidency. The new lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Fort Pierce, Fla., accuses Clinton, her campaign, various campaign aides, former FBI Director James Comey, the Democratic National Committee and others of racketeering conspiracy for allegedly joining in 'an unthinkable plot' to falsely accuse Trump of colluding with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.... The suit accused the defendants of obstruction of justice and theft of trade secrets, as well as unlawful hacking into Trump's private communications.... The sprawling, 108-page complaint reads like a greatest-hits of Trump's long-held grievances against the public figures most closely associated with the investigation of his campaign's ties to Russia in 2016. It stitches together disparate details unearthed in the ongoing investigation by special counsel John Durham, as well as long-known details about the FBI's Russia probe and special counsel Robert Mueller's subsequent investigation. The suit appears to seek more than $72 million in damages.... In another court filing in the case, Trump's attorneys asked for only $21 million." MB: Yeah, whatever. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~
~~~ In yesterday's Comments, Patrick wrote, "DiJiT got himself a $200/hour attorney who can annoy every defendant named in his suit for years. He gets his red-hat donors to send in their nickels and dimes to pay for it. It's win-win for the big blob, this can drag on for his lifetime and allow him another ring in his mobile circus. So, he doesn't believe this shit (the allegations in the suit), but he believes in the utility of the courts in the long con, and the infinite supply of marks. It's easy when you have no shame." MB: I hope Patrick is wrong (and I don't think he is). My wish list is that (1) each & every defendant gets to separately depose Trump; after which (2) a Trump-appointed judge dismisses the suit with prejudice; and (3) said judge forces Trump to personally pay the legal expenses of all defendants. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's report, by Felicia Sonmez & Matt Zapotosky, is here: "The Trump lawsuit seems to draw heavily on indictments brought by Special Counsel John Durham, who had been tasked by former attorney general William P. Barr with reviewing the FBI's 2016 investigation of Trump's campaign. But it often exaggerates or misstates Durham's allegations or other facts of the case.... Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general now in private practice, said in an email: 'I hope Trump's lawyers got their money up front. I hope they have something other than Fox News stories to support their allegations so they can avoid Rule 11 sanctions. And if the case ever gets to discovery, I would expect Trump's own deposition to last days if not weeks. It would be the opportunity many have sought for the past 5 years to have him testify under oath. He's proven in the past he's not so good at that.'... Rule 11 is a federal rule requiring, among other things, that when lawyers make court filings, they certify that their factual representations will most likely be supported by the evidence."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here.
Beyond the Beltway
Michigan. Ed White of the AP: "A man who pleaded guilty in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said her abduction could have been the 'ignition' for a U.S. civil war involving antigovernment groups, possibly before the 2020 election. Ty Garbin described a scheme to get the Democratic governor during his testimony Wednesday against four former allies who are charged with conspiracy. He told jurors that they wanted to attack before the election to prevent Joe Biden from winning the presidency." (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here.
** Nebraska. Brian Melley of the AP: "U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska was convicted Thursday on charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. A federal jury in [Los Angeles] deliberated about two hours before finding the nine-term Republican guilty of one count of falsifying and concealing material facts and two counts of making false statements. Fortenberry was charged after sitting for two interviews with FBI agents who were investigating the donor, Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent.... Outside the courthouse, Fortenberry said the process had been unfair and he would appeal immediately. He would not say if he would suspend his campaign for reelection...." MB: Obviously Fortenberry's "poor cellphone reception" defense was a loser.
Way Beyond
U.K. Colonialist Royals Go on Tour. Karen Attiah of the Washington Post: "Two years after the global wave of protests against anti-Blackness and white supremacy, the British Royal family apparently thought it would be a swimmingly good idea to send Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, on a royal promenade through Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.... William and Kate are definitely touring like it's 1952.... To keep it real, this supposed charm offensive feels more offensive than charming. I'd say there's never a good time for retro-colonial gallivanting, but the timing of this tour de faux pas feels especially bad.... At the same time, maybe it's good for the world to see the British monarchy for the symbolic mess that it is, an outdated relic of imperialism.
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Reader Comments (15)
Moscow Mitch, elderly mutant ninja turtle, sniffs that he will not be voting to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson.
But he raced through the nomination of Beer n Rape Boy, Bart O’Kavanaugh.
These people are despicable pigs.
And Mitch’s hit men on the judiciary committee treated Judge Jackson far worse than Beer n Rape Boy was treated. No one bullied and screamed at Bart, demanding he apologize for assaulting all those women. And despite the vicious attacks on her race, religion, and professional ethics, and despite being labeled a friend to pornographers and child molesters, by members of a party run by a serial sexual predator, she maintained her composure, kept her head up, displayed dignity and courage while standing tall in the midst of astonishing, rage filled grillings. She displayed equanimity while her attackers showed themselves to be unhinged, whiny-baby screamers.
And her comportment was far different than the Republicans’ hero, Beer n Rape Boy, who, while being asked about serious allegations, lied, stonewalled, cried, shouted, and threatened those daring to question him.
But Mitch voted for him and is refusing to vote for a person of much finer character, experience, and judicial temperament.
Because the racists, the droolers, and the traitors won’t like it.
He truly is the most satanic character in an age of demonic right wing monsters.
Well, finally the duo of C.and G. Thomas is front and center. Jane Mayer must be pleased since she exposed these two long ago.
Just a word from yesterday: I concluded that I was suffering from R.R.M.S. (Ronald Reagan Memory Syndrome) in which fiction becomes realty. Ole Ron would describe situations or scenes as actual when they were from films he had been in. Even though I could not find evidence of what I was certain had taken place, these images are still real to me. So again I apologize for the problem it caused. I think, too, after reading the transcripts, that Sessions was like a sniffling burr determined to let Kagan know his distain for her. I gave her the last word but only in my imagination.
Despicable Pigs, cont…
The other day, after screaming at the chairman, Dick Durbin, shouting at and repeatedly interrupting Judge Jackson, Cancun Cruz sat back to…check his Twitter feed to see how he did with the traitors n haters. Twit checks tweets.
Just incredible. All that wasted time on baseless, vicious attacks against a decent woman, just a show. A performance for the haters back home.
I’m not so naive as to suggest that performance isn’t part of politics, but at least try to keep it germane, and mostly above board. But not Cruz, he is as a nasty little rabbit punching, cheap shot, below the belt, dirty fighter as there is in a party of dirty fighters and bullies.
But what did he do when a bigger bully called his wife ugly and his father complicit in assassinating a president? He said “Thank you, Mr. Trump, may I please have another?” What did he do when TuKKKer KKKarlson demanded he retract his description of Trump’s attempted coup as a terrorist attack? He apologized on his knees. What did he do when winter weather shut down Texas’ jerry-rigged power grid leaving millions freezing in the dark? He jumped on a plane as fast as he could and beat it to warm, sunny Cancun. THEN, when called on it, blamed his wife and kids!
Like most bullies, Cruz is a coward. A sniveling, lying, muck-crawling, backbiting coward.
But in the GO fucking P, he’s presidential material.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ted-cruz-ketanji-brown-jackson-twitter-b2043898.html?amp
AK: Thank you for that. Jackson held her head up high throughout .You would think those wombats would be embarrassed by their so obvious shamefulness. Such evil theatre displayed for power and control. And to think we are dealing today with another evil prick whose power plays may just start WW111.
PD,
Hey, but it was a good parting shot. Haha. “By the way, Jeffy, too bad you’ll never make the court, [you rat bastard!].”
Haha. If you’re gonna fictionalize something, might as well make it good.
The term “parting shot” is a variation on the original “Parthian shot”, a trick used by Parthian cavalry archers who gave the appearance of turning to run, but when pursued by a not too swift enemy, would turn and release a hail of arrows. Your Kagan character’s arrow caught ol, Beauregard right in the schnozz.
As for the tag team of Ginni and Clarence, nothing will come if it. Nothing. Only Democrats are expected to play by the rules. At this point, everyone knows that cheating and ignoring the rules is a big feature of the Party of Traitors (ergo, “traitors”). If they get caught playing fair, it’s a mistake on their part, nothing more.
Thought Patrick was probably right, too, about the question I asked yesterday:
Does the Pretender believe his own shit or not? No, Patrick said, the Pretender is just scamming, seated in his palace atop the dungheap of his army of supporter/victims,, happily raking in the money.
But this morning some part of that question still won't go away. After a mostly fruitless hour trying to remember the word "transactional," commonly used by pundits to describe his slipshod, unprincipled governing style during the first years of the Pretender debacle, I heard the news that the wife of our finest jurist had urged Meadows to do all he could to overturn the 2016 election because all's fair in "war," an enterprise most would distinguish from democracy in action.
So, is she a scammer, too, just another pathetic Pretender acolyte who has cynically hopped aboard the money train, or another is she a true believer in some kind of conservative America I can't and don't wish to visualize?
In a rational world, there has to be some point, some line that can be drawn between the scammer and the scammed, but in R-world, filled as it is with delusion and bullshit, bottom to top, I find it very hard to locate that point precisely.
My conclusion: While I don't know about the Pretender himself, I'm sure many, if not most of the cynical mountebanks in R-world, who pull the strings of their marks and laugh all the way to the bank, are at some point or another, also running a successful con on themselves and really believe their own hype.
@Ken Winkes: I think there are several types of right-wing con artists. There are ones like Mitch, who know damned well what they're doing. There are ones like Trump who don't give a flying fuck about whether or not there is even a tiny basis in fact to their crap assertions; whatever they think is in their self-interest is paramount. And there are ones, probably like Ginni, who drink the Kool-Aid daily and think the ends justify the means because they're saving the country from commies, socialists & lazy deadbeats.
Thank you, commenters, for supporting my roiling thoughts this week as the pigs of the senate and elsewhere retreat from the battlefield, satisfied they have checked all the boxes necessary to happily live in delusion and lawbreaking and self-satisfaction, while vomiting all their trashy, toxic sputterings all over us. I'm not surprised that Trump is suing the world, as that is what he does, the only thing he does with "style." But his "style" continues to support every lie he has ever told, every con he has ever run, with this suit. Patrick is completely right. He will never be punished, he will always be believed by a crazed part of the public, and he will never retire quietly or be hospitalized for lunacy. And the karma everyone expects to get back to him won't happen in our lifetimes. As for Mrs. Sexual Predator, the SP's "best friend," we knew she was dirty and also a liar (she says she and he don't share at night over the dinner table-- pure horsepucky--) and we can now all get to look at her chunky green sequins and stupid headband in clips shown and know she is as mean and stupid as her spouse and she will suffer nothing also. Amerika the "Beautiful."
Good summary, Marie.
To generalize this take on Republicans as both persons and party:
Trained as they are to accept and wallow in delusions of one sort or another (religion, patriotism and always, those goblins gonna get ya), the present Republican Party is a Heaven-sent Scammer's Paradise.
I weep, but their gods must be laughing.
Ken,
I think Marie has it right. The McConnells only care about themselves, their power and their money, and, to a lesser but certainly self-preservationary extent, that of their wealthy supporters, aka their employers, as they have been hired to deliver the goods. If that means torching the Constitution and laughing off their oaths, so be it.
Then there are the deluded, the conned, the savage haters, like Ginni Thomas, and very much like ol’ Justice Long Dong himself, who gives off the stench of revenge. I’ve long thought that his scorched earth approach to what the right laughingly calls “justice” is informed in no small measure by his sense of being badly treated by Democrats and liberals.
He cannot ever bring himself to rule justly on any issue which could be seen as a “win” for those he considers his “high tech lynchers”, no matter the clear nature of a case. But he was never a good choice for the court. He was always damaged goods, a rank hypocrite. As the guy supposedly looking out for employees, making sure they weren’t maltreated or abused, he was the very model of the sort of horrible boss he was charged with going after. And for being exposed like that, he has sworn vengeance on anybody he could get in his crosshairs, all the while convincing himself of his self-righteous sense of honor.
Trump is a special case, but in many ways he represents the low point of right-wing delusion. Yes, I believe with every fiber of my being that he is a complete nihilist when it comes to ideology. He goes with whatever makes him money or supports his superior sense of his own wonderfulness. That’s the narcissist part. But it’s a huge part. And I think in many instances, his warped brain needs to more than half believe his bullshit.
He is a winner! Not a loser! He can’t abide that idea. So he sells the rubes a tale about how the Bidens and the Democrats and minorities and women and the media are all conspiring to screw him, and them. So they convince themselves (although they have long been preconditioned to believe in that toxic and weird state of both victimhood and superiority) that any terrible thing they must do to take their own revenge and, ahem, “save the country”, no matter how dangerous or illegal, is perfectly fine.
On the street, there’s a long standing rule for those selling world altering substances (ie drug dealers). Don’t do your own shit. Sell it, but don’t smoke, snort, or inject it. It will fuck.you.up and ruin your business, which is, after all, to make money.
But many on the right do exactly that. They inhale the poisons they hawk. How else could do many of these assholes live with the horrible shit they insist on inflicting, right down to destroying the nation?
They’d have to be anarchic, criminal nihilists. Or, pure evil.
But maybe that’s a much bigger element in this than we’d like to admit.
I realize that defining your opponents as evil is often considered a dead end, that no one is “pure evil”, and so, a waste of time, but like Sherlock Holmes once suggested, once you’ve considered all other possibilities, the one that’s left, no matter how improbable, is most likely the correct answer.
Well put, Akhilleus.
Your fine and complete description puts me back to where I started. When I look at or think of Republicans I'll still wonder just how damaged or nuts they are.
A little or a lot? Or is that one just one of the few in it only for the money?
If not for the money and the feel-good sense of power it brings, it comes down to this: There's no rational basis for being a Republican.
And as a governing philosophy, the pursuit of money or power for its own sake is equally destructive and insane.
A few givens to throw onto today's RC fire:
1. The capacity for self-delusion is infinite
2. It is tax season, when R's try to make hay of everybody who pays them. You are never more susceptible to the R fever than March and April.
3. You can step on the masses until they explode in revolt. As long as they can get revolving credit that day is postponed. If you are a conservative you believe that anything you do to push that day back is justified, even if illegal, immoral and aggravating. But not tax credits, anymore, no sirree bob.
4, If you are conservative you believe you earned everything you have, and should be able to get more. So you can't really support Democratic candidates, who are mostly socialist and will of course become communists if you give them an inch. They just want to give your stuff away to people who haven't earned it. That's just looting!
I'll quote from The Early 202 from WaPo this morning: "House republicans have yet to release their promised election year agenda but they are road testing a new campaign slogan down here in Florida: 'Can you afford a Democratic government?'
While there are comments mainly against made in the article, I'll just say we can't afford the autocracy the republicans offer us.
Check The Early 202 for the whole story.
Lipstick on the Russian pig:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ukraine-urges-halt-russias-assault-biden-heads-poland-2022-03-25/
Just what we intended all along...
If Donbass turns out to be Putin's consolation prize, since he and his puppet independent governments in those regions set up the separatist movements that were then used as the invasion's justification, maybe a Ukrainian offensive in that region to root out the "separatists" will soon be in the cards.
General Ken, drawing lines on a map...