Mostly Monday Reads: Disorder in the House, the Senate, the Courtroom … you name it!

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s too bad we can’t get a camera in the New York State Courtroom today.  Trump’s testimony is as bad as you would imagine.  Plus, how do you get a payroll check from the U.S. Government and not have a bank account?  Tommy Tuberville is still holding up hundreds of military promotions despite a showing of contempt and song by fellow Republicans.  The leader and members of the Chaos Party do their thang!

Let’s go with the Trump Trial first. The Washington Post has live updates if you’re not up to TV coverage that describes the craziness. “Donald Trump testifying in New York civil fraud trial.”  I’m listening to Brahams because what goes better with Trump drama than a music style described as both “difficult” and “too cosy.”   Or, as I liked to tell my buddy who played classical like me in high school, “Stop pounding the keys so damned much.”

This is one of the major dramatic moments where Trump kept pounding the keys.  “Trump sticks to his guns on Mar-a-Lago value, despite evidence. Lawyers for the attorney general’s office questioned former president Donald Trump on Monday about the values he has claimed for Mar-a-Lago, one of his most prominent properties but one of minor importance to his business.”

Alrighty, then!  Oh, there’s much, much more!  This is from CNN.  “Trump testifies in New York civil fraud trial. Trump: “Everybody” within Trump Organization is responsible for identifying internal fraud.” Is this dank comedy or what?

Donald Trump testified that ultimately “everybody” within the Trump Organization is responsible for identifying internal fraud, following questions from New York’s assistant attorney general.

“I would say everybody,” Trump responded to questioning.

In the years before he became president of the United States, employees would bring issues to him or other management executives to be resolved.

He recalled instances where building managers may have been illegally renting apartments to pocket the money themselves.

When it came to the financial statements, he said he figured Mazars USA, the accounting firm that Trump and his businesses used, would flag any issues. “I would assume Mazars would come and recommend something and we’d amend that procedure,” Trump said.

Just prior to the lunch break, Kevin Wallace from the New York attorney general’s office told the former president, “We’ll get through this particular document much more quickly if you say, ‘I don’t know,” while questioning him about a document addressing the cash flow for one of Trump’s buildings that shows a financial loss.

Trump then responded, “I don’t know.”

The property in question was 40 Wall St., one of the properties that is part of the lawsuit.

My music has now switched to Strauss as every court reporter describes Trump waltzing around the facts, evidence, and reality.

I keep wondering how anyone in that room can keep a straight face.  So, let’s see how things are faring with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who keeps track of his own and his son’s porn intake and insists that he doesn’t have a bank account.  How much stupidity and arrogance can one party handle? This is from The New Republic. “Mike Johnson and His Son Monitoring Each Other’s Porn Intake Is Worse Than You Think. The House speaker admitted to a wild new detail about his personal life. And it’s a bigger deal than it seems.” Many are arguing that this is a National Security Threat, which seems to be just par for the course for every Republican these days.  They’re all National Security Threats from the top down.  They are all also quite creepy.

This comes with a background of Mendelssohn’s Waldschloss or Forest Castle. “Surrounded by carnations in bloom, The lovely forest women sit, Singing their songs in the wind.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s unusual porn habits could have ramifications for the entire country.

In a newly resurfaced video from 2022, the newly minted speaker admitted that he and his son monitor each other’s porn intake using a third-party subscription software called Covenant Eyes that watches all their electronic devices. For $16.99 a month, the app drafts a habit report and shares it with an “accountability partner,” which in Johnson’s case is his teenage son Jack.

“What it does, real simply, is it has an algorithm and a software—it’s way above my head how it works, but—it scans, you obviously opt into it, but it scans all the activity on your phone or your devices, your laptop, what have you. We do all of it. Then it sends a report to your accountability partner,” Johnson said.

“My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice,” Johnson explained.

“I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate,” he added.

How many of you want to bet Jack has a friend with a phone that doesn’t include spying parents?  Plus, magazines are still around at your local truck stop and there are a hell of lot of those in Shreveport/Bossier City.

Aside from the weirdness of having your son watch your porn intake—and vice versa—the implications of having one of the most prominent leaders in government under the watchful eye of an intrusive software have not been lost on some, who believe the app could pose a national security risk.

“A US Congressman is allowing a 3rd Party tech company to scan ALL of his electronic devices daily and then uploading reports to his son about what he’s watching or not watching…. I mean, who else is accessing that data?” tweeted the user Receipt Maven, who first resurfaced the video.

Ayatollan Mike doesn’t need an App to be a threat to the entire nation. But still, where’s your damned bank accounts Bubba? This is from The Daily Beast. “House Speaker Mike Johnson Skirts Question on Personal Bank Account.”  Oh, Mozart is perfect for this one.  It makes your brain function nicely. I’m sure no one in Shreveport believes this. “The newfound Speaker said he was a “man of modest means” in a Fox interview.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) responded on Sunday to a report by The Daily Beast that highlighted his apparent lack of a bank account on his financial disclosure.

The response, however, did not actually answer whether he had one.

Fox News Sundaymoderator Shannon Bream pressed Johnson on whether he had a bank account, citing a Vanity Fairwrite-up of The Daily Beast’s report and noting that “there’s been so much made about it.”

“Can you clear that up for us?” Bream asked.

Johnson did not.

“Look, I’m a man of modest means,” Johnson said. “I was a lawyer, but I did constitutional law, and most of my career has been in the nonprofit sector. We have four kids, five now, that are very active. And I have kids in graduate school, law school, undergraduate. We have a lot of expenses, but I can relate to everybody else. My father was a firefighter, right? I didn’t grow up with great means. But I think that helps us to be a better leader because we can relate to every hard-working American family. That’s who we are. And I think it governs and helps govern my decisions and how I lead.”

Okay, he’s a government employee, They all get their checks deposited into a bank account automatically. This is fishy as fuck.

The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday that Johnson had not disclosed a personal bank account or one of his family members in his seven years in Congress, a trait that’s likely due to a modest, paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. Experts told The Daily Beast that the lack of disclosure raised questions about his financial health, particularly since Johnson has taken out a mortgage and personal loans.

“He owes hundreds of thousands of dollars between a mortgage, personal loan, and home equity line of credit, so where did that money go?” Jason Libowitz, the communications director for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast. “If he truly has no bank account and no assets, it raises questions about his personal financial wellbeing.”

Then, there’s the Senator Tommy Tuberville. The military is watching you dude.  This is from Military.COM  “Senate Finally Confirms 3 Top Military Officers After Fellow Republicans Erupt in Anger over Tuberville Blockade.” 

Chiefs of the Navy and Air Force, as well as the second-in-command at the Marine Corps, were confirmed Thursday by the Senate after a wild week that saw the leader of the Marines hospitalized and Republican senators unleash fury at the member of their party responsible for blocking the promotions of nearly 380 generals and admirals.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations, making her the first woman to sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Allvin as chief of staff of the Air Force. The chamber also unanimously approved Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to get a fourth star and be the assistant commandant of the Marines, allowing him to step in as acting commandant while Gen. Eric Smith remains hospitalized for an undisclosed medical emergency.

I wonder if it’s possible to get past all this attention-grabbing right wing drama in time to pass a budget and not close down the Government?

Just one more about these creeps and then I may go back for a nap. These people are exhausting! This is from Salon.  It’s written by Chaucey DeVega.  “”Apocalypticism”: Polling expert reveals the root of “panic among conservative White Christians”. “That core belief explains so much of the extremism and the proclivity toward violence on the political right.”

This year’s American Values Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) with the Brookings Institution, shows that the American people are very conflicted and increasingly do not possess a shared set of beliefs or values across a wide range of political issues. Key findings include a growingly disproportionate amount of support for political violence, a willingness to ignore the rule of law to win political power, and a belief in untrue conspiracy theories amongst Republicans as compared to Democrats. Antidemocratic beliefs are even more acute, the survey found, among white evangelical Protestants who yearn for a return to “traditional American values” in a country they believe “is moving in the wrong direction.”

How can the American people and their leaders solve the many problems facing the country if they cannot even agree on what they are – or on basic facts and the nature of reality and the truth more generally?

I asked Robert P. Jones, founder and president of PRRI, to help make sense of the survey results that show a divided American public, the enduring power and growing dangers of Trumpism and the role of White Christian nationalism in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s swift ascendence. Jones is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.”

…

The new survey’s findings about the rise in support for political violence are particularly troubling. We found that the numbers of Americans who say that “Things have gotten so far off track that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country” has gone up over the last few years, from 15% to 23%. Those feelings are disproportionately on the right. One in three Republicans believe that as compared to only 13% of Democrats. We also found troubling links between white Christian nationalism and political violence. Among those who believe that America was intended by God to be a promised land for European Christians, nearly four in ten believe they may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Okay, I’m going back to my usual playlist.  Y’all have a very good week. I wish I could tell you to avoid the TV but we have an election coming up and it’s a big one.  Remember that Ayatollah Mike told us the next two years would be important to America.  We should be worried about that.  If you really want to get depressed read about the Florida Friday Summit Appearance where booing every one but Trump was a state sport on display. This is from the New York Times. “DeSantis and Trump Bring Their Campaign Battle Home to Florida. At a state party summit, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald J. Trump both argued that Florida was their turf. For the crowd, Mr. Trump’s assertion seemed to ring truer.”

But the crowd at the summit was clearly in no mood to hear any digs at the former president, and candidates who criticized Mr. Trump were heckled. When former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said that he believed Mr. Trump would probably be found guilty in one of the criminal cases he was facing, the boos were ferocious.

And Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who has become an outspoken Trump critic, was jeered immediately after he took the stage.

Mr. Christie was not dissuaded, firing back at the crowd, “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”

Be very afraid. This song’s for Ayatollah Mike.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?