Last Call For Fantasma Santos, Con't

On Monday, I asked how Democrats could have possibly missed the fact that NY-3 GOP Rep. George Santos was a pathological liar and given the House seat away to this clown.

So he lied about his work at Goldman Sachs, he lied about his Baruch College degree, he lied about his family business, and oh yeah he's wanted for bad checks back in Brazil.

 

That Democrats in the state left Tom Suozzi's seat open for this clown to win it over Robert Zimmerman, figuring Zimmerman would win by osmosis or something, should serve as a critical lesson to the state's cancerous Democratic state party.

The fact that this level of scrutiny was not given to Santos until after her won with the rank lies and fabrications is a failure of the NY Times itself. This white supremacist clown should have been exposed months ago.

But the NY Democratic Party should have had this oppo research ready to go. Even an afternoon of work would have cost Santos the race, and they just didn't care to do basic due diligence.

 

At the NY Times, professional Democratic opposition researcher Tyson Brody offers a defense. 

 

Let’s go through the opposition research process. A junior researcher is tasked to write a “book” — a comprehensive report laying out a buffet of opposition research attacks on a given opponent. Then a senior researcher oversees and edits the book. As the Democratic candidate was not chosen until Aug. 23 in a district Democrats won comfortably in 2020, this process probably started late and was rushed.

Think back to that animal-rescue nonprofit, which reportedly was not registered as a charity. How did Mr. Santos get away with that unnoticed? He didn’t, exactly. We have a copy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s research book on Mr. Santos, polished for public consumption and posted online in August. Sure enough, we see that Mr. Santos’s charity is documented as unfindable in an I.R.S. database.

Documented, too, are evictions during the 2010s and instances of undisclosed personal finances that appear in the Times story. They’re in small sections interspersed through a nearly 90-page document, yet they’re there. Maybe given more time, the researchers could have gone further to confirm the nonprofit’s lack of state filings or could have contacted his former landlords.

What about Mr. Santos’s apparently lying about his employers and education? The Times reported that Baruch College could not confirm that he graduated in the year he claimed, and companies he has listed, such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, found no record of his employment. Often, opposition research is the dark art of searching databases and copying and pasting information so you can write prompts for reporters. You’d be shocked to know what a 20-something given enough time and direction can find out about a person. But oppo researchers are not private investigators, and it’s helpful to consider their sources. During their work, a researcher may notice there’s not a single piece of evidence outside of the candidate’s own claims about his or her history.

So how do you verify? There are sources like yearbooks and services used by employers for education checks, or you can always try asking politely. Employers and universities are under no requirement to share this information with anyone who calls — including a random person asking for the sake of political research. (Though I stress: The odds are better than you think if you ask.) An alternative solution is to bug newspaper reporters to ask those questions and hope their paper’s reputation compels an answer.

Reporters asking questions is what happened to Mr. Santos, as employers and schools spoke with The New York Times. Whether anyone else tried to this extent before, we don’t know. Certainly this story shows why researchers — and reporters — should kick the tires on even small claims by a candidate.

Let’s return to the research process: After a book is completed, communications staff members, campaign officials and consultants are briefed on the best hits the researchers could find for pitching to reporters and for advertising purposes. We can see one outcome of those briefings in a research-packed news release from the D.C.C.C. that blasted Mr. Santos as a “shady Wall Street bro.” Specifically, it highlights the absence of the nonprofit in the I.R.S. database and his previously undisclosed personal finances. It’s not the exact story, but months ago, a Democratic operative had the thought to call him “untrustworthy.”

Then what happened? The D.C.C.C. research department probably moved on to the next project. This year, as they do every two years, Democrats competed in hundreds of House races. The junior staff member may even be moved to a position at a technically distinct division and be legally unable to communicate with his or her former co-workers. That’s how some lines of inquiries never progress beyond PDF files.

Gently, however, I would suggest that the rest of the prepared Democratic research is quite compelling. Mr. Santos claimed he was at the Ellipse at the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, claimed in a video captured by trackers to have assisted with legal fees for Capitol rioters and said he supported a national abortion ban. Heavy stuff! That’s along with your standard politically toxic Republican agenda of cutting taxes for the rich while pursuing some form of partial privatization for Social Security.

We’re waiting for the final data, but Republicans probably carried this New York district for governor and senator. And that’s despite Senator Chuck Schumer’s spending $41 million to his opponent’s $545,000 statewide. Perhaps a stronger attack on Mr. Santos as a possible fraud would have allowed his Democratic opponent to escape such gravity.

And while NY Democrats absolutely dropped the ball on following up on Santos's fraudulence, I don't expect NY AG Tish James to be anywhere near as lenient.

 

The New York Attorney General’s Office said it is “looking into a number of issues" surrounding Congressman-elect George Santos, who was the subject of a bombshell New York Times investigation that questions whether the incoming Republican lawmaker fabricated much of his biography, including his education, work history and financial dealings.

The office, however, did not confirm whether it had opened an official investigation into Santos and declined to comment further on the matter.

A lawyer for Santos, Joe Murray, told NBC News in an email Thursday afternoon that he had "not been contacted by anyone" from the New York Attorney General's Office.

"I have nothing further to add at this time," he said.

 

I'd wish this jackass a Happy Hanukkah, but he lied about being Jewish too.

Weed, Feed, And Need

Turns out that even recreational marijuana is a secondary expense in states where weed is taxed, because unlike murderously addictive nicotine products, when inflation is high and people have to tighten their belts, getting baked takes a back seat to getting baked goods.

Marijuana tax collections dropped in several states this year as the cannabis industry struggles with low prices and a drop in demand.

California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington all collected less marijuana tax money in fiscal 2022 than the year before, according to a report from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between two Washington, D.C. think tanks. Most states end their fiscal years on June 30.

That means those states had millions less this past fiscal year to pay for school buildings, drug treatment programs, law enforcement and other services partly funded by taxing pot sales.

Tax revenue may fall even further this fiscal year. Some analysts say the downturn is a reminder that cannabis is an agricultural crop, not a guaranteed moneymaker.

The potential tax revenue “was always oversold as sort of a panacea to state budgets,” said Adam Koh, editorial director of Cannabis Benchmarks, a company that tracks wholesale cannabis prices.

Colorado collected about $370 million in marijuana taxes in fiscal 2022, about 13% less than fiscal 2021.

“We’re anticipating another pretty sizable decline for [fiscal 2023] as well, close to 16%,” said Jeff Stupak, a senior economist with the Legislative Council Staff, a nonpartisan team that advises the Colorado legislature.

 

So like cigs, lotteries, and vaping, vice taxes only work when people have the money to pay for vices.  And when you tie education, library, and other public good funding to vices, well, they get underfunded when the appetite for it goes down.

It's a trap, but here we are.

Sinema Verite', Con't

Normally I'd say going after a woman Democratic senator with charges that she expects her staffers to treat her like a rock star with a concert venue rider for all green M&M's in her contract was insulting and bordering on misogyny. But the Senator in question is Kyrsten Sinema, who has made a habit if not a political career out of outlandish grandstanding, up to and including quitting the Democratic party this month. The criticism is very much deserved.

 

Always have a “room temperature” bottle of water on hand for her at all times. Make sure you get her groceries. And book her a weekly, hour-long massage.

These are just a few of the tasks, framed in a dizzying array of do’s and don’ts, that have fallen to the staffers for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), according to an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast.

The 37-page memo is intended as a guide for aides who set the schedule for and personally staff Sinema during her workdays in Washington and Arizona. And while the document is mostly just revealing of Sinema’s exceptionally strong preferences about things like air travel—preferably not on Southwest Airlines, never book her a seat near a bathroom, and absolutely never a middle seat—Sinema’s standards appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over.

One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.

The Senate ethics handbook states that “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”

Craig Holman, a congressional ethics expert with the nonprofit group Public Citizen, said Sinema’s apparent demands that staffers conduct personal tasks amount to a clear violation of Senate ethics rules, and would typically warrant a formal reprimand by the Senate Ethics Committee.

Sinema spokesperson Hannah Hurley told The Daily Beast that “the alleged information—sourced from anonymous quotes and a purported document I can’t verify—is not in line with official guidance from Sen. Sinema’s office and does not represent official policies of Sen. Sinema’s office.”

Hurley added that Sinema’s office “does not require staff to perform personal errands.”

The Daily Beast did not share the document itself with Sinema’s office, and is not printing it in its entirety over concerns that doing so may reveal who shared the memo. However, The Daily Beast was able to independently corroborate the veracity of the document, which is at least a couple of years old but could still reflect current policies.

The Daily Beast sent Sinema’s office a detailed list of claims and quotes sourced from the memo and intended for publication.

While the memo may not represent the most up-to-date scheduling practices for Sinema, the document reflects long-running guidelines as well as commitments of the senator’s that have remained consistent. Moreover, the memo is clear that, even if Sinema and her chief of staff never signed off on the document itself, both were to be alerted when the senator’s executive assistant had procured her groceries—or completed a number of other tasks.

Sinema rarely does interviews or comments publicly about how she approaches the day-to-day work of being a senator. The scheduling memo offers a rare glimpse into how one of the Senate’s most inscrutable—and most scrutinized—members approaches her job and runs her office.

 

This is not "Oh Kamala Harris is so difficult" or "Amy Klobuchar is mean to her staff" or any other "imperious Hillary Clinton" nonsense, this is a straight up violation of Senate ethics standards if true. It's also yet another example of Sinema's attention-grabbing narcissism that has dropped her popularity in Arizona to negatives among every single voting group.

 

 

 

These latest ethics allegations aren't exactly going to help her make new friends, I suspect. Nor should they.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

One of the big takeaways from the release of Donald Trump's taxes (besides the fact the man is clearly a tax cheat) is the fact that the IRS never actually audited Trump's tax returns until after Democrats took over the House in 2019, which was required by Watergate-era law.

 

The House Ways and Means Committee in its own report said it found that only one audit was started while Trump was in office and no audits were completed.

This is in violation of standing IRS policy.

"The Committee expected that these mandatory audits were being conducted promptly and in accordance with IRS policies," Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement. "However, our review found that under the prior administration, the program was dormant. We know now, the first mandatory audit was opened two years into his presidency. On the same day this Committee requested his returns."

In a vote split along party lines, the Democrats on the panel voted in support of the release while Republicans voted against the measure.

Whether or not to release the former president's tax records has become a point of contention, with Republicans arguing that doing so would set a dangerous precedent.

Democrats on the panel had argued that the president's tax returns were necessary for the panel to evaluate the IRS's presidential audit program. In response, Trump filed an emergency application on Oct. 31 to block the release. But the the Supreme Court denied Trump's request to block the committee's request, clearing the way for the records to be released.

"We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president's financial situation yet found no evidence of that," Neal said. "This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hope to find."

In the committee's separate report, it made recommendations for the future of the IRS presidential audit program and stated: "Congress should codify the mandatory audit program to require the IRS to conduct mandatory audits while a President is in office and publicly disclose related returns and return information."

This is, because, in the words of the Democrat-led panel, "Americans must have confidence that no taxpayer is able to operate above the law. This, of course, extends to the President of the United States, who is the single most powerful public official in the country."

Democrats' fight for Trump's tax returns on a legal front have been ongoing for more than three years, beginning in 2019.

Neal had requested the IRS turn over then-President Trump's tax returns spanning 2013 to 2018, but was denied by the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS. The department said the request was not supported by a legitimate legislative purpose, NPR previously reported, and was "pretextual."

 

In other words, the audit itself was skipped for Trump's first two years, and he never would have been audited if Democrats hadn't won the House back in 2018. The audit then became the excuse to block the release of Trump's fishy-ass tax returns, because the audit was then never completed.

 

Trump ordered this done 100%.

 

Hopefully the Senate will take up the challenge, which they can finally do in a 51-49 scenario which would give committee chairs subpoena power with a simple majority. 

It however remains true that if Democrats hadn't won the House in 2018, we would have never known that the required audits of Trump's taxes were not being done.

And yes, it means Trump lied to everyone about his audits. Yet more possible criminality to explore, as at every turn, Trump wanted the actual trail of his illegal proceedings removed and eliminated. Recall that Presidents Obama and Biden have gotten audited for every year of their terms and there were no issues.

Trump hid everything. He cannot be allowed to hold office again.

Last Call For Ukraine On The Stage, Main

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a whirlwind visit to Washington DC today, meeting with President Biden at the White House and addressing a joint session of Congress.

The United States is the first country since Russia’s invasion that the Ukrainian president has visited. Zelenskyy, in some senses, was overdue for a visit, especially given that Biden and his team have mobilized unprecedented military and financial assistance for Ukraine.

In his evening address to Congress, Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude for America’s staunch support and received bipartisan applause. “I thank every American family which cherishes the warmth of its home,” he said. “I thank President Biden and both parties in the Senate and the House for your invaluable assistance.”

By speaking in English, the Ukrainian president was savvy in ensuring his message would reach Americans directly, and occasionally offered a little bit of punch. (“Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking,” he said.) There was even a gift exchange: Zelenskyy brought a Ukrainian flag that soldiers on the frontlines in the Donbas had given him the day prior, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented him with the US flag that had flown above the Capitol today.

Above all, Zelenskyy made a case to lawmakers that Ukraine’s struggle is part of a global fight for freedom and democracy. He also emphasized that the threat of Putin’s violence transcended Ukraine — and that Iran’s delivery of drones to Russia poses a larger challenge to America and its allies.

“Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy,” Zelenskyy said.

Congress is on the verge of approving another $45 billion in aid to Ukraine and NATO allies, in addition to more than $65 billion in humanitarian and military aid that has already been sent since the conflict began. In conjunction with Zelenskyy’s visit, Biden also announced a $1.85 billion military package featuring a Patriot missile battery to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against Russian attacks. “Thanks from our ordinary people to your ordinary people,” Zelenskyy said earlier at the White House.

 

It was an important visit, but also a last-ditch effort to convince the incoming House GOP that blocking aid to Ukraine next year will come at a price.  Still, I expect any future assistance to Ukraine will now become a major issue for the House GOP, and especially for those inclined to not vote for McCarthy as Speaker.

 

We'll see. At the very least I expect the cost for McCarthy to earn votes from the nutjob crowd is to publicly say he'll sabotage further aid to Kyiv.

 

 

(Un)Vaccination Nation, Con't

Last year I warned that Ohio Republicans throwing out vaccination requirements for everyone, not just for Covid, but for childhood diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, would cause mass suffering as the state's vaccination rate dropped below herd immunity percentages.

 

Ohio already allows parents to exempt kids from vaccinations out of choice (and the state's vaccination level among children has dropped to 88%), but this would essentially reverse decades of medical science and thousands would end up suffering from preventable diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella.

But Republicans are bound and determined to kill as many Ohioans as possible. Everyone has to suffer and die for their utter stupidity. DeWine, for his part, is trying to stop this bill, but he can easily be overridden.

We'll see if Ohio becomes a third world country.

 

Surprise! The largest outbreak of measles in America right now is in Columbus, Ohio as dozens of cases are being reported in Franklin County, and the epidemic is only going to get worse this winter.  

The country's largest measles outbreak is happening in Central Ohio — with no signs of slowing down. Of the 106 nationwide cases reported as of Thursday, 75% were in Franklin County.

Why it matters: Until this outbreak, our area hadn't confirmed a measles case in 20 years.The highly contagious respiratory disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but dipping vaccine rates during the pandemic have revived it among unvaccinated pockets.

Threat level: The CDC and WHO said last month that measles is "an imminent threat in every region of the world," Axios' Jacob Knuston reports.Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, with a signature rash appearing three to five days later.
Serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis are possible.

By the numbers: Of the 81 local cases confirmed as of Monday, none were fully vaccinated and 36% were hospitalized. All are kids younger than 18. 27% are under 1 year old, meaning they're too young to be vaccinated and were relying on herd immunity for protection.

State of play: Measles likely arrived in Columbus after four unvaccinated travelers separately went to measles-endemic countries from June to October, Columbus Public Health commissioner Mysheika Roberts tells Axios.The CDC was here for the two weeks after Thanksgiving and is offering support.

Of note: The two-dose measles vaccine is 97% effective.The challenge is reaching the small number of Central Ohioans spreading the virus by not vaccinating their children.

What they're saying: "It's very frustrating, knowing that it's preventable with a vaccine — a safe, effective, accessible vaccine," Roberts says. The health department is ready to administer shots, but only half a dozen parents have brought kids in since the outbreak started this fall.

 

So ballpark math from the US Census quick facts page for Franklin County, 1.3 million people, 23% kids, is 300K kids. Only 86-88% are vaccinated, so that's 40-45 thousand kids without the vaccine. Let's say 5K are under 1 and too young to be vaccinated, that's still 40,000 unvaccinated kids facing measles in Franklin County. 

So yes, the epidemic is only beginning.  Flu, Covid, now measles.

But for god's sakes, don't wear a mask or get vaccinated, because that makes yo a pussy cuck beta loser.

A sick or dead one, but hey.

 

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday voted to release a report on Donald Trump's taxes during his term in the Oval Office. What exactly that report will consist of, well, we don't know. Yet.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth.

The panel voted along party lines to make the returns available and information could be available as soon as Wednesday — the day the House Jan. 6 committee is set to issue its final report on the riot at the U.S. Capitol — which will be the final days of Democratic control of Congress before Republicans take over the House in January.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., said the vote will make public the tax returns and a separate report about Trump's tax information.

"The actual returns themselves will also be transmitted to the full House and become public, but I was told it will take a few days to a week in order to redact some info that needs to be redacted,” Boyle said.

The information that must be removed is personal in nature.

“The staff is authorized to make technical corrections to the report and to redact sensitive personal identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, street addresses, personal identification numbers and banking information," committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said.

The Ways and Means Committee had spent hours in a closed-door session before taking the vote.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking member, criticized the Democrats’ move and said committee members did not know “exactly what we are releasing” when they voted.

The move is could spark threats of some sort of retaliation from Republicans, who have already vowed to launch probing investigations into President Joe Biden and his family. Some Republicans have already accused Neal of seeking the returns solely for political reasons.

Neal defended the vote immediately afterward.

"This was not about being punitive, it was not about malicious, and there were no leaks from the committee," he said. "We adhered carefully to the law."

Brady told reporters ahead of the meeting that Democrats were pushing an "unprecedented action that will jeopardize the right of every American to be protected from political targeting by Congress."

"No party in Congress should hold that power. It is the power to embarrass, harass or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns," Brady said.

 

But of course Republicans and Kevin Brady will regularly use that power against Democrats over the next two years. And note that Richard Neal successfully kept anything from being leaked to the press about Trump's returns other than speculation.

 

Republicans will leak information to FOX all day.  Watch.

Last Call For Lake Woe? Be Gone!

Professional Arizona Republican Election Loser Kari Lake will actually get a chance to prove her claims in court, as a judge tossed most of her election fraud case...but not all of it.

 

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that Arizona Republican Kari Lake, who lost last month’s gubernatorial race, will be allowed to head to trial on two narrow claims in an election lawsuit.

Judge Peter Thompson ruled that the majority of the claims Lake made in her initial complaint – 8 out of 10 – would be immediately dismissed. The motion to dismiss hearing in Maricopa County did not present evidence or witness testimony. But on two of the counts, the judge found Lake should be allowed to proceed to a trial to attempt to prove intentional misconduct that resulted in her loss.

Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state, by about 17,000 votes.

The judge narrowed one allegation involving the printers on Election Day, allowing the Lake campaign to present evidence to back her claim that a Maricopa County employee had interfered with Election Day printers resulting in her losing votes.

The judge will also allow the Lake team to present evidence that Maricopa County violated its election manual regarding ballot chain of custody. The Lake campaign claims an unknown number of ballots were added, resulting in her loss. The judge called this claim a dispute of fact, rather than law, so Lake should be allowed to present her evidence in court.

Despite most of her lawsuit being dismissed, Lake tweeted, “Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify.”

She added: “Arizona, We will have our day in court!”

Lake has been tweeting out links to a fundraising site, urging followers to send money to support her legal effort.

The judge also ruled that Hobbs could be called to testify in her capacity as secretary of state, an office she’ll hold until she is sworn in as governor.

Democratic attorney Marc Elias, whose legal team is representing Hobbs, framed the court decision as a victory, pointing out that most of the claims were dismissed and that a higher hurdle lies ahead in the trial. “Proving intentional wrongdoing and that it affected the outcome of the election will be impossible for Lake,” Elias tweeted.

 

Again, Lake is alleging deliberate election fraud, specifically through the fabrication of ballots by Katie Hobbs. She will have to prove that to a judge.

It will not end well for her, and that's a good thing. Heavy sanctions should be applied to Lake and her legal team when this suit fails.

Dean Scream, Cincy Edition

Howard Dean's Democracy For America PAC is shutting down this month due to lack of money, and nearly everyone involved with it is pointing the finger at former Cincy City Councilwoman Yvette Simpson as the main culprit in the organization's demise.

 

As the liberal group Democracy for America approached insolvency following the midterm elections, staffers faced a related problem: their CEO, Yvette Simpson, was on vacation at a vineyard in California.

Weeks earlier Simpson had told two members of the development team that $320,000 needed to be raised for DFA to make it through the year, according to two former employees. But as the group’s dire financial state started to become clear to staff, she attended a leadership training paid for by the organization and a personal multi-day sommelier education course in Napa Valley, according to five former employees.

“Is this heaven? No, but it’s pretty close!” Simpson posted on Instagram while there. Eventually, she held an all-staff Zoom call while in Napa, in which she announced that DFA was running out of cash, according to an audio recording.

“We didn’t get major donations as we expected last month so we ended up using $100,000 from our reserve just to cover expenses,” she said. “If I were you, I would be looking for another job. … I want every member of this team to go out into the marketplace to see if they can get another job just in case.”

Though DFA was in deep trouble before Simpson left for California, her lack of substantial outreach to donors and her personal time away at that critical juncture was the culmination of the organization’s demise, according to the five former employees and a staffer’s contemporaneous notes and documents from inside DFA. She resigned on Dec. 7 as CEO and all non-leadership staffers were laid off the same day without any severance.

And last week, POLITICO reported that DFA was about to shut down while its separate 501(c)4 nonprofit would stay afloat.

It was an ignoble sendoff of a group that was once a major arm of the progressive movement. DFA was started in the wake of Howard Dean’s unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign. The group harnessed his progressive supporters and the anti-Iraq War movement’s momentum to support like-minded candidates across the country. It leaned on small-dollar fundraising to aggressively back progressives in competitive primaries. And in recent years, it expanded its focus to include secretary of state and attorney general races, ranked choice voting, student debt relief and Medicare for All.

But in a progressive ecosystem where groups have become more narrowly focused on issue advocacy or specific electoral tasks — such as candidate recruitment or voter protection — DFA has struggled. Dean left the organization after he became chair of the DNC in 2005 but continued to occasionally advise DFA from 2009 until 2016. He called the demise of DFA “sad” in a brief interview but declined to elaborate.

“DFA left it all on the field this year to stop the red wave and win critical elections up and down the ballot across the country. As DFA heads into the next cycle in this difficult fundraising environment, the decision was made to wind down the PAC by the end of the year,” said DFA special adviser Charles Chamberlain. “The DFA Advocacy Fund will continue its work for the foreseeable future focused on election reforms like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” Simpson is still on the board of that fund, according to a person familiar with the matter, but it’s unclear whether she will remain in that position in the longer term.

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer weighed in on the story as well, interviewing Jim Dean, Howard Dean's brother and the head of DFA until Simpson stepped in three years ago.

Jim Dean told The Enquirer he stepped down in part because Simpson was available. He also said the demise of Democracy for America was not Simpson's fault. The organization had gone through similar lean financial times before her tenure.

"We have never, in the 18 years of our existence, never were flush with cash," Jim Dean said. "There was never any huge cushion. I’m a little bit surprised that seemed to be lost on the staff, because some of these folks had been there for a while and been there when we had cash shortages. It wasn’t the first time that’s happened."

 

But, the fact remains that DFA is shutting down under Simpson, and that given the rampant success of the 2022 midterms and fundraising off of a myriad of issues, Simpson couldn't get the money needed to keep DFA afloat.

Needless to say, this is the person who lost to John Cranley in the mayoral primary five years ago. She left the City Council in 2018 and went national, but this is the result.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

With the January 6th Committee referring Donald Trump and several in his inner circle for criminal prosecution on multiple charges, Ryan Goodman at Just Security explores how the J6 referrals can bolster any Justice Department investigations into Trumpian criminality.

On Monday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol released an executive summary of its final report, which focuses primarily on former President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The committee, however, also presented new evidence of criminal efforts to interfere with its investigation – on the part of some witnesses, their attorneys, and others associated with the former president. It is the kind of evidence that may have far-reaching implications including bolstering Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6th and Mar-a-Lago investigations.

Among the most significant new revelations is the statement in the summary:

“The Committee has substantial concerns regarding potential efforts to obstruct its investigation, including by certain counsel (some paid by groups connected to the former President) who may have advised clients to provide false or misleading testimony to the Committee” (emphasis added).

A recent Washington Post report revealed how similar ties have existed in the Mar-a-Lago investigation. That includes Trump’s Save America PAC paying for the lawyers for key witnesses including Walt Nauta who apparently initially lied to the FBI before confessing knowledge of Trump’s concealing classified materials. (The committee explicitly notes this connection to the Post’s reporting.)

The committee’s revelations accordingly sweep in a set of lawyers who have exposed themselves to criminal liability. The committee also identified some witnesses who appear to have followed through by lying to the committee.

These individuals may not have any criminal exposure involving the scheme to overturn the election itself, but now have criminal exposure for their actions toward the congressional investigation as part of a coverup. Their potential criminal liability could provide leverage for Special Counsel Smith to try to flip individuals to cooperate against Trump in the January 6 investigations and, if they also have insights into Mar-a-Lago, then in that investigation as well.

More specifically, according to the committee’s summary, one “lawyer had advised the witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them.” The committee also stated:

“During a break in the Select Committee’s interview, the witness expressed concerns to her lawyer that an aspect of her testimony was not truthful. The lawyer did not advise her to clarify the specific testimony that the witness believed was not complete and accurate, and instead conveyed that, ‘They don’t know what you know, [witness]. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things. So you saying “I don’t recall” is an entirely acceptable response to this.’”

Some of the witnesses also apparently followed through in falsely declaring an inability to recall pertinent information. The executive summary states: “Certain witnesses and lawyers were unnecessarily combative, answered hundreds of questions with variants of ‘I do not recall’ in circumstances where that answer seemed unbelievable.”

The committee also provided detailed analysis of other witnesses, such as former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Anthony Ornato, who appeared to have lied to the committee.

It can be a federal crime for any witness to tell congressional investigators that she does not recall information, when she does in fact clearly recall. It is also a federal crime to counsel someone to commit that act. Indeed, one of the most incriminating Nixon tapes included the sounds of President Richard Nixon coaching his senior aides to lie by claiming “I don’t remember, I can’t recall.”

 

So Trump's legal advisers and his pals in the House GOP are, well, feeling a cold wind blowing. We're running out of time to bar Trump from office again, and putting him in prison, but the framework is now there to do so if Jack Smith and Merrick Garland decide to act.

The "if" there is of course the size of American political history...and its future.

Last Call For Fantasma Santos

New York Republican George Santos, who won NY-3's House seat on Long Island in November, seems like on the surface the kind of Republican who could have a long career as the "reasonable" Red State warrior in Blue New York, young, openly gay, and charismatic, the well-educated scion of a Long Island real estate empire and the son of Brazilian immigrants.  

The problem is of course that like many Republicans, he's an inveterate liar.

 

George Santos, whose election to Congress on Long Island last month helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, built his candidacy on the notion that he was the “full embodiment of the American dream” and was running to safeguard it for others.

His campaign biography amplified his storybook journey: He is the son of Brazilian immigrants, and the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent. By his account, he catapulted himself from a New York City public college to become a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” with a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties and an animal rescue charity that saved more than 2,500 dogs and cats.

But a New York Times review of public documents and court filings from the United States and Brazil, as well as various attempts to verify claims that Mr. Santos, 34, made on the campaign trail, calls into question key parts of the résumé that he sold to voters.

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the marquee Wall Street firms on Mr. Santos’s campaign biography, told The Times they had no record of his ever working there. Officials at Baruch College, which Mr. Santos has said he graduated from in 2010, could find no record of anyone matching his name and date of birth graduating that year.

There was also little evidence that his animal rescue group, Friends of Pets United, was, as Mr. Santos claimed, a tax-exempt organization: The Internal Revenue Service could locate no record of a registered charity with that name.

His financial disclosure forms suggest a life of some wealth. He lent his campaign more than $700,000 during the midterm election, has donated thousands of dollars to other candidates in the last two years and reported a $750,000 salary and over $1 million in dividends from his company, the Devolder Organization.

Yet the firm, which has no public website or LinkedIn page, is something of a mystery. On a campaign website, Mr. Santos once described Devolder as his “family’s firm” that managed $80 million in assets. On his congressional financial disclosure, he described it as a capital introduction consulting company, a type of boutique firm that serves as a liaison between investment funds and deep-pocketed investors. But Mr. Santos’s disclosures did not reveal any clients, an omission three election law experts said could be problematic if such clients exist.

And while Mr. Santos has described a family fortune in real estate, he has not disclosed, nor could The Times find, records of his properties.

Mr. Santos’s eight-point victory, in a district in northern Long Island and northeast Queens that previously favored Democrats, was considered a mild upset. He had lost decisively in the same district in 2020 to Tom Suozzi, then the Democratic incumbent, and had seemed to be too wedded to former President Donald J. Trump and his stances to flip his fortunes.

His appearance earlier this month at a gala in Manhattan attended by white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists underscored his ties to Mr. Trump’s right-wing base.

At the same time, new revelations uncovered by The Times — including the omission of key information on Mr. Santos’s personal financial disclosures, and criminal charges for check fraud in Brazil — have the potential to create ethical and possibly legal challenges once he takes office.

Mr. Santos did not respond to repeated requests from The Times that he furnish either documents or a résumé with dates that would help to substantiate the claims he made on the campaign trail. He also declined to be interviewed, and neither his lawyer nor Big Dog Strategies, a Republican-oriented political consulting group that handles crisis management, responded to a detailed list of questions.

The lawyer, Joe Murray, said in a short statement that it was “no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.”

 

So he lied about his work at Goldman Sachs, he lied about his Baruch College degree, he lied about his family business, and oh yeah he's wanted for bad checks back in Brazil.

 

That Democrats in the state left Tom Suozzi's seat open for this clown to win it over Robert Zimmerman, figuring Zimmerman would win by osmosis or something, should serve as a critical lesson to the state's cancerous Democratic state party.

The fact that this level of scrutiny was not given to Santos until after her won with the rank lies and fabrications is a failure of the NY Times itself. This white supremacist clown should have been exposed months ago.

But the NY Democratic Party should have had this oppo research ready to go. Even an afternoon of work would have cost Santos the race, and they just didn't care to do basic due diligence.

 

Better late than never, and hopefully he faces crushing ethics and campaign finance investigations that drive him out of politics for good. But he never should have been allowed to run in the first damn place, let alone win.

 

And in the end? This is all the fault of the GOP, with another material fraudster in office.

Do better, Entire State of New Fucking York.

Ron's Gun Wrong, Con't

If you thought Florida was in trouble before, wait until everyone has a gun in the Sunshine State.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday he expects lawmakers during the 2023 regular legislative session to pass a major change in Florida gun laws.

The change would allow what supporters call “constitutional carry.”

Under current law, people who want to carry guns must get concealed-weapons licenses from the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Constitutional carry would allow people to carry guns without the licenses.

DeSantis was asked about the issue Friday during an appearance in Lee County, after House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, indicated Thursday that the House would approve constitutional carry.

“Basically, this was something that I’ve always supported,” DeSantis said. “The last two years, it was not necessarily a priority for the legislative leadership. But we’ve been talking about it, and he’s (Renner’s) pledged publicly that’s moving forward, and it’ll be something that will be done in the regular session.”

The 2023 session will start March 7.

 

I expect the law will pass easily and quickly over the objection of law enforcement, who will have to deal with even more of the populace carrying firearms, but the response is going to be "assume the suspect is packing" and just drill them full of holes.

 

On the other hand, dead people don't make DeSantis and his private prison buddies any money incarcerating them, just expect the suspects that live to be turned over to the prison system, and the rest -- especially Black folk who mistakenly believe "constitutional carry" applies to us in any way, in any state that has it -- to end up in the ground.

 

Gunmerica is bad enough. DeSantis's version, well...

Orange Meltdown, Con't

With the very real chance of Trump being referred by the House January 6th Committee to the Justice Department as soon as today, Trump is rallying his flying monkey brigades to openly engage in some "Will nobody rid me of these troublesome FBI investigators?" stochastic terrorism.

Donald Trump was slammed for another round of threats and incitement Saturday after evoking last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection — and then telling his followers it’s now time for the FBI and Justice Department “thugs” to be “dealt with.”

Critics considered the threatening messages to be a clear dog whistle to his followers, many of whom are armed. Some 62% of gun owners voted for Trump in the 2016 election. And his Oath Keeper supporters had a “massive stockpile” of weapons stashed in the Washington, D.C., area last Jan. 6 to support Trump in the event he tried to seize control of the government and remain in power, according to trial evidence.

Trump baselessly insisted in a Truth Social post that the FBI was “absolutely” involved in a “coordinated effort to change election results” to make him a loser. That justified last year’s violent Jan. 6 “protest” at the U.S. Capitol, he insisted, even though nearly 1,000 rioters have been indicted for crimes related to the insurrection that day.

Now, Trump is urging his followers on Truth Social that the “weaponized thugs and tyrants” in the FBI and DOJ “must be dealt with.”

Trump supporters on Truth Social responded by blasting the FBI as the “gestapo” and members of “organized crime,” which could put agents lives in jeopardy among Trump acolytes.





Conde Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski called Trump’s brutal message the “exact speech he gave on Jan. 6.”

“He’s continuing the rhetoric that incites violence against the United States and his thugs know what ‘must be dealt with’ means,” Zaleski tweeted.

 

As I've said before, the real test of this country's future is if we survive Trump being indicted. We're nowhere hear ready as a country to have that conversation yet, but very soon we won't have a choice about having it.