Last Call For Climate Of Destruction, Con't

Data from the EU's Copernicus climate change office indicates September 2023 was the hottest September on global record by such a wide margin that scientists are wondering whether we've crossed the line of no return.

The September milestone, reported in new data released late Wednesday by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, added to an alarming stretch of record-breaking global temperatures. During June, July and August, the planet had its hottest summer on record “by a large margin.”

September's temperatures have climate scientists even more stunned.

“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist — absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” Zeke Hausfather, the climate research lead for the financial services company Stripe, wrote Tuesday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said it’s worrying to see so many new records set, but it’s even more alarming to see by what margin they are being toppled. Average surface air temperatures last month were almost a degree Fahrenheit hotter than September 2020, which had been the warmest September on record.

“Normally when you’re beating a record, it’s by hundredths of a degree,” she said, “so this is really a huge amount."

September was also the most anomalously warm month in recorded history, meaning its deviation from the average was higher than any month so far, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

That warmth has continued into October. Temperatures around the world have remained elevated with a resurgence of summerlike conditions gripping residents of the Upper Midwest and the Northeast this week, despite being almost two full weeks into fall.

Record-smashing temperatures — above 90 F in some places — added to unseasonable warmth across a huge swath of the country, with cities from the Great Lakes to the Northeast experiencing high temperatures 10 to 30 degrees above average.

But the United States was hardly alone with its wild temperature swings: An October heat wave is baking Western Europe, with temperatures soaring well above 90 F in parts of France and Spain. And in the Southern Hemisphere, unseasonably warm temperatures have been recorded across South America and Australia, all coming on the heels of multiple bouts of extreme heat in previous months, during what should have been the winter season in that part of the world.

 

Conservatives will tell you that all this international climate data is really a conspiracy to use X as a fascism justification to take over the world, where X is vaccines, digital currency, electric vehicles, elections that they don't win, LGBTQ+ folks existing, Black folks surviving and thriving, abortion, and gas stoves. Probably fluoride too.

Meanwhile, the actual effects are pretty well detailed, documented and predictable. It's getting worse, and it's getting worse at a faster rate.

Plan accordingly.

 

The Gaetz Of Heck, Con't

A not-so-gentle reminder that many Republicans really hate GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, and that at this point they are more than willing to air his dirty laundry.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-O.K.) claimed on national television Wednesday night that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-F.L.) bragged about chasing down erectile dysfunction medication with an energy drink to prolong his sexual endeavors.

Gaetz brought a motion to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, and a day later, he and a posse of like-minded Republicans voted to axe the California congressman a day later.

The ousting of McCarthy has left the GOP party in chaos and plenty of ire was directed at Gaetz, as even fellow MAGA loyalists were furious over the ensuing infighting after the GOP left itself with no leader and no clear path forward.

Frustrated with Gaetz’s actions on Wednesday, Mullin unleashed wild allegations against the congressman when speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju outside the Capitol.

Mullin began by saying that after Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, “the media didn’t give [him] the time of day.” Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing, arguing that bad actors in the Justice Department were trying to ruin his life. That allegation prompted an investigation by the Department of Justice, which decided not to file charges in February.

“And there’s a reason why no one in the Congress came and defended him: Because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin added. “He would brag about how he would crush E.D. medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. This was obviously before he got married.”

He continued, “And so, when that accusation came out, no one defended him. And then no one in the media would give him the time of the day. All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the House back in November. And he’s always stayed there. And he was never gonna leave until he got this last moment of fame by going after a motion to vacate.”

In a statement to CNN read by anchor Anderson Cooper on air, Gaetz denied his colleague’s claim.

“I don’t think Markwayne Mullin and I have said 20 words to each other on the House floor. This is a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin,” Gaetz’s statement read. “Thoughts and prayers.”

 

And while the DoJ investigation into Gaetz has been dropped, the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz has been going for over two years now, and there's a growing movement (powered by Newt Gingrich of all people) to expel Gaetz based on the results of the probe. 

Whether that happens, well, all bets are off here.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump continues to attack judges, prosecutors and court officers running his criminal and fraud trials on social media, despite now being under multiple gag orders, and as I have been saying for a while now, he's doing it on purpose in order to dare someone to put him in jail.

Trump continued to complain online after arriving in court on Wednesday.

"Just arrived at the Witch Hunt Trial taking place in the very badly failing (so sadly!) State of New York, where people and companies are fleeing by the thousands," he wrote. "Corrupt Attorney General, Letitia James, is a big reason for this. Statute 63(12) is meant to be used for Consumer Fraud. It has never been used before on a 'case' such as this, especially since I did absolutely nothing wrong. I borrowed money, paid it back, in full, and got sued, years later, with a trial RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN. I am not even entitled, under any circumstances, to a JURY. This Witch Hunt cannot be allowed to continue. It is Election Interference and the start of Communism right here in America!"

"Despite the gag order — which again, is limited only to the judge's staff — Trump is back on Truth Social this morning with a post taking aim at New York Attorney General Tish James and filled with words from a Trump legal bingo card," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin.

Attorney Bradley Moss argued that the post itself "does not cross the line," opining that "this post was reviewed by the lawyers" before it was sent.

While the Truth Social posts may not have violated the judge's order, some legal experts predicted that he would "almost certainly" violate it.

"If we're gonna ask, is Trump gonna violate a gag order? Almost certainly, yes," former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC. "It's more likely that he'll violate the gag order than almost anything... I mean, we're talking a significant probability he's going to violate the gag order, and then the question is: Will the judge at that point take the really heavy medicine of putting a former president in jail, or will there be some sort of warning and monetary fine first?" he said, adding he expects the latter but the outcome would depend on exactly how Trump violates the order.

"It's kind of like failing kindergarten," Katyal added. "To get a gag order imposed, you have to try. Trump managed to work at it and do it. And succeed. But it took a lot of work on his part. Now, I think the judge is basically saying, you attack a member of my staff, there will be serious sanctions, including even up to jail."

CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams suggested during Wednesday's edition of "CNN This Morning" that a prison stint is the only way to get the former president to comply with the gag order.

"In order to have a serious sanction against a defendant who's a billionaire, you really have to be sanctioning him hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars to really sort of stick it to him," Williams said. "And that's just not going to happen under the laws of New York court policy or procedure.

"You could put him in prison," he continued, addressing host Poppy Harlow. "You could do that. It's less likely but it's certainly doable and, frankly, Poppy, that's the one thing I think will work at this point because — just think about it — nothing has worked whether it is warnings, threats of gag orders or anything else. You've got one penalty left, right?" 

 

Luckily, Judge Engoron still has other options other than trying to jail Trump.

 

Trial attorney Bernard Alexander, who specialized in employment law and civil rights cases, told Insider, however, that Trump is unlikely to incur those kinds of penalties even if Engoron finds he's failed to comply with the gag order. Any decision the court makes, Alexander said, will have to strike a balance between maintaining the former president's right to free speech and the legal objective of holding a fair trial.

"For one thing, the judge can prevent Trump's legal team from presenting certain evidence. But judges prefer not to put their thumb on the scales of justice that way," Alexander told the outlet, adding that if Trump's trial had a jury, the judge could instruct the jury to consider the violation in their decision.

Alexander went on to say that the court could also impose a fine against Trump, "but that would be meaningless," and noted that judges in civil cases usually don't order people to go to jail, so Engoron will have to be creative in the sanction he chooses to issue to dissuade Trump from theoretically continuing to violate the order.

"Trump has money and he uses it to bully people. He can keep paying fines amounting to thousands of dollars – which is what would have to be imposed in a case like this – without giving it a second thought," Alexander told Insider. "The sanction must be something effective to reign Trump in, in order for him to take it seriously."

Alexander expressed that he was not surprised the order was issued and deemed it the correct course of action for Engoron.

"The judge is trying to maintain the integrity of the court and proceed with as light a touch as possible to allow the case to progress without any hint that the court is being impartial. The more Trump violates the rules, the more the judge has to act to maintain integrity and control," he said.

 

Trump is trying to get into as much trouble as possible in order to raise MAGA outrage and to sink the entire legal process.  Trump is already appealing the fraud liability finding by Judge Engoron even as the trial continues. It's a mess but a calculated one. 

Trump is trying to break the system to the point where it can't be used to punish him. We keep saying that Trump is not above the law, but he's also an unprecedented bad actor with considerable power to harm the country. Keep that in mind.

And no, he's not going to get locked up for violating gag orders as Liz Dye explains.

 

Shorn of all of the BS, Trump’s argument against a gag order boils down to “I’m running for president, and telling me to keep quiet is going to be a massive interference in the political process.” There’s also an unspoken element of “You and what army?”

The reality is that, absent a conviction, no judge is going to lock up the former president, who is running to return to office and who has a secret service detail and millions of angry followers. In some sense, every party to this transaction already knows that the court simply cannot treat Trump like any other defendant. And so they’re trying to fashion a solution which will nudge the former president to behave slightly better, knowing that a severe restriction is likely to provoke a showdown which will gum up the works for everyone.

In practical effect, this boils down to putting the squeeze on Trump’s lawyers and hoping that they’ll do their best to keep their client in line.

In an earlier round of motions, prosecutors argued for a protective order blocking Trump from disclosing any evidence turned over in discovery. Trump’s lawyers howled that this was a violation of their client’s First Amendment rights, just as they’re doing now. Judge Chutkan wound up imposing a narrower order blocking the disclosure of “sensitive information” such as grand jury transcripts, witness interviews, and personally identifying information. In practical effect, she ordered Trump not to post witness information on Truth Social.

But more than that, she imposed an obligation on Trump’s lawyers to safeguard that information by refusing to let Trump keep copies or take notes on it. And she put the kibosh on Trump’s plans to share that information with “volunteer attorneys or others without paid employment arrangements to assist with the preparation of this case” — a category of people which might include unindicted co-conspirators like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Trump’s fixer Boris Epshteyn. By placing the onus on Trump’s counsel to control the flow of sensitive information, Judge Chutkan has so far managed to keep Trump from posting it online. Because while no judge wants the chaos that will come from sanctioning Donald Trump for his speech, they’ll happily sanction his lawyers in a heartbeat.

Trump’s desire to postpone his trial provides another lever Judge Chutkan can use to keep him in line. At an August hearing on the parameters of the first protective order, she tacitly warned Trump that the more he potentially poisoned the jury pool, the less inclined she would be to delay the trial.

“Even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel, if they can be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process,” she said. “The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool … the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly.”

Judge Chutkan has scheduled an October 16 hearing on the motion for a gag order. This would not appear to indicate that she views the matter of Trump’s social media posts as particularly urgent. In the meantime, the former president has directed most of his ranting toward Justice Engoron as the New York trial unfolds this week. Perhaps the sheer volume of Trump’s legal woes will keep him out of trouble with judges, if only because every time he gets tempted to do something deeply damaging in one case, he’ll be distracted by proceedings in another.

 

Having said all that, Trump's going to continue to Trump. Whether or not real pain can even be applied to him, well, we'll see.

Last Call For Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

With Repubicans canceling any and all new funding for Ukraine President Bien will make the case to the American people that supporting Ukraine with American weapons and dollars is vital to protecting Europe and NATO.

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would deliver a "major" speech about funding for Ukraine and "why it's critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment."

The comments came in response to a question from NBC News about whether he was worried about the U.S. being unable to deliver aid to Ukraine due to the disarray on Capitol Hill. The president took questions from the press following his planned remarks on student debt.

"I'm going to make the argument that it's overwhelmingly in the interest of the United States of America that Ukraine succeed," Biden said.

Biden argued that the administration's focus on international coalition building has improved the position of the U.S.

"They've strengthened us across the board, not just as it relates to Ukraine, whether it's Japan and South Korea or whether it's what's happening in Europe itself," Biden said. "And so I think that it's clear to the vast majority of the foreign policy community on both left and right that this has been a valuable exercise for the United States of America to increase the support we have around the world."

The Republican Party has become increasingly divided over U.S. aid to Ukraine, and the issue was part of the standoff in the House that nearly led to a government shutdown. The 45-day continuing resolution that averted the shutdown ultimately did not include any new Ukraine aid, to the dismay of many Democrats.

When asked how long the support could continue without additional funding, Biden said that the U.S. can back Ukraine in "the next tranche," adding that "there is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that." He declined to go into details on the funding source, as did press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during the press briefing.

It's good to see the White House move on this, with support for Ukraine being whittled away by Trump and the GOP on a daily basis it seems.

But let's not forget the reason we're here, Putin's invasion. He's stopped here, or he'll invade again.

Let's Make A Deal: Georgia Edition

The wheelin' and dealin' in the Peach State continues after the dam broke with the first of Trump's Georgia election fraud co-conspirators cutting a deal last week. More are now expected to follow.

Fulton County prosecutors are floating plea deals to a number of defendants in the election interference case involving former President Donald Trump, according to people with knowledge of the proposals.

At least a handful of the now 18 defendants have received offers from the District Attorney’s office — or prosecutors have touched base with their attorneys to gauge their general interest in striking a deal for a reduced charge in exchange for their cooperation, according to the legal sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive ongoing negotiations.

It’s common for prosecutors to float plea deals to lower-level defendants in large racketeering cases as they home in on their biggest targets. Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani face the most charges in the 41-count indictment, which centers on efforts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

Late last week, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall became the first defendant to accept a deal, pleading guilty to five misdemeanor counts in exchange for his testimony.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned that Fulton prosecutors have also offered a deal to Michael Roman, who worked as director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020. A member of Roman’s legal team told The AJC they rejected the DA’s proposal and that no agreement has been reached.

”We’re maintaining our client’s innocence,” the legal team member said.

People who were indicted for their alleged roles in the appointment of a slate of Trump electors, election data breach in Coffee County and harassment of Fulton poll worker Ruby Freeman have also been approached by prosecutors, according to multiple sources. In the case of at least two of those defendants, no concrete offer has been made.

“It’s kind of a dance,” said John Banzhaf, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University who is closely tracking the case.

“Basically, the first person who flips always gets the best deal. The next one who comes along probably will get a deal that’s almost as good,” he said. “But at a certain point the addition of an extra person… is less important (to prosecutors)… so they’re not going to get as good a deal.”

A spokesman for DA Fani Willis declined to comment. It’s unclear how many defendants have tentatively accepted prosecutors’ offers. The AJC reached out to lawyers for each of the 18 remaining defendants for this story.

Fani's crew makes the deals, and they roll over on Rudy and Trump. For all the shouting about Trump being the House GOP circus's new ringmaster, it's gonna be hard for him to do much from an Atlanta jail cell. 

Stay tuned. I'm betting more deals get announced soon.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Again, Trump is deliberately attacking judges, prosecutors, and court officers during his trials in order to drive hatred towards them, but also to play a game of high-stakes chicken where Trump believes he can force judges to take action against him and "prove" the trials -- and the charges against him -- are nothing more than punishment for a corrupt and evil government. He's trying to martyr himself and create a groundswell of support to win in 2024. Tuesday's actions at his civil trial were no exception to this plan.

 

The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump's civil fraud trial on Tuesday issued a gag order after the former president attacked his clerk by name and shared her image on social media.

“Personal attacks on members on my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate, and I won't tolerate it [in my courtroom],” said New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

He added later to "consider this a gag order for all parties from posting about any members of my staff."

The judge rebuked the "untrue and personally identifying posts" about a staff member.

“Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, along with a picture of the clerk and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The post appeared to show a photograph of Greenfield standing next to Schumer, without any more context. Fact-checkers note that false rumors about Schumer and infidelity appear to trace their origins to a now-shuttered satirical website.

Engoron didn't mention the former president by name, but the remarks clearly referred to him. The judge said he ordered the post deleted, and it was. Trump deleted his Truth Social post.

 

And as usual, if somebody gets hurt here, it won't of course be Trump. Again, the plan is to force a judge to sanction Trump in order to massively increase the outrage and the violence.

Our system is not set up to handle a criminal like Trump.

Last Call For Speaker McCarthy

In the battle of I Dare You To Call My Bluff under the House GOP Clown Show Big Top, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz gets the last laugh as Kevin McCarthy's speakership goes down in infamy and up in flames.

Kevin McCarthy will not run for speaker again after the House ousted him from the top leadership post in a historic vote on Tuesday, a move that threatens to plunge House Republicans into even further chaos and turmoil.

The House will now need to elect a new speaker. There is no clear alternative to McCarthy who would have the support needed to win the gavel, but the race for a potential successor is already underway.

The vote to oust McCarthy and his decision not to run for the speakership again marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in infighting – and it comes just days after McCarthy successfully engineered a last-minute bipartisan effort to avert a government shutdown. No House speaker has ever before been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them.

“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance. It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise,” McCarthy said at a wide-ranging press conference Tuesday evening.

McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju he “might” endorse a successor and did not say whether he would remain in Congress. “I’ll look at that,” he said when asked.

A number of House Republicans are said to be considering jumping into the race for speaker. It’s a scramble as House Republicans do not have a plan nor are they unified behind a candidate.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has been the No. 2 Republican, has started reaching out to members about a potential speakership bid, according to a source familiar.

Immediately following the vote, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, a top McCarthy ally, was named interim speaker and the House went into recess as Republicans scrambled to find a path forward. The House is expected to stay out of session for the rest of the week, and Republicans are expected to hold a speaker candidate forum in a week.

The effort to oust the speaker was led by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz and comes as a bloc of hardline conservatives continued to rebel against McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

A few observances:

Our old friend The Odious Patrick McHenry is now in charge of the circus, but I don't see how anyone has the votes for Speaker right now. Maybe that changes next week, or maybe McHenry stays because nobody else wants the job. It's all off the map now.

Hell, it may take 45 days to come up with a Speaker. Democrats need to point this out on a daily basis: the House GOP is full of children who are going to destroy the country if they are allowed to continue.  This chaos will continue until Republicans are removed from power.

Finally, I'm almost impressed that McCarthy made it this far. I honestly thought he was going to be ousted after the debt ceiling mess, but Gaetz and company chickened out. They didn't this time. As I predicted, the shutdown was avoided, and McCarthy is gone. At this point all other bets are off.

Red State Dead, Redemptionless

The post-Obama era red state wave across the Midwest and South over the last decade has turned back decades of progress for tens of millions of Americans, including life expectancy numbers that are plummeting like rocks in the ocean, and there's no better example of how Republicans are killing their own constituents than Ohio.

Americans are more likely to die before age 65 than residents of similar nations, despite living in a country that spends substantially more per person on health care than its peers.

Many of those early deaths can be traced to decisions made years ago by local and state lawmakers over whether to implement cigarette taxes, invest in public health or tighten seat-belt regulations, among other policies, an examination by The Washington Post found. States’ politics — and their resulting policies — are shaving years off American lives.

Ashtabula, Ohio’s problems stand out compared with two nearby counties — Erie, Pa., and Chautauqua, N.Y. All three communities, which ring picturesque Lake Erie and are a short drive from each other, have struggled economically in recent decades as industrial jobs withered — conditions that contribute toward rising midlife mortality, research shows. None is a success story when it comes to health. But Ashtabula residents are much more likely to die young, especially from smoking, diabetes-related complications or motor vehicle accidents, than people living in its sister counties in Pennsylvania and New York, states that have adopted more stringent public health measures.

That pattern held true during the coronavirus pandemic, when Ashtabula residents died of covid at far higher rates than people in Chautauqua and Erie.

The differences around Lake Erie reflect a steady national shift in how public health decisions are being made and who’s making them.

State lawmakers gained autonomy over how to spend federal safety net dollars following Republican President Ronald Reagan’s push to empower the states in the 1980s. Those investments began to diverge sharply along red and blue lines, with conservative lawmakers often balking at public health initiatives they said cost too much or overstepped. Today, people in the South and Midwest, regions largely controlled by Republican state legislators, have increasingly higher chances of dying prematurely compared with those in the more Democratic Northeast and West, according to The Post’s analysis of death rates.

The differences in state policies directly correlate to those years lost, said Jennifer Karas Montez, director of the Center for Aging and Policy Studies at Syracuse University and author of several papers that describe the connection between politics and life expectancy.

Ohio sticks out — for all the wrong reasons. Roughly 1 in 5 Ohioans will die before they turn 65, according to Montez’s analysis using the state’s 2019 death rates. The state, whose legislature has been increasingly dominated by Republicans, has plummeted nationally when it comes to life expectancy rates, moving from middle of the pack to the bottom fifth of states during the last 50 years, The Post found. Ohioans have a similar life expectancy to residents of Slovakia and Ecuador, relatively poor countries.

Like other hard-hit Midwestern counties, Ashtabula has seen a rise in what are known as “deaths of despair” — drug overdoses, alcoholism and suicides — prompting federal and state attention in recent years. But here, as well as in most counties across the United States, those types of deaths are far outnumbered by deaths caused by cardiovascular disease, diabetes, smoking-related cancers and other health issues for residents between 35 and 64 years old, The Post found. Between 2015 and 2019, nearly five times as many Ashtabula residents in their prime died of chronic medical conditions as died of overdoses, suicide and all other external causes combined, according to The Post analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s death records.

Public health officials say Ohio could save lives by adopting measures such as a higher tobacco tax or stricter seat-belt rules, initiatives supported by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican generally friendly to their cause.

“I told the legislature, ‘I’m going to ask you to invest in things where you’re not going to see the results during your term in office and I’m not going to see it during my term in office,’” DeWine said in an interview in the governor’s mansion.

But those proposals have repeatedly stalled in a state legislature controlled by Republicans for 27 of the past 29 years and whose leaders show little inclination to move aggressively now.

DeWine has a “nanny state” mentality, said Ohio state Rep. Bill Seitz, the state House majority floor leader and fellow Republican who has helped block tobacco tax increases amid aggressive lobbying by industry interests. The 68-year-old Seitz, who smoked for 50 years before developing kidney cancer and having a kidney removed this summer, said he’s unmoved by his own brush with the health system — even if it led him to finally kick the habit.

“I’m not going to turn into a smoke Nazi just because I used to smoke and I don’t anymore,” Seitz said.

 

When I say that Republicans would kill their own constituents if it meant "owning the libs" this is what I mean.  All my life America has been a country where the chief factor in your life expectancy has been the zip code where you grew up. Republicans are just making it worse for entire states.

They're literally killing us, folks.

The Gaetz Of Heck, Con't

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has made his move, filing a vote to vacate House GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy's position that has to take place by Wednesday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the Donald Trump ally and conservative bomb-thrower who has been a nagging thorn in leadership’s side, filed a resolution Monday to force a vote to overthrow his political nemesis, Kevin McCarthy, as speaker of the House.

The House must now vote on whether to keep McCarthy on as speaker. It has until Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol, a beaming Gaetz predicted he has the votes to oust McCarthy — as long as Democrats don’t move to save the speaker.

“I have enough Republicans where, at this point next week, one of two things will happen: Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the house, or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats. And I’m at peace with either result, because the American people deserve to know who governs them,” Gaetz said.

During the past two weeks, Gaetz had issued a specific warning to McCarthy, saying he would try to oust him as speaker if he brought a short-term government funding bill to the floor that passed with help from Democrats.

True to his word, Gaetz made the motion to vacate Monday, just two days after McCarthy put a so-called clean continuing resolution, or CR, on the floor to avert a government shutdown, passing it with 209 Democratic votes and 125 Republican votes.

The House floor is normally loud and boisterous. But it was absolutely quiet as Gaetz stood up, buttoned his jacket, approached the well of the House and addressed the chamber Monday evening to announce the motion.

Asked by Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Texas, who was presiding at the time, what his resolution was about, Gaetz replied: "Declaring the office of speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant."

When he finished after about a minute, there was no reaction from the gathered Democrats or the Republicans as he walked away up the aisle.

So, the question is will Democratic House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries work out a deal to save McCarthy's neck? Steve M. says frankly, no. 

Until a new Speaker is chosen, the House is unlikely to be in the hands of maniacs:

 

Under continuity of Congress procedures enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there is a list of people who can act as speaker pro tempore in an event where the speakership is vacated. This was created in anticipation of a mass casualty event like a terrorist attack, but it would apply if the speakership is vacated. The irony is that list is written by the sitting speaker — so McCarthy knows who is on the list — and it is kept by the House Clerk and only to be made public in the event of a vacancy.This is a list McCarthy compiled knowing it would remain secret until his ouster, so it's unlikely that the list would include Marjorie Taylor Greene or any other bomb-thrower. So if Democrats want to save McCarthy simply in order to keep the House under adult supervision, they should realize that it will probably remain under adult supervision at least through the inevitable multiple votes for a new Speaker.

And they really shouldn't care whether the crazies ultimately win. As I look ahead to 2024, I think it might be bad for President Biden and congressional Democrats that McCarthy and his not-as-crazy caucus keep preventing the country from plunging into utter chaos. If Republicans under McCarthy (and Mitch McConnell) don't appear horribly dangerous, then voters in 2024 are likely to believe they can be trusted to run the country again. That's good for all GOP candidates in 2024, including Donald Trump.

We can have Republican chaos now or worse chaos in 2025 under a reelected Trump and, quite possibly, a GOP-run Congress. I'm in favor of chaos now rather than chaos then.

I have to agree with Steve M. here. Time to let McCarthy sink or swim on his own.

The NC GOP Just Stole Your Freedom

A frightening provision in the NC GOP's state budget passed last month includes funding and authorization for a new police force under control of the state's legislative leaders to investigate, search without a warrant, and detain anyone getting public funds for "misuse" defined wholly by the same watchdog agency.

 

North Carolina’s new $300 billion state budget contains a provision that gives extraordinary investigative powers to a partisan oversight committee co-chaired by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R).

The Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations — or Gov Ops for short — is empowered to seize “any document or system of record” from anyone who works in or with state and local government during its investigations. The rule applies to contractors, subcontractors, and any other non-state entity “receiving, directly and indirectly, public funds,” including charities and state universities.

Moreover, Gov Ops staff will be authorized to enter “any building or facility” owned or leased by a state or non-state entity without a judicial warrant. This includes the private residences of subcontractors and contractors who run businesses out of their homes, lawmakers say.

Alarmingly, public employees under investigation will be required to keep all communication and requests “confidential.” They cannot alert their supervisor of the investigation nor consult with legal counsel. Violating this rule “shall be grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal,” the law reads. Those who refuse to cooperate face jail time and fines of up to $1,000. In the event that Gov Ops searches a person’s home, these rules mean that the person 1) must keep the entry a secret, 2) cannot seek outside help (unless necessary for fulfilling the request, the law says), and 3) could face criminal charges if Gov Ops deems them uncooperative.

Moore and Berger claim these new rules are benign and necessary to exercise oversight of state funds. But Democrats and other critics say the changes turn Gov Ops into a “secret police force,” warning that the new policies have far-reaching implications.

During a legislative debate, State Senator Graig Meyer (D) asked lawmakers to consider a hypothetical scenario in which Gov Ops accesses personal health records like ultrasounds, which are required by the state to receive abortion pills. The Commission, Meyer said, could release these documents “to the public in a hearing.”

Gov Ops could also potentially enter and search “a law firm that receives state funding for court-appointed lawyers,” compromising “the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege,” State Representative Allison Dahle (D) said. Dahle added that these new powers will allow Gov Ops members to carry out grudges, empowering them to target political enemies as “backlash for previous actions.”

“I don’t think I have ever publicly called the GOP leadership ‘authoritarian’ because that’s not a term I take lightly, but their approach to seizing power and cover up their tracks now fits the bill,” Meyer told Popular Information. “The hypotheticals of how Gov Ops power could be abused are endless. Verbal assurances of restraint are inadequate; we need clear guardrails in law.” Meyer added that he “hope[s] that members of both parties can see what's happening before it's too late."

 

So who watches the watchmen here? Nobody, and that goes for the entire NC General Assembly as the same budget also exempts the state legislature from public records laws.

 

One provision repeals a law that required “communications regarding redistricting” be made publicly available when new legislative maps were adopted. As one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation, public records have been instrumental in challenging North Carolina’s redistricting maps. In 2022, a gerrymandering trial exposed a top Republican redistricting official for using “secret maps to help draft the state’s redistricting plan.”

This fall, Republican lawmakers are set to redraw voting maps after the new conservative majority on the state’s Supreme Court overturned a ruling and legalized partisan gerrymandering. Under the new budget, "lawmakers responding to public records requests will have no obligation to share any drafts or materials that guided their redistricting decisions."

Another provision allows North Carolina lawmakers to exempt themselves from public records requests. Current and former legislators, the law says, ”shall not be required to reveal or to consent to reveal any document, supporting document, drafting request, or information request made or received by that legislator while a legislator.” Under the state’s previous law, legislators were recognized as the custodians of their own records, but had to file a “specific exemption” to withhold records.

A third provision will allow legislators to “determine…whether a record is a public record.” Legislators can now decide to “retain, destroy, sell, loan, or otherwise dispose of'' their documents.

Moore claims that the change to public records requests seeks to “clarify the ambiguity in current statute and broadens the purview of what constitutes a public record, increasing transparency and efficiency in responsiveness from legislators.” Meanwhile, Berger alleges the provision was needed to “settle a dispute between the legislative services office and the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which archives public records.” But the Department, through a spokesperson, said it was “not aware of any dispute,” the News & Observer reported. “This new provision appears to be the legislature entirely exempting themselves from the public records law and the archiving process that has retained government records throughout the state’s history,” the spokesperson told the local outlet.

Opponents say that these new rules will make it harder to uncover corruption and create accountability. In a letter to Berger and Moore, the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters expressed concerns that the changes will “permit the General Assembly to operate in secrecy, shielded from public view and accountability to those whom the members of the Assembly were elected to serve.” The North Carolina Press Association also objected to the new privileges, calling them a “significant threat to the public’s right to see public record.”

 

Combined, this means Republicans in my home state have a secret investigative force to use against Democrats, any records of use of that investigative power is automatically secret with exposing it leading to fines and possible dismissal, and the records of that closed.

Under no circumstances would that count as a democracy.

Red Caesar Or Orange Geezer?

As Jason Wilson at The Guardian reminds us, there's definitely a breed of right-wing nutjob that revels in the idea of a Trump second term where Democrats and their voters are punished endlessly by an authoritarian regime that tosses the Constitution and any notion of democracy out the window and reduces America to an authoritarian nightmare.

In June, rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.

Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.

In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people”.

For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.

Though on the surface this discussion might seem esoteric, experts who track extremism in the US say that due to their influence on the Republican party, the rightwing intellectuals who espouse these ideas about the attractions of autocracy present a profound threat to American democracy.

Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race. Trump, who also faces multiple criminal indictments, has spoken openly of attacking the free press in the US and having little regard for American constitutional norms should he win the White House again.

The idea that the US might be redeemed by a Caesar – an authoritarian, rightwing leader – was first broached explicitly by Michael Anton, a Claremont senior fellow and Trump presidential adviser.

Anton has been an influential rightwing intellectual since in 2016 penning The Flight 93 Election, a rightwing essay in which he told conservatives who were squeamish about Trump “charge the cockpit or you die”, referencing one of the hijacked flights of 9/11.

He gave Caesarism a passing mention in that essay, but developed it further in his 2020 book, The Stakes, defining it as a “form of one-man rule: halfway … between monarchy and tyranny”.

The Guardian contacted Anton at his Claremont Institute email address, but received no response.

 

Nothing new, of course. Trump himself has made it very clear this is coming in a second term. He's made statement after statement at his two-hour hate rallies that this is precisely the behavior he will engage in, and the people around him are cheering for an authoritarian master who will reduce those people to powerless peasants while they reap the rewards.

The klaxons are blaring, but apparently tens of millions of our fellow Americans want a dictator. You know, as long as that dictator is on their side and all.

Steve M. weighs in:

The Democrats' Trump narrative is: You can't be seriously considering a vote for this criminal degenerate, can you? But every day that Trump's legal problems are in the news is a day when people who don't like how the country is being run are reminded that Trump is not one of the people running the country. So if they're on the fence about their 2024 vote and they're upset about high gas prices or some other meat-and-potatoes issue, they're reminded -- by Democrats and the mainstream media as well by Trump himself -- that Trump is a person the government does things to, not a person with government power.

We need these voters to think about what Trump would do with power if he's elected again. We need to link him to all the bad things Republicans are doing. Instead, we've got him in the dock, where he doesn't look as dangerous as he actually is.

 

My response is that voters are definitely thinking about what Trump would do with power because he doesn't hesitate to say what he would do with it, and they want him to have that power anyway.

The Butler Does It

Meet California's newest Senator, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom: EMILY's List President and long-time labor activist Laphonza Butler. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Newsom is moving swiftly to name the next senator, two days after Feinstein’s death and just as a perilously split Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown. Senate Democrats are in need of every vote in the closely divided chamber.

The announcement was expected to come Monday, and an adviser to the governor, Anthony York, told POLITICO that Newsom is making his appointment without putting limitations or preconditions on his pick running for the seat in 2024. That means Butler could decide to join the sprawling and competitive field of Democratic contenders seeking to succeed Feinstein, with special elections now layered on top of the March primary and November runoff.

Butler is expected to be sworn-in to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Newsom’s selection of Butler comes at a moment of immense change in California’s political establishment, with millions of people still mourning the death of Feinstein, the barrier-breaking Senate lioness. Meanwhile the California governor, who was mentored by Feinstein, has been grappling with his own personal grief and the political ramifications of his choice to succeed her.

The people who spoke with POLITICO ahead of the announcement were granted anonymity to disclose internal deliberations. Butler is registered to vote in Maryland but will switch her registration to California.

Newsom faced considerable pressure around the decision after first pledging to name a Black woman to the seat. Several potential nominees said publicly they were not interested. Some others privately expressed trepidation about accepting a short-term appointment and then having to immediately gear up for what would be a five-month campaign.

The swift nature of Newsom’s appointment cuts politicians and their allies off from mounting more sustained efforts to lobby the governor and his inner circle over his pick. And it halts interest groups that were starting to apply pressure on him, including over the question of whether he would require them to serve only temporarily. On Sunday, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford wrote to Newsom urging him to appoint Rep. Barbara Lee, a candidate for the Senate whom the governor recently ruled out over worries about giving someone a leg up.

 

I have to admit, Gavin Newsom got himself out of the jam he was in with expert efficiency. He kept his promise to appoint a Black woman to the seat and he's doing so without picking a side in the current primary contest. He's allowing Butler to decide herself if she wants to join the primary fray, and I'll bet on Butler having already decided that she'll go back to EMILY's List in 2025.

I'm rarely surprised by a display of attempted Democratic political adroitness that ends up crashing into the ground by being too clever by half, but if this goes like I think it will, Gavin Newsom may have just made one of he all time great political maneuvers.

Bravo to Laphonza Butler as well. Impeccable bona fides as a politically connected Black activist leader, clearly showing readiness for a national stage by running one of the Dems' most important fundraising networks with the upcoming election year all about the GOP trying to destroy women.

Newsom's preparations for the moment were kept secret as well all the way until the day before, too. This was planned for some time and yet it could have been blown weeks ago. It wasn't.

I like it when the Dems show this level of crafty confident competence. More of this, please.

Last Call For The Gaetz Of Heck

With House GOP Clown Wrangler Kevin McCarthy having cut a deal with Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries to punt the shutdown ball 45 days down the field, it's now incumbent upon the House Clown Caucus to make good on their threat to remove McCarthy as House Speaker, and Rep. Matt Gaetz says he'll try to do just that this week.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” the Florida Republican said he intends to file a motion to vacate this week, which would force a vote on whether McCarthy will keep his job.

“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January and since then he’s been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said Sunday. “This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we set up is a last straw.”

He added, “I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that will be trustworthy.”

That promise from Gaetz is an escalation in the monthslong standoff between McCarthy and the right flank of his conference, which forced him to go through 15 rounds of votes in January to finally win the speaker’s gavel. As part of winning the top job in the House, McCarthy made a deal that would allow just one member to advance a motion to vacate. That deal has kept the California Republican walking a tight rope with his conference throughout the year as he tried to appease the right-wing of his caucus while also attempting to do the basic work of governing.

McCarthy’s response to Gaetz later on Sunday was straightforward, telling the Floridian to “bring it on.”

“That’s nothing new,” McCarthy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“Yes, I’ll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”

He added: “So be it, bring it on. Let’s get over with it and let’s start governing.”

McCarthy’s moment of reckoning may have finally come after President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the bill to keep the government open until mid-November just minutes before funding was set to expire at midnight. McCarthy made a sharp about-face earlier in the day and worked with Democrats to overwhelmingly pass a continuing resolution that would avoid a shutdown. The Senate also passed the bill on a bipartisan basis later on Saturday.

That move by McCarthy could well cost him his job, as Gaetz has been promising almost daily. CNN reported on Friday that Gaetz has been approaching Democrats about potential successors to McCarthy if he were to file a motion to vacate, which would force the House to vote on whether to oust the speaker.

McCarthy has been defiant and on Saturday challenged his detractors to try and push him out of the job.

“If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju at a press conference. “There has to be an adult in the room. I am going to govern with what’s best for this country.”

The Florida Republican accused McCarthy of lying in negotiations over the continuing resolution.

“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden, he lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether. And the reason we were backed up against the shutdown politics is not a bug of the system. It’s a feature,” he said.

A senior Democratic source told CNN that most members of their caucus are skeptical about saving McCarthy given that he has shown little interest in working with Democrats and launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

McCarthy, multiple sources said, has yet to reach out to Democratic leaders in a serious negotiation on this issue. But there could be some rank-and-file Democratic moderates who try to find a way to help McCarthy stay in power if they get something in exchange.

Another Democratic source said the caucus will give House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries room to navigate this and the caucus will discuss this week.

Still, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday in a separate interview on “State of the Union” that she would “absolutely” vote to oust McCarthy.

“I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink, waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension,” she said.

So now we get to see fully what Rep. Jeffries has learned at the feet of the best House Speaker to ever play this game, Nancy Pelosi. What will the price be for McCarthy to save his job? Can Chuck Schumer get the Senate compromise announced last week passed? Will Mitch McConnell knife McCarthy in the front and scrap any deal, meaning House Dems will pull out and leave McCarthy to the tender mercies of Matt Gaetz? 

I think the latter is the most likely outcome, as I've been saying. If Gaetz can oust McCarthy because McCarthy can't keep his end of the bargain -- and at this point Jeffries and the Dems would be crazy to trust McCarthy at all -- who will replace him?

This is the real show, and it's about to begin.

Caution: Spoilers Ahead

As I long suspected would happen, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is filing for a third party spoiler run to run against President Joe Biden in order to try to hand the country over to Trump.

 

2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce he will run as an independent on October 9 in Pennsylvania, Mediaite has learned.

Kennedy’s campaign machine is now planning “attack ads” against the Democratic National Committee in order to “pave the way” for his announcement in Philadelphia about running as an independent, according to a text reviewed by Mediaite.

“Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told Mediaite.

Kennedy, a notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist challenging incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, has been flirting with a third party run in recent weeks. The New York Times reported last week that he met with the chair of the Libertarian Party, raising the prospect of a departure from the party that decades ago became synonymous with his family name.

Kennedy remains far behind Biden in the polls. Yet while the Times reported “Democrats worry that a third-party run by Mr. Kennedy could draw votes away from Mr. Biden and help elect former President Donald J. Trump,” it’s unclear whether such a run would hurt the current president more than the Republican nominee.

Indeed, polls show Republicans have a far more favorable view of Kennedy than Democrats. As the National Review’s Jim Geraghty pointed out in July, when a survey asked New Hampshire Democrats to describe Kennedy in one word, the top responses were “crazy,” “dangerous,” “insane,” “conspiracy,” and “unknown.”

 

That he's kicking this off in Pennsylvania is no accident. If RFK Jr. can throw the state to Trump, it's all but over. Again, we don't know what kind of margin will be in the Keystone State in 2024, but if it's anything like 2016 or 2020, one percentage point could be enough. 50-75 thousand votes could give the state and country to Trump, and I suspect enough Republicans could get RFK Jr. onto the ballots of several battleground states, not just PA.

We'll see how bad this gets, but the potential for Bobby Kennedy's son to help destroy the country for good can't be overlooked.

 

Sunday Long Read: Sub-Optimal Outcomes

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from Vanity Fair's Susan Casey, who takes a look at all the human mistakes, errors, disasters and bad choices that led to the end of OceanGate and the tragic underwater deaths of all aboard the Titan submarine.

 

FATE CLEARED UP the weather, blew off the fog, and calmed the waves, as the submersible and its five passengers dived through the surface waters and fell into another world. They entered the deep ocean's uppermost layer, known as the twilight zone, passing creatures glimmering with bioluminescence, tiny fish with enormous teeth. Then they entered the midnight zone, where larger creatures ghost by like alien moons. Two miles down, they entered the abyssal zone—so named because it's the literal abyss.

Deeper means heavier: pressures of 5,000, then 6,000 pounds per square inch. As it descended, the submersible was gripped in a tightening vise. Maybe they heard a noise then, maybe they heard an alarm.

I hope they watched the abyss with awe through their viewport, because I'd like to think their last sights were magnificent ones.

AS THE WORLD now knows, Stockton Rush touted himself as a maverick, a disrupter, a breaker of rules. So far out on the visionary curve that, for him, safety regulations were mere suggestions, "if you're not breaking things, you're not innovating," he declared at the 2022 GeekWire Summit. "To me, the more stuff you've broken, the more innovative you've been."

In a society that has adopted the ridiculous mantra "move fast and break things," that type of arrogance can get a person far. But in the deep ocean, the price of admission is humility—and it's nonnegotiable. The abyss doesn't care if you went to Princeton, or that your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. If you want to go down into her world, she sets the rules.

And her rules are strict, befitting the gravitas of the realm. To descend into the ocean's abyssal zone—the waters from 10,000 to 20,000 feet—is a serious affair, and because of the annihilating pressures, far more challenging than rocketing into space. The subs that dive into this realm (there aren't many) are tested and tested and tested. Every component is checked for flaws in a pressure chamber and checked again—and every step of this process is certified by an independent marine classification society. This assurance of safety is known as "classing" a sub. Deepsea submersibles are constructed of the strongest and most predictable materials, as determined by the laws of physics.

In the abyss, that means passengers typically sit inside a titanium pressure hull, forged into a perfect sphere—the only shape that distributes pressure symmetrically. That means adding crush-resistant syntactic foam around the sphere for buoyancy and protection, to offset the weight of the titanium. That means redundancy upon redundancy, with no single point of failure. It means a safety plan, a rescue plan, an acute situational awareness at all times.

It means respect for the forces in the deep ocean. Which Rush didn't have.

UNFORTUNATELY, June 18, 2023, wasn't the first time I'd heard of Rush, or his company OceanGate, or his monstrosity of a sub. He and the Titan had been a topic of conversation talked about with real fear, on many occasions, by numerous people I met over the course of five years while reporting my book The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. I heard discussions about the Titan as a tragedy-in-waiting on research ships, during deep-sea expeditions, at marine science conferences. I had my own troubling encounter with OceanGate in 2018 and had been watching it with concern ever since.

Everyone I met in the small, tight-knit world of manned submersibles was aware of the Titan. Everyone watched in disbelief as Rush built a five-person cylindrical pressure hull out of filament-wound carbon fiber, an unpredictable material that is known to fail suddenly and catastrophically under pressure.

It was as though we were watching a horror movie unfold in slow motion, knowing that whatever happened next wouldn't be pretty. But like screaming at the screen, nothing that came out of anyone's mouth made any difference.

 

Every single choice documented here was inevitably going to lead to death and destruction, and et OceanGate and Stockton Rush --and the people around him -- let it happen anyway. So many failure points were passed were any one of them could have shut the farcical show down for good, but that only happened after the tragic end.

 

A man thought he was better than the hard science of diving. He thought the rules didn't apply to him. He was wrong, and people died as a result. 

It wasn't the first time, it turns out.