Trump taps Pam Bondi for attorney general after Gaetz withdraws

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday named Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, to be U.S. attorney general just hours after his other choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration.

Bondi is a longtime Trump ally and was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. She's been a chair at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore,” Trump said in a social media post. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told Fox Business on Sunday that the transition team had backups in mind for his controversial nominees should they fail to get confirmed. The swift selection of Bondi came about six hours after Gaetz withdrew.

Matt Gaetz speaks to media outside the U.S. Capitol on June 11.

Gaetz stepped aside amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation's chief federal law enforcement officer.

That announcement capped a turbulent eight-day period in which Trump sought to capitalize on his decisive election win to force Senate Republicans to accept provocative selections like Gaetz, who had been investigated by the Justice Department before being tapped last week to lead it. The decision could heighten scrutiny on other controversial Trump nominees, including Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, who faces sexual assault allegations that he denies.

“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz, a Florida Republican who one day earlier met with senators in an effort to win their support, said in a statement.

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1," he added. Hours later, Gaetz posted on social media that he looks “forward to continuing the fight to save our country,” adding, “Just maybe from a different post.”

Trump, in a social media post, said: “I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”

Screenshot of Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on Nov. 21 announcing Pam Bondi as his new attorney general nominee.

Last week, Trump named personal lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and D. John Sauer to senior roles in the department. Another possible attorney general contender, Matt Whitaker, was announced Wednesday as the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

House of pain: GOP launches new civil war in last days of the election

Less than two weeks remain until the election that will determine which political party controls the House of Representatives, but House Republicans are already battling over how they would run the chamber come January 2025.

Control of the House remains a toss-up, with forecasting models giving Democrats a slight edge to regain the majority. But if Republicans do maintain control, it looks like they will have a difficult time even agreeing on how to govern themselves, Politico reported

While Speaker Mike Johnson and his allies would gladly nuke the archaic “motion to vacate” rule, a small group of right-wing members wants to preserve the provision that allows a single member to force a vote to oust the speaker of the House, according to Politico. That same faction used this tool to boot Kevin McCarthy in October 2023, a mere 269 days after he was elected speaker following a humiliating 15-round voting marathon.

The latest report of infighting is just another embarrassing display from the GOP, which has barely been able to govern with a narrow majority.

When Republicans regained the House majority in 2023, the squabbling was so bad that barely any legislation was passed that year. The New York Times reported that the GOP majority passed just 27 bills that became law, far fewer than the 248 bills passed by a Democratic majority in 2022.

Republicans struggled to pass even basic messaging bills that reeked of partisanship. For example, it took multiple tries to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—a sham impeachment that the Senate then rejected.

What’s more, GOP lawmakers have been fighting with each other—and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has been at the center of many of those fights.

Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado had a fight on the House floor, with Greene calling Boebert a “little bitch.”

Other Republicans then criticized Greene after she made an idiotic statement falsely blaming the government for creating Hurricane Helene to impact Republicans’ chances of winning the election.

Ultimately, the chaos and frustration GOP lawmakers created in the House caused a number of members on both sides of the aisle to announce their retirement earlier this year.

It’s time for adults to run the show and for voters to put Republicans back in the minority, where they belong.

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House GOP’s latest attempt to cling to power is just so lazy

Members of Congress are heading home for the final reelection sprint, and you can almost hear the scurrying footsteps as Republican lawmakers flee from their duties. They’re vacating the Capitol earlier than usual, and that’s not a shock. As Daily Kos reported, House Republicans have trouble with actual governing—but when it comes to vindictive “investigations,” their energy is endless

This exodus will take place after a Wednesday night House vote on a funding bill that will keep the government open through Dec. 20. The continuing resolution is expected to pass, but it’s worth keeping an eye on which Republicans vote against it—and why, other than to throw spokes in the wheels of legislative efficiency. 

Congress will return after the November election to a long to-do list, including annual defense authorization funding, a farm bill that needs extending, and tax and health care provisions that need finalizing. As Punchbowl News writes, “all of this is being left undone as lawmakers head home to take care of their ultimate must-have—getting reelected.” 

But instead of focusing on, you know, keeping the government running, the House GOP is going after President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and a Cabinet member. 

On Wednesday, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced it is investigating the Biden-Harris administration for flying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 presidential election, alleging that he was in effect campaigning for Harris.

“If the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit the Vice President’s presidential campaign, this is an abuse of power and misuse of taxpayer dollars,” the committee wrote in a statement on X. 

Another misuse of taxpayer dollars would be to use them to fund futile investigations, hearings, and impeachment efforts. 

The fractured and feckless House GOP has more lofty plans when Congress comes back in November: Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul on Tuesday announced a resolution to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for not appearing before the committee on days when Blinken was in Egypt, France, and at the United Nations General Assembly doing his actual job. The committee demanded that Blinken show up to testify on the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The full House could vote to hold Blinken in contempt of Congress, and kick it up to the Justice Department. That seems like an important objective when their efforts to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Biden all went nowhere. 

Republicans’ focus on all the wrong issues highlights their struggle to show Americans that they are actually working to improve their lives. However, this hasn’t stopped them from resorting to familiar obstructionist tactics. 

While Wednesday’s stopgap government spending bill may have the votes, the future remains uncertain. House Speaker Mike Johnson has promised to torpedo the so-called Christmas omnibus bill, which has historically been used to fund the government in one fell swoop. His obstinance means Congress members may not be able to return home in time for the holidays. Bah humbug.

“There won’t be a Christmas omnibus,” Johnson vowed at a Tuesday press conference.

As Americans struggle with a housing affordability crisis, slashed reproductive rights, and high food costs, Republicans are running fool’s errands as they keep targeting Biden and administration officials who will be out of office come January. 

Who needs to fund the government anyway? 

House Republican wants to have attorney general arrested just because

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, best known for fabricating her entire life story, told Fox News that she has a plan to get the sergeant-at-arms to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

“Several months ago, I introduced a resolution for something called inherent contempt of Congress. This is something that Congress has the authority to do, and it hasn’t been done since the early 1900’s,” she told host Maria Bartiromo on Monday. 

Luna was responding to questions about the Justice Department’s announcement that it would not prosecute Garland for not turning over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

“And what that allows Congress to do is really be the punitive arm and really hold Garland accountable by using the sergeant-at-arms to essentially go and get him,” Luna went on, “as well as the tapes, bring him to the well of the house and really be a check-and-balance on the Department of Justice.”

Like most of what Luna says, there are all kinds of facts being misrepresented here. For one, her assertion that she introduced her inherent contempt of Congress resolution “several months ago” is belied by the fact that she actually announced it on May 7. And while that is technically more than one month, it is far less than several months. Though, to be fair, her announcement could have been missed, since it came the same day that Stormy Daniels was testifying … in Trump’s criminal trial.

The sergeant-at-arms is "the chamber’s primary law enforcement official and protocol officer, responsible for maintaining security on the House floor and the House side of the U.S. Capitol complex.” 

The case from the “early 1900’s” that Luna is referring to is something some legal scholars felt was more apropos to the unwillingness to comply with requests from Congress by the Trump administration.

The Teapot Dome scandal, which involved President Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall’s no-bid contract to lease federal oil fields in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, happened in 1922. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty was heavily criticized at the time for not more thoroughly investigating Fall, who was later convicted of taking a $100,000 bribe.

The scandal escalated to the Senate committee subpoenaing Mally S. Daugherty, the attorney general’s brother. 

When Mally Daugherty refused to show up to testify before Congress, the Senate Sergeant at Arms David S. Barry deputized John J. McGrain to arrest him and bring him to Washington to testify.

The Republicans’ fixation on getting audio, despite having already received the entire transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden, has been a transparently political endeavor. Hur, a Republican, released a 375-page report in February saying that no charges were warranted and that Biden had likely kept the documents as a private citizen by “mistake.”

Since then, House Republicans voted to hold Garland in contempt. Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to take the Garland contempt case to court after the DOJ announced it planned no further action. But whether Johnson will bring Luna’s resolution to a vote remains to be seen.

There has been very little tangible action that has come out of the GOP’s neverending political theater. This past year it spent an inordinate amount of time attacking Biden’s border security while trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—a stunt that failed miserably. 

Luna’s newest resolution is the GOP’s latest political stunt to create a cloud of doubt over Biden’s reelection campaign against convicted felon Trump.

Hopium Chronicles' Simon Rosenberg joins Markos to discuss the “red wave-ification” of the economy and how prepared Democrats are for November. There is still work to do but we have a better candidate—and we have the edge.

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With new rules, the Texas GOP seeks to keep its elected officials in line

The state party plans to limit primaries to registered Republicans and keep elected officials it censured off the ballot. It’s unclear if it can without legislative approval.

By James Barragán, The Texas Tribune

Republican voters in Texas sent a strong message this primary season about their expectations for ideological purity, casting out 15 state House GOP incumbents who bucked the grassroots on issues like school vouchers or the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

At the same time this spring, the party itself has been making moves beyond the ballot box to keep its elected officials in line.

At its biennial convention last month, the Texas GOP tried to increase its party purity by approving two major rules changes: One would close the Republican primary elections so that only voters the party identifies as Republicans can participate. The other would bar candidates from the primary ballot for two years after they had been censured by the state party.

Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said the moves are clear political shots by the increasingly dominant right wing of the party to root out dissenters and shape the party in its image.

“It says something about this battle, this civil war that’s broken out in the Republican Party of Texas that one side has gotten so concerned that they haven't been able to solidify their control of the party that they want to close their primary,” he said.

But the ideas have drawn pushback from inside and outside the party, with many questioning whether the GOP has the power to enact them without action from the state Legislature.

James Wesolek, a spokesperson for the Republican Party of Texas, said the party will be pursuing the policies regardless. He added that “an overwhelming majority” of Republican voters supported the ideas when they were included as propositions in the GOP primary this year.

“We hope the legislature takes action, but we will move forward as our rules dictate,” Wesolek said in an email last week.

Questions remain about how that would work.

Eric Opiela, a longtime Republican who previously served as the state party’s executive director and was part of the rules committee at this year’s convention, said moving forward on closing the primary without legislative action would lead to legal challenges.

Because party primaries are publicly financed and perform the public service of selecting candidates for elected office, they must adhere to the state’s election law, said Opiela, who has also served as a lawyer for the state party.

Currently, any voter can participate in a Democrat or Republican primary without having to register an affiliation. Without a change to state law, the Texas GOP could open itself to liability if it barred voters from participating in its primary elections, Opiela said.

Under the rules approved by the GOP, a voter would be eligible to cast a ballot in a primary if they voted in a GOP primary in the past two years or submitted a “certificate of affiliation with the Republican Party of Texas” prior to the candidate filing period for that election. They also could register with the state party, though the party hasn’t yet unveiled a process to do so.

A voter under 21 could also vote in the primary if it were their first primary election.

But critics are concerned that the party is underestimating the amount of work required to vet a person’s voting history. And Opiela also said that there are concerns about how to provide proper notification to new voters, especially military voters, who might have recently moved into the state and are not covered under the proposal as written. He said such concerns are why these changes should be left to the Legislature, where lawmakers can consider obstacles to implementation and come up with solutions.

“I don’t know that the process was given much thought,” said Opiela. “Those of us who have run an election know that this isn’t easy to pull off.”

Texas is among 15 states that currently have open primaries, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states currently have closed primaries.

Closed primaries are a particularly hot topic in the GOP due to frustration among some in the conservative grassroots over House Speaker Dade Phelan’s primary runoff victory.

Phelan oversaw the passage of major conservative victories including restricting abortion and loosening gun laws in recent years. But he has become a target of the hard right for failing to pass school voucher legislation, appointing some Democrats to chair legislative committees and presiding over the impeachment of Paxton, who is a darling of the hard right.

He finished second in his March primary, but won his primary runoff against right wing candidate David Covey by fewer than 400 votes. Covey and his supporters blamed Phelan’s victory on Democratic voters who crossed over into the GOP primary runoff to vote for Phelan.

It’s difficult to say whether that’s true; Texas doesn’t track party registration. About 4% of the people who voted in the GOP primary this year had most recently voted in the Democratic primary, according to data compiled by elections data expert Derek Ryan, a Republican. But party leaders, such as recently departed party Chair Matt Rinaldi, have pointed to the Phelan race as a reason for a need for change.

“The time is now for Republicans to choose our own nominees without Democrat interference,” Rinaldi said in May.

Taylor, the UTSA professor, said the push to close the primaries was in line with the right wing’s push to force GOP candidates to follow the party line.

“You’re engaging in a form of ideological conformity, you’re demanding 100% fealty to the party,” he said.

But Daron Shaw, a political science professor at the University of Texas, pushed back against those crying foul.

“It is completely unclear to me how it is the ‘right’ of a voter in Texas, particularly one that does not identify as a Republican, to vote in the selection of Republican candidates,” he said. “Ultimately, a party is a private association and if it chooses to select extreme candidates, then presumably the general electorate will react accordingly.”

The rule to bar candidates who had been censured by the state party has also been met with skepticism.

Opiela said that if a candidate turned in an application that otherwise met the requirements for running for office, a court would likely order the party to allow the candidate on the ballot. He also said the provision could open up precinct and county chairs to criminal liability for rejecting applications that met the requirements.

The state party rule tries to cover for that potential liability by stating it would provide legal representation for any party official who is sued for complying with the rule.

Asked by The Texas Tribune to assess the legality of the idea, Rick Hasen, a UCLA professor and election law expert, called it “dicey.”

Taylor, from UTSA, said the move was also a pretty transparent message to elected officials like Phelan and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales to fall in line. Phelan was censured in February for overseeing Paxton’s impeachment and appointing Democrats as committee chairs. Gonzales was censured for supporting a bipartisan gun law in the wake of the 2022 Uvalde shooting, which occurred in his district, and his vote for a bill that codified protections for same-sex marriage.

The censure rule in particular has been denounced as undemocratic, an increasingly common criticism from the GOP’s loudest critics. At the same party convention, the state party changed its platform to call for a new requirement that candidates for statewide office must also win a majority of votes in a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win office, a model similar to that of the U.S. Electoral College.

That proposal, which represents the official position of the party but does not have any power of law, has been panned as unconstitutional.

“There’s a very good argument that such a system would violate the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court,” Hasen said.

Under the proposal, the 4.7 million residents of Harris County would have the same voting power as the 64 residents of Loving County.

“It’s basically a tyranny of the minority,” Taylor said. “This is designed to potentially go a step further in nullifying the concept of one person-one vote.”

The proposals come even as the GOP has dominated Texas politics for decades, and the hardline conservative movement continues to grow its influence. Brian W. Smith, a political science professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, questioned the moves on a political level.

“Texas is already gerrymandered to elect ideologically pure candidates. We’re not seeing a lot of Republicans or Democrats moving to the middle to attract a broad swath of voters,” he said. “The Dade Phelans of the world are not winning because of independents or Democrats, they’re winning because they’re more popular among Republicans than their opponents.”

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Tracking URL: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/06/10/texas-republican-closed-primaries-rule-changes/

VP hopeful JD Vance called Trump ‘America’s Hitler.’ What changed?

If you want to be happy in your relationship, find someone who looks at you the way Sen. J.D. Vance looks at Donald Trump after 34 felony convictions, a monthslong coup plot, a deadly insurrection, multiple stolen top secret documents, and a $354 million business fraud judgment. And let’s not forget an $83 million sexual abuse/defamation judgment and endless games of “would you rather?” involving shark attacks and Joe Biden’s woke, America-destroying flotilla of Evil pleasure boats.

As we now know, Vance is among the hopefuls vying to serve as Trump’s next mewling toady/vice president/volcano sacrifice, and so he’s sticking to the Trump bandwagon like white on Mike Pence. But he wasn’t always a squealing MAGA-phone.

Of course, Vance is currently one of Trump’s staunchest defenders. He pretended to be outraged by Trump’s recent criminal conviction and is so hopelessly debauched he’s even trying to claim Donald Trump Jr. is a real boy. (He recently xweeted that Don Jr. is “one of the best people I’ve met in politics.” Which is a little like saying convicted murderer Ed Gein was a widely respected giant in the textile industry.) 

But as with many Republicans, Vance’s Trump-focused sycophancy represents a stark departure from the way he used to describe America’s Hitler. For instance, he once worried that Trump, if elected, could turn out to be “America’s Hitler.”

Well, now, as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy”—a book Trump has totally read and/or forced his Diet Coke gofer to search through for mentions of his name—seeks the inside track to the GOP VP nomination, CNN is reporting that Vance’s past criticism of Trump was even “more widespread and scathing than previously known.”

CNN:

A majority of the newly uncovered social media activity dates from the last five months of the 2016 presidential campaign. They include Vance liking a number of anti-Trump posts on Twitter, including those criticizing Trump’s immigration policies, acknowledging antisemitism from Trump supporters, questioning the integrity of voting for Trump over Clinton and even raising concerns over Trump having access to the country’s nuclear codes as president.

In February 2016, Vance liked a tweet featuring a photo of Trump, two women and O.J. Simpson with the caption, “Here is an old picture of one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs. Also in picture: OJ Simpson.”

[...]

While promoting his memoir and appearing on news programs in 2016, Vance liked a series of tweets calling then-candidate Trump a “monster” and a “nemesis of the GOP.” He also liked a tweet acknowledging “threats and derogatory terms Trump supporters hurl at Jews.” He even liked a tweet from CNN anchor Jake Tapper criticizing Trump’s tweet about a woman’s appearance amidst then-first lady Melania Trump’s campaign against cyberbullying.

And that’s not all! According to CNN’s review, during the roiling “Access Hollywood” controversy prior to the 2016 election, Vance also liked a tweet that read, “Maybe the Central Park 5 could take out a full-page ad to condemn the coddling of thug real estate barons who commit serial sexual assault,” referring to Trump’s admission on tape that he, well, commits serial sexual assault.

In a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose, Vance was particularly blunt about Trump’s shit-flinging howler monkey of a political career: “I’m a Never Trump guy,” he said. “I never liked him.” And in another 2016 tweet, Vance simply stated, in reference to Trump, “My god what an idiot.”

So what happened? Did the scales suddenly fall from this Yale Law School graduate’s eyes, allowing him to see that, whatever Trump’s flaws, we desperately need a leader with the courage to address the twin Damoclean scimitars of killer boat batteries and whale-murdering windmills?

Of course not. Vance clearly has the smarts to know Trump is an anti-democratic disaster for this country. He just doesn’t have the courage to call it out. Which, these days, simply means he’s an elected Republican.

The adults who often restrained Trump during his first go-around have long since left the building, and his next administration would be marked by a nonstop cavalcade of Stephen Millers and J.D. Vances: a toxic mix of true believers and ass-kissers who either push Trump to be more extreme and cruel, or simply go along with any fool thing he wants to do, whether legal or not.

Trump’s past statements and actions—as well as his exhaustively documented character flaws—make it clear that he’ll accept nothing less than his VP pick’s groveling gratitude and immortal soul, so Trump’s running mate is bound to be marginally less dignified no matter what anyone says or does. But that doesn’t mean elected Republicans who clearly know better need to go along with this sham. Let Trump choose between Mike Lindell or among the small handful of other prominent Republicans who actually believe him.

In fact, every formerly democracy-believing Republican—whether they’re up for the VP slot or not—should be pushing back on Trump at every opportunity.

But that is not the case. This unblinking loyalty is a huge problem, of course, because more than any other president—or elected official, for that matter—Trump needs people around him to push back on his worst impulses. We’ve seen credible reporting that Trump wanted to nuke a hurricane; build a moat at the border with alligators in it; shoot migrants in the legs; attack Mexico and North Korea while trying to blame it on someone else; shoot Americans protesting the murder of George Floyd; and more.

Meanwhile, his fascist plans for the future—which he proudly shared during an April Time magazine interview—augur an existential American crisis. Unless we stop him.

Sadly, any remaining hopes for a Republican come-to-Jesus moment are clearly misplaced. Even Sen. Mitch McConnell, who unequivocally blamed Trump for the “disgraceful” acts that led to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, has now declared his support for the ocher hoaxer

The best you’ll find by way of GOP pushback these days is Sen. Lisa Murkowski essentially saying she wouldn’t attend Trump’s Thursday meeting with Republican senators because she’s maybe-probably washing her hair.

Lisa Murkowski not going to Trump meeting with GOP senators on Thursday. “I have a conflict,” she said. She’s one of the handful of GOP senators who haven’t endorsed Trump — and voted to convict him in impeachment trial after Jan. 6

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 11, 2024

Of course, rescuing the country from a wannabe tyrant is a heavy lift—and we’re being forced to do this shit for the second time in four years—but as Vance, et al., have made abundantly clear, we can expect no help from the Grand Old Party, because they’ve long since flushed their dignity in exchange for a seat at the incorrigible kids’ table.

So it’s up to the rest of us—i.e., Democrats, independents, and non-MAGA Republicans—to save democracy. Again.

It sure would be nice to get a helping hand from a Republican not named Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger for once, but as a wise old owl turd once said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want

We’ve done this before, and we’ll do it again. Believe it. And, please, do whatever you can in your power to make it so.

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Hunter Biden is convicted, but the GOP is still big mad

You might think that Republicans would be thrilled that there’s now a convicted felon in the Biden family, but it’s still not enough for them. From wanting to take down the rest of the “Biden crime family” to calling Hunter’s conviction a Justice Department ploy to make it look like there’s not a “two-tiered system of justice,” the GOP is still angry and thirsting for revenge for Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who can’t stop hilariously failing to impeach President Joe Biden, kicks it off with a tweet:

🚨STATEMENT🚨 Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal was smoked out after scrutiny by a federal judge. Today’s verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated…

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) June 11, 2024

Comer’s commentary reflects the sentiments of the Trump campaign

“Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit. As for Hunter, we wish him well in his recovery and legal affairs,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement

But it wasn’t long until the campaign retracted its statement and reissued it without the well wishes for Hunter.

The “Biden crime family” and demands for prosecutions are a major theme among the GOP. 

“Now, it’s time to bring Hunter and the Biden Crime Family to justice for the allegations of influence peddling,” Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina tweeted.

“Hunter Biden’s firearm conviction is simply a smokescreen,” says Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana. “What I'm concerned about is how Joe, Hunter, and James Biden have been enriching themselves by trading away America's interests to our enemies.”

On the other hand, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is accusing the DOJ for not prosecuting Hunter hard enough. 

“Never forget DOJ tried to avoid this trial & verdict by giving Hunter a sweetheart plea deal. Until the judge exposed them,” he tweeted.

Then there’s the conspiracy theorists, like Stephen Miller, who accused the DOJ of “running election interference for Joe Biden.”

“That’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption. Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE,” he tweeted.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, added to that, tweeting: “And yet Dems will now point to Hunter’s conviction as evidence that ‘there’s no lawfare.’” 

But Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia takes the cake for political paranoia: 

Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict is nothing more than the Left’s attempt to create the illusion of equal justice. Don’t fall for it.

— Rep. Andrew Clyde (@Rep_Clyde) June 11, 2024

There’s no small amount of cognitive dissonance about the rule of law in this crowd. Like Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, who intoned that “today’s verdict is a step towards ensuring equal application of the law, regardless of one's last name.”

Except, of course, for the equal application of the law to someone named Trump. 

“The fix was in for this fake ‘trial’ - the George Soros-backed DA and a leftist judge worked to tilt the scales of justice against President Trump,” Smith tweeted

Then there’s the pathetic toadying for Trump from Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good. 

“Hunter Biden is convicted of an actual crime. Donald Trump was railroaded by a political prosecutor and a biased judge,” Good tweeted

Trump has endorsed Good’s primary opponent. 

Yet no one in the GOP is complaining about a "rigged jury" or a “corrupt judge” in Hunter’s conviction. And neither are the Democrats.

“I've not heard a single Democrat anywhere in the country cry fraud, cry, fixed, cry, rigged, cry, kangaroo court or any of the many epithets that our colleagues have mobilized against the U.S. Department of Justice and our federal court system,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said

Similarly, Biden has responded to the conviction with a dignified and loving statement in support of his son. 

"Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Biden said. “So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.”

As for the verdict? 

“I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” Biden said.

Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records on May 30. What are potential voters saying about this historic news? And what is the Biden-Harris campaign doing now that the “teflon Don" is no more?

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House GOP amps up its revenge against Attorney General Merrick Garland

The House is going to spend half of this week on their revenge agenda for convicted felon Donald Trump, this time voting to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. This is part of the mounting campaign among Republicans to enact retribution on President Joe Biden, his administration officials, congressional Democrats and anyone else Trump puts on his enemies list. It’s a precursor to what they’ll do if they maintain the House, win the Senate, and Trump wins.

The House will send the resolution against Garland to the Justice Department for criminal referral if it passes later this week. Which essentially means it’s going nowhere. The referral would go to the U.S. attorney who would be tasked with determining whether a crime was committed by Garland in refusing to turn over audio recordings of the interviews special counsel Robert Hur conducted with Biden in a classified documents inquiry, and if charges should be brought.

The U.S. attorney for D.C. is highly unlikely to find criminal action on Garland’s part, which would likely send the case to federal courts, and there wouldn’t be an outcome before the election. But if the election favors Republicans, Garland is going to be high on their list for locking up.

House Democrats have done a bang-up job of humiliating Republicans on this goose chase and are continuing to do so, but a little humiliation isn’t enough to deter them from doing Trump’s bidding.

“Desperate to blame someone—anyone—for the utter failure of this impeachment inquiry, Republicans have contrived an allegation that Attorney General Merrick Garland has impeded their impeachment inquiry by preventing them from hearing President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Hur by withholding the audio recording,” Democrats on the Oversight Committee said in a statement.

“In fact, Republicans, and the American public, can already read the full content of that interview.”

That’s absolutely true—Garland released the transcripts when Hur testified before Congress, a hearing that turned out to be a flop for Republicans. They want that audio, though, to use to show Biden unfavorably in their televised hearings. This is why the Justice Department is refusing to cede to the demand. It’s also why Biden claimed executive privilege to block release of the tapes.

White House Counsel Ed Siskel blasted GOP lawmakers' attempts to get the tapes, insisting that they have no legitimate purpose for acquiring them, only a political one "to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”

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The GOP’s Texas platform is bonkers. You should see the rest of the party

Sure, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly backing a convicted felon, confirmed sexual assailant, business fraud, insurrectionist, and (alleged!) documents thief whose most endearing personality trait is his rascally inability to stop quoting Hitler, but have you seen what’s going on in Texas lately?

The Lone Star State, which has continually returned a criminally indicted attorney general to statewide office, is now looking to be a laboratory of new, exciting ideas, like “what if we shove all these unlabeled lab chemicals in a Hefty bag, light it on fire, and then stand around and see what happens?”

To read the Texas GOP’s recently passed, deeply un-American platform is to hate it—particularly if you’re a progressive ... or a moderate … or a moderate conservative who either has, knows someone with, or knows of someone with a womb.

As Karen Tumulty wrote in The Washington Post:

Just a few of the platform’s planks: that the Bible should be taught in public schools, with chaplains on hand “to counsel and give guidance from a traditional biblical perspective based on Judeo-Christian principles.” That noncitizens who are legal residents of this country should be deported if they are arrested for participating in a protest that turns violent. That name changes to military bases should be reversed to “publicly honor the southern heroes.” That doctors who perform abortions should be charged with homicide. That the United States should withdraw from the United Nations and that the international organization should be removed from U.S. soil.

Holy Mike Johnson! It’s enough to make you swallow your own tongue, assuming it wasn’t cut out years ago by your local Christofascists for uttering the sacred name of Barron Trump. What’s next, thought crimes? It won’t be long before Republicans seek to jail ordinary Americans for looking at pornographic images of consenting adults—or for not looking at pornographic images of Hunter Biden. (If Covenant Eyes hasn’t yet tweaked its filter to accommodate lurid photos of Hunter Biden, it really doesn’t understand its audience and should probably just shut down now.) 

And that’s not all! If you’re gobsmackingly horrified by the above, well, you should see what they want to do to democracy in Texas.

As reported in the Texas Tribune:

Perhaps the most consequential plank calls for a constitutional amendment to require that candidates for statewide office carry a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win an election, a model similar to the U.S. electoral college.

Under current voting patterns, in which Republicans routinely win in the state’s rural counties, such a requirement would effectively end Democrats’ chances of winning statewide office. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott carried 235 counties, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried most of the urban, more populous counties and South Texas counties. Statewide, Abbott won 55% of the popular vote while O’Rourke carried 44%

So to review, Texas Republicans wants to jail abortion doctors while ensuring Greg Abbott can’t possibly lose the governorship, no matter how many killer mutant Sea-Monkeys he pours into the Rio Grande.

All of that is suitably horrifying, of course—and Texas Republicans are admittedly pushing the envelope further than other state parties—but Republican extremism and anti-democratic thinking have been running rampant of late, in case you somehow hadn’t noticed. And that’s a big opportunity for big-D Democrats.

First and foremost, the GOP is a party that embraces a literal felon who faces three more felony cases, all of which are arguably stronger than his first one.

It’s a party that, in newly red redoubts like Ohio, is brazenly attempting to thwart the will of voters on reproductive rights, vowing to do “everything in [its] power” to uphold restrictive abortion laws. 

It’s a party that’s rushed to pass new restrictive voting laws in response to Trump’s insistence that the racist, eternally demagoguing, pro-Putin candidate deserves to win every time.

It’s a party that, to a startling degree, has embraced and protected Putin, as well as openly autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

It’s a party that, post-Dobbs, has eagerly passed new, restrictive abortion laws, even as it tries to pretend it’s moderate on the issue. 

It’s a party that keeps hinting it will take an axe to Social Security and Medicare, which remain vital to the well-being of millions of Americans.

It’s a party that elevates ambulant absurdities like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s dog killing.

And it’s a party that’s apparently eager to ratify every fascist scheme that Trump wants to inflict on the American people. 

In other words, as Hopium Chronicles’ Simon Rosenberg tweeted, the current iteration of the Republican Party is “the ugliest thing any of us have ever seen.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg we’re about to crash into at full speed if we’re not careful.

In 2020, the GOP neglected to release a platform in advance of its national convention, perhaps reasoning that Trump’s surpassing charm and wit were all that they needed—or perhaps worried that Trump wouldn’t read it and would wildly contradict its key planks. Or, more likely, they were worried that the GOP’s awful policies—psst, if you want to live a long, healthy life, don’t live in a red state—would actually shake people loose from their tribal fealties long enough to notice that they prefer progressive policies. (Which, to be clear, most of them do. Turns out millions of non-billionaires actually support raising taxes on billionaires. Go figure.)

Of course, despite ample evidence that the electorate as a whole has no use for GOP policy prescriptions—on abortion and a range of other topics—Republicans across the country (not just in Texas) somehow can’t resist saying the quiet parts out loud. 

I say we hand them a megaphone and encourage them to Trump front and center as often as possible. Because every time he talks, an angel vomits into a pail, and there’s only so much mess God is willing to put up with, even from his chosen one.

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Every day brings a new prognostication that is making President Joe Biden's campaign operatives worry or freak out. Is Donald Trump running away with the election? No. Not even close.