Month: July 2022

Every cult has its wealthy benefactors

You don’t have to be poor to be nuts — or dumb:

Donald Trump has quietly convened some of his wealthiest and highest-profile supporters for intimate dinners in recent weeks, where the groups have talked about the former president’s 2024 election plans — and debated when he should make his expected comeback bid official.

The gatherings have taken place in Houston, Nashville and, last Friday evening, in Las Vegas, where billionaire casino mogul and longtime Trump friend Phil Ruffin implored the ex-president to launch another run for the White House soon. The consensus has been that Trump should run again — the only question being when he should announce, with most echoing Ruffin’s view but others saying Trump would be better served by waiting until after the midterm elections.

The previously unreported dinners, which were described by four attendees, provide a window into Trump’s deliberations and show how he has quietly begun to reassemble the political network that he cultivated in the White House. With other potential Republican candidates circling, holding their own donor meetings and making plans for 2024 runs, the former president is taking subtle but concrete steps to prepare for his next campaign.

The informal, off-the-record dinners are not designed to focus on the 2024 race and typically center on other issues — during one, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham got into a contentious back-and-forth with country music star John Rich over coronavirus vaccines, and the Las Vegas group talked about the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The meals are hosted by Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, for the purpose of briefing on the former president’s endorsement record in the midterms and his plans for the fall election. Trump has often pointed to political adviser Brian Jack to run through his successes in primaries.

But the conversation inevitably gravitates toward the next presidential race. During a June dinner at the JW Marriott in Nashville, Graham told Trump that he’d have his wholehearted support for another campaign — but that if he wanted to run again, he should make his intentions clear soon.

Trump aides have crafted guest lists of around 12 to 16 people per dinner, which have included Republican candidates, elected officials, and major contributors. Friday’s event at the Trump International Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip included Nevada gubernatorial hopeful Joe Lombardo and real estate investors Robert Zarnegin and Roger Norman.

Many of the attendees have a long history of cutting big checks to Trump — Ruffin, Zarnegin and Norman each gave in the six-or-seven figure range in 2020 — but organizers have made the decision not to ask them for money right now. Trump advisers say the purpose has been to get Trump in front of a kitchen cabinet of supporters who, in an easy-going environment, will feel comfortable giving the ex-president their unvarnished opinions.

The dinners are not designed to convince Trump of whether to run, the advisers say, but rather to provide him with feedback. That feedback has not always been entirely positive.

With Trump continuing to push his unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen, attendees have gently encouraged him to focus more on policy or what he would do if elected again.

[…]

The non-scripted and casual nature of the sit-downs have made for animated affairs. During the Nashville dinner, Trump and others present, including Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, looked on as Graham and Rich engaged in a tense and prolonged back-and-forth over the coronavirus vaccine. Graham lavished praise on the vaccines and argued that Trump should talk about their development during his tenure every chance he got. Rich, meanwhile, vociferously criticized the injections.

Two people present recalled Rich jokingly suggesting that he buy a condo in South Carolina and waging a primary challenge to Graham, though another person disputed that account. One attendee said Trump appeared to enjoy seeing the two duke it out.

At the Las Vegas dinner, the topics of discussion ranged from the midterm elections to the Ultimate Fighting Championship to Trump’s speech the next day in Alaska. Trump quizzed Lombardo and Laxalt about how their competitive races were shaping up, and there was mention of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had been assassinated earlier in the day.

But when talk turned to 2024, Trump, as has been the case, kept his cards close. After Ruffin told the former president to launch his campaign, one person present said, Trump offered little by way of response.

I’m fairly sure everyone knows that until Trump dies, if he wants to be president he will have the nomination. And the reason isn’t because everyone loves him so much. New polling shows that about half of Republicans would be happy if someone else ran.

It’s about the fact that Trump is the greatest sore loser in history and will never in a million years concede gracefully if he loses the nomination. In fact, he will burn down the whole house rather than let DeSantis or Cotton or (god forbid) Pence become the nominee. And he’ll have a huge number of Republicans with him, even if it isn’t a majority.

No, if he wants it, it’s his. And he wants it. The only thing that will stop him is the Grim Reaper (and I’m not talking about Mitch McConnell.)

A recipe for civil unrest

More depressing polling, this time about Americans’ faith in government. The problem is that the country is completely divided about what the problem is. It’s bad.

A majority of American voters across nearly all demographics and ideologies believe their system of government does not work, with 58 percent of those interviewed for a New York Times/Siena College poll saying that the world’s oldest independent constitutional democracy needs major reforms or a complete overhaul.

The discontent among Republicans is driven by their widespread, unfounded doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections. For Democrats, it is the realization that even though they control the White House and Congress, it is Republicans, joined with their allies in gerrymandered state legislatures and the Supreme Court, who are achieving long-sought political goals.

For Republicans, the distrust is a natural outgrowth of former President Donald J. Trump’s domination of the party and, to a large degree, American politics. After seven years in which he relentlessly attacked the country’s institutions, a broad majority of Republicans share his views on the 2020 election and its aftermath: Sixty-one percent said he was the legitimate winner, and 72 percent described the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as a protest that got out of hand.

The survey results come as the House committee investigating Jan. 6 revealed new evidence this week that Mr. Trump and his aides had a hand in directing the mob to the Capitol to try to maintain his hold on the executive branch.

Among all voters, 49 percent said the Capitol riot was an attempt to overthrow the government. Another 55 percent said Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election had threatened American democracy. As with so many other issues, voters saw the riot through the same partisan lens as other issues.

Seventy-six percent of Republican voters said Mr. Trump had simply been exercising his right to contest his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Asked if Mr. Trump had committed crimes while contesting the election, 89 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independent voters said yes, while 80 percent of Republicans said he had not.

“If I’d have been Trump, I’d have been very pissed off about the whole situation,” said Charles Parrish, 71, a retired firefighter from Evans, Ga.

Among Democrats, 84 percent said the Capitol attack was an attempt to overthrow the government and 92 percent said Mr. Trump threatened American democracy.

Democrats’ pessimism about the future stems from their party’s inability to protect abortion rights, pass sweeping gun control measures and pursue other liberal priorities in the face of Republican opposition. Self-described liberals were more likely than other Democrats to have lost trust in government and more likely to say voting did not make a difference.

Americans’ bipartisan cynicism about government signals a striking philosophical shift: For generations, Democrats campaigned on the idea that government was a force for good, while Republicans sought to limit it. Now, the polling shows, the number of Americans in both parties who believe their government is capable of responding to voters’ concerns has shrunk.

In one indicator of how Americans’ perception of the government has transformed, the poll found that Fox News viewers were more optimistic than any other demographic about the country’s ability to get on the right track over the next decade: Seventy-two percent were hopeful for such a scenario.

Ray Townley, 58, a retiree from Ozark, Ark., and a regular Fox News viewer, said he was very optimistic about the country’s future because he anticipated major changes in Washington.

“They’re going to vote the Democrats out,” he said.

More than half of all voters surveyed, 53 percent, said the American political system was too divided to solve the nation’s problems, an increase from 40 percent in a Times/Siena poll from October 2020. The sentiment is now most acute among Black voters and the youngest voters.

The lack of faith is starkest among the young, who have little to no memory of a time when American politics didn’t function as a zero-sum affair. Nearly half — 48 percent — of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 29 said voting did not make a difference in how their government operates.

Here’s the really depressing part:

Mitch Toher, a 22-year-old independent from Austin, said there was little reason to vote because the country would not function as long as its government operated under the two-party system.

Mr. Toher, who works in information technology, said he was not optimistic that the American political system or its elected officials were responsive enough to address the needs of young voters. Voting for either Democrats or Republicans, he said, would do little to change things in his life for the better.

“The largest divide is not necessarily left versus right, but those that are generationally old versus young,” he said. “I don’t think those types of changes are coming any time soon, or at least forthcoming in my point in lifetime.”

Rosantina Goforth, 55, of Wagoner, Okla., said officials at every level of government needed to be removed and replaced with people “who believe in the United States.”

Ms. Goforth, who is retired from the Army and said she got her news from Christian news programs, is one of the Republicans who falsely believe Mr. Trump won the 2020 election. Voting, she said, has little bearing on how the government operates.

“Our say really doesn’t matter,” she said. “I know Trump won that election. It’s a given. He won that election. But somehow or another, you know, people got paid and votes were mismanaged.”

Some voters expressed frustration with a political system they saw as ill equipped to address problems from across the ideological spectrum. Felix Gibbs, 66, a retired forklift operator from Niagara Falls, N.Y., said the government was not prepared the solve the two issues he saw as most pressing: illegal immigration and a lack of universal health coverage.

“I’m sure there are other issues I can bring up that will show that our political system is not working,” said Mr. Gibbs, who said he voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 and would do so again.

The report goes on to show that media diets have a lot to do with this. Surprise.

The country has always been divided going all the way back to the beginning. No surprise there. But the divide seems wider now, with the disagreement not being about how to interpret the same reality. Now we are living in two different realities and it’s all turbo charged by the new media. We are living in separate worlds.

Let’s hope not

Josh Bivens of EPI:

Today’s inflation data showed continued rapid growth in the overall CPI, rising 9.1% year over year. A similar reading last month led to a large overreaction by many, including the Federal Reserve, who raised policy rates by 0.75%.

Against panic: The Fed should not be given permission to cause a recession in the name of inflation control

There is even less reason this time to overreact to a hot inflation reading. We all know that the main drivers of today’s large number is commodity prices (mostly energy and food), and we also know that many of these prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks.

But, the price declines are so-recent that they are not picked up in the June data being reported on today. It’s not totally-unlike the employment report released on March 3, 2020, that described labor market conditions in February 2020.  

It was a great jobs report. And everybody knew that the perception of the US economy it fostered was completely obsolete – by the time the report came out, COVID-19’s effects were hammering the economy.

It’s obviously far from a perfect analogy. Even if, as expected, large commodity price declines (and expected declines in some goods prices) start pulling down overall inflation rates very shortly, this doesn’t mean the problem of inflation is completely over.  

But it does highlight that economic conditions are changing rapidly, and many of the data conventions that guide economic commentary and analysis are poorly-positioned to recognize this.

For example, wage growth is showing clear signs of decelerating, and in recent months has already hit levels consistent with normal (ie, less than 3%) levels of inflation. But, the convention of focusing on year-over-year measures might miss that.

A similar story applies to what was once widely-agreed as the most important inflation gauge for the Fed – the core price index for personal consumption expenditures. It also has shown deceleration in more-recent months.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=RHBy

Two extremely salient data releases for inflation’s path over the next year will come out in the days immediately *following* the next FOMC meeting (the ECI for 2022q2 and the PCE price data). The Fed should not undertake another 0.75% hike based on today’s data.

They have time to wait and see if recent signs of deceleration come to fruition. The risk of damaging the strong and welcome recovery from the pandemic recession is very high and many drivers of inflation may already be slowing.

Krugman agrees:

Agree with this thread — today’s hot inflation number is already out of date, not reflecting falling gasoline prices and other factors that have recently gone into reverse. But hard to imagine that the Fed won’t hike by 75 anyway

The good news is that I don’t think this matters much. The long-term rates that matter for the real economy much more dependent on how high Fed funds eventually goes than on the precise path. The question really is how the Fed reacts if/when the numbers improve

If it signals a more dovish turn if, as Josh and I both expect, underlying inflation looks better by the next FOMC meeting, not too much damage will have been done. Markets pricing in much slower inflation looking forward; if this starts to show in real data, we’ll be OK

Originally tweeted by Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) on July 13, 2022.

Fingers crossed … oy.

It looks like he’s being set up to take the fall

Trump will soon be calling him the mastermind of January 6th:

Trump’s inner circle increasingly views Meadows as a likely fall guy for the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Members of Trump’s legal team are actively planning certain strategies around Meadows’ downfall — including possible criminal charges. Trump has himself begun the process of distancing himself from some of his onetime senior aide’s alleged actions around Jan. 6.

Meadows’ already bleak legal prospects could get even worse. Rolling Stone has learned that the Jan. 6 committee has been quietly probing his financial dealings, and any new revelations would add to an already long list of unethical and potential illegal actions he’s accused of taking on behalf of Donald Trump.

“Everyone is strategizing around the likelihood that Mark is in a lot of trouble,” says a lawyer close to the former president. “Everyone who knows what they’re doing, anyway.”

This reporting is based on Rolling Stone’s conversations with eight sources familiar with the matter, each of whom is still working in Trump’s political orbit, on his legal defense, or in Republican circles in regular contact with the ex-president. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss sensitive matters. A spokesperson for Meadows declined to comment.

For Meadows, it doesn’t help his case that he’s loathed by any number of his fellow Trumpworld veterans, some of whom view him as a two-faced man prone to double-dealing and simply telling people what they want to hear. Some of Meadows’ ex-colleagues and staff in the Trump administration continue to hold grudges against him, partly because they see him as responsible for putting their lives and health in danger when he oversaw a period of rapid coronavirus spread in Trump’s White House towards the end of the presidency. And the former president himself is not long on loyalty, particularly when facing legal peril of his own.

Trump’s team has already explored possible legal gameplans about what would happen if Meadows faced additional criminal charges stemming from the events surrounding Jan. 6, according to three people familiar with the situation. And those discussions have at times focused on how to insulate Trump, should any significant charges against foot soldiers like Meadows actually materialize.

Indeed, in recent weeks, Trump himself has casually dropped into conversations with some of his longtime associates that he didn’t always know what Meadows was doing during the months leading up to the riot or after his time in office, two sources with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. (When Trump finds himself backed into a corner or a moment of legal jeopardy, he will often claim — however flimsily — that he barely knew a top aide who was doing his bidding, or that he didn’t know what his own personal lawyers were doing for him.)

Furthermore, investigators on Capitol Hill have shown a willingness to investigate Meadows’ private dealings, beyond the scope of how he directly aided Trump during his anti-democratic and violent crusade to cling to power. According to two sources familiar with the matter, the Jan. 6 committee has asked some witnesses specific questions about Meadows’ financial arrangements with other Trump advisers who sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. The line of questioning made it clear to witnesses that the committee members were searching for signs of legally dubious payments. (The congressional Jan. 6 investigation is of course separate from the Biden Justice Department’s probe, though the House select committee does have the power to make criminal referrals to the feds.)

“Mark is gonna get pulverized…and it’s really sad,” predicts one of Trump’s current legal advisers. “Based on talking to [Meadows in the past, it felt like] he doesn’t actually believe any of this [election-theft] stuff, or at least not most of it. He was obviously just trying to perform for Trump, and now he’s maybe screwed himself completely.”

As the Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill have unfolded — and particularly after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the committee late last month — questions of Meadows’ own potential liability over his conduct before and after the riot have intensified, including among Trump’s former and current legal brass. “I do think criminal prosecutions are possible,” says Ty Cobb, a former top lawyer in the Trump White House. “Possible for Trump and Meadows certainly. And for the others, including lawyers, who engaged fraudulently in formal proceedings or investigations.”

In her appearance before the January 6 Committee, Hutchinson revealed that White House staff repeatedly warned her former boss that the rally goers on the mall who Trump encouraged to march on the Capitol were armed. Once informed of the threat, Meadows allegedly shrugged it off. Meadows himself, however, seemed to anticipate that the January 6 rally could turn ugly, according to Hutchinson’s testimony. “Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6,” she quoted him warning in the days before the insurrection.

Meadows is an exceedingly dim bulb. I mean, he personally committed voter fraud in the 2020 election and wrote a book describing Trump when he was sick! So it’s certainly possible that he’s left himself exposed. But these people should be careful. Meadows is a weak little man who knows a lot. I wouldn’t count on him keeping Omerta.

And more about that crazy meeting

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an op-ed by former Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutor and primary member of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team Andrew Weissman in which he shared his concern about what the DOJ is doing about Donald Trump’s attempted coup. Weissman suggested that they may have approached the case as one might approach an organized crime investigation starting with the January 6th insurrectionist prosecutions and working their way up. Looking at the case as it’s been presented by the January 6th Committee so far, he came to believe it would have been better organized as a “hub and spoke” conspiracy “in which the Ellipse speech by President Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were just one ‘spoke’ of a grander scheme.” In other words, as a conspiracy with Donald Trump at the center of a number of different plots aimed at accomplishing the same goal.

After hearing all the testimony and evidence so far, it seems clear that’s exactly what happened.

Donald Trump concocted the Big Lie even before the election as a scheme to stay in office if Joe Biden won. He was told over and over again by almost everyone around him that his lies had no basis in fact or law. Yet he and a few accomplices cooked up various maneuvers anyway, from filing specious lawsuits to pressuring state officials to trying to corrupt the Justice Department in an effort to somehow overturn the results. One obscure lawyer came up with a spurious strategy to get partisan players to file fake electoral votes in order to have the vice president claim there was a dispute and refuse to count the votes. All of these plans overlapped in some ways but stood as distinct “spokes” in the president’s relentless drive to stay in office no matter what it took.

The public hearing on Tuesday highlighted a couple of other spokes, one which was thankfully never acted upon while the other tragically was. The committee discussed a notorious meeting that took place on December 18th, 2020, four days after the states had all filed their electoral votes. I wrote about it in some detail a while back, based upon the vivid report by Jonathan Swan of Axios, and I have to say that as crazy as the committee’s presentation of the event was, it was actually much, much crazier.

On the evening of the 18th, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the former CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne were waved into the oval office by a member of Trump loyalist Peter Navarro’s staff without anyone knowing about it. A major confrontation ensued between the three of them and lawyers from the White House counsel’s office as the outsiders tried to persuade the president to declare a national security emergency under an executive order from 2018 (regarding cyber threats) enabling the president to order the military to seize the voting machines to do an audit. The group wanted the president to name Powell as special counsel to “investigate” voter fraud. They had even already drafted the order giving Powell the assignment and ordering the seizure.

Trump listened carefully to the presentation and repeatedly pointed out to the White House lawyers and others who were vociferously arguing against this inane plot that at least Powell and the others were “out there fighting.” Trump patched in Rudy Giuliani on the phone and even he was against Powell’s plot believing they had a better chance of overturning the election through the state legislatures and he ended up coming over to the White House and joining in person. Powell thought Trump had agreed with the plan to name her special counsel and no one is quite sure if he actually did. In any case, no national security emergency was declared so that “spoke” was abandoned that night. 

Donald Trump was at the center of a number of different plots aimed at accomplishing the same goal.

The committee didn’t mention it in the hearing but it’s worth noting how Powell and Flynn came up with this looney idea. Sarah D. Wire of the Los Angeles Times did a deep dive on the Patrick Byrne connection and apparently, right around the election, Byrne financed and organized a “crowdsourcing” operation to find the alleged voter fraud. He hired cyber security experts and analysts and first put them up at the Trump Hotel in Washington and then moved the whole group down to a plantation in Georgia owned by another kooky Trump attorney named Lin Wood, supposedly for security purposes. Michael Flynn was intimately involved in all this as was Powell.

This group was the source of most of the allegations that Giuliani and Powell used in their many unsuccessful lawsuits and it was also where Powell and Flynn, as well as a number of fringe players, came up with the stories that the election had been stolen by foreign countries hacking the voting machines, giving them the supposed authority to declare a national security emergency and call out the military. (Flynn had already been agitating for Trump to declare martial law and have the military re-run the election in the swing states.) This is why Byrne was with them at the White House meeting on December 18th where nobody knew who he was. He had financed the whole operation.

The committee did draw a direct line between this meeting and the beginning of the next “spoke” in the coup wheel, January 6th. Less than two hours after Giuliani and the crew finally left around midnight, Trump put out the infamous tweet: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

He may have realized that the Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani spokes of his strategy were not going anywhere but Trump still had his fake electors and Mike Pence plot going and it was becoming clear that the 6th was where he would make his last stand. He needed the troops behind him for that so he put out the call.

The committee shared many examples of the troops, particularly far-right extremists, answering it, plotting together and making it clear that “wild” might very well include bloodshed. We’ve since learned that he was always planning to send them to the Capitol (although organizers were told to keep it on the down low) and he was certainly told on that day that people in the crowd were armed. He has only one degree of separation from militia groups through his old friend Roger Stone and his own government warned him repeatedly that there was a possibility of violence. At this point, it’s hard to believe that wasn’t exactly what Trump wanted. 

Salon

She won’t be the last they try to deny exists

There have been a number of very “savvy” takes that say the story of the 10 year old Ohio rape victim having to travel for an abortion because she was 6 weeks and 3 days pregnant is made up. Glen Kessler, the fact-checker at the Washington Post called around Ohio and couldn’t get anyone to confirm it — in a state where abortion is now illegal even for rape victims and nobody knows who’s going to be prosecuted. Imagine that. At the Bulwark, Cathy Young came to the same conclusion. You don’t even want to know what they’ve been saying on Fox.

Well, it’s true:

A Columbus man has been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl, whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention  following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and activation of Ohio’s abortion law.

Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus’ Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He’s since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.

Columbus police were made aware of the girl’s pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes’ arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said.

Huhn also testified that DNA from the clinic in Indianapolis is being tested against samples from Fuentes, as well as the child’s siblings, to confirm his paternity. 

Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Cynthia Ebner said the case did not warrant Fuentes — who is believed to be undocumented — to be held without bond.

Ebner said a high bond was necessary, however, due to Fuentes being a possible flight risk and for the safety of the child involved. Before being arrested, Huhn and Det. David Phillips collected a saliva sample from Fuentes, according to a probable cause statement.

Ebner set a $2 million bond for Fuentes, who is being held in the Franklin County jail.

The criminal charges and testimony from the Columbus detective confirms the disturbing story that has become a key flash point in the national furor over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The Indianapolis Star, a Gannett sister paper of The Dispatch, first reported earlier this month that a 10-year-old rape victim traveled from Ohio to Indiana for abortion services after most abortions became illegal in her home state. The account was attributed to Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis physician who provides abortion services.

The story quickly went viral, appearing in outlets across the globe, and became a top talking point for abortion rights supporters, including President Joe Biden. 

“Imagine being that little girl,” Biden said Friday as he decried the high court’s decision. “I’m serious. Just imagine being that little girl.”

But in recent days, some abortion opponents and news outlets criticized the story as unproven.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost also questioned the validity of the account during an appearance on Fox News this week.

Yost, a Republican, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that his office had not heard “a whisper” of a report being filed for the 10-year-old victim.

“We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs — not a whisper anywhere,” Yost said on the show.

Yost doubled down on that in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau on Tuesday, saying that the more time passed before confirmation made it “more likely that this is a fabrication.”

“I know the cops and prosecutors in this state,” Yost said. “There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock, looking for this guy and they would have charged him. They wouldn’t leave him loose on the streets … I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence. And shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious axe to grind.”

On Wednesday, once news of the arraignment came, Yost issued a single sentence statement:

“We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets.”

No apology and no explanation as to why he assumed they were lying and obviously didn’t bother to look any further because he clearly doesn’t give a damn about what this poor little girl went through. In fact, if he’s like most Republicans he probably thinks she was slut who should be forced to go through childbirth.

This won’t be the last time they insist that the stories of pain, heartache and death they are causing with this cruel anti-abortion policy are lies. It’s going to be yet another example of Real vs Bizarroworld and too many in the mainstream media are likely to back their strategy.

When the wingnuts win

“2000 Mules” is a joke. Just ask Bill Barr.

Reminder: The Republican House Majority will do nothing but these sorts of investigations., starting with the 2020 election, Hunter Biden and the inevitable impeachment of Joe Biden. Trump and the base will demand it and they will be eager to oblige.

Another lie bites the dust

‘Member this?

‘Member this?

Now, how about this?

Yeah, that’s a lie too:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Denis Vladmirovich Molla, 29, is charged with two counts of wire fraud in connection with the fire that took place on September 23, 2020.

Molla reported to police that someone set fire to his camper “because it had a Trump 2020 flag displayed on it,” and spray painted the Antifa symbol, “BLM” and “Biden 2020” on his garage door. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Molla actually lit the fire and defaced the garage himself.

Court documents show that Molla then “submitted multiple insurance claims seeking coverage for the damage to his garage, camper, vehicles, and residence caused by the fire.”

Molla submitted insurance claims totaling more than $300,000, receiving only $61,000 in the process. He then accused his insurance company of “defrauding him.” Court documents show he also yielded more than $17,000 from two GoFundMe accounts.

Where do they get the idea that lying, cheating and fraud are not simply acceptable, but pardonable?

Newsmax host says if Biden really wanted to unify the country he would’ve pardoned all the J6 defendants. pic.twitter.com/FDek2cRgPE

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 13, 2022

“Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen.” — Donald J. Trump to Jeffrey Rosen, his acting attorney general

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Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.

“March to the Capitol after,” reads unsent Trump tweet

Perhaps the most damning revelation in Tuesday’s Jan. 6 investigation committee hearing was an unsent Donald Trump tweet drafted days before his Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse. The draft obtained from the National Archives was marked “President has seen.”

“I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse. Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!”

"March to the Capitol after."

Released in today's Jan. 6 committee hearing, an unsent draft tweet Trump approved: pic.twitter.com/A3CBTj4HMO

— VICE News (@VICENews) July 12, 2022

No march had been permitted. Yet the one that happened after Trump’s speech was planned. Trump aides inside the White House knew it might occur. Trump allies outside the White House knew about it in advance.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in her appearance before the Jan. 6 committee that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told her on Jan. 2, “We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great.” When she related the conversation to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, he said (in her words), “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.”

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) presented to the committee information regarding the unsent tweet and emails sent among rally organizers:

Katrina Pearson sent an email to fellow rally organizers. She wrote, “POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the Ellipse and call on everyone to march to the Capitol.” President’s own documents suggest that the President had decided to call on his supporters to go to the Capitol on January 6th but that he chose not to widely announce it until his speech on the Ellipse that morning.

The committee has obtained this draft updated– undated tweet from the National Archives. It includes a stamp stating President has seen.

The draft tweet reads, “I will be making a big speech at 10:00 AM on January 6th at the Ellipse, south of the White House. Please arrive early. Massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the steal.” Although this tweet was never sent, rally organizers were discussing and preparing for the march to the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6th.

This is a January 4th text message from a rally organizer to Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO. The organizer says, “You know this stays between us. We’re having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol. It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the National Park Service and all the agencies. But POTUS is going to just call for it, quote, unexpectedly.”

The end of the message indicates that the president’s plan to have his followers march to the Capitol was not being broadly discussed. And then on the morning of January 5th, Ali Alexander, whose firebrand style concerned Katrina Pearson, sent a similar text to a conservative journalist. Mr. Alexander said, “Tomorrow. Ellipse then US Capitol. Trump is supposed to order us to the Capitol at the end of his speech, but we will see.”

New York Times:

For more than a year, Mr. Trump and his defenders have described the violence at the Capitol as a freewheeling peaceful protest gone awry. But the hearing on Tuesday laid out how the former president took a guiding role not only in bringing the mob fueled by his election lies to Washington that day, but also in the plan to direct it up to Capitol Hill, disregarding the advice of his closest aides.

[…]

While it did not draw any direct link between Mr. Trump and the domestic extremists who orchestrated and stood at the forefront of the Capitol attack, the committee set forth in meticulous detail how Mr. Trump’s words and actions united a disparate set of far-right groups and militias and spurred them to plot a violent effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Power was eventually transferred, albeit for the first time in U.S. history not peacefully.

The committee may not have drawn a direct link Tuesday between Trump and the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who led the riot, but the way the committee has orchestrated its presentations suggests members know more than they are letting on. There is more to know about what happened among Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and others in the Willard Hotel “war rooms” before Jan. 6, and what is in their communications with the Oath Keepers and the White House.

Committee members likely have testimony and documentation in reserve for the “big reveal” in their final hearing. Sources say the next will be in prime time on July 21. Committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) would say only it would be “the last one — at this point.”

Cipollone believed if that if the rally moved to the Capitol, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”

I can imagine quite a lot. Can Attorney General Merrick Garland?

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Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.

Pramila Jayapal isn’t a Supreme Court Justice so whatever

With all the hand wringing about Brett Kavanaugh leaving a restaurant before he got his dessert because protesters had gathered outside you’d think the right might care about the massive numbers of armed right wing, racist crazies wandering the streets threatening liberals. They are harassing and intimidating school board members, public health officials, election workers — and Democrats. But I doubt they will.

Here’s one that just happened:

A 48-year-old South Seattle man was arrested Saturday on suspicion of a hate crime for threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, according to King County prosecutors.

A judge on Monday ordered the man remain jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail but denied prosecutors’ request for an anti-harassment order protecting Jayapal, said Casey McNerthney, a prosecutors spokesperson.

Jayapal, 56, is a former state senator who became the first Indian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016. A Democrat, Jayapal represents Washington’s 7th Congressional District, which includes most of Seattle. Jayapal was born in India and came to the U.S. at 16 to begin college at Georgetown University. […]

Seattle police arrested the man outside Jayapal’s house at 11:25 p.m. Saturday after she called 911 and reported an unknown person or people were in a vehicle outside, using obscene language, according to a probable cause statement. She told a dispatcher her husband thought someone may have fired a pellet gun, but he wasn’t sure, the statement says.

Officers found the man standing in the middle of the street with his hands in the air and a .40-caliber handgun holstered on his waist, the probable cause statement says. Police detained the man and secured the gun.

A neighbor told police she heard the man yell something to the effect of, “Go back to India, I’m going to kill you,” the statement says. The neighbor also saw and heard the man drive by Jayapal’s residence at least three times, yelling profanities, according to the statement.

The man told officers after his arrest that he knew who lives in the house and that he wanted to pitch a tent on their property, the statement says.

We don’t know if it was explicitly political but it was explicitly racist — which makes it political. But hey, she got to eat her dessert that night so it’s no big deal.