;)
The Conversation -- February 6, 2024
Today is primary election day in Nevada, and there's a very special election in New York to fill George Santos' seat, not that anyone could really replace George/Anthony Surname-Undetermined. More on these contests linked below. Oops! The New York special election is not till next Tuesday. Sorry about that.
** Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "The United States House of Representatives rejected impeachment charges against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, on Tuesday after a small group of Republicans broke with their party and refused to support what amounted to a partisan indictment of President Biden's immigration policies. The 216-214 dealt a stunning defeat to Speaker Mike Johnson, who had expressed confidence that he had the votes to charge Mr. Mayorkas with high crimes and misdemeanors for failing to lock down the United States border with Mexico amid a migrant surge, a move that Republicans have been promising for more than a year. In an extraordinary scene on the House floor, Republican leaders held the vote open for several minutes as they scrambled to corral the necessary votes to approve the charges, as Democrats jeered and yelled 'Order!' and the tally hovered at a tie. In the end, three Republican defections -- by Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Tom McClintock of California -- were enough to sink the measure." This is the pinned item in a liveblog. MB: Looks as if the Johnson will bring up the Mayorkas impeachment for a vote again Wednesday.~~~
Update. Catie Edmondson: "Raj Shah, a spokesman for Speaker Johnson, says 'House Republicans fully intend to bring articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas back to the floor when we have the votes for passage.' Assuming no one changes their vote, Republicans would be able to win a slim majority once Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, returns to Washington. He has been recovering from treatment for multiple myeloma and away from the Capitol for the past few weeks."
~~~ CNN's liveblog of the impeachment vote is here.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "The House on Tuesday failed to pass a standalone package for $17.6 billion in Israel aid amid opposition from both Republicans and Democratic leaders. Because of resistance among members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, House Speaker Mike Johnson had been forced to bring up the bill under a procedure that requires two-thirds majority of the House to approve it. That means he needed the support of a sizable number of Democrats to get behind it, and failed to cross that threshold." MB: Apparently Johnson will try again on this one, too.
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "When ... Donald J. Trump, in his final hours in the White House in early 2021, commuted a 10-year drug smuggling sentence being served by a New Yorker named Jonathan Braun, he made no mention of Mr. Braun's many other legal problems. Months earlier, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York State attorney general had filed suits against Mr. Braun saying he swindled and intimidated borrowers who had taken money from a network of predatory lenders he ran, charging usurious interest rates and making violent threats. On Tuesday, a federal judge in New York imposed $20 million in fines on Mr. Braun after finding him liable for the accusations made by the trade commission. Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in Manhattan excoriated Mr. Braun in the ruling, depicting him as a hardened, craven man who 'gleefully, with little remorse,' boasted about his illegal conduct and treated it as a 'laughing matter' as he threatened the business owners he gouged."
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Biden on Tuesday blamed former President Trump for torpedoing a bipartisan border security bill for political reasons. 'All indication are this bill won't even move forward to the Senate floor. Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump thinks it's bad for him politically,' Biden said in remarks from the White House." ~~~
~~~ Joe gives 'em hell: ~~~
~~~ Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Republicans, under heavy pressure from former President Trump, will block a procedural motion to begin debate on a bipartisan border security deal this week, leaving funding for the war in Ukraine in limbo for the foreseeable future. A failure to advance the border security deal this week would signal the legislation is unlikely to pass the Senate without major changes. And any revisions to asylum and border security reforms negotiated with the White House and Senate Democrats could scuttle the whole deal.... Asked Tuesday morning if any Senate Republicans will vote to proceed to the bill, [Senate Minority Whip John] Thune [R-S.D.] said it's 'unlikely' because members of his conference want more time to study the complicated package. 'I think it's unlikely because I just think our members are still -- they want more time to evaluate it,' he said.... He said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) decision to schedule a vote Wednesday to allow the bill to proceed is 'rushing it.'"
Ed White of the AP: "A Michigan jury convicted a school shooter's mother of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday in a first-of-its-kind trial to determine whether she had any responsibility in the deaths of four students in 2021. Prosecutors say Jennifer Crumbley was grossly negligent when she failed to tell Oxford High School that the family had guns, including a 9 mm handgun that her son, Ethan Crumbley, used at a shooting range on the weekend before the Nov. 30, 2021, attack."
Keven Breuninger of CNBC: "The New York judge set to deliver a verdict in the civil business fraud trial of Donald Trump has ordered attorneys in the case to give him details about possible perjury by former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. Judge Arthur Engoron, in an email to the attorneys made public Tuesday, said that if Weisselberg had lied in one aspect of his testimony, the judge might disregard anything Weisselberg has said on the witness stand or to investigators. Engoron flagged a New York Times report last week that said Weisselberg is negotiating a deal with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office that would require him to plead guilty to perjury. That report, which cited people with knowledge of the matter, said that Weisselberg would have to admit that he lied during his testimony at Trump's fraud trial in Manhattan Supreme Court. Weisselberg, 76, would also have to say he lied under oath during an interview with the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, the Times reported."
For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution. -- Federal Appeals Court, in a unanimous decision, released Tuesday
Former President Trump's alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. He allegedly injected himself into a process in which the President has no role -- the counting and certifying of the Electoral College votes -- thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of the Congress.
At bottom, former President Trump's stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. - Ibid. ~~~
~~~ ** Adam Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected ... Donald J. Trump's claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to President Biden. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed Mr. Trump a significant defeat, but was unlikely to be the final word on his claims of executive immunity. Mr. Trump is expected to continue his appeal to the Supreme Court -- possibly with an intermediate request to the full appeals court. Still, the panel's 57-page ruling signaled an important moment in American jurisprudence, answering a question that had never been addressed by an appeals court: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office?... The panel said ... that the underlying case, which was put on hold by the trial judge in December, would remain suspended if Mr. Trump appealed its decision to the Supreme Court by Monday, Feb. 12." ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, Trump cannot further delay his trial by appealing the three-judge panel's ruling to the full (en banc) D.C. Appeals court. According to Lisa Rubin of MSNBC, Trump can still appeal to the full appeals court, but the three judges' decision sends the case back to the trial judge as of next Tuesday, so motions and other court business can proceed. Update: Andrew Weissmann agrees with what I wrote: that Trump cannot take the intermediary step of asking for an en banc review by the appeals court; he must go directly to the Supremes -- and he has only a week to do so. ~~~
~~~ The ABC News report is here. And here is the ruling, via the Court.
~~~ Khalada Rahman of Newsweek, republished by MSN: "Donald Trump has claimed that every president will be 'immediately indicted' by the opposing party after leaving office if they are not granted immunity.... 'IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO A PRESIDENT, EVERY PRESIDENT THAT LEAVES OFFICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday night. 'WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION!'" MB: No, Donald, only a corrupt DOJ would automatically and "immediately" indict a former president without cause. I wonder if the Appeals Court gave Trump's attorneys a heads-up yesterday that their ruling was coming Tuesday, because Trumpaloony certainly seemed exercised Monday night.
~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden vowed on Monday to veto a House Republican bill that would provide $17.6 billion in aid to Israel, calling it a 'cynical political maneuver' intended to hurt the chances of passage for broader legislation that would provide money for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the U.S. border.... In its official response [to Speaker Mike Johnson's announcement Saturday of an Israel-only bill] on Monday, the Biden administration said the president would veto the House bill if it came to his desk."
They Can't Take Yes for an Answer. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Republicans in Congress who have spent months demanding that any aid to Ukraine be paired with a crackdown against migration into the United States got what they asked for when a bipartisan group of senators released a $118.3 billion agreement that would provide both. On Monday, many of them rejected it anyway.... Even as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and a champion of funding for Ukraine, took to the floor to push for action on the bill..., Speaker Mike Johnson denounced the measure as 'even worse than we expected' and, in a joint statement with his leadership team, repeated what had become his mantra about the deal -- that it would be 'dead on arrival' in the House." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Since 2020, Republicans have decided not to have a party platform beyond "What Trump Sez." So to help voters know what they do stand for, GOP members of Congress could at least put out a manifesto making it clear: "We Are Not Here to Legislate."
"Doomed." Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: "Senate Republicans on Monday signaled their plan to filibuster bipartisan legislation that paired tougher border policy with more U.S. aid to Ukraine, a stunning reversal less than 24 hours after the legislation had been unveiled. With ... Donald Trump urging them to kill it, and many on the right up in arms about the proposal, top Senate Republicans emerged from a heated closed-door meeting and said they needed more time to review the agreement, suggesting that a scheduled Wednesday vote to advance the bill is all but doomed to fail."
The Biden/Schumer Open Border Bill allows 5,000 immigrants a day into our country. -- House Republicans in a social media post on Monday
And more like that. ~~~
~~~ Angelo Fichera of the New York Times: "Republican critics have quickly twisted one element of a bipartisan compromise bill unveiled on Sunday to misleadingly suggest that it permits 5,000 migrants to enter the country illegally every day. The legislation, which links additional funding in military aid for Ukraine with immigration policy, would more aggressively tamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico.... Among other provisions, it would give officials the authority to summarily remove migrants, with little recourse, after a certain number cross: an average of 5,000 encounters per day for a week, or 8,500 in a single day."
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Welp, the dog caught the car again. After months -- decades? -- of running on tightening the border, House Republicans are suddenly paralyzed when offered the chance to do so.... Within hours of this 370-page bill dropping, House GOP leaders ruled out letting their chamber vote on any of it.... The White House and the bill's Senate negotiators are now trying to defend it against myriad falsehoods about open borders and the like. But the burden of proving -- or disproving -- the merits of this hard-fought deal should be on the speaker: What, exactly, is [Speaker Mike] Johnson's objection to doing so many things his party ran for office to do?" ~~~
~~~ Marie: As Rampell herself points out, Johnson and his cohort are already explaining why the bill is a loser, but they're lying. Besides the "5,000 'illegals' will stream across the border every day" lie, "... they keep insisting that President Biden [currently can] take actions that courts have ruled would be illegal."
Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Choosing governance over grievance rarely works in Donald Trump's Republican Party. Oklahoma's James Lankford, who produced the Senate's most conservative immigration plan in decades after tortuous talks with Democrats, is learning this lesson with the deal appearing close to collapse Monday a day after it was unveiled. 'This is a very bad bill for his career,' the ex-president said Monday, delivering an ominous warning to a red-state senator who could find himself out in the cold with the White House and his own political base if Trump wins the 2024 election. Trump's words, on The Dan Bongino Show, caused a Washington whiplash as GOP senators quickly rationalized their political interests and peeled away. By dinner time, a majority of Senate Republicans were leaning against the measure or were resolved to vote it down, meaning a filibuster-proof majority looked impossible, according to CNN sources."
~~~ Senile Florida Man Cannot Recall Endorsing Lankford in 2022. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump ... is now claiming that he never even supported the election of the senator who helped write [the border bill].... 'Just to correct the record, I did not endorse Sen. Lankford. I didn't do it. He ran, and I did not endorse him,' Trump told Dan Bongino on his show. Bongino then pointed Trump to his endorsement and that others were referring to it as well.... Trump did enthusiastically endorse Lankford when [Lankford] ... ran [in 2022].... Trump even proclaimed that Lankford was 'strong on the border.'"
~~~ Julie Tsirkin of NBC News: "As conservatives in Congress have blasted the new bipartisan border agreement for not going far enough, the legislation earned a key endorsement on Monday: the labor union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents. The National Border Patrol Council -- which represents more than 18,000 agents -- said the bill would 'drop illegal border crossings nationwide and will allow our agents to get back to detecting and apprehending those who want to cross our border illegally and evade apprehension.' It's a significant statement of support from a group that endorsed ... Donald Trump in 2020 and has repeatedly railed against President Joe Biden's handling of the border." MB: No, those are not "conservatives in Congress. They're radical right-wing extremists."
Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Sen. J.D. "Vance [R-Ohio] was speaking with ABC News's George Stephanopoulos, who seemed to be focused on testing the limits of the senator's loyalty to Trump. If there's a limit, Stephanopoulos didn't find it.... 'Had you been vice president on January 6th, [2021,]' the ABC anchor asked, 'would you have certified the election results?' 'If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,' Vance said. 'That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.' It is not a legitimate way to do so, at all" (Also linked yesterday.)
Garrett Epps in the Washington Monthly: "... what [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott is doing right now is what drunks in a bar do.... Using bellicose talk and deranged arguments against invisible enemies, he is talking himself and his MAGA allies into outright defiance if the occasion presents itself. He aims his gaudy patter squarely at federal authority, at federal courts, and at the Constitution itself.... If I were (God help me) [Donald] Trump's lawyer, I would suggest he stay quiet until the ballot exclusion case [before the Supreme Court] is resolved.... [Yet] Trump has now needlessly injected himself into the border standoff.... What we need at the border, the oft-indicted former president proclaimed, is more razor wire, more troops, more guns, more dueling commanders, more chances for things to go wrong. The 77-year-old, whose bone spur prevented his serving on the front lines in Vietnam, called for 'all willing states to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of illegals and to remove them back across the border.'... He is, in other words, an insurgent. In a sane legal system, he would be under house arrest awaiting trial."
Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump's MAGA movement is a 'tissue-paper tiger,' as evidenced by the underwhelming 'God's Army' convoy that traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to an op-ed in USA Today by Rex Huppke. 'The 'God's Army' convoy was supposed to be a mighty force of 700,000 or more people from every corner of America,' Huppke writes. 'It wound up being maybe a couple hundred vehicles parked at a rural ranch in Quemado, Texas -- basically a Trump rally without a Trump, but with plenty of hucksters selling MAGA merch and grifting the easily grifted.... MAGA is and always has been a con to line the pockets of Trump and others who saw a swath of Americans waiting to be fleeced...."
Presidential Race
Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: "Nevada voters are heading to the polls Tuesday for their state's first primary in nearly three decades, offering President Biden another chance to pick up delegates after his Saturday win in South Carolina, while an unusual nonbinding Republican contest does not feature GOP front-runner Donald Trump. Biden faces only one long-shot challenger, with Nikki Haley the only Republican candidate in the primary.... [Trump] is the sole participant in Nevada's GOP caucuses later this week, which -- unlike Tuesday's primary -- will count in the race for delegates to the national convention." Reston goes on to explain how the Nevada GOP's presidential contest got to this confusing state. And there's this: "Late last year, a Nevada grand jury charged six Republicans who claimed to be presidential electors in 2020 and submitted certificates to Congress falsely asserting that Trump had won the election in their state, including [state party chair Michael] McDonald. Viewing the state GOP as essentially another arm of the Trump campaign, many of the GOP candidates opted not to spend money organizing in Nevada this cycle -- including Haley." MB: That's right, the Republican party chair, like Trump, is out on bail.
Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "President Biden on Sunday appeared to mix up French President Emmanuel Macron with Francois Mitterrand, the former president of France who died in 1996. The apparent mix-up took place during a Sunday campaign event in Las Vegas, in which Biden recounted a Group of 7 (G7) meeting he attended after being elected in 2020.... 'And Mitterand from Germany -- I mean, from France -- looked at me and said ... "You know, what ... why ... how long you back for?>' Biden said. 'And I looked at him and -- the Chancellor of Germany said, "What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up the paper tomorrow in the London Times, and London Times said, "A thousand people break through the House of Commons, break down the doors, two Bobbies are killed in order to stop the election of the Prime Minister." What would you say?' The White House later posted the remarks, which had the name Mitterand crossed out and replaced with Macron." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Huh? How did the U.K. get into this story about a conversation among Biden, the French president and -- maybe -- the German chancellor? Truly mixed-up. Update: Oh, the G7 meeting was in the south of England, so maybe the British Parliament reference makes sense.
Josh Dawsey & Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has promised a presidency of 'retribution' if he wins another term in office. Many Republicans fear they might face the brunt of it. The former president has threatened to have donors to his Republican opponent Nikki Haley 'permanently barred' from his orbit. A top adviser has vowed to destroy the career of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), House Freedom Caucus chair, after he endorsed ... Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Trump campaign has also attempted to condemn former aides who worked for his rivals during the GOP nomination fight and have twisted arms demanding endorsements, telling lawmakers that Trump will remember exactly when they backed him.... In 2021 and 2022, he made it a near-singular mission to defeat Republican lawmakers who voted for his impeachment and who publicly disputed his claims of election fraud." The story goes on to give numerous additional examples of Trump's vindictive attacks on Republicans, some of whom have endorsed him. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) is running a presidential campaign against the sitting president. I doubt this has pleased Joe Biden. But if Biden has publicly threatened Phillips for his singular breach of party loyalty, I'm unaware of it.
AP: "Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has requested Secret Service protection after receiving a growing number of threats during her 2024 presidential campaign, according to a report published Monday [in the Wall Street Journal].... [The Secret Service is] authorized to provide protection to major party presidential candidates, an authority granted after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968." MB: And we know the predicate is "because Donald Trump."
~~~~~~~~~~
California. Soumya Karlamangla & Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "More than 120 mudslides spread soggy dirt and debris through the steep hillside neighborhoods of Los Angeles by late Monday, after an atmospheric river dumped heavy rain across a vast swath of the nation's most populated state. The death toll from the storm rose to three in Northern California, all killed by toppling trees. Even as the rain began to ease into the evening, Los Angeles officials continued to warn people to stay inside, keeping off the slick, mud-covered roads and away from swollen rivers and streams.... President Biden promised aid during an evening news conference, after Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles stepped away to take a call from him, and then held her phone up so that Mr. Biden could address residents by speakerphone. 'We'll get any help on the way as soon as you guys request it,' the president said. 'So just let me know. That's why I'm calling.' Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, warned on Monday evening that the danger had not yet passed, and even a small amount of rain could cause additional landslides." This is the pinned story in a liveblog.
Georgia Election Law. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "... the end of Sunday night’s season premiere of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' -- look out, spoilers coming -- took pretty, pretty, pretty clear aim at the major voting law Georgia passed in 2021. The episode highlights a provision of the legislation that effectively bars ... anyone ... who is not an election worker from providing food and water to voters waiting in line within a 150-foot radius of a polling place. Larry David ... travels to Atlanta.... He must go find the aunt of Leon, his friend and roommate.... He locates her in a line to vote, sweating in the sweltering Georgia heat, where she says she's been waiting for more than two and a half hours. Larry ... brings her some water. Instantly, police lights flash. 'Sir, in the navy blazer, put your hands in the air,' an officer says to a confused Mr. David. 'You're under arrest for violation of the Election Integrity Act.'... The episode ends with a mug shot of Mr. David, copping a glare and tan reminiscent of ... Donald J. Trump in the photo taken after he was booked in Georgia in August."
New York Congressional Race. Azi Paybarah & Maegan Vazquez of the Washington Post: "Just two months after the U.S. House voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), voters in his New York district will take part in a special election to vote on who should replace him in office. Early voting started Saturday.... The House voted 311-114 in December to expel Santos, creating the vacancy that state law requires be filled in a special election.... The Republican candidate is Mazi Pilip, a two-term Nassau County legislator who is a registered Democrat. She was born in Ethiopia, immigrated to Israel, fought in the Israel Defense Forces, and then immigrated to the United States.... The Democratic candidate is Tom Suozzi, a former member of Congress who held the seat for three terms before leaving to run unsuccessfully for governor of New York. Suozzi previously served as the Nassau county executive and mayor of Glen Cove.... Divisions in the Republican House majority are already making it hard for the party to pass legislation, and that won't get easier if Democrats pick up the Santos seat."
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Egypt, the second stop of a Middle East tour that the State Department said aims to broker the release of Hamas-held hostages and the flow of more aid into Gaza, while preventing the conflict's spread.... Blinken met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh amid a surge in violence in the region, which is bracing for continued attacks between U.S. forces and Iranian-backed militia groups.... In Gaza, fighting has forced about half of the Strip's population to crowd the southern Rafah area, raising fears that Israel's plans to expand its offensive to the city could lead to devastating consequences. ~~~
~~~ CNN's live updates for Tuesday are here.
U.K. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer and is suspending his public engagements to undergo treatment, casting a shadow over a busy reign that began less than 18 months ago.... The announcement, made by Buckingham Palace on Monday evening, came a week after the 75-year-old sovereign was discharged from a London hospital, following a procedure to treat an enlarged prostate. The palace did not disclose what form of cancer Charles has, but a palace official said it was not prostate cancer. Doctors detected the cancer during that procedure, and the king began treatment on Monday." (Also linked yesterday.)
News Lede
New York Times: "Toby Keith, the larger-than-life singer-songwriter of No. 1 country hits like 'Who's Your Daddy?' and 'Made in America' and one of the biggest stars to come out of Nashville in three decades, died on Monday. He was 62."
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Reader Comments (17)
Weasels and Weasel Words
(*sigh*) Here we go again.
The NY Times has a headline today:
GOP Backlash to Border Deal Reflects Vanishing Ground for Compromise
Okay, that’s true as far as it goes, but a low information voter could be forgiven if their understanding of that weasely worded headline is “GOP hoped for more but rejects Democratic plans as not showing enough compromise.”
In fact, the headline should be “GOP gets everything it has been screaming for and now rejects it because Trump needs chaos to win.”
Full stop. The body of the text gets around to something like that but Trump isn’t mentioned until the third paragraph.
I’m so fucking tired of this namby-pamby, vanilla, high school type school paper journalism. Can’t piss off the principal by saying what’s really going on, so Mr. Johnson, the gym teacher, feeling up kids in the locker room becomes “PE classes restructured”.
Over on the opinion pages we get serial bug-eyed liar Kellyanne Conway allowed to describe her boss, the traitor Trump, as having had a successful and robust America First program, who is now looking for a running mate. Conway pats herself on the back for coming up with little mikey pence the first time around. Oh, you mean the guy Trump wanted to hang? That mike pence? Great pick.
She says flat out that loyalty to Trump never means obsequiousness. What? That’s exactly what it means!
She discounts women as not being tough enough on abortion, oh but we don’t want to be THAT tough, cuz Trump is a compassionate guy.
The pretzel twisting is amazing.
JD Vance is put forward as a wonderful person. Vivek Ramaswamy is described as an “energetic businessman full of policy prescriptions”. Sure. If one of those prescriptions is street fentanyl laced with cyanide.
She decides that what’s needed is a person of color. Oh, but not as a token, like those cynical Democrat liars. Trump wants someone to help him govern. Right. Like the half pence did. Does “bobble head doll” count as helping? And the idea that Fatty would allow any person of color to help with something besides shining his shoes or saying “yasuh Missa Trump” is a knee slapper to end all knee slappers.
Oh, but let’s go out of our way to continue being fair to traitors, liars, and gaslighters.
Because Both Sides.
“He aims his gaudy patter squarely at federal authority, at federal courts, and at the Constitution itself.”
A line from a Washington Monthly story, linked above, describing the constitutional traitor, Texas goobernator, Greg Abbott’s flailing around like some deranged drunk in a honky tonk.
I immediately thought of a line from Dashiell Hammett’s “Maltese Falcon” in which the detective, Sam Spade, encounters a sniveling gunsel who approaches him with a stream of purple invective. Spade, sizing the guy up as a loudmouth fraud, smiles and responds “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter”.
Got that right, Sam.
@Akhilleus: Great catch! Epps, a polymath, has an M.A. in fiction-writing, so I would not be surprised if he borrowed -- consciously or unconsciously -- "gaudy patter" from Hammett. Or see also this 2018 essay by Phil Brett, which recounts Hammett's faceoff with Joe McCarthy. For good measure, Brett, channeling Hammett, describes Trump as a "purveyor of gaudy Twitter patter."
Apparently, "gaudy patter" is a thing, not to be confused with "gaudy pattern," which I learned just now is a style of Welsh & Dutch earthenware. I don't suppose Sam Spade had a tea set of the stuff.
Marie,
If he did, I’m guessing, based on the drinking habits of both Spade and Hammett, that he used it for imbibing something a tad stronger than tea.
It ground too slowly, but the mill wheels finally stopped.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/02/06/trump-jan-6-immunity-appeal-denied/
All the can't take yes for an answer stories reminded me that at one point back in the Orange Times Schumer and the Democrats offered TFG $25 billion for his precious wall in exchange for amnesty for the Dreamers. Even Donald sometimes admitted that the Dreamers should be legalized, but once again he and his cult could not take yes for an answer. Republicans blew up the deal because they always want more concessions and they can't be seen working with evil Democrats.
The border is Schroedinger's crisis. All its problems are critical and must be solved immediate, up to - but, crucially, not including - the point where actual solutions become present, at which point it stops being a crisis and its problems can wait.
From above: 'IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO A PRESIDENT, EVERY PRESIDENT THAT LEAVES OFFICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY,'
He is telling us exactly how he thinks a Justice Department should be run, and probably how it was run 2017-2021.
With luck, the extra time spent by the DC appeals court in crafting its decision that a fat, treasonous ex-president is not a king and does not have the kind of blanket immunity for all his many criminal acts he’s been screaming about, has made their decision bulletproof.
Well, as bulletproof as can be when going up against the current Supreme Court. One of two things will happen, maybe both.
The Trump enablers on the Court will take months to issue a ruling. Just long enough to ensure that the Dear Leader never goes on trial, at least before the election. Either that or they may find some picayune, iota sized technicality which will allow them to rule in his favor, something like limited (but just enough) immunity for Fatty, plus adding a stipulation that this will be one time only immunity finding (in other words, no immunity for future Democratic presidents).
They may do both. Drag it out forever, then find for the Orange Monster.
They’ve already decided what they’re gonna do. All they need the appeals court ruling for is for nitpicking purposes.
Akhilleus,
Could be.
Or maybe the SCOTUS will duck the issue entirely, refuse to hear the case and let the district court decision stand.
That way those Pretender judges won't have to explain anything, something the Pretender court has gotten very good at.
I wonder if today's court decision will embolden any to judge to lock him up in pre-trial detention for violations of the terms of his releases?
Latest Lincoln Project ad
Wow. That new Lincoln Project ad…one of their best.
We’re all used to hearing about how every election is the most important ever. I’m afraid too many people say “Yeah, yeah, they say that all the time.”
This one is. Another four years of MAGA hatred, lies, revenge, violence, unhinged ranting, kangaroo courts, grifting, greed, criminality, evisceration of democracy…I don’t think we’d survive.
After the appeals court ruling today, I’m guessing that someone’s stinky whities are getting much more tightie. And look! A big brown stain in the back. Ewww.Time for Mitch and Mike to change baby’s poopy diapies.
Four R's show a glimmering of sanity.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/06/us/mayorkas-impeachment
Ha Ha Ha
"DanDeBrak
mike johnson just got railroaded so hard his son’s phone got a notification"
@Ken Winkes: Make that three Republicans. According to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who might be right for once, "Blake Moore changed his vote [to] no [MB: at the last minute] when asked by leadership for procedural reasons to make a motion to reconsider so that we can vote on impeachment again next week. "