Politics
- Trump took anything he wanted and could not fathom the idea that they aren’t really his documents to have.
- He took the documents because he hoped to sell them to someone or a foreign power like Israel or Russia.
- He wanted them because he thought the contents could be used to exonerate him for all of his misdeeds.
- He really had no clue about any of this, and now he’s trying to play the victim.
Lazy and Gullible
The problem with our modern press is not just that they are lazy, it’s also that, because they are lazy, they are gullible.
Joaquin's First School Shooting
This is one of the most biting commentary on school shootings I’ve ever seen.
Patricia Oliver lost her son, 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver, in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. Since then, Oliver has committed herself to the cause of gun reform in America — and her latest effort involves this adorably horrific children’s book that depicts the events of the day in cartoonishly gruesome detail.
I love the idea of sending a hard copy of the book to your representatives to drive the point home, but I know where it will end up when most Republicans get it.
Fox News Lost the Lawsuit but Won the War
David A. Graham, writing for The Atlantic, has the story regarding the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, and it’s a big one.
Fox News has agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5m to avoid a defamation trial it expected to lose. The case centered on Fox News' broadcasting of lies and conspiracy theories about the company’s voting machines, but Dominion isn’t the only company suing it. Smartmatic, another voting machine company, has a nearly-identical lawsuit in the works and is asking for even more money.
In fact, on paper Smartmatic's suit appears to be the more dangerous. It's demanding damages of $2.7bn, compared with Dominion's $1.6bn. So far, attempts by Fox lawyers to have the Smartmatic case dismissed have fallen on stony ground. Last week the New York state supreme court in Manhattan gave the green light for the case to proceed against Fox News, the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the former business anchor Lou Dobbs and Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.Smartmatic, a global election technology company headquartered in London, lodged its defamation suit in February 2021. "The Earth is round," was the complaint's striking opening sentence. "Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election … "
Let’s see if the media blowback Dominion is getting for taking the money and running away (probably the smart move) will be echoed with Smartmatic. I think corporations are going corporate mostly because they aren’t in the business of fixing the media landscape or destroying Fox News. It would be nice, though.
Is the GOP becoming the American fascist party?
The whole piece is good, but this is the main point:
We are witnessing the logical culmination of win-at-any-cost Trump Republican politics — scorched-earth tactics used by Republicans to entrench their power, with no justification other than that they can.Democracy is about means. Under it, citizens don’t have to agree on ends (abortion, health care, guns, or whatever else we disagree about) as long as we agree on democratic means for handling our disagreements.
But for Trump Republicans, the ends justify whatever means they choose —including expelling lawmakers, rigging elections through gerrymandering, refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and denying the outcome of a legitimate presidential election.
My friends, the Republican Party is no longer committed to democracy. It is rapidly becoming the American fascist party.
You have to vote them out.
We Finally Know the Case Against Trump, and It Is Strong
From the article:
Whatever happens next, one thing is clear: Mr. Trump cannot persuasively argue he is being singled out for some unprecedented theory of prosecution. He is being treated as any other New Yorker would be with similar evidence against him.
Ron DeSantis Got Played by Disney
Disney did all of this out in the open after published notices and at public hearings. The Florida GOP is sloppy and incompetent.
The people who run Disney are pretty smart, and Ron DeSantis seems pretty dumb, so I’m not surprised at how this turned out.
Just a Reminder...
For any who believe anything Fox news or any of their hosts tell or show them, the hosts themselves are now on public record not only telling you it’s all a bunch of lies to boost ratings but they also laugh at you and call you idiots behind your back.
So, yeah. Keep watching.H/T: Patrick Rhone
Watch Jon Stewart's epic takedown of Second Amendment absolutist Rep. Nathan Dahm
Is it epic? Well, yes. Sort of. Stewart does what most Americans want done to our politicians and leaders who have stupid ideas–call them out on it. Hey, look at all of this hypocrisy.
The thing is, nothing is going to change because of this viral video.
The people who seek to regulate the freedoms of drag queens don’t care about hypocrisy, much less the opinions of liberals who take great satisfaction in seeing it “exposed.” Hypocrisy is rooted in liberal values – fairness, equality and everyone playing by the same rules. Are we supposed to believe people who are OK with mass child death care about fairness? Are we supposed to believe exposing unfairness will change things?
It will not.
What they say when they see drag queens read stories to kids in public libraries around the country is a threat to children. They say they attempt to “sexualize” them, even “groom” them. It’s because they have no concept of art. What they say they see when they see drag queens and LGBT-plus people is the same thing. It’s not.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to them. You can’t explain the difference. They don’t want to see it. Not only are drag queens and LGBT-plus people the same thing from their myopic point of view, they are also equally bad. Drag queens “sexualize” children. LGBT-plus people do, too. Together, these factors ask us to ask another question, which is: what is good?
In their eyes, drag queens and LGBT-plus people are not good. So, they are bad. None of this is true. They only want what they consider normal sexualization, meaning heterosexuality. Anything not hetero is bad. They believe the government should enforce the “normal sexualization” and outlaw the not normal. They don’t want people to be who they want to be. They want them to be “normal” in their eyes and if they refuse, they should be rounded up and sent away to “save the children.”
They don’t care about kids being killed by guns because they think drag queens are worse. How stupid do they think we are?
America’s unique, enduring gun problem, explained
Li Zhou, Nicole Narea, Ian Millhiser, and Cameron Peters, writing for Vox, has a story on the gun problem in America.
Call me cynical, but nothing is ever going to change. There is literally nothing that will change people’s minds about this subject. There is no amount of people killed that would do it. No one person killed by gun violence would motivate a wholesale change. Someone could kill every member of Congress and nothing would change.
It’s pathetic to have to live in this kind of society. I don’t have any hope for change and that’s sad.
The Republican Clown Show is Scary, not Funny.
I wish I could muster much energy to write about the clown show currently happening and has been happening for several days now in the United States House of Representatives. I’m not one for popcorn watching the proceedings with glee. I’m more in line with what Dahlia Lithwick of Slate wrote:
We’ve moved on to the next era, the post-Crazypants era, in which various unqualified gun nuts and racists vie for the empty throne, without either the purse or the limited vision of the reality-show star who came before them. None of the disruptors care about much of anything at this juncture. Whether the prospect of Trumpism without Trump chills you or relieves you, the fact is that the MAGA faction that has stymied the transition to a GOP-led House is essentially leaderless—but it is also powerful. That is not, at least to my eyes, a meaningful improvement on 2021.
Sigh.
If you are confused, watch this:
Understand how government works, so you can see that it’s not working. #Speakerofthehouse pic.twitter.com/bJVSE8ZW8K
— PoliticsGirl (@IAmPoliticsGirl) January 6, 2023
Trump Selling NFTs
Molly White of Web3 Is Going Just Great had the right take on Trump's "major" announcement"
Trump supporters got all excited when Trump posted on social media to tease a “major announcement”. Was he going to run for speaker of the House? Return to Twitter? Unveil a presidential running mate?As always, Trump never fails to disappoint. Such an obvious grift.His supporters were surprised — and not exactly thrilled — when the announcement turned out to be a collection of 45,000 NFTs (sorry, “digital trading cards”) featuring artwork of himself in heroic outfits and poses. The NFTs are “just” $99 apiece, and money goes to Trump, not his campaign.
Even some of his strongest supporters were nonplussed. Steve Bannon said, “I can’t do this anymore,” and opined that he should fire whoever advised him to make the collection.
The Game’s Afoot
Ken White, writing for The Atlantic sums up your weekend read:
The president said on Twitter that Friday’s news “totally clears the President. Thank you!” It does not. Manafort and Cohen are in trouble, and so is Trump. The special counsel’s confidence in his ability to prove Manafort a liar appears justified, which leaves Manafort facing what amounts to a life sentence without any cooperation credit. The Southern District’s brief suggests that Cohen’s dreams of probation are not likely to come true. All three briefs show the special counsel and the Southern District closing in on President Trump and his administration. They’re looking into campaign contact with Russia, campaign-finance fraud in connection with paying off an adult actress, and participation in lying to Congress. A Democratic House of Representatives, just days away, strains at the leash to help. The game’s afoot.
The Disgust Is The Product
A paragraph in David Roth’s Defector piece encapsulates this moment in time and describes what is happening right now in crystal clear imagery.
In its current state, Trumpism is entirely about feeling and fantasy. Instead of any plan to deal with crime, for instance, there is only the lascivious going-over of the problem; there is no program, or really any policies to advocate for, that is more expedient for the party than just continuing to fixate on it. There is a constituency—they are confused and vengeful and fucking livid, they are daily taking in and making up strange new stories to keep themselves that way, they are less mis- or disinformed than they are living inside the bilious and vengeful lore that sustains and explains their movement—and there is what that constituency feels, but there is nothing else. It is again worth noting that this constituency chooses to feel this way, every day; the most comfortable Americans have opted to wander this wilderness of prurience and threat and weird ugly lies instead of living in a reality they would have to share with anyone else. Where there might otherwise be ideology—where there might, actually, have been anything else—there is only politics. Of course it is ugly, small, even more fantastically dark than the truth of the moment. Being ugly, in precisely that way, is the reason that it exists. What began as a cynical set of best practices for keeping distracted people attached to their televisions has become the sacrament itself; they have built a church and then just fucking filled it with cable news.
When does this change? Will it ever?
Republicans in key races scrap online references to Trump, abortion
Colby Itkowitz writing in The Washington Post, outlines how Republicans in swing districts are freaking out.
At least nine Republican congressional candidates have scrubbed or amended references to Trump or abortion from their online profiles in recent months, distancing themselves from divisive subjects that some GOP strategists say are two of the biggest liabilities for the party ahead of the post-Labor Day sprint to Election Day.
The Dobbs decision has clearly energized Democratic voters to the point where they have closed the enthusiasm gap with Republicans,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime GOP pollster, referencing the Supreme Court ruling that ended the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Asked whether it hurts the GOP to have Trump back in the news, Ayres replied, “The best case for Republican candidates in the midterms is making the upcoming election a referendum on the Biden administration.”
The Dobbs ruling has motivated many people. Republicans have no idea what to do.
It is also possible the constant stream of “Donald Trump sold our national secrets” in the news is hurting the GOP as well, but who knows?
Mikhail Gorbachev, dead at 91
Mikhail Gorbachev, whose efforts to reform the Soviet Union only hastened its political collapse, is dead at 91.
At least he tried.
Bad Defenses and Worse Lawyering
Legal Eagle Devin Stone explains in language that everyone can understand how much trouble Donald Trump is in and what his lawyers are doing wrong.
I have no idea where this all going to end up. I’d like to speculate and say an indictment is in the future, but until it actually happens, I won’t believe it.
The Ongoing Influence of QAnon and Its Self-Made Mythologies
Mike Rothschild, writing for Lithub, has a deep dive into conspiracy theories and the creation of QAnon.
In the post-Trump world, the QAnon movement split along two parallel tracks. Sometimes they happened to intersect, but many other times they went their own way. Most believers went down one, and a few went down the other. But both are critical to understanding why this movement persisted long after any hope of The Storm’s arrival had passed.
One track was a mainstreaming of Q’s core tenets to the point where the basics of QAnon—the drops, the obscure comms”—were no longer necessary, or even desirable. Q was no longer the cool, secret club that you had to speak the jargon to have a chance of getting into. It was just conservatism now. The tenuous coalition of MAGA-devoted Q believers and more progressive pandemic truthers that lurched out of Facebook in 2020 had become one unified front in 2021. In countless school board meetings, city council sessions, protests, health freedom conferences, and segments on major right-wing media, the same story was being told, and it was a story that even the most casual Q believer would have no problem embracing.
The other track was much farther on the fringe than even most Trumpists were willing to travel. This was where Michael Protzman and his devoted cultists in Negative48 rode, along with other, even more outwardly racist and ant-Semitic new Q promoters. On this track, Q drops were still gospel and the comms still were being decoded for all their secrets. And there were a lot of secrets. Trump and JFK Jr. spoke in number codes with Prince and Elvis, quantum medical beds and NESARA would deliver permanent health and prosperity to all, and Trump was still actually the president of a devolved military government. Fewer people were in this part of Q’s big tent, but they got a lot of baffled media attention for their bizarre antics—gematria cultists waiting for JFK and drinking industrial bleach out of a communal bowl to fight COVID will get clicks.
You may not want to, but you should read the whole thing.
Republicans Are America’s Problem
Charles M. Blow, writing an opinion piece in The New York Times, has an interesting premise: Republicans are a problem. He starts by lamenting Liz Cheney’s primary defeat because she would not bow down to “The Big Lie.”
However, her loss does crystallize something for us that many had already known: that the bar to clear in the modern Republican Party isn’t being sufficiently conservative but rather being sufficiently obedient to Donald Trump and his quest to deny and destroy democracy.First off, are you just seeing this play out now? Wait, here’s the revelation Mr. Blow has finally experienced…We must stop thinking it hyperbolic to say that the Republican Party itself is now a threat to our democracy. I understand the queasiness about labeling many of our fellow Americans in that way. I understand that it sounds extreme and overreaching.
But how else are we to describe what we are seeing?
We have to stop saying that all these people are duped and led astray, that they are somehow under the spell of Trump and programmed by Fox News.No shit.Propaganda and disinformation are real and insidious, but I believe that to a large degree, Republicans’ radicalization is willful.
Republicans have searched for multiple election cycles for the right vehicle and packaging for their white nationalism, religious nationalism, nativism, craven capitalism and sexism.
There was a time when they believed that it would need to be packaged in politeness — compassionate conservatism — and the party would eventually recommend a more moderate approach intended to branch out and broaden its appeal — in its autopsy after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss.
But Trump offered them an alternative, and they took it: Instead of running away from their bigotries, intolerances and oppression, they would run headlong into them. They would unapologetically embrace them.
This, to many Republicans, felt good. They no longer needed to hide. They could live their truths, no matter how reprehensible. They could come out of the closet, wrapped in their cruelty.
But the only way to make this strategy work and viable, since neither party dominates American life, was to back a strategy of minority rule and to disavow democracy.
I’m so happy this man concluded that Republicans don’t want democracy as if this is some new-fangled thing he just figured out.
Republicans want fascism. And nothing will change their minds. Rape allegations, fraud, tax evasion, lying, stealing confidential information, and general mob mentality, are always spun that Republicans are right and everyone else is wrong.
It’s a cult.
Liz Cheney refused to drink the spiked Kool-aid and paid the political price for being right in her convictions (this one time).
Trump Took Top Secret (and higher) Files from the White House
The Wall Street Journal outlined the contents of the boxes the FBI took from Mar-a-Lago on August 8:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” according to the three-page list.
The list includes references to one set of documents marked as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents. The list didn’t provide any more details about the substance of the documents.
I’m waiting to see how all of this plays out, but if this was anyone else, they’d already be in jail right now.
I mean, why in the hell would he take these documents? To sell them? Did he want a few souvenirs? This is the guy who loves to rip up documents and flush them down the toilet, so what was the reasoning behind keeping them?
I can think of a few reasons, but none of them make any sense:
Maybe there’s some other more obvious reason that I’m not thinking of that makes a lick of sense. I’m sure this whole point will be discovered sooner or later.
Hoping for sooner.