A presidential candidate is promising extrajudicial summary execution and it’s just normal. Of course, once he declares war on Mexico we’ll be dealing with the laws of war so there’s that.
Meanwhile, the wheels are coming off:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has privately complained about a powerful operative at the center of his 2024 presidential effort, according to three people familiar with the comments, a sign of the internal drama that has complicated his struggling White House bid.
DeSantis has expressed regrets over Jeff Roe’s hiring asa lead strategist at the super PAC Never Back Down, an outside group that has assumed many responsibilities in the race traditionally handled by campaigns, two of the people said. One, a DeSantis donor, heard the comments directly from the governor, this person said.
DeSantis has also voiced anger over a pre-debate strategy memo from Never Back Down, which was publicly posted last month on the website of Roe’s firm, Axiom, these people said. One of them, the donor, said the governor was “apoplectic.”
There are a number of crazy political events taking place right now, from the Paxton trial in the Texas senate to the GOP threat to remove a Democratic Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin and the impending impeachment of Joe Biden. (Oddly, the only one that’s justified in the one in Texas, brought by Republicans against a Republican so corrupt even they couldn’t ignore it.) We also have trials against former president Trump in civil and criminal court pending in five different jurisdictions. Oh, and we’re also looking at a possible government shutdown. It’s a lot.
The one place that seemed relatively sane, at least by comparison, was the U.S. Senate. Sure they had a some big dramatic fights last year over President Biden’s legislative agenda but they were pretty standard policy battles that mostly took place within the Democratic caucus. The Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson were as ugly as usual but they didn’t feature a lot of fireworks. All in all it’s been a fairly functional institution lately.
But that’s not to say that the Republicans haven’t been playing any games at all. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has Paul has abused the power given to any Senator to block nominations to the executive branch by putting holds on all State Department nominees in order to force the foreign relations committee to “access COVID-19 documents being held by various government agencies.” His complaint is that he’s only allowed to read the documents in private and isn’t allowed to take them out. As a result, no ambassadors are being confirmed.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz likewise held up State Department nominees for months because he wanted the president to reimpose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He generously released them when Biden did what he wanted.
In case you were wondering, there is nothing in the constitution that grants an individual senator this power. It’s simply one of the Standing Rules of the United States Senate which has been around forever but never was used to block entire categories of nominees until fairly recently. This could be changed, but like so many of the undemocratic rules of the Senate which have no place in a modern democracy there is no will to do it.
The holds by those GOP Senators are not all that surprising. Republicans have traditionally been hostile to the State Department going all the way back to the McCarthy era when old Tailgunner Joe claimed that it was crawling with commies. (With that epithet gaining new currency on the right lately, I expect we’ll see it rolled out again.) They tended to think of diplomats as being pretty useless, preferring the big stick to the soft talk, which translated to reflexive support for military solutions to all foreign policy questions.
That’s why the actions by freshman Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Al., are so astonishing. I never thought I’d see the day that any Alabama politician would even dream of holding up the promotions and assignments of military officers but that’s what’s happening. The worship of the uniformed services in the deep south has always run deep and anyone who questioned it would be called to task for their lack of patriotism. Yet here we have this former college football coach telling the officer corps of the U.S. Military that he could not care less if they get their promotions and assignments because he basically thinks they’re all a bunch of “woke” pansies who don’t know how to fight.
Tuberville, it must be noted, has never served in the military. either does he have any political experience. He was elected because he used to coach football in Alabama until he moved to Florida and decided to run for the Senate in 2020. He’s been there for two whole years and has made a name for himself as the densest member of the body and that’s saying something considering that Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson was just re-elected last fall.
The alleged “issue” that has caused Tuberville to take on the Pentagon is about the military policy that allows time off and pay for service members to travel to another state if they are stationed someplace that has banned abortion. The military won’t provide abortions nor does it pay for them. All it will do is give a soldier or sailor the ability to end a pregnancy without having to go AWOL and lose their pay. Tuberville says this is unacceptable and has now held up hundreds of promotions including the upcoming changing of the guard at the Joint Chiefs.
That is the stated reason for his hold but it’s clear that he also has another agenda. Tuberville, the military expert, believes that the military isn’t macho enough. The navy is so woke they’re doing all kinds of gay and girly stuff on board ships:
Tuberville responds to the Navy Secretary by saying the Secretary has to get wokeness out of the Navy because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers” pic.twitter.com/JiTgCrFb2q
Coach Tuberville (he prefers to be called that instead of Senator) doesn’t know or care about any of that. The secretaries of the three branches of the service made a rare public plea to end this madness and he smugly retorted that he’s going to hold out until he gets what he wants. And you can be sure he’ll keep insulting the military until they stop being so woke, which I assume means getting back to some serious sexual harassment and gay bashing, the way he no doubt taught his boys during locker room pep talks.
The Democrats are not going to give in to this dullard by agreeing to take on the tedikous task of confirming each officer individually in a floor vote because that would be giving into Tuberville’s bullying nonsense and rewarding more of this adolescent transgressive Republican behavior. It’s up to the Republicans to police their own and while some have tepidly objected to what he’s doing, they just don’t seem to have the energy to deal with him, not even when he’s attacking the military, the last institution in American government that Republicans had still held in some esteem. Now that it’s “woke” too, all bets are off.
Tuberville is an imbecile who has no idea what he’s doing but clearly loves the attention. He’s listening to the far right fringe that has decided the US Military is “woke” because it includes women and LGBT members and the military has made the correct decision to ensure that service members don’t behave like stupid brutes. He’s too ignorant to understand that he’s tearing down the last pillar of the Republican Party’s claim to patriotism. The only flag they’re allowed to salute these days are those giant blue Trump flags. Old Glory is just another symbol of America’s descent into wokeness.
I never picked up much of an accent down here, much less one like Trae Crowder‘s, but the stereotype is familiar. People think it makes southerners sound stupid and uneducated. Then again, I’ve met P.E.s (professional engineers) who were useless and Ph.D.s who were clueless. Other people think rich means smart. Donald Trump and Elon Musk think so. About themselves.
For some perspective, remember that Peter Navarro, the voluble former Trump economic adviser, promoter of the “Green Bay Sweep,” is from Cambridge, Mass. and attended Harvard. He was convicted Thursday of contempt of Congress. The jury found “Navarro guilty of two counts of contempt for refusing to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee and turn over subpoenaed documents.” Jurors deliberated just four hours (and may have taken a break for lunch). His defense called no witnesses. Navarro swears he is “willing to go to prison” to fight his conviction.
Navarro is the second Trump associate convicted for contempt along with Steve Bannon.
Crowder attended Tennessee Tech. He ponders why the country’s international reputation is in the toilet.
America’s reputation abroad isn’t quite what it was, but some of us are used to it. pic.twitter.com/Np7bz45taI
Just getting into a cover story in The Nation about the culture at McKinsey consultants. Whistleblower Garrison Lovely notes that having McKinsey on your resume marks one as a “smart, competent person” when it should brand you as amoral and “willing to do almost anything for almost anyone” for money.
Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wants to get into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ face. He strongly suggests in a letter that Willis has brought charges for political reasons against 19 persons for involvement in a conspiracy to disrupt the 2020 elections in Georgia.
Why, why, indicting federal officers for state crimes violates their free speech, Jordan alleges. “The threat of future state prosecution for official acts [that would be illegal acts] may dissuade federal officers from effectively performing their official duties and responsibilities.” And she’s interfering with the 2024 presidential election.
All documents and communications referring or relating to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s receipt and use of federal funds;
All documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and DOJ and its components, including but not limited to the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, referring or relating to your office’s investigation of President Donald Trump or any of the other eighteen individuals against whom charges were brought in the indictment discussed above; and
All documents and communications between the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and any federal Executive Branch officials regarding your office’s investigation of President Donald Trump or any of the other eightee
Willis advises Jordan (not in so many words) to go suck eggs or, as Kurt Vonnegut might say, to take a flying fuck at the moon.
On Thursday, Willis fired back, saying Jordan’s Aug. 24 letter included “inaccurate information and misleading statements.” She accused Jodan of improperly interfering with a state criminal case and attempting to punish her for personal political gain.
“Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations,” Willis wrote of Jordan letter. “As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”
Bolding in original: “Face this reality, Chairman Jordan: the select group of defendants who you fret over in my jurisdiction are like every other defendant, entitled to no worse or better treatment than any other American citizen.“
What’s more, “Here is another reality you must face: Those who wish to avoid (felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia — including violations of Georgia RICO law — should not commit ‘felonies in Fulton County, Georgia.”
Willis was just getting warmed up.
“Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically,” she wrote.
d. Your questioning of the overt and predicate acts listed in the indictment is misinformed.
Your questioning of the inclusion of overt and predicate acts by the defendants in the indictment’s racketeering count shows a total ignorance of Georgia’s racketeering statute and the basics of criminal conspiracy law. Allow me the Opportunity to provide a brief tutorial on criminal conspiracy law, Chairman Jordan.
As I explained to the public when announcing the indictment, the overt and predicate acts are included because the grand jury found probable cause that those acts were committed to advance the objectives of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the result of Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election.
For a more thorough understanding of Georgia’s RICO statute, its application and similar laws in other states, I encourage you to read “RICO State-by-State.” As a non-member of the bar, you can purchase a copy for two hundred forty-nine dollars [$249].
Ouch.
The AJC tried to contactor Jordan’s office: “A spokesperson for Jordan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
He’s better off not commenting and not smart enough not to.
One of the minor mysteries about the January 6th coup plot is what Grassley was talking about when he said that. Considering that the next day Trump unleashed a slavering mob on the Capitol during the proceedings and the secret service attempted to get him to leave the building (which he resisted, unlike the rest of the leadership) it’s interesting to say the least. There was also the comment by Pence adviser Keith Kellogg that they were afraid that they’d take Pence away to Alaska if he left the building, which is indicative of an awareness that there was a plan afoot to make is so that Pence would not be able to fulfill his duties that day.
Grassley clarified that remark saying that he meant he would preside over the expected Senate debate about voting against the certification and that actually sounds reasonable when you see his full comment. But what do we make of this interesting nugget from yesterday’s John Eastman disbarment hearing in California:
John Eastman, testifying at his own disbarment trial, sidestepped a question Wednesday about whether he and others in former President Donald Trump’s orbit discussed the possibility that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — rather than Mike Pence — would preside over the Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress.
During several hours of sworn testimony in a California disbarment proceeding, Eastman said discussions on that topic were protected by attorney-client privilege. When pressed about which client of his he was referring to, Eastman replied: “President Trump.”
Oh really…. This issue was discussed with Donald Trump? Why would that be?
I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of this. But it’s very weird that Eastman invoked executive privilege over that question.
After nearly a year of investigation, House Republicans have decided to try to make bribery the downfall of President Joe Biden as they prepare to open an impeachment inquiry, according to interviews with top House conservatives and four senior aides.
Key Republicans tell The Messenger they are honing in on what they say is a “pay-to-play” bribery scheme involving first son Hunter Biden’s business dealings when he worked for a Ukrainian energy company and his father served as vice president.
“This is not, ‘Oh my God, you were in Washington, D.C., on January 6 so we’re going to send every frigging power of law enforcement after you or your family.’ This is literally: ‘There was money flowing to the son of the vice president turned president,’” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a leading proponent of impeaching Biden, told The Messenger.
House GOP chairmen have spent several months sifting through documents and hauling witnesses to testify before their committees in an effort to prove the Bidens personally capitalized off their access to the White House when Hunter Biden was paid by the Ukrainian firm and, separately, by a Chinese energy company.
“That money was coming from foreign countries,” said Roy, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that would be tasked with initiating an impeachment proceeding against President Biden. “The vice president and then president was then lying about his knowledge about it. We know that to be true.”
Since 61% of the country already believes that Biden is guilty of doing this “thing” whatever it is, I suppose all they really have to do is put on a good show and Biden will be permanently politically damaged. He won’t be convicted in the Senate, of course. They don’t have the votes, But that’s not what this is about. They just want to smear Biden with enough people that Trump will win re-election. This new polling, however, says that they don’t really need to bother. They’ve successfully smeared him with the charge of being a criminal already.
For what it’s worth, Trump was basically impeached on a bribery charge too but he was the briber instead of the bribee. And, of course, Trump and his family were beyond corrupt while he was president and today. For reasons that remain obscure to me, the Democrats never made anything out of that, but it happened nonetheless. Now the Republicans are getting payback.
Elon Musk may have a nose for buying profitable businesses but in every other respect he is a flaming moron. How in the hell is it possible that someone such as he could have so much influence over world events?
Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”
As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.
Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson, whose new book is set to be released by Simon & Schuster on September 12.
Musk’s concerns over a “mini-Pearl Harbor” as he put it, did not come to pass in Crimea. But the episode reveals the unique position Musk found himself in as the war in Ukraine unfolded. Whether intended or not, he had become a power broker US officials couldn’t ignore.
The new book from Isaacson, the author of acclaimed biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, provides fresh insights into Musk and how his existential dread of sparking a wider war drove him to spurn Ukrainian requests for Starlink systems they could use to attack the Russians.
After Russia disrupted Ukraine’s communications systems just before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Musk agreed to provide Ukraine with millions of dollars of SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals, which became crucial to Ukraine’s military operations. Even as cellular phone and internet networks had been destroyed, the Starlink terminals allowed Ukraine to fight and stay connected.
But once Ukraine began to use Starlink terminals for offensive attacks against Russia, Musk started to second-guess that decision.
“How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”
Musk was soon on the phone with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US to address anxieties from Washington, DC, to Moscow, writes Isaacson.
Meanwhile, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was pleading with Musk to restore connectivity for the submarine drones by telling Musk about their capabilities in a text message, according to Isaacson. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov told Musk.
Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and private space exploration firm SpaceX, replied that he was impressed with the design of the submarine drones but that he wouldn’t turn satellite coverage back on for Crimea because Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat,” according to Isaacson.
It’s one thing to turn twitter into a cesspool. It has had terrible consequences for the scourge of disinformation and the usefulness of the platform for important communications during a crisis. But Musk using his power as the owner of certain equipment he donated to the Ukrainian government to thwart specific war plans he doesn’t understand is simply mind-boggling.
Tuberville responds to the Navy Secretary by saying the Secretary has to get wokeness out of the Navy because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers” pic.twitter.com/JiTgCrFb2q
“It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone,” Francis Scott Key wrote later. But when darkness arrived, Key saw only red erupting in the night sky. Given the scale of the attack, he was certain the British would win. The hours passed slowly, but in the clearing smoke of “the dawn’s early light” on September 14, he saw the American flag—not the British Union Jack—flying over the fort, announcing an American victory.
Key put his thoughts on paper while still on board the ship, setting his words to the tune of a popular English song. His brother-in-law, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, read Key’s work and had it distributed under the name “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” The Baltimore Patriot newspaper soon printed it, and within weeks, Key’s poem, now called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” appeared in print across the country, immortalizing his words—and forever naming the flag it celebrated.
Does Tommy Tuberville have some kind of brain damage? That is not a rhetorical question.
When you think that the Republicans are idiots for their outlandish repetition of outright lies and innuendo, think again. A majority of Americans will believe anything if enough people say it often enough, facts and details don’t matter:
Most Americans say they think President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings with Ukraine and China while he served as vice president under Barack Obama, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
A majority, 61%, say they think that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal. Another 38% say they don’t believe Joe Biden had any involvement in his son’s business dealings during his vice presidency. Just 1% believe Biden was involved, but did not do anything wrong.
A 55% majority of the public says the president has acted inappropriately regarding the investigation into Hunter Biden over potential crimes, while 44% say that he has acted appropriately.
I guess my sunny assumption that the country wouldn’t stand for a convicted felon as president was overly optimistic. People think both Biden and Trump are crooks, that Biden has been interfering in the investigation of his son (and probably the investigations of Trump) because they all do it, so whatever. If they impeach Biden over this, I don’t think the public will even know what crock it is. Because they don’t really care.
A New York judge—unmoved by the incessant pleas from Donald Trump’s legal team to delay trial—made quick work of the former president’s last-minute request Tuesday night to push back his first big upcoming trial for bank and tax fraud. On Wednesday morning, Justice Arthur F. Engoron pulled out a pen and scribbled a nine-word remark at the bottom of the draft order that Trump’s lawyers wanted him to sign, rejecting it outright. “Decline to sign; Defendants’ arguments are completely without merit,” Engoron wrote, signing it with his trademark ligature “Æ.” The Trump family is now less than four weeks away from the start of a monumental civil trial in which AG Letitia James seeks to siphon at least $250 million away from the Trump Organization over accusations that it routinely inflated asset values and lied on official paperwork.
Will he be called to testify? Don Jr, Eric and Ivanka? Could be …
