Daughter Of Darkness, Done

It's looking more and more like GOP Rep. Liz Cheney's political career in Wyoming is in dire straits, as her Trump-backed primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, is gaining momentum heading into this spring's primary.

Harriet Hageman, the Donald Trump-endorsed candidate seeking to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney, won big Saturday in a straw poll of House candidates held by the Wyoming Republican State Central Committee.

The secret ballot of party activists awarded Hageman 59 votes, Cheney six, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, two and Denton Knapp one. The vote comes eight months before the GOP primary.

“I think it’s a good sign. It’s not an endorsement, but these are the county activists” Hageman told the Star-Tribune after the vote.

The state party itself is not statutorily allowed to endorse a candidate in the primary.

The state central committee consists of three representatives from each county and members of the state party, for a total of 74 votes. Only 71, including three of Hageman’s family members, voted Saturday. The bearing of the vote on the outcome of the August primary is uncertain: There are 196,179 registered Republican voters in Wyoming as of January.

The straw poll is a indication of current party leadership’s views, not the state as a whole. Straw polls, even with a far higher number of voters, do not have an accurate track record in Wyoming in recent years.

Then candidate Cynthia Lummis lost to Sheridan County GOP Chairman Bryan Miller by a double-digit margin in a straw poll of Senate candidates held at the Wyoming Republican Party’s 2020 convention. Between 300 and 400 people voted in that poll.

Lummis went on to beat Miller in the primary by almost 50 points in the primary less than two months later.

Still, the vote highlights the hostility that many in the Wyoming Republican Party’s leadership feel toward Cheney since her much publicized break with Trump. Cheney, for her part, has called party leaders radical.

At Saturday’s meeting, Hageman’s high vote count was announced first and met with a round of applause. When Cheney’s tally was announced, a couple members in the room audibly scoffed.

“The only elections that matter are in August and November,” Jeremy Adler, a spokesperson for the Cheney campaign, said in response to the vote.

There was division in the room over the intention of the straw poll.

“This smells like an endorsement to me, said Natrona County Committeeman Joe Mcginley, who had publicly disagreed with party leaders before. “Whether that is the true intention of the state ... or not, that’s what it appears to be.”

Karl Allred, the Uinta County GOP chairman, saw it differently.

“This is not an endorsement,” he said. “This is merely asking for the opinion of the body at this time.”

 

It's certainly possible that  Cheney could survive the primary challenge and be reelected, but a December poll found Hageman ahead of Cheney 38-18% with more than a quarter of GOP primary voters undecided.  Anything's possible.

Me, I'm rooting for the Democrat if they can, you know, find one.

Sunday Long Read: Going Off The Sauce

Author Danielle Tcholakian sobered up in 2021, facing the pandemic and her own mortality, and the choice to seek help and stop drinking saved her life as she recounts in this weeks Sunday Long Read.

2021 was, objectively, not a great year for most people living on this planet. It also happened to be the first full calendar year of my life that I spent sober, having realized in 2020 that I had a problem. It was not a year I would’ve expected to get through rawdogging reality, as it were, or even really to get through at all.

The truth is that most of my drinking and using had one primary purpose: to allow me to feel less. To be less aware. To not have to live in my own brain or settle for the reality of living in the world as myself. To hide from how overwhelmed I was by seemingly everything.

So it’s a little unbelievable that a year in which I was forced to feel things all the time, to be aware of all of it, and to, the whole time, be stuck being me—what seemed like a truly disgusting option—was, in the rearview, better than any of the years in which I’d been able to hide.

It pains me even to write or talk like this now, and that’s a huge part of it. I hated myself—really despised this bitch—for so much of my life, and I don’t anymore. This isn’t a bad brain! It’s a goofy, loving, often uncooperative, mess of a brain in a goofy, loving, messy, still-figuring-a-lot-of-really-elementary-stuff-out person that I mostly don’t mind being anymore. That I often actually enjoy being.

My life before sobriety wasn’t all bad. But most days, for at least five years, I fought with a panicked, angry voice in my head that said I needed to die. The end of 2019 saw me in a Medicaid clinic with a medical resident younger than me patiently going over a list of questions he was required to ask of depressed patients. I explained that yes, I wanted to kill myself, but it was just logical. I was a burden—on people, on systems. I had drained my own resources attempting to resolve a depression that had ultimately been deemed “treatment resistant,” and now here I was, on Medicaid and unable to work. I can’t work so I should die was a deeply American logic I had internalized, and in my frustration at his obtuse refusal to agree that I was simply being practical, I began to cry.

At first, the resident said, “But you know that’s just your depression, right? That’s the only reason you think that.” And I snapped, no—the depression was the physical heaviness, the brain fog, the constant hunger for sleep, the excruciating fucking unending psychological pain. I believed the knowledge that I was better off dead was just that: knowledge; reason.

He looked at me differently, then paused and said something like, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that. I hope you can believe me when I say that it isn’t true. And you shouldn’t feel this way. We will find you resources.” I sobbed then, cracked open by the discovery that the only thing that hurt worse than the pain I’d been in was getting precisely what I didn’t realize I’d been craving: human kindness, and hope. I stopped drinking and using soon after.

 

The times I've been this low, I was lucky and got help that to this day I still don't think I was worthy of, but it saved me nonetheless. I can relate to feeling like a burden and black hole to toss resources down with no hope of escape or redemption.

 

Luckily I know what that voice sounds like now, and not to listen to it.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

 The big US bugout from Ukraine is getting underway.

The US Embassy in Kyiv has requested that the State Department authorize the departure of all nonessential staff and their families, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. 

A State Department spokesperson said they have "nothing to announce at this time," adding, "We conduct rigorous contingency planning, as we always do, in the event the security situation deteriorates." A spokesperson for the embassy declined to confirm and referred CNN to the State Department in Washington. 

A source close to the Ukrainian government told CNN that the US has informed Ukraine that it is "likely to start evacuations as early as next week" of the families of diplomats from the embassy in Kyiv. The source said President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the matter and told him that if the United States took such a dramatic step, it would be an "overreaction." CNN has asked the Ukrainian government for comment. 

A State Department official said the department would not comment on private discussions, adding that decisions about overseas staff are based on a single criterion: the safety and security of Americans. 

The embassy's request marks an escalation from CNN's report last month that the US was working on contingency planning to evacuate Americans from Ukraine, as Russia has continued to mass troops near the border and spark fears of a renewed invasion. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's latest intelligence assessment, shared with CNN this week, assessed that Russia has now deployed more than 127,000 troops in the region. 

The State Department has already issued the highest-level travel advisory for Ukraine, telling Americans not to travel to the country and to be aware of reports that Russia is planning for significant military action against Ukraine. 

 

Yes, the Biden administration is definitely going to take the side of caution after Afghanistan, and I don't blame them at all. Things could be extremely bad in Ukraine by the end of the month, if not sooner. 

The Ukrainians themselves are taking it all in stride.

With 100,000 Russian guns pointed at their heads, Ukrainians seem to take a stoical pride in not seeming rattled. They appear ready for what could be a savage war. Their main worry is that the United States and its allies will get so nervous they will yield to Russian pressure.

Driving through Maidan Square in a light snow on Friday afternoon, with traffic snarled and the lights of the city blazing, you could almost think this was normal life, on the eve of what could be a Russian invasion. Some people with money are buying dollars and property abroad. But the restaurants are full, and Ukrainians appeared to get the jitters only when President Volodymyr Zelensky told them this past week not to panic.

Over several days of intense conversation here, I heard the same message of resistance. Russian President Vladimir Putin might imagine that Ukrainians share his almost mystical conviction that Russia and Ukraine are the same country, but if so, he’s wildly mistaken. Putin’s eight years of war against Ukraine, beginning with his seizure of Crimea in 2014, have made him nothing but enemies here. Polls say that even a large majority of Russian-speaking Ukrainians oppose him.

“Don’t trust Putin. Don’t fear Putin,” said former president Petro Poroshenko on Friday during a conversation with a group organized by the German Marshall Fund. (I’m a trustee of GMF but came here as a journalist, along with Sylvie Kauffmann of the French newspaper Le Monde and a half-dozen others, including two German parliamentarians and analysts from NATO and the European Union.)

It was partly bravado, but a defiant Oleksiy Danilov, the head of the national security and defense council, told our group: “Since 2014, we have been in a state of war with Russia. There are no people other than us who will defend us. Even if we don’t receive weapons [from the West], we will strangle them with our bare hands.”

 

We'll see where all this going, but my guess is that Putin might not yet invade. It depends on what he really wants and what Biden is willing to do.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

CNN's Kirsten Powers argues that Biden is doing pretty well given the fact we're in some of the worst multiple messes in history right now.

Here's an apparently unpopular opinion: Joe Biden is not failing or flailing. His presidency is not in peril.

It's hard to see this through the blizzard of over-the-top headlines such as, "Biden Can Still Rescue His Presidency," "How the Biden Administration Lost Its Way" and "Biden's Epic Failures."

Everyone needs to take a breath: It's been one year. These headlines could just as easily read, "Joe Biden Fails to Fix Every Problem in the World in 365 days."

What drives much of the "presidency in peril" coverage is Biden's approval ratings. CNN's poll of polls, released Thursday, found that 41% of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job while 54% disapprove.

Low approval ratings are used as a proxy by various political and ideological factions to argue that the president needs to do more of what they want and if he doesn't, he won't get reelected. (Spoiler alert: nobody will cast their vote in three years based on how they feel today about Biden). Progressives argue ratings are low because Biden is not progressive enough and moderates and "Never Trump" Republicans argue it's because Biden is too liberal. It's become conventional wisdom in the media that Biden's approval ratings started dropping because of how he handled the Afghanistan withdrawal. But Gallup's senior editor Jeff Jones told Politico in November that his declining poll numbers began before that, during the Delta Covid-19 variant surge.

The fact is, approval ratings are most closely tied to how people feel about their day-to-day lives. Americans are understandably fatigued as we enter the third year of the pandemic and, until the US gets back to some semblance of normal, we should expect Biden's approval ratings to reflect that frustration. Moreover, gas prices are high and research has shown that presidential approval ratings often track with gas prices, even though the president's power over these prices is limited. The economic news is mostly good for Biden -- unemployment is down and wages are up -- but inflation is high and rising. Taken together, this means the day-to-day life of many Americans feels really hard.
It doesn't help that the media reinforce the idea that Biden is somehow failing because he hasn't solved issues that have bedeviled his predecessors over longer periods of time. The New York Times dinged Biden this week, noting that, "The president has not yet succeeded in meeting his own goals for combating climate change,...[hasn't] delivered on his broader promise for a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans" and has failed "on the central promise he made during the 2020 campaign -- to 'shut down' the pandemic..."

This is bananas, but it's a fairly typical roundup of the disconnected-from-reality analysis of Biden's first year.

No president has been able to achieve a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who were not able to accomplish immigration reform over an eight-year period each. Biden should not be expected to do what they couldn't, in a single year, in the middle of a global pandemic.

She's right. Biden is doing pretty well given the circumstances, with an entire political party and six Supreme Court justices determined to sabotage his every move. 

 

Give him a break, folks.

The Big Lie, Con't

The Trump regime was deeply involved in the plot to send false slates of electors from seven states that he lost in order to justify stealing the 2020 presidential election, and the orders to create those fraudulent slates came from the very top.

Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw efforts in December 2020 to put forward illegitimate electors from seven states that Trump lost, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the scheme. 

The sources said members of former President Donald Trump's campaign team were far more involved than previously known in the plan, a core tenet of the broader plot to overturn President Joe Biden's victory when Congress counted the electoral votes on January 6. 

Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. 

The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives. 

Trump and some of his top advisers publicly encouraged the "alternate electors" scheme in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. But behind the scenes, Giuliani and Trump campaign officials actively choreographed the process, the sources said.

One fake elector from Michigan boasted at a recent event hosted by a local Republican organization that the Trump campaign directed the entire operation. 

"We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that," Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said at a public event last week that was organized by the conservative group Stand Up Michigan, according to a recording obtained by CNN. 

Maddock was also one of the 16 Trump supporters from Michigan who served as fake electors and signed the illegitimate certificate that was sent to the National Archives. 

"It was Rudy and these misfit characters who started calling the shots," a former Trump campaign staffer said. "The campaign was throwing enough sh*t at the wall to see what would stick."

Hey look at that, a big ol' conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States, with Rudy and Trump at the helm. These guys have to go to jail just because it's so ridiculously obvious they tried to steal the election.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

The Fulton County Georgia investigation into Donald Trump's phone conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the 2020 elections in that state has now hit the Special Grand Jury phase.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation of former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

In a Thursday letter to Christopher S. Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court, Willis said the move was needed because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.”

She cited comments Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made during an October 2021 interview with NBC News, in which he said “if (Willis) wants to interview me, there’s a process for that.”

So-called special purpose grand juries are rarely used in Georgia. But they could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the extraordinary step of investigating the conduct of a president while he was in office, legal experts say.

“I think it makes sense,” said Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy DA who’s now an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school. “Having a jury that’s already familiar with the investigation just saves everyone a lot of time.”

Willis’ probe, launched in February, is centered on the Jan. 2 phone call Trump placed to Raffensperger, in which he urged the Republican to “find” the 11,780 votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win in Georgia in November 2020. But it could also include other actions from Trump’s allies who sowed doubts about the election results, including testimony his attorney Rudy Giuliani gave at a state legislative hearing.

In her letter to Brasher, Willis said the DA’s office “has received information indicating a reasonable probability that the State of Georgia’s administration of elections in 2020, including the State’s election of the President of the United States, was subject to possible criminal disruptions.”

Special grand juries, which typically have 16 to 23 members, can’t issue indictments. But they can subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents and information, and enter into certain offices for the purposes of an investigation.

They were previously used to investigate several metro Atlanta politicians for public corruption, including former Gwinnett County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly, ex-Clayton Sheriff Victor Hill and ex-DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis.

Willis said a special grand jury would be beneficial for the Trump probe because jurors can be impaneled for as long as prosecutors need, would be focused on the one investigation and have “an investigatory focus appropriate to the complexity of the facts and circumstances involved.”

A regular Fulton County grand jury is seated for two months. Jurors typically hear hundreds of felony cases before their service ends.

So on top of Trump's legal troubles this week in New York and on the Supreme Court, now things get worse for him in Georgia, too.

That hard rain is falling, folks, and it doesn't appear that it's going to be letting up anytime soon, 

The Vax Of Life, Con't

While most Fortune 500 companies are keeping vaccine mandates despite last week's SCOTUS ruling scrapping the Biden Administration's OSHA mandate requirements, some very big American corporations are now dropping COVID vaccine mandates altogether, starting with one of America's biggest employers: Starbucks.

In a memo to employees first reported by the Associated Press, Starbucks said it is no longer requiring employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19 after the Supreme Court’s rejection of Biden’s plan to require vaccines or weekly testing at companies with more than 100 workers.

Starbucks Chief Operating Officer John Culver wrote in the memo “we respect the court’s ruling and will comply,” but added the company continues to “believe strongly in the spirit and intent of the mandate,” and encouraged employees to get the vaccine.

Some companies across various industries are holding firm to their plans to require vaccines: Carhartt faced calls for both support and boycotts after a leaked letter surfaced detailing the workwear brand’s plans to keep its vaccine policy in effect.

Major banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup told Forbes they will continue their vaccine mandates in light of the decision, and Wells Fargo said it will continue its testing program as part of its vaccine-or-test policy.

United Airlines and Tyson Foods have also adopted vaccine mandates for their workers while a number of companies require vaccines to work from the office, including American Express, Deloitte, Facebook, Google, Lyft, Salesforce and Uber.

General Electric announced last week it would be rolling back its vaccine and testing plans, and additional companies could follow, as a Willis Towers poll conducted in November found 32% of companies planned to require vaccinations only if Biden’s mandate took effect.

The Big Number: 200,000. That’s how many employees Starbucks has in the U.S., the New York Times reports.

Like many companies, Starbucks had announced it would require all employees to be vaccinated by February 9, or they would be required to complete a weekly Covid test. Biden’s vaccine mandate for large employers faced a lengthy legal battle after he signed the executive order in November. A federal appeals court blocked the mandate later in November, which led to arguments at the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision last week, the court ruled to temporarily halt the vaccine-or-test mandate, writing the mandate is a “significant encroachment” into employees’ lives and health, and the decision should have been left to Congress. The case has been handed down to lower courts to decide if it will be permanently upheld or struck down.

A majority of Americans still want employer vaccine mandates, even after the Supreme Court ruling, according to a Morning Consult poll: 56% of respondents said they believe employers should require Covid-19 vaccinations, while 33% said they were opposed.

So expect about a third of big corporations to drop vaccine mandates in the days ahead, or to cancel plans to have mandates go into effect on February 9th. It'll mean tens of millions of unvaccinated workers will stay unvaccinated, and thousands will die as a direct result.

Last Call For A Supreme Orange Meltdown

Amazingly enough, the Supreme Court ruled today against Donald Trump and refused to block Trump's National Archive WH documents from being subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee.

The Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. 

The court's order means that more than 700 documents will be transferred to Congress that could shed light on the events leading up to the insurrection when hundreds of rioters converged on the Capitol attempting to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results. 

Only Justice Clarence Thomas said publicly that he would have granted former President Donald Trump's request to block the document handover from the National Archives to the House select committee. No other justices made an objection public. 

The Biden White House supports releasing the records to the committee, after determining the disclosure is in the nation's best interest and declining to assert executive privilege.

The select committee is seeking more than 700 pages of disputed documents as it explores Trump's role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That includes his appearance at a January 6 rally in which he directed followers to go to the US Capitol where lawmakers were set to certify the election results and "fight" for their county. 

The documents include activity logs, schedules, speech notes and three pages of handwritten notes from then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows -- paperwork that could reveal goings-on inside the West Wing as Trump supporters gathered in Washington and then overran the Capitol, disrupting the certification of the 2020 vote. 

Trump is also seeking to keep secret a draft proclamation honoring two police officers who died in the siege and memos and other documents about supposed election fraud and efforts to overturn Trump's loss of the presidency, the National Archives has said in court documents. 

The House committee, the White House, the National Archives and lawyers for Trump have not responded to CNN inquiries about the Supreme Court's order. 

The move effectively moots former Trump's pending appeal in the case that centered on keeping the documents secret. Lawyers for Trump say the documents are sensitive and privileged records.

 

Trump has effectively lost this battle and the January 6th Committee will have the documents.  What those documents will mean, I can't ultimately tell you, but the investigation will continue.

Trump's Taxing Explanation, Con't

A new court filing from NY Attorney General Tish James makes it abundantly clear that Donald Trump's adult children are targets in the ongoing state fraud investigation into the Trump Organization, and that the cooperation James is trying to compel from the Trumps is nothing even close to a "request" at this point.

New York Attorney General Letitia James disclosed new details Tuesday night about her civil investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business, saying the probe has uncovered evidence suggesting the company put a fraudulent value on multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.

James, who launched her probe in 2019, also said in the court filing that the former president “had ultimate authority over a wide swath of conduct by the Trump Organization" that involved fraudulent misstatements to financial institutions, the Internal Revenue Service, and other parties.

She specifically mentioned the responsibility of two of the former president’s adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump.

“Since 2017, Donald Trump, Jr. has had authority over numerous financial statements containing misleading asset valuations,” James wrote in the court filing.

Ivanka Trump, a former White House adviser, “was a primary contact for the Trump Organization’s largest lender, Deutsche Bank. In connection with this work, Ms. Trump caused misleading financial statements to be submitted to Deutsche Bank and the federal government,” James wrote.

“Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit,” James said in a statement Tuesday. “The Trumps must comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony because no one in this country can pick and choose if and how the law applies to them.”

Her office added that it "has not yet reached a final decision regarding whether this evidence merits legal action."

James is conducting a civil investigation into whether the Trump Organization committed fraud in reporting the value of certain properties to banks and tax authorities.

Banks and other lenders need to know the precise financial condition of loan applicants before they make loans. If a company overstates its financial condition in order to get a loan, making its finances seem rosier than they really are, that can be considered fraud. The filing says that Trump's financial statements "were generally inflated as part of a pattern to suggest that Mr. Trump’s net worth was higher than it otherwise would have appeared."

Tuesday’s filing is in response to legal efforts by the former president to quash a series of subpoenas against him, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump. James is seeking an order to compel all three to appear for sworn testimony.

The filing says there have been problems with valuations in statements that have not been explained by the Trump Organization.

In financial statements, the value of the former president’s New York City apartment in Trump Tower was based on an assertion that the space was 30,000 square feet, when documents show the apartment was 10,996 square feet, the attorney general’s office said.

Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg conceded in a deposition that that resulted in an overstatement of around $200 million, the filing stated.

James’ office also said evidence indicates the value of land donations in Los Angeles and Westchester County, New York, were overstated, resulting in several million dollars in deductions.

NBC News has reached out to the Trump Organization for comment on the allegations against the company, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. Attorneys for Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and the former president did not immediately respond to overnight requests for comment.

Not only does James have the goods, but if she doesn't get the Trump family's cooperation with these subpoenas, think are going to go very badly for not just Donald, but Junior and Ivanka as well.

This is James saying "play ball or else".

There's nothing Trump can do here, either.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

West Virginia Dem Sen. Joe Manchin is at this point openly daring Democrats to do anything about him blocking Biden's agenda, and that he firmly believes that he is in 100% control of the country.

Joe Manchin made clear that his party’s push to isolate him and fellow centrist Kyrsten Sinema won’t force his hand on rules changes, once again rejecting Democrats' proposed reforms to the Senate’s filibuster rules.

The West Virginia Democrat actually seems to welcome the isolation. He told reporters ahead of a Democratic Caucus meeting he would not go along with instituting a talking filibuster, which could be used to evade the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, nor would he entertain a rules change by a simple majority.

Asked about his party's priorities, Manchin said people are most worried about inflation and coronavirus right now. He added that he’d welcome a primary challenge over his filibuster position if he runs again for reelection: "I've been primaried my entire life. That would not be anything new for me.”

“The majority of my colleagues in the Democratic caucus have changed their minds. I respect that. They have a right to change their minds. I haven’t. I hope they respect that too. I’ve never changed my mind on the filibuster,” Manchin said.

Though all 50 Senate Democrats support the voting and elections bill before the Senate, the Democratic caucus is pressing forward with laying blame on Manchin and Sinema (D-Ariz.) for the party's failure to advance sweeping elections reform, thanks to their resistance to weakening the filibuster. The move carries considerable risk, given that Sinema and Manchin will be essential to any further success the party can muster this year — particularly on any resuscitation of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Manchin said he doesn’t “take anything personally” as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer presses forward with a vote on weakening the filibuster. Schumer confirmed to reporters after the meeting that he would propose a talking filibuster only covering the package of bills currently in front of the Senate and dismissed Manchin and Sinema’s positions as out of step with the rest of the caucus.

“The vast majority of our caucus strongly disagree with Sens. Manchin and Sinema on rules changes. The overwhelming majority of our caucus knows that if you’re going to try to rely on Republican votes, you will get zero progress on voting rights,” Schumer said.

Schumer also would not say if he would support Manchin and Sinema in future Democratic primaries: “I'm not getting into the politics. This is a substantive, serious issue.” Sinema in particular could face a tough intra-party challenge in 2024.

The Senate Democratic caucus huddled on Tuesday evening to discuss the coming confrontation over changing chamber rules to help shore up the Voting Rights Act and enact federal election standards. During the meeting, Manchin “expressed disagreement” with the justification his party is using to change Senate rules, according to one attendee.


Under the talking filibuster proposed by Schumer, the voting and elections package would only require a simple majority to advance toward final passage, preceded by a lengthy debate. No further bills would get the same treatment; the Senate took up the election reform bill Tuesday and is expected to begin the rules debate on Wednesday.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has been speaking to Manchin on rules changes, said Democrats have tried to come up with a proposal that's consistent with his and Sinema's positions and that they aren't worried the vote will alienate the two centrists.

"I was not a negotiator of the infrastructure bill — I was so happy they were, and I praised them for it, and I voted for it, and it's going to be great," Kaine said. "This voting bill is as important or more to many of us than the infrastructure bill. The time is nigh for a decision."

 

Last year, Manchin said he was open to the talking filibuster. Now he is 100% against it. And he's going to get away with blocking it, because the alternative is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and everyone knows it. Both Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats continue to give him all of the power, and until that situation changes, nothing's going to pass.

Last Call For The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

We're now openly to the point where Florida Republicans are trying to criminalize any of America's history that makes white people uncomfortable.

A bill pushed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that would prohibit public schools and private businesses from making white people feel “discomfort” when they teach students or train employees about discrimination in the nation’s past received its first approval Tuesday.

The Senate Education Committee approved the bill that takes aim at critical race theory — though it doesn’t mention it explicitly — on party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

Democrats argued the bill isn’t needed, would lead to frivolous lawsuits and said it would amount to censorship in schools. They asked, without success, for real-life examples of teachers or businesses telling students or employees that they are racist because of their race.

“This bill’s not for Blacks, this bill was not for any other race. This was directed to make whites not feel bad about what happened years ago,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who is Black. “At no point did anyone say white people should be held responsible for what happened, but what I would ask my white counterparts is, are you an enabler of what happened or are you going to say we must talk about history?”

DeSantis held a news conference last month in which he called critical race theory “crap,” and said he would seek legislation that would allow parents to sue schools and employees to sue employers if they were subject to its teachings.

Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. It was developed during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what scholars viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

Conservatives reject it, saying it is a world view derived from Marxism that divides society by defining people as oppressors and oppressed based on their race. They call it an attempt to rewrite American history and make white people believe they are inherently racist.

The bill reads in part, “An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex. An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

 

Setting aside the entire raft of accusations that this is cancel culture from a bunch of snowflakes, under this bill I can't see most of American history being taught at all because it would make somebody uncomfortable. 

Has anyone asked what DeSantis actually wants to be taught in the state's schools? The answer is "not accurate history" which of course is the point. We laugh about textbooks from Texas and Florida that tried to say Black folk benefited from slavery over the years, but that's the only history that will be taught going forward in Florida.

Here's the kicker:

The bill is called “Individual Freedom.” Republican Sen. Manny Diaz, its sponsor, said it is not about ignoring the “dark” parts of American history, but rather ensuring that people are not blamed for sins of the past.

“No individual is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by the virtue of his or her race or sex,” Garcia said. “No race is inherently superior to another race.”

 

And it just takes one person under this bill to "feel uncomfortable" and it's a criminal act, punishable by heavy fines.  No better way to destroy America's "dark" parts than to make teaching it to be a literal criminal act.

This will go nationwide under the next GOP administration, I guarantee it.

A Hail Mary For Voting RIghts

With voting rights legislation facing a tough, if not impossible vote this week in the Senate, Democrats are considering a Hail Mary pass to try to save the bill from GOP destruction.

Senate Democrats are scrambling for a Plan B to pass voting rights legislation after Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced last week that they would not vote to change the Senate’s filibuster rule despite the pleading of President Biden.

Now some Democrats are discussing a novel approach to circumventing a Republican filibuster that may allow voting rights legislation to pass with 51 votes without changing the Senate’s rules.

These Democrats, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), are exploring the possibility of forcing Senate Republicans to actually hold the floor with speeches and procedural motions.

They hope that the Republican opposition may tire itself out after a few days or weeks and that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) may be able to then call for a simple-majority vote on final passage and skip the formal procedural vote — known as cloture — on ending debate.

"There are a couple of paths here. Do we go down the path and do a long debate until it's done and then have a simple debate?" Kaine told reporters last week.

"We wouldn't need a rules change to pass the bill by simple majority if the debate is over. Theoretically, you do not need a rules change to pass a bill that's on the floor, you just have to allow debate to occur," he added.

The strategy has gained more attention from Senate Democrats in recent days as it’s become crystal clear that Sinema and Manchin won’t vote for a more straightforward rules change to lowering the procedural threshold for ending a filibuster from 60 votes to 50.

A second Democratic senator confirmed that colleagues are reviewing the idea of forcing Republicans to stage a talking filibuster to block voting rights legislation.

“We’ve discussed it,” said the lawmaker, who explained that if Republicans don’t occupy the floor with speeches and procedural motions, voting rights legislation should be allowed to come up for final passage under the Senate’s rules.

The problem with this approach, according to Democrats familiar with the discussion, is that it hasn’t been attempted in decades and no one is quite sure how it would play out procedurally.

Cloture votes to end debate in the Senate have become so routine that it’s become second nature to expect the floor is being tied up in debate when a controversial bill is pending.

More often, the floor is usually empty or has only a few members milling about while the clerk reads off the roll of senators’ names during a quorum call.

James Wallner, a former Senate Republican aide and expert on Senate procedure, says that Democrats could pass voting rights legislation with a simple-majority vote if they’re willing to put up with a lengthy battle on the floor.

“Democrats don’t need 60 votes at all. They’re in 51-vote territory. They can move to table any amendments that Republicans offer to the bill,” he said.

 

The two problems are of course "would the Dems be able to outlast the GOP on this?" and "WHo would be the 51st vote". The second question has an answer at least: VP Kamala Harris, who would have to be on hand for the entire battle.

 

But can the Dems pull this off? I don't know. I do know that right now, the bill is 100% doomed.

 

It's worth a shot.

Another #MeToo Moment For Matt Gaetz, Con't

Federal prosecutors have granted legal immunity to the ex-girlfriend of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz as she testified last week in front of a federal grand jury. Gaetz is facing possible sex trafficking and obstruction of justice charges.

Prosecutors granted immunity to an ex-girlfriend of Representative Matt Gaetz before she testified last week in front of a federal grand jury hearing evidence in the investigation of the congressman, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Gaetz has been under investigation to determine if he violated sex trafficking laws and obstructed justice in that probe. Gaetz has previously denied all wrongdoing, and has said he has never paid for sex nor had sex with an underage girl.

The woman, who CBS News is not naming to protect her privacy, testified in front of a federal grand jury in Orlando last Wednesday. She is viewed as a potential key witness, according to two sources familiar with the investigation. One of the sources said she has information related to the investigation of both the sex trafficking and obstruction allegations.

"This may be a willing participant who has a smart lawyer who sought an immunity deal from the government," said former prosecutor and CBS News legal analyst Rikki Kleiman. "The government does not give immunity blindly, they know what they're getting in exchange."

Isabelle Kirshner, an attorney for Gaetz, told CBS News in a statement last week that "we have seen no credible basis for a charge against Congressman Gaetz. We remain steadfast in our commitment to challenge any allegations with the facts and law."

A source told CBS News last week that as a part of an obstruction probe, investigators are looking into whether Gaetz had a phone call with the ex-girlfriend, and another woman, who was already a witness in the federal investigation.

Multiple sources told CBS News that the ex-girlfriend and the other woman traveled to the Bahamas with Gaetz in 2018, along with a third woman with whom Gaetz was in a sexual relationship. That third woman was 18 at the time of the Bahamas trip, but investigators are also looking into whether she was 17 when the sexual relationship began.

Investigators are trying to determine if any of the women were paid and were illegally trafficked across state or international lines for the purpose of sex with the congressman.

 

Gaetz will never step down voluntarily, and I doubt there will be enough Republican votes to expel him unless he is convicted, a trial being something that wouldn't happen until 2023. He knows he can roll the dice when it comes to his re-election campaign, especially if Trump has his back yelling WITCH HUNT for the next several months.

Would Florida voters re-elect a Congressman facing sex trafficking and/or obstruction charges in connection with trying to cover all this up?

Of course they would.

Proudly.

Don't expect Gaetz to face any consequences. He's betting on the Duncan Hunter special in January 2025.

Last Call For School Of Hard-Right Knocks, Con't

The "Critical Race Theory" panic was always cover for destroying public education, and now we have Republicans openly ordering school libraries to take their collections back to 1950.

School districts from Pennsylvania to Wyoming are bowing to pressure from some conservative groups to review — then purge from public school libraries — books about LGBTQ issues and people of color.

Why it matters: A pivotal midterm election year, COVID frustrations and a backlash against efforts to call out systemic racism — driven disproportionately by white, suburban and rural parents — have made public schools ground zero in the culture wars.

What they're saying: "I've worked for this office for 20 years, and we've never had this volume of challenges come in such a short time," Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Axios. "In my former district, we might have one big challenge like every two years," Carolyn Foote, a retired Texas librarian of 29 years, told Axios. " I have to say that what we're seeing is really unprecedented."

Details: The Spotsylvania County School Board in Virginia in November ordered staff to remove “sexually explicit” books from libraries after a parent raised concerns about their LGBTQ themes. “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” school board member Rabih Abuismail said during a meeting. 

That same month, the Goddard School District in Kansas demanded staff remove 29 books from the district’s school libraries. The list included “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and “The Bluest Eye” by Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison.
The Washington County School District in Utah voted last month to ban “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas and "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez, two novels tackling racism, following parent complaints about profanity. The superintendent cast the deciding vote. 

Texas school districts are scrambling to review and ban some library books after state Rep. Matt Krause, a former candidate for state attorney general, asked school superintendents to confirm whether any books on his list of 850 titles were on their shelves.

By the numbers: The ALA has not yet released a full accounting of its data for banning attempts in 2021, but Caldwell-Stone said the ALA tracked 330 challenges just from September through November 2021 and hasn't tallied all the titles yet. 

In 2020, amid the new pandemic and remote schooling, it cited 156 challenges to library, school and university materials and services, and the targeting of 273 books. In 2019, it tracked 377 challenges to materials and services, and the targeting of 566 books.

The top target both years was "George," by Alex Gino, a novel about a transgender girl. "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You," by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi was last year's second-biggest target. 

ALA classifies a book as "banned" if a school or library removes it from circulation or if a district outlaws it from lessons.

 

I remember similar book bannings when I was growing up three decades ago, but this time the difference is these bans are being codified into state law, and these books are not coming back, folks. 

And wouldn't you know it, it's always, always books by authors of color about the experiences of people of color in America, and LGBTQ+ books. Always.

Becausde those cultural experiences, viewpoints, and voices have to be eliminated from authoritarian white supremacists Christian Dominionist America, where everything is equal and wonderful as long as you submit to the white guys in charge, right?

Free speech right up until we literally make laws to eliminate it.

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

I definitely want to know where this misplaced optimism about Trump facing federal charges is coming from, because I don't believe it for a second.

 

Senate Democrats believe there is a good chance the Department of Justice will prosecute former President Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which would have major political reverberations ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Democratic lawmakers say they don’t have any inside information on what might happen and describe Attorney General Merrick Garland as someone who would make sure to run any investigation strictly “by the book.”

But they also say the fact that Garland has provided little indication about whether the Department of Justice has its prosecutorial sights set on Trump doesn’t necessarily mean the former president isn’t likely to be charged.

Given the weight of public evidence, Democratic lawmakers think Trump committed federal crimes.

But Senate Democrats also warn that Garland needs to proceed cautiously. Any prosecution that fails to convict Trump risks becoming a disaster and could vindicate Trump, just as the inconclusive report by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was seized upon by Trump and his allies to declare his exoneration on a separate series of allegations.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said “clearly what [Trump] did” in the days leading up and the day of the Jan. 6 attack on Congress “falls in the ambit of what’s being investigated and perhaps is criminal.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said it’s up to the prosecutors at the Justice Department whether to charge Trump, though he believes that the former president’s actions on and before Jan. 6 likely violate federal law.

“They have all of the evidence at their disposal,” he said.

Kaine believes federal prosecutors are looking seriously at charges against Trump, although he doesn’t have any inside information about what they may be working on.

“My intuition is that they are” looking carefully at whether Trump broke the law, he said. “My sense is they’re looking [at] everything in a diligent way and they haven’t made a decision.”

“I believe there are federal statutes that are very much implicated” by Trump’s efforts to overturn President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, Kaine added.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said, “I think anybody who it’s proven had a role in the planning of [the Jan. 6 attack] should be prosecuted, not just the people who broke in and smashed the window in my office and others.”

“I think anybody that’s shown to have had a role in its planning absolutely should be prosecuted,” he added. “I mean it was treason, it was trying to overturn an election through violent means.”

Asked whether Trump broke the law, Brown said “I’m not going to say he’s guilty before I see evidence,” but he also said there’s “a lot of evidence that he was complicit.”

 

So we're going on Tim Kaine's gut now. Nice.

Meanwhile the story continues to find the much, much more likely scenario of state charges against Trump to be the actual reality, facing election interference in Georgia and bank and insurance fraud in NY.

Those cases I can see going forward in a limited fashion, but after Robert Mueller, I have no confidence that Merrick Garland will ever charge Trump, and none of you should either.

The Honeymoon Is Burned To The Ground

Gallup's quarterly party preference poll numbers are in for 2021, and white they showed a record-tying nine-point lead for the Democrats a year ago, in fourth quarter of last year it was a five-point Republican lead...also a record-tying number.

On average, Americans' political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%).

However, the general stability for the full-year average obscures a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a rare five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter.

These results are based on aggregated data from all U.S. Gallup telephone surveys in 2021, which included interviews with more than 12,000 randomly sampled U.S. adults.

Gallup asks all Americans it interviews whether they identify politically as a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. Independents are then asked whether they lean more toward the Republican or Democratic Party. The combined percentage of party identifiers and leaners gives a measure of the relative strength of the two parties politically.

Both the nine-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter and the five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter are among the largest Gallup has measured for each party in any quarter since it began regularly measuring party identification and leaning in 1991.

The Democratic lead in the first quarter was the largest for the party since the fourth quarter of 2012, when Democrats also had a nine-point advantage. Democrats held larger, double-digit advantages in isolated quarters between 1992 and 1999 and nearly continuously between mid-2006 and early 2009.

The GOP has held as much as a five-point advantage in a total of only four quarters since 1991. The Republicans last held a five-point advantage in party identification and leaning in early 1995, after winning control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the 1950s. Republicans had a larger advantage only in the first quarter of 1991, after the U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War led by then-President George H.W. Bush.

 

The country prefers the GOP now more than it did under Shrub and Trump. Biden got six months to fix the problem, the "Afghanistan disaster" came along (which it wasn't) and a tired, sick America is just ready to throw in the towel and let the Republican authoritarians win, being loudly and confidently wrong on everything because I guess if you're white, you figure things can't get any worse for you with the GOP in charge, right? 

The rest of us, well. We know the answer to that. But judging from the news this morning, our media betters absolutely want to blame Biden for Trump's problems, and can't wait to have a dictator in charge.

Democracy is too hard to fight for, you guys. That's where we are right now.