The Conversation -- October 25, 2023
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the speaker's race. ~~~
Catie Edmondson: "As Representative Elise Stefanik of New York formally nominates [Mike] Johnson on the House floor, every Republican rises to their feet and cheers."
Annie Karni: "Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the no. 3 Democrat, once again nominates Hakeem Jeffries for speaker."
Karni: "Here we go. The roll call has begun. Republicans expect this to be settled on the first ballot."
Edmondson: "Any Republican defectors now would be a big surprise."
[Marie: Looks like once again the so-called "moderate Republicans" caved to the crazies. It's Matt Gaetz' party now.]
Luke Broadwater: "Johnson started yesterday with only 34 supporters, just 15% of the conference. Now he's headed toward being the unanimous choice of House Republicans."
Robert Jimison: "'As one who knows and respects the role of speaker, Hakeem Jeffries,' former Speaker Nancy Pelosi says of voting for the Democrat."
[Marie: Mike Johnson won every GOP vote: 220; Jeffries won every Democratic vote: 207.]
Edmondson: "After three weeks, Patrick McHenry, the interim speaker, says Johnson is the 'duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.'"
Edmondson: "Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana won election on Wednesday as the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives, putting an end to three weeks of chaos that left the chamber without a leader and put Republican divisions on display. Republicans elevated Mr. Johnson, 51, a little-known and deeply conservative lawmaker after a tumultuous fight that began after the hard right ousted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and raged on as the divided House G.O.P. nominated and then quickly discarded three other candidates to succeed him."
[This Was All God's Idea.] Karni: "Johnson's speech is light on policy and heavy on personal history. He has talked about his own history -- first in his family to graduate from college, lost his father to cancer three days before he was first elected to Congress -- but said little about what he plans to do in the new job. It's also heavy on God: he is an Evangelical Christian, and he says that he doesn't think anything is a coincidence and hints that God has put him where he is today."
Kayla Guo: "Democrat Jamie Raskin ... is brutal in his evaluation of Johnson and Republicans more broadly, saying the new speaker has 'much better manners' than G.O.P. firebrands but 'is a MAGA extremist in substance.' The dominating religious tenor of Johnson's remarks, Raskin added, 'demonstrates that there are no public policy values that unify the Republican caucus anymore. They don't have a secular program. And so they have fallen back on theocracy as the final binding mechanism of their cause.'"
Edmondson: "'I look forward to meeting with Speaker Johnson soon to discuss the path forward to avoid a government shutdown,' [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer said in a statement. 'When I meet with him, I will convey that bipartisanship is the only way we can deliver results for the American people. The only way to avoid a government shutdown, pass critical supplemental funding, and deliver common-sense investments to the American people is bipartisanship.'"
Erica Green: "President Biden, when asked about Johnson's history of rejecting the 2020 election results, said he was not worried about Johnson attempting to overturn the results of the next presidential election. 'Just like I was not worried the last campaign would overturn the election,' Biden said. 'They got 60 lawsuits, and all the way to Supreme Court and every time they lost. I understand the Constitution.'"
~~~ CNN's liveblog is here.
~~~ Steve Kornacki of MSNBC says the Speaker-designee Mike Johnson can afford to lose 5 Republican votes.
Summer Concepcion of NBC News: "... Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., played a key role in efforts by ... Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden's electoral victory in the 2020 election. Johnson, who currently serves as the GOP caucus vice chair and is an ally of Trump, led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.... The [New York] Times reported last year that many Republicans who voted to discount pro-Biden electors cited an argument crafted by Johnson, which was to ignore the false claims about mass fraud in the election and instead hang the objection on the claim that certain states' voting changes during the Covid-19 pandemic were unconstitutional." ** Update: A New York Times story is here.
Andrew Kaczynski & Allison Gordon of CNN: "Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has a history of harsh anti-gay language from his time as an attorney for a socially conservative legal group in the mid-2000s. In editorials that ran in his local Shreveport, Louisiana, paper, The Times, Johnson called homosexuality a 'inherently unnatural' and 'dangerous lifestyle' that would lead to legalized pedophilia and possibly even destroy 'the entire democratic system.' And, in another editorial, he wrote, 'Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do,' he wrote. 'This is a free country, but we don't give special protections for every person's bizarre choices.' At the time, Johnson was an attorney and spokesman for Alliance Defense Fund, known today as Alliance Defending Freedom, where he also authored his opposition to the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas -- which overturned state laws that criminalized homosexual activity between consenting adults."
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: A floor vote for speaker is expected today at noon ET. "It was clear from the start that House Republicans would struggle to govern this year given their deep ideological divisions, narrow majority and myriad personal feuds and grudges. But even the most pessimistic of predictions could not have captured the remarkable, drawn-out Republican self-own now raging on Capitol Hill. In merrily decapitating their third speaker candidate on Tuesday in a move worthy of the French Revolution, House Republicans took a situation that did not seem like it could get any worse to a breathtaking new low. They piled chaos upon chaos as members threw up their hands in frustration and anger over their inability to coalesce."
Judge Finds Trump Lied Under Oath & Defamed Clerk, Fines Trump $10K. Jonah Bromwich & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "A Manhattan judge briefly ordered Donald J. Trump to the witness stand on Wednesday after accusing him of breaking a gag order with critical comments that seemed aimed at a law clerk, and then fined him $10,000. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, who is presiding over Mr. Trump's civil fraud trial, issued the punishment after finding that Mr. Trump earlier in the day had violated an order that prevents him from discussing court staff. Mr. Trump said that his comments had referred not to the clerk, whom he had previously attacked, but to his former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, a witness. From the stand, Mr. Trump ... said that while he had not been speaking about the clerk, Allison Greenfield, he thought she was 'maybe unfair, and I think she's very biased against me.' Mr. Trump left the stand after about three minutes. Justice Engoron said that he had not found the former president credible and levied the fine.
"While Mr. Trump has been voluble in his own defense outside the courtroom, he had not testified in open court in more than a decade, and as soon as he did, the judge found against him.... During a break in the proceedings on Wednesday, Mr. Trump had called Justice Engoron partisan -- which is allowable under the order. But he continued, saying, 'with a person who's very partisan sitting alongside him. Perhaps even much more partisan than he is.'" This is an update of a story linked earlier. ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, Trump can't speak under oath for three minutes without lying.
Electionstollen. Stephen Collinson of CNN: "In a rage-filled stream of consciousness on his Truth Social network on Tuesday night, [Donald] Trump lashed out at the ABC report about [his chief of sfaff Mark] Meadows. 'I don't think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!),' the former president wrote. 'Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!'" ~~~
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump responded by issuing a broadside not just against a potentially cooperating [Mark] Meadows, but seemingly -- by extension -- allies who have cut deals in recent days in his other election interference case, in Fulton County, Ga.... Trump's comments would seem to transparently violate the limited gag order that U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued in Trump's federal case but later suspended while Trump's legal team appeals the decision.... Trump signed a form in August acknowledging that it would be a crime to 'intimidate or attempt to intimidate a witness, victim, juror, informant, or officer of the court.'... Trump in his Tuesday post also called [prosecutor Jack] Smith 'deranged' yet again, despite Chutkan's having explicitly cited that attack as being beyond the pale."
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Despite pleading guilty to interfering with the 2020 presidential election result, Sidney Powell continues to promote conspiracy theories about Donald Trump's election loss.... The right-wing attorney pushed baseless claims of election fraud and accused Georgia prosecutors of politicizing their office, and a newsletter published by her dark-money group shared articles claiming that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis secured Powell's guilty plea through extortion, reported Insider.... Since her plea, Powell has also used her Truth Social and Telegram accounts to promote the Substack newsletter published by her dark-money group, Defending the Republic, urging followers to "hold fast" and share articles and YouTube videos claiming her guilty plea was 'extorted.'" See also Akhilleus's commentary at the top of today's thread.
David Atkins of the Washington Monthly: "... the Republican base is beset with conspiratorial fantasies. One in four Republicans believes in QAnon, a grab bag of paranoid theories claptrap that includes the notion that Trump is still president prosecuting a secret war against cannibal child predators and John F. Kennedy, Jr. did not die in a 1999 plane crash and is alive and well and working in tandem with the 45th president. Seven in ten Republicans believe in the racist Great Replacement theory, which posits that white Americans are being intentionally 'replaced' with non-white immigrants for various nefarious reasons. Crucially for understanding the speaker fiasco, seven out of 10 Republicans also believe the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election. It doesn't help that the GOP has lost control of its own communications apparatus, which was replaced long ago with a right-wing media complex that promotes lies and thrives on its audience's rage whether Republicans win elections or not, much less whether the country functions." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his commentary below.
** Jo Becker of the New York Times: "With no money down, Justice Clarence Thomas could borrow more than a quarter of a million dollars from a wealthy friend to buy a 40-foot luxury motor coach, making annual interest-only payments for five years. Only then would the principal come due. But despite the favorable nature of the 1999 loan and a lengthy extension to make good on his obligations, Justice Thomas failed to repay a 'significant portion' -- or perhaps any -- of the $267,230 principal, according to a new report by Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee. Nearly nine years later, after Justice Thomas had made an unclear number of the interest payments, the outstanding debt was forgiven....
"The Senate inquiry was prompted by a Times investigation published in August that revealed that Justice Thomas bought his Prevost Marathon Le Mirage XL, a brand favored by touring rock bands and the super-wealthy, with financing from Anthony Welters, a longtime friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.... At the very least, Justice Thomas appears to have flouted an ethics rule requiring that he include any 'discharge of indebtedness' as income on required annual financial disclosure reports. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service treats debt forgiveness as income to the borrower."
The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Israel/Hamas war are here. CNN's live updates are here.
~~~~~~~~~~
** Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: "House Republicans chose and then quickly repudiated yet another of their nominees for speaker on Tuesday and rushed to name a fourth, pressing to put an end to a remarkable three-week-long deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed. Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer's downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including ... Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever. But by late Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson appeared to have put together a coalition that brought him closer to capturing the speakership than any candidate has been since hard-right rebels deposed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy three weeks ago. Though it was not certain he had the votes to be elected, he said he planned to call for a floor vote on Wednesday at noon.... In a secret-ballot vote on Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson got 128 votes, with 44 Republicans voting for nominees not on the ballot, including 43 for Mr. McCarthy, whom many view as unfairly ousted. Still, in a separate vote afterward, only a few Republicans indicated they would not back Mr. Johnson on the floor, while about 20 Republicans were absent.
"... Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. He served on ... Donald J. Trump's impeachment defense team, played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 election results and was an architect of Mr. Trump's bid to object to certifying them in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Pressed by reporters on Tuesday night about his efforts to overturn the election, Mr. Johnson smiled and shook his head, saying, 'next question,' as Republicans beside him booed. Last year, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, sponsored legislation that would effectively bar the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity at any institution serving children younger than 10 that receives federal funds.... He has also opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine...." An NBC News story is here.
Meredith McGraw & Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Just hours after Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won the Republican Conference's nomination to be Speaker on Tuesday..., Donald Trump took to Truth Social to deride the congressman as 'totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters' and a 'Globalist RINO.' He then got on the phone with members to express his aversion for Emmer and his bid for Speaker. By Tuesday afternoon Trump called one person close to him with the message, 'He's done. It's over. I killed him.' Just minutes later, Emmer officially dropped out of the race."
Here are a few of the entries from yesterday's New York Times liveblog of yesterday's chaotic developments in the GOP speakership contest. The individual entries ended early in the evening, just after Tom Emmer dropped his bid for the job. (I posted more entries yesterday, so if you don't have a NYT subscription, you can read them in yesterday's Conversation.)
~~~ Catie Edmondson & Luke Broadwater: "... [Mike] Johnson, 51, was a key architect of Republicans' objections to certifying the victory of President Biden on Jan. 6, 2021. Many Republicans in Congress relied on his arguments." MB: Gosh, he sounds ideal.
** Kayla Guo: "Tom Emmer of Minnesota wins the speakership nomination, making him the third to do so since Kevin McCarthys ouster."
Broadwater: "Tom Emmer defeated Mike Johnson, 117 votes to 97, according to members in the room."
Broadwater: "... the narrow margin of [Emmer's] victory reflected that House Republicans were still deeply at odds, and a swift backlash from the right, including from ... [MB: insane narcissist] Donald J. Trump, suggested his candidacy was in peril. Immediately following his nomination, about two dozen right-wing Republicans indicated that they did not intend to vote for Mr. Emmer on the floor.... Then as he met with holdouts to try to win them over, the former president issued a scathing statement on social media expressing vehement opposition to Mr. Emmer, calling him a 'Globalist RINO' ... whose elevation would be a 'tragic mistake.... I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors,' Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA -- MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN![']"
** Queen for a Day Three or Four Hours. Broadwater: "Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid for speaker on Tuesday hours after securing his divided party's nomination, after a swift backlash from the right, including ... Donald J. Trump, left his candidacy in shambles. Mr. Emmer’s abrupt exit signaled that Republicans were as far as ever from breaking a deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed for three weeks. It made Mr. Emmer the third Republican this month to be chosen to lead the party, only to have his bid collapse in a seemingly endless cycle of G.O.P. grievances, personality conflicts and ideological rifts."
Carl Hulse: "What's going on with House Republicans is a stark example of what happens when party discipline is abandoned. Members feel free to go their own way with no fear of payback."
Marie: Hulse's remark reminds me of something Mark McKinnon -- GOP consultant & doofus who co-founded No Labels -- said Monday night on MSNBC: It was Kevin McCarthy himself who placed Chekhov's gun over the mantel when he agreed to allow any Republican member of the House to bring a motion to vacate the speakership. In so doing, McCarthy made it a foregone conclusion that somebody would pull that trigger.
Mark Walker of the New York Times: "The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Michael G. Whitaker, a former Obama administration official, to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, filling a key vacancy that had persisted for more than 18 months. Mr. Whitaker, 62, was confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0, bringing an end to the carousel of leadership that had plagued the agency for more than half of President Biden's time in office. His swift bipartisan confirmation underscored the desire of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to install a permanent administrator atop the nation's aviation regulator. Mr. Whitaker now faces the challenge of stabilizing an agency that has been in turmoil and providing the flying public with the confidence that the country's air travel system is safe and reliable."
The Trials of Trump
** Katherine Faulders, et al., of ABC News: "... Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter. The sources said Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.... According to Meadows' book, the election was 'stolen' and 'rigged' with help from 'allies in the liberal media,' who ignored 'actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze.'... Under the penalty of perjury, Meadows offered a vastly different assessment to Smith's investigators, telling them he's never seen any evidence of fraud that would undermine the election's outcome, according to what sources told ABC News." Emphasis added. Read on. MB: The dam done broke & Donald Trump has drownded. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "... I caution against concluding too much about what the testimony means. Most importantly, there's no hint that Meadows has flipped. Meadows has testified (which a past ABC scoop made clear). But giving immunized testimony is not flipping.... His January 6 testimony seems to conflict with what [Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani] Willis knows." Emphasis original.
Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "... on Tuesday, [Michael] Cohen confronted his onetime boss from the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom, attacking the former president as a criminal and a cheat and defending his own credibility under a barrage of questions.... It was the first time the men had come face to face since 2018, and the reunion was tense. [Donald] Trump, seated feet away at the defense table, scoffed and shook his head in apparent frustration. Mr. Cohen had been called to testify about Mr. Trump's annual financial statements, which are at the heart of the civil case that the New York attorney general, Letitia James, brought against Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen testified, directed him to 'reverse engineer' the statements to reach the former president's desired net worth.... The temperature rose when Mr. Cohen was cross-examined by one of Mr. Trump's lawyers, Alina Habba. She called Mr. Cohen's credibility into question, noting that he had admitted to lying under oath when he pleaded guilty to federal crimes in 2018, wrongs that he had said he committed on Mr. Trump's behalf.... Their exchange devolved. Several times, Mr. Cohen made legal objections from the witness stand; in a trial, only lawyers trying the case can make objections." (This is another update of a story linked yesterday.)
** And Then There Were 15. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified ... Donald J. Trump's baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal 'elite strike force team,' pleaded guilty on Tuesday as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia. During a public hearing Tuesday morning in Atlanta, Ms. Ellis pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.... Ms. Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses." CNN's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "For the third time in less than week, a lawyer who worked for Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in the Fulton County, Ga., election interference case. Jenna Ellis on Tuesday joined Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro in cutting a deal that will require her to testify truthfully about the other defendants, including presumably Trump himself. Her centrality to the case, relative to the others, is debatable. Ellis often served more as a spokesperson than an actual practicing lawyer, though certain actions clearly involved legal strategizing and proximity to Trump. But her plea came with something the others did not: a tearful statement to the court that suggested she is prepared to cast blame up the chain. Whether and how much that includes Trump is a big question. But it would seem to be bad news for Rudy Giuliani and potentially, by extension, for Trump himself.... [Her plea] deal cited false claims from Giuliani, her frequent traveling companion as they worked to overturn the election results, and a Trump campaign lawyer in Georgia, Ray Smith. Both were indicted alongside Trump, Ellis and the others."
~~~~~~~~~~
Texas Sues to Continue Crime Against Humanity. Valerie Gonzalez of the AP: "Texas sued the Biden administration on Tuesday, seeking to stop federal agents from cutting the state's razor wire that has gashed or snagged migrants as they have attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the Rio Grande. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Del Rio, Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton accuses the Biden administration of 'undermining' the state's border security efforts. 'Texas has the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens,' Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a news release Tuesday."
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
The New York Times' live updates Tuesday of developments in the Israel/Hamas war are here (also linked yesterday): "The secretary general of the United Nations said on Tuesday that the attacks by Hamas that left 1,400 people dead in Israel on Oct. 7 were 'appalling' but did not justify the 'collective punishment' of civilians in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military has significantly stepped up its bombardment in recent days.... The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, called for a humanitarian cease-fire in an address to the U.N. Security Council, saying that it was important to recognize that the attacks by Hamas 'did not happen in a vacuum' and that Palestinians had been subjected to 56 years of 'suffocating occupation.'... Israel said it had struck more than 700 targets in Gaza in the past two days. The Gaza Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said that it had recorded the highest single-day death toll of the war on Tuesday: at least 704 people killed in dozens of strikes on homes, a refugee camp and other places. It was not possible to independently verify the toll."
Times of Israel: "Israeli officials railed at UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Tuesday after he appeared to suggest the impetus for the Hamas terror group's devastating October 7 attack on Israel was the Jewish state's continued control of Palestinian territories, with the Israeli Ambassador to the UN demanding that he resign."
Iran/U.S. Steve Holland of Reuters: "The White House on Monday said Iran was in some cases 'actively facilitating' rocket and drone attacks by Iranian-backed proxy groups on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria, and President Biden has directed the Department of Defense to brace for more and respond appropriately. White House spokesman John Kirby said there had been an uptick in such attacks over the last week, and especially over the last few days, but the U.S. would not allow threats to its interests in the region to 'go unchallenged.'"
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Nashville police chief's estranged son, who was recently identified as a suspect in the shooting of two police officers outside a Dollar General store in La Vergne, Tenn., was found dead on Tuesday night, officials said. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a statement late Tuesday that John Drake Jr. had died in Nashville from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
New York Times: "Otis made landfall near the resort city of Acapulco on the southern Pacific Coast of Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane, bringing record winds and rainfall that could create a 'nightmare scenario' of flooding and mudslides, forecasters said early Wednesday. Hurricane Otis's maximum sustained winds had grown to 165 miles per hour with stronger gusts at about 12:25 a.m. local time, when it made landfall, the National Hurricane Center said.... Otis threatens a coast dotted with fishing villages and beach resorts as they gear up for their peak winter season. Along its path lies Acapulco, a large port city and a popular tourist destination home to more than 852,000 people...." The AP story is here.
New York Times: "An off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to shut off the engines during a flight on Sunday told investigators that he had been sleepless and dehydrated since he consumed psychedelic mushrooms about 48 hours before boarding and that he had been depressed for a long time, state and federal court documents said. The pilot, Joseph D. Emerson, 44, also told the police in an interview after he was taken into custody that he believed he was having a 'nervous breakdown,' according to federal court documents. He said he had struggled with depression for about six years and that a friend had recently died." The AP's story is here.
New York Times: "Richard Roundtree, the actor who redefined African American masculinity in the movies when he played the title role in 'Shaft,' one of the first Black action heroes, died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81.... While indelibly tied to the role that made him famous in 1971, the actor remained active for more than four decades afterward."
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Reader Comments (16)
Kraken still cracked. In the head.
It never ends with these febrile MAGA monsters.
After getting off scot-free in Georgia, sidestepping a verdict that would surely have shoved her surly ass into prison, Sidney Powell is back at it.
Days after admitting she was a low-down lying harpy in service of Trump’s attempt to shiv democracy, she’s back promoting FRAUD! and POLICE STATE!! Aieeee!
Oh yeah, and also COERCION!!
I was coerced and threatened into agreeing to that plea.
(*sigh*) Where the fuck did these people get their law degrees? Trump University? Okay, Kraken lady, pay attention. The threat of loss of one’s freedom (see: jail time, jump suit, prison tattoos, etc.) is how plea deals work. The nice DA says “We got you cold, mofo. You’re gonna do hard time, breaking rocks in the hot sun, all that nasty stuff. OR, you can admit your guilt, sign this paper, and agree to cooperate. Your choice.”
Kraken Lady could have said “I’ll take my chances.” but noooo, she signed.
But now it’s “I was coerced by the police state!” And it doesn’t end there:
“None of those developments — nor the ongoing defamation lawsuits from the election-technology companies Dominion and Smartmatic — appear to have changed her tune.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, she has shared posts purporting that the 2020 election was rigged and that law enforcement was politically biased against conservatives.
Over the weekend, Powell shared a post complaining that Trump ‘can't even have attorney client privilege.’ She also shared a post that said a new survey found many Democrats believed ‘cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 election.’”
It doesn’t appear that KL wrote these bits of flaming folderol herself, rather, she’s pulling one of her boss’s slimy tricks, using the handy “People are saying” ploy.
Oh yeah, and about that claim that poor Fatty can’t even have attorney client privilege. That’s right, Kraken Lady. Attorney client privilege disappears over the horizon when the client and the attorney are planning and committing crimes together. Like overthrowing elections.
But KL here is creating a road map for all the other crooks who cop a plea but then want to keep yapping about how they were completely innocent and right all along. Fani Willis needs to retract that plea deal and send this idiot off to be measured for that jump suit. The arrogance. Jesus.
Nuff said.
Talking about Chekhov’s Gun, yesterday I heard MyKevin whining that it was all the Democrats’ fault that his beloved party is in the crapper.
Um…lemme think about that.
Okay, I thought about it.
No. It’s not.
Democrats didn’t hand you that gun. Matt Gaetz and the other Freedom Cock-us fascists did. They brought it onstage, you said “Oh. A gun! How nice. I’ll just put it here on the table. It’ll never be used.”
Then Gaetz picked it up and shot him in the head.
Not the Democrats. But never let an hour go by when PoT cowards will avoid responsibility and blame someone else.
Hey Kev, check out this AK!
One more thing about the Kraken, and I suppose this comes from Trump, but really it began with Newt Gingrich. The plan is, just say anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or even wildly illogical and nonsensical. Say it anyway.
In this case it’s her claim that law enforcement is biased against conservatives. First, none of these people are conservatives, but never mind that now.
Sooo…cops, the FBI, ATF…all these people are…liberals? They go home at night and get their copies of Mother Jones and Harper’s out of the mailbox, tune in to Rachel Maddow, and send links of a John Oliver clip in which he tears into white supremacists in Congress to all their pals on the SWAT team?
I know, I know…logic never matters to these people. But it doesn’t have to. They know that a yuuuge number of MAGAts listening to their shit wouldn’t bat an eye if they claimed Mother Teresa started Antifa in her spare time after selling baby parts to fast food chains in India.
“Those Catholics! I always knew you couldn’t trust them!”
Back in our own house, talking with my wife this AM about the mess in that other House, the obvious hit me over the head as it should have long ago.
By not allowing up or down votes on bills, one of. Hakeem Jeffries' demands in exchange for Dem support for any Speaker candidate, the R's have turned the House into a junior Senate, in which a minority wields the majority of the power.
Whatever the Hastert Rule was intended it accomplish, it is obviously not democratic. And carried to the present extreme, it obviously doesn't work.
Duh.
Could have been more incisive, but Rampell comments on a subject near the core of any politics in a nation controlled by capitalism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/24/israel-gaza-hamas-corporations-speech/
As one commenter said, get the money and the lobbyists out of Washington D. C. and he said he'd take her more seriously....
But the Kraken is not alone in her batshit crazy ramblings. A piece in Washington Monthly points out that GQP addiction to psycho conspiracy theories is having a deleterious effect on the Party of Traitors (really, how could it not?).
Pizzagate, Paul Pelosi’s midnight tryst with a male prostitute, Trump is still president and will run again with JFK, Jr. as his running mate, the Deep State, global child sex trafficking by the Clintons, Jewish space lasers…it gets crazier the longer you stay down the hole.
“Democrats have their own tensions, but they are nothing like the House Republicans ceding control of the caucus to far-right and anti-democracy elements of the Party. Whenever an even marginally more responsible adult in the party attempts to push back, they are inundated with literal death threats and warnings that Fox News will make a public example of them.”
It’s a bit of a QED piece, but interesting nonetheless
.
Liberty University "Last week, Fox News reported that Liberty is facing the possibility of an “unprecedented” $37.5 million fine from the U.S. Department of Education.
The report, as Svrluga writes, “paints a picture of a university that discouraged people from reporting crimes, underreported the claims it received and, meanwhile, marketed its Virginia campus as one of the safest in the country.” The details are grim. According to the report, “Liberty failed to warn the campus community about gas leaks, bomb threats and people credibly accused of repeated acts of sexual violence — including a senior administrator and an athlete.”"
Elie Mystal
"The Fate of Your Rent May Be in the Supreme Court’s Hands
The nation’s highest court is weighing whether to hear two rent-regulation cases that could gut renter protection laws."
What the Repugnants do understand:
The First Law of the Con Artist:
"Tell the suckers whatever they want to hear."
And the Evangelist's Creed:
"If The Lord hadn't have wanted them sheared, He wouldn't of made them sheep."
A bit of a plod for me toward its end, but Fintan O'Toole applies his genius to tribalism (of which, as Marie mentioned a few weeks back, religion is only a part) and wokeness in this new New York Review piece.
Well worth a read, I thought.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/11/02/defying-tribalism-left-is-not-woke-neiman/
It's time for the GOP to apply for tax exempt status because it long ago crossed the line between partisan politics and religion. When you insist that your followers believe garbage and teach them, like Thomas, that those who insist on proof are weenies, in the USA you don't have to pay taxes anymore. Now, if they can only figure out who gets to be the next Pope ...
Things to do on a rainy day (other than clean house, did that last
spring): Going through file folders and throwing stuff away that
has become meaningless, came across this gem from a relative, or
actually, an in-law who lives in Ohio.
This was when Covid first started sweeping the country so we
encouraged the relatives in Ohio to get vaccinated because we had
heard from one of them that they don't believe it's a problem, even
though people were dying from it.
Here's the gist of an e-mail that I printed out for future reference:
"The jab was patented YEARS ago-it is MANMADE!! It has aborted
fetal kidney cells IN IT with HiV (also MANMADE) IN IT plus
many other harmful toxic ingredients meant to HARM YOU! Each
shot only makes you sicker so die off and at best become dependent
on Pharma and cannot function and MOST IMPORTANTLY do not
think for yourself!!
There is a global agenda to depopulate the world.
Again, BY NOW, if you have gotten this far believing the lied fed to
you, you won't believe any of this and there's NOTHING anyone can
do to save you.
You are not SAVING anyone by pushing THE JAB, you're taking
them down with you.
I pray most of all you know Jesus and know where you're going because in the end, that IS ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS.
You can KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF!!!!!!
This side down here is:
PRO TRUMP
PRO GOD
PRO FREEDOM
PRO AMERICA
PRO LIFE
PRO GUN RIGHTS
AND VERY REPUBLICAN PATRIOTS.
And on and on and on.
@ForrestMorris: Gosh, your Ohio in-law is full of interesting information I never knew. I was just thinking this morning that the only good thing Trump did during his presidency* was to bark at his staff to speed up efforts to develop a Covid vaccine. And of course he only did that because Covid was a national disaster, and he wanted to get rid of it ASAP. IOW, he took the time to yell about the pandemic because it was in his personal interest to fix the problem. The irony is that the one good thing Trump did is something he can't boast about because his base is your in-law and several million other wackos.
@Marie: The sad part of this tale is that the brother-in-law died
after getting Covid. This was the grandfather of the writer of that
e-mail. Their reasoning was that he was diabetic and would have
died anyway. (Well, I guess we all will eventually).
Naturally we refused to attend the funeral because a crowd of the
unvaccinated solved that decision.
What's that old saying? You can choose your friends but you're
stuck with your relatives (in-laws).
That Mike Johnson person is the perfect Republican.
According to Wickipedia:
Supports a nationwide abortion ban.
Supports an end to legal same-sex marriage.
Against medical marijuana.
Voted to overturn the 2020 election results.
Supports ending military aid to Ukraine.
Does not believe in climate change.
Wants prayer in public schools.
Believes the earth is 6,000 years old (doesn't know if it's flat or round).
(I added the flat or round bit).
Holding the powerful to account
"Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., has been criminally charged with a misdemeanor in connection with pulling a fire alarm in a congressional building on Capitol Hill last month.
The charge — one misdemeanor count of falsely pulling a fire alarm — carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail."