Lawrence O’Donnell points out that Donald Trump, who always seems to think he is the smartest person in the room, uttered the stupidest thing he could possibly say during his fraud case in New York, and incriminated not just himself, but also his children. Which absolutely destroys his defense, and guarantees that the Trump Organization will receive the largest punishment possible.
On Hallowe’en, the monsters come out!
Will the Democrats save the day? Stay tuned!!!
You know, it doesn’t have to be like this. I recently returned from a trip that included Rwanda, which just a couple of decades ago was in the middle of a horrible genocide. Now, only a few years later, Rwanda has become one of the most progressive countries in Africa, the civil war is over, and the problems that caused the genocide are virtually gone.
If they could solve this hatred in Rwanda, there must be a way to solve it between Jews and Palestinians. And similar things have happened in other places, such as South Africa and Northern Ireland. I believe that what is needed is leadership that wants to solve problems, rather than use problems (and even create new problems) to keep themselves in power. And yes, I’m looking at both Hamas and the current leaders of Israel.
The more you read about Jim Jordan, the worse he looks. You probably know that he was a founding member of the “Freedom Caucus”, which is the Republican group that is keeping the House of Representatives deadlocked. He was an attack dog for president Donald Trump, including being a key ally in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and he refused a subpoena from the congressional investigation into the Jan 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But it gets worse.
Before he was a politician, he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State, and was mired in scandal. Over 100 former wrestlers have said that Jordan ignored rampant sexual abuse by a team doctor. Jordan claims he never saw or heard of any abuse, but an official investigation found that the abuse was an “open secret”, and that “coaches, trainers and other team physicians were fully aware of [the doctor’s] activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it”. The investigation also found that the doctor had sexually abused at least 177 students.
But even worse, Jordan is completely unqualified to be Speaker of the House, which is the person who decides which bills are brought to the floor for a vote. Jordan was elected to the House in 2006, and in all this time, Jordan has never drafted a bill that was signed into law. Not even when Trump was president. So he is still a jerk-off.
Even those things Jordan does do, he fails at. For example, he has been running an investigation against Hunter Biden (and his laptop) for 10 months, which has gone nowhere. A month ago, Jordan began an impeachment investigation against president Biden, and on the first day his “star witnesses” all admitted that there was not enough evidence for impeachment. If Jordan becomes the Speaker, what are the chances that he won’t be able to pass a budget and the government will have to shut down? That might just kill the Republican Party.
In addition, Jordan is very unpopular with his colleagues, and has been that way for a long time. For example, former Speaker of the House John Boehner described Jordan as a “legislative terrorist”. And now, as Jordan attempts to whip up votes to be speaker, he is doing it by browbeating House Republicans who are voting against him, making him even more unpopular.
I don’t really understand why Joe Biden’s favorability ratings are so low. I think he has been doing a good job as president. In fact, I’ve been watching him since he was in the Senate.
Yes, there are a few things he’s done that I disagreed with. For example, voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. But I was more upset that President Bill Clinton signed it! At least Biden had the excuse at the time of being a life-long Catholic. Even so, he evolved over time into a strong promoter and defender of same-sex marriage. I’m also a bit unhappy about his decision to build 20 miles of wall on the southern border, but I know why he did it.
However, I can think of lots of things Biden has done right. He’s honest, he has been able to work with the progressive Democrats (and get quite a few of their bills passed), and even has (amazingly) been able to work with a few (reasonable) Republicans.
Why do we wallow in negative news all the time? I keep seeing stories about Biden’s age, but Donald Trump is only 3 years younger than Biden, and is much less healthy. And I don’t have to tell you all the other problems that Trump has.
On May 3, 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), made the following prediction:
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
New York Times columnist David Brooks complains about the high cost of airport whiskey.
Yes, the right wing, the same people who claim that the Second Amendment guarantees the absolute right to bear arms, now want to lock up Hunter Biden because he purchased a gun (which he never used) when he was taking illegal drugs. What I want to know is how many gun-owning right-wing-nuts have ever used drugs. Should we throw them all in jail?
This short clip provides some interesting information about one of TFG’s trials and also about Hunter Biden’s trial. I haven’t seen either of these mentioned much, but they are very significant.
I will be off the grid for a while starting tomorrow (Tuesday). Feel free to post interesting happenings as comments to this post. –Iron Knee
The Wall Street Journal has an article that doesn’t bode well for our democracy:
Many Republicans refuse to acknowledge Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, saying they have lost faith in the electoral system. They also have doubts that 2024 will deliver a legitimate winner, while Democrats worry that Republicans will contest an outcome that doesn’t go their way.
Close to 70% of Republicans believe that President Biden didn’t legitimately win the election, several polls show, despite multiple federal and state investigations, as well as court decisions, finding no evidence of fraud extensive enough to have changed the result.
I think there are two reasons for this. First is the steady stream of lies coming from right-wing media, including Fox News, not to mention from Republican politicians. As Oliver Darcy on CNN points out:
Talk of imprisoning Democratic politicians — and even their families — in acts of revenge is par for the course. Even floating the outright execution of Biden, as Charlie Kirk recently did, is accepted in the warped world of MAGA Media, where the audience has been programmed through years of conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes.
None of this is an exaggeration. It is the reality of what is being broadcast in millions of homes across the country.
But the other reason is even worse. Right-wing MAGA lovers like the idea of having a “strongman” as their president, who incites insurrection, creates fake presidential electors, and disenfranchises voters they don’t like. In order to accept this, they have to believe that the Democrats are even worse, and would do the same things. They believe the election will be stolen, because they themselves would be happy to steal it.
As everyone probably already knows, Donald Trump was indicted again by a grand jury, this time regarding the insurrection that happened on January 6, 2021. Jack Smith held a very short press conference (under 3 minutes), where he summarized the four counts against the former president.
He also said that everyone should read the 45-page indictment. So I did, and he was right. It is an impressive document that will go down in history. I’m sure that by tomorrow, every pundit of every political stripe will publish their take on it, but this is one time it is worth seeing the real document. It is easy to read, clear, comprehensive, and convincing. It also includes quite a bit of evidence that even the politicians, members of the Trump administration, and others who strongly supported Trump told him that he was wrong, and yet he continued to lie and subvert the Constitution. He also purposely endangered people’s lives with his lies.
If Trump isn’t convicted and punished, then there is something terribly wrong with this country.
UPDATE: GOP politicians are starting to respond to the new indictment, and one of the popular responses seems to be to change the subject. For example, Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused the DOJ of using this new indictment against the former president to distract from the Republican House probes against Joe Biden and his son Hunter (what they like to call the “Biden Crime Family”). This, despite the fact that yesterday their star witness in their probe didn’t tell them anything illegal or even worth mentioning.
It actually looks like the opposite is true. The Republicans are trying to use their failing probes against Biden to distract from Trump’s actual crimes.
Grift in politics is nothing new, but in the last few years has blossomed into widespread corruption and lies. The biggest flood came from Donald Trump, who during his tenure in the White House told an estimated 30,573 lies (which comes out to over 20 whoppers a day). Trump turned on a spigot of grift, even overcharging Secret Service agents for hotel stays while they were protecting the first family.
It seems like Trump has normalized these things in the Republican Party. Let’s just pick a few recent examples.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the misdeeds of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who received lavish gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow who Thomas claimed is a “close friend”, except that Crow only became his buddy after Thomas became a Supreme. And the gifts just keep on giving. A new article in the NY Times exposed even more lavish gifts, vacations, parties and more — which were never disclosed. Even worse, another new article in The Guardian has discovered that Thomas accepted money from lawyers who had business before the court. Sheesh!
Another example may not count as grift, but is about money, and is suspiciously close to money laundering and maybe even bribery. The GOP is attempting to limit the number of candidates who can participate in the Republican debates. One of their rules is that candidates must have 40 thousand unique donors, and at least 200 donors in 20 different states or territories. This posed a problem for presidential candidate and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who as a billionaire is simply self funding his presidential campaign. In a move that looks a lot like buying an election, anyone who sends him a donation of $1 will receive a $20 gift card. And it worked! Burgum just qualified for the first debate. And he isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate who is trying to buy donations. I guess it helps to be filthy rich to get into this club.
But it isn’t just bigwig politicians who are doing the grift. ProPublica, the same group that broke the news about Judge Thomas, has an article about right-wing websites that scam their readers with phony celebrity stories.
Some of the scams being pulled off by Republican candidates are just stupid. For example, Tim Sheehy is a GOP Senate candidate for Montana. On his website, he touts his support for agriculture in Montana with a photo standing out in a field. There’s just one problem, the photo was taken in Kentucky, nowhere near Montana!
Joe Biden approves this message from Marjorie Taylor Greene.
UPDATE: Just to make things clear, MTG is now complaining that the Biden campaign took her words out of context. Well, of course they took her words out of context! Anyone who thinks that MTG has had a change of heart and is now supporting Biden is drinking the Krazy Kool-Aid! (Not that she isn’t famous for changing her heart on a dime, which recently got her booted from the Freedom Caucus!)
The whole point of the ad is that MTG is giving a fairly accurate account of Joe Biden’s accomplishments, investing in public infrastructure and environmental programs, and completing FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. This includes (in her words) programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, and labor unions. But she thinks what Biden is doing is a bad thing. MTG is railing against education, better medical care, solving urban problems and rural poverty, improving transportation, and (worst of all) Medicare and Medicaid. She also hates labor unions.
In context, what MTG said is that if you elect Republicans, they will work to destroy all of these things. In effect, she is stupidly saying the quiet part out loud.
It is a great ad.
Progress Action Fund has a wild ad running in Ohio now.
Some people have noticed a resemblance to an old hilarious skit from Saturday Night Live.
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