Last Call For It's All About Suppression, Con't

A Trump "alternate" elector for Wisconsin is of course on the Wisconsin Election Commission, and he's more than happy to reveal the goals of the Republican controlled panel to keep Black people from voting however they can.

 

Republican Robert Spindell, a member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, is proud as a peacock of the work Republicans did to suppress the vote in Milwaukee in the November 2022 election. Spindell, who also serves as chairperson of the party’s Fourth Congressional District, which includes much of Milwaukee County and almost all of the city of Milwaukee, sent an email to Republicans in the district hailing the party’s success at undermining the democratic process:

“In the City of Milwaukee, with the 4th Congressional District Republican Party working very closely with the RPW, RNC, Republican Assembly & Senate Campaign Committees, Statewide Campaigns and RPMC in the Black and Hispanic areas, we can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”

“…this great and important decrease in Democrat votes in the City” was due to a “well thought out multi-faceted plan,” Spindell bragged, that included:

• “Biting Black Radio Negative Commercials run last few weeks of the election cycle straight at Dem Candidates…

• A substantial & very effective Republican Coordinated Election Integrity program resulting with lots of Republican paid Election Judges & trained Observers & extremely significant continued Court Litigation.”

Urban Milwaukee shared these comments with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, who was momentarily stunned.

“Wow,” Wikler said. “That’s as ugly as it gets. I have never seen someone take credit so blatantly for suppressing the vote. We saw the same techniques with the Russian effort to suppress the vote in 2016.”

In the 2016 presidential election, Russian trolls targeted Black people with social media messages attacking Democrat Hillary Clinton to “confuse, distract, and ultimately discourage” Black citizens and other pro-Clinton blocs from voting.

Spindell’s message also pointed to Republican efforts to sell GOP candidates to Black and Hispanic voters, including opening party offices in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods and holding Black & Hispanic Republican oriented events, but the net efffect, he noted, was to convince them not to vote. “Promoting the Republican “Cares” Message; pointing out the many flaws of the Democrat Candidates; coupled with a Lack of Interest, persuaded many voters not to vote,” his message bragged.

 

The goal is to rob Black voters of their vote, period. This is what I mean by systemic racism, plain and simple.

 

Never forget that they see us as subhumans who deserve to be controlled like pets or destroyed like vermin.  They hate us that much, and are willing to spend tens of millions to make billions in hurting us.

I'm tired of it.

Shutdown Countdown, Armageddon Edition

House Republicans are planning to destroy the economy entirely in order to strip funding from Medicaid, infrastructure, and everything else that the Biden administration passed last year.

House Republicans are preparing a plan telling the Treasury Department what to do if Congress and the White House don’t agree to lift the nation’s debt limit later this year, underscoring the brinkmanship newly empowered conservatives will bring to the high-stakes negotiations over averting a U.S. default, according to six people aware of the internal discussions.

The plan, which was previously unreported, was part of the private deal reached this month to resolve the standoff between House conservatives and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the election of a House speaker. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), a leading conservative who helped broker the deal, told The Washington Post that McCarthy agreed to pass a payment prioritization plan by the end of the first quarter of the year.

The emerging contingency plan shows how Republicans are preparing to threaten to not lift the nation’s debt ceiling without major spending cuts from the Biden administration. Congress must pass a law raising the current limit of $31.4 trillion or the Treasury Department can’t borrow anymore, even to pay for spending lawmakers have already authorized. Economists warn that not raising the debt limit could cause the United States to default, sparking a major panic on Wall Street and leading to millions of job losses.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said Friday said that the Treasury Department will begin “extraordinary measures” next week to ensure the federal government is able to meet its payment obligations but that it cannot guarantee the United States will make it beyond early June without defaulting. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated Friday that the administration will not negotiate over the debt ceiling.

Treasury Department aides declined to comment on the GOP plan, and a spokesman for McCarthy did not return requests for comment.

Understand that if the debt ceiling breaches, the economy collapses. These idiots are about to destroy the country's economy for years, if not decades. Massive inflation, interest rate hikes, and unemployment going fro 4% to 14% overnight is just the beginning.

In the preliminary stages of being drafted, the GOP proposal would call on the Biden administration to make only the most critical federal payments if the Treasury Department comes up against the statutory limit on what it can legally borrow. For instance, the plan is almost certain to call on the department to keep making interest payments on the debt, according to four people familiar with the internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. House Republicans’ payment prioritization plan may also stipulate that the Treasury Department should continue making payments on Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits, as well as funding the military, two of the people said.

Such a move would be unprecedented and hugely controversial, and even releasing the plan could turn into a major political liability for the GOP. A hypothetical proposal that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and the military would still leave out huge swaths of critical federal expenditures on things such as Medicaid, food safety inspections, border control and air traffic control, to name just a handful of thousands of programs. Democrats are also likely to accuse Republicans of prioritizing payments to U.S. bondholders — which include Chinese banks — over American citizens.

“Any plan to pay bondholders but not fund school lunches or the FAA or food safety or XYZ is just target practice for us,” a senior Democratic aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a proposal that hasn’t yet been released publicly.

McCarthy and House conservatives intentionally left the details of the prioritization plan unsettled in their initial agreement, with the understanding that it could take weeks for Republicans to decide which federal spending programs must be protected, the two people familiar with the talks said, and amid uncertainty about the best way to draft the legislation.

 

So the House GOP will decide who lives and who dies. Millions, maybe tens of millions, will be out of work. Entire government departments will be shut down and the impact of misery will be immediate. There's no way these clowns will get a loaded revolver pointed at Uncle Sam's head through the Senate, let alone Biden's desk, so we're looking at a wipeout of trillions of dollars.

 

Not to mention that the secondary knock-on effects will trigger economic disasters across the country. It will be absolute chaos, and people will suffer and die as a result.

 

They'll blame Biden for it. They won't be able to "prioritize" a damn thing, because the economy will break completely.

We warned all of you this was coming, and people voted to break the government anyway.

The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Kevin McCarthy's three-ring disgrace rumbles on into the night, and now the clowns want to rewrite American history again. Trump impeached twice? Never happened and you can't prove anything.

 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday that he’s willing to take a look at expunging an impeachment of former president Donald Trump by the Democratic-led House.

Trump — now a 2024 candidate — was impeached twice during his four-year presidency: in 2019, for withholding military aid from Ukraine in exchange for political favors, and in 2021, for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

In the previous Congress, groups of Republicans floated resolutions to expunge both impeachments. Supporters of the latter included Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the Republican conference chairwoman.

Asked at a news conference about the prospect of an expungement now that Republicans control the House, McCarthy said, “I would understand why members would want to bring that forward.”

McCarthy then ticked off other priorities for House Republicans, including the economy and immigration.

“But I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it,” McCarthy said of expunging impeachments.

He wasn’t explicit about whether the House might consider expunging one or both impeachments but expressed sympathy for Trump regarding allegations of colluding with Russians in his 2016 campaign and other things Trump “went through.”

Trump was acquitted in Senate trials following both impeachments, but the impeachments by the House remain part of the historical record and an indictment of the former president.

 

By the time this is all over, the Biden administration will be the most impeached in history, and Trump? Well, he'll be off the hook. The threat is implied: drop all the cases against Trump and let us clear his name, or  and we'll make sure that the news is filled with impeachments of Biden and his cabinet for two years while the economy crashes into a depression.

I hope people are enjoying things right now, because we'll be looking back at January 2023 as "the good ol' days" pretty soon.

Thanks GOP!

Last Call For Beshear's Bluegrass Blitz

Over at Sabato's Crystal Ball, J. Miles Coleman handicaps the 2023 Kentucky Gubernatorial race.

 

Of the 3 states seeing governors races this year, Kentucky will likely see the most vigorous 2-party competition. Four years ago, Kentucky voters ousted an unpopular governor from a popular party. This year, the Bluegrass State will weigh whether to keep a popular governor from an unpopular party.

In 2019, then-state Attorney General Andy Beshear (D) narrowly beat then-incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin (R). Bevin was originally elected in 2015 to replace Beshear’s father, who was term-limited as governor. Bevin, an anti-establishment conservative, burnt a few too many bridges during his term and, despite the state’s friendly lean, was weighed down by poor approval ratings.

Now, facing reelection himself, Beshear is in essentially the opposite situation as Bevin was 4 years ago. According to Morning Consult’s April 2022 polling, Beshear was the most popular Democratic governor in the country. In Morning Consult’s more recent October 2022 poll, he retained that title. But Kentucky is also the reddest state (by 2020 presidential results) that currently has a Democratic governor — so, as impressive as Beshear’s approvals are, they are not necessarily enough to guarantee reelection.

On Friday, filing for the gubernatorial contest closed. On the Republican side, about a dozen candidates, including 3 current statewide officials, filed to run in the May 16 primary. Though Kentucky has the earliest primary of the 3 states that will elect governors this year — in other words, Republicans won’t be beating up on each other into the fall, as has been the case in recent Louisiana races (more on that later) — state GOP consultant Scott Jennings quipped that “crazy things” could happen.

Still, the nominal frontrunner in the Republican contest is Daniel Cameron, who currently holds Beshear’s old job as state Attorney General. Cameron, a Black Republican who is 37 and has connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), first ran for office in 2019 — he easily defeated then-state Rep. Greg Stumbo, an Appalachian Democrat who had a lengthy resume in state politics. As Beshear did with Bevin, Cameron has battled the governor while in office, most notably on COVID measures. Shortly after Cameron entered the race, last May, he received Donald Trump’s endorsement.

The other statewide Republicans who are running for a promotion are Auditor Mike Harmon and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles. Harmon first got to office in something of an upset, defeating then-Auditor Adam Edelen, who was thought to be a rising star in state Democratic politics (Edelen later lost to Beshear in the 2019 gubernatorial primary). Quarles has fundraised competitively with Cameron, while Harmon’s totals have been less impressive. Kelly Knight Craft, who served in the Trump Administration as ambassador to Canada and then to the United Nations, is another serious Republican. Craft is both a billionaire and an ample fundraiser, so money should not be an issue for her campaign.

Beshear, although he is expected to win his primary easily, will have 2 opponents, the more notable of whom is Geoff Young. A perennial candidate, Young has been denounced by fellow Democrats for, among other things, his pro-Vladimir Putin stances. In any case, the non-Beshear vote in the primary will likely be a protest vote more than anything else.

Aside from the potential for a chaotic Republican primary, there are more local factors working in Beshear’s favor. In 2017, the Crystal Ball looked at the types of political implications that natural disasters can have. Governors who are perceived to handle disasters well often get an electoral boost. Last year, though he was already favored, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) response to Hurricane Ian likely padded his margin. Since 2019, Kentucky has been hit by tornadoes in the west, while the Appalachian east has seen historic flooding. Beshear’s responses to the state’s crises have enabled him to cultivate something of a postpartisan image.

The 2022 election cycle, at least in terms of its partisan results, was not especially kind to Kentucky Democrats: though they retained representation in the federal delegation by holding the open and very Democratic Louisville-based KY-3, Republicans expanded their already-robust majority in the state House — the GOP captured 80 of the chamber’s 100 seats. But the result of one of last year’s state referendums may give Democrats more encouragement. Amendment 2 was supported by many prominent Republicans — if passed, it would have confirmed that the state constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion. Amendment 2 failed by close to 5 points.

Though the status of abortion in Kentucky is being settled in the courts, from a purely electoral perspective, the anti-Amendment 2 vote may provide something of a template for a Beshear win this year. The state’s 2 largest counties, Louisville’s Jefferson and Lexington’s Fayette, both voted over 70% against the amendment — in 2019, Beshear himself received about two-thirds of the vote in each of those large counties. (Those are the pockets of dark blue on the map.) The 3 northernmost counties, which are in Cincinnati’s orbit, also voted, in aggregate, against Amendment 2. Beshear’s overperformance in northern Kentucky was key to his 2 previous statewide wins. It is hard to transfer every element of a referendum to an actual partisan contest, but a similar vote in Kansas last summer presaged Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D-KS) victory in another red state.

Considering the governor’s personal popularity and the potential for uncertainty in the Republican primary, we are starting Beshear off as a slight favorite and calling the Kentucky contest Leans Democratic.

 

People like Andy Beshear, but he's going to get drilled in campaign ads over the next 11 months and the GOP is not going to let up. Cameron is Mitch McConnell's personal pick to succeed him, and winning the governor's mansion in 2023 and then running for Mitch's seat in 2026 is the plan.

We'll see. I think Beshear can win, but he absolutely is going to be the number one national target this year for the GOP. Mitch will see to that.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Republicans are going to try to put women in jail for abortions, and since the FDA made abortion medication over the counter last month, the GOP is making it clear the next steps are to treat that medication as illegal drugs and prosecute pharmacies, doctors, and women for sale and use.

Alabama’s attorney general became the most prominent Republican official yet to suggest that pregnant women could be prosecuted for taking abortion pills, saying in recent days that a state ban targeting those who facilitate abortions does not preclude the state from seeking to penalize women under other existing laws.

The comment reflects a simmering divide within the antiabortion movement, which has long sought to treat women seeking abortions as “victims” and not as targets for punishment.

In the wake of the June Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, movement leaders promised that women had nothing to fear — even as Republican leaders in more than a dozen states in the South and Midwest moved aggressively to enact strict abortion bans, though almost always targeting providers rather than patients.

Alabama’s near-total ban, which took effect soon after the Supreme Court ruling, exempts abortion seekers from prosecution, including penalties only for those who help people obtain abortions. In his statement, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office suggests that pregnant women could still be prosecuted under a separate 2006 state law that has been used to punish women for drug consumption during pregnancy.

The abortion ban “does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law — which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children,” Marshall’s office said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday. It was first reported Saturday by 1819 News.

Underscoring the tensions surrounding the issue, a spokesman for Marshall issued a subsequent statement in response to The Post that appeared to back away from endorsing the prosecution of abortion seekers. “The Attorney General’s beef is with illegal providers, not women,” said Cameron Mixon, Marshall’s deputy communications director, in response to a request to interview Marshall.

Marshall’s statement comes at a moment of turmoil for the antiabortion movement, with many Republicans still reeling from a 2022 midterm election where voters turned out in droves to support abortion rights a few months after the high court’s ruling. As Congress and state legislatures convene for the new year, some lawmakers are urging caution on the abortion issue, while others press for further restrictions.

The rise of abortion pills has been a particular sore point for many antiabortion advocates, frustrated that the fall of Roe has not succeeded in halting abortions in states where the procedure is banned. Galvanized by a recent decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow retail pharmacies to dispense abortion pills in states where abortion is legal, as well as an emerging network distributing abortion pills illegally, some hard-line Republicans are seeking ways to further crack down on the procedure.

 

This is all being done to terrorize anyone who might get pregnant, of course. Gen Z and Millennials are swinging hard towards the Democratic Party, especially women, and they have to be punished for it. Eventually, a state like Alabama will put women in jail for this, the victim charged will almost certainly be Black, Hispanic or Native, and the "solution" will be a national abortion ban making these drugs illegal in the US.

It has to be fought at every turn.

Virginia Is For Voters, Con't

This week's special election in Virginia for a state Senate seat may be the difference in stopping GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin's plans to pass legislation banning abortion.

 

Democrat Aaron Rouse has won a special election for a state Senate seat in Virginia after his Republican opponent conceded in a race that was widely viewed as a proxy fight over abortion.

Rouse, a former NFL player who has served on the Virginia Beach City Council for the past few years, flipped a GOP seat that had been held by Jen Kiggans until she won a congressional seat in November. Rouse defeated Republican Kevin Adams, a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy.

“While the results last night were not what we wanted, I am proud of the campaign that we ran and so thankful for everyone who believed in me and this campaign along the way,” Adams said in a concession statement a day after Tuesday's special election.

Democrats will have a 22-18 majority in the state Senate, and Rouse is expected to provide a crucial vote against efforts by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GOP legislators to pass a bill that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, instead of the current threshold of around 26 weeks.

“Reproductive rights and freedom in Virginia have been hanging by a tenuous thread, especially in the wake of Roe being overturned, and the only thing standing in the way is a one-vote margin in the Virginia state Senate," Tarina Keene, the executive director of REPRO Rising Virginia, said Wednesday.

"It all comes down to one vote, and having Aaron Rouse added to the state Senate in this precarious time only helps shore up reproductive rights and freedom here in the commonwealth. We know that he is a champion for reproductive rights and freedom and will be a solid vote no on any abortion ban that should be introduced in Virginia now,” Keene added.

Democratic state Sen. Joe Morrissey last week expressed willingness to consider proposals to restrict abortion access, telling WRIC-TV of Richmond in an interview that he would keep an "open mind."

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican, casts tiebreaking votes in the Senate, meaning Adams’ victory, coupled with Morrissey’s potentially backing the measure, could have put Youngkin in a stronger position to get his abortion proposal through. Republicans control the House of Delegates.

During the campaign, Rouse said protecting access to abortion was a priority, vowing on his website that he would “not compromise” on abortion rights.

Adams, meanwhile, said he would back Youngkin’s proposed ban “while providing reasonable exceptions to protect the life of the mother or in the instance of rape or incest,” according to a statement on his campaign website. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America backed Adams in the race.

 

Rouse won by a single percentage point, and the voters that put him over the top may have just saved Virginia women from a nightmare scenario. 

 

For now, the line holds, but the war won't end anytime soon.

Last Call For It's Not Always The GOP

Not that long-time readers will disagree with me here, but not every single terrible, corrupt politician in America has an (R) besides their name.

 

Former Louisiana Democratic Party leader Karen Carter Peterson, who resigned from the state Senate last year year citing depression and a gambling addiction — and later pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud — was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 months in prison.

Peterson, who served in the Louisiana Legislature for 22 years, admitted in August to taking more than $140,000 in funds from her reelection campaign and from the state Democratic Party. The ex-lawmaker spent a “substantial amount” of that money on casino gambling, according to court documents.

Peterson, who made restitution, was tearful and apologetic in court. “I want to tell everyone who contributed to my campaign and the Democratic Party, I am sorry,” she said to WWL-TV.

In court filings and in Tuesday’s arguments, defense attorneys had argued for probation rather than time in prison. They cited Peterson’s long record of public service, her Christian faith, her first-offender status and a long struggle with gambling addiction that caused what they called “diminished mental capacity.”

She would be unlikely to be able to continue the individual therapy she needs in prison, her attorneys argued.

Prosecutors said prison time was appropriate. “Peterson’s addiction does not excuse her actions,” they said in one court brief.

They added that it was “imperative that the court acknowledge the severity of Peterson’s betrayal of the public trust and exploitation of the awesome power she wielded as a candidate for public office and leader of a major political party to seek personal pecuniary gain.”

The pre-sentence report prepared by probation officers called for a sentence of 41 to 51 months, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

 

Here's the thing: Democrats who get caught actually face consequences.  Republicans don't, as evidenced primarily by the number of January 6th insurrectionists, human traffickers, and campaign finance cheats still serving in Congress and in state parties in places like Ohio. 

Let's compare the 22 months Peterson gets to how much former Ohio state GOP Speaker Larry Householder gets for his multi-billion corruption slush fund trial starting this month if he gets convicted at all.

It's not always the GOP, but it's the vast majority.

Fantasma Santos, Con't

The calls for Rep. George Santos (R-Protean Shapeshifter) to resign over his total inability to tell one factual thing about themself are growing louder, and increasingly they're coming from Republicans.

 

Local Republican leaders in New York on Wednesday called for the immediate resignation of their new GOP congressman George Santos, who is facing multiple investigations by prosecutors over his personal and campaign finances and lies about his resume and family heritage.

“His lies were not mere fibs. He disgraced the House of Representatives,” Joseph Cairo Jr., chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee, said at a news conference. “He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters.”

Santos, swarmed by reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday, flatly rejected the call for him to resign, saying, “I will not.”

Cairo and other Republicans said Santos deceived voters and the Nassau County GOP and they were particularly incensed by his lies about having Jewish ancestry.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, another Republican newly elected to represent Long Island, spoke at the news conference via video from Washington and joined Cairo’s call for his colleague’s resignation.

The local party has no mechanism to remove Santos from office. He was sworn in to the U.S. House last week.

The move comes a day after two Democrats from New York asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate Santos. Reps. Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman, in a letter to the committee, said Santos also failed to file “timely, accurate and complete” financial disclosure reports and the reports he did file are “sparse and perplexing.”

 

Santos of course is refusing to resign, and Kevin McCarthy says "It's up to the voters to decide" which is useless horseshit twaddle even for him. Oh and since the House Ethics Committee has been all but destroyed, there will be no accountability for Santos anytime soon. Even if he's tried and convicted, I suspect he'll remain in the Circus of the Damned as one of the main attractions for years to come.

The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

House Republicans are wasting no time in their legislative and investigatory masturbation as invitations for the circus are being sent.

 

The chairman of the new Republican-led House Oversight Committee has issued a flurry of letters as part of the panel's first formal steps toward a long-promised investigation targeting President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and social media companies that they allege sought to suppress negative stories about the president's son that they claim could have impacted the 2020 presidential election.

The letters, issued by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and obtained by ABC News, request testimony from multiple former Twitter executives who were involved in the company's handling of news reporting that surfaced from leaked data obtained from a laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter Biden.

The panel is also requesting financial information from the Department of Treasury regarding Hunter Biden and his associates.

In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Comer requested records related to potential suspicious activity reports, or SARs, on Hunter Biden and other members of the president's family, as well as multiple businesses and business partners. SARs are reports filed by financial institutions to flag questionable banking transactions, but do not amount to allegations of crimes.

In response to the letters, a White House spokesperson told ABC News, "In their first week as a governing majority, House Republicans have not taken any meaningful action to address inflation and lower Americans' costs, yet they're jumping out of the gate with political stunts driven by the most extreme MAGA members of their caucus in an effort to get attention on Fox News."

"The President is going to continue focusing on the important issues the American people want their leaders to work together on, and we hope House Republicans will join him," the statement said.

A representative for the Treasury Department declined to comment when contacted by ABC News, and representatives for Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Beyond their interest in Hunter Biden and his business endeavors, the panel's primary focus is finding out whether his father, President Biden, was more involved in those dealings than previously known.

 

Keep in mind that the goal here is to leak as much of the investigation material involving Hunter Biden as much as possible, and then dare the Justice Department to do something about it. CNN has already shown it will play ball on anything that looks like President Biden is just like Donald Trump as far as corruption goes, so the Circus will have a fertile ground to sow with bullshit.  FOX News is already going along and has for years.

The organ music is starting, and the show is about to begin.

Send in those clowns!

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

Infernal Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy has made a contract from below to keep his current job as House Speaker, but how long that remains the case we don't know, as his GOP clowns voted for a rules package that apparently includes secret provisions that nobody wants revealed.

What we know about the concessions McCarthy made is that they apparently contain some of the more controversial points — especially as compared with the rules package itself, which contained relatively few and passed with little fuss. Among them, as The Washington Post’s Marianna Sotomayor and Leigh Ann Caldwell report:

Those concessions place limits on new spending, including defense spending, which has frustrated some defense hawks. Leadership also agreed to prioritize for a vote an aggressive border security bill that would build a wall along the southern border, according to multiple aides and members of Congress familiar with the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations. The House would also vote on legislation to establish term limits for members to serve six terms or 12 years, a proposal that would require a constitutional amendment.

The deal also apparently included concessions on committees. But there, too, precisely what form those concessions took isn’t clear.

We know that McCarthy has agreed to things like putting a certain number of hard-right Republicans on the influential Rules Committee, but McCarthy has said he didn’t promise anyone chairmanships. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), an ally who said he has seen the document, told Axios that it included “no names, just representation.”

At the same time, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) claimed over the weekend that he had secured a slot on the House Republican Steering Committee, which decides committee chairmanships and assignments, in exchange for flipping his speaker vote back to McCarthy:

Fox News: Congressman, what did you get in Florida? What did you get? Everybody got something, right? What did you get?

DONALDS: Oh, well, listen, one of the things that’s going to happen is, it’s been put out I’m actually going to be a part of the Republican Steering Committee as Kevin McCarthy’s designate.

This doesn’t necessarily suggest that Donalds’s name appears on whatever document might exist. But his statement highlights how little we know about the extent or the particulars of the committee promises.

As for why, the obvious answer is that it’s just not terribly helpful to put yourself on the record agreeing to these things. Being forced to agree to such extensive concessions reinforces that McCarthy is a diminished speaker at the mercy of a small number of holdouts. It also would have risked alienating the allies that stood by McCarthy’s side. Sharing specifics would mean McCarthy would have to account for them and his ability to live up to the deal publicly. Some — such as cutting defense spending — open the GOP up to discord and criticism (and those are just the terms for which we know the basic outline).

While that would explain keeping this information from the public, though, it doesn’t explain why even House members appear to be in the dark. Those members have declined to truly press the issue, voting for McCarthy and then the rules package when they could have used both for leverage. McCarthy got what he wanted, ultimately winning both votes without being forced to show the hand that he has left himself with.

 

If Nancy Pelosi had ever done this, it would have been a front-page scandal for years.  McCarthy gets away with it, and the Washington damn Post is asking why he's allowed to do it, rather than, you know, actually finding out what's in the secret rules addendum.

Read the damn assignment.

Mr. Smith Comes For Washington

Special Counsel Jack Smith is getting to work here in the new year with a federal subpoena of Rudy Giuliani over Trump's 2020 Save America PAC slush fund mess.

 

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani, asking him to turn over records to a federal grand jury as part of an investigation into the former president’s fundraising following the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the subpoena.

The subpoena, which was sent more than a month ago and has not been previously reported, requests documents from Giuliani about payments he received around the 2020 election, when Giuliani filed numerous lawsuits on Trump’s behalf contesting the election results, the person said.

Prosecutors have also subpoenaed other witnesses who are close to Trump, asking specifically for documents related to disbursements from the Save America PAC, Trump’s primary fundraising operation set up shortly after the 2020 election, according to other sources with insight into the probe.

Taken together, the subpoenas demonstrate prosecutors’ growing interest in following the money after the 2020 election as part of their sweeping criminal probe around Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss of the presidency.

Save America was part of broader fundraising efforts by Trump and the Republican Party that raised more than $250 million after the election. Since then, the political action committee has compensated several lawyers who now represent Trump and his allies in January 6-related investigations.

The subpoenas to other witnesses in addition to Giuliani were sent in late December, according to the other sources.

The information the prosecutors seek is still being collected, the sources said. With Giuliani, the investigators have prioritized getting financial information from him, one person said.

The inquiry to Giuliani came from David Rody, a former top prosecutor in New York who specializes in gang and conspiracy cases and is assisting Smith with examining a broader criminal conspiracy after the election, according to some of the sources.

 

Rudy escaped prosecution on his earlier Ukraine lobbying legal problems, but he's now facing a host of new potential charges. We'll see how far these get.

Welcome To Gunmerica, Ten Years Later

One of the biggest advocates for gun safety legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook has been Shannon Watts, who founded the advocacy group Moms Demand ten years ago. But facing two years, minimum, of a hostile Supreme Court and a House GOP who will never pass anything to stop kids from being butchered by guns, Watts is hanging up her spurs, and I don't blame her one bit.

 

Shannon Watts, one of the country’s most influential gun-safety activists, says she will retire later this year from Moms Demand Action, the grass-roots advocacy group she began in her kitchen a decade ago and grew into a political juggernaut.

“I have asked myself, honestly, every year since I started this organization: Is it time for me to step back and let other people step forward?” Watts, 52, said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post to announce her decision. “And I think this is the right time.”

The 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut inspired Watts, then a stay-at-home mom, to act. When she searched online for a gun-safety group to join and found that all of them were led by men, she decided to start her own. From her home in Indiana, Watts recruited like-minded women through a Facebook group.

Now, in much of the country, Moms Demand’s influence has eclipsed that of its longtime adversary, the National Rifle Association. Under Watts’s leadership, the organization has established chapters in all 50 states and enlisted tens of thousands of volunteers — almost always dressed in branded red shirts — to organize rallies, campaign for “gun sense” candidates and pack meeting rooms where firearms laws are being debated.

Watts’s success stems from an uncommon blend of qualities and experience that made her ideally suited for the job’s challenges. Her previous work as a communications executive gave her a deep understanding of how to attract media attention and market ideas. She turned a severe case of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder into what she called a “superpower” that allowed her to hyperfocus for many hours straight, a skill she’s harnessed hundreds of times to live-tweet details and context after shootings.

Watts, who says she has never taken a salary from Moms Demand, also possesses a fortitude that has sustained her despite years of death threats from gun-rights extremists, inaction by federal lawmakers and near-constant immersion in one of America’s darkest crises.

Although she denies opposing the Second Amendment, gun-rights groups have long portrayed her as an enemy of the Constitution who wants legal weapons confiscated. In its many denunciations, the NRA has called her a “#2A-hating lobbyist,” accused her of promoting “nearly every gun control measure” and described her Twitter feed as a “fevered anti-gun stream-of-consciousness.”

Through it all, Watts has maintained a sense of optimism — as well as a biting wit she often deploys against her many conservative critics (Watts’s “location,” according to her Twitter profile: “NRA’s head, rent free”).

“This woman has nerves of steel,” said Katie Couric, among the first journalists to introduce Watts to a national audience. “I just admire her on so many levels for her organizational acumen, for her fearlessness in the face of just horrible harassment, and for her determination to stop at nothing.”

Watts says she won’t stop after resigning either, and though some around her have suggested she run for public office, the mother of five has yet to decide what will come next.

She started the organization assuming she would run it for only a few months, but in the spring of 2013, the U.S. Senate rejected President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul the nation’s gun laws. Watts was in the Capitol, watching from the gallery, when one of those bills failed to pass by six votes.

Among the senators to reject the legislation was Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat from North Dakota, who told reporters that calls to her office the day before the vote were “at least 7 to 1 against that bill.”

Watts never forgot that comment. Nine years later, when the chance for reform finally returned to Capitol Hill this summer after another deadly school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Tex., she helped organize a massive lobbying effort that directed more than a million calls and messages to the Senate.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed Congress with relative ease, despite NRA opposition. The bill didn’t include many of the sweeping changes activists had long fought for, but it represented the first significant gun legislation to become federal law in three decades.

 

A victory in the BSCA, but the war has effectively been lost. We live in Gunmerica now, where firearms outnumber people by tens of millions. There's no reason to believe any further legislation will pass, or even be considered Constitutional, in the years ahead.

 

Like I said, I see why Watts is retiring.  Maybe she can make a difference in Congress.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

The special grand jury investigating Donald Trump's 2020 election interference in Georgia has finished its work and is suggesting that its report be made public, as Fulton County DA Fani Willis weighs her options going forward with possible indictments.

The Georgia special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully sought to interfere in the state's 2020 U.S. presidential election results has issued its final report, a court filing showed on Monday, but it remained unclear whether criminal charges will follow.

In an order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney dissolved the grand jury now that its work is complete and set a Jan. 24 hearing to determine whether the report will be made public. The jurors recommended that their findings be released, McBurney said in the order.

The special grand jury, which was convened at the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, had subpoena power but not the ability to issue indictments. Willis will ultimately decide whether to bring charges against Trump or anyone else, though the jury's report could include recommendations.

Willis, a Democrat, opened a criminal investigation soon after a January 2021 phone call in which Trump, a Republican, urged top election officials to "find" enough votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's statewide victory.

The grand jury heard testimony from numerous state officials including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as key Trump advisers such as U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and attorney Rudy Giuliani, many of whom unsuccessfully attempted to quash their subpoenas.

Prosecutors have told Giuliani he is a target and could face criminal charges, as well as Trump allies who backed a scheme to appoint alternate electors in a bid to deliver Georgia's electoral votes to Trump, rather than Biden, in the Electoral College process that determines the outcome of presidential elections.

 

So, the questions are if the report will ever see the light of day, and if DA Willis will press charges. Doing so immediately would make her a target, both in the political sense as GOP Gov.  Brian Kemp and the GOP-dominated state legislature will almost certainly try to attempt to remove Willis from office if she does charge Trump and/or his inner circle, and in the dangerously literal sense of the very real possibility of violence by Trump faithful, up to and including Atlanta PD, Fulton County Sheriff's office, or the Georgia State Police.

We'll know soon, possibly by the end of the month.

The Circus of the Damned, Con't

One of the biggest concessions that House Republicans ripped out of Kevin McCarthy is Jim Jordan's "special" committee to "investigate" ongoing Justice Department investigations into Trump and his inner circle, something the GOP hopes will lead to leaks and sabotage of any federal case against Trump and a pretense for impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.

 

House Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI, including their “ongoing criminal investigations,” setting up a showdown with the Biden administration and law enforcement agencies over their criminal probes, particularly those into former President Donald Trump.

The new House GOP majority has proposed that a new select subcommittee be formed – a result of one of the key concessions House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to his opposition to secure the gavel.

In addition to having the power to investigate all ongoing criminal probes of the executive branch, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government would also “be authorized to receive information available to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” giving it access to the most highly classified information in Congress, according to the proposal.

An earlier draft of the select subcommittee proposal gave it less power and was much narrower in scope: It would have only been able to focus on the FBI, DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security, and made no mention of getting access to ongoing criminal investigations.

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an early holdout against McCarthy who became a key negotiator for the hard-liners, said on Fox News that changes made to the select subcommittee proposal, particularly seeking a budget as big as the January 6 select committee, was key to getting those initially opposed to McCarthy on board.

“So we got more resources, more specificity, more power to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration,” Roy said Friday. “That’s really important.”

The select subcommittee would be under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, which is partly why Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s incoming chairman, was crucial to the negotiations last week that led to the proposal. As Judiciary chair, Jordan would oversee the subpoenas of the select panel. By contrast, the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol made subpoena decisions unilaterally. Jordan has foreshadowed that he will make investigating assertions that the FBI and DOJ have been politicized a key focus of the House Judiciary Committee as chairman.

“We’re going to get into what’s going on at the FBI,” Jordan said Sunday on Fox.

If the proposal passes, McCarthy would be able to select 13 lawmakers to serve on the subcommittee, five of whom would be chosen in consultation with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. McCarthy would also pick the subcommittee chair. This was similar to the setup of the January 6 select committee, for which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave then-Minority Leader McCarthy five spots to fill. But when Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s picks, the California Republican pulled all his members from serving on the panel.

 

So yes, this is going to be the Evil Mirror Universe version of the January 6th Committee, complete with farcical accusations and damaging leaks in an effort to capsize investigations into Trump and his flunkies.

 

I'm not sure if Democrats participating in this bad faith effort will help or hurt them. I see the need to at least try to mitigate the stupidity, but they'll just be used as political props for the next two years.

 

We'll see what Hakeem Jeffries decides to do.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

In a Friday Night News Dump™ crapped out late last week while the world was watching our dysfunctional House GOP Circus of the Damned and laughing at Kevin McCarthy openly for his stupidity, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his own coming Pyrrhic humiliation at the hands of Disney and invited everyone to pull up a seat for the show.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will seek to bring Disney's special governing district under direct state control in a bid to end the entertainment giant's multi-decade arrangement with the Sunshine State.

DeSantis is expected to appoint a new board to control Reedy Creek, the self-governing area that is currently de facto run by The Walt Disney Company, and allows it to maintain its own infrastructure and public services. Created in 1967, the district also allows Disney to raise taxes and issue bonds to finance the expenses required to run services for Walt Disney World resort.

“The corporate kingdom has come to an end," said DeSantis's communications director, Taryn Fenske, in a statement. "Under the proposed legislation, Disney will no longer control its own government, will live under the same laws as everyone else, will be responsible for their outstanding debts, and will pay their fair share of taxes."

Fenske added that a state-controlled board would also ensure that neighboring Orange County cannot use Reedy Creek-related issues "as a pretext to raise taxes on Orange County residents.”

Fox News first reported the Friday development, citing sources in DeSantis' office. In a document posted to the website of Osceola County, which also borders Orange County and Reedy Creek, notice was given that the proposed legislation would leave no current aspect of Reedy Creek untouched.

Florida legislators already voted in a special session last year to dissolve all special districts like Reedy Creek in Florida by June 2023. It was not immediately clear how that earlier vote would impact the new proposal.

 

DeSantis is clearly betting that he has better lawyers than Disney, and there's tens of billions of dollars at stake here. He's expecting Disney to surrender and for his army of trolls to attack the company until they do. Maybe there's a deal in the works, but I'm betting this fight is going to last years and cost both sides buckets of cash...which is what DeSantis wants anyway.

 

This is going to be nasty, especially if you live in central Florida, because it's going to be the people of the Orlando area who are going to definitely suffer the most when DeSantis wrecks the economy there for good.