Month: June 2023

And Democrats couldn’t be happier

Kevin managed to keep the government from defaulting and losing his speakership which is something I didn’t think he was capable of doing. But it could be a Pyrrhic victory after all. The way they’re going they could end up losing the House in 2024:

As the drama between Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY and hardline conservatives roils the House, Democratic leaders are watching with total fascination — and giddiness.

For years, their own caucus has fallen in line behind a masterful political tactician who bent over backwards to protect her most vulnerable members — and by extension, her majority — often steamrolling progressives in the process. (Yes, we’re speaking of the one and only NANCY PELOSI.) Now, as Democrats see it, McCarthy is doing the exact opposite to protect his own gavel — and playing right into their hands.

Since becoming speaker, McCarthy has exposed his “majority makers” to votes on steep cuts to federal programs that benefit millions of Americans and, just last week, the reversal of a Biden administration rule that cracks down on a gun accessory used in several recent mass shootings. Both were priorities of the hard right and exposed members in swing districts to Democratic attacks.

House leaders typically give frontliners leeway to break with leadership on these kinds of votes to protect themselves politically. But with only a five-seat majority, Republicans don’t have much wiggle room right now — and that has Democrats ready to pounce.

“Vulnerable Republicans are going to have to answer for continuing to side with the extremists in their party,” Rep. SUZAN DelBENE (D-Wash.), the DCCC chair, told Playbook yesterday. Those votes, she said, will “cost them their seats” — and the House majority.

Democrats believe the votes will only become tougher. Republicans are in the process of writing appropriations bills more than $130 billion below bipartisan spending caps, setting up more roll calls on program cuts. There’s talk of impeaching DHS Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, a matter that divides the GOP conference, and potentially other officials, too.

And despite plenty of evidence that swing voters have sprinted toward Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, House Republicans have advanced multiple new abortion restrictions that could reach the floor later this Congress, including an appropriations rider tightening access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

The DCCC is already targeting the so-called “Biden 18,” Republican members from districts that the president carried in 2020. Earlier this spring, the group posted billboards in a dozen competitive districts that blasted vulnerable Republicans for refusing to push back on Donald Trump’s demands that the House defund law enforcement agencies investigating him.

The pressure on those members will only increase later this summer, as hardliners push McCarthy to undermine special counsel JACK SMITH’s investigation through the appropriations process. While several centrist Republicans told Playbook privately last week that the speaker would never force them to take such a toxic vote, Democrats aren’t so sure.

“Protecting or helping the vulnerable members avoid challenging votes seems incredibly low on [McCarthy’s] priority list,” said a Democratic official working on House races. “In battleground districts and where the election is going to be won or lost, these are not winning issues.”

Centrist Republicans privately say there’s a simple solution here: Ignore the right’s demands and just don’t allow tough votes on bills that have no prayer of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate anyway — let alone winning President JOE BIDEN’s signature.

Those members have allies on the outside. “[McCarthy] must minimize tough votes and keep squabbling within the party from dominating the media narrative,” said KEN SPAIN, a former NRCC comms director. “With the House on a razor’s edge, 2024 could be a ‘winner take all’ election with one party controlling all of Washington in a little over 18 months. The margin for error is extremely thin.”

But so far McCarthy has been much more interested in pleasing his right flank — and protecting his gavel — than in shielding his frontliners. DelBene said the DCCC stands ready to make Republicans pay with their majority.

“When McCarthy and his caucus continue to give in to their extreme right wing, they’re really showing voters that they’re out of touch with everyday families,” she said.

Good luck with all that Kev. I hope you enjoyed your one term.

The question, the intended gotcha and general aesthetic all good summaries of MAGA Thought. https://t.co/3qhLKohX3F

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 20, 2023

It’s a celebration of stupid.

What a nut:

In a recently unearthed video interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the noted anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and a Democratic challenger of President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid, claimed chemicals in the water supply are turning boys trans.

“A lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing,” the scion of the Kennedy political dynasty said during an interview with Canadian psychologist and ring-wing pundit Jordan Peterson.

“I mean, they’re swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors,” Kennedy said, adding, “there’s Atrazine throughout our water supply, and atrazine, by the way, if you, in a lab, put Atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will chemically castrate and forcibly feminize every frog in there and 10 percent of the frogs, the male frogs, will turn into fully viable females able to produce viable eggs.”

“If it’s doing that to frogs,” he said, “there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing it to human beings as well.”

Kennedy, whose career has been defined as much by his membership in one of America’s most famous families as by his allegiance to dangerous conspiracy theories, has recently suggested pharmaceuticals have caused mass casualty school shootings.

“Prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country and we’ve never seen them in human history, where people walk into a schoolroom of children or strangers and start shooting people,” he said earlier this month during an interview with increasingly right-wing Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

Research indicates Kennedy’s claims about atrazine are specious, at best.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, “When the general population is exposed to atrazine, exposure levels are expected to be very low.”

The agency wrote, “Maximum seasonal and average atrazine concentrations of 61.6 and 18.9 ppb, respectively, were detected during a 1993-1998 monitoring program of community water systems in the United States.”

“There was a possible association between atrazine use/exposure of male farmers and increased pre-term delivery, but not decreased fecundity,” the CDC wrote.

“Epidemiological studies, examining developmental end points, have found an association between Iowa communities exposed to atrazine in the drinking water and an increased risk of small for gestational age babies and other birth defects.”

At the same time, “Farm couples living year-round on farms in Ontario, Canada, did not
have altered sex ratios, and the risk of small for gestational age deliveries was not increased in relation to pesticide exposure.”

The video of Kennedy and Peterson was tweeted on Sunday by Mehdi Hasan, host of MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show,” who pointed out that Kennedy’s comments echo claims by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said in 2015, “I don’t like ’em putting chemicals in the water that turn the freakin’ frogs gay!” 

Yep, that the “lane” RFK Jr is in. The nutcase lane.

Brandy Zadrozny wrote a great profile of RFK Jr today. Just wow…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands at the edge of a cliff, while his three dogs sit at attention, waiting for a treat from his pocket. 

It is gray and spitting rain, and Kennedy — scion of America’s most famous political family, challenger in the Democratic presidential primary and one of the world’s foremost conspiracy theorists — is partway up a 3-mile trail near Mandeville Canyon, a hike he makes every morning with his two Gordon setters and 1-year-old German shorthaired pointer. 

I am one of many reporters dispatched to profile Kennedy, who is so busy, and has so many journalists attached to the campaign, according to his press person, that accompanying him to official events won’t be possible. So, on a Monday morning in late May, we are on this hike instead, a winding trek up and back down a steep hill, as Kennedy lays out his vision of the country he aims to lead. 

He sees America as a divided place, where an elite few conspire to crush the rest, where doctors poison the public, and where few institutions or experts can be trusted. “People should be scared,” he tells me. 

It’s a dark notion, one Kennedy believes that he, as president, can save the country from. 

As Kennedy speaks, his dogs remain at attention. For a long time. No treats are given. 

“It’s something called an intermittent reward system,” Kennedy, noticing my discomfort, explains of the lapse. “I learned it from falconry. If you don’t give the animal a treat every time, it actually makes them more obedient.”

Something about the way the dogs are perched, salivating, their trusting eyes glued to Kennedy, reminds me of the way the world has recently been gripped by conspiracy theories — many of which Kennedy has helped spread: ones that imagine clouds as government-sprayed chemicals, cellular networks as surveillance plots — and lifesaving vaccines as poison. 

I urge you to read the whole thing if you have time. This fellow is something else.

Kennedy’s right and left-wing support shows the horseshoe theory in action — the convergence of belief at the most radical points of the spectrum. Kennedy knows this. Here he is on Rogan talking about how alternative media and podcasts let him reach the ends of the horseshoe. pic.twitter.com/aHThDPpOsA

— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) June 20, 2023

It appears to be over, at least as far as the DOJ is concerned:

Hunter Biden has reached a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a five-year federal investigation into his failure to pay about $1 million in federal taxes and his purchase of a handgun in 2018.

Under an agreement detailed Tuesday in a filing in federal court in Delaware, President Joe Biden’s son will plead guilty to a pair of misdemeanor tax charges. Prosecutors have also charged him with possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs — a felony — but have agreed to dismiss that charge if he completes a two-year period of probation.

Hunter Biden, 53, is unlikely to serve time in prison if he complies with release conditions. The deal calls for both sides to recommend that he be put on probation.

The probe was overseen by U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump and was permitted to stay in his post after Joe Biden took office in order to complete the investigation of the president’s son. The White House and the Justice Department have said they did not interfere with Weiss’ investigation.

The plea agreement is intended to be a comprehensive resolution of Hunter Biden’s potential legal liability in all matters investigated by federal authorities, a person familiar with the negotiations said. Those matters include allegations Republicans have leveled in recent years that his business dealings and his well-compensated post on the Ukrainian energy company Burisma amounted to corruption or violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

“This is the end of it,” the person involved said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private legal discussions.

The wingnuts are howling, of course. They wanted him drawn and quartered and believe that the Trump appointed prosecutor who had over five years to investigate is a Deep State liberal shill.

BREAKING HUNTER BIDEN: context- first time tax offenders like this rarely get prosecuted and even rarer to get jail time. And false gun applications sadly also almost never get prosecuted or jail time. So this is if anything harsh, not lenient. https://t.co/FVhtCKQFaB

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) June 20, 2023

I heard on TV that while nobody would have made this deal unless they believed the investigation was fully resolved (and his attorneys say that is the case) the paperwork says the investigation in ongoing. There is some speculation that they may have other people in their sites, maybe associates of Hunter’s or the rest of the evil Biden Crime Family. But whatever the reason, the Freedom Caucus Freaks are pushing for all the documentation and if the case is closed they may just get it. We all know where that could lead — smearing innocent people. So let’s hope they keep it open.

.

LOL I’m still laughing at this description from Trump of his phone call with Putin pic.twitter.com/n5ypDHnpMr

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

Tom wrote about Trump confessing to his crimes on last night’s Bret Baier interview earlier. It really was a doozy. I just wanted to add a few more of his comments that are unrelated to the Mar-a-Lago case. Like this hilarious story where he supposedly scared Vladimir Putin into not invading Ukraine, which he was apparently asking Trump’s permission to do:

Right. Sure. That happened. And this will happen too:

Trump finally reveals his incredible plan to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours: “I would tell Zelensky something, and I would tell Putin something, and I’d get them into a room.” Of course, he won’t say what that something is. pic.twitter.com/wRwkI4HAmY

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 19, 2023

He’s not the first to run with this sort of macho preening. The sainted john McCain famously used to say that he’d get the Shia and Sunni in a room together and crack some heads. But at least he knew they existed which I’m sure Trump does not. And he didn’t take one side over the other as Trump clearly does.

It’s insulting that America ever dreamed of putting a man like this in the White House. It’s tragic that we are even contemplating doing it again.

What a pair

This piece by Ruby Cramer about the DeSantis’ is fascinating. To me she seems like a version of Kari lake — a local broadcaster with a little bit of kook behind the eyes. (I don’t think she’s as out there as Lake, however.) But apparently, DeSantis is pretty much a robot and she’s his engineer:

She knew, starting with his early days in politics, when Ron was still a member of Congress, elected at the age of 34, how she wanted to figure in his world. She knew the staff he should hire, former aides said, the invitations he should accept and the invitations he should decline. She knew his walking path at events, the people he’d stand next to on a stage. She knew his schedule, down to every meeting and call and fundraiser and congressional vote, because she asked to be copied on every calendar entry. She knew the cowboy boots he should wear, even though, at first, he complained that they hurt his feet, until a staffer suggested he buy dress shoes instead, at which point he said, “Casey got them for me,” and that was the end of the conversation about the cowboy boots. She knew the earpiece he should use for live interviews, because she had spent 15 years in television, even though, at first, the earpiece was uncomfortable in his ear, at which point an aide said, “Casey got this for you,” and that was the end of the conversation about the earpiece.

Ron was always talking about the two of them as one — when “we” got elected, when “we” protect freedom, when “we” fight the woke agenda — as if it was hard to see his role and hers in clear relief. Reporters approached Casey’s story with phrases like“co-governor,” “secret weapon,”“not-so-secret weapon” — the“X-factor” who “knows what’s best for Ron.” Ron was known to inspire fear, even in his allies.“If you can’t make ’em see the light,” he has said,quoting Ronald Reagan, “make ’em feel the heat.” But Casey — she was a subject theywouldn’t touch if they didn’t have to. […]

In 2011, she was in the back of small Republican gatherings, handing out copies of the book her husband had paid to publish, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers,” a treatise on constitutional conservatism that mocked Barack Obama’s best-selling memoir. In 2012, she was working one TV show in Jacksonville, and planning to launch another, while spending her weekends knocking on doors for her husband’s first congressionalcampaign. In 2013, she was packing up their house in Sawgrass, a gated club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.,to move to his new congressional district, making her commute to work an hour and seven minutes each way. In 2016, she was home with a newborn while he spent weekdays in Washington. In 2018, she was leaving TV altogether to help him run for governor. And then she was packing boxes again, this time to move to 700 N. Adams Street, the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. She deactivated her cellphone number and didn’t give out the new onewidely. She had always been exceptionally private. But there were friends and colleagues and people she mentored who didn’t hear from her again. “You’re chasing a ghost,” onesaid. […]

Casey faded from an entire life in Jacksonville to be here, by her husband’s side as he runs for president. She was with him on stages, telling voters she got to marryher “hero.” She was with him on rope lines, wearing a black leather jacket bearing his slogan, “Where Woke Goes to Die.” She was with him at picnics like this one in Iowa, where the governor moved through a tent to grill steaks for the cameras. Or he thought she was. He tied a red apron around his waist and gripped a spatula. “Where’s your better half, governor?” someone asked. Behind him, a matching apron, printed with CASEY DESANTIS in bold, lay untouched beneath the tent.

“Where’s the first lady at?” Ron said.

Casey was back in the SUV. The wind was causing a disturbance in Iowa, with gusts reaching 30 mph and tornado warnings on the radio. After her husband’s speech, she had made it about 15 yards toward the tent, before she grasped her hair with both hands, twisted it low around the nape of her neck and retreated for the calm air of the car. The wind was a no.

“I gotta get my missus,” the governor said under the tent. “I gotta make sure she’s good.”

Casey does not have to be physically present, though she very often is, to make her influence felt. Her role in Ron’s political and governing life has no exact limit or shape. It is the air in which he moves. […]

Ron and Casey live as an inner circle of two. They were always two private people, trusting of each other, often exclusively so, but the level of prominence and power they achieved in Tallahassee seemed to insulate their world further, creating a level of distance between Ron and Casey and everyone else. They don’t take social calls to the mansion, except for Christmas receptions and Easter egg rolls and the like. DeSantis’s supporters say this is a good thing, to be so focused on “the mission” at work and on their family at home. They say Ron and Casey are normal people in abnormal positions. Normal people go to Chick-fil-A, they say, just like Ron and Casey do. Normal people play T-ball with their kids, just like Ron and Casey do. At the residence, invited guests post Instagram photos standing next to a sign that reads “Governor’s Mansion: Closed to Visiting.” Outside, new layers of security fencing have been added to the perimeter.

“It’s just them,” said Javier Manjarres, a journalist at the conservative-leaning Floridian Press who describes himself as friendly with Ron. “They don’t have time for girl friends and guy friends. Ron doesn’t go fishing. Maybe he’ll go golfing with legislators. But it’s not, like, his buddies. That’s not a thing with him. And same for her. It doesn’t exist.”

It’s clear from the rest of the article (which you should read in full) that Casey is a very disciplined, ambitious person. She had a whole career before they decided that Ron was going to become president and by this account she was good at it. She gave it up to become RonandCasey which is fine. Politics is always easier when you have a spouse supporting you and one like Casey is invaluable. It’s really Ron that’s a freak:

Ron did not like Washington. One of the first things he asked his team to do was order a “Do Not Disturb” signto place on his office door. The placard was double-sided, but both sides said “Do Not Disturb.” The office wasn’t toxic, recalled a former aide; it was just “weird.” DeSantis had his quirks: He kept the same yellow stadium-style cup by his desk that he filled daily with water and soft drinks. No one ever touched it. There were three things he liked to talk about with his staff: the Constitution, baseball and golf. The one thing they joked about, the former staffersaid, was Trump. “Ron always said this guy was just an idiot.” Often, communication with staffers occurred through text message,even if they were in the next room — or it happened through Casey.

She’s a much more interesting person than I realized and it’s clear that Ron alone is the one making the grotesque policies that define his political persona. But she’s something else too. And the two of them together are downright frightening.

Judge Aileen Cannon sets Aug. 14 trial date

But don’t get too excited (CBS News):

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has set an Aug. 14 start date for former President Donald Trump’s trial in the case over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

In a brief order issued Tuesday, Cannon said the criminal jury trial is set to take place over a two-week period beginning Aug. 14 at the federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida. That date, however, is likely to change, as Trump’s legal team files requests with the court that could result in the trial’s delay.

Prosecutors suggested in their indictment that Trump’s documents trial might take 21-60 days, not two weeks. So there’s that.

We are told that the Southern District of Florida has a “rocket docket,” but what do I know? Is this normal procedure, or an attempt to keep Trump from rope-a-doping justice yet again with his delay-delay shtick? Not that Cannon would help stop that. Or is it an attempt by Cannon to help Trump clear his legal dance card in advance of his 2024 run for president?

The New York Times suggests the calendar’s “brisk pace suggests that [Cannon] is seeking to avoid any criticism for dragging her feet or for slow-walking the proceeding.”

Daily Beast:

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, could not confirm that this decision was correct, and not simply a typo. Trump’s defense lawyers did not immediately respond to questions.

Legal scholars have noted that this judge is something of a loose cannon, consistently making puzzling decisions that lean heavily in favor of the president who appointed her in his final months in office.

There will be discovery issue and fights over disclosure and security clearance delays. Axios suggests, “Discovery allows lawyers to go through evidence from both sides, and sometimes there are disputes about which documents each side must disclose. The process can significantly lengthen a trial if there are voluminous records.”

And factors that “constitute grounds for a continuance,” Cannon writes, including those involving the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).

The Times again:

Brandon L. Van Grack, a former federal prosecutor who has worked on complex criminal matters involving national security, said the trial date was “unlikely to hold” considering that the process of turning over classified evidence to the defense in discovery had not yet begun. Still, he said, Judge Cannon appeared to be showing that she intended to do what she could to push the case to trial quickly.

“It signals that the court is at least trying to do everything it can to move the case along and that it’s important that the case proceed quickly,” Mr. Van Grack said. “Even though it’s unlikely to hold, it’s at least a positive signal — positive in the sense that all parties and the public should want this case to proceed as quickly as possible.”

All Trump wants is for the D.O.J. to go away. With extreme prejudice, if he could.

UPDATE: Ah, I was waiting for Marcy (who actually knows something about this stuff) to weigh in.

The other interesting thing in this order–again, this is boilerplate, it's not about Donald J Trump–is this rule on 404(b). It's likely DOJ will need to bring Trump's leaking of the Milley doc in as 404(b), and it's something Cannon could muck with. pic.twitter.com/xGl2aHlSdG

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) June 20, 2023

Aileen Cannon Issues Another Perfectly Routine Order

Trump’s “I was very busy” interview with Fox News

“Good morning, everyone, especially those of you who didn’t admit to committing more federal crimes on television last night,” snarks the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson.

“I don’t like watching the former guy EVER – least of all on Juneteenth – but he just confessed to the crime of stealing classified documents,” tweeted Christine Pelosi Monday night.

ICYMI, Wilson and Pelosi mean this Donald Trump interview with Bret Baier of Fox News.

Baier: Why not just hand them over? Trump: Because I had boxes, I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things pic.twitter.com/PwW85wlTzH

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

“Because I had boxes, I wanted to go through the boxes and get all of my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over to NARA yet.  And I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen,” Trump insisted about why he failed to return all the national defense documents he removed from the White House.

But he was not too busy to order his attorneys to affirm in a sworn statement that he had complied fully with the subpoena.

Also, he’s not a very good listener, is he?

There’s a lot going on here and this is going to reviewed: Trump on the recording of him pic.twitter.com/JpohMqb2Li

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

The sniffing is back. “His tell… whenever he’s spewing an egregious lie,” observed GottaLaff on Mastodon.

Trump: I wouldn't have kept but they raided my house.

Baier: Do you know if you still have any highly sensitive government documents.

Trump: No, I don't have anything, no. What I'm concerned about they took everything.I don't know what they took. They could be stuffing it. pic.twitter.com/Yf22FGGpxp

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2023

Trump insists he has no other government documents. Yet there are still the missing documents special prosecutor Jack Smith’s federal indictment suggests he moved to his Bedminster, N.J. resort. Questions about them remain unanswered, perhaps so as not to distract from his prosecution in Florida.

Brett Baier still thinks he works for a news organization. I do not. But I am grateful to have him on air tonight because this is an oustanding question. Watch to the end. pic.twitter.com/UmlKMmKiOP via @Acyn

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) June 20, 2023

Peter Wehner writes in The Atlantic that Trump seems not to have any sense of morality. The sniffing — his “tell” — suggests he still knows when he’s been caught in a lie.

But Trump’s enablers, his acolytes and believers? Most of them are not so emotionally and morally stunted as Trump. They are, however, nearly as transactional:

Trump doesn’t just cross moral lines; he doesn’t appear capable of understanding moral categories. Morality is for Trump what colors are to a person who is color-blind.

But what’s true of Trump isn’t true of the majority of his enablers. They see the colors that Trump cannot. They still know right from wrong. But for a combination of reasons, they have consistently overridden their conscience, in some cases unwittingly and in some cases cynically. They have talked themselves into believing, or half-believing, that Trump is America’s martyr and America’s savior.

Trump’s behavior obviously speaks to his own character. But Trump’s behavior has also proved to be a test of the character of others—Republican politicians and voters, the GOP establishment and the evangelical movement. It’s proved to be a test of character for those who claim to be “constitutional conservatives” and “family values” advocates, for ethicists and public intellectuals, for right-wing commentators and party strategists.

With very few exceptions, and to varying degrees, they have failed it. They have turned against—or at the very least, at a crucial hour, they have failed to defend—ideals and institutions they once claimed to cherish. Donald Trump could not have so deeply wounded our republic without his enablers. It took a team effort.

“Being president doesn’t change who you are—it reveals who you are,” Michelle Obama once said of her husband. “For Barack, success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives,” she said.

Most Americans did not need Trump occupying the Oval Office to know who and what he is. Nor did we need the awful difference he’s made in this country.

Trump’s ascension in and takeover of the Republican Party pulled back the curtain to reveal the Dorian Gray portraits of American conservatism and the evangelical movement. Both refuse to gaze upon what they have become.

In February 1963, as an evil prank, Louisiana white supremacists sent a Black family by bus to the NJ home of the family of the Deputy Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, who was fighting to help integrate the South, with instructions to have the Katzenbachs take care of them: pic.twitter.com/H1U0gpdYaY

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 18, 2023

They always have a supposedly reasonable rationale but the truth is they assume that the people receiving these people will be horrified because of course they are just as racist as they are. But they’re horrified because of the cruelty inflicted on those who are being used a pawns in their ugly game.

This is sick, ugly stuff. But they can’t seem to help themselves, apparently convinced that most of the country thinks these stunts are hilarious and/or justified. It’s not.

This Reuters poll from last fall found:

Following a highly-publicized drive by Republican governors to bus or fly thousands of migrants to Democratic areas in recent months, 53% of Republican respondents in the poll said they supported the practice. Twenty-nine percent opposed it.

Sixteen percent of Democrats supported the practice and 55% were opposed. Overall, 29% of Americans supported the practice and 40% opposed.

Forty-five percent of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll – including 63% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans – said state leaders transporting migrants were committing illegal migrant trafficking.

At the time the Republicans were working themselves into a frenzy preparing for what they assumed would be a massive surge at the border once the COVID rules were ended. That surge never materialized although you’ve heard absolutely nothing about it despite the fact that the mainstream media pimped the anticipation for months as well.

But they’re still shipping migrants out of state. now they’ve taken to shipping them to California. If they think they’re teaching California a lesson in migrant politics they have another things coming. I think it understands the issue very well since it too is a border state — unlike Florida which is just trying to get in on the ugly, bigotry action.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he’s a national security risk

I know, I know. Duh, right? But still, it helps to have more Republicans saying this even if the rank and file are all lining up to take more kool-aid:

Esper, who served in Trump’s Cabinet, said: “People have described him as a hoarder when it comes to these type of documents. But clearly, it was unauthorized, illegal and dangerous.”

[…]

“Imagine if a foreign agent, another country were to discover documents that outline America’s vulnerabilities or the weaknesses of the United States military,” he said. “Think about how that could be exploited, how that could be used against us in a conflict, how an enemy could develop countermeasures, things like that. Or in the case of the most significant piece that was raised in the allegation about U.S. plans to attack Iran, think about how that affects our readiness, our ability to prosecute an attack.”

Tapper asked Esper if he thought that Trump, if elected president in 2024, could ever be trusted with the nation’s secrets again.

“Based on his actions, again, if proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no,” Esper said.

“I mean, it’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk. You cannot have these documents floating around.”

Of course he’s a threat. Some of us knew he was a threat the minute he started exhorting Russia to hack Clinton’s emails but hey, better late than never.

Does everyone remember after he first met with Putin in July of 2017 he came up with this?

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that he discussed forming a cyber security unit to guard against election hacking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tweeting after his first meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump said now was the time to work constructively with Moscow, pointing to a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria that came into effect on Sunday.

“Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe,” he said following their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Two years later:

The notion prompted bipartisan disbelief, and Trump backed away from it within hours. But it surfaced again Monday after the two leaders met in Helsinki, Finland, when Putin suggested both countries work together to examine the evidence that Russia had meddled in the U.S. presidential election.

“We can analyze [evidence] through the joint working group on cybersecurity, the establishment of which we discussed during our previous contacts,” Putin suggested, confirming that he and Trump had talked about the idea before.

His remarks resurfaced much of the scorn that Trump’s original tweets had received from lawmakers and cybersecurity experts. Putin’s comments also renewed some people’s worries that Trump might appease the Russian leader by finally taking action on his suggestion — perhaps giving Russia an inside look at the U.S. investigation of the attacks.

We all saw this stuff happening in real time. How could anyone be surprised that he would steal classified documents? And nobody should be surprised if we learn someday that some writers and campaign aides weren’t the only ones he shared them with.