Thursday Reads: I read the News today, Oh Boy

John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Is it just me, or do all news outlets have headlines that seem more appropriate for tabloids lately?  I’m old enough to remember the late Fanne Fox, the stripper known as “the Argentine Firecracker” who brought down Representative Wilbur Mills in the 70s.  I also remember toe-tapping Larry Craig and his adventure in the Minneapolis Airport back in 2007.  Remember Mark Foley and the Senate Page Scandal in 2005?  Oh, and then there was my Congressman Bill Jefferson and his refrigerated money from Nigeria in his refrigerator. These scandals were shocking in their days but are quaint compared to what we’ve got going on today.

Most of these folks would just not run for re-election and check themselves into some place to be rehabbed for alcohol abuse. None of them even have the slightest bit of shame today.   HBO is already making a George Santos movie.  At least The Hill is calling him a ‘disgraced politician.’

HBO is reportedly set to produce a movie about Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who was just expelled from Congress after a damning ethics report.

Deadline reported on Monday that the network has optioned the rights to author Mark Chiusano’s new book on the disgraced politician.

Chiusano’s book, “The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos,” was published last week.

Former “Veep” and “Succession” producer Frank Rich and Mike Makowsky, writer-producer of HBO award-winning film “Bad Education,” will executive produce the Santos’ film project with Chiusano serving as a consulting producer, per Deadline.

The unnamed film, now under development, will focus on the meteoric rise of Santos, who won his state’s 3rd Congressional District in last November’s midterm elections. Santos became a national name after damning reports that he invented much of his biography, followed by criminal charges of financial fraud.

John Buss @repeat1968

I guess I wasn’t surprised that Santos was supported by Republican Leadership and most of the caucus during the vote to expel him.  Holding power was even more important to them than being hypocritical in their positions on their GLBTQ+ policies and hatred of Drag Queens.  However, we have had record-setting censures coming out of there, including this one for Rep. James Bowman of New York.  This is reported by NBC News. “House censures Rep. Jamaal Bowman for pulling fire alarm. Bowman admitted to activating the alarm in September as Republican lawmakers sought to vote on a government funding measure, but said it was a mistake he made while in a rush to open a door.”

The House voted Thursday to censure Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., for pulling a fire alarm in a congressional building while the chamber was in session in September to consider a vote to fund the government.

The 214 to 191 vote was largely along party lines, with Democratic Reps. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Jahana Hays of Connecticut and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington joining all other Republicans in voting yes.

Democratic Reps. Glenn Ivey of Maryland, Susan Wild and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Deborah Ross of North Carolina and Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland voted present.

Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., on Tuesday introduced the privileged resolution to censure Bowman, giving the House two legislative days to act on it. The House voted down a Democratic motion Wednesday to kill McClain’s resolution in a party-line vote of 201 to 216.

Bowman admitted to pulling the alarm in the Cannon House Office Building in September as Republican lawmakers sought to vote on the spending measure. He said in a statement after the incident that he accidentally activated the alarm after he came across a door that was typically open for votes, but would not open that day.

Bowman pleaded guilty in October to one count of falsely pulling a fire alarm. Under a deferred prosecution agreement, he was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and write an apology to the U.S. Capitol Police chief, after which prosecutors would dismiss the charge pending no further violations of the law.

Oh!  The Humanity!

The retiring, short-lived Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has achieved this headline today from the L.A. Times. “Kevin McCarthy uses PAC to lavish cash on high-end resorts, private jets and fine dining.” His inspiration must be Associate Justice Uncle Tom Clarence.

Rambling above the rust-colored cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Terranea Resort is known for its ocean views, world-ranked spa and villas that can command $3,000 a night or more.

The property is less well known as a gathering spot for federal elected officials and the campaign donors they wine and dine.

But one politician was very familiar with the luxurious resort: former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In 2 ½ years, the Bakersfield Republican’s election committees dropped nearly a quarter of a million dollars at Terranea, with most of the money coming from a thinly regulated leadership PAC, a Times investigation has found.

As he exits Congress two months after his historic ouster as speaker, political obituaries tout McCarthy’s skills as a prolific fundraiser on behalf of Republican candidates. Also setting him apart from other congressional leaders was his roughly decade-long pattern of using his Majority Committee PAC to spend lavishly on hotels, private jets and fine dining establishments, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance records on file with the Federal Election Commission.

From 2012 through last June, McCarthy’s PAC shelled out more than $1 million on hotels, private air travel and eateries, the FEC records show. That’s more than double the combined total spent by the leadership PACs of the seven other lawmakers who’ve held the top House and Senate positions for their parties during all or part of that period, according to the Times analysis..

Now we get a pantomime impeachment while we’re too broke supposedly to back up Ukraine’s defenses against Russia. This is rumored to be a way to take the heat off of Orange Caligula and his incredible number of indictments.  This accompanies the Hunter Biden saga run by Gymbo Jordan. This is from The Hill.  “House GOP releases Biden impeachment inquiry resolution ahead of planned vote.”

The House GOP released a resolution Thursday to formalize its months-long impeachment inquiry into President Biden, with a full House vote planned for next week.

The resolution authorizing the inquiry — released months after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared an impeachment inquiry to be underway in September — comes as a trio of committee leaders overseeing the probes enter a more combative phase of their investigation as they try to wrangle witnesses and documents.

It says the panels are “directed to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Joseph Biden.”

A markup of the resolution is scheduled for Tuesday.

Republicans hope that formally authorizing the inquiry will put more legal weight behind the probe and their ability to compel evidence, particularly if any of those battles end up in court.

While responding to subpoenas and interview requests in November, the White House had argued that the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry was unconstitutional because it had not been formalized with a vote of the whole House.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters this week that while the GOP disagreed with that assessment, the White House letter helped push the House GOP to formalize the inquiry.

Just a reminder here.  Jim Jordan is still in contempt of Congress for ignoring a congressional subpoena while asking for one for Hunter Biden.

The threat from House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer  (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) comes as the legal counsel for the president’s son, Abbe Lowell, has said that Biden is willing to sit for a public hearing but not for the private questioning.

“Contrary to the assertions in your letter, there is no ‘choice’ for Mr. Biden to make; the subpoenas compel him to appear for a deposition on December 13. If Mr. Biden does not appear for his deposition on December 13, 2023, the Committees will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” Comer and Jordan wrote to Lowell on Wednesday.

The letter represents an escalation of the battle between the House GOP and Biden as Comer and Jordan speed into the final stages of a multi-pronged impeachment inquiry probe into President Biden, which they aim to formalize with a vote next week.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, took a swipe at the House GOP threat by referencing Jordan’s refusal to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 Select Committee in the last Democratic-controlled Congress — another panel that Raskin sat on.

“Hunter Biden will answer questions under oath in front of the world—but unless he testifies in secret so he can be misquoted, @RepJamesComer will hold him in contempt? What a joke. Jim Jordan blew off HIS subpoena. Comer doesn’t want the truth—and can’t handle it,” Raskin said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Here’s another totally normal thing, right?

Charles Pierce shreds Johnson at Esquire. Constitutional separation of Church and State, anyone?

There is absolutely nothing crazy about this. No, sir. Perfectly normal behavior for a leader in a secular democratic republic. Completely grounded in sanity, especially coming from the guy a couple of offices short of being the president of the United States. I feel confident in saying this. From Right Wing Watch:

Johnson began his remarks by claiming that weeks before he became House Speaker, God began preparing him to lead the nation through “a Red Sea moment.” Johnson said he didn’t know what that meant at the time, but assumed it meant that he was to serve as an Aaron to someone else’s Moses. But, it turned out, God intended for him to be that Moses. “The Lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur,” Johnson said. “And the Lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare, but to wait.”

“I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and in the county at large,” he continued. “[God] had been speaking to me about this, and the Lord told me very clearly to prepare and be ready.” Johnson said that once Rep. Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the House, God began to wake him up in the middle of the night “to speak to me, [telling me] to write things down; plans, procedures, and ideas on how we could pull the [Republican] conference together.”

“At the time, I assumed the Lord was going to choose a new Moses and thank you, Lord, you’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses,” Johnson declared. As one candidate after another stepped forward to run for Speaker but failed, Johnson said that “the Lord kept telling me to wait” but “then at the end, when it toward the end, the Lord said, ‘Now, step forward. Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron,” Johnson said. “No. The Lord said, ‘Step forward.’”

The Speaker of the House of Representatives believes he was in contact with the Eternal, who has taken what I consider an unhealthy interest in the doings of the Republican majority. I mean, what could the Almighty have against Kevin McCarthy? The Lord told Mike Johnson to be…Moses? Does that mean that the Republicans now will wander 40 years in the wilderness? (We can only hope.) Does that mean that, one day, Johnson will strike Matt Gaetz on the head and water will spring forth? What’s manna going for in the House cafeteria these days?

Mike needs to check himself into a mental hospital if he’s really hearing voices.  And resign.  If he really wants to be old-fashioned, he’d do that. But, back to Gymbo.

That’s some real overreach.  This is from CNN.  The thing that makes it even more outrageous is that these folks act like the country has cash to burn when they want to put on a performance for Dumpf. “House Judiciary Committee launches inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.”

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has opened a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a development that was first reported by CNN and comes the same day Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

The committee sent a letter to Willis on Thursday asking whether she communicated or coordinated with the Justice Department, who has indicted Trump twice on two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump. The questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York earlier this year for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

In the letter to Willis, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, laid out why he believes his panel has jurisdiction over the state-level probe and accused Willis of being politically motivated, noting she set up a new campaign fundraising website days before the indictment came down and complained that she required mugshots for those charged – including Trump – which had not been the practice in his previous three indictments.

“You did not bring charges until two-and-a-half years later, at a time when the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is in full swing,” Jordan wrote. “Moreover, you have requested that the trial in this matter begin on March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday and eight days before the Georgia presidential primary.”

Jordan gave Willis a September 7 deadline to hand over any documents or communication related to their request.

The Fulton County DA’s office declined to comment. But Willis has previously denied that she coordinated with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and has consistently defended her investigation against accusations that it was politically motivated.

Here’s another reminder of Gymbo’s moral turpitude from The Guardian back in October.  “Ex-Ohio State wrestlers say Jim Jordan unfit for speakership for ignoring sexual abuse scandal.  Former athletes say Jordan, as assistant coach, ignored sexual abuse at university and ‘does not deserve to be House speaker’.”  Shouldn’t he resign and go into rehab?

Let’s not leave DeSantis off the crazy train list. This is from NBC. “At the GOP debate, Ron DeSantis calls Middle Eastern garb ‘man dresses’.”  What does it take to get rid of all this prejudice against Jewish and Muslim adherent? I really don’t want to go into the debate but the entire thing was a crazy train.

During the fourth Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, citing his time serving in the Middle East, referred to the clothing worn by Al Qaeda as “man dresses.”

DeSantis was answering a question at the debate, hosted by NewsNation, about his past remarks that he’d authorize shooting drug smugglers coming across the southern border.

“When I was in Iraq, the Al Qaeda wasn’t wearing a uniform. You’d see anyone walking down the street, they all had man dresses on. You didn’t know if they had a bomb, an IED, attached or not,” DeSantis said.

It wasn’t the first time DeSantis has used the term “man dresses” in an apparent reference to a thobe. He has used the term on the stump, including in Iowa and South Carolina.

The Florida governor has come under fire in the past for his comments about Muslims.

Let me end with signs of sanity coming from the Judicial Branch.

This is written by Hugo Lowell for  The Guardian. “Georgia prosecutors predict jail sentences in Trump 2020 election case.”

Fulton county prosecutors have signaled they want prison sentences in the Georgia criminal case against Donald Trump and his top allies for allegedly violating the racketeering statute as part of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to exchanges in private emails.

“We have a long road ahead,” the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, wrote in one email last month. “Long after these folks are in jail, we will still be practicing law.”

The previously unreported emails, between Willis and defense lawyers, open a window on to the endgame envisioned by prosecutors on her team – which could inform legal strategies ahead of a potential trial next year, such as approaches toward plea deal negotiations.

Prosecutors are not presently expected to offer plea agreements to Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his former election lawyer Rudy Giuliani, but left open the possibility of talks with other co-defendants, the Guardian previously reported.

This is from Daniella Silva at NBC News. “Texas judge grants pregnant woman’s request to get an abortion. A Dallas-area mother found out that her fetus has trisomy 18, a genetic condition that can cause stillbirth or death of a newborn. The court order allows her to end the pregnancy.” This hit home hard with me having lived through a high risk pregnancy along with my youngest daughter’s experience in October.  Can you imagine the added trauma of asking a judge for urgent healthcare?

A Texas judge on Thursday granted an emergency order allowing a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis to get an abortion in the state.

Late last month, Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas-area mother of two who is about 20 weeks pregnant, found out that her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a rare chromosomal disorder likely to cause stillbirth or the death of the baby shortly after it’s born.

Texas law prohibits almost all abortions with very limited exceptions. So on behalf of Cox, her husband and her doctor, lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a request for a temporary restraining order that would block the state’s abortion bans in Cox’s case and enable her to terminate her pregnancy.

Joyce Vance had this insight in her SubStack Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance. “What Jack Smith Says  —  The Special Counsel files his 404(b) notice.”

Jack Smith has filed his 404(b) notice, advising the Court and Trump of other crimes and bad acts committed by Trump that he intends to offer as evidence when the D.C. election interference case goes to trial. The notice is nine pages long, you can read the whole thing here. It contains a tremendous amount of new information about the case Smith intends to make against Trump. This is the best window we’ve had in on his strategy since the four count indictment was unsealed in August.

Smith starts about by advising the court that he intends to provide it with “extensive advance notice” of the evidence he’s going to introduce at trial in pleadings, including exhibit and witness lists, pre-trial motions, and his trial brief (a detailed layout prosecutors file in advance of trial discussing their evidence and issues they believe might come up during the trial). This is good news for all of us—it means we’ll have access to much if not all of this information as well.

You’ll recall that in “The Week Ahead” we took a look at Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), which required Smith to file this notice. This rule tells prosecutors they can’t offer evidence that a defendant committed bad acts or crimes beyond what’s charged in the indictment to try and show that the defendant has a propensity to commit crimes, that he’s a bad guy. But the rule permits prosecutors to use the evidence for other purposes. Jack Smith tells the court that all of the evidence he’s going to introduce at trial is “intrinsic to the charged crimes”—in other words, admissible without the need to resort to Rule 404(b) because it’s part of the conduct Trump is charged with in the indictment. But, hedging his bets, Smith advises the court that in the alternative, any evidence the court might deem “extrinsic” is still admissible under 404(b) to prove “motive, intent, preparation, knowledge, absence of mistake, and common plan.”

This is important. As much as getting the case to trial and getting a conviction matters in the first instance, making sure that conviction gets affirmed on appeal is paramount in the larger scheme of things. So prosecutors like to have multiple independent arguments to justify a ruling by the appellate court that what happened at trial was proper.

Smith sets that up here, and the judge, who has broad discretion to determine what evidence is admissible at trial, will put on the record whether she is admitting evidence as intrinsic, extrinsic under 404(b), or as Smith suggests, admissible as both. Good judges make a clear record for the court of appeals to consider, and Chutkan has shown she is very good at doing this, most recently as she ruled against Trump on his presidential immunity motion.

So, that’s enough for today.  My posts keep getting longer and longer!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?