Republicans are too busy to read Trump indictment

Posted on June 13, 2023 (Updated June 13, 2023) by Hunter

House and Senate Republicans have been tying themselves in knots trying to defend Trump after his newest indictments revealed his extraordinary efforts to hide highly classified nuclear and national security documents inside his Mar-a-Lago club even as government officials were trying to get them back. But there's not much for Trump's defenders to rally around, given that prosecutors have a tape of Trump literally showing off one of the classified documents because he thought it'd score him points in a petty political fight, and so "trying to defend Trump" is competing with "sprinting away from reporters with Josh Hawley-like grace" when Republicans have to decide whether to even acknowledge the charges against him.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley might have topped all the others. Capitol Hill reporter Joe Perticone reports that Grassley "tells me he hasn't read the indictment because he's 'not a legal analyst.'"

Yes, no legal mumbo-jumbo for Grassley here. Not for Sen. Chuck Grassley, the (checks notes) previous Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Perticone also reports that Joni Ernst, Steve Daines, and Deb Fischer also claim they haven't read the newest indictment of the last Republican president of the United States, which is puzzling because it’s a very quick read, something that can easily be skimmed in the span of a half hour, and you would think that Senate Republicans still willing to stick their neck out to defend Trump after two impeachments, and an attempted violent coup, and a jury confirmation of sexual assault might want to at least glance at the indictment to learn why Donald now faces Espionage Act charges as well.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, by contrast, says he hasn't "read it all the way through. I read a lot of portions of it, though," which is considerably more than ex-Judiciary chair Grassley could muster, and McCarthy, if you haven't noticed, has a hell of a lot more on his plate these days, what with a good chunk of his own caucus willing to sabotage their entire party agenda for the sake of squeezing a few more drops of blood out of him.

McCarthy may have only skimmed the indictment, of course, but that doesn't mean he wasn't willing to make a total ass of himself on Trump's behalf. He's the one who solemnly noted that at least "a bathroom door locks," which sent much of the political internet into spasms of giggles, and then even more giggles as a handful of reporters tried to take the big goof seriously.

does the pulitzer have a category for excellence in bulleted lists because I have a nomination to submit pic.twitter.com/Y6zfh443ij
— elaine filadelfo (@ElaineF) June 13, 2023

A twice-impeached, twice-indicted, sedition-promoting, hoax-pushing former "president" of the United States was caught red-handed hoarding national defense documents in a ballroom, bathroom, and poolside storage room at his private for-profit resort, and the best McCarthy can do is note that one of those three locations is technically sort of locked, some of the time, specifically when Trump or anyone else with access was attempting to poop.

There are worse takes, of course. Sen. Lindsey Graham manages to be terrible at this every day, all the time, and is currently waffling between noting that Trump "believes" he had the right to put classified national defense secrets in his chandeliered pooproom and, previously, offering the defense that well it's not like Trump was in league with foreign spies so shut up.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) picked up the argument Sunday. “Espionage charges are absolutely ridiculous. Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage,” Graham said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “He did not disseminate, leak or provide information to a foreign power or to a news organization to damage this country. He is not a spy. He’s overcharged.”

Oh, Lindsey. For starters, the indictment doesn't charge Trump with disseminating the information, it only charges him with retaining it and attempting to conceal it when federal officials asked for it back—this is a case where Graham might have done himself some good to read the indictment before appearing on Sunday shows to once again make an ass of himself.

But Graham may want to put a pin in that one, because while federal prosecutors are not currently charging Trump with disseminating the documents to a foreign power, even we in the public now know that 1.) Trump had no compunctions against showing the documents to supplicants ranging from aides and ghostwriters to Kid Rock, for some reason, and 2.) not all of the classified documents Trump is believed to have made off yet have been found, including the one he was recorded waving around, and (3) Donald Trump and his family have done very well for themselves in their new partnerships with Saudi Arabian royalty, representatives of which have been in the same Bedminster, New Jersey, club that Trump is now known to have spirited some portion of the classified docs off to.

Sen. Marco Rubio took up the same line, whining that there's "no allegation that he sold it to a foreign power or that it was trafficked to somebody else or that anybody got access to it." Again, put a pin in that one. That is a very, very narrow limb to climb out on, when you're talking about a money-obsessed lifetime petty crook who just proved himself willing to overthrow the government rather than admit failure on his part. Do we really think—are we really quite sure—that he did not do that?

We'll see where this goes from here, but we can count on House and Senate Republicans to humiliate themselves over and over again on Trump's behalf before this is over. The short of it is that Trump has access to all of the party's deplorables, voters who themselves are quite fond of sedition and think that well maybe there should be violence to clean out their political enemies so that gun-owning malcontents can rule what's left, and nearly every Republican in the party has decided they need to support Trump through extortion, sedition, and even espionage if the alternative is losing those votes.

It will get worse. Count on it. There's no chance prosecutors are already telling us everything investigators have learned about Trump's hoard of classified documents—and there are still more indictments waiting in the wings.

Watch Kevin McCarthy's sad responses to Trump indictment questions

That time Kid Rock claimed Donald Trump showed him secret maps at the White House

We talk about the field of Republicans willing to go up against the MAGA monster that is Trump. It’s a veritable who cares of the Republican Party, but it is also indicative of the rot inside of the conservative world.

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

Posted on June 1, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

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

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

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

The Daily Beast:

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

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

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

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

For the nontweeters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Washington Post:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GRASSLEY: “Yes.”

HEMMER: “And what did it say?”

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

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

Oh, but it gets better.

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

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

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

HEMMER: “But you’ve read it.”

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

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

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

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

The Washington Post:

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

Trump makes unconstitutional promise to racist base

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Trump's taint is scaring off Republican candidates

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

House passes debt ceiling deal

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

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 1:34:30 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Yep. They hate it.

Biggs is not happy that debt deal passed with more Democrats than Republicans "We were told they'd never put a bill on the floor that would take more Democrats than Rs to pass. We were told that."
— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) June 1, 2023

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 1:26:52 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The deal passed easily, 314 to 177, with more Democratic than Republican votes. The best thing about a vote that big is that it will make Mike Lee and Rand Paul look more ridiculous when they try to hold it up in the Senate. Also that McCarthy owes so much to the Democrats. The Freedom Caucus guys are going to HATE that,

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 12:39:59 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Ugh. Yeah, they’re still yammering.

Mike Lee is on the House floor, huddling with Andy Biggs and Chip Roy
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 1, 2023

UPDATE: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 · 10:12:12 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The closed rule—no amendments allowed, passed pretty easily 241-187. There were 52 Democratic yes votes, and 29 Republican noes. There might not be as many Dems in support when it comes to final passage, and they’ll probably hold out, letting Republicans go first and then determining how many of them will be needed to help pass it. The House is scheduled to pick up again at 7:15 PM, ET to proceed to final passage.

The debt ceiling/budget bill worked out between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will hit the House floor Wednesday afternoon, in a massive blow to the Freedom Caucus maniacs who have been rooting for the nation to default on its debt and for economic catastrophe. Their short rebellion fizzled, and McCarthy may get at least 150 Republican votes on the plan.

The major part of the drama was over once Rep. Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said he would vote the bill out of the Rules Committee. Freedom Caucus Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina couldn’t convince him to play spoiler, despite histrionics from Roy throughout the day and his dire warning that “The Republican conference has been torn asunder.”

SIGN: End the Debt Limit game of blackmail. Pass real reform.

What has been torn asunder is the control the Freedom Caucus thought they had over McCarthy. That was clear once members of the group started downplaying their one big card: the motion to vacate the chair. It takes only one member to start the ball rolling on ousting McCarthy from the speakership, and it became clear quickly that there was little appetite among the rebels to even try. Even “firebrand” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will likely vote for the bill in the end.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likens raising the debt ceiling to a “shit sandwich” but is a lean yes. “I'm a dessert girl. Everyone loves dessert and that's impeachment, someone needs to be impeached,” she adds.
— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) May 30, 2023

The deal pretty effectively neuters the Freedom Caucus and limits the damage House Republicans can do between now and Jan. 1, 2025. They can’t take the debt ceiling hostage again in the next year and a half, and they can’t shut down the government by refusing to complete spending bills without doing serious political damage to themselves.

From a progressive perspective, the bill isn’t great, and most in the Progressive Caucus probably won’t support it. They don’t have to. There will be enough Republican votes and votes from other Democrats to pass the bill. From a political and economic stability perspective, the bill is fantastic. It averts economic catastrophe and neutralizes the Freedom Caucus in one go. In other words, Biden wins in a big way.

House Freedom Caucus neutered by debt ceiling deal

McCarthy's speaker deals come back to haunt him

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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s plan to impeach everyone reaches Merrick Garland

Posted on May 18, 2023 (Updated May 19, 2023) by Hunter

A House Republican is now introducing articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland, but before anyone gets too worked up about that, just know that the House Republican is walking medical-grade conspiracy theory dispensary Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, that she's got a loooong history here, that it's just the warmup to her again vowing to write up similar articles against President Joe Biden, and that her "new" articles of impeachment are all plucked directly from of the Fox News Extended Universe of lore and characters and subplots.

You cannot understand any of Greene's documents unless you are nigh on addicted to Fox shows from the likes of Maria Bartiromo or The Artist Formerly Known As Tucker. Greene is that addicted, and she's going to make sure we're all going to hear about it.

Our story today comes to us from Fox News (link grumblingly provided).

"In a press release exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, Greene accused Garland of"—all right, stop. Hold up right there.

How do you "exclusively obtain" a press release? Somebody want to explain that one? The "reporter" here is someone by the name of Houston Keene. Is Houston trying to breaking-news-story us about getting a press release?

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All right, fine, let's put that out of our heads. Never mind. Greene's office tried to make some cheap political hay out of filing her second attempt at "articles of impeachment" against Garland because reasons, called up Fox News to get it done, and is now waving around a document that looks like a AI bot's attempt at drafting a House resolution based solely around transcripts of Fox News primetime shows.

Greene's would-be resolution is premised on Garland "facilitating the weaponization and politicization of the United States justice system against the American people," a phrase that Jim Jordan spent two bucks to win out of a Dave & Buster's Arcade claw machine.

From there, all we get is Fox News crankery.

Garland "issued an October 2021 memorandum directing the targeting of parents by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," screams the document. She's referring there, yet again, to FBI investigations into a string of death threats against school board members from anti-maskers, "critical race theory" opponents, and other conservative sources.

That immediately ballooned into Fox News and House Republican outrage that the FBI was daring to investigate death threats, turning it into an attack on conservative parents. Because, of course, Greene and every other Republican is quite sure that if the FBI targets such death threats, they're going to find Republican supporters behind most of them, and how dare they target Republicans who threaten political violence.

The rest is all the same language. Greene wants to impeach Garland for not prosecuting "leftist extremists" who peacefully protested outside Supreme Court justice's homes. She's very mad that Garland is not "prosecuting Antifa and Black Lives Matters rioters that have desecrated American cities and caused billions of dollars worth" of damage, a confusing line that can only be interpreted when you remember that according to Fox News, numerous American cities have been razed to the ground and the reason none of the rest of us know about that is, uh, because Democrats are keeping it a secret from you.

"Attorney General Garland has refused to prosecute the Biden family and its associates for the crimes they have committed at the expense of the American people," she scrawls, with nobody to this day being able to come up with a damn bit of evidence for these supposed "crimes" or even explain what the actual "crimes" are supposed to be. Sure, impeach Garland for not taking Rudy Giuliani seriously. God help us all if we strip the government of anyone who doesn't take Rudy Giuliani's bug-eyed rants seriously; there wouldn't be anyone left to empty the House cafeteria trash cans.

There's also a bunch of generic rants that don't accuse Garland of anything at all, just some word salad thrown in so we can get to the only part of it that matters: The Fox News Extended Universe belief that the government is "persecuting" Donald J. Seditionboy Trump in allowing the government to go find and return classified government documents Trump stole from the White House after the failure of his coup attempt.

Or, as Greene would have it, "documents he legally declassified," which is yet another Fox News and Trump lawyer wackadoodle claim, based on Trump’s assertion that can and did automatically pre-declassify whatever classified documents the FBI might have discovered in his Mar-a-Lago resort. Oh, and that he did it without telling anyone, using only the powers of his mind.

It is May of 2023 and Trump's allies are still pushing this secret-mind-powers explanation, and the federal government is still having to explain to these puddingheads that no, actually, there's a very specific procedure for declassifying government documents, one Donald Trump himself knew about this whole time, and "I did it secretly when you weren't looking" is not an actual defense.

I do not know how many decades it will take to explain this to Greene and the other Republicans who believe a reality television host obtained fully autocratic powers upon sliding into the White House on his own slick film of lies, but it will still not be a thing even if Greene spends the next 40 years of her life not understanding it.

Again, this is all part of the same pattern from House Republicans, and the important part is that none of us living normal lives are supposed to understand it; if Greene's rantings look like a string of unconnected buzzwords plucked out of right-wing conspiracy circles it's because that is exactly what they are. She doesn't care if everyone in Washington, D.C., who is not Jim Jordan, James Comer, or an OAN host looks at her like she's grown two heads when she presents this stuff.

Everything Greene and her associated Republicans do is meant to appeal to the small set of Americans who live and breathe Fox News conspiracy claims. It's not the Biden administration, in her scribbled-up document, it's the Biden "regime." It's not an American writing a pro-choice message in chalk on a sidewalk near a Supreme Court justice's house, it's a "leftist extremist" who "harassed" the justice with her chalk-based opinions.

Garland "has declared war on American parents"! Garland has "weaponized" the justice system! How dare he prosecute those who violently attacked police officers in the U.S. Capitol, while not similarly prosecuting Black Lives Matter protesters who "desecrated" our cities!

And, above all, it is not that Donald Trump took boxes of classified and other government-owned documents from the White House and put them in a Mar-a-Lago storage room, or that he lied about it to investigators, or that he took steps to hide them from investigators, it is that Merrick Garland wants to "persecute" His Royal Highness as a means of "silencing" the Fox News base!

All of it is premised on the notion that the government should be focused on prosecuting conservatism's enemies more, and should be focused on prosecuting conservatives themselves not at all, not for death threats, or making off with classified documents, or an attempted coup, or anything else. Greene may simply not be bright enough to realize her beliefs align one-to-one with fascism's own, but it doesn't matter. She and Republicanism's other loudest voices have cribbed its major themes and techniques with precision.

Rep. Greene's 'bipartisan' visit to Jan. 6 insurrections in D.C. jail gets the response it deserves

Marjorie Taylor Greene again argues 'red states' should separate themselves from federal government

Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win joins Markos and Kerry to talk about the new messaging the Democratic Party’s national candidates are employing going into 2024. Ancona was right about the messaging needed to win the midterms, and we think she’s right about 2024.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wall Street turns from DeSantis because of his weird Disney obsession

DeSantis flops in Japan and Trump looks more inevitable

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

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Republicans threaten frivolous prosecutions of prominent Democrats in retaliation for Trump charges

Posted on April 5, 2023 (Updated April 6, 2023) by Laura Clawson

One of the key Republican responses to the criminal charges against Donald Trump comes in the form of a threat. (What a surprise.) The argument goes like this, each step dripping with its own form of dishonesty: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s charges against Trump are purely political and/or Trump should simply be above the law. Therefore, a reasonable response would be for local prosecutors in Republican areas to cook up charges against prominent Democrats.

Democrats, the claim is, have forced Republicans to fight dirty.

Here’s House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer on Fox News:

I’ll tell you one of the things that I don’t think’s been picked up a lot that’s going to be a problem: I had two calls yesterday, one from a county attorney in Kentucky and one from a county attorney in Tennessee. They were Republican, obviously, both states are heavily Republican. They want to know if there are ways they can go after the Bidens now. They’ve opened up a can of worms, they’ve set precedents now that we can’t go back on.

Campaign Action

The “one of the things that I don’t think’s been picked up on a lot” part is particularly funny since a lawyer whose firm represents some Trump advisers made exactly this argument in The New York Times last week, when it was just as dishonest as it is coming from Comer. The can of worms is only opened up if you take for granted that Bragg’s prosecution was purely political, and even if you grant that—a big stretch given the documentation on offer—Bragg is the prosecutor where Trump did the thing that is allegedly a crime. How is a local prosecutor in Kentucky or Tennessee going to tie any Bidens to alleged crimes in their county?

But note the lack of pretense that this is about anything but retaliation. There’s the cursory gesture at regret that precedents have been set “that we can’t go back on,” but that’s in defense of a claim that this is a precedent for things it is not a precedent for. Michael Cohen went to prison for his role in this scheme and the Trump Justice Department worked to avert further investigations. Whether Bragg can make the case that what Trump personally did was a violation of New York criminal law remains to be seen—again, Trump’s lawyers will have the chance to aggressively defend their client—but the charges against Trump are a far cry from a Kentucky county attorney saying “Can I go after the Bidens for ... something?” (Comer, remember, was whining about the lack of prosecution of Beau Biden before Bragg indicting Trump seemed like a serious likelihood.)

Comer wasn’t the only one making this threat. Appearing on Fox News, former George W. Bush official Ari Fleischer was even more explicit about it as a threat and as retaliation.

“One of the raps against Donald Trump is that he violates the norms, and as a result the Democrats had no choice, prosecutors had no choice. But Sean, what’s happened to Donald Trump is actually the real violation of the norms,” Fleischer said, touching on (and lying about) the impeachments of Trump and framing Bragg’s prosecution as wholly political. The implication is that no amount of wrongdoing by Trump could justify Democrats taking action against him—the reaction to Trump’s actions will always be the more profound violation of norms.

Then Fleischer moved on to the retaliation part.

Here’s what I hope happens, Sean. I earnestly hope that conservative prosecutors in rural areas of America indict Bill Clinton, indict Hillary Clinton, indict Hunter Biden. Their only way and return to the norms is for one side to realize if they go too far the other will match them. And that is not the way we settle our disputes in America, they should be settled at the ballot box, not through the courts, but Republicans cannot unilaterally disarm. You can’t let them try to interfere in the 2024 election by doing to Donald Trump what they’re doing. And I say that as somebody who will criticize Donald Trump when he goes too far. The Democrats are violating the norms and they’re especially doing it through this case, this weak case, in Manhattan.

Bill Clinton? Hillary Clinton? Republicans are also complaining that the crimes Trump is charged with should have passed the statute of limitations, but Fleischer wants local prosecutors reaching back to, what, the 1990s to get Bill Clinton? And it seems safe to assume that if the Justice Department under Trump could not find a way to “lock her up,” there’s nothing to prosecute Hillary Clinton for. Maybe Hunter Biden went on a bender in a county with a Republican prosecutor sometime, but this is a ridiculous idea unless you’re solely motivated by revenge—which Fleischer can confidently assume his audience on Sean Hannity’s show is.

Fleischer, as a Republican of the Karl Rove school, also knows that projection is the way to go, accusing Democrats of trying to interfere in the 2024 election to distract from the fact that Trump’s alleged crimes are about an effort to cover up his sexual encounters until after the 2016 election, and shifting the burden of “violating the norms” from Trump onto Democrats. But we’re not talking about norms here. We’re talking about laws, and whether Trump broke them.

Republicans cannot be allowed to shift the question from where it belongs—can the Manhattan DA prove that Trump broke the law and get a jury to convict him?—to these outlandish “can of worms” retaliation schemes. There are enough ambitious Republican prosecutors in this country that if they thought they could get a court to allow them to charge Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden with a crime, they would already have done it. This isn’t a serious threat of legal action, it’s a media strategy, and it’s the media’s job (outside of Fox News, which is obviously pushing it) to ensure that it fails to gain traction.

Our planned Ukraine episode will have to wait, as Donald Trump is being arraigned in New York City for his role in falsifying records to hide hush money paid to Stormy Daniels. This is the first of a potential slew of indictments coming Trump’s way, and we are here for a celebration of karmic justice—and to talk about what happens to the Republican Party after this.

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Trump attacks judge and prosecutor hours after being told to stop doing that

McConnell’s hospitalization raises questions for GOP’s future

Posted on March 10, 2023 (Updated March 10, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republicans found themselves shaken and disoriented Thursday after finding out their leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was in the hospital after tripping at a private event, raising questions about his health and future leadership of the GOP conference.

McConnell, who in January became the longest serving party leader in Senate history, has led the Senate GOP conference since 2005 and has helped guide his colleagues through some of the biggest moments in recent history — the 2008 financial collapse, the near default of the U.S. government in 2011, the fiscal cliff of 2012, the two impeachment trials of former President Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

McConnell fell after attending a private dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance and is being treated for a concussion.

The 81-year-old Kentucky senator’s sudden absence came only a day after he helped Republicans achieve a big political victory by stampeding Democrats into voting to block a District of Columbia crime bill. And it left some GOP senators feeling unsettled and worried about the future.

“I am a huge fan of Mitch McConnell. I think he has the ability to lead a very diverse group of individuals in a way that is masterful,” said one GOP senator who requested anonymity to discuss the impact of McConnell’s injury on the Senate GOP conference.

“I think, who would be our next leader and what kind of leader would that person be?” the senator added. “Yeah, I do worry about that.”

“He’s always thinking ahead in terms of initiatives. He’s thinking about how the players on his team can fit. He’s got a knack for that that I don’t think you find in many others,” the lawmaker said.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), former Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn (Texas) and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) are viewed as McConnell’s three most likely successors.

But there hasn’t been any serious discussion of a future Senate GOP leadership race among Republican senators themselves because McConnell has a secure grip on the job and hasn’t dropped any hint about planning to retire.

He easily defeated former National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) by a lopsided vote of 37 to 10 when Scott tried to capitalize on Republican disappointment over the 2022 midterm election by challenging McConnell for the top job.

Scott, who has feuded with McConnell over party strategy since that race, tweeted on Thursday that he and his wife are keeping the leader and his family “in our prayers” and wished him “a speedy recovery.”

Senators were in the dark

The news that broke Wednesday night that McConnell had been rushed to the hospital after tripping and falling at a dinner event left Republican senators scrambling the next morning for more information about the severity of his injuries.

Speculation veered in all different directions, and the lack of details from McConnell’s office had lawmakers wondering about how bad the situation was.

McConnell’s top deputies, Thune and Cornyn, didn’t get a chance to talk to their leader before being pressed for details by reporters in the Capitol’s hallways.

Thune, looking somber Thursday morning, only said: “Don’t know a lot yet.”

Thune rushed straight to the floor before taking any other questions to be sure he first addressed his Senate colleagues, telling them that his “thoughts and prayers are with Leader McConnell” as well as “with his family” and “with his team.”

Cornyn was also in the dark.

“I understand that he’s resting up, but I don’t have any details,” he said.

McConnell’s office disclosed at lunchtime Thursday that he was being treated for a concussion and would remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment.

What exactly happened

As the day went on, a few other details leaked out about the accident.

McConnell was at the Waldorf earlier in the evening to attend a reception for the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC that he is affiliated with and that played a major role in the last election by spending $290 million.

The reception was a thank-you event for the super PAC’s supporters, and several GOP senators attended.

“I think it was more of a thank you to the people that had helped with the fund in the last election cycle,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “It was a pretty good showing of Republican colleagues. I don’t know how many showed up, but it seemed like there was a lot of us.”

McConnell later attended a small, private dinner that a person familiar described as “adjacent” to the reception. He tripped and fell after that dinner.

McConnell's significant impact

A second Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic said McConnell’s hospitalization raises questions about the future leadership of the Senate GOP conference but emphasized, “It’s not time to be talking about [it].”

“My thoughts and prayers are with Elaine and Mitch, and I hope it’s not too serious,” the senator said, referring to McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

“I haven’t found anything good about getting old,” the senator quipped.

McConnell has been such a major political force in Republican politics for so long that his GOP colleagues have come to rely on his ability to pump huge sums of money into Senate battleground states and to insulate them from the turbulence in conservative politics that has roiled the House GOP conference.

He leadership is especially valued by mainstream and moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) — one of McConnell’s closest friends in the Senate — because he gives them space to work with Democratic colleagues and practice the style of Republican politics they see as best suited to their home states.

Colleagues also value McConnell’s ability to get their party out of tough political situations.

One example came in the fall of 2021, when he rounded up his leadership team and other allies to provide the 11 GOP votes needed to pave the way for Democrats to pass legislation to raise the debt limit.

McConnell took enormous heat from Trump and other critics for the vote, but it took the danger of a federal default off the table.

And McConnell has historically shown a willingness to inject himself in Senate Republican primary politics to pave the way for candidates he views as the most electable in a general election — an approach he adopted after Republicans fumbled away their chances to win seats in Delaware, Nevada, Missouri and Indiana in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Even senators who voted to oust him from his leadership job in November admit their respect and admiration for his toughness in battle.

“He’s a tough old crow. My money’s on him,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The Republican Party has left Mitch McConnell. He just doesn’t know it yet

Posted on January 16, 2023 (Updated January 17, 2023) by Kerry Eleveld

“Masterful” tactician Mitch McConnell got a lot things wrong this cycle.

Turns out Donald Trump wasn’t exactly “a fading brand.” Indeed, Trump still had the juice to handpick nearly all the Republican candidates in the cycle’s most important races.

Turns out Georgia GOP senatorial nominee Herschel Walker wasn’t “the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate.”

And although McConnell was right that “candidate quality” doomed Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate, he wasn’t exactly honest about his share of the blame for the Senate GOP’s horrific slate. First off, if McConnell had convinced just 17 of his GOP colleagues to convict Trump during his Jan. 6 impeachment trial, Trump wouldn’t have wielded so much power over the GOP’s slate. Second, if McConnell had succeeded in recruiting candidates like former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey or New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, perhaps Republicans’ candidate quality wouldn’t have been so epically dismal. But neither Ducey nor Sununu wanted any part of McConnell’s do-nothing caucus, and that’s not Donald Trump’s fault.

The bottom line here is the fact that the Republican Party has slipped away from McConnell without him even knowing it. Trump’s power is at its lowest point since he first won the general election in 2016, yet he remains far more powerful than McConnell.

The reason is that Trumpism has overtaken the party, accounting for its biggest bump in voters possibly since the GOP tax-cutters formed an unholy alliance with the evangelicals back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. (That assertion is just a guess, by the way).

At the same time that Trump brought more voters into the GOP field, McConnell’s bread-and-butter suburban voters have slowly migrated toward Democrats. So although McConnell is still a whopper fundraiser, for the foreseeable future he’ll likely have slim-to-none quality candidates on which to spend his war chest.

In essence, McConnell has almost no constituency left except for a loyal cohort of well-heeled donors who haven’t quite realized the once-celebrated tactician has lost his grip.

Just for kicks, let’s take a look at Civiqs tracking of McConnell’s favorability rating among all voters:

Civiqs Results

Just 6%—yikes!

But what about among Republican voters?

Civiqs Results

Just 12%—yikes! (Even at a very low moment for Trump, some three-quarters of GOP voters still view him favorably.)

So what do independents think of McConnell?

Civiqs Results

Yikes again!

And while we’re at it, here’s the icing on the cake—Nancy Pelosi’s favorability rating among registered voters: 39% favorable, 55% unfavorable.

Civiqs Results

Despite enduring more than a decade of GOP demonization, Pelosi polls better overall than either Trump (34%) or McConnell (6%). She also polls at 81% among Democratic voters versus McConnell’s pitiful 12% showing among Republicans. But we digress.

McConnell may not realize it yet, but the only thing he’s got left is his caucus—and that’s entirely contingent on his ability to continue bringing in gobs of cash. One has to wonder how long before McConnell’s power base collapses entirely.

Happy New Year! Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter is on the show today to talk about the wild garbage fire that was the Republican speaker of the House vote. Kerry and Markos also break down what this onionskin-thin conservative majority can and cannot do in the coming year, as well as what the Democratic representatives can do to make Kevin McCarthy’s life just that much tougher.

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The New York Times interviews random Republican voters for the millionth time, still learns nothing

Posted on January 16, 2023 (Updated January 17, 2023) by Hunter

There is some unfortunate news to report today. Sadly, I have died. My cause of death was, as I always knew it would be, The New York Times. Seldom do we talk about the ongoing dangers presented by the Times, which is the unregulated gas stove of newspapers, but anyhow I read this new Times focus group piece talking to yet another band of unrepentant Trump voters and it caused me to immediately die. It's a damn shame, but I probably had it coming.

The premise of the piece is the same premise used for each of its one hundred million previous incarnations: The Times gathered up a dozen average-Joe Republican Americans it had previously talked to and asked them yet again what they thought about seditious coup conspirator Donald Trump, about the Republican Party, and about oh right the Jan. 6 insurrection and subsequent hearings publicizing what investigators have been able to learn about the origins of the violence.

What you get, when you ask any random dozen Americans to weigh on any subject not in their personal wheelhouse, is almost certain to be a train wreck every single time it is attempted. We know this. We have always known this. The whole genre is mostly an exercise for the press to find out how badly the press has fucked up its own public responsibilities, and in specific it really can't be anything more than a parlor-game premise in which we attempt to deduce, knowing nothing at all about the handful Americans corralled for public display, which news channel their television most frequently ends up on.

Most. Americans. Do. Not. Pay. Attention. To. Politics. They know only what they have heard thirdhand. The most useable quotes almost always come from the volunteers who are the least informed but the most hardheadedly confident in themselves, a bad combination that never gets any better than absolutely awful.

This is a very useful exercise if you want to lose all hope in America. It's one of the best approaches possible if your paper is looking to collect all its readers who do pay close attention to politics for the purpose of killing them all off at once.

When it comes to actually collecting useful information about anything other than the relative reach of various television and radio programs, however, the assault-every-diner approach is useless. So it must be that the Times really did intend to kill readers. They are serial killers. Their depravity knows no bounds. The murder weapons? Quotes from Americans still willing to say they support Republicans even after the party egged an attempted coup into being, Americans who have been selected for inclusion based explicitly on their utter disinterest in any politics that cannot be sloganed onto a hat.

(Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager) Well, I think Republicans are our only option as far as getting us out of this mess that the Democrats have started with inflation and all that. Do they have a plan at this point? Doesn’t look like it. But are they organized? Doesn’t look like it. But there is hope there.

See, I don't want to write about politics anymore. I just don't. I want to write stories about elves and dwarves and dragons, stories in which the dwarves and elves are at each others throats because elves think trees should exist and dwarves can only find joy in extraction-based industries, and both are competing for control of a fantasy legislative body but they're evenly matched and can't make progress but then a collection of mountain trolls begin to run for office as well, and the mountain trolls argue that since the main reason for electing dwarves is that dwarves really hate elves, well then mountain trolls hate both elves and dwarves so that makes them even more qualified for office.

Anyway, it would all end with the head dwarf, whose name is Kevli or whatever, bargaining for the trolls' support by allowing them to eat both of his legs, one of his arms, both ears, and five dwarven legislators to be named later. It's all a mess, and while the dwarves are all arguing over who to feed to the trolls in order to keep Kevli from looking like a complete dork here the Dark Lord Braendoen is gathering his forces to give everybody slightly cheaper insuli—I mean, potions. Slightly cheaper potions.

I don't have to write about politics. I've got a vivid imagination that could, like, totally nail a story about racist dwarves that conspire with even more racist mountain trolls to keep anyone from getting cheap insuli-I mean, health potions.

But no, here I am, a corpse, because the Times had to kill me before I even had the chance to switch careers in self-defense.

Q: Is there a particular idea or value that you’d like [Republicans] to stand up for?

(Judi, 73, white, Okla., retired) Honesty.

See, I'm dead now. Everything you're hearing from me after this point is just gas escaping.

(Andrea, 49, white, N.J., executive assistant) Just start putting things back on the right track. It makes me scratch my head that the country never did better than when Trump was president — never. You know what I mean? The gas prices were low. The border was under control. Everything was just great. And he got run out of town just because he sends mean tweets and has a big mouth. They’d rather elect a nice guy and have the country in the toilet.

Andrea, a MILLION PEOPLE DIED and you're fucking on about cheap gas prices? THERE WAS A COUP, ANDREA. How the hell did The New York Times ever even find you, how is it that you even became aware that something called The New York Times even existed and wasn't just a phishing effort aimed at getting hold of your Social Security number?

(Alissa, 29, Latina, Fla., procurement) Just thinking back to how well we were doing as a country when [Trump] was running it, I would love to see that again. I think he’s strong. I thought he was a great president. If DeSantis decides to run, I might turn a little bit. It depends.

What Donald Trump brought to America was hats. That's it. There's not a damn thing he actually did except the hat thing. And public belligerence. And being a rapist who bought an entire beauty pageant brand so that he could see teen girls change in the dressing rooms. Oh, and the international extortion bits. And the complete upending of American standing overseas, selling out allies while prodding enemies to open up new beach resorts. And using the presidency of the United States as a reason to mark up cocktail prices in his Washington hotel.

It's the hat thing, isn't it. The exchange Donald Trump made with America is that he gets to ignore laws and be roundly incompetent and kill off so many people that we’re stuffing bodies in refrigerated trucks for lack of other places to put them, but in exchange the shittiest people you know all get the opportunity to buy Chinese hats with a meaningless slogan on them. I mean, who wouldn't go for that deal.

Q: Is there anything about [Trump] that’s turned you off over the last year or that you sort of lost steam on?

(Judi, 73, white, Okla., retired) Well, when Covid started, I think he was swayed into the vaccine thing. He listened to the wrong people. I’ll leave it at that.

Yeah, that's when I died the second time, becoming double-dead. So far I cannot report any meaningful differences from just being the usual kind of dead. This must be what it's like to be a cat.

(Lorna, 60, white, Mo., customer service representative) I think it’s ridiculous people want to put him in prison. For what? And look at Biden and his son.

Again, there is only one reason why any journalistic outlet should ever do any of these diner-inspired stories about The Common American. It is a window into which news outlets they consume and nothing else. There is not one glitteringly enfuckened thing Lorna, 60, of Missouri could tell us about the relative legal jeopardy of Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, or Beefystevo Biden that would be the slightest bit informative or useful.

And I do mean that: You could concoct an entirely fictional Biden son named "Beefystevo," ask 12 Republican voters about Beefystevo's crimes, and at least eight of them would insist that Beefystevo has done many, many crimes, all very bad, some of them in Ukraine and some of them in Narnia, and they will tell you that The New York Times is crookedly covering up the very existence of Beefystevo Biden in coordination with Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and a giraffe in Texas that looks kind of similar to Bill Gates.

I dare you to ask your focus groups about Beefystevo and his crimes. I dare you, New York Times. You know what will happen, and I know what will happen. Do it, you diner-hounding cowards.

(Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager) I want DeSantis to run. He’s just like Trump. He’s just as cantankerous, but I think he’s a little bit more refined. For example, you have Jack Daniels, or you have Gentleman Jack. Gentleman Jack is a lot smoother, but it’s still whiskey.

Thank God we finally have someone willing to be honest about Republican politics. That's the word that comes to mind when you think about Florida's Ron DeSantis: Refined. The man is refined, in that you can either suck on what he's selling or what Trump's selling and both will get you nice and politically shitfaced but the DeSantis version goes down smooooother. It's probably because Ron DeSantis doesn't have as much golf-course bunker sand in his shoes. It might be because the DeSantis bottle is spiked with 20% hydroxychloroquine siphoned from an early-pandemic Florida stockpile DeSantis is still trying to get rid of.

Hey, so do any of our fine Normal Republican Americans want to revise or extend their past remarks about the 2020 presidential election being stolen just because a traitorous crapsack and his eight syphillitic reindeer shouted about it way back when? Anyone want to walk that back, or not walk that back?

Was Trump, glorious figurehead who raised American life into the highest tier of awesomeness that has ever been, "cheated" out of winning his pandemic economic-crisis post-(first)-impeachment election?

(Andrea, 49, white, N.J., executive assistant) Cheated as in ballots — truckloads of ballots showing up in the middle of the night. There’s videos of it. There is proof. [...]

(Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager) I know the videos that Andrea is talking about. It’s well documented, but the media doesn’t want to cover that type of stuff.

(Judi, 73, white, Okla., retired) No, I still think [Trump] won the election and that he should still be our president. He should be our president right now.

Truckloads! Truckloads of secret vaccines! I mean, ballots! It's all on video! It's streaming in 5G from every maple tree, but the government doesn't want you to know! It is very important that we, the readers of The New York Times, are exposed to the free and unfettered opinions of our nation's most thickheaded and source-agnostic of opinion havers, because reasons! How would America know that one specific retired Oklahoma vaccine skeptic believes Joe Biden is not the legitimate president if The New York Times did not create an entire "interactive" web feature highlighting this important fucking information? How could the readership survive if we did not contact these people not once, but a second time so that they could rub their curlicue opinions in our eyeballs twice instead of once?

What about the whole coup thing? You know, the attempted coup, the one in which Trump advertised for a rally coinciding with the certification of the United States presidential election, got angry when his security forces tried to deprive the mob of their weapons, and told them all to march to the Capitol during a joint session of Congress as means of threatening Congress if they did not overturn the election's results? That whole thing? The thing that should have made any decent person look for an exit sign, rather than being thought a supporter of a genuine bona-fide traitor to the nation?

(Andrea, 34, biracial, N.H., I.T. support) The internet was just ablaze. I made a post in support of it, and a lot of people came to attack me in the comment section. That day was really crazy. [...]

When I saw videos of everything that happened, I was pretty embarrassed. I was like, “Oh, no. We’re going to hear about this forever.” It did look very chaotic and violent. I knew it was going to come down to blaming Trump somehow, saying that he was a ringleader and he’s responsible, he riled everybody up.

Ah, the very American view of "you make comments supporting one violent riot and everybody gets on your case about it" followed by "oh jeez, this turned out very fucky, now we're all going to be stuck hearing about it." Can't kill me any more than twice, New York Times. Not in a single day, anyway.

What about all those congressional hearings detailing what investigators found out about the coup's organizers, allies, and origins? Any minds changed over here in the Republicans Who Don't Pay Attention To Politics ballpit?

(Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager) If anything, I think my views have become more solidified. If you look, they made a big thing out of it in the media. They didn’t cover Black Lives Matter, antifa. I mean, you talk about Jan. 6 being planned. Antifa, throughout the whole summer of 2020, I mean, those things were planned, organized. The media didn’t cover it.

I cannot emphasize how enraging it was that the media kept covering things that did happen while ignoring things that did not happen. You know who else planned, well, not the violent overthrow of our nation's government but, like, other stuff? Antifa, probably! But no, instead everybody made a Big Damn Deal out of a Republican-led attempt to erase a constitutional United States election. Gawd.

Please tell me any of these Informed Public Voices at least watched the hearings they're now being asked to opine on?

(Barney, 72, white, Del., retired) I didn’t see anything live. It was a waste of $3 million.

I cannot emphasize this enough, but I mean this in kindness: There is no amount of government money that could be spent that would not be a waste of money, when it comes to convincing Barney of Delaware, retired, to have an opinion other than the one he wants to have. This is indeed a terrible waste of government resources.

But the crowd Donald Trump gathered to march on the Capitol was a pretty violent bunch, at least we can all agree on—

(Alissa, 29, Latina, Fla., procurement) No, I don’t think it was. I’ve personally been to Trump rallies. They’re very peaceful. So I don’t think what happened that day had anything to do with Trump. I think it was planned.

EVERYBODY FORGOT TO ASK ALISSA WHETHER TRUMP’S JANUARY 6 CROWD WAS VIOLENT, I BET YOU POLICE OFFICERS ALL FEEL PRETTY STUPID NOW.

Surely the news of an attempt to violently overturn the results of a U.S. election have left at least some small impression on Republican Jus' Folks.

(Lorna, 60, white, Mo., customer service representative) Well, a couple of people locally here were arrested. So of course, they’d show them every news clip, on every channel. It just got old. It was just a waste of taxpayers’ money, in my opinion.

I mean, that's the thing about failed violent coups, they're just so boooooring and everybody keeps going on about them all the time and it makes channel surfing sooooo tedious. Thank you again, New York Times, for exposing us to the very important views of that class of Americans that tries very hard to know nothing about politics and gets bitter and resentful when you shove it onto their television channels anyway.

Because, you know, the Jan. 6 hearings were a farce to begin with. How the hell would the United States Congress know more things than Andrea of New Jersey does? How would anyone in the White House know more about Trump’s actions than Andrea does, or Barney does? They wouldn't, so that means this was all a set up.

(Andrea, 49, white, N.J., executive assistant) I 100 percent agree with what Barney said. I think they testified because they weren’t part of the cool kids anymore or bribes. I’m not really sure what it is, but to make up blatant stories like that, there’s got to be some kind of underlying “What’s in it for me?” kind of thing, I think.

Well, we've rediscovered a core Republican voter tenet so we can't say this was a total waste of time. Ask pretty much anyone in the Republican Party, from the common voter to your average sex-crime-covering-up Republican lawmaker, and they'll tell you that there's no possible reason anyone would want to offer evidence about a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol unless there was something in it for them. The idea that anyone would be sincerely shaken by, say, a mob of pole-wielding cop-beating weirdlings hunting down Trump's political enemies in the halls of the Capitol is utterly foreign to Every Single Republican. The notion eludes them. It is not a concept that can wiggle into their smooth and proud brains.

If people are going to jump in to "testify" every single time an armed mob beats police officers inside the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to hunt down the vice president then where will it end? It's all very suspicious. They probably just want to make the coup guy look bad.

I really wish I hadn't died. Well, I suppose it's more accurate to say I really wish The New York Times hadn't gone out of its way to write an interactive fancy-pants feature specifically intended to kill me, because it seems like a jerk move every time they've tried it and yet they just keep pushing.

Bring us home, Timesy. Show us that any of these people have opinions even an onion-skin thickness above the buzzword generic. Show us that you have gathered up a small crowd who, while admirably anonymous and no doubt chosen according to best dice-throwing the editorial staff of the Times can provide, is worthy of national attention because these dozen people have at least thought about any of this stuff long enough to have any opinion that could not be more efficiently produced by an artificial intelligence exposed only to the opening monologues of weekday Fox News opinion hosts.

Show us, please show us, that you have not just gathered a collection of cranks who are angry that government keeps feeding children and trying to prevent polio and keeps blocking very profitable companies from pumping skin-dissolving toxic soup directly into your home's plumbing. That these are people who have put thought into this, and are not simply reactionary faux-libertarian crackpots spooning the wisdom of gum wrappers and fortune cookies into everyone else's tired, tired brains.

Q: Sandy, what would be a sign that our democracy is healthy?

(Sandy, 48, white, Calif., property manager) I would say getting back to the basics, sticking with the Constitution. There’s just too much government interference in everything. We’ve got so many regulations, taxes and controls and spending and everything. Get back to the fundamentals. Less government involvement. We should have an army, a military. That’s about it. Otherwise, just stay out of the way.

(Michael, 65, white, Utah, retired) I tend to agree with Sandy, just hoping that we could start letting the Constitution be the Constitution and let us have our rights with freedom of speech and just start living the way that they did hundreds of years ago, when they believed in our country.

There you go. How wonderful. I am so, so glad I didn't live to see that.

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