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Month: September 2023

Grain alcohol and rain water

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 26, 2023

A “desperate effort at censorship”?

Donald J. Trump is one grain alcohol and rain water away from pulling a Browning machine gun out of his golf bag.

Facing 91 felony charges across multiple jurisdictions, Trump believes it violates his rights if he’s not allowed to issue threats, intimidate potential witnesses, and taint jury pools as he campaigns for president awaiting trial. His defense team alleges a “desperate effort at censorship” by federal prosecutors.

Can you hear His Indictedness whine from where you are?

Politico:

Donald Trump’s lawyers said Monday that a gag order proposed by prosecutors would unconstitutionally silence him during key months of the 2024 presidential campaign, urging a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to reject the proposed limits.

In a 25-page filing that mirrored some of Trump’s own heated political rhetoric, Trump’s attorneys said the former president’s attacks on potential witnesses, special counsel Jack Smith and even U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan herself are protected by the First Amendment and were not actual threats or incitement of attacks.

“The prosecution may not like President Trump’s entirely valid criticisms,” attorneys Gregory Singer, John Lauro and Todd Blanche wrote in the late-night filing, ”but neither it nor this court are the filter for what the public may hear.”

Meaning what? His Incitefulness is free to shout “FIRE” in any theater in the land? That’s Trump’s position. As if he cannot campaign for president without issuing threats and promising retribution against anyone who has or will cross him.

[Special prosecutor Jack] Smith’s team sought the gag order earlier this month, citing Trump’s recent inflammatory attacks on potential witnesses in his upcoming trial on charges related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election. They also cited his attacks on prosecutors and Chutkan, as well as on figures like Mike Pence, who is expected to be a key witness in the case.

Trump’s defense team argues that “the prosecution offers no evidence of any causal connection between [Trump’s] speech and the alleged unlawful acts of others.”

Marcy Wheeler reminds those who clearly need reminding that multiple prisoners convicted for their actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection “blamed Trump for their actions,” testimony the DOJ cited in its gag order request:

Lauro ignores the multiple cases, cited in prosecutors’ filing, where people told Trump directly that his incitement had ratcheted up threats against people like Jeff Duncan, Chris Krebs, and Ruby Freeman. He ignores prosecutors’ citation of Trump bragging about the way his followers respond to Trump.

As he acknowledged in a televised town hall on May 10, 2023, his supporters listen to him “like no one else.”

Perhaps more importantly, Lauro ignores something he has already ignored, in his reply to his own motion to recuse Tanya Chutkan.

As I noted, by filing a motion to recuse based off things Judge Chutkan said when January 6 defendants blamed Trump for their actions, Trump invited prosecutors to lay out the many more times defendants had done just that. Not only did prosecutors provide eight other examples where defendants already sentenced by Chutkan blamed Trump for their actions, DOJ laid out something that Robert Palmer said of his own actions on January 6: That he went to the Capitol “at the behest” of Trump and took action to prevent the certification of the vote because of the false claims Trump had made.

It’s an overused reference, but the defense’s defense has no clothes. The only people who cannot see Trump’s efforts to taint the jury pool and intimidate witnesses are those who refuse to see. We may be past the point where MAGA threats against anyone and everyone perceived as a Trump enemy are self-sustaining. But that does not mean Trump should be free to keep feeding the fire and putting his targets at risk of injury or death.

Meidas Touch has collected “27 Insane Things Trump Said He Will Do in a 2nd Term.” Many reflect Trump’s dictatorial vision for a United States of Trump. Here is just a selection:

1. He will arrest all homeless people across the country for “urban camping,” round them up and then “relocate them” to “tent cities” where they can be “rehabilitated. 4/18/23

2. Require every federal employee to take a new patriotism exam and they will be terminated if they refuse to take them or fail to pass. 4/14/23

5. He will have DOJ subpoena local DAs and their staff and remove them from office if he determines that they are failing to do their job to his satisfaction. 5/4/23

7. He will seize university endowments and also fine them millions of dollars if he determines the schools are marxist and/or discriminating against white people. 5/2/23

8. He will have DOJ investigate and prosecute General Milley for treason. 9/22/23

11. Any person convicted of selling drugs will get the death penalty. 11/15/22

12. Pardon convicted J6 inmates convicted of seditious conspiracy and assaulting police officers, with an apology from the US government. 9/1/22

13. Have DOJ investigate Comcast, NBC and MSNBC for treason and remove them from the public airwaves. 9/24/23

17. He would terminate the Constitution if he determined that fraud occurred during an election. 12/3/22

21. Fire 40,000 career civil servants on day one and replace them with “patriots” loyal to him. 7/22/22.

And while he’s busy saving the whales by demolishing wind turbines, Trump will require all citizens to change their underwear every half-hour.

Trump almost violated yet another law today

Published by digby on September 25, 2023

And it’s the same one Hunter Biden violated

The Daily Beast has the story:

In a PR stunt gone terribly wrong, former President Donald Trump went gun shopping on Monday with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and asked to buy a Glock pistol on camera—which would have brazenly violated the very same law that recently landed Hunter Biden criminal charges.

Federal law prohibits anyone under indictment from attempting to buy a firearm. Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many jurisdictions—Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Washington—facing dozens of felony charges that could land him in prison for decades.

“I wanna buy one,” Trump said while taking a tour of Palmetto State Armory, a federally licensed gun dealer in South Carolina that’s widely revered by firearm enthusiasts.

“Sir, if you want one, this one’s yours,” a person on the tour said, seeming to divert the president away from making an actual purchase.

“No, I wanna buy one,” Trump insisted.

It only added to the fiasco when those present pulled South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson into the photo op—as well as his brother, Julian Wilson, an executive at the private equity company that owns the gun dealer. They are both Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s sons.

The disaster started when Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, tweeted that his boss actually went through with the sale.

“President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!” he posted Monday afternoon.

But the campaign went into damage control mode as soon as firearms journalist Stephen Gutowski and others pointed out that the entire transaction would be blatantly illegal.

“Did he actually go through with the purchase?” Gutowski asked openly in tweet.

Cheung later claimed to CNN that Trump never actually went through with the purchase—and deleted his original statement. The Daily Beast could not immediately independently confirm whether Trump finalized the deal.

The irony is that the federal law Trump appeared to almost violate is the very same one that the feds used to indict President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

The federal law that restricts how someone may buy or sell firearms is 18 U.S. Code § 922, the go-to statute for prosecutors seeking to imprison felons who manage to acquire guns after serving time in prison, straw purchasers who buy a gun with the specific intent to sell it to another person, and other people who aren’t allowed to acquire them. That law is why anyone buying a gun from a licensed dealer must fill out what’s called an ATF Form 4473, which asks: “Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year, or are you a current member of the military who has been charged with violation(s) of the Uniform Code of Military?”

Answer “yes,” and no gun shop can legally sell you a gun. Trump, who is facing criminal charges across the eastern seaboard, would have to answer in the affirmative.

Do we believe he actually backed out of the deal? Or did he just lie about it? His history suggests the latter. And he can probably count on the cult members who sold it to him to keep their traps shut.

Old vs Crazy

Published by digby on September 25, 2023

Charlie Sykes on MSNBC has some suggestions for Joe Biden on how to counter the “he’s so old!!!” mantra:

“Talk about what Donald Trump is up to, think about what’s going on in Capitol Hill. You are talking about a government shutdown, at the same time, they’re launching this impeachment inquiry. What could possibly go wrong? Kevin McCarthy has given away so much of his power. He has made himself so weak that he, in fact, has put the lunatics and the clowns in charge, yet this is the moment where we have to ask, are the American people going to think the Republican Party should be trusted with more power? Are they a serious governing party, or has it become all performative? They’re not waiting until after the election to let their freak flags fly. You’re seeing this at the presidential level, at the congressional level.”

“Look, you know, we’ve been talking about, you know, what kind of messaging the Biden campaign should engage in. It’s not really that complicated. Joe Biden can say, ‘Yes, I’m old, but he is crazy, they are crazy, they are dangerous and are burning it down. Yes, I’m an old guy, but this guy is deranged and fascist-adjacent.’ That’s the way you address the age issue and the contrast. Don’t make it too complex, you know, ‘I’m old, but you’re nuts.'”

I don’t know that Biden can say that personally but the rest of us certainly can.

And, by the way, Donald Trump is old too! If he didn’t trowel on the make-up and dye his weird cotton candy hair, people would see that. Lately he’s been sporting an Ed Grimley vibe with the pants pulled up high::

I don’t think that age is really an issue with Biden. If being old is what brings you his record of achievement, bring it on. I don’t have a problem with an old president if they are sharp, which Biden is. I AM worried about a malignant narcissist imbecile being president, whatever his age. I would have thought most Americans would feel the same but I’m not honestly sure anymore.

Vote suppression for dummies

Published by digby on September 25, 2023

In a normal, healthy democracy registering people to vote would be a goal for all parties because they would want people in line with their beliefs to easily be able to do it. But in our sick democracy, one party is deathly afraid of allowing the other one to easily vote because they know they are a minority and don’t want to lose all the power they’ve illegitimately assumed over many years by making it more difficult.

Pennsylvania enacted automatic voter registration last week and Donald Trump, the greatest sore loser in world history is very, very upset:

In an era of mounting threats to free and fair elections ginned up by Republicans, voting rights experts agree that automatic voter registration is one of the best ways to expand access to the ballot. So when Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, enacted the program last week, Republicans pounced, claiming that it would prompt a surge in “thoughtless and even accidental registration.” 

The assertion, of course, is not based in fact. But now Donald Trump has joined the chorus with an especially panicked message.

THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO STEAL PENNSYLVANIA AGAIN BY DOING THE “AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION” SCAM. THEY NEVER STOP! OBAMA AND HIS RADICAL LEFT THUGS ARE PUSHING THIS, AND THE DEMOCRATS, INCLUDING THE NEW LIBERAL GOVERNOR, ARE THRILLED. IF REPUBLICAN “LEADERSHIP, INCLUDING THE DISASTER WE HAVE IN THE SENATE, MITCH MCCONNELL, TOGETHER WITH KEVIN M, & THE RNC (FINALLY!), DON’T TAKE ACTION NOW, WE HAVE TO THROW EVERYBODY OUT & GET PEOPLE WHO CAN STOP THE SCAMS, CHEATING, & RIGGING – & WIN! THE PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN PARTY MUST ENERGIZE, GET TOUGH!

Republican opposition to automatic voter registration is nothing new. McConnell himself has all but admitted that the GOP loses when more people vote. But Trump’s anxiety over Pennsylvania, which will automatically register eligible voters when they go to get their driver’s license or state ID, is particularly fraught. After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies pounded the key swing state, where Joe Biden won by 80,555 votes, with false claims of voter fraud as they attempted to overturn the results. Pennsylvania, where the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping debacle unfolded, is even mentioned a staggering 20 times in the special counsel’s 45-page indictment charging Trump with various efforts to defraud the United States and obstruct official proceedings.

Did I mention that he’s upset?

Yes he sounds totally demented, I agree. And yet tens of millions of Americans want this loon to be president again.

MAGA saws the legs off of Reagan’s three legged stool

Published by digby on September 25, 2023

With their abandonment of the military, it’s nothing but firewood

It’s time for another scintillating Republican presidential primary debate in which a group of people with no chance to win the nomination will face off against each other at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley California on Wednesday. The front runner, Donald Trump, won’t lower himself to attend such an event with the lesser candidates but he’s rejecting this particular one for other reasons as well. According to Politico, the former president is fit to be tied at the library for hosting “A Time for Choosing,” a two-year long speaker’s series, envisioning a “fresh look — through reasoned, intellectual discussion — at the issues, ideas and policies that will define the Republican Party for decades to come.” Probably the most widely disseminated of these talks were those from Trump nemesis Liz Cheney and Reagan Foundation board member Paul Ryan the former Speaker of the House, who said, “it was ‘horrifying to see a presidency come to such a dishonorable and disgraceful end.'” Apparently, the entire board of the Reagan Foundation agrees.

This is not surprising. The legacy of Ronald Reagan was once the crowning glory of the conservative movement, a movement that has now been displaced by Trump’s MAGA cult. Reagan has no cachet among the GOP rank and file anymore most of whom are uninterested in the ideology that once ruled the Republican party. That ideology was best described by Reagan himself who saw the conservative movement coalition as a three legged stool with one leg representing traditional family values, another representing small government and the third representing a strong national defense, the idea being that the coalition could not stand without all three legs of the stool.

Trump never much liked Reagan. He thought he was too soft. Under the tutelage of sleaze monger Roger Stone, Trump took out a full page ad back in 1987 to complain about Reagan’s foreign policy, making the case that other countries weren’t paying their fair share. (No, Trump has not had a new idea in 40 years.) Today, when asked what he would do about the Ukraine war he says he’d end it but won’t say how and then inevitably goes into his usual rant about how Europe is taking the U.S. to the cleaners, just as he did for four years as president when he whined non-stop about NATO failing to pay up. He told Fox News, “the money is number one. I’d tell Europe – you’re about $100 billion plus short. Okay? You gotta pay. Because Europe is smiling all the way to the bank”

It is literally the only foreign policy he has ever had. On everything else he just winged it. Once he became president, he became hostile to the military because they weren’t like the heroes he’d seen in the movies, he was baffled by diplomacy as a tool to retain power and influence, he had no interest in the rest of the world except as a source of financial gain, and saw all threats, domestically and internationally as potentially subject to military violence if he didn’t get his way. People around him had to work night and day to keep him from making a catastrophic mistake from either ignorance or impulse.

If Trump were the only Republican with such a shallow understanding of national security and foreign policy perhaps we could all just hold our breath and do everything we can to ensure he stays a retired president dealing with his legal and financial problems as a private citizen. But he’s not. The Republican party is now full of elected officials who are equally incoherent and it seems to be getting worse.

For instance there is freshman Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville who is holding up hundreds of military promotions in order to force the Pentagon to change a rule that allows service members to take paid leave to travel to a state that provides abortion services. It’s an absurd issue that only someone with an advanced case of Fox News brain rot would even think of but he’s managed to completely alienate the military brass and frustrate the entire US Senate for months now. This would have been unthinkable for a Republican to do just a few years ago. The military was the one sacred institution in the US government and funding it or following its guidelines was always an untouchable GOP priority. Not anymore.

But why would Tuberville think any differently? After all, we have the former president calling the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff guilty of treason and declaring that he should be subject to the death penalty so it’s not as if there’s any requirement that Republicans be respectful of the military.

Last week the Speaker of the House, locked in a death struggle with his right flank, decided it was in his best interest to snub Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky to demonstrate that he’s sympathetic with the pro-Russia faction in the House GOP. Again, just a few years ago the idea that we would be talking about a pro-Russia Republican faction would have been ludicrous. That they would be essentially backing a Russian invasion of its neighbor is beyond belief. But the movement among Republicans to withdraw funding from Ukraine, stop all assistance to the war torn country and force a surrender on Russian terms is growing in the US Congress.

Over the weekend, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy backed off the commitment he made to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to stop all support for Ukraine in the Pentagon spending bill saying that some arcane rules make it too difficult to do but it’s not the last we will hear of it. Greene and her cohort are determined to stop the funding so they can bring the war home to the U.S. southern border.

Yes, their argument is that we should not be helping Ukraine defend its border when we aren’t defending ours. And yes, it’s a colossally fatuous argument to compare an armed invasion by the Russian military with migrants seeking asylum, but that’s just how they think. So Republicans are talking about a literal war with Mexico ostensibly to stop drug traffickers and Trump is right there with them having thrown out the idea of bombing the cartels and then lying to the Mexican government and saying “no one would know it was us,” and that he’d be willing to lie publicly about it. This is rapidly becoming GOP policy.

The conservative movement led by bomb throwers like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, hate talk radio king Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Roger Ailes ushered in much of the obnoxious, vulgar smash mouth politics that Trump leads today and the party’s descent into ideological incoherence has been well documented. But I have to admit that I never thought I’d see the day that we’d see the Republican party supporting Russia, denigrating the U.S. military and drawing up plans to start a war on the North American continent. Reagan’s three legged stool is now nothing more than fire wood to burn down the Republican Party.

Salon

WGA strike to end?

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 25, 2023

Solidarity works

Different and the same. All over.

Washington Post:

Negotiators for Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America reached a breakthrough agreement after five straight days of negotiations — a tentative deal to end a strike that has halted most TV and film scriptwriting in the country.

The terms of the agreement were not immediately shared by the WGA, which said in a statement Sunday night that the deal was “exceptional,” adding that it included “meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”

The union said it was immediately suspending picketing, though its more than 11,000 members were warned not to return to work until the deal is put into the language of a contract, then approved by WGA leaders and general membership in coming days. “We are still on strike until then,” the statement said.

But the deal stillmarks the most hopeful sign of progress since May, when the WGA and a consortium of major studios and streaming services failed to renew their old contract. The sides were divided over issues such as pay for writers and the use of artificial intelligence to create scripts. The WGA strike has lasted nearly 150 days, making it one of Hollywood’s longest labor-strike disputes.

Jennifer Rubin wants to make sure people understand why striking writers and autoworkers are so pissed at how insane pay for top executives in the auto and entertainment industries has become (emphasis mine):

First, both confront companies whose chief executives’ salaries have gone wild. The Detroit News reports: “Ford CEO Jim Farley received nearly $21 million in total compensation last year,” while the Detroit Free Press finds that Carlos Tavares — CEO of Chrysler parent company Stellantis — “had total compensation of $24.8 million.” And at the top of the heap, according to Automotive News, General Motors’ Mary Barra earned almost $29 million in 2022.

CBS News put that in perspective: “Overall CEO pay at the Big Three companies rose 40% from 2013 to 2022, according to [the Economic Policy Institute].” Barra makes “362 times more than the typical GM worker, while Tavares makes 365 times more, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Farley at Ford makes 281 times more, filings show.”

Put differently, between 1978 and 2021, “executive compensation at large American companies increased by more than 1,400 percent,” Politico recently noted, citing the left-leaning EPI. “It climbed 37 percent faster than stock market growth and 18 percent faster than average full-time worker pay over the same period, the EPI analysis found.” It’s hard to tell workers they’re asking too much or don’t appreciate the fraught economic picture when CEOs are gorging themselves at the salary trough.

The same is true for entertainment companies. Yes, there are a few hugely paid actors (and athletes), but the Bureau of Labor Statistics “estimated the median actor pay was $17.94 per hour.”

Rubin adds:

You can make all the arguments you want about the labor market for chief executives and their responsibility for billions in earnings. But major companies cannot expect average workers to accept that this is simply the way things are. Management and shareholders need to understand that the gross imbalance between CEOs and average workers is going to result in labor unrest. And if the chief executives’ companies are losing tens of millions because of strikes, perhaps that should be taken into account during their next salary negotiation.

The economic inequality endemic in what some like to call “late-stage capitalism” is one of those situations that the elite will ignore and ignore and ignore until they find themselves facing the torches and pitchforks Nick Hanauer warned of nearly a decade ago. “Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.”

“Why, oh why, are the common folk are so mad at us?”

Republicans can’t govern, don’t want to

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 25, 2023

No intervention in sight

H. L. Mencken is not around to see history confirm his bleak, 1926 assessment of public wisdom. But nearly one hundred years later, his observation suggests that the mania of our age is not unique to it. Unlike Mencken, however, we are cursed today with having to live through it. Trumpism needs an intervention, but there is none in sight.

The leading Republican presidential candidate for 2024 has no use for nor interest in learning what the Constitution says. Just elect him so he can again make a mockery of swearing an oath to uphold and defend it and be about pardoning himself for his federal crimes and wreaking vengeance on all enemies domestic and domestic. Especially on those who would dare prosecute him for crimes his presidential pardon cannot reach. Donald Trump thinks the Preamble begains, “ME the People.”

What would a Trump 2.0 administration look like? Marcy Wheeler invites us to gaze upon the Republican Party in her former state. “I really wish people would start comparing what has happened to the MI GOP in the wake of their capitulation to Trumpism, as compared to the GA GOP, which stood up to it,” she posts to formerly Twitter. Wheeler cites a Detroit Free Press account of the latest state Republican meet-up (pay wall):

The audience rose in a standing ovation Saturday when Michigan Republican Party Chair Kristina Karamo was introduced to deliver a “dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence” before a Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference unlike any other.

An hour later, Karamo stepped to the podium again to tell the conference that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a fraud and a hoax and that man was created in his present form by God, but that leftists cling to evolutionary theory because when children are taught that one part of the Bible is false, they are more inclined to also question its other teachings.

This is the doctrine of biblical literalism evangelicals discovered in the wake of Darwin. Instead of insisting that their holy scripture is a book of faith, they downgrade it to science text. But I digress.

Paul Egan reminds readers that Michigan Republicans had their butts handed to them in 2022, losing both the state House and Senate. Conference attendance this year was down. National GOP figures declined to attend. Nor did corporate sponsors kick in. The atmosphere was of unity. But it was mainly “unity by subtraction,” Egan notes.

Only two of Michigan’s six Republican members of Congress were in attendance, and U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, faced some minor heckling during his session with U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, after Walberg referred to the U.S. as a democracy.

“Constitutional democracy — we’re not a democracy,” a woman shouted.

You get the idea.

Karamo, who took office in February, has faced criticism over alleged interference in the business of county parties and handling of party finances. She said Saturday rumors of her pending resignation are false and her internal detractors can “pound sand.”

Which is the kind of non-governance the GOP and Trump offer the country. The Party of Trump is opposed to expanding the voting pool, Greg Sargent notes. Democracy : bad.

“I mean this sincerely. If one of the virtues of right wing populism is that it has subterranean majoritarian appeal that’s being suppressed by liberal elites, then why aren’t the right wing populist thinker types in favor of making voting easier?” Sargent adds. You know why.

A Trumpist GOP that postures hollowly about family values has no use for governing. It is prepared yet again to shut down government and services Americans depend on if it cannot muster the votes to work its will. The party proves day after day that its only interest is in increasing and maintaining its ability to dictate. Their invocation of freedom is a cruel joke. The country they would mismanage would be the global joke Trump fears he himself is.

Trump tries to snow the evangelicals

Published by digby on September 24, 2023

And it will probably work…

Will they fall for this? The Christian Right has said they believe abortion is murder and Roe v. Wade created a genocide. Now Trump’s saying they need to set that aside so he can win the election. He may know them better than most people think. After all, these people who believe it’s murder and genocide have spent the last five decades saying they just wanted to “let the states decide” when that was a total lie. So why not? They’re political actors not religious people.