Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

I would not have been in favor of such a thing at the time but now I think it was probably a mistake not to. He certainly didn’t appreciate it. Look what his goons are doing now:

The FBI is considering carrying out a “showy” arrest and perp walk of the agency’s now-indicted ex-Director James Comey, and has suspended an agent who refused to participate in the plan, three sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Comey was charged last week with lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, an unprecedented move that came after President Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into his longtime adversary. A grand jury voted to indict him on Sept. 25 and hours later, Comey was issued a summons directing him to appear in federal court in northern Virginia for an Oct. 9 arraignment. His lawyers agreed to bring him to his arraignment, two sources said.

But on the same day as his indictment, FBI leadership discussed hauling Comey in instead of waiting for the ex-FBI chief to report to court on his own, a source knowledgeable about the conversations told CBS News.

The source told CBS News that leadership asked for “large, beefy” agents to conduct an arrest of Comey “in full kit,” including Kevlar vests and exterior wear emblazoned with the FBI logo. It was suggested that a supervisory special agent in the violent crimes division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office would be able to put together the kinds of agents who fit the bill, the source said.

The agent, however, refused to participate in this plan, believing it would be inappropriate and highly unusual for a white-collar defendant like Comey, according to the source. He was then suspended for insubordination.

The FBI is now actively working to put together a team to arrest Comey between now and his court appearance on Thursday, but other FBI supervisors have also refused to cooperate, said a source knowledgeable about the conversations and a law enforcement source familiar with the situation. The expectation is that the FBI will eventually find somebody.

Look, it’s not a huge deal. Perp walks are common, even for white collar criminals and they are stupid. If someone is willing to turn themselves in that should be done. But cops love a perp walk and now that we’re in a certifiable police state, it’s highly unlikely that the practice will end.

I would guess that members of the FBI are balking here because Comey is a former long time federal prosecutor and FBI Director, one of them, who is charged with something insanely stupid. They just don’t want to be part of it. But it will happen. And it will arouse all the MAGA faithful who watch Fox news on a loop.

I suspect it will not go down well with anyone else who sees it, but who knows?

Which do you bring to a war?

Weekend Reading offers some, well, weekend reading from Anat Shenker-Osorio on the slow learners atop the Democratic Party, something I wrote about back in February. Her particular gripe this morning is pollingism. That is, the idea that their party wins office and governs by what tests well in polling, and that what polls well actually predicts real-world voting behavior. Because voters are rational actors, dontcha know? This framework continues to fail yet is never reexamined.

The trouble with this is that data aren’t conjured but rather solicited and analyzed according to the assumptions of data collectors. In other words, you only get answers to the questions you ask. And you only get reactions to the ads you produce. And you only assess impacts in the artificial environments you construct. And you only apply findings according to your theory of how humans come to judgments.

An alternate framework she calls magnetism. It’s related to something she wrote eight years ago, “Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.”

Magnetism is the notion that if you want people to come to your cause, you must be attractive. This, of course, requires having a cause to which to draw people. And, like any magnet, it also means having a polarity that distinguishes you from your opposition. For Magnetism to work, you meet people at the place of their broadly shared values, not their podcast-promoted prejudices, and bring them with you toward your desired policies and the candidates who will enact them.

People are social creatures, not calculators. Pollingism misses that.

“Politics is a shouting match, not a soliloquy.” The crew with the loudest choir wins (in a free and fair election anyway). Democrats moderate their message down to one their base won’t sing. “While Democrats are brandishing thermometers, Republicans power up flamethrowers.”

It is indeed a long piece, weekend reading. For those of you who are not slow learners and thank God you are not.

Just to reprise:

* * * * *

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.

The president is MIA

The president’s digital accounts have issued a burst of AI garbage this week that are, of course, well beyond Donald Trump’s digital abilities. And by the way, where is he while this is going on?

Heather Cox Richardson:

Although President Donald J. Trump has not appeared in public since Tuesday, his social media account has been posting up a storm. Just three weeks ago, administration officials were insisting that Democrats were responsible for hateful political speech. Trump’s account last night posted images of prominent Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, with the heading “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.” It went on to say: “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! [N]o message! [N]o hope! [T]heir only message for America is to hate Trump!”

Steve Benen of Maddowblog asks, “What is it that the president wants people to do when he pushes such a message?”

This is the second time Trump has disappeared from public view in last six weeks without an explanation.

— Simon Rosenberg (@simonwdc.bsky.social) 2025-10-03T19:28:07.618Z

Then there is the “Don’t Fear the Reaper” clip you’ve likely seen featuring OMB Director Russell Vought as the Grim Reaper coming for your jobs, etc.

HCR continues:

Veterans of the U.S. national security community posting as The Steady State noted that “a president posting a video depicting his opponents as prey for the Grim Reaper and zombies outside the ‘unemployment office’ is the opposite of what we expect in a healthy democracy.”

Russell Vought is not an elected official. He is best known for his contributions to Project 2025, a plan for gutting the U.S. government and installing a theocratic dictatorship. Project 2025 was so unpopular when it came to light last summer—only 4% of voters who knew about it wanted to see it enacted—that Trump insisted he had nothing to do with it. Trolling the American people with the idea that Congress has no power and Russell Vought is running the government to destroy it is an odd choice for a president who is already deeply unpopular.

This assumes that the video was Trump’s choice. After Trump’s performance in Quantico on Monday, he’s not been seen in public in days. So it’s a fair question who is running the Trump Show. Especially considering that Trump is more interested in golfing, strutting like a banty rooster, and in self-aggrandizing spectacle than in actually doing the work of governing.

It’s seemed for some time that ideologues like Vought and Stephen Miller are really running the show with help from the Trump White House comms team.

Political Wire reports:

“The Treasury Department is considering producing a one-dollar coin featuring President Donald Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence next year,” Politico reports.

“The draft design of the coin, which was overseen by the Office of the U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, features Trump’s profile on one side of the coin. The opposite side depicts Trump with a clenched fist in front of an American flag alongside the words ‘FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.’”

Hmmm. By law, that honor only goes to a deceased person.

"Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities." 31 USC 5114(b)

— Adam Weinstein (@adamweinstein.bsky.social) 2025-10-03T17:57:55.298Z

A friend asks if the Treasury Department knows something we don’t.

Has anyone seen Kevin Kline lately?

* * * * *

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.

Baby elephants. 🙂

Sleepy-eyed and snug in her cosy blue blanket, Kipekee is ready to take on the day!

We think she enjoys these rare moments of peace and quiet — it won’t be long before ‘big sisters’ Kamili, Muridjo, Nyambeni, Mzinga, and Kerrio converge around her in all their wonderful,… pic.twitter.com/gEkCPrjRdS

— Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (@SheldrickTrust) October 2, 2025

Sleepy-eyed and snug in her cosy blue blanket, Kipekee is ready to take on the day! We think she enjoys these rare moments of peace and quiet — it won’t be long before ‘big sisters’ Kamili, Muridjo, Nyambeni, Mzinga, and Kerrio converge around her in all their wonderful, overbearing glory.

Kipekee is the latest addition to our foster program. Rescued in June, this tiny orphan lost her mother to human-wildlife conflict.

She arrived at the Nursery in poor condition, and it’s taken round-the-clock care to nurse her back to health. It has only been three months, but she has already made enormous progress!

Support Kipekee’s journey though an adoption: http://swt.bio/kipekee

Baby elephants are simply adorable.

Baby elephants learning to use its trunk to eat
pic.twitter.com/mZTD9TemNW

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 2, 2025

Baby elephant enjoying her bath!🐘❤️ pic.twitter.com/BW5ZPvd2FE

— Nature is Phenomenal (@AnimalGeoLife) October 3, 2025

“IT’S REVOLTING”

“To try to give free healthcare to illegals…is sinful…It’s revolting.” – @StephenM blasts Dems for the government shutdown.
@BrianGlennTV @jsolomonReports pic.twitter.com/SNRmwVwNwW

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) October 1, 2025

Yeah. He’s very devout. Oh, and he’s coming for you.

Miller: Well, the Democrat [sic] Party has become a party that openly aids and encourages and foments violence. You know, we all live through the unspeakable tragedy of nearly two successful, of two nearly successful assassination attempts on President Trump. A bullet came with a centimeter of taking his life.

We watched in agony and horror as a crazed left wing terrorist murdered Charlie Kirk. Just while he’s giving a speech, having a debate on a college campus. We watched the United Healthcare CEO get gunned. Down. In cold. Blood. We saw just days ago a sniper try to take out ICE officers. And what do all of these killers and assassins have in common?

They’ve been radicalized by Democrat [sic] Party rhetoric that describes anyone who doesn’t share their warped, twisted worldview as fascist, worthy, by implication, of execution. They’re using this language to mark people. To put a target on them. And then on top of all of that, what else do they do? When Antifa, when these left-wing terrorists attack our law enforcement, Democrat [sic] judges won’t put them in jail.

Democrat-led police departments refuse to arrest them. Democrat [sic] mayors and governors refuse to pursue them, so when violence is openly occurring against the targets that they have named and identified, they will not arrest the violent agitators. And that’s why President Trump signed an executive order is called a National Security Presidential Memorandum, or NSPM, and that is when you change the formal national security policy of the country.

And so President Trump issued an NSPM last week that for the first time ever, establishes a national counterterrorism strategy to dismantle these radical left-wing terror groups, including, but not limited to Antifa. President Trump’s gonna find the members, he’s gonna find the funders, he’s gonna find the violent terrorists.

He’s gonna find everybody involved in these criminal conspiracies and one by one, Sean, we’re gonna dismantle them.

Hannity: Well, we’ve got to, and this rhetoric, I don’t care what people say. I, I hold people accountable for their actions, but you cannot convince me that this never-ending Nazi fascist, racist, you know, refrain of theirs is not impacting, especially people on the edge.

I’ll give you the last one.

Miller: It’s deliberate. Yes. I mean, so, you know, I asked the question why did. It was a rhetorical question, of course. Why did Gavin Newsom say Stephen Miller is a fascist? It is a message that his team is sending to all the crazies and lunatics out there, and we’re not gonna absolve the Democrats of responsibility anymore.

There’s a reason why all of these killers, all of these lunatics, all of these terrorists adopt the same language. They say they’re trying to kill the fascists. They’re trying to stop the fascists. This is deliberate. President Trump is saying that we as a nation are not gonna tolerate anymore and the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the FBI is gonna find these terrorists and we are gonna put the behind bars, Sean.

Emptywheel, who we have to thank for that transcript, goes to the trouble of unpacking all of his lies and points out some of the endless examples of the dehumanizing, terroristic language Miller uses every time speaks.

That’s fine though. I’m sure all the Hannity viewers are ready to get down on their knees and pray with him.

For the video, of course

DHS law enforcement has made OVER 900 ARRESTS during Operation Midway Blitz in Illinois.

To every criminal illegal alien: Darkness is no longer your ally. We will find you. pic.twitter.com/m9PxbuK5Ua

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 2, 2025

Any time you see one of these big, theatrical operations it’s because DHS wants to make a little war movie to arouse the cosplaying MAGA wannabes. Unfortunately, the “extras” in their fantasy lives are real people who are being traumatized.

It’s not just Democrats:

I think by now that everyone understands that they might find themselves in a situation where they might need to buy health insurance for themselves. Lose a job, move someplace and often if you start a new job you have to wait for a few months before you qualify for the employer health care and you need a stop gap. (A lot of those people might qualify for Medicaid too so they ought to be concerned about that as well.)

The ACA is now an intrinsic part of the American health care system and it relies on government support. I think people understand that and they don’t want it messed with.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know that the Republicans feel the subsidies should go up because they really enjoy making people suffer:

It’s on Democrats to get the word out because the last the the Republicans want is for more people to know about it. That is the logic of the shut down. They are trying to break through the noise. And it’s working. The WSJ reported yesterday:

President Trump has projected unwavering confidence that he is winning the messaging war over the government shutdown. But behind the scenes, his team is increasingly concerned that the issue at the center of the debate will create political vulnerabilities for Republicans.

Advisers are worried that the GOP will take the blame for allowing healthcare subsidies to expire, raising costs for millions of Americans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, according to administration officials.

Inside the White House, aides are discussing proposals to extend the enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act health-insurance plans, the officials said. Trump hasn’t yet decided whether he will endorse such a proposal, according to the officials. Republicans say they will only hold negotiations with Democrats on the matter after the government is reopened.

Yeah, that’s not going to work guys. You are liars and cheats and your word isn’t worth the toilet paper its printed on. Pass the extensions, then talk about re-opening. And we’ll be needing to see Russ Vought put on a chain because he’s made it clear that any funding the Congress makes is just a suggestion.

Update — Oh my, this is interesting:

Paragon Health Institute was established in 2021 and has only 11 full-time staffers, but founder Brian Blase is credited with formulating many of the proposals that became the basis for nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts enacted as part of the GOP megabill. The group’s success is thanks in large part to its vast alumni network spread out across the highest levels of government, from the speaker’s office to the Trump administration.

Now Blase is looking to exert his clout again, mounting a fierce campaign to convince lawmakers to let enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits expire at the end of the year. Democrats have made an extension of the boosted Obamacare subsidies, first approved by Congress in 2021, as their centerpiece demand in the current government funding fight. Republicans need to figure out if they’re willing to deal — and Paragon doesn’t want them to bend at all.

“Brian is exceptionally smart, principled, and motivated by good intentions,” said Paul Winfree, the president and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center — another conservative think tank — who served as a top economic official in the first Trump White House. “He truly wants to solve problems in health policy and believes — I think correctly — that the government is the cause of many of them.”

But Paragon is making a key segment of congressional Republicans uncomfortable, according to interviews with a dozen House GOP lawmakers, senior aides, White House officials and people close to the administration, many of whom were granted anonymity to provide their candid views or describe private conversations.

Though conservatives are largely complimentary of the think tank, a swath of House Republicans, including some of the conference’s most vulnerable incumbents, privately say Paragon is dead-set on notching conservative policy wins irrespective of the damage they might do to the GOP’s fragile majority in the midterms.

Hmmm. Maybe the Democrats knew something the rest of us didn’t? Big, if true.

Posted by the President of the United States. pic.twitter.com/hKKOhif5Nb

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2025

Donald Trump just posted this.

We are not a serious country anymore. pic.twitter.com/wfpGSiQdsb

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 3, 2025

How about this?

Whoever made this deserves an award! pic.twitter.com/A30QnsyRx4

— Joe G (@EastEndJoe) October 3, 2025

I hate this AI crap but I think it’s worth seeing the difference between the juvenile pablum from the 79 year old president’s team and people who know how to use it.

TAPPER: How does the DOJ going after Hunter Biden and the special counsel investigation of President Biden himself fits into your theory of Democrats weaponizing the DOJ?

MIKE JOHNSON: They were not going after the Bidens. They did the bare minimum. pic.twitter.com/iKG81dileq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 28, 2025

With the federal government now officially shut down, the House of Representatives has a lot of time on its hands. All the action is now centered in the Senate, where all but three members of the Democratic caucus are refusing to go along with Republicans to pass the House’s continuing resolution — or the Senate’s own alternative — that would reopen the government and extend funding at current levels until Nov. 21. 

House Democrats have made a point of staying in Washington, D.C., to continue working. Meanwhile, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana sent his caucus home to wait out the shutdown — and to apparently avoid swearing in newly elected Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who represents the final vote needed to pass a discharge petition requiring the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. 

While Senate Republicans refuse to negotiate with their Democratic counterparts on extending health subsidies to reopen the government, the House could spend this time going over the Epstein files with a fine-tooth comb to get to the bottom of what appears to be the biggest sex trafficking scandal in American history. But the president has made it clear that’s not going to happen. 

Instead, some Republicans members are likely preparing for another game of smoke-and-mirrors when the shutdown is over: Rewriting the narrative of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.

Since we all saw what happened in real time on live television, this may mark their most ambitious attempt yet to bend reality to President Donald Trump’s will. But it’s not simply about satisfying the president. House Republicans seem intent on revenge.

According to POLITICO, the GOP caucus is still seething over the original investigation by the Jan. 6 select committee, which was largely composed of Democrats and implicated Trump in the violence and destruction perpetrated by his supporters. The original committee, led by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, “was rigged,” according to Johnson. 

The new probe, the speaker said, would be “a committee investigating the previous committee” led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga, who apparently seems to think that nobody really understands what happened. “We need to look at it from a factual standpoint,” Loudermilk told POLITICO. “It’s dangerous out there. There were a lot of civilians, as well as members of Congress and staff and even press that were here on Jan. 6. And I think we’re all interested to know, why did the Capitol get breached — regardless of who did it — how did it get breached?”

I’m pretty sure we know how and why it happened. We all saw it with our own eyes, and there are hours of horrific video footage filmed from nearly every possible angle. Trump’s followers were all worked up over his big lie that the 2020 election had been stolen by President-elect Joe Biden and the Democrats. As Trump spoke to the crowd that day on the Ellipse, he told them that unless Mike Pence, his own vice president, “does the right thing,” they were going to be cheated out of their right to have the president they wanted. He said they could go to the Capitol to make their wishes known, and he indicated that he might join them. 

They were listening. After Trump departed, the crowd marched to the Capitol and broke into the building. They breached security barriers and violently assaulted police, forcing members of Congress and their staffs to evacuate the Capitol complex, or to shelter in place. While Trump — and all of us — watched on television, they desecrated the world’s greatest shrine to democracy and succeeded in delaying the legal certification of the presidential election. 

There is no mystery to be uncovered.

Besides the findings of the Jan. 6 committee, there have been investigations into the security concerns around that day from the Capitol Police inspector general, a bipartisan Senate investigation and an outside review led by retired Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré. 

But Loudermilk is partially justifying his ongoing obsession about Jan. 6 as if there was some dark cover-up. As chair of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, he’s been working the angles on this story since 2023, claiming that he couldn’t get the cooperation he needed to really get to the bottom of it. Trump, apparently, finally listened, and the White House stepped in to push a reportedly reluctant Johnson to convene a new select subcommittee that will give Loudermilk subpoena power.

Both Trump and Johnson have recently been touting a misleading report from a right-wing source that 274 FBI agents were “secretly placed” in the crowd to agitate the otherwise peaceful protesters into storming the Capitol. This would, of course, relieve Trump of any responsibility for the violence and mayhem that ensued. But as POLITICO reported, the Justice Department’s inspector general revealed ten months ago that the agents were dispatched after the riot had started — and only to support the Capitol Police in attempting to contain the crowd.

I can’t imagine why the administration would consider it a good idea to dredge up the nation’s collective memory of Trump’s worst day in office, when he was truly toxic for a brief moment in time. Since he announced his first bid for the presidency in 2015, Trump has exhibited a remarkable ability to make a lot of people believe a demonstrably untrue narrative if he repeats it often enough. 

But not this time.

And in your employees’ mouths

If it was not clear before, the executive branch of the U.S. government is now a fully owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization.

“The White House ballroom, should it be completed, will stand as another symbol in the ongoing project of rebuilding American democracy in the image of one man’s brand,” the Trump brand, proposes Debbie Millman, brand strategist and host of the “Design Matters” podcast.

She illustrates her own op-ed:

Between Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and Trump’s own remora, and Russ Vought, OMB director and principal author of Project 2025, the functioning of the executive branch down to its finest details is now the Trump Organization too.

I’ve said frequently that the GOP does not want to govern, it wants to rule. That’s true of Donald Trump as well, but in his mind dominating is a byproduct of branding. His logo is not yet on government stationary, but he’s got people working on it (Federal News Network):

Furloughed staff at the Education Department say out-of-office messages for their government email accounts have been automatically updated.

The new out-of-office message blames an ongoing government shutdown on Senate Democrats who didn’t vote on a stopgap spending bill that would keep the government funded through Nov. 21.

“Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations,” the new out-of-office message says. “Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently on furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.”

An Education Department employee told Federal News Network that they discovered the updated message on Thursday.

“Those were not my words,” the employee said.

The New York Times adds:

In response to a request for comment, an automatic reply from an Education Department spokeswoman, Madi Biedermann, did not include the politically charged language. Instead, it read, “Thank you for your email. There is a temporary shutdown of the U.S. government due to a lapse in appropriations.”

About an hour later, Ms. Biedermann sent another response referencing the continuing resolution that would have funded the government: “The email reminds those who reach out to Department of Education employees that we cannot respond because Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for a clean C.R. and fund the government. Where’s the lie?”

Did they up her dosage in the interim? The Times does not include a current photo that might indicate whether Biedermann posseses a thousand-yard stare, the flat affect found among cult members and combat veterans suffering PTSD.

* * * * *

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.