After the exposure of the big confidential informant who claimed Biden had taken 5 million dollars in bribes from the Ukrainian government this wee, there is some hope that the Biden impeachment probe may collapse. It’s possible. It’s also quite likely that it won’t for all the reasons Susan Glasser lays out in the New Yorker:
“Smirnov’s allegations were the foundation of the entire impeachment drive,” Raskin told me. Without them, “the impeachment investigation has ended in substance if not actually in form . . . the whole project lies in ruins.”
But I am not fully convinced. In today’s Congress, the fight, somehow, must always go on. For years, Trump and his backers have fed elaborate conspiracy theories about the President and his son to their base. This particular trope about Biden and Ukraine and the bribe that wasn’t is unlikely to die off swiftly. Raskin readily admitted that some Republicans in Congress were likely to keep pressing the matter even after its source had been discredited—“like Confederate soldiers lost in the woods somewhere,” still fighting on long after the war was over. In the way of conspiracy theories, he fears that Smirnov’s takedown may soon end up being portrayed as just another deep-state plot to cover up Biden’s crimes. I suspect it will not be long before this prediction comes to pass.
“We were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known and yet my colleagues went out and talked to the public about how this was credible and how it was damning,” Representative Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican who has started occasionally challenging his party in public, said this week. Of course, they were warned. We all were. The point was not the veracity of the accusation but the fact that Republicans had an accusation to make.
Political memory in America is shockingly attenuated. In 2019, Trump was impeached by a Democratic-controlled House for demanding that Ukraine help him politically by digging up dirt on Biden. In the “perfect” phone call that Trump himself publicly released, he pushed Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open an inquiry into Biden, referring to allegations that Biden had “stopped the prosecution” of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that had paid Biden’s son to serve on its board, at a time when the then Vice-President was helping oversee U.S. policy toward Ukraine. This is the same conspiracy theory that Republicans have been pursuing in the current impeachment inquiry into Biden, all these years later. It did not matter to them when the charge was dismissed as unproved Russian disinformation back in 2019, and, I fear, it will not matter to them now that this latest iteration of the tale, with its own Moscow angle, has been discredited too. The circus tent is not coming down; it has taken up permanent residence.
I’m afraid she’s right. I don’t know if they’ll have the votes when it comes down to it. There are a bunch of House seats up for reelection in districts that Biden won in 2020 and they may not be as keen. But I’ll be shocked if they fold up the tent completely. After all, Dear Leader wants his pound of flesh and I really doubt they have the brass to defy him.
Also, who knows what new “evidence” their friends in Russia will provide?
I’ve written before about Christopher Rufo, the young force behind the ant-woke crusade that’s got the GOP all excited. That’s his latest, in response to the news that the Heritage Foundation is laying the groundwork for a massive government intrusion into the American family life, especially the bedroom.
the highly influential heritage foundation, which would help staff and direct a future Trump administration, literally said that a key conservative policy goal is “ending recreational sex.” they said it, not me. IMO we should take them both seriously and literally https://t.co/41fK0rg5Nz
Rufo is all for it, claiming later on Xitter that his comments are all empirical facts.
If only the bitches would just put their biscuits in the oven and their buns in the bed we’d all be so much better off, amirite?
Even little girls under 13 need to understand what they were put on this earth to do. No matter what.
The Tennessee Republican Party has rejected a bill which would have granted an exception to the state's abortion ban for children under the age of 13 who have been the victims of rape. https://t.co/o8TbglNhbO
Rufo’s list of illustrious employers and publishers include the Manhattan Institute and its nutty City Journal, the intelligence-design-friendly Discovery Institute, and scientific racism-spouting doorstop Aporia, just to name a few.
So it comes as no surprise that The Guardian has a piece on Wednesday revealing Rufo’s relationship with a magazine called IM-1776, a journal of the “dissident right” with quite a few anonymous contributors (almost universally not a good sign when talking about right-wing publications).
IM-1776 is the sort of magazine that publishes sentences like this with a straight face:
The public schools in [Los Angeles] were essentially ghetto daycares, but without having the good sense to segregate by ethnicity.
That’s from a piece praising Nayib Bukele, the right-wing president of El Salvador who has, among other things, sent armed troops into his nation’s legislature to intimidate legislators into approving a $100 million loan from the United States that would have gone towards his controversial gang crackdown program that involved the suspension of civil liberties so authorities could round up alleged gang members.
Rufo is MAGA’s propaganda minister. Doctor Zoom notes:
The Guardian also has yet another moment of Rufo admitting out loud his entire discourse strategy, which somehow still manages to fool every freaking mainstream reporter, no matter how many times he says exactly what he’s doing to scare your Fox-loving uncle into believing that white kids at the local high school are being caged, mocked, and forced to eat Jell-O molds:
On the Pirate Wires podcast earlier this month, he told host Mike Solana of his own activism: “I try to play that game, I try to lay traps, I try to provoke certain reactions, I try to launder certain words and phrases into the discourse.”
And it works. At least for a while as the MSM laps it up as the latest sign that MAGA is sweeping the nation. Then whatever it was dies out in the face of reality (I’m looking at you, Moms for Liberty) and they quickly move on to the next. I’ll give him credit. He is prolific.
I wonder if the Democrats will let him slide on this incel-friendly stuff about “recreational sex” (is there any other kind?) They’ve gone off half cocked before (no pun intended) but this one seems even more out of step than usual.
Madame Secretary? Forget the jockeying to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told us at a stop in Greenville, South Carolina, ahead of Saturday’s GOP primary there that she has her eye on a key Cabinet position if the former president wins in November.
“I’d be honored to serve President Trump in his next administration in any capacity that he asks me. But I’m certainly particularly interested in Homeland Security. I think it’s the top issue in the country,” she said.
He might have to set up a cage match with Stephen Miller, but I’d guess Miller will end up in the White House again. Somebody has to keep the addled bronzer poisoned Dear Leader on the right path.
Sounds great. I wonder if she could get confirmed by the Senate? Oh wait, that probably won’t be necessary. The Republican Senate majority will change any rules they need to in order to give Trump what he wants. I expect there will be no more pesky impediments.
Note the grift as Trump speaks to the evangelicals. Good Lord.
Trump addressed a conservative evangelical gathering yesterday and it was really something. He says he’s very religious which is true. He worships himself. The extreme self-delusion among these people in thinking that this depraved, corrupt monster is a Bible believing Christian is truly stunning.
Watch a few of these if you get the chance. Then ponder why Biden’s alleged gaffes are on the front page and Trump is being presented as an unbeatable juggernaut.
“A lot of snakes.” Trump mumbles and garbles his words, gets completely confused. pic.twitter.com/b2RqBXxflX
i have no idea what Trump is talking about at this point. if a guy sitting next to me at the bar sounded like this i would peace out. pic.twitter.com/3jd5MoGMS2
Trump: "They want you to say what they want you, what they want to have you say. And we're not gonna let that happen. You're going to say as you want & you're going to believe & you're going to believe in God. You're gonna believe in God because God is here & God is watching." pic.twitter.com/Gr05jpbYet
One of the most frustrating refrains one hears these days is that the Republican Party has “suddenly” gone crazy as if it was a spontaneous explosion of lunacy that came out of nowhere. The fact is that there has been a strain of crazy on the right for a very long time and the allegedly normal Republicans who are now shocked at what’s happened to their party were willfully blind and refused to see how toxic that strain was. All they had to do was attend any Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) of the past 20 years and open their eyes to what their party was becoming.
I’m not talking specifically about ideology here, although there was plenty of odious far right philosophy at this confab going all the way back to its first meeting in 1974. I refer to the smart-ass, frat house attitude that came out of right wing radio, led by the contemptible Rush Limbaugh and all the spawn that followed him. Sure they pretended to be pious conservative Christians dedicated to bringing morality back to decadent America but down in the basement where people sold their right wing wares, there was always a plethora of nasty merch. From creepy t-shirts to crude caricatures of Black people (especially the Black first family) they made good money selling racist, sexist insults to their devoted fans.
This year, they’ve outdone themselves with what may be the most blatantly anti-American toy they’ve ever featured at a CPAC conference: a January 6th themed pinball machine described by The Hill as:
The game can be played over several modes, including “Stop the Steal,” “Fake News,” “Peaceful Protest,” “It’s a Setup,” “Babbitt Murder” — a reference to the Jan. 6 rioter who was shot and killed by police after trying to climb barriers at the Capitol — “Have Faith” and “Political Prisoners.” As you play each mode, videos from the insurrection play on a screen above.
January 6th is now literally a game to these people.
The first couple of days have largely featured the usual culture war shock jock commentary. For instance Florida congressman Byron Donalds, rumored to be a VP contender, demonstrated his homophobia by sharing this lovely little anecdote:
“Little boys are little boys. Little girls are little girls. When I was a little boy, I liked little girls. This is a good thing. This is the natural order that keeps society progressing.”
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville was interviewed by podcast host Ben Ferguson and claimed that “we are at war” because the communists, socialists and Marxists believe that children are part of the United States government and that “Hillary Clinton said it takes a village, why, because she doesn’t like your home.” Queried later by reporters about the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court essentially making IVF fertility treatments unconstitutional, he claimed he was “all for it” because “we need more kids.” When it was explained that this would actually prevent people from having kids, he said that was a different conversation and that he hadn’t read the bill. Of course it wasn’t a bill it was a state Supreme Court decision. Byron Donalds, also said that he was in favor of the ruling as did presidential candidate Nikki Haley in a different venue, although both seemed to be as confused as Tuberville.
The panels so far have been the usual obnoxious fare. There was one called “Cat Fight? Michelle vs. Kamala” in which a panel of white people trashed the former First Lady and current VP with one of the participants implying that Michelle Obama is a man, one of the right’s favorite tropes. It brought gales of laughter from the entire panel and the audience.
There was another panel called “Babies R Us” which I thought could be an appropriate title for any of the panels considering the amount of whining and temper tantrums they all feature. But this one was about how happy all the panelists were that Roe vs Wade had been repealed, celebrating the fact that their entire agenda is now going to be enacted.
But all that fun and frivolity doesn’t hide the even darker turn the conference has taken. For all of its extremism in the past, it’s only since Donald Trump that they’ve been welcoming authoritarian dictators to the conference. Yesterday, the self-described “coolest dictator” El Salvador president Nayib Bukele received a “rock-star welcome” from the crowd (who had probably never heard of him until that moment.)
JUST NOW – President @nayibbukele: "Who elected Soros to dictate public policy and laws? Why does he feel entitled to impose this agenda?
Soros and his cronies hit a brick wall in El Salvador… El Salvadorians are now immune to his influence. No one believes his lies anymore." pic.twitter.com/bL2ZgG1RYY
It’s a little unoriginal but you really can’t go wrong with a little Soros bashing in a right wing crowd. On Saturday the new far right president of Argentina, Javier Milei, will be there to talk about “fighting socialism and corruption.” (CPAC has already featured Hungary’s Viktor Orban at earlier conferences.) Authoritarians are the big gets for these meetings nowadays and, needless to say, the superstar wannabe “dictator for a day” Donald Trump will be the keynote speaker as he has been for the past eight years. This is the conference that launched his political career back in 2012 and in recent years it might as well have changed its name to TPAC.
Interestingly, this year’s meeting is apparently pretty sparsely attended or at least it was in the first couple of days. Numerous shots of empty seats have been circulating on social media. If they weren’t such hypocrites, one might imagine that conservatives might be put off by the raging scandal around the organization’s leader, Matt Schlapp, who is under investigation for the sexual assault of a young male staffer and has been accused of several others of drunkenly groping them at various conservative functions. The Daily Beast reports that subpoenas were recently issued to various CPAC officials seeking information about document shredding in relation to the lawsuit amid other claims of financial mismanagement.
CPAC is a mess and you have to wonder whether it’s on its last legs. The truth is that as much as Trump loves CPAC, the MAGA faithful prefer the newer, more exciting conferences put on frequently by Turning Point USA, run by activist Charlie Kirk. He’s more edgy and fun. Why just this week on his podcast he and his guests fantasized about beheading people on national TV.
Charlie Kirk fantasizes about children watching televised executions, saying “At a certain age, it's an initiation” and “I would totally tune in to see some pedo get their head chopped off” pic.twitter.com/Wl7nNQBVPY
One of the guests on that podcast was Jack Posobiac, a notorious right wing activist who spoke at the beginning of the CPAC conference and made quite a stir when he said, “welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here” showing his fist. Former White House adviser, grifter and podcaster Steve Bannon said “amen!”
That’s what MAGA really wants to hear these days. Even the crude insults toward Michelle Obama and speeches by dictators are too soft for this crowd. Why, even Donald Trump is a bit of a RINO these days. CPAC for all its petty spitefulness just doesn’t give them the same thrill anymore. They don’t want frat house humor and obscure Latin American leaders. They want blood.
During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.
Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
There are any number of ways Parker’s cockamamie ruling will collapse in on itself. But then again, we are passing through an unstable region of space-time. The laws of Newtonian space may not apply.
Possible consequences of upholding the Alabama ruling are already the butt of jokes online.
If frozen embryos are children with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, how does that affect the census, for example?
If frozen embryos are humans do they count for congressional apportionment?
“Bubba and Bobbie Jean” likely store dozens of their embryos in blue Nashville or Atlanta or Harris Co., Texas (Houston), a friend observed, not in their red, rural county. Whoops?
And what of the tax and government benefits impacts, Jess Piper asks?
Wait, can folks who don’t plan to have children, freeze embryos, and then claim them as dependents for life?
Caution is warranted, however, as these jests reinforce the Christian right’s zygotes-are-people arguments. Don’t assume “Seven Mountains” types will back down after mockery over their Tali-bans. (Alabamians chose Tommy Tuberville as their senator, after all.) Their first reflex is to double down. Remember: unstable region of space-time.
Bill Busa (DocDawg at DKos and a biotech entrepreneur) responds to the Alabama ruling from the viewpoint of science and established law: “An IVF embryo is a microscopic clump of 100 cells, with neither any brain nor cardiopulmonary functions. If it’s a child, it is by law a dead child.”
Don’t confuse them with the facts. Makes their heads hurt.
The 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act defines death as the irreversible cessation of all brain or cardiopulmonary function.
An IVF embryo is a microscopic clump of 100 cells, with neither any brain nor cardiopulmonary functions. If it's a child, it is by law a dead child.
“Evil Geniuses” author Kurt Andersen reaches a conclusion. It should have been obvious to all the people who circulated a certain podcast from last week. Until the end of his long monologue, Lawrence O’Donnell Thursday night avoided mentioning it in refuting its premise. Why give more exposure to a notion he finds ridiculous?
OK, @lawrence_odonnell convinced me to stop even entertaining the Biden-decides-not-to-run notion, even as a thought experiment. Powerful multi-faceted refutation.
Andersen’s post was the first thing I saw this morning.
Jon Stewart in his “The Daily Show” return last week addressed the age of both expected 2024 presidential candidates and public discontent over it. Stewart played a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris assuring people that in his closed-door meetings, President Biden is “smart … on his game … and on top of it all.”
Stewart snarked, “Did anyone film that?”
“We only film the parts that don’t matter,” O’Donnell answered, referring to the facile, horse-race reporting that values political theater over actual governing. News cameras aren’t allowed behind closed doors when the real work of governing takes place. O’Donnell draws on his time spent time in those rooms.
“The thing to know about cameras and government is if the camera is rolling nothing really important is happening,” O’Donnell said. “What you’re watching is the theater. The governing will not be televised.”
The political press fails at informing the public of the consequential work of governance, he argues. It doesn’t make for good TV. And they’re not allowed in the room.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told backers of his unsuccessful presidential bid Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should not play “identity politics” when picking a 2024 running mate.
“Now we have a diverse Republican Party. I want everybody in the fold, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want people representing 10, 15% of the party being in the driver’s seat,” DeSantis said on a call with supporters, including those who had committed to serving as delegates for him at this year’s Republican National Convention, according to audio obtained by NBC News.
“So I would want somebody that, if something happened, the people that voted us in would have been pleased to know that they’re going to continue the mission,” DeSantis added. “I’m not sure that those are going to necessarily be the criteria that Donald Trump uses. … I have heard that they’re looking more in identity politics. I think that’s a mistake. I think you should just focus on who the best person for the job would be, and then do that accordingly.”
More than 200 people joined the video call with DeSantis, according to one source who attended. The 34-minute chat, organized by DeSantis political allies, was notable for how candid — and, at times, critical — the governor was in sharing concerns about Trump, whom he endorsed for the GOP nomination immediately upon suspending his own campaign last month.
He says that he doesn’t like identity politics but he doesn’t want “people representing 10, 15% of the party being in the driver’s seat” which means he only wants white people and by that he means white men. (Women only count for 3/5ths?)
I can’t believe anyone would says something like that in public in 2023 but apparently he’s so completely racist and sexist that he doesn’t believe that a black, brown or female person is capable of representing white men.
All pretense is being dropped now. They’re just coming right out and saying this stuff.
Fox contributor says Trump’s $400 bootleg off-whites are “connecting with Black America” because Black people “love sneakers… certainly in the inner city” pic.twitter.com/3xu0WwBp0h
There are so many great young Democrats right now and Crockett is one of the very best. I wish she was from somewhere other than Texas where she might have a chance at higher office. But she’s a true asset in the House and we should all be grateful to have her.
Two weeks ago, Brazil’s federal police launched a high-profile raid against former President Jair Bolsonaro and more than 10 of his allies, including Brazil’s former navy chief, national security advisor, and ministers of defense and justice. Authorities accused the group of plotting a potential coup after Bolsonaro’s failed 2022 reelection bid.
Court documents related to the raid suggest that Bolsonaro personally edited a decree that would have overturned election results and imprisoned a Supreme Court justice; a general loyal to the president confirmed he would provide the troops needed to carry out the coup. Bolsonaro also allegedly pressured his cabinet to more forcefully share disinformation about supposed weaknesses in Brazil’s electoral system. The former president was asked to hand over his passport to authorities and may face decades in jail.
The recent revelations suggest that Brazilian coup-mongers’ plans were more advanced than initially believed. In the end, however, they did not get their way—in part due to divisions within Brazil’s armed forces that were the target of concerted pro-democracy efforts by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Biden’s stated commitment to defending democracy worldwide is often brushed off as mere rhetoric. After all, during his tenure, the United States has made uneasy compromises with autocrats to achieve its geopolitical objectives. Amid continued U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, Washington has also been branded a hypocrite in much of the global south.
This tide of criticism may explain why one of Biden’s most significant foreign-policy achievements to date remains curiously overlooked. Not only was Brazil’s democracy closer to the brink than initially understood, but targeted U.S. pressure on key Brazilian officials was likely decisive in guaranteeing the eventual outcome: a largely peaceful transition of power in the country after its October 2022 presidential election.
The account presented in this article comes from interviews with Brazilian policymakers and issue-area experts as well as Brazilian and international media reports. In conversations with Foreign Policy, several individuals, including a high-ranking Brazilian diplomat and a military expert, confirmed that, in their views, external pressure was critical to preventing members of Brazil’s military from executing Bolsonaro’s plans for a coup.
Evidently, the pressure came not just from the president but the entire US Government, most importantly the Pentagon which was very influential with the Brazilian Generals who were necessary for the coup to succeed.
It’s very sad to me that the administration isn’t getting more credit for things like this and the Afghanistan withdrawal. The Gaza situation is a nightmare and I too, of course, wish that the US would be able to exert more power to put an end to it. But it doesn’t wipe out everything else that’s happened. And the alternative is so much worse… alas, that’s where we are.
