Mostly Monday Reads: Woke meets Panem et Circenses

Posted: February 10, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: "presidential immunity", racism in MAGA, superbowl 2025 | Tags: , , , , | 9 Comments

“Deleted earlier versions of this, as I found an error that surely would have upset AI bots. Let this one rip!” John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Wipipo are very confused by the Super Bowl halftime and complaining that it had no music. I still laugh at the fact that they think everything is all about them.  I didn’t watch any of it until the clips were available, but wow, the hassle and occupation down here were well worth the halftime performance. That is, if you weren’t one of the poor homeless folks who got sent to a broken-down warehouse in Gentilly. If you really want the opposite version of what really happened, it’s all over FARTUS’ social media.  That’s even more deluded than the MAGA cult themselves. It’s a Black History Month, for the records!

I have always loved to hear anything that Jon Baptiste does, but his rendition of the National Anthem made me actually enjoy listening to the song itself.  Who couldn’t love Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam?  Evidently, a whole bunch of whiny wipipo who want everything to look just like them, like their version of a supreme being, always does, no matter what the evidence or history suggests. This is from the New Republic. “MAGA Has Total Meltdown Over Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. The right is freaking out over a Super Bowl halftime show rife with American imagery.”This is written by Malcolm Ferguson.

Kendrick Lamar’s very normal Super Bowl halftime show had the MAGA faithful pearl-clutching and conspiracy theorizing.

The iconic Pulitzer Prize and 22-time Grammy winner livened up an otherwise uncompetitive game with a classic performance that centered hip-hop and Black American culture—and featured the likes of Samuel L. Jackson (dressed in American flag garb as Uncle Sam), Serena Williams, and SZA. It only makes sense that right-wingers hated everything about it.

“The halftime show you just watched is clearly the regime’s response to Trump’s historic gains with black men,” shamed former Representative Matt Gaetz wrote on X, even though Lamar was announced as the halftime show performer months before Election Day.

“Raise your hand if you survived the black nationalist Super Bowl LIX halftime show,” right-wing commentator Eric Daugherty wrote on X, even as Lamar’s stage and costume designs were rife with American flag imagery.

“Hey NFL, Trump won. We no longer let talentless mumbling pagan satanic cultists do halftime shows and pretend like people like it,” MAGA media shill Benny Johnson said. “Thanks, everyone.”

In reality, the halftime show was fine, and Kendrick Lamar is an excellent rapper. These people took issue with the show because it didn’t fit into their narrow “post-woke” vision of America—but neither does a very large chunk of this country. This isn’t the first time Kendrick Lamar has performed at the Super Bowl, and it isn’t the first time Blackness has been a major theme of the show. And yet MAGA continues to cry about it.

Let me pull some comments from my local station, WDSU.  “Kendrick Lamar Brought a GNX to His Super Bowl Halftime Show.” The Louisiana outback and Scalise burbs were restless.

A very special car made an appearance during the Super Bowl halftime show performance on Sunday night.

Kendrick Lamar’s most recent album is named after the most famous car, released in his birth year, 1987, and the sister car to the Buick Regal that his father brought him home from the hospital. Thus, it’s no surprise that he entered the Super Bowl for his halftime performance in a GNX.

The GNX becomes the symbol of a victory lap for Lamar, who won five Grammys last week for a diss track written in his ongoing battle with Canadian rapper Drake.

Now Kendrick sits atop one of the most American cars in history at America’s biggest sporting event.

That seems harmless enough. Right?  Not to these folks!

  • Joe Delatte  “WORST OF THE WORST EVER.”
  • Tanya Marie Lawson  “All I needed to know was how to change to another channel. It’s supposed to be entertainment…not political or an opportunity to attack your rival.”

(Evidently, Tanya sees an imaginary opponent of black culture and music in there that no one else saw.)

(Debbie, Debbie, Debbie!  Everything is always about Debbie but who knows how to pronounce those last names of her’s anyway?

  • Kevin Romano Sr Isn’t that beef in rap music how a lot of them get assassinated.
  • Adam Dawson
    It was filled with dis tracks against the rapper Drake, subliminal racism, and political innuendo, made to look like the main performers life was a video game.
    It’s sad that a teenager pointed this out to me.
    I spent time looking this up, hoping the teenager was wrong.
    The main performer sounded very monotone.
    Very poor performance. It didn’t need to be a Louisiana artist, but more family friendly and without the dis tracks, subliminal racism, and political innuendo, would have been nice.
    Weird AL Yankovic would have given a better halftime show.
    The NFL audience spans all political and ethnic backgrounds of America and the world.

(Adam had to white-mansplain everything to us! How else would we know that white men are the real victims of racism!)

For more racist takes, follow the link!  Or better yet, follow FARTUS! He spoiled the event for all sides of the fee fees.  From Lipstick Alley: ” Trump throws tantrum and leaves Superbowl early after his favorite team gets humiliated, cries salty tears that The Superbowl is ruined.”

The run up to the Superbowl was dominated by news that Donald Trump and his hangers on would make an appearance, the first for a sitting President.
Trump arrived at the stadium with Daughter – Wife Ivanka and took to the field with a mix of cheers and Boos.
Trump wandered the field as if dazed and confused but he had initially praised and predicted a Kansas City Chiefs win.
Trump is enamored with the Chiefs who were clearly the MAGA white choice especially with MAGA Mahomes and his hillbilly family being big Trump supporters.
The Philadelphia Eagles did not come to play, they came to slay and scalped the Chiefs early on, eventually winning 40-22.
Trump was not having it and got up and left after 10 mins of the second half or maybe the half time show was just too Black.
Strange that Hitler did the same thing when Jesse Owens dominated the 1936 Olympics.

Trump’s tweets today, as well as his behavior at the game, were total lessons in how to be a jerk. He was booed. However, you’d never know it if you listened to him.  He and Taylor Swift were booed by the Eagles fans.  Taylor used to be an Eagles fan. You can speculate on the other.  Here’s an interesting take from the rag The Mirror US. “Sore loser Donald Trump lashes out at Taylor Swift after fleeing Super Bowl. Donald Trump has continued his feud with Taylor Swift by sharing a video of the pop star being booed at the Super Bowl, while he was cheered by fans at the same event.”

Donald Trump couldn’t resist a swipe at Taylor Swift following the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl defeat, taking jabs even as he departed the event early. The current President hopped onto his social media haven Truth Social, posting while en route back to Florida aboard what was likely Air Force One: “The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift. She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving! ”

On his platform, Trump uploaded several clips including glimpses of himself amid celebratory fans and another clip purportedly capturing jeers as Swift and Ice Spice appeared on the stadium’s Skycam.

His contentious post, left without commentary, fired up discussions—was Trump implying that the crowd’s applause was for him and jeers for Swift, or were the reactions intertwined at the moment? Videos circulating don’t clarify whether the President received cheers, or simply joined in on crowd acclaim.

Former first Lady and Grandson definitely were given cheers. However, the stories are still being spun as I type. The worst thing is the entire focus on these things and not the impact on New Orleans.  You may read about a lot of it in my post here.

The panem et circenses in New Orleans look and feel like a military takeover. We've been #occupied. http://www.facebook.com/reel/5999453… No one can cross Canal Street without a search. They've thrown the homeless in an overpriced warehouse dump. There are military helicopters overhead and bomb dogs

— Kat Huff aka Dakinikat (@dakinikat.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T21:44:26.415Z

Trump says he has directed the Treasury to stop minting new pennies due to cost. No mention of his $15 million Super Bowl trip or his almost daily $3 million golf excursions.

— Molly Ploofkins (@mollyploofkins.bsky.social) 2025-02-10T16:25:48.791Z

I am waiting to see the actual economic impact on the city because up until Friday night, the military and police definitely had a bigger presence than tourists.  I’m hoping my friends finally made some money to tide them over until the Big Mardi Gras Parades startup.

So, let me pop a few reads up about the Muskanator and his gang of adolescent droogies. There are a lot of lawsuits going on, that’s for certain. This is from Public Notice‘s Lisa Needham. “Trump and his lawyers embrace the logic of dictatorship. And they’re not even trying to hide it at this point.”

Donald Trump is busy seizing power through executive orders and letting Elon Musk and his gang of racist DOGE bros run amok through America’s government agencies. It’s an unprecedented upending of the separation of powers, an authoritarian reshaping of America.

While Trump and his henchmen deconstruct the administrative state, his lawyers are embracing the logic of dictatorship. The core argument emerging in their legal filings and executive orders — one without support anywhere in the Constitution or the law — is that simply by being elected, Trump has the power to do whatever he wants.

The issue is not the use of executive orders as such. The authority to issue them comes from Article II of the Constitution, which vests executive power in the president and requires him to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Executive orders are meant to tell the executive branch how to implement existing laws. However, in part because Congress is now so routinely deadlocked, every president in the 21st century has issued scores of them that attempt to implement policies outside of the legislative process.

But executive orders aren’t laws, and the authority of presidents to issue them is not absolute. They can’t contradict or overturn existing statutes. Subsequent presidents can undo executive orders just by issuing a new executive order saying so. And federal courts have routinely struck down EOs for being unconstitutional or for exceeding the scope of the president’s authority.

When executive orders are challenged in court, government attorneys typically point to the underlying laws that give the president the authority to issue the order. Trump seems to have dispensed with that requirement, however.

Trump’s imperial ambitions have made for some laughably thin legal theories. As Just Security noted, the government’s argument in defense of Trump’s birthright citizenship EO does not reference any citizenship statutes nor point to any authority that would give Trump the right to undo birthright citizenship via the stroke of a pen. Instead, after quoting the relevant part of the Fourteenth Amendment — ”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” — the EO just goes on to state that it “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”

The problem for Trump is that the Fourteenth Amendment has absolutely historically been interpreted to do just that. The EO attempts to say that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are magic words that have always excluded people whose parents were not citizens when they were born, but that’s nothing but a recent crackpot theory from election denier attorney John Eastman.

This is from Bloomberg. “DOGE-Backed Halt at CFPB Comes Amid Musk’s Plans for ‘X’ Digital Wallet.  Government-efficiency team’s initial ‘read-only’ access expanded quickly to encompass closely guarded data, internal emails say.”  This is reported by  Jason Leopold and Evan Weinberger.  I told you they were trying to tank the dollar and replace it with their cryptocurrency grift.

In another weekend takeover of a federal agency’s operations, staffers from an efficiency initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk helped to effectively shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — as they gained access to an array of the bureau’s protected information.

The actions began last Thursday, when four young staffers working under Musk for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, showed up at CFPB’s Washington headquarters. At first, they had what was described as read-only access to a limited array of documents, including the agency’s internal personnel files, procurement records and budgeting and financial data, according to an email shared among CFPB officials.

Then, late Friday night, the DOGE staffers were granted access to all the CFPB’s data systems, including sensitive bank examination and enforcement records, according to five people familiar with the matter and emails seen by Bloomberg News. The people asked not to be identified, citing concerns over potential retribution. By Sunday, the agency was a skeleton, with its funding limited and activities suspended.

Musk, whose social-media platform X has recently begun firming up plans to enter the online payments industry, had already predicted the demise of the consumer-watchdog agency. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The weekend’s events came after Russell Vought, who heads the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, ordered wider access for DOGE, according to an email to CFPB officials that was seen by Bloomberg. Vought sent the email Friday evening, about 90 minutes before news broke that he’d also been named acting director of the financial-enforcement agency.

Vought is an architect of the Heritage Foundation’s influential and controversial government-overhaul plan called Project 2025, which appears to have guided DOGE’s attempts to dismantle portions of the federal bureaucracy. Earlier this month, the team played a key role in the administration’s effort to shut down the US Agency for International Development, another longstanding conservative bête noire.

Bloomberg News sought comment from Musk, Vought, the DOGE team members and the White House. None responded.

It just gets worse, and there’s no accountability because the Republicans have gone all squishy.  And as usual, women and minorities are being deleted from American History and the recognition they deserve. This is from Popular Information and is written by Jude Legum and Rebecca Crosby. “The NSA’s “Big Delete'”

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a “Big Delete” of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including “privilege,” “bias,” and “inclusion.” The “Big Delete,” according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences. Although the websites and other content are purportedly being deleted to comply with President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or “DEI,” the dragnet is taking down “mission-related” work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is “very chaotic,” but is plowing ahead anyway.

A memo distributed by NSA leadership to its staff says that on February 10, all NSA websites and internal network pages that contain banned words will be deleted. This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:

Anti-Racism
Racism
Allyship
Bias
DEI
Diversity
Diverse
Confirmation Bias
Equity
Equitableness
Feminism
Gender
Gender Identity
Inclusion
Inclusive
All-Inclusive
Inclusivity
Injustice
Intersectionality
Prejudice
Privilege
Racial Identity
Sexuality
Stereotypes
Pronouns
Transgender
Equality

The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term “privilege” is used by the NSA in the context of “privilege escalation.” In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to “techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.”

The purge extends beyond public-facing websites to pages on the NSA’s internal network, including project management software like Jira and Confluence.

I am really not sure I can take much more of this.

Anyway, I’d like to thank JJ for filling in for me with my various hospital appointments and the time I spent with Keely as she exited the Earthly Door. It has been a rough few weeks. Actually, this entire year has sucked big time.

I hope the courts stand firm and we figure out what to do if FARTUS ignores them.  Perhaps there are a few good men and women left in the Republican part of Congress.  I certainly hope that there are a few appointees to SCOTUS that do not want the country to go down in flames.

Take care y’all!

Be safe!

Finally Friday Reads: October Surprises and Weenie Roasts!

Posted: October 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Abusive Relationships | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“Of course.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The new theme in the media these days is how to do a political outreach to misunderstood young men. I’m not exactly sure why they think young men–and, of course, they tend to favor the vanilla flavor–are so disenfranchised and depressed about facing competition in markets for jobs, houses, and social relationships. The media is obsessed with the outreach campaign to get these downward-facing dudes to get out and vote for the guy who was handed everything. Perhaps they need a lesson that women have had it with toxic masculinity. But, everything in the DonOld world is wrong-side up. I feel like I’m just watching endless reruns of men with Daddy issues.

It’s been a relief not to experience Tucker Carlson and his continual cosplay to be less of a bottom broadcasted all over the media. I was horrified by his latest performance, which I saw far too many times on TV news last night.  Today, it’s got print media. This is from The Guardian. “Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about Daddy Donald Trump spanking teenage girls. The former Fox host once said he hated the ex-president. Now his display of serious daddy issues is striking a terrifying chord.” The story is written by Arwa Mahdawi. I will say it was more comically horrifying in video format.

Welcome to another normal day in Magaland. The sun is shining, the leaves are falling, and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about “daddy” Donald Trump spanking teenage girls.

This fresh hell comes via Duluth, Georgia, where Carlson was warming up a Trump rally on Wednesday night. Which is notable in itself because Carlson hasn’t always been a big fan of the former president. Last year a bunch of Carlson’s private text messages were made public as part of the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems and they made his real feelings about Trump very clear.

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted an undisclosed recipient on 4 January 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” He added: “I hate him passionately.”

Rather than ignoring Trump, as he was once so excited to do, however, Carlson – who was booted from Fox News last year – seems to have become a confidant of the ex-president and is now making disturbing speeches on his behalf. During the rally Carlson, who has three adult daughters, compared the US under Trump to a naughty girl being disciplined by her father. “If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

Believe me, as someone who has taught middle school and high school kids as well as young college freshmen, there’s a lot more worrying to be done about hormone-addled boys than girls just slamming the door on their uncool parents. I also have two daughters, and I was relieved they were girls when they were born.  I’m sure I can get some witnesses here. The Carlson rant, along with its response, shows this sick side of America’s misogyny,

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman, declared the speech “fucking weird”. And for a lot of people, it certainly was. But for Trump’s cult-like supporters, Carlson’s spanking fantasy encapsulates everything they love about the presidential candidate: the paternalism, the toxic masculinity, the lust for violence and thirst for revenge.

Meanwhile, Daddy Don’s former employees continue to open up about how truly awful he would be if he got back in. General Kelly’s interview has created quite a stir, and other staff members are joining the chorus to out the fascist. Praising Hitler should be an automatic disqualification for anyone seeking office in this country.  As I say always and forever,  my Daddy, who was the sweetest man I’ve ever known, bombed NAZIs.  My Dad enlisted.  He was neither a sucker nor a loser and would talk about his service all the time in his golden years. I remain forever proud to be his daughter.

This is from NBC News.  “13 former Trump administration officials sign open letter backing up John Kelly’s criticism of Trump. Kelly told the New York Times that Trump meets the definition of a fascist and also said he observed the former president on multiple occasions praising Adolf Hitler.”

Thirteen former Trump White House officials signed an open letter backing up former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, who told the New York Times that Trump fits the definition of a fascist.

“We applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term. Like General Kelly, we did not take the decision to come forward lightly,” the letter said. “We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.”

Politico was first to report on the letter.

The letter, released by the Harris campaign, is signed by former officials including former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, and Olivia Troye, former national security adviser to Mike Pence. All three former Trump administration officials have become high-profile critics of his after his presidency ended.

Troye and Grisham spoke at the Democratic National Convention this year. Troye was also one of the signatories of a letter in August from over 200 Republican officials backing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

In his interview with the Times, released Tuesday, Kelly also said he observed Trump on multiple occasions praising Adolf Hitler. His comments came on the same day the Atlantic reported that Trump said he wished he had generals like Hitler.

In their letter, the former Trump officials said Kelly’s claims were “disturbing and shocking.” They added that “because we know Trump and have worked for and alongside him, we were sadly not surprised by what General Kelly had to say. This is who Donald Trump is.”

He continually has shown us who he is when he insults service members and our fallen soldiers, when he talks gleefully about pussy grabby, when he shows preferences for ruthless dictators over our democratic allies who have repeatedly stood beside us in our fight for freedom, and when he is so addled he speaks gibberish.  An ABC Poll shows that “Half of Americans see Donald Trump as a fascist: POLL. Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often departs from the truth, the poll found.”  Why do we still have to deal with him?  He should be in jail already!

Half the country sees former President Donald Trump as a fascist, amplifying concerns raised in recent days by Vice President Kamala Harris and past members of Trump’s own administration. Far fewer in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll level the same charge against Harris.

Nearly two-thirds also say Trump often departs from the truth, again more than say so about Harris. But Harris gets more criticism than Trump for pandering for votes by promoting policies she doesn’t intend to carry out — underscoring challenges for both candidates as the fur flies in their increasingly heated presidential race.

Responding to one of the more incendiary salvos, 49% of registered voters in the national survey say Trump is a fascist, defined as “a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.” Fewer than half as many, 22%, see Harris as a fascist by this definition.

Harris on Wednesday said Trump is a fascist, a week after agreeing with an interviewer that his campaign is “about fascism.” A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former chief of staff to Trump and a former defense secretary in his administration have been quoted recently also as describing Trump as a fascist, and the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden thinks so, too. Trump, for his part, repeatedly has called Harris a fascist, as well as a Marxist and a communist.

I completely agree with Eugene Robinson on this.  Here’s his Op-Ed at the Washington Post.  “The double standard for Harris and Trump has reached a breaking point. One candidate can rant about gibberish while the other has to be perfect.”

Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”

Seriously? Much of a double standard here?

Somehow, it is apparently baked into this campaign that Trump is allowed to talk and act like a complete lunatic while Harris has to be perfect in every way. I don’t know the answer to the chicken-or-egg question — whether media coverage is leading public perception or vice versa — but the disparate treatment is glaring.

…

Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.

Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.

Imagine if Harris were promising to end the war in Gaza on her first day in office but wouldn’t say how. Imagine if she were proposing a tariffs-based economic plan that economists say would destabilize the world economy and cost the average family $4,000 a year in higher prices. Imagine if she were promising a “bloody” campaign to uproot and deport millions of undocumented migrants who are gainfully employed and paying taxes. And imagine if Harris were vowing to use the military to go after her political opponents, as Trump repeatedly pledges

Meanwhile, these headlines are just plain fucking disturbing.   First, there’s this one from David Folkenflik, writing for NPR. “‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for the first time since the 1980s.”

Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains neck and neck, The Washington Post editorial page has decided not to make a presidential endorsement

That came over this news yesterday about the LA Times.  This is from The Wrap. “2 More LA Times Editorial Writers Quit Over ‘Chickens–t’ Owner’s Block of Kamala Harris Endorsement | Exclusive. Karin Klein and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene follow editorial editor Mariel Garza, who resigned Wednesday.”  It’s obvious that rich, old men own these papers and prefer tax cuts over anything else. I just hope every woman of voting age takes the amount of rage that I have to the voting booth, drags every one of her friends with her, and pulls the lever for Kamala and Tim.

The Los Angeles Times has lost two more longtime editorial writers, the latest in a growing exodus to protest owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s interference with the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, TheWrap can exclusively report.

On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene both quit; their exits come just one day after Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday.

Greene has not yet spoken publicly about his exit, but in a statement posted to a private forum that was subsequently shared with TheWrap, Klein laid her reasons for quitting.

Channeling Harris’ campaign slogan “we’re not going back,” Klein called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—” who threw the editorial team “under the bus,” and argued, essentially, that the decision to stop the endorsement was itself an endorsement of sorts for Harris’ opponent, Donald Trump.

Soon-Shiong, Klein wrote, has as owner the “right to interfere with editorials; that is the one place where he can ethically do so.” But, by shooting down this particular editorial, she said he had actually created one of his own. “A wordless one, a make-believe-invisible one that unfairly implies that [Harris] has grievous faults that somehow put her on a level with Donald Trump.”

In fact, she argued, the timing itself can only be seen as a direct attack on the Democratic candidate “that hits just at the time when she cannot afford hits.”

Klein also specifically called out Soon-Shiong’s dissembling statement Wednesday night that attempted to blame the editorial board itself for the debacle, while at the same time effectively confirming he had indeed blocked the endorsement.

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Soon-Shiong wrote that “the editorial board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the positive and negative policies by each candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”

This is from the Commonwealth Times of Virginia. “Black women, Kamala Harris face a double standard.”It is written by Julianna Brown.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is known for her prominence in politics, not only as the country’s first Black female vice president, but also for her service as a California senator. Despite her years of experience, she still faces judgment based on aspects of her identity that do not correspond to her career.

Kamala identifies deeply with her Black heritage as half-Jamaican and still faces crude comments on her ethnicity.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” said former President Donald Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists convention on July 31.

This comment essentially associates being Black as a title that she chose to elicit attraction, rather than the race she was born as. Trump further makes it seem as if Harris has no choice but to choose between two deeply rooted parts of herself because of her mixed background.

It is common knowledge that there is diversity within the Black community, so it is perfectly normal for Harris to be considered Black despite having Indian heritage.

What is odd is that her identity has become so much of an obsession that people have even investigated her birth certificate for proof of her Black background, and in some cases non-Black people have even accused Jamaican people of not being Black at all.

Black people should not have to prove their culture to be accepted by people who have no knowledge of the community. The truth is, if Harris were not in a position of power, her ethnicity would not be questioned to this degree.

Since some feel threatened by her status, her identity is completely picked apart to distract from her great accomplishments as both a politician and prosecutor.

Something that really sets the vice president apart is her lively personality. Rather than keeping a serious demeanor 24/7, Harris is often seen smiling or laughing. This may seem like an innocent expression of positivity, but she has received a number of judgments for her bubbly manner.

For example, a video in which she is happily dancing was regarded by many as “inappropriate” for someone of her title. Trump is a convicted felon running for president, yet it is Harris dancing to music she enjoys that is deemed unprofessional?

Yep — that sounds about right. Since Trump’s white identity does not hold him to the same standards, his inappropriate behavior is permissible in most instances. Harris, however, can never slip up because she represents so much more.

The double standard towards Black women is one that has been around for ages, and is why Harris can not make so much as one mistake without causing uproar.

I’m going to cover one more thing that should have the entire country on edge, and that is how cozy Musk is now with Trump and how they both are so cozy with Russia’s Vladamir Putin.  Musk’s companies get billions of dollars from the U.S. government, and his contracts in dealing with Space are strategic. Both these guys have been communicating with the Russian dictator recently.  This is from the AP. “Here’s a look at Musk’s contact with Putin and why it matters.” This analysis is provided by David Kleeper and Lisa Mascaro.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of major government contractor SpaceX and a key ally of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the last two years, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed to The Associated Press that Musk and Putin have had contact through calls. The person didn’t provide additional details about the frequency of the calls, when they occurred or their content.

Musk, the world’s richest man who also owns Tesla and the social platform X, has emerged as a leading voice on the American right. He’s poured millions of dollars into Trump’s presidential bid and turned the platform once known as Twitter into a site popular with Trump supporters, as well as conspiracy theorists, extremists and Russian propagandists.

Musk’s contacts with Putin raise national security questions, given his companies’ work for the government, and highlight concerns about Russian influence in American politics.

Here’s what to know:

Musk and Putin have spoken repeatedly about personal matters as well as business and geopolitics, The Journal reported Thursday, citing multiple current and former officials in the U.S., Europe and Russia.

During one talk, Putin asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite system over Taiwan as a favor for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose ties to Putin have grown closer, the Journal reported. Putin and Xi have met more than 40 times since 2013.

Russia has denied the conversations took place. In 2022, Musk said he’d only spoken to Putin once, in a call 18 months earlier focused on space.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said Friday that it was “not aware of the specifics” of any requests made by Putin on China’s behalf.

There was no immediate response to messages left with X and Tesla seeking Musk’s comment.

What the talks mean for national security

Musk’s relationship with Putin raises national security questions given the billions of dollars in government contracts awarded to SpaceX, a critical partner to NASA and government satellite programs.

Trump also has vowed to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.

The head of any large defense contractor would face similar questions if they held private talks with one of America’s greatest adversaries, said Bradley Bowman, a former West Point professor and Senate national security adviser who now serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based defense think tank.

Bowman said the timing of the calls as reported by The Journal and Musk’s changing views on Ukraine was a “disturbing coincidence.”

“The policy of the U.S. government is to try to isolate Vladimir Putin, and Elon Musk is directly undercutting that,” Bowman said. “What is Putin doing with Musk? He’s trying to reduce his international isolation and impact American foreign policy.”

The request from Putin on Starlink as a favor to China is also likely to get attention, given U.S. support for Taiwan and concerns about the growing partnership between the Kremlin and Beijing.

Today, CNN’s Shania Shelton reports that the “NASA chief calls for investigation into report that Musk and Putin have spoken regularly.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday called for an investigation into a Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX founder and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in “regular contact” since late 2022.

The report, which said the SpaceX founder has discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions” with the Russian leader, raises national security concerns as SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military may have granted Musk access to sensitive government information and US intelligence.

“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Musk, whose Tesla operates Gigafactory Shanghai, has developed a close relationship with China’s top leaders. His remarks about China have been friendly, and he has suggested Taiwan cede some control to Beijing by becoming a special administrative region.

Moscow has growing ties to other American adversaries. The U.S. has accused Russia of sending ballistic missiles to Iran and said North Korea sent troops to Russia, possibly for combat in Ukraine.

On Ukraine, Musk’s views have shifted since he initially supported Kyiv following Russia’s invasion in 2022 and provided it with his Starlink system for communications.

Musk then refused to allow Ukraine in 2023 to use Starlink for a surprise attack on Russian soldiers in Crimea.

He also floated a proposal in 2022 to end the war that would have required Ukraine to drop its plans for NATO membership and given Russia permanent control of Crimea, which it seized in 2014. The plan infuriated Ukrainian leaders.

All I can say is, WTF is wrong with all these people who cannot see what a danger both Musk and Trump are to this country?  Again, my hair is on fire.  Call everyone you know and send them to the Polls for Kamala and Tim before we no longer have a democracy and a judicial system.  As for me, I’m still standing at the moment, although extremely anxious.  I hope y’all are hanging in there.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Wednesday Warning Reads: Jive Turkeys

Posted: November 22, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, Treason and Sedition Republican Style | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

You may have noticed that JJ and I have been doing the posts recently.  BB took ill with Covid-19. We were hopeful that a few doses of Paxlovid would have her back in no time.  However, she has been in the hospital now since Monday. She developed mild pneumonia and will probably have more days in hospital before they release her.  We all wish her the very best on her road back to health.

My mother used to love watching the A-Team back in the day. I didn’t watch it much, but I did love Mister T, and “I pity the fool” who didn’t love him calling out a “Jive Turkey.”  One of Maya Angelou’s words of wisdom was, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Today, I have a long list of Jive Turkeys showing us exactly who they are.

A jive turkey is someone who is unreliable, makes exaggerations or empty promises, or who is otherwise dishonest. The phrase is so associated with 1970s culture.

Okay, so Jive Turkey number one is Judge Aileen Cannon. This is from Politico‘s Josh Gerstein. “How one judge is slowing down one of Trump’s biggest criminal cases. The May 2024 trial in Trump’s classified documents case appears headed for a politically precarious postponement.” 

Judge Aileen Cannon seems to be in no hurry.

On paper, she has scheduled a trial to open next May in the case charging Donald Trump with hoarding national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago.

In reality, she has run the pretrial process at a leisurely pace that will make a postponement almost inevitable, according to experts on criminal prosecutions related to classified information.

Delaying Trump’s trial until after the November election would have a momentous implication: It might mean the trial never happens at all. If Trump wins the election and the case is still pending, he’s expected to order the Justice Department to shut it down.

Even a shorter delay would be fraught: Pushing the trial into the summer or fall could run headlong into the Republican National Convention or the heart of the general election campaign.

For now, Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal district judge in Florida, is officially sticking with the May 20 trial date she announced four months ago. She even recently denied Trump’s bid to push it back. But in a series of more technical rulings, Cannon has postponed key pretrial deadlines, and she has added further slack into the schedule simply by taking her time to resolve some fairly straightforward matters.

“It could be seen as a stealth attempt to delay the ultimate trial date without actually announcing that yet,” said Brian Greer, a former Central Intelligence Agency attorney.

“There’s pretty much no chance they could go to trial on May 20 with the current schedule,” he added.

David Aaron, a former DOJ national security prosecutor, agreed, saying a May 20 trial is unlikely “unless a lot of discipline is imposed.”

You may read the exact steps she’s taken to delay justice for the American people at the link above.  Multiple Jive Turkeys are dissing our wonderful Vice President Kamala Harris. Dean Phillips, an obscure congressman from Minnesota, is challenging President Biden in the Democratic Presidential primary. This is from Tommy Christopher at Mediaite.  “Biden Rival Comically Backtracks When Confronted On CNN For Attacking VP Kamala Harris: ‘I Don’t Recall Saying Those Words’.”

Congressman and longshot Biden presidential rival Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) did a comical bit of backpedaling when CNN anchor Abby Phillip confronted him for attacking Vice President Kamala Harris in another interview.

Rep. Phillips — who is polling at or below the margin of error in most polls since launching a primary challenge against Biden — lobbed a series of attacks at the VP in an Atlantic interview, couched as repetitions of criticisms from unnamed others:

“Is Kamala Harris prepared to step in if something happened to Biden?” I asked Phillips.

“I think that Americans have made the decision that she’s not,” he said.

I replied that I was interested in the decision of one specific American, Dean Phillips.

“That is not my opinion,” Phillips clarified. He said that every interaction he’s had with the vice president has been “thoughtful” and that “I’ve enjoyed them.”

“That said …” Phillips paused, and I braced for the vibe shift.

“I hear from others who know her a lot better than I do that many think she’s not well positioned,” he said of Harris. “She is not well prepared, doesn’t have the right disposition and the right competencies to execute that office.”

Phillips also noted that Harris’s approval numbers are even worse than Biden’s: “It’s pretty clear that she’s not somebody people have faith in.”

But again, Phillips is not one of those people: “From my personal experiences, I’ve not seen those deficiencies.”

The exchange even nonplussed the interviewer, Mark Leibovich, who compared it to “Trumplike ‘many people are saying’ attributions.”

Stay classy Congressman. You may want to read up on misogynoir.

The Kingpin Jive Turkey is, of course, Donald Trump.  This is also from Mediaite. “MSNBC’s Claire McCaskill Claims Trump ‘Even More Dangerous’ Than Hitler and Mussolini.”  It’s reported by Ken Meyer.

‘The Turkey is a noble bird.” Benjamin Franklin’s character in the musical 1776,  John Buss @repeat1968

MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill posited that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler because the only thing he cares about is himself, and he lacks any other kind of political center.

The former senator joined Alicia Menendez on Tuesday for Dateline, where the panel was discussing the New York Times’ analysis of Trump’s most recent rhetoric against his political enemies. With Trump’s increasing levels of vitriol, aggression and thirst for vengeance, the Times pointed to the valid comparisons between the former president and various fascist leaders and dictators.

As McCaskill was invited to discuss Trump stoking violence and political extremism in America, she noted that “A lot of people have tried to draw similarities between Mussolini and Hitler and the use of the terminology like ‘vermin’ and the drive that those men had towards autocracy and dictatorship.”

The difference, though, I think makes Donald Trump even more dangerous, and that is he has no philosophy he believes in. He is not trying to expand the boundaries of the United States of America. He is not trying to overcome a neighboring country like Putin is in Ukraine. He is not going for a grandiose scheme of international dominance. All he wants is to look in the mirror and see a guy who is president. All he cares about is selfish self-promotion. That’s the only philosophy he has.

McCaskill argued this makes Trump “even more dangerous because he’s actually said out loud that it would be okay to terminate the Constitution to keep him in power.”

“He actually said those words,” she said. “And the irony is all of these supposed conservative folks that have populated the Republican party all stood around with their thumb in their mouth going ‘well, yeah okay.’ It’s bizarre.”

Les Dindons, 1877, Claude Monet

Peter Stone of The Guardian wrote this analysis.  “‘Openly authoritarian campaign’: Trump’s threats of revenge fuel alarm. ‘Openly authoritarian campaign’: Trump’s threats of revenge fuel alarm. .”Trump’s talk of seeking to ‘weaponize’ the DoJ and ‘retribution’ for opponents poses a direct threat to the rule of law and democracy in the US should he win a second term, experts say.”

Donald Trump’s talk of punishing his critics and seeking to “weaponize” the US justice department against his political opponents has experts and former DoJ officials warning he poses a direct threat to the rule of law and democracy in the US.

Trump’s talk of seeking “retribution” against foes, including some he’s branded “vermin”, has coincided with plans that Maga loyalists at rightwing thinktanks are assembling to expand the president’s power and curb the DoJ, the FBI and other federal agencies. All of it has fueled critics’ fears that in a second term Trump would govern as an unprecedentedly authoritarian American leader.

Trump is currently the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for 2024 and has long maintained hefty polling leads over his party rivals. At the same time a slew of recent polls has also shown him ahead of president Joe Biden, including in key battleground states.

But scholars and ex-justice officials see increasing evidence that if they achieved power again Trump and his Maga allies plan to tighten his control at key agencies and install trusted loyalists in top posts at the DoJ and the FBI, permitting Trump more leeway to exact revenge on foes, and shrinking agencies Trump sees as harboring “deep state” critics.

Ominously, Trump has threatened to tap a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.

Trump’s angry mindset was revealed on Veterans Day when he denigrated foes as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out”, echoing Fascist rhetoric from Italy and Germany in the 1930s.

“I’m hard pressed to find any candidates anywhere who are so open that they would use the power of the state to go after critics and enemies,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard government professor and co-author of How Democracies Die.

“This is one of the most openly authoritarian campaigns I’ve ever seen. You have to go back to the far-right authoritarians in the 1930s in Europe or in 1970s Latin America to find the kind of dehumanizing and violent language that Trump is starting to consistently use.”

Republican Freedom Caucus Jive Turkeys are trying to pin January 6th on a false flag operation led by the FBI.  This was denied by FBI Director Christopher Wray in a Congressional hearing and is an absolutely insane conspiracy theory. This is from Amanda Marcotte writing for Salon. ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Lee get Jan. 6 footage — but trying to blame the FBI could backfire.  Whatever, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Lee — no one actually thinks the FBI was behind January 6.”

No surprise from a guy who took the lead defending Donald Trump’s attempted coup, but the newly appointed Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., moved quickly to abuse his power in an effort to spread lies and disinformation. He’s pretending to do so under the guise of “transparency,” by releasing over 40,000 hours of security footage from the January 6 insurrection online this week. Of course, Johnson does not actually expect people to watch the footage, especially as pretty much every American already knows what happened that day: attempted murder, vandalism, bashing cops, and limitless jackassery from people dumb enough to listen to Donald Trump. But of course, the MAGA movement — now indistinguishable from the Republican Party — wants to rewrite history in gaslight, claiming that our lying eyes deceived us and that the Capitol riot was merely a tickle.

The purpose of this release is not subtle. Propagandists can soon cherry-pick a few moments where rioters were not beating up cops, and pretend that somehow negates the rest of the time that they were beating up cops. As I noted in Tuesday’s newsletter, the tactic is familiar to anyone who has survived a trash boyfriend, the kind who whined, “Why don’t you talk about all the days I didn’t cheat on you?”

Relitigating a day that makes Republicans look like fascists and cowards doesn’t seem like the smartest electoral strategy. But the GOP now is primarily composed of professional trolls who cannot turn down an opportunity to spew noxious gases online. Sure enough, some of the most annoying people in Congress tweeted conspiracy theories about the footage in language so fevered you could practically hear them panting as they typed. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a man who is only spared from being the biggest dweeb in the Senate by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, retweeted an image of a Capitol rioter with captions falsely implying he was an undercover FBI agent. “I can’t wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing,” Lee wrote, with a junior high student’s enthusiasm for being annoying to adults.

And, of course, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., repeated the same obviously silly story, because the woman never met a conspiracy theory she doesn’t like.

You can't take Jive Turkey.

No Jive Turkey Trot would be worth its salt if it didn’t include Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.  This is from A.G Gancarski’s  Florida Politics. “In attempt to reboot New Hampshire campaign, Ron DeSantis rolls out food drive. Hungry Floridians won’t benefit, but the Governor’s 2024 campaign will.”

While Floridians who are dealing with food insecurity this week may be on their own, it’s heartening to know Gov. Ron DeSantis is organizing a food drive.

That’s the good news.

The bad news for them is that it’s in another state.

“We are doing a big canned food drive today in New Hampshire. We’re going to be donating to the New Hampshire Food Bank. So I would just say Americans as they enjoy their Thanksgiving, there’s a lot of people that are struggling with this economy so we want to step up and do our part,” DeSantis said on Tuesday’s “Fox and Friends.”

Though Florida has been rocked by inflation that rivals anywhere in the country, DeSantis is strategically limiting his cost-of-living concerns to states where he needs votes more imminently. He has bemoaned spiraling prices in Iowa also.

“I’m going around and talking to voters across the country. I’ll have a family in Iowa tell me, you know, now they go and check out at the grocery store and it rings up so high, so quick they’ve got to take things out of their shopping cart,” DeSantis said in September on the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports.”

For the DeSantises, economic concerns are a family affair: First Lady Casey DeSantis has also talked about troubles in the economy, blaming “Bidenomics” for her need to buy her children’s “$2 t-shirts” at Walmart.

The Governor is spending Tuesday in the Granite State, where he will be the main attraction during a noon town hall event in Manchester, at the Executive Court Banquet Center, with Gov. Chris Sununu on hand. From there, his next stop will be a second town hall in Keene, a 6 p.m. start at Tempesta Restaurant.

Gov. DeSantis only has room to improve in New Hampshire generally, but his problems are especially acute in the Manchester metropolitan area, where he had just 2% support in a a recent survey from the University of New Hampshire.

He’s below 10% in recent polls of the state, including a drop to fifth place in the new Washington Post-Monmouth survey of New Hampshire GOP Primary voters. With 7% support, the Florida Governor finds himself behind Vivek Ramaswamy (8%), Chris Christie (11%), Nikki Haley (18%), and Donald Trump (46%).

The plumpest Social Media Jive Turkey of them all is getting support for Republicans. This is a Washington Post Op-Ed by Greg Sargent   “Elon Musk’s silly lawsuit offers a glimpse into the Musk-MAGA alliance.”

Elon Musk’s new lawsuit against Media Matters, which X Corp. filed late Monday, has been dismissed by legal experts as a frivolous effort to bully a prominent critic into silence. But some Republicans apparently see this as a feature, not a bug: They are allying themselves with Musk’s effort for precisely this purpose.

Musk’s suit charges that Media Matters deliberately and deceptively harmed X (formerly Twitter) with a widely-publicized investigation showing that posts containing pro-Nazi content appeared on X alongside advertisements from leading companies. That, along with a surge in antisemitic content, has advertisers fleeing the site, sparking a slide in ad revenue.

Republicans are eagerly rushing to Musk’s rescue — and not just rhetorically. Two GOP state attorneys general — Ken Paxton in Texas and Andrew Bailey in Missouri — have responded by announcing vaguely defined investigations into Media Matters.

Meanwhile, Trump adviser Stephen Miller is urging Republican law enforcement officials to probe Media Matters for “criminal” activity. And Mike Davis, who is touting himself as Donald Trump’s next attorney general, has declared that Media Matters staff members should be jailed.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, doesn’t deny that the juxtapositions between ads and pro-Nazi postings are real. Rather, it accuses Media Matters of creating an account following only fringe content and endlessly refreshing it until it finally generated the juxtapositions. Those are “extraordinarily rare,” the suit says, but were deliberately engineered to disparage X, harm its revenue stream and interfere with its contracts with advertisers.

It’s a weak case, as experts point out. The Media Matters article said it had “found” the juxtapositions, which X calls “false,” insisting they were “manipulated” into existence. But even if you question Media Matters’s presentation of the facts, it still wouldn’t show that it did “all of this to harm X’s market value,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Well, next November we get to see how all of this shakes out.  If you’re not convinced the Republicans have gone Fascist by now, there’s not much hope for you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?