The House is only getting started As usual these days, the GOP congress is a burbling cauldron of chaos and dysfunction with wild hearings, inexplicable strategy and internal strife. They are all fighting among themselves trying to curry favor with their party’s leader, Donald Trump, and jockeying for power. And it’s an election year, which even in placid times turns politicians into preening posers desperate for money and attention. It is a combustible situation. The budget is still not settled although they managed to extend the deadlines for a short while as they try to hammer out deals on taxes, national security and the border. And they have a lot of work to do on all the investigations they are currently pursuing, which to this point are utter embarrassments. The big show was supposed to be the impeachment of Joe Biden, promised to Donald Trump as payback for the two impeachments he endured. That one’s not looking good at the moment. The House oversight committee chairman. James Comer, who is running the Hunter Biden investigation keeps punching holes in his own narrative every time he interviews another witness.
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Trump will be very busy exacting revenge on his enemies so he won’t even know what’s going on elsewhere in his administration. Also he’s learned that he can just lie and say up is down and black is white and tens of millions of people will believe him so he can do whatever he wants without ever having to be accountable for the horrors he inflicts. You can bet this will happen if he wins. It’s been one of the fundamental goals of the Republican Party for decades and they will shove the sharpie in his hand and he will sign it: LAST YEAR, FOR the first time ever, a majority of Americans eligible for Medicare were on privatized Medicare Advantage plans. If Republicans win the presidential race this year, the push to fully privatize Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities, will only intensify. Conservative operatives have already sketched out what the GOP’s policy agenda would look like in the early days of a new Donald Trump presidency. As Rolling Stone has detailed, the proposed Project 2025 agenda is radically right-wing.
People would like to know if a jury of Trump’s peers find that he has committed crimes before they vote next November. It’s not too much to ask: Most Americans want to see a verdict on the federal charges former President Donald Trump faces related to election subversion in 2020 before this year’s presidential election, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And looking ahead, most expect Trump to pardon himself of any federal crimes he’s convicted of if he wins the presidency – or to refuse to concede if he loses in November. About half of Americans, 48%, say it’s essential that a verdict is reached before the 2024 presidential election, and another 16% that they’d prefer to see one. Just 11% say that a trial on the charges should be postponed until following the election, with another quarter saying the trial’s timing doesn’t matter to them. A 72% majority of Democrats and 52% of independents say it’s essential that a verdict is reached pre-election. Republicans are more split.
Joe Biden dominates South Carolina Democratic primary With over 95 percent of the vote counted in Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina, President Joe Biden swept every county, garnering 96 percent of the vote overall and 95 percent or better in every county. As The New York Times put it, “There was not much drama Saturday night.” Biden himself was in Southern California, reports Politico. At the watch party at the state fairgounds in Columbia, people were headed for the doors less than an hour after poll closing. Self-help author Marianne Williamson edged out Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.), with the pair earning a combined 2 percent of the vote. With the Biden vote so dominant, the race so uncompetitive, and the vote count so low (a mere 131 thousand), the Times attempts to draw comparisons to past primaries, but comparables are slim: The last time an incumbent Democratic president sought re-election, in 2012, President Barack Obama went unchallenged in South Carolina — and the state did not hold a primary.
Tell ya what I’m gonna do School voucher salesmen. This is getting to be like an old “I Love Lucy” episode. The facts don’t matter. Taxpayers are lining up to be sheared. Friends like Jeff Byant (N.C.) and acquaintances like Jess Piper (Mo.) have hammered on efforts to privatize public schools for years. No matter what they’re called — school vouchers, charter schools, opportunity scholarships — they are schemes for separating public funding from public education and resegregating schools under the rubric of “choice.” For investors and wealthy parents, it’s about the money, either in profits or in tax breaks. Piper is right, BTW: So is Bryant. Charters that were once local and parent-organized are being squeezed out by the big-money boyz: The aim is to bust school budgets and, in the words of Grover Norquist, drown public education in the bathtub so the mandated not-for-profit spending can wind up in the for-profit world.
JD Vance on This Week, calmly demonstrating his revolutionary MAGA zeal: As you can see, this man is unhinged. But the confident glibness of the slick liar is always unnerving. He’s dangerous.
When Real Americans cut off their noses to spite their faces: Donna Knoche made her way up to the podium at the Johnson County Commission hearing on June 6, 2022, her new yellow shirt crisp and her voice steady. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d have to do in her 93 years in the place her grandfather first homesteaded in the 1860s. Calmly setting aside her walker, she looked at the county commissioners arrayed to her left and began to speak. “I never in all my life thought I would stand up here to protect our property rights by being able to use our land legally for the best benefit of our family,” she said. To her right, scores of people were in line behind her. Many of them had other ideas. Some implored the commissioners to vote to allow the so-called West Gardner plan, a utility-size array of solar panels, saying the county needed to commit to clean energy for their children’s future. But others were just as passionately opposed.
You betcha That is a real post from Donald Trump. last night. From Meidas who watches Trump’s rallies. All of them. So we don’t have to: So it appears that Trump confusing Nikki Haley with his deranged conspiracy about Nancy Pelosi and Trump randomly posting that he looks like Elvis (he does not) has people finally seeing just how delusional, cognitively impaired, and utterly weird Trump’s campaign is. Well, I have been covering all of Donald Trump’s speeches for my reporting with the MeidasTouch Network and it’s just been mind boggling how the media has sought to normalize what can only be described as the strangest and weirdest thing ever. Here is what goes down at a typical Trump speech: 1. He comes out to the playing of the “January 6 Anthem” song which he recorded with some of the most dangerous J6 rioters in jail. 2. He brags how his song with the J6 rioters gets more downloads than Taylor Swift (it does not) 3. He spends a few minutes talking about passing cognitive exams, and how the audience would not pass the exam, but because he is really smart (he is not) he is able to ace the exam. 4.
In case you needed more evidence that Netanyahu and his boys are holding out for a Trump restoration, here it is: Criticism of President Joe Biden by a far-right minister in Israel’s government who said Donald Trump would allow more freedom to fight Hamas sparked outrage there on Sunday, highlighting the sensitivity of relations as Washington provides key support for the offensive against the militants in Gaza. The Biden administration has skirted Congress to rush weapons to Israel and shielded its ally from international calls for a cease-fire in the four months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. But the White House has also urged Israel to take greater measures to avoid harming civilians and to facilitate the delivery of more aid to besieged Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal said Biden was hindering Israel’s war effort. “Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with giving humanitarian aid and fuel (to Gaza), which goes to Hamas,” Ben-Gvir said. “If Trump was in power, the U.S.
Another right wing outrage-fad runs its course What if they held a book banning and nobody showed up? In Florida, where the right-wing Moms for Liberty group was born in response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates, the first Brevard County School Board meeting of the new year considered whether two bestselling novels – “The Kite Runner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” – should be banned from schools. A lone Moms for Liberty supporter sat by herself at the January 23 meeting, where opponents of the book ban outnumbered her. Nearly 20 speakers voiced opposition to removing the novels from school libraries. One compared the book-banning effort to Nazi Germany. Another accused Moms for Liberty of waging war on teachers. No one spoke in favor of the ban. About three hours into the meeting, the board voted quickly to keep the two books on the shelves of high schools.