;)
The Conversation -- May 22, 2024
Hannah Rabinowitz & Tierney Sneed of CNN: "A hearing in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case devolved into shouting Wednesday as attorneys battled over an alleged threat made last year to a defense attorney. The morning proceeding in Fort Pierce, Florida, had been scheduled for Walt Nauta, one of ... Donald Trump's co-defendants, to present arguments that special counsel Jack Smith's team had selectively and vindictively brought charges against him. The presiding judge, Aileen Cannon, did not issue a ruling from the bench. But the hearing quickly diverted into a longstanding disagreement over an August 2022 meeting between prosecutor Jay Bratt and Nauta's defense attorney, Stanley Woodward. Woodward has claimed in court proceedings and filings that Bratt attempted to pressure him into convincing Nauta to cooperate against Trump by threatening to affect a potential judgeship nomination. Nauta claims that he was criminally charged in the case as retaliation for declining to cooperate with the Justice Department's investigation.... 'Mr. Woodward's story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy,' [prosecutor David] Harbach shouted, banging his hand on the lectern in front of him. 'It did not happen.'... The judge quickly scolded Harbach, telling the attorney to 'calm down.'"
Sam, the J-6 "Justice." Jodi Cantor, et al., of the New York Times: "Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs. This time, it was the 'Appeal to Heaven' flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for ... Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the 'Stop the Steal' campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms. Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google street view image from late August also shows the flag. The photographs, each taken independently, are from four different dates....
"Justice Alito declined to respond to questions about the beach house flag.... The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court." Guess who else displays the Appeal to Heaven/J-6 flag? Why, Speaker of the House Bible Mike.
Meredith McGraw & Natalie Allison of Politico: "Nikki Haley said Wednesday that she will vote for Donald Trump, despite maintaining he has 'not been perfect' on many policies."
Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "The judge presiding over Hunter Biden's tax case in Los Angeles agreed on Wednesday to delay the start of his trial to Sept. 5, giving his lawyers room to prepare for a separate trial on a firearms charge in Delaware early next month. While the move came as a relief to President Biden's son, it pushes a trial likely to highlight Hunter's Biden's effort to leverage his family's name into profit into the homestretch of the campaign season, around the time mail-in voting starts in some states. Both of ... Donald J. Trump's federal trials, by contrast, have been put on hold and are increasingly unlikely to begin before the election."
Who They Are. Ohio. Erin Glynn of the Columbus Dispatch: "Ohio House leaders said Tuesday there will probably not be a legislative solution to getting President Joe Biden on the November ballot in Ohio. Current law says Ohio officials must certify the ballot on Aug. 7, 90 days before the election, but Biden won't be nominated until the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19. The Ohio House and Senate each had separate proposals to fix the deadline issue but neither advanced when the legislature was last in session on May 8. Speaker Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, told reporters Tuesday that the legislature has fixed the issue with convention dates in the past and he thinks it could have been fixed, but there was just not the will from the legislature this time." MB: Elections expert Marc Elias, who appeared on MSNBC Wednesday, said Democrats would employ other means to get President Biden on the Ohio ballot.
Who They Are. Georgia. Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A Capitol riot defendant who waded through tear gas behind a pro-Donald Trump mob pursuing police officers inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 advanced to a GOP runoff in a Georgia House district on Tuesday, NBC News projects. Charles Hand III, who goes by Chuck Hand, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense in connection with the attack on Jan. 6, 2021. He is running for the Republican nomination in Georgia's 2nd Congressional District, which is held by Democrat Sanford Bishop. In Georgia, if no candidate clears the 50% threshold in a primary, the top two vote-getters move on to a runoff election. Hand will face Wayne Johnson, who served in the Trump administration's Education Department and was leading Tuesday's vote count, on June 18. The eventual GOP winner will be an underdog in the general election against Bishop in the solidly Democratic district."
Who We Are. Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer. The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including: 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing. 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year. 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low."
Who They Are. Colorado. Kyle Clark of KUSA (Denver): "The Colorado Republican Party is issuing a call to its members to pull their children from public school, saying Democrats are using schools to 'turn more kids trans.' The message was delivered in an email blast to Republicans statewide Tuesday. 'All Colorado parents should be aiming to remove their kids from public education,' read the directive from Darcy Schoening, director of special initiatives for the Colorado GOP." Thanks to RAS for the link.
U.K. Pippa Crerar & Rowena Mason of the Guardian: Prime Minister "Rishi Sunak has called a surprise early election for 4 July in a contest that will see Keir Starmer try to take power for Labour after 14 years of Conservative-led government. The prime minister announced the election would be in the early summer, in a high-risk move for the Conservative party as it trails 20 points behind Labour in the polls. Sunak finally decided to name the date after claiming inflation was back under control and the economy was improving, saying it was 'the moment for Britain to choose its future'."
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The New York Times opinion column called "The Point" is quite useful. It includes multiple short items by Times contributors on various matters related to politics.
Tuesday's Primary Election Results
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "[California,] Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon ... held primary contests on Tuesday, with presidential primaries in Kentucky and Oregon yielding notable protest votes against President Biden and ... Donald J. Trump.... Vince Fong, a state lawmaker in California and onetime aide to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, won a special election on Tuesday to fill his seat -- representing the most conservative district in the deep-blue state. Mr. Fong succeeds Mr. McCarthy nearly five months after he resigned from Congress, following his ouster from the speakership."
Georgia. Kate Brumback of the AP: "Two key players in the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald Trump have defeated challengers in Tuesday's election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee both won. Willis is the prosecutor who last year obtained a sprawling racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others, and McAfee is the judge who was randomly assigned to preside over the case. Willis beat progressive attorney Christian Wise Smith in the Democratic primary and is now set to face off against Republican Courtney Kramer in the fall. McAfee won a nonpartisan contest, which means he will serve a full four-year term beginning in January."
The Trials of Trump & the Trump Mob
New York Times reporters liveblogged yesterday's testimony in the Manhattan D.A.'s criminal case against Donald Trump. For details of the reporters' observations, see yesterday's Conversation. ~~~
~~~ Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "On Tuesday, the defense rested its case after Mr. Trump declined to take the stand at his own criminal trial.... Mr. Trump ... had said repeatedly that he wanted to testify.... [The defense] called two witnesses: their own paralegal and one of Mr. Cohen's antagonists, [Robert] Costello.... When not drowned out by a chorus of prosecution objections, Mr. Costello sought to cast doubt on Mr. Cohen's credibility. Mr. Cohen, he said, had once claimed he had nothing incriminating to offer prosecutors.... But on cross-examination, it was Mr. Costello's credibility that came under attack, as he sparred with the prosecution for a second straight day.... After testimony concluded Tuesday, both sides laid out dueling visions for how the judge should instruct the jury as it prepares to weigh the charges." ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, Trump's only substantial witness helped the prosecution rehabilitate Michael Cohen. Excellent work, Team Trump!
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "For the past few months, federal prosecutors and lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump have been battling in secret over allegations of misconduct and politicization in how the government handled the investigation that led to an indictment accusing Mr. Trump of illegally holding on to classified documents after he left office. The fight spilled into the public eye on Tuesday as the judge overseeing the case unsealed a pair of motions by Mr. Trump attacking the integrity of the inquiry and claiming that the special counsel, Jack Smith, had timed his charges to create maximum political damage. The aggressive and often baseless filings by Mr. Trump's lawyers amounted to a multipronged assault on the underpinnings of the classified documents case and were the sharpest articulation yet of an argument the former president has often raised on the campaign trail: that law enforcement has been weaponized against him in a series of overreaching and politically driven witch hunts....
"In a separate motion, Mr. Trump's lawyers asked Judge Aileen M. Cannon ... to exclude from the case any evidence -- including more than 100 classified documents -- the F.B.I. discovered in August 2022 when agents searched Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's private club and residence in Florida. The lawyers also asked Judge Cannon to suppress the private audio notes that prosecutors had obtained from one of Mr. Trump's lawyers through a process that pierced the normal protections of the attorney-client privilege." MB: Should take Cannon many more months to decide. ~~~
~~~ Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday unsealed two motions that were filed months ago by Donald Trump in his classified documents case and that she has not yet ruled on -- part of a backlog that could delay the case beyond November's presidential election.... Legal experts say [Judge Aileen] Cannon has let decisions on these dismissal requests and other motions pile up, delaying the trial, and that her decision to schedule the hearings suggests that she is at least entertaining requests that seem to be without legal merit. Cannon has not scheduled a hearing so far on Trump's motions that were unsealed Tuesday, and she is not required to hold a hearing before she rules on them." ~~~
~~~ Trump Kept Hiding Classified Docs After FBI Search. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Four months after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate, Donald Trump's attorneys discovered four documents marked 'classified' in his personal bedroom. That revelation was among several cited by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in a newly unsealed 2023 opinion that found prosecutors had presented compelling evidence that Trump knowingly stashed national security documents in his home and then tried to conceal them when the Justice Department tried to retrieve them.... Throughout the& [87-page] opinion, Howell -- who was chief judge of the Washington, D.C. federal district court at the time -- described with varying degrees of incredulity how [classified documents could have been found in Trump's bedroom] months after ... the FBI conducted its own exhaustive search of the property.... In a footnote, Howell also noted that another Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC." Thanks to RAS for the link.
** Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed in a campaign fundraising email that President Biden was 'locked & loaded ready to take me out' during a 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents, an extraordinary distortion of a standard FBI policy on the use of deadly force during such operations. Trump appeared to be referring to a law enforcement document, released Tuesday in court filings in the classified documents case, that describes the FBI's plans for a court-authorized search on Aug. 8, 2022, at Mar-a-Lago.... One page in the document includes a 'policy statement on the use of deadly force, which says officers may resort to lethal force only when the subject of such force poses an 'imminent danger of death or serious physical injury' to an officer or another person. Trump and some of his allies suggested Tuesday that this was evidence that Biden's Justice Department was prepared to fatally shoot him. In fact, Trump was not at his Florida property the day of the search....
"A former president falsely accusing his successor and rival of posing a threat to his life is without precedent in modern U.S. history.... Trump also wrote Tuesday on his social media site, Truth Social, that 'Joe Biden's DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE.'... [Trump's] campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused The Washington Post of waging a 'sickening attempt to run cover for Joe Biden.'... Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) ... [wrote] on X that 'The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light.'" An NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Stand up, Merrick Garland, stand up. You must take a strong, public stand denouncing this dangerous lie. Tell Trump if he really does not understand that his claims are false and pose a threat to the POTUS and to DOJ & FBI officials, you will explain it all to him in terms even a petulant child can understand, after which you expect him to fully retract his remarks and publicly apology to President Biden and federal law enforcement personnel. You can't head the DOJ & the FBI if you can't stand up to a lying bully who is endangering employees of both departments.
Danny Hakim & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani and 10 other allies of Donald J. Trump were arraigned and entered not-guilty pleas on Tuesday in an Arizona criminal case that charges them with trying to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Giuliani, who appeared virtually at his arraignment, was ordered by the court to appear in person within 30 days and pay a $10,000 appearance bond. Those conditions, which were not imposed on other defendants, came after prosecutors said Mr. Giuliani had taken numerous steps to evade their attempts to serve him with notice of his indictment. During the hearing, Mr. Giuliani, formerly Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, called the indictment 'a complete embarrassment to the American legal system.'... The defendants who appeared in person included Christina Bobb, a Trump campaign adviser in 2020 who is now the election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee, and Kelli Ward, a former head of the Arizona Republican Party." ~~~
~~~ Marie: How perfect that the RNC's top "election integrity" lawyer is under indictment for election fraud.
Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: "Rudy Giuliani has agreed to no longer accuse ... two Fulton County, Ga., election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye 'Shaye' Moss -- of tampering with the 2020 election, according to a draft agreement filed Tuesday in federal bankruptcy court. The agreement bars Giuliani -- who has for years amplified election falsehoods as a staunch ally of ... Donald Trump -- from publishing or assisting to publish false statements that the two workers 'engaged in wrongdoing' related to the 2020 election." Even after a jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman & Moss $148 million for falsely accusing them of election fraud, he continued to defame them. MB: I suspect that most people, even most fairly stupid people, would have the sense to stop making the same statements that had cost them tens of millions of dollars.
Zach Montague of the New York Times: "President Biden announced on Wednesday the cancellation of $7.7 billion in student loans held by 160,000 borrowers, building on his strategy of chipping away at college debt by tweaking existing programs as his administration pursues a larger forgiveness plan. Many borrowers in this round -- who qualified through public service loan forgiveness, the president's SAVE plan or another income-driven repayment plan -- have already begun receiving emails notifying them of their approvals, the Education Department said in a statement. The steady drumbeat of loan forgiveness announcements from the White House this year has become a centerpiece of Mr. Biden's re-election pitch, in which he has consistently described overcoming the cost of education as a primary hurdle for working families."
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that he did not support a ban on birth control, despite his responses in a television interview earlier in the day that suggested he was open to states restricting access to contraceptives. 'I HAVE NEVER, AND WILL NEVER ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL, or other contraceptives,' Trump wrote on his social media platform. His post was a reversal of comments he made in an interview with KDKA News in Pittsburgh when he was asked whether he supported any restrictions on a person's right to contraception. 'We're looking at that, and I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it's something that you'll find interesting,' Trump said. 'I think it's a smart decision. But we'll be releasing it very soon.'" Politico's report is here. MB: Here you can see how much consideration Trump has given to policy issues affecting millions and millions of sexually-active Americans: none, zero, zilch.
** Randy Balko on Substack: "I hate to go all Godwin here, but when you combine [Stephen] Miller's plan [to deport 15 million immigrants and end birthright citizenship] and personal history with Trump's recent rhetoric portraying immigrants as diseased 'animals' turned loose from foreign prisons and mental facilities who 'poison the blood' of the country -- or his ridiculous descriptions of migrants as 'military-aged' -- you could be forgiven for noticing that we're accumulating the necessary ingredients of a genocide.... At the very least, they're creating the conditions for a mass humanitarian crisis.... Deporting even a fraction of 15 million people would also wreck the economy."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which happens rarely and is already illegal in federal elections, in a move that reinforces ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to delegitimize the 2024 results if he loses. This week, House Republicans plan to vote on a bill that would roll back a District of Columbia law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, which they contend is needed to prevent Democrats from expanding the practice to other jurisdictions. And they are advancing another measure that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering a person to vote. The legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law.... It ... underscores Republicans' embrace of a groundless narrative -- one that echoes the racist 'great replacement' conspiracy theory -- that Democrats are intentionally allowing migrants to stream into the United States illegally in order to dilute the voting power of American citizens and lock in electoral victories for themselves. Speaker Mike Johnson recently appeared alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former president's Florida resort and residence, to announce a pledge to get tough on migrants flowing across the border, suggesting with no evidence that they were coming in unchecked as part of a plot to vote for President Biden."
Tracey Tully & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Prosecutors, in building a case against [Sen. Bob] Menendez [D-N.J.], have been trying to show that the senator conspired with his wife ... and [two] New Jersey business[men] ... to take bribes in exchange for political favors. [A] mortgage payment that saved [Nadine] Menendez's home was among the first payoffs, according to the indictment. Mr. Menendez's lawyers have offered the jury a far different narrative, accusing his wife of deceiving him about her dire finances and any payoffs she may have solicited from others."
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Hunter Biden, in a trial scheduled to get underway in two weeks, could face testimony from his ex-wife and his brother's widow, with whom he became romantically involved, according to new filings from federal prosecutors that illustrate just how messy the seemingly simple court case could turn. The filings from special counsel David Weiss provide a window into prosecutors' plans and how they may reopen some of the most painful moments in the Biden family;s past, potentially embarrassing not only Hunter Biden but also a president whose political career has long been defined by a close-knit family that stuck together through difficult times....
"Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former U.S. attorney, said that the case was fairly straightforward, and it was unclear why prosecutors would include so much detail in a filing so close to the trial. 'If Weiss wanted to pressure Biden, he certainly could have shared all of this information with Biden's attorneys without filing it in a public document,' she wrote in an email. 'Not sure what he is accomplishing by filing it publicly, other than perhaps prompting the witnesses to urge Biden to plead guilty.'" MB: Weiss is a Trump appointee, and his point is to embarrass President Biden. Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is hearing the case, also is a Trump appointee.
More from "The Real Housewives of D.C." Justin Jouvenal & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "Nearly 50 House Democrats [-- including Rep. Hank Johnson (Ga.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee --] called on Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases Tuesday, questioning whether the jurist could be impartial after an upside-down flag flew at his home in the weeks after the U.S. Capitol attack in 2021.... The upside-down flag ... has become a symbol of the 'Stop the Steal' movement that falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. The lawmakers asked Alito to decline to participate in deciding a pair of major cases the Supreme Court is slated to rule on in the coming weeks: whether Trump may be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election, and whether the Justice Department can use an obstruction charge to prosecute more than 300 Jan. 6 rioters.... The letter from lawmakers ... also called on Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6 and 202o election-interference cases." ~~~
~~~ In this episode, Martha-Ann buys Sam a burner phone to make threatening calls to Hank Johnson, while Ginny packs to go to Arizona to act as a character witness for her friends Rudy Giuliani & Mark Meadows, two (alleged!) criminals currently out on bail.
Andy Kroll of ProPublica: "The most important fault line in the [Republican] party now is democracy itself. Today's Republican insurgents believe democracy has been stolen, and they don't trust the ability of democratic processes to restore it.... Several years ago..., I watched as thousands of political newcomers [to Michigan, my home state], whose sole qualification appeared to be fervor of belief, declared war on the Republican establishment that had been so dominant.... The new 'America First' activists disparaged prominent Michigan Republicans as 'globalist' elites who belonged to a corrupt 'uniparty' cabal...." Kroll goes on to describe the chaos inside the Michigan GOP.
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Louisiana. Daniella Silva, et al., of NBC News: "The Louisiana House approved a bill Tuesday that would add two medications commonly used to induce abortions to the state's list of controlled dangerous substances, making possession of the drugs without valid prescriptions a crime punishable by fines, jail time or both. The measure, which has drawn support from anti-abortion groups and alarm from medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates, would add the medications mifepristone and misoprostol to Schedule IV of the state's Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Abortion -- both medical and surgical -- is illegal in Louisiana, so it is already illegal to prescribe the medications to terminate pregnancies, except in very limited circumstances. Medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions last year, according to the reproductive rights think tank the Guttmacher Institute."
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Israel/Palestine, et al.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
** William Booth of the Washington Post: "The Spanish, Irish and Norwegian governments announced Wednesday they would recognize a Palestinian state, saying there would be no peace in the Middle East without it. Israel denounced the move as giving aid to its enemy Hamas. In their announcements, the leaders of the three countries emphasized that peace could only come through a two-state solution, so a Palestinian state needed to exist. The United States has said recognition of such a state is premature.... In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered the immediate recall of the Israeli ambassadors to Spain, Ireland and Norway."
Josef Federman & Danica Kirka of the AP: "The Israeli government will return a camera and broadcasting equipment it had seized from The Associated Press on Tuesday, reversing course hours after it blocked the news organization's live video of Gaza and faced mounting criticism for interfering with independent journalism. The AP's live video of Gaza was back up early Wednesday in Israel. The government seized the AP equipment positioned in southern Israel after accusing it of violating a new media law by providing images to the satellite channel Al Jazeera. Israeli officials used the new law on May 5 to close down Qatar-based Al Jazeera within Israel, confiscating its equipment, banning its broadcasts and blocking its websites." This is an update of a story RAS linked Tuesday.
News Lede
Washington Post: "Multiple people were killed in Iowa, officials said, after severe weather -- including widespread damaging winds and intense tornadoes -- erupted in the nation's heartland on Tuesday. Large tornadoes tore through southwest parts of the state, and the town of Greenfield, about 50 miles from Des Moines, took a direct hit from a particularly violent twister. The twister lofted debris 40,000 feet into the air in Greenfield, according to radar estimates, and reportedly carried it some of 25 to 30 miles away. Storm-chaser drone footage from the scene showed widespread destruction, including demolished homes, flipped cars and defoliated trees. Some homes appeared to have been stripped off their foundation."
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Reader Comments (17)
Mob is right…
For some time now, Marie has highlighted activities of the “Trump Mob”.
Ain’t it the truth?
As Zac Anderson in USA Today suggests, while Lincoln had his Team of Rivals, Trump (who claims to be better than Lincoln in every way) has his Team of Felons.
“Trump is embracing his crew of convicted criminals, conspiracy theorists and the most outlandish of his high-profile backers. They played key roles in some of the most infamous aspects of his past campaigns and his presidency — particularly the effort to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in a mob of Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and their continued influence could have real-world implications.”
He ain’t kiddin’. This time around there’ll be no pretense of propriety, no fig leaf of normalcy, not even the bare shadow of a gossamer attempt at constitutional order. It’s gonna be Al Capone-Hitler-Bernie Madoff rolled into one giant ball of oozing, stinking criminality, authoritarianism, and greed.
“Michael Flynn and Roger Stone are spending time with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Mike Lindell is warming up the Trump rally crowd and Steve Bannon is plotting election strategy with Donald Trump Jr. on his show.
Paul Manafort and Corey Lewandowski may be back in the fold too, and far-right firebrand Laura Loomer nearly joined Trump’s campaign as some of the most controversial figures in his orbit over the last few years rally around the Republicans' presumptive 2024 presidential nominee for another election cycle.”
Of course Steve Bannon may be out of prison by then, Flynn and Manafort, two other convicted felons, and the Big Boss himself may be a convicted felon by then.
The White House will be peppered with orange jumpsuit crooks, and not a responsible, law abiding, competent, decent human being in sight.
Just look at the rogues gallery of lowlifes, liars, and lunatic lemmings who have climbed over one another, racing to New York (at taxpayer expense) to buss the flabby behind of the Big Boss, hoping for a spot in the next Trump Debacle:
Bible Mike, Christian Nationalist whose belief system says the Bible should rule, not the Constitution, oh, unless you have to support a rapist to stay in power.
Sen. Potato Head, giving Ron Johnson a run for Stupidest Man in Congress.
Matt Gaetz, bomb throwing, do-nothing sex trafficker of underage girls.
Bobo, Hand Job Lady.
Anna Paulina Luna, former stripper whose contested biographical claims would make George Santos proud.
Ronny Jackson, self medicating demoted drunk.
And an assortment of losers that includes a Hell’s Angels gang leader, conspiracy theorists, wannabes, hangers-on, and various other bags of scum.
Add to this his intention to establish an American Reich…
Team of Felons is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg.
It just occurred to me, this “unified reich” that Fatty is promising…maybe what he really means is a unified Riker’s. I mean, if he’s locked up there, he might want to run the show in prison. And what better place for him to interview potential candidates for his next administration.
It’d be like that scene in “Blazing Saddles” where Harvey Korman signs up a long line of despicable outlaws and thugs to terrorize the local town.
“Qualifications?”
“Rape, murder, arson, and rape.”
“You said rape twice.”
“I like rape.”
“Haha! You’ll do.”
The next head of Health and Human Services.
When I was a child, I looked up to adults -- particularly male adults -- as being fonts of wisdom. I marveled at how much they knew and how little chance there was of my ever learning half as much.
I have spent the rest of my life growing more and more aware of how ignorant adults are and becoming more and more disappointed in these ignoramuses. Even if Donald Trump doesn't win this year's election -- and I suspect he will -- the fact is that millions of people are stupid enough to vote for him.
To some extent, I blame Joe Biden for the situation we're in -- for believing that "he alone can fix it," thus precluding a younger person from becoming the Democratic party's nominee. But I can't put all of the fault on Biden's shoulders. As many have said, Biden is better on his worst day than Trump is on his best. Americans who vote for Trump aren't necessarily racists or fascists, but they are definitely ignorant beyond my childhood imagination.
Where will all those immigrants be sent to when Trump tries to deport them? Last time he had trouble getting countries to accept many of the migrants they wanted to deport and we are talking about millions of relocations this time.
Also with as racist as the Trump people are I wonder about how many Americans will be sent to the migrant camps just because they look "illegal" and don't have their documents on them when they are rounded up.
RAS,
My guess is he’ll send them to Rafah where his weak-strongman pal Bibi can bomb the shit out of them.
Akhilleus,
That assumes that Stephen Miller doesn't want to drop the bombs himself. That would be culmination of his sick fantasies since he was a kid.
Biden's Climate News
"the administration has gone and
passed a handful of climate policies that will collectively cut more than 10 billion tons of planet-warming pollution over the next three decades, more than the annual emissions of India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the entire continent of Europe—combined.
the Energy Department rolled it out at the end of April. New energy efficiency standards for residential water heaters will require that they become far more efficient than those currently in use, which is a heckin’ big deal because water heaters are the second-biggest source of energy consumption in the average US home, after heating/cooling.
The new standard requires electric water heaters to become more efficient by incorporating heat pump technology, which is incredibly energy efficient compared to current water heaters. Not only will the regulation cut another 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions over the next 30 years, the Energy Department estimates the cleaner water heaters will save consumers $7.6 billion a year on their power and water bills.
According to the new rules, existing coal power plants will need to either shut down or install carbon capture technology capable of removing 90% of their carbon pollution.
In passing the rule, federal regulators are calling the utility industry’s carbon capture bluff. Ever since the first climate regulations cropped up decades ago, the owners of fossil fuel power plants have said that it's possible to burn fossil fuels to produce power without heating up the planet. But these same companies have invested little in the technology and, when they have, they’ve offered little evidence that carbon capture can work.
Now utilities will have to either “put up or shut up,” according to Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems researcher and professor at Princeton"
The crazies
"The Colorado Republican Party is issuing a call to its members to pull their children from public school, saying Democrats are using schools to “turn more kids trans.”
The message was delivered in an email blast to Republicans statewide Tuesday.
“All Colorado parents should be aiming to remove their kids from public education,” read the directive from Darcy Schoening, director of special initiatives for the Colorado GOP."
Though here is one person who found out the horror stories of school indoctrination were not true after getting elected to a school board in Texas. Of course she is now being attacked as an unbeliever.
Add Louisiana to my list of states I don't need to visit.
Thanks RAS. I love to share stories about apostates like Aayan Hirsi Ali and this brave woman. Either what they say will ring true with those who believe in garbage but suspect they've been lied to or they will really piss those people off, which isn't nearly as good but still satisfying.
Scorched Earth Patriarchy
The Party of Traitors continues their war on women. This time it’s forcing girls as young as 10 to marry, cuz otherwise they might get an abortion.
Plus, we can’t have young girls thinking they have a right to control their own bodies! Injustice Alito, the most prominent patriarchal out there, has already schooled those little minxes about that. So, it’s off to the altar they go, to be sacrificed for Christian male dominance and scorched earth patriarchy.
In Missouri, Democrats put forward a bill making child marriage illegal, but Republicans said “Unh-unh, no you don’t.”
“Among the bill’s opponents is Rep. Hardy Billington (R), who told the Kansas City Star he believes that ending child marriage in Missouri would encourage abortion. ‘My opinion is that if someone [wants to] get married at 17, and they’re going to have a baby, and they cannot get married, then… chances of abortion are extremely high,’ Billington said. (Missouri bans abortion at any stage, except when the life of the pregnant person is at stake.)
This argument — that child marriage must be preserved to prevent abortion — seems to be gaining currency with Republicans across the country as they consider laws to raise the marriage age.”
But as is almost universally the case with laws invented to satisfy radical extremist and/or religious beliefs, bad shit follows. Something else child marriage encourages?
Sex trafficking! Is that Matt Gaetz I hear cheering?
“Missouri had one of the laxest child marriage restrictions in the country, which, some argued, made the state a refuge for sex trafficking.”
Just read that sentence again: “Child marriage must be preserved…” then try to come up with a sane reason for that idea.
Can’t do it, can you?
But the Party of Traitors can. They’ve got a steamer trunk full of reasons for insane shit, especially if it involves white male dominance, keeping women down, racial discrimination, Christianity, or guns.
In Harrisburg, there is a law firm which specializes in contracting with school boards. It is called the Independence Law Center. Its purpose is to help boards hop up policies that clearly are harmful to the LGBTQ+ and trans communities, although they deny that purpose. They link themselves with Moms for Liberty, and their purpose is to arm school boards against new protections by the Biden administration. They are actively working to deny trans participation in sports, particularly women's sports, crafting bathroom policies, culling libraries of scary sexy indoctrination books, and objecting to everything but white Christian domination. The head white Christian is a guy named Wenger, and he seems to be everywhere. He claims they aim for "religious liberty" but in the process, he and the firm are making sure that only some people will be considered as having those "liberties." Turns my stomach. Three schools have contracted them and three or four in the adjoining county. One in the process of possibly meeting with them is the school district our children went to, and it will be ripe with promise. My children were regularly prayed for and over and invited to youth outfits at winger churches. We are UUs, and we felt they needed UU support as they were regarded as heathens.
I feel besieged by these people, and will not speak/engage with them. There was a big old piece in Huffpost yesterday about our county and immigration. Are ever going backwards, for women especially. It's getting so ugly out there...
@Jeanne: In my limited experience when someone starts pounding the podium for "religious liberty" or "religious freedom" it's theirs they are fighting for, not ours.
Gun leak
"Amassive leak of Mexican military intelligence has exposed for the first time in two decades U.S. gun shops and smugglers tied to 78,000 firearms recovered south of the border – and which types of guns are being trafficked.
The nuggets of information are among roughly 10 million records hacked by an anonymous collective known as “Guacamaya” and shared with news outlets by the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets. The Mexican Defense Ministry leak previously made headlines for exposing military corruption and surveillance abuse, and now reveals the trace data on American-sold firearms recovered since 2018."
The Alito's love their flags.
"Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home
Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.
This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms."
Have no words to describe the hate in my heart toward Alito. So he has the money to fly winger flags at his beach house and vacations on wingers' dimes...He is ugly through and through. Literally and figuratively. This is carefully cultivated hate, starting when he mouthed at Obama during the SOTU. Now in full flower.
Nikki Haley’s admission that she will vote for a rapist, insurrectionist, traitor, authoritarian, liar, racist, and pig offers incontrovertible evidence that she is not, and never was, a reasonable, less nuts alternative to Trump. Despite her claims to the contrary, she is a Kool-Aid guzzling MAGA follower.
It’s possible that this announcement is her way of attempting to salvage her political career with the traitors, but she must know that Fatty the Fascist is an unforgiving rat bastard who lives for revenge. He decreed that anyone who worked for Rhonda would be cast out of his party, and DeSantis bowed out right away. Haley remained to needle him. She’s dead to the Trump brownshirts.
She could have decided to go a different direction, choose self respect and decency, carve out a space for herself in the real world apart from conspiracy nuts and white supremacists. She chose, instead, to bow down before Typhoid Donald. Either way, she’s beyond redemption now.
Good riddance.