;)
The Conversation -- October 14, 2023
Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "The judge presiding over the upcoming damages trial against Rudy Giuliani said Friday she will tell jurors that the former Trump lawyer intentionally hid financial documents and other records in defiance of court orders. In a five-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the move was necessary given 'Giuliani's continued and flagrant disregard of this Court's August 30 Order that he produce financial-related documents concerning his personal and his businesses' past and present assets' and other pertinent information. That means jurors deciding how much Giuliani should pay two Georgia election workers he defamed will be told they can assume the worst about why the former New York City mayor has failed to turn over the court-ordered records. 'The jury will be instructed that it must, when determining an appropriate sum of compensatory, presumed, and punitive damages, infer that defendant Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about the Giuliani Businesses finances for the purpose of shielding his assets from discovery and artificially deflating his net worth,' the judge wrote."
~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew Daly of the AP: "The Biden administration has selected clean-energy projects from Pennsylvania to California for a $7 billion program to kickstart development and production of hydrogen fuel, a key component of President Joe Biden's agenda to slow climate change. Biden called clean hydrogen essential to his vision of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2050. His goal is to establish seven regional hubs to help replace fossil fuels such as coal and oil with cleaner-burning hydrogen as an energy source for vehicles, manufacturing and generating electricity. The seven hubs, which include projects in 16 states, will spur more than $40 billion in private investment and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, many of them union positions, Biden said Friday at a cargo terminal in Philadelphia, where one of the hubs will be based."
Speaker Pick o' the Day
Clare Foran & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "House Republicans have picked Rep. Jim Jordan as their new speaker nominee, though it is unclear if the Ohio Republican can win enough support to secure the gavel in a full House vote as the conference faces a leadership crisis. There are already signs Jordan will encounter resistance as several lawmakers have said they would not vote for him." This is an update of a story linked earlier today. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Olivia Beavers & Jordain Carney of Politico: Jim Jordan "won with 124 votes, according to two sources..., but he'll need to meet a much higher bar of 217 to be elected speaker on the House floor. The timing of a [floor] vote is in flux, as several Republicans publicly speculate that Jordan won't be able to get there." As Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested, if "moderates" reward the hardliners' bad behavior and cave to voting en masse for Jordan, they should expect more bad behavior. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Friday nominated Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to be their next speaker, but quickly postponed a floor vote to elect him as scores of their members refused to commit to backing him. By a vote of 124 to 81, Mr. Jordan defeated Representative Austin Scott of Georgia, a mainstream conservative and an ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who had decided just hours earlier to seek the nomination. Mr. Scott had effectively put himself forward as a protest candidate against Mr. Jordan, the co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and a favorite of ... Donald J. Trump's. But while Mr. Jordan won the contest, his quest for the speakership still faced serious challenges. A second secret-ballot vote revealed that a sizable chunk of Republicans did not intend to support him on the floor, where he needs 217 votes to win the gavel. It was a continuation of the bitter party infighting that has broken out in recent days paralyzing the House.... Republicans sent their members home for the weekend late Friday afternoon with no resolution and no sense of when the feuding might end." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.)
Sarah Ferris, et al., of Politico: "A bipartisan solution to the GOP's leadership chaos still sounds farfetched to most on the Hill -- but then, so does the idea that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) might overcome his dozens of skeptics and win a floor vote early next week.... Unless Jordan can overcome his skeptics and push to victory on the floor in the next several days, the only way forward might be with Democrats. A group of centrist Democrats wrote to Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Friday to propose a limited agenda and some perks for the opposing party in exchange for temporarily restarting House business during a time of global crisis. Some self-described GOP pragmatists have suggested that if Republicans can't chart a course on their own, they could cut a deal with Democrats to break the 10-day impasse." ~~~
~~~ Marie: If you read through the report, you'll see why the reporters call the various schemes "far-fetched": Republicans can't agree on anything. Many are dug in with a "my way or the highway" 'tude, and the highway is a roundabout with at least half-a-dozen exits.
Sahil Kapur & Julia Jester of NBC News: "'House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people's House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,' House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Friday on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by dozen of Democratic lawmakers. 'His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.' House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., labeled Jordan an 'insurrectionist' and said he would be on a glide path to becoming speaker if not for the unified opposition of Democrats. 'He was directly involved in the right-wing coup that sought to overturn the 2020 election,' she said.... [Rep. Ted] Lieu [D-Calif.] also warned that if Jordan is speaker, he would fight to avoid certifying a potential Biden re-election victory in 2024: 'Jim Jordan is one of the leaders of not respecting the will of American people in elections, and he will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory. That's what he did before.'"
GOP Beauty Contest/Queen for a Day. Scott Wong of NBC News: "Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., a member of the GOP leadership team, plans to jump into the race [for speaker] if [Rep. Jim] Jordan, R-Ohio, can't secure the 217 votes needed by early next week, according to a source familiar with the lawmaker's plans."
Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "... there's one historical claim made by fascists that gets accepted at face value by people who ought to know better: The idea that authoritarian regimes are models of order and discipline.... The belief that the far right is ruthlessly efficient and well organized terrifies its opponents and emboldens its supporters, then and now. If you still buy any of that, consider the Republicans in Congress, who are behaving like a sackful of trapped weasels over what should be a simple task: Picking which one of the indistinguishable MAGA-monsters gets to be speaker of the House.... Veering hard toward the radical right hasn't made Republicans more cohesive or more disciplined. On the contrary, it's this rightward shift that is fueling the ugliness. Contrary to popular belief, authoritarianism brings chaos, not order." (Also linked yesterday.)
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "... there is one eternal truth, one unwavering constant to steady us when all else is in flux: Every time the House Republican majority tries to govern, it's guaranteed to turn into a goat rodeo." Milbank wrote his column before Friday's events, but it's still LOL funny in places: "Reporters and TV crews chased [George] Santos back to his office, crashing into furniture in the hallway. 'How can you vote in the speaker election,' asked CNN's Manu Raju, 'when you've been charged with all these crimes?' Santos slammed his office door in Raju's face."
Marie: A year ago, much was made of former British Prime Minister's Liz Truss's failure to hold onto the top job for as long as the life of a head of lettuce. (The lettuce won.) Well, I am here to report (and this is true) that at the same time Republicans ousted My Kevin as Speaker of the House. I bought a lovely head of butter lettuce, which sat in my fridge crisper in its own little well of water to keep it fresh. For a while, I pulled off lettuce leaves, one or two at a time, to use in my sandwiches. But I never finished the head. House Republicans still have not elected another speaker, but what's left of my head of lettuce is a tiny black blob of unrecognizable origin.
Mark Mazetti & Vivian Yee of the New York Times: "The charges against Senator Robert Menendez and his wife [Nadine] highlight how Egypt's powerful intelligence agency wields influence.... [Indictments against the couple reveal how] they tried to head off potential cuts to the more than $1 billion in aid that the United States sends to Cairo each year. They gave Egyptian officials internal information about staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. And they pushed the U.S. secretary of state to help block a dam project on the Nile River that Egypt's government vigorously opposed. In return, prosecutors say, the Menendezes received hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars, cash and other bribes.... The roles of the two Egyptian spies [-- Gen. Ahmed Helmy, Egypt's top spy in Washington ('Egyptian Official-3') and Gen. Abbas Kamel, the chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service,('Egyptian Official-5') --] in trying to influence U.S. policy also provide more evidence to suggest that the information-passing and bribe-paying could be part of an espionage operation centered on Mr. Menendez, and not just another tactic to wield influence in Washington." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Interesting read. And for Pete's sake, don't allow Bob Menendez near any piece of classified information. He'll sell it to the highest bidder.
Graham Kates of CBS News: "... Donald Trump's ex-lawyer and 'fixer,' Michael Cohen, will not testify next week as planned in the New York civil fraud trial against Trump and his company, due to a medical issue.... Trump ... planned to attend the proceedings on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday." MB: So we'll see if Trump shows up next week or if his purpose was simply to scowl at Cohen so he'll stay away.
Beth Reinhard, et al., of the Washington Post: "Less than five years into a 20-year sentence for his role in a massive fraud scheme..., [Philip] Esformes walked out of federal prison thanks to Donald Trump, who granted him clemency in the waning days of his presidency. But ... the Biden Justice Department is seeking to retry him -- a move made possible because the jury that convicted him reached no verdict on six counts, including the most serious charge of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud. Trump's clemency order was silent on those charges.... The highly unusual decision to retry a clemency recipient on hung charges has emerged as yet another flash point in the broader battle between the far right, which portrays the Justice Department as an arm of an out-of-control 'deep state,' and law-and-order proponents seeking to defend institutions of democracy against incursions by the former president and his allies. Experts say they know of no precedent for this dispute.... Some former prosecutors say a retrial is a chance to correct a grievous mistake in which Trump bypassed long-standing protocols to grant clemency to a corrupt nursing home executive."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would hear a second challenge to a foundational precedent on the power of executive agencies. The new case is almost identical to one the court agreed to hear in May, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451. The court's usual practice when asked to hear a follow-on case concerning the same issues is to hold the new case until the earlier one is resolved and then return it to the lower courts for reconsideration in light of the ruling in the first one. The court's unusual decision to grant review in the new case was almost surely because Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had recused herself from the earlier case, having served on the panel that heard it when she was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."
As Democracy Crumbles. Mark Sherman of the AP: "The Supreme Court avoided a catastrophic accident last year when a piece of marble at least 2 feet long crashed to the ground in an interior courtyard used by the justices and their aides, according to several court employees. The incident, which the court still fails to acknowledge publicly, took place in the tense spring of 2022, as the court already was dealing with death threats and other security concerns and the justices were putting the final touches on their stunning decision overturning Roe v. Wade.... No one was injured when the marble fell, the employees said. The piece was easily big enough to have seriously injured someone, they said. It was much larger than the basketball-sized chunk that fell near the court's front entrance in 2005." (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race 2024
Marshall Cohen of CNN: "... Donald Trump has lost the first of several attempts to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in Colorado, based on the 14th Amendment's prohibition against insurrectionists holding public office. Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace this week rejected Trump's bid to get the lawsuit dismissed on free-speech grounds. The former president still has several pending challenges against the case, which was initiated by a liberal government watchdog group."
Shane Goldmacher, et al., of the New York Times: "As [Donald] Trump dodges debates and is regularly seen on his golf courses in branded white polo shirts and red MAGA hats, it can seem that he is bypassing the 2024 primary fight entirely. He has done relatively few public campaign events until recent weeks. But Mr. Trump and his political team have spent months working behind the scenes to build alliances and contingency plans with key party officials, seeking to twist the primary and delegate rules in their favor....'They've rigged it anywhere they thought they could pull it off,' said Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official who founded ... [a] pro-DeSantis super PAC.... 'No one has tried to rig the rules like Donald Trump has been doing here at least in a very long time,' he said. 'And no one has ever done it who, in other circumstances, complains about the rules being rigged.'... Mr. Trump is doing to Mr. DeSantis exactly what he once accused Hillary Clinton of doing to Bernie Sanders: bending the system in his favor."
Dear Mrs. Trump: Donnie does not play well with others, to say the least. He has formed a gang of third-graders who steal from the younger children and bully even the boys & girls in the upper grades with almost mobster-like techniques. Last week he made lewd comments to me, which I will not repeat, and he super-glued a disgusting anatomical picture to the front of my skirt you-know-where. Our school counselor advises Donnie should visit with a psychiatrist. I think he also might benefit by attending a strict private boarding or military school where some discipline might be administered. I hope you and your family are well and safe because My God! -- Mrs. Clementine Woosley, Donnie's teacher ~~~
~~~ Make America Genocidal Again. Marianne Levine & Meryl Kornfeld of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump has denigrated undocumented immigrants in recent weeks by accusing them of 'poisoning the blood of our country,' associating them with drug and alcohol use and portraying them as dangerous threats to Americans, prompting widespread criticism and denunciations of racism and xenophobia from immigrant and civil rights groups. During a recent rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the former president said: 'These people are very aggressive: They drink, they have drugs, a lot of things happening.'... And in New Hampshire on Monday, Trump baselessly accused immigrants crossing the Mexican border of being involved in the recent attacks on Israel.... Across his campaign rallies, Trump devotes significant portions of his speeches to the border and to immigration, speaking in often exaggerated and graphic terms.... 'He appears to be taking pages from the Hitler Nazi playbook and using them in this production to divide Americans and engage in tribalism,' [Domingo] Garcia [of the League of United Latin American Citizens] said.... Civil rights groups ... are warning that his ... [remarks] could inspire violence against minorities and reflects rhetoric used by white nationalists."
Marie: So as Joe Biden plans for the future by addressing climate change and increasing green-energy jobs, Donald Trump recycles and escalates racist and xenophobic rhetoric. As Biden expresses unwavering support for Israel against barbaric attacks, Trump false accuses Israel's prime minister of backing out of a planned joint military strike at the last minute. ~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine
The New York Times' live developments Saturday or the Israel/Hamas war are here. The AP's live updates are here. ~~~
~~~ CNN's live updates are here: "Israel's military has given Gazans a six-hour window to evacuate south on specified streets to 'ensure their safety.' It's unclear how widely the messaging has been received amid electricity and internet blackouts. The 'movement advisory' for Gaza residents comes a day after warnings were issued to the 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza to evacuate their homes, amid signs Israel is set to ramp up its retaliatory offensive against Hamas.... Israel's evacuation order prompted tens of thousands of people to leave their homes in Gaza Friday, according to the UN's humanitarian office. Gaza's humanitarian crisis is deepening with warnings people are at risk of starvation."
Paul Murphy, et al., of CNN: "A CNN investigation has analysed almost two years of training and propaganda video released by Hamas and its affiliates to reveal the months of preparations that went into last week's attack, finding that militants trained for the onslaught in at least six sites across Gaza. Two of those sites, including the arid training site shown in the December video, were a little more than a mile from the most fortified and patrolled section of the Gaza-Israel border.... Two years of satellite imagery, also reviewed by CNN, show no indication of an offensive Israeli military action against any of the six identified sites.... [One] video taken more than a year ago, shows Hamas fighters practicing take-offs, landings and assaults with paragliders -- the same unusual assault mode that Hamas deployed with lethal effect in the ... Oct. 7 attack.... The fact that Hamas trained for the attack in plain sight for at least two years raise further questions as to why Israel, home to the Middle East's most sophisticated military and spying operation, was unable to pick up on and stop the October 7 attack?" Some of the videos are included in the report.
Planned Barbarity. Anna Schecter of NBC News: "Documents exclusively obtained by NBC News show that Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa'ad, to "kill as many people as possible," seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip. The attack plans, which are labeled 'top secret' in Arabic, appear to be orders for two highly trained Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gather."
Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post: "... Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated in Israel last weekend that left over 1,200 people dead. 'It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,' Herzog said at a press conference on Friday. 'It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is stupid on its face. Half the people who live in the Gaza Strip are less than age 18. Of course some of the older teens are certainly pro-Hamas or participate in Hamas programs, but that number is surely balanced out by adult citizens who oppose violence and have seen quite enough of it. A million school-aged children are not responsible for Hamas.
Kareem Fahim, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Reuters videographer [Issam Abdallah] was killed and six other journalists were wounded Friday in southern Lebanon when the area they were reporting from was struck by Israeli shelling.... Journalists from the Al Jazeera news channel and Agence France-Presse were also injured in the strike.... A cameraman for Al Araby TV said ... there was no indication that fire from Lebanon was coming from anywhere near the journalists.... Reporters Without Borders said Abdallah was 'killed by an Israeli strike while covering the situation on the southern border' in Lebanon. The press advocacy group described it as a 'heinous crime against journalists' and said it was 'continuing its investigations into the circumstances of this tragedy.'"
Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "A pair of classified C.I.A. intelligence reports issued in the days ahead of a major Hamas attack on Israel warned about a potential escalation in violence but did not predict the complex, multipronged attack that Hamas gunmen launched against Israel days later, according to U.S. officials. The first of the intelligence reports, dated Sept. 28, described the possibility that Hamas would launch rockets into Israel over a period of several days. The second report, dated Oct. 5, built on the first but was more analytical. The Oct. 5 report appeared in a daily C.I.A. summary of intelligence that is distributed widely to policymakers and lawmakers, the officials said. But intelligence officials did not brief either of the reports to President Biden or senior White House officials. Nor did the C.I.A. highlight the reports to White House policymakers as being of particular significance, officials said." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
A Conspiracy Theory with Legs. Thom Hartmann raises the question: did Donald Trump leak vital classified security information to Russia, who conveyed the information to Hamas, via Iran? Hartmann describes his evidence as "speculation," but it is plausible speculation, given Trump's history of passing around classified information to Russians, random guests at his resorts, and even to the general public. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See also his commentary in yesterday's thread. MB: IMO, one factor that mitigates against the likelihood that Hamas relied to Trump's leaks is that Israel should have been so horrified by Trump's 2017 leak(s) that they would have been super-careful not to provide the U.S. with further intelligence that could further damage their defenses and personnel.
Every Word He Says Is a Lie, Including 'And' and 'The.' Courtney Kube & Katherine Doyle of NBC News: "... Donald Trump falsely characterized Israel's role in his administration's assassination of Iran's top general during remarks this week, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the planning of the operation. Trump said Wednesday that Israel planned to be part of the January 2020 operation that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani but abruptly backed out the night before it was to take place. In his remarks, delivered before an audience at his Mar-a-Lago club..., Trump sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for that decision after months of working with the U.S. on the operation. But the U.S. officials familiar with the planning said Trump's comments are entirely false. 'They were never on board with it,' said a former senior White House official, referring to the Israelis. 'They always thought it was a dangerous and destabilizing idea.'"
If you're sketchy on the last 3/4s of a century's history of the Israel & Palestine, here's a brief history.
New Zealand. Nick Perry of the AP: "Conservative former businessman Christopher Luxon will be New Zealand's next prime minister after winning a decisive election victory Saturday. People voted for change after six years of a liberal government led for most of that time by Jacinda Ardern."
Russia. Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: "Three lawyers who represent the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been arrested, Navalny's spokeswoman said Friday -- depriving the Kremlin critic of one of his few remaining channels to the outside world.... Navalny press secretary Kira Yarmysh wrote on X ... that the lawyers had been detained 'so that Alexei is without legal protection .. and to send a signal to other lawyers: it is dangerous to defend him and other political prisoners.'" MB: Expect Donald Trump to put this travesty in his Great Ideas notebook.
Ukraine, et al. Aamer Madhani of the AP: "The White House said on Friday that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.... White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that the U.S. believes Kim is seeking sophisticated Russian weapons technologies in return for the munitions to boost North Korea's military and nuclear program."
News Lede
** CNN: "A 'ring of fire' annular solar eclipse will put on a show from Oregon to Texas this Saturday -- as long as clouds don't spoil the fun. The moon doesn't cover 100% of the sun in an annular solar eclipse like in a total solar eclipse, but instead allows some light to peek through and encircle the moon in a so-called 'ring of fire,' also known as annularity. Only a narrow corridor of the western and central US will be able to experience the ring, when the moon will block out 90% of the sun for a few minutes on Saturday morning. Here are the best and worst places to see the eclipse unfold based on weather conditions:"
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Reader Comments (11)
Methinks that from now on the Donald should be referred to as
Donald Rosenberg Trump.
It's been 70 years since the Rosenbergs were executed for supplying top secret info to the Russians.
Donald should have known about that if he is up to date on American
History (ha!) and should know what to expect if there's proof that
he supplied Putin with classified info.
Will this story have an 'electrifying' ending? Probably not.
Forrest,
Interesting idea: Donald Rosenberg.
Even more so because Fatty’s mentor in sleaze, Roy Cohn, put the Rosenbergs in the chair.
A closer look at the Rosenbergs and their prosecutor reveals a trial rife with prosecutorial misconduct, bullying, and opportunistic self-aggrandizement.
The Donald learned a lot of the same tricks, as Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, pointed out in a film about the trial:
“Not only does Cohn’s shameless lying and financial chicanery echo his most famous protégé, but so does his red baiting. Just last week, Trump tweeted that 75-year-old protestor Martin Gugino, whose skull was fractured after he was pushed to the ground by a Buffalo policeman, was a member of Antifa, the loosely organized anti-fascist groups promoted as left-wing bogeymen by conservative media.
‘He's going to try to do whatever he can to make everyone look like commie traitors, anti-American, not patriotic,’ Ivy Meeropol says. ‘The language that the Trump administration is using is all too familiar and their tactics are all too familiar. We have to pay attention to our history.’”
Speaking of history, no one should doubt that it will repeat itself (or rhyme) should the Orange Monster return to power. The dirty tricks he learned from Roy Cohn have been perfected and turbocharged over the years. He’ll want not one “Rosenberg trial”, but dozens. And not for treasonous actions against the United States (he’s the number one proponent of that sort of thing), but for perceived disloyalty to Trump.
@Akhilleus: Cohn prosecuted the Rosenbergs in 1951, before I could read anything other than a first-grade primer, so I didn't know Roy Cohn was the prosecutor, and his name would not have meant anything to me if I could read then. But by 1953, when the U.S. executed the Rosenbergs, I was reading the stories on the front page of the Miami Daily News, and I was bewildered that the U.S. government would execute people. Anyway, there has been a gap in my knowledge that let Roy Cohn off the hook for his prosecution of the Rosenbergs. (Strangely, I read the fictionalized accounts by Edgar Doctorow & Sylvia Plath, yet if those novels mentioned Cohn, the mentions didn't register with me.) So thanks for the history lesson.
And you're right about Trump. He loves accusing anyone of treason who disagrees with him or gets in his way. And lately he's been mentioning how treason is punishable by death. I'm sure he'll make every effort to appoint some nice accomplices to the bench & the DOJ to run his kangaroo courts. If Trump is re-elected, it's going to take a lot of civil disobedience to keep Americans safe.
Rachel Bitecofer
"🚨RNC Releases Help Wanted Ad:
ISO [In Search Of]
Weak caucus looking for a strong leader.
Must be willing to negotiate all power away and spend each day licking Matt Gaetz’s balls.
Willingness to complete insurrection a MUST HAVE."
More history…and it ain’t the ancient kind.
The media is already sidling up to its favorite barstool at the BothSides Tavern. Headlines read “Democrats refuse to help Republicans!!” This is a follow up to “Democrats let McCarthy fail!”
Because of COURSE it’s the Democrats’ responsibility to rescue the traitors, liars, and thugs from their own house fire.
The headlines should be “GOP promotes incompetent insurrectionist. Democrats who value the American Experiment won’t go along.”
Here’s the thing. When that fat fuck waddled into the White House with help from Russia, Jim Comey, and a stenographic media, it was assumed that he was an untrustworthy hack and a dangerous loon. By 2021, we knew that for sure. Plus, we knew that treason and violence were just useful not-beyond-the-pale strategies to help the Dear Leader in his quest for more power and money.
We knew that for sure.
When Gym Jordan came to congress, it wasn’t clear what a dangerous supporter of chaos, treason, and authoritarianism he would be, but now we do. No question.
So making him Speaker of the House???
Unforgivable. And bullet in the foot stupid. As unforgivable as re-electing Donald Trump.
But this is yet another reason why the Party of Traitors hates history. Real history, that is. And why they consistently promote ignorance. Knowledge of the past (Christ, just plain knowledge) is not their friend. So ban studying history. Burn books. Spread lies.
And make Gym Jordan speaker and Trump president.
Oh yeah, and if it all goes sideways…blame Democrats. “Bartender! Gimme two shots of Both Sides moonshine!”
“The closer a person is to God, and the more that they’re trying to do to fulfill God’s plans, and do the right thing, the more Satan attacks him.”
Spoken by an Iowa voter explaining why, as the Washington Post puts it, "the more Trump comes under fire, the more energized [voters are] about him."
This voter is a middle-aged engineering professional with a master's degree… in divinity, from a theological seminary. (Which, in a poll, qualifies him as "educated.")
God help us.
Other voters quoted in the piece:
"…he may very well be guilty, but why are they going after him and not everybody else?”
"Most of us […] have become deaf because of the constant crucifixion of Trump…"
"If Trump is powerless against the government, what chance does any of us have?”
Here's the link, FYI. (It's not a "Read on" kind of article.)
How 91 felony charges boosted Trump’s standing in the GOP
Interviews in multiple states show that Trump’s constant message of victimhood has seeped in with voters
In the R melee to anoint a new Speaker, the name of the #3 R in the House - Stefanik - has not been mentioned. At all. Not even a quote about why she doesn't want it or can't do it. And this after these last few years totally kowtowing to the mob.
Did Nancy Pelosi shock all those R misogynists so much that they can't EVEN imagine another dos equis with that gavel?
One of my favorite fiction genres is the Locked Room Mystery. You guys know how it works: someone is found murdered inside a locked room, or must escape a locked room in a certain period of time. Houdini made his name by placing himself in seemingly impossible locked room situations, being handcuffed, chained up and placed nearly naked in a locked prison cell only to emerge unshackled a short time later.
Some of my personal favorites include stories like Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, Conan Doyle’s “Adventure of the Speckled Band” and Jacques Futrelle’s “The Problem of Cell 13”. All of these mysteries are resolved by geniuses of the genre, Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, better known as the Thinking Machine (love those stories).
We are currently in a real world locked room mystery. A bunch of insurrectionist, authoritarian narcissistic infants have imprisoned themselves and all other Republicans of the House in a locked room and are threatening to murder democracy. They tried once and failed, but they’re back at it, like rats in the hold of a ship trying to sink it by gnawing through the hull.
They’re chained to a traitor, handcuffed by hatred and locked up by incompetence.
Is there a Sherlock Holmes in the bunch? A thinking machine? Who will solve this locked room mystery? Bobo? Marjorie “Space lasers” Greene? Matt “Little Girls” Gaetz? Steve “KKK” Scalise? Gym “Burn it all Down” Jordan?
If a single one had a room temperature IQ, there might be a slight chance. But no, this is an unsolvable puzzle to these cretins. Instead of putting their limited brain power to good use, they’re flinging turds at each other.
Tune in next week to see Matt Gaetz add a few additional locks on the door. The Never Ending Story.
Monoloco,
Your reference to the universal self-proclaimed victimhood by so-called religious supporters of the Fat Traitor (how any truly religious person could hold up Donald fucking Trump as an avatar of morality is beyond understanding) points to the sense of most that they too are put upon like Jesus Christ, tortured and threatened with extinction by the evil godless horde.
The fact is, no single group in the United States is as consistently coddled and protected as are evangelical Christians, but they love to portray themselves as eternally put upon. How about they spend a single day as an inner city black kid? Or an LGBTQ person in some red state fearing every day that might be beaten up or killed. They would scream bloody murder. But then they’d know what it’s truly like to be a victim of hatred and intolerance, the kind they firehose across the landscape every day.
Trump a victim? Here’s a guy who has had everything handed to him, including the presidency. Who has never paid a bill he could tear up, never been faithful to any wife, never been called to account for decades of crimes. But now that his luck has (maybe) run out? he’s Jesus Christ on the fucking cross.
These assholes are big on blasphemy, but if that isn’t a blasphemous proclamation, I’m the tsar of all the Russias.
Akhilleus: One of the great things about nailing oneself to the cross, a la the evangevictims, is that one still has a free hand with which to pat oneself on the back.
Lotta "ones" in that sentence, maybe that means something.
Patrick,
That one hand free from the cross idea reminds me of a particularly blasphemous joke. You being both a Catholic and a military guy may have heard it at some point.
Re: the repeated ones…there might be some tractatus-logico-mathematico-philosophicus thingie about that but I’m guessing it’s more standard right wing me-me-me-me-me, and who are you again? balderdash.