The Big Lie, Con't

Republicans continue the Big Lie because Donald Trump demands it, and the media continues to allow them to get away with it.

 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) refused to answer whether the 2020 election was stolen when pressed eight separate times in a Sunday interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.

Asked about conservative Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-Colo.) decision to leave Congress and his departing remark that “too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen,” Scalise avoided responding directly in the interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”

“Well, Ken, I’ve worked with on a number of issues, including getting spending under control, getting our economy back on track. He’s talked about that 2020 election as well. You and I have, I think, have talked about that too,” Scalise said. “At the end of the day, getting our country back on track is our focus. And that’s what we’re focused on right now.”

“Can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos asked Scalise, after the congressman detailed several other legislative priorities for the party.

Scalise dodged the question.

“What I’ve told you, there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the state constitution — the U.S. Constitution requires,” he said. “Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That’s what the U.S. Constitution says.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Stephanopoulos retorted. “I said, can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

“Look, Joe Biden’s president. I know you and others want to talk about 2020. We’re focused on the future. We’ve talked about 2020 a lot. We’re talking about how to get our country back on track, how to get our economy moving, how to stand up to the bad actors around the world,” Scalise said.

“Congressman, I know that Joe Biden is president. I’m asking you a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said, continuing to press him.

Scalise dodged again, citing certain states that he claimed “didn’t follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the U.S. Constitution says they have to do.”

Scalise’s argument is a reiteration of a frequent concern predominantly among voters of former President Trump. They argued that the changes made during the pandemic to allow for mail-in ballots and other measures encouraging voter participation somehow violated state law — even though the changes were largely passed through state legislatures or other legal procedures.

“So you, so you just refuse to say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said again.

“You want to keep rehashing 2020. We’re talking about the future,” Scalise said, as the two spoke over each other.

“I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?”

“We’ve asked — look, we’ve talked about this before. But, again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn’t follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their book, which the U.S. Constitution says they’re supposed to do?” Scalise said, again refusing to answer.

“I know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen said it wasn’t, rejected those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now I’ve asked it, I think, the fifth time that you can’t appear to answer. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

The exchange continued without coming to any ultimate resolution.

 

Scalise ran rings around Stephanopoulos again and again and refused to answer the question, and the veteran interviewer simply gave up because he was tired of trying to nail jello to the wall. Scalise knew 100% what he was doing and walked away with total victory.

Republican after Republican is allowed to get away with this, and that remains the problem. Our media is not equipped to stop the Big Lie in any way.The worse lies coming from the GOP in the next year plus will be far worse, and our media is going to get rolled even harder as a result.

There are a few Republicans who will admit that Biden was legitimately elected, and that's only because they are term-limited in purple states like Virginia.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Sunday acknowledged President Biden was the “legitimately elected president” as Republicans continue to be peppered with questions about whether the 2020 election was legitimate.

Pressed by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos on whether the 2020 election was stolen, Youngkin said, “Well, I’ve consistently said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. He’s sleeping in the White House. I wish he weren’t.”

 

Youngkin doesn't have to face GOP primary voters again, so he doesn't have to lie. If he did,he'll change his tune.

And nobody will ask him why.

Last Call For An Unimpeachable Attack

The first impeachment hearing against President Biden by James Comer's crew went as badly as you'd expect from a House GOP clown show that will almost certainly shut down the government this weekend with their own incompetence.

 

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee held its first hearing of their official impeachment inquiry investigation of as-yet-unproven allegations of “abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption,” by President Biden.

The GOP invited three witnesses to testify before the committee: Justice Department official Eileen O’Connor, law professor Jonathan Turley, and forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky.

If Republicans were looking for a bombshell first hearing, they didn’t get it. All three witnesses agreed that they would not be presenting “any first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the United States.”

Turley, who is also a legal analyst for Fox News, went so far as to say that despite generally supporting the inquiry, he does “not believe the current evidence would support articles of impeachment,” against the president.

Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, one of the GOP's impeachment witnesses, says: "I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment… But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry." pic.twitter.com/x3cfYKwr5o— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 28, 2023

Dubinsky emphasized that he was not present at the hearing “to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing,” adding that in his opinion“more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.”

O’Connor, stated that she feels the inquiry is justified, but affirmed when asked that she was not a material witness and had no evidence to provide to the committee.

Democrats on the committee ripped the GOP in response.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the spectacle an “embarrassment,” and pointed to the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had circumvented a floor vote authorizing the inquiry, a vote that has typically been taken in past impeachment proceedings before moving forward with public hearings.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shared her sentiment. “They don’t have the votes because dozens of Republicans recognize what a futile and absurd process this is,” he said.

“They present us no basis [for impeachment] at all today, even after eight months of investigation. They invited three witnesses to testify today, not one of them an eyewitness to a presidential crime of any kind. Not one of them is a direct fact witness about any of the events related to Ukraine and Burisma. If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol they would be presenting it today. But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.” 

 

I'm beginning to think House Republicans might actually not be able to impeach Biden on an all GOP vote because they won't have the numbers.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) sparred with Chairman Comer when he declared that “these witnesses are not giving any basis [for this hearing].” Comer disagreed, cutting Frost off, but the Democrat persisted. “These witnesses are not giving any answers,” he exclaimed. “They’re just asking more questions.”

Despite how Comer may see it, Republicans on and off the Hill are already recognizing how badly the hearing flopped. According to CNN, one GOP insider called the display an “unmitigated disaster.”

“You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans’ arguments for impeachment is mind-blowing,” the anonymous source said.

What a surprise. Not even Jon Turley wants to risk a lying to Congress charge by making up a false flag here.

 

It got worse for Comer's Clowns, of course.

 

Raw Story caught up with a few other members outside the hearing room to ask how they felt things were going.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said when the hearing was announced, "My colleagues and I have spent nine months gathering information, vetting allegations, and establishing the concerning fact pattern upon which this inquiry is based."

Even in the hearing, his questions focused on the timeline of the shutdown and the impeachment hearings. He then pivoted to talk about whistleblowers and information on the investigations.

"I think it's — clearly, the Democrats are trying to lead us away from the purpose of this hearing and that purpose was gaining other peoples' perspective about the use of the inquiry," he said, explaining that the goal wasn't to provide evidence but have a holistic conversation about whether an impeachment was warranted.

"Today, there is not that direct link," Sessions said about the evidence gathered over the past several years. "The purpose of that inquiry is to determine if there is that link."

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) made similar comments, confessing that they don't have any evidence. He explained that the purpose of the first hearing "is to establish the predicate for going to get additional information that the committee needs to finish its investigation."

"Prof. [Jonathan] Turley said in a sense he needs to see more than what's been laid out, but that's the purpose of the inquiry," Donalds continued. "If we felt we had everything necessary for articles of impeachment, we would have dropped articles of impeachment. That's why we're in the inquiry phase, to get that information to get a final determination if an impeachment is warranted or not."

For all of the 2023 session, both the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees have been investigating Hunter Biden and by extension his father. Comer hasn't explained how this inquiry is different from the previous inquiries.

 

They've got nothing.

 

Besides, the Clown Show is going to have a lot bigger problem in about 72 hours.

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Trump up by nine, and while that's a major outlier, the fact is the GOP plan to impeach Biden while Trump burns down everything to martyr himself over his four trials. It may be working.

 

President Joe Biden's job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they've become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he's too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect -- all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead.

Forty-four percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they've gotten worse off financially under Biden's presidency, the most for any president in ABC/Post polls since 1986. Just 37% approve of his job performance, while 56% disapprove. Still fewer approve of Biden's performance on the economy, 30%.

On handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden's rating is even lower, with 23% approval. In terms of intensity of sentiment, 20% strongly approve of his work overall, while 45% strongly disapprove. And the 74% who say he's too old for a second term is up 6 percentage points since May. Views that Trump is too old also are up, but to 50% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

Such is down-on-Biden sentiment that if a government shutdown occurs at month's end, 40% say they'd chiefly blame him and the Democrats in Congress, versus 33% who'd pin it on the Republicans in Congress -- even given the GOP infighting behind the budget impasse.

 

Yeah, that's right, Biden will get the blame if the government shuts down. I almost have to ask if the poll took place in a GOP party meeting at this point, but if any of this is remotely true, we're going to give this country away to the fascists because ground beef is $5 instead of $4 a pound.

The crosstabs are...not good. 74% of Americans think the economy is bad, with 87% angry about gas prices and 91% thinking food prices are bad. Hell, at this point a clear majority is upset about the unemployment rate being lower than it was under Trump, 57%. 

 

Some 29% of Americans believe Joe Biden stole the election anyway. Only 60% believe he won legitimately, and the big one, only a third of Dems would back Biden for a second term. That's been true for over a year now.

 

On the other hand, this weekend's NBC News poll finds Trump and Biden tied. 

Looking ahead to the 2024 general election, the NBC News poll shows Biden and Trump tied in a hypothetical contest among registered voters, 46% to 46%.

In June, Biden held a 4-point lead over Trump, 49% to 45%.

According to the new poll, Biden is ahead of Trump among Black voters (76% to 14%), voters between the ages of 18 and 34 (57% to 34%), whites with college degrees (56% to 34%), Latinos (51% to 39%) and women (51% to 41%).

Trump is ahead among rural voters (67% to 31%), men (51% to 40%) white voters (51% to 41%) and whites without college degree (63% to 32%).

Among independents, Biden gets 42%, while Trump gets 35%.

Notably, Biden leads Trump by 18 points among those who “somewhat disapprove” of the president’s job performance (49% to 31%). And nearly 1 in 5 registered voters who say they have concerns about Biden’s age still vote for him over Trump.

In other hypothetical matchups, Biden holds a 1-point lead over DeSantis, 46% to 45%, well within the poll’s margin of error. 

The other good news in that poll, a solid majority oppose the impeachment inquiry against President Biden and it's not even close, 56%-39% against.

The bad news is that given third party candidates, Trump pulls ahead.

In a multi-candidate field including third parties, Trump gets 39% from registered voters, Biden gets 36%, an unnamed Libertarian Party nominee gets 5%, an unnamed No Labels candidate gets 5% and an unnamed Green Party candidate gets 4%.

 

So yes, third party spoilers are just that, and while I don't expect any third party candidate to get more than 1 or 2 percent nationally, it would be enough to throw the election to Trump.

Still, between that Washington Post poll and columnist David Ignatius calling for Biden and Harris to step aside for 2024, you'd be forgiven if you thought the Post had it in for Biden in order to cover a competitive open primary, which the GOP is most certainly not.

Last Call For Logan Roy Takes A Victory Lap

Having all but destroyed the American political media landscape, FOX Corp. and News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is stepping down to bask in his dark brilliance.

 

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian press baron who reshaped conservative media in his image, plans to step down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp.

He will become chairman emeritus of the two corporations, Fox Corp. announced in a news release. His older son, Lachlan Murdoch, will become the sole chairman of both the firms.

"For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. But the time is right for me to take on different roles," Murdoch, 92, said in a six-paragraph message to employees Thursday.

"In my new role, I can guarantee you that I will be involved every day in the contest of ideas," he wrote.

Fox Corp. said in its news release that Murdoch will formally resign at a shareholder meeting in November.

The mogul's resignation marks the end of one of the most storied careers in modern media. Murdoch built a small Australian newspaper business into a sprawling corporate empire that, at its height, included a movie studio, a television network and a roster of cable channels.

The media titan's most lasting legacy will almost certainly be Fox News, the 24/7 network he founded in 1996 as a competitor to CNN. The channel cultivated a devoted audience in the decades to come, establishing itself as a pillar of the modern conservative movement.

In recent years, Fox News opinion hosts have drawn intense criticism for pushing conspiracy theories and falsehoods, including airing baseless claims of voter fraud after then-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Fox Corp. and Fox News were sued over those false allegations, most notably by Dominion Voting Systems, which settled with the companies for a staggering $787.5 million in April, averting what had promised to be a high-stakes trial.

The media magnate looms large in popular consciousness. In the eyes of many progressives and Democratic voters, Fox News is a scourge, while many Republicans regard Murdoch as a folk hero. The Murdoch family's private dramas helped inspire the HBO series "Succession."

Murdoch's departure comes at a pivotal time for the conservative media ecosystem. Fox News remains the market leader in right-wing news, but the channel faces competition from brands such as Newsmax, One America News Network and The Daily Wire.

It remains to be seen whether Fox News opinion hosts under the new corporate regime will continue to bind themselves to Trump, who leads the Republican presidential primary race by wide margins.

 

It doesn't matter how much of the day-to-day decisions at FOX or News Corp. that dark lord emeritus here handles in the next year or so, if Trump wins, Murdoch gets as much credit as anyone for ending America's 250-year experiment in democracy.

He's one of history's greatest villains. Well, at least in the 21st century he is.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Me, last week, on the gag order requested by Special Counsel Jack Smith given Donald Trump's threatening social media outbursts against Smith, Judge Tanya Chutkan, and other court officers:

This is hardball stuff on the part of Smith and the DoJ, and of course nobody should be surprised by the part where Trump violated this order almost immediately Friday evening and is risking Chutkan citing him for contempt.  In fact, I expect Trump will absolutely push this as far as he can because he wants the process to break down. He wants riots and violence and bloodshed if she does try to put him behind bars, and he's going to all but openly dare her to do so.

 

Conservative former WSJ columnist Jason Willick writing in the NY Times about the gag order request:

I think the election interference case against Trump is legally flawed and — to the extent that it is valid — unwise to prosecute in the middle of an election season. The criminal-legal system, with all its punitive strictures, wasn’t designed to function with leading presidential candidates as defendants. And the presidential election system, with all its fierce competition and vituperative debate, wasn’t designed to function with defendants as candidates.

But there’s no going back. Smith’s insistence on indicting Trump over the 2020 election and trying him in the 2024 election year, combined with Republican voters’ insistence on making Trump their party’s presidential front-runner, has set up an inexorable clash between democratic politics and the law. There’s no fine-tuning it, no gentling of the legal and political processes to satisfy both. This is a head-on collision, and one or the other must yield.

I’m tempted to condemn Smith’s request for a gag order as an intrusion on the 2024 election, but that would miss the point. The Justice Department has already decided to thrust itself into the middle of the election. It might as well follow through: Prohibit Trump from attacking the proceedings, and when he doesn’t comply, jail him for contempt mid-campaign. Isn’t that what Attorney General Merrick Garland means when he says “no person is above the law”? Prosecutors have made their bed; they should lie in it.

 

Willick goes on hitting every conservative talking point on the January 6th case: that Trump cannot be prosecuted as a former president or current candidate (meaning Trump is above the law), that this is really a first amendment case that should be dismissed out of court (which it's not given the dozens of charges in Smith's case), that the people won't stand for the prosecution (when the majority of Americans do support the prosecution), that Democrats will suffer the most in the future being rounded up and jailed (which is all the more reason to make Trump an example), that only the voters should be able to determine Trump's fate (which they have, twice) and that this doesn't happen in civilized countries (where South Korea, Mexico, France and plenty of other US allies have prosecuted former presidents and PMs.)

 

In other words, it's steaming bullshit. But the taunting of Willick for Merrick Garland to follow through on ringing up Trump for violating the gag order is again, deliberate.

 

Trump wants this in order to justify massive national violence, and Willick is well aware of the plan. 

We'll see if Trump forces Judge Chutkan's hand, but if it happens, it's going to have consequences.

The Meat, Pressed

NBC's Meet The Press celebrated new host Kristen Welker's arrival, replacing the dismal Chuck Todd, with Welker getting rolled hard by Donald Trump in one of the worst Gish Gallops in years. A sample from the full transcript:

KRISTEN WELKER:

There are a number of things that make your campaign unprecedented. You are the first former president to run for re-election in more than a hundred years. You are facing four indictments. You have an incredibly significant lead in the GOP primary polls. But I want to ask you this, Mr. President: Why do you want to be president again?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, it’s a very simple answer, and I can give it very easily. It’s called: “Make America Great Again.” Our country is in serious trouble. I don’t think we’ve ever been so low in terms of, certainly opinion, world opinion and country opinion. People are devastated. They look at what’s happening with millions of people coming in, millions of illegal immigrants coming into our country, flooding our cities, flooding the countryside. I think the number is going to be 15 million people by the time you end this — by the end of this year, I think the real number’s going to be 15 million people. They come from prisons. They come from mental institutions, insane asylums. They say, “Sir, please don’t use that term,” but it’s true. They’re terrorists at a level — you know, it was very interesting, on NBC, I saw a poll, and I saw some statistics, and it said in 2019, there were no terrorists. They caught no terrorists. There was nothing that they saw. There was no anything. And now, this year, it’s a record number like they’ve never seen before. So, we did a great job at the border. We did a great job with the military. We did a great job with inflation. We had essentially no inflation. We had a great economy. And, we didn’t have an Afghanistan disaster. We were getting out, but we were going to get out with dignity and pride, not the way they got out. That was a surrender, and an embarrassment, and horrible. We gave $85 billion worth of equipment to the Taliban. We had death, so much death, and so much horrible destruction. And it was a terrible thing. I think it was the lowest point in the history of our country. Now, with all of that, we can change it, and we can make America great again. And that’s why I’m doing this.

 

First question and she lets Trump flood the zone with bullshit.  It actually gets worse from there on the Bidens:

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, of course, there’s no evidence that the president has any link to his son’s business dealings. Let me ask you, though —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I don’t —

KRISTEN WELKER:

– about a second —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– necessarily agree.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, there is no —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

He called in. I mean, he called in to all these meetings. He was calling in on the meetings. He was put on speakerphone and — every single day and —

KRISTEN WELKER:

The witness who testified —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– literally many, many calls. And what about the fact that he got rid of the prosecutor for a billion dollars? They said —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, the witness who testified —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

“You don’t get rid of this prosecutor, we’re not giving you a billion dollars to Ukraine.” He said that. I mean, there are a lot of things here, Kristen.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, the witness who testified though, said that he never heard any discussion of business when President Biden was put on the phone. But let’s —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

But, wait, wait. You saw the prosecutor —

KRISTEN WELKER:

– let’s talk about —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– thing on television, because I saw it on your network. He said, “You don’t get rid of this prosecutor, I’m not giving $1 billion.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

That was looked into, as well. And, as you know, there was never any wrongdoing —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Oh, come on.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– determined.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

If I ever said that —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let’s move on —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– quid pro quo.                    

 Lie after lie and she's all "Let's move on". And they do, to January 6th, and it's still lie after lie.

KRISTEN WELKER:

When you launched your campaign in March, you told the crowd, quote, “I am your retribution.” What does that mean? What does that look like?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think retribution is talking in terms of I have to protect people. What they’re doing to people is so horrible. They’re putting people in jail for long periods of time, firemen, policemen, accountants, even lawyers. They’re in prisons for years now and don’t even have trials in some cases. And if you look at antifa and other groups, practically nothing happened to them. They burned down Portland. They burned down Minneapolis. They took over Seattle. I mean, they literally took over a big chunk of the city. People died, and nothing happened to them. We have to protect all people.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But when you talk about retribution, are you talking about directing your attorney general to try to go after your political enemies?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

When I talk about retribution, I’m talking about fairness. We have to treat people fairly. These people on January 6th, they went — some of them never even went into the building, and they’re being given sentences of, you know, many years.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Are you going to pardon those people —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And nothing is happening.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– who’ve been convicted —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I’m going to look at them, and I certainly might if I think it’s appropriate. No, it’s a very, very sad thing. And it’s — they’re dividing the country so badly, and it’s very dangerous.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, Mr. President, we’re going to delve into that a little bit later on, but I want to stay on this idea of what you mean by retribution. Are you looking to appoint an attorney general who will prosecute the people you tell them to prosecute?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’m looking to appoint an attorney general who’s going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.

KRISTEN WELKER:

And go after your political enemies?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. I would never do that. But Biden has done that. Look, Biden — these aren’t indictments against me. These are Biden indictments. This isn’t God coming down and very fairly said, “Oh, you spoke badly about an election.” The election was rigged. There’s no question about that. There’s so much proof on it. Even if you go to the more modern-day proof with the — they call it Twitter Files, FBI and Twitter, or you take a look at the Amazon stuff or the Google stuff, or you take a look at “2,000 Mules,” you take a look at all of the ballot stuffing that’s on tape, you take a look at the fact that the legislatures didn’t approve a lot of the things that were done in the elections, and they had to approve. And we could go on forever. We could go on forever. But, but no. I want somebody that’s going to be strong, respected, tough, and fair.

This goes on and on and Tucker Carlson could not have done a better job here. Welker may have been thrown to the orange lying lions here, but she never should have been in the room in the first place. She screwed this up so badly that it was a matter of national security, interviewing an avowed domestic terrorist and allowing him to proselytize to the country and the world for almost an hour. The transcript sections here are all in the first eight minutes or so. It's that awful.

I actually wish Chuck Todd was back, that's how bad this was.

But as I've said before, every time Trump opens his mouth and lies in public, he adds to the body of evidence against him in his trials, and as Joyce Vance reminds us, that body of evidence continues to be overwhelming.

There is a raging debate over the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the media giving Trump a platform without real time fact checking. One things that is for certain is that every time the former president takes up the microphone, he makes prosecutors’ cases against him stronger. This weekend, it was Kristen Welker’s debut hosting Meet the Press on NBC. Trump told Welker that it was his decision to push the (of course, false) claim that he won the election and to try and overturn the results. “It was my decision, but I listened to some people,” he said. So much for any defense that Trump was relying on the advice of counsel.

To convict Trump, both Jack Smith and Fani Willis will have to prove that he knew he lost the 2020 election. January 6 committee reporting revealed that Trump was advised he’d lost by his lawyers, his campaign staff, and his numbers guy, to say nothing of every judge (including ones he’d appointed) who handled his many cases in court. His own appointees at the Department of Homeland Security said the election had not been tainted by fraud and was highly secure. But Trump insisted to Welker that in his mind, it all added up to the conclusion that “the election was rigged.” Trump continued, “You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened.” The case gets stronger every time Trump opens his mouth.

Vance is right about this, but as Steve M. has said it only takes one juror to acquit Trump no matter how strong the case against him is.

We'll see.

Enemies Of The People, Con't

A small-town Kansas local newspaper was raided yesterday by county sheriffs hellbent on taking everything in the newsroom, and the odyssey over this is just starting.

 

In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.

Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.

The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.

Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.

“It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues,” Meyer said, as well as “a chilling effect on people giving us information.”

The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.

Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas.

“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” Bradbury said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Meyer reported last week that Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell had kicked newspaper staff out of a public forum with LaTurner, whose staff was apologetic. Newell responded to Meyer’s reporting with hostile comments on her personal Facebook page.

A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.

A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.

“We thought we were being set up,” Meyer said.

Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true. Her public comments prompted the newspaper to set the record straight in a story published Thursday.

 

A corrupt county law enforcement and judicial system rallying to the defense of a Republican congressman's donor by raiding the town newspaper sounds like something out of one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels, but Republicans using law enforcement against journalism and journalists is reality across the country.

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign team today contacted law enforcement in an attempt to prohibit Iowa Starting Line reporters from covering his campaign in the Hawkeye State, according to Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies.

Two reporters—including Starting Line’s Chief Political Correspondent Ty Rushing—were greeted by multiple sheriff’s deputies at the entrance of the American Legion in Harlan on Friday afternoon, where DeSantis was making his second campaign stop of the day.

“They said it’s a private event. They don’t want you. It is what it is,” Deputy Bill McDaniel said, refusing to elaborate on why the campaign sought to block Starting Line’s access to the event today.

“I can’t (tell you why). I don’t work for them. It’s a private event,” he said. “It is what it is.”

 

Republicans don't want, don't believe in, and think they don't need reporters in America. So they are trying to get rid of as many of them as they can, especially local and state outfits.

AI, Oh You, And Sometimes Why, Con't

Google wants to "help" major newspapers with its Genesis AI bot technology to "help" write news articles, which is not at all a ploy to put the final nail in print journalism in America so that Google can take over that sector too.

 

Google is testing a product that uses artificial intelligence technology to produce news stories, pitching it to news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal’s owner, News Corp, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The tool, known internally by the working title Genesis, can take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news content, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the product.

One of the three people familiar with the product said that Google believed it could serve as a kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others, and that the company saw it as responsible technology that could help steer the publishing industry away from the pitfalls of generative A.I.

Some executives who saw Google’s pitch described it as unsettling, asking not to be identified discussing a confidential matter. Two people said it seemed to take for granted the effort that went into producing accurate and artful news stories.

Jenn Crider, a Google spokeswoman, said in a statement that “in partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide A.I.-enabled tools to help their journalists with their work.”

“Quite simply, these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles,” she added. Instead, they could provide options for headlines and other writing styles.

A News Corp spokesman said in a statement, “We have an excellent relationship with Google, and we appreciate Sundar Pichai’s long-term commitment to journalism.”

The Times and The Post declined to comment.

Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor and media commentator, said Google’s new tool, as described, had potential upsides and downsides.

“If this technology can deliver factual information reliably, journalists should use the tool,” said Mr. Jarvis, director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

“If, on the other hand, it is misused by journalists and news organizations on topics that require nuance and cultural understanding,” he continued, “then it could damage the credibility not only of the tool, but of the news organizations that use it.”

Media outlets misusing technology to abuse the public trust and to spread disinformation and propaganda in order to make gobs of cash and to control the country?

 

Hell, we don't need media bots for that, it just means whatever Steve Bannon/Stephen Miller/Yevgeny Prigozhin op to control the 2024 election narrative can be highly automated and that there will be 90% fewer journalists around in any effort to combat it.

Should be fun when your "local newspaper" is managed from a server farm in Wyoming...or Novosibirsk.

Hunting The Hunter, Con't

The right-wing "Biden bribery scandal" noise is now loud enough to reach the big newspapers, with the Washington Post calling the allegations by IRS investigator Gary Shipley "potentially damning" if any of it is actually true.

 

An IRS agent who supervised the investigation into President Biden’s son Hunter told lawmakers that Justice Department officials slowed and stymied the investigation, whittling away the most serious evidence of alleged tax crimes, according to a transcript of his account released Thursday.

The agent, Gary Shapley, offered a detailed and potentially damning account of prosecutors who were either timid or uninterested when it came to examining the financial misdeeds of Hunter Biden, which Shapley said included instances in which the president’s son treated prostitutes and their travel costs as his business expenses.

The agent’s account to the House Ways and Means Committee also directly challenged congressional testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland, in which he said that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss — a holdover from the Trump administration — had full authority to lead the investigation into Hunter Biden and could do whatever he wanted in the case.

A Justice Department spokesman stood by Garland’s previous comments, and the lead Democrat on the House committee said the allegations should not have been released publicly while lawmakers are still vetting them.

The transcript almost certainly will fuel criticism of the Justice Department’s five-year investigation of Hunter Biden, which this week led to a proposed plea agreement on two misdemeanor charges that will probably allow him to avoid jail time. Biden is due in federal court in Wilmington, Del., on July 26 to enter his guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge.

The criminal probe of Biden was given the code name Sportsman, Shapley told lawmakers, and it was “an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.”

His account offers a host of new allegations, including a text message that Biden allegedly sent on July 30, 2017, that invoked his father — at that time a former vice president — as he tried to get a business partner to fulfill some expected promise.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” the younger Biden allegedly told businessman Henry Zhao. “And Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

It is unclear what specific commitment the message refers to. A spokeswoman for Hunter Biden’s legal team did not immediately comment.

 

Here's the thing though:

 

If all this is true, then yes, Biden, Merrick Garland, Chris Wray, they're done. 

But "If this is all true" is carrying about the mass of Jupiter on its shoulders though. We have the word of the IRS agent, but the great thing about "The President ordered a cover up to protect his criminal son and ordered the AG to make it happen" is that there's nothing anyone can do to disprove it: any evidence of reality just becomes more cover up.

Republicans are creating this scandal in order to hurt Biden going into 2024. They did it before with Benghazi and Hillary Clinton's emails.

I fully expect the Village to fall for this shitshow again.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump's biggest tactical flaw is that he can't shut up, something that's going to get him prison time one of these days.

A WEEK AFTER his second post-presidential arrest, this one for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, Donald Trump turned to Fox News host Bret Baier on Monday to make the case for why he should lead the country again. But he ended up essentially confessing to the crime of which he’s accused: stealing and sharing top-secret government information.

Before that, however, Baier pressed Trump to explain why he kept the boxes of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago and refused to comply with government requests to return them, as described in his new felony indictment. In between dismissing the case as “the document hoax” or accusing other presidents of illegally hoarding their own sensitive documents, Trump offered the bizarre explanation that he couldn’t give up the boxes to authorities because they also contained… his clothes.

“Like every other president I take things out,” Trump said. “In my case, I took it out pretty much in a hurry. People packed it up and left. I had clothing in there, I had all sorts of personal items in there. Much, much stuff.” After a brief digression to call his former attorney general Bill Barr a “coward,” Trump reiterated, “I have got a lot of things in there. I will go through those boxes. I have to go through those boxes. I take out personal things.” Finally, he clarified what those items were: “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things: golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes, there were many things,” he said.

While not wanting Dark Brandon to seize your golf shirts may prove a compelling argument in court, another of Trump’s evasions seems less likely to hold water. Baier also brought up one of the most damning parts of the federal indictment, a recording from July 2021 in which Trump is heard showing off a document detailing an attack plan against Iran, revealing that it’s still officially secret and he no longer has the power to declassify it. Trump blustered for a moment about what he actually said, then pivoted to the claim that he wasn’t even holding a particular document — despite corroborating testimony from others in the room when it happened. No wonder this guy’s lawyers keep quitting on him.

And this time, Trump refusing to shut up about the classified documents he had in his possession may end up putting him in a box early. 

A magistrate judge has signed off on special counsel Jack Smith’s request that former President Donald Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta be prohibited from disclosing information the discovery handed over to the defense in the criminal case Trump and Nauta now face from the special counsel.

Among the restrictions approved by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who previously approved the search warrant the FBI executed at Mar-a-Lago last year, is that “The Discovery Materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court.”

The order sought by prosecutors and approved by Reinhart was expected and used standard language. However, it comes in a first-of-its-kind federal criminal case against an ex-president who has a proclivity to express opinions on social media and who is being prosecuted, in part, because of his alleged mishandling of sensitive government information.

The order follows the language that Smith proposed and it governs the unclassified discovery the defense will receive. The defendants did not oppose Smith’s request.

The classified materials federal investigators have collected, which are at the heart of Smith’s case, will be subjected to their own procedures for the case. The two Trump attorneys who have made appearances in the case confirmed Friday to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will preside over the case, that they have been in contact with the Justice Department about expediting their security clearances.

Somehow, I don't think this will be the last public interview Trump gives about these very documents. 

Just keep watching.

The New Village Chief

With the firing of Tucker Carlson from FOX News and CEO Chris Licht from CNN, it seems the Villagers have elected a new chief.

 

Fox News's years-long streak of weekly rating dominance has reportedly ended, with new data showing it ceding the top spot to its rival network, MSNBC.

Nielsen data regarding the week ending this past Sunday was shared on Twitter on Tuesday by A.J. Katz, a reporter specializing in the cable news business. According to the data, Fox's primetime 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET viewership averaged 1,504,429. The average viewership for the more left-leaning MSNBC over the same time frame averaged 1,520,857, narrowly beating out the conservative network that has long been a leader in cable news viewership.

As Katz noted in a tweet, the data from last week marks the end of a lengthy streak of rating dominance for Fox News.

"Barring a last-second data reporting change, Fox's 120-week-long winning streak in primetime appears to be over," Katz wrote.

This development comes as Fox News continues to bleed viewership after the abrupt firing of host Tucker Carlson, one of its biggest ratings draws, in late April. The network has yet to name a permanent replacement for its 8 p.m. ET primetime slot, opting in the meantime for a rotating cast of guest hosts for the hour. The timeslot has, according to Media Matters, seen viewership drop by half since Carlson departed, with viewership declining across its entire lineup as a whole.

 

You'd think MSNBC would be ready to meet this moment. So far, they are, and even CNN has learned a thing or two. 

As the Trump circus continued into Tuesday evening, so too did anchors’ decisive monitoring of their broadcasts. Neither CNN nor MSNBC carried Trump’s speech live from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he was holding the first fundraiser for his 2024 campaign. MSNBC anticipated that the address would be “essentially a Trump campaign speech,” just as his speech was following his first arraignment in April, Rachel Maddow explained to viewers as Trump began his public remarks. “Because of that, we do not intend to carry these remarks live. As we have said before in these circumstances, there is a cost to us as a news organization to knowingly broadcast untrue things,” said Maddow. “We are here to bring you the news. It hurts our ability to do that if we live broadcast what we fully expect in advance to be a litany of lies and false accusations—no matter who says them.” She added that “this is not a glib decision” and that MSNBC would “monitor the speech…if he says anything newsworthy, we promise we will turn that right around and bring it back to you.” On CNN, Anderson Cooper made a similar point, noting that CNN would monitor the rally for news and share anything noteworthy with viewers. Tapper said that they would not be carrying Trump’s remarks live “because frankly he says a lot of things that are not true and sometimes potentially dangerous.”

CNN’s Oliver Darcy, in his Reliable Sources newsletter, noted that the move “notably represented a departure from how the network handled Trump's post-New York arraignment speech. In that case, under former boss Chris Licht, CNN aired most of Trump's remarks.” I’m told that Licht, who left the network earlier this month following a disastrous Trump town hall and brutal Atlantic profile, saw Trump’s reaction as a key part of the story to cover and had communicated as much to staff. On Tuesday, though, anchors appeared newly empowered to do otherwise.

Meanwhile, Fox News and Newsmax carried Trump’s speech live. A chyron on Fox claimed, “TRUMP’S REMARKS IGNORED BY OTHER NETWORKS,” and, before Trump began speaking, Fox News Tonight host Brian Kilmeade referred to Trump as the “president of the United States.” Later, airing footage of President Joe Biden speaking at the White House side-by-side Trump speaking at Bedminster, a Fox News chyron read: “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.” Asked for comment, a Fox News spokesperson told Vanity Fair, “The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.”

 

MSNBC and even CNN are learning.

 

FOX News...is not.

 

The Broken Licht Theory

CNN head Chris Licht is out after his multple failures of the Donald Trump and Nikki Haley "town halls" and the devastating takedown of Licht in The Atlantic over the weekend.

 

Chris Licht, the former television producer who oversaw a brief and chaotic run as the chairman of CNN, is out at the network.

Mr. Licht’s 13-month run at CNN was marked by one controversy after another, culminating in his exit earlier this week. He got off to a bumpy start even before he had officially started when he oversaw the shuttering of the costly CNN+ streaming service at the request of its network’s new owners, who were skeptical about a stand-alone digital product. The cuts resulted in scores of layoffs.

David Zaslav, the chief executive of CNN’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, informed staff on Wednesday morning that he had met with Mr. Licht and that he was leaving, effective immediately.

“For a number of reasons things didn’t work out, and that’s unfortunate,” Mr. Zaslav said, according to a recording of his remarks. “It’s really unfortunate, and ultimately that’s on me. And I take full responsibility for that.”

“This job was never going to be easy, especially at a time of great disruption and transformation,” he continued. “Chris poured his heart and soul into this job. Like all of you, he was in the line of fire and he’s taken a lot of hits. We appreciate his efforts, his passion, his love for journalism, and his love for this business.”

Mr. Zaslav said that an interim group of leaders — the CNN veterans Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling, as well as the newly appointed chief operating officer, David Leavy — would take over before a permanent leader was installed. He said the process could take several months.

Mr. Licht’s departure represents a dramatic fall not long after he departed as an executive producer of Stephen Colbert’s top-rated late night show and vowed to bring a middle-of-the-road balance to CNN’s journalism. When Mr. Licht took the job, he told friends it was a “calling.”

The job would prove much more difficult. Ratings plummeted during Mr. Licht’s management and a series of programming miscues — including an ill-fated morning show co-anchored by Don Lemon, as well as organizing a town hall featuring former President Donald J. Trump that was subject to withering criticism — did little to shore up support with his colleagues.

Things deteriorated last week when The Atlantic published a 15,000-word profile extensively documenting Mr. Licht’s stormy tenure, including criticism of the network’s pandemic coverage that rankled the network’s rank-and-file.

Further worsening matters was CNN’s financial performance. The network generated $750 million in profit last year, including one-time losses from the CNN+ streaming service, down from $1.25 billion the year before.

 

Now, Zazlav has been running around WB Discovery with a chainsaw anyway, axing reams of content from HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network and more, and now his blade has fallen on Licht's neck at CNN. I had honestly forgotten about Licht first move last year, the ill-fated CNN+ streaming disaster that lost the network millions.

 

Turns out the network has now lost over a billion dollars, and that was the end of Licht.

 

The White Guy Upward Failure Rule means Licht will probably end up Vice President in 2024, just saying.

Last Call For Press The Meat, Con't

Chuck Todd is leaving NBC panel show staple Meet The Press later this year, with NBC News White House correspondent Karen Welker replacing him.

 

Chuck Todd said on Sunday that he’ll be leaving “Meet the Press” after a tumultuous near-decade of moderating the NBC political panel show, to be replaced in the coming months by Kristen Welker.

Todd, 51, told viewers that “I’ve watched too many friends and family let work consume them before it was too late” and that he’d promised his family he wouldn’t do that.

Todd has often been an online punching bag for critics, including Donald Trump, during a polarized time, and there were rumors that his time at the show would be short when its executive producer was reassigned at the end of last summer, but NBC gave no indication this was anything other than Todd’s decision. It’s unclear when Todd’s last show will be, but he told viewers that this would be his final summer.

“I leave feeling concerned about this moment in history but reassured by the standards we’ve set here,” Todd said. “We didn’t tolerate propagandists, and this network and program never will.”

Welker, a former chief White House correspondent, has been at NBC News in Washington since 2011 and has been Todd’s chief fill-in for the past three years. She drew praise for moderating the final presidential debate between Trump, a Republican, and Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2020.


Her “sharp questioning of lawmakers is a masterclass in political interviews,” said Rebecca Blumenstein, NBC News president of editorial, in a memo announcing Welker’s elevation on Sunday.

Now Welker, 46, will be thrust into what promises to be another contentious presidential election cycle.

 

Welker will be the first Black host of MTP, and has filled in for Todd a number of times already. She also moderated the second 2020 presidential debate between Biden and Trump and managed to keep a leash on The Donald...to an extent that anyone can.

We'll see how she fares.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his presidential bid this week, and he's finding out the hard way that his authoritarian attacks on Florida media aren't going to get anyone to cover him and not Donald Trump as having already won the primary. Max Tani at Semafor:

 

The presidential campaign-in-waiting and super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are trying to warm up the governor’s cold war with the journalists who cover him.

DeSantis had taken apparent pride in a combative operation, led by his former press secretary Christina Pushaw, that sparred with reporters on Twitter and often ignored their inquiries. Pushaw is poised to run his campaign’s rapid response operation.

But after weeks of relentlessly negative coverage of his nascent campaign, his staff have quietly begun the traditional campaign work of providing access for reporters and input for their stories, according to people close to the various DeSantis organizations and half a dozen journalists who have engaged with them.

The new DeSantis Glasnost has been run primarily through the Never Back Down super PAC. Two 2024 national political reporters said the comms team for the campaign-in-waiting has also been informally reaching out to reporters off the record to spin stories, and has begun to invite some down to Florida to meet key staffers.

"I'm so pushing media engagement. He can't operate like he did in FL,” one person close to DeSantis told Semafor.

"They have been super guarded in Florida, which I think worked very well for them there in a state environment,” the source continued. “It'd be one thing if we were leading or [if] we're only down five.”

My colleague Benjy Sarlin wrote recently that DeSantis had taken the lessons of Donald Trump “literally, not seriously.” Trump attacked the press — but also spoke to them constantly. And it’s now become a common refrain among political reporters that even Trump, a notoriously aggressive critic of his press coverage, has been much more accessible and eager to engage with political reporters in recent months than the Florida governor.

DeSantis still has not sat down with any of the non-Fox networks for a major interview in recent months, and often leaves political events without addressing the media. National reporters who had flown from Washington and Miami to cover the governor’s New Hampshire campaign stop were disappointed when he did not take questions from journalists at a diner or during a meeting with state legislators.

His staff have followed his lead enthusiastically, aggressively publicly admonishing reporters who publish critical coverage of the governor. The hardball tactics of the governor’s office already have pushed some national journalists on the beat to be more careful: Two of the 2024 campaign reporters said they don’t send any emails or texts to the governor’s office they wouldn’t think would end up in an angry or mocking tweet from his press staff.

But the pugilistic stance with the press has done the campaign-in-waiting no favors. The governor’s poll numbers have fallen in the months since his reelection. While DeSantis remains in second in most early primary polls, the governor’s absence from the media has created an opening for other media-friendly candidates like Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy to define the narratives in the race.

I caught a glimpse last year of the governor and his allies’ odd policy toward the news media of ignoring first, and complaining later.

In December, we published a straightforward story about DeSantis’ alternative Florida media ecosystem. While the governor’s team was aware of the piece before it was published, we didn’t receive a response or any information or context from DeSantis’ camp. But despite the fact that the piece we wrote wasn’t particularly negative, the governor’s team criticized the piece on Twitter at length after it was published.

Part of the response can be chalked up to the awkward limbo the governor has been in over the past several months. While Trump and other GOP candidates got into the race early, the Florida governor has waited, meaning the bulk of requests have fallen to his gubernatorial communications staff. That staff has been overwhelmed with a deluge of comment requests, and at times, have steered questions to other employees outside his government office. Now that the campaign is beginning in earnest, DeSantis will have a larger and more official 2024 staff to respond to reporters’ queries.

 

DeSantis can win in red state Florida. He has a whole other set of problems in the other 49 states, chiefly that he's the most awkward also-ran since Connor Roy. 

Now everyone's waiting for Trump to burn out and crash, get indicted and maybe even arrested and taken off the board, but it won't be DeSantis that replaces him should that even happen.

The GOP Mask Slips Again...

...and we see that they will do anything to service the cause of white supremacy.

Seven homeless men have come forward to say they were part of a group of men recruited at a Poughkeepsie homeless shelter to act as veterans that had been displaced from a Newburgh hotel in order for a non-profit organization to perpetrate a fraud on the public.

The men told Mid-Hudson News on Thursday night that they were part of a group of 15 men that were supposed to pretend they were veterans that had been kicked out of the Crossroads Hotel in the Town of Newburgh last Friday, in advance of the arrival of migrants brought up from New York City.

The saga of the displaced veterans received national attention when Assemblyman Brian Maher stepped in to denounce the hotel’s actions and grabbed headlines along with an appearance on a conservative tv network to raise money for the YIT Foundation, which claims had housed the homeless veterans at the hotel.

The foundation and its director, Sharon Toney-Finch, appear to have fabricated the entire story, causing Maher to admit yesterday that he had been duped by Finch and her lies.

“When Sharon and sevceral veterans explained to me their situation, I believed them at their word,” Maher said Friday. “I had absolutely no knowledge of any wrongdoing and believed that their stories were real until a phone conversation with Sharon yesterday afternoon when she explained to me that this did not happen the way she purported it to.”

Finch’s story began to unravel last Monday after Mid-Hudson News began looking into the plight of the displaced veterans. An investigation by Mid-Hudson News uncovered a series of lies that led to the belief that the veterans Finch claimed were displaced, did not even exist.

On Thursday night he met with a group of seven men at a homeless shelter. The men said that on Wednesday, two people came into the shelter saying they had work and needed 15 men between the ages of 40 and 60, to take a trip to meet with an elected official for a discussion on homelessness. They were each promised $200 along with food and alcohol. They were familiar with one of the recruiters, Diana, claiming she had previously stayed at the shelter.

Andrew O’Grady, president and CEO of Mental Health America of Dutchess County (MHA Dutchess) also attended the roundtable conversation. O’Grady said “It was brought to my attention that two people came to the homeless shelter in Poughkeepsie and recruited 15 of our homeless guests under the guise of meeting a politician in Connecticut about homeless issues.” He was summoned there to offer assistance to the group and said he attended because the incident “concerned me greatly as vulnerable homeless individuals were bribed to pretend to be Veterans. I was asked to speak to them because they were distraught that they never received payment.”

Once recruited, the men were loaded in vehicles and transported to the Daily Planet Diner in LaGrange where they were joined by a third person, now identified as Sharon Toney-Finch. Finch told the men they could order anything they wanted from the menu and their drinks were also being paid for.

“We ate like kings,” said one of the men who asked to remain nameless. “Sharon introduced herself and told us we could have whatever we wanted and she would pick up the tab.” After eating and drinking, Finch gathered the men in the parking lot to explain the actual “work” they were about to perform.

One of the men said Finch told them they were going to a meeting where she would be explaining how they had been kicked out of a hotel to make room for migrants. “She told us to act like we were the veterans that had been displaced. And she told us that if asked, we were supposed to say we had been kicked out and Sharon found us rooms in Fishkill.” He also noted that men who were unwilling to answer were told to respond with “I am too traumatized to talk about it,” if asked.

 

This is why Republicans want to dismantle local news outlets, or drown them in fake local news outlets controlled by right-wing outfits. This is why they attack local, investigative journalists, so they can manufacture lies like this, and make them go national to feed the perpetual right-wing noise machine, to keep white voters hating immigrants, Black folk, Asian folk, LGBTQ+ folk, and everyone who isn't a white voter. They did this to make military vets hate immigrants.

They did this because they fully expected to get away with this, without being challenged in any way. They did this to use this "event" as propaganda for months and years to come. They did this to keep the population misinformed and angry, and to not think for themselves. They did this to keep the few remaining local news sources silent and afraid until they are eliminated.

This is what authoritarian fascism looks like, folks.

Trump Cards, Con't

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is being rewarded with her own 9 PM show on the network after her performance in last week's Trump town hall production, where she played her role as frustrated moderator to a T against Trump's lunatic ride. 

 

CNN has selected Kaitlan Collins to host a new weeknight show at 9 p.m., elevating her to one of the most coveted time slots in cable news a week after she moderated a contentious town hall with former President Donald J. Trump.

The new role for Ms. Collins was announced by CNN’s chairman, Chris Licht, on Wednesday, just ahead of a presentation to advertisers in Midtown Manhattan hosted by Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.

Her show, which does not yet have a title, is set to begin in June. “She is a smart and gifted journalist who we’ve all seen hold lawmakers and newsmakers accountable,” Mr. Licht wrote in a newsroom memo. “Kaitlan will expose uncovered angles and challenge conventional wisdom to make sure viewers are seeing a story from every side.”

The promotion of Ms. Collins, 31, a co-host of the network’s morning show, amounts to a major bet by CNN leadership on a rising star who has impressed colleagues with her interviewing and reporting chops, but remains relatively untested as a solo anchor.

It is also Mr. Licht’s latest attempt to revive his network’s sagging ratings.

The 9 p.m. hour at CNN — once its highest-rated time slot — has effectively been vacant since Chris Cuomo was fired in December 2021. Mr. Licht’s recent attempt to fill the hour with a variety of interviews and news specials fizzled with viewers. On weeknights, CNN lags behind Fox News and MSNBC, and on Friday, two days after the Trump town hall, it even lost to Newsmax, a fledgling conservative network that is available in fewer homes.

Ms. Collins, who joined CNN in 2017 as a reporter covering the Trump White House, brings a youthful jolt to a programming block that for years has been hosted by middle-aged male anchors.

An Alabama native who cut her teeth at the conservative news site The Daily Caller, Ms. Collins is prized by Mr. Licht for her perceived ability to connect with viewers outside of coastal liberal enclaves. She became the network’s chief White House correspondent in 2021 at age 28, the youngest person to hold the role, and covered President Biden before moving to New York last year as a co-host of “CNN This Morning.”

She is also well respected in the political media and had been slated to serve as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association beginning in 2024. (She had to forgo the role after relocating from Washington.)

In April, Ms. Collins did a weeklong stint as temporary host of CNN’s 9 p.m. hour. She drew favorable ratings, with executives taking notice that she was able to retain much of Anderson Cooper’s lead-in audience from 8 p.m.

Last week, she was in the national spotlight as the moderator of the New Hampshire town hall with Mr. Trump. Ms. Collins remained composed in the face of Mr. Trump’s barrage of falsehoods, repeatedly interrupting to correct baseless claims. Mr. Trump mostly talked over her and was applauded by some audience members when he derided Ms. Collins as a “nasty person.”

 

There's no better proof that the supposedly "disastrous" town hall wasn't planned meticulously from the start, and than CNN boss Chris Licht wasn't counting on this from the beginning. He now has a reliable right-wing face for the network's shift towards the Republicans they want to both cover and watch, and returning them to power is not the network's number one goal.

Expect more normalization of authoritarian fascism through political kayfabe for years to come.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

A man showed up at the Fairfax, Virginia office of Democratic Rep. Jerry Connolly and when the office staff told him Connolly wasn't there, the man proceeded to beat the tar out of two staffers with a baseball bat, putting both of them in the hospital.

 

A person armed with a baseball bat attacked two congressional staff members at a district office in Representative Gerald E. Connolly, the congressman said in a statement.

Mr. Connolly, a Democrat, said the individual committed “an act of violence” at his Fairfax, Va., office against two members of his staff, who were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Sgt. Lisa Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax City Police, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon that the assailant, a man who is believed to be a constituent of Mr. Connolly’s, walked into the office around 10:30 a.m. with what appeared to be a metal baseball bat and struck two staff members in the upper body.

Sergeant Gardner said that a motive was not immediately known, and that charges against the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, would be forthcoming.

Both staff members were conscious when the police arrived about five minutes after a 911 call, she said.

“You could absolutely tell that the people inside were scared, they were hiding,” she said.

“It’s quite frankly scary that someone can walk up to an office with a baseball bat and just start swinging at innocent victims,” she added.

Mr. Connolly represents a swath of the Northern Virginia suburbs west of Washington, D.C. He was first elected to Congress in 2008. In a statement after the attack, he said he has “the best team in Congress.”

“My district office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day,” Mr. Connolly said in the statement. “The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”

The attack comes amid a rise in threats and violent political speech against members of Congress in recent years. In October, an intruder bludgeoned Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, inside their San Francisco home after he shouted “Where is Nancy?”

The most-watched network in America regularly calls Democrats frauds, crooks, and much worse on a regular basis, and the last guy in the Oval Office continues to do much the same and has for years. Somebody once again took up the right-wing stochastic terrorism noise machine on their call to cause violence to Democrats.

The violence will continue and only get worse, and the main thought I have is "If the suspect had brought an AR-15 instead of a baseball bat, we'd be having a far different conversation right now."

Trump Cards, Con't

Last night's Trump town hall on CNN actually wasn't a disaster, because the word disaster invokes the event as as the unfortunate result of both unforeseen failure and failure in preparation, an act of God. What happened last night was not only predictable, but I'm convinced that CNN prepared for it deliberately because they knew what was going to happen.

 

CNN INVITED DONALD Trump to lie on its airwaves for over an hour on Wednesday night. The evening was billed as a town hall, but played more like a campaign rally for the former president, who steamrolled and repeatedly mocked moderator Kaitlan Collins, pushing a torrent of misinformation about the 2020 election, the multiple investigations into his conduct, and pretty much everything else he commented on.

One CNN insider who spoke to Rolling Stone called the evening “appalling,” lamenting that the network gave Trump “a huge platform to spew his lies.”

Collins tried her best to correct Trump as he spoke. And immediately after Trump went off-air, CNN anchor Jake Tapper led a parade of pundits and fact-checkers to counter his dissembling and pan his performance.

Jake Tapper sums up Trump's town hall: "He called a black law enforcement officer a thug. He said people here in Washington, D.C. and Chinatown don’t speak English. He attacked Kaitlan as a nasty woman… he made fun of [Carrol's] sexual assault and many in the audience laughed." pic.twitter.com/NSzVzVEApP— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 11, 2023

Nevertheless, the town hall was “a fucking disgrace,” in the words of another network insider. “1000 percent a mistake [to host Trump]. No one [at CNN] is happy.”

“Just brutal,” added one of the network’s primetime producers.

A CNN spokesperson defended the network’s decision to host Trump — and Collins, the host who tried to stop his steamroller of lies. Collins “exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. She asked tough, fair and revealing questions. And she followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.”

But Team Trump didn’t seem to feel that the boss wasn’t held to much of anything. Even before the conclusion of the town hall’s first hour, the reactions within Trump’s circle were universally joyous. Some close aides to the ex-president were almost baffled that the night went that well for them, according to sources in and close to the campaign. “We want to thank CNN for their generous donation to President Trump’s campaign!” one Trump adviser said late on Wednesday.

“[Trump] should literally do this every night,” one operative working closely with the Trump 2024 team said about an hour into the live event. “Nightly CNN hits!”

For Trump’s political lieutenants, the evening served as a dose of vindication of his and his staff’s plans to heavily saturate the kinds of major media outlets that GOP rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have largely avoided, people familiar with the plans say. “Part of the idea is to bury Ron [in the media], and to laugh at him for being so weak that he can’t even stand up to CNN,” another person close to Trump says. “To just completely swamp him.”

 

Bullshit. Everyone at CNN is lying about this being a disaster, you see? 

 

It was deliberate.

 

See, all of this, all of this, is pro-wrestling kayfabe. 

Trump's people knew exactly what the game plan was, Trump knew, CNN's Kaitlan Collins knew because she's a former Daily Caller writer and FOX News contributor who knew exactly what was going to happen, CNN boss Chris Licht knew what he was getting, the audience were all diehard Trump fans who cheered and jeered along with his shtick, and all of it just had to be allowed to happen, and it did.

Trump got an hour-long rally free of charge on the new biggest cable network now that Fox and Tucker Carlson have split up (and that pro-wrestling story is a subject for down the road.) All of it was done deliberately. The next question is why, but we know the answer, and that too is very much a deliberate act of sabotaging our democracy.

These outraged CNN staffers are still going to show up to work today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.

When people say "Our press has learned nothing!" that too is a lie. They have leaned plenty, and non more so than CNN. They learned Trump is good for business, and putting him in the White House is better business. John Hendrickson at The Atlantic asks:

Next month marks eight years since Trump descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower and announced his candidacy for president. Hardly anyone in the media seemed to know how to properly cover him then. CNN was among the networks that used to carry his campaign rallies live. Tonight’s town hall, despite Collins’s admirable attempts at pushback, felt like a regression to that earlier era. Even some of Trump’s lines felt ominously familiar. “If I don’t win, this country is going to be in big trouble,” he said. Are we really about to do this all over again?

 

Yes, you dumb bastards, we are, and America is in dire trouble because of it.

 

Having said all that though there is one singular benefit to this idiocy Trump's part: his public braggadocio may hurt him legally in the long run.

 

Trump repeatedly lied during the town hall that the election was "rigged," that Georgia "owed" him votes, that he had the right to take classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and that he does not know E. Jean Carroll — the writer who was awarded $5 million a day earlier after it found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

"All three ongoing criminal cases got new evidence tonight against Trump," tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss. "He is confessing on live television."

During one point, moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump on whether he showed the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago to anyone else.

"Not really," Trump replied.

Collins questioned what Trump meant by that but he continued to steamroll through his answer.

Former FBI agent Pete Strzok called the comment a "tacit admission of unauthorized disclosure of classified information."

 

So, there's that.  Trump's lawyers really should stop him from, you know, publicly confessing to crimes.

Or no, they shouldn't.