The Turtle's Long Road

Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell has been having a rough time of it as of late.

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tripped and fell disembarking from a plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this month, two sources familiar with the incident said.

McConnell, 81, was not seriously hurt, and he was seen later that day at the Capitol, where he interacted with at least one reporter.

The fall, which has not been previously reported, occurred July 14 after the flight out of Washington was canceled while everyone was on board. McConnell, R-Ky., who was a passenger, had a “face plant,” someone who was on the plane at the time but did not witness the fall told NBC News. That passenger also said they spoke to another passenger who helped tend to McConnell.

McConnell has also recently been using a wheelchair as a precaution when he navigates crowded airports, said a source familiar with his practices.

McConnell, a polio survivor who has long struggled to navigate stairs and other obstacles, has had a difficult recent history with falls. He sustained a concussion and a cracked rib in a fall in Washington this year, and he spent six weeks away from the Senate. He fractured a shoulder in a fall in Kentucky in 2019, requiring surgery.

McConnell’s nearly 20-second freeze during a news conference Wednesday renewed concerns about his overall health after the concussion.

“He’s definitely slower with his gait,” said a Republican senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. In closed-door GOP meetings, “he doesn’t address it,” the senator said, referring to health issues.

McConnell’s office declined to comment for this article Wednesday night.

McConnell, who told reporters he was “fine” after his freeze-up Wednesday, spoke with President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after the incident.

“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell joked to reporters, an apparent reference to Biden’s fall last month.

 

I remind folks that the KY GOP changed the rules for appointing a US Senator should the need arise, while Gov. Beshear would get to make the ultimate choice, tit's the GOP-dominated General Assembly that chooses the list of candidates. 

 

I can't help but think if anything happened to Mitch now, that the GOP may decide Daniel Cameron would make a good Senator even though he's running for Beshear's job this year, as it's ultimately where he's headed. I don't know if Cameron can be replaced on the gubernatorial ticket this late in the game, but the KY GOP will just change the rules anyway and force Beshear to accept it.

Besides, if Mitch wasn't Senate minority leader, Tom Cotton or Rick Scott would be.

Last Call For Justice Served, Con't

US Attorney Rachael Rollins is out, resigning before a Justice Department watchdog report on an ethics investigation into her political fundraising appearances drops the hammer on her.

 

Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins will resign following a monthslong investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general into her appearance at a political fundraiser and other potential ethics issues, her attorney said Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s watchdog has yet to release its report detailing the findings of its investigation, but an attorney for Rollins told The Associated Press that she will be submitting a letter of resignation to President Joe Biden by close of business Friday.

The resignation of a U.S. attorney amid ethics concerns is an exceedingly rare phenomenon and is especially notable for a Justice Department that under Attorney General Merrick Garland has sought to restore a sense of normalcy and good governance following the turbulent four years of the Trump administration.

Rollins’ attorney said she has been “profoundly honored” to have serve as U.S. attorney and proud of her office’s work but “understands that her presence has become a distraction.” Attorney Michael Bromwich — a former Justice Department inspector general — said Rollins will make herself available to answer questions “after the dust settles and she resigns.”

“The work of the office and the Department of Justice is far too important to be overshadowed by anything else,” Bromwich said.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately comment Tuesday. The inspector general’s office declined to comment.

Rollins was a controversial pick to be Massachusetts’ top federal law enforcer and twice needed Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie for her nomination to move forward in the Senate amid fierce opposition from Republicans, who painted her as a radical.

Before taking the high-profile U.S. attorney job, she was the top prosecutor for Suffolk County, which includes Boston. In her role there, sparred with Boston’s largest police union and pushed ambitious criminal justice changes, most notably a policy not to prosecute certain low-level crimes such as shoplifting.

She was the first woman of color to serve as a district attorney in Massachusetts and the first Black woman to become U.S. attorney for the state.

The Associated Press was the first to report in November that the inspector general’s office had opened an investigation into Rollins over her appearance last year at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser featuring first lady Jill Biden. The inspector general’s office generally investigates allegations of fraud, abuse or violation of other Justice Department policies.

People familiar with the investigation told the AP at the time that the probe had expanded into other areas, including Rollins’ use of her personal cellphone to conduct Justice Department business and a trip she took to California that was paid for by an outside group.

 

Calling Rollins's confirmation "controversial" is being generous. Senate Republicans wanted her gone from moment one, and now Rollins gave them the opening needed to take herself out of the game.

 

Not everyone is cut out to be a US attorney, it seems.

 

What really bothers me is that GOP Sen. Tom Cotton was right. Rollins was "uniquely unfit" for the position, not because of her criminal justice reform positions, but because she wasn't able to follow the goddamn rules.

Good riddance.

Last Call For Balloon Fight

Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful...Chinese spy balloon?

The spotting of a high-altitude balloon over the U.S. mainland has quickly spiraled into a diplomatic incident. U.S. officials say the object is a Chinese spy balloon, while Chinese officials called it a “civilian airship” mainly used to track weather.

The airborne vehicle was seen over Montana, home to some of the United States’ nuclear missile silos.

The balloon has since moved southeast from Montana, U.S. officials said Friday. The Pentagon has a “constant fix” on the aircraft and its direction and is collecting signals and data on it, the aide said. Reports of a second device in Canada and Alaska are inaccurate, a senior defense official told lawmakers Friday morning.

Spy balloons have previously passed over the United States, but this object is unusual for loitering overhead “for an extended period of time,” defense officials say.

The first known usage of reconnaissance balloons was by the French during the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, when they were used to spy on Austrian and Dutch troops in what is now Belgium.

Here’s what you need to know about spy balloons, and about the Chinese balloon spotted over Montana.

 

Indeed, the singular luftballoon has deflated US Secretary of State Tony Blinken's trip to China this weekend.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed his upcoming trip to China in response to the flying of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States, in what marks a significant new phase in the tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Blinken, who was due to depart Friday night for Beijing, said at a press conference Friday that the high-altitude surveillance balloon flying over the continental United States “created the conditions that undermine the purpose of the trip.” He informed China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in a call Friday morning that he was postponing.

“In my call today with Director Wang Yi, I made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in US airspace is a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law, that it’s an irresponsible act, and that the (People’s Republic of China) decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” Blinken told reporters Friday.

Blinken said Friday that the US was confident the balloon over the US is a Chinese surveillance balloon.

The Chinese foreign ministry claimed Friday that the balloon was a “civilian airship” used mainly for weather research that deviated from its planned course. The statement from a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry was the first admission that the airship originated in China.

“It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

“The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure,” the statement added, using a legalistic term to mean circumstances beyond China’s control.

 

If Beijing is indeed trolling us here, it's because they know perfectly well that Republicans aren't hesitating to use it to push their own garbage conspiracies. 

Several top Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, on Friday, called on the Biden administration to shoot down the balloon, which some military leaders had discussed. Ryder said at his briefing Friday that the military was still "reviewing options" but had not taken the balloon down because "right now we assess that there is no physical threat or military threat to people on the ground."

Trump posted on his platform Truth Social, “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!”

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., one of the most vocal critics in Congress of the Chinese government and U.S. policy toward China, also called on the U.S. government to bring down the balloon.

“President Biden should stop coddling and appeasing the Chinese communists. Bring the balloon down now and exploit its tech package, which could be an intelligence bonanza,” said Cotton. “And President Biden and Secretary Austin need to answer if this [balloon] was detected over Alaskan airspace. If so, why didn’t we bring it down there? If not, why not? As usual, the Chinese Communists’ provocations have been met with weakness and hand-wringing.”

 

Not to mention violent Sinophobia fron Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer.

 

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, blasted President Biden for a high-altitude balloon from China that is traveling over the continental United States not being shot down before it reached U.S. territory, speculating that it could have “bioweapons.”

Comer told Fox News’s Harris Faulkner in an interview on Friday that he is concerned that the federal government “obviously” does not know what is in the balloon.

“Is it bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?” Comer said, referring to the Chinese city where the COVID-19 virus was first discovered. “We don’t know anything about that balloon.”

He said China is “clearly playing games” with the U.S., and the balloon should not have been allowed to cross into the airspace of the continental U.S.

 

Next thing you know, the House GOP will be demanding that we shut down your local Chinese take out place.

The GOP Race To The Bottom, Con't

Should Republicans retake the House and/or Senate, there will be a test run for tremendous damage that they can and will do to blue states in order to destroy as many civil rights as possible nationwide. The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein:

If Republicans win control of one or both congressional chambers this week, they will likely begin a project that could reshape the nation’s political and legal landscape: imposing on blue states the rollback of civil rights and liberties that has rapidly advanced through red states since 2021.

Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in modern times. In highly polarizing battles across the country, GOP-controlled states have passed laws imposing new restrictions on voting, banning or limiting access to abortion, retrenching LGBTQ rights, removing licensing and training requirements for concealed carry of firearms, and censoring how public-school teachers (and in some cases university professors and even private employers) can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation.

With much less attention, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced legislation to write each of these red-state initiatives into federal law. The practical effect of these proposals would be to require blue states to live under the restrictive social policies that have burned through red states since President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. “I think the days of fealty [to states’ rights] are nearing an end, and we are going to see the national Republicans in Congress adopting maximalist policy approaches,” Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords, a group that advocates for stricter gun control, told me.

None of the proposals to nationalize the red-state social agenda could become law any time soon. Even if Republicans were to win both congressional chambers, they would not have the votes to overcome the inevitable Biden vetoes. Nor would Republicans, even if they controlled both chambers, have any incentive to consider repealing the Senate filibuster to pass this agenda until they know they have a president who would sign the resulting bills into law—something they can’t achieve before the 2024 election.

But if Republicans triumph this week, the next two years could nonetheless become a crucial period in formulating a strategy to nationalize the red-state social-policy revolution. Particularly if Republicans win the House, they seem certain to explore which of these ideas can attract enough support in their caucus to clear the chamber. And the 2024 Republican presidential candidates are also likely to test GOP primary voters’ appetite for writing conservative social priorities into national law. Embracing such initiatives “may prove irresistible for a lot of folks trying to capture” the party’s socially conservative wing, Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, told me.

It starts with abortion. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in September introduced a bill that would ban the procedure nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In the House, 167 Republicans have co-sponsored the “Life Begins at Conception Act,” which many legal analysts say would effectively ban all abortions nationwide.

In elections, Senator Rick Scott of Florida has proposed legislation that would impose for federal elections nationwide many of the voting restrictions that have rapidly diffused across red states, including tougher voter-identification requirements, a ban on both unmonitored drop boxes and the counting of any mail ballots received after Election Day, and a prohibition on same-day and automatic voter registration.

In education, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has proposed to federalize restrictions on how teachers can talk about race by barring any K–12 school that receives federal money from using “critical race theory” in instruction. Several Republicans (including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri) have introduced a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which would mandate parental access to school curriculum and library materials nationwide—a step toward building pressure for the kind of book bans spreading through conservative states and school districts. Nadine Farid Johnson, the Washington director for PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group, predicts that these GOP proposals “chipping away” at free speech are likely to expand beyond school settings into other areas affecting the general population, such as public libraries or private companies’ training policies. “This is not something that is likely to stop at the current arena, but to go much more broadly,” she told me.

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, along with several dozen co-sponsors, recently introduced a federal version of the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida pushed into law. Johnson’s bill is especially sweeping in its scope. It bars discussion of “sexually-oriented material,” including sexual orientation, with children 10 and younger, not only in educational settings, but in any program funded by the federal government, including through public libraries, hospitals, and national parks. The language is so comprehensive that it might even prevent “any federal law enforcement talking to a kid about a sexual assault or sexual abuse,” David Stacy, the government-affairs director at the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, told me.

 

The nightmare scenario is that Republicans hold the debt ceiling hostage and collapse the US economy until Biden signs all of these into law, along with trillions in cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The prevention of this scenario is to vote Blue today and tomorrow.

Last Call For Cruz Control, Con't

Part of the "Biden's incompetence!11!!" argument is the fact that the Biden administration has yet to fill hundreds of executive agency nominations that require Senate approval. But Republican senators like Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, and especially Ted Cruz have been blocking nominations for months over petty stupidity.

The U.S. Treasury is being held hostage by Republican Senator Ted Cruz's efforts to halt a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, blocking critical appointments when the federal debt limit remains a pressing issue, White House officials and Democrats in Congress say.

Only four confirmed nominees are in place in the top ranks of the Treasury, of about 20 slots for presidential picks, officials say. More than eight months after Democratic President Joe Biden took office, his nominees across the government are being approved at a slower rate than the past three presidents, federal data shows.

In addition to the toll that Cruz's actions are taking on the Treasury's ability to tackle the federal debt limit, they are hurting the Biden administration's ability to address other big problems, senior officials say, including a global minimum tax, terrorism and financial intelligence.

Cruz has wielded power by being a lone holdout on a fast-track confirmation process that requires consent by all 100 senators for non-controversial nominees - a description the White House says fits many of the Treasury picks as well as others awaiting Senate confirmation, including numerous ambassadors.

Cruz wants Biden to impose sanctions that would halt Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Biden, despite his opposition to the pipeline, has said he waived sanctions because the project was nearly complete and he wanted to rebuild strained ties with Germany, a key U.S. ally.

As far as Cruz is concerned, a spokesman for the senator said, the solution is simple: he will remove the holds if the Biden administration sanctions the company behind the pipeline project, something he insists is required under U.S. law.

Failure to do so "hands Vladimir Putin a geostrategic victory" and "entrenches corrupt Russian influence in Europe" Cruz said in a letter on Sept. 13, referring to the Russian president.

 

Suddenly, Ted Cruz cares about punishing Russia over a gas pipeline, but that's strictly because he thinks it would hurt US energy companies in Texas. Otherwise, Cruz is happy to give Putin a pass. 

 

But it also gives Cruz the excuse he needs to block Biden nominations in the Senate, and he's been blocking them for more than six months. 

In fact, multiple Republican senators are currently blocking Biden nominations.

But somehow, this is Joe Biden's fault.

The Return Of Romneybot

Mitt Romney has a plan to raise the minimum wag to...some...number above $7.25 an hour, but he'll be damned if anyone actually knows what the number would be.

As Democrats try to plot a way forward to raise the minimum wage to $15-an-hour, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, announced Tuesday that he's working on a separate bill to increase the long stagnant minimum wage while “ensuring businesses cannot hire illegal immigrants.”

Romney said he's working on the bill with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and it also includes a provision for the minimum wage to "increase automatically with inflation."

Increasing the minimum wage is a priority for the Biden administration, but Democrats have been split on the best path forward.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the head of the Senate Budget Committee and a longtime proponent of raising the minimum wage, is pushing for the measure to be included in the Covid-19 relief bill and passed through budget reconciliation, which would allow them to avoid the filibuster and pass the measure without any Republican support. Some Democrats are concerned the Senate rules might not allow the minimum wage hike to be used in reconciliation.

Romney said his bill would raise the minimum wage "gradually" but did not say to what amount or over what period of time.

"Congress hasn’t raised the minimum wage in more than a decade, leaving many Americans behind. Our proposal gradually raises the minimum wage without costing jobs, setting it to increase automatically with inflation, and requires employers to verify the legal status of workers," Romney wrote in a pair of tweets about the proposed legislation.

The Democratic-controlled House Education and Labor Committee earlier this month approved a Covid-19 relief bill that includes a wage hike from $7.25 an hour to $15 over four years.

 

I love how Millionaire Mitt's plan is such a pittance that he can't even be bothered to reveal what he'd raise the minimum wage to, let alone give it a timeframe.  It's the Trump Health Care Plan™ all over again. Republicans never have details on their plans, only that they "will work better" than the ones out there, and then they spend years not actually implementing them.

Tom Cotton getting involved too lets me know this isn't a serious proposal at all, but it'll sure make the news. Mitt Romney may have voted to convict Trump, but he's still Mitt Romney, Republican jackass.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Two Bible Belt Republicans laid out their plans for what a post-Trump GOP will look like this weekend, and it looks like current GOP plans only without Trump's personal baggage weighing things down, making things much easier for them. Alabama Sen. Tom Cotton is all in on the police fascism angle and the slavery was 100% necessary evil angle, and now Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is laying his marker down on ending abortion.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any future nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was “wrongly decided.”

“I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided,” Hawley said in an interview with The Washington Post. “By explicitly acknowledged, I mean on the record and before they were nominated.”

Hawley added: “I don’t want private assurances from candidates. I don’t want to hear about their personal views, one way or another. I’m not looking for forecasts about how they may vote in the future or predications. I don’t want any of that. I want to see on the record, as part of their record, that they have acknowledged in some forum that Roe v. Wade, as a legal matter, is wrongly decided.”

Hawley’s new marker comes as Republicans are preparing for the possibility that President Trump could name a third member of the court later this year, should there be a vacancy.

And it comes as conservatives nationally are pushing to overhaul the court’s jurisprudence supporting the right of a woman to choose the procedure. But they have recently been disappointed by the court’s rulings on this front — and particularly by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Last month, the Supreme Court struck down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. It was a dramatic victory for abortion rights activists and a bitter disappointment to conservatives in the first showdown on the issue since Trump’s remake of the court.

This is a win-win for Hawley, if Trump does win he's made his play for why he should be the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary as opposed to Huckleberry Graham, and if Trump loses, he has an instant 2024 platform to run against Biden on.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio just got some bad news for 2022.

Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly may have some bigger moves in his future.

Jolly, the U.S. Rep. for Florida’s 13th Congressional District from 2014 to 2017, indicated on Twitter Sunday morning that he’s considering a run for Florida Governor or the U.S. Senate in 2022.

A tweet from TV personality Lea Black kicked off the idea. Black, a member of the cast of The Real Housewives of Miami, tweeted that she thought Jolly should run for Governor.

And Jolly, about five hours later, replied to her tweet.

“Thank you Lea. Very kind,” he tweeted at 7:05 a.m. “Haven’t ruled it out, but strongly considering the U.S. Senate seat in ’22. Will consider whether either is the right decision and decide about this time next year. For now, I’m loving the time at home with our little one! Many thanks.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio will be on the ballot in 2022.

Jolly, a former Republican, switched to be an Independent in 2018, and he indicated elsewhere on Twitter Sunday that he is not likely to return to his old party.

He replied to a comment critical of the GOP by saying, “Fully agree. Not going back.”

Ron DeSantis probably isn't going to be too popular in 2022 the way things are going on the COVID-19 front in the state right now, so that means Jolly can be a real nuisance for the Florida GOP in two years with either a run at Rubio or a run at DeSantis.

We'll see which one the GOP wants more.

The Heir To The Golden Toilet

The Wall Street Journal's Siobhan Hughes seems really keen on Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton's "fascism without Trump's bungling criminality getting in the way" and believes he might be the man to carry the burning banner of white supremacist America in the years ahead.

Sen. Tom Cotton has been a longtime adviser to President Trump, both echoing the chief executive’s bare-knuckled rhetoric on subjects like immigration and China and at times pushing him to take even more aggressive positions.

Last week, the Arkansas Republican and the president were again making different versions of the same argument amid protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. While Mr. Trump weighed whether to invoke an 1807 law to send active-duty military in response to largely peaceful demonstrations that included bursts of looting and other violence, Mr. Cotton was more definitive, explicitly calling in a New York Times op-ed for an “overwhelming show of force” by federal troops and local law enforcement. That column led to the resignation Sunday of the news organization’s editorial page editor James Bennet.

Mr. Cotton’s willingness to court controversy by backing—or exceeding—the president’s agenda puts him in the spotlight as Republicans jockey to influence Mr. Trump, and as a potential carrier of the president’s banner when he eventually leaves the White House.

“Tom Cotton is indeed setting himself up to be the heir to Trumpism,” said Geoffrey Kabaservice, director of political studies at the Washington-based think tank Niskanen Center, who studies Republican politics. “In some ways, I think his case to lead the Trump wing of the party after this era has only been strengthened by this past week.”

Back in Arkansas, Mr. Cotton’s supporters believe he is destined for bigger things. In 2015, Republican Bart Hester, a state legislator, helped put into state law a measure to enable Mr. Cotton, 43, to run for the presidency while simultaneously serving in the Senate.

“He always has a very valid basis for what he believes and why he believes it, and I think he has the best for all Americans in mind at all the time,” Mr. Hester said.

Although the senator and president have foreign-policy differences—Mr. Cotton is more hawkish and in favor of keeping troops in northern Syria, while Mr. Trump ordered a withdrawal, for example—they are frequently on the same page. Mr. Cotton’s op-ed calling for the president to invoke the Insurrection Act was just the latest example of the two men running on parallel tracks.

Oh good, all the straight cartoon fascism without the cuddly senior events and wacky temper tantrums. As I keep saying, Trump is the worst president since the Civil War mainly because there are other, worse Republicans who haven't become president yet, and Tom Cotton is definitely on the top of that particular list.

Oh, and Cotton is up for reelection this November.  The lone Democratic candidate in the primary dropped out six months ago, so Cotton is basically running unopposed.

Keep an eye on this guy.

He's dangerous as all hell. A competent version of Trump would absolutely be the end of America.

Retribution Execution, Con't

The silver lining to the psychically exhausting GOP practice of "saying the quiet part out loud" in America is that it makes it very, very easy to identify the fascists in our midst who should never be allowed to have political power whatsoever. It also means there are Republicans worse than Donald Trump in 2020, like Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.

This week, rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy, recalling the widespread violence of the 1960s.

New York City suffered the worst of the riots Monday night, as Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by while Midtown Manhattan descended into lawlessness. Bands of looters roved the streets, smashing and emptying hundreds of businesses. Some even drove exotic cars; the riots were carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements.

Outnumbered police officers, encumbered by feckless politicians, bore the brunt of the violence. In New York State, rioters ran over officers with cars on at least three occasions. In Las Vegas, an officer is in “grave” condition after being shot in the head by a rioter. In St. Louis, four police officers were shot as they attempted to disperse a mob throwing bricks and dumping gasoline; in a separate incident, a 77-year-old retired police captain was shot to death as he tried to stop looters from ransacking a pawnshop. This is “somebody’s granddaddy,” a bystander screamed at the scene.

Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.

These rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals will be set back still further.

One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.

Cotton goes on to say that the Insurrection Act, a law created nearly two centuries ago to give the US Army the power to put down slave rebellions, is needed.

Chief Propaganda Minister Kayleigh McEnany agrees.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday defended the use of chemical agents and projectiles used by law enforcement officials to clear crowds of racial justice demonstrators in Lafayette Square on Monday — a move that was widely criticized as an excessive use of force on a peaceful protest.

“They had no other choice,” McEnany responded when asked if law enforcement officials under the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr had overstepped in their attempts to forcibly remove protesters from the park in preparation for President Trump’s walk to a photo op at the St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Those responsible for increasing the perimeter for Trump as he made his way to the church used the most “minimal force” possible, McEnany said. Contrary to reports from the scene, McEnany described groups of “rioters” who had grown violent and were launching bricks and water bottles at police officers.

Protesters were given three warnings, the press secretary said, before members of the National Guard, park staff and other law enforcement officials escalated the encounter to an “appropriate level,” dispensing chemicals into the air and shooting projectiles to drive protesters away.

Very soon I expect Trump to fire, replace, or cow Defense Secretary Mark Esper into making the call to use the Insurrection Act in DC at the very minimum, and for Republican governors to go along in order to placate Trump.

I also expect hundreds, if not thousands of Americans to die.

Tom Cotton is calling for a military coup, followed by a functional dictatorship. Let's get this out of the way right now, Cotton wants Trump to use military force to kill Americans over the objections of Governors, state law enforcement, and local law enforcement.  It is absolutely vile, and 100% fascist. Cotton should be made to resign over this in a heartbeat. But he won't.

And millions of Americans back him, because they figure they are somehow safe from the tanks and bombs that will annihilate them regardless. They want fascism, because it will keep black and brown bodies in line, and cement us as the permanent slave class.  They've wanted it all their lives.

It was never Donald Trump who was the true threat.   

It was the people who enabled him.

Trump's Year-End Clearance Fail

Looks like long-suspected rumors that the Trump regime is going to reshuffle the deck chairs on the Trumptanic over the holidays are shifting into a much likely action phase with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's plans for an brand-new, even worse cabinet for 2018.

The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday. 

Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters, according to the White House plan. Mr. Cotton has signaled that he would accept the job if offered, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations before decisions are announced. 

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump has given final approval to the plan, but he has been said to have soured on Mr. Tillerson and in general is ready to make a change at the State Department. 

John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, developed the transition plan and has discussed it with other officials. Under his plan, the shake-up of the national security team would happen around the end of the year or shortly afterward. 

The ouster of Mr. Tillerson would end a turbulent reign at the State Department for the former Exxon Mobile chief executive, who has been largely marginalized over the last year. Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson have been at odds over a host of major issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, the confrontation with North Korea and a clash between Arab allies. The secretary was reported to have privately called Mr. Trump a “moron” and the president publicly criticized Mr. Tillerson for “wasting his time” with a diplomatic outreach to North Korea.

And let's be honest about exactly what getting rid of Rex Tillerson and replacing him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo means (and backfilling Pompeo's job with avowed racist asshole Tom Cotton), it means any hope of a diplomatic, non-military solution to North Korea and/or Iran goes up in smoke (or in cruise missile contrails).

Tillerson is a horrendous Secretary of State who gutted America's diplomatic corps in less than a year and his promises to increase diversity at State in August turned into a massive purging of top black and Latino and women diplomats in November.  I'm not sorry to see him gone, but Pompeo at State would be the end of US diplomacy period, and Cotton at the CIA would be fundamentally worse.

In other words, Trump would have the people he wants on hand to start the wars he'll need in order to stay in office after Mueller drops the hammer.

You though 2017 was bad?  Stay turned for 2018, now just a month away.  The odds of us being in a major war before the end of next year just went up substantially.