Elizabeth Blackadder, Cat and Irises, 2001, watercolor
Good Afternoon!!
It’s a long weekend here in Massachusetts (Indigenous Peoples Day), and I’m planning to try to relax and read something other than politics news. Lately I can’t tolerate watching cable news, but I’ve been obsessed with keeping up with everything that is happening in the presidential campaigns. I spend too much time on social media, but it’s the only way to find out what Trump is really up to, because of the legacy media’s compulsive sanewashing of Trump’s demented behavior and speech patterns.
If you use social media, you may have seen Trump’s bizarre behavior during his speech at the Detroit Economic Club. The speech was supposed to be about economics but, since Trump has no comprehension of economics, he did his usual nonsensical rambling act. The New Republic: Watch: Trump Completely Loses Train of Thought in Awkward Speech.
Donald Trump drifted in and out of coherency during an awkward, weaving speech Thursday at the Detroit Economics Club, where he ranted about tariffs and railed against government mandates on electric vehicles….
But while explaining his fears that Kamala Harris’s policies would cause domestic manufacturing to leave the United States, Trump seemingly got carried away by the tide of his own weave and swept out into a sea of complete nonsense.
“And, it’s so simple, I mean, you know. This isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they wanted to land,” Trump said. “Or, he gets the … engines back—that was the first I realized, I said, ‘Who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing—and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace, with a circle, boom!”
“Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right?” Trump said, seemingly referring to President Joe Biden’s campaign events that took precautions for Covid-19, in an awkward non sequitur.
“He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill ’em up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. He couldn’t fill up the eight circles, I always loved those circles, they were so beautiful, so beautiful to look at,” Trump continued.
Trump claimed that Biden “used to have the press stand in those circles, cause they couldn’t get the people. And then I heard we lost, no we’re never gonna let that happen again.”
“But—” he continued. “We’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.”
There are more examples of Trump’s insane rambling at the TNR link. But it’s not just rambling–it’s dementia; and it seems to be getting worse all the time. He flits from tangent to tangent, because his executive functioning is failing, likely from damage to his frontal lobes. You can watch the video clip at the TNR link.
This is disgusting, but I’m going to post it anyway. Trump appeared to either break wind (or foul his diaper) at least twice during his speech in Detroit. This is something that was happening even when he was in the White House. Reporters also noticed it happening during his fraud trial. WTF?!
Donald Trump attacked the city of Detroit in a speech he was giving while stumping for votes in Detroit.
The former US president and Republican nominee was speaking on Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club in the city, which is the biggest city in Michigan – one of the most crucial swing states in the 2024 US election.
But Trump, whose speeches are frequently rambling and lengthy discourses rather than set piece deliveries, could not stop himself from lambasting the city in which he was speaking by pointing to Detroit’s recent history of economic decline from its heyday as the home of American car production.
As he was speaking about China being a developing nation, Trump said: “Well, we’re a developing nation too, just take a look at Detroit. Detroit’s a developing area more than most places in China.”
He later returned to the theme, warning of an economic disaster if his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, wins in November’s election.
“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” Trump said….
Democrats in the state reacted angrily to the insults and saw a chance to score political points.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer posted on Twitter/X: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities – something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
Former President Donald Trump is aware his rhetoric about migrants has become increasingly toxic, yet he has decided to double down on that strategy in the final weeks of the campaign cycle.
According to Rolling Stone’s Naomi Lachance and Asawin Suebsaeng, the ex-president is even rebuffing advice from his campaign team to “play it safe” as voters prepare to head to the polls on November 5. Lachance and Suebsaeng cited two unnamed sources close to Trump in their report, writing that Trump intended to “slam his foot on the gas” rather than pull back on his anti-immigrant message.
Agnes Miller Parker, Siamese Cat and Butterfly, 1950, wood engraving
“That’s how you lose,” Trump reportedly said in response to one of his aides.
The publication’s other unnamed source said the ex-president paid close attention to which lines at his rallies garnered the biggest reactions from his audiences. This includes not only his false claim that there are 13,000 undocumented immigrants freely roaming the United States who have been convicted of murder elsewhere (most of those 13,000 are currently incarcerated), but also his call to be a “dictator” on “day one” of a second term….
The former president recently demonstrated his willingness to take his condemnation of migrants to a new low on Friday night, posting a lengthy screed to X (formerly Twitter) in which he promised to use an 18th century law to round up, detain and deport immigrants. That law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — would allow for the detainment of migrants without trial based solely on their country of birth. The last time that law was used was to force Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II.
“November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America,” Trump tweeted. [W]e will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.”
And you’re not safe if you’re a legal immigrant, as Trump and Vance have both made clear in their attacks on Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
By Elizabeth Blackadder
Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”
Trump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.
Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.
Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”
The longtime Donald Trump ally and friend Roger Stone said Republicans should send “armed guards” to the polls
in November to ensure a Trump victory, according to video footage by an undercover journalist.
The video, first published by Rolling Stone, shows an embittered Stone, still angry about the 2020 election and ready to fight in 2024. Stone described the former US president’s legal strategy of constant litigation to purge voter rolls in swing states.
“We gotta fight it out on a state-by-state basis,” said Stone. “We’re already in court in Wisconsin, we’re already in court in Florida.”
When the journalist, posing as a member of a rightwing voter turnout organization, pressed Stone for details on efforts to make sure Trump wins in 2024, Stone told him that the campaign has to “be ready”.
Mary Feddon, Tabby
“When they throw us out of Detroit, you go get a court order, you come in with your own armed guards, and you dispute it,” said Stone. In Detroit in 2020, there was a chaotic scene at a ballot counting center when GOP vote challengers pounded on the walls of the center and demanded to be let in.
Filmed at an August event in Jacksonville, Florida, called A Night with Roger Stone, the footage also reveals Stone’s lasting anger toward former attorney general Bill Barr, who he calls “a traitorous piece of human garbage”.
While in office, Barr acted as a staunch Trump ally, even pushing for a lighter sentence for Stone, when the operative was found guilty of witness tampering and obstruction of justice in connection with a congressional inquiry into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Barr lost favor with the former president when he declined to publicly back Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, drawing outrage from Trump’s closest allies.
“Once we get back in, he has to go to prison,” Stone exclaimed. “He has to go to prison, he’s a criminal.”
Donald J. Trump took his seat at the dining table in his triplex penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower on the last Sunday in September, alongside some of the most sought-after and wealthiest figures in the Republican Party.
There was Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who finances Republican campaigns and pro-Israel causes, and Warren Stephens, the billionaire investment banker. Joining them were Betsy DeVos, the billionaire former education secretary under Mr. Trump, and her husband, Dick, as well as the billionaire Joe Ricketts and his son Todd.
Some politicians might have taken the moment to be charming and ingratiating with the donors.
Not Mr. Trump. Over steak and baked potatoes, the former president tore through a bitter list of grievances.
He made it clear that people, including donors, needed to do more, appreciate him more and help him more.
By Miroco Machiko
He disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris as “retarded.” He complained about the number of Jews still backing Ms. Harris, saying they needed their heads examined for not supporting him despite everything he had done for the state of Israel.
At one point, Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that these donors had plenty to be grateful to him for. He boasted about how great he had been for their taxes, something that some privately noted wasn’t true for everyone in the room.
The rant, described by seven people with knowledge of the meal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, underscored a reality three weeks before Election Day: Mr. Trump’s often cantankerous mood in the final stretch. And one of the reasons for his frustration is money. He’s trailing his Democratic rival in the race for cash and has had to hustle to keep raising it.
Not only does Ms. Harris have far more money to buy ads and pay for staff after raising $1 billion in less than three months as a candidate — a sum greater than the total Mr. Trump raised all year — but she has also been freed from having to plead directly to donors anymore. She raised more than twice as much as Mr. Trump in July, August and September.
Good! Let him keep wallowing in self-pity, driving away people who could donate to his campaign.
I’ll end with something truly unbelievable: On October 16, Fox News and Trump are planning a town hall on women’s issues! From the press release:
FOX News Channel’s (FNC) Harris Faulkner will present a town hall with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump focusing on issues impacting women ahead of the election and news of the day at Reid Barn in Cumming, Georgia. The event, which will be held with an audience entirely composed of women, will pre-tape on October 15th and air on October 16th on The Faulkner Focus (11 AM-12 PM/ET). FOX News has a standing invitation to Vice President Harris for a townhall event of equal stature which has been extended to her campaign multiple times since she became a candidate for president in August.
In commenting on the town hall, Faulkner said, “Women constitute the largest group of registered and active voters in the United States, so it is paramount that female voters understand where the presidential candidates stand on the issues that matter to them most. I am looking forward to providing our viewers with an opportunity to learn more about where former President Trump stands on these topics.”
Orovida Pissarro, Cat and Mouse, 1966
Faulkner joined FNC in 2005 and currently serves as the anchor of The Faulkner Focus and a founding co-host of Outnumbered. At 11 AM/ET, The Faulkner Focus features interviews with top newsmakers and analysts and is cable news’ most-watched program in the timeslot, averaging nearly 2 million viewers. Outnumbered features an ensemble of four female panelists and one male breaking down the day’s headlines from all perspectives and dominates the competition at 12 PM/ET with 1.8 million viewers. Both programs outpace broadcast program’s NBC’s TODAY Third Hour, TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBC News Daily, ABC’s GMA3, CBS’ The Talk and The Drew Barrymore Show.
As the first Black woman to helm back-to-back weekday cable news programs, Faulkner has also played integral roles in FNC’s election coverage over the last several cycles. She is the lead of the network’s “Voter’s Voices” segments and recently presented a series titled, ”Families in Focus,” where she interviewed the family members of the then-presidential candidates during the 2024 primaries. Additionally, Faulkner has hosted a variety of primetime specials and townhalls focused on current events, including forums focused on policing in America, the ongoing conversation of justice in the country and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, among other topics.
That should be good for a laugh.
Have a nice weekend everyone!!
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While the Wall Street Journal and the other “big” newspapers were busy writing about how President Biden looked so old and tired and ignoring the insane things Dotard DonOld was saying at his rallies, President Biden was busy negotiating a complex deal with multiple countries to get a WSJ writer and other hostages released from Russian Prison. There are so many amazing things about this series of negotiations that it’s hard to list. Still, one of the many amazing things was that there were no leaks of any ongoing processes, that included other countries, the CIA, the State Department, the Vice President, and other U.S. officials.
The Wall Street Journal is even being gracious today with its news and headlines about their freed reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is now in San Antonio for medical exams and has been reunited with his mother. They have even acknowledged the role Vice President Harris played in the Swap.
Vice President Kamala Harris played a role in negotiations with allies to secure the prisoner-swap deal. Harris met with both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob separately in intimate settings during the Munich Security Conference in February to urge both leaders to push the deal through, according to a White House official.
Harris’s meeting with Scholz was particularly critical to securing the exchange because releasing Krasikov was a key Russian demand. The two first had a normal bilateral meeting before Harris asked Scholz to stay back for a “restricted bilateral,” the official said. Harris asked everyone to leave except Scholz and one aide on each side.
“They had a back and forth about how to best move forward about that, but ultimately, she was pressing Scholz to take action on this,” the official said.
Harris has met Scholz previously on several occasions and had a “good working relationship with him,” the official said. That is “part of the reason why she was able to have a really good, frank conversation with him.”
Harris had never met Golob before the conference. Their meeting was the highest-level U.S. engagement at the time with the Slovenian government, which was holding two Russian nationals Moscow wanted released. That meeting was also restricted to just Harris, Golob and two aides.
Separately, Harris spoke to Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexey Navalny, on Thursday, according to a White House official. Russian political prisoners who had worked with Navalny were released as part of the swap.
The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also were at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet them and dispense hugs all around.
The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
I don’t care that some bad guys got sent back to Russia. That’s a type of punishment, even though Putin played them up as heroes. I can’t imagine they will be completely safe there. However, we brought the good folks home to thrive.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ team announced today that it raised $310 million in July. That would trounce the $138.7 million former President Donald Trump’s team said it raised last month. NBC News cannot verify those reports until Federal Election Commission reports for July are released.
Tara Sutter, reporting for The Hill, has this headline. “Pritzker says Trump ‘bewildered’ by Harris, new Dem excitement.” I’m getting trolled on social media whenever I produce my mini-report on what people say to me. On my Wednesday calls this week, I got to talk to seniors in places like Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois this week. They are fired up and ready to go! They’re talking to their family and friend circles to pass a better world to our children and their children! I feel very positive. Some of these folks live in deeply red corners of their states. Yet, they’ve decided to talk about how excited they are about Harris to friends, family, and neighbors. One woman said she saw a woman wearing a Kamala t-shirt in a restaurant, which surprised her. She talked to the woman, and they said they would stand up for the future! The couple from Tennessee asked how they could volunteer! They said they knew they had to fight for the future. I guess I’m not the only granny for sanity.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said Thursday he believes former President Trump is “bewildered” by Vice President Harris and the excitement she has generated among Democrats.
“Kamala Harris is the perfect person at this moment,” Pritzker said on MSNBC’s “The Beat” to anchor Ari Melber. “We’ve got the kind of palpable excitement, the energy, that we really need in the party to carry us to victory in November, and of course Donald Trump is, I think, bewildered by it all. I don’t know that he has any idea how to handle the excitement that’s happening on the Democratic side, or Kamala Harris herself.”
Pritzker is among the many names floated as a possible running mate for Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee. His home state will also host this year’s Democratic National Convention later this month in Chicago.
“We’re planning a phenomenal convention here in Chicago. … the excitement is palpable,” Pritzker said. “The United Center, which is where the convention will happen, is being spruced up, lookin’ terrific.”
Besides Pritzker, other names on the vice presidential shortlist include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Spoiler alert: he meant it. When Donald Trump claimed, on Wednesday afternoon, in a combative onstage interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, that Kamala Harris had adopted her identity as a Black woman in an effort to gain political advantage, he drew appalled gasps from the audience. “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person,” he said. This was an inaccurate slur as well as a bizarre one. Harris has always been proudly biracial: she is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Black, Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the U.S. She attended Howard, a historically Black college, where she joined one of Black America’s most storied sororities. Nonetheless, Trump doubled down on this particularly Trumpian form of hate speech. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he wrote, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” That evening, in a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign even projected an old news headline proclaiming Harris the first Indian American U.S. senator. Trump’s embattled Vice-Presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, joined in, too, calling Harris a “total phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”
By Thursday morning, as the liberal commentariat feasted on its horror over his remarks and right-leaning pundits struggled to explain and excuse it, Trump mocked them all, posting an old photo of Harris alongside relatives on the Indian side of her family. He wrote, “Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago! Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.” In another post, he circulated the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s idea that, because Harris’s birth certificate says her father’s “color or race” is “Jamaican,” not Black, she is a “liar” who is “NOT black and never has been.”
How much clearer does it have to get? America, you are being trolled.
Laura Loomer probably holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest piece of shit ever. Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Atlanta rally Tuesday night. I got to stick around for some campaign insider stuff and a Zoom visit from the Vice President. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this hyped up to volunteer my ass off. This is from the Washington Post. “Harris events: Not your father’s campaign rallies (or Biden’s). If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Harris took the stage for a campaign rally.”
If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Vice President Harris took the stage for a campaign rally to the strains of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” Biden forecast this kind of a change four years ago when he talked about a bridge to a new generation, but that transformation didn’t take place until the past two weeks when heofficially relinquished his grip on the party.
In fact, Joe Biden never came up.
From the music to the outfits — and, most tellingly, the crowd size — it was clearer than ever that the shift to a new Democratic generation was complete.
By and large, it is the same campaign aides who were putting on Biden events that are now in charge of Harris ones. But the types of crowds interested in attending Harris events — and the musicians willing to perform at them — are very different. The new playlist, even if controlled by the same staffers who curated Biden’s soundtrack(a mix including Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love,” Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” and Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom”), has a certain Harris flair, and is put together based on her personal input.
Campaign aides say they are still thinking about how Harris events will be different, and they are determined to not only do large-scale rallies but want to put her in smaller settings as well. The coming days will provide more of a test case as Harris picks a running mate and launches a seven-state tour that will probably include a range of venues.
In Atlanta, the baton was fully passed to Kamala Harris. This was now her party. Her campaign. Her playlist.
Even though this headline comes with my usual admonition about trusting polls, it’s a good sign. “Kamala Harris Now Leads Donald Trump in Eight National Polls.” That’s eight data points, so that’s good. This reporting comes in Newsweek by Martha McHardy AND Andrew Stanton.
The new polls show the presumptive Democratic nominee is leading the former president by between 1 and 4 points.
RMG Research is the latest pollster to find Harris leading Trump in the national popular vote. The firm released a survey on Friday showing her with a 5-point lead (47 percent to 47 percent) over the former president. The poll was conducted among 3,000 registered voters from July 29 to July 31.
A poll conducted by Civiqs between July 27 and July 30 also showed Harris with a 5-point lead over Trump. Among 1,123 registered voters, Harris leads Trump 49 percent to 45 percent. Her lead is outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Harris is ahead of the Republican presidential nominee by 3 points in a poll by Leger conducted between July 26 and July 28. The poll, which surveyed 1,002 U.S. residents and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, showed she was leading Trump with 49 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That represents a 4-point increase for the Democrat since Leger’s June poll.
When third-party candidates were included in the Leger poll, Harris’ lead over Trump grew to 7 points, to 48 percent, compared to the former president’s 41 percent.
Harris had a smaller lead of 2 points over Trump in four other national polls. These include a poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, where the vice president polled at 46 percent among 1,434 registered voters—a lead within the poll’s 3 percent margin of error.
We just have to keep up the Momala Momentum. This is an interview from Elle on her role as stepmom to two young adults. To hell with J.D. Vance and his parade of stereotypes.
Cole and Ella could not have been more welcoming. They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults. I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.
To know Cole and Ella is to know that their mother Kerstin is an incredible mother. Kerstin and I hit it off ourselves and are dear friends. She and I became a duo of cheerleaders in the bleachers at Ella’s swim meets and basketball games, often to Ella’s embarrassment. We sometimes joke that our modern family is almost a little too functional.
A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term “stepmom.” Instead they came up with the name “Momala.”
Our time as a family is Sunday dinner. We come together, all of us around the table, and over time we’ve fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music, Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef, and I cook.
So, that’s it for me today. We’re on our 4th heatwave and have perpetual Severe Heat warnings. I’m at the point where I just fill my soaking tub up with cold water and literally chill out. I’m watching the Tropical Storm headed to Southern Florida. The Gulf Waters are hot. This could become a big wet one; southernmost Florida is on the Dirty Side. CNN is calling it this way. “Tropical Storm Debby forecast to hit Florida this weekend with torrential rain and wind.” It’s going straight up the East Coast and could become a Cyclone Level Four. So, be safe if you’re on its path.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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“How much clearer can one be, President Biden is not stepping down.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Okay, here is my punditry. This entire mess is basically due to two things. The Democratic Party is just being the Democratic Party. It always looks like a huge public pie fight until they reach a consensus. President Joe Biden is just being himself with a bit of age and a lot of presidenting weighing on him. Also, let the man get some sleep! My Dad was perfectly functional into his 90s. This can be the case for a lot of seniors.
This headline is from NPR and is worth putting right here as the first suggested read today. It’s reported by Domenico Montanaro. “After Biden’s debate performance, the presidential race is unchanged.” I’d say most of us are less worried about Biden’s stutter and senior moments and more terrified of Donald Trump in his entirety. Why would we want to put the country through another 4 years of him when he was such a nerve-wracking failure the first four? What’s our goal here? It’s to stop Trump. The Republican Party is incapable of taking the moral high ground.
The race for the presidency remains statistically tied despite President Biden’s dismal debate performance two weeks ago, a new national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.
Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate. In this poll, he leads Trump 50% to 48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump holding the slightest advantage with 43% to 42%.
Those numbers, though, do not represent statistically significant differences, as the margin of error in the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points, meaning results could be 3 points higher or lower.
The poll also found that, at this point, no other mainstream Democrat who has been mentioned as a replacement for the president on the ticket does better than Biden.
The results reflect the hyperpolarized political environment in the country and the reality that both of the major parties’ presumptive nominees bring with them significant disadvantages. Majorities of those surveyed continue to say they have a negative opinion of both men, and neither, they say, should be on the ballot at all.
The Marist Pollfolks characterized the race thusly. “Contest for President Still “Up for Grabs. Biden +2 Percentage Points Against Trump, Despite Concerns about Biden’s Mental Fitness.” So now the strategy is to just fucking keep reporting about everything that is wrong with Trump and remind the American Public how awful things were under his regime.
With just days to go before the start of the Republican National Convention, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump continue to be closely matched among registered voters in both a head-to-head matchup and a multicandidate field. Biden’s support remains relatively unchanged from last month despite the view of many Americans that he lacks the mental fitness to serve as president. However, Biden outperforms Trump on whether either candidate has the character to be President of the United States, and by more than two to one, Americans are more concerned about a president who lies than they are about someone who is too old to serve. Both candidates remain flawed in the eyes of Americans, and majorities say neither should be on the ballot. Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Gretchen Whitmer do not improve the Democrats’ chances against Trump.
Builder, creator, advocate, and organizer, Ashley Allison is an Obama-Biden Administration and Biden-Harris campaign senior staffer with more than 15 years of experience building campaigns and strategies that lead to victory. As the National Coalitions Director for Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign, she led nearly 500 staff and paid fellows to activate the most robust coalition of voters in modern history. Ashley’s commitment to racial equity and civil rights has been proven throughout her career.
The Washington Post reports this news about last night’s presser and the President’s scheduled Rally in Michigan today. “Biden heading to Michigan for rally after high-stakes news conference. The president is visiting the must-win state after a mixed session with reporters that showcased his knowledge but also included verbal stumbles.” Yasmeen Abutaleb has the lede. So are these folks experts that never “stumble” and now what could cause it like stress, tiredness, age, or a life-long stutter? Trump’s speeches are unhinged and full of lies and gobbledygook. Former aids won’t vote for him because they say he’s a malignant narcissist? Can we examine him and his Personality Disorders, history with the law, and his failure to tell the truth every time he opens his mouth or puts some nonsense on Truth Social?
President Biden is set to hold a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday following a news conference that received mixed reviews from other Democrats, in which Biden showed command of complex foreign policy issues but stumbled through some answers and mixed up names.
The Thursday night news conference did not immediately halt the stream of Democrats who have been calling on Biden to end his candidacy after a rocky debate performance two weeks ago. Shortly after the news conference ended, Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) added their names to the list of those who have asked Biden to step aside.
Many Democrats predicted privately that defections could increase markedly on Friday, and both supporters of Biden and those who argue he should end his candidacy were watching carefully to see the number of dissenters who might step forward. Some in the party have been waiting for the end of the NATO summit in Washington, and others were holding their fire until the news conference.
Do they constantly list every single trouble Donald has getting up or down stairs or his many verbal falsehoods and weirdness? Where is their coverage of Dotard Donald? Here’s the LA Times Editorial Board listing the various disasters surrounding Donald.
It’s unbelievable that the nation is spending so much time on the question of Biden’s verbal acuity, when the greatest concern ought to be that his challenger is a self-aggrandizing felon and twice-impeached election-denier. Trump fomented the Jan. 6 insurrection, shows contempt for the rule of law and shamelessly lies in pursuit of more power. He’s an authoritarian who admires murderous despots, wants to jail his political enemies and has publicly flirted with declaring himself a dictator on his first day back in office.
With fervent support from the Republican Party, he peddles cruelty, racism and misogyny, demonizing immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country,” demeaning women‘s looks and intelligence, and using disgustingly fascist language to criticize his opponents as “vermin.” He’s a man who lied about his wealth for years to cheat on his taxes, whose business was convicted of criminal tax fraud, and who’s been denounced by many former aides and Cabinet members as a “malignant narcissist” who recklessly puts himself before the American people.
Trump is the only man in the presidential race manifestly unworthy of holding a position of power, and has no business ever returning to the White House. If the GOP had any decency left, its members would be discussing whether to dump Trump for a candidate who isn’t out to bulldoze democratic institutions in favor of autocracy.”
Now that’s more like it! Dear Political Pundits, Reporters, and Podcast Dudes! Take note that this is the way you do it! This is what we face if we don’t do a Trifecta in the Beltway come November. This is reported by Anna Conkling at The Daily Beast. “GOP Rep Delivers a House Floor Speech Straight Out of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. In a speech before the House that seemed lifted right out of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, Rep. Glenn Grothman said he wants the U.S. to go back to 1960.” Oh, Hell NO!
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) on Thursday accused “the angry feminist movement” of emasculating men and said the U.S. should “work our way back” to 1960 if former President Donald Trump wins in November.
In a House floor speech that could have been lifted from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Grothman went after supporters of government-funded childcare programs and said President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty “took the purpose out of the man’s life, because now you have a basket of goodies for the mom.” He added, “They’ve taken away the purpose of the man to be part of a family. And if we want to get America back to, say, 1960, where this was almost unheard of, we have to fundamentally change these programs.”
Grothman said “the breakdown of the family” was caused by the U.S. government in the 1960s and “people like Angela Davis, well-known communist, people like the feminists who were so important in the 1960s.”
“So I hope the press corps picks up on this, and I hope Republican and Democrat leadership put together some sort of plan for January, in which we work our way back to where America was in the 1960s,” he added.
Grothman, a fervent supporter of Trump, hailed the overturning of Roe v. Wadein June 2022, saying after the decision: “Over the years, millions of children have had their dreams stolen before seeing the light of the day. But today marks a brighter future for the hearts and minds of unborn children, women, and families.
“I commend the six justices who voted to overturn Roe for having the courage to base their decision on sound legal principles rather than a fashionable line of thinking that rules academia, Hollywood, and the mainstream media.”
Yesterday, Raw Story reported that Ivan Raiklin, Trump’s self-declared “Secretary of Retribution” has compiled a “Deep State target list” of 350 people he wants to see arrested and punished for “treason” if Trump is reelected. The list includes Democratic and Republican elected officials, journalists he considers to be Trump’s enemies, U.S. Capitol Police officers, and witnesses against Trump in his impeachment trials and the hearings concerning the events of January 6, 2021.
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story: “His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom.” The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Raiklin said the list was just the beginning. “This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?”
Former president Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has tried to distance himself from the radical extremist blueprint outlined in Project 2025, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. Today, videos surfaced of Trump cheering the project on from the start. At a Heritage Foundation dinner in 2022, Trump, slurring his words, said: “Our country is going to hell…. This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do…when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that’s coming.”
On a right-wing podcast yesterday, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said that Trump’s agenda and Project 2025 have “tremendous” overlap. “There are some quibbles and differences of opinion here and there, which not only is okay, but it’s actually good,” Roberts said. “I mean, we’re gonna be able to sort those out once the presidential administration declares what their priorities are.” He said that Trump’s attempt to distance himself from the project was “a political tactical decision.” Media Matters uncovered a video in which Project 2025 director Paul Dans said that Trump is “very bought in with this.”
The Heritage Foundation, the key author of Project 2025, is a sponsor of the Republican National Convention.
Today the Heritage Foundation preemptively accused the Biden administration of cheating in the 2024 election and warned that Biden might try to hold the White House “by force.” It said that Biden and his administration could “circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.”
There is no indication that Biden, who has repeatedly said he will accept the election results, will try to launch a coup against the United States government. In contrast, Trump, who has refused to say he will accept the election result unless he agrees with it, has already done exactly what Heritage is trying to pin on Biden: Trump tried to stay in office against the will of the voters in 2021.
Trump is currently under criminal indictment for that attempt, although the Supreme Court’s eye-popping July 1 decision in Trump v. U.S. declaring that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of a president’s “official duties” means Trump can challenge those indictments. Indeed, in the wake of that decision, Trump’s lawyers have filed a motion to vacate the jury’s conviction of Trump on 34 felony counts related to the falsification of business records in his attempt to skew the 2016 election, and to dismiss the indictment.
While the U.S. and our allies celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Erin Banco of Politico reported yesterday that Trump advisors have told foreign officials that Trump plans to scale back U.S. cooperation and support for NATO, including reducing the sharing of intelligence with NATO countries.
This seems likely to be related to the news that the U.S. intelligence discovered a series of Russian plots to assassinate executives from European defense companies that are supplying arms to Ukraine. Americans took that intelligence to Germany and foiled a Russian plot to kill the chief executive officer of a German arms manufacturer.
During the NATO summit, he’s also edged closer to Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Orban did not meet with President Biden, but he scuttled down to Flordia to chat with Donald. No doubt, he’s passing on what Putin wants Donald to know and do. This is from Marcie at Empty Wheel. TRUMP MAY ATTEMPT TO DISAVOW PROJECT 2025 — BUT HE’S NOT DISAVOWING VIKTOR ORBÁN. Just so you know, Kansas is larger than Hungary. Hungary is about 2.3 times smaller than Kansas.
Kansas is approximately 211,900 sq km, while Hungary is approximately 93,028 sq km, making Hungary 43.9% the size of Kansas. Meanwhile, the population of Kansas is ~2.9 million people (6.8 million more people live in Hungary). That’s about the Population of Houston.
Project 2025 is the American instantiation of a authoritarianism adopted from Viktor Orbán, right along with his apology for Russia.
As Casey Michel laid out in the New Republic in March, Orbán has been using the Heritage Foundation as a beachhead to sustain Hungary’s influence operations during the Biden Administration.
Enter the Heritage Foundation. While Heritage grew to prominence in the 1980s as a font of Reaganite policy, in recent years the organization has undergone a monumental shift in terms of both policy and priorities. Rather than persist in its stolid dedication to conservative values, Heritage has swung in a far more reactionary—and far more authoritarian—direction in recent years. Across the policy landscape, Heritage has become little more than an intellectual breeding ground for Trumpist ideas.
While much attention has understandably focused on Heritage’s so-called “Project 2025,” which provides a roadmap for Trump to seize as much power as he can, such a shift has extended to foreign policy. This has been seen most especially in Heritage leading the effort to gut funding for Ukraine. But it’s also evident in the way Heritage has endeavored to anchor its relations with Orbán, making Budapest once more America’s preferred partner in Europe—regardless of the cost.
Much of that shift is downstream from Heritage’s leadership, overseen by Kevin Roberts. Appointed as Heritage’s president in 2021, Roberts immediately began remaking Heritage’s priorities with a distinctly pro-Orbán bent—and began opening up Heritage as a vehicle for Hungarian influence in the U.S.
Part of that involved things like last week’s confab, one of many meetings between Roberts and Orbán. (After one 2022 sit-down, Roberts—who, among other things, has said he doesn’t think Joe Biden won the 2020 election—posted that it was an “honor” to meet with Orbán, praising his “movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families.”) But the relationship is structural as well: Heritage finalized what they refer to as a ‘landmark’ cooperation agreement with the Danube Institute, a Hungarian think tank that appears to exist only to praise Orbán’s government.*
The Budapest-based Danube Institute is largely unknown in the U.S., but it has transformed in recent years into one of the premier mouthpieces for propagating Orbánist policies. While it is technically independent, it is, as Jacob Heilbrunn notes in his new book on the American right’s infatuation with dictators, located “next to the prime minister’s building and funded by Orbán’s Fidesz party.” Indeed, the Hungarian think tank is overseen by a foundation directly bankrolled by the Hungarian state—meaning that the Danube Institute is, for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.
[snip]
Most important, however, is the man currently running the Danube Institute: John O’Sullivan, a British conservative who once served as the director of studies at—you guessed it—the Heritage Foundation. “With his extensive connections in the conservative universe, [O’Sullivan] became Orbán’s conduit to the American Right,” Heilbrunn noted.
Unsurprisingly, the key to O’Sullivan’s and the Danube Institute’s outreach to American conservatives has been the Heritage Foundation. A post in early 2023 from the Hungarian Conservative noted that the Danube Institute and the Heritage Foundation had “signed a landmark cooperation agreement, deepening Hungary’s transatlantic relations.”
Trump may be disavowing Project 2025 — or attempting to. But he’s not disavowing Orbán.
On the contrary, he and Orbán seem intent to run, hand in hand, to clothe a Transatlantic authoritarianism in the face of Christian nationalism.
Here’s a good reference to figure out what exactly Project 2025 is.
Recently, it’s been encouraging to see so many Americans waking up to the danger of Project 2025. Celebrities such as Taraji P. Henson, who spoke repeatedly about it during the recent Black Entertainment Television awards, as well as a grassroots effort on social media to raise awareness, have caused Google searches for Project 2025 to soar, with recent searches eclipsing even Taylor Swift.
Public awareness is important because polls have shown that the more people learn about Project 2025, the higher its negatives grow. Opposition among independents soars from net -15 to -66 according to polling and research by Navigator. Among all voters, the trend is also clear.
The more Trump is tied to Project 2025, the more likely voters will reject the two of them together. Perhaps this is why Trump has sought to distance himself from the people behind the project—even though nearly all of them have ties to the first Trump administration.
We need to all be talking more about this and hanging it around Donald’s turkey neck, along with his gobbledygook moments.
So, that’s a lot of to you to read. We’re still here trying to inform everyone who wants to keep the good life. My granddaughters turn 3 next week. I definitely do not want Project 2025 to rule their future. We have enough stuff to take out with the damage from the Supreme Court MAGATs. Have a peaceful and pleasant weekend.
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“The trump criminal trial has so much drama.” John Buss @repeat 1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Last night was ladies’ night in the Congressional House Oversight Committee meeting. And oh, what a night! The sidewalk display outside the Trump Hush Money Trial wasn’t much better. And then there was the Kansas City Ball Kicker who gave a commencement speech at a small Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. It’s been a sad week for women in leadership positions or those who strive for leadership positions. It’s been a week of sexism and misogyny unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
I’m going to start with the Ball Kicker. This analysis is from Vox, written by Li Zhou. “The controversy over Harrison Butker’s misogynistic commencement speech, explained. Butker’s address was a textbook case of conservative sexism and homophobia.”
NFL kicker Harrison Butker is facing widespread backlash after giving a college commencement speech that casually dabbled in misogyny and homophobia.
Butker, who has won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs in recent years, delivered the address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, on May 11. In it, he criticizes everything from women prioritizing professional careers to Pride Month to abortion access.
An outspoken conservative who is close with leading right-wing figures including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Butker’s speech closely echoed Republican rhetoric and fixated on issues that have been popular fodder for conservatives as they try to mobilize their voters ahead of the 2024 election.
“I think it is you, the women who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said in his speech. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
The Chiefs have not commented on Butker’s remarks and the NFL league office distanced itself from them. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People.
Butker’s speech advances the same agenda that the GOP has been pushing not only in its rhetoric but through policy. At least 21 Republican-led state legislatures have approved laws that ban or restrict abortion access and at least 20 have approved bills that curb access to gender-affirming care for minors. Butker’s remarks — which emphasized people “staying in [their] lane” — are the latest attempt to weaponize religion to achieve the same goals.
Butker’s speech is being characterized by the usual suspects as just “expressing unpopular opinions.” It’s more than that.
Below are some of the lowlights:
On women’s careers: One of the sections getting the most attention is Butker’s comments about the importance of women’s roles in the home. Singling out the women in the audience, he argued that they’re likely more eager to become wives and mothers than to have successful careers.
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” he said.
In addition to speaking on women’s behalf, Butker also reduced the primary goal of their lives to one biological function. Being a homemaker is an important role that should be celebrated, but it’s far from the only one a woman can choose — a key reason his remarks spurred such backlash. Butker also described women’s roles very differently than he described men’s: While he touted the virtues of being a present father, he did not say that being a dad was likely the primary goal of a man’s life.
In recent days, a parade of Republicans have shown up at the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump faces criminal charges related to the hush-money scheme he concocted to deceive American voters during the 2016 election. The goal of those MAGA allies is simple: to make it unimpeachably clear that their primary fealty is to Donald Trump over the rule of law.
Unfortunately, some of media coverage has obscured these fundamentals. Some accounts describe these Republicans as “currying favor” with Trump or showing “loyalty” to him, as if they are just demonstrating personal support for him at a trying moment. Others have noted that some making this pilgrimage—none more odiously than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance—are really vying to be his running mate, which might be true but reduces all this to a form of political jockeying that seems fairly conventional.
If we are going to treat this as a story about loyalty signaling, let’s frame the question this way: Loyalty to what, exactly? Not just loyalty to Trump. This episode—and others like it, such as the stampede of Republicans backing Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the 2024 election results—is better seen as a statement of ultimate fealty to Trump over and above our institutions, as a declaration that he is paramount and they are thoroughly dispensable.
“This trial is a scam and a sham, and it shouldn’t happen,” Trump raged on Thursday at the court, with Representative Matt Gaetz and other Republicans standing behind him. Gaetz proudly posted a picture of himself “standing back and standing by” for Trump at the courthouse, deliberately echoing the language Trump used about his paramilitary goons in the first 2020 debate.
This comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson descended on the courthouse this week and attacked presiding Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, who fundraised for Democrats, blasting the proceedings as a “sham.” Vance and Florida Senator Rick Scott similarly attacked Merchan’s daughter. Many Republicans blasted the credibility of Michael Cohen, the former Trump fixer and chief prosecution witness. Still others slammed the lead prosecutor, based on an absurd, convoluted theory about his previous work at the Justice Department, as a tool of President Biden.
If Republicans were merely criticizing the prosecution on the facts and the law in substantive terms, it would be one thing. But here they are attacking the judge, his family, the witnesses, and the line prosecutors as actors in a fundamentally illegitimate proceeding.
Those are things the gag order on Trump prohibits him from doing, which has some commentators asking whether he is surreptitiously inducing his boosters to carry out those attacks to circumvent it. There is some evidence of this, but as Brian Beutler writes, that question misses the point: Either way, the surrogates wouldn’t be doing any of it if Trump didn’t want them to, and they are echoing Trump’s own precise language and claims.
To grasp the real force of this, it’s worth recalling the reason we don’t want proceedings like these subjected to demonization campaigns in the first place: It threatens to sabotage public confidence in the justice system’s integrity and makes it harder for good-faith actors to play their roles in it without fear or favor. And so, the whole point of these GOP depravities is to dramatize, in the form of spectacle, that their fealty is to Trump over and above those rules and norms, the ones that make the system work at the most fundamental level.
Rep. Lauren Boebert made headlines with her show of support at former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Thursday, but has been conspicuously absent for her own son’s court appearances, according to multiple reports.
The Colorado congresswoman joined a gaggle of Freedom Caucus loyalists at the Manhattan criminal court on Thursday, writing on X: “I’ll never stop standing up for President Trump, even if I’m the last one standing.”
Speaking at a makeshift press conference outside the court, Boebert was heckled with chants of “Beetlejuice” — a reference to when she was thrown out of a Denver theater showing the film after vaping and apparently groping a male companion.
While Trump is facing criminal charges of falsifying business records in relation to a hush-money scheme to silence porn actor Stormy Daniels, Boebert’s 19-year-old son Tyler has also had court dates.
Tyler Boebert was arrested in February on multiple felony charges including the criminal possession of identity documents, criminal trespass, and possession of a financial device.
He’s had two court hearings to date — one on April 11 and another on May 9.
During the April hearing, Boebert was in Congress voting against the passage of the Sea Turtle Rescue Assistance and Rehabilitation Act, records show.
Trump took advantage of the photo op and whining in court by appearing at Barron’s graduation today. He’s headed off for a fundraiser tonight in the Twin Cities. He’s probably airborne, as I write. Another MAGA governor is getting slammed for being more interested in appearances than Governing. They’re the most emotionally abusive group of misfits I’ve ever seen or read about. “‘A Governor Who Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ increasing number of critics think she’s too worried about her national profile.” This is in Politicoand reported by Dana Liebelson. If she was that worried about her profile, you would think she’d stop wearing outfits suggesting she’s about to board a Prarie Schooner to Oregon. Still, I can’t see this kind of coverage of Jeff Landry, our governor, down here in Lousyana.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders assumed a podium on a recent spring morning in Arkansas, her familiar voice instantly evoking her pugnacious press conferences under Donald Trump. That day, there were no reporters to spar with, nor culture wars to wage, only a few dozen Arkansans who’d come to applaud millions in ongoing state grants for playgrounds and parks. “When my kids were younger, we could plan a huge trip just to find out that our kids would prefer to actually play on a jungle gym or a swing set,” she said. The 41-year-old governor wore an above-the-knee metallic skirt and pumps, a millennial-friendly outfit that matched her refreshed brand as the youngest governor in the country. She reminisced about her husband, Bryan, planning outdoor adventures with their three children, “some of which I am glad that I went on.” The crowd, which included Bryan, laughed.
Sanders was a long way from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2018, when she sat silently, a rictus fixed on her face, as comedienne Michelle Wolf joked about her burning facts and using the ash “to create a perfect smoky eye.” The former White House press secretary made her name defending Trump’s version of reality, while whittling down the actual press briefing. To her supporters, she played the outsider in Washington who couldn’t be corrupted by the D.C. establishment.
Now that she’s returned home, they say she still puts Arkansas first. In a close-knit state where some of Sanders’ colleagues have known her since college or younger, they insist her time with Trump didn’t fundamentally change her. Washington was one of her adventures, some of which she’s glad she went on. And many people in Arkansas love her for the same reason her national audience does: “She’s a fighter, an amazing communicator, and people connect to her,” Chris Caldwell, her 2022 campaign manager, told me.
But she has brought her experience in Trump’s Washington back with her. She shows little trust in the media. She cruises between events in a black SUV with tinted windows, accompanied by a state police detail in suits and a comms director who worked for Trump and his 2020 presidential campaign. At open-press events, she takes so few questions, Arkansas reporters are fatalistic about the idea of asking many. Instead, as befits a national figure with national ambitions — she’s shown up on lists as a possible running mate for Trump — she reaches her audience on her terms, including on Fox News, or Instagram and Elon Musk’s X, where she has over 2.3 million collective followers. At times, she seems to govern for the latter. Arkansas may not share a border with Mexico, but she has traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, and talked about the border crisis on Fox & Friends. And sent down the Arkansas National Guard. Arkansas has long allowed gender-neutral IDs, of which there are a few hundred issued, but she justified banning them in the state, using the same playbook from the Republican war on trans rights.
Criticism of a member’s “fake eyelashes” and another’s intelligence. A question about discussing a member’s “bleach blond, bad-built butch body.”
A House Oversight Committee meeting Thursday night devolved into chaos amid personal attacks and partisan bickering in a rare evening session that was supposed to center on a resolution recommending Attorney General Merrick Garland be held in contempt of Congress.
The already tense hearing was derailed when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., responded to a question from Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, by saying, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, immediately moved to strike Greene’s words from the record and make her apologize to Crockett.
“That is absolutely unacceptable,” Ocasio-Cortez said over cross talk. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”
Greene taunted Ocasio-Cortez, asking, “Are your feelings hurt?”
“Oh, girl? Baby girl,” Ocasio-Cortez shot back. “Don’t even play.”
Greene attacked a second member just minutes after she criticized Crockett, asserting that Ocasio-Cortez did not have “enough intelligence” for a debate.
Greene had asked Ocasio-Cortez, “Why don’t you debate me?”
Ocasio-Cortez responded that she thought “it’s pretty self-evident.”
“You don’t have enough intelligence,” Greene said as members of Congress audibly groaned at her attack.
Greene agreed to strike her comments toward Crockett but vehemently refused to apologize for the evening’s attacks, declaring, “You will never get an apology out of me.”
Green asked if any member of the Democrat party was employing Judge Marchand’s daughter, which had nothing to do with the committee topic, which was supposed to be about AG Merrick Garland.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on all of this because I’m “hopping mad,” as my mother would say. It seemed to be an equal opportunity week to discuss why women should return to the kitchen and nursery. Sometimes, I’d like to be wherever David and Warren are, packing my guitars and piano with me and ignoring this world for a while.
I have one thing to bring to your attention. This is from the Texas Monthly. “Why Did Greg Abbott Pardon a Racist Murderer? The governor didn’t offer much of a rationale in granting clemency to Daniel Perry, who killed a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020, but apparently the enemy of his enemy is his friend.” It was written by Christopher Hooks. May all the wisdom beings protect every living thing and person in a red state.
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I’m really late getting started today, so I’m just going to get right to today’s news. Things are getting out of hand in the the Middle East, and Republicans in the House are determined to make the worse. They are also working hard to shut down the government unless they get all the goodies they are demanding. Johnson did manage to get a continuing resolution passed, but he depended on Democratic votes. Meanwhile the Republicans are holding back funding for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American: January 18, 2024.
This afternoon, Congress passed a new continuing resolution necessary to fund the government past the upcoming deadlines in the previous continuing resolution. Those deadlines were tomorrow (January 19) and February 2. The deadlines in the new measure are March 1 and March 8. This is the third continuing resolution passed in four months as extremist Republicans have refused to fund the government unless they get a wish list of concessions to their ideology.
Today’s vote was no exception. Eighteen Republican senators voted against the measure, while five Republicans did not vote (at least one, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, is ill). All the Democrats voted in favor. The final tally was 77 to 18, with five not voting.
In the House the vote was 314 to 108, with 11 not voting. Republicans were evenly split between supporting government funding and voting against it, threatening to shut down the government. They split 107 to 106. All but two Democrats voted in favor of government funding. (In the past, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and MIke Quigley of Illinois have voted no on a continuing resolution to fund the government in protest that the measure did not include funding for Ukraine.)
This means that, like his predecessor Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had to turn to Democrats to keep the government operating. The chair of the extremist House Freedom Caucus, Bob Good (R-VA), told reporters that before the House vote, Freedom Caucus members had tried to get Johnson to add to the measure the terms of their extremist border security bill. Such an addition would have tanked the bill, forcing a government shutdown, and Johnson refused.
Republican extremists in Congress are also doing the bidding of former president Donald Trump, blocking further aid to Ukraine in its struggle to fight off Russian aggression and standing in the way of a bipartisan immigration reform measure. Aid to Ukraine is widely popular both among the American people and among lawmakers. Immigration reform, which Republicans have demanded but are now opposing, would take away one of Trump’s only talking points before the 2024 election.
Richardson discusses a column in yesterday’s Washington Post about what happens when a country backslides on democracy: Poland is a test case for reviving a corrupted democracy, by Lee Hochstader. This could apply to Ukraine and potentially to the U.S.
With authoritarians and tyrants on the march across the world, Poland is an emerging test case of whether a corrupted democracy can be revived. The discouraging early signs are that it might be harder than building one from scratch.
Contempt for the niceties of representative and pluralistic democracy, along with florid rhetorical excess, were the trademarks of the man who controlled Poland’s ruling party for the past eight years, before a shock electoral defeat last fall cast him into political exile.
Ghost Cat, by Chikanobu Toyohara 1838-1912
Now Jaroslaw Kaczynski, having meted out death by a thousand cuts to Polish democracy in a failed effort to cement his grip on power, leads an irreconcilable opposition.
His escalating standoff with the new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is a stress test that is likely to subject Eastern Europe’s biggest and most influential country to a bitter contest of wills for the foreseeable future. And it is far from clear that Poland can regain the vibrant democracy, independent judiciary and robust institutions it worked so hard to establish from the ruins of communism more than 30 years ago.
“It was easier then because there was broad consensus in society and the political class about the general direction,” Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Warsaw office, told me. “Now this is the core of the conflict.”
Tusk, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2014, took office again last month. It doesn’t mean that he took power.
Over the course of its two terms in government, Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party jury-rigged systems, rules and institutions to its own partisan advantage, seeding its allies in the courts, prosecutors’ offices, state-owned media and central bank. Kaczynski’s administration erected an intricate legal obstacle course designed to leave the party with a stranglehold on key levers of power even if it were ousted in elections.
On top of that, President Andrzej Duda, a Kaczynski ally, is set to remain in office until his term expires in August next year. He retains broad powers, including to veto legislation, and has already thwarted Tusk’s agenda where possible.
Read more at the WaPo. This is the danger we face if we let Trump gain power again.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has extended an invitation to Donald Trump to visit Kyiv, with a specific condition attached.
Speaking with U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 News, Zelensky said that Trump would be warmly received in the capital under one stipulation: the former U.S. president must demonstrate his ability to bring an end to the war with Russia within 24 hours, as he once promised.
Trump has repeatedly said that the war would not have happened if he was still in power in Washington, and that he would bring it to an immediate end if voted back in because he has what he described as “a good relationship” with both Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Beyond that, former U.S. president has provided no details of what his peace deal would involve.
Zelensky, who has previously extended the invitation without receiving a response, emphasized that if Trump indeed has a “formula” for resolving the war, he is eager to learn the specifics.
“So, I invite President Trump. If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes — yes, 24 minutes. Not more. Yes. Not more — 24 minutes to explain [to] President Trump that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin.”Zelensky said on air: “He is very welcome to come here, but I think he can not end the war in 24 hours, without giving our land to Putin.”
Five Senate Democrats on Friday signed onto a measure that would condition aid to Israel on its compliance with international law, bringing the total number of co-sponsors to 18. And a prominent Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, is rounding up support for his amendment to stop President Biden from circumventing Congress when he orders weapons transfers to Israel, a maneuver the president has pursued twice in recent months.
Kobayashi Kiyochika, Cat and Lantern
Earlier this week, 11 senators voted for a bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders aimed at forcing the Biden administration to examine potential human rights abuses by Israel.
After weeks of unquestioning support, the Senate is emerging as a center of resistance to Biden’s unwavering embrace of Israel — at least in modest ways — as even centrist Democrats are signaling their discomfort with the president’s “bear hug” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A number of prominent Democrats have proposed or backed measures that aim to hold Israel accountable or to shift American strategy, even if they are unlikely to garner enough support to pass.
The growing willingness of establishment Democrats to criticize or push back on Israel — a move that would have come with serious political ramifications just a few months ago — signals a shift in the politics of the party since the war in Gaza began more than 100 days ago. Senators from swing states, including Georgia, Wisconsin and Minnesota, have signed on to some of these measures as polls show a notable drop in support for Biden among young, Muslim and Arab American voters over his handling of the issue.
While few senators are voicing full-throated criticism of Biden’s Israel policy, the new, more skeptical tone reflects an increasing unease as the civilian toll in Gaza rises and Israel repeatedly flouts U.S. requests to modify its military onslaught.
“Every week the Netanyahu coalition promises the Biden administration that we will see meaningful changes, and every week it never materializes,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who, along with Kaine, organized the effort to impose conditions in exchange for aid. Van Hollen noted that some members of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition are even “bragging” about ignoring American requests.
Commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group are on the ground in Yemen helping to direct and oversee Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, four regional and two Iranian sources told Reuters.
Iran – which has armed, trained and funded the Houthis – stepped up its weapons supplies to the militia in the wake of the war in Gaza, which erupted after Iranian-backed militants Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the four regional sources said.
Tehran has provided advanced drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, precision-strike ballistic missiles and medium-range missiles to the Houthis, who started targeting commercial vessels in November in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the sources said.
IRGC commanders and advisers are also providing know-how, data and intelligence support to determine which of the dozens of vessels travelling through the Red Sea each day are destined for Israel and constitute Houthi targets, all the sources said.
Washington said last month that Iran was deeply involved in planning operations against shipping in the Red Sea and that its intelligence was critical to enable the Houthis to target ships.
A suspected Israeli strike killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ espionage chief for Syria and three other guard members on Saturday, Iran has said, in an attack that destroyed much of a multistorey residential building in Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people were killed in the Israeli strike on the upmarket Mazzeh neighbourhood in the Syrian capital.
Four Cats Sleeping, by Inagaki Tomoo
In recent weeks, Israel has been accused of intensifying strikes on senior Iranian and allied figures in Syria and Lebanon, raising fears the war in Gaza could expand into a regional conflict.
“The Revolutionary Guards’ Syria [intelligence] chief, his deputy and two other guard members were martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel,” Iran’s Mehr news agency said.
In a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it had lost four of its members and blamed Israel.
When asked about the strike, the Israeli army said: “We do not comment on reports from the foreign media.”
Tensions between Iran and Israel have risen to a new high after the bloody surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October.
Trump has been directing racist attacks against Niki Haley, now that the Republican primary campaign has moved to New Hampshire.
Former president Donald Trump is lobbing racially charged attacks at Republican rival Nikki Haley, a daughter of Indian immigrants who served as his U.N. ambassador, days before a hotly contested New Hampshire primary that could determine the trajectory of the party’s nominating contest.
In a lengthy post on his social media platform Friday, Trump gave his GOP rival a nickname that appeared to be yet another racist dog whistle.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley as “Nimbra,” an apparent intentional misspelling of her birth name. Haley, whose parents moved to the United States in the 1960s, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.
Reminiscent of his spurious claims about former president Barack Obama’s citizenship, Trump also last week spread a false “birther” claim about Haley when he shared a post on Truth Social from the Gateway Pundit, a far-right website that propagates baseless accusations. [IOW: lies]
The post falsely suggested Haley was ineligible to be president or vice president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born. This is not true. The Constitution states that a natural-born citizen can be president, and Haley automatically became a U.S. citizen when she was born in South Carolina in 1972.
Friday wasn’t the first time Trump has mocked Haley’s name. After the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Trump embarked on a tirade against Haley, misspelling her given first name.
“Anyone listening to Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley’s wacked out speech last night, would think that she won the Iowa Primary,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, and out of hope. Nikki came in a distant THIRD!” (DeSanctimonious is a Trump nickname for another GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.)
Meanwhile, Trump is demonstrating his cognitive decline in his campaign speeches. Yesterday, he confused Nicki Haley with Nancy Pelosi–claiming Haley was responsible for Congressional security on January 6, 2021.
Donald Trump on Friday was skewered online for apparently confusing Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, resulting in the ex-president blaming the former for the events of Jan. 6.
Leisure Day by Togyu Okumura
Trump was delivering remarks in Concord, New Hampshire, on Friday, when he said that Haley was “offered 10,000 people” on Jan. 6, and implied that she was involved in the deleting of video evidence. These are common allegations that the former president has previously lobbed at Pelosi and the Jan. 6 subcommittee.
The video quickly went viral, causing people to make fun of Trump and even suggest he has mental health concerns.
“Do we need to do the dementia test again?” asked national security attorney Bradley P. Moss. MSNBC personality Mehdi Hasan had a similar take, asking, “Does he need to take the ‘person woman man camera TV’ test again?”
Hasan had been responding to a Biden-Harris HQ post in which the campaign says a “deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times.”
Trump has also begun bragging again about how he “aced” a cognitive test as president. Actually the test he took is designed to detect dementia and has nothing to do with IQ or intelligence generally.
Donald Trump this week bragged about purportedly acing a widely used cognitive test that was administered to him when he was president, suggesting that the test included identifying drawings of three animals.
“I think it was 35, 30 questions,” the former president said in Portsmouth, N.H., of the test, which he said involved a few animal identification queries. “They always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this, or that — a whale. ‘Which one is the whale?’ Okay. And that goes on for three or four [questions] and then it gets harder and harder and harder.”
The only problem: The creator of the test in question, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, said it has never included the specific combination of animals described by Trump in any of its versions over the years.
In fact, Ziad Nasreddine, the Canadian neurologist who invented the test, said the assessment — intended primarily to test for signs of dementia or other cognitive decline — has never once included a drawing of a whale.
“I don’t think we have a version with a whale,” said Nasreddine, who added there are three versions of the test currently in circulation.
He and other physicians allowed for the possibility that Trump was just offering hypothetical examples. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
For nearly four years, Trump has periodically boasted about his performance on the cognitive test, always tweaking the questions he alleges he aced, from correctly reciting a series of words in order — “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” — to, most recently, identifying an animal — a whale — that did not appear on the test.
Experts also note that the assessment is not an I.Q. or intelligence test, though Trump has often talked about it as if it was.
“It’s a very, very low bar for somebody who carries the nuclear launch codes in their pocket to pass and certainly nothing to brag about,” said Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences.
And get this: part of Trump’s deposition for his civil fraud case has just been released.
Combative, angry and prone to grandiose claims — newly unveiled footage of an April 2023 deposition gives a glimpse into how former President Donald Trump behaves when testifying under oath.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Looking Tiresome
The video, released to CBS News on Friday in response to a freedom of information request, shows Trump claiming to have averted a “nuclear holocaust” and “saving millions of lives” as president. A transcript of the deposition was previously made public as an exhibit in Trump’s New York civil fraud case.
Trump testified at trial on Nov. 6, and his testimony that day often mirrored the April deposition.
During the trial, Trump said he was too “busy in the White House” to worry about his businesses. “My threshold was China, Russia and keeping our country safe,” he said.
It echoed a response he gave in his April 2023 testimony in a small conference room with New York Attorney General Letitia James. He went further that day, explaining just what he believes he kept Americans safe from:
“I was very busy. I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives. I think you would’ve had nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would’ve had a nuclear war if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said.
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning, conservative attorney George Conway was asked how the jury in the E.Jean Carroll defamation trial is likely viewing Donald Trump in the flesh as opposed to just seeing clips of him on TV.
Getting right into it with the hosts of MSNBC’s “The Weekend,’ Conway explained, “When you see little clips of him, you kind of think you know, it’s reality TV. He’s silly, he’s harmless, it’s just nonsense and he just does his thing, he does his schtick. But when you see him up close and in person you start to realize there’s something seriously wrong with him.”
“And that’s what happens with his own people,” he continued before recalling, “Remember how his chief of staff, General Kelly, brought in a book, like the psychiatrists had written about Donald Trump, saying he was completely out of his mind, and he [Kelly] is like, ‘This is the key. We could figure this out!'”
“People learn, there is something seriously wrong with this guy, and I think what this jury is going to learn, which is like you are in this solemn proceeding you are taking this seriously, and jurors generally don’t look at scams and people behaving badly in the courtroom, and here, they have this psychopath sitting right there,” he elaborated. “It’s got to be off-putting and scary, and just appalling to them, because they were actually seeing him in the flesh, this real person, not this caricature on TV, this self-caricature on TV. They’re seeing the face, the face literally, of evil right there.”
Yes, the face of evil is accurate–I agree.
What do you think about all this? What other stories are you interested in?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
The German Chancellor and the Slovenian Prime Minister were key to the deal. The AP reports the swap as a “landmark.”
I don’t care that some bad guys got sent back to Russia. That’s a type of punishment, even though Putin played them up as heroes. I can’t imagine they will be completely safe there. However, we brought the good folks home to thrive.
Democratic Governors are all speaking out with enthusiasm. They’re also nailing Donald and the guy who changed his name three times to the wall. DonOld is ratcheting up the racism and misogyny. This is from Susan B. Glasser reporting for The New Yorker. “Trump’s Racist Attack on Kamala Harris Was No Accident. Is it, perhaps, a sign that the Vice-President’s swift rise in the polls has him panicked?”
Laura Loomer probably holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest piece of shit ever. Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Atlanta rally Tuesday night. I got to stick around for some campaign insider stuff and a Zoom visit from the Vice President. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this hyped up to volunteer my ass off. This is from the Washington Post. “Harris events: Not your father’s campaign rallies (or Biden’s). If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Harris took the stage for a campaign rally.”
Even though this headline comes with my usual admonition about trusting polls, it’s a good sign. “Kamala Harris Now Leads Donald Trump in Eight National Polls.” That’s eight data points, so that’s good. This reporting comes in Newsweek by Martha McHardy AND Andrew Stanton.
We just have to keep up the Momala Momentum. This is an interview from Elle on her role as stepmom to two young adults. To hell with J.D. Vance and his parade of stereotypes.
The Marist Poll folks characterized the race thusly. “Contest for President Still “Up for Grabs. Biden +2 Percentage Points Against Trump, Despite Concerns about Biden’s Mental Fitness.” So now the strategy is to just fucking keep reporting about everything that is wrong with Trump and remind the American Public how awful things were under his regime.
The Washington Post reports this news about last night’s presser and the President’s scheduled Rally in Michigan today. “Biden heading to Michigan for rally after high-stakes news conference. The president is visiting the must-win state after a mixed session with reporters that showcased his knowledge but also included verbal stumbles.” Yasmeen Abutaleb has the lede. So are these folks experts that never “stumble” and now what could cause it like stress, tiredness, age, or a life-long stutter? Trump’s speeches are unhinged and full of lies and gobbledygook. Former aids won’t vote for him because they say he’s a malignant narcissist? Can we examine him and his Personality Disorders, history with the law, and his failure to tell the truth every time he opens his mouth or puts some nonsense on Truth Social?
Do they constantly list every single trouble Donald has getting up or down stairs or his many verbal falsehoods and weirdness? Where is their coverage of Dotard Donald? Here’s the LA Times Editorial Board listing the various disasters surrounding Donald.
Now that’s more like it! Dear Political Pundits, Reporters, and Podcast Dudes! Take note that this is the way you do it! This is what we face if we don’t do a Trifecta in the Beltway come November. This is reported by Anna Conkling at The Daily Beast. “GOP Rep Delivers a House Floor Speech Straight Out of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. In a speech before the House that seemed lifted right out of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic, Rep. Glenn Grothman said he wants the U.S. to go back to 1960.” Oh, Hell NO!
Here’s Heather Cox Richardson today on her SubStack Letters from an American. 
During the NATO summit, he’s also edged closer to Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Orban did not meet with President Biden, but he scuttled down to Flordia to chat with Donald. No doubt, he’s passing on what Putin wants Donald to know and do. This is from Marcie at Empty Wheel. TRUMP MAY ATTEMPT TO DISAVOW PROJECT 2025 — BUT HE’S NOT DISAVOWING VIKTOR ORBÁN. Just so you know, Kansas is larger than Hungary. Hungary is about 2.3 times smaller than Kansas.
Here’s a good reference to figure out what exactly Project 2025 is.
athan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People.
These last 10 years have taught us that we may have come a long way from not being able to vote, but the party of Troglydites can send us right back to being chattel and slaves in a matter of years. Women, the GLBT community, immigrant populations, and America’s black community are having basic rights stripped from them daily. The shit show in front of the Manhattan Courthouse yesterday was appalling. “MAGA Rage at Trump’s Trial Just Got Darker and More Dangerous. Republicans aren’t just showing “loyalty to Trump.” They’re saying that Trump is more important than the rule of law.” This is from Greg Sargent writing for The New Republic.
“Matt Gaetz evokes ‘standing by’ language adopted by Proud Boys as he attends court with Donald Trump.” They all basically helped Trump avoid his gag order. If they were ordered by Donald to do it, they are all in trouble. Boebert also made a huge fool of herself and, once again, showed her “family values.” This is from Business Insider. “Lauren Boebert skipped Congress to support Trump’s trial, but didn’t show up to her own son’s hearings: reports.”
Trump took advantage of the photo op and whining in court by appearing at Barron’s graduation today. He’s headed off for a fundraiser tonight in the Twin Cities. He’s probably airborne, as I write. Another MAGA governor is getting slammed for being more interested in appearances than Governing. They’re the most emotionally abusive group of misfits I’ve ever seen or read about. “‘A Governor Who Doesn’t Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ increasing number of critics think she’s too worried about her national profile.” This is in Politico and reported by Dana Liebelson. If she was that worried about her profile, you would think she’d stop wearing outfits suggesting she’s about to board a Prarie Schooner to Oregon. Still, I can’t see this kind of coverage of Jeff Landry, our governor, down here in Lousyana.
I’m really late getting started today, so I’m just going to get right to today’s news. Things are getting out of hand in the the Middle East, and Republicans in the House are determined to make the worse. They are also working hard to shut down the government unless they get all the goodies they are demanding. Johnson did manage to get a continuing resolution passed, but he depended on Democratic votes. Meanwhile the Republicans are holding back funding for Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
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