Trump’s “America First” second-term focus purports to be principally on the home front. The deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants was one of his leading campaign pledges, and his initial appointments suggest he is serious about this priority. The proposal is fraught with practical and political questions.
Mostly Monday Reads: What Fresh Hell?
Posted: January 6, 2025 Filed under: 2025 What Fresh Hell?, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, democracy is threatened, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social, Adjuctated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States with total credit given to JJ), FARTUS (Felon, idiocracy, John (repeat1968) Buss, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Lambert, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Sweet Apocalypse, Toxic Masculinity 10 Comments
“His nose is already growing!” John (repeat1968) Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today is the anniversary of the shameful January 6th treason and violence. It may seem quiet today, but the worst is yet to come. Not only is our new FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States with total credit given to JJ) about to take the oath of office, but all these other traitors are about to be granted Presidential Pardons. My only solace is that I may eat King Cake now because today is also 12th night, the official start of the Mardi Gras Season.
These are degenerate times. That has a specific meaning in Buddhism. Lama Yeshe describes it like this. “It has five characteristics: short life spans, scarce means of subsistence, mental afflictions, strong wrong views, and weak sentient beings.” That’s a good enough explanation for me when thinking about what’s been going on lately.
I will rely on the columnists I read today because they make sense. Our media legacy has failed us. First up is Amanda Marcotte writing for Salon. I wrote something along these lines on Friday, but Amanda has thought more deeply. “Toxic masculinity links the New Orleans attacker and the Las Vegas bomber. Whether MAGA or ISIS, troubled men are getting sucked in by hateful online propaganda.”
As I noted in passing last week, the striking thing about the life of Shamsud-Din Jabbar is how much it reads like the boilerplate biography of any random Jan. 6 defendant or MAGA-inspired criminal. The 42-year-old who allegedly murdered 15 people at the New Year’s festivities in New Orleans appeared, on paper, to be relatively successful in his career: 8 years in the Army, a degree from Georgia State, and a $125,000 a year job for an accounting firm. But his personal life was a mess. He was thrice divorced in 10 years, and at least two of the divorces were acrimonious and required repeat court interference. His divorce lawyer even fired him. His financial mismanagement meant his healthy salary didn’t go far enough, and he had to be forced to make back payments on child support.
Like so many men facing personal troubles, Jabbar didn’t get the help he needed. Instead, he turned to radicalizing voices online, which led him to believe that he needed to double down on toxic masculinity. It’s a story we hear over and over, from so-called incels who commit mass shootings to Donald Trump fans who attack government buildings to terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda. Rather than taking responsibility for their personal failures and striving to do better, men of all stripes turn to the internet where they’re greeted by a sea of influencers, ready to tell them that it’s other people — women, people of different races or religions, the “woke mob” — that is to blame. In some cases, as happened here, they go far enough down the rabbit hole that they talk themselves into violence.
Thankfully, no one but the bomber was badly hurt in the Las Vegas suicide bombing that happened the same night as the Bourbon St. attack, but the parallels between Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger aren’t hard to spot. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger was a troubled man who picked a highly symbolic location, blowing up a Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel. Both men had checkered romantic histories, and Livelsberger appears to have told multiple people he feared he suffered from PTSD. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger seems to have acted on a belief that he was going out like a hero, standing up for his far-right ideology and using his death to call on fellow MAGA believers to commit acts of terrorism.
“Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary,” he wrote in his final manifesto. He declared the U.S. is “terminally ill and headed toward collapse,” complained that people don’t believe “[m]asculinity is good and men must be leaders” and made tired Twitter jokes calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI candidate” and President Joe Biden “Weekend at Bernie’s.” He concluded, “Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!”
Livelsberger defensively insisted the bombing “was not a terrorist attack.” This sentiment is belied not just by the violence of the act itself and his calls for MAGA men to use violence because “a hard reset must occur for our country.”
It’s the 12th night, which means the members of Skull and Bones Krewes get up early to remind us of our mortality.
When Cis men fall apart, they can’t just go silently into the night, get help, or do something productive. They have to injure or kill innocents while killing themselves. They destroy more than their own lives. They have to leave some formal Mansplaining document that lets us know why it’s all our fault. These are generally misogynistic, at the very least. Most of them spew more bullshit and bile than the waste from slaughterhouses.
John Pavlovitz wrote this on December 12th in his Substack, The Beautiful Mess. “America Chose the Monster.”
To have cast a vote for him with all that we have seen is to declare war on decency, on equality, on any semblance of forthrightness or goodness. It is to double-down on the bigotry which was dismissed as hyperbole during his campaign but which has already been ratified hundredfold as he assembles his Cabinet picks and broadcasts his agenda.
To witness his absolute disregard for the Constitution, his violent allergic reaction to facts, his complete lack of empathy and to not condemn it all becomes an indictment of one’s own heart. It becomes an act of aggression against humanity.
The are truths that are self-evident in the light of these days:
A viable healthcare alternative is not coming.
Taxes for the middle class are not coming down.
Project 2025 is going to be implemented.
Mexico is still not paying for the wall.
Immigrants are going to being persecuted.
Protections for those with special needs are evaporating.
The poor are getting thrown to the lions.
Public schools are being thrown under the bus.
The elderly are being left to fend for themselves.
The environment is being willfully set on fire.
The economy is going to be compromised.
The whole system is being intentionally blown-up.
The rule of Law in our Government is being trod upon.Aside from the smallest percentage of the wealthiest in this nation, no one is going to be healthier, safer, or more financially secure.
This is a nonpartisan tragedy.
We all do impulsive things when we are terrified, when it’s dark and we’re convinced there’s a monster under the bed. But eventually the light comes on and we have reality at our disposal and we get to choose to see things as they are. I can’t fathom those presently determined to stay in the dark, to pretend they’re not seeing what they’re seeing—when what they’re seeing is a danger to them too.
It’s morning here in America, friends. The brilliant light of day is illuminating every dark corner and exposing every unsavory decision from the night before.
For a myriad of reasons, America chose the monster. It chose the hatred, the fear, the nihilism, the separation. The question of why is too sprawling and nebulous to answer.
And with the coming of this Monster comes more monsters. Former Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone reminds us about the kind of people that will be put back on the street when the mass pardon of traitors begins. This is from HuffPo. “Cowards, Liars And Jan. 6: Former Officer Michael Fanone Speaks Out As Trump’s Return Looms.
“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” says Michael Fanone, who was nearly killed by Trump supporters four years ago.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he got away with inciting an insurrection as well as defrauding the American people and attempting to subvert democracy,” Fanone told HuffPost during a phone interview just ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot.“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” Fanone said. “I believe democracy in this country is dead, and it died when the Supreme Court granted the president of the United States immunity for official acts and then failed to define what the fuck official acts are.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States in July found that as long as something could be shaded as an “official” act, prosecution was off the table.
The ruling obliterated key parts of the criminal indictment brought against Trump in the Jan. 6 case by then-special counsel Jack Smith. And Trump’s victory in November means he’ll likely never face federal charges.
Shortly after the presidential election, Smith dismissed the case without prejudice ― meaning it could theoretically come back to life one day ― but Fanone’s faith in the justice system is already shattered. He called Attorney General Merrick Garland an “absolute coward.”
“Listen, people say I’m naive or I don’t know how these things work, but I was a cop for 20 years. Not only was I a cop, I was a cop in Washington, D.C. Our prosecutors were federal prosecutors. I worked with the [Department of Justice] every single day for 20 years. I know exactly how that institution and organization works. The decision not to pursue an investigation into Trump was all political,” Fanone said. “The investigation should have been launched on Jan. 7, 2021.”
Fanone was Trump-friendly before the J6 Insurrection and voted for him in 2016.
Senator John Thune from South Dakota is the new bad guy in charge of the Senate. We’re already getting some idea of how bad it’s going to be since he appears to be whipping the caucus for the gross number of idiots Trump wants in his cabinet. This is from The Hill. “Thune says it’s unclear whether all Trump Cabinet picks will be confirmed.” Some of the most worrying of them have to deal with National Security.
John Thune on Trump possibly pardoning J6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers: "That's ultimately gonna be a decision that President Trump is gonna have to make. What I'm focused on is the future."
Thune joined NBC News’s “Meet the Press” for an interview that aired Sunday, as he took the lead of the upper chamber at the start of the 119th Congress.
“What I’ve promised them is a fair process,” Thune said of Trump’s picks. “And so, these nominees are going to go through a committee where they’re going to have to answer questions. There will be some hard questions posed.”
Thune highlighted the desire to provide Trump with the Cabinet he wants but noted that the Senate has a role to “advise and consent,” particularly regarding his national security choices.
“We have a lot of our senators who take that role very seriously,” he said. “And so, we will make sure that these nominees have a process, a fair process, in which they have an opportunity to make their cases not only to the members of the committee and ultimately to the full Senate but also to the American people.”
Thune wouldn’t confirm whether he would vote for or against any of Trump’s nominees, including some particularly controversial choices like Kash Patel to lead the FBI, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) for director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense.
Thune said he’s met with some of Trump’s nominees, and there are “some” that he has been “really, really impressed” by.
This bit popped up over the weekend and is disturbing. This was reported by CBS. “Thune has privately told Trump that Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed as Defense Secretary, sources say.” Thune has so many toxic male issues combined with a lack of experience and knowledge of the job that anyone connected to the military has spoken out against him.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has privately told President-elect Donald Trump that he believes Pete Hegseth will have the votes to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense, according to three sources.
When asked for comment, a spokesman for Thune would only tell CBS News, “Two things we don’t discuss publicly: Whip counts and private conversations with the president.”
The new Senate Majority Leader in an interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” promised a fair process but expressed more caution.
“I think these are nominees who are new enough, they’ve been going around and conducting their meetings, which I think, frankly, have gone very well, but they still have to make their case in front of the committee. And, you know, we don’t know all the information about some of these nominees.”
Hegseth’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14, according to Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker.
Just so you know, future FBI Director Kash Patel is still making the rounds in the Senate Building. “Kash Patel Believes the FBI Planned Jan. 6th. His embrace of this wild conspiracy theory should disqualify him from leading the bureau.” This is from The Bulwark.
“WHAT WAS THE FBI DOING PLANNING January 6th for a year?”
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as FBI director, asked that question during a November 25, 2022 episode of his Kash’s Corner podcast for the Epoch Times. It was no slip of the tongue. As the title of that episode suggested—“What Did the FBI Know Before Jan. 6?”—Patel spent considerable time trying to cast the FBI as a villain responsible for January 6th. Patel noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray had “testified that the FBI never instigated or helped the January 6th protesters commit crimes.” But citing a report that the FBI had confidential human sources in the crowd, Patel asserted: “Okay, well, that was in planning for at least a year.”
Our review of Patel’s public appearances over the past four years reveals that he has repeatedly insinuated or argued that the FBI used its confidential human sources or employees to instigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and entrap Trump’s supporters. Patel has claimed (as in the podcast episode above) that what he calls the “FBI’s Confidential Human Source Corruption Coverup Network” was somehow involved with January 6th. That is not only an insult to the memory of that day; it should be disqualifying for him to helm the bureau.
During the September 30, 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, for instance, Patel said: “The question that has to be answered is, when did the FBI put those guys in, and where? And did those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so?” Patel claimed that “is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped.” And he wondered who “was running this confidential human source network” and reporting it to FBI Director Chris Wray.
Patel added he would “venture a guess” that “once we see the documentation from January 6th, you will see the FBI’s confidential human source corruption coverup network on blast.” And he accused the FBI of inserting these human sources “into these matters.” Patel asked rhetorically: “Why? Why would you say January 6th? Because they wanted a political target, a political prosecution, not one based on law and fact.”
The man who could lead Trump’s FBI has failed to substantiate these wild accusations, which are contradicted by other evidence and by common sense. Regardless, he has frequently advanced this conspiracy theory, using his background as a former federal prosecutor and public defender—key credentials used to buttress his nomination—to provide it with a veneer of credibility.
An extensive amount of documentation is provided in the article. It’s not a fun read.
ProPublica has published another astounding piece of journalism. This is long and shocking. It gets to the heart of Trump’s rabid base. Again, this is the heart of Toxic Masculinity. “The Militia and the MoleOutraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.”
So I pored over his files, tens of thousands of them. They included dozens of hours of conversations he secretly recorded and years of private militia chatlogs and videos. I was able to authenticate those through other sources, in and out of the movement. I also talked to dozens of people, from Williams’ friends to other members of his militias. I dug into his tumultuous past and discovered records online he hadn’t pointed me to that supported his account.
The files give a unique window, at once expansive and intimate, into one of the most consequential and volatile social movements of our time. Williams penetrated a new generation of paramilitary leaders, which included doctors, career cops and government attorneys. Sometimes they were frightening, sometimes bumbling, always heavily armed. It was a world where a man would propose assassinating politicians, only to spark a debate about logistics.
Federal prosecutors have convicted more than 1,000 people for their role in Jan. 6. Key militia captains were sent to prison for a decade or more. But that did not quash the allure that militias hold for a broad swath of Americans.
Now President-elect Donald Trump has promised to pardon Jan. 6 rioters when he returns to the White House. Experts warn that such a move could trigger a renaissance for militant extremists, sending them an unprecedented message of protection and support — and making it all the more urgent to understand them.
(Unless otherwise noted, none of the militia members mentioned in this story responded to requests for comment.)
Williams is part of a larger cold war, radical vs. radical, that’s stayed mostly in the shadows. A left-wing activist told me he personally knows about 30 people who’ve gone undercover in militias or white supremacist groups. They did not coordinate with law enforcement, instead taking the surveillance of one of the most intractable features of American politics into their own hands.
Skeptical of authorities, militias have sought to reshape the country through armed action. Williams sought to do it through betrayals and lies, which sat with him uneasily. “I couldn’t have been as successful at this if I wasn’t one of them in some respects,” he once told me. “I couldn’t have done it so long unless they recognized something in me.”
The last thing I want to post about is the Washington Post. The newspaper is hemorrhaging reporters, and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Political Cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit because Bezos axed her submission. The raw sketch is featured on the right. It’s also begun layoffs. This happens when greedy Tech Bros take over things they know nothing about. This is from Oliver Darcy’s Status. “Paper Cuts. The Washington Post is expected to lay off dozens of staffers this week, Status has learned.”
Layoffs are expected to rock The Washington Post this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
The layoffs are slated to hit the Jeff Bezos-owned and Will Lewis-led newspaper’s business division, I’m told. One person familiar with the matter said that the cuts will be deep, impacting many dozens of employees.
The layoffs will surely deplete morale further inside the beleaguered newspaper, which has suffered a talent exodus over the last several weeks. As I reported earlier, star reporter Josh Dawsey will exit The Post for a job at The Wall Street Journal. His departure comes on the heels of other top staffers fleeing, including Matea Gold, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Charles Lane, Tyler Pager, and Amanda Katz.
A spokesperson for The Post didn’t have an immediate comment. But The Post has been in poor financial shape in recent years, a fact that management has not hidden from employees. Those financial problems were exacerbated when Bezos blocked The Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the November election, a move that led to more than 250,000 readers canceling their subscriptions.
I’ve been a bit on the gratuitous Buddhism-sharing thing today, which I try not to overdo, but this quote from Chamtral Rinpoche hit me hard last night.
The biggest threat to our world are not human beings per se. The biggest threat is each individual person’s level of greed. One extremely greedy person can harm our world more than a million people who practice contentment.
Drinking salt water will never quench your thirst. The more you drink, the thirstier you will become. Likewise, greed will never bring you satisfaction, as it will cause an endless pursuit of material wealth to the detriment of our world and all of the beings who inhabit it.
Always remember that the greedier you are, the more you and others will suffer, and the poorer you will become inside. But the more contentment that you have, the more you and others will benefit, and the richer you will become inside.
We will have to cultivate inner peace to get through all of this. I’ve already cut down on my TV News viewing. I have a mature meditation practice (since the 1970s), so I have that. Of course, the furbabies and the Zoom calls from the Granddaughters put a smile on my face. I’m just trying to stay in the moment. I hope you can find a way to cope with this all. I’ve been listening to a lot of modern classic piano. This piece by Lambert comes from an album called “Sweet Apocalypse.” It’s beautiful and relaxing, and the name is appropriate for the times; it was recorded in 2017 during this first stint of anguish.
Talk to me about how you’re coping with this blast of kleptocracy, kakistocracy, and idiocracy?
What’s on your reading and blogging list?
Sunday Reads
Posted: January 5, 2025 Filed under: 2021 Insurrection, 2024 Elections, Donald Trump | Tags: Giorgia Meloni, House Speaker Mike Johnson, January 6 2021 insurrection, Joe Biden, Officer Daniel Hodges 5 Comments
FILE PHOTO: A mob of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
Good Afternoon!!
Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. Four years later, Trump will be certified as president–without the riot he sicced on Joe Biden in 2021.
Kyle Cheney at Politico: Donald Trump is about to get the Jan. 6 that he denied Joe Biden.
The transfer of power to Donald Trump is shaping up to be, well, peaceful.
No mobs are assembling to disrupt Congress’ Jan. 6 counting of electoral votes. No Democratic leaders are questioning the results of the election or concocting elaborate legal theories to thwart the outcome. The greatest risk of obstruction seems likely to come from a storm system threatening to dump a few inches of snow on the region overnight.
If all goes as expected, by late Monday afternoon, Trump’s victory will be certified in a ceremony overseen by his vanquished rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, who will preside over the proceedings in her capacity as the president of the Senate. Harris has been clear she will administer a straightforward transfer of power. In doing so, she’ll follow in the footsteps of all vice presidents before her — including Mike Pence, who resisted Trump’s pressure to refuse to count electors from states Trump lost in 2020….
It’s the utter antithesis of the carnage unleashed four years ago, under clear blue skies, by thousands of Trump supporters, goaded by lies about a stolen election. Hundreds of them bludgeoned police officers guarding the Capitol as the mob fought to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president.
The attack spawned the largest-ever federal criminal probe, led to a grave criminal case against Trump, spawned a failed legal effort to remove him from the ballot and defined the political climate of the last two election cycles. Democrats declared Trump a threat to democracy and the president-elect wielded the cases to rally his base and claim political persecution.
The meeting of the House and Senate this time, by contrast, is expected to be almost jarringly routine. Harris will convene the joint session at 1 p.m. Lawmakers of both parties will announce the certified electors from each state, and Harris will affirm they have been counted….
Monday’s joint session is also the first governed by a 2022 law designed to prevent efforts to corrupt the transfer of power and limit the ability of lawmakers to mount challenges to the results. That law lowers the already slim odds of any objections that could hamper the proceedings.
Still, the general atmosphere of calm in Washington belies a deep, simmering tension between those who watched the nation’s democratic institutions buckle on Jan. 6, 2021, and those who hope to whitewash it — especially as Trump attempts to rewrite the history of the attack on the Capitol and prepares to pardon many of its perpetrators. The Justice Department has charged more than 1,500 people for their involvement in the attack, and more than 1,200 have pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Trump has promised again and again to free the January 6 “hostages” who violently attacked the center of our government and wounded 174 police officers, and led to the deaths of 5 officers–4 of whom died by suicide.
Chris Stein at The Guardian: ‘We have our country back’: convicted January 6 rioters anticipate Trump pardons.
Brandon Fellows, who broke into the US Capitol on January 6 and smoked marijuana in a senator’s office, stood outside the Washington DC jail where he spent part of his three years’ sentence behind bars, thinking about how Donald Trump might soon help him get his life back on track.
Having served his prison sentence after being found guilty on a slew of federal charges, the 30-year-old is today on probation under terms that have prevented him from leaving the capital region to start a chimney maintenance business in New Jersey. But with Trump returning to the White House on 20 January, Fellows expects his circumstances to change dramatically.
“I’m just going to wait till after the election, make sure I don’t have to partake in a real insurrection if Trump loses, and … then I’ll decide what I’m doing after,” he said about his thinking before November’s presidential election. Now that Trump has won, Fellows is counting on the president-elect to pardon him and other January 6 defendants. “With Trump in office, yeah, I’m starting to plan and [rebuild] my life again,” Fellows said.
As soon as he is back in power, Trump has vowed, he will pardon people prosecuted over the assault on the US Capitol that took place four years ago on Monday. Carried out by a mob of Trump’s supporters after he had addressed them outside the White House, the attack brought political violence into the halls of Congress and has been linked to nine deaths among police and rioters.
“We’re going to look at each individual case, and we’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview after winning re-election. “A vast majority should not be in jail, and they’ve suffered gravely.”
The pardons would mark the end of a four-year campaign by Joe Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, to hold to account the thousands of rioters who overran police lines and sent lawmakers fleeing the Capitol on the day they convened in 2021 to certify the Democrat’s election victory. The justice department has charged more than 1,500 people with offenses related to the attack in the years since, nearly 600 of whom have faced felony charges of assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
But Trump’s jailed followers are counting the days until they receive the absolution Trump has promised. For more than two years, relatives of those charged in the attack and supporters of the former president have gathered on a sidewalk outside Washington DC’s jail for a nightly vigil called “Freedom Corner”, where January 6 is viewed not as an attack on democracy, but a catalyst for unfair government repression.
Trump has used propaganda to try to change the meaning of what happened on January 6, 2001. Dan Barry and Alan Feuer at The New York Times: ‘A Day of Love’: How Trump Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6.
In two weeks, Donald J. Trump is to emerge from an arched portal of the United States Capitol to once again take the presidential oath of office. As the Inauguration Day ritual conveying the peaceful transfer of power unfolds, he will stand where the worst of the mayhem of Jan. 6, 2021, took place, largely in his name.
Directly behind Mr. Trump will be the metal-and-glass doors where protesters, inflamed by his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, stormed the Capitol with clubs, chemical irritants and other weapons. To his left, the spot where roaring rioters and outnumbered police officers fought hand to hand. To his right, where the prostrate body of a dying woman was jostled in the bloody fray.
And before him, a dozen marble steps descending to a lectern adorned with the presidential seal. The same steps where, four years earlier, Trump flags were waved above the frenzied crowd and wielded like spears; where an officer was dragged facedown to be beaten with an American flag on a pole and another was pulled into the scrum to be kicked and stomped.
Officer Daniel Hodges was crushed in a doorway by rioter Patrick McCaughey III
In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump’s volatile political career seemed over, his incendiary words before the riot rattling the leaders of his own Republican Party. Myriad factors explain his stunning resurrection, but not least of them is how effectively he and his loyalists have laundered the history of Jan. 6, turning a political nightmare into a political asset.
What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold, as his allies in Congress and the media played down the attack and redirected blame to left-wing plants, Democrats and even the government. Violent rioters — prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned — somehow became patriotic martyrs.
This inverted interpretation defied what the country had watched unfold, but it neatly fit the persecution narrative that binds Mr. Trump to many of his faithful. Once he committed to running again for president, he doubled down on flipping the script about the riot and its blowback, including a congressional inquiry and two criminal indictments against him, as part of an orchestrated victimization.
That day was an American calamity. Lawmakers huddled for safety. Vice President Mike Pence eluded a mob shouting that he should be hanged. Several people died during and after the riot, including one protester by gunshot and four police officers by suicide, and more than 140 officers were injured in a protracted melee that nearly upended what should have been the routine certification of the electoral victory of Mr. Trump’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
But with his return to office, Mr. Trump now has the platform to further rinse and spin the Capitol attack into what he has called “a day of love.” He has vowed to pardon rioters in the first hour of his new administration, while his congressional supporters are pushing for criminal charges against those who investigated his actions on that chaotic day.
Some points of view on Trump upcoming second term as “president”:
Russell Berman at The Atlantic: Bad News for Trump’s Legislative Agenda.
The success of President-Elect Donald Trump’s legislative agenda will depend on whether Republicans can close ranks in Congress. They nearly failed on their very first vote.
Mike Johnson won reelection as House speaker by the narrowest of margins this afternoon, and only after two Republican holdouts changed their votes at the last minute. Johnson won on the first ballot with exactly the 218 votes he needed to secure the required majority. The effort he expended to keep the speaker’s gavel portends a tough slog for Trump, who endorsed Johnson’s bid.
Johnson was well short of a majority after an initial tally in the House, which elects a speaker in a long, televised roll call during which every member’s name is called. Three Republicans—Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Keith Self of Texas—voted for other candidates, and another six refused to vote at all in a protest of Johnson’s leadership. The six who initially sat out the roll call cast their votes for Johnson when their names were called a second time. But it took nearly an hour for Johnson to flip Norman and Self. After huddling with Johnson on and off the House floor, the three men walked together to the front of the House chamber, where Norman and Self changed their votes to put Johnson over the top.
The tense vote marked the second Congress in a row in which the formal, usually ceremonial opening of the House became highly dramatic. Two years ago, conservative holdouts forced Kevin McCarthy to endure 15 rounds of voting and days of horse-trading before allowing him to become speaker. With help from Democrats, the same group ousted him nine months later, leading to Johnson’s election as his replacement….
Mike Johnson elected speaker
Yet the members opposing Johnson were not as numerous or dug-in as McCarthy’s adversaries. And although Trump backed McCarthy two years ago, he was more politically invested in Johnson’s success today. A drawn-out fight for the speakership could have threatened his legislative agenda and even delayed the certification of his election. (The House cannot function without a speaker, so it would not have been able to formally open and count the Electoral College ballots as required by the Constitution on January 6.)
Even with today’s relatively swift resolution, Johnson’s struggle to remain speaker is an ominous sign for the GOP’s ability to enact Trump’s priorities in the first few months of his term. The majority that narrowly elected Johnson will temporarily become slimmer once the Senate confirms two Republican lawmakers to Trump’s Cabinet, creating vacancies pending special elections to replace them. And GOP divisions have already emerged over whether the party should launch its governing trifecta with a push to bolster the southern border or combine that effort with legislation extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
Republicans have a bigger buffer in the Senate, where they control 53 seats. But in the House, the GOP edge is two seats smaller than it was at the beginning of the last Congress, and just one or two members will have the power to defeat party-line votes without support from Democrats. Johnson’s main critics, including Massie, Norman, and Self, support Trump’s agenda in the abstract, but they are not loyalists of the president-elect. (Neither Massie nor Roy backed him in the GOP primary last year.) They are far more hawkish on spending than Trump, who showed little concern for deficits in his first term and has pushed Republicans to raise or even eliminate the debt ceiling before he takes office—a move that could smooth the passage of costly tax cuts.
Dan Balz at The Washington Post: A different and more dangerous world awaits President-elect Trump.
President-elect Donald Trump will begin his second term stronger and more dominant as a player on the world stage than when he was sworn in eight years ago. The world that awaits him, however, is far different — and more threatening — than when he left the presidency four years ago.
Dealing with the domestic economy through tax and spending cuts and regulatory changes was another key promise. Polls suggest the economy — mostly inflation — counted more than other issues did in Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. But many economists have said that Trump’s economic agenda — tariffs and an extension of tax cuts — could lead to a new round of inflation and more debt. Deportations, too, would disrupt the economy.
Trump has also pledged to bring the civil service to heel. An initiative that includes cost-cutting and finding inefficiencies will be led by multibillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and onetime rival Vivek Ramaswamy. The two have grand ambitions and, seemingly, the president-elect’s blessing. Nonetheless, they face multiple challenges before they will be able to deliver more than symbolic changes.
Still, Trump could quickly be drawn into foreign policy challenges. He will confront a world of chaos and conflict: a prolonged war in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin more hostile than ever, and the Middle East still in turmoil after more than 15 months of warfare, with Iran weakened, Syria without Bashar al-Assad and Israel stronger militarily but scarred internationally because of its conduct in the war in Gaza.
China presents other challenges for Trump, who has threatened major new tariffs on a country with serious economic problems and growing military ambitions. As an indication of his intentions, Trump plans to populate his incoming administration with several China hawks. Meanwhile, governments of key U.S. allies in Europe, particularly France and Germany, are weakened, with right-wing, populist parties on the rise.
Trump prides himself as a dealmaker. His approach to foreign policy in his first term appeared to be more personal than strategic. He prefers dealing with autocrats rather than working with traditional alliances. In his second term, he probably will find it more difficult to work with the likes of Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the leader who sent him what Trump called “love letters,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Peter Baker at The New York Times: Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story.
To hear President-elect Donald J. Trump tell it, he is about to take over a nation ravaged by crisis, a desolate hellscape of crime, chaos and economic hardship. “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” he declared on social media last week.
But by many traditional metrics, the America that Mr. Trump will inherit from President Biden when he takes the oath for a second time, two weeks from Monday, is actually in better shape than that bequeathed to any newly elected president since George W. Bush came into office in 2001.
For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring stock markets finished their best two years in a quarter-century.
Jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during Mr. Trump’s presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic and near its historic best. Domestic energy production is higher than it has ever been.
The manufacturing sector has more jobs than under any president since Mr. Bush. Drug overdose deaths have fallen for the first time in years. Even inflation, the scourge of the Biden presidency, has returned closer to normal, although prices remain higher than they were four years ago.
“President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The U.S. economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than prepandemic.”
Of course Trump will promptly take credit for the good economy as soon as he gets into office.
Trump hails Italy’s Giorgia Meloni
Since the election, Trump has been behaving as if he is already president. For example, he has met with several foreign leaders–all autocrats–at his private club in Florida. Another one showed up at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. Emma Bubola at The New York times: Italy’s Prime Minister Visits Trump in Mar-a-Lago.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy visited President-elect Donald J. Trump on Saturday at his Florida golf club for an informal meeting.
The trip to the club, Mar-a-Lago, came only a few days before Ms. Meloni is set to welcome President Biden for an official visit to Italy and the Vatican from Jan. 9 to 12.
On Saturday, she appeared in the grand ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump, according to pool reports, said he was having dinner with Ms. Meloni, whom he called “a fantastic woman,” adding, “She’s really taken Europe by storm, and everyone else.”
They, along with some potential members of the future Trump administration, including the nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and for Treasury, Scott Bessent, then watched a screening of a film titled, “The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice.”
Ms. Meloni and Mr. Trump have expressed mutual appreciation in the past, and her trip is one of the first few visits by a foreign leader to the president-elect’s estate in Florida since his election in November. The meeting reinforces the hopes of Ms. Meloni’s supporters that the conservative Italian prime minister will become Mr. Trump’s go-to ally in Europe.
Much of that role would involve mediating tensions between other European leaders and Mr. Trump, who has threatened to start a trade war with the continent, as well as to reduce American backing for some NATO countries and for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The agenda of the meeting was unclear on Saturday night, but observers expected the two leaders would discuss those issues.
Believe it or not, Joe Biden is still President of the United States, and he has some plans for his remaining time in the White House. Carol Lee and Kristin Welker at NBC News: Biden to deliver two major speeches in his final days in office.
President Joe Biden plans to deliver two major speeches before leaving office as part of an effort to outline what he sees as key parts of his legacy from more than 50 years in public service, according to two people familiar with the plans.
The first speech is set to focus on foreign policy and is expected to be delivered sometime after Biden returns on Jan. 12 from a trip to Italy, these people said. They said Biden then plans to close out his final days in the White House with a farewell address to the country.
Neither speech has been fully drafted, the sources familiar with the president’s plans said, but the contours and themes of both have been developed.
In his farewell address, Biden is expected to offer a message to Americans for the future and reflect on his decades in public office, including his four years in the White House, according to the people familiar with the president’s plans.
The traditional address is expected to channel a similar spirit to the parting sentiments offered by some of Biden’s recent predecessors, including former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who delivered their farewell speeches from the White House, and former President Barack Obama, who opted to speak to the nation from his hometown of Chicago in front of a large audience of supporters….
Biden’s foreign policy speech is set to focus on his belief that America is stronger when it invests in its alliances across the world, according to the people familiar with the president’s speeches. Biden is expected to highlight his efforts to broaden and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. relations in the Indo-Pacific, as well as his administration’s military and financial support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
It’s unclear how much the speech might touch on Biden’s decision to order the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which has been widely criticized and resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members.
Biden is likely to reference his administration’s efforts to combat terrorist groups, including ISIS, but the speech is not expected to dwell on domestic terrorism threats following the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, the people familiar with the president’s plans said.
That’s all I have for you today. It’s still kind of quiet as we wrap up the holiday season.
Finally Friday Reads: Is it Over yet?
Posted: January 3, 2025 Filed under: 2025 What Fresh Hell? | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Ass-Wipers for Incontinentia Buttocks, Ayatollah Mike Johnson, John Neely Kennedy Weirdo, Senator Foghorn Leghorn, Speaker of the House Brawl, Tesla Bomber, The Attack on New Orleans, The Dark Side of the Moon, The Lunatic is on the grass 7 Comments
“Crappy New Year!” John Buss,
@johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s only 3 days into 2025. It feels a lot longer. I’m exhausted. It’s difficult to wake up one day and be asked by the FaceBook AI to mark yourself safe from the Attack on New Orleans. It was good that I hadn’t sipped that hot tea yet because buying a new computer was way out of my budget. Yesterday, my news feed was flooded with notifications from friends and neighbors marking themselves safe. It was surreal. All I see everywhere is Attack on Bourbon. We even have one of those newsroom theme songs.
The 2025 chaos has already started. They held the Sugar Bowl at a heavily fortified Super Dome. Bourbon Street reopened with several of the city’s preachers leading a second line. People went back to work because even if you do work you’re desperate from the affordable housing shortage plaguing the entire country. We’re still stunned and tired.
People got to see our lousy governor and our very drunk Senator while the New Orleans leader contingent paid second and third fiddles and was blamed for not doing what they’ve been doing for decades superbly. The presser included a drunk Senator John Neely Kennedy spitting tobacco into a red plastic cup while looking like he’d been drinking still. He shoved the FBI Special Agent–a black woman–away from the microphone where she was answering a reporter’s question. Social Media is not treating him kindly and righteously so.
Our local news tagged him right. This is from Tommy Tucker at WWL. “Tommy Tucker calls out Sen. John Kennedy’s display following the Bourbon Street attack: You’re a U.S. Senator—act like it.”
That said, during times of crisis, it’s our local, state, and national leaders who are expected to act with prudence and do their best to avoid placing personal grievances and their egos above what’s best for the citizens who elected them to serve.
That’s not what we saw from Louisiana Senator John Kennedy yesterday.
The press conference, where the bodies of the victims were still lying on Bourbon Street, was not the time to make cheap political points by taking shots at the director of Homeland Security or the media.
Senator, I know you. I know you’re better than that. You’re smarter than that. Act better than that because it embarrasses our state and our city.
Again, I know you. And that comedic rooster act yesterday isn’t who you are.
You’re a U.S. senator, for the love of God. Act like it because calling for unity while making cheap political points at a press conference is nothing other than contradictory.
If you disagree, call in, please, because I’d love to talk to you about it. As I understand it, we tried to get you on yesterday, but you refused. You didn’t have time to come on WWL—the official emergency management station of New Orleans—but did have time to go on Fox and spread misinformation, like claiming the federal government doesn’t have, or will care to provide, the necessary resources to investigate and deal with this horrific attack.
Senator, do yourself and the state of favor: resign your damn seat and let another Republican take over—someone who won’t do a Foghorn Leghorn impersonation and make a mockery of themself during one of the darkest moments in their state’s history.
Just so you can see that Kennedy’s Schtick isn’t real, these clips compiled by Ron FilipKowski will show the difference between the Senator when he was the State Treasurer and now. He’s really not that stupid. Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law before attending Oxford University. He just plays stupid for the state’s swamp billies and KKK remenents.
I made this montage of clips of LA Sen John Kennedy. The old clips are when Kennedy was a Democrat and was Treasurer for LA. The new clips are after he switched parties to Republican. Check the difference.
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-01-03T15:09:40.593Z
I’m always left with the big question of why it is that suicidal cis men can’t commit suicide without taking a contingent of innocents and law enforcement folks with them. They must be deluded into thinking they have the last word. It’s the ultimate Act of ManSplaining.
The entire MAGA contingent and their propaganda media whores are still suggesting that this American who served in the U.S. Army and was the Son of Americans was somehow a border-crossing invader instead of a man who just couldn’t deal with the challenges of modern life in American and found purpose in radicalizing his religion to the detriment of the world.
Then, we got the Tesla bomber. A Green Beret on leave making some kind of statement while wiring a Tesla to burn in front of a Trump Property. At least he shot himself, and no one else got killed in whatever statement he was trying to make on the way out the earthly door. The more we learn about him, the more I want to stay indoors and away from people I haven’t known for a long time. This is from the Daily Beast. “Suspected Las Vegas Cybertruck Bomber Was a ‘Big’ Trump Supporter: Source. Sources say, Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret who enlisted in the U.S. Army as a teenager, was a fan of the president-elect.” I’m waiting for a J6 “rally” and a Charlottesville march with very “decent people on both sides” now. It’s deja vu all over again.
The man suspected of being behind Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas was a “big” supporter of Donald Trump and voted for him in November, a senior law enforcement official tells the Daily Beast.
That revelation came from an interview between Matthew Livelsberger’s loved ones and investigators, the source said. His family added that they believed the 37-year-old Green Beret, who died in Wednesday’s blast outside Trump International Hotel, had Republican leanings.
The revelation tracks with old Facebook comments and what Livelsberger’s uncle, Dean, told The Independent about his nephew’s politics on Thursday.
“He loved Trump, and he was always a very, very patriotic soldier, a patriotic American,” Dean said. “It’s one of the reasons he was in Special Forces for so many years.”
Records in El Paso County, Colo., indicate that he registered in 2020 with the No Labels party, which supports centrist “commonsense” candidates, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The same email Livelsberger used to sign up for LinkedIn was listed in a data breach last year that revealed he had an account on the far-right news website The Post Millennial.
Much remains unknown about what allegedly drove Livelsberger to rent a Cybertruck in his hometown of Colorado Springs and drive it to Trump’s Las Vegas property.
The truck was filled with explosives and, perhaps miraculously, only injured seven when it burst into flames just steps from the hotel’s front lobby. Livelsberger was the only fatality in the blast.
These two stories completely ran this one off of the news for days. This is from People Magazine. “10 People Injured After Multiple Males Fired Over 30 Shots in N.Y.C. Nightclub Shooting. “Let me start by saying that there’s zero tolerance for these senseless shootings,” NYPD Chief Philip Rivera said at a press conference.” Notice a trend here?
Police say the venue was at capacity with 90 people inside at the time of the incident, therefore a line of about 15 people formed outside. The venue is named Amazura, according to ABC7, The Guardian and FOX5.
“Three to four males then opened fire over 30 times in the direction of the group standing outside the event space, striking multiple victims,” Rivera said.
The suspects fled the scene and were seen getting into a Sedan with out-of-state license plates, according to authorities.
Police noted that out of the 10 victims, six were females and four were male.
All victims were taken to nearby hospitals and “are expected to recover with non-life-threatening injuries,” per the NYPD.
Rivera encouraged people to speak up if they have any information about the crime, saying, “The public has been very instrumental in the recent weeks to help us capture dangerous individuals like these four men.”
Police are investigating the cause of the crime, though Rivera said it was “not a terrorist attack.”
ABC7 reports that the gathering was to celebrate the birthday of Tae’arion Mungo, a 16-year-old who was fatally shot in Brooklyn in October 2024.
The Republican House Speaker Brawl is headed to new lows this month. President Eject Incontinentia’s buttocks are lobbying Republicans to support Moses on the Bayou. John Thune is now the Senate Majority Leader. It will be an interesting few years with these razor-thin Republican majorities and a fairly united Democratic Party. This is from AXIOS and the analysis is by Andrew Solendar. “House GOP tensions erupt ahead of speaker vote.”
House Republicans’ chronic infighting is resurfacing in spectacular fashion in the run-up to Friday’s vote to elect a speaker of the House.
Why it matters: Right-wing hardliners and allies of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) are at each others’ throats in a likely preview of what is to come in the next two years.
- Johnson is struggling to secure the support he needs to retain his gavel, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) digging in in opposition and claiming to reporters several of his colleagues will join him in voting no.
- With a 219-215 majority and Democrats firmly behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Johnson will likely not be able to afford multiple GOP defections.
- A number of House Republicans, mostly members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, still refuse to commit to voting for Johnson.
Driving the news: Johnson’s skeptics are circulating an unsigned memo, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, outlining his “4 ‘successes’ and 26 ‘fails’ for House Republicans” since taking office in November 2023.
- The document homes in on the government spending bill Johnson shepherded through Congress last month along bipartisan lines.
- It also takes aim at Johnson for not pushing harder for spending cuts, passing aid to Ukraine and reauthorizing FISA.
- “The House must be organized to deliver on the historic mandate granted to President Trump and Republicans. It currently is not,” the memo says.
The other side: Johnson allies are growing increasingly frustrated with their right-wing colleagues.
- “Anybody who’s voting against the speaker to try to get personal favors or to try to get publicity needs to rethink why they’re in Congress,” fumed Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.).
- Another House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Axios there is “a very small group within our party who are trying to extract something, not for the country … but for themselves.”
At least Matt Gaetz is gone. Punchbowl News has information on what’s going on today as the House changes hands. “Johnson’s jam: It’s a new Congress but the same problems.*
Legislative business starts today at 11 a.m. with the closing of the 118th Congress. The new Congress begins at noon with the quorum call and the vote to elect a speaker.
And the 119th Congress will kick off with drama. Speaker Mike Johnson is facing an alarming revolt from conservative hardliners. Does this sound familiar? President-elect Donald Trump has been lobbying Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Johnson’s behalf, as we scooped for you on Thursday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a frequent Johnson critic, is backing him. But this may not be enough.
Johnson has a tenuous single-digit majority, while a dozen hardliners have publicly questioned whether he deserves to remain speaker.
Let’s be clear: It’s entirely possible that Johnson could lose the speakership today or this weekend, or that the balloting goes more than one round.
The latest. Johnson spent Thursday making phone calls and holding meetings in his Capitol office in a bid to shore up his vote count. Johnson met with members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Roy and GOP Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.), both of whom are still publicly undecided on whether they’ll back the Louisiana Republican again.
During the meeting, hardliners aired various grievances about Johnson while laying out a number of process reforms they want enacted. These include assurances on spending cuts, pay-fors and the use of the so-called suspension calendar, among other things. Johnson told reporters he’s “open” to some of these ideas.
Yet the most controversial topic discussed by far was whether Johnson should appoint Roy as chair of the Rules Committee. This has been one of the asks from some of the Freedom Caucus holdouts, we’re told by multiple sources. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) even raised it publicly in an interview on OANN. We wrote about the Roy-for-Rules-Committee-chair push Thursday morning.
But GOP leadership sources insist Johnson isn’t considering making Roy the Rules chair.
Roy has been a huge problem for Johnson and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy since he was added to the Rules panel, which controls what legislation gets on the floor and how it’s considered. Making Roy the chair would be an incredibly risky move for Johnson. It would give Roy gigantic sway over what gets to the floor and spur a backlash from moderates.
Roy was tight-lipped leaving the speaker’s office Thursday, as were other holdouts. The conservatives said they expect to speak with Johnson again before the roll-call vote today. Johnson, however, insisted on multiple occasions Thursday he’d win on the first ballot.
Remember this — for every inch Johnson yields to conservatives, he risks losing trust with the middle of the conference.
The team of reporters outlines three possible outcomes from today’s mess. One includes Sleazy Steve Scalise, which always makes me gag. This is the horse race analysis from The Washington Post team. I chose my favorite part.
What might a delay in choosing a speaker mean for Trump’s agenda?
If there’s no speaker by Jan. 6, the House not only risks delaying the certification of the 2024 election — which is scheduled to happen on that day — but also delaying the implementation of Trump’s agenda. The incoming administration wants the GOP-led Congress to quickly pass policies addressing border security and energy-related reforms before working on reauthorizing Trump’s 2017 tax law.
I’m exhausted and plan to use my last few days without student obligations, being lazy. I hope everything is going well for you and yours!
I’ll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Welcome to the return of this century’s lunatic. We need a recut of this with a new slide show. This one shows Reagan, Saddam, and a bunch of the end of last century’s lunatics.
New Year’s Day Reads
Posted: January 1, 2025 Filed under: just because | Tags: french-quarter, Louisiana, New Orleans, NOLA, travel 10 Comments
Scene of New Orleans vehicle attack At least 10 people were killed after a pickup truck rammed through a crowd on New Year’s Day in New Orleans.
Happy New Year!!
Here’s hoping we survive Trump 2.0.
I woke up this morning to the news of a terror attack in New Orleans during New Year’s celebrations. From The Boston Globe: Suspect in New Orleans crash that killed 10 people is dead after firefight with police, officials say.
10 people were killed and 30 injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street
The suspect in the New Orleans truck crash that killed 10 people and injured 30 revelers in New Orleans on New Year’s Day was killed after a firefight with police, law enforcement officials told the AP.
The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
The suspect rammed a vehicle at high speed into a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties, and with crowds in the city ballooning in anticipation for the Sugar Bowl college football playoff game at the nearby Superdome later in the day.
At a news conference, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell described the killings as a “terrorist attack” and the city’s police chief said the act was clearly intentional. But an assistant FBI agent in charge declared that it was “not a terrorist event.” The news conference ended before authorities could reconcile the two characterizations.
Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.
Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said police officers would work to ensure safety at the Sugar Bowl, indicating that the game would go on as scheduled.
“He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” Kirkpatrick said. “It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could.”
Two police officers who were shot after the driver emerged from the truck are in stable condition, she said.
The New York Times has a photo and video report: Scenes From New Orleans After Attack on New Year’s Day.
Officials in New Orleans were assessing the damage in the city’s French Quarter on Wednesday morning after an attack left at least 10 people dead and at least 35 injured, including two police officers.
A man drove a pickup truck at high speed into the crowds on Bourbon Street around 3:15 a.m. before crashing and opening fire, according to police officials. The attacker died in a shootout with the police.
“He was hellbent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” the New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said.
The F.B.I. said it was investigating the attack as an act of terrorism, and officials urged the public to stay away from the area.
Security personnel investigate the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street. Wednesday, Jan. 1. 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Also from The New York Times: What We Know About the Attack in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
At least 10 people were killed and dozens more were hurt in the early hours of New Year’s Day after a man drove a pickup truck into crowds in the French Quarter of New Orleans and then opened fire. Officials called it an attack, and the F.B.I. said it was investigating it as a potential act of terrorism….
Here’s what we know so far about what happened.
The man sped a truck into crowds on Bourbon Street around 3:15 a.m. After crashing, he opened fire, officials said. At least 10 people were killed and about 35 were injured.
Investigators said they later found what appeared to be improvised explosive devices in the truck and were trying to determine whether the devices were viable. It is not clear if any such devices were detonated….
The carnage occurred in the area of the intersection of Canal and Bourbon Streets in the city’s historic French Quarter, one of its most crowded areas and the heart of its tourism industry.
Officials asked the public on Wednesday morning to stay away from a half-mile stretch of Bourbon Street as the F.B.I. investigated….
Officials have not yet released the man’s name. He crashed the truck and died after a shootout with police officers, according to the F.B.I.
Background from The New York Times: The French Quarter is New Orleans’s most famous tourist attraction.
The attack on New Year’s Day targeted New Orleans’ most recognizable tourist destination.
The French Quarter is the historic colonial heart of the city and the center of its tourism industry, one of New Orleans’s leading economic engines. The six-by-13 block area on the curving bank of the Mississippi River is known for its colorful buildings and ornate balconies. Vibrant festivals and parties along famed Bourbon Street, where the attack took place, attract revelers from across the United States and abroad.
“You’re talking about one of the most iconic cities, and one of the most recognizable streets in the world,” Oliver Thomas, a New Orleans city councilman, said on Wednesday after the attack.
“So when you think about it, this isn’t really a message and a shot at New Orleans. This is at America. It’s the world and the environment we live in right now.”
Mr. Thomas said that New Orleans often hosts more people per capita than some of the largest cities in the world and that it was crucial that the city not shut down.
The city’s annual Mardi Gras, with its marching bands and beads flung from floats and balconies, is perhaps the most popular and celebrated event on the calendar, but New Orleans hosts more than 135 festivals each year, according to city figures, and attracted more than 18 million visitors in 2018.
Hours before the attack, the annual Allstate New Year’s Eve Parade moved through the French Quarter, attracting huge crowds. The parade is a buildup to one of the city’s largest annual sporting events — the Sugar Bowl — which falls on Jan. 1 this year and has now been overshadowed by the violence.
The Washington Post has live updates: 10 killed in New Orleans as driver plows truck into crowd.
From local station WDSU in New Orleans: WATCH: Explosions heard in French Quarter after deadly terror attack.
Explosions were heard early Wednesday morning in the French Quarter after a terror attack on Bourbon Street left 10 dead and dozens injured….
“Woah, they just detonated something,” WDSU Reporter Fletcher Mackel says as explosions are heard. “There it is again, they just blew something else.”
This comes as agents responded to what was believed to be “suspicious devices” found in the area.
Emergency services attend the scene after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
More detail from Harry Howard at New Orleans WLLL4: 10 Dead, 35 injured after driver targets Bourbon Street crowd.
The suspect’s gun was described as a “long gun” and had a suppressive device attached.
In a statement, the FBI confirmed its lead role in the investigation.
“This morning, an individual drove a car into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing a number of people and injuring dozens of others. The subject then engaged with local law enforcement and is now deceased. The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism.”
After plowing through the crowd, the suspect crashed his vehicle and shot two responding officers. The officers fired back and struck the suspect.
An improvised explosive device was also discovered at the scene, prompting the FBI to take over the investigation.
“We are working on confirming if this is a viable device or not,” FBI Special Agent Alicia Duncan said.
Moreno said the suspect was able to drive down Bourbon Street because the bollards were down for repairs.
I’m going to post this as is. I made a mistake, and WordPress has changed the post to “block mode.” There isn’t a way to indent news articles, so I hope this makes sense. We will have some updates in the comment thread.
Take care everyone. Somehow, we will make it through 2025 together. I love you all.
Mostly Monday Reads:
Posted: December 30, 2024 Filed under: kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Regime of Chaos, Republicans against democracy | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Biden's Federal Judge Appointments, Happy New Year, MAGA Bigotry, RIP Jimmy Carter 10 Comments
Thank you for your service, President Carter. John (repeat1968) Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yesterday, we lost a good man, a veteran, a fine president, and an outstanding public servant. I gave my very first vote to Jimmy Carter in 1976. I could not put the man who forgave Richard Nixon back in office. Former President Carter helped rebuild New Orleans after Katrina and spent many days and weeks in the 9th ward. He led an amazing and good life. This is from the Carter Center.
Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He was 100, the longest-lived president in U.S. history.
President Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Rosalynn, and one grandchild.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”
There will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia. The final arrangements for President Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, are still pending. The schedule will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region at https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/statefunerals/.
Members of the public are encouraged to visit the official tribute website to the life of President Carter at www.jimmycartertribute.org. This site includes the official online condolence book as well as print and visual biographical materials commemorating his life.
The Carter family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30307.
I found this article in the Washington Post intriguing. “11 facts about Jimmy Carter that may surprise you. The peanut farmer-turned-president, who died Sunday at 100, put solar panels on the White House and once spent 89 seconds inside a melting nuclear reactor.”
Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States, was known for his no-frills lifestyle, early focus on climate change and concerns about growing divisions in the country.
During his single White House term, from 1977 to 1981 — almost one-third of which was clouded by the 444-day-long Iran hostage crisis — the Navy veteran brokered a historic peace accord between Egypt and Israel and pioneered renewable energy as a cheaper alternative to foreign oil. He was the first Democratic president since 1888 not to win reelection. As the United States’ longest-living former president, he spent decades working to advance peace and humanitarianism, efforts for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Here are some facts that may surprise you about Mr. Carter, who died on Sunday at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Jimmy Carter was the first future president born in a hospital
James Earl Carter Jr. was delivered on Oct. 1, 1924, in a 60-bed hospital in Plains. — becoming the first future president to be born in such a setting. A hospital birth may seem unremarkable today, but at the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all childbirths still took place at home, including the majority at the time of Mr. Carter’s birth. His mother, Lillian, was a registered nurse at the unit in which he was delivered, and his father, James Earl, was a farmer. Four years later, the family moved from Plains to a nearby farm — where his father grew corn, cotton, peanuts and sugar cane.
He was the first president to be inaugurated by a nickname
When Mr. Carter was sworn into office in 1977 on a family Bible held by his wife, Rosalynn Carter, he took the presidential oath of office using the name “Jimmy” instead of “James” — his actual first name, which he rarely used. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, who also used their nicknames in the White House, opted to be sworn in using their full names during their inaugurations. After Mr. Carter was sworn in, the organizers of his inauguration ceremony floated a giant peanut-shaped balloon in a parade to honor his roots.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married longer than any other presidential couple
They were married for 77 years. The day after Jimmy took Rosalynn on a date to the movies — in 1945 — he told his mother that he knew he wanted to marry Rosalynn. A year later, when he was 21 and she was 18, they were married. “Over the years, we became not only friends and lovers, but partners,” Rosalynn said close to seven decades later, at Jimmy’s 90th birthday celebration. “He has always thought I could do anything.” The pair had known each other for all of Rosalynn’s life; she lived down the road in their hometown of Plains and was a frequent playmate of Ruth Carter, Jimmy’s little sister.
You may read more at the link. Former President Carter was a man of principles and strongly held ethics. He stands in contrast to what gets put into the White House again next month. This is just out from the AP. “An appeals court upholds a $5 million award in a sexual abuse verdict against President-elect Trump.” No wonder this piece of trash is selling merch while supposedly preparing for his next 4 years running the country into the ground. How could people vote for a felon and adjudicated rapist?
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s finding in a civil case that Donald Trump sexually abused a columnist in an upscale department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a written opinion upholding the $5 million award that the Manhattan jury granted to E. Jean Carroll for defamation and sexual abuse.
The longtime magazine columnist had testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack after they playfully entered the store’s dressing room.
Trump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying the attack ever happened. But he briefly testified at a follow-up defamation trial earlier this year that resulted in an $83.3 million award. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.
In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected claims by Trump’s lawyers that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had made multiple decisions that spoiled the trial, including his decision to allow two other women who had accused Trump of sexually abusing them to testify.
The judge also had allowed the jury to view the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted in 2005 about grabbing women’s genitals because when someone is a star, “you can do anything.”
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”
Meanwhile, we’re about to get steamrolled. Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice has this analysis today, as the Vivek and Elonia comments on American workers hit them below their belts. “Trumpers discover a type of bigotry they oppose (against themselves). Vivek Ramaswamy gives MAGAs a taste of their own medicine.”
Donald Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, and his leading supporters are already tearing at each other’s throats like a pack of frothing and foul-smelling Klansmen over whether there are any good immigrants.
“Take a big step back and F**K YOURSELF in the face,” Elon Musk tweeted Friday night in defense of immigrants who worked for him, in response to a Trump supporter with a more hardline view.
The spectacle of billionaire Musk, techbro Vivek Ramaswamy, would-be Goebbels Steve Bannon, and gibbering Islamophobe and Trump-whisperer Laura Loomer all screaming and bellowing at each other is entertaining in a morbid way. Acrimony is inevitable in a coalition held together by bile, hatred, and racism. And if Democrats can get their act together, they may well be able to take advantage of MAGA dissension.
At the same time, it’s important not to not over-interpret the intra-Trumper feud. Racism is a lie, which means it’s always incoherent — and racist coalitions often therefore end up fighting amongst themselves about who’s in the in group and who gets targeted by the regime.
But historically, these arguments at the margins have often coexisted with massive human rights abuses. Ramaswamy and Bannon may disagree about the exact trajectory of MAGA. But they can still come together to hurt a lot of people — and that is exactly what they will try to do.
For MAGA, all bigotry is not created equal
This week’s round of MAGA on MAGA violence was ignited by Loomer, who was most recently in the news for her oddly close relationship to Trump in the weeks following the Butler shooting.
On December 23, Loomer attacked Sriram Krishnan, who Trump selected as an advisor on artificial intelligence, criticizing his support for H-1B visas. H-1Bs allow highly skilled workers to come to the US to work and are especially prevalent in tech, where they’re used by many Indian and Chinese engineers. Loomer tweeted that support for H-1Bs was “not America First policy.”
…
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out that the MAGA spat is the inevitable outcome of “Trump’s deep-seated and extreme transactionalism.” Indeed, Trump has few real policy commitments beyond self-aggrandizement and revenge.
Various people — Musk, Loomer, Bannon, RFK Jr., whoever — glommed onto Trump for fame or fortune or to advance their own agendas. Now they have to fight among themselves because Trump himself doesn’t really care enough to impose a vision, much less any kind of discipline.
That’s certainly part of the dynamic here. But it’s also important to note that the ideological divisions on display are in part the natural result of founding a movement on racism and bigotry.
Racism is as thoroughly debunked as any ideology can be. There is no consistent difference in intelligence or ability between different groups of humans; we’re all the same race. That means that “racial differences” are all made-up nonsense.
And that in turn means that two racists are likely to make up slightly different nonsense from each other. MAGA can hate all immigrants, but idolize Musk — or, if they hate Musk, they can idolize Melania. Ramaswamy can spew a bunch of racist tropes and apply them to Americans as a group rather than to other groups we’re more used to seeing get picked on.
Again, there is more to read at the link. Just in time for the man who botched COVID-19 with deadly results, we have a new Virus sweeping the country. This is from The Hill. “Norovirus outbreaks surging across the US: CDC data.”
Norovirus cases are surging across the country this winter, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
There were 91 outbreaks reported by state health departments during the week of Dec. 5, up from 69 in the last week of November, according to the CDC.
The highest number for the same period over the last several years was 65 outbreaks.
But the data are not comprehensive. Currently, state, local and territorial health departments are not required to report individual cases of norovirus illness to the CDC, and only 15 states participate in the National Outbreak Reporting System.
Additionally, the CDC pointed out some people may not seek health care for their illness, and most hospitals and doctor’s offices do not generally test for norovirus.
Norovirus is extremely contagious and can cause diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain within 12 hours to 47 hours after being exposed, the agency said.
Most people with norovirus get better within one to three days, but they can still spread the virus for a few days after.
Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States. Each year, there are about 2,500 reported outbreaks. They can occur throughout the year but are most common between November and April, the CDC said.
Just in time for the Republicans who want to dismantle the FDA. Speaking of today’s Republicans, this may or may not shock you. This is from AXIOS. “Nearly half of GOP voters support using military to put immigrants in camps.”Russell Contreras has the analysis.
Almost half of Republican voters believe the U.S. military should round up undocumented immigrants and put them into detention camps until they can be deported, a new survey finds.
Why it matters: President-elect Trump has suggested that he’ll use the military in immigration raids and turn to a 1798 law to put immigrants in camps.
- His base appears to support those plans despite the likely fierce opposition from most Americans.
By the numbers: 46% of Republicans endorse using the military in mass deportation raids and placing immigrants in camps, according to a nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) post-election survey.
- That’s more than double that of independent voters (19%) who agree with the idea.
- And that’s more than five times as Democratic voters (8%) who supported this policy.
What they’re saying: “There have been questions in the Trump era where I’ve thought…I can’t believe that we need to know the answer to this question,” Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI, tells Axios.
- “I guess the good news is that three-quarters of the country rejects this idea that we should be putting immigrants in the country illegally into internment camps guarded by the military.”
- Jones said the bad news is that nearly half of people who consider themselves members of a mainstream political party do.
State of play: Trump said in his recent TIME “Person of the Year” interview that he would be open to using camps to hold detained immigrants in the U.S.
- Trump in the TIME interview suggested deporting 21 million people, which would likely require an increase in detention centers to hold people suspected of being in the U.S. without authorization before they’re deported.
Reality check: Study after study shows there are 11 million undocumented people in the country, not 21 million, as Trump has repeatedly and falsely said.
- There are roughly 24.5 million noncitizen immigrants in the U.S., including those here awaiting asylum decisions or otherwise here lawfully, according to the Pew Research Center.
This is the annual American Values Survey. You may read about their methodology at the link. Ask me again why I never leave Orleans Parish anymore. I try not to run into these kinds of folks.
Zoom in: The PRRI survey also found that American voters who hold highly authoritarian views were six times as likely to endorse putting undocumented immigrants into such camps than American voters who reject authoritarianism (48% v. 8%).
Lawyer Marc E. Elias suggests you watch him discuss how Joe Biden and Senate Democrats had a big victory in confirming federal judges with Brian Tyler Cohen.
So that’s it for me this year! I will see you in the New Year!
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