Last Call For Supremely Corrupts Crooks, Cads, And Creeps, Con't

And as bad as Bob Menendez is with his bribery indictments, he's still not 1% as corrupt as, say, Justice Clarence Thomas.

 

On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead.

Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies was on board: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During the summit, the justice went to a private dinner for the network’s donors. Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, according to interviews with three former network employees and one major donor. The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.

That puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.

Thomas never reported the 2018 flight to Palm Springs on his annual financial disclosure form, an apparent violation of federal law requiring justices to report most gifts. A Koch network spokesperson said the network did not pay for the private jet. Since Thomas didn’t disclose it, it’s not clear who did pay.

Thomas’ involvement in the events is part of a yearslong, personal relationship with the Koch brothers that has remained almost entirely out of public view. It developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for two decades, where he stayed in a small camp with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and the Kochs, according to records and people who’ve spent time with him there.

A spokesperson for the Koch network, formally known as Stand Together, did not answer detailed questions about his role at the Palm Springs events but said, “Thomas wasn’t present for fundraising conversations.”

“The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“All of the sitting Justices and many who came before them have contributed to the national dialogue in speeches, book tours, and social gatherings,” the statement added. “Our events are no different. To claim otherwise is false.”

In a series of stories this year, ProPublica reported that Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury travel from Crow and a coterie of other ultrawealthy men. Crow also purchased Thomas’ mother’s home and paid private school tuition for the child Thomas was raising as his son. Thomas has said little in response. In a statement earlier this year, he said that Crow is a close friend whom he has joined on “family trips.” He has also argued that he was not required to disclose the free vacations. Thomas did not respond to questions for this story.

The code of conduct for the federal judiciary lays out rules designed to preserve judges’ impartiality and independence, which it calls “indispensable to justice in our society.” The code specifically prohibits both political activity and participation in fundraising. Judges are advised, for instance, not to “associate themselves” with any group “publicly identified with controversial legal, social, or political positions.”

But the code of conduct only applies to the lower courts. At the Supreme Court, justices decide what’s appropriate for themselves.

“I can’t imagine — it takes my breath away, frankly — that he would go to a Koch network event for donors,” said John E. Jones III, a retired federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush. Jones said that if he had gone to a Koch summit as a district court judge, “I’d have gotten a letter that would’ve commenced a disciplinary proceeding.”

 

Of course, that's the problem. Supreme Court justices are, again, not subject to any ethics rules other than their own recognizance. 

And Republicans keep making sure that will remain the case.

 

Big Bob's Bribery Blowout

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez is now facing federal corruption and bribery charges, and it's time for him to go. 

 

A federal grand jury in New York has returned a sweeping indictment against United States Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee.

The investigation focused on a luxury car, gold bars and an apartment allegedly received by Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian. His wife was also indicted.

The indictment charges Menendez, 69, and his wife with having a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey businessmen -- Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daides.

The indictment accuses Menendez and his wife of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using the senator's power and influence to seek to protect and enrich the businessman.

"Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value," the indictment said.

In June 2022, federal agents searched Menendez's New Jersey home and found "fruits" of the pair's "corrupt bribery agreement" with the three businessmen, according to the indictment. Investigators found over $480,000 in cash, some stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing, as well as $70,000 in Nadine Menendez's safe deposit box.

Also found in the home were over $100,000 worth of gold bars, "provided by either Hana or Daibes," according to the indictment.

Menendez allegedly gave sensitive U.S. government information "that secretly aided the Government of Egypt" and "improperly advised and pressured" a U.S. agricultural official to protect an exclusive contract for Hana to be the exclusive purveyor of halal meat to Egypt, according to the indictment.

 

Yeah, all this is gross, comical, even cartoonish levels of corruption. Gold bars? C'mon.

 

It's New Jersey, but, damn.

 

Get his resignation by the end of the year, and Gov. Phil Murphy appoints someone who promises not to run in 2024 and leaves an open primary is the fairest way to do it.

Either way, Menendez has to go.

[UPDATE] Menendez has stepped down as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairas Senate rules require a chair indicted under a felony to do so. Multiple Dems are calling on Menendez to resign, including Gov. Murphy and former Obama-era AG Eric Holder.

Not looking good for him to stay on through this.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

Turns out GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy still doesn't have the votes to pass anything at all as far as keeping the government open as a second attempt to pass a Pentagon funding bill had to be pulled from the House floor, and with the House now in recess, it looks like a GOP-caused shutdown is all but guaranteed.

 

For the second time this week, House Republicans on Thursday failed to start debate on a key military funding bill after five conservative rebels blocked the measure over demands for additional spending cuts.

The defeat marked yet another public embarrassment for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans as Washington barrels toward a government shutdown. Then, they left town for the week.

"We are very dysfunctional right now," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said, adding that the failure proves that GOP leaders "obviously can't count" votes, unlike Democrats. "Speaker Pelosi, love her or hate her, she put something out there and they'd rally around it."

McCarthy had vowed that the House would work through the weekend to find a solution to the crisis, with votes expected through Saturday. Now, they've canceled votes for Friday and the weekend, telling members they'll get "ample notice" if any votes are scheduled.

Moderate Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who is facing a tough re-election bid next year, has been describing the GOP dysfunction as a "clown show" and warned that pragmatists would work with Democrats to keep the government funded.

 

Even House Republicans themselves are calling this clown show a clown show! 

"For my colleagues, they have to come to a realization: If they are unable or unwilling to govern, others will. And in a divided government where you have Democrats controlling the Senate, a Democrat controlling the White House, there needs to be a realization that you're not going to get everything you want," he said.

"And just throwing a temper tantrum and stomping your feet, frankly not only is it wrong — it's pathetic," Lawler added.

The House paralysis bodes ill for preventing a government shutdown at the end of September, as Republicans remain unable to pass messaging bills that would represent their opening bid and have no chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate. The infighting could only escalate when they have to make policy compromises to accept a bill that President Joe Biden can sign into law.

“At the end of the day, any final bill is going to be bipartisan. And if somebody doesn’t realize that they’re truly clueless,” Lawler said.

Thursday's vote failed 212-216. The Republicans who voted no were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; Dan Bishop of North Carolina; Matt Rosendale of Montana; and Andy Biggs and Eli Crane, both of Arizona. Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., later switched his vote to no, a procedural move that will allow him to bring the bill up again.

“The problem is, we’ve been doing CRs for 25 years or longer. And that works the same way. Lather, rinse, repeat. The Washington wash cycle,” Bishop said. “So there’s another CR and they get to a few days before Christmas and they pass on monstrous omnibus. That’s exactly the path. We all see it, we all recognize it. The only way to change it is to change it.”

 

But of course Republicans don't have the votes to change it, and they could have passed spending bills months ago without a single Democratic vote. They chose not to. 

Republicans are clowns, period. We're all here to watch the Big Top burn down with them -- and America -- in it.

And when the Villagers are openly asking if Kevin McCarthy is even still in charge and worse, answering that question with "No, Matt Gaetz is running the circus now" then yeah, I don't see how McCarthy seriously survives the next few weeks as Speaker. More than ever it feels like the Clown Town kids table is going to have to eat what the adults in the Senate give them, and that McCarthy's going to spend the holidays shooting hoops in his driveway in sweatpants and muttering about how he was A Contenda™.

His only hope is that Matt Gaetz would be so much worse as Speaker that the thought alone might keep him in the office as whipping boy, and in that scenario, McCarthy's just a puppet.

We'll see.

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.

The Country Goes Viral, Con't

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Garland, Wreathed In Fire

Jim Jordan and the House Oversight Clown Show came for Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday, and through the fire and flames he withstood it all.

 

Garland — carefully and deliberately — defended the country’s largest law enforcement agency of more than 115,000 employees at a time when political and physical threats against agents and their families are on the rise.

“Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate,” the attorney general said. “I am not the president’s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress’ prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.”

Questioning in the Republicans’ arsenal focused on allegations that the Justice Department interfered in the yearslong case into Hunter Biden and that the prosecutor in charge of that case did not have the full authority he needed to bring necessary charges.

Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana asked Garland whether he had talked with anyone at FBI headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation. The attorney general’s response began with a long pause before he said: “I don’t recollect the answer to that question,” later adding “I don’t believe that I did.”

Garland then said repeatedly that he purposely kept the details of the investigation at arms length, to keep his promise not to interfere.

His testimony came just over a week after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., launched an impeachment inquiry into Garland’s boss, President Biden, with a special focus on the Justice Department’s handling of Hunter Biden’s case.

The White House has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as baseless and has worked to focus the conversation on policy instead.

“These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement Wednesday.

Hunter Biden’s legal team, on the other hand, has gone on the offensive against GOP critics, most recently filing suit against the Internal Revenue Service after two of its agents raised whistleblower claims to Congress about the handling of the investigation.

Republicans contend that the Justice Department — both under Trump and now Biden — has failed to fully probe the allegations against the younger Biden, ranging from his work on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma to his tax filings in California and Washington D.C.

An investigation into Hunter Biden had been run by the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, Trump appointee David Weiss, who Garland kept on to finish the probe and insulate it from claims of political interference. Garland granted Weiss special counsel status last month, giving him broad authority to investigate and report his findings.

Last week, Weiss used that new authority to indict Hunter Biden on federal firearms charges, putting the case on track toward a possible trial as the 2024 election looms.

When asked by Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., whether he had tried to figure out if Weiss was facing any hurdles in bringing charges against the president’s son, Garland said he had purposely kept his distance to keep a promise not to interfere.

“The way to not interfere was to not investigate an investigation,” Garland said.

One Republican during the more than five-hour hearing came to Garland’s defense

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a former Justice Department prosecutor, told Garland that he was in an impossible situation after inheriting an investigation into the president’s son and would have been criticized no matter what.

“Do you know what people would have said if you had asked for U.S. Attorney Weiss’ resignation when you became attorney general?” Buck asked Garland. “They would have said that you were obstructing the Hunter Biden investigation and you were firing a Republican appointee so that you could appoint a Democrat to slow walk this investigation.”

He added, “You would have been criticized either way, whether you acted or did not act in that situation.”

Weiss, since 2018, has overseen the day-to-day running of the probe, while another special counsel, Jack Smith, is in charge of the Trump investigation, though Garland retains final say on both as attorney general.

Garland said no one at the White House had given him or other senior officials at the Justice Department direction about the handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. Asked whether he had spoken with Weiss, Garland said he had followed his pledge not to interfere in the investigation but declined to say whether or how often he had spoken with the newly named special counsel, citing the ongoing investigation.

 

Ken Buck may be the last non-clown in the circus. That doesn't mean much, as I'm sure Buck will be neutered or driven out of the House. But Garland has done his job, despite flames from both the left and the right. 

We'll see how the trials and tribulations go. But what's going on with Donald Trump is not equal to what the Bidens are being put through. Not by a long shot.

Last Call For Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Democrats in Pennsylvania have prevailed in Tuesday's special election for the state House, and that means Dems now regain control of the lower chamber by one vote.

 

Democrat Lindsay Powell, a nonprofit worker and former staffer for the city of Pittsburgh, won a special election Tuesday and gave her party control of the state House of Representatives, The Associated Press projected.

Powell triumphed in a Democratic-leaning district in Allegheny County vacated by former state Rep. Sara Innamorato. Innamorato left office to run for Allegheny County executive and will be the Democratic nominee for that office in the November general election.

Powell’s victory was expected due to the blue hue of the open district, but it's still important because it tips the balance of power in the statehouse’s lower chamber back to Democrats, who will hold 102 seats after she is seated, compared to Republicans’ 101 seats.

Democrats won the state House majority in 2022 for the first time since 2010, running on maps that were drawn by a state court. But they soon lost full control over the chamber due to vacancies in three seats. In February, after three special elections in Allegheny County, Democrats took back the majority.

Tuesday's special election win puts the party in control of one chamber of the statehouse and the governorship in a key 2024 battleground state, where Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat last year.

 

The state's budget fight now looms, but Democrats are in control. That's a good thing, as Democrats have done very well in 2023 special elections across the country.

Hopefully 2024 will follow suit.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

With Tuesday's House GOP vote on Pentagon spending pulled because GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes to pass anything at this point, a MAGA federal government shutdown now looks all but inevitable.

 

Republican divisions paralyzed the House again on Tuesday as a small band of conservative rebels blocked a motion to merely begin debate on a military funding bill and GOP leaders abandoned a separate vote to avert a shutdown at the end of the month.

The military vote was close, 212-214, with five GOP hardliners in the narrow majority joining Democrats to sink it: Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Dan Bishop, R-N.C., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.

With just 11 days until the deadline, Norman said a government shutdown is inevitable.

“I do not” see a way to prevent it, Norman said, adding that conservatives want assurances on a “top line” spending level that Congress will stick by before they agree to pass any full-year funding bills.

Meanwhile, a split within the far-right has also endangered a continuing resolution, or CR, to stave off a shutdown on Sept. 30, with some Freedom Caucus members rejecting a deal struck between other Freedom Caucus members and center-right lawmakers. A procedural vote on the CR was planned for Tuesday afternoon, but leadership pulled it off the floor after failing to flip the roughly dozen declared no votes.

"They didn't have the votes," Norman said after meeting with leadership.

The House GOP chaos is worse than it may appear. The bills Republicans are fighting over have no chance of becoming law — and if they passed the chamber they’d merely represent an opening bid to negotiate with the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden, who oppose the spending cuts and conservative policies that House Republicans are pursuing.

 

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and President Biden are letting McCarthy burn in the bed he made, and aren't about to help him keep the MAGA promises he made in January to become Speaker. 

With just days to go before the government runs out of money, Biden’s team is watching Congress steam toward a shutdown, resigned to the reality that there’s little they can do now to fix the situation and confident the politics will play out their way.

President Joe Biden has steered well clear of the chaos engulfing the House, where Republicans are battling each other over a government funding bill. Within the White House, aides have settled on a hard-line strategy aimed at pressuring McCarthy to stick to a spending deal he struck with Biden back in May rather than attempt to patch together a new bipartisan bill.

“We agreed to the budget deal and a deal is a deal — House GOP should abide by it,” said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Their “chaos is making the case that they are responsible if there is a shutdown.”

Biden world’s wait-and-see approach comes against the backdrop of an increasingly likely shutdown, which would be the first of the Biden era.

 

The debt ceiling deal made earlier this year with the White House is the first thing McCarthy's MAGA chuds threw under the bus this month, so there's no reason why the Biden administration would help break their own commitments to the American people.

Rep. Jeffries is working with the House Problem Solvers caucus to get to a deal to end a shutdown, but it's looking like weeks of Clown Town government shutdown well into October in the meantime.

McCarthy is going to have to eventually fold and make the deal with Jeffries and Biden, and that's almost certainly the end of his Speaker career.

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.

Last Call For Hunting The Hunter, Con't

The newly McCarthy approved "impeachment inquiry" into President Biden and his son Hunter is again going about as well as it has been for the last four years, which is "nowhere because there's nothing there."

 

New testimony from a number of FBI and Internal Revenue Service officials casts doubt on key claims from an IRS whistleblower who alleges there was political interference in the federal criminal investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes.

According to transcripts provided to CNN, several FBI and IRS officials brought in for closed-door testimony by House Republicans in recent days said they don’t remember US Attorney David Weiss saying that he lacked the authority to decide whether to bring charges against the president’s son, or that Weiss said he had been denied a request for special counsel status.

Those twin claims, made by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, form the basis of Republican accusations that the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden’s taxes was tainted by political influence and that Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland tried to protect Hunter Biden in the investigation.

The new testimony comes as House Republicans begin an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and his family, potentially undercutting one element of that effort.

At issue is an October 2022 meeting between prosecutors and case agents working on the Hunter Biden investigation. Shapley alleges that during that meeting, Weiss, the then-US attorney for Delaware, told participants that he was “not the deciding person” on whether Hunter Biden was charged, according to Shapley’s notes from the meeting. House Republicans have taken that to mean Weiss was not in charge of his own investigation, and was deferring to a higher authority.

In addition to Shapley and Weiss, there were five others in that meeting, three of whom have recently testified to the Republican-led congressional committees now spearheading the impeachment inquiry.

While the witnesses disputed Shapley’s key allegations from that meeting, they acknowledged Weiss was having trouble finding a venue to bring charges against the president’s son, as US attorneys from other states rejected partnering on the case. They also expressed frustration with the pace of the probe, which at that point had been ongoing for roughly four years.

 

And to the surprise of nobody, the cherry-picked GOP-aligned "whistleblower" is full of shit, and there's no corroborating evidence to back his claims up. For four years now Republicans have been trying to make anything they can stick to Hunter Biden, who definitely needs some help and care to deal with his issues, into the end of Joe Biden's career.

 

Next week's public "impeachment inquiry" is going to go just as badly for James Comer and the GOP.

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump can't stop lying to everyone: the press, his MAGA flunkies, and to himself.

 

Former President Trump is pushing his mug shot, arrests and criminal charges to try to claim new solidarity with Black voters — a group that has largely shunned him in elections.

Why it matters: Trump has latched on to a narrative promoted last month by Fox News commentators and others in conservative media — that his arrests could boost his standing among African Americans who believe the criminal justice system is unfair.

The big picture: There's little evidence he's getting an indictment bump among Black voters, despite his claim that support rose after the mug shot from his arrest in Atlanta was released. But his team believes he can make inroads with Black voters by pushing an I-am-a-victim-just-like-you storyline.

Zoom in: Trump claimed in a recent interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt that his poll numbers among Black voters "have gone up four and five times" since his mug shot was released.That's not true, as CNN reported.

And it's unclear whether Trump's favorability with Black voters has increased beyond the 8% or so share he received in 2020. (Recent polls have suggested Trump's support among Blacks is improving, but pre-election polls in 2020 overstated his support.)

Driving the news: In recent weeks Trump has promoted videos of Black people defending him, and senior Trump advisers have kept in touch with Black celebrities who have supported him publicly.Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted on X a TikTok video of a 34-year-old Black man saying, "We rocking with Trump, man. Even the youth, they know what time it is."

"I just think — especially, again with the (Black) men — they're going to see through" the charges against Trump, "because they've been dealing with this for a long time," Donald Trump Jr. told Newsmax.

Black artists including Lil Pump, Kodak Black and Chief Keef have posted mugshots of themselves next to Trump's, shared supportive messages, or otherwise indicated they're rooting for him. Keef mused that Trump would "run the prison" if he's convicted. Another artist, Bandman Kevo, got Trump's image tattooed on his leg.

Several artists have pointed to actions Trump took while in office, including passing the First Step Act and PPP loans, as reasons for their support.

Yes, but: Critics of the former president see irony in his push for African Americans' support.Trump is charged in Fulton County, Georgia, with trying to overturn the 2020 election results. The charges stem from an alleged conspiracy in which Trump's team sought to invalidate votes in heavily Black urban areas across the country after the election.
Democratic pollsters doubt that Trump's support among a few Black artists will help him significantly. A bigger issue in a general election matchup against President Biden could be Biden's slipping numbers with non-white voters who don't have college degrees.

"The best way to describe (Trump's) political efforts here is pissing in windmills," former South Carolina state Rep. Bakari Sellers told Axios.

"I love Kodak. I love his music, but that doesn't mean that his thoughts on Donald Trump are going to be pervasive."

 

They accept us as long as we're willing to grovel to them. They'll take our street cred and our voices if it means they can use them to control the rest of us.

 

I don't think I will do that, thanks.

 

Paxton, Repaxtonated, Con't

So we know now that the badly-kept "secret GOP coordination effort" targeting Texas state senators to acquit impeached GOP state AG Ken Paxton over last weekend was 100% both absolutely real and absolutely effective. WIN THE MORNING 2.0's Mike Allen on Monday:

 

Following a secret campaign coordinated by top Trump allies, Texas state senators yesterday acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton of all impeachment charges, allowing him to return to his post. Why it matters: The allegations against Paxton, a close ally of former President Trump, bitterly divided the Texas GOP, Jay R. Jordan of Axios Houston and Nicole Cobler of Axios Austin report.

Behind the scenes: National Republicans organized an under-the-radar campaign of outside conservative pressure on the Texas senators designed to neutralize mainstream media coverage, top strategists tell me. This outside unofficial team operated independently of the Paxton legal operation — like "a super PAC without the money," a top GOP strategist said. Pro-Paxton forces also paid social media influencers to defend the attorney general.

The team had a "very well-defined target audience … no different than a confirmation battle," the strategist said.After winning, Paxton tweeted his thanks to the conservative news outlet National Pulse, a valued player in the under-the-radar drive.

Catch me up: Senators weighed whether Paxton illegally used his office to benefit an Austin real estate developer, and improperly fired some of his top deputies who reported him to the FBI and other agencies. Despite an overwhelming majority of House Republicans voting to impeach Paxton in May, only two of 18 Republican senators voted to convict Paxton.

So ... how did that happen?

"We didn't care what the MSM (mainstream media) said," the top GOP strategist said."We basically ignored them from start to finish. Goal was to fire up the grassroots. A story in National Pulse, Post Millennial and similar publications was more valuable than any harm an A1 NYT story could do."

 

The jury tampering was in the bag last week. Trump and his allies put out notice that anyone who didn't play ball was toast, and that limited the damage to only two GOP state senators.

 

What we're hearing: It was made clear to Texas GOP senators that they'd face a very well-funded primary opponent in their next election if they voted to impeach.The two senators who voted to convict, Kelly Hancock and Robert Nichols, don't face re-election until 2026.

How it worked: Steve Bannon was a big Paxton backer on his WarRoom podcast.

 

Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk was vital, the strategist said: "He had his people posting senators' office numbers and was giving them out on his show. Driving the senators absolutely crazy."

A few days before the vote, Trump called Paxton "one of the TOUGHEST & BEST Attorney Generals in the Country" and after the vote, Trump congratulated Paxton on his "Texas sized VICTORY."

A day earlier, Paxton posted: "I'm heading to Maine next week to sit down with @TuckerCarlson."

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also a Trump ally who presided over the trial, received $3 million this summer from a pro-Paxton group called Defend Texas Liberty PAC. 

 

Patrick is now saying that he will order an audit into the impeachment investigation costs (also jury tampering) and the number one target is current Texas GOP House Speaker Dale Phelan. We'll see who survives he purge, but a purge is what's coming.

Trump will see to that.

Last Call For All Oiled Up In Cali

California Dem Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Dem AG Rob Bonta announced over the weekend a major lawsuit against major energy companies, claiming their fossil fuels products were knowingly sold while being detrimental to the climate, and the state is seeking tens of billions in damages for a fund to alleviate the massive and growing cost of California's climate disasters. 

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a lawsuit Saturday against five major oil companies and their subsidiaries, seeking compensation for damages caused by climate change.

The suit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, accuses the companies of knowing about the link between fossil fuels and catastrophic climate change for decades but suppressing and spreading disinformation on the topic to delay climate action. The New York Times first reported the case Friday.


The suit also claims that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP — as well as the American Petroleum Institute industry trade group — have continued their deception to today, promoting themselves as “green” with small investments in alternative fuels, while primarily investing in fossil fuel products.



It seeks to create a fund that oil companies would pay into to help the state recover from extreme weather events and prepare for further effects of climate change. It argues that California has already spent tens of billions of dollars on responding to climate change, with costs expected to rise significantly.

“The companies that have polluted our air, choked our skies with smoke, wreaked havoc on our water cycle, and contaminated our lands must be made to mitigate the harms they have brought upon the State,” the suit says.

Shell and API said the question of how to address climate change should be dealt with in the policy arena.

“We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress,” Shell spokesperson Anna Arata said in an email.

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources,” API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said in a statement. “Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not the court system.”

California’s legal action joins dozens of similar lawsuits brought by seven other states and many municipalities seeking to hold major polluters accountable for allegedly lying about their role in causing climate change.

So far the US Supreme Court has passed on turning any of the state cases into federal ones, but I suspect that it may not have a choice here given the size and scope of what this suit represents.

Still, good for Bonta and Newsom. This needs to happen in all states.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

House Speaker and Clown Town Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy is running out of time to make a spending bill deal with Democrats before the clowns do him in. WaPo's 202 crew:

Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: The deadline to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month is fast approaching with little sign of how differences will be resolved.

Here’s where things stand in both chambers:

In the House: A half-dozen House Republicans on Sunday proposed a deal to temporarily fund the government until Oct. 31 to buy time for a broader spending agreement.
But it’s far from certain whether the proposal will unite the fractious GOP conference and secure the votes needed to send the bill to the Senate, where it is expected to be rejected, Leigh Ann and our colleague Marianna Sotomayor report.

The tentative agreement is an attempt to appease the conservatives, who held up all progress on government spending until they received assurances on deep spending cuts and other policies, including border restrictions.

But many in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus immediately lambasted the proposal even though Freedom Caucus leaders, Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Chip Roy (R-Tex.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), negotiated the proposal with Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Stephanie I. Bice (R-Okla.) and Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) of the Republican Main Street Caucus, whose members don’t want to shut down the government.

The proposal would lead to immediate, dramatic spending cuts across the federal government, with agency budgets being slashed by 8 percent, except for the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would be funded at current levels.

The continuing resolution to keep funding the government temporarily would also include a border security bill that House Republicans passed through their narrow ranks in May, while excluding the divisive E-Verify work requirement provision to check immigration status that is opposed by some Republican moderates, especially in New York and California.

If this bill gets a vote and moderates accept it, they are likely to face the possibility of campaign ads highlighting that they voted for deep cuts to programs such as education, food safety and environmental protection.

The goal is to vote on the bill Thursday.

If the proposal makes it through the House, it has zero chance of passing the Senate, and it’s unclear how the two chambers will strike a deal to avoid a shutdown.

 

In other words, McCarthy doesn't even have the votes for an opening offer, while Senate Democrats are hashing out the "real" bill, and the biggest reason is that the hardliner MAGA chuds think 8 percent cuts to the Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Justice, State, and Homeland Security aren't draconian enough.

As to whether McCarthy survives the month without a deal, well, Hakeem Jeffries has some leverage now, doesn't he?

 

McCarthy's biggest problem is he's incompetent. But I don't see how Matt Gaetz is going to talk Jeffries into getting rid of McCarthy when that only makes the prospect of a deal worse. 

We'll see, but we're down to two weeks now, and the prognosis is still that McCarthy shuts down the government and the country will clearly be able to blame him for it, or that he folds and takes the Senate bill with Hakeem Jeffries's help and then gets run out of town like Boehner before him.

He loses either way.

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.