Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Maybe, maybe not.

I’m not happy about No Labels. for obvious reasons. First, they are nothing but a sabotage operation designed to stop the Democrats from winning the presidency in 2024. Joe Lieberman is one of their leaders. They aren’t trying to hide it. The question is whether or not it would turn out the way they think it will.

Since Manchin is (nominally) a Democrat I think most of us assume it would hurt Biden. But Michael Tomasky has a different idea:

Everybody is in a tizzy about Joe Manchin’s retirement announcement. And maybe they should be. The conventional wisdom for months, or even for a couple years, has been that a presidential candidacy by the West Virginia senator under the “centrist” No Labels banner would mean the end for Joe Biden, and that’s the take in most of the insta-analyses I’ve read over the last 24 hours.

It’s also what I’ve always thought, and it stands to reason. Not because Manchin is a Democrat. But because it has been assumed that he splits the anti-Trump vote. But lately, even before this announcement, I’ve begun to wonder: What if Manchin is more likely to split the anti-Biden vote? In a moment, I’ll get to that case.

But first, let’s address the ramifications of Manchin’s announcement for control of the Senate. This, not the presidential implications, was what the media focused on first—that his decision imperils Democratic control of the Senate.

That’s a kind of base-covering or box-checking journalism that I suppose mainstream outlets feel they have a need to do, but it’s silly. Manchin had zero chance of holding his seat against GOP Governor Jim Justice. Not 10 percent. Not 5 percent. Zero. Justice has been consistently ahead by double digits in recent polls. One outlier poll—conducted, interestingly, for a GOP super PAC—had it at 6; but the most recent public polls pegged Justice’s lead at 12, 13, 22, and 14 percent.

The Democratic Party is all but dead in West Virginia. I say this with sadness, as a native of the state who remembers a day when everyone, from every member of Congress on down to the agriculture commissioner (Gus Douglass!), was a Democrat. The place was never a liberal nirvana, but there were a number of progressives in office, notably Ken Hechler, one of those longtime members of Congress, who’d been a Truman speechwriter and was the only member of the House to march with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery.

Today? Three of the 34 state senators are Democrats. Three! They could hold their caucus meetings in a closet. And only 10 of the 98 state delegates are Dems (there are two vacancies). The three state senators are from the university towns of Morgantown and Huntington. Everywhere else, the party barely exists.

So that Manchin’s seat was lost was already a foregone conclusion, and anyone who argued otherwise was wasting time.

Now let’s get to a possible Manchin presidential candidacy. First of all, I don’t think it’s certain that he’ll run. I’d call it likely but not preordained. No Labels officials have said repeatedly that they don’t want to help reelect Trump. There is of course no reason to take those avowals at face value. But they can be leveraged by an effective Democratic opposition into pressure to force No Labels to stand down if polling shows consistently that it’d be doing exactly that. So I think there is still a chance that No Labels doesn’t field a candidate, or can’t get anyone of Manchin’s stature to agree to accept its nod, and ends up with a Howard Schultz–level figure.

Second, even if Manchin does run, it is no longer manifestly obvious that he hurts Biden more than he hurts Trump. Here’s the case, which rests on three points.

One: Manchin is basically against abortion rights. His ratings record from the pro-life groups is mixed, but that’s because he has a history of voting for larger Democratic bills that contain some language about abortion that those groups don’t like. And he did criticize the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. But on stand-alone abortion bills, he’s been consistently against choice.

The 2024 election is going to be as direct a nationwide referendum on women’s reproductive rights as we’ve ever had in this country. And as we’ve been seeing since last year and saw again Tuesday, masses of voters are heading to the polls to say they want the government to do something to preserve abortion rights. Manchin’s going to be asked about this constantly if he runs. He’ll bob and weave, but if the Democrats do a good job of letting people know about the anti-choice aspects of his record—for example, he was the only Senate Democrat to join 50 Republicans in opposing a 2022 bill that sought to codify Roe v. Wade—very few pro-choice Americans will vote for him. And that category includes not just Democrats but a majority of independents and even some Republicans.

Two: He’s just not that popular. And to the extent that he is popular, he is more popular among Republicans than Democrats.

In a recent PRRI poll, Manchin was viewed favorably by 12 percent, while 41 percent viewed him unfavorably. This man who gets so much positive Beltway press was viewed very favorably by 1 percent. This by the way was Americans, not West Virginians. And there’s a recent Morning Consult poll that ranked the popularity of every senator (these were statewide polls). It found Manchin to be one of the most unpopular senators in the country. Now that’s largely because he’s a Democrat in a Republican state. There are only seven senators who are underwater in the poll, and Manchin is one of them (the only senators deeper underwater are Susan Collins, Ron Johnson, and Mitch McConnell, who is down there in Mariana Trench territory).

But here’s the good news for Manchin, according to Morning Consult. Manchin’s 42–48 numbers are actually an improvement over the last time they polled this. And that improvement has been “driven largely by Republican voters.” That echoes the PRRI poll, which breaks down that 12 percent favorable rating by party. Manchin is lowest among Democrats (7 percent), with independents in the middle (13 percent), and Republicans viewing him most favorably (18 percent).

So a surge of disaffected Democrats is going to back this guy? I don’t buy it. In fact, if we agree that somewhere around 55 percent of Republicans are MAGA and 45 percent are not, which seems about fair based on polls, that tells me that there are, at least potentially, more—far more—disaffected Republicans who might pull for Manchin. If he runs, I suspect his polls will tell him this, and he’ll go hunting where the ducks are, as Barry Goldwater put it.

Three: his unapologetic pro–fossil fuel position. Again, it will be up to the Democrats to publicize this properly if he runs. But if they do, he will perform very poorly among voters who want the United States to move away from fossil fuels—and again, that is a category that includes independents and even some Republicans.

So it’s possible the conventional wisdom is way off here. The PRRI poll data seem to support my case. In the Biden-Trump head-to-head matchup, Biden leads 48–46. When they throw in Manchin and Cornel West, Manchin garners 10 percent and West 5, but Biden still leads Trump, 41–38. If Manchin were stealing all his votes from Biden, wouldn’t Trump have been ahead in the four-way?

Manchin is a Democrat in name. But his high-profile positions are essentially Republican ones. Or at least enough of them are that an effective Democratic spin operation can convince Democratic and a majority of independent voters that Manchin just isn’t a real option for them. It would be a delightful thing if we woke up next November 6 to see that Manchin and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cost Trump, not Biden, the White House. It would certainly be the outcome they all deserve.

I don’t pretend to know why so many Democrats hate Joe Biden but some of it’s obviously age (and now, there is real hostility among some over his support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks and inability or unwillingness to hold Netanyahu back from slaughtering innocent kids in Gaza.) But there is no one running for president who would do any better and they would all do worse so here we are.

Anyway, his logic makes some sense to me. But I really don’t think we should be taking chances with 3rd Party candidates. And if anyone votes for Trump, Manchin, Kennedy, West or Stein because of age they really should think twice. Every single one of them will be over 70 on inauguration day. Trump will be 78 and Manchin will be 78. Please.

Rep. Stefanik does some more dirty work for Dear Leader. It must be exhausting.

Trump’s lawyers in his NY Fraud trial said they planned to call for a mistrial based upon evidence they saw on Breitbart.com that the judge and his clerk are biased and have broken the campaign finance laws. I’m not kidding.

MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin filled us in on what happened:

Indeed, a Breitbart story published a day earlier aired new allegations about Engoron’s principal law clerk, who has been the subject of multiple attacks by Donald Trump and his legal team that led Engoron to impose a gag order on all of them. Specifically, Breitbart alleged, based on a review of New York State campaign finance data, that the law clerk has made contributions to individual candidates, local Democratic clubs, PACs and the New York County Democrats in amounts and at times that would appear to violate the rule Kise cited.

By Monday, the same day Donald Trump testified, Team Trump went further, telling Engoron that as soon as the AG’s team rested, they intended to move for a mistrial based on unspecified issues that Trump’s lawyers represented would be covered by the gag order but did not relate to their usual complaint: the notes Engoron and his clerk have exchanged. The judge then ordered them to present him with the motion in writing, with a proposed briefing schedule and hearing time, and pledged to return it quickly. Yet no such motion appears on the docket, and a source familiar with the litigation tells me that if such a motion was made under seal or through a similar process, it has not been served on the state.

Nonetheless, the arguments I expected would end up in the promised mistrial motion surfaced on Friday in a different form: a five-page letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct from House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik. And although the letter begins with some partial and misleading quotations from a 2022 hearing and a trial day last week, the thrust of Stefanik’s charges of judicial intemperance and partisan bias come from the same Breitbart article initially floated by Kise on Nov. 3. Citing that piece, she accuses both Engoron and his principal law clerk of flouting the rules against partisan political contributions.

Perhaps most interestingly, while Stefanik is many things — a Harvard alumna, a former White House aide, and most recently, a mom — she is not a lawyer. But her letter is heavily footnoted, including with cites to New York cases, including some concerning the statute of limitations, and conforms with conventions of legal citation, including the telltale ibid., a fancy, lawyerly way of citing to the immediately prior source. 

That doesn’t mean, much less prove, Stefanik’s letter was authored by Trump lawyers. But it bears note that the particular method of her complaint and the use of her voice offer some tactical advantages. (Neither Stefanik’s office nor a representative for Trump immediately responded to NBC News’ requests for comment.)

First and foremost, to the extent that the principal law clerk’s alleged campaign contributions, which we have independently viewed, violate one or more New York rules governing judges and their personal appointees, one lawyer familiar with these rules and their implementation says the remedy for such misconduct would be discipline, not the overturning or invalidation of any decision in the case or even the removal of the presiding judge. Team Trump might have reached the same conclusion and decided against moving for a mistrial.

Second, Stefanik is not only arguably Trump’s most reliable and prominent Republican backer in New York State; she is also a member of Congress who is not subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act. As a result, if her letter was drafted or edited by anyone affiliated with the defense, journalists have no way of uncovering that through the kind of public records requests that, for example, have revealed political machinations between and among executive agencies.

And third, unlike a mistrial motion that Engoron himself could deny virtually on receipt and that would take months if not longer to appeal, a complaint to the state’s judicial conduct commission cannot be dismissed “without authorization by the Commission,” which meets “several times a year.” That means the allegations in Stefanik’s letter could swirl, without any resolution, for some time before the commission can determine whether it warrants investigation or should be dismissed.

Whether, in fact, Engoron and/or his clerk have, in fact, run afoul of the rules on the basis of their contributions remains to be seen. The rules not only allow candidates for judicial office greater latitude in the months before and after their runs, but also pertain only to contributions to political campaigns and “other partisan political activity,” a term that according to my source familiar with the ethics rules, might not include donations to local Democratic clubs, depending on their purpose. 

In the meantime, a spokesman for the New York court system told The New York Times that “Engoron’s actions and rulings in this matter are all part of the public record and speak for themselves. It is inappropriate to comment further.”

Will Stefanik’s letter lead to an investigation or even discipline? Or will it simply fuel the MAGA movement’s ire toward an elected judge and his law clerk? Watch this space.

Elisa Stefanik wants to be the VP choice. I’m not sure Trump thinks she’s glamorous enough (she needs to up her garish make-up and hairspray game) but I guess you never know.

As for whether this will go anywhere, I suppose it could. Why they think it makes sense that a member of congress makes the complaint is beyond me.

Meanwhile:

FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub on Thursday said her Republican colleagues have effectively put former President Donald Trump “in [a] category by himself” by refusing to investigate at least 28 instances where the agency’s professional staff determined that Trump or his family members likely violated regulations. In a statement, Weintraub revealed that there are at least 58 instances where the Federal Election Commission heard allegations against Trump. In at least 28 of those, staff at the Office of General Counsel determined that a criminal investigation was warranted—all of which went overlooked by Republican commissioners, who refused to approve any of Counsel’s recommendations against Trump. “My colleagues purport to be treating the former President and the current President alike, but the data is clear: At the FEC, Mr. Trump is in category by himself,” Weintraub said.

When working people stand united, there isn't a thing they can't get done.

Shawn knows that in his bones. pic.twitter.com/uWZiJN6WD5

— President Biden (@POTUS) November 10, 2023

I suspect it will when all is said and done. The union movement’s ascendance in the last couple of years is extremely important and I just hope that the union members who benefit from it will remember who their enemies are — and their friends.

I don’t think the media’s focusing on the right candidate

Trump claims he actually got 225 million votes. "In terms of the real… the feeling!"

He's now applying the same accounting principles to elections as he does to his square footage. pic.twitter.com/qyV7boB1kr

— KevinlyFather 🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇼🇸🇿 (@KevinlyFather) November 10, 2023

This is what his people are hearing from him:

This is a classic example of autocratic intention signaling. We should take it for its meaning and what the intention actually is going forward. https://t.co/pvsTaOtRnH

— Trygve Olson (@trygveolson) November 10, 2023

In case you were wondering, it’s all lies.

I post this stuff here because I know most people don’t look at what he’s saying because they have lives and they already know that Trump is a narcissistic monster. But it’s easy to forget just how deranged he really is and I think it’s important to have this stuff out there from time to time to remind ourselves of it.

Voters gonna vote

Brett Meiselas at Meidas Touch:

As Republicans try to cope with their crushing losses suffered during Tuesday’s elections, multiple MAGA firebrands have taken aim at one particular target – Taylor Swift. But Swift’s fervent fanbase, known as Swifties, are ready to fight back.

On Tuesday, the iconic superstar encouraged her fans to vote, writing on Instagram, “Voters gonna vote!” and sharing a link to Vote.org.

Last month, following a similar call to action, Swift was reportedly responsible for registering more than 35,000 people to vote.

That kind of muscular power-flexing by women seriously gets under the skin of pasty male misogynists (and worse).

Right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec seethed in an unhinged post on X about “THE CHILDLESS, UNMARRIED ABORTION ARMY MOBILIZED BY BARBIE, TAYLOR SWIFT, AND TIKTOK THAT IS CRUSHING REPUBLICANS AT THE BALLOT BOX.”

In the words of Taylor Swift, you need to calm down.

Charlie Kirk, who runs the extremist organization Turning Point USA, a radical group attempting to pull young voters into the MAGA movement, could not contain his rage during his podcast.

“Taylor Swift is going to come out in the presidential election and she is going to mobilize her fans, I’ll be nice…and we’re going to be like ‘Oh why, where did all of these young female voters come from’… We better have a plan for that… Taylor Swift, I think she put up one voter registration link and she registered millions and millions. And let’s be honest, all the Swifties want, is swift abortion.”

Political activist Olivia Julianna responded by posting the Kirk rant on TikTok, told Swifties “you know what to do,” and posted her own link to Vote.org. The clip garnered 1.6 million views in 24 hours.

@0liviajulianna #taylorswift #swiftie #oliviajulianna ♬ original sound – Olivia Julianna

“It remains unclear why MAGA Republicans think it is smart to pick a fight with the Swifties,” Meiselas adds.

Um, ’cause the haters gonna, etc.?

Of, by, and for the most power-hungry

Ed Walker blogs at emptywheel. His message this Veterans Day: “Is it too much to ask Republicans to accept majority rule?”

Every Veterans Day I think about the people I met on active duty, 1968-70. None of us wanted to be there, but we did our duty, hoping we were helping America, and accepting the majority decisions about Viet Nam.

Is it too much to ask Republicans to accept majority rule?

— Ed Walker 🍞🌹💉💉💉💉💉 (@MasaccioEW) November 11, 2023

Apparently, yes.

Ohio Republicans wasted no time in announcing their defiance of the constitutional amendment passed Tuesday that secured reproductive freedoms. The amendment passed 57-43:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.

Republican state Reps. Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release Thursday that they’ll push to have the Legislature, not the courts, make any decisions about the amendment passed Tuesday.

“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”

The wording of that “ambiguous ballot initiative”? It was the Ohio GOP’s wording. And still they lost.

Democrats’ former Ohio state chair David Pepper posted a letter signed by 27 GOP legislators from the Ohio House Pro-Life Caucus pledging to defy the amended constitution:

Pepper writes:

Specifically, they pledge: “We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being removed based on perception of intent. [ie. the new Constitution] We were elected to protect the most vulnerable in this state, and we will continue that work.”

There are so many ways to respond to the specifics of their statement. Here are a few:

1) “perception of intent”? — it’s the law. The Constitution! Not some ephemeral “intent.” And while they now claim confusion, THEY were the ones who claimed that the words of the Amendment were both clear and sweeping, trying to scare voters to vote No. They spent millions running ads on all of this. They put out government propaganda on it, using your tax dollars. Yet now they say the language is confusing and cloudy, so they don’t plan to respect it.

2) “everything in our power”? Your power is bound by the Constitution you are now pledging to defy. You have NO power to defy the Constitution you swear an oath to.

3) “We were elected”? Almost all of you are in districts that were rigged (by you) to guarantee victory. The people didn’t have a choice. And your districts are in open violation of the same Constitution you now pledge to violate. This week’s Issue 1 vote is far more legitimate than your exercise of power in districts that violate Ohio law (due to your leadership’s intentional violation of that law)

There are more retorts, but I’ll stop there. Because they don’t get us very far, even if they need to be said.

What this is, again, is a declaration that they plan to violate both the new law and the clear will of the people of Ohio as best they can.

The kicking and gouging for every last sliver of power is further proof that the GOP is no longer a political party but an extremist authoritarian faction that refuses to accept democratic outcomes. Republican pedants insist the nation is a republic, not a democracy (meaning a pure democracy), despite the word vote appearing in the U.S. Constitution dozens of times and majority over a dozen

Their intense efforts at rigging elections, twisting the law, and mining it for loopholes for defying the will of the people is exhausting. Politicians have always done so in vying for advantage. But the effort today reinforces just how strong the temptation is to seek power for its own sake. The Trump cult’s plan for wringing service from the meaning of public servant can be no clearer.

Now Democrats in New York state are taking up the game with fresh intensity. God help us.

Update: Pepper later this morning reinforces why the extreme gerrymandering since the 2010 election is so toxic to democracy and feeds both radicalism and cynicism.

… there’s now an entire generation of officeholders in the majority who’ve come to power, remained in power, and in some cases, risen to higher levels of power, without ever winning a contested election. A contested, general election.

Some were appointed to their initial office and never faced one real election. Others…had a single moment where a narrow group of voters mattered, and that was that. The rest of their careers career, the voters have never been given another choice. They’ve never had to campaign again. And for most, that’s the only politics they know.

On the flip side, there’s a generation of folks who’ve aspired to be public servants but are locked out. Completely shut out, no matter their skills or the quality of their campaigns.

He’s not talking about a fraction or even half in places like Ohio.

“I’m talking about almost every member of the current majorities. An entire generation of them.”

You wonder why democracy scares the bejesus out of them. It’s almost as scary as nonwhite, non-Christians and women taking control in their lives.

Japan is filled with cute critters, but these pint-sized squirrels are at the top of the list. The Japanese dwarf flying squirrel and Siberian flying squirrel are known for their big eyes, small stature, and overall adorable appearance. In fact, they’re so popular in Japan that they’re even used as the design on Sapporo’s metro card.

The Japanese dwarf flying squirrel (Pteromys momonga) is only found on Japan’s Honshu and Kyushu islands. Living in sub-alpine forests and boreal evergreen forests, these nocturnal animals blend into the trees with their coloring. With their body measuring up to 20 centimeters and their tail growing up to 14 centimeters, their small size can make them hard to spot.

A family of Japanese dwarf flying squirrels
pic.twitter.com/eh0hIhGd7S

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) November 7, 2023

Though the name might confuse you, these squirrels don’t fly. Instead, they use a membrane called the patagium to glide from tree to tree. Feasting on seeds, fruit, tree leaves, buds, and bark, these squirrels forage at night and spend their days tucked into the holes of trees. These rodents only mate once or twice a year, but their population is abundant and the IUCN has it listed as an animal of “Least Concern.”

Marge continues to make friends and influence people

I knew girls like her in high school. They all became criminals:

After Rep. Lauren Boebert helped get Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus over the summer, Greene has been on a payback mission against her former friend-turned-nemesis. And after a date at Beetlejuice The Musical turned into a national conversation about groping, Greene has resorted to a playbook familiar to any woman who survived high school: She’s telling GOP colleagues, according to lawmakers, that Boebert is a “whore.”

One Republican lawmaker, who has heard Greene use that word multiple times to describe Boebert, told The Daily Beast that Greene has been at this campaign for some time.

“Calling her a whore, that’s not new,” this GOP lawmaker said. “She’s been doing that for a while.”

Another GOP lawmaker also witnessed Greene refer to Boebert as a “whore.”

This second lawmaker additionally claimed Greene had trashed Boebert in a conversation with Donald Trump, though this member had no knowledge of the specific language Greene used in that conversation—just that the two had discussed Boebert. Yet another GOP member who speaks to Trump told The Daily Beast that Greene had, in fact, made “disparaging” remarks about Boebert to the former president, though again, this person didn’t have specifics about what Greene had said to Trump.

Trump didn’t return a request for comment via a spokesperson.

When The Daily Beast asked Greene about these accusations this week, the Georgia Republican didn’t deny them. Instead, she went on a tirade against this reporter.

“Why are you working on a story?” she asked. “Because you like to write trash, you just can’t help yourself.”

Greene continued that this reporter was “drawn to the gossip and the drama.”

“You just love it so much, you got to create it, and make it more, and bigger, and nastier,” she said.

Greene’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Boebert declined to comment.

Greene is in no position to call anyone a whore.

Johnny McEntee, the man in charge

From Jonathan Karl’s new book:

In his final days in the White House, President Donald Trump tried to launch a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan — only he wasn’t exactly the person giving the orders, according to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.

In “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” excerpts of which were released in Vanity Fair on Friday, Karl reports that aide Johnny McEntee, known as Trump’s “body guy,” led a chaotic attempt to reshape the U.S. military posture abroad.

The incident was first reported on by Jonathan Swan of Axios, but Karl provides significant new details.

McEntee, after serving as Trump’s “body guy” (or “body man” as some say) — the staffer responsible for traveling with the president and carrying his bags — became, at age 30, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, primarily responsible for overseeing the hiring and firing of executive branch employees, including ensuring staffers were loyal to Trump’s political vision.

But after the 2020 election, Karl writes, McEntee took on a greater role — one that saw him involved in Trump’s ousting of Defense Secretary Mark Esper — replacing him with Christopher Miller — and the recruiting of Miller’s senior adviser Douglas Macgregor.

From there, Karl reports, McEntee wrote a list for what Trump should do in the final days of his presidency — a list that included withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Africa.

“Three days after Macgregor arrived at the Pentagon, he called McEntee and told him he couldn’t accomplish any of the items on their handwritten to-do list without a signed order from the president,” Karl writes in the excerpts released by Vanity Fair.

The House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation unearthed the extraordinary story of what happened next, Karl writes, but it wasn’t included in the committee’s final report. The panel had taken the sworn testimony of the key players, including McEntee and Macgregor, as well as national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

Macgregor advised McEntee the priority should be the Afghanistan withdrawal and that it should be put in a presidential directive. But when McEntee couldn’t figure out how to draft such a document, Macgregor told him and his assistant “to open a cabinet, find an old presidential decision memorandum, and copy it,” Karl writes.

“Easy enough,” Karl reports. McEntee and his assistant “wrote up the order, had the president sign it, and sent it over to Kash Patel, the new acting defense secretary’s chief of staff.”

But the document caused widespread confusion among top officials.

Miller met with Milley and others to discuss next steps, but Milley quickly questioned who had given Trump such military advice. When no one could say where it came from, he and Miller went to the White House for answers, Karl writes.

When Milley asked O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, where the document came from, O’Brien said he’d never seen it before. Also at that meeting was Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser Keith Kellogg, who looked at the order and told the room: “This doesn’t look right,” according to the excerpts.

“‘You’re telling me that thing is forged?’ Milley responded in disbelief, Karl writes. ‘That’s a forged piece of paper directing a military operation by the president of the United States? That’s forged, Keith?'” Milley said, according to the excerpts.

The group eventually asked Trump directly, who confirmed he’d signed it. O’Brien then told Trump it “would be very bad,” Karl writes, and advised him not to follow through with the directive.

“As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely,” Karl reports.

This is what we can expect in 2026 if he wins again. Johnny McEntee , along with Stephen Miller, is the one in charge of putting together the agenda for the second term.

I suppose that most people don’t know this stuff and some that do dismiss it as palace intrigue or fake news. But this is how Trump rolls and he hasn’t changed one bit. Look at how he’s handling his own legal affairs.

And yet half the country thinks this imbecile should be president again and it’s going to be political trench warfare to ensure that he isn’t. I’ll never stop being stunned by that. It’s shaken my belief in the basic common sense of Americans more than anything in my lifetime.

As people wonder why Mike Johnson abruptly sent Congress home today, a week before a shutdown deadline – maybe he had to rush to his speaking gig in Paris tomorrow? His priority might be to hang with Kristie Noem (no covenant marriage for her!), Devin Nunes, Moms for Liberty…1/ https://t.co/aizLs38d9W pic.twitter.com/7ferd2w5hI

— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters) November 10, 2023

Sean Casten, D-Il., lays it all out in this twitter thread:

It’s hard to explain how dysfunctional the @HouseGOP is, and the degree to which their own internal divisions are superseding every normal function of government. But I’m going to try with a short story about this week in the house. Thread: 

1. First: We operate on a 9/30 fiscal year but the (McCarthy) led house couldn’t agree on how to fund prior to. They tried to just say “cut everything by 30%”. That didn’t pass. So they said “let’s just fund at current levels for 45 days”. That cost McCarthy his job. 

2. For context, when Dems had the majority we got all our appropriations done by August 1 so the Senate could finalize and POTUS could sign. @HouseGOP still hasn’t done that. 

@HouseGOP 3. Also, you may recall this summer the @HouseGOP threatened to default on US debt unless we agreed to future spending rules. A deal was struck that passed the House and was signed into law to do so. The 30% cut was not consistent with that law. (AKA, it was illegal) 

@HouseGOP 4. By contrast, the straight 45 day continuing resolution that cost McCarthy his job was legal (in the sense that it did not violate the June agreement and bought us time to do so). OBEYING THE LAW WAS A RED-LINE FOR THE @HOUSEGOP. So they fired McCarthy. 

@HouseGOP 5. They then used the first 20 days of that 45 day period to fight over a new speaker. Should we pick someone who hates gay people, fought to overturn the election or creeps on his son’s porn? It took a while, but the @HouseGOP finally said YES to all three. 

@HouseGOP 6. That leaves a lot of work to do by a party that doesn’t like laws, is at war with itself and an inexperienced leadership team. But off we went. Last week, we were supposed to vote on transportation funding. Rs couldn’t agree so Johnson never brought a bill to the floor. 

@HouseGOP 7. (This isn’t just a Johnson problem. McCarthy previously chose not to bring an agriculture funding package to the floor because Rs couldn’t agree. Still don’t have a path on that one.) 

@HouseGOP 8. This week, we were supposed to vote on a funding package for our financial services & general government. Minutes before we were supposed to vote on that yesterday they pulled it on account of internal squabbles too. 

@HouseGOP 9. Note: ALL of these bills violate the law we passed last June. But having discovered that Ds won’t vote to break the law, they are trying to pass these with all R votes. But they’re big mad at each other so even that’s not possible.

With 9 days to go until a government shutdown, House Republicans are bringing a bill to the floor that would defund the ability of regulators to develop consistent climate accounting rules.

Science is real. We have serious challenges. Let's stop wasting our time and get to work. pic.twitter.com/YL4MrQIaqB

— Rep. Sean Casten (@RepCasten) November 8, 2023

@HouseGOP 10. Now to the question on the mind of every libertarian troll who’s read this far. “If government is going to run out of money and you aren’t even voting on bills to fund it why are you wasting my tax dollars in DC?” Well, here’s what they did bring up for votes this week: 

@HouseGOP 11. A bill to prevent the government from using the word “latin-x” – a bill to cut WH press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s salary to $1 – a bill to defund the office of gun violence prevention – a bill to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – 

@HouseGOP 12. A bill to cut SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s salary to $1 – a bill to defund the office of gun violence prevention – a bill to prevent the government from developing greenhouse gas disclosure rules – a bill to eliminate 50% of the budget for the consumer product safety commission. 

@HouseGOP 13. These things aren’t urgent. They aren’t helpful. And they aren’t going to become law (See: laws require Senate + POTUS approval). But they keep the idiot wing of the @HouseGOP from turning on their rookie manager. And waste 435 people’s time on the House floor. 

@HouseGOP 14. And so now we are 7 days from a shutdown. Still no path to fund. Still no sign of anyone in the @HouseGOP willing to stand up to their extreme fringe. Still no discernible leadership talents from their new Speaker. Right now it’s annoying. But in 8 days, its disastrous. 

@HouseGOP 15. Because if they can’t get their s**t together, 8 days from now soldiers, air traffic controllers, food safety inspectors, IRS agents, border patrol… all go without pay. Some will be furloughed. Food, heating, housing assistance. Every government function. 

@HouseGOP 16. PLEASE @HouseGOP. Grow up. Stop fighting with your brother and sister in the backseat. Either act like the adults you claim to be or at least have the dignity to go to your room so the adults can babysit your sorry selves. Too much is at stake.

They can’t. They are all suffering from a mass case of arrested development and cult worship. They are going to shut down the government because they think it will be good for them politically. They watch Fox and read Breitbart and follow the word of Dear Leader. They want a shutdown and they’re going to get it. Call it the Tuberville gambit: just say no and nothing else.