The Hellscape is Here 🌻🌻🌻 🎃🎃🎃

Hate Marches On:  On Friday, Paul Pelosi, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82 year-old husband was brutally attacked in their San Francisco home by a hate posting, election denying conspiracist whose target appeared to be the Speaker rather than her husband.  On Saturday night, an anti-Semitic hate message “Kanye was right about the Jews” was projected on to the TIAA Bank field building at the end of the Georgia-Florida football game while similar messages appeared on signs elsewhere in the Jacksonville area. Also on Saturday, NBA star LeBron James called on Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk to respond to the “scary AF” increase in the use of the N-word on the social media platform, an increase reported to be around 500%.  On Sunday, Elon Musk who had reassured advertisers who currently represent 90% of Twitter’s anemic revenue that “Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world” had one of the few executives he had not fired, and he’s so far fired many, say that the N-word increase was due to bots and the company was working to close those accounts.  He also snidely promoted a baseless conspiracy that the attack on Paul Pelosi’s had nothing to do with hate or politics but was instead the result of an alcohol induced sexual encounter gone awry. After being hammered for his disgusting and false comment, Musk deleted his tweet but not before it had gone viral and was picked up by countless conspiracy spewing accounts.  Naturally he didn’t apologize.  That kind of response is indicative of the times as it’s similar to what Kanye is saying these days, he continues to double down on his hate speak and appears to have found a like minded friend in Kyrie Irving, the Net’s basketball player who sat out a lot of last year’s season over his refusal to be vaccinated.  Irving is now promoting a movie that pushes anti-Semitic tropes.  As to the response to this weekend’s hate-a-thon, a few prominent Republicans including Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney said all the right things about the attack on Paul Pelosi but quite a few more either joked about the attack or used their comments to slap back at “woke” Democrats.  That contingent included the usual suspects like Virginia Governor/presidential aspirant Glenn Youngkin, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Republican Congressman Clay Higgins who used the attack on Paul Pelosi to poke the Speaker. That’s Higgins who has thrown his hat in the ring to become the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee should the Republicans take over the House.  As to the man who is likely to become Speaker if the Republicans win next week, GOP Leader McCarthy remained silent, likely because he didn’t want to offend his mango idol who also failed to condemn the Pelosi attack or any of the anti-Semitic postings but at least one member of the Former Guy’s family did comment.  Eldest son junior posted a picture of a pair of jockey shorts together with a hammer saying he’s “got his Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”  Circling back to Twitter, it turns out that Saudi Arabian holding companies are now Twitter’s second largest investors.  That’s Saudi Arabia where a 72 year-old US citizen was recently sentenced to 16 years in prison for his regime criticizing tweets.  Stay posted on the Musk-Twitter saga, it may well end up in court again, this time over his attempts to avoid paying executives promised payouts and staff stock benefits, now cash, that vest on Tuesday. 

Legally Yours: Judging by volume of his posting on his social media platform, the Former Guy is exceptionally agitated these days and he has lots of reasons to be.  First, despite his attempts to help drag him over the finish line, his favorite rightwing leader, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro lost a runoff bid for reelection to leftist Luiz Inancio Lula da Silva (Lula) yesterday, though taking a page from his buddy, Bolsonaro hasn’t yet conceded.  Secondly, and likely far more significantly the Department of Justice has added a top National Security prosecutor to its Mar a Lago purloined document team.  The added prosecutor, David Raskin, no relation to Congressman Jamie Raskin, recently won a guilty plea in a case involving a former FBI analyst who took classified documents to her home.  By the way, the FG has not been reinstated on Twitter.  Musk says that he’s in the process of assembling a panel to make reinstatement decisions which probably means that though the FG will be invited back he won’t be instated before next week’s election. 

Viral Musings:  We’ve all heard about those people who took the anti-viral Paxlovid but then had a rebound case of COVID. According to a University of California San Diego School of Medicine study it turns out that symptom rebound is very common whether you take Paxlovid or not, and, significantly, it is not more common among Paxlovid takers.  The good news is that those who take Paxlovid are less likely to get really sick, end up hospitalized or worse.  

Chief Twit 🌻🌻🌻

Vote, Vote, Vote:  It’s weird out there right now but then again it has been for a while.  Last week’s news was that we are in red tsunami territory, easy to believe given that few in Georgia appear to care that Republican anti-abortion candidate Hershel Walker paid for at least one more abortion and because of Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman’s debate performance. Then there’s the economic news, even when a good statistic like yesterday’s positive GDP growth is released, we’re told it’s an anomaly and that economic disaster is around the corner.  And let’s not leave out the panic about crime up more in red states than blue but that’s usually ignored, this election cycle’s version of “beware the border invasion,” not that the migrant card has gone away either.  On the other hand,  early voting volumes are through the roof, it’s not clear that polls mean much these days given changing phone habits, demographics, and a significant increase in first time voters, a high percentage of whom are younger and presumed to be more liberal.  Also, while the focus continues to be on swing states, elections in places like Utah where independent Evan McMullin is holding his own against insurrection supporting incumbent Republican Senator Mike Lee and in Iowa where Democrat Mike Franken appears to be doing better than expected against geriatric pigeon tweeter incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley could end up with surprising results, well one can dream.  That’s a long-winded way of saying that despite Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer being caught on a live mic expressing his elections fears, we should all do what we can and that includes voting and bringing along your friends. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t also prepare our psyches to handle the worst.

That Sinking Feeling: As to the worst, the Kanye saga continues.  Ye turned up at Skechers headquarters with a film crew on Wednesday.  It’s not clear what he was doing, whether he was pitching his shoes or trying to prove that the company, whose founders are Jewish, is part of the “world domination problem” but officials there were having none of it, they immediately escorted him out.  Shortly after that escapade, we learned that he’d wanted to name one of his albums Hitler, after the guy he admires so much, but was persuaded not to by his record company, another indication that he’s been all in on hate for a long time now and that those around him were fully aware of his views but had ignored them because, you know, money.  Also, Ye’s foray into education, Donda Academy announced it was closing immediately for the year or longer only to then announce it was reopening and who doesn’t think that Ye shaping kids’ minds is a good idea?  Anyway, as bad as things are on the Ye front, it’s probably going to get worse and let’s hope that his escapades don’t turn violent because there’s a good chance they will.  On the Twitter front, where the GQP Judiciary Committee’s infamous  “Kanye, Musk, Trump” tweet still lives, Elon Musk completed his purchase yesterday.  He immediately took control of the now private company first by carrying a sink into its offices, don’t ask why, and then by firing the company’s CEO, CFO and senior policy people, including the woman who’d made the decision to de-platform the Former Guy for his incendiary messaging. In an attempt to allay the fears of advertisers Musk assured them that he wouldn’t let Twitter become a “free for all hellscape” but he probably will though it’s worth mentioning that a message from the Former Guy bragging that he’d be back on Twitter on Monday was a fake but a good one or at least convincing enough to fool a few correspondents including MSNBC’s Alex Wagner who reported on the FG’s Twitter return at the end of her evening show only to retract her report, on Twitter of course, later last night.

And:  Putin now says that he’s not planning to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, not that anything he says should be believed. North Korea’s Kim Jong un whose love letters the FG took to Mar a Lago because of course shot off a few ballistic missiles last night. The January 6^th insurrectionist who dragged Capitol Police officer Mike Fanone and then held him down so that other rioters could beat and shock him was sentenced to serve 7 years in Federal prison.  And lastly, unless the Supreme Court intervenes, as a result of an Appeals Court ruling the FG’s tax returns will be turned over to the House Ways and Means committee next week.

 

Elephants 🌻🌻🌻

Debate Night:  There were quite a few debates last night but the one generating the most talk was between Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat/Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.  Fetterman, still recovering from his stroke, struggled, not surprising both because he’s still having speech processing problems and because he’s never been a particularly good debater.  Oz, on the other hand is an experienced, smooth talking TV performer and that showed.  So the question for Pennsylvania voters is whether they want a polished Former Guy endorsed and endorsing grifter who thinks that “local political leaders” should have a say in abortion decisions and who lied about the “miracle cures” he hawked on his TV show or a verbally challenged everyman.  We will know in November what they decide and whether the same crowd who think that Georgia Senate wannabee Hershel Walker who will never recover from his deficiencies is okay are unwilling to vote for a candidate who is only temporarily disabled.  As to the other debates, like the one between New York ‘s Governor Hochul and LI Congressman Lee Zeldin,  Michigan’s Governor Whitmer and the Betsy DeVos supported/election denying/abortion opponent Tudor Dixon and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and Joe O’Dea who is supported by Mitch McConnell but not the Former Guy, they were predictable and probably won’t change any minds to the extent that debates ever do.   On the subject of politicians doing what they do, some members of the Democrats Progressive Caucus stepped deeply into what Speaker Pelosi politely calls doo-doo but the rest of us call sh-t by releasing a letter calling for President Biden to engage in direct talks with Vladimir Putin to “end the Ukraine war,” as if at this point a chat with old Vlad that didn’t involve Ukraine President Zelenskyy agreeing to turn over most if not all of his county would solve the Ukraine crisis.  Don’t get me wrong, peace is good but so’s a dose of reality. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, the leader of the Progressive Caucus, almost immediately retracted the letter, saying “the letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting” whatever that means. Jayapal who was instrumental in helping Biden get lots of his legislation passed this year is generally better than this but her unforced error, and it was a big one, is likely to cost her a future party leadership role and may also add to the Democrats woes in the midterms.  As to Vlad, he’s had his minions calling around to world leaders and telling them and the UN that the Ukrainians are preparing to use a dirty bomb, leading many in authority to believe that he’s planning to just that, possibly in a manner that would allow him to claim that it was Zelenskyy not him.  That false flag wouldn’t pass muster, military experts would see right through it, but it certainly would be highly destructive.

Mainstreaming Hate:  Kanye appears to still be in a manic state, not that his mental illness justifies his anti-Semitism, it just amplifies it.  As to that bigotry, Adidas finally pulled the plug on Kanye’s Yeezy line, a decision that will cost them about $250 million and that knocked Kanye off Forbes’ billionaires list, reducing his net worth from $1.5 billion, an amount that included the present value of the lucrative collaboration, to $400 million.  Following Adidas’s announcement, The Gap, which had earlier ended its deal with Kanye, said that it was no longer selling leftover inventory of Kanye sweatshirts in its stores or on its website.  Adidas and Gap join Vogue Magazine, Balenciaga, talent agency CAA and Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez who he’d recently hired to help him sue Adidas, all of whom have now said sayonara to the one-time billionaire. In addition, Hollywood producer MRC announced that they wouldn’t proceed with a much-anticipated Kanye West documentary.  Their statement included one paragraph worth repeating over and over for what it said so well: “Kanye is a producer and sampler of music. Last week he sampled and remixed a classic tune that has charted for over 3000 years – the lie that Jews are evil and conspire to control the world for their own gain. This song was performed acapella in the time of the Pharaohs, Babylon and Rome, went acoustic with The Spanish Inquisition and Russia’s Pale of Settlement, and Hitler took the song electric. Kanye has now helped mainstream it in the modern era.”

Legally Yours: On the legal front, at least for the moment Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t have to testify in Georgia.  On Monday, hubby of insurrectionist/election denier Ginni, Justice Clarence Thomas, who should have recused himself from having anything to do with the FG’s efforts to “find” more Georgia votes, temporarily stayed the subpoena for Graham to testify.  Thomas did that in his capacity as the overseer of the 11^th Circuit.  The question now is whether the Supreme Court will uphold the lower Appeals Court ruling that Graham does have to testify or whether they will overturn that decision. Most legal pundits say that the lower court decision deliver by the way by three conservative judges was spot on but then again Graham is represented by one-time White House Counsel Don McGahn and three of the SCOTUS Justices owe him their positions and two of the others are Thomas and Alito.  In the never-ending saga of will the FG ever suffer consequences for any of the crap he’s done, the Department of Justice is seeking to compel McGahn’s replacement Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin to testify in front of a grand jury about their conversations with the Former Guy concerning the events surrounding January 6^th.  In addition, the DOJ is considering granting partial immunity to Kash Patel, the FG aide and ally who had been planted in the Defense Department as the chief of staff to the acting Secretary of Defense, part of the FG’s efforts to get his cronies into powerful positions to help with his coup, but then when that failed was appointed as his emissary to the National Archives, to come clean about the transfer of the documents that were illegally taken to Mar a Lago.  To date Patel has pleaded the fifth, but once given immunity he won’t be able to do that without suffering some consequences.  Well maybe.

Viral Musings:  President Biden got his bivalent booster this week while making the point that the best way to spare yourself from suffering from a nasty bout of COVID, one that could land you in the hospital or worse, is to keep your COVID protection up to date and to take Paxlovid if appropriate.  That’s a point that Baylor College of Medicine Dr Peter Hotez, one of the notable virus experts agrees with, particularly for the vulnerable which he says includes those over 50 and children (shots not Paxlovid), particularly given the unusually high incidence of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) floating around this season.  Hotez is also advocating getting a flu shot since the current concern based on what happened in the southern hemisphere is that we are about to have a tough flu season that combined with the “alphabet stew” of omicron COVID strains popping up in Europe and starting to show up here could be particularly harrowing. And anyway, what’s another jab or two?       

 

Panic Time 🌻🌻🌻

Midterm Madness:  The NY Times Editorial Board has endorsed Kathy Hochul, NY State’s accidental Governor, over Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin.  That’s not all that surprising, more often than not the NY Times endorses Democrats.  However, what’s notable is what the NYT has to say about Zeldin and what he represents:  that while “New York has a long tradition of moderate, thoughtful Republicans, from George Pataki to Nelson Rockefeller, Mr. Zeldin is not part of this tradition.…Over and over again, he has demonstrated a loyalty to Trumpism over his oath to defend American Democracy and the Constitution.”  It’s not just that Zeldin, endorsed by the Former Guy, voted against certifying President Biden’s victory, he’s also celebrated the Dobb’s decision, has voted against reproductive rights every time he’s had the chance, is on record saying that he’ll appoint an anti-abortion health commissioner and is amplifying the message that New York is a hellscape that only he can fix, probably by further loosening gun restrictions.  What’s especially chilling is that despite all this, the NY race has tightened.  And it’s not just New York, the political pundits and pollsters are predicting a significant Republican pick-up in the House with the possibility that the Republicans will even win the Senate despite the clowns they have running in Georgia, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and a few other states I’ve likely missed. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, targeted by the FG over her impeachment vote, who is running as an independent is trailing her Republican opponent too and will only hold her seat if the state’s ranked voting system pulls her across the finish line. You only have to read the NY Times article about the ascension of Margie Q from fringe right wing loon to fully representative of what Republicans stand for these days to know that the consequences of this election could be dire. So vote, bring your friends with you and consider sending help to some swing candidates.  Also focus on some of the state races, particularly in Arizona where Katie Hobbs is neck and neck with Trumpist/election denier Republican Kari Lake and Wisconsin where Republican Tim Michels, another extremist election denier, is challenging moderate Democrat Governor Tony Evers. Both those Republican candidates are on record saying that they would overturn presidential election results they don’t like, Kari Lake even refuses to say that she’ll concede if she loses because obviously if she does it will be because of that non-existent election fraud and all that evil early voting by Democrats who refuse to be intimidated by armed “volunteers” patrolling drop boxes.  Not that we should forget the races in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.  At this point only Pennsylvania appears safely Democratic at least for the Governor’s race because Republican candidate Doug Mastriano, an election denying insurrectionist who makes Kanye look like a friend of the Jews appears to be significantly trailing Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro.

Legally Yours:  The Former Guy spent his weekend on the campaign trail.  He’s once again flying in his own 757, likely refurbished with some of the “stop the steal” campaign cash that he’s raised since the 2020 election.  He’s as bat sh-t crazy as ever, but still commands significant crowds.  He’s also facing some legal headwinds, not that any of them have mattered to date.  He’s been subpoenaed by the House January 6^th committee and while he claims that he’ll testify as long as he can do so in public, don’t believe it.  Why would he put himself in legal jeopardy when he can just go out on the campaign trail and lie with impunity? Others in his orbit have testified in front of at least one grand jury, including loyalist Kash Patel, Pence aide Marc Short, one-time White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and various Mar a Lago aides. On that front, it appears that some of the documents taken by the FG to Mar a Lago contain super-secret info about Iran and China which was probably very convenient for those Chinese and Iranian spies working at the club.  Things are heating up in NY as well where his real estate organization is set to face criminal tax fraud charges.  That’s the case where CFO Allen Weisselberg, who has already plead guilty is set to testify.  It is centered on whether the FG organization defrauded NY tax authorities by awarding “off the books” compensation to its executives to enable the company to evade payroll taxes, not to be confused with the civil case being brought by NYS Attorney General Letitia James which is focused on those highly questionable valuations of his various properties.  Also, there’s the Fulton County Georgia case, the one centered on his plea to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find those 11,000 or so votes.  Senator Lindsey Graham is now asking the Supreme Court to toss a federal Appeals Court ruling that agreed with a lower court’s ruling that he has to comply with a subpoena from County Attorney Fani Willis requesting him to testify about his conversations with Raffensperger. Lastly, the FG did finally give a deposition in the E Jean Carroll rape defamation case last week.  She’s expected to file a separate case next month once a new state law goes into effect allowing adult sexual assault victims a one-time opportunity to sue, even if the statute of limitations on their assault has expired. Niece Mary Trump has offered up her “familiar” DNA in the highly likely case that her uncle refuses to provide any of his.

Culture Wars: Kanye has doubled down on his hate tirade, continuing to blame “the Jews” for everything.  To that end fashion house Balenciaga has cut ties with him, The Gap claims to have done the same but is still aggressively marketing his overpriced sweatshirts so take that for what its worth and Adidas, the manufacturer of his Yeezy footwear says its thinking about what to do, a really bad look for a German company whose founders were members of the Nazi party. On the hate trail, Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor wannabe, Doug Mastriano, who has benefited from campaign contributions from the Nazi friendly Gab Twitter imitator app apparently agrees with his advisor Jenna Ellis, yes the Jenna Ellis of Rudy Giuliani and Four Seasons Gardening fame, who called out his opponent Josh Shapiro for being “at best a secular Jew like Joe Biden is a secular Catholic,” whatever that’s supposed to mean to most of us who are secular but spend far less time attending services in our respective houses of worship and who in any case find those kind of comments extremely offensive and what ever happened to separation of church and state anyway? On the subject of social media apps, Elon Musk, the faux diplomat who is another one to be concerned about, is due to close on his Twitter acquisition at the end of the week though the Biden administration is weighing the security implications of him doing so.  A leaked investor presentation indicates that Musk plans to axe a significant percentage of Twitter’s employees upon closing despite him saying that he won’t.  Maybe the worst part of the Twitter trade is that the banks committed to lending Musk the $13 +/- billion he needs to complete his acquisition will be taking loans onto their books that upon closing will be valued at somewhere around 50% of the amount lent. That sounds a like financial malpractice from an industry that has a history of leaving taxpayers holding the bag.  Okay, maybe that’s not the worst part, the worst part is that the FG and those other likeminded folks will be getting another platform to push dissension and hate onto in the run up to a pivotal election.                      

 

Where's the Beef? 🌻🌻🌻

Legally Yours:  Remember John Durham? He’s the once but no longer respected US Attorney from Connecticut who former Attorney General William Barr assigned to investigate the Russia investigation to prove that it wasn’t legitimately predicated. The FG and his echo chamber spent months talking up Durham, claiming that he would send many to jail after he proved that the Russia investigation was nothing more than a Hilary Clinton inspired witch hunt.  Well so much for that.  Here we are several years later, over $4 million spent and Durham has little to show for his efforts because though the infamous Steele dossier was somewhat sketchy, still no evidence of a pee tape, the Russia investigation was legit.  Yesterday, Durham’s big get turned into a nothing burger when Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the dossier, was acquitted of four counts of lying to the FBI, a fifth count had been thrown out by the judge overseeing the case.  All Durham did while burning our tax dollars was go after three people for lying. Two of those accusations resulted in jury trials where the defendants were acquitted, the third resulted in a guilty plea from a low-level FBI Agent who futzed with a document and ended up with probation.  Naturally, the conclusion of the FG’s crowd, most notably their It girl Margie Q, is that Durham’s prosecution failures are the result of biased courts rather than a lack of convincing evidence.  Durham is expected to produce his final document, maybe by year end.  Frankly, he should lose all his staff and be relegated to a cubby hole in a dusty basement with only paper and a manual typewriter to complete his assignment because too much time and money has been spent on these shenanigans.  Expect the FG and his crowd to now focus all their attention on Hunter, as if they haven’t been spending enough time touting that investigation.  As to the FG and his multiple legal cases, he’s due to  be deposed in the E Jean Carroll defamation case where he may have just damaged his best defense, that the broad protections he had when he was president allowed him to defame her because over the advice of counsel to keep his trap shut about her rape allegations, he recently called her a liar again on Truth Social.  Despite his claims that he’s still president, he’s not, so those protections, to the extent they ever existed, no longer apply.  Then there’s Special Master Dearie, the judge who is overseeing the sorting of the purloined documents, well at least those that aren’t market top secret, those even he isn’t allowed to review.  He’s just about had it with the FG team.  Yesterday, quoting from the classic Wendy’s commercial he asked “Where’s the beef” adding that the FG’s Mar a Lago documents assertions of privilege lack any evidence for a ruling to be made in his favor.  It certainly doesn’t help that author and one time Watergate reporter Bob Woodward just released a tape where the FG acknowledged that he had taken the Kim Jung un letters and that he’d show them to Bob even though they were top secret. Worth noting the DOJ is still trying to have Dearie’s role eliminated, not because he isn’t doing a good job but because he never should have been appointed in the first place.

Midterm Madness:  No matter where you live, please get out and vote and bring your friends and family with you.  Don’t assume that your candidate of choice can win without you.  The pollsters keep predicting that races, even in blue states like New York, are going to be close at best and that we could be in for some frightening upsets.  In NYS If the specter of Republican Congressman/Governor candidate Lee Zeldin beating Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul doesn’t scare you, it should, a lot.  Though Long Islander Zeldin has been trying to inch back from his extreme anti-abortion position to appeal to those voters who is already spooking with his unending cries about skyrocketing crime by saying that he wouldn’t be able to restrict reproductive rights in NYS even if he wanted to do, don’t buy it.  He’s been a consistent anti-abortion voter in Congress and as recently as April said he would appoint a “pro-life” health commissioner, a statement he made while talking with a Right to Life group.   On the Congressional front, GQP Leader Kevin McCarthy is talking about cutting aid to Ukraine and threatening to hold debt limit increases the US credit rating hostage if he doesn’t get the spending cuts he and the likes of Margie Q and Gym Jordan want.  By spending cuts, think cuts in health care, social security, programs to protect the environment and even the Department of Justice, because the only way the FG’s echo chamber can shut down investigations, especially the Mar a Lago purloined documents probe, would be to cut the DOJ and the FBI’s funding.  If you think those are just threats, remember who we’re dealing with.  Likewise, should the Senate fall back into Republican hands, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending will be on the chopping block.  That may sound nuts, but it’s what a lot of them are promising to do so take them at their word.  And while President Biden is promising that with two more Senators, the Democrats will eliminate the filibuster to pass the Roe abortion rights protections into law, Mitch McConnell’s crowd is likely to try to eliminate reproductive rights entirely if they have the votes.   

The Crazy Train:  Kanye continues to spout hate and now has agreed in principle to buy Parler, a right-wing Twitter wannabee platform that prides itself on being open to promulgaters of hate.  Parler’s CEO George Farmer has been trying to sell the failing app for some time.  Farmer’s wife is Candace Owen, the shrewd, outspoken, right-wing, Black pundit who has recently become one of Kanye’s best friends.  Coincidence? Rule 39.  Anyway, Parler occupies a crowded space that also includes Truth Social, Gab and Rumble, none of which are all that successful because what fun is spewing hate when there are no libs around to outrage; that’s a lot like that proverbial tree falling in the forest.  Elon Musk, celebrated Kanye’s decision to purchase Parler with a tweet depicting him together with the FG and Kanye dressed in Three Musketeer’s costumes, a tweet that he subsequently deleted. Though it’s possible that Kanye will be back on meds or under conservatorship before he completes his Parler purchase, the specter of all these social media platforms, including Twitter, being owned by so-called free speech advocates as in people who believe that pushing neo-Nazi talking points is okay is not a good thing, especially as we approach another presidential election cycle.           

Cucumbers and Onions  🌻🌻🌻

The Onion?  Thursday’s January 6^th committee hearing was both more of the same and revelatory.  We’ve known the basics of what happened on and around insurrection day for a while, that the Former Guy urged on his supporters to march on the Capitol with lies about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, part of his plan to disrupt the transfer of power to President Biden, and that he then stood by while his supporters including some Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, became increasingly violent. What Thursday’s hearing did was fill in more details because January 6^th is like an onion, with lots of layers and the details, like the damage to democracy and the deaths and injuries that resulted are enough to make one cry. The most upsetting new detail that we learned on Thursday concerned how much the FBI and Secret Service knew about the impending onslaught and how they, especially too many in the Secret Service, either didn’t take the reports about the armed protesters headed to Washington seriously or more likely didn’t care because of their own political leanings and fealty to the Former Guy.  We also learned that Speaker Nancy Pelosi really is a bad ass, while the Capitol was under siege, she was cool as a cucumber.  The video of her unwrapping and snacking on a beef jerky stick while calmly and respectfully speaking with VP Pence and trying to get National Guard troops to the Capitol was amazing as was the substance of their call:  Pelosi was both concerned about the cleaning up of the “poo” left by the raiders and the safety of Pence who she politely entreated to keep his location secret from the sitting president of the US who she and, as it turned out, he feared was out to get him. As to that Former Guy we also learned some more about what he knew, and, to be clear, despite his claims to the contrary, he knew about the mobs, the violence, their weaponry, the danger to Congress and Pence and didn’t care because those marauders were his guys and anyway they weren’t out to get him; that’s called consciousness of guilt and should but probably won’t matter because nothing seems to matter with him. Also, as we kind of knew because he kept saying it publicly, and tried doing it on election night before the results were in, he planned to declare victory no matter the outcome.  It also seems not to matter to Republicans that a number of them including second in GOP party leadership Congressman Steve Scalise was with Pelosi when she asked several Governors and the Defense Department to send in the National Guard.  Scalise is one of those who continues to claim that Pelosi’s “inaction” made January 6^th worse.  On the subject of inaction, let’s not ignore acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, the credit he previously got for pushing back at the FG’s efforts to overturn the election, forget about it, on January 6^th he acted like a deer in the headlights, failing to do anything useful when he was asked to step up. Lastly, who had the FG’s one time body man, Johnny McEntee, who John Kelly deemed such a security risk that he had him fired from the White House but who the FG subsequently rehired and promoted to director of WH Presidential Personnel, writing orders for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Somalia and Afghanistan. Putting aside the substance of those orders and that the FG wanted them out ASAP because he knew he’d lost, such orders aren’t typically written by personnel geeks with gambling problems, they’re what national security experts are for.  

Oldest Hate: Well, the hate goes on.  Kanye continues to get far more attention than he deserves.  Yesterday he blamed “Jewish Zionists” for news stories about Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson having sex in front of a fireplace. He’s been obsessed by Kim’s Pete affair for a while, but really, who knew that in addition to “controlling the media” Jews were also responsible for fireplace canoodling?  Fireplaces aside, count me as one who didn’t know until yesterday that Pete’s Fireman father, a 9 11 hero, was Jewish, just another thing that must really drive Ye crazier than he already is. The FG pushed more hate yesterday too.  He took to his Truth Social platform to warn Jews that they’d better “get their act together” and appreciate what he’s done for Israel “before it is too late.”  Nothing but everything to see there. What’s next, calling his mobs out to reenact Kristallnacht?  As to Truth Social, it’s being investigated by the SEC, over the weekend more details came out about what may have spurred that investigation.  Will Wilkerson, one of the FG’s Media and Technology Group’s first employees, has told the SEC that the company violated securities laws related to what SPACs (special acquisition companies) are allowed to do and that the FG pressured executives to hand over some of their shares to Melania, maybe to comply with her post-nap?  He has supplied the SEC with a “cache of internal documents” that he says support his allegations. Among those documents are emails that also reference how sons Eric and Junior wanted to be gifted shares in the company as well, maybe because if brother-in-law Jared was getting a commitment of $2 billion from the Saudis, didn’t they deserve some Truth Social shares?  Anyway, all that is probably for naught as Truth Social is unlikely to make it to its first birthday.  That said, except for the financial morass and the SEC investigation, the FG probably won’t care as it’s highly likely that he’ll be back on Twitter by then, especially if Elon Musk completes his purchase.  Musk has already said he wants the FG back on.  By the way, Musk who tried to halt Ukraine’s access to some of broadband Starlink resources has now said that he’ll continue to “subsidize” what they’ve bought from him. Maybe his threats to cut the country off didn’t go over as well with his fans on Twitter as they did with Vlad?   

Midterm Madness:  The political pundits and pollsters now report that things are once again looking up for Republicans, that because of economic concerns, those coveted soccer moms are leaning red despite the elimination of reproductive rights or candidates like Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker who waved a false police badge to prove that he was part of law enforcement, he’s not, during his one and only debate with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and despite video of Pennsylvania/NJ’s Mehmet Oz talking about drinking urine and  poking his sister’s head with a needle, the needle assault when he was a kid, and attacking his opponent John Fetterman about the state of his stroke recovery.  On the subject of Fetterman, who was recently endorsed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, if you have the time, listen to podcaster/tech guru Kara Swisher’s interview of Fetterman on her new podcast “On with Kara Swisher.” Swisher who had a stroke ten years ago discusses her recovery experience with Fetterman. Both sound fine and Fetterman had no problem answering questions or engaging in small talk.                   

 

Keeping Up With the Joneses 🌻🌻🌻

Truth or Consequences: Sometimes, just sometimes being a lying, despicable a-hole has consequences. Yesterday, right wing conspiracist, radio show host, owner of the Infowars website, Alex Jones found that out after a Connecticut jury awarded a group of parents of the children killed during the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre $965 million.  Jones, whose following includes a lot of demented individuals, including one well known conspiracist who previously served as the country’s 45^th president, was a key promoter of the Pizza Gate conspiracy that resulted in a gun toting maniac showing up at a Washington DC area pizza parlor to hunt for Hillary Clinton’s band of non-existent pedophiles.  He spent years pushing the deplorable lie that none of the 20 students or 6 staff members who had been killed at Sandy Hook had been killed, instead claiming that the whole event was just an elaborate performance, that the dead children and teachers were really crisis actors, and that the slaughter was staged to promote gun control.  That assertion may sound preposterous to the sane, but sadly a lot of Jones’ follows bought into it and spurred by his lies far too many of them spent the past decade making the lives of the Sandy Hook parents unbearable. Jones’ followers even tried to dig up the casket of one of the children to “prove” that it was empty.  It’s unlikely that Jones will end up coughing up the full $965 million, but expectations are that he will end up paying a considerable amount to the families despite his ongoing attempts to shirk his obligations through a variety of financial machinations. That said, he remains largely unrepentant, he’s still reaching out to his followers and yesterday he laughed off the jury’s award. By the way, Jones’ is also one of those who believes that the last presidential election was stolen, he helped fund the January 6^th “rally” and pleaded the Fifth when he was interviewed by the House January 6^th committee. 

Teflon Man: As to conspiracists, that other well-known one, the Former Guy, still hasn’t faced much in the way of consequences for his nefarious actions except, of course, for that 2020 election loss he continues to dispute, but he does have a few things to be concerned about.  Yesterday a federal judge rejected his attempt to “pause” his deposition in the defamation lawsuit brought by E Jean Carroll, the former Elle magazine columnist who has accused him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. The deposition is scheduled to take place next week on October 19.  Naturally, the FG denies that he ever met her even though there is a photo of the two of them together.  More significantly, yesterday the Washington Post reported that an FG employee has come clean about moving boxes of purloined documents around Mar a Lago at the FG’s specific direction, direction that came after the FG had already received a subpoena for the boxes and documents from the Justice Department.  The employee in question had previously denied that he (or she maybe) had moved any boxes but started spilling his guts once he realized that the Feds had implicating security camera footage of the shenanigans.  Various legal pundits assert that this is a bigly deal because it confirms that the FG knew he had done something wrong and, instead of seeking to cooperate, he went the obstruction route, as he generally does.  Of course, he’s the FG so this could be just another thing that he gets away with as he prepares to run for reelection. 

The Mid Terms:  Current expectation, or pipe dream is that the FG will be indicted for his document stealing after the midterms.  To that end its worth noting that it’s not clear when that will be as the midterms could go on for a while especially in key state Georgia which could end up in another runoff if neither Senator Warnock nor footballer/abortion funder Walker manage to get 50% of the vote. Moving from Georgia to Pennsylvania, there’s been a lot of focus on Senate candidate/Lt Governor John Fetterman and his stroke recovery.  Though he’s back on the campaign trail, Fetterman is still suffering from some after-effects of his stroke and is upfront about having some auditory processing problems.  He appears to be speaking coherently but is relying on technology to help him properly “hear” words.  Ironically, though he’s far more coherent than a lot of politicians like Herschel Walker or dare I say a number of correspondents like MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell who frequently has a hard time coming up with words, NBC correspondent Dasha Burns claimed that he was having problems with small talk after she interviewed him.  She’s kind of retracted her already viral comment after being slammed by others who’ve spoken with Fetterman for their shows and/or podcasts including tech podcaster Kara Swisher who is herself a stroke survivor.  Swisher and others report that Fetterman was fine during their conversations, that he answered questions coherently and had no problem with idle chatter.  Unfortunately, Dasha Burn’s may have already tipped the increasingly close Pennsylvania Senate race towards the smooth talking Dr Oz, the one-time heart surgeon, purveyor of crank cures and NJ resident who’s been mocking Fetterman for having a stroke.  The first debate between Fetterman and Oz is scheduled to take place on October 25 and another, probably final, January 6^th Committee hearing will take place today starting at 1 PM Eastern time.

And: Lastly, in case you are wondering, Kanye “Ye” West has doubled down on his anti-Semitic comments and at least one podcaster says that he wasn’t surprised by Kanye’s remarks because he heard them before in 2018 when Kanye expressed admiration for Hitler and the Nazis during a TMZ interview. We didn’t hear them then because TMZ edited the despicable words out before airing.  Nothing to worry about though because Elon Musk, that “great” diplomat who is single handedly trying to mediate Russia – Ukraine peace by pushing Ukraine to cave to Putin’s annexations and who appears to have cut crucial Starlink communication services to Crimea to push his “solution,” says he’s spoken with Kanye to express his “concern” with his remarks and that Kanye has “taken them to heart.”  There were also reports that Musk spoke directly with Putin last week but at least so far Musk denies he did and has little to say about whether Putin even has a heart.                    

            

 

The Oldest Hatred

Jew Who? Hate’s back, well really it never left.  Shortly after he was welcomed back to Twitter by Elon Musk who is still trying to obtain financing for his Twitter acquisition and not long after the Republican House Judiciary Committee tweeted “Kanye, Elon, Trump,” to celebrate that an Elon acquisition will result in the return of the FG to Twitter, Ye, or Kanye as most of us uncool folks still call him, tweeted to his 30 million followers “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” you know those people who “blackball” anyone and everyone who don’t agree with “their” agenda. Around the same time that the crazy one, or crazy as a fox one, was tweeting his hate for Jews, Congresswoman Margie Q took to the podium at another one of the Former Guy’s endless campaign rallies, this one in Arizona, to warn the largely white and quite bloviated crowd that “Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, your jobs and your kids in school….they’re also replacing your culture.”  Because what’s a little replacement theory among friends? Not to be outdone, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville spoke at a rally in Nevada where he linked African Americans with crime while asserting that Democrats were pro-crime and that reparations were all about giving payments to criminals.  Then to complete the racism superfecta while also proving that hate isn’t limited to the crazy, Republicans, or crazy Republicans, a recording of Los Angeles’s Democratic City Council President Nury Martinez was leaked.  In it, Martinez is heard calling the black son of a white Councilman a monkey being raised like a white kid when what he really needed was a beat down.  For good measure she was also heard uttering a few homophobic remarks.  Kanye is now in Twitter jail and is frozen out of Instagram at least for now, Martinez has relinquished her council president position but remains on the city council, the unrepentant Margie Q is still out there doing her thing as is Tuberville who ironically owes his fame to a lot of young Black football players who put their bodies on the line for him week after week.  Worth noting, Tuberville was in Nevada campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt who is running neck and neck with Democratic incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto for a seat that the Republicans believe represents their best pick up now that Herschel Walker is mired in abortion lies, while Margie Q was in Arizona where Blake Masters, the Peter Theil endorsed Republican is challenging Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly in another way too close race.  Speaking of close races, a lot of them are very close right now so to the extent you can consider helping out Cortez Masto in Nevada, Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Barnes in Wisconsin,  Beasley in North Carolina, Ryan in Ohio, Kelly in Arizona, and Demings in Florida and anyone else I may have missed because Republican funders are throwing a lot of money around right now.  Governor races matter too, particularly close ones are being held in Arizona and Wisconsin, two states where Republican candidates are promising that they won’t certify future elections unless the results go their way.

What’s Up with the Docs? As to the twice impeached Former Guy, he too is out and about, campaigning, rallying crowds, issuing statements, and attacking anyone not in his camp.  His current position on those purloined documents, some of which he previously claimed were planted by the FBI and most of which he at one point offered to trade for the FBI’s file on the Russia investigation, is that they should all be returned to him because why not? For the record, except for a few personal medical records and the like, what was taken in the “raid” is not his but since when did telling the truth matter?  Certainly not to his lawyer, Christina Bobb, who recently spoke to Federal investigators about the document that she signed, the one where she certified that all of the Former Guy’s cache had been returned to the National Archives.  She told investigators that instead of trying to confirm that the certification was correct, she added a little caveat to the end of the letter and anyway she only signed it because two other FG lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Boris Epshteyn told her she should and didn’t law school teach that you could sign anything if your client asks as long as you added a disclaimer?

And:  Vladimir Putin, the FG and Tucker’s BFF, is once again bombing civilian locations in retaliation for the partial destruction of the Kerch bridge he built to link Crimea to Russia. Some members of Congress, including New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez who is also the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are calling for freezing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia as punishment for cutting oil production, because reduced oil production will raise US fuel costs, hurt Democrats’ mid-term election prospects while higher oil prices will pad Russia’s pockets. And, lastly, one of the key transit unions has voted to reject the agreement that was negotiated last month raising concerns that a freight rail strike could be imminent, hardly a good thing.                  

 

Armageddon  🌻🌻🌻

The Pasta Defense:  Well, let’s get the ridiculous over with first, meaning the Herschel Walker mess. Things continue to go south, well maybe, for the one-time football hero/Republican Georgia Senate candidate.  Walker continues to deny that he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion, sticking with his assertion that he doesn’t know the accuser even though it turns out that she is the mother of one of his previously “secret” children.  At least I think he continues to deny the allegation, it’s hard to tell given that he's mostly incoherent, either because he’s suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) or something equally dire or because he’s figured out that speaking in word spaghetti is his only defense.  Naturally, just about every Republican leader, with the exception of Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan who now says that Walker is unbearable, is defending him because as said out loud by former NRA spokesperson current conservative radio pundit Dana Loesch, it doesn’t matter if he paid for some “skank’s” abortion, it’s all about power and regaining control of the Senate.  Current polls show Walker losing ground to his opponent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock but it’s hard to tell if the polls mean much because what “pro-life” person wants to admit to a random pollster that paying for an abortion is okay but just for Republican politicians?

Rule 39: As Leroy Jethro Gibbs would say there is no such thing as a coincidence so It’s probably not one that someone at the FBI leaked to the Washington Post that the investigation of Hunter Biden’s “crimes” is wrapping up and that he will face indictment shortly. First, even though the US Attorney responsible for looking into the Hunter situation is a Trump appointee working independently of AG Merrick Garland, it’s highly unlikely that he could pull off indicting Biden’s son in the run up to the midterms and those crimes, they boil down to tax evasion and lying on a gun application about drug use.  The taxes have since been paid and the drug use problem, no secret, would probably result in a plea bargain, not jail time but exploiting Hunter’s problems now and to be clear he’s got them, what a great diversion.  Less diverting to the right is that the Former Guy’s Mar a Lago purloined document case continues to fester.  It’s hard to follow all the court cases or to understand why the NY Times’ Maggie Haberman thought that sitting on her knowledge that he’d taken some to Mar a Lago was okay, but it continues to appear that every judge except pocket judge Aileen Canon, isn’t buying the defenses that the FG team is offering up.  Yes, the FG is managing to delay the inevitable, but not by as much as he hoped.  As to the purloined documents, last night the NY Times reports that there are likely more of them hanging at one or more of the FG’s residences and that the DOJ has been in discussions with the FG’s team about how to get them back pronto but that the FGs lawyers have been giving him contradictory advice with his newish $3 million lawyer pushing for some cooperation with Justice while his others push for more obstruction. Surprise, surprise, the obstructionists are winning, well winning for now. Then there are the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.  Like all the court battles over the purloined documents it’s hard to keep the cases against those two groups of evil numb nuts  straight but two notable things did happen yesterday:  a Proud Boy leader pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy for his efforts to stop the transfer of power from the FG to Biden following the election which means he’s struck a deal and is spilling his guts to minimize his sentence; and a former Oath Keeper testified that at least one of his Oath Keeper colleagues was speaking to one or more members of the Secret Service in the run up to the January 6^th insurrection, maybe one of those who “acid washed” a phone before returning it to higher authorities?  A few Secret Service guys also tried to obfuscate a recent car accident that one of them had while driving VP Harris.  Something about claiming that busting a tire by running into a curb was just a mechanical problem. My initial response was to laugh that one off because who among us hasn’t hit a curb or two while driving, well at least I have, but then again we are not graduates of the Secret Service defensive driving school.

Nuclear Alert: On the international front, last night at a Democratic fundraiser hosted by James Murdoch, not to be confused with his brother or father, President Biden who was not speaking word spaghetti said clearly what we all fear, that a desperate, back to the wall Vladimir Putin could go with the nuclear option, “if in fact things continue down the path they are going.” Biden added “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.” The already stressed out Strangelove Putin can’t be happy that the Nobel Prize Committees awarded this year’s Peace Prize to Ales Bialiatski, a jailed Belarusian activist; Memorial a Russian organization; and the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. Those groups and individuals have become symbols in the fight against the disinformation pushed by Putin and his defenders. One more thing on the international front that is likely to affect all of us, well not as much as nuclear waste flying overhead but something that is likely to hit our pocketbooks shortly, our not so good friends the Saudis and their cohorts at OPEC are cutting oil output by an amount far higher than what was expected  It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to figure out that the Saudis are likely trying to influence the outcome of the midterm elections, not just because Prince Bone Saw is such good friends with Jared and the Former Guy, but because he also prefers politicians who favor carbon emissions over environment sparing technologies.  

And: It looks like Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, who fashions himself as one of the more principled Republicans in the Senate, a low bar, is expected to resign to become the president of the University of Florida. His resignation will not change the make-up of the Senate, since Nebraska’s Republican Governor Pete Ricketts will get to choose his successor and may even choose himself.                

 

Offensive Holding  🌻🌻🌻

#RoeRoeRoeYourVote:  If the Democrats hold onto or even improve their position in the Senate and stand any chance of fighting back a red wave in the House next month it will be largely due to outrage about the Supreme Court’s trashing of reproductive rights with its Dodd decision as well as a not unfounded concern that a Republican controlled House and Senate will pass some form of a national abortion ban even worse than the one proposed by South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham.  That focus on reproductive rights is what makes the disclosure last night that Georgia’s Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker “allegedly” paid for at least one past girlfriend’s abortion that much more ironic. Football guy Walker, who is woefully unqualified to serve in the Senate, has been incoherently parroting all the official Republican talking points and positions and as such claims to be opposed to abortion in all cases which means he should have been against ending a pregnancy because a baby would inconvenience his plans but naturally that’s the reason that his one-time girlfriend said he gave her when he encouraged her to end hers, while offering to pay her expenses.  Though we don’t know her name, the woman in question has shown the Daily Beast her receipts which include her bill, a cancelled reimbursement check from Walker and the “get well’ card he sent her at the time.  In addition, the Daily Beast has spoken with a friend who she confided in at the time of the procedure.  Naturally, Walker who lied about the existence of a few of his kids until they suddenly appeared out of the ether, denies that he ever paid for an abortion.  Last night he threatened to sue for defamation but earlier today, his lawyer, mindful that doing so would probably be a bigly bad idea, said that he’s only considering his options. To add to the story, Walker’s son Christian, the one he’s acknowledged from the beginning, who is a conservative influencer whatever that means, went ballistic on Twitter last night, calling his father out for his lies, saying Herschel’s no “family man,” that he ignored him and his mother to “bang a bunch of women” and “threaten to kill us” adding that everyone in Walker’s orbit had told him not to run for the Senate because of the secrets he was hiding, well everyone except for the Former Guy that is who may well have funded a few abortions but was smart enough to hide the receipts because that’s how he rolls.  That’s the FG who continues to be the hero of the religious right despite the Access Hollywood tape, his multiple marriages, Playmate, and porn star so who knows what will happen with Herschel.  Till now, despite his obvious inadequacies Walker has been polling neck and neck with his opponent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Georgia is a 50-50 state so as crazy as it sounds, don’t count Walker out yet.  Also, don’t count out Mehmet Oz, hard as it is to believe, the polling gap between him and his Democratic opponent John Fetterman has narrowed, well at least had before yesterday’s story about the 300 puppies and other animals that his lab team killed back during his pre-Oprah Columbia University medical research days.  The clincher in that story was that the techs he was supposedly supervising disposed of some of the dead puppy bodies by throwing them in with the live ones they hadn’t yet killed.  Makes you yearn for the days when Mitt Romney’s sin was that he traveled with his dog tied to the roof of his car.  Well maybe not so much.          

The Legal Morass:  On the subject of lawsuits, the FG must be really concerned about things these days, as he too is going the lawsuit route, only he’s not threatening he filed one against CNN for $475 million.  The lawsuit cites times when CNN hosts and guests criticized him over his policies and his election lie while also complaining that some guests have compared him to Hitler.  One of the guests he named is Linda Ronstadt because why not? It’s probably not a coincidence that some more details about those Mar a Lago purloined documents keep popping out, including that he personally packed a bunch of the boxes that were sent back to the evil libs at the National Archives, that he asked one of his lawyers to sign a certificate saying that everything he had taken had been returned, something that the doubting attorney wisely refused to do and that among the things taken were his Kim Jong Un love letters and the customary welcome to the White House letter from Barack Obama, you know the guy who he asserts was born in Kenya.  Of more concern than the missing North Korean letters, the National Archives folks are worried that much remains missing from their collection including conversations that the FG’s inner circle had on their phones’ encrypted apps and unofficial emails.  Lastly, to no ones’ surprise, the FG’s legal team has responded to the DOJ’s request for a federal appeals court to expedite the review of the purloined documents by instead asking the court to delay their ruling until January.  No surprise there as delay is part of the FG’s life-time legal strategy.  There are some, probably not too off the mark, who believe that the FG is counting on the Republicans winning big in the midterms so that one or more of his good buddies like Gym Jordan and/or Mark Meadows can then threaten to defund the DOJ if the cases against him aren’t dropped. Also, because this list goes on and on the sedition case against some Oath Keepers began yesterday.  Their defense is that they were only doing what the FG told them to do.   

Viral Musings: Covid is still out there and the flu is expected to do its thing soon so make a plan to get jabbed with a flu shot and a booster, not necessarily at the same time unless you want to get it over with all at once; assuming your doctors are on board of course.  On the Covid front would it surprise you to learn that a new study of deaths in Florida and Ohio shows that registered Republicans had far higher excess death rates than Democrats during the pandemic, with almost all the difference coming after Covid vaccines were made available? 

And:  If you are wondering why Elon Musk’s name kept popping up yesterday, it wasn’t because of his Twitter plans which as of today may actually include buying the social media company for the $44 billion he originally bid, it was because he’d tweeted his Ukraine peace plan  His suggestion, which wasn’t received all that well by President Zelenskyy or just about any diplomats with any experience in such matters, was that the Russians rerun the “sham” elections they held last week to see if those forced to show up and vote for Putin taking over their homes held to their votes. His view was if they were still all in on having their land ceded to Russia than sobeit.  Count me as someone who would love to see peace break out all over Ukraine but some how I doubt that ceding large swaths of the country to an evil crazy leader will end his aggression.  

An easy and meaningful fast tomorrow for all those not eating.  May everyone be inscribed in the book of life for a good year.                   

 

 

Tinker, Tailor, Maniac 🌻🌻🌻

Bridge of Spies: As awful as Hurricane Ian was and as monumental as the recovery effort will be, this morning Florida Governor DeSantis is probably relieved that the news about the storm’s devastation is providing him cover from his Martha’s Vineyard migrant mess because it turns out that the back story for that escapade is far from flattering for presidential wannabee Ron.  Among the details included in the NY Times, DeSantis sent Perla Huerta, a recently discharged CIA counter-intelligence agent, to Texas to source the migrants that he then had flown to the Vineyard because despite DeSantis’ populist, anti-immigrant rhetoric there weren’t enough migrants “flooding” into Florida to find them there and he couldn’t handle Texas’ Governor Abbot, who he never informed about his plans, benefiting from all that love and admiration from the anti-immigrant set.  He misused Florida state funds specifically appropriated for “dealing” with the Florida migrant “invasion” and, in addition to employing the services of the ex-spy, used a charter air service owned by a political crony who was previously represented by Panhandle putz Matt Gaetz to fly his travel weary victims to the Vineyard.  Also, as previously reported the migrants were lured to the flight with pamphlets detailing promises of jobs, housing and other benefits that aren’t available to migrants seeking asylum.  Kudos again to those Martha’s Vineyards residents who greeted their unexpected visitors with such warmth. Regarding Ian, perhaps because he was basking in the success of his migrant trickery, DeSantis underestimated the unpredictable nature of Ian’s path and was late to ordering Lee County residents to get out of Dodge. Sure, hindsight is 20-20 but had anyone in his administration heeded their own emergency planning guidelines, evacuation orders would have been delivered when they could have saved lives. And you’ll be forgiven if you think that DeSantis asking donations to the Florida Disaster Fund being headed up by his wife to help storm ravaged Floridians is just a bit hypocritical given the money he directed to his migrant fiasco.  Anyway, contributing to help those suffering is a good thing, but stick with an established organization because something tells me we could read some stories about grifting at some point especially if DeSantis follows in the mango one’s footsteps.   

The Imitation Game: Notably none of Florida’s Congressional representatives voted for any of the aid that is now flowing into Florida’s coffers, but that hasn’t stopped them from demanding more and taking credit for what the state is currently receiving.  On the give me more front, Matt Gaetz, who has been vocal about his preference for Russia’s Putin over Zelenskyy’s Ukraine, tweeted against aiding those corrupt Ukrainians, asserting that the funds going there should be going to Florida despite his anti-storm aid vote. But then again, in his love for all things Russian, Gaetz is just following the lead of his party leadership, the Former Guy and CPAC who stuck with their pro-Putin views his past week.  GOP Leader, Speaker wannabee, Kevin McCarthy’s leadership group tweeted a platform statement with a patriotic backdrop that turned out to be stock footage of Russian rather than US troops, that was the platform that they accidentally released earlier than they had planned, something to do with failing to password protect a file that was supposed to be seen by only a few party diehards. Funny until you remember that McQarthy could soon be third in line for the presidency.  For their part CPAC, the right-wing organization that hosted one of its recent meetings in Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban’s backyard, had him as a speaker at another more recent one and recently celebrated the victory of Italy’s new fascist leader Georgia Meloni, sent out a tweet criticizing aid to Ukraine that used pro-Russia language to describe Putin’s annexation of sections of Ukraine only to delete it hours later, blaming what they are now calling a drafting error on an internal approval process hampered by time zone delays.  

Enemy of the State: The Former Guy, who last week offered to solve the Ukraine crisis probably by ceding all of the country to his BFF Putin, spent this week at another one of his smaller but increasingly nutzoid rallies where one of his keynote speakers, Representative Margie Q threatened violence against anyone who doesn’t share her views, a violence she said was appropriate given all of the Republicans who have been murdered by Democrats.  How did I miss that carnage?  Darkly humorous, until you consider that she will have a seat at the table if Republicans retake the House during next months midterms.  As to the oddly bronzed FG he’s been “truthing” frantically these days.  One of his recent ones claimed Mitch McConnell has a “death wish” and called his “Chinese loving” wife “Coco Chow.”  It’s not a stretch to think that somewhere in his fan base there’s at least one crazy who is taking that death wish comment as an order to fulfill his orange leader’s desires.  So far no comment from Mitch or anyone else in party leadership, not even about the anti-Asian ethnic slur,  because that’s how they are and they fear any slap back from their twisted leader.  On the Mar a Lago front, expect some more news this week as the Department of Justice is seeking to fast track its appeal of pocket judge Cannon’s ruling that delays its investigation into the purloined documents.

And:  Lastly, since it’s now October the Supreme Court is back and what’s on the docket this session may make the anti-Roe Dodd opinion seem like an outlier especially if you are among those who think that your vote should count even if countervailing forces in your state’s legislature beg to differ.