Last Call For All Trussed Up, Con't

The most disastrous government in British history may be about to come to a crashing halt.

Senior Conservatives will this week hold talks on a “rescue mission” that would see the swift removal of Liz Truss as leader, after the new chancellor Jeremy Hunt dramatically tore up her economic package and signalled a new era of austerity.

A group of senior MPs will meet on Monday to discuss the prime minister’s future, with some wanting her to resign within days and others saying she is now “in office but not in control”. Some are threatening to publicly call on Truss to stand down after the implosion of her tax-cutting programme.

In a rearguard action to prop up the prime minister, her cabinet allies tonight warned MPs they would precipitate an election and ensure the Tories were “finished as a party” if they toppled a second leader in just a few months.

However, support for Truss is also evaporating inside the cabinet, with members keeping in close touch with her critics. “She is in the departure lounge now and she knows that,” said a former minister. “It is a case now of whether she takes part in the process and goes to some extent on her own terms, or whether she tries to resist and is forced out.”

Another MP said it “would be grotesque” to allow Truss to endure another appearance at prime minister’s questions in the Commons on Wednesday after a series of humiliating U-turns, the sacking of ally Kwasi Kwarteng and the abandonment of her economic prospectus.

Between 15 and 20 former ministers and other senior MPs have been invited to a “dinner of grown-ups”, convened by leading supporters of Rishi Sunak, to plan how and when to remove Truss and install Sunak and fellow leadership contender Penny Mordaunt as a unity pairing.

A source familiar with the conversations said: “They are just going to have to sit down and work things out. It now becomes a rescue mission for the Conservative party and the economy. That’s where we are.”

 

Tories should be used to openly talking about their ridiculously bad governments and their incompetent buffoon MPs by now, and this is still a new low.

 

For their part, Labour is keeping their traps shut and letting Truss torch herself. If elections were held now, I'm pretty sure Dave Lister could get the nod. 

Truss screwed up so badly that Jeremy Hunt is back in play as UK Chancellor. He's now in charge, whether Truss is PM or not.

Stay turned, Truss may not last the month.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

 I've discussed at length the number of white supremacist domestic terrorist groups involved in January 6th, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and more. But given the latest batch of January 6th Committee evidence presented on Thursday, we now have to consider that agents of the US Secret Service may be involved as well.

The House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection has asked the Secret Service for records of all communications between the far-right Oath Keepers group and Secret Service agents prior to and on the day of the attack, after a preliminary accounting by the agency indicated multiple contacts in 2020, according to a Secret Service spokesman.

The spokesman said the Congressional request follows a short telephonic briefing from the Secret Service to committee staff, in which the agency said an agent from its protective intelligence division had “numerous” contacts with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and other group members prior to Trump rallies in fall 2020, but that they were all part of common practice to inform the group of security protocols to follow.

That initial briefing was prompted by federal trial testimony in which the ex-leader of the North Carolina Oath Keepers said Rhodes was in contact with a member of the Secret Service around the time of a September 2020 rally.

“Following the (Oath Keepers) trial, the committee reached out to the Secret Service and a verbal briefing as provided to staff, which was specific to the comments made at trial,” said Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. “Today, the committee has followed up with a formal inquiry for records regarding that and January 6, which we will provide.”

The Jan. 6 committee made the request for all records of communications between the Secret Service and the Oath Keepers, including the days surrounding Jan. 6 2021, after an NBC News inquiry about the level of information provided by the Secret Service.

The Washington Post first reported an agent from the protective intelligence division was in communication with the Oath Keepers prior to Jan. 6, 2021.

The Secret Service found that multiple members of the organization, not just Rhodes, spoke to an agent in the protective intelligence division ahead of Trump rallies, the most recent conversation coming before a Dec. 12, 2020, rally, Guglielmi said.

Again, we're looking at a scenario here were Trump detail USSS agents were part of Trump's conspiracy with these January 6th terrorist groups. 

And yet nobody seems to care. We're all mad over french fries prices and really, we should just say screw it and let the GOP win, right?