Mostly Monday Reads: devaient essayer

Posted: January 29, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , | 10 Comments

John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The first English Translation of Alexander de Tocqueville’s”De La Démocratie en Amérique”  (Democracy in America )was translated into English by Henry Reeves in 1835. It was Reeves who translated a section of the work that coined the phrase “the great experiment”. for Tocqueville’s phrase “devaient essayer,” which better translates into something more like “would attempt to build”.  It seems apt that confusion about what our country is and was about is not something novel.  JJ texted me David Dayen’s latest at The American Prospect earlier today. DDay explains in his compelling long-form essay, “America Is Not a Democracy. The movement to save democracy from threats is too quick to overlook the problems that have been present since the founding.”

The question has been, what did we do to arrive at this situation today?  Many historical events- notably the Civil War and the Whiskey Rebellion- were violent rebellions. Many are more recent and just don’t get play in modern history books. I’ve always thought that Donald Trump and the worst of his advisors have always found ways and, indeed, are now finding better ways to exploit the loopholes that were opened in the Constitution. The document has obvious nods to slaveholders and wealthy white men in its construction and details.  It may not have been kingdom and aristocracy based on birth, but it certainly gave a few classes of individuals more democracy than others.  Have a good conversation with the survivors of all of the Indian Wars and Slavery, and you’ll see it still rocks our form of government.

Trump is a more than worthy subject of concern for anyone hoping for democracy in 2025. Last time he was president, he actively resisted the peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of despots the world over. To the extent he and his authoritarian-friendly advisers learned anything from the first term, it was how to neutralize obstacles to expanding power. His musing about being a “dictator on day one” is really not loose talk. The plans emanating from Team Trump to destroy the civil service, hire government lawyers to rubber-stamp unconstitutional actions and prosecute personal enemies, and even deploy troops on American soil are truly alarming.

But something troubles me about that term, “threat to democracy.” It has become a catchall phrase for resistance to conservative extremism, and specifically Trump. Yet the deficiencies in American democracy go back to the very founding, and the long arc of history hasn’t come close to correcting all of them. The larger crisis we now face is not solely attributable to an individual with malign intent for our government; it’s more about the system of government itself.

Exactly what part of democracy are we trying to save? Is it our democratic legislature, gerrymandered and malapportioned beyond recognition, with supermajority thresholds that deny rule even by that corrupted majority? Is it our democratic presidency, which Trump legally took over after losing the popular vote in 2016, and George W. Bush in the same fashion 16 years earlier? Is it our democratic judiciary, morphed into a super-legislature and habitually twisting the Constitution to advantage those with power, money, and influence?

Are we worried about a democracy that can be so easily purchased, where corporate lobbyists either win whatever they want on Capitol Hill, or win by regulatory change or international trade treaty whatever they don’t? Has this government, where the most important modification of our democracy’s original sin, the second-class citizenship of Black people, is now being steadily reversed by state legislatures and the courts, earned our support? Is there despair over losing something that has produced unequal opportunity, unequal justice, and the conversion of economic power into political power? Where can we find this democracy we need to fight to preserve?

No democracy perfectly distills the will of the people. But America is uniquely terrible at achieving democratic outcomes. It’s worth focusing our energies to repair that, because the alternative really is too grim to contemplate. But there are only a few options here. We can defend “democracy” as an amorphous concept that this country has almost never lived up to. We can uncover escape hatches, short-term circumventions of the rules, either to disqualify Trump and the threat he represents, or to take action on policy challenges. We know the names of these band-aids: budget reconciliation, the Electoral Count Reform Act, the 14th Amendment.

But we don’t deserve to live as political Houdini figures, trying constantly to work our way out of shackles imposed on us by our own system of government. If a political movement is going to style itself as the savior of democracy, it should also speak plainly about the myriad deficiencies in our democracy, and what it would actually take to fix them.

Spend some time with it if you can. I did this morning. Here are some other reads to put into that framework.  Phillip Bump writes about what’s going on at the Texas Border. It’s a horrifying event that will not reflect well on our future history.

Interest from the political right in policing the border is itself a long-established pattern. In 2006, after incidents involving self-appointed, right-wing border patrols had attracted national news attention, the Congressional Research Service compiled a report noting that vigilante efforts to confront border crossers extended back more than a century. The report also noted that such organized efforts, when not in violation of state or federal laws, had the right to exist.

In another social media post on Saturday, Trump exaggerated the danger posed by immigrants to the United States, 45 percent of whom in December were families or children traveling alone.

“Today we have a catastrophe waiting to happen. It is the WORST BORDER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD,” he wrote. He added: “There is now a 100% chance that there will be MAJOR TERROR ATTACKS IN THE USA. CLOSE THE BORDER!”

This is the mix in play at the moment: Trumpian rhetoric, antagonism to federal law enforcement and armed individuals taking matters into their own hands, particularly at the border.

BB and I have both written about this situation last week.  My MagRat Governor is one of those sending our Guard to interfere with the Federal Agents there.  Greg Sargent updates us on how Trump and MAGA Republicans are trying to tank a border deal so Trump can make political hay from it.

The concerning words there are “ethnonationalist savagery.”  This is from his new home at The New Republic. “GOP Senator Reveals the Sick Truth About the Trump-MAGA Border Scam. It’s not just that a deal might help Biden. It’s that a compromise bill now could prevent Trump and Stephen Miller from doing a much harsher bill later.”

Republican Senator James Lankford, who is leading negotiations over a border security bill, is discovering to his great shock that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are not operating entirely in good faith. Lankford went on the Sunday shows and appeared to admit that they are trying to kill his bill to deny President Biden a bipartisan victory.

That triggered a flurry of social media excitement. But his appearances revealed something deeper about this whole affair: Trump and MAGA Republicans can’t allow this bill to pass, not just for crass political reasons, but because it might succeed on the substance, denying them an opening to pass hideously onerous restrictions later.

Lankford’s first reveal came on Fox News Sunday, when he was asked why on Earth he’d act on the border if it might help Biden (on Fox, this is not a negative, just a statement of the obvious). Lankford noted that Republicans themselves demanded that funding for Ukraine and Israel be tied to border policy changes, and said he is merely trying to deliver what they asked for.

“Now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, ‘Just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year,’” Lankford said, alluding to the open declaration from some Republicans that any compromise will deny Trump a weapon against Biden.

That alone is revealing enough. But it gets more interesting when viewed alongside what Lankford said on CBS’s Face the Nation. Anchor Margaret Brennan aired video of Trump urging Republicans to sink the deal, declaring: “I’d rather have no bill than a bad bill.”

Judd LeGum calls it the “Second Insurrection.”

Access to Shelby Park is important to federal authorities because it is used as a “staging area for policing and interdiction operations along the Rio Grande.” This includes the use of a boat ramp in the park to access the Rio Grande.

Texas’ seizure of Shelby Park and refusal to allow federal officials access have created an extremely dangerous situation. On January 12, three migrants — a woman and two children — drowned in the Rio Grande near the park. When Border Patrol agents went to Shelby Park to address the situation and help other migrants in distress, guardsmen from the Texas National Guard refused to let them enter, saying “they had been ordered not to allow Border Patrol access to the park.”

The legal battle between Texas and the federal government over Shelby Park began when Texas sued the federal government for cutting and removing some of the razor wire it installed along the Rio Grande. Border Patrol argued that the razor wire was putting its agents and migrants legally entitled to claim asylum at risk. Texas argued that the federal government was illegally destroying its property. The state eventually won an injunction from the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, prohibiting the federal government from disturbing Texas’ razor wire. The federal government, however, appealed to the Supreme Court. On January 22, in a brief order, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government and lifted the injunction.

Texas’ response to the Supreme Court order has been alarming. Abbott issued a statement stating that “[t]he federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.” Compact theory was championed by John C. Calhoun, one of the staunchest defenders of slavery. It essentially views states as “independent sovereigns” that are free to reject federal authority. It was used to justify the “nullification” of federal laws and, ultimately, secession from the union by Southern states.

The bill these folks want is nothing short of sending the “savages” to hell if need be.  Meanwhile, while learning about the rule of law, Trump’s performances continue to be off-the-wall.  This is from The Daily Beast.  “Trump Throw Tantrum Over Court Monitor’s Financial Bombshell. ‘JAVERT LIKE QUEST’. A lawyer for the Trumps slammed Judge Barbara S. Jones in a court filing Monday morning, vehemently denying Trump lied about a missing $48 million loan.”  Who would think we’d get a Les Mis reference from the Trump Lawyer Camp?

Now that the retired federal judge babysitting the Trump Organization has uncovered potential tax fraud at the company, the Trumps responded over the weekend by tasking their own accountant as a monitor that monitors the court monitor.

In an indignant court filing Monday morning, a lawyer for the Trumps for the first time launched an all-out attack on Judge Barbara S. Jones—calling her latest report on the family company an absolute lie, a cheap attempt to justify her government-mandated job, and a last-minute ploy to bolster the New York Attorney General’s bank fraud case that just wrapped up.

“Further oversight is unwarranted and will only unjustly enrich the monitor as she engages in some ‘Javert’ like quest,” he wrote, making a reference to the fictional French law enforcement officer in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, who’s defined by his obsessive pursuit and lack of empathy.

The Trumps also complained about the $2.6 million they’ve had to pay Jones to do her job, dismissing her findings wholesale.

“That the monitor seeks to now perpetuate this folly is beyond the pale,” wrote Clifford S. Robert, who represents the Trump family.

The counterpunch comes just days after Jones revealed a bombshell about former President Donald Trump’s finances. In the run-up to the AG’s trial against the Trumps for lying about real estate values, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron ordered that a court monitor watch over the sprawling family company to ensure it doesn’t shift or hide assets ahead of a potentially huge judgment that could cripple the business empire. Since then, Jones has issued nearly half a dozen reports indicating that, for the most part, all is well.

That is, until Friday, when she updated Engoron with a report that, as The Daily Beast first reported, suggested Trump lied for years about a supposed personal loan he made to one of his own companies—sleight of hand that may have allowed him to dodge taxes on nearly $50 million in income.

“When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” she wrote.

E Jean’s $83 million was the center of discussion at Good Morning America Today.  She will also appear on the Rachel Maddow Show tonight.  She appeared on GMA with her fantastic lawyer, Robbie Kaplan.  This is from The Guardian. “E Jean Carroll aims to give defamation money ‘to something Trump hates’. Former Elle columnist tells Good Morning America: ‘If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent’.”  Irony is not dead.

E Jean Carroll intends to spend the $83m awarded to her in her defamation trial against Donald Trump on something the former president “hates”, she revealed just days after the judgment.

On Friday, the jury in Carroll’s case decided that she should receive $18.3m in compensatory damages and $65m punitive retribution in the case pitting her against Trump. Of the $18.3m, Trump was told to pay Carroll $11m to fund a reputational repair campaign and $7.3m for the emotional harm caused by statements he made against her in 2019.

Carroll and her legal team did not speak to reporters as they left court but broke their public silence on Monday in an interview with Good Morning America.

Alongside her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Carroll told host George Stephanopoulos that Friday’s win had left her overcome with “elation”.

“It filled me up … It was almost painful,” she said, adding: “Today, I’m very happy.

Stephanopoulos asked her to give the public an idea as to how she planned to spend the millions of dollars she’s won, and Carroll provided a clear outline.

“I’d like to give the money to something Donald Trump hates,” Carroll said. “If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent.”

Carroll also said that she would perhaps explore giving to “a fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump”.

Trump went on his Truth Social platform to decry Friday’s decision as “absolutely ridiculous” and said he would be filing an appeal.

“Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon,” Trump’s Truth Social post said in part. “THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”

Pointing to Trump’s combative response, Stephanopoulos asked Carroll’s attorney whether or not their side expected to collect the money awarded to them. Kaplan said that she was “pretty confident”.

“We might not get it right away. But one way or the other, he owns a lot of real estate. It can be sold. We will collect the judgment,” Kaplan said.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, Carroll revealed that she wasn’t sleeping or eating in anticipation of facing the former president.

There are a few things to like about this new “normal,” although most of it sucks eggs.  The Justice Department is detaining a former IRS contractor for leaking the Tax Records of Trump and other toxic Billionaires. This is from NBC News. “Ex-IRS contractor sentenced to 5 years in prison for leaking Trump tax records. Charles Littlejohn had pleaded guilty to leaking thousands of tax records, including for Trump and billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.”   I don’t suppose this could be considered whistle-blowing.

The former Internal Revenue Service contractor who leaked the tax records of former President Donald Trump to The New York Times as well as the tax records of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to ProPublica was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.

Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty in October, and prosecutors sought the statutory maximum of five years in federal prison, saying that he “abused his position by unlawfully disclosing thousands of Americans’ federal tax returns and other private financial information to multiple news organizations.” Prosecutors said that Littlejohn “weaponized his access to unmasked taxpayer data to further his own personal, political agenda, believing that he was above the law.”

Littlejohn was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes at a hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington. He will also have to pay a $5,000 fine.

“You can be an outstanding person and commit bad acts,” Reyes said. “What you did in targeting the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” she added.

Reyes compared Littlejohn’s actions to other recent attacks and threats against elected officials as well as to Jan. 6 defendants she has recently sentenced. She described his actions as a deliberate, complex, multiyear criminal scheme, but said she believed he “sincerely felt a moral imperative” to act as he did.

Littlejohn’s attorney argued that he had committed the offense “out of a deep, moral belief that the American people had a right to know the information and sharing it was the only way to effect change” and that he believed he was right at the time.

I imagine if we compare the trial of this man to Trump, we’d get a huge contrast in what it’s like to be treated like a criminal.  But just about any other criminal in the system will be treated less humanely than the former guy.  They’d have shot him by now if he was black.  Are rights applied differently real rights in a real democracy?  Asking for a friend.

Well, this is getting long, and I need to eat some lunch.  I hope y’all have a good week!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Sunday Reads: The Republican Attack on democracy and the Constitution

Posted: December 3, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Republicans against democracy | Tags: , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Happy Sunday, Sky Dancers!

The Krampus parade rolled last night in my hood. I have a long list of those I’d like them to put in their baskets and carry off. Most of them will show up in this post of infamy today. I can’t even remember when I did a Sunday post, but here it is!

Enjoy the Krampus pix and think about which of my neighborhood Krampus I should send off to the Beltway. The guy with the red eyes is headed for Mar-a-Lago. The Former Guy’s speeches are getting truly horrifying and more demented than ever.

This is from the Washington Post. “Trump attempts to spin anti-democracy, authoritarian criticism against Biden. The former president declared his 2024 campaign as a ‘righteous crusade’ against ‘tyrants and villains.'” He gave his speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His projection is prominent. If he blames someone else for doing it, it’s because he’s done it multiple times already.

Republican polling leader Donald Trump moved to deflect from criminal charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election and from his own pledges to take revenge on his opponents if he returns to the White House, seeking to parry warnings that he presents a danger to democracy.

His speech on Saturdaywas an effort to turn the tables on rising alarms from Democrats and some Republicans that Trump’s return to power would imperil free elections and civil liberties. As candidates ramp up appearances in Iowa ahead of the caucuses on Jan. 15, the former president, who refused to accept his 2020 election loss and inspired his supporters to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, responded by comparing President Biden to a fascist tyrant, and the campaign distributed signs reading ‘BIDEN ATTACKS DEMOCRACY.’

“Biden and his radical left allies like to pose as defenders of democracy,” Trump told a raucous crowd of a couple thousand supporters here. “But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. … This campaign is a righteous crusade to liberate our republic from Biden and the criminals and the Biden administration.”

The speech showed that Biden’s framing of the 2024 election as democracy versus authoritarianism is resonating with voters, according to Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of American political rhetoric at Texas A&M University. Trump’s strategy to “accuse the accuser” could confuse voters about the real threat and help reassure his own supporters, she said.

“Trump’s Iowa speech continues his use of fascist rhetoric: it’s us versus them, he tells his supporters, and ‘they’ are enemies who cheat,” she said. “Authoritarians have a lot of rhetorical tricks for explaining away anti-democratic actions as actually ‘democratic.’”

The Daily Beast has this headline for the event. This is even more bizarre than his claim that the Democratic Party is coming for your dishwashers. He must be the only person that doesn’t know that dishwashers save energy and water. This is by Mark Alfred. He filed it under the category of ‘unhinged.’ “Trump (Accidentally) Has a Rare Moment of Truth at Iowa Rally. But it was fleeting, and then he was quickly back on his usual BS.”

Former President Donald Trump accidentally admitted what his critics have long accused him of at an Iowa rally on Saturday night, telling the crowd: “We’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy.”

But just as quickly as he made the shocking remark, he corrected himself to say his “opponents” are the ones guilty of attacks on democracy.

Trump, throughout the rally, argued that he was on a “righteous crusade” in support of democracy while his team handed out “BIDEN ATTACKS DEMOCRACY” signs to rally-goers.

Trump, of course, faces dozens of charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and seize another term despite having lost the election, and on the eve of the rally, a federal judge ruled that he cannot rely on presidential immunity to shield him from prosecution.

He appeared as unhinged as ever during his speech in Cedar Rapids: Mocking the late Senator and veteran John McCain, vowing for the eighth year in a row to repeal Obamacare, and warning that the left is coming to take away voters’ dishwashers.

“Obamacare is a disaster and I say we’re going to do something about it,” Trump said—a promise he has made since 2015 and has yet to carry out.

“I saved Obamacare when we got John McCain’s negative vote, you know he voted against it. He said ‘uhhhhhh thumbs downnn.’ That was an amazing night,” Trump continued, making a crude impression of McCain, who was battling brain cancer at the time.

Biden has already sought to seize on Trump’s renewed vow to gut the landmark health-care law. “To those who want to repeal this lifesaving law, let me be clear: I won’t let it happen on my watch,” Biden said on Friday.

The Affordable Health Care Act is one of the most popular laws to come out of Congress in years. Good Luck with that endeavor, Orange Caligula! Here’s another way that Republicans are killing women and democracy at the same time. “The Dirty Tricks the GOP Is Using to Keep Abortion Off the Ballot in 2024. Republicans are getting killed on reproductive rights, and they’re taking desperate measures to prevent their constituents from having a say next year.” This is from The Rolling Stone.

TIFFANY CAMPBELL USED to describe herself as a “hardcore, church-going Republican.” That changed back in 2006, when she was still running an in-home daycare in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and learned she was pregnant with twins. The prognosis was dire: one twin’s heart was pumping blood for both of them and, without intervention, neither would survive. She has a healthy 16-year-old son today because she was able to obtain an abortion. After that experience, she threw herself into politics; today she is working full-time for the campaign to restore pre-Dobbs abortion protections in South Dakota.

If the South Dakota measure makes it to the ballot, it has a good shot at passing. Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe in June of 2022, the reproductive rights movement has gone seven for seven at the ballot box, defeating efforts to restrict abortion in states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana, and enshrining protections in swing states like Michigan and Ohio. It’s hardly a wonder why Republicans are emptying their bag of dirty tricks to make sure it doesn’t work: inventing astronomical “costs,” conspiring with anti-abortion groups to change the ballot language, and fighting to ban petition collectors from public spaces, among other strategies.

In South Dakota, anti-abortion activists, with assists from GOP officials, have tried out a variety of  tactics in recent months. Activists have been harassed, videotaped and repeatedly called the police on petition collectors, while local officials have sought to pass ordinances banning them from collecting signatures in public places. Most recently, the attorney general warned in a letter that he was in possession of “video and photographic evidence” that could allow opponents to challenge the signatures that have been collected so far.

“The organized opposition is more aggressive than I’ve encountered in any of these fights in the past,” says Adam Weiland, who has worked on various ballot measures in the state for years. “It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered people who don’t even want you to get on the ballot and let the voters vote. That’s the whole focus of their campaign.”

Liz Cheney continues to take on the Republican Party while promoting her new book. This is from Politico. “Liz Cheney would rather see Democrats win in 2024. She warned of the “threat” from within her own party.”

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney would rather cede power to Democrats than see members of her own party win in 2024, she said, calling a Republican majority a “threat,” and warning of an existential crisis leading up to next year’s election.

“I believe very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican Party, but the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven’t chosen the Constitution, and so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025,” the Wyoming Republican said during an interview with CBS, when asked whether she would prefer a Democratic majority in 2025.

The Independent reports this on the Georgia “fake electors” case. Kenneth Cheesebro is cooperating.

The state-level criminal investigation into the 2020 election “fake electors” plot in Nevada has secured the cooperation of a key witness — Kenneth Chesebro, the lawyer who orchestrated the scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state.

Both CNN and The Washington Post report that Mr Chesebro has agreed to meet with investigators in the state in a bid to avoid prosecution there.

He pleaded guilty to charges relating to the plot in Georgia and as part of that plea deal has agreed to cooperate with the prosecution in the sprawling racketeering case against former president Donald Trump and 14 other co-defendants.

Mr Chesebro also agreed to cooperate with any relevant cases in the future both inside and outside the state.

The fake elector plot was to put forward slates of alternate pro-Trump Electoral College voters in multiple states — Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Mexico — with Mr Chesebro spelling out in a series of memos what they should do to return Mr Trump to the White House and snatch the election from Mr Biden.

Mr Chesebro acknowledged in one of the memos that the strategy was “controversial” and even a conservative Supreme Court would likely reject it.

In Nevada, six Republicans signed false Electoral College votes in December 2020 for then-president Trump despite the state going for Mr Biden.

Several of the fake electors are still active in politics for the Republican Party causing internal tensions between those still loyal to Mr Trump, and those who believe there need to be repercussions for the attempt to subvert democracy.

You never need to look farther than Texas to see how absofuckinglutely crazy Republicans are these days. This is from the Texas Tribune.” Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers. Some members of the committee said such a ban, proposed two months after a prominent conservative activist was caught meeting with a famous white supremacist, might be a “slippery slope” or too vague.”

Two months after a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser was caught hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes, leaders of the Republican Party of Texas have voted against barring the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.

In a 32-29 vote on Saturday, members of the Texas GOP’s executive committee stripped a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have included the ban.In a separate move that stunned some members, roughly half of the board also tried to prevent a record of their vote from being kept.

In rejecting the proposed ban, the executive committee’s majority delivered a serious blow to a faction of members that has called for the party to confront its ties to groups that have recently employed or associated with outspoken white supremacists and extremists.

In October, The Texas Tribune published photos of Fuentes, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who has called for a “holy war” against Jews, entering and leaving the offices of Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for far-right candidates and movements.

Pale Horse Strategies is owned by Jonathan Stickland, a former state representative and at the time the leader of a political action committee, Defend Texas Liberty, that two West Texas oil billionaires have used to fund right-wing movements, candidates and politicians in the state — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Texas GOP, was also seen entering the Pale Horse offices while Fuentes was inside for nearly 7 hours. He denied participating, however, saying he was visiting with someone else at the time and didn’t know Fuentes was there.

Defend Texas Liberty has not publicly commented on the scandal, save for a two-sentence statement condemning those who’ve tried to connect the PAC to Fuentes’ “incendiary” views. Nor has the group clarified Stickland’s current role at Defend Texas Liberty, which quietly updated its website in October to reflect that he is no longer its president. Tim Dunn, one of the two West Texas oil billionaires who primarily fund Defend Texas Liberty, confirmed the meeting between Fuentes and Stickland and called it a “serious blunder,” according to a statement from Patrick.

Well, a column about Republican nutballs wouldn’t be complete without Lady Lindsey, who has gone entirely off the leash since John McCain passed.

This is by Cobin Bolies, reporting for The Daily Beast. They watch the Republicans on Sunday Shows, so we don’t have to. “Lindsey Graham Dodges on Palestinian Civilian Deaths: ‘What’s Too Many?'” Just WTF does Trump have on this man? It must be career-ending.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday seemed to dismiss thousands of dead Palestinians as merely collateral damage in Israel’s war against Hamas, asserting that the Israeli government can do whatever it needs to win.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Graham was asked about the restarted fighting following the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Graham urged the U.S. to put more pressure on Iran, a supporter of Hamas, before launching into a tirade against Vice President Kamala Harris’ declaration that too many Palestinian civilians have been killed.

“Here’s the big question: Vice President Harris has said, ‘Israel has a right to defend themselves. How you do it matters.’ The secretary of defense said it would be a strategic failure for Israel to have killed too many Palestinians,” Graham said. “I don’t want any Palestinian to die, but how do you do this? Vice President Harris, tell Israel how to destroy Hamas in a way not to hurt innocent Palestinians and I’ll pass it along.”

Graham said that Hamas allegedly embedding among civilian life in Gaza has dampened Israel’s ability to protect innocent lives. “The reason so many Palestinians are dying, I think, is because Hamas wants them to die,” Graham said. “If you have ideas about lessening civilian casualties, let me know, I’ll tell Israel. But the idea of Hamas still standing when this is over would be the ultimate strategic failure.”

CNN anchor Dana Bash further pressed Graham, asking him if he agreed with Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that too many Palestinians have died. The indignant senator demurred.

I’ve always been fiercely against Home Schooling, which is another Republican pet project. This story will trigger the heck out of you, so tread gently. It’s from the Washington Post. “What homeschooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmom. Roman Lopez was 11 when he went missing. His years of torment were concealed by homeschooling.”

NHis family had searched, taping hand-drawn “missing” posters to telephone poles and driving the streets calling out the 11-year-old’s name. So had many of his neighbors, their flashlights sweeping over the sidewalks as the winter darkness settled on the Sierra Nevada foothills. The police were searching, too, and now they had returned to the place where Roman had gone missing earlier that day: his family’s rented home in Placerville, Calif. Roman’s stepmother, Lindsay Piper, hesitated when officers showed up at her door the night of Jan. 11, 2020, asking to comb the house again. But she had told them that Roman liked to hide in odd places — even the clothes dryer — and agreed to let them in.

Brock Garvin, Roman’s 15-year-old stepbrother, was sitting in the dimly lit basement when police came downstairs shortly after 10:30 p.m. He ignored them, he said later, watching “Supernatural” on television as three officers began inspecting the black-and-yellow Home Depot storage bins stacked along the back wall.

Brock had no idea what had happened to Roman. But he did know something the police did not: Much of what his mother had said to them that day was a lie.

When she reported Roman’s disappearance, Piper told the police she was home schooling the eight kids in her household. This was technically true. It was also a ruse.

Most schools have teachers, principals, guidance counselors — professionals trained to recognize the unexplained bruises or erratic behaviors that may point to an abusive parent. Home education was an easy way to avoid the scrutiny of such people. That was the case for Piper, whose children were learning less from her about math and history than they were about violence, cruelty and neglect.

There’s something deeply wrong with us when one party in a two-party system is more interested in billionaires and power than the humanity and needs of their constituents. Like Liz says, Vote them out.

What is on your reading and blogging list today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rbgp7TMDAM

Padded with power, here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market-hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor
Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
Sinister, cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
Idolatry of ideology
North, south, east, west
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies, shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

by Bruce Cockburn