The One Where We Say Goodbye ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Monday, October 30, 2023
Friday, October 27, 2023
Fourth Time's the Charm ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Back to Normal: For a few weeks, reports about gun death in the US moved to the back burner, not because people aren’t still being shot, thus far this year there have been 563 mass shootings, defined as an incident in which four or more victims are shot and killed. The shootings were off the front page because it takes a large number of casualties for a gun incident to make it into the national headlines especially given the Speaker fiasco, the terrorist attack on Israel, the Gaza war and the heightened threats in the Middle East. Sadly, another one of those heinous mass shootings took place in Lewiston, Maine on Wednesday night and as a result eighteen people are dead with an additional fourteen wounded. Jared Golden, Maine’s centrist Democratic Congressman who previously opposed banning assault weapons because he had “false confidence” that Maine’s residents were “above this” has finally seen the light and is now in support of a ban. Too bad for him and the rest of us, that ban is not going to happen anytime soon because the other “back to normal” thing that happened this week is that the House finally voted in a Speaker and the new one, who every House Republican voted for, is Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Johnson is from the rightest wing of his already substantially right-wing party where gun ownership is second only to Bible thumping which goes far to explaining why his response to the Maine massacre was to say: “prayer is appropriate in a time like this, that the evil can end, and this senseless violence can stop.” Nothing about guns, just a call for prayer not surprising since Johnson once said that mass shootings are a result of the cultural revolution of the 1960’s, no-default divorces, the legalization of abortion and the teaching of evolution. The prayer part is Mike Johnson’s thing, during his Speaker acceptance speech he noted that his wife had “spent the last couple of weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord” to ensure his come from behind ascension to the Speaker throne. He and his wife aren’t just married, they have a covenant marriage, something that’s supposed to make divorce impossible, at least until he decides he wants one. Johnson, who former Congressman Adam Kinzinger describes as Jim “Gym” Jordan in a suit jacket, also believes that abortions are equivalent to the Holocaust, that abortion providers should be punished with hard labor and that that reason “we are struggling to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid” is because we don’t have “all those abled bodied workers in the economy” due to all those abortions, a convoluted attack on immigration, working women and abortions rolled into one. Johnson, who was mentored by Gymbo, tried hard to help Trump overturn the election and also doesn’t believe in climate change. He has no experience legislating and hasn’t ever chaired a committee, but he’s now got a job that’s eaten more experienced people alive and is also second in line for the Presidency right behind VP Harris. Remember the so-called moderates, many from swing or Biden plus districts, who stood up to oppose Jim Jordan, they all voted for Johnson as did Colorado’s Ken Buck who said he’d never vote for someone who hadn’t voted to certify the 2020 election. They caved either because they were worn down by the Speaker shit show or because their opposition to Jordan had little to do with his right-wing positions but a lot to do with his personal offensiveness and the bespectacled Johnson with the same wacko views has a calmer demeanor, and is more camera ready than the hunched over, loud, shirtless Jordan.
Still Crazy: Whatever the reason, the House is now back to “normal” and by normal, a government shutdown looms, there’s no farm bill, and Israel and Ukraine are looking to the US for funding. Newbie Johnson has his work cut out for him and to the extent that he thinks that keeping the government open is a good thing, he’s likely to face a lot of the hurdles getting things done that former Speaker McCarthy faced, one of which includes keeping Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz who celebrated his success at replacing McCarthy with MAGA Johnson on Steve Bannon’s show right after the final Speaker vote. Some of the important legislation will probably be passed but the price of doing so will involve letting folks like Jim “Gym” Jordan get back to impeaching President Biden and going after Hunter, again. Margie Q is acting out too, she’s working to force a privileged vote to censure Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for her “anti-Semitic activity” and “supporting of terrorist activities” which has triggered Democrat Becca Balint of Vermont to counter by reupping her effort to force a censure vote on Margie Q for her “five years-worth of incendiary actions and comments. Not to be outdone, a set of NY’s mostly vulnerable freshman Republican Congressmen have introduced a privileged motion to kick George of many name Santos out of the House. They’re doing that to distract from their votes for Mike Johnson’s Speakership, because their Democratic challengers are already running ads attacking them for supporting someone who is anti-abortion, opposed to same sex marriage and right of Rick Santorum on all the other social issues that they care about. It wouldn’t be the worst thing if all of these motions succeeded. We really could use more teamwork and fewer flame throwing in both houses but don’t count on it.
And: Trump has been fined, again. The fine this time was $10,000 for continuing to threaten NY Judge Engoron’s clerk. Trump’s one time lawyer Michael Cohen testified in the NY fraud case that Engoron is overseeing and while his testimony revealed that Trump’s asset valuation numbers were invented out of thin air to make Trump seem richer than rich and to improve his Forbes standing, Cohen also revealed that he previously lied to the Feds to protect his wife and her family or so he says. Cohen’s testimony can be corroborated but still he’s not the best witness. And lastly, remember Justice Clarence Thomas’s $270k RV, the one he bought with money “loaned” to him by a friend. It should surprise no one to learn that though Thomas made some interest payments he never paid off the principal which was ultimately forgiven by his friend. Of course, Clarence failed to mention that in either his court disclosures or his tax filings. Grifter’s got to grift.
Arin
Goldman
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Speaker War ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Speaker vs Lettuce 🥬: When it comes to staying power, the lettuce 🥬 keeps winning. The House still doesn’t have a Speaker. Yesterday morning, House Republicans held several rounds of closed-door votes which resulted in the selection of Minnesota Congressman/ Republican Whip Tom Emmer to be their Speaker Designate. Then Trump weighed in against Emmer with a scathing Truth Social diatribe. After that it became clear that Emmer, who was already having a hard time cajoling party extremists to support him, didn’t have the votes necessary to win a floor vote so he dropped out. Chief among the very conservative Emmer’s so-called faults: he’s a RINO who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election and he voted in favor of same sex marriage. The 🏡 🤡 🤡 then went back to the drawing board. Last night, after another round of votes they selected Louisiana’s Mike Johnson as their Speaker Designate. Johnson makes that other charmer Gym Jordan look almost rational. He’s better at voice moderation but is one of the architects of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election and served as one of Trump’s impeachment defenders, he wants to ban all abortions but also opposes contraception, not only does he want to outlaw same sex marriages, but he also opposes interracial ones. He opposes the violence against women act, voted against the infrastructure legislation and the funding of health care for veterans exposed to toxins. He did vote to raise the debt limit but voted against the continuing resolution that is keeping the government open at least until November 17. In other words, with the exception of his debt ceiling vote, he’s a model Freedom Caucus Republican. Another floor vote is currently scheduled to start at noon today. Mike Johnson is seriously flawed and anyone who opposed Gym Jordan should oppose him but at this point why should we expect the 🏡 🤡 🤡 to act rationally so we could end up with Johnson. As a back-up, a number of Republicans are once against talking about empowering Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry with a few others pushing the dream team of Kevin McCarthy and Gym Jordan as co-speakers. Co-speakers are not a thing but the 🏡 🤡 🤡 are 🤡 🤡, so?
Trumpy Dumpy: Though his Speaker-slaying and intimidation powers remain depressingly intact and he’s still the Republicans most likely presidential candidate, Trump’s legal woes continue to mount. Yesterday, Jenna Ellis, another member of his “elite strike force” legal team, tearfully pleaded guilty to a felony charge of “aiding and abetting false statements” in the Georgia election stealing case. Ellis has agreed to be sentence to five years of probation, pay $5000 in restitution and perform community service. More significantly, like Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney “Kraken” Powell, she’s agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as the case against Trump and the remaining Fulton County RICO co-defendants progresses. Ellis’ plea was far from a surprise. She’d earlier shifted her allegiance to Florida’s Ron DeSantis and frequently complains about Trump’s failure to fund her mounting legal expenses. Though it’s definitely a good thing for DA Fani Willis’ case that the three lawyers have pleaded guilty, former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann and his podcast partner former Assistant US Attorney for National Security Mary McCord caution that their pleas don’t necessarily mean that they, especially Chesebro, will really throw Trump under the bus in part because of their exposure in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Washington election interference case. As to Special Jack, it turns out that he too has notched a notable “get.” According to ABC News, in exchange for immunity, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has spoken under oath with prosecutors and before a grand jury about his final days working for Trump. ABC reports that Meadows told Smith’s team that in the weeks after the 2020 election, he “repeatedly” told Trump that the allegations of voting fraud were baseless, and that Trump was being “dishonest” with the public when he claimed to have won the election. Despite writing, as in fabricating, in his recent “The Chief’s Chief” book that the election was riddled with fraud, Meadows told Smith’s team that he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept Biden from the White House and that he agrees that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in US history.
Fog of War: Two more hostages, both elderly Israeli women, have been released by Hamas. The terrorist organization appears to be trickling the hostage outs, using them as human bargaining chips to forestall an Israeli ground force invasion. Reports are that negotiations about releasing more hostages, likely children and women rather than healthy men, continue but that Hamas has upped the ante, asking for fuel for Gaza hospitals and by hospitals they most likely mean fuel for military purposes because asking for fuel for neo-natal wards is an effective way of manipulating and playing upon public sympathies because who doesn’t feel for sick children? As to the effects of Hamas’ sadly impressive press manipulation, yesterday the NY Times finally issued an Editor’s Note/mea culpa, albeit a rather anemic one, admitting that the paper shouldn’t have relied solely on Hamas sources for their reporting about the bombing of the Gaza hospital. Of course, the NY Times followed up today with an article questioning all the analyses completed by the US and other governments as well as other media outlets that attribute the hospital bombing to an errant Jihad Militant group missile.
Viral
Musings: I pulled this section out of temporary retirement to highlight
the results of a new study published on Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. According to the study
severe neonatal morbidity, neonatal death, and admissions to the NICU were all
significantly lower during the first month of birth in infants whose mothers
were vaccinated against COVID. Moreover, protection against COVID
continued for up to six months after birth. #TeamVax
Monday, October 23, 2023
The House That Isn't ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Chaos Caucus: It’s day 20 without a Speaker and House Republicans 🏡 🤡 🤡 still don’t have a leader and the way things are going, it’s unlikely that they’ll have one anytime soon. On Friday, their Speaker designate, Jim “Gym” Jordan lost a third floor vote, with 25 Republicans joining all the Democrats in voting for someone, anyone other than him. Gym initially said that he was prepared to push forward with another vote but before that could happen, Republicans held a closed-door meeting where they conducted a secret ballot on Gym’s nomination. He lost that vote 86 to 112. Not only was that losing margin remarkable, but it also revealed how many Republican House members were too afraid of receiving vitriol and threats from MAGAs to go public with their opposition to Gym. Gymbo is now out of the race and House Republicans are back to square one. There are now nine Republicans running to become the Republican’s Speaker designate. For what it’s worth the Republican list of candidates includes Michigan’s Jack Berman, Florida’s Byron Donalds, Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson, Pennsylvania’s Dan Meuser, Alabama’s Gary Palmer, Georgia’s Austin Scott, and Texas’ Pete Sessions. There’s no reason to believe that any one of the nine will be able to get the 217 votes they’ll need to win a floor vote. Worth mentioning, most of these candidates voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, only four of them voted to raise the debt ceiling, five voted to avoid a government shutdown, and only one, Tom Emmer, voted to codify interracial marriage. Not a single one of them voted to ensure the right to contraception. Deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown his support behind Tom Emmer who had the sanest voting record among this crowd but since McCarthy’s support is probably the kiss of death, it’s not clear that Emmer has what it takes to get the gavel. It certainly doesn’t help that Trump said that he doesn’t support Emmer’s bid. At this point, despite some suggestions that they might consider it, Republicans still refuse to cut any deal with Democrats, not even one that gives more powers to Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, so the House remains frozen. No vote on keeping the government open past November 17, no vote on funding Israel, no vote on Ukraine, no farm bill, no defense bill. Nada. One more thing about Gymbo, over the weekend the Washington Post published its long-anticipated article/expose on Gym and his involvement in the lingering Ohio wrestler molestation scandal. Though there’s no suggestion that Gym molested anyone, the article provides convincing evidence that he knew what the team doctor was doing to his athletes largely because it was an open secret. Though the doctor’s assaults which included rape took place at a time when silence was sadly more commonplace, that doesn’t explain Gym’s current behavior. Despite testimony from an increasing number of the affected wrestlers, as well as a settlement by OSU, Gym continues to deny his knowledge of the events, even worse he’s engaged in a public relations campaign to smear many of the athletes who’ve come forward. Many of those athletes continue to suffer emotional damage from their trauma. Gym represents a very safe, highly gerrymandered Republican district. Had he come out early with an artfully crafted statement about how he didn’t realize the severity of the accusations, he’d have emerged with his reputation intact, at least among his constituents. It speaks volumes about him that he didn’t and even more about the Republican party that they seriously considered making him Speaker.
Trumpy Dumpy: When Fulton County DA Fani Willis announced her RICO case against Trump and his 18 co-defendants, many pundits on both sides of the aisle questioned her decision to indict so many. Well, it increasingly looks like DA Willis knows exactly what she’s doing and is doing it well. On Friday, another one of her election interference co-defendants waved the white flag. Kenneth Chesebro who is thought to have designed the false elector scheme entered into a plea deal just as the jury selection for his requested early trial was to begin. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation. He also was assessed a fine, has to pay some restitution and write an apology letter even though we all know the only thing he’s sorry about is being caught. Chesebro is now the third defendant to enter into a plea deal. He joins Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell, who Trump now says he didn’t really know, and Georgia jail bondsman Scott Hall. Unlike Powell, who got her plea done before him, Chesebro did plea to a felony count. That said, all three have gotten off relatively easy, good for them, but given their promise to cooperate with prosecutors going forward not so good for the rest of the co-defendants, a list that in addition to Trump includes Mark Meadows, Jenna Ellis, and Rudy Giuliani. Stay posted, more plea deals, some of which may involve jail time, are probably on the horizon. In other Trump legal news, NY Judge Engoron fined Trump $5000 for failing to take down a slimy post about his court clerk from his campaign website. Not a lot of money, but something. Washington DC Judge Chutkan froze her limited gag order, not because she doesn’t stand by it but because Trump’s lawyers are currently appealing it to the DC Court of Appeals. Despite or maybe because of all this Trump remains the Republican’s likely presidential candidate though Nikki Haley appears to be on the verge of passing Ron DeSantis for second place while former Mike Pence is running out of cash.
Fog of War: When the parking lot outside of the Gaza Hospital was bombed, virtually every press outlet rushed to judgement, blaming Israel and fueling Hamas claims that Israel had “targeted” sick children and their families. Based on convincing evidence that the missile that caused the death and destruction at the Hospital was fired from Gaza by a militant jihad group most of those media outlets including CNN and the AP both of whom conducted their own analyses, and even the NY Times, have now walked back their shoot from the hip erroneous reporting. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to undo the hate that their sloppy, click driven reporting amplified. By the way, the NY Times, the paper of record has now rehired a pro-Hitler journalist from Gaza who they had previously fired for his biased reporting. What could go wrong? In other news, over the weekend Samantha Woll, president of the board of a downtown Detroit synagogue was found stabbed to death at her home. It’s too early to say how or why she was killed, though this morning a number of outlets report that there is no evidence that her murder was a hate crime but as Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla points out there’s little evidence to indicate anything else at this point. Lastly, it’s great that two Hamas hostages have been released, probably not so coincidentally US passport holders, but somewhere around 220 remain.
Friday, October 20, 2023
Chaos on Steroids ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Biden World: Last night President Biden gave a remarkable prime time speech, where he forcefully stated that supporting Israel and Ukraine was the right thing to do and vital for US security. His words “History has taught us when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going. And the costs and the threat to American and the world keep rising.” He is expected to request today that Congress pass a $105 billion aid package for Israel and Ukraine. The package also includes money for humanitarian aid to Gaza, for managing the US-Mexico border crisis, and for Taiwan, another potential world hotspot. Though it’s members will undoubtably have opinions on the components of the package the Senate is prepared to move forward but as detailed below the House is in chaos mode, a bit of a problem all things considered.
Gymbo, Gymmie, Gym: Confused about what’s going on in the House? You are not alone. To state the obvious, House Republicans 🤡 🤡 are in disarray, bigly. Facing the reality that he was going to lose a third Speaker vote, Republican Congressman/Coup Plotter Jim Jordan cancelled the third Speaker vote that had been scheduled to take place yesterday, saying that he would support Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry staying on in an expanded Speaker role until January. Jordan added that he still considered himself the Republican’s Speaker Designee and that he would run again in the new year. For a brief time, attention shifted to what type of deal Republicans would need to work out with Hakeem Jeffries to get Democratic support for the McHenry option, support that was expected to be forthcoming after the usual haggling over details. Republicans then gathered for a group grope, where things got testy, harsh words were exchanged, Matt Gaetz was excoriated for causing the leadership crisis, and the concept of moving forward with a vote to anoint McHenry as Speaker until January was dumped on by the rightist of the very rightwing crowd, a sentiment publicly shared by Trump surrogate Sean Hannity. For his part McHenry said that he’d step down if anyone pushed him to bring legislation to the floor before first voting to give him the official authority to do so. Later in the day Gymbo did a complete flip flop, announcing that he’d proceed with a third Speaker vote. In an effort to secure more votes, he held another group grope, this one with those who’d voted against him during the first two ballots, many of whom hold Gym responsible for the death threats they and their families have been receiving. Those emerging from that meeting reported that no one present indicated a willingness to jump on the Gymbo train, if anything those who attended pushed the Gymster to drop his Speaker aspirations altogether. Gymmie plans to speak to the Republican caucus this morning at 8 AM in another effort to rally everyone to his side, then assuming it’s not cancelled again, there will be a third House wide Speaker vote, and maybe a fourth, fifth and so on. Bottom line, this is insane. The House can’t do anything without a Speaker and though it’s clear this is a problem caused by Republicans, deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy once again blamed the mess on Democrats because pointing fingers elsewhere is all he’s got. Oh, and the budget clock is ticking, Israel is at war, and so is Ukraine and as Biden noted both countries are relying on additional US aid to survive.
Kraken Up: Trump who kvetched about the burden that needing to appear in court to scowl at witnesses testifying against him at his NY civil trial was having on his campaign schedule, plans to miss the next session to play golf because that’s what he does. Though golf, like expressing love for dictators, is one of his priorities, he probably should allocate some time to strategize with his lawyers about recent events in Fulton County Georgia because yesterday his one- time lawyer/advisor, Sidney “Kraken” Powell entered into a plea deal with DA Fani Willis’ prosecutors. In exchange for her cooperation Powell got off easy. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors related to her efforts conspiring to interfere with the performance of the 2020 presidential election. She won’t go to jail but will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and, most significantly, has agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials. Trump is one of those co-defendants as is Kenneth Chesebro who was offered but rejected a plea deal. Jury selection for Chesebro’s trial, which until yesterday was also supposed to be Kraken Sidney’s trial, begins today. Though there were expectations that some of the Fulton County co-defendants would reach plea deals with Fani Willis before their trial dates, Sidney Powell’s plea was a bigly surprise. Sidney may be Kraken Krazy but she’s also smart, saw the writing on the wall, and figured that getting ahead of the crowd would keep her out of the slammer at least in Georgia, she’s one of the as yet unindicted co-inspirators in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 insurrection case so she may not be out of the woods altogether. In any case, her cooperation makes it more likely that some of the other defendants will start knocking on Fani Willis’s door but they’d better hurry because the longer it takes for them to show up, the worse their deals will be.
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Capturing the Narrative ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Bomb
Thrower:
Speaker wannabee, Jim “Gym” Jordan is now 0 for 2 and likely to be
0 for 3 by the end of day. On Tuesday, twenty House Republicans voted
against him, on Wednesday the NO vote count grew to twenty-two after he picked
up two votes but lost four. To the extent that today’s planned vote goes
forward, the expectation is that Gym will bleed votes as more House
Republicans, emboldened by the “bravery” of Wednesday’s twenty-two, shift their
votes to NO. The persistent and pugilistic Jordan whose surrogates have
been waging an intimidation campaign against his detractors, one that has
resulted in death threats to some of them and their spouses, may not be willing
to concede yet but may have no choice but to step aside, at least for now.
Though Republicans let deposed Speaker McCarthy’s go to 15 ballots, they don’t
appear to have any interest in doing that for Gymbo, especially given the
impending November government funding deadline, the Hamas-Israel war, and the
situation in Ukraine, not to mention the impact that looking like incompetent
clowns 🤡 🤡 is having on their political prospects. Also worth
mentioning, though it failed to ensure him a long tenure, McCarthy’s
fundraising prowess garnered him the support he needed to go 15 rounds.
Gym is far from a money magnet, if anything his histrionics and anti-government
government stance is off putting to big donors, especially the corporate ones
who want lower taxes and less regulation rather than anarchy. Since it’s
unlikely that any Republican could win the Speakership right now given the
party’s disarray there’s now a better than even chance that Republicans with a
boost from Hakeem Jeffries’ Democrats will vote to give additional powers to
the little bow tie guy from North Carolina Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry,
making him a temporary Speaker. To the extent that Gym doesn’t
wrestle him to the ground, Ohio Republican David Joyce is expected to introduce
a measure to allow McHenry to oversee the passage of legislation. Presumably in
exchange for supporting McHenry, Democrats will get Republicans to suspend
their Hastert Rule, the convention that precludes Republican Speakers from
scheduling floor votes on any legislation that does not have majority support
within their party even if the majority of the members of the House would vote
to pass it. With the Hastert Rule suspended, the House would be able to
pass defense bills, vote on budgets, and keep the government open. Two more
things to know: McHenry is hardly a moderate, but he’s viewed as pragmatic and
as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee he understands the importance
of paying debt service and keeping the government open; and the Hastert Rule
was named for former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert who after retiring from
the House pleaded guilty to making hush money payments to underage boys who he
sexually molested. Hastert, Trump, Gymbo, there’s a pattern here.
Fog of War: On Tuesday evening, a blast tore through the Al Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza. Within minutes of the explosion, Hamas, those nice guys responsible for beheading Israelis and suppressing their own population excel at PR so they got their message out fast, blaming Israel for bombing the hospital while also claiming that 500 people had been killed. The press jumped on the story, amplifying the Hamas narrative. The first tell that all wasn’t as it seemed was the death count, it’s virtually impossible to have a count so quickly after a bombing and 500 hundred is too round a number to be real. Tragically, there was a deadly blast, and a lot of people were killed though the likely number is probably somewhere around 300, little solace to the families who suffered. However, to the extent that Israel and its Defense Forces (the IDF) are to be believed, and US military experts believe them as to most Western leaders, it’s more likely than not that the deadly explosion was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another armed terrorist group. Unfortunately, most of those who believe that the explosion was due to an Israeli airstrike are sticking with that narrative and as a result an already deadly, highly charged situation has gotten worse, in Gaza and everywhere else, as evidenced by the anti-Israel, anti-Jews, anti-American demonstrations that have broken out all over. The explosion also hurt President Biden’s efforts. He went ahead with his visit to Israel but his planned stop in Amman Jordan was canceled at the request of the Jordanian government. The good news, to the extent there is any, is that Biden appears to have brokered a deal that will facilitate Egypt allowing some humanitarian aid into Gaza. The terribly bad news is that the Israeli hostages, to the extent they are still alive, are still being held by Hamas somewhere in Gaza and the “blame Israel for the blast” narrative is making their already perilous situation worse.
And: Trump’s trials are progressing, except for the one in Florida which takes one step giant back for every little step forward because Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon. Trump continues to act out. He reposted New York Attorney General Letitia James’s home address on Truth Social because why shouldn’t her life be put in further jeopardy? Yesterday, when he didn’t like what one witness was saying about his real estate valuations he acted out in court because that’s what he does. An email that Fulton County defendant/lawyer Kenneth Chesebro had tried to keep out of the hands of prosecutors made it into the public domain yesterday. In it Chesebro indicated that he knew his so called legal arguments on how the 2020 election results could be ignored were really political ones. That’s a problem for Chesebro, whose trial starts soon, because he claimed that he was just a lawyer advising his client Trump on legal issues. Also, in case you aren’t already on edge, Trump’s poll numbers are going up.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Full With Tears ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Speaker Gym? The vote for Speaker of the House is scheduled to start taking place at noon. Depending on who you read, insurrectionist, extremist Jim “Gym” Jordan’s charm campaign, and by charm think threats of retribution and the like, is working. He has swayed a number of those holdouts who just yesterday asserted that they’d never ever vote for him. Among the flippers is House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers. Jordan has apparently convinced a number of gullible Republicans including Rogers that if elected Speaker he will allow funding for Israel and maybe even Ukraine to come to the floor for a vote. Naturally, Jordan’s team says that he hasn’t made any such promises. Jordan has also told some that he has a plan to keep the government open through the Spring. That’s another commitment that should be taken with a grain of salt because this is the same Gymbo who lies about just about everything, ignores subpoenas when they involve him, voted against certifying the 2020 election and is believed to have been one of Trump’s coup abettors. Then there’s those accusations about Gymbo intentionally ignoring the plight of his molested wrestlers. He’s also the chair of the weaponization of government committee that’s targeting anyone named Biden. Despite all the gullible flippers, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman reported this morning that Jordan’s not there yet, that he’s somewhere between 10 and 20 votes short with some holdouts planning to cast votes for Steve Scalise or Kevin McCarthy. The question is are there enough serious people left in the Republican caucus to defeat Jordan’s bid or will they all do what Republicans tend to do, wimp out at the end, making Gym, warts and all, next in line for the presidency after Kamala Harris. That’s a horrifying, though possible outcome because most of the crazies who voted to oust McCarthy are now Team Jordan and the so-called sane Biden district Republicans tend to be lemmings.
Put a Gag on It: Yesterday Judge Tanya Chutkan who no longer gets to ride her bicycle to work because of all the threats made against her by Trump’s followers, ordered Trump to curb his rhetoric. She issued what’s being described as a limited gag order, threatening him with penalties if he doesn’t stop making public statements which implicitly encourage violence against public employees who are only doing their jobs. So basically, Trump is supposed to stop attacking witnesses, the prosecutors or the court staff members involved in the federal case concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He’s still allowed to say whatever he wants about his Republican opponents and the current occupant of the White House but as far as she’s concerned his First Amendment free speech rights do not permit him “to launch a pretrial smear campaign” against the people involved in the case. Chutkan isn’t the first Judge to try to gag Trump, New York’s Judge Engoron previously barred him from making statements about his court staff. Naturally, Trump responded by smearing Chutkan and then posting, in all caps of course, “WILL APPEAL. THE GAG ORDER RULING. WITCH HUNT!” The usual set of legal pundits including former Acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal and Mueller Counsel Andrew Weissmann say that Trump’s appeal won’t succeed and that defendants are generally prohibited from harassing court staff, their families, and witnesses. They also added that typically criminal defendants aren’t insane enough to try. That said, nothing about Trump is usual, and it’s not clear what Chutkan will do when Trump violates the order as everyone expects he will.
Fog of War: President Biden is heading to Israel on Wednesday, assuming that security details can be worked out. That will make the second warzone trip by Biden, a lot of hazardous travel for any president, especially one that’s supposed to be both senile and locked in his basement. Spoiler alert, he is neither. An Israeli friend/former colleague of mine described the Israeli reaction to Biden’s trip as “big appreciation.” Sadly, the same friend told me this morning that he and his family were just informed that their cousin who went missing during the terrorist attack in southern Israel is dead. In his grief-stricken English he said that the family is “full with tears,” a sentiment that far too many people in Israel and in Gaza too are feeling right about now. Israeli officials report that Hamas has 199 hostages, Hamas reports that altogether they and some of their “friends” are holding 250 hostages and that they will release them, maybe those who hold dual citizenship, when “conditions are ripe,” code words for maybe never and maybe after they’re dead. As the day wore on yesterday, attempts by intermediaries in places like Qatar to negotiate the release of some hostages were reported. Take all that with a grain of salt, no doubt attempts are being made, the problem is that Hamas isn’t a rational player nor are they reliable counterparts, you only have to look at who they abducted and what they did and do to know that. As to Gaza, Egypt keeps saying that they will open their Rafah border crossing, but so far, they have not. They’re blaming the delay on Israel and some of that may be fair but it’s also likely the delay reflects Egyptian unwillingness to deal with the hordes of Gazans who want out of Gaza. That’s not a new thing, historically Egypt hasn’t been all that interested in helping Gazans. As to supplies, Secretary of State Blinken said last night that the US and Israel “have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza.” That’s not so easy, as evidenced by reports by United Nations organizations who claimed and then mysteriously denied that Hamas authorities in Gaza have stolen fuel and medical supplies meant for refugees. Fog much?
Monday, October 16, 2023
Chaos Everywhere ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Fog of War: There’s little I can say about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza right now that you won’t hear and see elsewhere so I’ll mostly leave it at that. However, keep in mind that news sources matter and even reputable ones get things wrong. For example, 20% to 25% of the missiles shot from Gaza by Hamas targeting Israel fall short of their targets landing in and frequently killing people in Gaza, deaths that initially get attributed to Israel; despite first reports that Iran was behind the attacks in Israel we still don’t know whether they were directly involved in the actually planning; despite assertions otherwise, the $6 billion exchanged for the American hostages held by Iran remains in a Qatar account; and, last week I misreported the number of Gazans being told to leave their homes, it’s a high number, 1.1 million but not the 1.5 million that I wrote. The list goes on and on. That’s why it’s called fog of war. Though social media has never been even close to perfect, back when it was called Twitter, X used to be the place that many went to during international crises to provide and to get timely reports of events on the ground, but now more than ever, the company is failing us, providing an inordinate amount of misinformation and hate tinged propaganda. To quote the frequently blunt, but on point, Mark Cuban “Twitter is a cesspool of misinformation on Israel/Gaza.” Also, the EU says there are “indications” that X is “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict.” That’s probably an intended feature rather than a bug as Elon Musk has intentionally neutered the company’s fact checking apparatus. Worse yet, Musk encourages misinformation, rewarding “verified” posters of outrageous lies and debunked claims, who now get rewarded via his monetization/advertisement scheme for their most “popular” posts. Musk even reposts a lot of the hate and lies himself which given his very large following is a huge disinformation amplifier. Worth noting, in the past blue check verification was something mostly granted to media outlets, official entities, and well-known celebrities but now most of those so-called verified Xers/tweeters are only verified because they bought their blue checkmarks. Moving from X to Trump’s Truth Social that other purveyor of twisted information, its prospects took a major hit last week when the SPAC company planning to purchase it returned $533 million that it had previously raised back to investors. Naturally, a spokesperson from Trump’s Media Group claimed that the merger was still happening and that what they called just a “development” was in fact a positive step. To be clear it was not a positive step.
The 🤡 🚗: The House still doesn’t have a speaker. The Republican’s current designee, Trump’s coup partner Jim “Gym” Jordan, is still somewhere between 10 and 20 votes short of the 217 Republican votes he needs to move into the office vacated by Kevin McCarthy. As anticipated Gymbo has been playing hardball with his caucus’s holdouts. He spent the weekend wrestling some of his opponents into submission, with help from Fox’s Sean Hannity who actually sent an email to them as part of a shame and intimidation campaign. That effort shouldn’t be taken lightly, as Mitt Romney earlier indicated, a number of Republicans supported Trump during his impeachment trials over fears for their jobs and the safety of their families so it’s too early to count Gymbo out. As of now the Speaker vote is scheduled to take place on the floor of the House tomorrow, starting at noon. According to Jake Sherman’s Punchbowl News, a group of House Republicans including Alabama’s Mike Rogers, California’s Ken Calvert, Florida’s Mario Diaz-Balart and John Rutherford, and Virginia’s Jen Kiggans, among others say they won’t vote for him ever, though with Republican’s ever isn’t always a long time. Over the weekend, Republican House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner, told Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan that if his party fails to come-up with a Speaker on its own, it will have to work something out with Hakeem Jeffries’ Democrats. With pressure building and a bipartisan consensus that a funding package is needed for Israel, for Ukraine too though the consensus there is smaller, a deal with Hakeem is possible though unprecedented. The battle for the Speakership isn’t as bloody as the truly horrific one in the Middle East but it warrants attention because a Jordan victory won’t turn out well unless you think closed government, Treasury defaults, failing our allies, and the like are good things.
And: Though he still insists he’s innocent and says he won’t be stepping down, NJ Senator Bob Menendez’s life got a bit more complicated on Thursday after the DOJ hit him with new charges. He’s now accused of accepting bribes from a foreign government and conspiring to act as a foreign agent. On the subject of indicted office holders, George of many names Santos says that though he won’t step down over any of the charges against him, he will resign in protest if House Republicans reach across the aisle to solve the Speaker crisis. And we all know how he always speaks truth? In a jungle style election, Jeff Landry, a very right-wing Republican just won, becoming the governor of Louisiana. He replaces Louisiana’s termed out, somewhat centrist Democratic Governor John Bell Edwards. It’s not clear that what happened in Louisiana is the beginning of a trend since the state is fairly red, so all eyes are now focused on the more purple Virginia’s November statewide elections where early voting is already taking place.
Friday, October 13, 2023
The Lettuce Wins Again ✡️ 🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Iceberg Ahead: Once again, the head of lettuce 🥬 🥬 has won, tossing rotten tomatoes 🍅 🍅 at Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise’ speaker aspirations. Naturally since it’s Trump’s party, the lettuce got some help from the mango maniac who while adding Hezbollah’s leaders to his smart list, an ignominious group that already includes such luminaries as Putin, Duterte, Xi and Kim Jong un, added fuel to concerns about Scalise’s health troubles not that Trump cares one whit about Scalise’s cancer fight. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna who’d extracted commitments from Scalise in exchange for her support quickly reneged on their deal, shifting her allegiance to his competitor Jim “Gym” Jordan as did a number of others who took Trump’s Scalise health concerns as a not-so-subtle order. Moreover, the jacketless Gymbo who publicly said he’d back Scalise and nominate him on the floor, privately told Scalise that in exchange he’d need a promise of support for his run if Scalise couldn’t garner the required 217 votes. Scalise wasn’t interested in that deal and as the day wore on, facing the reality that McCarthy had faced and unwilling to make all the commitments McCarthy had made to the far right, he threw in the towel, dropping out of the race. What’s next? With Scalise out of the way, Gym Jordan is trying to lock up votes and he will pick some up, but he’ll have a hard time finding 217 which isn’t to say that he won’t play hardball, twisting wrists, and using all of Trump’s resources as he tries. Should Jordan fail, and most pundits, excluding his fans at Fox and in the rest of the right-wing media, believe he will fall short too, House Republicans could: try to find a consensus candidate; could ask Democrats to help them temporarily add to the limited powers of the little bow tie guy, Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry; or could reach all the way across the aisle to seek a power sharing arrangement with Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and his crowd. Don’t raise your expectations for inter-party cooperation, although some quiet low-level conversations between Democrats and Republicans are reported to be taking place and Hakeem has publicly said he’d welcome it, the likelihood of the “burn it all down” Republicans reaching a long-term deal with Hakeem and his crowd remains low, though the odds have grown just a smidge. That said, agreeing to grant additional powers to McHenry, fueled by a bipartisan desire to get iron dome funding to Israel, is a real possibility. As to Trump saying that those nice Hezbollah guys are smart, he’s gotten lots of criticism from both sides of the aisle and from Israel. It would be nice to think that any of that mattered, but we’ve been down this road before and at least to date, nothing has managed to pierce his Teflon armor. Republicans are in disarray, the clock is ticking, Israel needs money, Ukraine needs money, and the US government will close on November 17 if another continuing resolution or budget isn’t passed.
Friday the Thirteenth: Former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal wants today to be a global day of rage and anger, calling for demonstrations to send a “message to Zionists (i.e., Jews) and to America.” Virtually, every Jewish house of worship, school and community has received messages warning them of the threat. Police, in NYC and in communities across the country are ramping up protection, at Jewish facilities and in case of retaliatory attacks at Muslim ones too. Though most synagogues plan to go ahead with services tonight, a number of schools, particularly those with pre-school programs are remaining closed today. Probably not a Kristallnacht, but it’s hard to miss the similar sentiment. Over in the Middle East, Israel appears determined to eliminate Hamas and has told 1.1 million Gazan civilians to leave their homes, not that they have anywhere to go as their other neighbor Egypt doesn’t seem all that interested in allowing them to pass through its border. The consequences of last weekend’s attack are growing increasingly deadly with little end in sight. Somewhere on earth two there’s a peaceful solution to this impending catastrophe, sadly here on earth one not so much.
Stay safe.
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Babies and Toddlers, WTF ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻
Both Sides: A shout out to the Democratic Socialists and far too many university students and groups, including at least one really foolish, now jobless NYU law student leader, for reminding us that being hateful and callous in the face of horror is not unique to the right. Who could have guessed that advocating for Palestinian rights while holding up swastikas as news about the decapitation of infants and toddlers by Hamas terrorists was coming to light wasn’t, to borrow a phrase from Martha Stewart, “a good thing?” Doubling down by saying that some of the children were just killed by Hamas terrorists rather than decapitated also not so good, to say the least. Not all members of the Democratic Socialists contingent, a group that includes the so-called Democratic Squad, are backing away from their “blame Israel for everything” position, though a few have walked back some of their undying adoration for all things Palestinian with wishy washy heavily word-smithed statements that acknowledge Hamas’ depravity. Some like Representative Shri Thanedar have had it though, the Michigan Congressman is revoking his Democratic Socialist membership over its promotion of what he called the “anti-Semitic rally” in New York City and NY Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who earlier came under criticism from the group for traveling to Israel and who is currently best known for pulling a House fire alarm, quietly let his membership lapse a while ago. Naturally, Trump who popularized the “both sides” philosophy with his response to the Charlottesville’s tiki torch hate rally, is now going after Bibi Netanyahu, not for his right wing positions nor his efforts to limit Supreme Court powers, but in an odd word salad where he drudged up the past to say that Bibi failed him for not helping the US with the 2020 drome strike that killed Suleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp as if that’s what anyone sane is focused on right now. So basically, since Bibi, who closely aligned himself with Trump, is deservedly in hot water for the intelligence failures that led up to last weekend’s attacks not to mention some of those other things, Trump is distancing himself from his one-time friend because that’s what Trump does. As to Bibi, yesterday he agreed to form a unity government to deal with Israel’s unprecedented crisis. And the saddest thing is that nothing can be done to undo what’s happened. The suffering will continue, yes on both sides, because war sucks. Hamas didn’t just attack Israel, by focusing on hate and destruction, the terrorists have failed their own people, bigly.
Déjà vu: Yesterday by a vote of 113 to
99, House Republicans voted to nominate Louisiana’s Steve Scalise rather than
Ohio’s Jim “Gym” Jordan as their Speaker candidate. Unfortunately for
Scalise, he needs 217 votes to win and at the current time he doesn’t have near
that many. Though Jordan says he’ll support Scalise, quite a few of Gym’s
supporters say they won’t vote for Scalise, and a significant number of others
say they won’t support either candidate. Scalise is now facing the same dilemma
that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced last January and no surprise, it
appears that he’s following Kevin’s “promise everything to everyone”
playbook. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna says that he won her over
by promising that he’ll meet her demands which include nothing for her district
but do include defunding Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, holding a House floor
impeachment vote on Biden and issuing a subpoena for son Hunter. Margie Q says
that she adores Scalise but won’t vote for him because of her concern that
serving as Speaker will impede his cancer recovery, her way of saying that
she’s taking orders from a higher authority: Trump, Putin, or both.
Lauren Boebert is still in the Jordan camp because she won’t support anyone who
was previously in leadership. Colorado’s Ken Buck says that he won’t support
Scalise or Jordan because neither is willing to say that Biden won the 2020
election. Then there’s South Carolina Nancy Mace, who says she voted to oust
McCarthy because he failed to take her concerns about victims of sex crimes
seriously. Mace says that she won’t vote for Scalise because of his KKK
affinity. That’s nice but she voted for Jim Jordan and would still vote
for him despite the accusations that he failed to stand up for the members of
his wrestling team even though according to those team members he knew they
were being sexually attacked by an Ohio State doctor. In a party of not serious
people, Mace may be one of the most unserious. That list is just the tip
of the iceberg, Scalise is short far more votes which is why no floor vote was
held yesterday. There are some suggestions that a dark horse could still
emerge, someone like the current Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry or even
less likely, McCarthy. Despite the fact that the Democratic caucus runs the
gamut from blue dog to socialist, Hakeem Jeffries won all their votes and will
be the party’s candidate for Speaker which is nice but means little unless some
of the vulnerable so-called moderate, but not really, Republicans cross the
aisle and they most likely won’t. And because having a House in disarray has
consequences, both Ukraine and Israel funding which may or may not be tied
together is up in the air and the government budget deadline and a possible
shutdown loom.
🤡 🚗: Kari Lake who still hasn’t conceded the Arizona gubernatorial race that she lost announced that she’s running for Senate for the seat currently held by former Democrat/now Independent Kyrsten Sinema. Lake was immediately endorsed by Trump. Sinema who’s swimming in campaign cash hasn’t announced her intentions. Congressman Ruben Gallego is likely to be the Democratic candidate in what could turn out to be a three-way race. The pile of 💩 surrounding George of many names Santos stinks and is growing. In a superseding indictment made public on Tuesday, federal prosecutors charged him with stealing the identities of family members and using donors’ credit cards. The mendacious Santos asserts he’s totally innocent and would never enter into a plea agreement but there are reports that he is currently in discussions with prosecutors about such an agreement. A group of New York freshman Republican Congressman, including Esposito, Lawler, Molinaro, LaLota and Langworthy, all except Langworthy in swing districts, say they plan to introduce a resolution to have Santos expelled from Congress but it’s hard to believe that Republican leadership will do that because they can ill afford to lose Santos’ vote. Then there’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary who is now the Governor of Arkansas. She’s apparently involved in a “podium gate” scandal, something that involves spending state funds on a bespoke expensive podium while also paying for her friends to accompany her on a trip to Paris. Bedbugs anyone?
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Broken ✡️✡️✡️
Pearl Harbor + 9.11: Kidnapping and murder of old people, babies, concert goers, tearing families from their homes. Disgusting and deplorable. There are no words to describe what happened over the weekend, not that the absence of coherent thought has stopped many from weighing in, some trying to justify the carnage. To be clear, there is no justification. My heart is broken, I’ll leave it at that.
Politics Unusual: There’s never a good time for a region of the world to unravel but right now is a particularly bad time. We don’t have a Speaker of the House and due to one Senator’s idiocy and obstinacy our military is missing confirmed leaders when and where we need them most and due to another group of Senators making ambassador confirmations extraordinarily difficult, we don’t have confirmed ambassadors in either Israel or Egypt. Alabama’s footballer Tommy Tuberville, the Senator holding up the military confirmations, says that despite the events in Israel and Gaza, he plans to continue to block military promotions. The Senators blocking or stalling ambassador confirmations include Rand Paul, JD Vance and Ted Cruz. Their reasons differ, Paul’s issue has to do with getting more “documents” about the origins of coronavirus, the other two are just doing their usual obstreperous thing, but the results are the same. As to the Speaker situation, acting Speaker Patrick McHenry is only a space filler with limited powers, so at least for now he’s not considered a member of the Gang of Eight, the group that gets crucial security briefings. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has called for the Republicans “to get their act together” because being rudderless isn’t a good look nor at this time a good thing, was provided with an update this weekend, but no Speaker was with him. Before the Hamas attack took place there were suggestions that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was considering leaving Congress before the end of his term but that doesn’t appear to be happening. In fact, there are reports that he’s trying to wiggle himself back into the Speaker spot. That’s probably not going to happen but really, who knows for sure because at least so far, neither Trump endorsed Jim “Gym” Jordan nor Steve Scalise, who only appears more palatable because his alternative is the insurrectionist Gym guy, have the support they’ll need to become Speaker. When not blaming President Biden for the Gaza attack, the two Republican Speaker candidates spent the weekend working the phones trying to drum up support for their respective candidacies. Their Housemates held their first group grope last night with the plan of coming-up with a consensus candidate in time to start open floor voting on Wednesday or maybe Thursday or with this crowd maybe never. Democrats remain united behind Hakeem Jeffries but united as they are, they don’t have the votes to take the Speakership. The Democrats would only need a few of those so-called moderates from swing districts to help elect Jeffries, but that happening is a pipedream and, anyway, those are the same Republicans who are trying to get Kevin back, another thing that’s highly unlikely.
The Peanut Gallery: Chief nut, Trump insists that the Hamas attack wouldn’t have happened on his watch and judging by Facebook, X and Threads, a large number of his fans agree. RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said the Hamas attack was a “great opportunity for Republican candidates” because apparently all that death and heartache is okay if it’s good for Republicans? Virtually all of the Republican politicians who have weighed in, have blamed the attack on Biden’s decision to free up the $6 billion of Iranian assets frozen in South Korean accounts in exchange for the release of five American hostages even though that money is now unspent in Qatari hands. To the extent that Iran helped Hamas, and though the facts remain murky right now, they probably did, this weekend’s attack which not so coincidentally took place on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, was planned in advance of the hostage release, but blaming Biden makes for a good talking point and a potential vote generator. Because bad takes are a both sides thing, a number of prominent Democrats, mostly “Squad” members have also weighed in on the Hamas attack, holding Israel responsible. Note to all, shifting blame for death, the kidnapping of children and Holocaust survivors and the killing of concert goers, many of whom were sympathetic to the plight of the Gazans, is bad, period. Moving on to other nuts, RFK Jr has announced what everyone kind of knew he was going to announce. He’s running for president as an independent. He says he wants to disrupt the race and hopes that his polling will earn him a spot on the debate stage, not that it’s clear that there will be debates as who know if Trump will ever participate. Nepo-RFK’s family isn’t happy about his run. Last night, four of them including former Maryland Lt Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Representative Joseph Kennedy II, Rory Kennedy ,and Kerry Kennedy issued a statement denouncing his run, calling it perilous for the country. Then there’s that other nut, George of many names Santos, who is still in Congress because Republicans need his vote. It turns out that the reason that the “real” source of the $500,000 or so that he claimed to have lent himself has been so difficult to track is because it doesn’t it exist. As part of her plea deal, his former treasurer, revealed that the loan was fabricated, a fake book entry created to convince the National Republican Congressional Committee that he had raised enough funds to qualify for financial assistance from their special partnership program for promising candidates. Apparently being a liar and a scammer makes you a promising candidate if you have a certain amount of money on hand.
And: On Friday, a NY appeals court judge declined to halt Trump’s civil fraud trial while he fights the pretrial ruling that stripped him of control of lots of his assets but did agree to leave the control of the assets in his hands during the appeal process. Unfortunately Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon continues to slow walk the Mar a Lago purloined documents case. She’s paused litigation as she considers a request from Trump to extend deadlines, as in to stall the case at least until after the election or preferably into the next century.
Am Yisrael Chai
Friday, October 6, 2023
Oust, Oust Damn Spot 🌻🌻🌻
Speaker Race 🏃♂️ 🏃♂️ 🏃♂️: Despite hinting that he might, Trump is not running for Speaker, at least for now, but has thrown his considerable heft behind Ohio Congressman Jim “Gym” Jordan, the bombastic, jacket eschewing House Judiciary and Weaponization of the Government Committees Chair whose main challenger at this point is Louisiana’s Steve Scalise who had been second in command under ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Despite their connection, McCarthy is not supporting Scalise because he’s not happy that his “second” failed to step up to help him keep his seat. As awful as Jordan is, and he is, and though Scalise is thought to be far more skilled in the ways of the House, Scalise is hardly a charmer. He’s known for being KKK adjacent, in fact he has referred to himself as David Duke without the baggage. To summarize, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz who’s been accused of having inappropriate relations with underage girls and who Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin says called South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem a fine bitch while sharing pictures of his conquests with House members and bragging about his mixing of Viagra with Red Bull to enhance his prowess triggered McCarthy’s ouster and one of the leading candidates to replace McCarthy who has been endorsed by a multiply indicted sexual predator has been accused by six of the wrestlers he coached at Ohio State of turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse they endured at the hands of a university doctor and the other thinks that bragging about being like the former Grand Wizard of the KKK is a good thing. Also, no one should be surprised to learn that Steve Bannon helped stoke the McCarthy ouster and that both Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace who infuriated many by voting to dethrone Kevin after he contributed bigly to her campaign to hold her South Carolina seat, both appeared on Bannon’s podcast right after Kevin was forced to step down. One more thing on the Kevin front, it turns out that he was behind both former Speaker Pelosi and Steny Hoyer evictions from their privileged “hideaway” offices. Word is that he plans to take over Nancy’s former digs, no report yet on who gets Steny’s. The Republican Party’s best? The votes for Speaker are scheduled to start on Wednesday, must see TV assuming that watching trainwrecks is your thing.
Trump Trials: Turning to the crime a minute, much indicted former guy, yesterday ABC News broke a story about how shortly after he left the White House, he shared secrets about the US submarine fleet with an Australian businessman who then shared those secrets with “scores” of his besties and some random acquaintances. Notably the Aussie joined Mar a Lago in 2017 because he correctly calculated that that for a mere $200k he’d get access to Trump which would help him advance his personal business interests. As to all those impending trials getting in the way of Trump’s dictatorial aspirations, yesterday his lawyers went on the offensive in an attempt to extract him from and/or delay his various legal cases. To that end, they asked a Manhattan judge to throw out the criminal charges related to the hush money porn star payments, arguing that the case is interfering with Trump’s presidential campaign. They asked Judge Eileen “loose” Cannon to postpone the Mar a Lago purloined documents case until after the 2024 presidential election asserting that since they haven’t yet gotten access to all of the super-secret documents they need to peruse, they can’t possibly defend him now, and why should they since their plan is to get rid of all the federal cases against him if he or another Republican wins the 2024 election. Along those lines expected to end up in the Supreme Court, they asked a federal judge to throw out the indictment accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, claiming that because those charges related to actions he took while still president he should be “absolutely immune from prosecution” because apparently staging a coup while in office is okay? Trump’s lawyers also told NY fraud case Judge Engoron that they plan to seek a stay of his trial as well as a stay of his order to dissolve Trump’s corporate entities while they appeal all of his rulings. Not all that surprising that they’re trying to do so since the NY fraud case threatens Trump’s livelihood and Judge Engoron, who Trump attacked mercilessly yesterday, has requested that a list of all of the investors in his properties be turned over ASAP. Also, probably because he was due to be deposed momentarily, Trump has “temporarily” dismissed his retaliatory lawsuit against Michael Cohen, who he was suing for $500 million.
🤡 🤡 🤡 Update: Rudy Giuliani who hasn’t been paying his lawyers also owes the IRS around $500k so they’ve put a lien on an apartment he owns in Florida not to be confused with the $6 million apartment he’s selling in NYC which probably also has several liens on it. George of many names Santos is still in Congress where Republicans want him to stay since they desperately need his vote to maintain the Speakership. However, his life just got a little more complicated as Nancy Marks, his one-time campaign treasurer who served in the same role for former Congressman/gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and a spate of other NYS Republicans pleaded guilty yesterday, admitting her role in fraudulently reporting a fictional $500k loan that Santos claimed to have made to his campaign. Pillow guy Mike Lindell has lost his lawyers, something about having no money to pay them. And proving that Democrats can be sleazes too, we’ve learned a little more about NJ Senator Menendez and his wife, Nadine, none of it good. It turns out that back when she was the Senator’s fiancée, Nadine totaled her car when she ran over and lethally injured a pedestrian. Not to worry, though the pedestrian is dead all’s good for Nadine because her car was quickly replaced with a Mercedes gifted to her by one of Menendez’s friends.
And: Biden is trying to clean up the mess at the border by building some wall! He’s also looking for ways to fund weaponry for Ukraine through State Department grants since the mess in the House is likely to stall more traditional funding for a while. Cornell West, one of the potential spoiler candidates running for president, is no longer running on the Green Party ticket but instead says that he’ll go the independent route, a path that RFK Jr is expected to follow. Elon Musk, who is currently being investigated by the SEC not that he’s cooperating may be one of nepobaby RFK’s funders. That’s Elon, whose X (formerly Twitter) has been caught placing ads for mainstream companies such as Amazon, Samsung, the Denver Broncos, Cox Communications, STARZ, the WSJ, the Michael J Fox Foundation, the University of Missouri, Axios, Puck, and a few others on posts from VDARE a well-known, admittedly white supremacist organization. Musk and his so-called CEO Linda Yaccarino promised companies they would never ever display their ads next to hatemongers and some of them have now stopped advertising. How long before Musk blames the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for this too? As to blaming the ADL, NBC media guy Ben Collins reports that since acquiring Twitter, Musk has been following a right-wing playbook written before he even bid for the company that not only detailed how one could run the “liberal woke platform” into the ground but also called for blaming the ADL for its failure. Hmmm.
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Chaos Caucus🌻 🌻 🌻
Republicans in Disarray: By a vote of 216 to 210, Kevin McCarthy was kicked to the curb yesterday. Though he blamed his demise on the failure of Democrats to give him a lifeline, make no mistake, this is on him, his speakership was doomed from the start because that’s when he made the decision to give just one member of his caucus the right to call for his removal through a motion to vacate. As former Speakers Newt Gingrich, Paul Boehner and Paul Ryan all learned the hard way, House Republicans are virtually impossible to satisfy and suck at legislating but are really good at eating their own. Moreover, it certainly didn’t help that Kevin burnt bridges on both sides of the aisle by reneging on deals and promises, including the budget agreement he made with President Biden to raise the debt ceiling. As promised, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz led the effort to oust McCarthy. He was joined by Arizona’s Andy Biggs, Colorado’s Ken Buck, Tennessee’s Tim Burchett, Arizona’s Eli Crane, Virginia’s Bob Good, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace and Montana’s Matt Rosendale. Sure, Democrats could have saved McCarthy’s butt, but that never all that steady ship sailed when he told a few Sunday news hosts that it was their fault that the government nearly shut down last week, a particularly disingenuous claim given that more Democrats than Republicans voted to pass the continuing resolution that kept the government open. It also didn’t help that he facilitated the opening of the inquiry into a Biden impeachment.
What’s Next: The short answer is that it’s anybody’s guess. For now, North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry, one of McCarthy’s top lieutenants, is serving as Speaker Pro Tempore. McHenry says that he doesn’t plan to run for the Speaker position and has scheduled what is likely to be a challenging Speaker vote for next Wednesday. About all you need to know about McHenry can be summed up by his first move. Before scheduling the vote and putting the House into a one-week recess, he ordered Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi to vacate the special hideaway office she occupies by tradition as a former Speaker. Even worse, he demanded that she do so by today, telling her the office was being rekeyed and that her belongings would be tossed to the curb, maybe even gifted to some January insurrectionists, if she didn’t remove them ASAP. That’s vindictive and also unnecessarily cruel as Pelosi, who didn’t vote yesterday, isn’t even in Washington. Well before the vote to dethrone McCarthy, she accompanied Senator Dianne Feinstein’s body back to San Francisco and has been there ever since, preparing for tomorrow’s memorial service. Several Republicans names are being bandied about as possible replacements for McCarthy. The list of possibilities includes Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana who is currently being treated for multiple myeloma; bombastic Ohioan, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan; Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota; Rules Committee Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma; and New York’s Trump fangirl Elise Stefanik. Since the Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of Congress, a few, including Margie Q want Trump to run and a few others, mostly not currently sitting in Congress would love to see former Representative Liz Cheney throw her hat in the ring. All of the candidates, with the possible exception of Trump whose policy positions have more to do with retribution and personal aggrandizement than anything else, fall to the right of McCarthy on most issues. Remember, that though Liz deserves praise for standing up to Trump she voted with him on almost everything and still insists that Democrats support abortion after birth. She would need all of those Democrats plus a bunch of Republicans to support her and that’s very unlikely. As to Trump, hard to contemplate but we should all take solace knowing that he’d hate the job because Speakers actually have to work and anyway his plate is full given his presidential run, he’s busy with all of those court cases and the Speaker’s aircraft is smaller than his.
Shut Up Already! As to Trump, at least one judge has had it with his intentionally threatening, intimidating and dangerous social media posts. Yesterday Trump attacked Arthur Engoron’s clerk, posting on Truth Social that “Schumer’s girlfriend, Allison R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately.” His post included a link to Greenfield’s Instagram profile. To be clear, Greenfield is not and has never been Schumer’s girlfriend. In response to the post, a really angry Judge Engoron ordered Trump to take it down. Trump did but not before it was widely shared. The Judge went on to say that “Personal attacks of any member of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them.” He followed up with a gag order, forbidding all parties involved in the fraud case from “posting, emailing, or speaking publicly about any members of my staff. Adding, “failure to abide by this will result in serious sanctions.” Bigly bucks or an orange jumpsuit? That jumpsuit thing is probably just wishcasting but still. Though neither Special Counsel Jack Smith nor Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan are involved in Trump’s NY fraud case, it’s fair to assume that both are aware of Trump’s post and Engoran’s order. Not good for Trump but maybe good for the rest of us.
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