Month: September 2022

Former White House lawyer warned Trump legal peril was possible if records went unreturned

Posted on (Updated by Brandi Buchman

A new report suggests former White House counsel Eric Herschman warned Donald Trump in late 2021 that if he failed to return presidential records or classified materials he had retained after leaving office, the 45th president could face serious legal trouble. 

The New York Times was the first to report the development, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the matter. 

Herschmann was no longer working for Trump by the time this conversation reportedly occurred in December 2021. An exact date for the meeting was not confirmed. Trump had been out of the White House for almost a year by that point, however, and though it is unclear whether Herschmann was aware of precisely what records Trump had retained, he still felt the need to offer the caveat. Trump’s response to Herschman’s warning was allegedly “noncommittal” but courteous.

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The warning likely didn’t come as a total surprise.

By the time Herschmann had offered his input, the National Archives had already informed Trump that it was missing a number of original documents from his time in the White House.

Some two dozen boxes of presidential records that were meant to go to the Archives in January 2021 didn’t. Instead, they were shipped off to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. This happened against the advice of Pat Cipollone, another White House attorney under Trump. 

By January, the former president handed over some 15 boxes to the Archives from those he had sent to Mar-a-Lago. There were 184 classified records inside, But by May 2021, the National Archives was still trying to find other key records that appeared to be missing. Gary Stern, the Archives lead counsel, fired off letters to Trump’s attorneys and emphasized that all presidential records must be accounted for.

A back-and-forth over the documents continued. By the autumn of 2021, according to sources who spoke to The Washington Post, former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin told the Archives that it was Mark Meadows, Trump’s onetime chief of staff, who had reassured him the documents Trump took were only inconsequential news clippings and nothing more.

But the Archives believed there was more than news clippings missing. The Archives had already informed Trump’s team by then that it was looking for specific records, like his letters with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, a letter left for him by former President Barack Obama, and, among other things, the National Weather Service map from 2019 that Trump drew on with a Sharpie marker when falsely proclaiming that Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama after the National Weather Service had reported otherwise.  

Around the time Herschmann reportedly offered his warning to Trump in December 2021, Trump’s team informed the Archives it had 12 boxes at Mar-a-Lago waiting to be picked up. The Archives went to retrieve them in mid-January 2022. Archive aides found 15 boxes and within weeks of reviewing all that Trump had kept, the Archives asked the Justice Department to get involved.

Many of the records that the Archives found inside the boxes at Mar-a-Lago were labeled classified. The agency was unsure to what extent documents were mishandled and an investigation got underway. This June Trump remitted more classified documents through his attorneys but it was suspected by investigators that there were more records yet to be unearthed at Mar-a-Lago. 

They were right. 

A search warrant was issued to the FBI, and on Aug. 8, agents picked up more than 100 new documents with classified or sensitive markings from Mar-a-Lago. The FBI said it seized roughly 11,000  documents without classified markings altogether. In its warrant, authorities cited a possible violation by Trump of the Espionage Act and noted that “evidence of obstruction” into the investigation for the classified records also likely existed. 

Trump has spent every week since tossing out excuse after excuse for his retention of the classified records. He has also insisted that he had stand-alone power to declassify documents.

This is not possible according to most legal and national security experts in the U.S. 

This has not stopped Trump from claiming the investigation into the missing classified records is a “witch-hunt” or yet more political persecution against him by the “deep state.”

Herschmann’s legal relationship with Trump has never been dull, to say the least. 

Herschmann defended Trump during the former president’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and left a lucrative partnership at the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres to do it. Financial disclosures from 2020 show Herschmann was earning just over $3.3 million when he took on the advisory role for Trump. 

When Trump and his personal attorneys and advisers like Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 election ahead of Jan. 6, Herschmann was one of the few resistant voices inside Trump’s immediate orbit.

Upon cooperating with the Jan. 6 committee’s probe, Herschman said under oath that he had candidly warned officials about the legal danger underpinning schemes to overturn the election results.

One of those warnings went to Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level lawyer and former Trump lackey at the Department of Justice.

Clark, Herschmann testified, had revealed a plan to him that would see Clark installed as attorney general with Trump’s blessing if only Clark could get letters sent off to swing state legislatures falsely claiming that voter fraud had altered election results.

“I said good… fucking a-hole… congratulations. You’ve just admitted your first step or act you’d take as attorney general would be committing a felony in violation of Rule 6 (c),” Herschmann recalled telling Clark. 

Herschmann was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury this summer along with former White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin. According to the Times, Herschmann engaged with Trump’s attorneys Evan Corcoran and John Rowley, asking for guidance on how he might field questions that could run afoul of executive privilege or attorney-client privileges. 

Herschmann was told to assert executive privilege broadly. Corcoran then allegedly told him not to worry because a “chief judge” would “validate their belief that a president’s powers extend far beyond their time in office.”

The judge presiding over the classified records matter ended up being a Trump appointee: Judge Aileen Cannon. 

So far, Cannon has ruled in favor of Trump and to some outrage from seasoned jurists and prosecutors. 

On Sept. 15, Cannon rejected the Department of Justice’s request to keep investigating Trump’s handling of classified records while an independent “special master” or arbiter, was assigned to review records. Andrew Weismann, a former attorney who worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, for one, has dubbed Cannon’s decision as profoundly “stupid” and “partisan.”

The special master’s role primarily involves filtering through documents seized by the FBI to determine what may be privileged versus what may be personal. The special master, in this case, is the mutually agreed-upon appointment of Raymond Dearie, a semi-retired judge from New York.  Trump proposed Dearie serve in the role first and the Department agreed. Dearie is widely regarded as a neutral choice for arbiter. Dearie is now reviewing a total of 11,000 documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

Despite having his preferred special master appointed and his appointed judge presiding, Trump is still backpedaling. Though he initially claimed publicly that he had the power to declassify documents all by his lonesome and could take taxpayer-owned records wherever he pleased, in court, he has refused to elaborate on this so-called declassification. In a letter to Dearie on Monday, Trump’s attorneys argued that they could not discuss Trump’s declassification claims because it would force the former president to expose a defense he may use against “any subsequent indictment.” 

RELATED STORY: Special master follies: Trump doesn’t want to talk about declassifying documents

How Did No One Notice Bill Clinton’s Response To His Nemesis Ken Starr’s Death?

Posted on by Becky Noble

It appears that time does not heal all wounds, especially in politics. On Sunday, former President Bill Clinton was interviewed by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

At one point, Zakaria mentioned the recent passing of former White House Independent Counsel Ken Starr. Starr’s family announced his death last week from complications from surgery.

Starr was the special prosecutor that presided over the Whitewater investigation, and of course Clinton’s involvement with then-White House Intern Monica Lewinsky that resulted in Clinton’s impeachment.

Clinton’s reaction to Zakaria’s question should have raised eyebrows from coast to coast.

RELATED: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Announces Lawsuit Against The FBI Over Phone Seizure: ‘This Has To Stop’

Clinton And Starr Not BFF’s

Clinton’s response to Starr’s passing might well go down as an all-time backhanded slam.

Zakaria posed the question to Clinton, “Ken Starr just passed away. This was the Special Prosecutor, Independent Counsel for Whitewater. Never filed a charge on Whitewater. But put the second term of your presidency upside down. Do you have any thoughts, any reflection?”

It had to be one the most careful moments of Clinton’s life. He stated matter of factly:

I read the obituary, and I realized that his family loved him, and I think that’s something to be grateful for. And when your life is over, that’s all there is to say. But I was taught not to talk about people that, you know…I have nothing to say, except that I’m glad he died with the love of his family. 

Brutal.

RELATED: Report: NYC Mayor Complains The City At ‘Breaking Point’ Due To Illegal Immigration

From Whitewater To Lewinsky

Ken Starr’s deep dive into the financial life of Bill and Hillary Clinton began with the investigation into a land deal that would become the Whitewater Development Corporation.

The deal eventually fell through, and neither Clinton was charged with a crime. Their partners the McDougals, however, did not fare as well. Both were charged with crimes and served time in prison.

As Starr investigated the Clintons more, it led him to the sexual harassment allegations of Bill Clinton by Paula Jones, and ultimately several other women, and the affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Starr’s investigations into Bill Clinton led to charges by Democrats and the media as being politically motivated. Starr denied any charges of political attacks. He said at the time:

“I was assigned to do a job by the attorney general, and that was to find out whether crimes were committed in this (Paula Jones) sexual harassment lawsuit. The whole idea of equal justice under law means that you’ve got to play by the rules. It has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter. You just tell the truth.”

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1571844834582724608?s=20&t=Qnfp3S9MOoQFoYNXaaEiCQ

RELATED: San Francisco Company Twilio Announces ‘Anti-Racist’ Layoff Policy

Clinton Not The Villain, Starr Is

Prior to the mainstream media’s bromance with Barack Obama, there was Bill Clinton. There was not much he could do wrong, and anyone who suggested any wrongdoing was going to be subject to the wrath of the Clinton cheering section. Ken Starr was not spared.

Famous leftist Ketih Olbermann compared Starr to Nazi Heinrich Himmler. Dianne Sawyer, sure that it was just the mind of a “Puritan” on overdrive, said this: “I think there were 62 mentions of the word ‘breast,’ 23 of ‘cigar,’ 19 of ‘semen.’ This has been called demented pornography, pornography for Puritans.”

And on and on.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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The post How Did No One Notice Bill Clinton’s Response To His Nemesis Ken Starr’s Death? appeared first on The Political Insider.

McConnell was sure the GOP would reclaim the Senate. Too bad he miscalculated every step of the way

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

Analysts and pundits are finally picking up on the fact that the supposed red wave of 2022 was much more of a red mirage all along. The slow-but-steady downgrading of GOP prospects in November is everywhere. But nowhere is this more apparent than in the Senate, where Republican candidates are consistently underperforming and, in some cases, are downright comically bad (witness Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose political wizardry is already the stuff of legend).

It's important to note that Democrats haven't won anything yet, but it's equally important to note that Democratic chances of keeping Senate have improved dramatically from the doomsday predictions earlier this year (FiveThirtyEight's "deluxe" model—the least favorable to Dems—now gives Democrats a 72% chance of winning the Senate).

That potential loss on the heels of so much GOP hubris has produced a delightful circular firing squad among Republican leaders. Naturally, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was eager to get his version of events out early, fingering the party's dreadful "candidate quality" as the chief culprit for its faltering Senate takeover campaign.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said last month, handicapping the GOP’s midterm chances at a Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “Senate races are just different—they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”

Despite McConnell's stoic delivery, his downgraded prediction was an obvious swipe at Donald Trump and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Rick Scott, who both helped saddle the GOP with a crop of candidates who are either full MAGA extremists (Arizona's Blake Masters) or entirely lackluster (Pennsylvania's Doc Oz) or both (Ohio's J.D. Vance).

But the truth is, if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had half the backbone that GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming does, he would be spending his energy rallying the troops right now for potential victory, rather than identifying scapegoats for potential defeat.

Let's review just how badly McConnell mucked up Senate Republicans and the party more broadly this cycle, starting with Donald Trump's post-insurrection impeachment trial:

  1. McConnell had a chance to drive a stake through Trump's political future by leading his caucus to convict Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Once convicted, Trump would have had no path to lawfully run for a second term. But rather than leading, McConnell followed his caucus, leading to Trump's acquittal and a second bite at the presidential apple.
  2. McConnell packed the Supreme Court full of right-wing extremists who in no way reflect the political mainstream, nor do they care. Perhaps McConnell never imagined that they would overturn 50 years of settled abortion law so quickly and callously, or maybe he just wildly underestimated the political backlash to such a ruling. Either way, he badly miscalculated.
  3. After it was clear that Trump was determined to put his thumb heavily on the scales of the election cycle’s GOP primaries, McConnell played along, openly endorsing political misfits like former Georgia football star Herschel Walker—an alleged spousal abuser with violent tendencies and self-admitted psychiatric problems who has trouble articulating a coherent thought. “Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done,” McConnell said in a statement last fall.
  4. McConnell intentionally declined to lay out a platform for his caucus should they regain control of the chamber. Asked in January what Republicans would do with their majority, McConnell offered coyly, "That is a very good question. And I'll let you know when we take it back." That giant heap of hubris has cost Republicans dearly. As inflation and gas prices have begun to recede, McConnell's declination has left Republicans without a Plan B. His leadership vacuum also invited NRSC chair Rick Scott to offer up his own agenda, promising widespread tax increases for working Americans and the prospect of phasing out Social Security and Medicare. That landed like a box of rocks dropped from Scott's alien spaceship. But that's not all, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina got in the act last week with his own bit of leadership: a national 15-week abortion ban that he promised would get a vote if Republicans retook the Senate. Graham's head-scratching gambit has sent GOP Senate hopefuls scrambling for cover while prompting a dismissal from McConnell himself. "I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level," McConnell told reporters last week.

Bottom line: McConnell has repeatedly misplayed this election. He believed that he could bend the entire nation to his political will despite the fact that he and his party's views were wildly out of step with the American mainstream. After years of not paying a political price for abusing the power entrusted to him, McConnell concluded that he could get away with virtually anything—including turning the Supreme Court into a GOP-guided missile.

McConnell, the supposed master tactician, also bet that he could benefit more from Trump's continued presence in the party than he would pay for continuing to carry Trump's baggage.

If Senate Republicans fail to retake the Senate this November, McConnell will have no one to thank but himself. If he weren't so morally bankrupt, he might have had the mettle to salvage his party and field a group of competitive candidates. Instead, he's racing to put out fires, point fingers, and brace for a potentially embarrassing defeat that shuts him out from becoming the longest-serving Senate majority Leader.

Sign the petition to corporate America: Stop funding insurrectionists!

Democrats can build a blue wave if we get out every voter. Click here to find out all the ways you can help in the last days before Election Day.

Philly DA Krasner’s office pushes back with ‘correcting the record’ response to state House contempt vote

Posted on by Ronn Blitzer
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is fighting back against state lawmakers who voted to hold him in contempt while others work toward his impeachment.

Kinzinger on GOP-majority House: They’re going to demand a Biden impeachment vote every week

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) in a new interview predicts that GOP lawmakers will demand a vote to impeach President Biden "every week" if Republicans take control of the House in the midterms.

Kinzinger, a frequent critic of former President Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, compared previous efforts by congressional Republicans to what he predicts “crazies” will attempt to do under a GOP majority.

“Back before we had all the crazies here — just some crazies — you know, every vote we took, we had to somehow defund ObamaCare. ... You'll remember, right when we took over it was we need to do the omnibus bill, but we're not going to vote for it because it doesn't defund ObamaCare,” Kinzinger said on CNN’s “The Axe Files with David Axelrod,” released Monday.

“That's going to look like child's play in terms of what [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.] is going to demand of [House GOP Leader] Kevin McCarthy [Calif.]. They're going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week,” he added.

Republicans are widely expected to take control of the House in November, though Democrats are battling to limit the size of a potential GOP majority. According to FiveThirtyEight, Republicans are favored to win control of the lower chamber over Democrats, 71 percent to 29 percent.

If they do secure the majority, a number of Republican lawmakers are preparing plans to impeach Biden over various matters. Some conservative House members have already introduced impeachment articles against the president over his administration's efforts on border enforcement, the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, to name a few. 

Kinzinger said a GOP House majority may also try to “make abortion illegal in all circumstances on this omnibus bill.”

The Illinois Republican, who is not running for reelection in November, predicted that McCarthy — the current House minority leader who is expected to become Speaker if Republicans win the lower chamber — will have a difficult time governing because of “crazies” in the GOP conference.

“I think it'll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don't know,” he said.

Kinzinger predicted that McCarthy is “not going to be able to do much” and also raised the possibility that the GOP leader would not receive the Speaker's gavel at all, suggesting Trump and members of the conservative Freedom Caucus could push for a more right-leaning leader.

McCarthy was close to the Speakership in 2015 but ultimately dropped out of contention after making a controversial comment about the taxpayer-funded Benghazi Committee.

“I think it's quite possible,” Kinzinger told Axelrod when asked if McCarthy will not be Speaker come January.

“I think if there's, particularly if there's a narrow Republican majority, let's say there's five, a five-seat Republican majority, it only takes five Republicans or six Republicans to come together, deny Kevin the Speakership because they weren't, let's say, [Rep.] Jim Jordan [R-Ohio], where they have this idea that Donald Trump can sit as Speaker. Any of them can do that. And I know these Freedom Caucus members fairly well, and I know that they have no problem turning their back on [McCarthy] and they will,” he added.

He said he would “absolutely love to see” McCarthy not become Speaker in January.

Trump’s cruelty has taken over the Republican Party, but his own base is increasingly cult-like

Posted on (Updated by Laura Clawson

Can we talk about how creepy and cult-like Donald Trump’s following is getting?

I mean, yes, it has been creepy and cult-like all along, what with the people traveling around to rally after rally like Grateful Dead fans and the over-the-top merchandizing and painter Jon McNaughton’s portrayals of Trump as both a towering moral figure and a physically dominant one, to say nothing of the unwavering approval through scandal after scandal, plus an impeachment, a coup attempt, and another impeachment. It’s long been clear that Trump was barely exaggerating when he said, in 2016, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?”

Yet somehow it’s gotten creepier and more cult-like. That’s probably in part because some fraction of the Republican base has moved on from Trump, leaving the most die-hard core there to show up for events like, say, Trump’s rally in Ohio on Saturday, which was far from full.

RELATED STORY: 'This is the week when Trump became Qanon': Crowd responds with bizarre hand sign at Trump rally

That rally solidified a recent trend of Trump embracing QAnon imagery and messages more openly than in the past, with a recent Truth Social post showing himself in a Q pin along with the QAnon slogan, “The storm is coming.” (Where “the storm” is Trump arresting and even executing his political opponents.) In attendance at the rally was Vincent Fusca, the man QAnon adherents believe is John F. Kennedy Jr.

And, at the end of the rally, many in the crowd raised their arms and extended a single finger in what looked all too much like a Nazi salute as a song played that either was the QAnon anthem “Wwg1wga” or was a "virtually identical" or possibly fully identical song called “Mirrors.”

Trump's rally in Youngstown, Ohio, ends with the dramatic music playing. Strange vibes. pic.twitter.com/wMQwAJ5QfU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2022

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The people who showed up had come for the usual menu of Trump lies and bragging and hate speech and more lies. Here in late 2022, Republicans can get the hateful policies and more polished versions of the lies from lots of other politicians. Trump is jealous that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got to get the headlines from grabbing migrants in Texas and dropping them on Martha’s Vineyard. He can claim credit for the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, but he’s not the most relevant factor in Republican-controlled states instituting harsh abortion bans. He’s not personally harming trans kids through exclusionary and abusive policies. Trump may have set the tone, but the Republicans currently in office have been ready and willing to continue carrying out the cruelty while he golfs and fumes about being under investigation.

So the audience that’s there for Trump is there because of his cult of personality. That remains frighteningly strong—he was able to drag J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz over the Republican primary finish lines in Ohio and Pennsylvania despite their weakness as candidates, for instance, and he’s still the strongest fundraiser among Republicans (sometimes to their regret, since he doesn’t share). Trump is far from irrelevant, and not just because so many Republican leaders are competing to be more hateful than him. But the fact that so many of the people willing to show up for him on a Saturday during a major local college football game are now visibly Q-affiliated is a sign of Trump’s shifting status in his party. The thing about cult leaders, though, is they don’t get less scary when they feel their power waning.

Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.

Cheers and Jeers: Monday

Posted on by Bill in Portland Maine

The Swashbucklin’ 19th

Avast me hearties and suchlike. It's me, Captain Billybeard, fear-instiller of the deep blue kiddie pool. For thems who don't knows, today is the blow-me-downest day of the year: International Talk Like A Pirate Day. And arrrway we go…

President Biden: "By 2035 we’ll all be drivin’ electric carrrs!"

Democratic strategist: "That Fetterman lad is a rising starrr."

Winston Churchill: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest arrr!'"

Continued...

American worker: "Thanks to those greedy bastards on Wall Street, I may never get to retarrr!"

Daily Kos blogger: ”My favorite front-pager is the Morrill lass named Barrrrb.”

And please: it’s “Arrr,” not “Arrrgh.”

Daily Kos blogger with opposing view: “My favorite front-pager is the Joan they call McCarrrter.”

Judge, sometime in 2023: "I sentence ye, Donald J. Trump, to twenty years behind barrrrs."

Buzz Aldrin: "To Marrrs!"

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland: "Come one, come all, to visit our national parrrks."

Red-hatted End Times fanatic: "Prepare ye for Arrrrmageddon."

Theatre Critic: "Don’t miss the revival of Streetcarrr Named Desarrr!"

Postal abbreviation of Bill Clinton's home state: AR

Trump's legal team: "Ready! Farrr! Aim!"

Thanks for reading.  You've been a swarrrthy arrdience. And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 15, 2022

Note: Always get anything agreed to on a Monday in writing.  Can't trust that day.  —Judge Judy

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By the Numbers:

4 days!!!

Days 'til the midterm elections: 54

Days 'til the 28thannual Pueblo Chile & Frijoles Festival in Colorado: 4

Number of the last two months during which inflation has dropped in the U.S.: 2

Number of subpoenas the Justice Department issued last week to Trump administration goons related to MAGA's January 6 insurrection: 40

Square miles of land Ukrainian troops have retaken over the last two weeks: 3,400

Percent chance that Twitter shareholders approved the takeover of the platform by unstable genius Elon Musk: 100%

Percent by which middle-aged Americans are less likely to die of any cause if they walk 7,000 steps a day, compared with those who walk less, according to research in the Journal of the American Medical Association: 50%

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Puppy Pac-Man?

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JEERS to our top story of the day by law. Here's an update on The Queen's funeral, which has been in progress for two hours with 52 to go:

♔ Elizabeth II's cellphone continues playing her royal ringtone, God Save the Queen, from her permanently-sealed coffin. The good news: the Royal Viceroy in charge of Telecommunications says it should stop within three days. The bad news: nobody in the British Empire may be seated until it does.

♔ During the service, King Charles III has been seen mumbling "Bloody thing" about his fountain pen, his watch, his squeaky shoes, the elusive strand that the Royal Earl of Nose Hair Trimming missed, and the heffalump that continues to haunt his dreams.

♔ The vicar's pants have finally been located.

♔ Instead of saying "Amen" after prayers and invocations, President Biden is using the alternate wording: "God love ya, man. No joke."

♔ Following the service, teenagers Oliver and Balthazar will shuttle the guests from Westminster Abbey to the Sudsbury-on-the-Glen banquet hall for tea cakes, tea kippers, tea pie, tea brisket, tea shanks, and tea. Please be patient as they can only fit two at a time, including one in the boot.

♔ You can follow the solemnity and unifying grandeur of the funeral via the top-trending hashtags on Twitter: #LeaveHarryAndMeghanAlone, #TheMediaHateHarryAndMeghan, #HarryShouldBeKingNotWankerCharles, and #LizLovedHarryMost.

Join us for our next legally-mandated update in 39 seconds. And throw that gum away—it's disrespectful.

JEERS to today's edition of How Can You Tell When It's Election Season?  Courtesy of Susanne Ramírez de Arellano at NBC News:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unexpectedly sent two planes carrying mostly Venezuelan immigrants, including children, to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. It’s the most sadistic iteration of a scheme preferred by governors of Republican states: dumping migrants on northern progressive cities as a political stunt against President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.

Republican governors have been doing this as a way to protest what they claim are insufficient federal efforts to ensure security on the southern border. It is cynical point-scoring against whom they see as woke liberals being soft on immigration—a “gotcha” moment.  

This has been today's edition of How Can You Tell When It's Election Season?

CHEERS to seeing the forest for the pearly gates.  The more enlightened Americans become, the more it dawns on us that the existence of God will never be anything other than a hope in our imaginations. We can memorize every religious text in every language on every continent and we can scour every corner of the universe, but the fact remains: until He or She or It actually shows up, we’re all agnostics down here on earth. But one thing is for certain: religious grifters, almost always of the conservative persuasion, use the fear of god to shake down their gullible flocks to pad their lavish lifestyles as they actively support politicians for whom punching down is a feature, not a bug. So this is welcome news as far as I—a lapsed Episcopalian—am concerned:

If current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the population—and as little as a third—in 50 years.

Meanwhile, the so-called nones—or the religiously unaffiliated — could make up close to half of the population.

Those are among the major findings of a new report from the Pew Research Center regarding America’s religious future—a future where Christianity, though diminished, persists while non-Christian faiths grow amid rising secularization. […]

One reason for the decline among Christians and the growth among the nones in the models is age. While Christians have more children than nones, they are also older. Pew estimates the average Christian in the United States is 43, which is 10 years older than the average none.

But one number remains consistent, according to the Billy Institute of Religious Vittles: 100% of everybody in America agrees that Episcopalian pancake suppers are the best. If I’m lyin’, may God strike me down in a hail of sausage links. Or patties, I’m not picky.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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Ukrainian grandma meets her hero grandson. This is impossible to watch without crying pic.twitter.com/erSz3lC1o5

— Liubov Tsybulska (@TsybulskaLiubov) September 10, 2022

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to Field Marshal Billeh's Rule of Thumb. It goes like this: when two countries are at war, the side whose leader is hunkered down in a bunker is not the winning side. So here's a clue as to who is kicking who:

His hand on his heart, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched as his country’s flag was hoisted above the recently recaptured city of Izium, a rare foray outside the capital that highlighted Moscow’s embarrassing retreat in the face of a lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive.

As Putin cowers, Zelenskyy leads. And wins.

Russian forces left the war-scarred city last week as Kyiv's soldiers pressed a stunning advance that has reclaimed large swaths of territory in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region.

As Zelenskyy looked on and sang the national anthem, the Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the burned-out city hall building in the largely devastated town, where apartment buildings are blackened by fire and pockmarked by artillery strikes.

Russia's Vladimir Putin hasn't traveled to the front, citing concerns to his safety. He's afraid he could easily be killed. By his own fleeing troops.

JEERS to deep-sixing #20.  On September 19, 1881, President James Garfield died, 80 days after some disgruntled jerk whipped out a couple guns and shot him in the back. One bullet grazed his arm, the other hit his backbone but not the spinal cord or any internal organs. Had the radical notion of sterile hands and instruments (already embraced for 30 years by much of Europe) been in use at the time, and had they not basically starved him, the president would’ve lived. True story: Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet using his new invention, the metal detector…

As the doctors struggled to understand the extent of Garfield's wounds, Bell, inventor of the telephone, used this machine to try to locate the bullet. When found, the machine was to send a sound to the attached telephone receiver.

“Hello, operator? Please connect me to the president’s bullet. No, I haven’t been drinking. And I also need Amanda Hugginkiss.”

Despite attempts on July 26 and August 1, 1881, Bell could not situate the bullet.

Turns out the steel springs in Garfield's bed likely rendered it useless. Someday we'll be able to joke about it. But not today—after only 141 years, it’s just too soon.

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Ten years ago in C&J: September 19, 2012

JEERS to a bad start. September 9: Shell starts drilling in the Arctic, using the latest safety equipment that will guarantee everything goes smoothly. September 17:  Shell stops drilling in the Arctic for the season when their safety equipment breaks. On the bright side, the company assures us it's nothing that a little super glue and a multi-million-dollar PR TV blitz won’t fix. Cue the actors in lab coats with beakers and shit-eating grins…

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And just one more…

JEERS to wasting seven-plus decades of perfectly good oxygen. To the heartbreak of no one but family and a few deplorables, shitbag Texan Ken Starr finally kicked the bucket at 76, but not before spending most of his life as a very sick Republican who used his intellect for evil. The ever-succinct Wonkette has the definitive obituary:

[A]fter he was all done with trying to bring down Bill Clinton, Starr went on to be the president of Baylor University, where he was shitcanned in 2016 for his part in covering up—or failing to "take appropriate action to respond to"—a massive sexual assault scandal involving the football team, and then he helped defend the indefensible Donald Trump in his first impeachment, fuck him, he's dead, the end.

I'd bet money his trip to the afterlife will involve taking the 'Down' elevator. But darn it, I have this dumb rule about saying something nice about the recently departed. So here goes: he generally did a good job centering the knot in his necktie. Ah…the banality of evil.

Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial

"The only people who take Bill in Portland Maine seriously are those who splash in his kiddie pool. And no one splashes in his kiddie pool."

—Mick Mulvaney

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Democrats brace for life with a House GOP majority

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Senate Democrats are bracing for the possibility for life under a divided government, with President Biden in office and a strong possibility of a Republican-controlled House.

Democrats hope they can retain their majority in the Senate, where a number of political handicappers say the party is favored. That would give Democrats more leverage and congressional support for Biden over the next two years.

But if the House does fall as expected, lawmakers expect partisan gridlock.

Some Democrats are predicting government shutdowns and standoffs over raising the federal debt limit will take center stage.  

“If Republicans win control of the House, they will not be able to govern. It’ll be a cascading nightmare of dysfunction and horrible for the country and horrible news for anybody who relies on federal funding,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Murphy predicted that if Republicans are in charge of one or both chambers, “it’s probably a series of shutdowns and funding crises.” 

“This new breed of Republicans are anarchists. They don’t really believe government should be funding anything,” he added.  

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House minority leader who is in line to become Speaker if Republicans win the lower chamber, is more allied with former President Trump than his Senate GOP counterpart, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  

McCarthy sided with Trump last year when the former president called on Republicans to block legislation to raise the debt limit, which would have put the nation at risk of default.

Not a single House Republican voted to raise the debt ceiling in October and it fell to McConnell and his leadership team and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to provide the votes to keep the United States fulfilling its debt obligations.  

Trump, who retains a strong grip on the Republican base, slammed McConnell for compromising with Democrats, arguing that GOP lawmakers should have sought to paralyze Biden’s agenda.  

Trump presided over a 35-day government shutdown at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 — the longest in U.S. history — which was triggered by his demand to spend nearly $6 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.  

FiveThirtyEight.com, a political forecasting website, gives Republicans a 7 in 10 chance of winning the House majority and Democrats a 7 in 10 chance of keeping control of the Senate.  

Another Democratic senator who requested anonymity to comment frankly on the likely result of the November election, said if Republicans capture the House, it will yield “a series of investigations” of the Biden administration.  

“Many want to impeach Joe Biden. It would be a recipe for chaos and for gridlock,” the lawmaker said.

Several House conservatives have already introduced articles of impeachment against Biden, alleging “high crimes” related to his handling of border security and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year to has management of the coronavirus pandemic.  

Conservatives are signaling they will attempt to block funding for the Internal Revenue Service to hire an estimated 87,000 new employees, which was provided for in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in August under the budget reconciliation process.  

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a prominent Trump ally, penned an op-ed for Fox News with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) urging fellow Republicans to “stop caving to Democrats” and warned “under no circumstances should any Republican in the new majorities next year vote to fund the Democrats’ newly passed army of 87,000 new IRS officials to audit and harass Americans.”  

Some Trump allies still haven’t given up hope of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which was one of Trump’s top domestic priorities after taking office in 2017.  

“If we’re going to repeal and replace ObamaCare — I still think we need to fix our health care system — we need to have the plan ahead of time so that once we get in office, we can implement it immediately, not knock around like we did last time and fail,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is running for reelection, told Breitbart News Radio earlier this year.  

When Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 midterms, then-Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whose influence in the party has grown significantly over the last decade, proposed $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. His proposed Spending Reduction Act would have cut nondefense discretionary spending dramatically.  

In April of that year, then-President Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) flirted with a government shutdown before Democrats finally agreed to $39 billion spending cuts in a late-night deal.

The Congress also came perilously close to defaulting on the federal debt in August of 2011, a few months after House Republicans captured the House. Fiscal disaster was averted by a compromise that McConnell and Biden, who was then vice president, helped craft.   

Senate Democrats say they hope such standoffs will be avoided.

“I think we’ve learned that shutdowns really are a lose-lose [proposition,]” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who came to Congress in 2011. “Certainly some House Republicans have learned. Whether all of them or the newly elected ones remains to be seen.” 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he’s optimistic about working with House Republicans in the next Congress to pass the annual defense authorization bill. But he expressed concerns that Trump allies in the House will try to undermine the professionalism and political neutrality of the military.  

Trump tried to shake up the Pentagon’s senior ranks and install loyalists into key positions after he lost the 2020 election to Biden, and Reed fears that Trump allies in the House may still have that on their agenda.  

“One of my concerns is less the NDAA, it’s the growing attack on the military as an institution. I just saw where the Arizona candidate for the Senate called for firing all the generals and putting in conservatives. That’s not how we [run] our army. It’s based on competence and experience and the judgment of others, their superior military officers,” Reed said.   

Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, has repeatedly called for the across-the-board firing of generals between August of 2021 and March of this year, according to a recent report by Vice.com.  

Despite the growing Democratic concerns of having to interact with a House Republican majority in 2023, some Democratic senators think they’ll be able to find narrow areas of common ground.  

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) cited bipartisan support for the chips and science bill that passed both chambers this year with bipartisan majorities.  

“Of course there will be areas where we can work together,” he said.  

“They’ll be doing a lot of stuff for show,” he added, anticipating new investigations of the Biden administration. 

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) noted he is working with Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) to restore the pensions of salaried retirees in Delphi who were terminated when General Motors declared bankruptcy in 2009.  

“There will be ways. They’re not all crazy. Some of them are,” he said of House Republicans.  

Brown, however, insisted the political winds are shifting in Democrats’ favor, even in the battle for the House.  

“I think things are changing and these are close races,” he said. “The only thing that would cost us the House is redistricting,” referring to the changes to congressional maps made after the 2020 census.  

He’s a Dem investigative champ. That doesn’t guarantee a promotion.

Posted on by By Jordain Carney

Jamie Raskin’s got the investigative chops and national profile to get the job he wants next year. Except he’s facing a uniquely congressional challenge: At nearly 60 years old, he might be too junior.

The Maryland Democrat, a constitutional law expert who’s reached a national audience as a Donald Trump impeachment manager and a Jan. 6 select committee member, hopes to snag his party’s top spot on the influential House Oversight Committee next year. He’s running against 72-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and 67-year-old Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), both of whom outrank him on the panel.

Democrats privately warn that it’s too early to determine a frontrunner, with the race expected to extend until the end of the year. But there’s early jockeying behind the scenes; members got their preferences subtly vetted on the sidelines of House Democrats’ first closed-door caucus meeting since July, one attendee told POLITICO.

Running to lead his party on Oversight is a gamble for Raskin, cutting against the caucus’ penchant for doling out plum positions according to seniority. But amid the potential for a broader post-election shakeup in Democratic leadership — following years of lawmakers’ private kvetching about the inability to move up as octogenarians held onto the top positions — Raskin could find his bid boosted as an array of younger members vault up the ranks.

“We have a wonderful predicament of three great folks running for this, but Jamie’s special," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who is whipping for Raskin, said in a brief interview. He called the Marylander "the entire package."

Each of the three Democrats elbowing for the top spot on the committee — which came open after the current chair, 76-year-old Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) lost her primary — have also begun putting together their own whip teams, looking to shore up early support among their colleagues. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who beat Maloney in a hard-fought primary, is among those whipping for Raskin.

Each camp has their work cut out for them. Maloney isn’t planning to endorse, she told POLITICO, and several members of the Oversight Committee haven’t yet backed a contender. The November election could also shake up the core group of Democrats who will make recommendations on who gets the spot.

Raskin said in an interview that he respects the “principle of seniority” but that assuming the most senior member should automatically be chair is a “rebuttable presumption." That should be true “unless there is a compelling reason to move in another direction," he added.

“I think that this will be a judgment of the caucus about the character of the times that we’re in and whose particular experience and preparation is most indicated by the times,” Raskin added.

Connolly and Lynch both entered the race before Raskin. While they are more senior on the committee and highlighted it when they announced their bids, they're not campaigning on that as their top asset.

Raskin, Lynch and Connolly are each subcommittee chairs — overseeing Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; National Security; and Government Operations, respectively — and their current posts highlight some of the different focuses they would bring to the full committee.

Lynch, for example, said he wants to prioritize voting reforms next year and stressed his experience with hands-on investigations. He's led congressional trips to eastern Europe and the Ukrainian border to reinforce congressional support for Kyiv, pairing those visits with hearings and information requests on Russia.

“I think getting on the ground and helping members understand … that function of the committee, which is the heart and soul of its operation, is something I probably have an advantage in,” Lynch said, who described the race as a “jump ball."

Rep. Stephen Lynch arrives at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 23, 2019.

Asked about being the most senior Democrat on the panel who's running for the top spot, Lynch said he thought seniority was “a factor” but “I don’t think it’s the single most important factor. It has been in the past, but I don’t know that it is now.”

Connolly said he thought Raskin had done a “terrific job” with his work on the Jan. 6 select committee, but contended that Oversight had a “slightly different mission.”

“We deal with the nuts and bolts of government. And it’s very granular oversight that may seem obscure, but often those issues are hinges to much bigger things,” Connolly, whose state has a substantial number of government workers, said in a brief interview.

Connolly previously lost to Maloney in 2019's race for the top spot on the Oversight Committee. Lynch also ran that year but dropped out before the caucus voted. Among those backing Connolly include Foreign Affairs Chair Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), while Lynch pointed to Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Reps. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) as some of those supporting him.

Rep. Gerry Connolly is interviewed in Fairfax, Va., Oct. 22, 2020.

Raskin joined the House in 2017, Connolly in 2009 and Lynch in 2001. But Raskin has had more time in the national spotlight more than his opponents, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has handed him some of the most politically sensitive assignments in recent years.

Pelosi named Raskin the lead impeachment manager for Trump’s second trial, which came just weeks after a mob of the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted the formal counting of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), another Raskin whip, said his effectiveness in that position "impressed" her.

Months later, Pelosi tapped Raskin for the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, a high-profile perch that's found him and eight other panel member unleashing a steady stream of bombshells stemming from Trump-backed attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Becoming Oversight and Government Reform chair embodies the breadth of his work. He's not just an impeachment manager. He’s not just a member of the 1/6 committee. He is somebody who has educated all of us in this country about our democracy, our Constitution,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), who has been talking to members on Raskin’s behalf.

If Democrats lose the House, as expected, whoever succeeds Maloney would be the ranking member — and be on the vanguard of countering GOP probes on everything ranging from Hunter Biden's business dealings to the White House's handling of the pandemic. Raskin, in his own letter to his colleagues last month, noted that the party was “still in the fight of our lives to defend American constitutional democracy.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin departs at the close of the first day of the proceeding in former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, Feb. 9, 2021.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) — while stressing she spoke for herself and not the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which she chairs — said she was “very supportive” of Raskin.

“I think he would be an incredible chair either in the majority, where we have a lot of oversight to do, or … if we were in the minority he would be a fantastic defender of democracy,” Jayapal said, adding that Raskin has “so much respect across the caucus.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is also backing Raskin, said his work on impeachment and the Jan. 6 panel give him a “moral authority” that he could bring to the caucus’ top spot on Oversight.

“I think people see, in Jamie’s case, that he would be so perfect for the role that he has a chance to overcome the institutional preference for seniority,” Khanna said.

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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