;)
October 3, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Setting out their opening argument in the trial of [Oath Keepers leader Stewart] Rhodes and four other members of the Oath Keepers on charges of seditious conspiracy, federal prosecutors said on Monday that [beginning as early as two days after the November 2020 election, Oath Keepers made] a broad effort to stop the transfer of presidential power and to use the might of the far-right militia to keep ... Donald J. Trump in office.... Mr. Rhodes riled up and recruited dozens of Oath Keepers to join his plot, prosecutors said, eventually deploying them in Washington and across the river in Virginia to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6, 2021, of Mr. Biden's victory.... In his own opening statement, Phillip Linder, Mr. Rhodes's lawyer, said that Mr. Rhodes and his subordinates had never planned an illegal attack against the government.... Instead, Mr. Linder said, the Oath Keepers were waiting for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act -- a move, they claim, would have given the group standing as a militia to employ force of arms in support of Mr. Trump." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This may prove to be an interesting trial to follow because it's likely to release some new facts about the insurrection or ones we've only speculated about.
This New York Times story, by Edgar Sandoval & others, examines how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used Florida funds to round up asylum-seekers in San Antonio, Texas, and ship them to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, without telling the migrants their destination or that they were going to a place that had no jobs or facilities for them. The story also identifies, for the first time (MB: I think), who the mysterious recruiter "Perla" is.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In its first argument of the Supreme Court's new term and the first to feature its newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justices on Monday considered a dispute over the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to police some kinds of water pollution. In June, on the final day of its last term, the court limited the E.P.A.'s power to address climate change under the Clean Air Act. The new case concerned its authority under a different law, the Clean Water Act, which allows the regulation of discharges into what the law calls 'waters of the United States.' The question for the justices was how to determine which wetlands qualify as such waters."
Jeremy Herb of CNN: "... Donald Trump falsely claimed he had given the letters he exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the National Archives last year when he was interviewed by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman for her forthcoming book, according to audio of the interview obtained by CNN.... Haberman told The New York Times, which first reported the audio clips, that she asked Trump in a September 2021 interview 'on a lark' whether he had taken any memento documents from the White House. Trump told Haberman, 'Nothing of great urgency, no,' before bringing up the Kim letters unprompted. 'I have great things though, you know. The letters, the Kim Jong Un letters. I had many of them,' Trump said. 'You were able to take those with you?' Haberman asked. 'No, I think that has the ... I think that's in the archives, but most of it is in the Archives. But the Kim Jong Un letters, we have incredible things. I have incredible letters with other leaders.'... CNN and other outlets have previously reported that Trump, in fact, had kept the Kim letters among the tens of thousands of government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Kind of fun to see how Trump uses word salad to lie his way out of an accidental moment of candor. And how Haberman, a Trump pro, catches him. First, she asks an "innocent" question. He answers with a boast, saying he has (present tense) many great things. Then he mentions, without using a connective word, the Kim letters. Then he says he had (evidently the exact same subject, but now, inexplicably, he describes his possession of them in the past tense) many of them (so not all??). As we now know, "I have" is true, but Trump suddenly realizes in the conversation with Haberman that it's illegal for him to "have" them. So "have" becomes "had" in the very same thought fart. Haberman tries to verify that Trump kept the letters, but by then he's ready to embellish his lie with more obfuscation, telling her he thinks the Kim letters are in the Archives. Then he utters one of those nonsense sentences for which he is famous: "But the Kim Jong Un letters, we have incredible things." Those letters are "great," they're "incredible." Superlatives required. Finally, he changes the subject to "incredible" exchanges with other leaders. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, Trump is out there calling Haberman a lying creep. ~~~
~~~ AND David Leonhardt of the New York Times goes a bit meta when he interviews Haberman about interviewing Trump.
Lawrence Hurley of NBC News: "The Supreme Court on Monday rejected MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's bid to fend off a defamation lawsuit the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems filed over his far-fetched claims about the 2020 presidential election. The justices' decision not to hear the case means a federal judge's ruling in August 2021 that allowed the lawsuit to move forward remains in place."
Alabama State GOP Chairman Used Fake ID to Vote. Kyle Whitmere of AL.com: In "Alabama, state law requires you to show a photo ID at the polls. For most folks, this means a driver's license, but other forms of government-issued ID are permitted -- a military ID, a passport or a college student ID, among others.... And if you don't have any of those, the Alabama Secretary of State's office will help you get a special voter ID. The office will even make house calls for the non-ambulatory. But the last few times Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl voted, he presented poll workers with an ID they'd never seen before.... It bore a state seal, a barcode and Wahl's picture. The badge said Wahl was a media representative for State Auditor Jim Zeigler. But when I asked the Alabama Department of Finance, which administers employee IDs, that department said it had never issued him one, nor was Wahl on the list of employees, past and present, in Zeigler's office. As it turns out, Wahl made the ID, he says, with Zeigler's permission. And now, the state's top election official, Secretary of State John Merrill, says that badge is not a valid voter ID." MB: The story gets weirder. Uh, something about Anabaptists & the "mark of the beast." Really.
From Marie's Celebrity* News Page. Declan Harty & Sam Sutton of Politico: "Kim Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle federal charges that she promoted a cryptocurrency without disclosing she was paid to do so, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday. The SEC alleged that the celebrity billionaire and reality TV star used her Instagram account -- followed by 331 million people -- to tout EthereumMax's token, EMAX, without disclosing that she was being given $250,000 in exchange. EMAX is a token built on the popular Ethereum blockchain. Its value has fallen by more than 99 percent since peaking in May 2021." MB: BTW, herein we find an opportunity to appropriately use the word "deceptive." (See today's Comments). As in, "By failing to disclose that she received a fee for endorsing the product, Ms. Kardashian engaged in deceptive advertising."
*Celebrity: someone who is famous for being famous. And not much else.
~~~~~~~~~~
Apocalypse Pending. Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "With a tough midterm election about six weeks away, many Democrats have largely settled on a campaign message ... that ... amounts to a stark warning: If Republicans take power, they will establish a dystopia that cripples democracy and eviscerates abortion rights and other freedoms.... For months leading Democrats, starting with President Biden, signaled that they would campaign on having helped Americans, from fixing bridges to cutting drug costs. Biden suggested that attacking Republicans too harshly would divide the country and alienate potential supporters. But with Trump's reemergence, the proliferation of Republican nominees who reject fair elections, and the Supreme Court's overturning abortion rights, the calculus has starkly changed." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It depends upon the audience. In my state, Congressional Democrats are running ads about how bipartisany they are & how they are so independent, they cross the aisle all the time to work with Republicans. The ads make me sick, but I suppose the candidates have focus-grouped out what the nitwits want to hear.
The Party of Psychopaths. Joshua Zitser of Insider, republished by Yahoo! News: "Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ... claimed at a rally for ... Donald Trump in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday that Democrats are murdering Republicans. 'I'm not going to mince words with you all,' Greene said. 'Democrats want Republicans dead. They've already started the killings.' Greene, who has repeatedly spread bizarre conspiracy theories, went on to reference two local news stories to support her baseless claim that Democrats are hunting down GOP voters.... 'Joe Biden has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state,' she said. It was Trump who used this specific terminology, referring to President Joe Biden as an 'enemy of the state' during a rally in Pennsylvania last month. 'We will take back our country from the communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear,' she continued. 'We will expose the unelected bureaucrats, the real enemies within, who have abused their power and have declared political warfare on the greatest president this country has ever had.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Collaborators: The Things They Do for Orange Jesus. Steve Eder, et al., of the New York Times: Republican Congressional "votes to reject the election results have become a badge of honor within the party, in some cases even a requirement for advancement, as doubts about the election have come to define what it means to be a Trump Republican. The most far-reaching of Mr. Trump's ploys to overturn his defeat, the objections to the Electoral College results by so many House Republicans did more than any lawsuit, speech or rally to engrave in party orthodoxy the myth of a stolen election. Their actions that day legitimized Mr. Trump's refusal to concede, gave new life to his claims of conspiracy and fraud and lent institutional weight to doubts about the central ritual of American democracy.... Objectors are set to fill the Republican leadership posts and head a majority of the committees....
"In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Representative Mike Johnson, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections. On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, he presented colleagues with what he called a 'third option.' He faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, without supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump's most vocal supporters. His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case."
Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "In an extraordinarily candid and profane interview with Rolling Stone, Michael Fanone -- the former Washington police officer who was seriously hurt at the US Capitol during the January 6 attack -- called the Republican House leader, [Kevin McCarthy,] potentially the next speaker, a 'fucking weasel bitch'.... Fanone, now an analyst for CNN, said his new mission in life was to 'wag[e] a one-man war against Donald Trump and the fucking people that refuse to accept reality'."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The last Supreme Court term ended with a series of judicial bombshells in June that eliminated the right to abortion, established a right to carry guns outside the home and limited efforts to address climate change. As the justices return to the bench on Monday, there are few signs that the court's race to the right is slowing. The new term will feature major disputes on affirmative action, voting, religion, free speech and gay rights. And the court's six-justice conservative supermajority seems poised to dominate the new term as it did the earlier one. 'On things that matter most,' said Irv Gornstein, the executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law, 'get ready for a lot of 6-3s.'" ~~~
~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "Already, with its calendar only partly filled, the justices have once again piled onto their agenda cases that embroil the court in some of the most inflammatory issues confronting the nation -- and more are on the way."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Brazil. Terrence McCoy, et al., of the Washington Post: "Brazil's deeply polarizing presidential election, which has pitted populists from opposite ends of the political spectrum -- right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva -- will go to a second round after no candidate secured enough votes Sunday to claim outright victory. In a race that voters, analysts and the candidates themselves framed as an existential moment in Latin America's largest country, Lula, a former union leader who served two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, won a narrow plurality. But it was not enough to defeat Bolsonaro, who ended the night with a far more significant share of the vote than many polls predicted." An AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Guardian is live-updating developments.
Iran. AP: "Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the biggest protests in Iran in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called 'rioting' and accuse the United States and Israel of planning the protests. The unrest, ignited by the death of a young woman in the custody of Iran's morality police, are flaring up across the country for a third week despite government efforts to crack down. On Monday, Iran shuttered its top technology university following an hours-long standoff between students and the police that turned the prestigious institution into the latest flashpoint of protests and ended with hundreds of young people arrested." MB: Because dictators & repressive governments are never at fault.
Ukraine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Monday are here: "Russian lawmakers are poised to finalize the illegal takeover of four Ukrainian regions this week, with both houses of Russia's rubber-stamp parliament expected to pass annexation documents Monday and Tuesday. Ukraine celebrated the retaking of Lyman, saying on Sunday that the key logistics hub in the eastern Donetsk region was completely 'cleared of the Russian occupiers.' Russian forces' retreat from Lyman and other recent setbacks led to unusually open criticism of the Russian military on hard-line pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.... Denmark said the Nord Stream gas leaks are under control.... About 150 Ukrainian schools have been destroyed and 900 damaged, first lady Olena Zelenska said in an interview with '60 Minutes' that aired Sunday. 'Around 3,500 schools will operate online only, because schools cannot receive students and because their parents are afraid to send their children to school,' Zelenska said."
Michael Biesecker, et al., of the AP: "... an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series 'Frontline' has found ... a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million -- cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin's war machine.... The ongoing theft, which legal experts say is a potential war crime, is being carried out by wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in Russia and Syria, some of them already facing financial sanctions from the United States and European Union. Meanwhile, the Russian military has attacked farms, grain silos and shipping facilities still under Ukrainian control with artillery and air strikes, destroying food, driving up prices and reducing the flow of grain from a country long known as the breadbasket of Europe."
U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Bowing to intense opposition from Conservative lawmakers after a market backlash, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain on Monday reversed plans to abolish the top income tax rate of 45 percent on high earners, a key element of her government's tax-cutting economic agenda. The announcement buoyed the British pound, which had been driven down by fears over the government's plans. But it was a humbling capitulation by the government, a day after Ms. Truss declared that she would go ahead with the tax cuts that were the centerpiece of her successful campaign to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.: The Guardian's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Perhaps you think Miss Lizzie does not know what she's doing. I don't think she does.
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Reader Comments (15)
In a few hours the Anderson Window brigade will light upon us and begin the process of replacing six of our windows (we gots lots). I will not be able to access my computer for awhile––-just a wee note explaining my absence and unlike Ken who goes off on trips, I'm gonna be a prisoner in me own home.
Want to thank Marie for answering my query re: her house in Ft. Myers; good luck with the selling it when the time comes.
MTG needs to be put in jail or a straitjacket. But hold on, a straitjacket gives the impression that she is not responsible for her screams about Republicans being murdered by Democrats in a coordinated attack led by freeeedum hating Commie, Joe Biden. She did this, of course, at a rally for a traitor whose words have already incited killings during an attempted overthrow of the government which he sponsored and helped coordinate (and I’m not even saying “allegedly”, because he did it).
The fascists in the Party of Traitors have already been shown to be gullible morons bereft of critical thinking abilities, heavily armed, and susceptible to violent rhetoric. Which is music to Greene.
First, more projection:
“Joe Biden calls us enemies of the state!!!!”
Never happened, never will. It’s Trump who brands those he doesn’t like as enemies of the state, pinning targets on their back.
“They’re weaponizing the legal system against us!!!”
Wrong again (although I halfway wish that was true sometimes). It was Trump and his minions who DID weaponize the DoJ. And he’s still weaponizing the justice system by relying on dangerous hacks like “Judge” Cannon to subvert and hobble the rule of law.
So, murder is bad? Hmmm…not that long ago, Greene, responding to questions about Republican sponsored mass shootings shrugged her shoulders and sniffed “The reality is, murder is legal. Nothing you can do. And we already have enough gun laws.”
But murder is only legal when Second Amendment types go postal, eh?
This sort of incitement really should be illegal. And frankly, it is. Yes, there is the First Amendment, but there are limits to that right. You can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Greene is shouting “fire” in a theater full of heavily armed psychos, followed up by “And Democrats set it!!! Aieeee!”
Providing confederates who own tons of gunpowder with a match and pointing at a target is tantamount to suborning murder.
I suppose once Trumpbots start killing Democrats, she’ll say “Hey, murder is legal. When we do it”. Look, I get that tribal instincts, aided by fear, paranoia, and ignorance are what get a dangerous idiot like Greene into a position of power. But do a majority of her constituents really feel like she’s speaking for them when she incites violence against innocent people? Because if so, we’re in a lot more trouble than I already think we are.
AK: Keep in mind a man who probably knows the jaded Green Girl best just filed for divorce; yet she gets enough votes in order to place her fanny in Congress. So one can conclude these voters cotton to her messages therefore " a majority of her constituents really feel like she’s speaking for them when she incites violence against innocent people[eliminate quetion mark]? Because if so, we’re in a lot more trouble than I already think we are."
You betcha!!!! and even more odorous are those six Supremes who begin their new session. We wait with anticipation at what kind of lyrics will be handed down when they sing their songs.
As noted above, many Congresspersons who objected to Biden electors Jan 6 used the excuse that some states' voting was "unconstitutional," even though that argument had been thrown out of dozens of courts.
As not noted above, none of the objecting House members resigned or declined to serve after being elected in the same election. They probably think they serve under a different constitution. Maybe Confederate?
So far I haven’t heard a single R in Congress dispute MTG’s claim that Democrats are systematically murdering Republicans. They’re all tarred by this madness. They don’t care as long as somehow they might benefit.
And the media doesn’t help. I don’t care that some people think she’s a sideshow clown. She made these horrific remarks (horrific both for the content but also for the intent—to whip up violence against the opposition) in the presence of the former guy at a rally specifically arranged to continue his attacks on democracy and the rule of law. That fat bastard just sat there smiling as Greene unleashed her poison. This should have been front page news because of that, with demands that she put up or shut up, backing up such inflammatory claims with something besides a single weird situation in South Dakota, or wherever the fuck it was.
Instead, it’s all back-burnered in the MSM. I read one headline that read something like “Marjorie Taylor Greene deceptively tells Trump rally that…blah, blah, blah. Deceptively? Like she’s developed a new strategy for Button, Button, Who’s got the Button?
The problem then becomes one of adding immensely to the ignorance of low information types. If and when some winger nuts start going after Democrats and someone points to MTG’s remarks as the catalyst, plenty of those LIT will say “Why, that must be a lie. If she really said those things, we’d have heard about it!”
Yeah, we’ll not on Fox you won’t.
PD,
This next Supreme Court season could very well be the end of democracy because of two very dangerous cases involving voting rights. And here’s the other thing about the Supremes, who are gearing up for their second round of Back to the Past”. If they take up a case that sounds like total bullshit, especially a case in which lower courts have found against the bullshit, it’s not to say “Well, yeah. Of course it’s bullshit. The lower courts got it right!”
Nope. It’s because these evil fucks see a chance to permanently disable democracy and ensure that their pals not only get to do whatever they want, but that courts then have no say over whatever shenanigans they pull to grab on to power, however illegally.
A year from now, we could very well be living in the Disunited States of Republicans.
@Akhilleus: The headline you read is from the story I linked above. I ellipsed (not a real word) the "deceptively" right out of the lede precisely because it is so wrong in this case. The writer must have looked up a synonym for "lying" and found "misleading"; then looked up a synonym for "misleading" & found "deceptive" (which one will).
I might deceptively try to make myself appear thinner than I am by wearing some sort of corset under a slimming little black dress. But if, while so deceptively attired, I told you that Democrats were coming after you to kill you, well, that would not be deception. Rather, that would be a direct lie designed to provoke you into some state of mind or action based on a false representation. And if I were an authority figure who did that -- say, a member of Congress -- that would be even worse. Sort of like when a president* says to an armed, angry mob, "You've got to go down to the Capitol & fight like hell."
Marie,
Quite. But doesn’t it seem like all these dangerous wingers feel a need to one up the previous person’s horrible douchebag descant?
It’s like that old Monty Python sketch of old guys sitting in their toney club making up shit about how horrible they had it as kids:
First guy: We didn’t have a house, we lived in a corridor!
Second guy: Ohhh, we DREAMED of living in a corridor. We lived in a rusted water tank on a rubbish heap.
Third guy: At least you had a roof. We lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road, all 160 of us, and we had to get up every morning and lick the road clean with our tongues!
Fourth guy: Try tellin’ that to kids today and they won’t believe you.
Instead we get:
Hillary kidnaps children and sends them off to sexual slavery.
…And sells their body parts so she can buy a new luxury mansion…
Democrats worship satan…
And they’re all freeedom hating Communists…
And they’re murdering Republicans…
He didn’t steal those secret documents, this is just a storage issue…
And really, it’s no different than overdue library books…
But, but…the EMAILS!!!
You read something horrible on Monday, by that same night some other idiot ups the ante, then everyone else has to make up their own horror story to stay relevant. Except for Josh Hawley. That fool got it backwards. He made up horrible shit about Republicans. Oops!
It never ends.
Sitting here in the same rage all of you are in: Roberts is a pantywaist and NPR has glibly said that Clarence is now leading… He is in revenge mode and has a skewed view of this country. I think he and the Missus are both monsters. Broke my fibula at ankle September 20 and have had an ungodly amount of time to read and watch things, which is not a good thing. As a resident cynic on RC, my view of everything has darkened and I should just butt-out of discussions but that is hard for me. Our country is in real trouble, and Perjury Green is a large part of the reason why. Poisonous witch. With a “b.”
I'm sure Fox News doesn't have time to cover MTG's incitement because they are busy covering bigger scandals going on right now.
Better than a fishing competition, we need a swimming competition
to see which R congresspersons can swim across the Potomac with
a hundred pounds of rocks in their trunks.
Most of them probably think they can walk on water so would be fun.
Forrest, for historical balance, maybe they should swim the Potowmack with a cotton gin fan tied to their back.
As I understand the Oath Keepers' opening argument, they did not plan an illegal attack on the government, they planned an attack on a collection of people (the existing government) they were anticipating would be declared an illegal government. Change the labels and, all of a sudden, a murderous attack becomes legal.
NiskyGuy,
Like almost the entirety of the right, certainly those politically active, the Oaf Peepers believe they can do what they want without being held responsible. Responsibility is for losers (everyone but them). If they had planned a form of civil disobedience to protest what they (wrongly) believed was an illegitimate government, then they should be prepared to suffer the consequences, like, say, the suffragettes who were tossed in prison for advocating for the right of women to vote. But no, these people believe they are always right but should never suffer any consequences just because of a little bitty act of insurrection where people got killed.
But now that I think about it, civil disobedience is the wrong analogy for what they were about. Civil disobedience, by definition, is non-violent. Violence, including clubbing officers of the law, beatings, and even murder, was the whole point.
Attempting a personally advantageous rewriting of what happened is the coward’s way out. “I didn’t kill that guy, he died of pneumonia!” “He wouldn’t have gotten pneumonia if you hadn’t shot him!”
Cowards, liars, thugs, and now felons.
Trump’s army.
The Never Ending Story
A CNN story (linked above) about Fatty hanging on to letters from his second favorite dictator then lying about it begins with a line 99.9% of stories about this liar could employ:
“Donald Trump falsely claimed…”
Fill in the rest.