Pro-choice deadbeat dad Trump advisor Jason Miller on Monday declared the southbound FDR Drive to be election interference in a tweet angrily denouncing the major artery running along the eastern side of Manhattan in New York City. It’s not clear why the 45th president’s longtime campaign lieutenant was so angry at the road, especially considering the lighter-than-usual traffic apparent in his video, but he’s been in politics for decades so who are we to question him?
According to a new book by journalist Michael Lewis, disgraced and indicted former crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried at one point put out a feeler to disgraced and indicted former President Trump to name his price for a bribe to stay out of the 2024 election – to which Donald’s minions came back with $5 billion. The back-and-forth kept going right up until FTX imploded in November 2022 and Bankman-Fried became Bankrupt-Fried, per Lewis.
So-called “moderate” House Republicans are entertaining a plan to get Dems on board with saving titular Speaker Kevin McCarthy by revising the chamber’s rules to remove the motion to vacate plus some other changes to the process of how bills get to the floor, an inchoate proposal that’s already being met with a “Yeah, fucking right” by Dems who plainly want more concessions, CNN reports.
“The Democrats are going to stick together and be a showcase of unity and teamwork compared to the chaos and division on the GOP side,” Congressman Jamie Raskin told CNN. “Fundamentally, pro-Trump Republicans have got to solve the problems that pro-Trump Republicans create. We can’t be their babysitters.” Another Dem said “Do we want to purchase ownership in the outcome of Congress’ actions in the next several months when we’d have responsibility but not control?”
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is telling Dems to stay vague on what they want until later in the week when the drama plays out with the expected motion to vacate against McCarthy. There will be a 48 hour period after the motion in which they’ll be able to put together a list of demands.
…since the AP reports it went to Doctors Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose research led to the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, we’re pretty sure Donald is going to throw a fit and demand he get credit for it too since he “saved 100 million lives” by not getting in the way of the vax.
Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to name Laphonza Butler, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of long-time Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who passed away Friday at the age of 90, Politico reports. As the president of EMILY’S List, Butler was a major fundraiser for primarily Democratic candidates who advance the causes of women’s rights and reproductive liberty.
The New York State civil trial brought by NY Attorney General Letitia James against ersatz billionaire and indicted felon Donald Trump for falsifying records to financial benefit himself will open on Monday, and there’s a lot on the line for the former president–perhaps jeopardizing something more important to Trump than a potential jail term.
Regardless of the outcome, the trial will disclose all of Trump’s businesses’ financial dealings and will likely expose not just fraud, but also the fact that Trump has far less wealth than he portrays. That’s something Trump cannot allow to happen. He cannot allow anything that puts a chink in his personae’s armor that may make his minions doubt him. And the public finding out Trump inflated his financials like he overstates everything would be extremely embarrassing.
After years of motions to dismiss the case, the Trump Organization, Donald Trump and many of his corporate officers, including his two oldest sons, will face trial. They’re charged with defrauding banks, insurance companies, the government and others by manipulating the stated values of Trump companies to either increase potential credit or decrease tax liability. Though it’s not a criminal trial, granted, it’s still one fraught with risks for The Donald.
Fed up with his nihilism, a group of Republican House members are reportedly crafting a motion to expel Florida Republican Congressman and man who should be barred from Chuck E. Cheese’s nationwide Matt Gaetz if the ongoing Ethics Committee probe finds him culpable for various misdeeds, according to the Daily Beast.
Although a Justice Department investigation ended without Gaetz being charged–reportedly because the key witness in the case, Gaetz’s buddy Joel Greenberg, is an unreliable and unlikeable witness because he’s a child sex trafficker–the Ethics Committee has a lower threshold for guilt, and it has the duty to try to maintain some standards among House members. One Republican member told Fox, “No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals.” (Greenberg is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for various charges including abuse of his public office to theft, stalking, sex trafficking, cryptocurrency fraud, and fraud.)
Republican Arkansas Governor and woman who took offense when someone pointed out she wore excessive eye makeup Sarah Huckleberry Slanders is under scrutiny after an independent reporter discovered she commissioned a custom $19,000 podium for an upcoming trip to Europe. And even though the daughter of former governor and sanctimonious child groomer Mike Huckabee ran on being a fiscal responsible leader, that’s not even the worst of it.
According to the Arkansas Times, muckraker Matt Campbell of the Blue Hog Report asked through a state FOIA request for information regarding the purchase made from an out-of-state vendor, Beckett Events in Virginia. The receipt shows a cost of $18,475 for the podium, pluse a 3% surcharge ($554.25) for credit card processing. On the receipt is a handwritten now: “To be reimbursed” initialed by what appears to be “LH.” The money was paid by taxpayer money, but after the controversary arose, the state Republican Party said it would reimburse the state for the funds.
A lawyer for the unnamed whistleblower who apparently tipped off Campbell of the purchase alleges that the receipt has been altered or tampered with, apparently with the notation that the amount will be reimbursed. It’s unlikely that such a note would be handwritten on an official receipt; the state uses other forms to arrange such transactions. The note was likely added to lessen the public relations impact of the Republican governor buying a decorative piece for more than the cost of a new compact car.
“Will Congressman Jamal Bowman be prosecuted and imprisoned for very dangerously pulling and setting off the main fire alarm system in order to stop a Congressional vote that was going on in DC. His egregious act is covered on tape, a horrible display of nerve and criminality. It was a very dangerous ‘Obstruction of an Official Proceeding,’ the same as used against our J-6 prisoners. Actually, his act may have been worse. HE MUST SUFFER THEIR SAME FATE. WHEN WILL HIS TRIAL BEGIN???” writes fat former President Trump in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
About ten days ago, federal prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment against Dem New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez accusing him of having accepted cash, a Mercedes, and gold bars from some Egyptian nationals and their associates who were sought to influence the then-chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, in his decisions with regard to US foreign aid to Egypt.
It’s simple enough to grasp that this was money and favors rendered with the expectation Menendez would direct US taxpayer funds to Egypt in sums far greater than the bribes. “Among other actions, MENENDEZ provided sensitive US Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt” and “as the Chairman or the Ranking Member of the SFRC, possessed substantial influence over foreign military sales,” the indictment literally says.
Which is to say nobody should expect Nancy Mace to be the one laying out a similar case in the impeachment articles against Joe Biden (if House Republicans even get as far as writing them). The clip above is, to our knowledge, the first time Maria Bartiromo asked the question “Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions Joe Biden made that he was paid for?” or similar. Why a state media propagandist like Bartiromo would “go rogue” and ask such a direct and simple question that (as far as we know) she’s avoided for years we don’t know, but we might guess that she was just as pissed and disappointed as many House GOP members and staffers were after that clusterfuck of an “impeachment inquiry” hearing on Thursday. Mace of course whiffs it, claiming her only job is to look at the alleged maze of LLCs the Hunter Biden and his uncle (not President or Vice President Joe Biden) used to launder their proceeds from the sale of fake access and influence.
So yeah, they don’t have shit. Mace of course would be strangling the Fox News bookers with a belt for taking too long to get her on if she had even a rumor of a policy concession for the “bribery.”
“There are not moderates in the Republican party. There are just different degrees of fealty to Donald Trump. But it starts with a lot of fealty and goes to extreme fealty… We saw them run around the House like a Roomba until they found a door that Democrats opened” – New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning.
Rapey McForehead continued by saying the only way McCarthy “remains as speaker is if he makes a deal with Democrats,” a tantalizing possibility that would only come through a power-sharing agreement which would be very costly, according to Progressive Caucus leader Pramila Jayapal.
“When you host this show next week, if Kevin McCarthy is still speaker of the House, he will be serving at the pleasure of the Democrats. He will be working for the Democrats,” Gaetz kept going, threatening Americans with a good time of effectively ending the GOP House majority early.
Marion, Kansas Mayor David Mayfield on Saturday suspended Chief Gideon Cody over the fascistic August raid on a local newspaper over a complaint filed by some scumbag with connections to Republican Congressman Jake LaTurner, the Marion County Record reports on the ongoing fallout from the shitshow that saw their newsroom and publisher Eric Meyer’s home tossed by cops, which was so stressful to his 98 year-old mother (and co-publisher), Joan Meyer that it literally killed her.
“I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” Cody had told Axios just two days after the raid in response to Eric Meyer announcing a major lawsuit over the mess. Well the rest of the story isn’t available yet but already it’s obviously not going great for him. The whole drama is too detailed to reprint here – you can see our post on it from August 12th – but the gist of it is that for the Record’s “crime” of notifying the cops that a politically-connected local business owner’s estranged soon-to-be ex-husband had attempted to use them for a smear job (even though the smear was true) they were targeted in a raid and had their computers seized on a warrant. The Record’s newest report strongly indicates that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is pursuing Cody for the atrocity, hopefully the piece of shit judge that signed the warrant instead of a subpoena is going to have hell to pay too.
Disappointed with the mockery they’ve endured since the televised impeachment investigation virtually started with a witness asserting there’s not enough evidence to actually impeach President Joe Biden, House Republicans are considering pulling the investigation from Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and handing the effort to avenge Donald Trump’s embarrassments to Judiciary Chair and sexual abuse misprisioner Jim Jordan, Politico Playbook reports.
While remedial Congress critters Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert griped about how unimpressive the hearing was, more mainstream Republicans are also annoyed with Comer’s production, saying having the first hearing feature legal experts and not fact witnesses was a serious error that disengaged voters. Others complain that Comer’s strategy of exclusively releasing information to Fox’s cable propaganda network and other conservative media was preaching to the choir and ignored the need to convince non-MAGA voters about the seriousness of the charges.
Advocates for dumping Comer say the investigation should be handled by the Judiciary Committee, headed by Jordan, the traditional place for impeachment inquiries to start. The quick-talking Jordan, who himself is not a good interviewee, would be able to doubletalk information into the record without really saying anything, something that might be necessary given the Republicans haven’t released any evidence supporting their claims regarding Joe Biden corruption.
I just signed a law to keep the government open for 47 days. There’s plenty of time to pass Government funding bills for the next fiscal year, and I strongly urge Congress to get to work right away.
The American people expect their government to work.
A member of the San Francisco Republican Party County Central Committee has been arrested after parts of a headless, handless, and footless body wrapped in garbage bags found in July were identified as his missing fiance, the San Francisco Standard reports. A Navy veteran, 42-year-old Joseph C. Roberts was charged after DNA evidence connected him to the killing of 27=year-old Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner.
What makes this more than a typical Republican-kills-a-woman story is that Roberts made a name in conservative circles by vocally defending himself against allegations made by three women at Savannah State University in Georgia that Roberts sexually harassed them, which got him expelled from the school. His cause was picked up by “men’s rights” activists and even Donald Trump, whom Roberts supported, as an example of the #MeToo movement gone wild.
The US Senate on Saturday night passed a 45-day bill funding the government just three hours and seven minutes before money was to expire. The margin was at least 88 yes to 9 no votes.
Joined by 126 Republicans, Democrats in the House largely united to pass a stopgap spending bill, saving the country from a federal government shutdown and likely all but ensuring a bid to end Kevin McCarthy’s time as Speaker, the Washington Post reports.
Only one Democrat voted against the bill–Mike Quigley of Illinois–with California’s Katie Porter absent, but 90 Republicans voted against the bill, forcing the effort to rely on Democrats to save the proposal. Members of the nihilist Freedom Caucus have stated that they will push for a new Speaker if McCarthy relied on Democrats to pass the measure.
We missed some of the drama in Congress on Saturday but we heard that it didn’t go great for Republicans or Kevin McCarthy. He definitely doesn’t look very happy to be answering questions.