Sunday Four-Play: The fake Biden impeachment rolls along, and J.D. Vance forgets Mike Johnson exists

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

With the ouster of George Santos and the abrupt resignation of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, congressional Republicans have begun dropping like flies off Mike Pence’s head. In fact, Mike Pence himself recently dropped like a fly off Mike Pence’s head, precipitating an infinite, M.C. Escher-like regression of flies and Pence heads that goes on as far as the eye can see, like funhouse mirror images in Louie Gohmert’s Carlsbad Caverns of a cranium. In other words, when it comes to the state of the GOP these days, it’s dead flies and Pence heads all the way down. And, frankly, that’s a charitable appraisal.

So will the semi-sentient suzerains of the Sunday shows see it? Or will they find some way to argue that spiraling Republican dysfunction and the party’s abject obeisance to a dyspeptic, four-times-indicted yam golem who can’t stop complimenting Adolf Hitler is somehow bad for Joe Biden?

We’ll see now, won’t we? And you won’t have to wait very long. Let’s get this party started!

1.

Republicans’ fake impeachment effort received a boost this week with the seismic revelation that President Biden’s son repaid his dad—in three increasingly suspicious $1,380 monthly installments—the money he’d borrowed to buy a Ford Raptor truck. Which should be a signal to concerned Americans that either Biden isn’t corrupt at all or is really bad at this corruption stuff.

I’m skeptical that there’s anything here at all, because they’ve been looking for years and still have bupkis. Meanwhile, over that same period, Donald Trump was passing secret government documents around like all-you-can-eat buffet fliers in Vegas—when he wasn’t trying, and failing, to defend himself against rape accusations.

But that’s the genius of Biden’s Chinese money-laundering scheme. It’s a magnificent, under-the-radar long con. Step 1: Wait for your son to get in bed with the Chinese Communist Party. Step 2: When they finally have their hooks in him, loan that same son nearly $4,200 to buy a truck. (And this part is key: Make sure you do it while you hold no public office.) Step 3: Open a secret bank account in the Caymans and deposit that ill-gotten $4,200 windfall, where it will accrue 0.46% interest for the next decade until you’re ready to retire. Step 4: Become president. Step 5: Hand Taiwan to China. (This one is still pending. Biden might have to wait until his second term, because House Oversight Chair Jim Comer is fully onto him now.)

Of course, as we learned this week, even Fox News is starting to wonder where the fire—or the smoke, for that matter—is.

Fox reporter Peter Doocy, who likely fantasizes about clinging to the bottom of Biden’s bike on weekends like Robert De Niro in “Cape Fear,” was forced to admit on Friday that Republicans have come up empty-headed again.

Peter Doocy: "The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter's overseas business." pic.twitter.com/a5N44hIRrQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2023

But hey, they’re not going to give up, no matter how big a waste of time this is. Because wasting time is what the American people sent Republicans to Congress to do.

Of course, none of that sits well with Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, who joined Jonathan Capehart on the “Saturday/Sunday Show.”

"They're moving to a government shutdown...they're going to leave town for the holidays without doing anything to avoid it while voting on an impeachment inquiry that has no basis in reality" @IanSams46 on the GOP pushing forward with a Biden impeachment #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/CCivAfdsZ5
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) December 10, 2023

CAPEHART: “The White House said the president’s going to push back very, very hard. How? What’s that going to look like?”

SAMS: “Well, you see things like, you showed the clip of Peter Doocy, even Fox News hosts, Fox News anchors are expressing skepticism about this. And it’s because we’re continuing to push the facts out every single day. When they make allegations that turn out to be examples of the president being a good dad or a good family member as somehow nefarious evidence of wrongdoing, we’re going to point out the facts, immediately and swiftly. We’re going to come and sell our message on TV and things like this conversation today. But we’re also going to push really hard about what’s happening here. What’s happening here is that the House Republicans have shown that they don’t actually care about any issues that the American people are trying—to try to make their lives better. Instead, they’re focusing on these political stunts to try to get themselves on Newsmax and talk about these things in the right-wing media ecosystem, even though they’re baseless and false. And so, you know, I think that when you see the president every day, you see him talking about things like Ukraine aid, and the need to make sure that they have the resources to push back on Putin. You see him talking about the need to get funding to the WIC program, women and infants, low income, who need food as we head into winter. And these are things that the House needs to pass, they need to pass these funding supplementals, and they refuse to do it. And it’s only going to get more intense over the next month. As you mentioned earlier in the show, they’re moving to a government shutdown in just a few weeks, and they're going to leave town for the holidays without doing anything to avoid it, while voting on an impeachment inquiry that has no basis in fact and reality.”

Ah, whatevs. Babies can starve and Ukraine can kick rocks, so long as President Biden is adequately punished for unconditionally loving his son. It’s the Republican way.

2.

Kristen Welker can both-sides anything, can’t she? The next time a tanker runs aground in Alaska, I hope she has the president of the Sierra Club on so she can grill her about all the ducks and sea otters who keep keep running off into the woods with ExxonMobil’s oil.

For some reason, Welker has to pretend that the Republicans’ fake Biden smears are somehow legitimate. She thinks that’s part of her job. If Jim Comer said he’s seen an unredacted whistleblower report about Joe Biden flushing leprechauns down Air Force One’s toilet for fun, she’d likely be all over it.

Welker interviewed Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on “Meet the Press,” and she was super-curious what he thought about private citizen Hunter Biden’s business activities.

Chris Murphy: "When I look at the Trump family, it seems they have made an industry out of profiting off of Donald Trump's presidency. In fact, as soon as Trump was out of the White House, what did his son-in-law do? Go and raise billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia." pic.twitter.com/YLWFsy7HBP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

WELKER: “Mitt Romney was here and he expressed outrage over the broader issue of Hunter Biden profiting off of his last name. Do you think, Senator, that it is inappropriate for a politician’s family member to profit off of their last name?”

MURPHY: “I do—in any case. And, frankly, when I look at the Trump family, it seems that they have made an industry out of profiting off of Donald Trump’s presidency. In fact, as soon as Donald Trump was out of the White House, what did his son-in-law do? Go and raise billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. And so I think the American public are going to be very concerned about what has happened inside the Trump family since Donald Trump left the White House.”

WELKER: “Senator, respectfully, I asked you about the Biden family. Hunter Biden—do you think it’s inappropriate that he has apparently profited off his last name, and could that hurt the president’s reelection chances?”

MURPHY: “I think Hunter Biden is going to be held accountable in court for any violations of the law that he’s committed, and the American public are going to get a chance to watch that play out in real time. But what I’m absolutely certain of is that the American public are going to see a distinct contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and are not going to be interested in a Trump presidency that’s going to criminalize abortion, that’s going to give more handouts to billionaires and the wealthy. They’re going to see President Biden, who has invested in the middle class, who’s helped this economy recover. That will be the contrast that will matter to the American people.”

Okay, here’s the clear difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats think the rule of law should apply to everyone, and if Hunter Biden is legitimately guilty of something, he should face the consequences. And so Murphy answered in that vein, while also pointing out that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—who actually worked in the White House, unlike Hunter Biden—got $2 billion from the Saudis after Trump was expectorated from the Oval Office. And Trump himself profited handsomely off his presidency—and did so out in the open—for four years.

So after Murphy answered that, yes, it was inappropriate for Hunter Biden to profit off his last name, maybe Welker should have moved on to more important matters instead of, say, asking him again.

But hey, we have to be fair, don't we? Maybe she’ll have Kushner on next week and ask him what Prince Bone Saws bought with his 2 bill. Because if it was a Ford Raptor, Little Lord Fauntleroy will be well and truly fucked.

3.

Sen. J.D. Vance was on CNN’s “State of the Union” pretending to be a man of the people—instead of a manservant to a circus peanut. He wants people to know—or at least believe—that the GOP is a pro-family party, really and for true. Never mind that they slap the hot lunches out of hungry kids’ mouths every chance they get. They really want you to believe that they support families, along with all the kids they’re forcing those families to have against their will.

And how are they doing that? Oh, just listen to J.D. He’s got it all figured out.

JD Vance on CNN on birth control: "I don't think that I know any Republican, at least not a Republican with a brain, that's trying to take those rights again from people." Jake Tapper replies, "I mean, I could provide a list for you if you want it." pic.twitter.com/s0KuDJlICL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

VANCE: “I want to protect as many unborn babies as possible. I also think we have to win the trust back of the American people. And one of the ways to do that is to be the truly pro-family party—I think we are, we’ve got to carry that message forward and actually enact some public policies to that effect.”

TAPPER: “Is birth control part of that policy? Empowering women to be able to make those decisions before they get pregnant?”

VANCE: “Obviously people need to be able to make those decisions. I don’t think I know any Republican—at least not a Republican with a brain—that’s trying to take those rights away from people. But I think it goes deeper than that.”

TAPPER: “I mean, I could provide a list for you if you want.”

VANCE: “Well, okay, not anybody I talk to, Jake. But look, I think the more important question is—I talk to a lot of people, a lot of young families who want to have babies. They can’t afford mortgages, they’re terrified about health care expenses. We’ve got to answer those questions for people. We’ve got to have a role to play, because, look, we have a real problem in this country. Not enough Americans families that want to have children are able to do it. That’s how you destroy a nation.”

Well it’s nice to know that Vance thinks the Republican speaker of the House is brainless, because that dude’s done his darndest to keep people from accessing birth control. In fact, last year, 195 House Republicans voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which passed only because all 220 Democrats were onboard.

Of course, another way you destroy a nation—aside from kowtowing to a Hitler-stanning documents thief whose latest EEG reading is about what you’d get if you tossed a hair dryer into a bathtub full of ferrets—is refusing to let people immigrate here because they’re brown. After all, if Vance were really interested in keeping this nation of immigrants prosperous and vital, he’d propose a viable immigration reform plan. But that will never happen. Not in this climate. Which naturally puts an undue burden on American citizens’ often-unwilling uteri.

4.

Ever wonder what the world might look like now if Palm Beach County, Florida, hadn’t run with that butterfly ballot in 2000 and tricked all those elderly Jewish women into voting for Pat Buchanan? Al Gore would have been president, and we might have actually done something on the climate while we still had plenty of time. And we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. And it’s even possible 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. And maybe the GOP’s cavalcade of increasingly risible presidential candidates would have ended at George W. Bush, instead of finding its terminus in Donald Trump. (This assumes Trump is the last glitching brain stem the GOP will place in the White House and not America’s first dictator. Though if things keep going the way they are, the 2028 Republican presidential nominee is liable to be a bowl of Grape-Nuts.)

Gore joined Tapper on “State of the Union,” where he was asked about Trump’s totally-not-secret plans for authoritarian rule.

Al Gore on CNN on Trump: "Well, I saw the other day where he pledged to be a dictator on day one. And you kind of wonder what it will take for people to believe him when he tells us what he is" pic.twitter.com/SIO3lbYHjX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 10, 2023

TAPPER: “It does look like the 2024 election will come down to President Biden versus former President Trump. And I’m wondering what you think the world would look like under President Trump being reelected, which is certainly a possibility, not only when it comes to the climate but also when it comes to democracy.”

GORE: “Well, I saw the other day where he pledged to be a dictator on day one, and you’ve got to wonder what it will take for people to believe him when he tells us who he is. And, you know, the solution to political despair is political action, and for those in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and independents who love American democracy and who want to preserve our capacity to govern ourselves and solve our problems, now’s the time to get active.”

Yes. Yes, it is. Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Vice President. Here’s one way to get started. And, of course, campaigns always need cash. We’ve got our work cut out for us going into 2024, so let’s all keep our eye on the ball. And please—no voting for Pat Buchanan this time around. That was a frickin’ disaster.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now. See you next week, and happy holidays to all!

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.

Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is ‘slowing down’

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

If you somehow missed Thursday’s big debate between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, well, don't fret. For one thing, Newsom didn’t debate DeSantis so much as curb-stomp him over and over like an increasingly shopworn series of Cabbage Patch dolls.

Secondly, DeSantis is still running for president, so he’s not going anywhere. Other than nowhere, of course. Unless third place in the Iowa caucuses is now considered some kind of milk-and-honey-festooned promised land.

Yes, DeSantis-bot glitched out several times over the course of the debate. It was like watching a deer caught in a car’s headlights ... then a car’s grille … then a car’s windshield … and finally a car’s trunk, where the Flailing Florida Man struck a dashing pose alongside the still-purpling corpse of Scott Walker. Take, for instance, this exchange, previously highlighted by Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel:

YouTube Video

Wow. That was something, huh? How are the smiling lessons going, Ron? Looks like you’ve finally mastered “constipated prairie chicken.” Next stop: “inflatable car wash dancer.”

Of course, we may not have DeSantis to kick around much longer, so we better kick him now. (Figuratively, of course.) And this week he’s on the OG Sunday political show, “Meet the Press,” which promises to be a barrel of awkward, off-putting laughs.

So let’s see how that went, shall we?

Off we go!

1.

Have we mentioned how utterly screwed Republicans are on abortion? Oh, yes, we have, haven’t we? Well, they are, because they don’t have anything that approaches a consistent or coherent message. Democrats do: We need to codify Roe and ensure that private reproductive health care decisions are made by women in close consultation with their doctors. Democrats can look voters square in the eye and tell them that simple truth.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are continually asked where they stand on federal abortion bans, and it’s like asking Louie Gohmert how the CERN supercollider works. Or Legos. Or underpants, for that matter. In other words, they don’t have the slightest clue what to say.

DeSantis appeared with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to discuss a campaign that’s shrinking in inverse proportion to his pupils whenever he gets asked about this stuff.

WATCH: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — who signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida — says he supports federal abortion rules that "would have consensus.” But DeSantis says, "Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation." pic.twitter.com/MhFXYMS0zL
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “You signed a six-week ban in the state of Florida, so voters want to know, people of Iowa want to know, where do you stand on this issue? Would you sign a six-week federal ban if it came to your desk? If you were president?”

DESANTIS: “But we signed a legislation to stand for a culture of life that was done by the Florida Legislature. I mean, this was them bringing the will of the people ...”

WELKER: “So is that a yes? Is that a yes?”

DESANTIS: “Well, Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation. They haven't done abortion legislation—the only thing that’s impacted abortion on the federal level, I think the last thing is Obamacare in 2010. So we understand that, and so part of me promoting a culture of life is to do things that are achievable and that obviously would have consensus. No taxpayer funding for abortion. We’re going to eliminate the abortion tourism policy of the Department of Defense, and we’re going to protect the rights of states to enact pro-life protections.”

“Come on, now! Congress won’t pass abortion legislation! Nothing has been done on abortion since 2010. And nothing of note has changed since then. Nope. Not a single thing. It’s moot. Next question! Wait, Dobbs? What is Dobbs? Now you’re just making baby noises. Can we get back to my talking points, please? Lavish Broadway musicals have gone woke!”

Good Lord. Honestly, he’d be better off appearing on these shows wearing an “Ask Me About My Boot Lifts” button.

BONUS!

DeSantis has a really hard time condemning Donald Trump’s use of the word “vermin” to refer to one’s political enemies. Must be tough trying to continually walk that tightrope between full-blown Nazi rhetoric and the kind of stuff Hitler just randomly thought of in his shower.

WATCH: Former President Trump has called his opponents “vermin.”@kwelkernbc: Do you condemn the use of that word? Gov. @RonDeSantis (R-Fla.): “I don’t use the term. … He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.” pic.twitter.com/Trgt5UWPH6
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

Geez, Ron, grow a pair. Of eyes, I mean. Can’t you see how hopelessly behind you are? Newsom was right. You need to drop out, ASAP.

2.

Master projectionist Donald Trump has lately been trying to claim that President Biden is actually our nation’s biggest threat to democracy—not the guy who literally tried to end America. And he’s giving extremely low-energy speeches to make his point.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin joined “State of the Union’s” expert panel to discuss this frothy nonsense, telling host Dana Bash that she’s noticed Trump is “slowing down.” Which is the worst euphemism for “turning into a Nazi Chucky doll” anyone’s ever heard.

Former Trump White House Communications Director @Alyssafarah tells @DanaBashCNN she thinks Trump “is slowing down” and that “there’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying.” pic.twitter.com/gJ4Uzy3mwG
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 3, 2023

TRUMP (AT RALLY): “But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy, Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. … So if Joe Biden wants to make this race a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and protect our freedoms, I say to Crooked Joe—and he’s crooked, the most corrupt president we’ve ever had—we will win that fight and we’re going to win it very big. Very big.”

BASH: “Welcome back to ‘State of the Union.’ My panel joins me now. Alyssa, this is probably one of the least surprising things you’ve seen Donald Trump do. Right, I mean, if, if—I don’t want to call it ‘evil genius’ because, I don’t—but it’s so classic. To have something wrong with him, a negative, and he says, no, it’s the other guy.”

FARAH GRIFFIN: “And just tries to flip it on its head and you heard the audience eat it up. It’s kind of remarkable—I was watching some of the clips from Trump’s visit to Iowa, and I’m stunned, having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before, he is slowing down. There is a lack of sharpness in what he is saying, and a lack of kind of clarity. There’s another clip where he basically says he’s going to overturn Obamacare but then also says that he’d fix it. Just complete inconsistencies. And for Republicans, our strongest case against Joe Biden is, you know, the age and the decline that some of us have seen. And if I’m being honest, head to head, I’m not sure which is struggling more.”

You’re not sure who’s struggling more? Trump. Trump is struggling more. Biden looks slightly bent over when he walks and occasionally elides or butchers a word or two. He doesn’t continually claim he ran against George W. Bush, brag about passing preschool-level dementia tests, and confidently assert that windmills are murdering whales.

Then again, Farah Griffin is a Republican. Who worked for Trump. Sometimes the deprogramming takes a while to fully kick in, apparently.

The fake Biden impeachment is still a hot topic over at Fox News, and veteran journamalist Maria Bartiromo is all over it. There’s no need to rehash how empty and cynical this endeavor is. You can simply read this fact check or this Daily Kos liveblog of Republicans’ September impeachment hearing. Or you could just stare into House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer’s eyes for 30 seconds and see for yourself that there’s nothing behind them but insensate evil and pingpong balls.

But Republicans are determined to go ahead with the charade—so long as the people they're accusing aren’t allowed to share their stories with the same public Comer, et al., have been dishonestly working into a lather for the past two years.

James Comer tells Maria Bartiromo that moderate House Republicans are more willing to to vote for a Biden impeachment inquiry now because they went home over Thanksgiving and heard from their constituents at Walmart pic.twitter.com/gavFiabw0Y
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2023

BARTIROMO: “[We want to] understand why you have had to take so long to actually get a vote to impeach, get this impeachment inquiry going. Do you feel that you have the votes within the House right now to get a formal impeachment inquiry?”

COMER: “I do, and I had a reporter ask, well, what’s changed? You know, because the press has been writing we didn’t have the votes forever. And I said, well, I tell you one thing that changed. We were in Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks, and there were about 15 or 20 moderates that they really worry about what CNN says or what the Washington Post writes, and they were getting in their heads, Maria. But a great thing happened during Thanksgiving. The members went home—many of them for the first time and circulated for the first time in over 10 weeks—and they met people in Walmart and people on Main Street, and they’re like, what in the world have the Bidens done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and did they not pay taxes on it? So they heard from their constituents—yes, we want you to move forward, we want to know the truth. And we expect the Bidens to be held accountable for public corruption.”

Got that? Those vulnerable House Republicans who represent Biden-leaning districts stopped reading The Washington Post for 10 days and started listening to the constitutional scholars picking out hydrogenated pie toppings at Walmart. Case closed. Joe Biden is as good as gone. Now they can finally go through Kamala Harris’ purse to see how many Sweet ‘N Low packets she’s stolen from IHOP since the inauguration.

4.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby appeared on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker to discuss the Israel-Hamas war and a recent New York Times report alleging that Israeli intelligence obtained the battle plan for Hamas’ October terrorist attack more than a year before it occurred.

So why, Welker wondered, didn’t U.S. intelligence have any inkling of this? Isn’t Israel supposed to share intelligence with us?

I suspect you know the likely answer—even if Welker doesn’t. We’ll see if you’ve got your thinking caps on. The big, startling reveal will come … after the jump!

NEW: The U.S. intel community was not aware of Hamas' attack plan on Israel, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby says. The New York Times reported that Israel received the attack plan over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/MrYJMIZlZ6
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “John, I have to ask you about this New York Times reporting which found that Israeli officials received Hamas’ specific attack plan over a year ago. Was the United States aware of this intelligence, and if not, why not?”

KIRBY: “The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand.”

WELKER: “Should they have, given how closely U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials coordinate, or are supposed to coordinate?”

KIRBY: “Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes, you know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture, other times there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I said, our own intelligence community said that they looked at this. They have no indications at this time that they had any advance warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

WELKER: “John, very quickly, was this a failure on the part of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence?”

KIRBY: “I think there’s going to be a time and a place for Israel to do that sort of forensic work. I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu has already spoken pretty candidly about this, calling it a failure on their part. They’ll take a look at this at the right time. They need to do that. Right now, though, the focus has got to be on making sure that they can eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the Israeli people.”

Gee, why wouldn’t Israel want to share intelligence with us? What might have happened in the past several years that could have given them pause? It’s a huge fucking mystery, isn’t it?

This one is a Video Daily Double:

Oh, you need it spelled out? Okay, then.

Foreign Policy, May 2017:

Just days before President Donald Trump’s arrival in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officials were shouting at their American counterparts in meetings, furious over news that the U.S. commander in chief may have compromised a vital source of information on the Islamic State and possibly Iran, according to a U.S. defense official in military planning.

“To them, it’s horrifying,” the official, who attended the meetings, told Foreign Policy. “Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’”

[...]

[B]ehind the public display of harmony, Israeli intelligence officers are angry and alarmed over the U.S. president revealing sensitive information in a May 10 meeting in the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Well, maybe Welker doesn’t read Foreign Policy. Or NBC News. I’m pretty sure People magazine covered it, too, alongside Sergei Lavrov’s favorite braised turnip recipes.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for today. Hope you’re all enjoying this joyful War on Christmas season. See you next week!

Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is ‘slowing down’

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

YouTube Video

Wow. That was something, huh? How are the smiling lessons going, Ron? Looks like you’ve finally mastered “constipated prairie chicken.” Next stop: “inflatable car wash dancer.”

So let’s see how that went, shall we?

Off we go!

1.

DeSantis appeared with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to discuss a campaign that’s shrinking in inverse proportion to his pupils whenever he gets asked about this stuff.

WATCH: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — who signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida — says he supports federal abortion rules that "would have consensus.” But DeSantis says, "Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation." pic.twitter.com/MhFXYMS0zL
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “You signed a six-week ban in the state of Florida, so voters want to know, people of Iowa want to know, where do you stand on this issue? Would you sign a six-week federal ban if it came to your desk? If you were president?”

DESANTIS: “But we signed a legislation to stand for a culture of life that was done by the Florida Legislature. I mean, this was them bringing the will of the people ...”

WELKER: “So is that a yes? Is that a yes?”

DESANTIS: “Well, Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation. They haven't done abortion legislation—the only thing that’s impacted abortion on the federal level, I think the last thing is Obamacare in 2010. So we understand that, and so part of me promoting a culture of life is to do things that are achievable and that obviously would have consensus. No taxpayer funding for abortion. We’re going to eliminate the abortion tourism policy of the Department of Defense, and we’re going to protect the rights of states to enact pro-life protections.”

Good Lord. Honestly, he’d be better off appearing on these shows wearing an “Ask Me About My Boot Lifts” button.

BONUS!

WATCH: Former President Trump has called his opponents “vermin.”@kwelkernbc: Do you condemn the use of that word? Gov. @RonDeSantis (R-Fla.): “I don’t use the term. … He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.” pic.twitter.com/Trgt5UWPH6
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

Geez, Ron, grow a pair. Of eyes, I mean. Can’t you see how hopelessly behind you are? Newsom was right. You need to drop out, ASAP.

2.

Former Trump White House Communications Director @Alyssafarah tells @DanaBashCNN she thinks Trump “is slowing down” and that “there’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying.” pic.twitter.com/gJ4Uzy3mwG
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 3, 2023

TRUMP (AT RALLY): “But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy, Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. … So if Joe Biden wants to make this race a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and protect our freedoms, I say to Crooked Joe—and he’s crooked, the most corrupt president we’ve ever had—we will win that fight and we’re going to win it very big. Very big.”

BASH: “Welcome back to ‘State of the Union.’ My panel joins me now. Alyssa, this is probably one of the least surprising things you’ve seen Donald Trump do. Right, I mean, if, if—I don’t want to call it ‘evil genius’ because, I don’t—but it’s so classic. To have something wrong with him, a negative, and he says, no, it’s the other guy.”

FARAH GRIFFIN: “And just tries to flip it on its head and you heard the audience eat it up. It’s kind of remarkable—I was watching some of the clips from Trump’s visit to Iowa, and I’m stunned, having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before, he is slowing down. There is a lack of sharpness in what he is saying, and a lack of kind of clarity. There’s another clip where he basically says he’s going to overturn Obamacare but then also says that he’d fix it. Just complete inconsistencies. And for Republicans, our strongest case against Joe Biden is, you know, the age and the decline that some of us have seen. And if I’m being honest, head to head, I’m not sure which is struggling more.”

Then again, Farah Griffin is a Republican. Who worked for Trump. Sometimes the deprogramming takes a while to fully kick in, apparently.

James Comer tells Maria Bartiromo that moderate House Republicans are more willing to to vote for a Biden impeachment inquiry now because they went home over Thanksgiving and heard from their constituents at Walmart pic.twitter.com/gavFiabw0Y
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2023

BARTIROMO: “[We want to] understand why you have had to take so long to actually get a vote to impeach, get this impeachment inquiry going. Do you feel that you have the votes within the House right now to get a formal impeachment inquiry?”

COMER: “I do, and I had a reporter ask, well, what’s changed? You know, because the press has been writing we didn’t have the votes forever. And I said, well, I tell you one thing that changed. We were in Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks, and there were about 15 or 20 moderates that they really worry about what CNN says or what the Washington Post writes, and they were getting in their heads, Maria. But a great thing happened during Thanksgiving. The members went home—many of them for the first time and circulated for the first time in over 10 weeks—and they met people in Walmart and people on Main Street, and they’re like, what in the world have the Bidens done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and did they not pay taxes on it? So they heard from their constituents—yes, we want you to move forward, we want to know the truth. And we expect the Bidens to be held accountable for public corruption.”

4.

So why, Welker wondered, didn’t U.S. intelligence have any inkling of this? Isn’t Israel supposed to share intelligence with us?

I suspect you know the likely answer—even if Welker doesn’t. We’ll see if you’ve got your thinking caps on. The big, startling reveal will come … after the jump!

NEW: The U.S. intel community was not aware of Hamas' attack plan on Israel, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby says. The New York Times reported that Israel received the attack plan over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/MrYJMIZlZ6
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “John, I have to ask you about this New York Times reporting which found that Israeli officials received Hamas’ specific attack plan over a year ago. Was the United States aware of this intelligence, and if not, why not?”

KIRBY: “The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand.”

WELKER: “Should they have, given how closely U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials coordinate, or are supposed to coordinate?”

KIRBY: “Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes, you know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture, other times there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I said, our own intelligence community said that they looked at this. They have no indications at this time that they had any advance warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

WELKER: “John, very quickly, was this a failure on the part of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence?”

KIRBY: “I think there’s going to be a time and a place for Israel to do that sort of forensic work. I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu has already spoken pretty candidly about this, calling it a failure on their part. They’ll take a look at this at the right time. They need to do that. Right now, though, the focus has got to be on making sure that they can eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the Israeli people.”

Gee, why wouldn’t Israel want to share intelligence with us? What might have happened in the past several years that could have given them pause? It’s a huge fucking mystery, isn’t it?

This one is a Video Daily Double:

Oh, you need it spelled out? Okay, then.

Foreign Policy, May 2017:

Just days before President Donald Trump’s arrival in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officials were shouting at their American counterparts in meetings, furious over news that the U.S. commander in chief may have compromised a vital source of information on the Islamic State and possibly Iran, according to a U.S. defense official in military planning.

“To them, it’s horrifying,” the official, who attended the meetings, told Foreign Policy. “Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’”

[...]

[B]ehind the public display of harmony, Israeli intelligence officers are angry and alarmed over the U.S. president revealing sensitive information in a May 10 meeting in the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Well, maybe Welker doesn’t read Foreign Policy. Or NBC News. I’m pretty sure People magazine covered it, too, alongside Sergei Lavrov’s favorite braised turnip recipes.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for today. Hope you’re all enjoying this joyful War on Christmas season. See you next week!

Sunday Four-Play: Mike Johnson is a skilled (as in sociopathic) liar, and the GOP still loves Putin

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Remember “The Dating Game”? It was one of those shows that folks of a certain age would watch when we stayed home from school pretending to be bleeding from our eyeballs with hemorrhagic fever. Even as a kid it seemed odd to me that 1) anyone would go on a beach trip vacation alone with a stranger they’d just met, 2) they’d select their date, sight unseen, based on generic softball questions like “What’s your idea of a fun first date?” and 3) the woman would often look utterly stricken when she finally met her chosen suitor face to face, even though only one of the contestants ever turned out to be a serial killer. (That we know of, anyway.)

I couldn’t help but think of that show after Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson to lead the House for however long we have left until the rapture, when God finally calls Randy Quaid and his Igloo cooler full of squirrel heads home. The ordeal felt a bit like an episode of “The Dating Game” where Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and Johnson were the three eager bachelors and Republicans somehow decided Johnson was their least creepy option.

I can almost picture a beaming Johnson declaring how super hard-core he’s going to love America as soon as he gets it alone: “For our first date, I’d like to fly you to Idaho, force you into a covenant marriage, and stare at you for the rest of your natural life with the baleful mien of a Christmas elf who doesn’t like to make toys but does have an oddly specific penchant for unlicensed taxidermy.”

In other words, Republicans chose this guy with precious little forethought or vetting, and it sorta feels like it could backfire. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But we already know he’s all-in on forced birth, The Big Lie, criminalizing gay sex, and handing Ukraine over to Vladimir Putin, so naturally he’ll be an ideal brand ambassador for the GOP heading into the 2024 election cycle.

This week on the Sunday shows, Johnson’s name came up more than it ever has before. In addition, Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures” scored an exclusive interview with the man himself. I fully expected her to ask about Johnson’s plan for governing and whether it’s easier for a Christian dominionist weirdo and real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” character to keep a show on Fox News or be elected speaker of the House with the unanimous support of his party, but Johnson was too busy lying to get into too much detail on any of that.

He did have some important stuff to say, though. Mostly lies, but what else is new?

So let’s dive in, shall we?

1.

Normally if I were cueing up a Tim Kaine clip I’d warn you well in advance so you had time to order smelling salts and a home defibrillator on Amazon, but in this case he’s exactly what we need. He’s the man for the hour. And the one after that. And the next one, too. Aaaaand … oh, shit, he’s still going. Oh, no, did he just start in on the macroeconomic implications of corporate sorghum subsidies? Again? We could be here a while. Hope you brought a book.

So you didn’t want industrious, conscientious, and serious leaders like Tim Kaine, eh, America? Well, look what you got instead. Kaine may be as exciting as plain oatmeal, but at least he’s good for you. You went with the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and they turned out to be actual bombs.

Kaine joined “The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart” to discuss the yang to his yin, new House Speaker Mike Johnson—who’s also pretty boring, but in that lawful evil way Republicans have always loved.

"You outlined the positions [Rep. Mike Johnson] had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ and anti-women's reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now." @SenTimKaine discusses with @CapehartJ the extremism of Speaker Johnson #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/YUqiz7swTj
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) October 29, 2023

CAPEHART: “Before we get into the nitty-gritty, just generally your view of Speaker Mike Johnson, what he represents?”

KAINE: “Well, Jonathan, he is the most powerful Republican in America. He is the face of today’s GOP. He’s second in line to the president, and you outlined the positions he had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now, and remember, he received the vote of every member of the Republican caucus to be speaker. So that is obviously a very different vision than Virginians have, a very different vision than Senate Democrats or Republicans have, and so it sets up some challenging times ahead. But all that said, it’s better to have a speaker than not have a speaker, because we have important work to do for the American public.”

It is better to have a speaker than not to have a speaker. That is true. And it was better for the Titanic to have a captain, if only to tell the string quartet where to set up. But Kaine makes some great points, and even more importantly, he offers a living, breathing contrast to today’s GOP, which is exciting in the same way that buying Tylenol in October 1982 was exciting.

If you want sober, steady, and policy-focused, you’d do well to elect more Democrats like Kaine. If you want to have a child every 10 months and, seconds after giving birth, be forced to shout, “Thank you, Jesus, may I have another?!” then Mike Johnson is definitely your guy.

Moving on.

2.

As Kaine said, it is important to have a speaker. Who else is going to try to impeach Joe Biden for no reason? New Speaker Mike Johnson, newly hatched from the Republican-pol pod farm miles below Koch Industries, appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo to further gaslight a weary nation that’s had just about enough of this nonsense already.

Bartiromo asked the question that’s at the top of every American’s mind: Are you going to keep the Biden impeachment charade going through the 2024 election?

"We're the rule of law team," says one of the congressmen who led the effort to install Trump in power pic.twitter.com/wzwIVcCOhn
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BARTIROMO: “What about the investigations into the potential Biden family influence peddling, potential bribery? Are you going to allocate the financial resources and human capital needed to do an in-depth investigation? And will an impeachment inquiry turn into an official impeachment?”

JOHNSON: “We’ll see, Maria. I worked on the committees of jurisdiction, and Judiciary is one of those. I think our chairmen have done an exceptional job, you’ve spoken to all of them. Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, on Oversight and Judiciary and Ways and Means. They’ve continued those investigations. Even while we were going through the tumult of the speaker’s race, they were still working methodically through that. I’m encouraging that. I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads. We’re the rule-of-law team. We don’t use this for political partisan games like the Democrats have done and did against Donald Trump twice. We are going to follow the law and follow the Constitution, and you and I have a suspicion of where that may lead, but we’re going to let the evidence speak for itself, and I look forward to rolling that out over the coming days and weeks and letting the American people see exactly why we’re taking the next steps and where it’s headed.”

Okay, no one has time to fully parse all the lies and barmy nonsense Johnson packed into that short clip. Suffice to say, Republicans have no evidence against Biden. In fact, their one big hearing on the subject was so effing embarrassing, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer recently told reporters, “I don’t know that I wanna hold any more hearings, to be honest with you.” Which is a weird thing to say if, as Johnson claims, they just want to let “the American people see exactly why we’re talking those next steps and where it is headed.”

But flipping reality on its head is kind of the GOP’s brand now. Donald Trump may have extorted a foreign power in order to dig up dirt on Biden, and yes, he tried to illegally overturn the results of a free and fair election and was all-in when his feral mob decided it wanted to hang Mike Pence (he should have known Pence would hang himself eventually), but President Biden loaned some money to his brother. And his brother paid it back!

Rule-of-Law Party to the rescue!

Sadly, just based on the few clips we’ve seen, it’s clear that Johnson is the kind of liar who can lie straight to your face without flinching. And if I never watched anything on Sunday mornings besides Fox News and Alvin Styczynski’s Polka Palooza, I’d be pretty convinced by him, too. But I watch all the polka shows, and sample more than just one Sunday show, too. So I’m not fooled by him for a second, no matter how many outrageous fibs he tells for Jesus.

3.

Top Trump gadfly Chris Christie is back. He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper to help us ascertain the obvious: Murderous autocrat and war criminal Vladimir Putin’s best friend in America is Donald Trump. And if Trump returns to power, Putin will get pretty much everything he wants (including a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, though Christie didn't specifically mention that part), and Ukraine will be left twisting in a very foul wind.

Yes, Christie is still telling the truth about Donald Trump, which is a big reason why he’s stuck at roughly 3% in the polls. You can’t be a truth-teller and expect to win anything as a Republican.

Chris Christie on Trump calling for Israeli aid to be separated from Ukraine aid: "He wants to separate them to continue to coddle Putin." pic.twitter.com/g2qOjNCrbX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

TAPPER: “Let’s turn to the war in Israel. President Biden has proposed a $105 billion foreign aid package, which includes support to both Israel and Ukraine and some other priorities. Donald Trump said yesterday that Ukraine aid and Israel aid should be separate, it should be decoupled. What do you think?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, this is Donald Trump’s, you know, bad worldview. Look, he wants to do it and separate them because he wants to continue to coddle Putin, as he’s done from the minute he became president of the United States and going forward from there. This aid is connected because these attacks are connected. There’s no doubt that Russia, China and Iran, and North Korea are all working together to try to disrupt the world and create violence. We need to support Israel and support them strongly, and we need to support our friends in Ukraine as well. Remember, Jake, we made a promise to them in 1992 when they removed nuclear missiles and returned them to Russia that we would protect them if Russia attacked. We need to keep our promises.”

Wait, did anyone else notice what I noticed? Christie just admitted that Trump has been coddling Putin from the moment he became president. Is that why Christie risked his life to help Trump prepare for the debates against Biden? So Trump could continue coddling Putin for another four years?

Republicans. I tell ya, man. Even when they’re telling the truth they’re up to their eyeballs in horseshit.

4.

Of course, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who wants to coddle Putin. Enabling mass murderers is all the rage in the GOP these days. While they’re eager to send aid to Israel, which was attacked by a terrorist group with a small fraction of Israel’s resources, Ukraine was invaded by the No. 2 military in the world (by beet consumption, anyway), and it’s doing a great job curtailing Putin’s imperial ambitions. In other words, Ukraine is shedding its citizens’ blood for the sake of Europe’s and the world’s democracies, not just for its own interests. If you want to promote democracy and contain brutal autocracy, this is the fight you should be paying attention to.

But as the recent speaker battle proved, these jabronis take their orders from Donald Trump now, and Trump still wants to build a big tower in Moscow. Perhaps to live in, but that remains to be seen.

Sen. J.D. Vance joined host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” to throw our brave and loyal ally Ukraine under the busski.

"There's a difference between what should happen, and what can happen" -- JD Vance on his opposition to US aid to Ukraine pic.twitter.com/RZ0ByUFxJv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BRENNAN: “We just heard the new House Speaker, you have some similarities with him in terms of separating out Israel aid from Ukraine aid. He did say, though, ‘We can’t allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there. We’re not going to abandon them.’ What part of that statement is objectionable to you?”

VANCE: “Well, nothing is objectionable in the sense that if I could wave a magic wand and throw Putin out of Ukraine, I would, but what we have to accept is there’s a difference between what should happen and what can happen. America has limited capacity. Just in the Israeli conflict, for example, there are 300,000 artillery shells the Israelis would love to have access to. They don’t have access to them. Why? Because we sent them to Ukraine. We have a rising threat of China in East Asia. There are weapons the Taiwanese need that we can’t send because we sent them to Ukraine. We have to focus. That’s all I’m saying.”

Uh-huh. You know, when a guy who still supports Donald Trump claims “we have to focus,” it’s almost too much for a single human brain to process. I may have to hook into the Borg hive mind for a few while I try to make sense of it. We have to focus, so let’s make this googly-eyed Adderall golem president again. That sure would help!

Also, we can’t keep sending money to Ukraine. They might win, and where will we be then? So let’s get the Los Alamos National Laboratory started on that magic wand! We’ve got the bad guys on the run now!

These people. Sheesh.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for this week! Have a happy Halloween! It’s a frightening world out there these days, so maybe take some time to unwind with a few of those “Saw” movies and maybe an “Exorcist” or two.

Sunday Four-Play: Matt Gaetz vows to shiv Kevin McCarthy, and AOC says she may help

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Wait, so Congress actually managed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open for another 45 days? And here two of the Sunday shows had already booked Matt Gaetz. This should be fun.

Will Gaetz 1) complain that this is brutally unfair to hardworking American taxpayers like Donald Trump and his next-door neighbor Vladimir, erm, Peterson, 2) introduce the world to his next wife, whose ultrasound photo he recently favorited on OkCupid, 3) slurp Jonathan Karl up like a hunk of Fazoli’s linguine while pugnaciously humming “Flight of the Valkyries,” or 4) promise to take another go at ruining the lives of millions of Americans who depend on government paychecks?

Or maybe he’ll be grilled about the Republicans’ fake impeachment of President Biden. In case you missed it, they held a hearing on Thursday that proved Joe Biden unconditionally loves his son. Republicans also called a witness who admitted there was no basis for impeachment. In other words, it was the shittiest shitshow you’ll ever see, even if you survive past the heat death of the universe. But hey, this is a resilient bunch. They can restart their impeachment crusade at another time. Maybe they’ll launch seven separate impeachment weeks before they eventually get bored and forget any of this ever happened.

Also, Kristen Welker is taking some time away from the 24/7 grind of undermining Western democracy. She’ll have to both-sides Donald Trump’s backyard orphans vs. puppies fight club some other time. “Meet the Press” has been preempted by NBC’s Ryder Cup coverage.

And as the House Judiciary GOP knows, if you can’t make up impeachable crimes, at the very least you can blame Joe Biden for our nation’s increasingly concerning golf gap.

Joe Biden's America. https://t.co/hceMGeqgoq
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) September 29, 2023

Finally, will any of the shows mention that Donald Trump gave a speech on Friday that made Ozzy Osborne biting the head off a bat look like Demosthenes' Third Philippic?

Oh, yeah. It was bonkers, yo. Here’s just one excerpt of the team coverage from “The Weekly What in the Ever-Living Fuck Is This Now, Gladys?”

“All the currently dry canals will be brimming and used to irrigate everything, including your own homes and bathrooms and everything,” Trump promised drought-beleaguered Californians as trillions of Filet-O-Fish particles from past lunches circled his head in a state of superposition waiting to be observed and become a sandwich. “You’re going to be happy, and I’m going to get it done fast.”

When asked for clarification, a Trump campaign spokesperson said the former president’s comprehensive 10-point plan for irrigating your bathroom will be released in two weeks.

And now on to the (un)usual nonsense.

1.

Speak of the devil! No, really. Please speak of the devil. Summoning Satan to feast on my steaming viscera as I claw my gobsmacked face off with my newly gargoylish Howard Hughes hands for the rest of eternity might be preferable to transcribing this clip.

Gaetz broke news on the Sunday shows this week, announcing that he plans to punish House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats to ensure that 1.5 million hardworking Americans don’t immediately lose their paychecks for no reason.

ABC News:

Hard-line Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz plans a vote this week to try and remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his role as punishment for McCarthy orchestrating a bipartisan stopgap government funding bill to stave off a shutdown, Gaetz said Sunday.

…

Removing McCarthy would essentially halt all legislative business in the House until a replacement is picked. It remains unclear if Gaetz currently has more than a handful of votes for such a dramatic move. McCarthy has dismissed the risk of a vacate motion.

"Bring it," he has said.

On Sunday, Gaetz responded, "Kevin McCarthy's going to get his wish."

Here’s Matt talking with Jonathan Karl of ABC’s “This Week” about his plans to shut down the House because Kevin didn’t agree to shut down the government:

“I am relentless and I will continue pursue this objective,” GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz tells @JonKarl of his push to vacate Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. https://t.co/KInxWHwCkT pic.twitter.com/NOWDqfFwvA
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 1, 2023

KARL: “So you’re not accomplishing anything here.”

GAETZ: “That’s not true.”

KARL: “Well, you don’t have the votes to remove him.”

GAETZ: “Well, I—by the way, I don’t know until we have him, and by the way, I might not have him the first time, but I might have him before the 15th ballot. That’s the number of ballots Kevin McCarthy needed.”

KARL: “So are you going to do this every day like you suggested? Are you going to go through this process of voting over and over and over again?”

GAETZ: “I am relentless, and I will continue to pursue this objective. And if all the American people see is that it is a uniparty that governs them and that it is always the Biden-McCarthy-Jeffries government that makes dispositive decisions on spending, then I am seeding the fields of future primary contests to get better Republicans in Washington who will actually tackle these deficits and debts.”

First of all, Matt Gaetz is pretty much the last person I want to hear say “seeding the fields.” Coming from him it just sounds gross. I can’t put my finger on it—it just does. It’s not the phrase itself necessarily. It’s his association with it. It might sound marginally less gross coming from a farmer, of course—even if that farmer was Ed Gein.

Secondly, accomplishing nothing is kind of the whole point of Republicans, isn’t it? Matt is determined to hold the line on deficits when a Democrat is in the White House so he can choke the life out of the economy and return Dear Leader to his gilded throne. If he has to create unprecedented chaos to do so, that’s just gravy.

2.

Speak of this other devil! House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared on “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan to respond to Gaetz’s perduring and performative Trump-humping. Brennan asked Evil Opie what he thought of Gaetz’s shoving-nerds-into-gym-lockers style of governing, and McCarthy did his best to project a sense of calm.

McCarthy: Gaetz is more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown… only because he wants to take this motion. Bring it on, let's get over with it pic.twitter.com/XtCxh2PKrO
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “There is a lot to get to with you. I want to start, though, on the news this morning from Congressman Matt Gaetz who says he is going to seek a motion to vacate. He’s going to try to oust you as speaker of the House.”

MCCARTHY: “That’s nothing new, he’s tried to do that from the moment I ran for office.”

BRENNAN: “Well, this time he says he’s going to keep going. May not get there before the 15th ballot, but it took 15 for Kevin McCarthy. He says he’s coming for you. Can you survive?”

MCCARTHY: “Yes, I’ll survive. This is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid, only because he wants to take this motion. So be it, bring it on, let’s get over with it [sic], and let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us in a shutdown and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.”

Oh, boy! This should be fun. I’m sure y’all remember January’s protracted House speaker vote. It was like watching two greased hippos trying to screw on an elevator. Well, now we get to watch two hippos trying to screw on an elevator in reverse!

BONUS CLIP!

McCarthy is still trying to blame Democrats for this 100% Republican-manufactured crisis.

McCARTHY: I wasn't sure it was gonna pass. You know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass. BRENNAN: Democrats were the ones who voted for this! pic.twitter.com/kCLKW9WSJK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “Were you confident we wouldn’t shut down?”

MCCARTHY: “I was confident I could get something on the floor to make sure the option that we would not ...”

BRENNAN: “But you weren’t sure it was going to pass.”

MCCARTHY: “Well, I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. You want to know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass.”

BRENNAN: “Democrats were the ones who voted for this in a larger number than Republicans to keep the continuing resolution alive.”

MCCARTHY: “Did you watch the floor yesterday?”

BRENNAN: “Oh, yes, 90 Republicans voted against it.”

And … scene.

Thanks, Speaker McCarthy, and good luck. You’ll need it because …

3.

Gee willikers, Aunt Bee! Looks like Kevin isn’t going to get much help from Democrats! At least without having to give them something in return.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” and said she absolutely would vote to vacate the speaker’s chair. Because, you know, McCarthy really, really sucks.

AOC on CNN says she'd "absolutely" vote to oust McCarthy as speaker pic.twitter.com/Cl2ECx99jt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

TAPPER: “So you just heard Congressman Matt Gaetz say he’s going to move to oust McCarthy as speaker this week. If a motion to vacate the chair comes to the floor, how would you vote?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Well, my vote beginning this term for speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries. And I do not intend on voting for a Republican speaker of the House, but I believe that it’s up to the Republican conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems. But it’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans—from themselves, especially.”

TAPPER: “Do you think that there will be any Democrats that might vote to save McCarthy?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “I mean, I certainly don’t think that we would expect to see that unless there’s a real conversation between Republican and Democratic caucuses and Republican and Democratic leadership about what that would mean, but I don’t think we’d give up votes for free.”

TAPPER: “But would you vote to vacate? Would you vote to get rid of McCarthy as speaker?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Would I cast that vote? Absolutely. I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension, so we’re going to be right back in this place in November. And, you know, I think that our main priority has to be the American people and we’re going to keep our governance in a cohesive and strong place, but unless Kevin McCarthy asks for a vote, again, I don’t think we give something away for free.”

McCarthy should have learned this universal maxim long ago: If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. And now everyone hates him. And he might lose his job. And likely go down as one of the worst and weakest House leaders in U.S. history.

But hey, at least he got to be speaker! Much like Anne Boleyn got to be queen and Eva Braun eventually managed to wrangle a marriage proposal out of Hitler.

4.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, whose show is roughly the journalistic equivalent of drinking from a firehose of curdled Yoo-hoo.

But even Fox News journalists are starting to wonder WTF Republicans are trying to accomplish with their Biden impeachment push, and so Bartiromo must have felt empowered to ask a legitimate question for once.

Of course, no matter how many different ways Republicans try to answer the question at the heart of their efforts—i.e., what did President Biden actually do that’s even remotely impeachable?—they still whiff every time.

BARTIROMO: Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions Joe Biden made that he was paid for? NANCY MACE: I have not had the ability to research that pic.twitter.com/HXnXNrGyNp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions that Joe Biden made that he was paid for?”

MACE: “I have not had the ability to research that. I’ve been looking more at the LLCs, the bank records, all of the lies that Joe Biden has told, and what evidence we have so far in meetings, dinners, appointments, White House records, etc., phone messages, text messages, emails, etc., connecting the dots with Joe Biden.”

Oh, look! More nothing! Wait, this is the same nothing we’ve already reported on. Let’s find a fresh angle on this old pile of nothing and reintroduce it as a new pile of nothing! But don't rush us! It took us more than two years to dig up all this nothing, and nothing doesn’t grow on trees. You’ll just have to be patient. Like Job, that nice man from the Bible who did nothing wrong but was relentlessly harassed by Satan anyway.

For some reason that Bible story seems relevant right now. Much like the one where Jesus cast a legion of demons out of Donald Trump and into a nearby herd of pigs. Or maybe it was the other way around. I forget. It’s been a while since I darkened the door of a church, to be completely honest with you.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now. Have a great, productive, and shutdown-free week!

Sunday Four-Play: Auntie Maxine Waters scorches GOP, and Matt Gaetz makes a startling admission

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy almost certainly missed his calling. He should have been a middle-school teacher. That way, when his unruly charges inevitably shoved a chloroform-soaked rag in his mouth, buried him up to his neck in California clay loam, and slathered his gawping, cow-eyed melon in fruit bat pheromones and expired ghee, at least federal workers would have still gotten their paychecks on time.

But no, he had to go into politics, and now his phantasmagorical fecklessness is on lurid display for everyone to see. And we all get to suffer. So as McCarthy turns Congress into a well-oiled machine with a warning sign on it saying in no uncertain terms that you should never, ever put oil in, on, or anywhere near it, the world continues to turn. But you can rest assured that if Congress needed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the world turning and prevent Lindsey Graham from being flung at Mach 3 into the side of an Ikea, House Republicans would be unable to agree on a framework to do so.

In fact, Evil Opie is so useless, the government is almost certainly shutting down at the end of the month, and we’re all standing around like it was obvious all along that this would happen. Because while getting liberals on the same page is famously like herding cats, keeping Matt Gaetz, et al., in line is like trying to convince cats to stop licking their balls for 10 seconds and pass an appropriations bill. Nigh on impossible, in other words.

Then again, stranger things have happened. Stay tuned. Maybe the hardliners in the Freedom Caucus will accede to McCarthy’s demands in exchange for a signed and notarized promise to eat a bug on the playground after school. Though it’s marginally more likely that McCarthy will have a penis drawn on his face in permanent marker the next time you see him.

So as we steam toward yet another GOP-manufactured crisis, we can only hope that Americans are starting to understand who’s really fucking everything up. (Psst, it’s Republicans. It’s always been Republicans. The call is coming from inside the House!)

Meanwhile, the nattering nabobs keep on natterin’ and nabobbin’—particularly on the Sunday political shows. Which is why we’re all here, aina?

So let’s see what’s on tap this week, shall we?

1.

Of course, it’s hard to argue—or negotiate—with political terrorists, which is precisely what Republicans are. We all witnessed their debt ceiling brinkmanship earlier this year, and now they’re fixing to impeach Joe Biden and shut down the government, largely to appease the Malignant Smegma Golem of Mar-a-Lago.

It’s hard to fathom what they’re actually trying to accomplish, other than turning the country into an enormous kleptocratic Cracker Barrel. Luckily, though, some people in government still see things clearly. We call these people Democrats.

Rep. Maxine Waters appeared on “The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart,” and she made clear that she’s done with Republicans trying to claim patriotism as their exclusive bailiwick. Democrats may not go around waving—or wearing, or humping, or beating Capitol police officers’ heads in with—the flag, but they clearly love America (and, by extension, the people in it) more than the GOP does.

Don’t believe it? Auntie Maxine explains:

"[The GOP] are not patriots, they are basically, not only disrupting this country, they're destroying it, and they cannot claim patriotism anymore. We, who fight for the people, claim patriotism" @RepMaxineWaters reacts to the budget cuts the Republicans want to make #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/sFtzlaJBt8
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) September 24, 2023

CAPEHART: “Congressman [Brendan] Boyle, the ranking member on the Budget Committee, I think he said in one of the … Congressman Matt Gaetz is proposing cuts as high as 23%—budget cuts.”

WATERS: “Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. And when you take a look at what they’re doing it shows that—you know the Republicans who have claimed patriotism, claimed that they love this country, they don’t care. If they will allow seniors and veterans not to be able to get their disability checks, for example. They don’t care. If they were to allow education to be dismantled in this country—they don’t care. If they don’t care about the people sleeping on the streets, the homeless, and they’re cutting housing vouchers, they’re not patriots. They are basically not only disrupting this country, they’re destroying it. And they cannot claim patriotism anymore. We, who fight for the people, claim patriotism. We’re the patriots, not them. For the Republicans, patriotism is lost. It’s gone.”

Of course, Republicans’ reputation for dewy-eyed patriotism is as unearned as their reputation for growing the economy. Then again, if you define patriotism as lying us into disastrous wars while screwing over veterans and economic success as presiding over enormous job loss and recession, then the Republican Party is for you! If not, you might want to take a moment to listen to people like Congresswoman Waters who aren’t trying to shiv you in the kidneys the second your back is turned.

2.

I don’t know if Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg would have made a good president—though as the former mayor of a midsized Midwestern town he still has more relevant experience than Trump, who spent the bulk of his tenure shopping for Supreme Court justices who’d make abortion illegal except in the cases of rape, incest, or 468-month-old fetuses named Eric.

That said, Buttigieg is great on the teevee. If he ever gets tired of his transpo gig, he might want to think about advocating for Democrats and Democratic policies full time.

He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash and pointed out Republicans’ hypocrisy when it comes to … well, everything, really. But in this case, complaining about the dire repercussions of budget-slashing and deregulation when they’re the ones out on the wing ripping pieces off the engine.

Buttigieg on CNN: "Think about what this means for transportation ... Some of the very same House Republicans who were lining to try to make a partisan political issue of air travel disruptions are proposing cuts that would make it harder to modernize our systems." pic.twitter.com/4bEYSOplsM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2023

BUTTIGIEG: “And I would add, the shutdown is being used by some House Republicans as leverage to get budget cuts over and above the deal that was made, which would also have an incredibly negative effect on …

BASH: “They didn’t like the deal in the first place.”

BUTTIGIEG: “Yeah, but think about what this means for transportation again. Obviously, I’m speaking mostly to what’s in my lane, but some of the very same House Republicans who were lining up to try to make a partisan political issue of air travel disruptions are proposing cuts that would make it harder to modernize our systems. Some of the very same House Republicans who were lining up to try to make the pain of the people of East Palestine, Ohio, into a partisan political issue would cut railroad safety inspections. It makes no sense.”

Indeed, Republicans’ complaints make no sense. And at this point, neither does any vote for any Republican ever. They’re like the disruptive student who’s invited up to the chalkboard to teach the class. Well, now they’re teaching it, and so far all we’ve learned is how to write “BOOBIES” on our calculators and how a bill doesn’t become a law.

They’re not interested in governing. They just want to sow chaos and force John Fetterman to wear a suit. Because that’s what’s really important, isn’t it?

Breaking: Sen. John Fetterman to wear a suit to the Senate but it will be a TAN one.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 20, 2023

3.

Brand-new “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker took a break from undermining Western democracy this week to interview Chris Christie, one of Donald Trump’s principal detractors. I’d assumed Christie had entered the race merely to enfeeble Trump, but if you can believe anything he says in the following clip (hint: you can’t; he’s still a Republican, after all), he appears to think he can win, despite national polling that shows him just barely ahead of Azzza Hutchinzzzzzon and Doug Burgum, who is either a current GOP presidential candidate or a new, hearty strain of wheat. (Sorry. After briefly being reminded of the existence of Asa Hutchinson, I no longer have the energy to Google Doug Burgum. Or swallow liquid or soft foods, for that matter.)

The bottom line is, Republicans are making the same mistake they made in 2016. Instead of rallying around a marginally coherent, intermittently lucid candidate like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, they’re splitting the primary vote a dozen different ways, leaving Trump all alone as the prohibitive favorite.

Ah, but Christie doesn’t see it that way.

WATCH: GOP Presidential candidate Chris Christie reacts to the latest NBC News poll, which found him 55 points behind former President Trump. Fmr. @GovChristie (R-N.J.): “If we don’t have a national primary, I don’t spend more than three minutes thinking about it.” pic.twitter.com/HTz3KHgwuE
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 24, 2023

WELKER: “Former President Trump is solidifying his lead with GOP primary voters. You’ve been in this race since June, Governor. Why aren’t you gaining more traction?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, Kristen, look, I know you all spent a whole lot of money on national polls, so I don’t mean to go after the polling folks. But the fact is that national polls don’t matter. We don’t have a national primary. If you look at Donald Trump in the latest polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the two earliest states, he is barely at 40 in Iowa and he is under 40, at 34 and at 38, in New Hampshire. That means that between 60 and 65% of Republican voters in those two very important early states want an alternative. And in a place like New Hampshire, I’m in second place behind Donald Trump. So, you know, this whole race is going to change when people actually vote, Kristen. And no offense to any poll that comes out now, but if it’s a national poll, we don't have a national primary, and I don’t spend more than three minutes thinking about it.”

Oh, come on, Kristen. You already know the answer to your question. It’s because Republican voters love chaos, autocracy, and merciless revenge against their enemies, which Trump is offering in spades.

Sadly, tenacious truth-teller Chris Christie appears to be shading the truth here. Yes, Trump polls under 40% in some—but not all—recent New Hampshire primary surveys, and Christie is in second place in at least one of them. But you can be in second place and still be getting your ass kicked. Which Christie is … in the poll he appears to be citing ... by 20 points.

On the bright side, Welker seems marginally more dignified now that she’s not interviewing a venal tub of McNugget sauce.

4.

Oh, this is a fun one. Because watching conservatives at each other’s throats is always fun. You might even say these Republicans are in … disarray?

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, an IBS symptom forever in search of a colon to inflame, joined Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” to whine about Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He wants action! And he doesn’t want to have to Venmo anyone in order to get it!

But the best part about this clip? Bartiromo somehow gets Matt to admit the Republican-controlled House is completely useless. We all knew this, of course, but it’s nice to hear it straight from the horse’s arse.

BARTIROMO: To push now to blow up all of the wins that you have had-- GAETZ: Which wins?! Please enumerate them BARTIROMO: How about the fact that McCarthy set up a weaponization committee GAETZ: That's process! pic.twitter.com/3WAI2xpBze
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Well, [McCarthy’s] doing the four bills next week.”

GAETZ: “Because we’re making him! Because we’re making him!”

BARTIROMO: “But he’s doing it. So to push now, to blow up all of the wins that you all have had now ...”

GAETZ: “Which wins? Please enumerate them.”

BARTIROMO: “Well, okay, well how about the fact that he has set up a weaponization committee to investigate the DOJ, whether they’re involved in a coverup?”

GAETZ: “That’s process!”

BARTIROMO: “Hold on. How about the fact that he has set up the China Select Committee to keep China to account and, of course, he has launched this inquiry into impeachment, potentially, for President Biden. Is that not what you want?”

GAETZ: “None of those things are deliverables. Those are steps in a process. Setting up a committee is an end unto itself only in Washington, D.C. … These committees have done nothing to reduce inflation. They’ve done nothing to actually constrain the Biden government. We can set up committees and have hearings and yell at people, but at the end of the day if we still send the check to fund a weaponized government, having a weaponization subcommittee is little relief to the American people. And if any of this was serious, we would be sending out subpoenas and compelling process the way the Jan. 6 committee did. We should be operating like them. Instead, we’re playing patty-cake with the Bidens. We’re allowing them to get away with it. And we’re funding it. We’re sending the money. If we were serious, use the power of the purse.”

We’re letting the Bidens get away with … that thing we’re sure they did, have no evidence for, and will surely discover just as soon as we impeach the president for high crimes and coffee cup-saluting. Oh, and we’re also taking a hard line against the weaponization of government. And since we know most Republican voters can hold only one thought in their heads at a time—assuming that thought is at least tangentially related to cheesy fries—we're confident no one will notice the irony.

But the big takeaway here? This Republican-led House has been a colossal waste of time.

Thanks, Matt!

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for now! See you next week.

Sunday Four-Play: The elephant in the room plops down on ‘Meet the Press’

Posted on September 17, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

I just realized I’m the unwitting victim of one of the most fiendish long cons in the history of grifting. Here’s my story.

Several weeks ago, Jessica Sutherland, my wonderful editor here at Daily Kos, told me one of the muckety-mucks in the organization had suggested I write a fun and breezy weekly review of the Sunday morning political shows. What?! Hey, that sounds great. I love that idea, my wonderful editor! What an honor! I’m truly humbled.

And so I put together a formal proposal, the scheme plotters at Daily Kos accepted it with a scarcely audible cackle, and Sunday Four-Play debuted on July 30, just in time for a fresh wave of Donald Trump indictments.

Needless to say, I don’t have a crystal ball and didn’t know what was coming, but because I so eagerly accepted this plum assignment, I’m now essentially compelled to watch this unholy hippo fuck of a Trump interview on “Meet the Press” today instead of languidly pouring molten pig iron into my freshly voided eye sockets with a Hello Kitty glitter spoon like I’d originally planned on doing.

Thanks, guys! This column has been the opportunity of a lifetime. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to don my hastily jerry-rigged inside-the-shell Ronco Egg Scrambler helmet and beer-bong a pony keg full of Hibernol.

Delete my fucking memory, Kos!

Ironically, here was the second paragraph of my very first Sunday Four-Play column, in which I betrayed a naïveté and callowness of youth normally associated with 5-year-old kids who are wheedled into eating earthworm pasta on their first day of kindergarten:

But while [Chuck] Todd is being replaced in September by the far more palatable Kristen Welker, this column will soldier on indefinitely, assuming it doesn’t get pulled immediately after its first installment, like whatever this thing is.

And here I was just last week, Pollyanna that I am, welcoming the new regime with open arms:

The supremely capable Kristen Welker will replace Todd, and he graciously passed the baton to her on Sunday.

Good luck, Kristen. You’ve got some big, squishy shower sandals to fill. Something tells me you’re more than up to the challenge.

Of course, y’all know what happened next. After taking over the reins of the longest-running show in television history, Welker announced that her debut episode would feature an interview with … that guy. Him. The semi-ambulant tub of walrus butter who has never—not for one moment in the past 77 years—had anything interesting, coherent, or remotely truthful to say.

At first I thought, well, maybe she’ll utterly savage him. But even then her decision would be irresponsible, because it’s literally impossible to responsibly interview Trump. You’d have to fact-check him in real time, and if you did that, there’d be 10 times more fact-check than interview. Didn’t we learn that earlier this year from CNN’s ill-advised Trump town hall?

My hopes for a thorough dressing-down quickly faded, however, when the teaser clips started trickling in. For instance, there was this preview clip from NBCNews.com, which shows Trump bending Welker’s ear during a leisurely summer stroll as Welker demurely smiles and generally behaves as if she’s not standing next to a feral criminal who violently attempted to end American democracy. Yup, I pretty much knew this interview would suck from the drop when I didn’t see her wheeling him across the golf course on a dolly as Walt Nauta fed him Reese’s Pieces through the breathing hole in his ranch sauce-festooned Hannibal Lecter mask.

Then she asked him a question about the ringing endorsement he recently got from Vladimir Putin and—surprise, surprise—he lied through his teeth Kari Lake-esque filter of billowing brown meat sweats. For instance, Welker let him get away with saying nobody was tougher on Russia than he was. It’s a lie Trump repeats continually, even though Putin moved mountains to try to get him reelected and Trump planned to pull us out of NATO in his second term—which would have been the biggest gift Putin ever received. And Welker just sat there nodding her head.

Sigh.

I get it. Trump is running for president. He’s also an (alleged!) criminal who’s been indicted on 91 felony counts. Not that interviewing criminals is necessarily a journalistic no-no, but let’s face it, Charles Manson was a lot more interesting—and likely had no serious plans for invading Mexico.

So, yeah, I pretty much have to cover this, but I’m not happy about it. For those media leading lights who are still wondering how to effectively interview Trump, the correct answer is … don’t. It’s not worth it. After all, what can you really learn that we don’t already know? Do you think he has a fresh perspective on Kristen Stewart’s love life that he hasn’t yet shared? Because he sure as shit doesn’t have anything useful to say about domestic or foreign policy.

Seriously, why do we still have to pretend that Donald Trump is a real boy? Get a grip, media.

Okay, on to the barmy bullshit ...

1.

So, yeah, confirmed rapist and traitor to democracy Donald Trump was on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Let’s see how that went, shall we? One effing clip and then we’ll move on.

And it’s a doozy. Here Trump appears to acknowledge he lost the election before saying he won the election. Who knows? Maybe he has early-onset brain death. As it is, roughly 98% of his brain is devoted to digesting trans fats and screaming racial slurs at the brown people on “Sesame Street.” It wouldn’t take much to nudge it into oblivion.

WATCH: Former President Trump says he needed ’22,000 votes’ in each state to win in 2020, but falsely claims he still won KRISTEN WELKER: When you say you needed one-tenth of a point, you needed one-tenth of a point to win? FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: I needed a very small — I… pic.twitter.com/zcLrTvS993
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 17, 2023

WELKER: “When you say you needed one-tenth of a point, you needed one-tenth of a point to win?”

TRUMP: “I needed a very small—I think somebody said 22,000 votes.”

WELKER: “To win?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. If you divide it among the states, it was 22,000 votes, something to that effect ...”

WELKER: “To win the election?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. If I would’ve had another 22,000 votes over the whole—but, look. They rigged the election. If you look at Pennsylvania ...”

WELKER: “But Mr. President, you’re saying you needed more votes to win the election, are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”

TRUMP: “Excuse me. If you look at all of the statistics, all of the votes, they say 22,000 votes. Over millions and millions of votes, 22,000 votes. So when they do Twitter Files, or when they have 51 intelligence agents come out and lie that the laptop from hell was Russia disinformation, and now they find out it’s not, but they knew that at the time. They cheated on the election in that way, too.”

WELKER: “I just want to be clear, though. Are you saying you needed those votes in order to win? Are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”

TRUMP: “I’m not acknowledging. No. I say I won the election.”

Ooh, Welker really thought she had him trapped. But no. It’s likely Trump’s left brain lobe doesn’t know what his right lobe is doing. Like, ever. Also, the so-called “laptop from hell” likely was Russian disinfo.

Consider this December piece from Lindsay Beyerstein at The Editorial Board:

A largely genuine trove of stolen data is also the perfect place to hide forged or stolen elements, which enjoy unearned credibility because they’re packaged with real stuff. That’s why the victims of hack and leaks are advised never to confirm the authenticity of anything.

The attackers are counting on the public to draw the erroneous conclusion that, because some things are genuine, the whole package is real, and—most importantly—that it came from where the cover story says it came from, be that an imaginary collective of good-hearted “hacktivists” or a computer repair shop in Delaware. Anywhere but the GRU.

The GRU is notorious for hacking and leaking.

In other words, just because portions of Hunter’s laptop were real doesn’t mean all of them were.

But never mind that. Is Trump really trying to say an election win isn’t legitimate if one of the candidates or his surrogates lied prior to that election? Because that’s an extraordinary claim. The courts might have a real pickle of a time dealing with that one.

But hey, glad to see that the first president ever to know the difference between a lion and camel is still at the top of his game.

Unlike, say, on Friday night:

77-year-old Trump last night was so confused and incoherent that he suggested Obama was his opponent in 2024, also suggested he beat Obama in 2016, and seemed to think we were on the verge of Word War *2*. I can only imagine the headlines if 80-year-old Biden had said this. 🤷🏽‍♂️ https://t.co/8rP7qvqjFV
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 16, 2023

The rest of the interview was similar. He lied with every exhale; she didn’t push back nearly forcefully enough. He told “sir” stories. He talked over her while claiming she was talking over him. He claimed Democrats want to abort babies after they’re born. (She should have challenged him hard on that. She didn’t.) Of course, later, after saying Democrats want to abort born babies, he said they don’t want abortions in the seventh month and don’t want to be radical. He also confirmed he’d give Ukraine to murderous war criminal Vladimir Putin.

She kept calling him “Mr. President” instead of using the far more appropriate “traitor says what?” Halfway through she may have replaced him with a glazed ham. Still doing research on that one. I promise to release my findings in two weeks. You’ll know as soon as I do.

By the way, NBC News did a perfunctory fact-check of the interview. Online. Where you know simply everyone will see it.

Moving on! Whew!

2.

Let’s see if we can ratchet that rage down to 11, shall we? Here’s a nice palate cleanser. Nancy the Great joined Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC’s “The Saturday/Sunday Show” and made clear that Democrats stand behind the striking autoworkers—whereas Trump’s plan to help them is likely to cut their bosses’ taxes even more. It’s time for those proles, plebs, and peons to really feel that warm trickle down their necks, right?

But Rep. Pelosi sees it differently.

"One month pay for the CEO, a lifetime pay to the workers. It's just not fair" @SpeakerPelosi shares her thoughts on the historic United Auto Workers strike against GM, Ford, and Stellantis #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/4EtJa3Pspn
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) September 17, 2023

PELOSI: “Let me just say that as we are here we have workers on strike in a number of industries in our country, but right now you said you’re going to have a show on ...”

CAPEHART: “The UAW president ...”

PELOSI: “UAW president. This is really something so important to all of us in the country. These workers, just think of this. The CEOs of these companies make probably, in one month, what these workers make in a lifetime. That’s just unjust. Years ago it was 20 times, now it’s 10 times that—over 200 times as much for the CEO as it is for the worker. Those profits that they say they are rewarding would not happen without the workers. So let us pray that they will make some progress on this respectful of the workers. [Sen.] Sherrod Brown says it’s over 300 times as much. But whatever it is, one month pay for the CEO, a lifetime pay to the workers. It’s just not fair.”

Pelosi was riffing a bit, but her numbers are in the ballpark. And any way you slice it, the gap between worker and CEO pay has grown out of control since Ronald Reagan first put billionaires on the endangered species list.

Fortune, Aug. 4, 2023:

The average CEO of an S&P 500–listed company earned $16.7 million from their role in 2022, the AFL-CIO said—the second highest amount ever recorded in the organization’s annual Executive Paywatch report.

That’s 272 times the average salary of just under $62,000 for someone employed by an S&P 500 firm, according to the report.

Assuming an average career of around 45 years before retirement, that means an ordinary employee would have to work six lifetimes to earn the same as their CEO did last year.

So there you go. Pelosi may have been a bit off on her comparison of monthly vs. lifetime wages, but the actual numbers are still eye-popping. And it’s about time workers started clawing back some of the wealth that’s consistently been funneled upward for the past four decades.

Quite a chart from @McKinsey #economy #productivity #wages #growth pic.twitter.com/FDolwVBhix
— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) November 17, 2021

3.

Needless to say, Casper the Friendly Milquetoast (aka Mike Pence) had a somewhat different take on the UAW strike. He insists he stands with the working men and women of this country, and you can tell he’s sincere because he’s standing in front of two barns and isn’t wearing a tie.

The former vice president and one-time Trump colon polyp appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper. When asked about the autoworkers’ strike, he launched into his prepared talking points about Biden’s economy.

Pence on CNN on the fairness of the CEO of GM making 362 times what her employee makes: "I'm someone who believes in free enterprise" pic.twitter.com/9SXtEr75QH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2023

TAPPER: “On this issue of general fairness, in 1965, during this era of the great middle-class expansion in the United States, CEOs made about 20 times what their typical workers made, but as I noted to you, the CEO of GM makes 362 times what her typical employees make. I just want to make sure I get an answer from you. Is that okay? Do you think that’s fair?”

PENCE: “Well, I think that ought to be left to the shareholders of that company. I’m somebody that believes in free enterprise. I think those are decisions that can be made by shareholders and creating pressure, and I’ll fully support how these publicly traded companies operate. I’m not interested in government mandates or government bullying when it comes to those kinds of issues. And I don’t think it's about the usual fault lines of the difference in salaries between white collar and blue collar. I think it’s that everyday Americans out there working hard are living in the midst of the failed policies of Bidenomics.”

TAPPER: “Inflation’s been horrible, no question, but their wages haven't gone up since the auto bailout in 2008. Meanwhile, the CEOs, their wages have gone up 40% in the last five years. That’s what the union workers say as to why they’re striking. I guess, just a question here. Do you side with the CEOs or do you side with the union here?”

PENCE: “I side with American workers, I side with all American families, I side with the people of this country, Jake, that are living under the failed policies of the Biden administration.”

In other words, Pence wants a laissez-faire economic system that punishes American workers—the real wealth creators—decade after decade while continuing to create opportunities for hardworking CEOs and majority shareholders who, under Biden’s economy, struggle every day to locate private islands for sale. But hey, get a load of those two barns. And that open collar. Mother is so turned on right now she wants to join her husband in a three-way—which, for the Pences, simply means eating lunch at Olive Garden with a woman they just met in the lobby.

4.

Oh, yeah, Republicans want to impeach President Biden for—hmm, let’s see here—no reason at all!

GOP Rep. Michael McCaul appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” where he discussed impeaching the president while acknowledging there’s exactly zero reason to do so.

"We don't have the evidence now, but we may find it later" -- McCaul is what passes for a "serious Republican" these days pic.twitter.com/bPMX1YPOec
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2023

MCCAUL: “Well first of all, I’ve been tasked by the speaker to assist the Oversight and Government Reform. With respect to foreign policy decisions the president made—or vice president, at that time—with respect to money coming in to try to tie the two. We don’t have the evidence now, but we may find it later.”

Okay, have fun with that, Mike. Sounds like a case for Columbo. Or Scooby-Doo. Or maybe Son of Sam. His neighbor’s dog has some really tantalizing new details about Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma.

If they keep digging, maybe they’ll find out Corn Pop wasn’t such a bad dude after all. And can we really trust a man who brutally defames Corn Pop? I say no.

But wait! There’s more!

Have a great one! See you next fall.