Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Driving America into the ditch

Donors were peeved over the bad publicity. In a House hearing on campus antisemitism last week, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) demanded university presidents from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT answer for antisemitic campus protests over the war in Gaza. Asked whether calling for genocide against Jews would violate codes of conduct, amount to bullying and harassment, and prompt expulsions, the administrators hedged. A video extract went viral.

Michelle Goldberg responded, “If I’d seen only that excerpt from the hearing … I might have felt the same way.” The administrators “acquitted themselves poorly.”

“But while it might seem hard to believe that there’s any context that could make the responses of the college presidents OK, watching the whole hearing at least makes them more understandable,” Goldberg added. “In the questioning before the now-infamous exchange, you can see the trap Stefanik laid.”

But the trap was sprung. Over the weekend and under pressure from university donors, University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill and board chair Scott L. Bok resigned.

No longer a university spokesman, Bok penned a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed in response. Inquirer columnist Will Bunch directed readers to one passage in particular.

“It’s the academic equivalent of Ike warning us about the military-industrial complex — and here it’s the undue influence of billionaire donors. Here’s the money shot .” (I’m using Bunch’s highlights):

On all these issues, universities need to be very careful of the influence of money, especially one like Penn, which has a business school with a brand larger than that of the university itself. And I say that as both a Wharton graduate and someone who understands that contributions play a critical role in everything from lifesaving medical research to scholarships for kids like I once was.

But donors should not be able to decide campus policies or determine what is taught, and for sure there should not be a hidden quota system that ensures privileged children a coveted place at elite schools.

For nearly all of the 19 years I served on Penn’s board, I felt like there was a very broad, largely unspoken consensus on the roles of the various university constituencies: the board, donors, alumni, faculty, and administration.

Once I concluded that this longtime consensus had evaporated, I determined that I should step off the board and leave it to others to find a new path forward.

“The culture wars can be brutal,” Bok added, recounting the “violent threats,” street confrontations, “robot-generated emails,” and more unpleasantness that came his way.

But let’s consider Bok’s remarks in the context of the 2024 elections. The Republican presidential frontrunner — himself an alleged billionaire — faces multiple felony trials, including for attempting the overthrow of the government. Donald Trump yearns to be a dictator, to “prosecute enemies and release insurrectionists, and sic troops on protesters,” Bunch writes, while claiming it’s Joe Biden who is the dictator.

“There hasn’t been this much projection since the golden age of drive-in movies,” Bunch insists.

Trump’s MAGA base yearns for a strongman and for retribution for wrongs real and imagined. Trump backers in billionaire-financed think tanks drool over the prospect of turning the entire federal bureaucracy into a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, if not of the billionaire class itself, led by a “Red Caesar.” The business class longs to finish shredding the social safety net and return the working class to neo-serfdom. The lot of them have already abandoned democracy in word and deed.

Bok has only gotten a foretaste of what’s in store when Movement Authoritarians drive the country into a ditch. Elon Musk’s Cybertruck illustrates.

And Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Trump accuses DeSantis of trying to steal Iowa

Ed Kilgore has the story:

Donald Trump famously likes to allege voter fraud against Democrats; it was the centerpiece of his “stolen election” claims in 2020 and in turn became the centerpiece of his campaign of retribution in 2024. But it’s been a while since he’s accused fellow Republicans of “rigging” elections … nearly eight years, to be exact, since he accused 2016 Iowa Caucus winner Ted Cruz of stealing that contest via false rumors his campaign allegedly spread about Ben Carson dropping out (it was a complicated conspiracy theory, to be sure).

Though the odds of Trump losing Iowa this year are very low, his campaign issued a statement on Friday accusing Ron DeSantis, his most formidable opponent in the state (per the polling averages), of trying to steal this one:

Safe and secure elections are the bedrock of our democracy, and either the DeSantises are purposefully spreading false information or they are too uninformed about the Iowa Caucus to properly educate caucus-goers on how to participate in the process. These people have no idea what they’re doing and are simply engaging in play-pretend politics. …

The DeSantises specifically said they were calling on their campaign coalition groups of out-of-state, non-Iowa residents to illegally “descend on the caucus” and try to cast a vote.

The Trump campaign strongly condemns their dirty and illegal tactics and implores all Trump supporters to be aware of the DeSantises’ openly stated plot to rig the Caucus through fraud.

The backstory of this charge is pretty clear; it stems from a joint appearance DeSantis and his wife, Casey, made on Fox News on December 8, as the Washington Post reported:

Casey DeSantis, who often joins her husband on the campaign trail, has been promoting a “Mamas for DeSantis” 2024 coalition. She said on Fox News that “we’re asking all of these moms and grandmoms to come, from wherever it might be — North Carolina, South Carolina — and to descend upon the state of Iowa to be a part of the caucus.”

With Ron DeSantis sitting silently beside her, Casey DeSantis added, “Because you do not have to be a resident of Iowa to be able to participate in the caucus.” She said that people should come “let their voice be heard in support of Ron DeSantis,” the Republican governor of Florida.

This remark turned a lot of heads, and not just at Mar-a-Lago. Was it possible Casey DeSantis had spent months traipsing across Iowa without understanding there’s a strict residency requirement (not just Iowa or county residence, but precinct residence) for caucusing?

The Iowa Republican Party quickly put out a tweet clarifying the rules:

And then a rapidly backpedaling DeSantis campaign issued its own clarification via the candidate himself in informal remarks to the press.

“While voting in the Iowa caucus is limited to registered voters in Iowa, there is a way for others to participate,” he said. “They even let people go and speak on behalf of candidates, and they have all these precincts, so you may have people who really can speak strongly about our leadership that are going to come.”

So the official line from Team DeSantis is that Casey was simply and innocently encouraging “moms and grandmoms” from everywhere to buy plane tickets to Des Moines in order to whoop it up for Ron on Caucus Night. T

It may seem ridiculous for Trump to accuse the DeSantis campaign of trying to rig an election in which he’s polling at 30 points ahead but remember, he convened a commission to study alleged voter fraud in the 2016 campaign that he won! He also insisted that Ted Cruz had stolen the Iowa caucus during that campaign as well. He says it prophylactically, just in case, as he did in both of his presidential campaigns and is doing again this time. He also does it after the fact when he loses even if it’s just in the popular vote which doesn’t even count. He just does it, no matter what.

Now ask yourself why his ecstatic cult doesn’t see it? Why would any adult not think there’s something off about the fact that the man is incapable of ever admitting that he lost ? Doesn’t it occur to them that there is something very, very weird about all that?

Yeah, never mind. You’re right. They don’t care.

I don’t know if Lindsey Graham has ever been more inappropriate or more fatuous than he’s being now. Ukrainian president Zelensky went up to Capitol Hill where he was treated very disrespectfully by the House and lectured by Graham in the Senate:

“The key is to get the commander in chief involved in the negotiations. Sen. Murphy — I have no confidence he’s ever going to get a deal we can live with, because he’s worried about selling it to the left,” Graham said. “The commander in chief — if there’s a deal to be made — is going to have to get involved in the negotiations. It’s his job above all others.”

The South Carolina Republican, who has been part of border discussions in recent weeks, also complained that Murphy has been “very unhelpful” and that his “attitude about what’s going on is off base.” 

“We’re not holding the border hostage. We’re trying to protect the American people,” Graham said. 

Murphy declined to comment directly on Graham’s remarks, saying only that, “You’ll have to ask Sen. Graham about that.” 

Murphy and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) have kept up discussions toward a possible deal, but one does not appear imminent. Lankford told reporters Monday that he did not foresee an agreement being reached before the end of the week, and that because the House is scheduled to adjourn then for the Christmas break, the talks will be kicked into January. 

Discussions in recent days have centered between Lankford, Murphy, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and, most recently, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients. 

“We continue to make progress. We’ve made serious proposals that put us outside of our Democratic comfort zone. We need Republicans to stretch, and if they do, we can get there,” the Connecticut Democrat said. “There’s been significant back-and-forth.” 

Graham just wants to make Biden personally capitulate to a draconian border compromise so he can split the Democratic party which is already split on aid to Israel and Ukraine. He’s not even being subtle about it. It’s a very sticky wicket and I can’t predict how it’s going to come out.

But that’s politics. The rudeness of cornering Zelensky with this monumental drivel is outrageous:

Graham’s comments also came after he explained that he asked the final question to Zelensky during his meeting with senators Tuesday morning. As part of that question, Graham told the Ukrainian president that he feared he was being “used” by Democrats. 

“I like him and I admire him,’ Graham told reporters. “I said, ‘You’ve done everything anybody can ask of you. This is not your problem here. You didn’t make this problem. It will affect you and affect the whole world, but policy choices matter.’ 

“They made policy choices for three years to lead to a nightmare on the border. They need to change their policy choices,” he continued.

Graham added that his stance was only bolstered by recent comments made by FBI Director Christopher Wray that he sees “blinking red lights everywhere I turn” that could portend a possible major terror attack in the U.S. 

“I told President Zelensky my No. 1 obligation is to secure my country as well as help yours, and I feel like my country’s border policies are an immediate threat to the safety of the American people,” he said. 

Yeah. Comparing the perennial American problem of immigration with the invasion of Ukraine is insulting to everyone concerned. When Mexico starts lobbing missiles into Washington DC maybe it might make sense.

It’s just stupid MAGA BS and Graham knows better. But to spout this silly propaganda at the Ukrainian president is just embarrassing.

The ramifications of this are huge. Former Estonian President Toomas Ilves was on deadline White House earlier today and he said in response to Ali Velshi’s question about Russian expansion due to this resurgent threat to NATO which had receded when we mercifully voted out Orange Julius Caesar:

I would say that until recently people in this part of the world were not so concerned because we had complete and utter with in NATO and the United States. now recent developments and some of the rhetoric coming out in the presidential debates that we were watching closely and some of the statements of various senators, makes us rethink this. You know, just today or yesterday, here on the border with Russia, across from Estonia, the government of Russia put up a big billboard with a bear saying “Russia Knows No Borders.” That’s a pretty clear message there.

Yes, it’s a pretty clear message.

Now if the US thinks it makes sense in a global economy and an existential threat of climate change to abruptly withdraw from the world and stop being a guarantor of military help for our allies, I am skeptical that anyone has thought that through and understands what that would mean for America’s own security. But I would certainly hope that if they do this that our military spending will be slashed to bone as well. If all we need is a defensive force to ensure that our own homeland is secure then there is no need at all for all that.

On the other hand, our new possible Emperor, Donald Trump, has promised to build us an impenetrable dome above the whole country and I’d guess that will cost some money. But Trump will just handle that like he always does. He just won’t pay.

I shouldn’t joke about this. You don’t have to go back very far in history to see that the combination of a divided left and a fanatical right generally leads to no good. This situation is no good.

The NY Supreme Court allows the Democratic majority to draw the congressional maps

Whew!

New York’s highest court ordered the state to redraw its congressional map on Tuesday, delivering a ruling that immediately threw New York’s political landscape into chaos and reopened a process with sweeping national implications.

State Democrats are now widely expected to try to shift anywhere from two to six Republican-held seats, from Long Island to Syracuse, toward their party — a major pre-election intervention in the 2024 fight for the House that could alter a key battleground.

Powered by a new liberal majority, the State Court of Appeals effectively wiped out the highly competitive map that helped Republicans flip four seats and win the House majority. It said the neutral lines, which it had imposed just last year, were meant only to be a temporary fix.

By a four-to-three vote, the court directed the state to restart a mapmaking process that would ultimately return control over the state’s 26 congressional districts to the Democratic-controlled State Legislature. The court had stripped away that power in 2022 after an attempted gerrymander.

I’ve always been against gerrymandering and thought the districts should be neutrally drawn. But come on. In light of the Supreme Court’s recent rulings and Republican scorched earth tactics there really is no choice. We can see the stakes right now: if NY had not done what it did last cycle, we would not have Mike Johnson as speaker, Ukraine would not be on the verge of abandonment and the border would not be the hot potato it is now.

Oh, and we would not be facing yet another government shutdown and a Biden impeachment!

Democrats cannot afford to unilaterally disarm when it comes to this sort of thing. Thank goodness the NY Supreme Court ruled the right way.

Huzzah!

Maybe that’s a little bit dark. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and read the papers and turn on the news and it takes a while for my sunny disposition to reassert itself. (Ok, maybe I’m not that naturally sunny…) But I have to say after being on this earth for a long time now and writing about politics every single day for over 20 years, I do think I’ve developed a pretty good sense of when the political culture is going off the rails and when it’s business as usual. This may be the worst period I’ve experienced.

I have some recollection of the 60s but I was a little kid and mostly absorbed it through my older brothers, one of whom went into the navy and the other who was a draft resistor and activist — along with my father the military man. It was fraught, to say the least. The 70s were my coming of age period and they were not pretty. Economically it was just awful. But I was young and having fun and somehow I just thought that scrambling for coins in the couch cushions was the way it was. The 80s were what I think of as my coke, MTV and Reagan years. I spent much of them travelling and then trying to build a career. The 90s were spent working hard, without all that much to show for it. The politics of both of those decades were intensely frustrating. The rest is documented right here on Hullabaloo.

I started to see modern American fascism rising in the late 80s when a man named Newt Gingrich started to dominate the Republicans, hate radio dominated the airwaves and Roger Ailes’ experiment in extremist propaganda really took off. You didn’t have to be a soothsayer to see what was coming. And here we are.

It’s a very serious, acute situation. The Republicans are literally allying themselves with the nationalist autocrat Vladimir Putin as we speak. The narcissistic demagogue Donald Trump is beloved by tens of millions of Americans. And we have the fight of our lives on our hands to defeat them.

And I, for one, believe that it’s still likely. Maybe I’m smoking the hopium pipe but I really don’t think Trump will pull it out. The country is in a sour mood and people are lashing out at those in power. But reality bites eventually and I suspect that it’s going to start doing that in the new year as people realize the economy is improving and the threat coming from the right is actually getting worse.

And yes, I realize we are confronting serious problems with the Israel war, which is ghastly, as well as Ukraine. And homelessness and immigration remain top of mind although those are long-standing intractable issues that are always on a simmer coming to a boil. But in spite of that, I still have faith that more Americans will keep their heads and refuse to elect that ignoramus for another term.

Here at Hullabaloo we’ll be covering this election 24/7 with an eye toward the media coverage and how it’s affecting us. We try to synthesize the news in ways that you might find useful and we also do longer form analysis throughout the week. I hope that’s helpful for busy people. I know what it’s like trying to keep up when you have a tough job and family responsibilities and I always try to keep that in mind when I choose what to write about.

If you can help me keep the lights on here over this next tumultuous year, I would be so grateful. It’s a privilege to write about politics every day in a time when it’s so important and I couldn’t do it without your support. And thanks again to those of you who have done so in the past. It has meant the world to me.

cheers,

digby

And Happy Hollandaise everyone. We’ll get through this!

*keep scrolling for new stuff. 🙂

He doesn’t have the requisite gaudy glamour but he’s got something else.

Just look at the arrogance of this conspiracy addled freak show saying that someone else isn’t living in reality:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday dug into Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) recent remarks against sending further aid to Ukraine, calling the Ohio Republican’s comments “total and unmitigated bull‑‑‑‑.”

Vance, in an interview with former White House aid Steve Bannon earlier Monday, claimed some lawmakers are looking to cut Social Security benefits for more aid to Ukraine that he argued will be used so one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ministers “can buy a bigger yacht.”

When asked about Vance’s remarks later on Monday, Tillis told reporters, “I think it’s bull‑‑‑‑.”

“If you’re talking about giving money to Ukrainian ministers — total and unmitigated bull‑‑‑‑,” Tillis continued. “Not productive conversation … not real happy about it.”

On Sunday, Vance reaffirmed his opposition to sending additional aid to Ukraine and said he does not believe Ukraine will ever be able to prevail over Russia. He argued the U.S. needs to accept Ukraine will likely need to “cede some territory” to stop its fighting with Russia and questioned how billions in additional aid to Ukraine will help the war-torn country.

Presented with Tillis’s criticism later Monday, Vance said he believes Ukraine is “one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.”

“We know that a number of people have gotten rich in Ukraine, and … I think it’s naivety if you don’t think they’ve gotten rich with some of our money,” Vance told reporters.

Maintaining that Tillis is “one of his favorite colleagues,” Vance said the North Carolina Republican is “not living in reality.”

“Well, it’s never good to have Thom Tillis peeved at us,” Vance told reporters Monday, adding later, “But with all due respect to Thom, he’s not living in reality. There is no plausible pathway to the end of the war where Ukraine goes back to 1991 or 2014. It just isn’t … that’s not a desirable thing; it’s not a good thing.”

“It’s the reality that we’re living in, and if you can’t accept it, you’re never going to actually force negotiation that’s going to bring this thing to a close.”

This is a very dangerous man. There’s something very off about him. Keep your eye on this guy. The chutzpah is off the charts.

And these are just for starters

Judd Legum came up with a good Top 10 Trump dictatorial promises. I might have put invading Mexico and destroying NATO in the top 10 but that’s just me.

Anyway, the first is his explicit promise to be a dictator on Day One. The following are the other nine:

Trump says election fraud in 2020 gives him the power to “terminate” the Constitution

On December 3, 2022, Trump posted the following message about the 2020 presidential election on his social media platform, Truth Social:

A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great “Founders” did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!

Following a backlash from some Republican elected officials, Trump later claimed reports that he was open to terminating the Constitution were “fake news.”

Trump says he will issue “full pardons” to January 6 insurrectionists

Trump has promised to issue pardons to those involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. In September 2022, in an interview with Wendy Bell, Trump said, “I will look very, very favorably about full pardons… with an apology to many.”

In May 2023, during a town hall with CNN, Trump again said that he would likely pardon “a large portion of” insurrectionists, stating that “it’ll be very early on.” Trump said, “They’re living in hell… and they’re great people. Many of them are just great people.” Trump added that while he was “inclined to pardon many of them,” he couldn’t “say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.” 

Among those convicted for their actions on January 6 are Thomas Webster, who was sentenced in September 2022 to “10 years in prison for assaulting police” during the Capitol attack, and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, who was sentenced in September to 22 years in prison for “seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol.” 

Trump says he will cut funding to schools that cover subjects he believes are “inappropriate”

Trump has vowed to cut funding for schools that teach about aspects of race and gender. In a campaign video released in January, Trump promised to “cut federal funding for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children,” stating that “[w]e are not going to allow it to happen.” 

Critical Race Theory is a complex legal theory that is not taught in K-12 schools. Despite this, the right has dubbed many books that simply discuss racism as Critical Race Theory. Because of this, if Trump is reelected, any school that does not implement an ideological purge of its curricular materials could be at risk of losing federal funding.

Trump says he will legally erase trans people and ban them from military service

In a video posted to his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said he would “ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth” if reelected in 2024. At the Turning Point Action conference in July, Trump additionally promised to “restore the Trump ban on transgender in the military.” 

“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender,” Trump said in the video. Trump falsely claimed that it is a concept “never heard of in all of human history” before “the radical left invented it just a few years ago.” According to the Human Rights Campaign, however, “transgender and non-binary communities” have existed for centuries.

Trump says he will end birthright citizenship by executive order

Trump has pledged, on his first day back in office, to “sign an Executive Order to stop federal agencies from granting automatic U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.” The Executive Order would “make clear that going forward, the children of illegal aliens will not be granted automatic citizenship, and should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer funded welfare benefits.” Moving forward, “at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become automatic U.S. citizens.” 

Such an order would defy 125 years of legal precedent and the text of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The 14th Amendment was adopted in response to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, which denied citizenship to people of African descent born in the United States. 

Trump says he will impose a new 10% tax on all imported goods

In an appearance on Fox Business on August 17, 2023, Trump pledged to impose a new 10% tariff on all imported goods. “When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay, automatically, let’s say, a 10 percent tax,” Trump said. “I do like the 10 percent for everybody.”

This tariff would be passed on to consumers, who would be pushed “into buying higher-cost, lower-quality goods, because that’s what protectionism does, making America as a whole poorer.” It could also spark a wave of retaliatory tariffs, harming U.S. businesses and the global economy.

Trump says he will investigate NBC and MSNBC for treason and potentially remove the company from public airwaves

Trump has proposed investigating media publications for treason. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that “Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC… should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.” Trump promised that when he “WIN[S] the Presidency of the United States” the media “will be thoroughly scrutinized.”

Trump also questioned whether media companies should be potentially removed from the airwaves. “Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE?” Trump called NBC a “true threat to Democracy” and “THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,” stating that the “Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great country.” 

Trump says he will demand anyone convicted of selling drugs get the death penalty

In May, during a CNN town hall in New Hampshire, Trump said, “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” adding that “it’s the only way.” According to Drug Policy Facts, there were 110,771 arrests in the United States “for sale or manufacture of a drug” in 2022.

According to NPR, expanding the death penalty as Trump suggests for drug offenses “would be a violation of the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),” which states that the death penalty should only be used for “the most serious crimes.”

Trump says he will order the arrest of all urban homeless and relocate them to federally-run tent cities

In August, Trump posted a video to his website announcing his plan to combat homelessness by “BAN[NING] urban camping wherever possible.” Trump promised that the “[v]iolators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they are willing to be rehabilitated,” adding that “[m]any of them don’t want that, but we will give them the option.” 

Trump says he will “open up large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified.”

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “[t]here were nearly 600,000 Americans experiencing homelessness last year.” Ann Oliva, the CEO of the organization, told Newsweek that Trump’s plan was “alarming and dangerous in numerous ways,” stating that “[t]he way to end homelessness is not to arrest people and move them out of sight into internment camps.” 

By the way, he has also said that if the homeless refuse to be moved to these alledgly utopian prison camps probably in the desert he will have them arrested. I suspect he’ll put his old pal Sheriff Joe Arpaio or one of his heirs to do that job, as he used to do in Maricopa county where he housed inmates in desert tents with 100 degree heat. He liked to make them wear pink underwear too for some reason.

I realize that some of this reflects legitimate concerns and fear that way too many people will see his “solutions” as attractive in their simplicity. (Also there’s a clear desire to punish somebody for something among too many of our fellow Americans right now, and there are a number of vulnerable populations in the cross hairs.)

If you believe that we are still a nation of laws and constitutional rights then this stuff is as daft as Trump’s plan to build an impenetrable nuclear dome over the whole country. With out those safeguards, he can probably build as many camps as he wants and put all us vermin in them whenever he wants to. Who’s going to stop him?

America’s fascist, collaborationist past

Russian meddling in the 2016 election will be a factor in Donald Trump’s trial on his (alleged) attempt to overturn the 2020 election. See, he had good reason to think 2020 might have been rigged (AP):

To hear his lawyers tell it, Donald Trump was alarmed by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, motivated as president to focus on cybersecurity and had a good-faith basis four years later to worry that foreign actors had again meddled in the race.

But to federal prosecutors, 2016 is significant as the year that Trump spread misinformation about voter fraud and proved himself resistant to accepting the outcome of elections that might not go his way.

But for now forget about the former Liar-in-Chief’s motivations and focus on Russia’s (in a moment).

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man.

Rachel Maddow’s “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism” expands on her podcast‘s tale of U.S. government officials’ collusion with the Nazis and the largest sedition trial in U.S. history. “Prequel” gives readers more background on the Americans who exposed the plot. The Nazis’ well, well funded propaganda effort to keep the U.S. sidelined while Hitler marched across Europe began six years before der Führer invaded Poland. Hitler was playing a long game. To win it, he knew he had to keep Americans out of the fight. He stoked American fascism, antisemitism, isolationism, and America Firstism. His agents worked to prevent FDR’s reelection in 1936 and 1940. His operatives distributed millions of pages of Nazi propaganda as purported Senate and House speeches — cost-effectively mailed, in fact, on the taxpayers’ dime under congressional frank.

The 1930s echoes in current events and contemporary public officials are there, even if Maddow purposefully recounts the history so they cannot be unheard.

Today, American support for Ukraine stands in the way of Russian president-for-life Vladimir Putin’s dreams of restoring the Russian empire to its Soviet-era vastness. He too needs the U.S. to butt out. He too is leveraging America Firstism and the same cultural divisions and prejudices Hitler used to weaken America’s resolve and undermine its democratic institutions. Putin too is playing a long game that began years before he annexed Crimea and helped elect Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton would have kicked his ass. Donald Trump kissed it.

Heather Cox Richardson tells readers where the effort to resupply Ukraine stands:

As is sometimes the case in American politics, a bill that many people are likely not paying a great deal of attention to is likely to have enormous impact on the nation’s future. 

That $110.5 billion national security supplemental package was designed to provide additional funding for Ukraine in its war to fight off Russia’s invasion; security assistance to Israel, primarily for missile defense systems; humanitarian assistance to citizens in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine, and elsewhere; funding to replenish U.S. weapon stockpiles; assistance to regional partners in the Indo-Pacific; investments in efforts to stop illegal fentanyl from coming into the U.S. and to dismantle international drug cartels; and investment in U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enhance border security and speed up migrant processing. 

President Joe Biden asked for the supplemental funding in late October. Such a package is broadly popular among lawmakers of both parties who like that Ukraine is holding back Russian expansion that would threaten countries that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). If Russia attacks a NATO country, all NATO members, including the U.S., are required to respond. 

Since supplying Ukraine with weapons to maintain its fight essentially means sending Ukraine outdated weapons while paying U.S. workers to build new ones, creating jobs largely in Republican-dominated states, and since Ukraine is weakening Russia for about 5% of the U.S. defense budget, it would seem to be a program both parties would want to maintain. Today, even Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “If Ukraine loses, the cost to America will be far greater than the aid we have given Ukraine. The least costly way to move forward is to provide Ukraine with the weapons needed to win and end the war.”

But now that former president Trump has made immigration a leading part of his campaign and a Trump loyalist, Mike Johnson (R-LA), is House speaker, Republican extremists are demanding their own immigration policies be added to the package.

When George W. Bush was president, the GOP mantra was “fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.” But that was 2007. Biden’s policy is to help Ukraine fight “them” so NATO doesn’t have to. At a far higher cost in lives and treasure, it goes without saying.

As Americans witnessed in the 1930s, xenophobia, racism, Christian white nationalism are still weapons in the autocrat’s propaganda arsenal. Social media enhances their yield while holding down the cost.

… House Republicans are so determined to force the country to accept their extreme anti-immigration policies, they are willing to kill the aid to Ukraine that even their own lawmakers want, leaving that country undersupplied as it goes into the winter. 

When he brought the supplemental bill up last week, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promised the Republicans that he would let them make whatever immigration amendments they wanted to the bill to be voted on, if only they would let the bill get to the floor. But all Senate Republicans refused, essentially threatening to use the filibuster to keep the measure from the floor until it includes the House Republicans’ demands.

This unwillingness to fund a crucial partner in its fight against Russia has resurrected concerns that the Trump-supporting MAGA Republicans are working not for the United States but for Russian president Vladimir Putin, who badly needs the U.S. to abandon Ukraine in order to help him win his war. 

That’s how it worked with Hitler and his U.S. collaborators 90 years ago. But U.S. fascists were exposed and discredited. Hitler took his own life. Europe and the world should be so lucky again. One hopes without a world war first.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Free speech for me, but not for thee

It’s that time of year again. A nip is in the air (regionally). Christmas trees whiz by strapped to the roofs of sedan. Clauses are everywhere this time of year. Thus, Baby Jesus is battling Lucifer over the Establishment Clause. One of the battle fronts this year is in Iowa “where the Satanists have antagonized the Christians with a goat’s head wreath in the Des Moines capitol building.”

See, because the Supreme Court ruled that Christians could erect Christmas displays on state property if other faiths get to erect theirs … you know where this is going. Satanists each year make a pointed point about the foolishness of it all by erecting displays honoring Lucifer.

Amanda Marcotte weighs in on this less-clebrated holiday tradition:

Every year, Christian conservatives discover the Satanic display and have a loud, public temper tantrum about it. In this, Satanists prove their point: Conservatives claim to respect religious plurality, but it’s a lie. The overt religious iconography on government property was always about promoting the Christian nationalist view that theirs is the only “real” American religion. 

Of course. Christian nationalists get a secret thrill every time a defeated Ramses (Yul Brynner) utters, “His god – IS God.” And they want everyone to know it around the pagan winter solstice. Like skin color and religion, it’s always about dominance.

So state Rep. Brad Sherman will be damned (poor choice of words?) if he’ll let this affront to the Savior go unchallenged. Citing the preamble to the Iowa Constitution, Sherman demands that Gov. Kim Reynolds order removal of the ram’s head display (Des Moines Register):

“According to these opening lines of our Constitution, the foundation for laws and continued blessing and success in Iowa is based on these points: 1. There is One Supreme God. 2. Blessings over this state come from the One Supreme God. 3. We must depend upon the One Supreme God if we want to enjoy continued blessings,” Sherman writes.

He says it is “a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings.”

God and your tax dollars, he means.

Iowa lawmaker calls for Gov. Kim Reynolds to remove satanic Capitol display https://t.co/fFdeOn3x55

— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) December 11, 2023

Marcotte opines on the annual freakout:

It’s hardened into a ritual because both sides get something out of it. The fundamentalists get a chance to freak out and use this as evidence for their lurid conspiracy theories claiming demonic forces are out to get them. The Satanists and their fans get a chance to remind everyone that Republicans are hypocrites who never really believed all that “free speech” talk. This year, the annual rite is playing out in Iowa, where the Satanists have antagonized the Christians with a goat’s head wreath in the Des Moines capitol building. 

Blunt force of censorship

The holiday tradition this year rings harmonic with arguments over free speech, protests for and against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, “alleged anti-semitism on campus,” and the trap Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y) laid last week for university presidents in a House hearing on campus antisemitism.

But while people get into often-incomprehensible arguments over the finer points of defining “genocide” and “free speech,” what is getting lost is the most important issue: Republicans are a bunch of lying hypocrites. It’s this message the Satanic Temple is trying to remind us all of with their holiday display. The MAGA right has been wailing for years about the alleged threats to free speech from hazily defined social pressures like “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” but when it comes to opinions they don’t like, they don’t hesitate to call for the blunt force of censorship.  

As many people pointed out, Republicans have defended genocidal and violent rhetoric for years now under the guise of “free speech.” Trump’s unsubtle calls for violence against his perceived enemies have led to an attempted murder of the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, R.-Calif., threats against government employees and even private citizens, and, of course, the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Dehumanizing rhetoric against Black Lives Matter protesters and “great replacement” theory have led to mass murder, shootings, and conservatives crashing cars into protests. But when liberals call for social media companies to curb the ugly rhetoric using their legal powers to self-regulate, a chorus of right wing whining about “cancel culture” erupts. We do not need to litigate how real the threat of campus anti-semitism is, in order to see how Republians use tensions over hate speech and the First Amendment to advance their “free speech for me, but not for thee” agenda 

‘Twas always thus.

“To give quarter to the enemies of God is pathetic and contemptible,” complained one woman. “God placed you in a position of authority for such a time as this,” griped a man. Others quoted Bible verses at him that appear to call for literal murder of unbelievers or insisted that a true Christian believes the Bible trumps the constitution. Same thing happened across social media. Wherever the story about the Satanic altar appeared, the comments are completely dominated by Republican voters wailing about how the government needs to censor this, that the purpose of government is to uphold Christianity, and that the Founding Fathers supposedly agreed with them. 

This satanic statue was erected in the Iowa state capitol this past week.

It’s increasingly clear we’ll either have Christian Nationalism or Satanic nationalism.

Which way western man? pic.twitter.com/JszOcsRHUS

— Smash Baals (@smashbaals) December 9, 2023

Watch how quickly the right pivots on Second Amendment absolutism when minority groups begin arming themselves for the civil war that right-wing militias are arming for to wage against democracy. See how quickly the right gets selective about whose religion the First Amendment protects when “lesser” faiths demonstrate that they don’t know their place.

Marcotte concludes with her broader point:

This kind of thing is why it’s so gross to see Republicans cynically exploit fears of anti-semitism to promote their culture war narratives about “campus leftism” and “political correctness.” The Satanic Temple’s trolling exposes the bare truth, which is the GOP is rapidly becoming a Christian nationalist party full of people who want to find a way to use government power to marginalize and silence non-Christians, or who are even those who are just critical of conservative Christianity.

If only they had a Red Sea handy to drop on the rest of us.

And Happy Hollandaise everyone!

What else is new?

Axios reports that there’s some dissonance in the House Freedom caucus. They’re voting for new leadership and there seems to be a bit of a problem:

An influential member of the House Freedom Caucus won’t run for a leadership spot, citing a recommendation by the group’s board that Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) serve as its next chairman.

“I am concerned that our group often relies too much on power (available primarily due to the narrow majority) and too little on influence with and among our colleagues,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) told his fellow members in a letter sent Sunday.

“I ask that we consider how to best increase our influence while preserving our power to move policy in the right direction. I strongly feel that Bob Good as Chairman will impair that objective.”

“I do not have an alternative nomination, but as my final fiduciary duty as a board member, I ask that you prayerfully consider electing someone else as Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.”

Davidson’s push against Good comes just ahead of the HFC’s scheduled election to tap a new leader of the group, with the Ohio Republican arguing that “we must not miss the opportunities to achieve what can be done.”

Oh, how reasonable. How, dare I say, moderate?

But come on, what’s the real reason?

Good endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over former President Trump, and has gotten pushback over his vote to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Ok, now I get it. It’s just more MAGA drama. Even the wingnuttiest of wingnuts can’t get on the same page. (And it’s entirely possible that the word has come down from on high that there shall be no leadership jobs for DeSanctimonious traitors.)