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Month: October 2019

If you want to see what they’re doing to Bill Taylor, check out Rush

Published by digby on October 30, 2019

If you want to see what they’re doing to Bill Taylor, check out Rush

by digby

Here is what the wingnuts are being indoctrinated with when they’re in their cars:

Okay. So you know this guy Bill Taylor, Ambassador Bill Taylor, the hero, the guy who was so upset, he was so terribly upset by what he heard from Trump on the phone call to Ukraine, oh, it was so bad — remember Victor Davis Hanson’s piece, we’re dealing with a bunch of people who have not achieved what they’ve achieved on the basis of merit. It’s labels, titles, connections.

They’re not the best and brightest. They are presented as the best and brightest. They’re presented as the pinnacle of achievement, the best in their class, the best at what they do. They’re not. Now, what have you heard about Bill Taylor? Bill Taylor was the guy they put all their eggs in his basket. Bill Taylor was the guy. Until Taylor came along all the other witnesses and the Mueller report, everything had kind of been a dud. But Bill Taylor…

First we had the whistleblower. He blew up when Trump revealed and released transcripts. Here comes Bill Taylor, William, I’m sorry, William Taylor, who provided no new information. Don’t doubt me. I don’t care if this sounds like it’s at variance with what you’ve heard, Bill Taylor had no new information. Bill Taylor’s testimony has been contradicted by everybody involved. John Ratcliffe made mincemeat of Bill Taylor in cross-examination, but Schiff will not release those transcripts.

Now there is further evidence that Taylor’s motives might be suspect. Really? That somebody trying to rat out Trump might have impure motives? Why, who would think that? Well, it turns out that the estimable and the esteemed Bill Taylor — by the way, I don’t enjoy doing this, folks. I wish this rotgut wasn’t true. I wish we really did have great people in charge of our government. I wish we really did have patriots and not globalists. I wish we really did have people that accomplish things with merit rather than are there because of connections, pedigree, breeding, labels, whatever. I really don’t enjoy this. But I know this stuff is all true. I just know it’s true. Let’s leave it at that.

It turns out that the estimable Bill Taylor led an election observer delegation in Ukraine back in April for a George Soros funded organization that had Hunter Biden on its council. Now, that kind of changes things, doesn’t it? Here’s Bill Taylor, he’s been presented to you as an American patriot. He’s not a partisan, he doesn’t care one way or the other, but he heard Trump on that phone call, and he was distressed.

He was very, very alarmed. He was very upset that a president would be asking for a foreign government to dig up dirt on a political opponent. It seems so unseemly and he could no longer stay quiet. He had to do his duty. And he had to come forward, and he had to release and tell only the Democrats what he knew.

Well, it turns out that he’s not the way he’s been presented. He may be a fine guy. He may be a guy that you want to go to a deep state baseball game and have a couple beers with and catch some foul balls, who knows. But he is not the guy you have been told he is. He is a partisan. He worked for George Soros! He led an election observer delegation in Ukraine back in April for a George Soros funded organization that employed Hunter Biden.

I love that the guy who used to drool and slobber over Bush and Cheney and the PNAC’s “Pax Americana” is now railing against globalists. But hey, man’s gotta make a buck, amirite?

And “deep state baseball game …?” Jesus Christ.

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Bannon’s back and he ready to meddle

Published by digby on October 30, 2019

Bannon’s back and he ready to meddle

by digby

Somehow, I don’t think this will end up being helpful to Trump:

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is launching an increasingly aggressive defense of President Trump, promising to soon open a staffed “war room” that will forcefully counteract the fast-moving Democratic impeachment effort.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Bannon cited insufficient efforts on the president’s behalf by the Republican Party and the Trump administration itself to defend against an ongoing impeachment inquiry. He described his own efforts —which are still in the planning stages — as likely bearing the hallmarks of a traditional political operation: a “rapid response, messaging, surrogate program.”

The operation would have a “10-man staff” and take on many of the roles of a traditional war room.

“I’m gonna do polling,” he added. “I’m doing it.”

Encouraged by the reception of his recently launched “War Room: Impeachment” radio show, co-hosted by Raheem Kassam and Jason Miller, Bannon intends to carry his anti-impeachment message into the media mainstream.

“I don’t see any intensity level,” Bannon lamented, speaking last Friday from the Capitol Hill townhouse where for years he has led a populist revolt, whether as the chief executive of Breitbart News or the chairman of the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.

“We’re not even in the heat of this thing yet,” Bannon warned. “The heat is about to come.”

To counter what he sees as a “master class” in “political warfare” now being waged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine last month, Bannon intends to augment a daily broadcast with an actual war room — of the kind that the White House has thus far resisted implementing, opting instead for informal meetings by existing staff.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testifies at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee last month. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testifies at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee last month. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“We’re moving the sofa out, we’re changing the furniture,” Bannon said of the basement living area where, in lighter, pre-impeachment times, a junior aide might have been found playing video games on a large-screen television.

“He’s smart to take this fight on,” said a former White House official. “Fighting political battles like this is exactly what Steve Bannon was built to do.”

It appears he is going to be fighting his own war more than Trump’s:

Bannon would not say whom he planned to hire but admiringly spoke of longtime Trump loyalists like Corey Lewandowski, his first campaign manager; David Bossie, a personal and political associate; and Boris Epshteyn, a media adviser to Trump during the campaign and in the White House…

…This would not be the first campaign in defense of Trump that Bannon has promised to launch. In late 2017, for example, he vowed to run primary challengers to Republican incumbents in the Senate, many of whom he charged with being disloyal to Trump. But his ambitions have sometimes outstripped his organizational capacity. The Senate challenge largely fizzled out with Roy Moore’s inauspicious campaign, in which Bannon played a central role.

Bannon subsequently engaged in a series of populist campaigns in Europe and Asia, which became the basis of a documentary, “The Brink.”

But the impeachment fight seems to play more to his strengths than, say, the Senate race in Alabama. There are no voters to register or candidates to coach, just a message to repeat over and over. Nor, as in the case of his campaign against China, are there complex geopolitical forces to overcome.

It will be a game of catch-up, as Bannon knows, because Democrats have largely defined impeachment on their own terms. Accordingly, public support for impeaching Trump has risen.

Speaking after a taping of “War Room” during which he showered praise on Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for his aggressive defense of Trump, Bannon said he admired the simplicity of Democrats’ message, which he described as: “Orange man bad.”

It was time, he said, that Trump’s allies came up with a similarly compelling message.

“This is not a search for truth,” he said of the impeachment process, which Pelosi delegated to Rep. Adam Schiff, a former prosecutor who heads the House Intelligence Committee. “This is highly sophisticated political warfare — and a massive disinformation campaign that the Democrats are quite smartly running,” Bannon said. He repeatedly praised Pelosi, lauding her skills of political organization and maneuvering.

Republicans, in his estimation, have not been so strategic or smart. Bannon said he was dismayed by the press conference that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney gave earlier this month, in which he offered a defense of Trump that was widely seen as damaging and confusing.

“I was not comfortable when I saw Mick up there,” Bannon said. “He tried to wing it. You can’t wing this.” He said that a cleanup interview Mulvaney gave to Chris Wallace of Fox News hardly helped. Nor was he particularly pleased by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s announcement of a resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry. Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell co-sponsored the resolution, and more than 40 other Republican senators endorsed it, none stood at the podium with Graham.

“That’s not good symbolism,” said Bannon, aware as ever of how images can inform public opinion more than arguments. The image of Graham flipping through amateurishly designed posters, sure enough, became the kind of Twitter fodder the anti-impeachment forces will need to avoid if they hope to sway Americans to their side.

Bannon is ramping up his own efforts in part because he has come to believe that some Republicans are willing to save Trump only if he makes concessions to the party on issues like immigration and trade. “They want to see the end of the Trump presidency and the beginning of a Republican presidency,” Bannon said of mainstream Republicans.

“I think they’ve had enough of Trump.”

Remember Bannon’s pitch for Judge Roy Moore was all about how the establishment Republicans were failing Trump.

It sounds like Bannon still sees that as the winning message and is going to be antagonizing Republicans when Trump needs them most.

Lol.

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Please. Right-wingers have been insulting decorated soldiers for over 70 years

Published by digby on October 30, 2019

Please. Right-wingers have been insulting decorated soldiers for over 70 years


by digby

My Salon column this morning:

Monday night when the New York Times reported the opening statement of Lt Colonel Vindman, the decorated Army Colonel who was slated to give testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, I tweeted this:

I’m not a soothsayer so I was only half-serious, but sure enough within the hour this was on Fox News:

This line was clearly an official talking point since the next day similar language appeared again on Fox and on CNN:

Rudy Giuliani got in on the act as well:

Needless to say, this created a major controversy. Top Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, all stepped forward to denounce these comments and declare Vindman a patriot. John Yoo even offered a mealy-mouthed “explanation” for his earlier comments on Facebook.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The networks replayed those despicable smears dozens of times all day long as they reported the “backlash.” As a political operative once said to me years ago when I gloated about a Republican flack having to “walk back” a statement she’d made earlier in the day: “She got it out there, didn’t she?”

Among the punditocracy, it is an article of faith that Republicans are flag-waving guardians of the military, so many people expressed surprise that such a thing would have come from Fox News since, as the Washington Post’s Eric Wemple wrote, “no network celebrates the troops as aggressively as Fox News.”

NeverTrump Republicans, meanwhile, bemoaned the sad fate of their once patriotic party under Donald Trump:

John Weaver, who worked for John McCain:

Given this general consensus among the political class that this was a highly unusual attack on a decorated military man by the devoted patriots of the right, why did I immediately assume they would smear him? Well, because there’s nothing at all unusual about it. Sure, conservatives love to wave the flag and claim the that they’re the only true Americans, but history shows that their great love for the troops is as shallow as their respect for the Constitution.

Consider the most infamous Republican senator of the last century, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, and his anti-communist crusade. People may not remember that McCarthy’s most important target was none other than Gen. George Marshall, who was considered to be suspect by right-wingers because he “associated with traitors” when he developed the plan to rebuild Europe. As President Harry Truman’s secretary of state and then secretary of defense, Marshall came under relentless attack by McCarthy and his accomplices. McCarthy once took to the Senate floor to deliver a 60,000-word diatribe accusing the decorated American hero of “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”

One might have thought that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican presidential candidate in 1952 — the year of that attack — would have stepped up to defend his fellow soldier. But it wasn’t politically expedient. As the PBS series American Experience described it:

Eisenhower’s personal and political instincts came into conflict during a campaign stop in McCarthy’s home state of Wisconsin. Eisenhower was prepared to deliver a defense of Marshall, praising him “as a man and a soldier,” and condemning the tactics of McCarthy as a “sobering lesson in the way freedom must not defend itself.” But noble intentions gave way to political reality. Aware of McCarthy’s huge base of support and not willing to risk losing votes in a crucial state, Eisenhower delivered his speech minus the defense of Marshall and the condemnation of McCarthy.

Those were the good old days when Republicans were virtuous and put the country first.

After attempting to destroy one of World War II’s most distinguished generals, the Republicans homed in on another political rival with a heroic war record, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Kennedy came from a famous family, of course, but his personal reputation was made during his naval career as the commander of a PT boat in the South Pacific that came under heavy enemy fire. Republicans started a whisper campaign suggesting that Kennedy would have been court-martialed for cowardice had he not been wealthy and well-connected, and those rumors dogged JFK throughout the 1960 presidential campaign.

That wasn’t the last time Republicans trashed the reputation of a decorated veteran who happened to be a political opponent. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota was denigrated as a coward and a Communist sympathizer when he ran for president in 1972 — and he had been an Air Force pilot who flew 35 bombing missions over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.

For more recent examples, we only have to look to the last decade when the GOP turned its smear machine onto Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who had lost both legs and one arm in Vietnam, winning both the Silver Star and Bronze Star for valor in combat. During the 2002 midterm elections, with the country reeling from 9/11 and the Republican Party riding high, Cleland’s Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss, ran a scurrilous ad associating Cleland with Osama bin Laden and saying he lacked “courage.” The only prominent Republican who spoke out against that was Sen. John McCain, who said “I’ve never seen anything like that ad. It’s worse than disgraceful, it’s reprehensible.” Cleland lost that race. Chambliss refused to apologize, even years later.
That brings us to the most famous example of Republicans trashing a war hero in recent history: the “swiftboating” of Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign. This was a highly sophisticated smear campaign, designed and implemented by conservative operatives and political strategists. Kerry was a Vietnam veteran running against George W. Bush, who had obtained a coveted spot in the Texas National Guard and never served overseas (while rarely showing up for duty), so Republicans set out to destroy Kerry’s war record with lies. They even mocked his Purple Heart by passing out Band-aids at the Republican convention, a juvenile stunt that sowed the seeds of Donald Trump’s denigration of a Republican Vietnam War hero, John McCain.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Republican strategy to discredit the impeachment inquiry the same way they discredited the Mueller report. In their view that strategy was very successful since the report was seen as something of a dud, showing “no collusion, no obstruction” — although it showed that Trump had welcomed Russian help and obstructed justice at least 10 times. In order to pull that off again, Trump’s boosters need to turn all the witnesses into liars and traitors and ensure that their base believes the entire impeachment process is a “witch hunt.” If anyone thinks attacking a decorated soldier was an anomaly because Republicans love the troops so much, they need to think again. This is something they do, over and over again, and it often works. As usual, Trump is only saying the quiet part out loud.

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We can almost certainly count on a government shutdown

Published by digby on October 30, 2019
We can almost certainly count on a government shutdown

by digby

… for all the reasons Schumer lays out:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Tuesday that he’s growing concerned President Donald Trump will shut down the government to create a diversion amid the House impeachment investigation. 

“Look, I believe, left to our own devices, Congress could work out an agreement to quickly fund the government,” Schumer told reporters during a press conference. “But I’m increasingly worried that President Trump may want to shut down the government again because of impeachment, an impeachment inquiry.” 

“He always likes to create diversions,” the Democrat continued. “I hope and pray he won’t want to cause another government shutdown ’cause it might be a diversion away from impeachment. It’s very worrisome to me.”

Schumer is being just a teensy bit phony here, I think. Shutting down the government avoid impeachment would likely hurt Trump more than help him, don’t you think?  Schumer’s”hope and pray” handwringing is a bit overwrought.

But who knows? Maybe it will rally the country behind him. It didn’t before when he shut it down over his stupid wall. I wouldn’t expect this to be any more successful. But that won’t stop him if he thinks it will stave off the inevitable. 

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Stable enough to commit crimes by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 30, 2019

Stable enough to commit crimes
by Tom Sullivan


Still image from Brave New Films video (2018).

Our acting president is frustrated that Republicans who will say anything at all about the House impeachment inquiry are critiquing the process rather than defending him on the facts.

Donald Trump has done nothing wrong, says Donald Trump. He wants Republicans to say that more forcefully rather than attack the impeachment process. Except, Trump defenders know they would look like grinning Wile E. Coyote before he plummets to the bottom of the canyon.

Only Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has signed up for that.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) sits on one of the House committees charged with the impeachment inquiry (Intelligence). He tells The New Yorker’s Robert P. Baird he saw two kinds of murder trials in his days as a prosecutor:

“There’s a ‘what is it’ and a whodunnit. A whodunnit is where the defendant is saying, ‘I didn’t do it.’ A ‘what is it’ is where the defendant says, ‘Yeah, I did it, but that is not a crime.’ I think that’s what we have here. He’s acknowledging the conduct, just doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

On top of that, Trump wants people to believe he is totally capable of committing extortion and getting away with it. Trump insists defenders “stop saying he’s too dumb or incompetent to do crimes,” writes Daily Beast White House reporter Asawin Suebsaeng.

Trump’s latest aggravation is the Wall Street Journal’s attempt last week to defend Trump as simply “too inept to execute” a quid pro quo. “Impeachment for incompetence,” the Journal’s Editorial Board argues, “would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.”

The Donald was not amused, Suebsaeng explains:

“[The president] mentioned he had seen it and then he started saying things like, ‘What are they talking about, if I wanted to do quid pro quo, I would’ve done the damn quid pro quo,’ and… then defended his intelligence and then talked about how ‘perfect’ the call [with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] was,” said a source familiar with Trump’s reaction to the Journal editorial. Another person familiar with the president’s comments on the matter corroborated the account.

[…]

“How many more Never Trumpers will be allowed to testify about a perfectly appropriate phone call when all anyone has to do is READ THE TRANSCRIPT! I knew people were listening in on the call (why would I say something inappropriate?), which was fine with me, but why so many?” Trump posted to Twitter on Tuesday morning.

The self-described “stable genius” whose father left him a fortune and bailed out Donald’s failing businesses multiple times is as sensitive about his smarts as he is comparisons to Barack Obama. Indeed, Trump’s entire presidency might trace back to the night Obama mocked him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the same night the raid that killed Osama bin Laden occurred. If the World Series crowd on Sunday had really wanted to get under Trump’s skin, instead of booing or taunting him with “LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!” they might have chanted “O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!”

The side-by-side comparison is not at all flattering. Nor is the need Trump has to “man” himself up by fabricating tears on other men and reducing them to “frightened puppies.” These are patently obvious signs of a sick one.

A contrast

Published by digby on October 30, 2019

A contrast


by digby

I think the wingnuts always like this bloodthirsty stuff. Remember George W. Bush swaggered around and went on about Saddam’s “spidey-hole.”  But I don’t think he blurted out classified information.

Really, our leaders should resist sounding like assholes in these situations. It’s a sober moment and celebrating killing is just gross no matter who it is.

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If you want to change the country, this must happen

Published by digby on October 30, 2019

If you want to change the country, this must happen

by digby

Until they lose so decisively that they cannot pretend otherwise, this political sickness will continue whether Trump is president or not:

A growing number of Republicans are privately warning of increasing fears of a total wipeout in 2020: House, Senate, and White House.

All of this is unfolding while the economy still looks strong, and before public impeachment proceedings have officially begun.

House Republicans in swing districts are retiring at a very fast pace, especially in the suburbs of Texas and elsewhere. (Republicans talk grimly of the “Texodus.”) Rep. Greg Walden — the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the only Republican in Oregon’s congressional delegation — yesterday shocked the party by becoming the 19th GOP House member to not seek re-election.

The Republican Senate majority, once considered relatively safe, suddenly looks in serious jeopardy. Democrats are raising more money, and polling better, than Republican incumbents in battleground after battleground.

President Trump trails every major Democratic candidate nationally and in swing states — and his favorable ratings remain well under 50%.

The biggest recent change is Republicans’ increasingly precarious hold on the Senate.

National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar writes in his “Against the Grain” column that “the pathway for a narrow Democratic takeover of the upper chamber is looking clearer than ever”: “If Trump doesn’t win a second term, Democrats only need to net three seats to win back the majority.”
Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior political strategist, tells me that third-quarter fundraising reports showing three Republican senators being out-raised by Democratic challengers (in Arizona, Iowa and Maine) “are a three-alarm fire.”

“The party was shaken by that,” Reed said. “We’re all worried.”

The well-funded Chamber started TV ads in Arizona last week, launches an ad today in Maine, and will add a third state next week.
That’s the earliest the group has ever gone on the air: Ads typically begin after Thanksgiving or New Year’s.

“We have to spend early because the climate stinks,” Reed said. “All these incumbent senators have terrible job approvals and terrible favorables.”

But Reed thinks Trump has a better than 50-50 chance of hanging on: “He’s still wildly popular in the middle of the country.”

Across the board, struggling Republican Senate campaigns are more concerned about lousy fundraising than they are with poor polling.

Republican strategists and campaign staffers said that with the polarization of the Trump era, key House and Senate races will depend even more than usual on the presidential race.

Seriously. No matter which faction of the party with which you identify, whether left, center left, centrist, blind partisan, social justice warrior, Dem leaning Indie, or Never-Trumper,  job one is defeating these Republicans badly enough that they will BACK THE FUCK OFF.

If that doesn’t happen, there will be no climate change fix, no inequality fix, no better health care, jobs, …. no future. It is vital to stop them now and do it decisively.

Then we can deal with the Democrats …

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About that witch hunt

Published by digby on October 29, 2019

About that witch hunt

by digby

They are very, very dumb. Sigh.

If anyone wondered if Trump is in charge of his impeachment strategy, all you need to do is read this:

A top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes has been providing conservative politicians and journalists with information—and misinformation—about the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the biggest crisis of Donald Trump’s presidency, two knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast.

Derek Harvey, who works for Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, has provided notes for House Republicans identifying the whistleblower’s name ahead of the high-profile depositions of Trump administration appointees and civil servants in the impeachment inquiry. The purpose of the notes, one source said, is to get the whistleblower’s name into the record of the proceedings, which committee chairman Adam Schiff has pledged to eventually release. In other words: it’s an attempt to out the anonymous official who helped trigger the impeachment inquiry.

On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that GOP lawmakers and staffers have “repeatedly” used a name purporting to be that of the whistleblower during the depositions. The paper named Harvey as driving lines of questioning Democrats saw as attempting to determine the political loyalties of witnesses before the inquiry. A former official told the Post that Harvey “was passing notes [to GOP lawmakers] the entire time” ex-NSC Russia staffer Fiona Hill was testifying.

“Exposing the identity of the whistleblower and attacking our client would do nothing to undercut the validity of the complaint’s allegations,” said Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s attorneys. “What it would do, however, is put that individual and their family at risk of harm. Perhaps more important, it would deter future whistleblowers from coming forward in subsequent administrations, Democratic or Republican.” Zaid has represented The Daily Beast in freedom-of-information lawsuits against the federal government.

The whistleblower is not Harvey’s only target. Another is a staffer for the House intelligence committee Democrats whom The Daily Beast has agreed not to name due to concerns about reprisals against the staffer. Harvey, both sources said, has spread a false story alleging that the whistleblower contacted the staffer ahead of raising internal alarm about President Trump’s July 25 phone call attempting to get a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to damage Trump’s rival Joe Biden. In right-wing circles, contact with Schiff is meant to discredit the whistleblower as partisan.

The eagerness of Republicans to go after the intelligence committee staffer so alarmed Democrats that they raised the issue with GOP leadership, according to a senior official on the intelligence committee.

“We are aware of these unsupported and false attacks on a respected member of our staff,” the official told The Daily Beast. “It is completely inappropriate, and we have previously urged the Republican leadership to address this situation.”

The leadership can do nothing, even if they want to, which they don’t. Trump wants that name. He’s obsessed with it, believing as he does that he can discredit the whole process as another “witch hunt.”

Republicans like to out CIA agents when it suits them so they’re happy to oblige.

Read the whole thing. It’s … something.

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He seems nice

Published by digby on October 29, 2019

He seems nice

by digby

A Livingston County auto shop’s Halloween decorations that depicted President Donald Trump holding former President Barack Obama’s head by a rope has drawn outrage from dozens of people who turned to social media to denounce the display as racist.

Quality Coatings owner Dave Huff has since altered the Trump scarecrow that stands outside his business on Carr Street in Fowlerville, about 10 miles west of Howell. Huff hadn’t expected backlash to the decorations because he said he’s not racist and “no race ever went into this thing.”

Ok sure. How about this?

It also depicted the Trump scarecrow with his foot on Hillary Clinton’s head.

Nobody asked him about that but I’m sure he would say that he has nothing but respect for women and that he was just making a statement about that one particular witch.

He’s also an obvious liar just like Trump:

“I don’t support anyone. I’ve never voted for anyone other than myself.”

This is small potatoes, I know. But considering that the entire punditocrisy had themselves a good old fashioned cry over the baseball crowd throwing Trump’s lock her up” chant back in his face, it seems worth remembering that people at the RNC dressed up as Clinton in an orange jumpsuit and chanted lock her up. And Kathy Griffin was literally treated as a terrorist threat by the USG for using a Trump mask in a similar fashion.

But around the country, Trump voters are being primed for real violence.

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Trump calls him “my Kevin”

Published by digby on October 29, 2019

Trump calls him “my Kevin”

by digby

It would be unfair to make fun of a young kid or even an inebriated Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani for saying something like this. It’s just cruel. But this is the apparently sober House minority leader, GOP congressman Kevin McCarthy. He’s very, very … dim.

Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday attacked Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, calling it “an entire sham.” Unfortunately, in his diatribe against the investigation into Trump’s alleged abuse of power, McCarthy used several legal terms that he clearly did not understand — or, at the very least, failed to correctly employ. Legal experts were quick to respond.

McCarthy, who has Bachelor of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees but no legal training, got off to a rocky start when he misused the term “due process,” which, in short, refers to the fundamental principle of fairness in legal proceedings.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. A due process starts at the beginning. It doesn’t affirm a miss, sham investigation all the way through,” McCarthy said, before broaching an even more abstruse legal doctrine known as “fruit of the poisonous tree.”

The term, first coined in 1939, is a legal metaphor used to describe illegally obtained evidence that must be excluded at trial.

“If you were in the legal term, it’d be the fruit from the poisonous tree; it’d be a mistrial. None of this information would go forward,” McCarthy said.

Professor Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law was quick to point out McCarthy’s errors, writing, “I could ask my first-year law students to identify everything that’s incorrect or misleading in [McCarthy’s] statement here, but it would be too easy,” he wrote before providing a multi-faceted explainer.

Vladeck began by clarifying why the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine in not applicable to the current proceedings.

“Fruit of the poisonous tree is about evidence obtained unlawfully being inadmissible—and (a) only results in suppression of evidence; and (b) has lots of exceptions,” Vladeck explained. “No one is arguing the House has violated [President Trump’s] Fourth Amendment rights,” he wrote, before delving into McCarthy’s “mistrial” comment.

“A mistrial is what happens when, in the middle of a trial, some uncorrectable error has occurred. There’s nothing remotely resembling a trial here—and there won’t be until and unless this goes to the Senate,” he wrote. “Even then, most mistrials don’t actually invalidate the entire proceeding; they just require the case to start over. So even [McCarthy’s] preposterous analogy doesn’t actually lead him to where he wants to go,” Vladeck said, concluding that McCarthy’s argument was part of a larger attempt to distract from the substantive issues surrounding impeachment.

Several other legal experts were equally amused by McCarthy’s bumbling press conference and failed attempts to employ legal doctrines.

Sasha Samberg-Champion, a former senior appellate attorney for the Department of Justice, said McCarthy’s press conference was nonsensical in a throw it at the wall and see if it sticks kind of way.

“This is like legal doctrine mad libs. Plug in some random legal term and pretend it applies,” he tweeted.

He’s the guy who went on TV to admit that the Republicans had ginned up the Benghazi scandal to hurt Hillary Clinton. He also told the House caucus that the only two people on Putin’s payroll were former congressman Dana Rhorabacher and … Donald Trump.

He’s schmaht as a whip. You can see why he’s the leader of the House Republicans.

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