Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

New Speaker, same old incompetence as America rushes towards a GOP caused shutdown, completely unable to pass their massive spending cuts because gosh, they're unpopular.

House Republicans closed out the week by canceling votes on two party-line funding bills in the span of 48 hours, a setback for new Speaker Mike Johnson and a sign of persisting dysfunction in the chamber ahead of a key funding deadline.

They pulled a transportation-housing bill late Tuesday as some coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. And they yanked a financial services and general government measure on Thursday morning that included divisive anti-abortion language.

It's a step backward for Johnson, R-La., who had hoped to show progress on appropriations bills championed by his party's conservative wing in order to secure their votes to pass a short-term bill that would keep the government open beyond the Nov. 17 deadline.

And it shows how ungovernable the House continues to be after right-wing Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy over complaints about his handling of government funding.

"I don't think the Lord Jesus himself could manage this group," said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas. He added that he would pray for the new speaker as the House adjourned for a long weekend.

"We’re still dealing with the same divisions we always have had," said another House Republican. "We’re ungovernable."

On Capitol Hill, questions abound about how the new speaker will handle his first big test in a divided government, where he must balance the demands of ultraconservatives with a Democratic-led Senate and president.

"I think there's a honeymoon period here. I'm not sure how long it lasts, maybe 30 days," said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. "But with what's going on on the floor today, I think that indicates the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought."

This week, Johnson held multiple meetings with groups of rank-and-file Republicans about a path forward on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR. But lawmakers didn’t get a good read on Johnson's yet-to-be-unveiled strategy: Some thought he might go with a “clean” CR without controversial policy add-ons that would fund the government into January, while others believed the speaker would back a two-step CR proposed by members of the far-right Freedom Caucus.

"He wants a simple plan that will pass the Senate," said moderate Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who met with Johnson on Wednesday along with roughly 20 other lawmakers. "We should do the hard fights on appropriations and the border, and all that stuff. We shouldn't have the hard fight on the CR — let's keep the government open and make it bipartisan."

Republicans said Johnson will need to make a call on a CR strategy by Friday to abide by the 72-hour rule, which gives lawmakers sufficient time to read the legislation before voting on it early next week. Members departed Washington on Thursday afternoon and will return on Monday.

"We've got to get the Senate something, and you'll see us get the Senate something," said conservative Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who met with Johnson and is pushing for the two-step process that's been termed a "laddered CR."

But of course there's no reason to believe that the House GOP can pass anything without Democratic votes, and that puts us right back where we were when McCarthy got tossed. 

Mike Johnson might not survive the month as Speaker.

Last Call For Hunting The Hunter, Con't

Now that their circus ringmaster fight is over (for now), House Republicans want to continue to ignore the actual business of the nation and drag Hunter Biden into the spotlight in televised hearings to...I guess make him feel bad and to call him names?

House Republicans are considering issuing a subpoena of Hunter Biden in their impeachment investigation of his father, President Joe Biden, sources tell The Messenger.

Subpoenaing the president's son, who is facing federal tax and firearm charges in Delaware, would mark the crescendo of an unwinding impeachment inquiry.

Three sources familiar with the conversations told The Messenger that the House GOP is seriously contemplating a subpoena for testimony from the president’s son, who has taken center stage in the impeachment investigation. While the sources said nothing was imminent, they said a subpoena of Hunter Biden is under “strong” consideration by Republican leadership.

The idea of hauling Hunter Biden before House GOP investigators comes after lawmakers approached him and James Biden, the president’s brother, for their business and personal bank records in the past few weeks since a new speaker was elected, unlocking the House from paralysis.

Republicans on the three committees leading the impeachment probe have made Hunter Biden and his overseas business deals a focal point of the investigation. One of the party’s main arguments has been that Joe Biden benefitted from his family’s business activities, including receiving money from countries like Ukraine and China. But the investigation has been unable to unearth any evidence directly linking Joe Biden to his family’s business deals.

Newly-installed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been a staunch supporter of the impeachment inquiry. He said this week that he was “looking at” the idea of issuing a subpoena of Hunter Biden. And his rhetoric suggests the impeachment investigation is entering a more serious phase, including the possibility of filing articles of impeachment against the president.

“Very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it,” Johnson said at his first leadership press conference as speaker on Thursday. “We’re gonna follow the evidence where it leads and we’ll see. I’m not gonna predetermine it this morning.”

 

I would guess that all three House GOP committees will subpoena him separately in order to get maximum coverage of showing the American public that they can pick on a junkie. Meanwhile, the US government will shut down in two weeks, and House Republicans have yet to even offer any budget bills, so at this point who knows.

 

I sure hope the American people get sick of the Clown Show.

Phantasma Santos Lives Once More

The House vote to expel "George Santos" failed miserably on Wednesday, with more than 30 Democrats joining nearly all Republicans in voting to keep him in the House despite the dozens of federal felony charges.

 

Rep. George Santos easily survived a second attempt to expel him from Congress, with enough members voting Wednesday to defeat a push to oust him from office over his federal criminal indictments and other behavior.

The House voted 179-213 to reject a privileged resolution brought by Republicans in the New York delegation, well short of the two-thirds majority needed to make Santos the sixth member in the history of Congress to be purged from the chamber.

Only 24 Republicans joined the 155 Democrats who voted to expel Santos, fewer than the 31 Democrats who voted against the resolution. There were 19 present votes and 22 members who did not record a vote.

Some Republicans who did not support the resolution cited concerns that the criminal charges and a House Ethics Committee investigation are still pending.

Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., said he voted present and pointed to a panel statement Tuesday that next steps in the probe would be announced before Nov. 17.

“So that’s why we wanted to let members know, not trying to influence in one way or the other, but also that we are getting close to being able to get something that we can release to the public and to the body as a whole,” Guest said.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said he voted no on the resolution because Santos hasn’t been convicted. But he said that “some of this stuff will shake out in the weeks to come, and we’ll come back and expel him after he’s convicted.”

Santos, at the end of the floor debate on the resolution Wednesday, said the New York Republicans were acting as “judge, jury and executioner.”

The only two member expulsions in the last two centuries took place after the defendants had been convicted, Santos said, and “now is not the time to set a dangerous precedent.”

“I must warn my colleagues that voting for expulsion at this point would circumvent the judicial system’s right to due process that I’m entitled to and desanctify the long-held premise that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Santos said.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., who brought the resolution and forced a vote on it, sought to address those concerns within the conference during the floor debate.

“If we are going to set a new precedent today that we are against lying fraudsters coming to the House of Representatives, well then I am all for that precedent,” D’Esposito said.

New York Republican Reps. Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler flanked D’Esposito on the floor, each offering harshly critical assessments of Santos’ lack of character and fitness to serve New York’s 3rd District.

“New Yorkers from Queens and Nassau Counties deserve better than George Santos — a total fraud and serial liar representing them in Congress,” LaLota said.

Santos is not properly representing his district because he has no committee assignments and “lacks the minimum amount of trust necessary of a member of Congress,” LaLota said.

Alone, Santos sat quietly, left leg crossed over his right periodically typing text into his phone.

Earlier in the day, D’Esposito, LaLota and Lawler, along with fellow New York delegation members Reps. Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams, urged their conference to support the resolution despite the slim majority they hold. In a letter, they argued the issue is a “moral one” rather than one that is “political.”

 

I understand the Ethics Committee voting no or present as there's an ongoing investigation, but I'm baffled to see Dems like Mark Takano and Jaime Raskin, who have both called for Santos to resign, vote no on the resolution to expel him. It was, as the Roll Call article above says, Republicans who brought this to the floor. Raskin, Takano, and Democrats had that cover and voted no anyway.

The only thing I can think of is that ranking committee members like Takano (Veterans Affairs) and Raskin (Oversight) made a deal with the Clown Show to sink the censure resolutions against Democratic Squad member Rashida Tlaib and Marjorie Taylor Greene that followed the Santos expulsion vote.

All three measures failed, which meant all three were just for show. Hell, the MTG censure resolution didn't even get a vote.

But even the Beltway types are scrambling to find out what happened.

The Democratic breakaways flummoxed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle – especially since most Democrats voted for their own party's resolution to expel Santos in May."

What's gotten better since they made the motion to expel?" said Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.). "What's innocence has he achieved since they chastised us for not acting months ago? What's changed?"

The mass defection "makes no sense at all," said a senior House Democrat. "I never would have [expected] that."

Another senior House Democrat had a single word to sum up the situation: "Amazing."

Zoom in: Several progressives voted against the resolution, including Reps. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.).So did Rep. Rob Menendez Jr. (D-N.J.), whose father, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) has resisted calls from his own party to step down over an explosive federal indictment.

Democratic leadership, which whipped against a resolution to censure Tlaib, did not recommend a vote in either direction on the Santos measure.

What they're saying: "I'm a Constitution guy," Raskin, a constitutional law professor who serves as ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said of his vote in a statement to Axios.

 

So I guess the answer is just sometimes, Democrats like to dress up as circus clowns too so that they can entertain us.

Honk, honk.

Last Call For Meet The New Ringmaster Of The House GOP Circus

Getting 220 votes in today's House vote, Republicans have elected MAGA chud and former hate radio jock Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House.

 

House Republicans have elected Rep. Mike Johnson as the new speaker – a major moment that comes three weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

There were 220 votes for Johnson and 209 votes for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. There was unanimous GOP support behind Johnson. One Republican – Van Orden – was absent from the vote.

Johnson has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump and was a key congressional figure in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Johnson was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role.

An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

 

As I mentioned, he's one of the MAGA bunch who helped run Trump's Big Lie to try to steal the election in the House.

The Louisiana Republican was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role. An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

Johnson also sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.


After the election was called in favor of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”

Although Trump said he won’t endorse anyone in the speaker’s race Wednesday, he eant support to Johnson in a post on Truth Social.

“In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN! My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump posted.

Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.

 

So the GOP finally found an acceptable nutjob to run the place, an avowed MAGA chunderhead who hates all the approved check boxes: Black folk, LGBTQ+ folk, women, immigrants, climate change, and most important of all, liberals.

The prediction of "worse than McCarthy" was as easy as falling off a Louisiana bayou log. Democrats have not only the architect of the House Big Lie pla to run against, they have an avowed homophobic bigot who wants a national ban on LGBTQ+ even existing, as well as a national ban on abortion with no exceptions. Oh, and he led the effort by Trump in the House to overturn the 2020 election. They couldn't find a better example of the GOP in 2023 as a poster monster.

And remember, it was a unanimous vote for the GOP. Every single one of them wanted Johnson as Speaker. They are 100% the party of Donald Trump, period.

Time to go to work, Dems.

Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Our next contestant on "Who Wants To Be Humiliated?" is apparently going to be Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer.

 

Republicans on Tuesday picked Rep. Tom Emmer as their nominee for House speaker. The nominee now goes to the full House for a vote.

It’s three weeks since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy. The House speaker will need to accomplish the seemingly impossible job of uniting the GOP majority. Emmer of Minnesota jumped ahead as the top vote-getter on early round ballots and was battling Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana on a fifth ballot.

Others are dropping out including Florida newcomer Byron Donalds, who’s aligned with Donald Trump, and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. The nominee will also need to win a majority in a House floor vote.

Also withdrawing from the race were Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Pete Sessions of Texas, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania.

The House has been in turmoil, without a speaker since the start of the month after a contingent of hard-line Republicans ousted McCarthy, creating what’s now a governing crisis that’s preventing the normal operations of Congress.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

Some Democrats have eyed Emmer, the third-ranking House GOP leader who had voted to certify the 2020 election results as a potential partner in governing the House.

But Trump allies and other hard-liners have been critical of Emmer over his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president.

Trump downplayed, even derided, Emmer, with whom he has had a rocky relationship, while presenting himself Monday as a kingmaker who talks to “a lot of congressmen” seeking his stamp of approval.

 

Indeed, Team Trump has already warned that they will not support Emmer as Speaker. 

Several key Trump allies and former administration officials, however, have harshly criticised Mr Emmer, characterising him as "disloyal".

Mr Emmer drew the ire of many of Mr Trump's supporters for voting to certify the rightful results of the 2020 election, in President Joe Biden's favour. He is one of only two of the Republican Speaker candidates, along with Georgia's Austin Scott, to do so.

Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon referred to Mr Emmer as a "Trump hater" on his podcast on Friday and urged the former president's supporters in the House to "stop" him.

On the same podcast, a former Trump advisor, Boris Epshteyn, questioned whether "someone so out of step with where the Republican electorate is" can "even be in the conversation" about a new Speaker.

Additionally, US media outlets - including the Washington Post - reported that Mr Trump privately directed his allies to criticise Mr Emmer ahead of the vote.

Citing two anonymous sources familiar with the situation, the Post also reported that Mr Trump's backers circulated a 200-page "opposition research" book about Mr Emmer that critiques many of his policy positions.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the report.

 

That means Emmer will need Democratic support to be Speaker, and that's not going to happen unless Emmer is willing to make some deals, and he'll get mauled by the Clown Caucus if he does. The plan to recruit The Odious Patrick McHenry may be on again if and when Emmer fails to get to 217.

Ohio Republican Rep. Dave Joyce said if Rep. Tom Emmer can’t get to 217 votes, he’s willing to bring up his resolution to empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry — but said he doesn’t know when the breaking point for the rest of the conference will be.

“I appreciate the fact that Tom is trying to get to 217 before we go out and create a spectacle on the floor, but if we go over there and we’re not getting the requisite votes that we need, we have to open the place up,” he said.

He said his new resolution “would do just that,” so they can continue to have conversations until they get the numbers.

House Republicans debated the idea last week but put the plan is on ice amid fierce pushback from some corners of the party.

“I don’t know when this conference will feel enough pain to understand that this practice is an exercise in futility, and we need to open the place back up,” he said.

Joyce said Emmer does not want to leave the room until he has 217 votes, “he wants to go, if you’ve got a complaint, let’s hear ‘em right here, let’s get this over with today, he’s not gonna make a public spectacle, unfortunately, that’s been made over there before.”

 

So we're right back to square one: the GOP candidate doesn't have the votes, and Emmer dropped out later in the afternoon as a result.

Dude didn't even last the day. Trump bragged that he "killed" Emmer.

Just hours after Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won the Republican Conference’s nomination to be Speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to deride the congressman as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO.”

He then got on the phone with members to express his aversion for Emmer and his bid for Speaker.

By Tuesday afternoon Trump called one person close to him with the message, “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”

Just minutes later, Emmer officially dropped out of the race.

 

The Clown Show Caucus rolls on.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan is now a three-time loser in his quixotic flailing to try to become House Speaker, and he's still up for more getting face-punched.

Rep. Jim Jordan again defended his choice to continue running for speaker after 25 Republicans voted against him on the third ballot.

“Even Speaker McCarthy took a dip and then came back,” he said, when asked if it is time to get a new nominee. “You guys said we were going to lose 15 to 30. We lost a couple and we had a few people miss it,” he added.

Jordan continued, “We’re gonna go talk to conference right now, listen to our colleagues.”

Asked about several of his supporters saying it wasn’t looking good for him, Jordan replied, “we’ll find out.”

 

Oh yes, Jimmy boy, we're definitely in the Find Out Phase, and today he found out just how much he's hated by his own co-workers.

House Republicans are once again scrambling with no clear path to elect a new speaker after voting to push Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan out of the race, the latest sign of the chaos and divisions that have engulfed the majority party and left the chamber in a state of paralysis.

In a dramatic turn of events, the House GOP conference voted by secret ballot on Friday to drop Jordan as their speaker designee after he failed to win the gavel for the third time in a floor vote earlier in the day.

The House remains effectively frozen as long as there is no elected speaker. The paralysis has created a perilous situation as Congress faces the threat of a government shutdown next month and conflict unfolds abroad. The battle for the speakership has now dragged on for more than two weeks with no end in sight.

Jordan’s exit from the race now sets the stage for more speaker hopefuls to emerge. Republicans are expected to hold a candidate forum Monday evening. But it appears increasingly uncertain whether any lawmaker can get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel while Republicans control such a narrow majority.

 

The also-rans are lining up to take a swing at the pinata:

With the GOP speakership now once again up for grabs, here’s a list of potential candidates and where they stand on getting in the race. They have until noon Sunday to file.

Confirmed candidates:

• Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Republican Study Committee chair
• Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who challenged Jordan last time
• Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan, a former general
• Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Majority Whip
• Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Freedom Caucus member

Considering running:

• Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, Homeland Security Chair and Freedom Caucus member
• Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, Budget chair
• Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, vice conference chair

 

Things are now so bad at the Clown Show Big Top that Assistant Provisional Junior Ringmaster 3rd Class The Odious Patrick McHenry is now threatening to quit his post as punching bag.

 

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.

“If you guys try to do that, you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” McHenry told the room, three sources said, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's secret list of GOP lawmakers who would serve as temporary speaker in the event of a vacancy.

McHenry's comments underscore the quandary Republicans are in: They can't really do anything until they choose a new speaker, but they can't agree on someone who can get the votes to be that new speaker.

And McHenry is unwilling to set a precedent that would give future temporary speakers the full power of speakers who are elected on the House floor. It could mean that the House wouldn't need to elect speakers in the future.

It's an idea that McCarthy himself has been floating, and it was the subject of debate during Republicans' 3½-hour private meeting Thursday. During the discussion, some Republicans asked whether they could give McHenry more power "by acclamation" or whether they needed to take an internal vote in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

A GOP lawmaker described McHenry's remarks as an implicit threat of resignation. The lawmaker said McHenry had made the same suggestion to individual members before he spoke to the larger conference.

A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks “tongue in cheek” but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.

McHenry “will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional” as speaker pro tem, a third member in the room said.

 

I mean, I wouldn't want the job either. Nobody likes a pitiable wretch with no power to actually do anything, and even worse, a clown with false power that will only come back to bite them in the ass.

 

McHenry wants actual power or he walks, and not even his own party wants to give it to him.

 

The Clown Show rolls on as the world burns, I guess.

Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Jim Jordan won't be Speaker of the House, but neither will The Odious Patrick McHenry.

House Republicans are abandoning a push to empower a temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry, after it faced fierce pushback within the party on Thursday.

As they left a nearly four-hour internal meeting about the idea, multiple Republicans said there was no virtually no path forward. The proposal, which may still come back for a vote at some point, would have allowed McHenry and the GOP to reopen the House after 16 days without a speaker.

Many Republicans view that task as critical, given pending deadlines on government spending and an imminent White House aid request for Israel and other nations in crises.

“It certainly does not have the support in conference and to bring it to the floor. It would have to survive with Democratic votes,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said. “We’re currently sitting on a tinderbox. So to do that, it would set off the fuse that would certainly end in civil war within the GOP, and I don't believe that anybody wants to do that.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) summed it up succinctly: “The resolution is dead.”

It’s the latest setback for House Republicans who have foundered in near-total bedlam since eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) 16 days ago. No member of their conference, including speaker designee Jim Jordan, currently has the votes to win over the speaker’s gavel.

The abrupt about-face on the McHenry resolution — after momentum behind it had grown steadily for days — leaves the GOP in yet another dead-end rut. Some Jordan allies suggested that he could force a third ballot on the floor, though multiple Republican lawmakers have warned that his opposition will only grow on another vote.

Talks are ongoing about a potential alternative approach that could accomplish the same goal as the resolution from Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), but Republicans are warning against bringing anything to the floor unless it has a majority of the conference in support.

“The language that was being floated is dead. … mostly dead,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), a Jordan ally. “This can’t be one of those deals where we have Republicans voting no and hoping yes. It just can’t be, so we better have some resolve in how we’re doing it.”

Joyce insisted he is not entirely pivoting away from his plan. He pointed to pockets of the GOP conference that remain adamant about being able to move legislation on the floor in the coming days and weeks.

“I didn’t hear it was dead. I think there are some of these folks in there who wish it was dead. But I think the overwhelming majority of the people in there agree that we can't continue down in this paralysis when the world is on fire,” Joyce said.

Conservatives, in particular, praised Jordan’s decision not to pursue the idea of empowering McHenry — an idea that had emerged from the GOP’s more centrist wing.

“I think that's a good thing. The House of Representatives needs a speaker, not a Speaker Lite. I don't support using temporary powers for Mr. McHenry,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said.

Jordan doesn't have the votes, but McHenry has far fewer. At this point there aren't any Republicans that can win the Speaker's gavel right now.

And so the House GOP Big Top is currently burning, with the clowns arguing about which standardized water bucket size they need to use to put out the fire.

I'd be laughing my ass off at these idiots if it wasn't increasingly clear that no business will get done and that the federal government will come to a screeching halt in under a month while the Middle East is about to explode into a regional, maybe even a global war.

We're headed for a crack-up, and that's exactly what the GOP chaos monkeys want.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

 Meanwhile, Democrats figure they're ready to pick a fight with Jordan from day one.

 

Democrats are already crafting a strategy to use Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as a political weapon against Republicans in the next election if he becomes the next House speaker.

In a memo to House Democrats, first shared with NBC News, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee urged party members and candidates to portray the entire GOP as beholden to radicals should Republicans hand him the speaker's gavel.

There are “no more moderates left in the Republican conference,” the DCCC said in the memo, adding that Jordan will win only if “so-called ‘moderates’” opt to “cave” and elect him.

“Every Republican who votes for Jordan for Speaker is simply following Trump’s marching orders,” the memo said.

The memo comes in anticipation of a House vote as early as Tuesday afternoon to elect Jordan as speaker. He will need votes from 217 of the 221 Republicans in the House to secure a win. It’s not clear he has the votes, but numerous GOP critics have been coming around to him.

The two-page memo included a list of what the DCCC described as “key examples of Jordan’s extremism,” citing his attempts to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, his noncompliance with a subpoena by the now-defunct House Jan. 6 committee, his role as a co-founder of the far-right Freedom Caucus, his opposition to bipartisan bills on immigration and his support for aggressive tactics that Democrats say caused “multiple government shutdowns.”

“A Speaker Jordan means extremism and far-right priorities will govern the House of Representatives,” the memo said. “It is imperative that our caucus makes clear to voters just how extreme Congressman Jordan is and how his Speakership would negatively impact working families across the country, threaten democratic norms, and weaken relationships with our allies.”

 

All this is certainly true, and if anything I've said Democrats need to make this more clear.

 

But as Steve M. points out, a majority of Republicans, if not voters in general, want to see the House stop working, because it means the Congress that most Americans despise can't screw anything else up. 

 

The problem with comparing the contemporary Republican Party to other fascist or fascist-leaning parties is that the Republican Party -- like much of the American public -- doesn't want the government to function efficiently. Remember Ronald Reagan's dictum: Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. If you believe that, as nearly all Republicans do (as well as many non-Republicans), you might not believe that it's imperative to throw sand in the gears of government, but you certainly don't believe it's a bad thing when the gears become inoperably sandy.

Americans who believe Reagan's simple-minded pronouncements about government are rarely consistent -- they want the government to punish street criminals and immigrants, as well as women seeking abortions and sexual minorities -- but apart from that, they assume we'd all be better off if government weren't fuctioning at all ... or at least that's what they believe until they have problem getting VA healthcare or going to a national park. But even then they cling to the principle that government is bad (and government under a Democratic president is worse), so the current leadership struggles of the House GOP won't turn them against Republicans. The fact that Republicans can't run the government is a feature, not a bug, for much of the country.

 

In fact, I'd go further down that route: a solid plurality of Americans want government to stop working specifically to hinder those people who count on the government to help them.  They're okay with sabotage, and if they suffer some pain because of a government implosion like the one we're seeing, they are safe and comfortable in the knowledge that others folks whom they hate are suffering even more.

So yes, this needs to be said because it's true, that Republicans are chaos gremlins who want everyone to suffer some, and those at the bottom to suffer more. But I don't think it's going to be a convincing argument in an election cycle to move voters away from the GOP.

No, I see voters being okay with the House and maybe even the Senate being a check on Biden's second term. Voters have loved gridlock for decades now and have actively voted for it. That's not going to change one bit in 2024. Maybe they don't want Trump back in charge, but it doesn't mean they won't leave the House GOP Clown Show going for years to come.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

With a vote on Jim Jordan as Speaker expected to fail miserably, more than a few House Republicans and even some Democrats are coalescing around the idea that The Odious Patrick McHenry, Speaker Pro Tempore, might be the solution to this mess. Semafor's Kadia Goba:

With the House still paralyzed in the absence of a speaker, the idea of giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry more power to conduct normal business is picking up growing bipartisan support.

A number of Republicans have been pushing to let the North Carolina lawmaker bring bills to the floor in order to keep the chamber functioning while the party works through its infighting. Now at least a handful of moderate Democrats are getting behind the concept as well, especially as it becomes clear that the GOP’s latest speaker nominee, Jim Jordan, faces an uphill battle.

“I think they’re going to go down in flames on that [vote] because there’s just no way that Jim Jordan, with Donald Trump’s support, gets to 217 or 218 votes in the House,” Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-N.C., told Semafor in an interview Sunday.

Wiley is backing a plan that would temporarily expand McHenry’s authority in the House for 15-day increments, and direct him to only bring legislation to the floor that would avoid a government shutdown in November, provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, and deal with the remaining 2024 appropriations bills. Wiley, along with three other Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, penned a letter to McHenry last week requesting a meeting to discuss the possibility.

They’re also asking McHenry be allowed to introduce so-called suspension bills — which are allowed to head straight to the House floor — “evenly distributed” between Democratic and Republican priorities, to avoid legislation being held up in the GOP-led Rules Committee. Some members have talked about using suspension bills as a route to push through key to-do list items such as the stalled National Defense Authorization Act.

The 10 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of self-proclaimed “pragmatic” Democrats, also endorsed the proposal. Meanwhile, Republicans led by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio are pushing their own resolution that would empower the interim speaker to advance legislation for a period of up to 90 days. Notably, ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy has endorsed granting McHenry full powers of the speakership while the House looks for a permanent leader.

Of course, as Goba remarks, temporary things in the federal government have this habit of become permanent. 

Giving McHenry more power is being presented as a temporary fallback measure if Jordan can’t sew up a win this week. But it could also be a gateway to Speaker McHenry. Hear me out.

McCarthy’s ousting came as a surprise, even to those who have long anticipated it, because for all its manufactured chaos, Congress doesn’t do well with abrupt changes. So it wouldn’t surprise me if an incremental change in McHenry’s powers morphs into a longstanding position for the North Carolina Republican.

In fact, some New York Republicans are already floating the idea that Congress doesn’t need to vote and McHenry already has the powers.

“The authority and responsibility to do so is inherent in the title,” Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., told Semafor. “The position’s post-9/11 description, done in contemplation of continuity of government, makes this obvious to me and many others. You don’t need to have graduated from Hofstra Law to come to that conclusion.”

 

My view on McHenry, the now long-time Congressman from back home in Western NC, is evidenced by his sobriquet, one he earned 15 years ago for being a proto-MAGA crank. 

 

He'll fit right in here at the Clown Show.  I said that over a decade ago he was headed for big things, and here we are.

Honk. Honk.

Down Under Disappointment

Australian voters have overwhelmingly rejected a referendum to give Indigenous people rights as a recognized group, because that would be racist against anyone who isn't a member of that class, you see.

Australia has overwhelmingly rejected a plan to give greater rights to Indigenous people in a referendum.

All six states voted no to a proposal to change the constitution to recognise Indigenous citizens and create an advisory body to the government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said defeat was hard: "When you aim high, sometimes you fall short. We understand and respect that we have."

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the result was "good for our country".

The referendum, dubbed "The Voice", was Australia's first in more than a quarter of a century. With almost 70% of the vote counted, the "No" vote led "Yes" 60% to 40%.

Its rejection followed a fraught and often ill-tempered campaign.

Supporters said that entrenching the Indigenous peoples into the constitution would unite Australia and usher in a new era.

No leaders said that the idea was divisive, would create special "classes" of citizens where some were more equal than others, and the new advisory body would slow government decision-making.

They were criticised over their appeal to undecided voters with a "Don't know? Vote no" message, and accused of running a campaign based on misinformation about the effects of the plan.

The result leaves Mr Albanese searching for a way forward with his vision for the country, and a resurgent opposition keen to capitalise on its victory.

 

So, Indigenous Australians will continue to not actually be Australians under the country's legal system, with fewer rights than other Australians, and that's what the 95% of Australians who are non-Indigenous voted for.

You don't have to work as hard as Republicans here in America have for the last 60 years to reverse the civil rights era if like Australia, you never actually have one. After all, we still have most Native American on reservations, and that's not going to change in my lifetime either.

There's no debating the racism in America or Australia (or the UK, Canad or New Zealand), the debate is over whether or not it's a bad thing, and for most folks in these coutries, the answer is no.

For those who actually are harmed by it, well, too bad, the majority has spoken.

Democracy!

Last Call For Meet The New Ringmaster, Again

With Steve Scalise out. the House GOP is now turning to Trump-endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan as a Speaker candidate, and it looks like Jordan has even less support than Scalise did.

The House GOP has entered an angrier and more bewildered phase in its leadership crisis.

The fractious Republican conference has rejected a second speaker hopeful in eight days — this time, Kevin McCarthy’s longtime heir apparent, Steve Scalise. While Republicans appear to be turning next to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), some are already airing open doubts that Jordan can pull off what the majority leader couldn’t.

The lesson Republicans have learned in the frenetic week since McCarthy’s fall: They have no clear choice for leader who can unite their ranks — no matter how long this drags out and their chamber of Congress is paralyzed.

It’s not just GOP centrists sparring with the hard right. It’s not just McCarthy loyalists secretly fuming at Scalise or his allies. There’s mounting anger across the entire conference that no GOP speaker candidate, including Jordan, appears able to prevail under the current margins.

“We need to all recognize that this is much bigger than just one person or any single person’s petty feelings,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who had voted for Jordan but publicly backed Scalise after he won the internal election.

It won’t be easy for any candidate to get past the internal spats that have only worsened as the GOP’s speaker fight drags on with no end in sight.

“Personally, I think it may end up being a compromise candidate,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) said. While Murphy said there was “no doubt” Jordan would run, he acknowledged that getting the needed 217 GOP votes is “going to be hard.”

At some point, I would expect the Democrats to make a move here, with more backchannel routes and somebody Hakeem Jeffries can support. In a logical world, that would mean peeling off a half-dozen Republican to vote for Jeffries himself.

Of course, in a logical world, Jeffries would have been Speaker already. 

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.

Last Call For Supreme Crooks, Cads, And Creeps, Con't

With the latest Supreme Court term starting next month, the Roberts Court has agreed to take up multiple cases that could change the face of the internet, government regulation, voting rights, gun safety, and more.

 

The Supreme Court said Friday it would wade into the future of free speech online and decide whether laws passed in Texas and Florida can restrict social media companies from removing certain political posts or accounts.

The justices’ decision to take the landmark social media cases came in an order that also added 10 other cases to the calendar for the Supreme Court term that begins Monday. The additional cases concern the FBI’s “no-fly” list, individual property rights and the ability of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.

Earlier this year, the high court had said it would tackle controversial issues in the coming term involving gun regulations, voting rights and the power of federal agencies. Those cases will be heard as the justices face intense pressure from Democratic lawmakers to address ethics issues confronting some of their colleagues, including potential conflicts in some of the cases.

Tech industry groups, whose members include Facebook and Google’s YouTube, asked the court to block Texas and Florida laws passed in 2021 that regulate companies’ content-moderation policies. The companies say the measures are unconstitutional and conflict with the First Amendment by stripping private companies of the right to choose what to publish on their platforms.

The court’s review of those laws will be the highest-profile examination to date of allegations that Silicon Valley companies are illegally censoring conservative viewpoints. Those accusations reached a fever pitch when Facebook, Twitter and other companies suspended President Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The justices’ ruling could have significant implications for the future of democracy and elections, as Americans increasingly rely on social media to read and discuss political news. It could also have wide-ranging effects for policymakers in Congress and statehouses around the country as they attempt to craft new laws governing social media and misinformation. 

 

Needless to say, a ruling that finds that private tech and social media companies unable to moderate the content on their own platforms would be the end of those platforms as we know it, along with a ruling I have long warned about that would bring the end of executive agencies and their regulatory powers on everything else.

Having both of these go the GOP's way would dismantle much of the day-to-day infrastructure of America both physically and online, which is the point.

In preparation for a second Trump term, it would be the end of American democracy.

And that's if only those two rulings go to the conservatives. More would be coming.

The Country Goes Viral, Con't

As the latest variant of Covid ravages the country this fall, more Americans than ever have given up on vaccines and boosters, and the Biden administration has quietly folded efforts to fight vaccine disinformation after being blocked by Republicans in Congress and by the Supreme Court on what they can actually accomplish.

 

A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.

And internally, aides and advisers concede there is no comprehensive plan for countering a movement that’s steadily expanded its influence on the president’s watch.

The rising appeal of anti-vaccine activism has been underscored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent presidential campaign and fueled by prominent factions of the GOP. The mainstreaming of a once-fringe movement has horrified federal health officials, who blame it for seeding dangerous conspiracy theories and bolstering a Covid-era backlash to the nation’s broader public health practices.

But as President Joe Biden ramps up a reelection campaign centered on his vision for a post-pandemic America, there’s little interest among his aides in courting a high-profile vaccine fight — and even less certainty of how to win.

“There’s a real challenge here,” said one senior official who’s worked on the Covid response and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But they keep just hoping it’ll go away.”

The White House’s reticence is compounded by legal and practical concerns that have cut off key avenues for repelling the anti-vaccine movement, according to interviews with eight current and former administration officials and others close to the process.

Biden officials have felt handcuffed for the past two years by a Republican lawsuit over the administration’s initial attempt to clamp down on anti-vaxxers, who alleged the White House violated the First Amendment in encouraging social media companies to crack down on anti-vaccine posts. That suit, they believe, has limited their ability to police disinformation online. In addition, Congress is clawing back Covid funds once earmarked for vaccine education and outreach. And Biden himself has opted to largely ignore Kennedy’s campaign, concluding there’s no political benefit to engaging with the increasingly longshot challenger or his conspiratorial views.

The approach has given conservative influencers and lawmakers who have embraced Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics more space to promote their views and tout themselves as free speech warriors doing battle against the Biden administration.

And the impact is clear: As another Covid vaccination campaign gets underway, fewer Americans than ever have kept up to date on their shots. Child vaccination rates against the flu are measurably lower than before the pandemic. Even standard childhood inoculations to prevent diseases like the measles are subject to deepening partisan divisions, with recent polling showing Republicans are now more than twice as likely to believe the shots should be optional than they did in 2019. Democrats, by contrast, remain overwhelmingly in favor of childhood vaccine requirements.

“We can see a long-term future where kids aren’t going to get vaccinated in schools, diseases that we once thought had ended will roar back and kids will get sick and die from 100 percent preventable conditions,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health professor who has advised the White House. “This will cost lives in the long term.”

 

Science won many battles over the last three years, but the anti-vaxxers have all but won the war politically, and it's going to cost thousands upon thousands of preventable deaths in the years ahead.

I don't know how we fix this, either. The Roberts Court has made it clear that the government can't mandate vaccinations, and corporations can't require them for employment. Increasingly, schools are being blocked from requiring them for attendance as entire school districts are getting sick and schools having to shut down because of lack of healthy staff or students.

Hospitalizations are up as I pointed out at the top of the post, and we're in as bad of a situation as we were in 2020, only we have the vaccines ready and much fewer people are using them.

Please get the latest booster. Trust me when I say you never know what's around the corner in life...or death.

The Return Of The Revenge Of The Ghost Of Shutdown Countdown

With the House back in session this week ahead of the September 30th deadline for spending bills, Republicans are giving GOP House Spearker Kevin McCarthy an ultimatum: crash the Biden economy, or we crash you.

Kevin McCarthy is facing the greatest peril to his speakership since he clawed his way into the job eight months ago, with multiple factions of his party feuding and a looming revolt ahead during the battle to fund the government.

Ultra-conservative members of the House GOP are talking in unsubtle terms about turning on McCarthy if he does not take a hard line in negotiations with the Senate and the Biden administration.

More centrist Republicans, too, are increasingly fed up with McCarthy’s efforts to placate the far right. They want him to stop giving ground to lawmakers they see as holding the party hostage to unrealistic demands.

McCarthy is a political survivor — even his critics cannot deny that his skilled nature as an accommodator, his persistence in winning over even his most dogged critics and his deep bench of allies have kept him alive in this highly fractured Republican Party.

But interviews with more than two dozen GOP members and aides reveal that it would take only a few rogue lawmakers hell-bent on his downfall to risk McCarthy’s fate in an entirely new way, sending their party spiraling into a new period of chaos. And even if those defectors fail to actually eject McCarthy, some of the speaker’s confidantes privately concede there may be no way to recover.

Those volatile, competing forces of McCarthy’s conference will collide this month, and could drive the nation to a government shutdown, while reshaping the Republican agenda for the rest of the Congress.

“The speaker faces two choices,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va), a vocal McCarthy detractor who says the party shouldn’t fear a shutdown. “[He] stares down the Senate, stares down the White House, forces them to cave and is a transformational historic speaker ... Or he can choose to make a deal with Democrats.”

If McCarthy chooses the latter option, Good warned, “I don’t think that’s a sustainable thing for him as speaker.”

House Republicans will face all that drama with an attendance strain: At least four of their own may be sidelined from Washington for health or family reasons, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). That’s on top of a looming resignation on Friday that could put McCarthy’s margin for error at just a couple of votes.

The last time a GOP speaker faced this intense level of fall spending pressure with a Democrat in the White House, it was September 2015. And while John Boehner avoided a shutdown, he didn’t survive the month.

 

Utah Republican Chris Stewart is resigning on Friday over his wife's health issues, and he won't be replaced until June's special election, so McCarthy's margin will be down to three votes. I expect things to go like they did with Boehner in 2015, only with a lot bigger of a mess after McCarthy is driven out for making a deal with the Dems.

Of course, McCarthy may fold completely and shut down the government for weeks or months and crater the economy, but the voters are going to remember, or maybe he gets deposed before the 30th. At this point, all bets are off.

We'll see. But any outcome will be the GOP's fault.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

As Donald Trump's constant legal troubles continue, it seems like every day there's a new development in at least one legal venue where Trump is facing ruination, and this week is no different. We switch gears to New York AG Tish James and her civil fraud case against Trump, where both sides are asking for summary judgment ahead of October's scheduled state civil fraud trial.

 

Before Donald J. Trump was indicted four times over, he was sued by New York’s attorney general, who said that for years the former president, his business and members of his family had fraudulently overvalued their assets by billions of dollars.

Before any of those criminal trials will take place, Mr. Trump is scheduled for a civil trial in New York in October. During the trial, the attorney general, Letitia James, will seek to bar him and three of his children from leading their family business, the Trump Organization, and to require him to pay a fine of around $250 million.

On Wednesday, Ms. James fired an opening salvo, arguing that a trial is not necessary to find that Mr. Trump and the other defendants inflated the value of their assets in annual financial statements, fraudulently obtaining favorable loans and insurance arrangements.

The fraud was so pervasive, she said in a court filing, that Mr. Trump had falsely boosted his net worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year over the course of a decade.

“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” the filing said.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in their own motion, argued that the entire case should be thrown out, relying in large part on a recent appellate court decision that appeared as if it could significantly narrow the scope of the case because of a legal time limit. Mr. Trump had received most of the loans in question too long ago for the matter to be considered by a court, his lawyers argue.

“The appellate division has now limited the reach of the N.Y. A.G.’s crusade against President Trump and his family” wrote Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Christopher M. Kise, Michael Madaio and Clifford S. Robert.

Both filings seek what is known as summary judgment, or a ruling from the judge that they are entitled to a victory before trial based on undisputed facts in evidence.

Ms. James sought that ruling on the claim at the core of her case — that Mr. Trump’s financial statements were fraudulent — and if she prevails, it would mark a significant victory and could smooth her path to a potential win at trial on the remaining claims.

If Mr. Trump won even partial summary judgment, the case could become a shadow of what it once appeared, significantly lowering the stakes of the October trial.

Or the judge could deny both bids for early victory, which would simply set the case for trial.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, is scheduled to hold a hearing in late September and could rule then.

Ms. James’s lawsuit disputes the value of some of Mr. Trump’s best-known properties, including Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, and Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. In her new filing, she wrote that, given the way that the worth of Trump Tower was calculated in 2018, it was overvalued by nearly $175 million. The following year, she said, the value of the building was falsely boosted by nearly $323 million.

“At the end of the day this is a documents case,” the filing unsealed on Wednesday said, adding that the documents left not a shred of doubt that Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements “do not even remotely reflect the ‘estimated current value’ of his assets.”

Ms. James also took aim at Mr. Trump for submitting the financial statements to obtain loans for a golf resort outside Miami, a hotel in Washington and a hotel in Chicago.

Yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that Justice Engoron should throw out those transactions from the case, citing the recent appellate court ruling. In that ruling, the appeals court dismissed Ms. James’s case against his daughter, Ivanka Trump, because the accusations concerned conduct that had occurred too long ago. As Mr. Trump’s lawyers interpret the appellate ruling, any loans that Mr. Trump and his company received before July 2014 were too old to be included in the case.

The appeals court declined to throw out the case against Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — effectively leaving it to Justice Engoron to decide. But Mr. Trump’s lawyers noted in their motion for summary judgment that the loans for the Chicago hotel and Florida resort were negotiated before the July 2014 legal deadline.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers also argued that Mr. Trump’s lenders did not rely heavily on his financial statements when issuing him loans, and that the lenders reaped millions from their dealings with the former president.

“The sophisticated private parties all profited considerably from successfully consummated transactions,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Thus, ‘fraud’ cannot exist in the abstract or solely in the mind of the N.Y. A.G.”

 

This case too seems destined for a Trump-friendly Supreme Court, given the defendant is a ex-Oval Office occupant. Trump may not be able to force the trial into federal court, but I imagine he'll appeal any verdict against him as high as he can possibly go. Whether or not SCOTUS will take anything up is up in the air, but Trump will certainly demand it.

Hell, there's a fair chance he's back in the White House by the time this gets to SCOTUS, and we already know exactly what's going to happen if he does.

 

Former President Donald Trump joined controversial radio host Glenn Beck for an interview on Tuesday and was asked flat out if he would use the office of the president to jail his political opponents – as he promised to do in 2016.

“You said in 2016, you know, ‘lock her up.’ And then when you became president, you said, ‘We don’t do that in America.’ That’s just not the right thing to do. That’s what they’re doing. Do you regret not locking her up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?” Beck asked Trump.

“Well, I’ll give you an example. Uh, the answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us,” Trump replied, making clear he would.

“I always had such great respect for the office of the president and the presidency and but the office of the president. And I never hit Biden as hard as I could have. And then I heard he was trying to indict me and it was him that was doing it,” Trump continued, adding:

"You know, I don’t think he’s sharp enough to think about much, but he was there and he was probably the one giving the order. But he was, you know, hard to believe that he even thinks about that because he’s gone. But then I said, well, they’re actually trying to indict me because every one of these indictments is him, including Bragg. But he put his top people.

I don’t know if you know this, he put his top person into the office of the Manhattan district attorney. They’ve been in total coordination with Fani Willis. The woman that I never met, that they accused me of rape, that’s being run by a Democrat, a Democrat operative, and paid for by the Democrat party. You know, so many of these days, I have a couple of other lawsuits all funded against me by the Democrats. But these are sick people. These are evil people."

 

He's telling us that he will put dozens, maybe hundreds of Democrats in jail. We shouldn't exactly give him the chance, right?

 

Right?

Cop Out, Or, That's The Sound Of The Police (Leaving)

The small town of Goodhue, Minnesota is cop-free this week as the entire department resigned over pay issues.

 

A small city in southeast Minnesota is without a police force after its chief and officers resigned over low pay.

Goodhue — population 1,250, according to the 2020 census — accepted the resignation of its police chief, only full-time officer, and five part-time officers at a Monday city council meeting that was originally intended to discuss pay raises.

Mayor Ellen Anderson Buck said the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office will patrol the city when the officers’ contracts expire later this month.

“We need to pursue other options. So at this point, there is no reason to really talk about pay increases since we no longer have a police force,” she said at the meeting Monday evening. “We will have police coverage in the City of Goodhue. That is not an issue.”

The county sheriff will also take over active criminal cases, she said.

The council was adamant on its intent to eventually re-form the department, which Anderson Buck called the “ultimate goal,” though she acknowledged the difficulty of hiring new officers. There are about 200 open police jobs in Minnesota, she said.

“We’re not the first, and we won’t be the last,” she said. “This is not unusual, it does happen.”

 

Cop-free, yes. County Mountie-free, no.  Still, if the county can handle it, why not use the money for the now defunct town PD for, say, a real service to the people of Goodhue like library books, school renovation,  or, you know, anything not police-related.

Just an idea.

 

Retribution Execution, Con't

Trump and his MAGA cronies are working on formalizing plans to investigate, charge, and arrest hundreds, maybe thousands of Democratic politicians, Justice Department lawyers, FBI investigators, staffers, and analysts involved in the federal probes of Donald Trump criminal activities starting with Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and Joe Biden.

 

DONALD TRUMP IS a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.

Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.

The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them.

Trump’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past.

This idea was recently pitched to Trump by a longtime Republican activist and an attorney who’s known the ex-president for years, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. (Republican officials have also begun voicing their own support for state-level offices of election integrity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the proposal a reality in his state. Officials in Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin have proposed the offices, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, proposed a similarly named office.)

And when it comes to Special Counsel Smith’s office — which just handed Trump his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the former president and his fellow travelers already know what they want: They want the FBI and DOJ to name names.

This year, close advisers to Trump have begun the process of assembling lists of the names of federal personnel who have investigated the former president and his circle for years, and are attempting to unmask the identities of all the DOJ attorneys and others connected to Smith’s office. The obvious purpose of this, according to one source close to Trump, is to “show them the door on Day 1 [if Trump’s reelected]” — and so “we know who should receive a subpoena” in the future.

Such subpoenas would of course be instrumental in Trumpland’s vows to its voters that, should he return to power, Trump and his new attorney general will launch a raft of their own retaliatory “special counsel” and “special prosecutor” probes to investigate-the-investigator, and to go after their key enemies. As it were, Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official and a central figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the legitimate 2020 presidential election results, has been on Trump’s informal shortlist for plum assignments, including even attorney general, in a potential second administration.

Sources familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Trump and his close ideological allies — working at an assortment of MAGA-prone think tanks, advocacy organizations, and legal groups — are formulating plans for a wide slate of “special prosecutors.” In this vision, such prosecutors would go after the usual targets: Smith, Smith’s team, President Joe Biden, Biden’s family, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray. But they’d also go after smaller targets, from members of the Biden 2020 campaign to more obscure government offices.

“There are almost too many targets to keep track of,” says one Trump adviser familiar with the discussions. Trump and members of his inner orbit have already outlined possible legal strategies, examining specific federal statutes they could wield in a Republican-controlled Justice Department to go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who delivered Trump’s first indictment of this year.

 

People should treat this seriously. A second Trump term will be an authoritarian nightmare, and we have to prevent it.  There will be no guardrails and countermeasures next time. As it is, Trump is already vowing retribution and intimidation against the people involved in his legal cases.

Prosecutors on Friday night called a judge’s attention to a social media post from Donald Trump — issued hours earlier — in which they say the former president appeared to declare that he’s “coming after” those he sees as responsible for the series of formidable legal challenges he is facing.

Attorneys from special counsel Jack Smith’s team said the post from Trump “specifically or by implication” referenced those involved in his criminal case for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.

In a court filing just before 10 p.m. Friday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom alerted the judge in Trump’s latest criminal case — U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan — to a combative post Trump sent earlier in the day.

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps Friday afternoon on Truth Social, which is run by a media company he co-owns.

The prosecutors said Trump’s post raised concerns that he might improperly share evidence in the case on his social media account and they urged that he be ordered to keep any evidence prosecutors turn over to his defense team from public view.

“All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. … And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago.”

We'll see what Judge Chutkan does, ordering a response from the Trump legal team by Monday evening.

Denying Trump bail would be a choice fraught with its own dangers, but if you or I posted on social media that we were coming for people after being arraigned on federal charges, you'd better believe there would be consequences. The real "two-tiered justice system" the right keeps squawking about applies to Trump far more than it does Biden.

Last Call For Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Both Black Tennessee state lawmakers expelled from the state legislature earlier this year by angry, overwhelmingly white Republicans have easily won their special elections to be returned to Nashville, in time for a scheduled special session by GOP Gov. Bill Lee on gun safety measures.

The two Democratic state representatives in Tennessee who were expelled by Republicans in April for protesting in support of gun safety on the chamber floor won elections Thursday night for their old seats, The Associated Press projected.

Justin Jones won his election for his state House seat in Nashville, and Justin J. Pearson won his race in Memphis, according to AP projections.

Jones defeated Republican Laura Nelson, while Pearson won his race against independent candidate Jeff Johnston.

Both lawmakers had been reinstated by local government officials shortly after their expulsion in April, but they still had to run for their old seats — both in primary elections in June and in Thursday’s general elections.

While Jones and Pearson were heavily favored to win — each of their districts comprise heavily Democratic areas — their electoral success nevertheless delivered a resounding message to Republicans in the state Legislature that the lawmakers continue to enjoy robust support.

Their return may also provide momentum for Democrats and other lawmakers who support gun measures, ahead of a special legislative session scheduled later this month that Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, called specifically to address gun reform.

Jones, in a tweet shortly after the AP projected his victory, addressed Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who led the expulsion hearings, and signaled that he would continue pushing for gun legislation during the special session.

"Well, Mr. Speaker, the People have spoken. The FIND OUT era of politics is just beginning. See you August 21st for special session," Jones tweeted.

Pearson, too, signaled he would work to organize further protests supporting gun reform, as well as efforts to advance the issue, during the upcoming special session.

“This is only the beginning for this Movement. We will organize, mobilize and activate to work tirelessly for the day when there are no more calls to respond to mass shootings and gun violence," he said in a statement. "I look forward to heading back to the Tennessee state capitol Aug. 21 for the special session on gun legislation. We, the People, will march, rally and work to pass legislation."

The question is do Sexton and the TN GOP have the balls to try this again, proving to America and the world just how racist they are? It's been a PR disaster for them for months and these Black lawmakers are showing everyone that even in deep red Tennessee that there's a future for Democrats and the people who voted for them.

We'll see. They tried to martyr them once.

But Black Lives Still Matter.