Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Local Edition

Following up on this story from yesterday, the man who apparently attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati with a nail gun and who then brandished an AR-15 and fled the scene was cornered in suburban Wilmington, Ohio and was apparently killed after a six-hour standoff with police.

And yes, he was a January 6th suspect on top of everything else.

A man identified by two law enforcement sources as Ricky Shiffer, who died in a confrontation with police after he fired a nail gun at a Cincinnati FBI building, appeared to post online in recent days about his desire to kill FBI agents shortly after former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was searched.

Two law enforcement officials confirmed Shiffer’s name. Shiffer was at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, according to three people aiding law enforcement who saw him in photos taken from the day of the attack; however, it’s unclear whether he went inside the building. Shiffer frequently posted about his attendance at the Capitol on social media.

On Truth Social, a social media platform founded by Trump’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, Shiffer appeared to have posted a message detailing his failed attempt to gain entry to the FBI building.

“Well, I thought I had a way through bullet proof glass, and I didn’t. If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the F.B.I. got me, or they sent the regular cops while,” the account @RickyWShifferJr wrote at 9:29 a.m. ET, shortly after police allege the shooting occurred.

Shiffer posted to Truth Social multiple times in the days after the FBI searched Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, about wanting to engage in violence. One post called for people to arm themselves and be ready for “combat.”

“We must not tolerate this one,” he wrote.

Shiffer's Truth Social account, which was seen by NBC News on Thursday evening, has since become unavailable.

After another user responded that his photo and information had been forwarded to the FBI, Shiffer’s account responded: “Bring them on.”

In response to another user who asked whether Shiffer was advocating for terrorism, Shiffer’s account responded that users should kill FBI agents “on sight” and also target a vague list of enemies who try to stop the slayings.

In reply to another user Tuesday, the account responded, “You’re a fool if you think there’s a nonviolent solution.”

On May 7, Shiffer’s account replied to a post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., on Twitter, in which she wrote, “I know they are trying 1984, but I’m feeling 2016 vibes.”

“Congresswoman Greene, they got away with fixing elections in plain sight,” Shiffer’s account wrote. “It’s over. The next step is the one we used in 1775.”

On the same day, responding to a post by Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter imploring users to “Get ready” because “the midterm variant (of COVID-19) is coming and it’s going to be really scary,” referring to conspiracy theories that Covid-19 is manufactured or not dangerous, the account responded, “Do not comply.”

Pro-Trump internet forums erupted with violent threats and calls for civil war in the hours and days after the Mar-a-Lago search, at least one of them from a person who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

 

This is exactly the type of person I have been warning you about for years now, people willing to die for fucking Donald Trump.

 

There will be more, possibly a lot more, in the weeks and months ahead.

 

Not all of them will flame out spectacularly and get swept up by the feds or even end up dead in cornfields after standoffs.

 

Some of them will take others with them when they go.

 

For the love of God, be careful out there, folks.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

This afternoon, US Attorney General Merrick Garland stepped up to a podium at the Justice Department and completely ruined Donald Trump's week. Marcy Wheeler explains:

 

Merrick Garland just announced that the government has moved to unseal limited parts of the search warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago, pending giving Trump an opportunity to object.

Garland cited the public interest, but also Trump’s disclosure of the search himself.

Although the government initially asked, and this Court agreed, to file the warrant and Attachments A and B under seal, releasing those documents at this time would not “impair court functions,” including the government’s ability to execute the warrant, given that the warrant has already been executed. See Romero, 480 F.3d at 1246. Furthermore, on the day that the search was executed, former President Trump issued a public statement that provided the first public confirmation that the search had occurred. Subsequently, the former President’s representatives have given additional statements to the press concerning the search, including public characterizations of the materials sought.

But he’s not asking to unseal the whole warrant.

On the contrary. He’s only unsealing precisely the documents that Trump already has in his possession: the cover page and Appendices A (describing this house) and B (describing what can be seized). Indeed, the motion notes that the FBI gave Trump these documents.

In these circumstances involving a search of the residence of a former President, the government hereby requests that the Court unseal the Notice of Filing and its attachment (Docket Entry 17), absent objection by former President Trump. The attachment to that Notice consists of:

• The search warrant signed and approved by the Court on August 5, 2022, including Attachments A and B; and

• The redacted Property Receipt listing items seized pursuant to the search, filed with the Court on August 11, 2022.
  

The government will respond to the direction of the Court to provide further briefing as to additional entries on the docket, pursuant to the schedule set by the Court.

Consistent with standard practice in this Court, the search warrant and attachments were each filed under seal in Case No. 22-mj-8332-BER prior to the search; the Property Receipt was filed under seal today. Former President Trump, through counsel, was provided copies of each of these documents on August 8, 2022, as part of the execution of the search.

These documents are precisely the ones that Trump could have released all by himself, but chose not to. He could object now. But if he did, it would make clear — as if all the refusals to release it to journalists hasn’t already — that it’s really damning.

And now — in a short announcement where he took no questions, but where Garland made a fierce defense of DOJ and the FBI — Garland is calling Trump’s bluff.

 

And we know now this morning from the NY Times that Trump indeed did get a subpoena for these classified documents he was keeping in Mar-a-Lago back in June, and Trump ignored it.

Former President Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.

The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents seeking classified material they believed might still be there, even after efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to ensure that it had been returned.

The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and members-only club.

Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.

The subpoena was first disclosed by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has also been designated by Mr. Trump as one of his representatives to the National Archives.

The existence of the subpoena is being used by allies of Mr. Trump to make a case that the former president and his team were cooperating with the Justice Department in identifying and returning the documents in question and that the search was unjustified.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Christina Bobb, a lawyer working for Mr. Trump, did not respond to messages. It is not clear what precise materials the subpoena sought or what documents the former president might have provided in response.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Thursday confirmed that he personally signed off on a search warrant that was executed on Monday. He did not address a subpoena, but said that “where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means,” indicating that other measures were tried before a search took place.

The subpoena factored into a visit that Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, made with a small group of other federal officials to Mar-a-Lago weeks later, in early June, one of the people said.

 

What Trump did not do was cooperate fully with the subpoena. The feds believed Trump still had classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, documents of such sensitive nature that the feds showed up on Monday to get them personally.

 

Thanks to the Washington Post, we know what these documents were and why they were so important to recover.

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.

The people who described some of the material that agents were seeking spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. They did not offer additional details about what type of information the agents were seeking, including whether it involved weapons belonging to the United States or some other nation. Nor did they say if such documents were recovered as part of the search. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

Again, if the documents were harmless, we absolutely would have seen Trump release the warrant and appendices that he got and scream WITCH HUNT at the top of his lungs over being UNFAIRLY PERSECUTED LIKE NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY over classified White House cookie recipes.

But Trump didn't do that.  And now Garland is giving him the business: either this list gets out, or he has to object in court, proving he has something to hide.

My theory is again that he has to. Just the list of what was taken out of there would end him, and everyone knows it.

We'll see what Trump does.

The Rent Is Too Damn High, Con't

As I've been warning about for months now, corporate takeovers of rental property companies, double-digit rent inflation, NIMBY bans on new apartment complexes, the end of pandemic eviction moratoriums, and the housing crisis pushing both existing and potential homeowners into renting, now means that the renting crisis is upon us and in a bad way.

Rental costs in the US are soaring at the fastest pace in more than three decades, surpassing a median of $2,000 a month for the first time ever and pushing rents above pre-pandemic levels in most major cities. Increases are particularly steep in metropolitan areas that saw large influxes of new residents during the pandemic, but the rental market is sparing almost nowhere and no one.

While the affordability crisis in the US is not new, it has snowballed over the past year as people returned to big cities and some areas short on housing supply saw a boom of new residents. Demand for rentals has soared, with many would-be homebuyers backing out of the market after mortgage rates jumped this year as a result of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate hikes.

Tight inventory is leading to bidding wars, typically more a fixture of the homebuying market. Rising costs and a shortage of available units are giving landlords the leverage to hike rents at all price points. And the end of the federal eviction moratorium, combined with dwindling rental assistance, has forced people to make tough choices.

“It’s pretty much the perfect storm for renters right now,” said Kate Reynolds, principal policy associate at the Washington-based Urban Institute. “Those renters and their landlords don’t have a place to turn if they’re unable to pay the rent.”
Inflation Pressure

Many renters, who typically spend a greater share of their income on housing than homeowners, are already struggling to keep up with larger bills at the grocery store and the gas station thanks to inflation running near the highest in four decades. And rent hikes are expected to persistently push inflation higher, since leases are staggered and renters face shocks at different times. Shelter costs account for about a third of the closely watched consumer price index, which increased by 8.5% in July from a year earlier, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday.

People of color and those with lower incomes are the most affected by the increase in rent prices, since they account for the majority of renters. In the US, about 58% of households headed by Black adults rent their homes, along with nearly 52% of Latino-led households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In comparison, about a quarter of households led by non-Hispanic White adults, and a little under 40% of Asian-led households, are rentals. Some 54% of renters earn less than $50,000, and the annual median household income among renters is about $42,500, below the national median of $67,500, according to Zillow.

 

And again, this isn't a nationwide focus because it's a problem that primarily affects Black, Hispanic and Asian folks, not white ones, so nobody's going to care.

Certainly we won't see any legislation get past the GOP that would help the tens of millions of American renters facing financial ruin.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Local Edition

I am truly saddened to be right in my predictions of MAGA terrorist violence after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

A pursuit and ongoing police situation in Clinton County has shut down two highways and prompted an area lockdown Thursday. It all started after an armed suspect attempted to breach an FBI building in Cincinnati.

According to FBI Cincinnati, it started around 9 a.m. when a person showed up to the office in Kenwood and attempted to breach the visitor screening facility.

An alarm went off and FBI special agents responded when the man fired a nail gun at law enforcement personnel. The man then held up an AR-15 style rifle before fleeing in a vehicle north onto I-71 leading Ohio State Highway Patrol on a pursuit into Clinton County.

The FBI, Ohio State Highway Patrol and local law enforcement are now on scene near Wilmington where they say they are trying to resolve the critical incident. 

 

What did you expect the party of January 6th was going to do in response, folks? Republicans in Congress have been screaming for FBI blood since Monday.

Today the got a taste of it.

More will follow.

The Big Lie, Con't

The feds moved on multiple state House and Senate Republican offices in Pennsylvania this week in connection with the effort by Trump minions to seat fraudulent electors in 2020 in order to give Trump the state.

Federal investigators delivered subpoenas or paid visits to several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to multiple sources.

At least some of the individuals receiving subpoenas were told they were not targets of an investigation, according to at least six sources reached by PennLive, but that they may have information of interest to the FBI. All of the sources had been briefed on the investigative moves in some way, but demanded anonymity in order to discuss them.

The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, several sources said.

The Washington Post on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the probe, also reported that Perry’s cellphone was seized Tuesday as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the use of fake electors to try to overturn President Biden’s victory. The Post’s source also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Spokepersons for the Pennsylvania’s House and Senate Republican leaders did not confirm whether any of their caucus members received a subpoena.

“I am unaware of any FBI presence in the Capitol or Leader Benninghoff’s office yesterday. To the extent House members or staff may have been contacted by the FBI, we would not comment on a potential or ongoing investigation,” said Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, and the chamber’s Republican caucus.

A spokesman for House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, said on Wednesday morning that office did not receive a visit and said they were unaware of the FBI having a presence in the Capitol on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, referred questions to the office of Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County.

Jason Thompson, a spokesman for Corman, issued a statement, saying, “Federal subpoenas typically request confidentiality from the witnesses being subpoenaed in order to avoid impediment to the ongoing investigation, so it would be inappropriate to comment on whether members have received subpoenas or not. If subpoenaed as witnesses, our members will certainly comply with requests for documents or information not covered by an applicable privilege.”

He added: “We have no indication that any of our members are targets of any FBI investigation.”

The conspiracy to defraud the United States through the attempted appointment of electors sworn to Trump and not to the actual winner of the state is something that has to carry significant prison time for everyone involved.

That includes Trump himself.

I don't think the charges will go that high, because as I've said several times in the last few days, America isn't even ready to begin to discuss the cost of indicting Trump and the violence that will follow. Justice will have a steep price.

But the investigations are moving on towards justice.

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

The Trump MAGA Chuds want blood after this week's FBI search of Mar-a Lago, and odds are real good they're going to unleash some significant violence in the weeks and months ahead as November gets closer.

Far-right extremists on pro-Donald Trump message boards and social networks are making violent, antisemitic threats against the judge who reportedly signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to search the former president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Multiple members of these toxic online communities are even posting what appears to be Judge Bruce Reinhart’s home address, phone numbers, and names of his family members alongside threats of extreme violence.

“This is the piece of shit judge who approved FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago,” a user wrote on the pro-Trump message board formerly known as TheDonald. “I see a rope around his neck.”

Responding, another user wrote: “Idgaf [I don’t give a fuck] anymore. Name? Address? Put that shit all up on here.” Moments later, a different member replied with what appears to be Reinhart’s current address, phone numbers, previous addresses, and names of possible relatives.

In another post on the same message board, one user commented, “Let's find out if he has children....where they go to school, where they live...EVERYTHING.”

These threats of violence and antisemitic slurs on a range of platforms, including 4chan, Telegram, Gettr, Gab, and Trump’s own platforms called Truth Social, were first uncovered by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that conducts public-interest investigations.

“The threats against Judge Reinhart in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid are significant,” Daniel J. Jones, founder of Advance Democracy, told VICE News. “In addition to the antisemitic and violent slurs, we’re seeing his address and other personal information being shared online—with the implied or explicit purpose of ‘real-life’ action.”

A message board where a number of these threats were posted also happens to be the same one where many of those involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot posted threats of violence in the lead-up to Jan. 6.

These threats against the judge, Jones told VICE News, are “all the more alerting given the events of January 6.”

These threats made against Reinhart and his family didn’t occur in a vacuum: Within hours of the FBI searching Trump’s Palm Beach home, the former president’s supporters reacted furiously, calling for civil war and the dismantling of the FBI. As Trump has scrambled to explain why his home was searched, he has also pushed conspiracy theories about the FBI supposedly planting evidence there.

Right-wing news outlets have also tried to connect the judge to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Reinhart worked as a federal prosecutor until 2008, and a day after he quit, he became the defense attorney for a number of Epstein’s employees, including his pilots and a scheduler, according to his 2018 Miami Herald report. The link between Reinhart and Epstein has been weaponized by Trump supporters to incorrectly imply Reinhart was Epstein’s own lawyer, and, by extension, was corrupt and possibly a pedophile. (A small note in light of these accusations: Trump had a long personal relationship with Epstein, and once famously told New York Magazine that he was a “terrific guy.”)

On fringe message board 4chan, one user posted an image of Reinhart with the caption: “About that Judge that signed the search Warrant…Bruce Reinhart once quit his job as a U.S. Attorney to work for Jeffrey Epstein. Another 4chan user wrote in response: “That is a k***. And a pedophile … He should be tried for treason and executed.”

“The U.S. Marshals are responsible for the protection of the federal judicial process, and we take that responsibility very seriously,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals told VICE News when asked for comment about the threats. “While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the measures in place and take appropriate steps to ensure the integrity of the federal judicial process.”

As I said before, we need to be prepared for the very real violence that will come if Trump is indicted, and as Damon Linker explains, we as a country are not in any way, shape or form ready.

 

I’m already on the record opposing the federal prosecution of the former president for his actions leading up to and throughout the insurrectionary violence on Capitol Hill during the afternoon of January 6, 2021. At the moment, it’s unclear if Monday’s raid was connected to the Justice Department’s investigation of those actions, or if the search for classified documents in Trump’s home was part of some other investigation. But it doesn’t really matter, since the theatrics of the event served as a preliminary test of how the country will respond to any effort by law enforcement to prosecute Trump.

And America is already failing that test.

In a country where the political system, including its two major parties, believed in the rule of law and trusted the nation’s public institutions to uphold it, response to the raid would have been muted. Republicans would have joined with Democrats in releasing grave but cautious statements, calling for patience, making the point that the unprecedented criminal investigation of a former president must be allowed to run its course before firm opinions can be reached.

Instead, leading Republicans immediately treated the raid as an illegitimate act undertaken by an alien, tyrannical “Regime” resembling a Third World dictatorship. Several used language about law enforcement being “weaponized” for political purposes. Many also connected it to the recent party-line passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included provisions for hiring an additional 87,000 IRS agents to pursue tax cheats. This was the message: If they can raid the home of the former president, they will be coming for you next.

The Republican response confirms at least two troubling things about the state of the party and the country.

First, Trump maintains an iron grip on the GOP. If you want to understand why so many leading Republicans rose immediately to his defense, look at the results of the straw poll at last weekend’s CPAC conference, which the former president won with 69 percent. That’s up from 55 percent in February 2021 and 59 percent in February of this year—showing that devotion to Trump is increasing over time among the most committed voters and activists on the right, despite considerable admiration for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and despite (or maybe because of) the January 6 hearings. Trump remains the boss, in other words. The Republican base trusts him more than the institutions of American government, which is why elected members of the party are quick to side with him against the latter.

That points to the second thing that reaction to the raid has confirmed: Confidence or trust in American institutions is at historic lows. Trump’s political rise was a manifestation of that lack of trust—and, as a master demagogue, his very presence on the political scene continually drives those numbers lower.

He accomplishes this by refusing to play along with the atmospherics of high-minded politics. No one is given the benefit of the doubt unless they personally ingratiate themselves to him. No Democrat (like Attorney General Merrick Garland) could possibly be trying to do the right thing. There’s always a baser motive to point to, always an interpretation of events that suggests an effort to cloak a power-grab in exalted language. Law (and its enforcement) is indistinguishable from politics. The effort to pretend otherwise is just another (more deceptive) act of self-aggrandizement.

All of which means that for the better part of a decade now, Trump has been teaching his party that “the rule of law” is for saps, suckers, and chumps—and its voters have learned their lessons well.

To this, many Democrats and anti-Trump conservatives respond: All the more reason why we need to prosecute him, to vindicate the rule of law and show that justice can still be done.

And hey, I get it. In theory, that sounds exactly right. I’d love to see Trump punished for any acts that broke the law, both for the sake of justice and in order to deter future acts of political treachery. The problem is that this is a polity, not a graduate seminar in Kantian ethics. If only one of the country’s two major parties accepts the legitimacy of prosecuting a former (and possibly future) president, then the rule of law will not be vindicated, only Democrats will think that justice has been done, and no future bad actors will be deterred. Rather than healing the country’s civic wounds, the effort to punish Trump will only deepen them.

 

The cost of indicting and prosecuting Donald Trump is going to come at a ruinous cost. It's the right thing to do, but the bill is going to be covered in blood.

 

We're not going to make it to the other side without losing some good people, is what I'm saying.

 

And we're not ready to hear that.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump indeed made good on his promise that he would testify in New York AG Tish James's investigation into corruption at the Trump Organization, and in true Trump fashion, he took the Fifth on every question.

Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as he testified under oath Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement.

Trump arrived at Attorney General Letitia James’ Manhattan offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., before announcing more than an hour later that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

As vociferous as Trump has been in defending himself in written statements and on the rally stage, legal experts said answering questions in a deposition was risky because anything he said could potentially be used against him in a parallel criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney. The Fifth Amendment protects people from being compelled to be witnesses against themselves in a criminal case.

Still, New York University law professor Stephen Gillers said he was surprised, given Trump’s previous experience with depositions, a legal term for sworn testimony that’s not given in court.

“Jousting with lawyers at depositions, while avoiding lying, is something he’s proud of,” Gillers said. “Perhaps his lawyers feared that his impetuosity would imperil him.”

Trump has undergone many depositions, dating to his career as a real estate developer. He has sometimes seemed to relish giving answers: For example, he said he was “pleased to have had the opportunity to tell my side” last October in a lawsuit brought by protesters who say his security guard roughed them up outside Trump Tower in 2015.

However, Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment to refuse to answer 97 questions in a 1990 divorce deposition.

 

Between this and the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, Trump is 100% going to ride the victim card back to the 2024 nomination.  I don't expect any indictments here in NY, in Georgia with Fani Willis's Fulton County case against him over election interference, and I especially don't expect any federal indictments from Merricik Garland. 

 

I do however expect breathtakingly deadly white supremacist terrorist violence in his name and for Democrats investigating Trump to be blamed for the massacres until these cases are dropped, or they are dropped for them by Republicans.

Retribution Execution, Con't

House Republicans, greasy assurance of control of the chamber next year plastered all over their faces, are all but promising months of investigations they say are going to send Hunter Biden and his dad to the clink as payback for this week's FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The MAGA CHUDs will demand it, and Democrats should welcome it because it might be the "only way" to sate enraged Trump voters and stop them from violence against liberals, or something.

As House Republicans rush to argue that the FBI search of Donald Trump’s home is marred by politics, they are readying a future Hunter Biden investigation designed to ensnare Joe Biden ahead of a potential reelection bid.

House Republicans see no contradiction between their suspicion of the FBI’s law enforcement activity at Mar-a-Lago and their interest in digging into the business dealings of the president’s son and other family members. Oversight of the Bidens, they contend, would counterbalance what they see as a Justice Department where partisanship influences decisions like the probe of 2020 election subversion that’s drawing closer to Trump.

But the House GOP’s eagerness to say the quiet part out loud about their Biden investigation, injecting presidential politics into an already acrimonious chamber, underscores how far it has come since Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy took intra-party heat in 2015 for touting the electoral payoff of an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

These days, Republicans are making no secret of their plans to use a Hunter Biden inquiry next year as a platform to go after his father — after years of brushing off conflicts of interest within Trump’s family. No evidence has emerged to show that the business dealings of Hunter Biden, who’s faced a years-long federal investigation, affected his father’s decisions as president.

GOP lawmakers are pushing ahead anyway, planning a sprawling probe that will reach into the ethics of Hunter Biden’s artwork sales and other business deals, as well as policy decisions by the Biden administration.

“I’m not exactly sure I see a big difference” between starting with Hunter and incorporating Joe Biden from the getgo, said Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), a member of the Oversight Committee, which is expected to take the lead on a House inquiry into Hunter Biden. “Obviously, you start with Hunter … [but] it appears as though the president is involved as well, and it’s something you’re going to have to look into.”

The president’s son has long fueled a conservative media fixation on par with Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified material, and a House majority would help Republicans try to push their narrative into the mainstream. But GOP plans to poke at Hunter Biden may have to compete with a growing GOP appetite for an in-depth House inquiry into the DOJ’s scrutiny of Trump, particularly if Republicans decide to form a select committee instead of launching an investigation through the Judiciary Committee.

Conversations Tuesday with more than a half-dozen House Republicans revealed deep concern about constituents panicked and infuriated by the FBI’s daylong Mar-a-Lago search.

“The base has lost its mind. If Trump decides to call them to arms, then I think he could get another Jan. 6,” one senior House Republican said in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But before this week’s law enforcement activity against Trump, House Republicans had been homing in on Hunter, and several name-checked him in their response to the FBI’s search. Months before an election that will determine whether they control the House, GOP lawmakers and committee aides are already doing prep work, including planning hearings, collecting documents and nailing down potential witnesses — including former business associates and banks.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), set to chair the Oversight Committee if Republicans win the majority, said he’ll be ready to formally launch an investigation in January, when the new Congress is sworn in.

“We’re going to have a great hearing early on the potential wrongdoing within the Biden family,” Comer said in an interview. “The fear is that these shady business dealings have compromised the president.”

 

Hearings on Hunter Biden. Hearings on the Trump investigation. Hearing on immigration. Hearings on the COVID-19 vaccine. Hearings on the January 6th hearings, All televised, wall-to-wall House Republicans screaming SCANDAL and IMPEACH for months, if not years.

 

And no legislation to help actually solve any of America's problems.

That's what's coming if these trolls get back in power.

Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.

Last Call For Orange Rubi-Con

Multiple folks are making the observation that given the search warrant issued on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort property and hauling off boxes of classified documents that Trump illegally kept, Attorney General Merrick Garland has no choice but to indict Trump. 

Will Bunch leads us off:

Around 7 p.m. Monday, the nation’s already fragile body politic was shocked to learn that a team of FBI agents had descended on Mar-a-Lago, the faded Palm Beach mansion where a once-and-wannabe-future president resides in exile. The raid on Trump’s primary residence was confirmed by the short-fingered vulgarian himself in a lengthy online diatribe, in which POTUS revealed that the feds even cracked open his personal safe.

I’m writing this in the pre-dawn gloaming less than 12 hours later, and the list of what we don’t know about the FBI’s action is a lot longer than what we do know. Most importantly, it’s unclear — given the long potential list of high crimes and misdemeanors that could be tied to the ringleader of the Jan. 6 insurrection — what exactly the feds were looking for inside the Trump castle.

Early reports centered on those 15 boxes of documents, including some highly classified papers, that Trump spirited out of the White House before President Biden moved in, and the possible implications for national security. That’s a potentially serious crime that could, according to the statute, bar Trump from running again for president in 2024.

But whatever the goal of the FBI raid, one thing was clear: American politics will never be quite the same. In our long-running debate over whether presidents — even undeniably rotten ones like Nixon or Trump — are above the law, Attorney General Merrick Garland and his Justice Department have just crossed a Rubicon, and there is no turning back. Either Donald Trump will be brought to justice, or the American Experiment will implode.

 

David Corn agrees with that assessment.

Under Justice Department rules, federal prosecutors are not allowed to reveal the details of investigations outside of indictments and court filings. This is to protect the subjects of probes. If an investigation ends up with no prosecution, the person or entity investigated ought not be blemished. This rule has occasionally been broken, most famously when FBI Director Jim Comey disclosed that the bureau was investigating Hillary Clinton for her use of a private server for her emails when she was secretary of state. And I’ve argued that Garland should have set this rule aside and told the public what his department was doing regarding possible investigations of Trump and his crew’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But it’s generally a sound rule, and so far the Justice Department and the FBI appear to be adhering to it by not commenting on the Mar-a-Lago raid.

We probably won’t see a press conference from Garland, Wray, or anyone else that details the reasons for the raid—though in this highly unusual instance, too, one could contend that an exception is warranted. But let’s assume Garland and the others remain tight-lipped. That means the only way the Justice Department will be able to justify the search will be to issue an indictment. An indictment would reveal the crime being investigated and why the bureau concluded an uninvited trip to Trump’s resort was necessary. Whatever details are contained in such an indictment would likely not be sufficient to convince the Trump fanatics, but they could convince reasonable-minded Americans that the Justice Department and the FBI acted appropriately and legally.

We have all heard countless times that Garland is an institutionalist who cares deeply about depoliticizing the Justice Department and its reputation. Certainly, Garland, widely criticized by progressives for not vigorously investigating Trump, cares about his own rep, too. He and the department are now highly incentivized to justify the FBI raid to preserve the image of the department and the bureau—as well as his own. The stakes are high, and Garland has crossed a line. For him and the department to prove this was not an obscene abuse of power, the investigation must reach the point where indictments are released and information is presented to the public. If the probe fails to hit that stage, this raid will indeed create suspicion (for those not in the Trump cult) and tarnish the department. To prevent a massive blow to the DOJ, the department has to pursue this matter vigorously and eventually unveil a strong case. Garland will have to put the department’s cards on the table. There can be no bluffing here.

As of now, it is easy to speculate about the investigation. The boxes of documents Trump improperly took from the White House—which contained highly classified materials—had been returned. So a good guess is that this probe is focused on how that material was handled. Were all the records sent back? Were any documents destroyed, copied, or shared with another party? Does the possible crime involve someone other than Trump? (We do know that foreign intelligence services, including the Chinese intelligence service, have targeted Mar-a-Lago.)

The mystery might remain for a while, absent an official statement or leaks from the Justice Department and the FBI. Meanwhile, the political battle detonated by the raid will not fade. This move has increased the already excessive and unfounded paranoia on the Trump right and has placed the Justice Department in a tight spot. The only way out for Garland and the department is to show it had no choice but to send its agents to search the home of a former president and blow his safe. For that to happen, someone will likely have to be indicted.

 

Insider NJ's Joe Hayden:

 

The significant fact is that the Department of Justice chose to utilize a search warrant to obtain the evidence rather than a subpoena. This suggests that they did not believe that the evidence in question would be produced by Trump pursuant to a subpoena, and they had to utilize the drastic remedy of a search warrant against a former President.

To me this decisive action by Attorney General Garland means that his mindset has shifted from whether to seriously investigate Trump, to how to investigate Trump, to a new focus where Donald Trump is now the target of the Department of Justice. Every person who is a target is not indicted, but being a target is a legally dangerous place to be.

The firestorm created by the execution of the search warrant was predictable. In the wake of the news reports, Donald Trump lashed out and suggested that he is the victim of a political persecution. Politicians like Ronald DeSantis, Minority Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel are arguing that the Department of Justice is weaponizing its investigations. Some right-wing extremist groups have already proclaimed that they are getting ready to go to “war.” In my view, these false and bombastic counterattacks against Merrick Garland will only make him more, not less determined. Once somebody jumps out of an airplane, there is no turning back. 

Bloomberg's Tim O'Brien:

Theft of government records is the least of Trump’s legal worries, however. Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to be finally bringing the full weight of federal law enforcement to bear on the former president. Depending on how aggressively Garland pursues Trump for the attempted coup that he and his co-conspirators tried to engineer after he lost the 2020 presidential election, the list of criminal charges could include seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the US and obstruction of official proceedings.

Garland’s choices in the months ahead will have momentous consequences. His correct course of action would be to demonstrate that no president is above the law and indict Trump. As the Jan. 6 committee hearings have already demonstrated, Trump and his team were awash in crimes — including creating slates of false electors to be used in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential vote and pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to withhold certification of the 2020 election. The Justice Department has convened a grand jury to investigate both of those efforts.

 

The National Interest's Dov Zakheim:

 

Attorney General Merrick Garland has been accused of moving too slowly to indict Trump. There is considerable merit to the accusation. Garland’s televised response to the question of why the Justice Department was moving at glacial speed (actually, a glacier can move more quickly) was that ultimately no one would be treated as above the law. “Ultimately” can be a very long time, however. It is indeed puzzling why Garland has yet to act after nineteen months of having his Justice Department investigate what happened on that January day.

Garland’s exceedingly deliberate approach appears to mirror that of the administration as a whole. After all, the Biden team was slow to plan for the military’s departure from Afghanistan, resulting in a chaotic debacle. It was slow to arm Ukraine with HIMARS rockets and other high technology systems, with the result that Kyiv lost more territory to Russia than might otherwise have been the case. It was slow to recognize that its “Build Back Better” domestic plan had absolutely no prospect of ever getting through the Senate. The cost of the far more realistic plan that actually did pass into law involved just over 20 percent that of its original version.

Yet it is critical that Garland accelerate his investigation and indict Trump. The former president is dropping increasingly heavy hints that he intends to run for his former office in 2024. Indeed, in the aftermath of the FBI raid on his home, which Trump claimed was “under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” while calling himself “president,” he went on to assert that the raid was “an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run in 2024, especially based on recent polls.” He is, in effect, positioning himself as a martyr in the event that he is indicted.

Trump is expected formally to announce in September that he is once again running for the presidency. Once having made his announcement, his response to an indictment would be an even shriller version of his accusation that the FBI raid was nothing more than political persecution.

On the other hand, his bleating would be far less credible if he were indicted before he announced that he is running again. To all but his most ardent admirers—that is, those who throw money at his offers of golf balls, whiskey glasses, photos, and free trips—his announcement that he was a candidate for president would appear to be little more than just another attempt to discredit the indictment. Moreover, an early indictment would certainly embolden his Republican rivals—and there are many—to challenge him for the nomination. 

An early indictment may not on its own be enough to derail Trump’s efforts once more to seize the helm of this great land. But it would put Trump on the political defensive and hearten those genuine Republicans who wish to see him gone. Merrick Garland should not wait for Trump to announce another run for the White House. He should indict him as soon as possible and no later than Labor Day. 

 

All of these are good arguments as to charging Trump with federal crimes sooner rather than later. with the "90 days before the election period" that has often been the unofficial DoJ buffer deadline to prevent "election interference" imminent, as in tomorrow, it's not something that can wait until mid-November, either. 

We'll see.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Steve M. points out that Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis may not be the lock Ron DeSantis believes Ron DeSantis to be in 2022, campaigning for a slate of other GOP gubernatorial proto-fascists.

Ron DeSantis is America's governor? Really? Because it's theoretically possible that, come next year, Ron DeSantis won't even be his own state's governor: Florida Politics reports: 

A poll released by two Florida progressive groups suggest Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis may face more resistance to re-election than expected.

Survey results released by Progress Florida and Florida Watch show 47% of registered voters intend to vote for DeSantis for re-election, while 44% intend to vote for U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist. DeSantis leads Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, 49%-43%. 

A memo from the pollsters adds: 

Given his financial advantage DeSantis remains a favorite to win re-election, but this polarizing nature could put a ceiling on his support (DeSantis is viewed favorably by 50% of voters and unfavorably by 48%; 39% view him very favorably and 40% view him very unfavorably).

Importantly, this data comes from a poll weighted to reflect what would be the most pro-Republican electorate in recent history: with registered Republicans making up 41% of the electorate and registered Democrats 37%.The same poll shows Democrat Val Demings tied with incumbent Marco Rubio, 45%-45%, in this year's Senate race.

This isn't the only poll to show a tight gubernatorial race in Florida. A Phillips Academy survey in May showed DeSantis leading by less than a point. A poll released in early June by the Listener Group actually showed Crist leading by 1. (Crist is the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, according to the Real Clear Politics average; the primary is August 23.)

I know that DeSantis has more money than God in his campaign coffers. He probably won't lose. But he's campaigning for other people -- among them some of the worst figures in America -- as if he already has his own race won. Pretty arrogant for a guy who won his last race by four tenths of a point.

 

Which brings up the question, how accurate is this state polling anyway?

 

National polling is very accurate as a rule. But state polling is almost always wrong. The question is "How wrong?" and "In which direction?"  In 2020, state polling was off by a lot, badly overestimating Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor by an average of six points.

 

Probably the most infamous of these errors in 2020 was the Iowa US Senate race between Jodi Ernst and Theresa Greenfield. The polls for Greenfield has her winning, right up until the last couple of weeks when it turns out the polls, polling models, and polling results were fantastically wrong and Ernst handily won re-election by seven points. The major pollsters all had this race as a toss-up, and it was anything but.

And then there was Susan Collins in Maine, who won by 9 points when several pollsters said the race was not only not a toss-up, but that it favored Democrat Sara Gideon. The polls were off by double digits.

No, at this point, I really don't care what state polling has to say.  At this point we have to be fighting for every Senate seat and Governor's Mansion like our country depends on it.

Because it does.

Climate Of Emergency, Local Edition Con't

President Biden yesterday visited Eastern Kentucky counties devastated by flooding two weeks ago and pledged more FEMA aid to the region.

 

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Monday witnessed the damage from deadly and devastating storms that have resulted in the worst flooding in Kentucky’s history, as they visited the state to meet with families and first responders.

At least 37 people have died since last month’s deluge, which dropped 8 to 10-1/2 inches of rain in only 48 hours. Gov. Andy Beshear told Biden that authorities expect to add at least one other death to the total. The National Weather Service said Sunday that flooding remains a threat, warning of more thunderstorms through Thursday.

The president said the nation has an obligation to help all its people, declaring the federal government would provide support until residents were back on their feet. Behind him as he spoke was a single-story house that the storm had dislodged and then left littered on the ground, tilted sideways.

“We have the capacity to do this — it’s not like it’s beyond our control,” Biden said. “We’re staying until everybody’s back to where they were.”

In the summer heat and humidity, Biden’s button-down shirt was covered in sweat. Pacing with a microphone in his hand, he eschewed formal remarks as he pledged to return once the community was rebuilt.

“The bad news for you is I’m coming back, because I want to see it,” the president said.

The Bidens were greeted warmly by Beshear and his wife, Britainy, when they arrived in eastern Kentucky. They immediately drove to see devastation from the storms in Breathitt County, stopping at the site of where a school bus, carried by floodwaters, was crashed into a partially collapsed building.

Beshear said the flooding was “unlike anything we’ve ever seen” in the state and credited Biden with swiftly approving federal assistance.

He praised responders who “have moved heaven and earth to get where we are, what, about nine days from when this hit,” he said.

Attending a briefing on the flooding’s impact with first responders and recovery specialists at Marie Roberts Elementary School in Lost Creek, Biden told a delegation of Kentucky leaders that he would do whatever was necessary to help.

“I promise you, if it’s legal, we’ll do it,” he said. “And if it’s not legal, we’ll figure out how to change the law.” 

 

That would be a threat coming from The Former Guy.

 

I'm glad the Commonwealth will get the aid it needs, and I guarantee you that if GOP Rep. Thomas Massie can find a way to vote against it, he will. 

Watch.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Oh look, Merrick Garland did the thing.

Former President Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home and had broken open a safe — an account that, if accurate, would be a dramatic escalation in the various investigations into the former president.

The search, according to two people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, after he left the White House. Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents, according to a person familiar with their contents.

Mr. Trump delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, only doing so when there became a threat of action being taken to retrieve them.

Mr. Trump was known throughout his term to rip up official material that was intended to be held for government archives.

“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Mr. Trump said, maintaining it was an effort to stop him from running for president in 2024. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”

“They even broke into my safe!” he wrote. “What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

Mr. Trump did not share any details about what the F.B.I. agents said they were searching for. But he depicted himself as a victim of shadowy forces seeking to damage him.

The search took place on Monday morning, a person familiar with it said, although Mr. Trump claimed agents were still there many hours later.

The search was at least in part for whether any records remained at the club, the person familiar with the search said.

The reported search came at a time when the Justice Department has also been stepping up questioning of former Trump aides who had been witnesses to discussion and planning in the White House of Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his loss in the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump has been the focus of questions asked by federal prosecutors in connection with a scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress for the certification of the Electoral College.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Mr. Trump said in the statement. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Mr. Trump said.

 

Do. Not. Mess. With the National Archives.

 

Here endeth the lesson.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

For like the thirtieth time, yes the Russian collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was real, yes it affected the outcome of the election, and yes Trump's margin of victory in five states that gave him the electoral college win was less than the thrid party vtes stripped from Hillary Clinton, in 2016, Jesus hell.

In an interview with Insider, Paul Manafort, who served as Donald Trump's campaign chairman, made his first public admission that in 2016 he shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime business associate with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.

Kilimnik then passed the data on to Russian spies, according to the US Treasury Department, which has characterized the data as "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy."

Manafort's acknowledgment contradicts his earlier denials, during the investigation into election interference conducted by the special counsel Robert Mueller, that he had anything to do with the transfer of sensitive campaign data. It also differs from the account he gives in his forthcoming memoir, "Political Prisoner," in which he concedes only that he presented Kilimnik with "talking points" on polling data that was already public.

In his interview with Insider, Manafort reiterated that at least some of the data was public. "The data that I shared with him," he said, "was a combination of public information and stuff for the spring that was — it was old." It's one of Manafort's primary lines of defense — that the data he funneled to Kilimnik was essentially worthless.

In fact, in an email seized by Mueller, Manafort ordered his deputy Rick Gates, just a few hours before the two men met with Kilimnik in person, to print out four pages of internal campaign polling data showing Trump's city-by-city strength in 18 swing states. Contrary to Manafort's claim, that data was not from the spring. It was collected by the campaign in mid-July — two weeks before the meeting with Kilimnik.

Manafort denied to Insider that the printouts were given to Kilimnik. But he said he directed Gates to feed Kilimnik polling data via email, to "keep Konstantin informed." He also worked hard to keep his dealings with Kilimnik a secret. In its report on Russian interference in the election, the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that it "had limited insight into Kilimnik's communications with Manafort" because the men relied on "sophisticated communications security practices." These included encryption, burner phones, and "foldering" — writing emails as drafts in a shared account.

Gates told the FBI that, at Manafort's direction, he began sending Kilimnik internal polling data in the spring of 2016 over WhatsApp and continued updating it periodically. He deleted his messages to Kilimnik daily. All told, according to court filings, he sent 75 pages of polling data to Kilimnik. Other than the four pages from August 2, the data itself has never been made public.

Manafort told Insider the purpose of sending the polling data to Kilimnik was not to help elect Trump by aiding the Russians in their attempts to undermine the election but rather to lay the groundwork for future business deals. "It was meant to show how Clinton was vulnerable," he said. By his account, he was trying to use his influence with the future US president to extract money from pro-Russia oligarchs.

 

Yes, Manafort and Gates broke the law, yes they were convicted, yes Donald Trump pardoned them for it, yes Manafort is openly bragging about breaking the law, no, nobody can do anything about that because it would be double jeopardy.

 

That's where we are. 

Manafort and Gates got away with it.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

Despite my serious misgivings and a last-minute Kyrsten Sinema tantrum that almost sank the entire bill, Senate Democrats got it done on Sunday, passing the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Senate on Sunday passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) along party lines, 51-50, handing Democrats a crucial legislative win as the midterm cycle ramps up -- despite GOP objections at the billions in spending and drug pricing reforms.

The sprawling climate, tax and health care legislation is now set up for quick passage in the Democratic-controlled House, with timing still to be announced, before President Joe Biden signs it into law.

Included in the bill, supporters are quick to highlight, are measures to foster job creation, raise taxes on large corporations and the wealthy, allow Medicare to negotiate down some prescription drug costs, expand the Affordable Care Act health care program and invest in combating climate change by implementing tax credits for clean energy initiatives, among other things.

Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate with all Democrats in support of the legislation and all Republicans opposed. The proposal was passed via the budget reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority rather than the 60 votes typically needed to overcome a filibuster.

The rules of reconciliation, however, limit what can and cannot be passed with 51 votes -- strictures that narrowed the legislation's scope even in the final days before the vote.

The legislation's tax provisions, prescription drug-pricing reform, as well as boosted IRS tax enforcement measures, are anticipated to raise an estimated revenue of $739 billion -- $300 billion of which Democrats say would go toward reducing the deficit.

The plan would reduce federal budget deficits by $102 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Despite the bill's name, however, the CBO found that it would have a minimal affect on high inflation in the short-term -- something Democrats have conceded when pressed.

The bill passed the Senate after a punishing, approximately 16-hour "vote-a-rama," in which any senator could introduce an amendment to the bill as part of the reconciliation process.

The amendment process fueled painful votes for each party.

Vulnerable Democratic incumbents up for reelection this year had to dance around a vote on the Biden administration's decision to scrap Title 42, a Trump-era order using coronavirus concerns to prevent migrants from entering the country while seeking asylum. Republicans, meanwhile, mostly voted against a Democratic amendment that would have capped out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month for people with private health insurance.

 

These two things are not the same, but Both Sides Forever.

 

Seriously though, the bill passed the Senate.  Things still can go wrong in the House, but I'm feeling confident about Nancy Pelosi being able to line up the votes. 

Not a law until Biden signs it, but we're over the rough part.  For now.

Last Call For Full Court Pressed, Con't

Increasingly, Republicans have decided that they no longer need, want, or will tolerate a free press, and getting rid of news networks, newspapers, magazines, news radio and cable news in favor of internet propaganda mills to reach the echo chamber faithful is all they will require, or will allow. The news outlets are discovering just how expendable they will be in a GOP fascist state, as NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben explains.

I went to Wisconsin in June to report on how abortion rights are affecting the Senate and governor primaries – the idea was to do one story on the Democrats and one on the Republicans.

Long story short: I heard back from the Democrats but not the Republicans. Phone calls, emails, Facebook messages – I didn't hear back from anyone. The top Republican governor candidates posted no events, though their social media showed they were out, talking to voters.

And so, when I happened to catch the top two GOP governor candidates walking in an Oconomowoc Fourth of July parade, I ran to the end of the route to catch them.

I found former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch greeting supporters. A staffer who then stepped between us told me they knew I had been reaching out and that I should contact a communications staffer, to whom I had already reached out. He would get back to me, she assured me.

He did not. And a day later, at a publicly-advertised meet-and-greet for governor candidate Kevin Nicholson, a staffer told me I wouldn't be allowed to even get tape of Nicholson greeting attendees.

As standalone anecdotes, these might not be a huge deal. However, they are also a part of a trend of Republican candidates ignoring or actively avoiding legacy media — particularly national outlets.

The phenomenon is impossible to quantify, but many Republican candidates are showing that they don't want – or need – to get their messages out via legacy media outlets. That can reduce the scrutiny they face while running for public office, hampering voters' ability to make informed choices.

A large group of reporters was kept out of a rally this spring for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. CBS's Robert Costa confronted a man who was blocking press from entry.

"If you're with the campaign, we can have a dialogue," Costa said.

"No dialogue," the man responded.

In addition, reporters have been frustrated by getting extremely limited access to other Republicans running for public office, like Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and Alaska congressional candidate Sarah Palin.

And the Republican National Committee voted unanimously this year to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates ahead of 2024. Chair Ronna McDaniel said the party would find other platforms for debating.

Recently, the Florida GOP allowed conservative outlets into the party's Sunshine Summit, but barred many mainstream reporters, including Dave Weigel, author of the Washington Post's campaign newsletter, "The Trailer."

"You have one person from the campaign tweeting a photo from inside the room and talking about how great the view is that the journalists can't see," he said. "Spokespeople who are not answering my basic questions, like, 'Is there a recording of this event?' are taking the time to make fun of reporters for going there."

Indeed, Gov. Ron DeSantis' spokeswoman Christina Pushaw taunted reporters on Twitter afterward.

"It has come to my attention that some liberal media activists are mad because they aren't allowed into #SunshineSummit this weekend," she wrote. "My message to them is to try crying about it."

 

Dear political beat reporters: Republicans consider you an enemy that needs to be destroyed.

 

They want to put you in prison for "lying" about them, which consists of factually true things and verbatim words by said Republicans that they don't like to hear.

 

And if the GOP gets control in 2022 and 2024, you will be imprisoned, sued out of existence, and worse.

 

Folks in the Village better wake up. I know Upton Sinclair famously wrote that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it", lord knows access journalism falls into this category, but if you guys don't start actually treating Republicans as enemies of democracy, you won't be a part of what comes after when they take over.

I guarantee you that Trump or DeSantis or even Pence won't give any of you the time of day, and the White House press room will look like CPAC for a reason.

You're not in the club, as George Carlin also famously said.