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Whither the badass Freedom Caucus?

Published by digby on June 7, 2023

Now that the debt ceiling has been raised and all the smoke has cleared, it’s worthwhile to step back as assess the political fallout from the first major test of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership — and the clout of the House Freedom Caucus. I certainly didn’t think it would end with a whimper, not a bang, but that’s exactly what happened.

Considering how nuts the MAGA Republicans are, it was fair for most of us to assume they would hold McCarthy’s speakership hostage if he capitulated on any of their demands. After all, that was the whole point of the speakership battle back in January — they wanted the ability to dictate what bills would be voted out of the rules committee and come to the floor. And they guaranteed that by loading the committee with Freedom Caucus members and demanding that any one member could file a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair and require Kevin McCarthy to endure another election.

As the negotiations proceeded (much to the chagrin of progressives who believed that it was a mistake to deal with government hijackers who were stating openly that they were willing to blow up the world economy) the Freedom Caucus members began to wail, led by their leader former president Donald Trump who appeared at a CNN town hall meeting and said:

I say to the Republicans out there — congressmen, senators — if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default … you might as well do it now, because you’ll do it later.

He added that defaulting was “really psychological more than anything else” and claimed that it could be nothing or maybe just a bad day or week. That’s a pretty big gamble and one that most experts believe would have been a daft one to take.

The Freedom Caucus didn’t listen to him and instead stood down and let McCarthy and Biden make a very unsatisfying deal from their perspective. In fact, it was a deal one might have expected from any House speaker playing a weak hand with a tiny majority, but not one you would think he would make if his right flank was as batshit crazy as they are. I assumed that in order to keep the country from going over the cliff, Kevin McCarthy would have to give up his speakership or, at the very least, face another painful round of votes, weakening him even further.

That did not happen. The Freedom Caucus members blew off some steam but one of their top members on the Rules Committee broke ranks and let the bill come to the floor and while most of them didn’t vote for it in the end it ended up with 2/3 of the Republicans voting for it. (Freedom Caucus member Lauren Boebert didn’t even vote saying she refused to even grant the “crap sandwich” her vote but video turned up later showing that she actually just missed it.)

As for the threat to de-throne McCarthy, a few made some noises but in the end they all seemed to agree that they didn’t need to send him to the political guillotine. At least not yet. The question is why?

Right after the deal was struck, The New Yorker published a report on how it all went down, focusing on Russell Vought, a big MAGA RINO-hunter and Freedom Caucus guru (profiled here in Salon a couple of weeks ago) and his plot to take down McCarthy if he compromised with Biden. It sounded as though he was pretty gobsmacked at the mild reaction among his acolytes, whom he had guided through the speaker battle in January with the expectation that they would be in the driver’s seat. He told the New Yorker, “There was a deal. If you want to go back on that, there are going to be consequences.”

I guess we are seeing what he meant by that and it’s hardly got anyone shaking in their boots. Yesterday, the House conservatives decided it was time to stand up to the speaker and play hardball so a dozen far right members voted against the procedural rule vote on the floor to show they were mad as hell and they weren’t going to take it anymore. The leadership was surprised and will have to regroup to bring up the bills again.

What were they voting on? The immensely important, vital legislation called the Save Our Gas Stoves Act and Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act. They really showed Kevin McCarthy who’s boss.

The question really is, why are they so lame? We know that small rump faction has the power to do some real damage to McCarthy and the rest of the GOP leadership, which is the goal of Vought and others like Steve Bannon. Are they really just paper tigers after all?

The best analysis I’ve seen on this question is from MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in The Atlantic who noted a while back that House Republicans and the MAGA caucus in particular have actually lost interest in actual policy in favor of their crusade against democracy. After all, the fight over deficits, in particular, is extremely dull compared to dismantling the “deep state” and punishing their political enemies.

And it’s important to remember that their decades-long austerity campaigns were really just cover for culture war issues, racism in particular, as the notorious GOP strategist Lee Atwater confessed on his deathbed. Today, they’re no longer constrained by the need for dogwhistles or euphemisms so they don’t need to pretend they are concerned about government spending. The only fiscal issue they truly care about is ensuring that taxes for rich people are kept as low as possible and until they are once again in power they can rely on the courts to take care of rolling back regulations.

Right now, they’re really only interested in showy hearings and press conferences that will get them a hot hit on Newsmax or maybe Steve Bannon’s War Room. Here’s the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, who practically lives on Fox, insinuating that the FBI Director is going to be killed (or raped) in prison.

The document they’re talking about is some moldy old Burisma transcript from Rudy Giuliani’s bag of tricks.

What we know now is that Freedom Caucus and their MAGA compatriots aren’t interested in government at all. They are interested in partisan warfare, period. If Kevin McCarthy doesn’t get in the way of waging those battles he can cut as many deals as he wants. And McCarthy has no intention of doing that. He obviously knew from the beginning that if he gave them free rein to let their freak flags fly he would be perfectly safe.

CEO Chris Licht out at CNN

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 7, 2023

Capitalism takes no prisoners

This is just breaking.

CNBC reports that after little more than a year, CNN CEO Chris Licht is leaving. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, Eric Sherling and David Leavy will lead CNN until a replacement is found.

“Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we had hoped – and ultimately that’s on me. I take responsibility,” Zaslav said in a memo:

Licht drew heated criticism in recent weeks after the network hosted a town hall with Donald Trump that was packed with scores of the former president’s cheering fans. While the event drew 3.3 million viewers, CNN’s ratings plummeted afterward. Two days after the town hall, CNN’s prime-time viewership came in below right-wing outlet Newsmax, a much smaller network.

But it was an unflattering 15,000-word profile of Licht in The Atlantic – titled “Inside the Meltdown at CNN” – that might have sealed his fate. He apologized to staffers Monday morning, but top brass at CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, including CEO David Zaslav, weren’t happy with the article and the aftermath.

“The media has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson,” regarding coverage of Donald Trump, Licht told The Atlantic‘s Tim Alberta. Licht was wrong about the media and about CNN.

“American journalism is dumber than most journalists, who often share my sense of absurdity about these practices. A major reason we have a practice less intelligent than its practitioners is the prestige that the View from Nowhere still claims…”

Dan Froomkin advised Licht’s coming successor a month ago about the emptiness of “the View from Nowhere” approach:

Licht has tried to make CNN neutral political territory, most notably by firing bold truth-tellers like Brian Stelter and John Harwood who minced no words when it came to calling out the tornado of lies spawned by Trump, Fox News, and the rest of the MAGA ecosystem.

Licht made it clear to the remaining CNN staffers that they should shove the contentious talk about Trump, in an attempt to appeal to more conservative voters; that they should not “take sides”.

[…]

Let’s be clear: Licht has to go. And his successor needs to learn the lesson he refused to learn.

It turns out The Market wasn’t buying the View from Nowhere. And journalism is poorer for still peddling what NYU associate professor of journalism Jay Rosen warned about in 2010:

When MSNBC suspends Keith Olbermann for donating without company permission to candidates he supports– that’s dumb. When NPR forbids its “news analysts” from expressing a view on matters they are empowered to analyze– that’s dumb. When reporters have to “launder” their views by putting them in the mouths of think tank experts: dumb. When editors at the Washington Post decline even to investigate whether the size of rallies on the Mall can be reliably estimated because they want to avoid charges of “leaning one way or the other,” as one of them recently put it, that is dumb. When CNN thinks that, because it’s not MSNBC and it’s not Fox, it’s the only the “real news network” on cable, CNN is being dumb about itself. 

In fact, American journalism is dumber than most journalists, who often share my sense of absurdity about these practices. A major reason we have a practice less intelligent than its practitioners is the prestige that the View from Nowhere still claims in American newsrooms. You asked me why I am derisive toward it. That’s why. 

“Champion the truth as boldly and enthusiastically as Fox spreads propaganda and disinformation!” Froomkin tweets this morning.

Newspapers that want to survive — those that aren’t owned by hedge funds — ought to pay heed to Licht’s fate.

Pride and punches

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 7, 2023

How many moral panics in our lifetimes?

Five years ago Pride Month was not an issue. And now? Now trans panic is the Satanic ritual abuse panic for the early 21st century. Except the latter never really went away. But it is now joined and amplified by trans panic, fears of “grooming,” etc.

CBS News:

Protests outside a Glendale school district meeting turned violent as groups began several brawls as administrators discussed recognizing Pride Month, while the public debated gender and sexual identity studies.

Demonstrations outside of the Glendale Unified School District building stayed relatively civil throughout the day. However, scuffles between the around 200 protesters and counter-demonstrators began after 6 p.m. School administrators said many of the protesters did not have students in the district.

The city’s police department deployed around 50 officers to the meeting to prevent scuffles among the groups. After several brawls, officers ordered the protesters to disperse and threatened to use less-than-lethal force to break up the crowd. 

The attempts to de-escalate the crowd failed, prompting officers to arrest at least three people. They are accused of using pepper spray and obstruction.

“Erroneous information is being spread on social media” may have been a factor. A report from KTLA suggests the fight was over the school board adding “LGBTQ+ instruction” to the curriculum.

“We have absolutely no agenda,” said Glendale Unified Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. “We are not in the business of converting anyone’s child.”

But CBS and the Los Angeles Daily News report that it was not an agenda item, only recognition of Pride Month (CBS again):

Tensions boiled over inside the building as people debated LGBTQ+ issues during public comment. Gender and sexual identity curriculum were not on the agenda for the meeting. The only topic related to the LGBTQ+ community on the agenda was a declaration of support for Pride Month. The district has passed this declaration for the past five years.

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, however, “unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday encouraging all district schools to incorporate lessons on the LGBTQ+ community into their curriculum,” reports ABC7:

The resolution introduced by Board President Jackie Goldberg and Member Nick Melvoin served as the board’s official recognition of June as LGBTQ+ Pride Month — while also honoring October as LGBTQ+ History Month; Oct. 11 as National Coming Out Day; Nov. 20 as Transgender Day of Remembrance; March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility; and April 12 as a Day of Silence honoring the contribution of the LGBTQ+ community.

It noted that research has suggested that 25% of high school-age students in the country identify as LGBTQ+, and youth identifying as LGBTQ+ are at a higher risk for experiencing homelessness, being victims of bullying, and attempting or dying by suicide, and national research indicates that mental health struggles and rates of suicidal thoughts have trended upward among LGBTQ+ youth in recent years.

“Every school district, including ours, must continue to take a stand in supporting our LGBTQ+ youth and ensuring that every student has the resources they need to thrive both academically and socio-emotionally as a valued member of their school community,” the resolution read, in part.

Guess them’s fightin’ words. Guess we’re going to see teachers and schools administrators accused of forcing children into subterranean chambers below schools that have none. There the innocent will be inducted into the dark arts of better skin care, fashion choices, and self-worth. We’ve seen this movie before. It did not work out well in the 1980s.

Maybe he should rethink his party affiliation

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

It’s heartbreaking. But you shouldn’t have to personally experience it to have some empathy for what these kids are going through. Treating children — any children — like pariahs and threatening them and their parents and doctors with jail is reprehensible.

And maybe this fellow should reassess his assumptions about “the woke” in general.

Where in the world is Mark Meadows?

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

Apparently, he been busy testifying. The New York Times reported this afternoon that he’s has appeared before Jack Smith’s Grand Jury:

For months, people in Mr. Trump’s orbit have been puzzled by and wary about the low profile kept by Mr. Meadows in the investigations. As reports surfaced of one witness after another going into the grand jury or to be interviewed by federal investigators, Mr. Meadows has kept largely out of sight, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers believe he could be a significant witness in the inquiries.

Mr. Trump himself has at times asked aides questions about how Mr. Meadows is doing, according to a person familiar with the remarks.

Asked about the grand jury testimony, a lawyer for Mr. Meadows, George Terwilliger, said, “Without commenting on whether or not Mr. Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr. Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so.”

Mr. Meadows was a polarizing figure at the White House among some of Mr. Trump’s aides, who saw him as a loose gatekeeper at best during a final year in which the former president moved aggressively to mold the government in his image.

Mr. Meadows was around for pivotal moments leading up to and after the 2020 election, as Mr. Trump plotted to try to stay in office and thwart Joseph R. Biden Jr. from being sworn in to succeed him. Some of them were described in hundreds of text messages that Mr. Meadows turned over to the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol before he decided to stop cooperating. Those texts served as a road map for House investigators.

But Mr. Meadows also has insight into efforts by the National Archives to retrieve roughly two dozen boxes of presidential material that officials had been told Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House in January 2021. Mr. Meadows was one of Mr. Trump’s representatives to the archives, and he had some role in trying to discuss the matter with Mr. Trump, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Mr. Meadows is also now connected tangentially to a potentially vital piece of evidence that investigators uncovered in recent months: an audio recording of an interview that Mr. Trump gave to two people assisting Mr. Meadows in writing a memoir of his White House years.

Mr. Meadows did not attend the meeting, which took place in July 2021 at Mr. Trump’s club at Bedminster, N.J. During the meeting, Mr. Trump referred to a document he appeared to have in front of him and suggested that he should have declassified it but that he no longer could, since he was out of office.

That recording could undercut Mr. Trump’s claim that he believed he had declassified all material still held at his properties for months after he left office.

The lawyer says he has testified honestly “where he has a legal obligation to do so” which indicates to me that he probably claimed privileges. We may never know. But he did testify and it doesn’t sound like he reassured the boss that he didn’t give away the store. It’s just tea leaves but there is no witness with more first hand information than him. I would be surprised if he spilled his guts but the fact that he’s no longer on the inside in Trumpworld may indicate that he wasn’t completely uncooperative.

Alex Wagner did a whole segment on this a couple of weeks ago:

Update:

Immunity?

D-Day

Published by digby on June 6, 2023
https://twitter.com/MichaelWarbur17/status/1666027889484021762?s=20

It’s very moving to go to the Normandy beaches and recall what happened there. We’re rapidly losing our collective memory of all that in America but it’s still very vivid in Europe.

Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

You can’t make this stuff up.

A good piece from Mark Sumner at DKos on some of the weirdness coming out of the Ukraine war these days:

On Tuesday, Wagner Group CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin sat down for an interview with pro-Russian military blogger Konstantin Dolgov. Over the course of the discussion, the mercenary leader continued his barbed criticism of Russia’s military leadership, disparaged the sad state of the Russian army, and even seemed to suggest that a general revolt against the government of Vladimir Putin was right around the corner.

In the wake of that widely viewed interview, Dolgov was fired from his position at a Russian propaganda network, but Prigozhin … goes on. In what may be one of the most inexplicable chapters of Russia’s labyrinthine political system, Prigozhin still hasn’t had a stairwell accident, an unfortunate illness, or a visit to an open window despite months of increasingly blatant disdain for everyone and everything involved with Putin’s personal war on Ukraine.

Of all the things that Prigozhin said in the interview, the most painful and impactful to Putin and his long-term plans may not be that Russians might soon tire of sending their sons to die in muddy ditches, without decent training or equipment, while the offspring of the oligarchs frolic in Paris. The biggest was simply this: By the measures that Putin himself put up, the invasion of Ukraine is an absolute failure.

On the day that Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine, Putin set two straightforward goals in a speech to the Russian people: “de-Nazifying” and “demilitarizing” Ukraine. Essentially, that meant bringing down the Ukrainian government and destroying the Ukrainian military.

Even after the crushing defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, the second defeat in the Kharkiv counteroffensive, and the inability to hold onto the city of Kherson, Putin has continued to push these two goals. When it comes to everything that has happened or might happen in his illegal invasion, these are the two measures Putin built for himself, and has returned to again and again.

That’s what makes this the most critical moment of the interview with Prigozhin.

Prigozhin admits that Putin’s invasion hasn’t just failed, it has done the opposite of what Putin declared its central purpose. The Ukrainian government is by every measure stronger than it was when the war began, both in domestic popular support, and perhaps more importantly, in the international arena. Zelenskyy is the new Churchill. The Ukrainian military, warts and all, is now a symbol for strength, resilience, and bravery that has no modern rival.

“I don’t know,” said Prigozhin. “It’s like the Greeks during the period of Greece’s prosperity. Like the Romans were during …” At that point Dolgov cuts him off, but the point is made.

Which brings up the second measure of Russian failure, one that Prigozhin returns to several times in the interview. Putin hasn’t just been ineffectual in the effort to crush the Ukrainian military, his invasion has made that military much, much stronger. In fact, says Prigozhin, the Ukrainian military is now one of the strongest in the world.

“If at the start of the special operation they had 500 tanks, hypothetically speaking,” said the Wagner leader, “now they have 5,000 tanks. If 20,000 men were able to fight before, now it’s 400,000. … F*ck knows how, but we’ve militarized Ukraine.”

Putin has managed to turn Zelenskyy into a hero, the Ukrainian people into a symbol for everything good, and the Ukrainian military into one of the strongest in the world. At this rate, other nations might actually start to consider if they want to be invaded next.

It’s not just Prigozhin and it’s not just bloggers who are starting to realize how badly this whole thing has gone for Russia. Even on state-sanctioned propaganda television, the questions are getting a little uncomfortable.

“I have a question about the strategic defeat of America that you mentioned as our goal. Of course it sounds impressive, most of our viewers will like it. … But I have a feeling, you’ll probably disagree, but after fifteen months of fighting, when we have not only failed to crush Ukraine, but also could not move the front from Donetsk, well, it’s a little early to talk about America’s strategic defeat.”

The response—which includes a parable about learning to jump a two-meter bar by just jumping a two-meter bar—ends with a “Go for it, comrades!” and an insistence that being unable to wrest a kilometer away from Ukraine doesn’t mean they can’t conquer the whole United States. It’s every bit as nonsensical as it sounds.

Just where can the Russian military go to find any respect in this world? Well, comrade, there is always Fox News.

If you can get past the first minute, which DeSantis devotes to attacking the “woke” American military, you can finally reach that ray of hope on which Putin must currently hang his future dreams. DeSantis calls the illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine “what’s going on in Eastern Europe.” Then says he wants a “settlement,” says he worries about “a wider war,” and the only time he says the word “Ukraine” is when expressing how he doesn’t want to get involved there.

Right now, as most of the world waits for Ukraine’s next move, Putin has one hope—the Republican counteroffensive against democracy.

I don’t know what to say about this. But this war is something else.

The Chris Christie show is coming to town

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

He didn’t have much luck doing that with Trump, however, and was soon out of the race. Yesterday he announced that he was going to give it another shot although it’s highly unlikely he will get past the starting gate. But it would be nice if he could get his message out to at least a few people who have never heard any of it before.

Some highlights of his announcement:

I don’t know if he has any credibility with Republicans but he might have some with GOP leaning Independents. And maybe his words will somehow make it into the fever swamp, you never know.

Trump, by the way, responded in kind:

“It’ll be so easy…”

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

In fact, it should be ready in two weeks

Ah memories:

“My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability,” said Trump on Oct. 25, 2016 a day after he St. Augustine speech, in Sanford, Florida. “You’re going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. And it’s going to be so easy.”

Fast forward to 2020:

Trump began teasing his own replacement plan during his first presidential bid, five years ago. Back then, he pledged to swap out the Affordable Care Act for “something terrific,” details TBD.

Over subsequent months and years, Trump boasted about the benefits of his plan. It would be cheaper yet somehow also more generous than Obamacare. It would be “so easy,” even though “nobody knew health care could be so complicated.” It would “take care of everybody,” even as it took literal care away from many.

Trump proclaimed the GOP will become “the party of healthcare,” but a conservative replacement to Obamacare would probably look something like…Obamacare. (Video: Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)

This plan was always “two weeks” away — coincidentally the timeline promised for most every Trump announcement,including thoseabout wiretapping, infrastructure and Melania Trump’s immigration history.

As the fortnights passed, suspense grew. Finally, an announcement came this week: This Godot-like plan, this girlfriend-who-lives-in-Canada of public policies — it exists!

“I have it all ready,” Trump said at a town hall Tuesday, “and it’s a much better plan for you, and it’s a much better plan.”

Alas, Trump remains unable to share this “much better plan” with the public. Or, it seems, anyone within his administration.

Tens of millions of our fellow Americans believe that this clown had “great policies” and really delivered for the American people. That’ s the part I will never understand. Are they just stupid or (generously) uninformed about what he really did during his term? Is it just a way for them to rationalize their loyalty to an imbecile whose show they enjoy watching? Maybe it’s his overwhelming shamelessness that confuses them?

I honestly don’t know, but it will never stop shocking me that this was president and that all these people want him to do it again.

About those leaks

Published by digby on June 6, 2023

In case you were wondering about all the “leaks” we’ve been getting from the Mar-a-Lago case — and Trump’s lawyers screaming bloody murder that Jack Smith himself is doing the leaking , here’s an explainer from TPM:

The short answer is that the sources of the flurry of stories we’ve seen are witnesses in the case or, more precisely, their lawyers. Trump World figures, in responding and reacting to some of the disclosures, have divulged some new information, too, but that’s been less revealing of the underlying facts than of potential defenses they might use and the public narrative they want to create.

None of the big reveals about the MAL evidence from the last few weeks bear much sign of having come from Smith, the FBI, or DOJ more broadly.

Kurt Eichenwald, the veteran investigative reporter, had a good thread on the dynamics:

As a flood of details of the Trump MaraLago case come out, Trump, commentators etc say Smith’s team is leaking. As someone who has covered these kinds of cases many times, that is almost certainly not true. And the fact that this much is coming out is a bad sign for Trump as investigations near their close, there are scores of people who know what is going on.

Every witness has a lawyer, and all the lawyers speak to each other to make sure that their clients have not made an error in their testimony to the grand jury. Reporters always havestanding relationships with the lawyers and usually with the witnesses. We all know that, at some point, all of the lawyers will know everything and most of the witnesses will know that they are not in danger of indictment, and this is when everyone starts talking.with some exceptions, the reporters usually have establish relationships within the DOJ or independent counsel’s office, but they rarely will say anything other than to wave you off if your article is completely wrong.

They will let you be vaguely wrong, which is why you need strong relationships with everyone with contact to the investigation. Reporters are not simply sitting there waiting to lap up information from the prosecutors or FBI. With one exception, it never happens. The exception: Ken Starr and the Lewinsky investigation. 

Ken Starr personally leaked like a sieve. He even publicly admitted that in a tape recorded interview with Steven Brill, which was published in a now-defunct magazine called Content. Brett Kavenaugh on the Starr team also personally leaked (and now he is a SCOTUS justice) reporters did a horrible job during the Lewinsky investigation for that very reason.

They were easily manipulated because they thought they were getting the straight dope, but Starr & Co. were using them to put pressure on other potential witnesses by often making it seem like they knew more than they actually did. Bill Clinton disgusted Starr and his team – something reflected in the absurd, near-pornographic report they put out which had all the “impeach impeach!!!” recommendations that Mueller properly refused to do, recognizing that the decision to impeach was for Congress, not for him.

Starr exercised no such respect for the role that had become the traditional position for special prosecutors. And remember – Starr was appointed by a court *after* the previous Special prosecutor, Bob Fisk(fiske) concluded that there was nothing to the Whitewater case. Starr started from scratch, found nothing, and then pursued the Lewinsky case like it was the crime of the century.

So, bottom line: The vast amount of info coming out now indicates Smith is reaching the end of the investigation. There is literally no motivation any prosecutor would have at this stage to leak – not even a partisan like Ken Starr. And the lawyers/witnesses know pretty much the whole case, and near the end is when they all start blabbing.

Sounds right to me.