Blue, Blue Monday Reads

John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

John Buss nailed his cartoon today.  Poor, poor pitiful Orange Caligula has taken the Airing of The Grievances to new heights.  So, I borrowed it bigly.  Thanks, John, for the daily smile! Poor me will write about it, I needed that smile! It also gave me a reason to think of my late ninth-ward neighbor, Fats Domino.  I loved every moment of watching him play at every place possible here!  Plus, he made great hog’s head cheese!

Take a breath. It’s the airing of the Grievances at the Donnie Dotard Club!

I’ve read a lot of American History in my day, and I’ve now lived a portion of it enough to say I don’t recall any Presidential Campaign being a Revenge Tour. But then, we’ve never had a President–and hopefully, never again–like Trump.  That appears to be what today’s Republicans want, according to Sarah Longwell, writing today at The Bulwark. “You Have to Think of Trump’s Election as Year Zero. Because Republican voters say they don’t want any part of a Republican party that looks anything like it did before 2016.”

THERE ARE EVENTS SO EPOCHAL that they create clear periods of before and after: Hiroshima; the fall of the Berlin Wall; 9/11. Eight years after he declared his intention to run for president, it’s now clear that we should consider Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign not as part of America’s political continuum but as one of these temporal dividing lines.

In American politics, there were conventions and candidates that existed in 2015 Republican politics as the before times. 2015 BT. Before Trump.

Before the escalator and “grab ’em by the p***y.” Before Muslim bans and a wall Mexico would never pay for. Before we’d heard of Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Lauren Boebert, or the QAnon shaman. Before an American president sided with Vladimir Putin over his own government’s intelligence network. Before Donald Trump became the first president to turn his back on the peaceful transfer of power.

This period has existed outside of nearly all established norms, yet many Americans seem to believe that it is an interregnum. An aberration. An accident of history that will undo itself—soon—as norms and the old equilibrium return.

I think this view misunderstands the true nature of what has happened to the Republican party because it does not see what has happened to Republican voters.

I’ve sat through hundreds of focus groups with GOP voters over the last four years and one thing is perfectly clear: The Republican party has been irretrievably altered and, as one GOP voter put it succinctly, “We’re never going back.”

IT’S EASY TO IDENTIFY people who don’t realize the transformation undergone by GOP voters. Many of them, in fact, have been talking about running for president. Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pompeo—these are Before Trump (BT) politicians who don’t quite realize they’re living in an After Trump (AT) world.

Rock ‘n’ roll legend Fats Domino’s two-home compound at Caffin Avenue and Marais Street has been a landmark of the Lower 9th Ward since 1960.

Polls show that the Republican base is still solidly in Trump, but that doesn’t transfer to a recapture of the White House in 2024. This McClatchy report of a GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies’ poll indicates DeSantis might win against Trump. Either result would be pretty depressing in my book.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis narrowly leads President Joe Biden in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to a poll of a hypothetical matchup between the two men in the 2024 presidential race. The same survey, however, finds Biden leading former President Donald Trump in the two swing states, albeit by tight margins. The poll, conducted from April 11 through April 13 by GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by McClatchyDC, should bolster the argument from many DeSantis supporters that the Florida Republican is more electable than the former president. Trump lost reelection in 2020 and has continued alienating some moderate voters with his ongoing false claims that the race was stolen from him

Given the legislative actions down here, I wonder why I stay in the South.  I think I may have to retire to a nice mountain retreat in Nepal if Average Joe doesn’t win again.  Here’s the latest from Lousyana as proof life is certainly getting more terrible post-Trump.  This is from Business Insider.  “Republican state officials in Louisiana ask lawmakers to ban the study of racism at universities, citing divisive ‘inglorious aspects’ of US history.”  We’re not quite Floridoh or Texass but give these nitwits a chance, and we’ll be a theocratical fascist state too.

Republican officials in Louisiana are proposing a ban on teaching about racism at the state’s higher education institutions — the latest move amid a wave of legislation across the country aimed at legislating curriculum in the nation’s classrooms.

GOP Party officials in the state want Louisiana lawmakers to prohibit the study of racism at colleges and universities, claiming the “inglorious aspects” of American history are too divisive, according to NOLA.com, which cites a GOP resolution on the matter.

The state GOP leadership also wants to nix diversity, equity, and inclusion departments at colleges and universities, claiming without evidence that such agencies stir political tensions on campuses and have overgenerous budgets, NOLA.com reported. A third of Louisiana residents are Black, according to the US Census Bureau.

Remind me who the snowflakes are again? Here’s another indicator from MediaITE that grievances and hurt feelings rule the policy agenda in the party. It’s why Donnie Dotard is so well-suited for them. “Former president Donald Trump offered some unconventional legal advice to Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch on the eve of the Fox News-Dominion Voting Systems trial.”

In an all-caps post on Truth Social, Trump urged Murdoch to “EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION.” Fox is the defendant in a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, which says that Fox knowingly amplified false claims about the company in order to promote Trump’s disproven theories about how the election was stolen from him and handed to Joe Biden. According to Trump, Fox’s acknowledgement that the election was not stolen from him represents a legal liability.

“FOX NEWS IS IN BIG TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT EXPOSE THE TRUTH ON CHEATING IN THE 2020 ELECTION. THEY SHOULD DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR AMERICA. WHEN RUPERT MURDOCH SAYS THAT THERE WAS NO CHEATING IN LIGHT OF THE MASSIVE PROOF THAT WAS THERE, IT IS RIDICULOUS AND VERY HARMFUL TO THE FOX CASE,” argued Trump, before addressing Murdoch directly. “RUPERT, JUST TELL THE TRUTH AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLLEN…YOU KNOW IT, & SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!”

Trump’s mid-morning missive on Monday followed a 2:39 AM post in which he submitted that “IF FOX WOULD FINALLY ADMIT THAT THERE WAS LARGE SCALE CHEATING & IRREGULARITIES IN THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WHICH WOULD BE A GOOD THING FOR THEM, & FOR AMERICA, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED AT ALL, WOULD BE GREATLY WEAKENED.”

“BACK UP THOSE PATRIOTS AT FOX INSTEAD OF THROWING THEM UNDER THE BUS,” continued the former president. While various reporters and anchors — including Bret Baier and Jacqui Heinrich — have taken care to debunk Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, others, including star opinion host Tucker Carlson, have doubled down on them.

Why does the Saint of Grievances always use ALL CAPS?   Certainly, the Faux New Network All-Stars know better.

Well, this makes for interesting reading. 

In a statement, the company said that “the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution” and protected by legal precedent. It added, “Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law.”

But if a jury looks at the messages from Fox hosts, guests and executives and concludes that people inside the network knew what they were putting on the air was false, it could find Fox liable and reward Dominion with substantial financial damages.

On Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Carlson told Mr. Pfeiffer that claims about manipulated software were “absurd.” Mr. Pfeiffer replied later that there was not enough evidence of fraud to swing the election.

A graphic of a text exchange between Pfeiffer and Carlson.

Said privately on Nov. 7, 2020

Carlson to Pfeiffer

The software shit is absurd.

Nov. 8, 2020

Pfeiffer to Carlson

I dont think there is evidence of voter fraud that swung the election.

Donny Dotard does have some reason to sing the blues.  Things are going badly for him on all the court trials front.  This is from NBC News. “Judge denies Trump’s bid to delay civil rape trial. A lawyer for Trump had argued that the former president should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury. ”  There’s ketchup on the walls at the Donnie Dotard Clubhouse today!  It’s Monday!  Monday is Ketchup on the Wall Day there!

A federal judge on Monday denied former President Donald Trump’s bid for a four-week delay in the civil rape and defamation trial against him.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a letter last week to postpone the trial in the lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, scheduled to start April 25, until the end of May. Carroll’s lawsuit alleges that Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, which Trump has repeatedly denied.

Tacopina argued that his client should be allowed a “cooling off” period following his recent historic indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, which drew a surge of media coverage.

In a 10-page opinion denying Trump’s request on Monday, Kaplan wrote that “there is no justification for an adjournment.”

“This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution,” Kaplan wrote. “The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment — coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions — would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion that a month’s delay of the start of this trial would ‘cool off’ anything, even if any ‘cooling off’ were necessary.”

Kaplan also rejected the notion that delaying the trial would decrease the possibility of “negative publicity” before the trial. In the request to delay the trial, Tacopina argued that the influx of media coverage of Trump’s indictment and arraignment could taint the jury pool.

Kaplan wrote, “It is quite important to remember [also] that postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse.”

Kaplan also noted that “at least some portion” of recent media coverage of Trump’s indictment “was of his own doing” and that the alleged sexual conduct at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which involves adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegations that she had an affair with Trump — accusations that Trump denies — and was paid to keep quiet, is “dramatically different” from Carroll’s allegations of rape by the former president.

Nowhere is the front line for Trump revival duty failing more than at this debacle’s New York City location.  It’s the Dotardteers on tour! “House GOP escalates defense of Trump with New York field hearing seeking to discredit Manhattan DA” via CNN.  Place all your liquids in cups on the table before reading this.  Spew Warning!

House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are exemplifying the lengths they are willing to go to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump with a Monday New York field hearing on Bragg’s home turf.

House Republicans are seeking to make the case that Bragg is more focused on going after Trump for political reasons than addressing crime in New York City, a claim Bragg vehemently denies.

Democrats are pushing back, arguing that Republicans are acting as an extension of Trump’s defense team and saying they should focus instead on public safety issues like gun violence. A spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office said in a statement ahead of the hearing that the event is a “political stunt.”

The hearing, billed as focusing on crime in New York, comes as the legal drama between Bragg and House Republicans has intensified in recent days. Bragg sued House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and sought to block him from taking certain investigative steps, arguing that Congress doesn’t have oversight authority over state-level criminal prosecutions.

t serves as the latest example of how Trump continues to wield enormous power on Capitol Hill as House Republicans seek to curry favor with the former president, coming to his defense through their investigations and routinely updating him and his closest advisers on their progress. In the wake of his indictment, Trump called up members of House GOP leadership and key committee members to shore up support on Capitol Hill, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan opened Monday’s hearing by going after Bragg for being “soft on crime.”

“Here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the District Attorney, justice isn’t blind. It’s about looking for opportunities to advance a political agenda, a radical political agenda rather than enforcing the law,” Jordan said in his opening remarks.

Maybe Jordan suffers damage from multiple piledrivers?

So, this has been a bit of a weird post, but then, we live in weird times.  Thankfully, my therapeutic shoe therapy shopping results arrived at the door today!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?