Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive and usually restricted to a small number of government officials, experts said. Publicizing details about U.S. weapons could provide an intelligence road map to adversaries seeking to build ways of countering those systems. And other countries might view exposing their nuclear secrets as a threat, experts said.
Monday Reads: “The Wheels of justice grind slow but grind fine”
Posted: August 15, 2022 Filed under: The Trump Family Crime Syndicate, U.S. Politics | Tags: The US Justice System 42 CommentsGood Day Sky Dancers!
I’m not sure what made me think of this Sun Tzu quote exactly. I’ve been hearing “justice delayed is justice denied” more frequently. That’s a more recent quote from William Gladstone. It’s quiet this morning on the news front. So quiet, you might just hear a grinding sound.
This is from Politico: “Judge orders Graham to testify in Atlanta-area Trump probe. Investigators intend to query Graham about two phone calls with Georgia election officials that included a discussion of the process for counting absentee ballots.” I keep wondering if the FBI will find the kompromat on Lady Lindsey in one of those leatherbound boxes found in the basement of Mar-a-Lago.
A federal judge on Monday turned down Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bid to throw out a subpoena compelling him to testify before the Atlanta-area grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
“[T]he Court finds that the District Attorney has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia’s 2022 elections,” U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in a 22-page opinion rejecting Graham’s effort and sending the matter back to state courts for further proceedings.
The ruling is a victory for District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading the grand jury probe that resulted in a subpoena for Graham (R-S.C.) to appear for an Aug. 23 interview. Investigators intend to query Graham about two phone calls with Georgia election officials, at the same time Trump was attempting to subvert his defeat, that included a discussion of the process for counting absentee ballots.“
Senator Graham has unique personal knowledge about the substance and circumstances of the phone calls with Georgia election officials, as well as the logistics of setting them up and his actions afterward,” May wrote. “And though other Georgia election officials were allegedly present on these calls and have made public statements about the substance of those conversations, Senator Graham has largely (and indeed publicly) disputed their characterizations of the nature of the calls and what was said and implied. Accordingly, Senator Graham’s potential testimony on these issues … are unique to Senator Graham.”
“In a statement issued later Monday through his Senate office, Graham indicated he would appeal the ruling.
Whatever gravitas Senator Graham may have had is now gone. Donald Trump has hung his ass as a trophy somewhere on some Golf Club wall.
More information is being released and reported on the attempted murder of author Salman Rushdie. This is from The Washington Post. It’s written by Jennifer Hassan. “Iran denies involvement in Rushdie attack, says he brought it on himself.”
Iran denied any involvement Monday in last week’s attack that left author Salman Rushdie with severe injuries after he was stabbed in the neck and abdomen onstage at an event in western New York.
In its first public reaction to the stabbing, Iran said Rushdie and his supporters were to blame for the attack, more than three decades after Tehran issued a directive for Muslims to kill Rushdie because of his book “The Satanic Verses,” published in 1988.
“We do not blame, or recognize worthy of condemnation, anyone except himself and his supporters,” Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said of the stabbing, which has been condemned by world leaders and has rocked the literary world.
Kanaani told reporters that through his writing,the Indian-born British American novelisthad insulted “the holiness of Islam” and crossed “the red lines of more than 1½ billion Muslims.”
The Three Judges, 1858/60, Honoré Victorin Daumier
Mitchell Prothero–writing for Vice–believes this statement to be false. “Salman Rushdie Stabbing Suspect ‘Had Contact With Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.’ Intel officials told VICE World News Hadi Matar had been in contact with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. There’s no evidence Iran was involved in organising the attack.”
The 24-year-old man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie had been in direct contact with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on social media, European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials told VICE World News.
Hadi Matar has been charged with attempted murder after Rushdie, 75, was repeatedly stabbed on stage ahead of a speaking event in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday. On Sunday, Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie said his father was in a critical condition and had sustained “life-changing” injuries but had been taken off a ventilator and had been able to speak.
A NATO counterterrorism official from a European country said the stabbing had all the hallmarks of a “guided” attack, where an intelligence service talks a supporter into action, without direct support or involvement in the attack itself.
“Close scrutiny needs to be paid to his communications,” said the NATO official, who was not authorised to speak on the record. “More investigation will reveal more information on the exact nature of the links.”
There’s no evidence Iranian officials were involved in organising or orchestrating the attack on Rushdie. Security officials who confirmed the social media contact would not elaborate on the nature of the communications because investigations are ongoing. They would not disclose who initiated the contact, when it took place, or what was discussed.
And this is interesting in terms of the Department of Justice investigations and the former guy. There are two separate warrants now that we know about.
The last we heard of Trump, he threatened the DOJ if they didn’t let him “help” the investigation. This is from a blog post of Katelyn Caralle, the U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com.
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Donald Trump confirmed that he told the DOJ he would ‘do whatever I can to help the country’ after outrage ensued after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate
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‘People are so angry at what is taking place,’ Trump told Fox. ‘Whatever we can do to help—because the temperature has to be brought down in the country’
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Added a warning: ‘If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen’
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A report Sunday revealed Trump had a representative tell a DOJ official he had a message for Attorney General Merrick Garland
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‘The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?’ was the message
James Ensor, The Wise Judges, 1891
That sounds like one of those thinly veiled threats Trump makes when he goes all Mafia on us. Trump once again is hoisted on his own petard. (Oh, now I’m referencing Shakespeare, what kind of Monday trip am I on?) This is from Raw Story and Brad Reed: “Trump’s DOJ won a 2018 case that undermines claims about his broad declassification powers.”
Allies of former President Donald Trump have claimed that he unilaterally declassified every single government document that he took with him to Mar-a-Lago on his way out of the White House in 2021.
Many legal experts have cast doubt on claims that Trump can simply will documents declassified without going through any kind of formal process, and New York Times reporter Charlie Savage points to a case won by Trump’s own Department of Justice in 2018 that rebuts the theory that presidents have near-omnipotent declassification powers.
The case in question involved a New York Times request for documents relating to covert operations in Syria that Trump had revealed in a tweet by criticizing “massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels” made by the United States government.
By talking about the matter publicly, argued the New York Times, Trump had in essence declassified the existence of the program, which would then make documents about it available to reporters through requests via the Freedom of Information Act.
The Trump DOJ pushed back on this, however, and successfully argued that mere presidential proclamations are insufficient to formally declassify documents.
“The Times cites no authority that stands for the proposition that the President can inadvertently declassify information and we are aware of none,” wrote the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in its decision against the Times. “Because declassification, even by the President, must follow established procedures, that argument fails.”
Excuse me while I chuckle.
Jennifer Rubin has much to say about Trump and how he easily absconded with Federal Documents, including Top Secret National Security Matters. Rubin writes this for The Washington Post: “Leaving with nuclear secrets would be Trump’s dumbest, scariest stunt yet.”
A defeated former president who was at the center of a failed coup allegedly walks out the door with nuclear secrets, refuses to give them back and then leaves a creepy, semi-threatening message for the attorney general — that’s apparently where we are. Donald Trump and his apologists are as dangerous to our national security as spies and traitors who would spirit away our most closely held secrets.
The documents at issue supposedly include material so confidential it merits a top secret rating (TS/SCI) that no president — let alone an ex-president — can wish away.
Former FBI special agent and lawyer Asha Rangappa dismisses Trump’s assertion that he declassified everything: “The claim is bogus because clearly the current position of the United States government is that these documents are classified. This is controlling, whatever he did before he left office.” She adds, “He has no classification authority as of Jan. 20, 2021. Trump forgets that whatever awesome powers and immunities he held as president now belong to [President] Biden.”
Indeed, this nondefense bolsters the conclusion that Trump knew the documents were classified. “It is an admission because it would mean Trump had knowledge of the content of the documents, and that he apparently planned to remove them once relabeled,” observes Ryan Goodman, national security law expert and co-editor of Just Security.
The more facts we know, the worse it gets. According to New York Times reporting, “At least one lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump signed a written statement in June asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club had been returned to the government.” Perhaps Trump, a compulsive liar, and his counsel were less than honest.
Even more stunning, just before Attorney General Merrick Garland’s public announcement regarding the search, a close Trump associate reached out to DOJ with a message for Garland. Trump wanted Garland “to know that he had been checking in with people around the country and found them to be enraged by the search,” the Times reported. A threat? A plea? Maybe both, but it certainly reflects Trump’s telltale mix of ignorance, arrogance, lawlessness, narcissism and recklessness.
I hope we get more justice on this than we got from Richard Nixon’s lawlessness.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Warrant Watch Edition
Posted: August 12, 2022 Filed under: 2022 Elections, 2022 Primaries, abortion rights, American Gun Fetish, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, court rulings, Criminal Justice System, Department of Homeland Security, Inflation Reduction Act, Republican politics, The Insurrectionists Club, The Trump Family Crime Syndicate, Treason and Sedition Republican Style, Trump Documents Scandal 33 Comments
Secret Society from Peekaboo!, Tomoo Gokita,2018
Good Day Sky Dancers!
So, we’re on watch today to see exactly if the Search Warrant and property list from the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago stash are as disturbing as leaks imply. This headline is from WAPO: “FBI searched Trump’s home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say. The former president said on social media that he won’t oppose a Justice Dept. request to unseal the search warrant.” It describes the Garland Presser as well.
Late Thursday night, Trump said on social media that he agreed the document should be made public. In another post early Friday, he called the nuclear weapons issue a “hoax” and accused the FBI of planting evidence, without offering information to indicate such a thing had happened. Trump said agents did not allow his lawyers to be present for the search, which is not unusual in a law enforcement operation, especially if it potentially involves classified items.
One former Justice Department official, who in the past oversaw investigations of leaks of classified information, said the type of top-secret information described by the people familiar with the probe would probably cause authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents that could cause grave harm to U.S. security.
“If that is true, it would suggest that material residing unlawfully at Mar-a-Lago may have been classified at the highest classification level,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, which investigates leaks of classified information. “If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible.”
Cable News lit up last night with analysis and news.
This is from the tweet above and Steve Benen.
It’s worth emphasizing that the new motion filed by the DOJ isn’t to disclose everything, but it would bring to light the materials Team Trump already has in its possession, which would make clear key details of the search.
It’s why Marcy Wheeler noted, in response to today’s statement, “Garland is calling Trump’s bluff.”
The attorney general went on to note that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” in this case — something that was widely assumed, but not confirmed before this afternoon. He added that the Department of Justice “does not take such actions lightly” and first pursues “less intrusive” means.
But before wrapping up, Garland also took about a minute to defend federal law enforcement from “recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors.”
“I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly
Peek A Boo, 2000, Bella Larsson
The New York Times focused on the possibilities that beyond-Top Secret Material was sitting around the basement of the Club. My worst thoughts are that he already shipped it off to his buddy in North Korea, his man-crush in Russia, or Bonesaw. “Trump Search Said to Be Part of Effort to Find Highly Classified Material. The former president said he will not object to the Justice Department’s move to release the search warrant used to carry out the search of his Florida home.”
While the inventory provided to Mr. Trump’s team after the search is unlikely to reveal details about the specific documents he kept, it refers to an array of sensitive material, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Judge Bruce Reinhart, the federal magistrate in the Southern District of Florida who approved the search warrant and is handling the motion to unseal it, had issued an order requiring the Justice Department to serve a copy of its motion to Mr. Trump’s lawyers. It said the department would have to tell the judge by 3 p.m. on Friday whether Mr. Trump opposed the motion.
Mr. Garland’s statement amounted to a challenge to Mr. Trump, who has been free to release the search warrant and the list of items taken during the search on his own, but has declined to do so. Many Trump allies and Republicans have also called on Mr. Garland to explain his decision, adding political complexity — or hypocrisy — to any decision by Mr. Trump to oppose making the search warrant public.
The Justice Department did not seek to release the affidavits — which contain much more information about the behavior of Mr. Trump and evidence presented by others — that were used to obtain the warrant.
The public statement by Mr. Garland came at an extraordinary moment, as a sprawling set of investigations into the former president on multiple fronts gained momentum even as Mr. Trump continued to signal that he might soon announce another run for the White House.
Peek-A-Boo /Hide and seek (Kurragömma) , Carl Larsson, 1898
Republican Elected officials and right-wing New Sources are doing everything to stir the empty pot of Trump’s latest Big Lie. This is from The Guardian: “Republicans dust off familiar playbook to weaponise Mar-a-Lago FBI search. Analysis: GOP accusations of ‘deep state’ and politicization of justice department likely to foment an intense backlash.”
But Republicans responded furiously to the development, following Trump’s lead in claiming that the search showed the justice department waging a politically motivated witch-hunt. Their florid rhetoric will do little to assuage fears that a prosecution of Trump could lead to social unrest and even political violence.
Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Countless times we have examples of Democrats flouting the law and abusing power with no recourse.
“Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans. This raid is outrageous. This abuse of power must stop and the only way to do that is to elect Republicans in November.”
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader in the House, claimed in a statement that the justice department had reached “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” and vowed that, when Republicans take back the House, they will conduct immediate oversight of the department.
He said ominously: “Attorney General Garland: preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
Lindsey Graham, a US senator for South Carolina and Trump ally, noted that midterm elections are about a hundred days away and Trump is likely to run for president again in 2024. “Time will tell regarding this most recent investigation. However, launching such an investigation of a former President this close to an election is beyond problematic.”
Bob Good, a Republican congressman, wrote on Twitter: “The continued weaponization of the federal government against its citizens and political opponents continues under the Biden/Garland march toward a police state.”
Congressman Ronny Jackson added: “Tonight the FBI officially became the enemy of the people!!!”
Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, denounced the search as “un-American”, while Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – which hosted an event in Dallas, Texas, last week with speakers including Trump and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán – also joined the condemnation.
“The Deep State will do anything in its power to slime President Trump,” Schlapp said. “Americans need to keep growing the big Red Wave and save the country from these corrupt fascists.”
Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state under Trump, tweeted: “Executing a warrant against ex-POTUS is dangerous. The apparent political weaponization of DOJ/FBI is shameful. AG must explain why 250 yrs of practice was upended w/ this raid.”
Biden has repeatedly stressed his belief that the justice department must work independently of the White House and that he will not interfere in its investigations. Merrick Garland, the attorney general, insisted last week that no one was above the law.
The FBI is directed by Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee.
Meanwhile, a member of the Trump Cult tried to shoot up an FBI office in Cinncinatti. He was spurred on by the Republican responses.
The gunman who fired at police and engaged in an hours-long standoff in a corn field after trying to enter the FBI’s office in Cincinnati on Thursday has been identified in multiple media reports as someone who was present at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
The man also apparently left a trail of posts on Truth Social, the social media platform created by former president Donald Trump, announcing his plans to attack the FBI office and indicating that his actions were a direct response to the FBI’s search Monday of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
The suspect is Ricky Walter Shiffer, according to NBC News and the New York Times, which reported that Shiffer was under investigation for having “ties to extremist groups,” including the Proud Boys, which he apparently mentioned on social media.
The standoff suspect was shot and killed by police on Thursday afternoon, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said, but his identity has not been confirmed.
The 42-year-old Shiffer reportedly posted on Facebook on Jan. 5, 2021, showing him attending a pro-Trump rally at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington the night before the Capitol was stormed, according to the Times.
The week’s events have spurred a new addition to the Dark Brandon memes. We now have Dark Merrick.
I really want to focus on this, though, because it ties all of the shit we’ve been through since Trump started with the Obama wasn’t born here lies. I’d love to have sat in on this discussion between the President and a group of the nation’s premier Historians.
The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the current moment as among the most perilous in modern history for democratic governance, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting.
Comparisons were made to the years before the 1860 election when Abraham Lincoln warned that a “house divided against itself cannot stand” and the lead-up to the 1940 election, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled rising domestic sympathy for European fascism and resistance to the United States joining World War II.
We’ve seen this analysis from various Historians that appear on TV News. Here’s some additional reading material,
I somehow missed that publication in the dark years of the Trump Presidency.
No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics.
At this point, I’d just like to see Trump himself stop haunting us.
If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. Like Hitler’s conservative allies, he and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump.
Mitch has calmed down some, but the rest of the Republicans have not. This just broke.
This scoop comes from Lisa Rein.
The White House has faced mounting questions about a decision by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office to abandon attempts to recover missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 6,2021. President Biden, in response, has signaled his intention to stay out of the process as an independent watchdog investigates the inspector general.
But Joseph V. Cuffari and his staff have refused to release certain documents and tried to block interviews, effectively delaying that probe, which has now stretched for more than 15 months and evolved into a wide-ranging inquiry into more than a dozen allegations of misconduct raised by whistleblowers and other sources, according to three people familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation.
Some Republican senators have also raised stiff resistance to the investigation — which is being overseen by a panel of federal watchdogs fromthe Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) — questioning the need for a full probe into the Trump administrationappointee.
Pavel Tchelitchew
Hide-and-Seek
Derby, Vermont and New York, June 1940 – June 1942
It just seems we’ve lost our way.
There is some good news. The House is on the verge of sending the Inflation Reduction Act to the President for his signature.
There’s also this from the AP: “Kansas abortion vote shows limits of GOP’s strength.”
An increase in turnout among Democrats and independents and a notable shift in Republican-leaning counties contributed to the overwhelming support of abortion rights last week in traditionally conservative Kansas, according to a detailed Associated Press analysis of the voting results.
A proposed state constitutional amendment would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban abortions outright. But Kansas voters rejected the measure by nearly 20 percentage points, almost a mirror of Republican Donald Trump’s statewide margin over Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to repeal a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, the threat of new restrictions in the state galvanized Democrats and independents more than anticipated. At the same time, Republicans showed less interest in turning out to support the measure.
The findings reinforce a sense in both parties that the Supreme Court’s decision may have altered the dynamics of this year’s midterm elections.
Even Fox News polling supports the tightening of the race to maintain control of Congress,
“Between passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, killing al Qaeda’s leader, less pain at the pump, and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices taking away abortion rights, the political landscape is less horrible for Democrats,” says Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, who conducts the Fox surveys with Republican Daron Shaw. “There are successes Democrats can point to that didn’t exist in the spring, but the biggest single change I see in this poll is the increased disapproval of the Supreme Court and suspect that is a significant factor.”
Fifty-five percent disapprove of the Supreme Court’s job performance, up from 48% in June.
Meanwhile, the shift in vote preference mainly comes from women. They preferred the GOP candidate by 1 point in May and now go for the Democrat by 6.
Okay, we’ll keep you updated on the release of the warrant.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Of Laws and Law Breakers
Posted: August 8, 2022 Filed under: 2016 elections, Big Pharma, Citizen's United & Super Pacs, Economic Develpment, Economy, inflation, Inflation Reduction Act, Vulture Capitalism 33 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There are two themes to the news stream this morning. The first is that the Inflation Reduction Act is about to become law. The CBO has scored its expected budget and economic income impacts. It’s amazing how many idiots are lecturing me on how inflationary this Act will be, as if I don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, here’s the inflation analysis if any of your crazy right-wing parrots start screaming “inflation” at you.
This is actually a letter the CBO sent to Lady Lindsey, who is pearl-clutching over inflation because that’s the only thing the Republicans have to discuss.
In calendar year 2022, enacting the bill would have a negligible effect on inflation, in CBO’s assessment. In calendar year 2023, inflation would probably be between 0.1 percentage point lower and 0.1 percentage point higher under the bill than it would be under current law, CBO estimates.
That range of likely outcomes reflects uncertainty about how various provisions of the bill would affect overall demand and output, the supply of labor, the persistence of disruptions in the supply of goods and services, and how the Federal Reserve would respond to offset any increase in inflationary pressure. Responsiveness to the enhancement of health insurance subsidies established by the Affordable Care Act is the most important factor boosting inflationary pressure, and responsiveness to the new alternative minimum tax on corporations is the most important factor reducing inflationary pressure. The range applies to multiple measures of inflation: the GDP price index, the personal consumption expenditures price index, and the consumer price index for all urban consumers.
In other good news, Consumer’s inflation expectations are decreasing. This is important because it is a factor in how customers make decisions about spending. This is from CNBC and not written by the talking head at Fox Business that trolled my analysis. But, that link from the CBO with huge econometrics models agrees with me. My assumption is that Kenny Polcari can’t do modern finance and doesn’t have anything huge around him but his crony capitalism booty. He s undoubtedly enjoying his ability to avoid taxes with the treatment Sinema just granted him. I’m tempted to quote Swift on the confederacy of dunces. This is from Jeffy Cox at CNBC: “Consumers’ expectations of future inflation decreased significantly in win for the Federal Reserve.”
- A New York Fed survey showed that respondents in July expected inflation to run at a 6.2% pace over the next year and a 3.2% rate for the next three years.
- That marks a big drop-off from the respective 6.8% and 3.6% results from the June survey
- Expectations for food increases fell at the fastest rate in survey history and the second-fastest for gasoline prices.
The consumer outlook for inflation decreased significantly in July amid a sharp drop in gas prices and a growing belief that the rapid surges in food and housing also would ebb in the future.
The New York Federal Reserve’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations showed that respondents expect inflation to run at a 6.2% pace over the next year and a 3.2% rate for the next three years.
While those numbers are still very high by historical standards, they mark a big drop-off from the respective 6.8% and 3.6% results from the June survey
I guess that high inflation in the Nixon years is part of history. (sigh) But let me just quote from Business Insider on huge Kyrsten Sinema’s suck-up to hedge fund managers and the like. “Kyrsten Sinema ensured a $14 billion tax break for private equity, hedge fund, and real estate executives remains intact. It’s a win for many of her campaign donors.” The analysis is written by Sam Tabahriti.
The Arizona senator’s support was won late Thursday after fellow Democrats dropped a proposal to close the so-called “carried interest” loophole, which is commonly used by private equity, hedge fund, and property investment executives to pay a lower rate of tax on their compensation.
As such, it was a win for many Sinema campaign donors.
According to Open Secrets, the global private equity firms KKR, Carlyle, and Apollo Global Management are among the leading 20 sources of donations to Sinema’s campaign committee between 2017 and 2022.
As Open Secrets notes, it isn’t the organizations in the list that donated money directly, but rather, their “political action committees, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.” Further, subsidiaries and affiliates are included in the organizations’ total donations figure.
Other organizations listed by Open Secrets among the leading 20 sources of donations include Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has invested in companies including Facebook, Twitter, and Airbnb; and Rudin Management, a private commercial and residential landlord and developer in New York City.
All in all, Sinema has received $2.2 million from investment firms between 2017 and 2022, according to Open Secrets.
Well, that explains that. Then, the other icky result was that Republicans could not bring themselves to support a price control on Insulin which is cheap to make, but its price inelasticity is off the wall. That’s fancy economist talk, for if you need it, you’ll give up everything else. Insulin is basically treated like legal heroin from a huge drug cartel. Republicans used a dodgy procedure to kill that part of the Act.
This is from WAPO: “Republicans block cap on insulin costs for millions of patients. GOP senators move to strip a $35 price cap on insulin under private insurance from the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Republican lawmakers on Sunday successfully stripped a $35 price cap on the cost of insulin for many patients from the ambitious legislative package Democrats are moving through Congress this weekend, invoking arcane Senate rules to jettison the measure.
The insulin cap is a long-running ambition of Democrats, who want it to apply to patients on Medicare and private insurance. Republicans left the portion that applies to Medicare patients untouched but stripped the insulin cap for other patients. Bipartisan talks on a broader insulin pricing bill faltered earlier this year.
The Senate parliamentarian earlier in the weekend ruled that part of the Democrats’ cap, included in the Inflation Reduction Act, did not comply with the rules that allow them to advance a bill under the process known as reconciliation — a tactic that helps them avert a GOP filibuster. That gave the Republicans an opening to jettison it
So, now to more Trumpsters and their crime sprees. I will dump these links here with very few comments and quotes. The headlines say it all, but the stories are worth reading.
Via The New Yorker: “Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals.” Remember that big parade for Bastille Day in Paris that enthralled the Russian Potted Plant?
Sure enough, Trump returned to Washington determined to have his generals throw him the biggest, grandest military parade ever for the Fourth of July. The generals, to his bewilderment, reacted with disgust. “I’d rather swallow acid,” his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, said. Struggling to dissuade Trump, officials pointed out that the parade would cost millions of dollars and tear up the streets of the capital.
But the gulf between Trump and the generals was not really about money or practicalities, just as their endless policy battles were not only about clashing views on whether to withdraw from Afghanistan or how to combat the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran. The divide was also a matter of values, of how they viewed the United States itself. That was never clearer than when Trump told his new chief of staff, John Kelly—like Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general—about his vision for Independence Day. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said. “This doesn’t look good for me.” He explained with distaste that at the Bastille Day parade there had been several formations of injured veterans, including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle.
Kelly could not believe what he was hearing. “Those are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington.” Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a lieutenant killed in action in Afghanistan, was among the dead interred there.
“I don’t want them,” Trump repeated. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
From Mike Allen at Axios, which just got sold to Cox: Exclusive photos: Trump’s telltale toilet
Haberman’s sources report the document dumps happened multiple times at the White House, and on at least two foreign trips.
- “That Mr. Trump was discarding documents this way was not widely known within the West Wing, but some aides were aware of the habit, which he engaged in repeatedly,” Haberman tells us.
- “It was an extension of Trump’s term-long habit of ripping up documents that were supposed to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act.”
The handwriting is visibly Trump’s, written in the Sharpie ink he favored.
- Most of the words are illegible
- But the scrawls include the name of Rep. Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, a Trump defender who’s a member of House Republican leadership.
Oy.just.Oy.
From Mattathias Schwartz at Insider: Exclusive: Paul Manafort admits he passed Trump campaign data to a suspected Russian asset.
Here’s a discussion of the interview and findings at Raw Story by TBogg: Paul Manafort admits sharing info with the Russians during the 2016 Trump campaign.
For years, questions have been raised about Russian involvement in the campaign that saw the New York businessman beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Manafort is now stating that he handed polling data over to the Russians — in particular to “Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.”
According to the report, “Kilimnik then passed the data on to Russian spies, according to the US Treasury Department, which has characterized the data as ‘sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy.'”
In the interview, Manafort excused his actions stating he wasn’t looking for help getting Trump elected and did it purely to make money, with Business Insider reporting, “Manafort told Insider that he directed his deputy, Rick Gates, to feed Kilimnik polling data via email to ‘keep Konstantin informed.’ The goal was to use his access to Trump to drum up business for himself.
Well, we already knew he’s a Russian Potted Plant. Didn’t we?
From Tim Miller / Morning Shots writing for The Bulwark: I’m Sorry, But He’s Running. Trump’s CPAC speech was his 2024 blueprint.”
With that little bit of throat-clearing out of the way, I have some bad news to report. If you, like me, had been compartmentalizing a Trump 2024 run for mental-health purposes, I’m sorry to break it to you, but he looks like a man who is definitely running for president in 2024. His CPAC speech this weekend was a rude awakening as to both his intentions and the strength he would bring to that campaign.
First, his intentions: There was no bigger roar from the crowd during the speech than during the following section, and there was no bigger shit-eating grin on his burnt-toast face than the one that came following the roar:
I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first getting millions and millions of more votes than in 2016. And likewise getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far. . . . And now we may have to do it again. We may have to do it again.
That little bit of anti-democratic vamping came right on the heels of what would be his core campaign message to the GOP base in a 2024 campaign.
The border was the best and safest in U.S. recorded history. They’ve turned it into a nightmare so quickly, the election was rigged and stolen. And now our country is being systematically destroyed.
If you are reading this, then you are likely a person of reason who is not persuaded by the lies and childish hyperbole.
But let’s imagine this message in the context of a 2024 Republican primary. Trump is claiming that when he was president, everything was great. Then the election was stolen. And now everything is being destroyed by the people his voters hate.
What exactly is his hypothetical challenger’s response to this? It seems to me that Trump has everyone checkmated.
Say it ain’t so Tim!
Anyway, the Republicans aren’t going straight any time soon. We can only rely on the DOJ in a few states and nationally to send them straight to jail.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: BFD is on!
Posted: August 5, 2022 Filed under: 2022 Primaries, abortion rights, Climate/Inflation Package, White Christian Nationalism 7 Comments
Max Liebermann, Country House in Hilversum—Villa in Hilversum, 1901
Good Day Sky Dancers!
This was a great headline to wake up to today! “Sinema Agrees to Climate and Tax Deal, Clearing the Way for Votes. The Arizona Democrat had been her party’s last remaining holdout on the package, now slated to move forward on Saturday and pass the Senate within days.” It’s from The New York Times, as reported by Emily Cochran.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, announced on Thursday evening that she would support moving forward with her party’s climate, tax and health care package, clearing the way for a major piece of President Biden’s domestic agenda to move through the Senate in the coming days.
To win Ms. Sinema’s support, Democratic leaders agreed to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives that she had opposed, change the structure of a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, and include drought money to benefit Arizona.
Ms. Sinema said she was ready to move forward with the package, provided that the Senate’s top rules official signed off on it.
Sinema must be awash in Wall Street donations to make the sticking point of her grief being the removal of that giveaway tax cut for the richest of the rich. However, I have less grief about that than the NAZIs of a feather flocking together at CPAC. Someone must tell these nutters that White Christian Nationalism is not American or Conservative.
This is from Steve Benen on the visit of the Hungarian Dictator to the craziest show on earth. “Viktor Orbán’s racism not a deal breaker for the right in the U.S. Viktor Orbán’s recent racism offered Republicans an opportunity to distance themselves from the authoritarian Hungarian. They’ve done the opposite.” Hey Steve, racism is a feature of today’s Republicans.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s anti-immigration positions help define him politically. Indeed, the authoritarian leader has spent years extoling the virtues of racial “purity.”
But two weeks ago, Orbán was unusually brazen on the subject, publicly denouncing race-mixing. As The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank summarized in a recent column:
“Migration has split Europe in two — or I could say that it has split the West in two,” he said, after commending to his listeners a 50-year-old racist treatise. “One half is a world where European and non-European peoples live together. These countries are no longer nations. They are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples.” He went on to contrast that with “our world,” in which “we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”
The backlash was fierce. Zsuzsanna Hegedus, a longtime Orbán ally and an adviser in his government, not only condemned the rhetoric, she also quickly resigned.
“I don’t know how you didn’t notice that your speech you delivered is a purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels,” Hegedus wrote. She added that the prime minister’s remarks would’ve appealed to the “most vile racists.”
This, of course, also offered an opportunity for Orbán’s far-right admirers in the United States to distance themselves from the Hungarian strongman.
It is an opportunity Republicans apparently aren’t interested in.
Donald Trump welcomed Orbán to his golf venue in Bedminster this week. “Great spending time with my friend,” the former president said in a written statement. The Republican said the two “celebrated his great electoral victory in April,” but made no reference to the Hungarian’s overt racism.
And then, of course, there’s the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — by most measures, the nation’s largest conservative gathering — which is kicking off today in Dallas, and which is welcoming Orbán as a speaker. NBC News reported:
The American Conservative Union, the organizers of CPAC, defended their invitation to Orbán, regardless of his comments. “CPAC is looking forward to hosting leaders from across the country and the world. We support the open exchange of ideas unlike so many American socialists. The press might despise Prime Minister Orbán, but he is a popular leader,” spokesman Alex Pfeiffer told NBC News.
It was a curious defense. Pointing to Orbán’s “popularity” has nothing to do with merit or propriety: After all, popular leaders can be monsters, regardless of their domestic support.
The question, rather, is about the American right’s embrace of an authoritarian bigot.
Walchensee With Larch’ (1921) by Lovis Corinth.
We can also see that their ideas are not ideal for our pluralistic, secular country. Misogyny is also a feature of today’s Republican Party. This is also from The New York Times, “Republicans Begin Adjusting to a Fierce Abortion Backlash. After Kansans voted to preserve abortion access, Republicans who once said the economy reigns supreme are acknowledging the issue will be a centerpiece in the fall campaigns.” This is reported by Jonathan Weisman and Katie Glueck.
Republican candidates, facing a stark reality check from Kansas voters, are softening their once-uncompromising stands against abortion as they move toward the general election, recognizing that strict bans are unpopular and that the issue may be a major driver in the fall campaigns.
In swing states and even conservative corners of the country, several Republicans have shifted their talk on abortion bans, newly emphasizing support for exceptions. Some have noticeably stopped discussing details at all. Pitched battles in Republican-dominated state legislatures have broken out now that the Supreme Court has made what has long been a theoretical argument a reality.
In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the Republicans’ ardently anti-abortion candidate for governor, has lately taken to saying “the people of Pennsylvania” will “decide what abortion looks like” in the state, not the governor. In Minnesota, Scott Jensen, a family physician who said in March that he would “try to ban abortion” as governor, said in a video released before the Kansas vote that he does support some exceptions: “If I’ve been unclear previously, I want to be clear now.”
Republican consultants for Senate and House campaigns said Thursday that while they still believe inflation and the economy will drive voters to the G.O.P., candidates are going to have to talk about abortion to blunt Democratic attacks that the party’s position is extreme. They have started advising Republicans to endorse bans that allow exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest or those that threaten the life of the mother. They have told candidates to emphasize care for women during and after their pregnancies.
Gabriele Munter,Strassendurchstich (A Road Pressing Through),1913
I still can’t see how they will get traction on the economy with headlines like this from the AP: “US employers add 528,000 jobs; unemployment falls to 3.5%”.
America’s employers added a stunning 528,000 jobs last month despite raging inflation and anxiety about a possible recession, restoring all of the positions lost in the coronavirus recession. Unemployment fell to 3.5%, the lowest level since the pandemic struck in early 2020.
There were 130,000 more jobs created in July than there were in June, and the most since February.
The red-hot jobs numbers from the Labor Department on Friday arrive amid a growing consensus that the economy is losing momentum. The U.S. economy shrank in the first two quarters of 2022 — an informal definition of recession. But most economists believe the strong jobs market has kept the economy from slipping into a downturn.
Friday’s surprisingly strong report will undoubtedly intensify the debate over whether America is in a recession or not.
You can’t call it a recession until the NBER says it’s a recession and job growth is not part of an economy in a recession. But you don’t have to take it from me.
So, if you’re confused about what’s going on with the fractious Republican Party, try this read: “The New Right Finds a Home at the Intersection of Populism and Elitism. Rising stars of the new right publicly bash elites for being disconnected from ‘real America’ while privately maintaining exclusive social lives.” This is from Alec Dent writing for The Dispatch. Sheesh, these people are mean.
The Cicero party wasn’t all politicos and activists. The cultural movers and shakers of the New Right were also in attendance: Twitter personalities. They’re minor celebrities in this little niche of the world, walking about, talking about things you wouldn’t understand unless you’re extremely online, like “midwits”—someone of average intelligence and boring interests—and “chads”—an alpha male—and “based”—cool and original in a way the speaker agrees with, opposite of “cringe”—and a host of other words, phrases, and ideas used to assign moral judgments to cultural preferences and innocuous tastes, all of it smothered in irony even hipsters would think is excessive. At cocktail parties or debate nights, it’s typical to hear these “rad trads”—short for radical traditionalists—discuss how the world would be so much better if every man was musclebound, every woman had babies, and every family lived in a rural community. Thus far, these generally unmarried urbanites’ money and mouths are in decidedly different places.
At Dumbarton House, the done-up nouveau righters enjoy Bellinis and wine with little sweet potato biscuit ham sandwiches along with lavender and lemon cookies while their conversations mix and mingle:
“I had to read up on critical race theory, because, you’ve got to, you know, know your enemy and stuff.”
…
“Alex Jones was right, the water is making the frogs gay.”
…
“My coworker at work? Big time Jew.”
…
“I start my Sunday by listening to Tim Dillon and then going to church.”
…
“Alec Baldwin murdered someone.”
…
These sorts of conversations are typical of a new right hangout, both in real life and online. An unofficial Cicero Facebook group chat with hundreds of participants was scrapped after the discourse became dominated by new right figures and Sharma alluded to the Great Replacement Theory—the fringe theory that nonwhite immigrants are being brought to Western countries to replace the white populations. “Life becomes a lot easier when you realize the baseline that immigration policy should be argued from is not 1 million legal aliens a year (plus countless illegal ones), but 0,” he said in one message that was shared with The Dispatch. “Would encourage any conservative or right-leaning patriot to consider adopting that posture.
“American ruling elites have a creepy obsession with ensuring there are as few white voters as possible in the year 2100. I, and Tucker [Carlson], not sharing this creepy obsession, speak out against this priority. For this we are called white nationalists,” Sharma said in another.
So, you can creep into the same crap, whether CPAC in Dallas or an event for the Cicero Society in a crusty old mansion in the Beltway of Washington D.C. Be it beers or top-shelf martinis, it’s the same old bigotry.
The choice to vote for the full Democratic Ticket this fall has never been more urgent.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Residual Trump Chaos and Damage
Posted: August 1, 2022 Filed under: 2022 Primaries, 2024 Elections, abortion rights, Discrimination against women, Donald Trump, January 6, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Justice, Reproductive Rights, white nationalists 17 Comments
Frankenthaler Helen, Mountains and Sea, 1952
Good Day Sky Dancers!
Another Monday reveals all the residual chaos and damage caused by Trump and his administration, his appointments to the Supreme Court, and his White National Christianists Cult. I’m going to start with one of the Incel Militias that were part of the insurrection and have been disturbing the peace in other states.
The Three Percenters are one of the vilest groups with a conspiracy theory claiming that only 3% of American colonists fought against the British during the American Revolution, a claim that has never been proven. They are also known as III%ers or Threepers. This is from the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s catalogue of Domestic Terrorists known as HateWatch.
“Get an indictment. Present it to the sheriff. If they don’t uphold the law, that’s where the militia come in.”
– Jon Ritzheimer, a Three Percenter and former Oath Keepers member, on his plans to link up with local antigovernment militias and conduct a citizen’s arrest of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)“The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. If you’re a Muslim I’m going to enjoy shooting you in the head. When we go on operations there’s no leaving anyone behind, even if it’s a 1-year-old. … I guarantee if I go on a mission those little fuckers are going bye-bye.”
– Patrick Stein, member of the terrorist group The Crusaders, which split from the Kansas Security Force Three Percent“That’s what my group does. We monitor them and their activity, we show up in their neighborhoods armed and let them know they’re being watched and if they fuck up my guys will take em [sic] out.”
– David Wright, leader of a Three Percenter group, Bureau of American Islamic Relations (BAIR)
There are more quotes and facts about this group at the link. Go there only if you want to be triggered by hate and violent threats. It figures that the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted in court would be a Threeper. The Prosecution called them “terrorists.” Indeed, they are.
This is from The Washington Post: “U.S. seeks 15-year sentence for Guy Reffitt, citing terrorism. The Three Percenters recruiter, the first Jan. 6 defendant convicted at trial, was found guilty of leading a charge while armed that led to first break-in at the U.S. Capitol and also of threatening his son. ”
… Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Risa Berkower said Reffitt’s case is exceptional.
Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.
Conventional sentencing rules are of “inadequate scope” to account for the range of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapon offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo.
“Reffitt sought not just to stop Congress, but also to physically attack, remove, and replace the legislators who were serving in Congress,” prosecutors wrote.
They called his conduct “a quintessential example of an intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion” and said it reflected the statutory definition of terrorist violence that is subject to harsher punishment.
Nowhere is there more legal chaos than in the states after the reversal of Roe. Laws older than the passage of women’s suffrage may soon come into effect. These laws are also from periods before modern obstetric and gynecology practice and knowledge.
This is from The Detroit Free Press about the situation in Michigan. It’s written by Dave Boucher. “Michigan court ruling lets prosecutors file charges under 1931 abortion law”.
A court order that sought to bar enforcement of a dormant law criminalizing most abortions in Michigan does not apply to county prosecutors, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Monday.
The massively consequential ruling means the 1931 law banning all abortions except those done to protect the life of a pregnant person essentially takes effect immediately, said David Kallman, an attorney for Great Lakes Justc Center, a conservative organization representing several Michigan prosecutors who challenged the injunction.
“We’re ecstatic. It’s wonderful. That’s exactly what we’ve been saying all along,” Kallman said Monday morning in a phone interview.
The decision could have a sweeping and drastic impact in the state, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and many other pro-abortion rights advocates have fought to maintain legal access to abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June.
What is wrong with these people? Radical Misogynists are eager to strip women of the rights granted to them by the Constitution to be free of forced servitude to the state or any other entity.
The Washington Post continues this discussion this morning.”Major legal fights loom over abortion pills, travel out of state. The reversal of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a new set of legal challenges for which there is little precedent”
The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, in denouncing their colleagues’decision to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion, warned last month that returning this polarizing issue to the states would give rise to greater controversy in the months and years to come.
Among the looming disputes, they noted:Can states ban mail-order medication used to terminate pregnancies or bar their residents from traveling elsewhere to do so?
“Far from removing the court from the abortion issue,” Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote in dissent, “the majority puts the court at the center of the coming ‘interjurisdictional abortion wars.’ ”
The overturning of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a newset of legal challenges for which there is little precedent, observers say, further roiling the nation’s bitter political landscape and compounding chaos as Republican-led states move quickly to curtail access to reproductive care. It is possible, if not probable, that one or both of these questions will eventually work its way back to the high court.
With friends like Grand Inquisitor Alito, churches fund political campaigns and actions brazenly. This article by Peter Slevin –writing for The New Yorker–is a horrifying example of how an extremely well-off Catholic Church can oppress women with well-funded Political Campaigns.
When Justice Samuel Alito and his colleagues squinted at history and ruled that the U.S. Constitution included no right to abortion, Dinah Sykes felt her heart sink. But here she was, on an evening in July, sweating through her blue T-shirt in ninety-five-degree heat, trying to persuade Kansans to block an effort to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution. She held a stack of flyers and carried a bottle of water in a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. A blond ponytail poked through the back of her baseball cap. “Sixty per cent of Kansans believe a woman should have a right to choose,” she said, as she walked from house to house. “And they should not have someone else’s beliefs forced upon them.”
Sykes, a local lawmaker, was in Merriam, a southwestern suburb of Kansas City. Early in her two-hour canvassing session, she climbed the steps of a split-level home and rang the bell. When Adrienne Maples, a professional photographer, came to the door, Sykes launched into her riff: “Are you aware that there is a referendum on the August 2nd ballot?” Before Sykes, who is the Democratic minority leader in the Kansas Senate, could finish explaining that the vote may lead to an abortion ban, Maples interrupted. “I’m pretty sure there are a lot of pissed-off women who will be voting no,” she said. Maples planned to be one of them. “I’m concerned that we’re slipping backwards. This is scary.
On Tuesday, in the dead of summer, when many Kansans are on vacation and college campuses are largely empty, voters will be asked to amend the state constitution, and give license to the Republican-dominated legislature to rewrite the state’s laws on abortion. It will be the nation’s first direct electoral test of abortion rights since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Catholic Church is spending millions to advance the amendment, while a broad coalition of pro-choice organizations is scrambling to stop it, testing a new message tailored to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans. The pitch casts the amendment as an infringement on personal liberties—a government mandate “designed to interfere with private medical decisions.” The front of the flyer that Sykes was tucking into screen doors did not mention abortion. It said “It’s up to us to keep Kansans free by Voting No!”
Republicans who turned their backs on Veterans last week by voting no to fund programs to help Veterans sickened by Burn Pits are ignoring that vote. I am among the constituents that trolled him for his vote. Now, he has amnesia.
The latest Trumperz Tantrum votes haunt them all in the upcoming election. Democratic Candidate Luke Mixon, running against Senator Foghorn Leghorn, is riding that horse in his ads. I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one. I would also like to say that all these snarky, trolling ads of Republicans on all kinds of issues are the only thing that puts a big ol’ smile on my face these days.
Beginnings, Helen Frankenthaler, 2002
Meanwhile, Republicans are still trying to fuck with our democratic election process. They want state legislatures to do the voting for them. This is from Politico: “Trump-backed conspiracy theorist makes a charge for chief election position in Arizona. State Rep. Mark Finchem is part of a pro-Trump coalition of secretary of state candidates running in battleground states throughout the country.”
Should he win on Tuesday, Finchem will become the latest member of the “America First Secretary of State Coalition” to secure the Republican nomination in a key battleground, putting them a general election win away from running the 2024 presidential vote in their states — four years after working to subvert President Joe Biden’s election win and falsely claiming the vote was marred. The coalition’s founder, Jim Marchant, is the Republican nominee in Nevada, while Kristina Karamo is the de-facto GOP pick in Michigan. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor picks the state’s chief election official, coalition member Doug Mastriano is the GOP candidate.
In Arizona, where GOP state legislators have embraced Trump’s fictions and financed investigations into the 2020 vote count, Trump supporters are “gunning for secretary of state,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research and managing partner at the Arizona-based polling firm OH Predictive Insights. “[It] is definitely one they have really put a priority on.”
Meanwhile, Margaret Sullivan speculates about Faux News and Trump Replacements writing this at The Washington Post. “The cautious calculation behind whether Fox will dump Trump.” Whatever will Tuckums do?
On the one hand, the opinion pages of two Murdoch newspapers — the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post — have turned on Trump recently, both offering scathing editorials that blasted him for his role on Jan. 6, 2021, particularly his utter lack of leadership in calling off the dangerous mob. And, far more important than any newspaper editorial, his most valuable media ally, Fox News, has skipped much of the live coverage of the former president’s speeches and rallies while not interviewing him live for months.
Worse, the person emerging as his chief rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has clearly caught the cable network’s eye.
But there’s still plenty of sycophancy on display. Just days ago, the talking heads of “Fox & Friends” — perhaps chastened by Trump’s raging that they had gone to the “dark side” after they reported some unfavorable poll numbers — once again stroked his fragile but oversize ego. Brian Kilmeade called him the “greatest golfing president ever,” and Ainsley Earhardt backed that up with one admiring exclamation: “Athletic!”
I’m not sure what Trump’s Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament did but piss off most of New York City. The One Dollar special ticket didn’t even draw a crowd per Insider.
Former President Donald Trump has faced criticism for hosting the event at one of his golf courses in light of allegations of human rights abuses against the Arab kingdom, such as the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The 9/11 Justice group, composed of family members of 9/11 victims, has criticized Trump for hosting the tournament despite what they describe as “clear” evidence linking Saudi Arabia to the terrorist attack.
Some 9/11 family members and survivors protested near the event on Thursday.
Trump made various remarks to reporters throughout the event, The Wall Street Journal said, including talking about Trump Doral, his Miami property that will host a second LIV event this year.
When asked how much he was being paid to work with LIV, Trump said it was “very generous” but added, “I don’t do it for that,” per the outlet.
I’m sure all of us would be glad to get him and his cult off the news cycle, but it seems highly unlikely.
Btw, the beautiful art is from American Artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose mid-century modern abstract art is amazing. Good thing we love truth and beauty here to cover all these cult activities.
Anyway, what’s on your reading and blogging list?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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