FBI document GOP wants released to tarnish President Biden came from Rudy Giuliani

Posted on June 1, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Republicans are desperately searching for something they can smear President Biden with in advance of the 2024 election and, needless to say, it’s been slow going. Of course, if Donald Trump had been in D.C. politics for the past 50 years—as Biden has—the Library of Congress would currently be listed as a two-star brothel on Yelp. But Biden’s opponents have been busy turning over every rock they can find outside of Louie Gohmert’s head, and so far they’ve found bupkis.

In the wake of reports that Biden’s sketchy sexual assault accuser Tara Reade has mysteriously turned up in OG Trump fan Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s now been revealed that the “bombshell” document supposedly detailing a Biden pay-for-play scheme originated with—oh, sweet Fiddle-Pants McGee—none other than Rudy Giuliani.

Yeah, given ol’ Rudes’ preternatural talent for barmy bullshittery, we can probably put this “scandal” to bed, and hope against hope that no one tries to spank it with a Forbes magazine.

The Daily Beast:

Facing looming contempt of Congress proceedings, FBI Director Christopher Wray has offered to show House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) a document—behind closed doors—that Comer believes exposes nefarious dealings by Joe Biden during his days as vice president. The document is reportedly from a collection that Rudy Giuliani gave to the Department of Justice in 2020, according to CNN reporter Zachary Cohen, and contains unverified information from confidential sources. Since Republicans seized power in the House, Comer has led a crusade to expose what he alleges to be misconduct by President Biden and his family—but has so far come up empty. After threatening Wray with contempt of Congress, Comer now says that Wray’s offer to show him the document in the FBI headquarters won’t suffice. “If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings,” Comer said, according to CNN.

More: The document at center of this dispute has origins in a tranche of docs that Rudy Giuliani provided to DOJ in 2020, sources tell @evanperez. The allegations, many originating from sources Ukraine, included 1 claiming evidence of corruption involving Biden when he was VP. https://t.co/GXcpCYEIVR
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) May 31, 2023

The claims were dubious enough that then-AG Barr directed that they be reviewed by a US attorney in Pittsburgh, in part because Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware US attorney.
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) May 31, 2023

Former Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady oversaw the FBI investigation of the Giuliani claims. The document being demanded by Comer is among the products of that probe. While the document outlines claims from the informant, it doesn’t provide proof they are true, per sources.
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) May 31, 2023

For the nontweeters:

CNN REPORTER ZACHARY COHEN: More: The document at center of this dispute has origins in a tranche of docs that Rudy Giuliani provided to DOJ in 2020, sources tell @evanperez.

The allegations, many originating from sources Ukraine, included 1 claiming evidence of corruption involving Biden when he was VP.

The claims were dubious enough that then-AG Barr directed that they be reviewed by a US attorney in Pittsburgh, in part because Barr was concerned that Giuliani’s document tranche could taint the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation overseen by the Delaware US attorney.

Former Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady oversaw the FBI investigation of the Giuliani claims. The document being demanded by Comer is among the products of that probe. While the document outlines claims from the informant, it doesn’t provide proof they are true, per sources.

Wait, Rudy’s sources in Ukraine are certain they’ve found evidence of Biden corruption? Do tell!

Of course, there are good reasons to be skeptical of not only the document’s source, but of Republicans’ intentions as well. For one thing, it would be wildly inappropriate to make the document public, as doing so could endanger confidential sources. And for another, its release would prove exactly nothing.

The Washington Post:

Congressional Republicans say they know of a whistleblower within the Justice Department who alleges that President Biden received millions of dollars from a foreigner in exchange for a policy decision.

That’s all we know; Republicans are in an escalating battle with the FBI to get hold of the informant tip that they say will shed light.

The evidence: The document Republicans are requesting is a form the FBI uses to record unverified tips. The FBI stressed that in its response to Republicans: “The FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations, and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime, or even terrorists. … Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI.”

So why is the GOP so keen on getting its grubby hands on a document that reportedly came from Ratfucker Rudy and presumably contains wild, unverified accusations? Come on, you know why. For the same reason Donald Trump wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to simply announce an investigation into Joe Biden that could have been used to smear him in the 2020 election. After all, a real investigation would have turned up nothing. An announced, ongoing investigation, on the other hand, would have been a golden political cudgel that Trump could have wielded with abandon throughout the presidential campaign.

They want an unverified (i.e., likely bullshit) “official” accusation against Biden to hang around the president’s neck like a moldering albatross. It would be like giving the MAGA media a coloring book they could fill in with the most lurid hues imaginable.

So that’s why you get comedy gold like the following:

Chuck Grassley on Fox News: "We are not interested in whether the allegations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not." pic.twitter.com/yI8G26vQRw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2023

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: “We aren’t interested in whether or not the accusations against Vice President Biden are accurate or not. We’re responsible for making sure the FBI does its job, and that’s what we want to know.”

FOX NEWS’ BILL HEMMER: “Okay, Senator, let me stop you there. You just said you read the document, is that right?

GRASSLEY: “Yes.”

HEMMER: “And what did it say?”

GRASSLEY: “Well, I’m not going to characterize it.”

He’s not going to characterize a document that damns the leader of the opposition party? Wow, that information must really be explosive.

Oh, but it gets better.

FOX: How damning is this document for Biden? GRASSLEY: I, I dont know that FOX: But you've read it GRASSLEY: Let's put it this way, there are accusations in it pic.twitter.com/HxZqg35QG6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2023

HEMMER: “Senator, how damning is this document to the sitting U.S. president?”

GRASSLEY: “Well, it’s … I, I don’t know that.”

HEMMER: “But you’ve read it.”

GRASSLEY: “I read it. Let’s put it this way, there’s accusations in it, but it’s not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not. It’s my job to make sure the FBI is doing their job, and that’s what this is all about as far as I’m concerned. The public’s business ought to be public.”

Hoo-boy! That’s convincing, huh? First of all, it’s clearly not the FBI’s job to burn sources in order to smear a sitting president with unverified allegations brought to the agency by his chief political opponent’s goofball lawyer. Secondly, if Grassley’s already read the document and can’t decide if there’s any “there” there, why does he think the American public would be any more discerning?

The truth is they want it released because they need to create at least a whiff of scandal to mask the refulgent stink lines pouring 24/7 off Donald John Trump’s purpling political corpse.

That’s clearly what Comer and Grassley’s performative—and very public—war with the FBI is all about, too. In fact, both Comer and Grassley already know what’s in the document, but instead of simply investigating the allegation, they’re determined to raise as much of a stink as possible.

The Washington Post:

The FBI did respond to the request for the document, saying that it opposed its release in part because it risked exposing its sourcing (a standard response) and in part because the allegation is just that: an allegation. The FBI isn’t new at this; it certainly understands why Grassley and (particularly) Comer are eager to have it released. An allegation encoded on an FBI form has a perceived weight that an allegation presented in a congressional press release doesn’t, even if that perception is unwarranted.

[…]

The logical implication from Grassley and Comer having seen the document is that their whistleblower is someone who had access to it; to wit, a current or former employee of the FBI or the government. (CNN reported on Wednesday that the document at issue may have been part of a number of files Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani gave the Justice Department in 2020.) Whoever the source was, they had a copy of the reporting document for years without more details about it being uncovered. Never mind that the allegation about Biden emerged in June of the year Donald Trump was seeking reelection, seemingly without Barr’s Justice Department developing a criminal case around it.

But Comer and Grassley have been aware of its contents for a month, and all they appear to have done is pester the FBI about it. Remember, Comer held a news conference in early May during which he alleged that foreign money had at times moved between members of Biden’s family. That was the product of months of investigations based on financial documents the Oversight Committee had retained.

In other words, Comer and Grassley are out on a very wobbly limb when it comes to these accusations. But hey, better luck next time, guys. Maybe Chuck can pin the dead pidgin in front of his house on Biden next. It would make at least as much sense as this.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Trump makes unconstitutional promise to racist base

Posted on May 31, 2023 (Updated June 1, 2023) by Hunter

Seditionist Donald Trump is again a Republican candidate for president. Unfortunately for Trump's new campaign staff, "President" Donald now has an actual White House record behind him, and that's been causing complications. Much of what Trump is now vowing he'll do if put back in the Oval Office is the same stuff he promised to do before—but couldn't or didn't actually deliver.

Most of Trump's new campaign promises, in fact, have been falling into two broad categories. Half of the promises are overtly authoritarian vows, like Trump's threat to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who attacked Congress on his behalf; the other half are whining assertions that all that stuff he promised he'd do back during the first campaign are things he'll super-duper for sure do next time, just you wait.

The Trump campaign's latest ode de bullshitte combines fascist rhetoric, brazen lying, and a grubby chunk of base racism all into one alleged new promise: Trump says on his first day of office, he will sign an executive order nullifying the Constitution's grant of birthright citizenship to children born inside the United States.

If this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Trump very famously promised this during his last administration, making a big stink of it halfway through his term as a midterm campaign issue.

It didn't happen because the very idea is a goofy crank theory perpetuated by anti-immigrant and racist groups and one that's been widely scorned, if not laughed at, by every legal scholar who is not an outright far-right crank. What we call "birthright citizenship" is enshrined into the Constitution via the 14th Amendment; its validity has been settled law for over 120 years, and even the most fringe of conservative groups pin their hopes on Congress passing new legislation to theoretically strip those 14th Amendment protections.

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That, then, is why "President" Trump's previous vow to issue such an order resulted in absolutely nothing happening; not even his own fringe-right advisers thought he could get away with it. Much like Trump's propositions to nuke hurricanes or purchase the whole of Greenland, Trump's advisers jingled some keys in his face or showed him an especially flattering magazine article and, eventually, were able to redirect his attention. It's showing up again now only because Trump has even worse advisers than he did the first time around, and because it's campaign season. Donald Trump will lie to his base about everything, all the time, even if it means retelling 8-year-old lies in the hopes that his scatterbrained supporters have the memory retention of goldfish.

There is, however, one odd bit of phrasing that caught our eye, if only for its vague twinges of Lovecraftian horror.

In announcing the new campaign pledge, the Trump campaign asserts that Trump's newly promised Day-One executive order "will explain the clear meaning of the 14th Amendment."

Now there's a thought. Forget 120 years of settled law, forget the courts, forget the rest of government: On Day One, Donald Trump will Trumpsplain what the 14th Amendment to the Constitution actually means.

Forget your Draculas, your mummies, your Mothras, and your Cthulhus. You want to know true fear? Imagine a future in which Donald Trump is again "president" and his White House announces that the Constitution of the United States now means whatever the hell the person, woman, man, camera, TV dementia-test-acing Trump thinks it means.

If you want to truly stare into the abyss, pull up a chair and watch the man Trumpsplain that the Third Amendment's prohibition against "quartering troops" in your house doesn't apply if they're all carrying nickels instead.

The Republican presidential primary race looks like it will be shaping up exactly as expected. If you're a Republican presidential primary voter who's really into fascism and being lied to, you don’t need to look any further than Trump. He’s got you covered. And it's not like Republican voters who still support Trump even after four years, two impeachments, one insurrection, and a criminal indictment might draw the line at Trump repeating previous campaign lies.

We could still be in for a surprise or two, though. The man could always jet off to Moscow, set up his own television studio, and spend his waking days Trumpsplaining our Constitution to us from half a world away. It'd be a lot easier on him than dragging himself up and down the White House stairs again, and have very nearly the same results. You might consider it, Donald!

We have Rural Organizing’s Aftyn Behn. Markos and Aftyn talk about what has been happening in rural communities across the country and progressives’ efforts to engage those voters. Behn also gives the podcast a breakdown of which issues will make the difference in the coming elections.

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Trump's taint is scaring off Republican candidates

Trump's awful CNN town hall sounded alarm for 2024 election

Trump’s taint is scaring off Republican candidates

Posted on May 24, 2023 (Updated May 25, 2023) by Kerry Eleveld

Donald Trump's much-discussed CNN “town hall” may have drawn cheers from his deplorable MAGA base, but congressional Republicans are already shedding tears over it.

Not only did Trump's gross display of misogyny-laden grievances arm Democrats with 70 minutes’ worth of attack ads on both Trump and Republicans, it's also killing the Republican Party's ability to recruit candidates with any reasonable shot at winning over swing voters, according to Politico.

In Colorado, House Republicans are currently trying to recruit construction executive Joe O'Dea to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in a swingy district that went for Joe Biden by 5 points in 2020. In Pennsylvania, Senate Republicans are urging former hedge fund manager David McCormick to make a bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

The two Republicans have a lot in common. O'Dea was much ballyhooed in 2022 for his moderate crossover appeal to swing voters, but still lost to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett by a whopping 15 points. "Joe O'Dea lost BIG!" celebrated Trump, who was irked by O'Dea's refusal to say the 2020 election was stolen.

O'Dea would face two serious deficits in a Republican primary: his refusal to back Trump's stolen election lie about 2020 and his pretzel-twisting on reproductive freedom. But even if O'Dea somehow survived the Republican primary, Trump's MAGA brand in blue-leaning Colorado will likely be toxic—just like it was when O'Dea face-planted in last cycle's Senate race. After all, just last week, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade won the race for Colorado Springs mayor, becoming the first Black mayor in the conservative city’s history and ending decades of Republican-only rule.

One O'Dea ally laughably posited: “The question is: Does the party want to move on and win and govern or do they want to look backwards?”

Judging by this recent poll from Morning Consult on the 2024 Republican primary, a majority of Republican voters are not ready to move on just yet. Trump’s domination is largely unchallenged, winning 58% of the vote with No. 2 Ron DeSantis trailing Trump by 38 points at 20% (consistent with other recent surveys).

McCormick, who made a midterm run for the Keystone State's open Senate seat, was the Mitch McConnell-wing's preferred candidate but didn't even make it past the primary. Instead, Trump's handpicked candidate, TV huckster Mehmet Oz, edged out McCormick by a razor-thin .1% (951 votes) before losing to the Democrat John Fetterman in the general election.

Trump's death grip on the Republican Party arguably sealed the fate of both candidates. Now, as congressional Republicans go back to the well, both candidates share the same chief concern: Donald Trump, the scourge that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies failed to neutralize when they had the chance following his impeachment for stoking the Jan. 6 insurrection. The CNN special served as a trenchant reminder of the mountain they will have to climb in 2024 to prevail.

For McCormick, Trump is "the only thing that they’re talking about,” one Republican close to the campaign anonymously told Politico.

Not issues, not policy ideas, just Trump.

.@MorningConsult 2024 Republican Primary Poll: Donald Trump 58% Ron DeSantis 20% Mike Pence 6% Nikki Haley 4% Vivek Ramaswamy 4% Liz Cheney 2% Tim Scott 2% Greg Abbott 1% Kristi Noem 0% Asa Hutchinson 0% Someone else 1% May 19-21, 2023https://t.co/QBhEnUJzrU pic.twitter.com/nLLhlLvTOn
— Aron Goldman (@ArgoJournal) May 23, 2023

One Republican willing to talk on the record was anti-Trumper and former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a onetime Republican rising star whose career was kneecapped in 2018 when she lost her battleground suburban district in the blue-wave backlash to Trump.

“Some people have asked me, ‘Should I run next year?’ If you’re in a swing district, I said, ‘No,’” Comstock advised. “If he’s going to be the nominee, you are better to wait and run after he washes out. Because you won’t have a prayer of winning.”

In fact, Politico noted some Republican operatives are telling candidates to take a pass on this cycle and instead opt for a 2026 run "when Trump may be done seeking elected office."

It's almost as if Republicans, who keep hoping Democrats would neutralize Trump for them, have set their sights on a possible criminal conviction to save them from their cowardice two cycles down the road.

In the meantime, Trump is still killing another cycle for Republicans—even in a year when the Senate map should be rife with Republican pickup opportunities.

Hell yeah! Democrats and progressives simply crushed it from coast to coast on Tuesday night, so co-hosts David Nir and David Beard are devoting this week's entire episode of "The Downballot" to reveling in all the highlights. At the very top of the list is Jacksonville, where Democrats won the mayor's race for just the second time in three decades—and gave the Florida Democratic Party a much-needed shot in the arm. Republicans also lost the mayor's office in the longtime conservative bastion of Colorado Springs for the first time since the city began holding direct elections for the job 45 years ago.

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‘I had a stroke because of Trump’: GOP strategist offers latest proof that guy is bad for our health

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

It’s not just liberal Democrats who’ve been horribly traumatized by Trump. Indeed, some Republicans have gone off-record as saying they hope he dies before the 2024 election—which, given his obvious drag on GOP candidates’ prospects, is not all that surprising. Add longtime GOP pollster and strategist Frank Luntz to the list of conservatives who’d probably prefer that a milquetoast candidate like Mike Pence secure the 2024 GOP nomination. Sure, they might still lose, but they wouldn’t develop four different kinds of ulcers trying to explain why he’s now moving to the center by trying to carve out an abortion exception for 6-foot, 5-inch fetuses named Eric.

In a recent interview, Luntz, who’s devoted his career to making Republican policies appear less benighted and awful, talked about how Trump—a monster whom, let’s be honest, Luntz helped create—literally gave him a stroke. RELATED STORY: A catalog of capital incompetence: The short list of things Donald Trump did to kill America

New York Magazine:

“Donald Trump made my head explode,” he said.

In early 2020, Luntz checked himself into a hospital after a tingling in his arm crept up his shoulder and began to spread across his face. Doctors told him his blood pressure was an alarming 197 over 122 and that he had suffered a stroke. His lack of exercise and unhealthy eating habits didn’t help, but a lot of it had to do with stress and the fact that when Luntz got upset about the state of the world, he was less likely to take his blood-pressure medicine. He was at that time constantly upset about the state of the world. He blamed Trump.

“I had a stroke because of Trump,” Luntz said. “I didn’t have the guts to speak out enough about him, and it drove me crazy. Every time I spoke out, I felt the backlash, I felt it on social media, I felt it a little bit with my clients, I felt it with my friends here.”

It’s hard to feel sorry for Luntz, given that he’s been greasing the skids for fascism for decades. But his example does help illustrate how bad Trump has been for many people’s mental as well as physical health—particularly during the peak of the pandemic.

Perhaps the best way to describe how most of us have felt over the past eight years—that is, since Donald Trump glided down his gilded escalator like a papaya messiah alighting at our unwashed plebeian feet—is that it’s a lot like driving down a two-lane highway at night with a bee trapped in your car. You don’t know if you’ll get stung five times in the eyeball or accidentally drive into oncoming traffic. Either way, it’s going to be an awful ride, and there’s no way to know if you’ll reach your destination—or what that destination even is.

For instance, this January 2021 Vox story details just how on edge Americans were after four years of Trump in the White House.

While Trump was able to energize a core of supporters with his mix of bravado, defiance, and racism, for many others, his presidency was, quite simply, scary. In the American Psychological Association’s 2016 “Stress in America” survey, 63 percent of Americans said the future of the country was a “significant source of stress,” and 56 percent said they were stressed out by the current political climate. In the 2018 version of the survey, those numbers went up to 69 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

Clinical psychologist Jennifer Panning even coined the term “Trump anxiety disorder” to describe the stress many people were feeling in the weeks and months following the 2016 election. “People tended to experience things like ruminations, like worries of what’s going to be next” as they awaited each new tweet or action by the president, Panning told Vox.

Meanwhile, anyone who’s ever been in an abusive relationship was likely retraumatized by Trump’s crass rhetorical methods.

Trump also subjected people in America and around the world to language and tactics used by abusers, Farrah Khan, a gender justice advocate and manager of the Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education at Ryerson University in Canada, told Vox. That includes gaslighting (like when he claimed that the official Covid-19 death tolls were fraudulent, or that the virus would “go away on its own”), lashing out in anger (his perennial rage-tweets about “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT”), and seeking revenge on people for perceived wrongs (his attacks on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after she criticized his administration’s Covid-19 response). In a relationship with an abuser, “you’re constantly hypervigilant to what he’s going to do next,” Khan said. Under Trump’s presidency, that hypervigilance extended to the millions of Americans affected by him and his policies.

And while progressive Americans likely felt Trump’s presence most keenly, Republicans have not been immune to his reverse charms. A widely shared Atlantic story from January gave us a glimpse into GOP thinking and panic in the lead-up to the 2024 election. One anonymously quoted former congressman bluntly noted, “We’re just waiting for him to die.”

“You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump’s] mortal demise,” [former Republican Rep. Peter] Meijer told me. “I want to be clear: I’m not in that camp. But I’ve heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ‘I can’t wait until this guy dies.’ And it’s like, Good Lord.” (Trump’s mother died at 88 and his father at 93, so this strategy isn’t exactly foolproof.)

Of course, simply waiting for another human being to croak so that we don’t become a fascist dystopia isn’t a great strategy (it’s morbid, for one, and a pretty cowardly avenue for people who could simply put country over party and lock arms in opposition to fascism), but you can’t really blame people for the sentiment. Seriously, the guy wanted to pull us out of NATO and, among other gobsmacking inanities, once suggested to his chief of staff that we could nuke North Korea and blame it on someone else—an idea he no doubt arrived at earlier in the day while reading The Family Circus. How is anyone supposed to sleep soundly with a guy like that in the Oval Office? And how are we supposed to relax if there’s even a 1% chance that he might find himself back in power?

After all, Hibernol isn’t real. Or it isn’t yet, I should say. Though the pharmaceutical companies may want to get on this tout de suite. I could see a surging demand for this wonder drug the closer we get to November 2024.

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DeSantis’ ‘Never Back Down’ PAC backs down hard because Republicans are just cowards now

Posted on May 17, 2023 (Updated May 18, 2023) by Hunter

It's really remarkable how gutless Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is at his core. The would-be Republican presidential candidate sure is quick to bully reporters, students wearing masks during a global pandemic, and anyone in Florida schools and universities who he has the slightest bit of so-called executive power over. But the man goes out of his way to avoid any public appearance where he might be exposed to potential critics. When it comes to actually fighting for the Republican nomination he so covets, DeSantis has continuously failed to find a spine when it comes to taking on the biggest obstacle standing between him and the nomination: Donald Trump.

How can a person who can barely muster the courage to even whisper the name “Trump” make a case to voters that he’s a strong candidate? DeSantis’ primary foe has given him a mountain of topics to unload on, from inciting an insurrection to multiple impeachments, and most recently a jury’s verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll.

This is a guy who thinks he could stand up to the rest of the world's leaders, both friendly and hostile? He'd get rolled by No. 10 Downing Street's resident cat before he ever made it through the front door.

The latest show of campaign cowardice by the Florida governor and his top supporters is an epic cave from the pro-DeSantis "Never Back Down" PAC, which sent a single tweet bashing his biggest competitor following a Trump-orchestrated free hour of publicity on CNN. How brave!

When it comes to pointing out the sheer odiousness of His Royal Pantload, that's a pretty reasonable campaign-themed rundown. How does any of that make America "great”? Why does any Republican call themselves a Trump supporter when supporting Trump means supporting violence against police, terminating the Constitution, sexual assault, and a stream of delusions based entirely around Trump's belief that whenever he's screwed up or lost a popularity contest, it's only because his enemies launched some sort of secret conspiracy against him? Who actually likes that stuff?

I know, I know: a Republican base made up of racist and misogynistic anti-American fascists likes that stuff. They've been vibrating in their chairs for years now, waiting for a boorish sleaze-bucket to come along and give it to them. Ah well.

In any event, Semafor's Shelby Talcott reports that after the tweet was sent, Never Back Down PAC’s leadership immediately regretted it and the whole thing was blamed on someone who had certainly not gotten the "approval of the PAC's senior communications team." Talcott also reports we probably won't be seeing any similar hard punches at Trump in the future. That's how shaken the pro-DeSantis PAC's team was after the organization premised on electing DeSantis actually referenced the sheer awfulness of the race's current poll leader.

Well, there's your problem. I'm not sure how DeSantis' campaign boosters are going to convince anyone he's a less dodgy character than the insurrection-launching, book-cooking sex pest if everybody linked to DeSantis is forbidden from mentioning all that stuff.

This is all just another example of the complete and utter gutlessness of the Republican Party, from the first moment Donald Trump bragged about his penis size and started slinging preschool-sized insults from within his oversized suit. The entire party lives in terror of Donald Trump becoming mad enough at someone to give them a nickname. From the debates onward, Republican officials, candidates, and their underlings will immediately cling to whatever stream-of-consciousness thoughts Donald last burped out, quickly abandoning whatever soft principles they held in the first place

The grounds for attacking Trump are fertile. Turning a profit from supplicants streaming in to pay you money while they wait for you to grant them an audience in the White House? No problem! Put the squeeze on another country's government to grant you some help with your election in exchange for that sweet, sweet military money Congress already allocated? There's not a single thing corrupt about that! We hate NATO now! Presidential son-in-laws should of course be able to scoop up a couple billion dollars from a foreign monarchy after doing it a series of important favors! We don't care about your damn pandemic, getting drunk in a barber shop is what our forefathers drove off British soldiers to achieve! We like Putin now! Well, mostly! It's okay to take classified documents if you're only using them for monetary gain! Who doesn't assault women in department store dressing rooms?

The level of sheer gutlessness necessary to meekly nod and claim that well, now you too stand behind whatever the last terrible awful thing the reality show con man said out loud is amazing.

Ted Cruz? Lindsey Graham? Mitch McConnell? Kevin McCarthy? Marco Rubio? Ron DeSantis? Your pro-Trump father or uncle or work buddy? Gutless. Every last one.

This bunch of cowards is willing to erase the whole history and platform of the party in order to keep from having to deal with Donald Trump calling them names or going off to start his own new party that values burping self-regard above "fiscal responsibility" or "family values" or any of the rest of it.

How can anyone even pretend that Ron "DeSanctimonious," of all people, is going to survive a Republican presidential primary long enough for his campaign bus to even need a second tank of gas? Even his own PAC withered under the slightest test. Until someone finds a spine strong enough to stand up to a bully like Trump, only cowards remain.

Wall Street turns from DeSantis because of his weird Disney obsession

DeSantis flops in Japan and Trump looks more inevitable

The data is in: Americans don’t like Republican policies on abortion. Kerry is joined by Drew Linzer, the director and co-founder of the well-regarded polling company Civiqs. Drew and Kerry do a deep dive into the polling around abortion and reproductive rights and the big problems conservative candidates face in the coming elections.

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Trump lawyer may be edging closer to disqualification from hush-money case for conflict of interest

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Charles Jay

Attorney Joe Tacopina may be edging closer to getting disqualified from representing Donald Trump in the case about the former president’s alleged role in a scheme to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The basis for removing Tacopina from Trump’s defense team is an apparent conflict of interest. It stems from the fact that Daniels consulted with Tacopina in 2018 about representing her in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement she had signed days before the 2016 presidential election not to talk about an “intimate relationship” she had with Trump in 2006-2007. The Wall Street Journal had already broken the story about the hush money payment in January 2018.

On Tuesday, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin reported that the judge presiding over Trump's criminal case had ordered Tacopina to turn over his communications with Daniels and disclose what information from Daniels he has shared with Trump.

NEW: The judge presiding over Trump's criminal case has ordered Joe Tacopina to turn over his communications with Stormy Daniels & disclose what information from Daniels he has shared with Trump. https://t.co/ji7ZRZIEIt
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) May 2, 2023

Rubin cited a story on the law360.com website that said Judge Juan Merchan will scrutinize the material handed over by Tacopina to determine whether Trump’s criminal defense attorney “is conflicted out” of the case. Here is a copy of the April 28 order issued by Merchan to Tacopina:

NEW: Judge will examine if Joe Tacopina, Donald Trump's criminal defense attorney, is conflicted out of the @ManhattanDA's hush-money case, ordering the attorney to turn over records related to his past interactions with Stormy Daniels. @Law360 pic.twitter.com/Xa7WaKVdBJ
— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) May 1, 2023

Merchan was responding to a request made in mid-April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that the judge order Tacopina to open up his law firm’s files on Daniels for the court’s scrutiny.

On March 22, about a week before Trump’s indictment was announced, Daniels’ lawyer Clark Brewster turned over to Bragg’s office records of communications between the adult film star and Tacopina. Brewster said he believed the communications show a disclosure of confidential information from Daniels. Brewster raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest on Tacopina’s part in a letter a day before Trump’s April 4 arraignment.

In his order, Merchan gave Tacopina until May 15 to provide the requested records. He said any in-person inquiry, if necessary, would be delayed until the completion of the civil trial in federal court in which writer E. Jean Carroll is seeking damages from Trump for defamation and rape. Tacopina is defending Trump in that case.

Back in 2018, Tacopina avoided a question from CNN host Don Lemon by suggesting that he may have attorney-client obligations with Daniels, according to the Law & Crime website. Tacopina said: “I can’t really talk about my impressions or any conversations we had because there is an attorney-client privilege that attaches even to a consultation.”

But at Trump’s April 4 arraignment, Tacopina backtracked and told Merchan: “We refused the case. I did not offer her representation. Didn’t speak to her. Didn’t meet with her. And it is as simple as that.”

However, Law & Crime noted that prosecutors in Bragg’s office cited Daniels’ book “Full Disclosure,” in which she described her brief interactions with Tacopina—before she decided to retain attorney Michael Avenatti—in an unflattering light. Avenatti is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for defrauding Daniels and other clients.

“She writes that before retaining Mr. Avenatti, she spoke with a ‘very high-powered lawyer’ who seemed to take her call just for the curiosity factor, dragged it out for a couple of weeks and didn’t seem to share her passion, so she ended it,” prosecutors summarized. “She wrote that she was ‘anxious that this guy now knew my story and my strategy for confronting (Michael) Cohen and Trump.'”

And what’s even more remarkable is that as a legal commentator for CNN back in 2018, Tacopina speculated that Trump had an affair with Daniels, and that he would have advised Trump to admit to the affair and move on. He also said the hush money payoff could put Trump in legal jeopardy because it could be looked on as an in-kind campaign contribution at the time of the election.

Tacopina also said Trump deserved to be impeached. He told WABC radio in February 2021 that Trump incited his supporters—whom he called “a bunch of idiots” and “lunatics”—to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I don’t think he did anything criminal,” Tacopina said on WABC in February 2021 when discussing the Capitol assault. “Did I think he did something impeachable? Yes, I do.”

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But now, acting as Trump’s defense attorney, Tacopina is singing a different tune. He called the payment to Daniels “plain extortion” on her part, dismissed potential campaign finance violations, and repeated Trump’s denials that he ever had the affair.

“This was a plain extortion. And I don’t know, since when we’ve decided to start prosecuting extortion victims. He’s denied, vehemently denied, this affair,” Tacopina said on “Good Morning America.”.“But he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was gonna be publicly embarrassing to him, regardless of the campaign. And the campaign finance laws are very, very clear, George, that you cannot have something that’s even primarily related to the campaign to be considered campaign finance law.”

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Actually, all things considered, it might not be the worst thing for Trump if Tacopina gets disqualified from his legal team for the hush money criminal case. Just look at the bad reviews Tacopina has received defending Trump in the defamation and civil rape trial brought against the former president by E. Jean Carroll.

Here’s what Salon wrote after Tacopina’s cross-examination of Carroll:

The common wisdom in the post-#MeToo era is that bullying an alleged rape victim is a bad look. So many legal experts were surprised when Donald Trump's defense attorney Joe Tacopino tore in E. Jean Carroll on the witness stand Thursday, during a defamation and rape civil trial of the former reality TV host-turned-fascist coup leader. There wasn't a misogynist rape myth that Tacopino left untouched. His browbeating got so bad that Judge Lewis Kaplan was forced to repeatedly interrupt and reprimand Tacopino.

"Tacopina was derisive, derogatory and dismissive," former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner wrote at the Daily Beast.

"Not exactly the impression Team Trump wanted the jury to be left with on the way home," defense attorney Robert Katzberg wrote at Slate.

Tacopino fell "into this other trap," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said on MSNBC on Saturday, "of putting the jury on her side and willing to listen to her testimony."

McConnell will do anything to win back Senate, insurrection be damned

Posted on April 29, 2023 (Updated May 1, 2023) by Joan McCarter

Mitch McConnell’s cravenness knows no bounds. The Senate minority leader is proving it again, basically promising the Senate to former insurrection-loving President Donald Trump—as long as Republicans win in 2024.

When Sen. Steve Daines, the Montanan running the GOP Senate’s 2024 campaign effort, told McConnell he was considering endorsing Trump’s reelection bid, McConnell gave Daines his blessing, The New York Times reports. Because the main thing is winning, a source close to McConnell told the Times, so he is just fine with someone in his leadership team having close ties to the guy he acknowledged is the one who “provoked” the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

"The mob was fed lies," McConnell said on the Senate floor on the occasion of Trump’s second impeachment. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like."

McConnell voted to acquit Trump anyway, despite saying, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.” His condemnation of Trump was unequivocal: “Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

“We all were here. We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was,” McConnell said in a news conference one year later.

When the Jan. 6 committee voted to refer criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department at the end of last year, McConnell simply said, “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day.”

According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book about Trump and the 2020 election, titled “Peril,” Trump called McConnell to yell at him on Dec. 15, 2020, after the senator congratulated President-elect Joe Biden from the Senate floor. The Kentucky Republican reportedly said, “Mr. President, the Electoral College has spoken. That's the way we pick a president in this country.”

That was the last time the two spoke, and McConnell’s last words were: “You lost the election, the Electoral College has spoken.” McConnell told numerous people he never wanted to talk to Trump again.

With all that said (not to mention Trump’s litany of racist attacks against McConnell’s wife and former Cabinet member Elaine Chao), McConnell wants to win the Senate back so badly that he’s willing to see the man he accused of leading the attack on the Capitol back in the White House. More than that, he’s willing to help him get back in there: That’s what having a member of Republican Senate leadership on Team Trump means.

The goal is to win back the Senate, “and in service of that goal he is already making accommodations for the former president,” the Times reports. That includes reiterating that he would “absolutely” support Trump if he wins the Republican Party nomination for 2024.

“The thing about Mitch is, he wants a majority in the Senate,” one Republican senator told Politico. That’s all he wants and he will do anything to get it—even if it means putting the guy he admits attacked democracy right back in the Oval Office.

McConnell gleeful over his wanton destruction of the Senate and the Judiciary

McConnell is not a master tactician, but a master of destruction, breaking the Senate and the SCOTUS

Can we have fairer, more representative elections in the U.S.? Absolutely, says Deb Otis on this week's episode of "The Downballot." Otis, the director of research at FairVote, tells us about her organization's efforts to advocate for two major reforms—ranked-choice voting and proportional representation—and the prospects for both. RCV, which is growing in popularity, not only helps ensure candidates win with majorities but can lower the temperature by encouraging cross-endorsements. PR, meanwhile, would give voters a stronger voice, especially when they're a minority in a dark red or dark blue area.

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Watch AOC let loose on Clarence Thomas on ‘The Daily Show’

Posted on April 18, 2023 (Updated April 19, 2023) by Walter Einenkel

This week, longtime “The Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper is taking his turn in the guest host seat. He kicked the week off with a bang, scoring an interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her home turf of New York City.

And while the interview began as a conversation about violence and social services in America, it ended up touching on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ ethics failures, the fight for reproductive rights, and Donald Trump being the only person who is crying for Donald Trump.

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After Klepper joked about a theoretical Beyonce Knowles collecting Third Reich memorabilia, Ocasio-Cortez brought the interview back on track and succinctly drilled down to the bottom line:

“Supreme Court justices are required, if they are receiving money from people—they shouldn't even be receiving money from people. This is why we pay salaries to public servants. And if they want to live that kind of lifestyle, then they can resign from the court. They can retire.

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Before Klepper ended the interview, he brought up the orange elephant in the room. Did Ocasio-Cortez think people “were crying,” as Trump claimed, during his recent arraignment on charges of falsifying business records?

“Maybe George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene were, but not me,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She went on to say that Trump’s indictment is a symbol of the deep inequalities in our justice system, as she watches “people get treated far worse for doing far less” than Trump. “If you hurt one person, you get ten years in prison. But if you hurt millions of people, you get your name on a building.”

You can watch the whole interview below, as well as read a transcript of the interview.

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The Clarence Thomas scandal keeps growing

Clarence Thomas’ lavish vacation getaways are so corrupt, even Republicans think they're bogus

Justice Clarence Thomas has reported up to $750,000 in income from a company that doesn't exist

Transcript:

Jordan Klepper: I considered going into the medical profession. I thought I could play a handsome doctor on TV. Didn't pan out. While we were on the subject of national embarrassment, I had to ask the congresswoman about Clarence Thomas and his BFF Nazi, swag collector, Harlan Crow. I want to talk a little bit about Clarence Thomas. You've said you would even draft articles of impeachment for the things that he's done. Has there been any quid pro quo? And I said quid pro quo, partially because it took all that effort to learn what quid pro quo meant back in the Ukraine days, and it feels apropos of now. And I don't think I used apropos correctly.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I think that quid pro quo is this bar that doesn't even need to be met. The justice is required by law to disclose something like that. And he hasn't been.

Jordan Klepper: Can you empathize, though? If Beyoncé came through here, wanted to take you on a sweet vacation, wouldn't you say, “Yes.” And let her show you her Nazi memorabilia.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Tell someone about it. But hey, don't! Don't put Bey's name on that.

Jordan Klepper: I'm not saying she has. I'm saying if she invested in Nazi memorabilia to show that she hates Nazi memorabilia, she'd want to show it off.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: And that whole thing is just, I mean, bizarre. You also don't keep the linens around …

Jordan Klepper:--All the Nazi linens?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah. Who does that?

Jordan Klepper: Don't you think if you had $1,000,000,000 and you bought everything, you'd probably eventually get to Nazi linens?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: This is the distraction of that whole issue.

Jordan Klepper: You're right. We're just focused on that as opposed to all the money that's going over to Clarence Thomas. Although if you're a billionaire, can't billionaires have friends?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: They can. Supreme Court justices are required, if they are receiving money from people—they shouldn't even be receiving money from people. This is why we pay salaries to public servants. And if they want to live that kind of lifestyle, then they can resign from the court. They can retire.

Jordan Klepper: Now I want to talk about the court. It's looking as if the Supreme Court is going to rule on some of the conflicting rulings around mifepristone. Who do you think is going to write the final decision that takes away these vital rights from women? Is it going to be the guy who cried over beer or was it going to be the buddy with the Nazi memorabilia guy?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: You know, my hope is that they—we do not get to that point. But we also have to face the reality that the Supreme Court has chosen to give up huge swaths of their own legitimacy. Chief Justice Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, the Republican Party: In them giving up trying to take seriously the legitimacy, the standards, the integrity of the court, they have given up a very large degree of their authority.

Jordan Klepper: The new news in Florida this week is the six-week abortion ban. How do women approach that or fight back against something like that that's happening in Florida?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Of course, there's the standard, like, vote and mobilize. But I'm going to put that aside for a second. We do not have to accept tyranny, and this is a form of tyranny. It is a form of violence. Women will die. People will die because of this decision. And it will be, by and large, the men who signed these laws that are killing the women that will die by them.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: And we have a responsibility to help one another, whether that is supporting organizations that mail mifepristone, which has significantly reduced risk, certainly safer than medications like Viagra. But ultimately, we cannot continue to accept people in power who will abuse others for their own gain.

Jordan Klepper: Indictment week was last week. It might also be a month from now, too. We could have a lot of indictment weeks. How do you think New Yorkers treated former President Donald Trump?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I think they treated him like a Florida man. He don't belong to us no mo’, okay? You're not from Queens anymore. He's a citizen of Mar-a-Lago at this point.

Jordan Klepper: And you said New Yorkers treated him as such?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah. Why wouldn't we?

Jordan Klepper: Do you think people were weeping when he was booked, as he claims?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Maybe George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene were, but not me. Take it back to LaGuardia.

Jordan Klepper: Take it back to LaGuardia, which is in your district?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yes, it's in my district. And so is Rikers. And so we have, I have to go in every single day watching people get treated far worse for doing far less and then, you know, it's like this red carpet that gets rolled out. I mean, if you hurt one person, you get ten years in prison. But if you hurt millions of people, you get your name on a building.

Jordan Klepper: Congresswoman, thanks for talking with us.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Thanks for having me.

On today’s episode, Markos and Kerry are joined by a friend of the podcast, Democratic political strategist Simon Rosenberg. Rosenberg was one of the few outsiders who, like Daily Kos, kept telling the world that nothing supported the idea of a red wave. Simon and the crew break down his strategy for Democratic candidates to achieve a 55% popular vote in all elections—a number that a few years ago would have seemed unattainable, but now feels within reach.

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Arkansas board applicants required to say which of Gov. Sanders’ ‘accomplishments’ is their favorite

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

We all knew Sarah Huckabee Sanders would be an awful Arkansas governor, but few thought she’d sink to Trumpian depths of depravity. Because that’s really hard to do, you know? No matter which wayside you visit on your day trip to perdition, Donald Trump has already been there, clogging the loos with his barmy, technicolor brain bilge.

As Trump continues to play Jenga with American democracy, his second—and arguably lying-est—Mouth of Sauron is taking a page from his seminal prison bathroom memoir Mein Krispy Kreme Cruller. As sharp-eyed Arkansas Times reporter Austin Bailey helpfully pointed out for those of us who aren’t as into Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, the governor has been fishing for compliments via the online application for Arkansas board and commission positions.

The Arkansas Times:

The application form you must fill out to be considered for a post on state boards and commissions includes this question: “What is an accomplishment of the Governor’s that you admire the most?”

If you’ve got 500 words ready to go about how much you love Gov. Sarah Sanders, you could be eligible for a post on the state’s dozens of boards.

As Bailey notes, this spicy nugget was unearthed by Nate Bell, a former Republican member of the Arkansas Legislature who describes himself on Twitter as a “politically homeless conservaterian.” (Sure, he may be an Arkansas conservative, but it’s nice to see that some of his ilk are at least a tad uncomfy with their compatriots’ gleeful embrace of fascism and cults of personality.)

Seems like an important qualification for service on an Arkansas board or Commission. #TIC #arpx #arleg #BananaRepublic pic.twitter.com/qx1cBSYqn6
— Nate Bell (@NateBell4AR) April 10, 2023

Bailey also took a screenshot of a portion of the questionnaire that asks applicants which book best defines their lives. That section gives them a mere 250 words to elaborate—half the space they’re allotted for their obsequious paeans to Sanders.

So where did Sanders get the idea that eligibility for government service should be based on how much her proto-minions like her? As she would likely tell Big Daddy Don Trump: “You, all right? I learned it by watching you!”

How could any of us forget the obvious Stalinesque tactic Trump used to delay doing actual work during his first full Cabinet meeting? (Bonus points if you can remember which of these fawning twits Trump would later petulantly fire—or attempt to murder—via Twitter.)

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Of course, since becoming Arkansas governor, Sanders has been buffing her MAGA bona fides. Following President Joe Biden’s January State of the Union address, she gave a Republican response that Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson called “the weirdest sort of dystopian speech I think I've heard since 'American carnage'"—a reference to Trump’s bizarre inauguration address, which was reportedly penned by either dyspeptic senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller or ChatGoebbelsPT.

Meanwhile, she’s taken note of the revolting right-wing zeitgeist, signing legislation that restricts transgender students’ bathroom use and cribs from Florida’s shameful Don’t Say Gay law.

It’s weird, right? Donald Trump’s future has never been more precarious, and yet Republicans continue to “Single White Female” themselves straight into his political grave, vainly hoping they can secure a place in his black, bloodless knot of a heart.

Sen. Lindsey Graham has even stolen his signature spray-tanned look, apparently hoping that Trump may one day adopt him as his son. Or maybe his caddy. Or his Diet Coke gofer. Or his Diet Coke button, for that matter. (As we all know, Lindsey can squeal like a banshee when he really puts his mind to it.)

Lindsey Graham is begging people to send money to Trump again pic.twitter.com/rEvfCJM8LM
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 5, 2023

Anyhoo, it appears that even as Trump’s flame begins to dwindle, many longtime MAGA adherents, such as Sanders, are doing their darndest to keep his tiki torches burning for as long as possible. You didn’t think they’d just slink away like the cowards they are, did you? We’re gonna need a communal “Silkwood” shower to get all that godforsaken MAGA goop off us—and, unfortunately, it could take an uncomfortably long time.

Cartoon: Trump brand arrest ™

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Mark Fiore

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If you’ve been enjoying my cartoons, join me on Patreon, where you can get prints, exclusive videos and other goodies — all while you help support my work!

Of course I would love it if the days of giving Donald Trump any attention were over, but it is kind of a big deal when an ex-president is arrested.

Let’s hope that this season’s Trump show won’t result in every news network giving him free airtime to rant and rave. So far, signs are good(ish) that media outlets won’t turn over their megaphones to him quite like they did when he first ran for president.

I’m not interested in the sheer outrageousness of Trump and the insanity that emanates from his mouth — as much as in who is supporting and defending him. Still. After the insurrection. After two impeachments. After so many lies. After ripping refugee children from their families. (Sorry, I just can’t seem to let that one go.)

It is truly incredible the amount of support the newly-arrested Donald J. Trump received from Republicans in Congress. Consider me surprised and flabbergasted at the same time.